ALTHOUGH CBS SEEMS SCARED TO RILE THE WHITE HOUSE after the Killian memos fiasco and has subsequently decided to delay a much more important story on the potential perpetrators of the Niger uranium documents, they did use the RNC anti-gay mailer posted by The Washington Note as their 3rd story on CBS News Friday night….

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF HAS MANAGED MUCH MORE CANDOR ABOUT IRAQ than anyone in the White House. Check out this interview with Paula Zahn posted by John Aravosis.

GEORGE W. BUSH, AYAD ALLAWI, AND DON RUMSFELD are committed to elections in January in Iraq no matter how messy. This New York Times piece today by my friend and colleague Noah Feldman argues that the mania over having the elections no matter how chaotic the environment is wrong-headed.

FROM FOUR UNTIL FIVE P.M. TODAY EASTERN TIME, I will be on the Ben Merens Show on Wisconsin Public Radio that covers about five states in the region. WPR is launching a new series of shows called “Just the Facts,” in which they try to talk policy reality rather than policy spin.

A LOYAL READER OF THE WASHINGTON NOTE HAS EMAILED ME a copy of the controversial RNC mailer that Associated Press reported had been mailed out in West Virginia. Talking Points Memo had a good post on this on the 17th of September.

FINALLY. THREE OF TOM DELAY’S AIDES HAVE BEEN INDICTED in the fundraising probe related to the mid-term redistricting in Texas. Josh Marshall probably wrote more on this story — the legislators on the lam and Tom DeLay’s shady deals — than anyone.

I LOVE READING THE WHITE HOUSE POOL REPORTS, which are an art unto themselves. Wonkette posts these from time to time, so you can get a more regular diet of the creative commentary of presidential pool reporter drudgery from her.

THIS OBIT FOR JAMES BEASLEY RAN TODAY IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES.

NOW THAT THE BUSH-KERRY DEBATE SCHEDULE IS OUT, one of the irritating facts about these sessions is that they create false divides between policy challenges that need to be considered at a systemic level. Jim Lehrer will moderate the foreign policy debate, and domestic policy will come as the last of the three scheduled exchanges….

AMB. IVOR ROBERTS, BRITAIN’S AMBASSADOR TO ITALY, thought he was off the record when he uttered a controversial truth — and described George Bush as “the best recruiting sergeant ever for al-Qaida”.