The darling of the left
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Last week, for the first time since Ehud Barak defeated Benjamin Netanyahu in the contest for prime minister, the left wing was radiant with joy.
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Comment is free: Conor Gearty: If the left rejects every challenge to individual freedom, it will miss its chance to regain the influence lost under Blair.
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"Clearly Sarkozy is setting the economic agenda"  She's French. She's female. And she is causing quite a stir. Christine Lagarde, the first woman finance minister for a G-8 nation, was rated the best minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government last month by one of France's top-selling newspapers. Not bad for a political newcomer who only two years ago was unknown outside legal and business circles, and who is vocally pro-market in a capitalism-wary nation.It hasn't always been this easy.In 1980s Paris, a law firm in the French capital told the young female applicant her sex disqualified her from high office. So Lagarde turned to Chicago-based law firm Baker &amp; McKenzie, where she went on to become the firm's first female director in 1999. Read more
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Modernisers and traditionalists are competing for the soul of the party.
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FranÃ§ois Bayrou is gaining ground in a presidential campaign dominated by a nurturing Socialist and a crime-busting conservative.
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After a plummet in the polls, the once-hot  Socialist candidate tries to rejuvenate her campaign for the French presidency with an appeal to her base
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His candidacy works to inspire, while she appeals to reason and cites credentials.
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Now that Rosie O'Donnell has exited stage left, "The View" must find someone to fill her seat and somehow match her watercooler appeal. That won't be easy, but there's a lineup of famous ladies who could make worthy successors.
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Â· Conservative leader keen to avoid reigniting furore Â· Spokesman on Europe gets severe reprimand
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Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first female presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, is used to hostility from the right wing of her denomination. Now, she faces a rebellion among her longtime allies on the left.
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The right has a crush on Fred Thompson, but his own papers suggest he is less conservative than they think.
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Can S&#201;gol&#200;ne Royal's feminine campaigning style get her elected to France's top job?
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Alexandra Pelosi used the now-disgraced preacher as her guide for a documentary on evangelicals. It offers plenty of irony, but also an incisive look at an alternative cultural world
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A close inspection of candidatesâ wares offers the prospect of a peek into their characters and hoped-for constituencies.
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Painting Mrs. Clinton as the likely Democratic nominee.
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The dominance of Damascus in Lebanese politics gives rise to a new opposition leader.
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How do you compete with mom, flag, and apple pie?That's the American version of the question facing France's conservatives, now that Segolene Royal has emerged as the Socialist Party's candidate for president ...Comment