Cheney: Obama ‘trying to pretend’  —  Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of “trying to pretend we are not at war” with terrorists, pointing to the White House response to the attempted sky bombing as reflecting a pattern that includes banishing the term …

As the Nation's Pulse Races, Obama Can't Seem to Find His  —  I was walking through a deserted downtown on Christmas Eve with a friend, past the lonely, gray Treasury Building, past the snowy White House with no president inside.  —  “I hope the terrorists don't think this is a good time to attack …

Al-Qaeda ‘groomed Abdulmutallab in London’  —  Sean O'Neill, Crime and Security Editor and Giles Whittell in Washington  —  The Christmas Day airline bomb plot suspect organised a conference under the banner “War on Terror Week” as he immersed himself in radical politics while a student in London, The Times has learnt.

Poll: Americans most admire Obama, Clinton, Palin  —  WASHINGTON — President Obama is the man Americans admired most in 2009, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are virtually tied as the most-admired woman.

EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS GOOD NEWS FOR REPUBLICANS.... If facts, history, evidence, and reality have no meaning whatsoever — and they may not — then this makes sense. … By all appearances, it doesn't matter if the Republican attacks are baseless and ridiculous.  It doesn't matter if Republican national security policies failed.

Somali held last month with chemicals, syringe  —  ‘We caught him red-handed,’ official says after arrest in Mogadishu airport  —  MOGADISHU, Somalia - A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused …

Rich Cling to Life to Beat Tax Man  —  Nothing's certain except death and taxes — but a temporary lapse in the estate tax is causing a few wealthy Americans to try to bend those rules.  —  Starting Jan. 1, the estate tax — which can erase nearly half of a wealthy person's estate — goes away for a year.

Debate Over Full-Body Scans vs. Invasion of Privacy Flares Anew After Incident  —  The technology exists to reveal objects hidden under clothes at airport checkpoints, and many experts say it would have detected the explosive packet carried aboard the Detroit-bound flight last week.

Bunker Mentality  —  Barack Obama's dangerous obsession with golf.  —  It's been a tough first year for President Obama, as critics throughout the body politic bemoan that Mr. Change-We-Can-Believe-In is looking more and more like Mr. Politics-As-Usual.  With the coming new year, however …

Beleaguered Nelson to air TV ad tonight  —  As a fresh poll measured the political cost of Sen. Ben Nelson's health reform vote, he prepared Tuesday to take his case directly to Nebraskans during Wednesday night's Holiday Bowl game.  —  Nelson will air a new TV ad in which he attempts …

GMAC Expects $3B More in Federal Aid  —  Bailout Infusion by Government Slated to Help Troubled Automotive Lender Achieve Required $11.5B Financial Cushion  —  (AP) The U.S. government was moving ahead Wednesday on a fresh multibillion dollar cash infusion to stabilize auto financing company …

Dutch to use full body scans for U.S. flights  —  (CNN) — Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport will begin using body scanners on all passengers taking flights to the United States following the attempted terrorist attack on a U.S.-bound flight on Christmas Day, the Dutch interior minister said Wednesday.

Move Your Money: A New Year's Resolution  —  Last week, over a pre-Christmas dinner, the two of us, along with political strategist Alexis McGill, filmmaker/author Eugene Jarecki, and Nick Penniman of the HuffPost Investigative Fund, began talking about the huge, growing chasm between …

SIGHTINGS AND MOMENTS FROM THE DAY  —  Matt Cooper, the former Time reporter involved in the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation, has found a new gig — and it's not in journalism.  —  Cooper, who was working at The Atlantic and Talking Points Memo, has signed onto the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission as a senior adviser.

E-mails inside AIG reveal executives struggling with growing crisis  —  The probing e-mails came from every direction inside insurance giant American International Group during the summer and fall of 2007, all with the same underlying question:  —  Could Joe Cassano back up his assurances …