Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq  —  Administration Strategy Stirs Concern Among Some Officials  —  The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across …

Hagel Ponders White House Run As War Criticism Raises His Profile  —  His Republican colleagues regard him warily.  The White House barely speaks to him.  He is reviled by his party's conservative base.  —  Looks as though Sen. Chuck Hagel is on a roll.  —  Both parties have their Iraq war contrarians.

In Ex-Aide's Testimony, A Spin Through VP's PR  —  Memo to Tim Russert: Dick Cheney thinks he controls you.  —  This delicious morsel about the "Meet the Press" host and the vice president was part of the extensive dish Cathie Martin served up yesterday when the former Cheney communications director took …

Secrecy Is at Issue in Suits Opposing Spy Program  —  The Bush administration has employed extraordinary secrecy in defending the National Security Agency's highly classified domestic surveillance program from civil lawsuits.  Plaintiffs and judges' clerks cannot see its secret filings.

The vaulting ambition of America's Lady Macbeth  —  Hillary Clinton's shameless political reconstructive surgery  —  You can measure the scale of an American president's troubles by the number of skutniks he deploys during his State of the Union address.  —  Every year during …

Is Hollywood too timid for the war on terror?  —  Thanks to political correctness, you don't see much about the greatest conflict of our time on the big screen.  —  I RECENTLY attended "FBI 101," a G-man seminar for Hollywood writers.  I do this kind of thing a lot: law enforcement seminars …

Feingold Pushes Plan to Cut Off War Funds  —  Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has scheduled a hearing next Tuesday in his Judiciary Committee subcommittee to explore whether Congress has the authority to cut off funding for the U.S. military campaign in Iraq.  The move comes as Congress prepares …

The Meaning of Marty Peretz  —  (updated below - updated again)  —  I've written once before, several months ago, about the unbelievably overt anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bigotry that spews forth regularly from The New Republic Editor Marty Peretz, typically at his blog, Spine.

Energy Independence?  —  A Serious Plan Requires Taxes, ANWR and Nukes  —  Is there anything more depressing than yet another promise of energy independence in yet another State of the Union address?  By my count, 24 of the 34 State of the Union addresses since the oil embargo of 1973 have proposed solutions to our energy problem.

CAMPAIGN RHETORIC....Is soaring campaign rhetoric enough?  Atrios says this: … I agree completely, but I still think there's an important distinction to be made here between cheap campaign rhetoric and serious campaign rhetoric.  Among Republicans, cheap campaign rhetoric includes things …

Al Qaeda-Cowed Nation Persecutes U.S. Soldiers  —  A Spanish court last week issued a "search and capture" warrant against three soldiers involved in the Hotel Palestine incident, in which Spanish cameraman Jose Cuoso and Reuters's Taras Protsyuk were killed.  Not clear how this advances the matter from a warrant issued two years ago.