RNC BLASTS OBAMA ON FREE TRADE:

He’s certainly vulnerable on this issue.

SMARTER ENERGY VIEWS is Randy Neal’s new alternative-energy and energy-conservation blog. Check it out.

MICHAEL S. MALONE: Now it’s AP’s turn to be a dumb media dinosaur. “What makes this all the more tragic is that the Associated Press was in the best position to survive the collapse of the newspaper industry.” I don’t get the dis toward the Media Bloggers’ Asociation, though. They’ve been around for a while, and I’ve been a member for years.

ROBERT COX REPORTS on what’s going on with the A.P. and the Drudge Retort.

THEOPHOBIA? A look at academia’s attitudes toward religion.

A LAW DEGREE IN TWO YEARS: “Northwestern University is today announcing a new choice for those applying to its law school: a degree in just two years. . . . Students would complete the same number of courses and credits in the two- and three-year programs, with accelerated students simply taking an extra course most semesters.”

AN INTERVIEW with Peter Zheutlin about his book, Life in the Balance: A Physician’s Memoir of Life, Love, and Loss with Parkinson’s Disease and Dementia.

SPIKE LEE ON making Washington, D.C. a “chocolate city.”

UPDATE: More thoughts from Juliette Ochieng: “Obama’s chronic dissembling has some of my white brethren nervous about everything. But if you want to pick on something Lee said, pick on the idea that more black people in DC would mean better management of disaster preparedness. If that concept were true, there would be no whining about Katrina in the first place.”

CRITICAL TIMES FOR CRITICAL THINKING: “How can significant issues be tackled when a culture of cynicism and relativism has destroyed appreciation for the truth?”

Plus, “your feelings are your truth.”

A REPORT FROM RAMADI that you’re not likely to see on the evening news.

AL GORE TRYING TO SHUT DOWN AFP’S HOT AIR EVENT in Nashville.

MCCAIN- LIEBERMAN: Yeah, that’s the ticket.

JONAH GOLDBERG, MICHAEL SILENCE, ANDREW BREITBART, AND MORE, on the latest PJM Political, now online in case you didn’t hear it on XM Satellite Radio last night.

MORE ON THE SUBPRIME SIX AND THE COUNTRYWIDE MORTGAGE SCANDAL, including local TV on Kent Conrad. It almost seems as if local media are doing tougher reporting than national media here . . . .

DAVID BROOKS:

On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes. . . . Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

And Fast Eddie Obama didn’t just sell out the primary cause of his life. He did it with style. He did it with a video so risibly insincere that somewhere down in the shadow world, Lee Atwater is gaping and applauding.

That’s the new politics of hope and change! But Ann Althouse thinks it’s fine:

It’s fine with me. I don’t like the campaign finance scheme. And I like a practical politician who adjusts to changing circumstances. It’s good news that he’s not an ideologue. I don’t think he’s going to lose the people who fell in love with him as a vision of idealism. I think he’s going to gain moderate people like me who want an effective, sensible leader.

On the other hand, she notes that Obama doesn’t fact-check very well.

THE MILITARY’S AURORA MYSTERY MACHINE, explained.

WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: Report rules out subatomic doomsday. The safety report on the Large Hadron Collider is out. Alan Boyle has background, a summary, and links to the full report.

I COULD LIVE WITH THAT: A McCain presidency would mean electric cars powered by nuclear plants, clean coal.

KYLE SMITH DOESN’T LIKE the new Get Smart movie.

ILYA SOMIN ON the Milton Friedman Institute and ideological intolerance in academia. “Normally, a university’s decision to name an institute after its most famous and successful professor would be a completely uncontroversial nonstory. However, over 100 University of Chicago professors have signed a letter protesting the decision. Essentially, they object to naming a research institute after Friedman because he was a libertarian rather than a liberal or leftist – even though Friedman’s academic distinction is such that he clearly deserves the honor.”

IS THE MEDIA BLOOM off the Obama rose?

IN THE MAIL: Deborah Stone’s The Samaritan’s Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor?

GAY MARRIAGE IN CALIFORNIA: Thank Tila Tequila!

MIDWEST FLOODING: Geeks to the rescue.