A House subcommittee Wednesday began examining whether gay men and women should be allowed to serve openly in the armed forces for the first time in15 years.

Congress had not reconsidered the controversial 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy since it was approved by former President Bill Clinton in 1993. Currently, recruitment officials are not allowed to ask enlistees about their sexual orientation and service personnel may not engage in homosexual conduct or aggressively display homosexuality.

At the 2½-hour hearing, lawmakers focused on two key questions: What effect a change in the policy would have on troop unity and whether the current policy is hurting recruitment and retention of service members who are gay.

Occasionally, the debate got heated, such as when Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness, which opposes gays in the military, suggested that allowing gays to openly serve in the military would increase the number of HIV-positive cases among service members. Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) called that contention "inappropriate" and said under that logic "you ought to recruit only lesbians to the military because they have the lowest incidence of HIV."

But the hearing mostly drew on the personal experience of openly gay former service members, retired sergeants and the head of a group that opposes allowing gays and lesbians to serve.

Capt. Joan Darrah, who served in the Navy for 30 years and won several commendations, spoke of the stress the policy caused her. Darrah had been at a meeting in the Pentagon just minutes before it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Seven of her colleagues were killed.

"The reality is that if I had been killed, my partner then of 11 years, would have been the last to know," she said. "I had not dared to list her in any of my paperwork."

Here are a few Washington events of note for Thursday, July 24.

NASA is announcing the first results from a fleet of five satellites that have discovered what powers sudden brightening and rapid movements of the Northern Lights, or aurora borealis.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on crimes associated with polygamy.

The Senate Finance Committee is holding a hearing on its investigation into a single building in the Cayman Islands that is listed as the address of thousands of companies, with a look into implications for U.S. tax compliance.

JERUSALEM--Barack Obama made a brief visit this morning before leaving Israel to the Wailing Wall, one of the best-known holy sites in Jerusalem, a section of the western supporting wall of the ancient Temple Mount, per a pool report by Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times.

Appearing unannounced shortly before dawn, Obama, who wore a white skullcap, was surrounded by dozens of onlookers as he made his way down a walkway toward the wall escorted by the Rabbi of the Wall, Shmuel Rabinovich. The rabbi quietly read Psalm 122 as both he and Obama flipped through a holy book on a wooden stand by the wall.

After the prayer, Obama walked a final few steps to the wall and followed the custom of placing a personal note between the stone cracks containing a prayer or wish. Then he put his hand on the wall, bowed his head and stood quietly for a few moments. When asked later what he wrote on his note, he declined to say.

While at the wall, he was heckled by a lone man about 10 yards away who shouted, "Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale!" but several other men tried to drown out the heckler with cries of "Obama, Obama, Obama."

As Obama left, a small group of onlookers cheered and reach out to grab his hand. Within about 10 minutes of arriving, Obama was back in his motorcade headed for the airport in Tel Aviv.

With little more than a hundred days before the elections, the chairmen of the House and Senate Democrats' campaign operations both say they will expand their majorities come November. But as they try to reach deeper into Republican strongholds, they said today, they were taking nothing for granted.

"At this point, it's important that people understand - because there is a lot of sense out there that this is going to be another big wave election - that we are going into some really very tough territory here," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "And so we do need to be aware of irrational exuberance when it comes to some of the numbers I've heard on the House races."

On the Senate side, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chairman Charles E. Schumer said his candidates were competing on "the reddest map in a very long time."

"The majority of states, when you hold it up, are either in the Deep South, the Great Plains or the Mountain West," he said. "Not traditionally positive areas for Democrats."

Still, Schumer sees reasons to be hopeful, even in the most conservative corners of the nation. In Mississippi, where the retirement of former Sen. Trent Lott means both seats are up for election, polls show voters favoring a generic Republican against a generic Democrat.

But Schumer said Democratic polls show that when voters are asked to choose between a candidate who will promote more affordable health care, better schools and a more balanced energy policy versus one who will ensure that the U.S. military remains the strongest in the world and that traditional values prevail in Washington, the values associated with Democrats are leading by eight to 12 percentage points.

Sen. John McCain, admitting to some amusement over the coverage that his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, is getting with a foreign diplomacy tour this week, also suggests tonight that there is no point in complaining about it.

And McCain, the senior senator from Arizona and Republican candidate for president, tells FOX News Channel's Hannity and Colmes tonight that he is looking for something quite specific in a running mate: Someone who thinks like he does.

McCain spoke with FOX's Sean Hannity about all of this, for a program that will air this evening at 9 pm EDT.

With reports swirling that McCain is near picking a running mate, the party's presumptive nominee is asked what is important to him: "Someone who shares your priorities,'' he replies. "Your principles, your values and I've got to also say priorities.''

And McCain, who at 71 now and 72 in November could become the oldest man ever elected to a first term as president, says this as well about his designs for a running mate: "Someone who can take your place immediately. That's maybe the advice almost even more important in my case."

Of all the attention that Obama is drawing: "All I can do is be amused. It is what it is, Sean. You know very well that if anybody complains then, you know, that's just non-productive... I'm the underdog,'' McCain maintains in the interview. "I've got a lot work to do but I'm proud of our campaign and I'm convinced that we can get directly to the American people."

And this, on Obama opposing the "surge'' of U.S. forces in Iraq: "No rational person who was in Iraq two years ago and saw the situation -- and that it was dire then -- we were on the verge of losing a war, and seeing it now -- no rational person cannot say that the surge has succeeded... It's clear to me that there must be political calculations in his judgment because no rational observer could conclude anything else."

With thanks to FOX News Channel for a preview of the program.

Barack Obama today boasted about a bill in "my committee,'' a committee on which he has no seat.

While speaking to the press in the Israeli town of Sderot, Obama mistakenly put the U.S. Senate banking committee on his resume, although the Illinois senator does not serve on the committee and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is the chairman.

The Republican National Committee distributed an e-mail pointing out Obama's mistake with a subject line of "Obama's Gaffe Machine Rolls Into Israel."

During the press conference, Obama said, "Just this past -- this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don't obtain a nuclear weapon."

Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said Obama was referring to an Iran divestment bill he introduced in 2007 with U.S. Reps. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Tom Lantos (D-Calif.). Last week, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs passed the the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2008, which included provisions Obama offered in his 2007 legislation.

"The Obama provisions clarify that state and local governments can divest from companies that invest $20 million or more in Iran's energy sector and provide safe harbor for private fund managers who divest from such companies," according to a July 17 statement from Obama's Senate office.

In a separate statement July 17, Dodd thanked Obama for his work on the 2007 legislation.

"[Obama] meant to say 'my bill,'" LaBolt said.

The McCain campaign asserted that Obama had nothing to do with the passage of the bill.

"Not only is it not his committee, but he's not even on the committee, he didn't vote on the bill, and he had nothing to do with it's passage," the McCain campaign said in a statement. "Neither has Barack busied himself with work on the committees to which he does belong, such as the Subcommittee on European Affairs, which he chairs and has only convened once.

"Barack Obama has been largely absent from the Senate since his arrival, spending most of his time running for president," the statement continued. "Of course, the same might be said of John McCain, but neither is John McCain a first term senator running on his imaginary record on the Banking Committee."

Continue reading for a portion of the transcript of the press conference:

The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed the long-awaited housing rescue bill -- sending it now for a last Senate approval before President Bush can sign it into law.

The vote, at about 5 p.m., went 272-152.

It will now be the Senate's turn and, except for some expected resistance that could delay the bill for a short time, the chamber will likely pass the measure with a similar high ratio. And though President Bush had long threatened to veto it, a recently added provision to help out mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has convinced the White House to promise a presidential signature.

The bill will do a number of things, but the section that homeowners in crisis are most concerned with is the one that Sen. Chris Dodd helped author: the foreclosure prevention program. It will allow people with subprime mortgages they can no longer afford to enter into voluntary deals with their lenders, refinancing the loans for less than the current market value of the homes at a 30-year fixed rate. (The Federal Housing Administration will guarantee $300 billion in such loans, and the defaults will be paid out of Fannie and Freddie revenues.)

The program will need to be established, so it likely wouldn't start for a few months.

Read more about the housing legislation at On Background, the Hartford Courant's political blog.

SDEROT, Israel--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama came Wednesday to an Israeli town that has been rocketed repeatedly by Palestinian militants to assure Israelis--and, crucially, Jewish voters in the United States--of his commitment to protect Israel's security.

"I'm here to say as an American and as a friend of Israel that we stand with the people of Sderot," Obama said. "America must always stand up for Israel's right to defend itself."

Obama spoke in front of shelves stacked with twisted, rusted rocket casings and mortar shells outside a police station that had been attacked by a rocket within the past two weeks.

Sderot is just 4 miles from the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian area controlled by the extremist group Hamas. The town has been hit by 1,900 rockets and mortars, according to the Israel Project, though the attacks recently halted.

With many Israelis expressing concerns about Obama's professed willingness to hold talks with Iranian leaders, he also pledged his determination to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. A nuclear-armed Iran is widely feared here as a dire potential threat.

"Iranians need to understand that whether it's the Bush administration or the Obama administration this is a paramount concern of the United States."

He said he would offer "a series of big sticks and big carrots to the Iranian regime to stand down on nuclear weapons."

Obama was accompanied at the news conference by Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

While Obama spent much of the day in a series of meetings with high-level Israeli officials, he also traveled to the West Bank to meet with officials of the Palestinian Authority there. He is the first major presidential candidate to do so. Republican rival John McCain visited Israel in March but did not meet Palestinian officials.

He hasn't even been picked yet.

But with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney touted repeatedly by prognosticators as a likely vice presidential pick for Sen. John McCain, the Michigan Democratic Party is putting its two cents in.

"We've noticed 'Mitt' and 'Michigan' showing up in the same sentence a lot lately, so we thought it was time to take a hard look at Romney's record on the issue that matters most to Michigan voters--jobs," said Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer, touting a new web ad. "And any way you look at it Romney earns a failing grade. Conventional wisdom in Washington might be that Romney's business experience means he's good on the economy, but even the slightest glance at his record indicates otherwise."

Romney, who was born in Michigan and is the son of a famed former Michigan governor, is often described as having just the right sort of business experience that could be helpful to McCain during these tough economic times.

But the Michigan Democratic Party helpfully reminds that as a venture capitalist for Bain Capital, some of his investments resulted in plants and factories being shut down and workers losing their jobs.

"John McCain might trust him with the economy, but you can't afford to," the state party's video concludes ominously.

Scott Romney, the Michigan co-chair for McCain, begs to differ about his brother's record, and notes that Michigan is suffering economically under Democratic leadership.

"This is full of distortions and untruths from the Democrats who are desperate to distract people from Barack Obama's plan to raise taxes. Gov. Romney helped create thousands of jobs in the private sector," Scott Romney said. "When Gov Romney took office, Massachusetts was in a recession and losing thousands of jobs every month. When he left office four years later, the state's economy was adding thousands of jobs every month.

"Unfortunately, under Democratic leadership, Michigan continues to experience soaring unemployment, higher taxes and loss of jobs," he continued. "This is the kind of record that Barack Obama has aligned himself with in Michigan. Mitt will continue to actively engage all Michiganders in support of Senator John McCain's strong economic policies to help Michigan grow their economies and add much needed jobs."

Oh boy.

The media circus surrounding Sen. Barack Obama's Euro-Middle-East-War-Front Summer Tour has hardly gone unnoticed at camp McCain, which issued some new credentials, all in fun, of course, for its own, more limited traveling press retinue.

As our friends at the Boston Globe tell it, the tags read: "JV Squad. Left Behind to Report in America," on one side, with a red-white-and-blue, fireworks-exploding image of the Statue of Liberty.

The flip side: A French beret-wearing man pouring wine, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. And, as our friends at the L.A. Times' Top of the Ticket note, the McCain campaign speaks some French as well: "Le groupe de presse de McCain, L'equipe junior,'' le tag reads. "Laisse en arriere pour faire un rapport en Amerique."

That's wine. Not whine.

The campaign of Sen. John McCain has accused the media of a love-affair with Obama's candidacy (The Project for Excellence in Journalism reports that the media has covered Obama more than McCain for the sixth straight week). So when Obama delivers a speech in Berlin on Thursday, the Republican National Committee plans to air a radio ad challenging Obama's record on supporting the troops in three other Berlins back home -- in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

President Bush was asking for a shutdown of video cameras at a party fundraiser in Houston.

Judging by a tape obtained by KTRK, the ABC affiliate, we now know why. See NBC's report:

"There's no question about it, Wall Street got drunk,'' Bush told his audience last week, adding with a smile: "That's one reason I asked you to turn off your TV cameras.

"It got drunk and now it's got a hangover,'' the president said of the economic turmoil the nation is facing at the moment. "The question is, how long will it sober up...

"And then we've got a housing issue -- not in Houston,'' he said, adding of his own eventual retirement homestead and a house-shopping first lady: "Evidently not in Dallas, because Laura's over there trying to buy a house.

"I like Crawford,'' Bush said of his Texas ranch. "Unfortunately, after eight years of asking her to sacrifice, I am no longer the decision-maker. She'll be deciding.''

Politico is reporting that syndicated conservative columnist Robert Novak hit a pedestrian this morning during rush hour, then drove off in his black Corvette.

Fortunately, the pedestrian appears to have sustained only minor injuries and was released from the hospital, according to the report which also says Novak was cited by the police.

Novak was chased down by a bicyclist who happened to be partner in a law firm who was pedaling to work when he saw the accident.

Novak told journalists who arrived on the scene that he didn't know he had hit the pedestrian.

"I didn't know I hit him," Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA on the scene. "He's not dead, that's the main thing." Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K St. NW, where the accident happened, when a bicyclist stopped him and said, "You hit someone." He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way. (WJLA has video of Novak being interviewed its website. We can't display it in this posting because, alas, we don't have legal rights to it.)

Okay, maybe he didn't see him before he hit him. But there's reason to believe he had a great view of the pedestrian afterwards.

The bicyclist was David Bono, a partner at Harkins Cunningham, who was on his usual bike commute to work at 1700 K St. NW when he saw the accident happen.

As he traveled east on K. Street, crossing 18th, Bono said a "black Corvette convertible with top closed plowed into the guy. The guy is sort of splayed onto the windshield."

John McCain's campaign kept its lips tight about the amount raised at a fundraiser in Baltimore last night. But the father of Maryland's former governor spilled some beans.

The reception held at the Center Club, a wood-paneled business club in an office tower overlooking the Inner Harbor, was hosted by former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. The invitation to the event said ticket prices were $2,300 for a VIP photo op and $1,000 for general admission.

The invitation told only part of the story, however. As the event was underway, Ehrlich's loquacious father, affectionately known as "Senior" to Maryland politicos, strolled by the reporters traveling with the McCain campaign and characteristically dropped a bit of news.

There was a fancy dinner at the Center Club for 12 couples costing $70,000 apiece, Senior told the reporters. There was a similar breakfast in another state.

"According to Ehrlich Sr., one of the attendees at this evening's dinner was Art Modell," wrote Adam Aigner-Treworgy of NBC News and National Journal in his pool report on the event. Modell is the former football team owner best known for moving the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore and making them the Ravens. "It is unclear when the breakfast was or if it took place at all," Aigner-Treworgy wrote. "But the rumor mill has begun."

Reached by telephone on Wednesday, Modell confirmed that he attended a private dinner and paid $70,000. He left, he said, "more impressed with McCain than I ever have been."

"He came across last night entirely different than he does on television," Modell said. McCain sat at the head of a large table, Modell said, and participated in a "general discussion on many issues."

NEW ORLEANS (AP) _ A Continental Airlines flight carrying former presidential candidate Ron Paul and six other members of Congress to Washington, D.C., made an emergency landing in New Orleans on Tuesday after a loss in cabin pressure.

The seven congressmen, all from Texas, were trying to get back in time for a Tuesday night vote on an aviation safety bill when the flight landed without incident, a spokesman for one of the representatives said. No injuries were reported among the 128 crew and passengers.

All's well that ends well. Suffice it to say, this is a problem the Ron Paul blimp would've never experienced.

If you want to read a disturbing tale of how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac used their clout in Washington to try to brush back their critics like pitchers throwing at the heads of batters, check out Paul Gigot's piece in The Wall Street Journal today.

Gigot, editorial page editor of the Journal, recounts how he and the WSJ's editorial page found themselves on the receiving end of Fannie and Freddie's ire after they wrote some critical pieces about Fannie before that company's questionable accounting practices became widely known in 2003.

My battles with Fan and Fred began with no great expectations. In late 2001, I got a tip that Fannie's derivatives accounting might be suspect. I asked Susan Lee to investigate, and the editorial she wrote in February 2002, "Fannie Mae Enron?", sent Fannie's shares down nearly 4% in a day. In retrospect, my only regret is the question mark.

At the time, Wall Street's Fannie apologists outdid themselves with their counterattack. One of the most slavish was Jonathan Gray, of Sanford C. Bernstein, who wrote to clients that the editorial was "unfounded and unsubstantiated" and "discredits the paper." My favorite point in his Feb. 20, 2002, Bernstein Research Call was this rebuttal to our point that "Taxpayers Are on The Hook: This is incorrect. The agencies' debt is not guaranteed by the U.S. Treasury or any agency of the Federal Government." Oops.