The Trail

Adelman was once an adviser to the Bush administration on the Iraq war and has held senior policy positions under Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. He is a staunch conservative, though he has broken with Vice President Cheney and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the handling of the war.

He told Packer that John McCain's pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate was the last straw.

"That decision showed appalling lack of judgment," he wrote in an e-mail, according to Packer. "Not only is Sarah Palin not close to being acceptable in high office -- I would not have hired her for even a mid-level post in the arms-control agency."

-- Michael D. Shear

ONE QUESTION MARK

Biden's Records Show Good Health

Joe Biden appears to be in good health, suffering no lingering effects from his 1988 brain aneurysm and nothing out of the ordinary for a man his age, according to 49 pages of medical records released Monday.

The records do not, however, include any references to any specific follow-up to the aneurysm, which was treated with emergency surgery, making it unclear how carefully he has been followed.

In a conference call with reporters, Matthew Parker, a D.C. internist who reviewed Biden's health records, said he spoke with John F. Eisold, the Capitol physician. "Dr. Eisold, his treating doctor, thinks he's in excellent health," Parker said. Eisold does not give interviews.

Parker said he did not know whether Biden had brain imaging to follow up on the aneurysm surgery.

In a July letter to Biden included in the records, Eisold wrote: "You have recovered fully without continued effects."

Biden experienced at least one episode of a potentially dangerous irregular heartbeat called an atrial fibrillation in July 2006. But cardiac examinations at the time and later have found no signs of heart disease. His blood pressure is normal.

Biden's doctor suggested the irregular heartbeat may have been caused by too much coffee, and he urged him to drink less caffeine, exercise more and take an aspirin a day.

-- Perry Bacon Jr. and Rob Stein