I want to play poker with Harry Reid.  Really I do.  —  Rather than call for a special election in Illinois, Reid sends a letter to Blagojevich signed by everyone in the Democratic caucus asking him to step down.  They assert that they will not seat anyone he appoints.  —  Harumph.

White House Asked Howard To Stay In Blair House To Give ‘Some Plausible Reason’ For Refusing Obama  —  In December, President-elect Obama asked the White House if he and his family could move into Blair House — the White House's guest house — a week early, so that his daughters Malia and Sasha could start school.

Porn industry seeks federal bailout  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Another major American industry is asking for assistance as the global financial crisis continues: Hustler publisher Larry Flynt and Girls Gone Wild CEO Joe Francis said Wednesday they will request that Congress allocate $5 billion …

Joe the Plumber to become war correspondent  —  TOLEDO, Ohio - Joe The Plumber is putting down his wrenches and picking up a reporter's notebook.  —  The Ohio man who became a household name during the presidential campaign says he is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site pjtv.com.

Fiasco at the Army War College  —  Did faculty members at the Army War College curtail their criticism of the Iraq war for fear of institutional retaliation?  —  That seems to be the bottom line in a situation I stumbled across just a few days ago.  A friend passed along a 2005 e-mail note …

Stop Juan Cole  —  Juan Cole is decrying all the neocons he's forced to compete with in the 2008 Weblog Awards for Best Middle East or Africa Blog.  He thinks Helena Cobban — a deranged Hezbollah supporter — should have been nominated instead of someone like me.

McCain Starts ‘Country First’ PAC  —  Less than two weeks from the inauguration that he hoped would usher in his own presidential administration, Senator John McCain announced the formation of a new political action committee that will work to promote Republican causes.

Kemp diagnosed with cancer  —  Former GOP vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp, 73, has been diagnosed with cancer.  —  According to a statement from his consulting firm, Kemp Partners, doctors are still testing Kemp before determining a course of treatment.

Sweet on Caroline  —  Ask not, you know, what your country can, like, do for you.  Ask what you, um, can, you know, do for your country.  —  After a lifetime of shying away from the public spotlight, Caroline Kennedy asked herself what she could do for her country.

IDF steps up anti-tunnel ops, warns civilians to vacate area  —  The IDF stepped up its operations against weapons smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor on Wednesday night after dropping flyers on Rafah urging residents of the town living near the corridor to vacate the area.

Protester Calls for Jews to ‘Go Back to the Oven’ at Anti-Israel Demonstration  —  Like many other protests of Israel's campaign in Gaza, this one ended badly — police had to cool an ugly fight between supporters of Israel and Gaza, breaking up the warring sides as their screaming and chanting threatened to turn into something worse.

PARTISAN SELF-DECEPTION.  —  Matt Yglesias notes that left-of-center commentary has been notably more pessimistic on the state of the economy than right-of-center commentary.  He offers three hypotheses (left-wing positions are psychologically correlated to pessimism, pessimism was correct …

The Mideast's Ground Zero  —  The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch.  But it's all too familiar.  It's the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: “Who owns this hotel?  Can the Jews have a room?

Get out of the way, you old fogies  —  Warning: This column is replete with ageism — a hazardous prejudice to have in a nation growing progressively older.  —  The average American's life expectancy (or, as it's referred to in Washington, the “junior senator") is now a crusty 77 years.

CEO Eric Schmidt wishes he could rescue newspapers.  —  (Fortune Magazine) — Metaphorically speaking, Google is killing the newspaper industry.  Online news is quickly hollowing out the traditional paper - the Christian Science Monitor eliminates its print edition, Tribune Co. declares bankruptcy …

A Job Too Big for One Man to Fill  —  IN 2009 four new senators will slip into office — all in violation of the Constitution, which requires a special election to fill a Senate vacancy.  Colorado, Delaware, hapless Illinois and star-struck New York will have senators “elected” by a single voter, the governors who appoint them.

Team Sarah Infiltrated  —  Administrators of Team Sarah have uncovered evidence on a left-wing online thread that some Internet trolls sought to discredit the organization by posing as conservative racists on Team Sarah's forums.  —  Team Sarah, an online community supportive of Gov. Sarah Palin …

Dumbness on the First Day  —  Over 400 bills were proposed by congressional members on the first day of business yesterday.  Jim Harper offers up some of his “favorites”.  Here are ones that stuck out in my mind: … Who were the most prolific bill writers?  In the House: … In the Senate: