Reid vows to lead till at least 2015  —  Harry Reid vowed Tuesday that he'll lead the Senate until 2015 and beyond, taunting Republicans who'd like to unseat him and dashing the hopes of Democrats who'd like to succeed him.  —  The Nevada Democrat, who is up for reelection in 2010 …

Blair House Mystery Solved: It's John Howard  —  The veil is lifted.  We now know who is booked at Blair House, kicking President-elect Barack Obama and his family to the waiting list and across Lafayette Park to the Hay-Adams Hotel.  —  The only overnight visitor at the presidential guest manse …

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?

Obama Is Under Fire Over Panetta Selection  —  Current, Ex-CIA Officials Criticize ‘Opaque’ Process  —  President-elect Barack Obama said yesterday that he has selected a “top-notch intelligence team” that would provide the “unvarnished” information his administration needs, rather than “what they think the president wants to hear.”

Obama Warns of Trillion-Dollar Deficit Potential  —  WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday braced Americans for the unparalleled prospect of “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come,” a stark assessment of the budgetary outlook that he said would force his administration …

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.

CIA Man: Spies' Reaction to Panetta ‘Overwhelmingly Negative’  —  A retired senior CIA operations officer who quit last summer after 20 years tracking terrorists says the rank-and-file reaction to President-elect Obama's choice of Leon E.Panetta to run the spy agency has been “overwhelmingly negative.”

Synagogue set ablaze and anti-Semitic assaults soar in UK following Israel's invasion of Gaza … The number of anti-Semitic attacks in London has risen sharply following Israel's land assault on Gaza, Jewish community groups said today.  —  Their leaders have compiled a dossier of attacks …

For Israel, 2006 Lessons but Old Pitfalls  —  JERUSALEM — This time, Israeli military commanders are leading from the front, not trying to direct the infantry from television screens.  This time, the military has clear plans, in stages, drawn up with a year's preparation.

The DOJ pursues the “real criminal” in the NSA spying scandal  —  There are few viewpoints, if there are any, which trigger more fervent agreement across the political and media establishment than the view that George Bush, Dick Cheney and other top officials should not be criminally investigated …

The End of White America?  —  ANOTHER MOMENT FROM The Great Gatsby: as Fitzgerald's narrator and Gatsby drive across the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, a car passes them, and Nick Carraway notices that it is a limousine “driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish negroes, two bucks and a girl.”

HBO lands rights to inaugural ceremony  —  NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - HBO will kick off coverage of Inauguration Week with an exclusive Sunday, January 18, telecast of the star-studded opening ceremony, two days before the saturation coverage of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration begins in earnest.

How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe  —  The only way to make sense of Israel's senseless war in Gaza is through understanding the historical context.  Establishing the state of Israel in May 1948 involved a monumental injustice to the Palestinians.

Militant Islam Threatens Us All  —  Hamas rockets have the same terror goal as Hitler's blitz.  —  Imagine a siren that gives you 30 seconds to find shelter before a Kassam rocket falls from the sky and explodes, spraying its lethal shrapnel in all directions.

ABC: Anything But Cole  —  Juan Cole is running two campaigns on his blog.  One is against Israel—business as usual for Cole.  The other is promoting his blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards competition (Middle East category), where there are ten finalists (I am one).

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 …

‘Hamas has nothing left but rockets’  —  Defense officials estimate Hamas infrastructure sustained serious hit, but organization is rationing its rocket caches in order not to deplete them too soon.  Organization's officials operating under perception that Israel has crossed all lines and means business