Specter faces make-or-break shift as challenge looms  —  Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) does not have the fall-back option of running as an independent should he lose his 2010 primary election, giving the senior lawmaker strong incentive to abandon his party this year.

Honeymoon In Hell  —  Amid all the gloom, Obama gets high marks in the latest NEWSWEEK poll, with the GOP in the doghouse.  —  Despite the tumbling economy, Barack Obama continues to enjoy a honeymoon with the American public in the face of the most trying crisis any newly inaugurated president …

Chas Freeman and 9/11  —  How important has resentment of Israel been to Al Qaeda's terrorism?  Here is one side of the argument, by an American who knows Saudi Arabia well: … And here is the opposing view, by an American who knows the Kingdom equally well: … So now you've heard two sides of the debate.

George W. Obama?  —  Washington has spent the past couple of weeks debating whether Barack Obama's ambitious agenda and political strategy are more comparable to those of Franklin Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan.  Oddly, hardly anyone is talking about the ways in which Obama is beginning to resemble the man who just vacated the White House.

Hillary Clinton left red-faced by Moscow gift translation gaffe  —  Russian media have been poking fun at the US secretary of state over a translation error on a gift she presented to her Russian counterpart.  —  Hillary Clinton gave Sergei Lavrov a mock “reset” button, symbolising US hopes to mend frayed ties with Moscow.

Obama to visit Turkey in next few weeks  —  ANKARA, Turkey (CNN) — President Obama plans to visit Turkey in about a month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday.  —  Clinton was holding talks in Ankara with officials “to emphasize the work the United States and Turkey must …

Obama's economic saviour savaged as Keating lets rip  —  When Barack Obama announced his champion to rescue the world from economic ruin, it was the first time most Americans had ever heard the name Tim Geithner.  —  The initial impression was good.  The stockmarket surged and the pundits swooned.

Obama Ponders Outreach to Elements of the Taliban  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama declared in an interview that the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq.

Preventing a judicial ruling on the power to imprison without charges  —  After being held in captivity as an accused “enemy combatant” by the U.S. Government for more than five years without charges or a trial of any kind, Ali Al-Marri — who was a legal resident in the U.S. and was on U.S. soil …

Obama Channels Cheney  —  Obama adopts Bush view on the powers of the presidency.  —  The Obama Administration this week released its predecessor's post-9/11 legal memoranda in the name of “transparency,” producing another round of feel-good Bush criticism.

‘Mafia Cops’ Get Life, and Their Pensions  —  A side door swung open, and the two retired police detectives, dressed in shapeless prison scrubs, walked into the courtroom.  They looked as if they had been shipwrecked.  —  Nearly three years ago, the two men, Stephen Caracappa and Louis J. Eppolito …

Shoe reportedly thrown at Iranian president Ahmadinejad  —  Protest allegedly happened as president waved to crowds from an open-top car in the Iranian city of Urumiye  —  When the Iraqi journalist, Muntazar al-Zaidi, hurled his shoes at the then-US president, George Bush, in December …