The Seinfeld Hearings  —  How Senators could, but probably won't, make the Sotomayor confirmation a show about something.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  If you suspect this week's Senate confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor will be, like “Seinfeld,” a show about nothing, you are probably right.

Palin's Long March to a Short-Notice Resignation  —  This article was reported by Jim Rutenberg from New York and Serge F. Kovaleski from Wasilla and Anchorage, Alaska.  Jo Becker reported from New York and Kim Severson and William Yardley from Wasilla and Anchorage.

Obama Faces a New Push to Look Back  —  President Obama is facing new pressure to reverse himself and to ramp up investigations into the Bush-era security programs, despite the political risks.  —  Leading Democrats on Sunday demanded investigations of how a highly classified counterterrorism program …

Hate Speech Against Malia Obama On Conservative Blogs Reported By Hate Speech Planting Journalist  —  We should've seen this coming: conservative blog Free Republic fired hate speech off at Malia Obama after this photo of her appeared, letting their commenters go to town.

Boiling the Frog  —  Is America on its way to becoming a boiled frog?  —  I'm referring, of course, to the proverbial frog that, placed in a pot of cold water that is gradually heated, never realizes the danger it's in and is boiled alive.  Real frogs will, in fact, jump out of the pot — but never mind.

Sudan women ‘lashed for trousers’  —  Several Sudanese women have been flogged as a punishment for dressing “indecently”, according to a local journalist who was arrested with them.  —  Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who says she is facing 40 lashes, said she and 12 other women wearing trousers …

Frenetic Pace, Packed Agenda Put West Wing Staffers Through Wringer  —  The White House mess — the military-inspired term for the West Wing cafeteria — opens at 7 a.m. each day.  And each day, there is a long line of hungry staffers who have already been at the office for well over an hour.

Obama to join Fox broadcast booth for All-Star Game … Barack Obama will be adding baseball broadcaster to his résumé.  SI.com learned Sunday that the President will join Fox Sports announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver during Tuesday's All-Star Game.

Ezra Klein, Concern Troll  —  Ezra Klein is concerned—or rather, he's “gripped” by an “unsettling thought”: … I agree with my distinguished colleague (and welcome him to the concern troll community).  He's woken to the realization that Obama is running into political difficulty …

Iran's Rumored Nicaraguan ‘Mega-Embassy’ Set Off Alarms in U.S.  —  MANAGUA, Nicaragua — For months, the reports percolated in Washington and other capitals.  Iran was constructing a major beachhead in Nicaragua as part of a diplomatic push into Latin America, featuring huge investment deals …

Obama's Other Wife  —  Blogs and Stories  —  Left behind on major presidential trips, overruled in choosing her own staff—Hillary Clinton is the invisible woman at State.  But Obama's brilliant foreign policy spouse may not stay silent forever.  —  It's time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.

The Primary Weapon  —  That's a nice Senate seat you've got there, Unspecified Moderate Democrat.  Shame if anything happened to it.  —  A few weeks ago, Senator Dianne Feinstein announced that she and other Senate Democrats harbored reservations about President Obama's plans to overhaul the health care system.

Obama Rewrites the Cold War  —  The President has a duty to stand up to the lies of our enemies.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  There are two different versions of the story of the end of the Cold War: the Russian version, and the truth.  President Barack Obama endorsed the Russian version in Moscow last week.

In the Shadows of “Our” Torture  —  Writing from her summer home in Borgo a Mozzano, Lucca, Italy  —  The subject of torture is not new.  It isn't new for Army Sergeant Joseph Darby who honorably brought the brutal photos of incidents of torture in Abu Ghraib to his commanding officer in January 2004.

Obama announces new surgeon general  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Obama has tapped Dr. Regina Benjamin to serve as surgeon general, a White House official said Monday.  The president is expected to announce his decision Monday morning.  —  The rural family physician has long provided medical care on the Gulf Coast.