DAN RIEHL: “I remain unconvinced McCain can put John McCain aside long enough to seal any potential deal with the Right.”

Plus, advice for John McCain from The Examiner. It’s good advice, but I’d be surprised if he followed it. And Scott Johnson offers doubts about McCain’s audacity.

But Mickey Kaus finds McCain engaged in tactical bullying of reporters. “McCain’s bullying evasion is the second campaign tic–the first is his habit of reflexive, righteous blunderbuss denials**–that he’s apparently been able to get away with over the years. Neither is likely to hold up over a multi-month presidential race.”

THE BIGGEST WEAKNESS of conservative and libertarian public interest law.

GUITAR HEROES: Another Michael Yon report from Iraq. If you like his work, be sure to hit his tipjar.

JENNIFER RUBIN: “So we may have reached the perfect gender dilemma: is Obama ‘man enough’ to be President? That, really, is the question Clinton is raising in her own way.” That’s the point that Saturday Night Live was making, too.

UPDATE: Related item here. “This is the exact same Hillary that’s bothered conservatives from day one. I find it amazing that so many people think Hillary’s doing anything new or special here.” More in this post.

MORE: With his usual dishonesty, Glenn Greenwald pretends this idea originated with me and other “war cheerleaders,” instead of with Hillary. Because if she gets the nomination, he’ll have to flack for her! (For that matter, the “feminized Obama” line came from lefties who think that’s a good thing. I’m just observing the fratricide here.)

MCCAIN VS. THE ADDICTS: Robert Novak writes:

The congressional Republican establishment’s charade, pretending to crack down on spending earmarks while actually preserving their uncontrolled addiction to pork, faces embarrassment this week when the Democratic-designed budget is brought to the Senate floor. The party’s presidential nominee-presumptive, Sen. John McCain, is an uncompromising pork buster with no use for the evasions by Republican addicts on Capitol Hill.

I’m on McCain’s side in this fight. And note this killer quote from Jeff Flake: “If Democrats actually move ahead with an earmark moratorium before Republicans, the Democrats will get the credit for eliminating earmarks, and, frankly, they’ll deserve it.”

A LOOK AT future reconnaissance aircraft.

I’M IN USA TODAY TODAY, arguing against “shield laws” and other special protections for journalists.

I have to say, though, that I wrote that piece before Judge Reggie Walton’s rather draconian order against reporter Toni Locy. The requirement that she pay the fines, with no help from her employer, a legal defense fund, or anyone else, is something I haven’t seen before, and doesn’t seem quite kosher.

On the other hand, reporters usually cheer when judges act this way toward other defendants in the corporate world. And there’s a bit of unfortunate moral equivalence in this comment by Locy: “Even mafia bosses and White House aides are allowed to have legal defense funds.”

UPDATE: Surprisingly, I get support from a newspaper editor.

FARC UPDATE: “More documents from FARC leaders laptops are showing up in the Colombian media. Apparently, these documents are both explosive in their implications, yet also consistent with what FARC has been doing for decades. FARC is known to be close to leftists in Europe, North America, and throughout South America. So finding email messages between all those people should not be a surprise.” The big surprise is that it’s gotten so little press attention.