McConnell reaches out to Lieberman  —  Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has reached out to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) about the prospect of joining the Republican Conference, but Lieberman is still bargaining with Democratic leaders to keep his chairmanship, according to Senate aides in both parties.

Emanuel Was Director Of Freddie Mac During Scandal  —  New Obama Chief of Staff, Others on Board, Missed “Red Flags” of Alleged Fraud Scheme  —  President-elect Barack Obama's newly appointed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac …

Conservatives blame moderates for GOP losses  —  (CNN) — A conservative leader Friday laid the Republican Party's poor showing at the polls at the feet of moderates who, he argues, led the party away from its core principles.  —  Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council told CNN …

Juicy Bits Surfacing in Rather Case: In 2004, CBS Considered Matt Drudge, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter Independent Panel  —  This week, Dan Rather's legal team submitted a memorandum to the judge overseeing Mr. Rather's $70 million civil lawsuit against his former employers …

Franken's deficit: 236 votes  —  Sen. Norm Coleman's Democratic challenger is vowing to push ahead with a recount.  —  Just as Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was explaining to reporters the recount process in one of the narrowest elections in Minnesota history, an aide rushed in with news …

Obama Victory Alters the Tenor of Iraqi Politics  —  BAGHDAD — Barack Obama may have been elected only three days ago, but his victory is already beginning to shift the political ground in Iraq and the region.  —  Iraqi Shiite politicians are indicating that they will move faster toward …

Plouffe to the Senate?  —  Obama campaign manager David Plouffe speaks to the media in the spin room after the vice presidential debate at the Field House of Washington University's Athletic Complex on October 2, 2008 in St. Louis, Missouri.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A Butler Well Served by This Election  —  For 34 Years, Eugene Allen Carried White House Trays With Pride.  Now There's Even More Reason to Carry Himself That Way.  —  For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines.

Fox News Blames Obama For Stock Market Fall  —  The last two days on Wall Street “were the worst in the American stock market since 1987.”  The Dow Jones industrial average lost nearly 1,000 points and the S&P 500 “a broader measure of stocks, lost nearly 10 percent of its value.”

69% of GOP Voters Say Palin Helped McCain  —  Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Republican voters say Alaska Governor Sarah Palin helped John McCain's bid for the presidency, even as news reports surface that some McCain staffers think she was a liability.  —  Only 20% of GOP voters say Palin hurt …

Susan E. Rice  —  As he prepares to take office, President-elect Barack Obama is relying on a small team of advisers who will lead his transition operation and help choose the members of a new Obama administration.  Following is part of a series of profiles of potential members of the administration.

America Serves … The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation's challenges.  President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools …

DeMint urges GOP to expel Stevens  —  South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint is pushing his party's leadership to expel Sen. Ted Stevens from the Senate during this month's “lame duck” session, according to people familiar with his plans.  —  DeMint, one of the most conservative members of the Senate …

Campbell Brown rips McCain aides for blaming Palin for McCain loss: ‘You picked her.’  —  Recently, former McCain staffers have been leaking embarrassing information about Gov. Sarah Palin's cluelessness on foreign policy and her unprofessional behavior.  Top aide Steve Schmidt wouldn't say whether she was a good VP choice.

The Campaign Autopsy  —  In my previous life, I witnessed far more difficult postmortems.  This one is easy.  The patient was fatally stricken on Sept. 15 — caught in the rubble when the roof fell in (at Lehman Brothers, according to the police report) — although he did linger until his final, rather quiet demise on Nov. 4.

Friday Line: Republican Governors on the Rise  —  One of the few bright spots for Republicans on Tuesday came at the state level where all four incumbent GOP governors won reelection, including Indiana's Mitch Daniels and Vermont's Jim Douglas, who were targeted by national Democrats.

O'Reilly throws down the gauntlet in the War on Christmas.»  —  No time of the year is more merry for Bill O'Reilly than the “Christmas season,” because he can then go to war with his nemeses, the so-called “secular progressives.”  Last year, he kicked off the season on Nov. 9 …