Kristol Mess?  It's Official —'NYT' Explains Hiring New ‘Op-Ed’ Wag  —  NEW YORK A day after the Huffington Post first reported it, The New York Times has announced that it has indeed hired conservative pundit, and Fox News analyst, Bill Kristol, as a new regular op-ed columnist.

Thompson: Doesn't like campaign process, ‘will not be devastated’ if he loses  —  Bill Theobald of Gannett News Service has been following Republican Fred Thompson around Iowa.  In a dispatch today from Burlington, Bill quotes the former Tennessee senator as saying he doesn't like modern campaigning …

Paul: Fox News is ‘scared of me’  —  PLAISTOW, N.H. — Ron Paul said the decision to exclude him from a debate on Fox News Sunday the weekend before the New Hampshire Primary is proof that the network “is scared” of him.  —  “They are scared of me and don't want my message to get out …

Days Before Voting, Gloves Come Off  —  DES MOINES — In the last weekend before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican presidential candidates are bloodying the field with a blizzard of negative attacks, showing the strains of a wide-open and unpredictable race.

Bill Clinton Won't Attend NSC Meetings in a Hillary White House  —  ABC News' Jonathan Greenberger reports: If she makes it to the White House, Sen. Hillary Clinton said today her husband will take on the same responsibilities as traditional presidential spouses, with no access to National Security Council meetings.

Bipartisan Group Eyes Independent Bid  —  First, Main Candidates Urged To Plan ‘Unity’ Government  —  New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans …

Vatican denies exorcist expansion  —  The Vatican is denying reports it plans to install more exorcists around the world so possessed people can get help quickly.  —  “Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession …

Shake, Rattle and Roil the Grand Ol' Coalition  —  AS a Republican presidential primary candidate, Mike Huckabee is a puzzle.  —  A Southern Baptist pastor and thoroughgoing social conservative, Mr. Huckabee has struck a distinctly populist chord when it comes to economics.

Tapes by C.I.A. Lived and Died to Save Image  —  WASHINGTON — If Abu Zubaydah, a senior operative of Al Qaeda, died in American hands, Central Intelligence Agency officers pursuing the terrorist group knew that much of the world would believe they had killed him.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S DUMBEST LEGAL ARGUMENTS OF THE YEAR.  —  This time last year, I offered up a top 10 list of the most appalling civil-liberties violations by the Bush administration in 2006.  The grim truth is, not much has changed.  The Bush administration continues to limit our basic freedoms …

Immigration Is Defying Easy Answers  —  New immigration and the political reaction against it are nearly as old as the United States itself.  Yet the immigration surge of the last decade has awakened tensions of unexpected intensity that have pervaded the presidential campaigns of both parties …

Bhutto Killing Puts EuroLeaders On Notice: Time to Choose  —  The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has put on notice the leaders of every European nation.  —  Your secularism, your democracy will not stand.  The growing Muslim populations in your own lands that you have done so much to tolerate …

IDF: Chemicals were disguised as EU aid  —  The IDF and Shin Bet uncovered 6.5 tons of potassium nitrate hidden in sacks that were disguised as aid from the European Union, the army announced on Saturday.  —  Security forces discovered the stash in the cargo of a Palestinian truck at a West Bank checkpoint earlier in December.

Noonan defines ‘reasonable’  —  The WSJ's Peggy Noonan argues today that her top characteristic when evaluating presidential candidates is “reasonableness."  The former Reagan speechwriter insists: “We are grown-ups.... We'd like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world …