Updated

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Cherry Picked Comments?

DNC Chairman Howard Dean says his claim that the war in Iraq is unwinnable, was taken "a little out of context, and that his remarks had been "cherry picked." So here is the full context from Dean's an interview with a San Antonio radio station Tuesday:

"I supported President Bush, the first President Bush's war in Iraq. I supported this president Bush's war in Afghanistan. But I do not believe in making the same mistake twice. And America appears to have made the same mistake twice. I wish the president had paid more attention to the history of Iraq before we'd gotten in there. The idea that we're going to win this war is an idea that is unfortunately just plain wrong, and I've seen this before in my life. It cost us 25,000 brave American soldiers in Vietnam, and I don't want to go down that road again."

Holocaust Denial

Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," now says he would support an Israeli state, but only on the map of Europe. Iran's official news agency reports that the Iranian president told a Saudi audience, "Some European countries insist on saying that Hitler killed millions of innocent Jews in furnaces" — a fact Ahmadinejad disputes. He went on to say, "If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe... to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe," adding, "You offer part of Europe and we will support it."

Palestinian Solidarity

The United Nations honored its annual "Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People" last week by holding a ceremony in front of a large "map of Palestine," flanked by the U.N. and Palestinian flags, but with Israel completely missing from the map.

Conservative Israeli news service Arutz Sheva reports that Secretary General Kofi Annan addressed the group gathered at U.N. headquarters after the master of ceremonies called for a moment of silence "in memory of all those who have given their lives for the cause of the Palestinian people."

Evidence of Activism?

A Knight Ridder newspapers analysis of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's judicial rulings has come under fire from Alito's supporters for alleging that the judge has "worked quietly but resolutely to weave a conservative legal agenda into the fabric of the nation's laws."

In a C-Span interview, Knight Ridder reporter Steve Henderson said he couldn't "find a single case in which Judge Alito sided with African Americans alleging racial bias." But after conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt pointed out three such rulings in Alito's case history, Henderson admitted he "mis-spoke." Henderson also says he never called Alito or the White House for comment on the piece and says that other reporters investigating Alito's rulings "could come to a different conclusion."

— FOX News' Aaron Bruns contributed to this report