Terror-War Fallout Lingers Over Bush Lawyers  —  WASHINGTON — When John C. Yoo, a former Justice Department lawyer, was selected by President George W. Bush in May 2004 to join a government board charged with releasing historical Nazi and Japanese war crimes records, trouble quickly followed.

Obama Aims to Shield Science From Politics  —  When President Obama lifts restrictions on funding for human embryonic stem cell research today, he will also issue a presidential memorandum aimed at insulating scientific decisions across the federal government from political influence, officials said yesterday.

Spitzer choked her during sex, says call girl  —  His political rivals used to accuse Eliot Spitzer of going for the jugular.  Now a new call girl is claiming the former governor literally went for hers — claiming he wrapped his fingers around her neck during some kinky role-playing.

President's Political Protector Is Ever Close at Hand  —  WASHINGTON — The pepperoni and cheese pizzas had been delivered, and a meeting about how to sell President Obama's economic plan was set to begin — not at the White House, but a few blocks away in the seventh-floor apartment of David Axelrod.

Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican)  —  Dear Republican Leaders: The Republican Party has become the party dedicated to sabotaging the American future.  Check out the sermon I just delivered about the Republican Party on CNN when being interviewed by D.L. Hughley — and/or read on.

Vatican defends Brazil excommunication  —  A senior Vatican cleric has defended the excommunication of the mother and doctors of a nine-year-old girl who had an abortion in Brazil after being raped.  —  Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Catholic church's Congregation for Bishops …

A Rising Dollar Lifts the U.S. but Adds to the Crisis Abroad  —  As the world is seized with anxiety in the face of a spreading financial crisis, the one place having a considerably easier time attracting money is, perversely enough, the same place that started much of the trouble: the United States.

G.O.P. Senators Say Some Big Banks Can Be Allowed to Fail  —  John McCain and Richard C. Shelby, two high-profile Republican senators, said on Sunday that the government should allow a number of the biggest American banks to fail.  —  “Close them down, get them out of business,” Mr. Shelby …

Diversions (III)  —  Remember the Iraq drawdown you heard about last month?  The one where a Brigade originally scheduled for Iraq was going to Afghanistan instead?  Well, a funny thing about that...  Last weekend we noted this obscure bit of news from ABC:

DAVID BROOKS GETS SHRILL.... Just yesterday I argued that respectable figures of the political establishment are reluctant to call obvious stupidity “stupid,” especially when it comes to truly painful ideas like a spending freeze in the midst of the economic crisis.

Democrats Have No Right To Be Snooty About Rush Not Wanting the President to Succeed  —  Let's put aside arguments about Rush Limbaugh for the time being and recognize that he's undeniably right about this: … I think we all know the answer to that — but here's some hard proof.

Behind the Curve  —  President Obama's plan to stimulate the economy was “massive,” “giant,” “enormous.”  So the American people were told, especially by TV news, during the run-up to the stimulus vote.  Watching the news, you might have thought that the only question was whether the plan was too big, too ambitious.

Obama throws critics by sticking to his word  —  WASHINGTON: Republicans and self-styled conservatives, like Captain Renault in “Casablanca,” are shocked - shocked - that President Barack Obama is trying to govern as candidate Obama promised he would.  —  They are disturbed that Obama's …

Where in the world is El Jefe?  —  Two bits of information regarding Jeff's doings tomorrow.  First, Michelle Malkin's going to give Jeff the opportunity to respond in his own post at Hot Air.  I'm not sure what time that will go up.  Second, he's going to be at Breitbart.TV again …

N. Korea warns intercepting ‘satellite’ will prompt counterstrike+ … North Korea warned Monday that any move to intercept what it calls a satellite launch and what other countries suspect may be a missile test-firing would result in a counterstrike against the countries trying to stop it.

“Cool to be bisexual”  —  Horrible story in today's Dallas Morning News about an East Texas man who survived the home invasion and slaughter of his wife and children, carried out by his and his wife's teenage daughter, Erin, and three of her friends (all of whom pled guilty in the matter).  Excerpt: