Giving Up on God  —  As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit.  —  Three little letters, great big problem: G-O-D.  —  I'm bathing in holy water as I type.  —  To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing …

Emanuel Sets a Challenge  —  President-elect Barack Obama's incoming White House chief of staff challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won't be acceptable.

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt  —  IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye.  It won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.  —  Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself.

Obama's First Drama: Hillary Clinton  —  I was agnostic on the matter of Hillary Clinton's possible appointment as secretary of state—until last night.  —  If Barack Obama, the president-elect, wanted to pull a Team of Rivals play, that had seemed fine to me.

Al-Qaida No. 2 insults Obama with racial epithet … CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.

Supreme Court takes up gay marriage issue  —  The California Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to consider complaints by opponents of Proposition 8 that it improperly revised the constitution to ban gay marriage.  The court declined to stay its enforcement in the meantime.

Boehner, McCotter prevail; Sessions takes over NRCC  —  House Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and Thaddeus McCotter (Mich.) held on to their GOP leadership positions Wednesday while Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas) is taking over Rep. Tom Cole's (Okla.) post.  —  During mostly predictable …

Stevens concedes race  —  (CNN) - Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has conceded defeat to Democratic challenger Mark Begich in the Alaska Senate race.  —  Stevens, 85, was the longest serving Republican senator in the chamber's history.  —  “Given the number of ballots that remain to be counted …

Democratic Steering Panel Chooses Waxman Over Dingell  —  The House Democratic Steering Committee has nominated Henry A. Waxman to be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next year — a stinging rebuke of the sitting chairman, John D. Dingell .

Hooray for Holder  —  Eric Holder looks like Obama's pick for attorney general.  I've been impressed by him ever since interviewing him in the '90s, when he was U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and identified the phenomenon of the single “unreachable” D.C. juror …

Huckabee on Palin: 'She Didn't Have to Get Bloodied'  —  Laura Meckler reports from Washington on politics.  —  Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, a once and possibly future presidential candidate, admires his fellow social conservative, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.  Really.

It's Time to Give Voters the Liberalism They Want  —  Don't believe pundits who say there's a centrist mandate.  —  It is possible, I suppose, that the pundits are right and the public didn't really mean it when it elected a liberal Democrat president and gave Democrats even larger majorities in both houses of Congress.

Election surprise: Obama won Salt Lake County voters' nod  —  Politics » Democrats say win is a big step for party's plans in Beehive State.  —  Updated election results released Tuesday show that Salt Lake County voters favored Barack Obama over John McCain — but just barely …