Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Not Fair and Balanced?

Chris Wallace's "FOX News Sunday" interview with Bill Clinton was one of six TV appearances the former president made last week. But despite Mr. Clinton's highly publicized objections to the recent ABC docudrama about 9/11, no one other than Wallace asked him about the aggressiveness of his pursuit of Usama bin Laden.

As for Mr. Clinton's assertion that Wallace did not challenge the Bush administration's pre-9/11 record on terrorism? In 2004, Wallace asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to answer the charge that "the Bush Administration largely ignored the threat from Al Qaeda," before 9/11,adding, "Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority."

Hamas Rips Pope

The pope is still taking hits from the Muslim world. A cartoon is from the official weekly publication of Hamas shows the pope holding a swastika while wearing a scarf of the U.S. and Danish flags; a reference to Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that caused riots in many European cities earlier this year. The caption reads, "the pope and those who live under his cloak."

A Hamas religious leader told Palestinian television that the pope is, "criminal and arrogant, ignorant and stupid," and that Allah will punish the pope in due time.

U.S. Pays for Terrorists?

Pakistani President Musharraf says the CIA secretly paid his government millions of dollars for turning over Al Qaeda suspects — in violation of U.S. policy.

Musharraf makes the claim in his new book and doesn't say specifically how much the agency paid for 369 alleged terrorists. But the Department of Justice tells The London Times Online: "We didn't know about this. It should not happen." U.S. policy permits bounty payments to individuals — but not governments.

Senator Denies Being a Racist

Virginia Republican Senator George Allen is vigorously denying allegations from a former college football teammate that he used a racial slur to refer to black people. Ken Shelton also told salon.com and the Associated Press that Allen once stuffed the severed head of a deer into a black household's oversized mailbox. Allen's campaign has released statements from four other former teammates rejecting Shelton's claims. And a former Shelton roommate and current Allen volunteer says he and Allen often hunted together and the deer's head story never came up.

Allen has had to deal with racial and ethnic issues for several weeks during his re-election campaign — most notably when he referred to one of his opponent's campaign volunteers of Indian decent as "macaca" — which is considered by some an ethnic slur.

—FOX News Channel's Aaron Bruns contributed to this report.