Just now topping The New York Times' web site is a report from Afghanistan with the scare headline:

"AFGHAN WAR ESCALATES WITH WORST TALIBAN RAID IN 6 YEARS."

The story opens:" Taliban insurgents mounted their most serious attacks in six years of fighting in Afghanistan over the last two days, including a coordinated assault by at least 10 suicide bombers against one of the largest American military bases in the country, and another by about 100 insurgents who killed 10 elite French paratroopers."

The results of the new Pew Survey on News Consumption (taken every two years and released this afternoon) suggest that viewers of the "fake news" programs The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are more knowledgeable about current events (as judged by three test questions) than watchers of  "real" cable news shows hosted by  Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly and Larry King, among others -- as well as average consumers of NBC, ABC,  Fox News, CNN, C-SPAN and daily newspapers.

The national average for answering the three questions was only 18%.  But 34% of The Colbert Report fans got them right, with 30% of The Daily Show viewers doing so -- even though the two Comedy Central shows draw younger audiences which generally scored less well on the "test" than older viewers/readers.  

When the U.S. military death toll in Iraq dropped to 13 last month it received wide attention.  But now, midway through August, the toll this month has already topped the July rate.  Meanwhile, two more Iraq vets have killed themselves here at home.  

A U.S. marine killed by gunmen in Fallujah west of Baghdad on Thursday became the 15th American to die in August.  A troubling seven had died in noncombat incidents.   The 15 tally tops July by two.

And the war at home?

The lead Jon Stewart piece -- blessed with a nearly-half page opening photo -- in The New York Times' Arts & Leisure section tomorrow poses the question in its headline, "Is This the Most Trusted Man in America?"

The answer from writer Michiko Kakutani is yeah, maybe, since The Daily Show is now "a genuine political and cultural force."

That's partly because other cable news shows have been "larding" their coverage with missing teens, celebs, "bloviation"  and fake news while the proudly fake news Daily Show sticks to "super-depressing" important issues.

The HBO doc about journalism legend Helen Thomas, Thank you, Mr. President, is now slated for its first airing next Monday.  My colleague at E&P, Joe Strupp, interviewed the director, Rory Kennedy, this week and has a full report at our site, see link below.

Here are a few highlights:

-- The story opens with this:  "When Rory Kennedy told her mother, Ethel Kennedy, that she was going to make a documentary about Helen Thomas, the former Mrs. Robert Kennedy responded, 'Do you really want to do that? She was awfully hard on Jack.'

Eventually, though, her mother understood what the veteran documentary-maker with the famous name wanted to do, even allowing her to interview Thomas at her famed Hickory Hill home in McLean, Va., over five days in the spring of 2007.

The Associated Press, in a major report by Nedra Pickler (oft-criticized by liberals), tonight clearly took sides against James Corsi, author of the bestselling "Obama Notion" book.

It came in a story about the Obama campaign's 40-page rebuttal of the book.  The surprise was the number of zingers that Pickler offered on her own.

Here are some of Pickler's own observations.

The Atlantic article revealing Clinton campaign emails is drawing all the attention but there is another fascinating politics piece in the same September issue, not yet online the last time I looked.

It's by longtime contributor James Fallows and it reveals his thoughts after doing what no sane person would do (as he admits): viewing every single GOP and Democratic primary debate.

The lengthy take reviews past Obama and McCain performances with an eye to to predicting what will happen this fall.  And it closes with an assessment of what a President Obama would be like as he puts "just words" into action.

Despite the overall drop in U.S. deaths in Iraq there has been a spate of "noncombat" fatalities there in the past week -- including a female soldier who apparently was accidentally shot by a colleague who was cleaning a weapon.  Also, Iraq vets (some who may be set to return there) continue to kill themselves at home at an alarming rate.

The latest example in that latter group was reported this morning.

The 21-year-old Army National Guardsman from Iowa, Jake Clements, had served a tour in Iraq and was likely heading backing there.  He was on the phone with his former girlfriend when he fatally shot himself in the basement of her  home in Holmen, Wisc., late Friday -- while she was upstairs -- officials said.

In the next issue of TIME magazine, out tomorrow, reporter Michael Scherer reveals -- though this is not exactly a shocker by now -- that John McCain is ready to "play rough"  to win in November.  

In the article (not yet online), titled "A Whole New McCain" -- a full page illustration shows him throwing fastballs from a baseball mound (lefthanded) -- Scherer writes,  "The new McCain is tight and focused. The candidate who once invited all comers onto the back of his bus now hangs a curtain on his campaign plane to prevent reporters from even catching a glimpse. Instead of charm and candor, he serves up fastballs. Instead of risk-taking, he seeks control. It's a whole new McCain ... Despite his backslapping reputation, McCain will play rough if he thinks it will help him win."

TIME, keeping with the baseball theme, calls this "hardball" and "throwing heat."

Sixty-three years after the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, The Bomb is still very much with us.  The U.S. retains over 5000 nuclear weapons -- does this surprise you? -- with better than 4000 said to be "operational."   There are plans to reduce this number, but only by 15%.   The Russians still have many of their nukes but these remnants of the "superpower" era -- and the lack of airtight security surrounding them -- get little play today.  All we seem to hear about are alleged or possible Iranian or North Korean or freelance terrorist nuclear devices.

The fact is, our "first use" policy, dating back to 1945, remains in effect and past Gallup polls have shown that large numbers of Americans would endorse using the The Bomb against our enemies if need be.  More and more often the U.S. seems to brandish its nukes.   So at this time of year it is always important to review how the original "first-strike" was officially announced on August 6,1945 (as an attack purely on a "military base")and  explained and distorted, and then became part of the decades-long narrative of how, in this view, nuclear weapons can be used -- and used again.

Sure, the new Ron Suskind book, out today, is already drawing headlines for its revelation about a cooked CIA document linking Saddam to al-Qaeda.  And there may be much more in this vein in the book.  But Suskind's influence -- with the mainstream -- pales in comparison to that of Bob Woodward.

And Woodward, very quietly, has a new book coming out on September 8.  It's so quiet that it is still untitled and is known officially only as his Bush at War Book Vol. IV.

The Amazon page has nothing beyond that and its purported length at 486 pages.  Barnes and Noble doesn't even have the length.  But wait: there is a strong hint about the contents.

A new poll partly sponsored by The Washington Post -- and reported on the paper's front page today -- appears to put to bed the notion that Barack Obama will be whupped by John McCain within a key demographic, costing him the race for the White House.  

Actually, Obama easily leads among white, working-class voters -- at least those toward the lower income level among fulltime wage earners.

The fact that he has a big lead among lower-wage workers (defined here as working 30 hours or more a week and earning $27,000 or less) is no shock, based on his broad support among minorities.  But the big revelation looked at the white vote.

As some may know, the media treatment of images from Iraq (or lack of) has been a pet issue of mine for over five years, and is featured in my book.  Last week, I covered The New York Times' probe of this matter.    The news hook was the recent dis-embedding from the U.S. military of freelance photographer Zoriah Miller for allegedly breaking a kind of ban on such photos. He denies this (I also covered that here).

In presenting the story in print and on the Web, the Times published one of Miller's fatal photos.

In his column today, the paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, notes that this was the first photo of that type the Times had published in at least the past year, and reviews some of the controversies in this area it has navigated in years' past.

It works as a parody, even though it was produced months before the current, ludicrous Wall Street Journal piece on why Obama is truly out of of touch with America -- dare we day, un-American?  

This Onion video correctly anticipated the claim that if you ain't fat (or at least trans-fat) you ain't got a chance with the voters in the USA.

It was spotted/recalled by a blogger over at KansasCity.com, who posted it.

John Hall, the former songwriter/singer/guitarist for hitmaking ("Still the One," "Dance With Me") group Orleans, has recorded his first "hit" as a freshman Democrat in Congress -- and it's on his pet issue of help for American veterans.

Hall's legislation to upgrade the V.A.'s  disability rating process was unanimously passed by the House this past Wednesday.   Hall, now 60, is chairman of the veterans' affairs subcommittee on disability assistance.

Let me interrupt here to say that I sometimes like to say I had something to do with helping to get Hall into office.

In something of a surprise, the investigation into the death by gunshot of a "rising star" aide to Virginia Sen. Jim Webb (which I detailed yesterday) seems to be continuing, not winding down.  A day ago, suicide seemed the likely cause -- a handgun was found under his body by the side of the road near his vehcile -- and that may still be the case, but police have now searched Fred Hutchins' apartment, taken his computer and various documents,  cellphone and bank records, and failed to come to any conclusion so far.

The Roanoke Times story today is headline: "Questions linger in death of Webb aide."

Meanwhile, some friends of the young man, who was 26, have mentioned that he had been suffering from severe migraines, but others question this as any sort of cause of anything.  I got an email from a friend who had been set to see Hutchins early this week for a meeting that never took place.  He writes:  "Great guy. We're all shocked and puzzled. He was universally liked. Fred was a great Democrat who was funny, witty and passionate about politics."

The first report was posted here yesterday evening but much more is now known.

Fred Hutchins, Jr., an aide to Sen. Jim Webb -- and described as a "rising star" in Virginia Democratic politics --  was found shot dead on Tuesday beside a Botetourt County road. A gun was found beneath his body but the medical examiner has not ruled it suicide or murder yet.  He was 26 and a longtime political activist.

Sheriff Ronnie Sprinkle said Hutchins' body was found outside his SUV-type vehicle,  on an embankment along U.S. 220 north of the town of Fincastle.   He had a single gunshot wound in  the head.

From Sen. Ted Stevens point of view, there might be some good in his indictment, on seven charges, today: At least this may push his previously best-known worst-day back into the shadows for awhile.  I refer, of course, to that day of infamy, June 28, 2006, when Stevens, then 82, referred to the Internet as a "series of tubes" (among other slightly skewed descriptives) in a much-mocked speech on the floor of the Senate, in a debate over Net Neutrality.

Of course, this quickly made the press, The Daily Show, YouTube and eventually thousands of Web sites -- and became a punch line in cocktail chatter and the comedy circuit. Someone even did a song called "Series of Tubes."  But it strikes me that probably few have ever read his extended remarks, or at least have not experienced them for years.