Asked if he would send U.S. ground troops into Iran to force Tehran to abandon its nuclear program, Mitt Romney didn't say yes and he didn't say no. 

"What's your red line?" asked host David Gregory on Sunday's Meet the Press. "You put troops on the ground to stop Iran from going nuclear or can you live with a nuclear Iran and contain it?"

"I don't think we live with a nuclear Iran," Romney said. "I think we make it very clear that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable to the United States of America, to civilized nations throughout the world. And that we will maintain every option that's available to us to keep that from happening."

Mitt Romney has promised to "repeal and replace ObamaCare," but he is not for "getting rid of all" of the president's signature healthcare reform. And if he gets to preserve all the features of the Affordable Care Act that he likes, there may not be much replacing to do. In an interview on NBC's Meet the Press September 9, Romney said people with pre-existing conditions and adults under age 26 would not lose their guarantee of coverage if he succeeds in getting the Democrats' healthcare law repealed.

Who says those allegedly narrow, highly partisan, and bitterly divisive ideologues in today's Republican Party refuse to take a bipartisan approach to problem solving? In just the past two weeks the Grand Old Party has "disappeared" George W. Bush and embraced Bill Clinton.

Bush either chose or was persuaded not to attend his party's convention in Tampa last week and, apart from a five-minute video paying tribute to both Bush and his father, President George H.W. Bush, there was scarcely a mention of either Bush. But during this week's Democratic convention in Charlotte, Republicans heaped so much praise on former President Clinton, you might have thought they had nominated him and not Mitt Romney to run against Barack Obama.

"Put simply, women in America cannot trust Mitt Romney," Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-choice America told the cheering delegates at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday night. But if what Romney's sister said last week about her brother's stand on abortion is accurate, pro-life Republicans might not want to trust him much, either.

While an Israeli air strike could cause a temporary setback to Iran's nuclear program, it would take the U.S. Air Force to finish the job, retired Air Force General and former CIA Director Michael Hayden said in an interview published Tuesday in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

In a ruling that could have a significant impact on the outcome of this year's presidential election, a federal judge on August 31 issued a preliminary injunction against an Ohio law that eliminated the final three days of early in-person voting for most voters, while allowing exceptions for military personnel and Ohio voters living overseas.

The "insider" attacks by Afghan trainees on U.S. and NATO troops have forced the suspension of the training program for new recruits, while officials in charge of the NATO training mission reassess the vetting process used to weed out Afghan troops with ties to the Taliban or other insurgents. 

There was no Bush, no Cheney, and no mushroom cloud mentioned in the address former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice delivered to the delegates who greeted her and her speech with loud and repeated standing ovations at the Republican National Convention Wednesday night. 

According to the CNN "Political Ticker," the mystery is "solved": "Clint Eastwood will be the 'mystery guest' at the Republican National Convention's final night, a GOP source confirmed Thursday," the cable news channel announced on its political blog.

Reports of a soon-to-be released "tell all" book about the raid to get al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May of last year has given rise to new threats of vengeance from Arab jihadists and concerns in the United States over the security of its covert operations and the safety of those who carry them out. The book, written by a retired Navy SEAL who took part in the raid, is also bound to create political fallout over what it says about President Obama and the official version of what transpired.