THE LEFT AND THE WAR....If anti-war liberals were right about the war from the start, how come they don't get more respect?  Here's the nickel version of the answer from liberal hawks: It's because they don't deserve it.  Sure, the war has gone badly, but not for the reasons the doves warned of.

Libby Trial Jury Selection: Day One Recap of Libby's Dilemma  —  "I am completely without objectivity.  There is nothing you can say that would make me feel positively about President Bush."  Thus spake the eighth of nine prospective jurors reviewed by Judge Reggie Walton …

Three Time [Loser] Winner  —  There just didn't seem to be any other way to explain why I'm not going to be present for the first two weeks of the Libby trial so I decided to resort to the truth.  —  As someone who has devoted years to building this blog around coverage of the CIA leak investigation …

Obama Forms Presidential Exploratory Committee  —  Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (D), one of the Democratic Party's brightest young stars, jumped into the 2008 race for the White House today, establishing a presidential exploratory committee that is expected to lead immediately into a full-blown campaign for president.

What's the White House Doing to Prosecutors?  —  During a floor speech on the topic moments ago, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said the White House has told her it was replacing from five to 10 Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys with its own interim appointees.  —  We know of seven who have left during …

Saudis consider sending troops to Iraq  —  Government 'deeply skeptical' al-Maliki can make Bush surge plan work  —  Saudi Arabia believes the Iraqi government is not up to the challenge and has told the United States that it is prepared to move its own forces into Iraq should the violence …

Bush bungles budget — and tells Dems to fix it?  —  The Washington Post ran a front-page piece today on a White House budget strategy that's characterized as somehow being clever.  Maybe I'm missing the punch line because the story doesn't make a lot of sense to me. … I have no idea what this means.

Author Blames 9/11 On 'Cultural Left'  —  "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11" By Dinesh D'Souza, Random House, Inc., 352 pages, $26.95  —  When it comes to laying blame for Sept. 11 - the greatest attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor …

President Bush Defends Decision to Send Additional Troops to Iraq  —  JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, welcome.  —  PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Thank you, sir.  —  MR. LEHRER: How do you feel about the way the Iraqi government handled the hangings of Saddam Hussein, and now more recently, two of his top aides?

Rumsfeld is gone, but the veep's other loyalists remain.  —  With the departure of his longtime friend Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton's resignation as U.N. ambassador, and Democrats taking over Congress, times seem grim for the Dick Cheney wing of the Bush administration.

Legalize It  —  HOW TO SOLVE AFGHANISTAN'S DRUG PROBLEM.  —  The British Empire once fought a war for the right to sell opium in China.  —  In retrospect, history has judged that war destructive and wasteful, a shameless battle of colonizers against colonized that in the end helped neither side.

AP: Iran Gets Army Gear in Pentagon Sale  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military has sold forbidden equipment at least a half-dozen times to middlemen for countries - including Iran and China - who exploited security flaws in the Defense Department's surplus auctions.

When Blogospheres Collide  —  Remember this pic?  —  This is a picture of the linking patterns among highly trafficked progressive and conservative blogs during the final months of the 2004 election.  It was the first, and to date best, academic study on linking patterns within the political blogosphere.

Yeas and Nays: Tuesday, Jan. 16  —  WASHINGTON - Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin cover people, power and politics in the beltway each weekday.  Email them at yan@dcexaminer.com .  —  Little to head WHCA's big night  —  He does a mean Ronald Reagan impersonation and his imitation of Richard Nixon is legendary.

What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy  —  The human mind isn't very well equipped to make sense of a figure like $1.2 trillion.  We don't deal with a trillion of anything in our daily lives, and so when we come across such a big number, it is hard to distinguish it from any other big number.

The threat from Iran  —  It has been clear for many months that Iran has been actively involved in the Iraqi insurgency: by supplying arms and manpower to the militias who target American and British forces, and inciting sectarian violence, it has helped to maintain the state of chaotic instability …

Choice of Martinez sparks GOP rebellion  —  Rebellion is brewing among conservatives on the Republican National Committee over President's Bush's attempt to "impose" Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida as "general chairman" of the party, who favors "amnesty" for illegal aliens.