The Elephant in the Room: McCain may be Obama's secret weapon  —  A desire by both men to secure their places in history might forge an unlikely pairing.  —  I have been to New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Washington in recent weeks.  In those cities, at least, you cannot watch the news …

US Airways Jet Ditches in Hudson, All Safe  —  A US Airways plane that took off Thursday at 3:26 p.m. from La Guardia Airport landed in the Hudson River five minutes later, where it remains nearly submerged.  Ferries and other boats converged to help with a rescue effort, as the plane drifted south in the water.

Holder to Senate: ‘Waterboarding is torture’  —  Obama's nominee for attorney general vows break with controversial tactic  —  Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder and Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., shake hands just prior to Holder's confirmation hearing on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Commitee.

10 Take Aways From the Bush Years  —  There's actually a lot that President-elect Barack Obama can learn from the troubled presidency of George W. Bush.  Over the past eight years, I have interviewed President Bush for nearly 11 hours, spent hundreds of hours with his administration's key players …

What if I didn't pay taxes?  —  Would it be OK if I stopped paying my taxes until Barack Obama names me to be his secretary of the treasury?  —  That is a deal I would like to get.  That is the deal financial wizard Timothy Geithner got.  —  He didn't pay all of his federal taxes for years.

Intelligence Court Rules Wiretapping Power Legal  —  WASHINGTON — A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, issued a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order …

Israel Shells UN Headquarters In Gaza  —  GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Israel shelled the United Nations headquarters in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, engulfing the compound and the main warehouse in fire and destroying thousands of pounds of food and humanitarian supplies intended for Palestinian refugees.

Obama To Hold Fiscal Responsibility Summit  —  President-elect Barack Obama visits the Post newsroom after a meeting with the editorial board and Washington Post Co. Chairman Don Graham, right.  (Photo, The Washington Post)  —  President-elect Barack Obama will convene a “fiscal responsibility summit” …

Filling Her Senate Seat: New Yorkers Favor Cuomo to Replace Clinton  —  This Marist Poll reports:  —  · New Yorkers Clamor for Cuomo...Kennedy Stagnates in Pool of Public Opinion: The tides of support have changed in the contest over who voters think should fill Hillary Clinton's vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Vitter casts lone vote against Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State.»  —  Today, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 16-1 to approve President-elect Obama's nomination of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.  Casting the sole “nay” vote was Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) …

O'Reilly Freaks Out Over the Thought of Holding Bush Admin Torturers Culpable  —  Bill O'Reilly came briefly unhinged last night, but managed to keep himself from having one of his infamous all-out temper tantrums.  I thought for sure he was about to start shouting, “Do it live!  F—k it!

West Wing ‘Ghost Town’  —  From long-time ABC News White House correspondent Ann Compton:  —  President and Mrs. Bush fly to Camp David Friday afternoon for a final weekend in the rustic seclusion of “the Camp.”  Over the next 36 hours, White House staffers will go through the behind …

Iran Wields The Gavel At The UNDP  —  What do Obama and Susan Rice propose to do about this?  —  Truly, I had plans to write this week about something other than the United Nations.  But over at Turtle Bay, here they go again.  —  To chair the 2009 governing board of the U.N.'s flagship agency …

Of Judges, By Judges, For Judges  —  In November, 13,402,566 California voters expressed themselves for or against Proposition 8, which said that their state's Constitution should be amended to define marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman.  The voters, confident that they had a right …

Vince Foster, Fifteen Years Later  —  I was looking over a daily almanac and saw that Vincent Foster would have been 64 years old today.  In the 1990s, I spent a lot of time covering his death, beginning with trip to Fort Marcy Park the morning after his body was discovered.

Where Sweatshops Are a Dream  —  Before Barack Obama and his team act on their talk about “labor standards,” I'd like to offer them a tour of the vast garbage dump here in Phnom Penh.  —  This is a Dante-like vision of hell.  It's a mountain of festering refuse, a half-hour hike across …

Obama Visits Post Newsroom  —  Here's the President-elect walking directly toward me in the Post newsroom a few minutes ago, but tragically unfocused on his favorite blogger — clearly more interested in the colleague on my left, the fabulous Lonnae O'Neal Parker.

A Diplomat's View  —  I spoke yesterday to Aaron David Miller, author of The Much Too Promised Land and a former adviser to six different Secretaries of State, about the fallout from the war in Gaza and what, if anything, Barack Obama can do to revive the hopes for peace.

Torture's Blowback  —  Susan Crawford, the senior Pentagon official who dismissed charges against Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Guantánamo detainee, said in a published report on Wednesday that she had concluded that he had been tortured by interrogators.  “His treatment met the legal definition of torture.