An editorial / By Dale McFeatters, Scripps Howard News Service

President Bush will attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing next month. It's the right decision, good diplomacy and he and the first lady will enjoy the festivities. And the Chinese will be glad, even relieved, to welcome them.

On the eve of the holiday weekend, the White House indulged in a little of its signature fear mongering.

Press secretary Dana Perino raised the possibility that, because of a Supreme Court ruling that went against the Bush administration, the courts could order the Guantanamo Bay detainees set free to roam the streets of our cities.

It was a great week for Colombia and its president, Alvaro Uribe, and the latest in a series of really bad months for FARC. It also wasn't such a good week for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, since the events highlight his duplicitous meddling in Colombia.

Maybe the best thing about the U.S. proposal to base missile interceptors in Eastern Europe is how much it annoys the Russians. Moscow wants to be accepted as a full and respected partner by modern Europe but can't seem to help reverting to its old thuggish ways.

Levees generally come to the public's attention only when they fail, as they did this year in the Midwest and disastrously in New Orleans in 2005. But levees are a surprisingly common fact of American life and many people may not even be aware that they are living behind the protection of what is basically a pile of dirt.

Levees generally come to the public's attention only when they fail, as they did this year in the Midwest and disastrously in New Orleans in 2005. But levees are a surprisingly common fact of American life and many people may not even be aware that they are living behind the protection of what is basically a pile of dirt.

The 53-nation African Union summit meeting covered itself with shame by refusing to condemn Robert Mugabe's brutal suppression of the political opposition and his economic and social dismantling of Zimbabwe.

The Bush administration has charged a Guantanamo Bay detainee with murder, among other serious charges, in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 U.S. sailors.

More than five years after the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq is now beginning the process of developing new oil and gas fields and accessing the technology and expertise to overcome decades of neglect and mismanagement of its oil industry.

After almost seven years, former biological warfare scientist Steven Hatfill is finally, in the words of one of his lawyers, "an ex-person of interest." He and his legal team will also collect a cash payout of $2.825 million from the Justice department and the department will also buy Hatfill an annuity that will pay him $150,000 a year in recognition of the fact that its heavy-handed