Modern Flourishes at Obamas' State Dinner  —  WASHINGTON — It is an old tradition, a White House dinner governed by ritual and protocol that happens to be this city's hottest social event.  But at their first state dinner on Tuesday night, President Obama and his wife, Michelle …

Phil Carter's resignation from key detainee policy post  —  Phillip Carter is a lawyer, a former Army Captain, a veteran of the Iraq War and a very harsh critic of the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies.  He was a vigorous supporter of Barack Obama's campaign …

Obama to Go to Copenhagen With Pledge of Emissions Cuts  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama is pledging a provisional target for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, the first time an American administration offered even a tentative promise to reduce production of climate-altering gases …

Dobbs Reaches Out to Latinos  —  Former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, pondering a future in politics, is trying to wipe away his image as an enemy of Latino immigrants by positioning himself as a champion of that fast-growing ethnic bloc.  —  Mr. Dobbs, who left the network last week …

Bob Ainsworth criticises Barack Obama over Afghanistan  —  Bob Ainsworth, the defence secretary, has blamed Barack Obama and the United States for the decline in British public support for the war in Afghanistan.  —  Mr Ainsworth took the unprecedented step of publicly criticising …

How a letter from 1964 shows what's wrong with the Senate today  —  One of the challenges in arguing about the use of the filibuster is that the filibuster has changed drastically in recent decades, but it's done so quietly.  Quietly enough that people don't really understand that it's changed at all.

Google won't exclude distorted Michelle Obama image from its site  —  ‘We have, in general, a bias toward free speech,’ a Google spokesman says, explaining that offensiveness alone is not a reason to remove the image from the search index.  —  A crudely altered photograph of Michelle Obama …

The Uncertainty Economy  —  Tim Geithner is not the Democrats' biggest problem.  —  Printer  —  Friendly  —  Preparing to write about yesterday's downward revision in third-quarter GDP, we were tempted to say the Obama Administration has hit a speed-bump on its promised exit out of the recession.

The Fed's Perverse Search for an Exit Strategy  —  People who purport to be concerned about the budget deficit really ought to be spending more time worrying about what the Fed is doing.  It's very difficult, after all, to see how we're going to stick to PAYGO rules in the medium-term if we have persistent high unemployment.

Help Wanted, No Private Sector Experience Required  —  A friend sends along the following chart from a J.P. Morgan research report.  It examines the prior private sector experience of the cabinet officials since 1900 that one might expect a president to turn to in seeking advice about helping the economy.

Palin Suggests Reforming Canada's Universal Health Care System: ‘Let The Private Sector Take Over’  —  Canadian comedian Mary Walsh (playing the character of Marg Delahunty) attended a Sarah Palin book signing in the United States last week and asked the “thrilla from Wasilla, the Alaskan Aphrodite” …

The behavioral economics of Thanksgiving  —  This column originally appeared in the Food section.  —  It happens every year.  It's not that you resolve to be virtuous on Thanksgiving, just reasonable.  Two plates of food, and no more.  One piece of pie, and that's enough.

Approval of Obama on Afghan war dives  —  WASHINGTON — Public approval of President Obama's handling of the war in Afghanistan has plummeted, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, amid rising pessimism about the course of the conflict.  —  The nation is divided over what to do next …

REPORT: At Least 40 GOP Lawmakers Fail A Principle Of The ‘Purity Test’  —  Yesterday, Republican National Committee member Jim Bopp unveiled a resolution to deny funding of candidates who do not uphold right-wing conservative values.  The resolution, termed a “purity test,” …

The White House's unprecedented use of ‘unprecedented’  —  The Obama White House is addicted to the “unprecedented.”  —  Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration …

Thanks for the Memories  —  At his Cabinet meeting Monday afternoon, President Obama took a moment to give thanks to his team.  —  Sipping a glass of water, the president offered special gratitude to the woman on his right.  —  “I advised this hard-working Cabinet to get a little bit of rest this week …

Climategate: Alarmism Is Underpinned by Fraud (PJM Exclusive)  —  A decorated scientist and author of the most influential book debunking global warming joins Viscount Monckton in calling the CRU behavior criminal.  (Also read Roger L. Simon: Climategate and the “T” Word)

Netanyahu declares 10-month settlement freeze ‘to restart peace talks’  —  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Wednesday evening that Israel would impose a 10-month freeze on construction in West Bank settlements, saying the move was a bid to restart stalled peace talks with the Palestinians.

Analysis: Obama makes decisions slowly, and with head, not gut  —  President George W. Bush once boasted, “I'm not a textbook player, I'm a gut player.”  The new tenant of the Oval Office takes a strikingly different approach.  President Obama is almost defiantly deliberative …

Climategate: MSM Writers Try to Ignore Scandal in Global Warming Stories But Readers Bring Them Back to Reality  —  An hilariously bizarre situation is happening in the wake of the growing Climategate scandal.  Many of the mainstream media stories about global warming are simply pretending it doesn't exist.