Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong (re)opened the door to a possible political run in an interview posted yesterday at The Daily Beast.

Is there a future for Lance Armstrong in politics?

If you feel like you can do the job better than people who are doing it now, and you can really make a difference, then that’s a real calling to serve, and I think you have to do that. I felt a strong desire to come back and race right now because I felt we had a place and I could have a real impact and that’s why I’m doing it. I don’t think you want to enter political life unless you really think you can really have an impact. Don’t do it for a bet, or a dare or for your ego. Or for any other competitive desire you have. Do it because you can get in there and change people’s lives. That’s why you do it. So, there will come a time, or not, that I say to myself, “You know what, I can help affect change.” And if that day comes, then absolutely.

Your life these days is really about leveraging talent on the broadest stage possible, right?

Yeah, but it can also be on a small stage. Being a parent is important. Not that that’s a small stage, but it’s micro level. You can help raise your children. You can lead the state of Texas. You can be mayor of a city. You can run for the Senate. You can lead a cycling team. You can run a non-profit.

Armstrong, a cancer survivor, recently campaigned for a cancer research initiative in Texas that passed this past November. If Armstrong does run for governor or a Senate seat, the native Texan would probably run as a Democrat, though he counts President Bush as a personal friend. In 2003, the Washington Post reported he opposed the war in Iraq, and he is reportedly pro-choice and pro-gun control.

Armstong would also enter an already crowded field of all-star candidates for both races. Popular senior senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is widely expected to step down from the Senate to run for governor.

Perry has led the state since George W. Bush won the presidency in 2000. If he decides to run for a third full term in 2010, a bloody GOP primary may leave the Republican nominee vulnerable to a popular Democratic challenger.

Netanyahu defends Israel's right to self-defense.

Continetti defends George W. Bush.

Why the Israeli people have finally had enough.

How a neocon theme accidentally slipped into a Hollywood film on the Gulf war.

The conservative restoration begins: Joe the Plumber will serve as war correspondent in Israel.

Dianne Feinstein opposes my right to choose to cope with celebrate Obamamania by drinking into the wee hours of the morning.

The affable Roland Burris was out and about on the Hill again today, as the political winds of a Washington January started to shift decidedly in his favor. He held his second press conference in as many days, regaling the press with tales of Jimmy Carter's endorsement and keeping a straight face while calling Harry Reid a "charming" man.

The sheer gumption of Blago and Burris, combined with Bobby Rush's dirty work dropping the race card while Roland was left to schmooze his way through town— the whole thing has left Senate Democrats flummoxed, and the rest of the nation thoroughly entertained by the antics of the 111th Congress.

Right now, Burris' seating sounds contingent on two things: 1) An Illinois Supreme Court decision about whether Illinois Sec. of State Jesse White's signature on a certificate of election is absolutely necessary for his seating, and 2) Burris' testimony in front of the impeachment committee in Illinois about his involvement with Blagojevich.

White had refused to sign Burris' certification back when everyone was tossing him around like Sen. Hot Potato. Now, that he's Sen. Hot-to-Trot on the Hill, laughing with reporters, meeting with Reid and Durbin, and getting distant compliments from Obama, White is changing his tune, too. He now suggests that the Senate is using him as a "fall guy," and could have seated Burris without his signature.

Durbin urged the Illinois Supreme Court to act quickly on this matter. Seating Burris without a signed certificate would open the door to doing the same for another would-be Democratic Senator— Al Franken, who will have to wait until Norm Coleman's lawsuits have run their course to get his from the state of Minnesota. Reid is, of course, anxious to seat Franken regardless of Coleman's legal contests, but seating Burris without a certificate would make that awkward display of Tuesday look even more silly and counterproductive than it already does.

Assuming Burris' testimony for the impeachment committee in Illinois is forthcoming, and reveals that he was involved in none of the pay-to-play antics of Blago, it seems Harry Reid is more than happy to move on this:

"He's going to go answer any other questions they might have. He's not trying to avoid any responsibility and trying to hide anything," said Reid (D-Nev.) "Once that's done, we'll be in a different position and see what we are going to do."

The "taint" both Reid and Obama alleged would imperil any appointment made by Blago suddenly sounds like it will be wiped out by Burris' cooperation in the impeachment proceedings. My, how things have changed. This is Reid's take on a Blago appointment from a letter he and the Democratic caucus drafted the week of Blago's arrest:

We write to insist that you step down as Governor of Illinois and under no circumstance make an appointment to fill the vacant Illinois Senate seat," the letter reads. "In light of your arrest yesterday on alleged federal corruption charges related to that Senate seat, any appointment by you would raise serious questions."

Oops. Obama's past statements are equally forceful:

"Roland Burris is a good man and a fine public servant, but the Senate Democrats made it clear weeks ago that they cannot accept an appointment made by a governor who is accused of selling this very Senate seat. I agree with their decision, and it is extremely disappointing that Governor Blagojevich has chosen to ignore it. I believe the best resolution would be for the Governor to resign his office and allow a lawful and appropriate process of succession to take place. While Governor Blagojevich is entitled to his day in court, the people of Illinois are entitled to a functioning government and major decisions free of taint and controversy," said President-elect Obama.

Today, in true Obama fashion, he said Burris was a "Senate matter," despite the fact that he's the only man in the Democratic Party with the power to have gotten Illinois and national Democrats on the same page, and orchestrated something less ridiculous than this outcome. Meanwhile, Dianne Feinstein voiced her opinion that Burris should be seated, despite having signed Reid's letter last month. And, Dick Durbin, who called for a special election right out of the box after Blago's arrest, has been making nice between Reid and Burris.

The bottom line is Democrats were never on solid legal ground when it came to blocking Burris from the Senate, and they knew it. What they did not know was that Blagojevich would have the gumption to appoint someone, and that the man he appointed would have the gumption to come to Washington to demand his seat in front of a bevy of video cameras.

Oops. Now, Harry Reid has writers on Huffington Post calling for him to get out of leadership, and he's been reduced to insisting to the Politico that he hasn't been out-maneuvered by Burris.

Asked if he regretted so stridently defending his initial decision to block Burris from being seated, the Leader shot back: "If you didn't know anything it doesn't look very good," referring to the circumstances of the appointment.

Blago, after all, had been taped describing Obama's vacated seat "an effin' gold mine!" Reid explained.

That set reporters and staffers to snickering under the ornate chandelier of the Capitol's LBJ room.

Floating around on the Hill are several deals that might have been made behind the scenes to seat Burris:

Cut a Deal: The most oft-mentioned solution to the current problem is for Reid and Burris to cut a deal that allows the latter to be seated and the former to keep his word. Among the deals floated by Fix sources: Burris agrees to serve out the remaining two years on Obama's term but not seek reelection in 2010 and Burris serves as a "shadow senator" (in the words of one Democratic operative) -- meaning he can participate in meetings and serve on committees but has no vote in the Senate; and Reid grants Burris lifetime floor privileges and lets him be sworn in and serve for a week, in exchange for his resignation.

The first seems the most likely. Burris seems so clearly to hold the cards, why would he accept a shadow senator position or agree to resign? The 111th Congress, having first blocked the only black Senator from the floor is likely to avoid letting him in with limited voting rights, thereby averting another Bobby Rush "Jim Crow" or "plantation" reference.

Reid and Co. want desperately to take care of this thing before the Congress has to tackle a stimulus package. Mr. Burris came to Washington on solid legal ground, acted sane, ingratiated himself to the right people, and the only man who could have stopped him backed away from the situation and said, "Good luck, Senate."

It's an interesting peek at how the 111th Congress will coordinate with their new President. If I were a Democrat, I'd be worried about my agenda in these hands.

The other day the Washington Examiner ran an item in which a number of semi-famous Washingtonians shared what books they'd read in 2008. Chuck Todd recommended his own book, of course, Howard Fineman recommended his own book, of course, and Luke Russert:

Luke Russert, NBC News
" ‘The Last Campaign’ by Thurston Clarke; ‘The Post American World’ by Fareed Zakaria,’ ‘The Israel Lobby and U.S Foreign Policy’ by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.

Get ready, Washington, for the most glamorous, star-studded weekend to grace the Beltway in recent history: Barack Obama’s inauguration weekend.

Barack and Michelle Obama will party at all 10 of the official balls, one more than George and Laura Bush attended in 2005. This year the official balls include the usual regional balls and the Commander-in-Chief Ball honoring the military, as well as the new D.C. Neighborhood Ball, with discounted tickets “set aside for District of Columbia residents. The ball will also feature a robust interactive component, including webcasting and text messaging, to link neighborhoods across the country with the new President and this premier event.”

But if your invitation to an official ball got lost in the mail, you can still party like a president. This inauguration weekend promises dozens of events, ranging from raging, “green” parties for young Obama supporters to elegant state society affairs.

And if you’re looking to spot some celebrities (and spend upwards of $500 per ticket), you could attend the Inaugural Purple Ball, co-hosted by the likes of Ashley Judd and Ed Harris, or the (sold out) Creative Coalition Ball, with guests like Susan Sarandon, Anne Hathaway, and Adrian Grenier, among others. Just make sure you’re dressed to the nines, because MTV will be broadcasting its Be the Change Ball on MTV and MTV.com, and the paparazzi will surely be out in full force due to the rumor that the Jonas Brothers will be in town.

Lastly, if music is more your thing, you may want to attend one of two American Music Inaugural Balls: the Legends Ball, with Dionne Warwick, Chaka Khan, and the Temptations, or the Urban Ball, hosted by rapper Ludacris. No word yet on whether or not Ludacris will perform his controversial song “Politics: Obama Is Here” -- or if one-time Ludacris fan Barack Obama will attend.

Ayman al Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s number two, has released a new video discussing, among other items, the conflict in Gaza. Laura Mansfield has posted two excerpts from the video here. In the first excerpt, Zawahiri says:

Be strong and persist in the way of Jihad. The whole Muslim ummah is united with you. We will never stop until we avenge the death of all who are killed, injured, widowed and orphaned in Palestine and throughout the Islamic world. We are at work to carry out the promise of our fighting sheikh Osama Bin Laden (may Allah protect him) who promised that America will not live in peace in their dreams before before we live in peace in Palestine, and until all the forces of the infidels leave the lands of Muhammed.

Zawahiri is, once again, trying to throw al Qaeda’s rhetorical support behind the Palestinian cause. This has not always been a dominant theme in al Qaeda’s messaging. In fact, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is frequently the third or fourth most important issue discussed in al Qaeda’s communications.
It is not clear to me, yet, whether Zawahiri specifically addresses Hamas in the video. In the past, Zawahiri has criticized Hamas for taking part in the Palestinian elections and not waging the form of jihad he thinks the group should. Some analysts have read Zawahiri’s rhetoric to imply that there are serious tensions between the two groups, but I doubt that is the case. We should be careful reading too much into al Qaeda’s propaganda, which is exactly what this latest message is.

Note, for example, that many of the same donors in the Gulf who fund al Qaeda have also funded Hamas. The two groups share many common ideological traits, including roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. And there are some instances of reported collaboration between the two groups. Top al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah also got his start in Hamas. So, it’s a safe bet that the two groups have much more in common than they do differences.

In addition to discussing Gaza, Zawahiri has sharp words pointed at President-elect Obama and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak:

What you are facing today is just occupation and settlement that is limited to one area or one country, but is part of a series in the Crusaders war against Islam. These air strikes are a gift from Obama before he takes office, and from Hosni Mubarak, the traitor who is the primary partner in your siege and murder.

Two things to note here:

(1) Obama, of course, has nothing to do with the Israeli strikes on Gaza. This is nonsense on Zawahiri’s part, but is typical of the types of messages that al Qaeda puts out. The message is propaganda, not truth. For some reason, I’ve seen analysts treat these messages as if they provide deep insights into all aspects of al Qaeda’s mindset. There are lessons to be learned, for sure, but there is also a lot of foolishness in al Qaeda’s messaging.

(2) The verbal attack on Mubarak is not his first. Zawahiri and his Egyptian jihadists have been targeting Mubarak for years. They have been powerless to unseat the Egyptian warlord, but that does not stop Zawahiri from continuing to verbally attack him.

The Associated Press confirmed the Israeli Defense Force’s claim that Hamas fighters were firing from the UN school in Gaza, which lead to Israeli troops to return fire and tragically kill more than 30 Palestinian civilians. As with much of the reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many initial reports focused on the Israeli “attack” on the school and played up the civilian deaths.

The initial reports aided the Palestinian / Hamas narrative that the Israelis are committing war crimes during its operations in Gaza. But, as Michael Totten noted yesterday in his criticism of media reports, the real war crime was committed by Hamas for firing from the school and apparently rigging it with explosives:

A responsible journalist might also add that what Hamas did is a war crime under international law, and that Hamas is responsible for every civilian killed at that school. Rigging a school with explosives and using it as a base in a war zone is a crime precisely because it endangers the lives of civilians, and in this case of children.

The Pakistani Taliban have stepped up their murder campaign against what they term "U.S. spies" in the tribal agency of North Waziristan. Over the week, the bodies of eight men accused of spying for the United States have turned up in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency. The men are often mutilated or even beheaded. They always have a note pinned to their chest warning others against "spying" for the United States.

One reason for this Taliban murder campaign is a fear that local tribesmen are aiding the United States by designating safe houses and training compounds:

Current and former Pakistani intelligence agents say residents of the area who are helping the United States have access to what locals call "pathris," literally "small things" -- referred to by one agent as a "gadget" -- that can be thrown into homes and used as targeting signals. Military officials declined to comment further on whether the devices map Global Positioning System coordinates, provide an RF signal or use some combination of these or other targeting technologies.

"The attacks have become so precise. In a village, if they want to hit a house in the middle of the village and it's surrounded by other houses, the missile would come and hit that one house only," a resident of North Waziristan, who says he has witnessed numerous missile strikes, told ABC News.

The Taliban lost five senior operational leaders and several mid-level commanders to U.S. airstrikes last year.

The Pakistani government is powerless to stop these murders, and has yet to detain or prosecute a single person for these crimes. The Pakistani military stationed in North Waziristan remain in their garrisons while the Taliban run their Islamic Emirate.

Speaking of Obama portraits, I couldn't help but think the cover of the latest American Dog, which features Barack Obama and a three-legged dog named Baby who was rescued from a puppy mill:

Wouldn't this make a wonderful official portrait for the 44th president? It would symbolize a clean break with a certain former puppy-hating president. Perhaps it would even fulfill Obama's pledge to restore "restore our moral standing" in the world.

Republicans and Democrats pondering new budget rules for Congress. Sounds achingly boring until you realize the new rules would restrict the spending of your money.

New Ben & Jerry flavor: "Yes, Pecan!" I wonder how many calories are in really bad puns...

Who, pray tell, is black enough to fill Obama's seat? Welcome to the post-racial world.

Obama took money from man at the center of Richardson investigation.

Dianne Feinstein is breaking with the party all over the place these days.

Ditka for Senate.

Hey, David Gregory, how are you going to deal with your pro-Obama bias? Awkward...

(Bonus: About six or seven minutes in, Gregory has to explain to Jon Stewart that the reason not many politicians are openly attacking Israel for attacking Hamas is because Hamas is a terrorist organization.)

Harry Reid has pledged that the United States Senate will not seat Roland Burris, and despite recent reports to the contrary, Reid's people are still out there saying that Burris isn't welcome. Reid has also declared that Norm Coleman will "never ever serve" in the Senate again and vowed to lead the Senate until at least 2015.

Apparently Reid is under the impression that he owns the Senate -- it's his to do with as he pleases and seat who he likes. Reid also seems to be under the impression that he is the only thing standing between this country and disaster:

Reid said he’s spent the last eight years as “a point on a spear going against George Bush.”

“That’s what I had to do to protect the United States Senate and the country,” he said.

Even for partisan Democrats this kind of rhetoric should set off alarm bells. One expects Robert Mugabe or Hugo Chavez to talk earnestly about protecting the country from their political opponents, but the Majority Leader of the United States Senate? And it's not clear why Reid is so full of himself. Of course the right despises him, mostly for his defeatism in Iraq, for having declared the war lost on the floor of the Senate while U.S. troops were in the midst of turning things around. But the left despises him too. Check out the front page of the Huffington Post. They're actually calling for his replacement as majority leader and mocking him for being outmaneuvered by Blago and Burris.

Maybe Harry Reid was the right man for the job of sticking it to Bush -- though it's not obvious that he ever had any real legislative success -- but the way he's popping off in the media, it seems like Reid is now a far greater threat to his own party than to Republicans, who are an endangered species anyway.

The Washington Post reports that the original red-and-blue Obama “HOPE” collage by Shephard Fairey is headed to the National Portrait Gallery. It’s a grand, and domineering, 60 by 44 inch artwork.

The iconic collage is a gift from Tony and Heather Podesta, superlobbyists in Washington whose late mother, Mary K. Podesta, was an Obama supporter ever since she met him at a 2004 fundraiser for his Senate race. Apparently, he liked her cooking.

Note too where the giant collage will go: In the “new arrivals” section on the first floor. It will be shining forth hope and change next to Laura Bush’s official likeness, which was unveiled on December 19 at the gallery. I’m not sure where Bush's portrait will go. But many will like that he’s been hanged and framed, as he pointed out. You can see his likeness at that same link.

In case visitors can’t get enough of Obama, another picture of him--a color photograph by Martin Schoeller--is hanging in the NPG’s exhibition “Portraiture Now: Feature Photography.” A variant of that picture originally appeared in GQ. On having his image in the magazine, Obama said to GQ: “The reason you do this stuff is not to . . . get your face in a magazine . . . You do this stuff because you care about the epic struggle to make America what it can be.” At least he believes in the efficacy of art.

Administrators of Team Sarah have uncovered evidence on a left-wing online thread that some Internet trolls sought to discredit the organization by posing as conservative racists on Team Sarah's forums.

Team Sarah, an online community supportive of Gov. Sarah Palin, claims over 60,000 members and is affiliated with the Susan B. Anthony List, a PAC that supports pro-life women for public office.

Apparently, about 90 left-wing participants on a thread at somethingawful.com pretended to be conservatives who loved Sarah Palin before writing racist or otherwise deranged rants against Barack Obama on the Team Sarah forums. Said one interloper on the somethingawful.com thread: "What I hope is that the fake posters eventually number the actual posters so it would be impossible to tell who is real and who is fake."

While other threads have been discovered in previous months at other websites that planned to go after Team Sarah, those attacks were more conventional and overt. Typically, posters would try to flood the site with anti-Palin comments. This new group wanted to be secretive. One of them posted a suggestion on the somethingawful.com thread (which is no longer accessible or doesn't exist) that the group "just encourage the crazy members [of Team Sarah] until it reaches the point where they drive away any sane members ... Make sure you bump any particularly crazy threads you see with a message of vague support for the original post, ensuring anything sane will be quickly relegated to the 2nd or 3rd page of the forum, and the crazy threads will appear to be the most popular ideas."

Margorie Dannenfelser of Team Sarah told me the plot was "to bring down the site by turning it into a place of bigotry and hatred." She thinks they wanted to destroy the site to embarrass Sarah Palin by way of extension. They disguised themselves with names such as "Palinin2012" and "PALINITE"

To an extent, their deceitful effort succeeded. On December 21, Geoffrey Dunn posted an article at the Huffington Post, which called attention to racist posts at Team Sarah. Even though the offending posts were taken down as soon as members of Team Sarah alerted the moderators, Dunn tried to link the thoughts of a few right-wing crazies to an entire political movement. Needless to say, Dunn's article received some attention in the lefty blogosphere.

It turns out that at least one of the supposed right-wingers Dunn cited is actually a left-winger associated with the somethingawful.com thread.

Dunn wrote:

Under a post entitled "Police prepare for RIOTS," by one BarbaraJo, one concerned blogger named Tommygun responded:

"For people in urban/Obama areas--do this now: 1. Stock up on some basic supplies--food, health and hygiene, water, etc. 2. Keep track of where your family members are. 3. Work up meeting points in your community for your family (different spots in town where members are to go if problems occur). 4. Check and prepare any weapons you may have."

In response, a blogger named Johnny got more to the point:

"Well niggers will occasionally chimp out like this, am I right?"

While several Team Sarah members condemned that particular post, it's remnants are still up on the web site.

Shortly after "Johnny's" post was removed, a participant on the somethingawful.com thread wrote:

OUR RIGHT TO SAY THAT NIGGERS LIKE TO CHIMP OUT IS BEING THREATENED HALP

While this kerfuffle doesn't matter much in the big scheme of things, it does reveal a vulnerability of the conservative grassroots. "We always say that the left is so much better at working the Internet--and that's true!" Dannenfelser told me.

Team Sarah's Bill Collier and the Washington Times's Victor Morton have more.

Pew Research reports more bad news for the struggling traditional newspaper business. According to a survey released last month, the Internet overtook newspapers for the first time in 2008 as the main source of domestic and international news. Forty percent of Americans responded that the Internet was one of their main sources of information, compared to only 35 percent who cite newspapers. This is the first time the Internet topped newspapers, according to the Pew studies. Television still remains the primary basis of news for most Americans (70 percent chose TV, according to the poll. The numbers don’t add to 100 percent because respondents could choose more than one response category). But even these numbers are changing a lot looking at different demographic groups.

The numbers for younger Americans (18-29) are particularly striking. Pew writes:

For young people, however, the internet now rivals television as a main source of national and international news. Nearly six-in-ten Americans younger than 30 (59%) say they get most of their national and international news online; an identical percentage cites television. In September 2007, twice as many young people said they relied mostly on television for news than mentioned the internet (68% vs. 34%).

The percentage of people younger than 30 citing television as a main news source has declined from 68% in September 2007 to 59% currently. This mirrors a trend seen earlier this year in campaign news consumption. (See "Internet Now Major Source of Campaign News," News Interest Index, Oct. 31, 2008.)

The Pew study doesn’t break down how many people use the Internet to access newspapers’ websites. No doubt many who read the NewYorkTimes.com or WashingtonPost.com picked “the internet” in the survey. The shift, however, to new modes of information consumption are dramatic and striking. These changes will not only continue the tumult in the newspaper business, but will also significantly impact advertising strategies.

Martin Wolf, who wrote the book on our current economic troubles, has a thought-provoking and extremely worrying column in the Financial Times. Everyone should read it. Here's the basic argument:

We are in the grip of the most significant global financial crisis for seven decades. As a result, the world has run out of creditworthy, large-scale, willing private borrowers. The alternative of relying on vast US fiscal deficits and expansion of central bank credit is a temporary – albeit necessary – expedient. But it will not deliver a durable return to growth. Fundamental changes are needed.

Which might be a problem. Because:

What makes rescue so difficult is the force that drove the crisis: the interplay between persistent external and internal imbalances in the US and the rest of the world. The US and a number of other chronic deficit countries have, at present, structurally deficient capacity to produce tradable goods and services. The rest of the world or, more precisely, a limited number of big surplus countries – particularly China – have the opposite. So demand consistently leaks from the deficit countries to surplus ones.

In times of buoyant demand, this is no problem. In times of collapsing private spending, as now, it is a huge one. It means that US rescue efforts need to be big enough not only to raise demand for US output but also to raise demand for the surplus output of much of the rest of the world. This was a burden that crisis-hit Japan did not have to bear. ...

Given the persistent structural current account deficit, how large does the fiscal deficit need to be to balance the economy at something close to full employment? Assuming, for the moment, that the private sector runs a financial surplus of 6 per cent of GDP and the structural current account deficit is 4 per cent of GDP, the fiscal deficit must be 10 per cent of GDP, indefinitely.

Obama is making the right move by telling the country now that the deficit is going to get a whole lot larger, and that it will have to be like that for a while if we're to avoid serious economic consequences. Thing is, he's already encountering mild resistance to his $775 billion proposal. And that proposal might not be big enough.

Ross Douthat on just war and modern warfare.

Nancy Pelosi abolishes term limits for committee chairmanships.

Jeb Bush won't run for Senate in 2010.

Obama predicts "trillion-dollar deficits for years to come."

Gallup reports that a majority of Americans think Burrris should be blocked.

Arlen Specter blasts AG nominee Eric Holder.

So, America's most telegenic, Indian-American neurosurgeon/family man/anchorman will be America's next surgeon general. None of C. Everett Koop's stern demeanor and exceptional facial hair or Joycelyn Elders' tendency toward the most awkward national public health conversations ever. Not for Obama.

It's a smart political choice--one that puts an undeniably smart, young, minority figure in a place of prominence who reflects Obama's own perceived vibrancy.

It's also an encouraging choice when it comes to the politics of public health. In my experience, watching and reading Gupta, he's a fair man who tells the truth about health issues, even when the truth runs counter to liberal public-health crusades. Such honesty in a health reporter is fairly remarkable, and is what makes Gupta worth watching.

He's perhaps most famous for a dust-up with Michael Moore over his movie, "Sicko." CNN initially aired a report by Gupta, which refuted many of the charges made about health care by Moore in "Sicko." Moore accused Gupta and CNN of being in bed with pharmaceutical companies, because the imagination of this filmmaker only allows for a very small, predictable cast of villains. Gupta ended up correcting and apologizing for one incorrect figure in his reporting--he had misstated Moore's figure on per-capita health spending in Cuba, saying $25 instead of $251. Gupta later faced off with Moore in a debate on "Larry King Live," and CNN stood behind Gupta with a point-by-point rebuttal of Moore's complaint.

Paul Krugman has taken to his NYT blog to swiftly condemn the Gupta pick, based on the doctor's performance in this incident, saying the pick reflects "lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way."

In fact, Gupta took responsibility for his mistake and offered Moore ample opportunity to refute him in a face-to-face discussion. Most of the bad press Gupta suffered over the incident stemmed not from his honest mistake, but from the Left's displeasure over his attacking the idea of socialized medicine in a socially unacceptable way. Moore's real-life theatrics, just like his celluloid ones, were meant to stifle debate, not encourage it. Gupta didn't play along.

Though the most visible, it's not the first time Gupta has spoken, err, inconvenient truths about health issues.

In a February column, he offered far more than the simplistic, blanket condemnation of steroids and tales or "'roid rage" usually offered by health writers. Instead, he examined its real benefits and downsides, and legitimate uses outside of the sports world:

So it makes you wonder: If steroids are such a problem, why do athletes continue to take them? Why are they are a problem even among high school athletes? Why are some entertainers said to be using them?

It's because, whatever you think, anabolic steroids work.

Barry Tyson uses steroids. But he's someone you won’t see in the headlines. His usage is legit. Tyson takes steroids to help fight off infections from HIV.

How quickly did he notice a change? "I mean, did you, take this stuff at night and then in the morning say, 'Wow, something's already different'?" Gupta asked.

"Well, I mean, within a couple a days I noticed a change," Tyson said. "I noticed a change in my energy level. I noticed a change in my appetite. I noticed a change in how much I could push at the gym."

And how crucial were steroids in his recovery?

"It was very important especially because it's putting on that muscle that helps fight infection," Tyson said.

In his popular special series, "Chasing Life," he treated with sensitivity the desires of older Americans to use drugs like Human Growth Hormone to improve their quality of life as their natural levels drop. Many health reporters would have opted for knee-jerk condemnation without examining the pros and cons of such controversial self-medication.

In the absolutist world of smoking commentary, Gupta is a breath of fresh air, so to speak. In a 2005 column about smoking and lung cancer, he made a medically accurate but rarely uttered assessment about smokers's risk of lung cancer: "But, if you quit at the age of 30, it's almost a negligible increased risk."

I'm sure there are things in the Gupta catalog with which I don't agree, but he's always struck me as a pleasantly unpredictable and unpolitical reporter. Here's hoping for more of the same at surgeon general.

Obama had been taking plenty of criticism for not speaking out on Gaza, mostly from the left flank of his party and the world, which wishes him to signal the "change" he promised by condemning Israel.

The Guardian bemoaned his silence this week, and noted the negative response of some Arab media:

But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment - and that his failure to distance himself from George Bush's strongly pro-Israeli stance is encouraging the belief that he either shares Bush's bias or simply does not care...

"People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune. "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion."

Today, Obama offered a few sentences, which will be overanalyzed all the more due to their brevity and their delay in coming.

"I’m very concerned with the conflict taking place there," Obama said. "I’m monitoring the situation on a day to day basis.

"The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me, and after January 20th I’ll have plenty to say about the issue."

Obama said he was "not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign" and that "starting at the beginning of our administration, we’re going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East."

It's calculated to be an inoffensive nod to civilian casualties on both sides of the conflict, the separation from the White House embodied in what he does not say. Hamas and the threat of terrorism go unmentioned, relieving Obama of the duty of making moral judgments while assuring supporters of imminent nebulous change in the Middle East.

There was a time when he had no problem with the possibility of Israeli self-defense against Gaza— when the only rockets were coming from Gaza and the only civilians under threat were Israelis. In July, while visiting Sderot in southern Israel, Obama said forcefully:

"If somebody is sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that - and I'd expect Israelis to do the same thing."

"Everything in my power to stop that." Was it classic, lyrical Obama overstatement, from a man who had the luxury of pulling heart strings without ever pulling the trigger on policy? If it wasn't, why didn't he offer a cursory mention of self-defense, terror, or the threat to Israel in today's short statement? Whether there's one president at a time or not, he knew the world was listening.

Today's statement is vaguely reminiscent of his signature miss-the-point moment on Georgia this summer, when he called upon both sides to show restraint, deploring violence itself instead of the violator. The clear aggression of one party against a sovereign, democratic state seemed not to weigh heavily in his assessment.

Now as then, many will wish the leader of the free world made it more clear he stands with free people when they must defend themselves from thugs.

But he'll have much more to say about it after January 20. Stay tuned.

Update: Meanwhile, Democratic leaders are working on a pro-Israel congressional resolution, about which they're being more forthcoming than Obama is about his thoughts.

"Certainly it would not demand a cease-fire," Hoyer said. "It would speak to the conditions that would justify a cease-fire. A cease-fire is not a just cease-fire when it's just Israel" holding fire.

All hail, the optics of the 111th Congress, brought to you courtesy of Rod Blagojevich:

Amir Taheri reports:

Iran is a "short distance" from securing all it needs to make a nuclear warhead. This is the conclusion of a long-awaited report prepared for the French National Assembly (parliament) and submitted to President Nicolas Sarkozy in the last days of 2008.

The report is the fruit of a bipartisan effort headed by Jean-Louis Bianco, a prominent Socialist Member of Parliament, and senior advisor to President Francois Mitterrand in the 1980s and 1990s. Much of the report is based on the in-depth research done by a number of leading French experts on international politics and nuclear proliferation, among them Francois Heisbourg and Therese Delpeche.

Analysing Tehran's strategy, the report asserts that the Islamic Republic will be an effective member of the nuclear club by the end of 2011 at the latest. Moe importantly, perhaps, it makes it clear that 2009 may be the last year in which the major powers would be able to persuade the Islamic Republic not to cross the threshold of making the bomb.

As Taheri notes, this leaves two options: try and stop the mullahs, or begin preparing for the consequences of a nuclear Iran. The president-elect has pledged to prevent Iran from going nuclear, but his administration has also indicated a willingness to adjust to what may be an inevitability. That strategy, as laid out by Hillary Clinton and quoted in Taheri's piece, would involve extending the U.S. nuclear umbrella to our allies in the Middle East -- not only Israel, but also the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia. The aim here would be to prevent what may be the worst outcome of a nuclear Iran: a new wave of proliferation in the most unstable region on the planet. But even if that were prevented by the guarantee of U.S. nuclear deterrence, the United States would be in the awkward position of making a commitment to wage nuclear war on behalf of despotic regimes that do not share our values.

Would the American people tolerate the use of nuclear weapons in retaliation for an Iranian attack on Egypt? The Egyptians would be foolish to count on such support, which means that proliferation is almost guaranteed. If North Korea going nuclear was a black mark on the Bush administration's record, how will it play if Obama presides over the entry of Iran, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia into the nuclear club? Or will that just be called the success of realism?

The New York Times runs a story about Muhammad Saad Iqbal, who claims he was tortured by the Egyptian government at the behest of the Bush administration:

But the full stories of individual detainees like Mr. Iqbal are only now emerging after years in which they were shuttled around the globe under the Bush administration’s system of extraordinary rendition, which used foreign countries to interrogate and detain terrorism suspects in sites beyond the reach of American courts.

Likewise, the AP reported yesterday on the choice of Leon Panetta to head the CIA:

Obama is sending an unequivocal message that controversial administration policies approving harsh interrogations, waterboarding and extraordinary renditions — the secret transfer of prisoners to other governments with a history of torture — and warrantless wiretapping are over, said several officials.

I think the press is forgetting that it was Panetta's old boss Bill Clinton who first approved the use of extraordinary rendition, and he did so by approving a presidential directive that authorized the CIA to hand terror suspects over to...the Egyptian Mukhabarat. There is a tendency for the left to imagine that the Bush administration represents a clean break with the previously lawful and humane history of the executive branch of government, and that the Obama administration will represent a return to that better tradition.

In truth, there is considerable continuity between the Clinton administration policies and those that followed, as there almost certainly will be as this new administration takes up the reins -- and Panetta will presumably enter office with some hands on experience in the kind of rendition to which Muhammad Saad Iqbal claims he was subjected.

In order to add some balance to the glut of anti-Israel protest pictures flooding the AP, Reuters, and AFP photo wires, there will be a pro-Israel rally today in Washington, D.C. at the Israeli Embassy at 12: 30, sponsored by a group of rabbis in the Washington area.

Anti-Israel groups staged a rally at the embassy Friday, marching from there to the Egyptian embassy in solidarity with their "Palestinian brothers and sisters," and whining about Barack Obama's silence on Gaza as they marched.

After ten days of Israeli offensive operations in the Gaza Strip, Hamas' command and control appears to be in disarray, Palestinian analysts told the Jerusalem Post. Hamas leaders are in hiding, and conflicting messages are being put out by Hamas's leadership under Khalid Mashal, who is based in Damascus, and Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza.

These contradictory messages, Palestinian political analysts said, reflected the state of confusion in Hamas and raised questions as to who was calling the shots in the Gaza Strip. While some Hamas leaders have been openly signaling their readiness to accept a new cease-fire, others are still calling for pursuing the fight against Israel "until victory."

What is clear is that Hamas is now desperate for a lull in the fighting. But it is also eager to score some kind of a "military victory" before a cease-fire is reached. Hamas can't accept a new cease-fire without having proved to the Arab and Muslim masses that it was capable of making Israel pay a heavy price for its military offensive.

Hamas is fighting for its survival and its leaders know that their collapse would constitute a severe blow not only to the movement, but also to its patrons in Teheran and Damascus.

The communications breakdown is so severe that Hamas's military wing, the Izzadin Kassam, is directly taking orders from Mashal in Damascus, the Jerusalem Post reported. Mashal has given the Izzadin Kassam "full freedom to take any measures it deems necessary to prevent the collapse of the Hamas regime." Over the weekend, Hamas responded by arresting and hobbling more than 100 opposing Fatah members and "collaborators."

The Israeli Defense Force has begun its push into the city, and there is a good chance the Israelis can break Hamas's stranglehold in the Gaza Strip. Hamas fighters are nowhere near as disciplined or well trained as the Hezbollah fighters encountered during the 2006 war in Lebanon. And Israeli forces have trained for urban combat for a year, anticipating such a battle.

To break Hamas, Israel must continue to pursue Hamas's leaders and fighters in Gaza and ignore the growing calls for a ceasefire. Any ceasefire that leaves Hamas intact will be a victory for the terror group.

But Israel has another problem. Hamas's real leadership inside Syria will remain no matter what happens to Haniyeh and company. Will Israel's Mossad take a shot at Mashal? This isn't as far-fetched as it might seem. In February 2008, Imad Mugniyah, Hezbollah's military commander, was killed in a car bombing in a secured neighborhood in Damascus. Mossad is believed to have carried out the attack.

Stephen Walt, coauthor with John Mearsheimer of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, has started a new blog at the website of Foreign Policy. He is one of a number of new bloggers the magazine has brought on board ahead of Obama's inauguration. Among the others are some real heavyweights, including Tom Ricks, Peter Feaver, Philip Zelikow, and Christian Brose. (Click here to find links to them all).

Walt kicks things off with a bang, writing up a bizarre counterfactual of Middle East History. In this realist fantasy, Israel loses the Six Day War, the Arabs overrun the country, but the Jews are not driven into the sea. Instead, "a million or so Jews had ended up as stateless refugees confined to that narrow enclave known as the Gaza Strip." What's become of the other 1.7 million Jews that then lived in Israel is not imagined -- as Walt says, this is just "a thought experiment." Walt continues:

Then imagine that a group of hardline Orthodox Jews took over control of that territory and organized a resistance movement. They also steadfastly refused to recognize the new Palestinian state, arguing that its creation was illegal and that their expulsion from Israel was unjust. Imagine that they obtained backing from sympathizers around the world and that they began to smuggle weapons into the territory. Then imagine that they started firing at Palestinian towns and villages and refused to stop despite continued reprisals and civilian casualties.

Here's the question: would the United States be denouncing those Jews in Gaza as "terrorists" and encouraging the Palestinian state to use overwhelming force against them? Here's another: would the United States have even allowed such a situation to arise and persist in the first place?

I've always enjoyed counterfactual histories. John Keegan, David McCullough, and James McPherson, among others, put out a great collection of counterfactual essays examining the great turning points in military history called What If? They explore what might have happened if the Germans had repelled the allied assault on D-Day, or if Augustus's legions had conquered Germania. But it's a game. The authors focus on what might have been if one thing had been different. Walt imagines that everything is different, that the Jews not only lose the war, but they become the Palestinians -- and that their dispossession nurtures the same radical politics that now afflicts the Arab population of Gaza. I think the point is supposed to be that the only thing preventing a solution to the problems of the Middle East is our failure of imagination, but in fact, his questions are meaningless. The nefarious Israel Lobby might respond: What if the bubba had beytsim?

The New Media war against Hamas apologists.

Fallen in battle: Two IDF soldiers remembered.

Just War Theory in Gaza.

Senate to block comedian from the Senate floor today, like George Wallace at the entrance to the Laugh Factory.

Fresh young face at 1600 Pennsylvania to work with most crotchety, aged bunch of coots in Capitol history.

Why does the NYT love Hamas?

Dems dare cross the chosen one with comments on Panetta.

Obama as Bush: