By BONNIE ERBE, Scripps Howard News Service

Sen. Ted Kennedy's death will overshadow and push out of the headlines a very important story of which Americans should take note. A stationary nimbus of self-dealing hangs over one of President Obama's key staffers, exposed this week by the Associated Press.

Why am I not surprised by the results of the following poll? A Marist poll released this month shows men are more likely than women to approve of the Philadelphia Eagles' controversial decision to allow Michael Vick back into that exclusive club otherwise known as the National Football League.

The Fox News boys and other imitators of "fair and unbiased" media have had a field day with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's minor rhetorical misstep in the Congo earlier this week. I'm speaking of her angry response to a misinterpreted question from a student while visiting that war-torn land -- more on that part of her trip below.

Here we go again Call me suspicious, but ever since President Barack Obama was Sen. Barack Obama running for the Democratic presidential nomination, I had a hard time believing he was not going to raise taxes on those save high-earners making more than $250,000.00.

A new rush of reality and comedy shows on cable TV this summer once again poses the question, Is television's acceptance of fat people good for America's obesity epidemic, or is it driving the number of obese Americans higher?

The phrase, "jobless recovery" is gaining traction in Washington these days, as the stock market has turned decidedly bullish, home sales are no longer tanking, at least not at last year's rates, corporate profits are materializing and yet the number of out of work Americans continues to rise.

Trying economic times have prompted many Americans to search the financial horizon for positive signs we may be pulling out of the recession. But sometimes what looks like good news can also be bad news. This week's release of housing starts was just that, good news bearing potential hidden bad news between the lines.

President Obama has compiled a long and growing list of increasingly important flip-flops on critical U.S. policies. Most Obama backtracking took place after he entered office, tossing no-longer important (to him) campaign pledges out the window like so much detritus off a deck.

If you want to see the future of one aspect of life in the United States, if federal policy were placed in the hands of murderous antiabortion extremists, you might look at life for women in Tanzania.

If only one thing results from Judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination process, I hope it will be this: the public denuding of the concepts of judicial restraint and judicial activism. So-called activist judges are defined as liberal abusers of power.