Despite Congress’ record low approval rating and the much-hyped “throw the bums out” mood of the public, incumbents are still winning in most races. Though there have been several high-profile defeats — such as GOP Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah and, likely, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (in photo), who is narrowly trailing after Tuesday’s GOP primary — about 98 percent of incumbents have won so far in 2010, according to Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. That rate is “about normal on a 40-year average,” said Sabato, who contends that the idea of an anti-incumbency wave is a “press-manufactured phenomenon.”
Though U.S. officials hailed Pakistan’s role in capturing a top Taliban leader last January, some analysts questioned at the time whether Pakistan’s real motive was to insert itself in peace negotiations between the Taliban and Afghanistan. That suspicion appears to be on target. Pakistani officials are now saying that they set out to capture the Taliban leader, and used the CIA to help them do it, because they wanted to shut down secret peace talks that the leader had been conducting with the Afghan government that excluded Pakistan, the New York Times 
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