SENATORS WHO MOVE TO THE CABINET.... Much has been made of the fact that sitting senators have very rarely won the presidency. Barack Obama is the first since JFK 48 years ago, and only the third in American history, following Kennedy and Warren Harding.

But what about senators becoming cabinet secretaries? Ben Smith had an interesting item this afternoon.

Along with getting emoluments out of the way, Lloyd Bentsen offers a useful guide on another timely question: When will Hillary resign?

Her staff isn't saying, but Bentsen is the most recent sitting senator to join the cabinet, and a likely guide. The Senate Finance committee met and voted the nomination out on January 12. Clinton was sworn in on January 20, and the Senate briefly convened hours later to hear Bentsen's nomination, along with those of Les Aspin and Warren Christopher.

Only then did Bentsen resign.

Which means nearly two more months of obsessing about David Paterson.

Sure, there's going to be ample speculation about who'll fill Clinton's Senate seat. But let's not brush past that first point -- we haven't had any sitting senators move to the cabinet since Lloyd Bentsen? That was 15 years ago, meaning Clinton didn't call on any sitting senators to fill cabinet vacancies after his first year in office, and George W. Bush didn't call on any at any point during his two terms.

I wonder why this is. Part of it, I suspect, is that being a U.S. Senator is a great gig, the job security is generally pretty good, and one would ordinarily be reluctant to give it up for a cabinet post that only lasts a few years.

But I'm still surprised we've seen zero senators move to the cabinet over the last 15 years. There are some pretty talented officials in the chamber; why overlook them?

MCCAFFREY.... David Barstow had a devastating New York Times piece back in April, documenting the practice of retired U.S. generals appearing on the major cable networks as "independent" media analysts, while they were simultaneously working for defense contractors, and repeating talking points from the Pentagon. The painted picture was a train wreck of conflicts of interest and journalistic ethical malpractice.

Today, Barstow has yet another blockbuster, directing his focus to one of the more prominent retired generals: Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general, military analyst for NBC News, and highly-paid consultant to defense contractors.

It's really worth reading the whole piece, but Spencer Ackerman's take was spot-on.

If this mammoth New York Times piece is wrong, Barry McCaffrey really ought to sue, because if it isn't, he has no reputation for integrity left. [...]

[T]he scope of McCaffrey's hustle is really breathtaking. Barstow demonstrates that many, if not most, of the pronouncements he made on TV about the wars benefited one or another defense contractor who employed him. That's the way the scheme worked: Company hires retired general to use his connections to its benefit. Retired general accepts special grants of access from the office of the secretary of defense that benefit both his TV career and his consulting career. Retired general proclaims on TV things that benefit both the secretary and the company -- or, when circumstances necessitate, the company at the expense of the secretary. TV viewer, looking for informed analysis of confusing wars, is unaware of any of this. Welcome to the new military-media-industrial complex.

It's that bad. As Barstow explained, "On NBC and in other public forums, General McCaffrey has consistently advocated wartime policies and spending priorities that are in line with his corporate interests. But those interests are not described to NBC's viewers. He is held out as a dispassionate expert, not someone who helps companies win contracts related to the wars he discusses on television."

After Barstow's report in April, I largely expected the networks to reevaluate their relationships with these "independent" media analysts. That, apparently, hasn't happened, and NBC News, in particular, seems unconcerned about the obvious conflicts of interest, the lack of disclosure, and the textbook ethical lapses.

The network's viewers deserve an explanation.

REPUBLICANS' 'MCCARTHY GENE'.... The story of Barry Goldwater's 1964 campaign serving as the catalyst of the modern conservative movement, which reshaped the Republican Party, is well known. But Neal Gabler presents an interesting idea today, arguing that the real father of modern conservatism is Sen. Joe McCarthy. Indeed, as far as Gabler is concerned, "the McCarthy gene" runs deep in the GOP's DNA, "and because it is genetic, it isn't likely to be expunged any time soon."

McCarthy, Wisconsin's junior senator, was the man who first energized conservatism and made it a force to reckon with. When he burst on the national scene in 1950 waving his list of alleged communists who had supposedly infiltrated Harry Truman's State Department, conservatism was as bland, temperate and feckless as its primary congressional proponent, Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, known fondly as "Mister Conservative." [...]

McCarthy was another thing entirely. What he lacked in ideology -- and he was no ideologue at all -- he made up for in aggression. Establishment Republicans, even conservatives, were disdainful of his tactics, but when those same conservatives saw the support he elicited from the grass-roots and the press attention he got, many of them were impressed. Taft, no slouch himself when it came to Red-baiting, decided to encourage McCarthy, secretly, sealing a Faustian bargain that would change conservatism and the Republican Party. Henceforth, conservatism would be as much about electoral slash-and-burn as it would be about a policy agenda.

For the polite conservatives, McCarthy was useful. That's because he wasn't only attacking alleged communists and the Democrats whom he accused of shielding them. He was also attacking the entire centrist American establishment, the Eastern intellectuals and the power class, many of whom were Republicans themselves, albeit moderate ones.... McCarthyism is usually considered a virulent form of Red-baiting and character assassination. But it is much more than that. As historian Richard Hofstadter described it in his famous essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," McCarthyism is a way to build support by playing on the anxieties of Americans, actively convincing them of danger and conspiracy even where these don't exist.

It does sound pretty familiar, doesn't it?

Gabler's point seems to be a stylistic one, not an ideological one. Goldwater championed a libertarian, anti-government conservatism. McCarthy championed a political blood-lust, premised on scapegoats, cultural resentment, and fear.

In this sense, while the traditional model shows a line from Goldwater to Reagan to Bush, Gabler points to a different line -- McCarthy to Nixon to Bush to Palin. Indeed, if Karl Rove has a godfather, in this model, it's Joe McCarthy.

Gabler concludes, "There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes."

It's a good piece and a compelling case. Take a look.

JINDAL'S FUTURE.... The Washington Post has an interesting item today on Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R) recent swing through Iowa, apparently the first step towards the 37-year-old governor's 2012 presidential campaign. As has been apparent for quite a while, the GOP's far-right base has exceedingly high hopes for Jindal, and consider him "the party's own version of Obama."

Like the president-elect, Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana is young (37), accomplished (a Rhodes scholar) and, as the son of Indian immigrants, someone familiar with breaking racial and cultural barriers. He came to Iowa to deliver a pair of speeches, and his mere presence ignited talk that the 2012 presidential campaign has begun here, if coyly. Already, a fierce fight is looming between him and other Republicans -- former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who arrived in Iowa a couple of days before him, and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is said to be coming at some point -- for the hearts of social conservatives. [...]

No less an aspiring kingmaker than Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist of McCain's failed presidential bid, sees Jindal as the Republican Party's destiny. "The question is not whether he'll be president, but when he'll be president, because he will be elected someday." The anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist believes, too, that Jindal is a certainty to occupy the White House, and conservative talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh has described him as "the next Ronald Reagan."

Jindal is, above all else, a political meteor, sharing Obama's precocious skills for reaching the firmament in a hurry. It was just four years ago, after losing a gubernatorial election, that he won election to Congress, and only this year that he became Louisiana's governor, the first nonwhite to hold the office since Reconstruction. And now, 10 months into his first term, the talk of a presidential bid is getting louder among his boosters.

Earlier this year, Jindal was approached by the McCain campaign about V.P. vetting, but the governor reportedly declined. Chris Cillizza recently reported, "[T]here was also real trepidation within his political inner circle that Jindal might wind up as the pick -- McCain was attracted to his comprehensive health-care knowledge -- and be caught up in what they believed to be a less-than-stellar campaign that could pin a loss on Jindal without much ability to change or control the direction of the contest."

It's obviously way too early to start seriously sizing up future presidential candidates, especially governors. Yglesias had a good item on this a couple of weeks ago: "A governor presiding over an economic boom can cut taxes while increasing spending, and thus develop a reputation as a popular can-do pragmatist. Think of George W. Bush, George Voinovich, Christie Todd Whitman, and other classics of the 1990s.... [R]ight now [Jindal's] looking at the need to cut $1 billion in spending. Not his fault (though the decision to make up the budget shortfall with a mix of 100% service cuts and 0% tax cuts reflects the intellectually and morally bankrupt nature of contemporary conservatism) any more than the 'free money for everyone' governors of the nineties were really geniuses, but it's going to make it difficult for him to rack up the sort of Record Of Accomplishments that you're usually looking for in a presidential candidate."

OBAMA AND THE BRASS.... During the last two Democratic administrations, there was obvious tension between the presidents and the military leaders in the Pentagon. As Mark Kleiman noted, "Under Carter and Clinton, not only the military but the civilian bureaucracies in the Pentagon were massively insubordinate, doing their level best to frustrate the purposes of those two Presidents, on topics ranging from weapons systems to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It was a much better career move for a colonel bucking for his first star or a lieutenant general bucking for his fourth to support the culture of the Building rather than the purposes of the Commander in Chief."

Barack Obama is intent on having a stronger, more cooperative relationship with the brass. By all indications, he's off to a good start.

Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went unarmed into his first meeting with the new commander in chief -- no aides, no PowerPoint presentation, no briefing books. Summoned nine days ago to President-elect Barack Obama's Chicago transition office, Mullen showed up with just a pad, a pen and a desire to take the measure of his incoming boss.

There was little talk of exiting Iraq or beefing up the U.S. force in Afghanistan; the one-on-one, 45-minute conversation ranged from the personal to the philosophical. Mullen came away with what he wanted: a view of the next president as a non-ideological pragmatist who was willing to both listen and lead. After the meeting, the chairman "felt very good, very positive," according to Mullen spokesman Capt. John Kirby.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that tension is unavoidable. Military leaders are, the theory goes, bound to be skeptical about a young president who didn't serve in the military, and who has articulated a withdrawal policy many in the Pentagon are skeptical of.

But there are at least two key angles to consider here. First, during the ongoing transition, Obama seems to be reassuring military leaders about his plans, and signaling to the brass, through his personnel decisions, that "he will do nothing rash and will seek their advice, even while making clear that he may not always take it."

Second, and just as importantly, Obama has an opportunity, which he plans to fully take advantage of, to make some changes that military leaders and Pentagon officials have wanted for years, but which Bush failed to even consider. Indeed, for all of the perceived conservatism of the military, Obama's vision and agenda for the Pentagon is far more in line with officers' beliefs than the current president's.

As Karen DeYoung explained, there's an expectation among military leaders that there will be "greater realism about U.S. military goals and capabilities," including objectives in Afghanistan, diplomacy with Iran, and increased budget discipline.

"Open and serious debate versus ideological certitude will be a great relief to the military leaders," said retired Maj. Gen. William L. Nash of the Council on Foreign Relations. Senior officers are aware that few in their ranks voiced misgivings over the Iraq war, but they counter that they were not encouraged to do so by the Bush White House or the Pentagon under Donald H. Rumsfeld.

"The joke was that when you leave a meeting, everybody is supposed to drink the Kool-Aid," Nash said. "In the Bush administration, you had to drink the Kool-Aid before you got to go to the meeting."

PARTISAN 'SINS'.... A couple of weeks ago, we learned about the Rev. Jay Scott Newman, a South Carolina Roman Catholic priest who announced that his parishioners who voted for Barack Obama are not eligible for Communion. He was rebuked by the Diocese, who said Newman's statements did not "adequately reflect the Catholic Church's teachings."

A priest in California apparently didn't get the message.

Parishioners of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Modesto have been told they should consider going to confession if they voted for Barack Obama, because of the president-elect's position condoning abortion.

"If you are one of the 54 percent of Catholics who voted for a pro-abortion candidate, you were clear on his position and you knew the gravity of the question, I urge you to go to confession before receiving communion. Don't risk losing your state of grace by receiving sacrilegiously," the Rev. Joseph Illo, pastor of St. Joseph's, wrote in a letter dated Nov. 21. [...]

Illo, in an interview Wednesday, explained his reasoning. "In Catholic teaching, you have to go to confession when you have committed a mortal sin," he said. "Now, what is a mortal sin? It's somewhat complex. No one can say, 'You committed a mortal sin.' I can only say, 'It's a grave matter.' It's my job to look after my parishioners.

The Rev. Stephen Blaire, a bishop in Illo's Diocese disagreed, saying Catholic parishioners should not feel compelled to tell their priest how they voted, and that voting for Obama did not necessitate a confession. "Our position on pro-life is very important, but there are other issues," Blaire said. "No one candidate reflects everything that we stand for. I'm sure that most Catholics who voted were voting on economic issues. There were probably many priests, and I suspect many bishops, who voted for Obama."

Of course there were. To reiterate a point from a couple of weeks ago, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement not too long ago telling Catholics that they can't vote "for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter's intent is to support that position." That left voters plenty of wiggle room -- a Catholic voter could back a pro-choice candidate and simply say that it wasn't his or her "intent" to support the candidate's position on abortion. Problem solved.

And yet, here we have another priest going considerably further, saying intent is irrelevant, and he wants to punish those who voted for the "wrong" candidate, regardless of their motivation.

Given that a majority of Catholic voters backed Obama on Election Day, one wonders why a church leader would take such an extreme position.

BC HELPS CLEAR THE WAY FOR HRC.... The likely announcement about Hillary Clinton being named the next Secretary of State has reportedly been on track for a while, and it appears one of the final hurdles -- the disclosure of her husband's international fundraising -- has been resolved.

Former President Bill Clinton has agreed to disclose publicly the names of more than 200,000 donors to his foundation as part of an accord with President-elect Barack Obama that clears the way for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to become secretary of state, Democrats close to both sides said on Saturday.

Mr. Clinton has kept his contributor list secret, as permitted under federal law, but he decided to publish it to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest with Mrs. Clinton's duties as the nation's top diplomat, said the Democrats, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the agreement with Mr. Obama's team. Mr. Obama plans to announce Mrs. Clinton's nomination on Monday, according to advisers.

The disclosure of contributors is among nine conditions that Mr. Clinton signed off on during discussions with representatives of Mr. Obama; all go beyond the requirements of law. Among other issues, he agreed to incorporate his Clinton Global Initiative separately from his foundation so that he has less direct involvement. The initiative, which promotes efforts to fight disease, poverty and climate change, would no longer hold annual meetings outside of the United States or accept new contributions from foreign governments.

Mr. Clinton also agreed to submit his future personal speeches and business activities for review by State Department ethics officials and, if necessary, by the White House counsel's office.

The former president's web of business and charitable activities raised questions about how he could continue to travel the world soliciting multimillion-dollar contributions for his foundation and collecting six-figure speaking fees for himself from foreign organizations and individuals while his wife conducted American foreign policy.

Chris Cillizza added, "With that potentially sticky-wicket now a non-issue, the nomination of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State appears to be on a glide path."

Indeed, the speculation will likely end as early as tomorrow, when Obama introduces Clinton as his nominee.

There was a report this morning that Hillary Clinton had been offered the chairmanship of the Senate Appropriations Committee, but Ben Smith noted that Clinton was actually offered a seat on the committee, not its chairmanship.

As for Bill Clinton's fundraising disclosures, a source familiar with the former president's work said the list "may include some embarrassing names, but nothing dramatic enough to scuttle his wife's chances to be Secretary of State. That the nomination is on track to go forward suggests that Obama sees no overly embarrassing revelations in the list either."

SANFORD WANTS A SMALLER GOP.... The latest "what do we do now?" piece for the Republican Party comes from South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R), who outlines his approach in a piece for the Politico today.

There's some predictable prescriptions -- Republicans should, apparently, try sticking to their principles -- but this one jumped out at me.

There needs to be a high standard for our franchisees. In other words, I believe Republicans and conservatives must agree on our core principles. St. Augustine called for 'unity in the essentials, diversity in the nonessentials, and charity in all things,' and while I believe there should always be a big GOP tent, there must also be a shared agreement on the essentials — including expanding liberty, encouraging entrepreneurship and limiting the reach of government in people's everyday lives.

In this regard, the tent cannot be so big as to include political franchisees who don't act on the core tenets of conservatism -- and as a consequence harm the brand and undermine others' work on it.

Now, I think I know what Sanford means here, and his point is not, on its face, ridiculous. Political parties have to stand for at least some core tenets, and it makes sense for parties to worry about diluting a party brand to the point that the label becomes meaningless.

There is, however, a context that Sanford seems oblivious to. Right now, fewer Americans identify with the Republican Party than at any point in years. The party has lost the White House; it's a minority in both chambers in Congress by wide margins; and it's a minority among the nation's governorships. Voters say they agree with the Democratic Party on just about every issue under the sun.

Sanford considers this landscape and suggests what Republicans really need to do is make the party even smaller.

If, in context, that means purging, say, convicted felons from the party ranks, it would clearly be sensible. But I don't think that's what Sanford means. If I understand his piece correctly, Sanford wants to see a Republican Party that shed itself of factions that fall short of the "core tenets of conservatism" -- as defined, presumably, by Mark Sanford -- so as to let voters know exactly what they'd get by way of the party label. What the GOP needs now, in other words, is fewer people.

If you say so, gov.

OVERRATED LOYALTY.... George W. Bush's fascination with "loyalty" is practically legendary. The president considers it the single most important trait a person in public service can have, far exceeding competence and qualification. Bush, for example, picked Dick Cheney because he knew he'd be loyal (Cheney had no presidential ambitions of his own). Loyalty led to high-ranking posts for all kinds of people who had no business taking on their responsibilities -- Alberto Gonzales, I'm looking in your direction -- but who were rewarded for their personal devotion and fidelity to the man in the Oval Office.

Slate's Jacob Weisberg had a good piece today explaining that loyalty is not only wildly overrated in presidential politics, but that truly successful presidents know that an obsession with loyalty is a waste of time and energy.

...I doubt Obama will have much trouble with disloyalty in his administration, from Clinton or anyone else, for the same reason it wasn't a problem in his campaign: He doesn't spend a lot of time worrying about it.

Loyalty is a wonderful human quality and a necessary political one. No president would think of moving into the White House without known and trusted advisers such as David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett. At the same time, the recurrent presidential obsession with forms of disloyalty, including leaks, disobedience, and private agendas, is a marker for executive failure. Those presidents who fixated on personal allegiance, such as Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and George W. Bush, tended to perform far worse in office than those, such as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton, who could tolerate strong, independent actors on their teams.

The demand for absolute loyalty is a relic from the age of patronage, when political appointments were tied to the delivery of votes for a sponsor. A modern media politician does not depend on this kind of machine for his existence and has political control over only a thin sliver of top-level government jobs. The vast majority of public employees is protected by the Civil Service and can't be vetted for loyalty. As the complexity of the government has increased, so, too, has the importance of expertise and experience.

This is part of what has made George W. Bush's loyalty obsession such a throwback. Bush's first job in politics was as an "enforcer" for a father he thought was too nice to discipline traitors and freelancers. His own fixation on loyalty was born from the experience of watching top aides to his dad such as James Baker and Richard Darman put their own careers and images first. When his turn came, the younger Bush made personal loyalty a threshold test -- and even seemed to regard private, internal challenge to his ill-considered preferences as an indication of untrustworthiness.

This is an interesting way to look at it. The conventional wisdom has long suggested that Bush has shielded himself from dissent and competing ideas due to a lack of intellectual curiosity and mental acuity. But this underestimates the significance of loyalty in shaping Bush's worldview.

Newsweek had a report a few years ago that noted, "It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States... Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty." (emphasis added)

If one "equates disagreement with disloyalty," he/she necessarily creates an insular bubble where no one is allowed to stray from the party line, and everyone is expected to agree wholeheartedly with the president,regardless of merit. In this sense, Bush's obsession with loyalty not only helps explain why incompetent, partisan hacks were promoted to critical government posts, it also helps highlight why never paid attention to those whose opinions he should have taken seriously.

It's reassuring, then, that Obama expects to earn loyalty, not demand it.

KRISTOL WANTS REWARDS FOR TORTURERS.... Bill Kristol devotes his new Weekly Standard column to warning Republicans to expect to stay the minority party for a while. As he sees it, the GOP, if history is any guide, won't have a legitimate shot at reclaiming the congressional majority until, at the earliest, 2012, and probably won't be able to reclaim the White House until 2016.

With that in mind, Kristol ponders what Bush might do with his remaining weeks in office to help Republicans "get the credit they deserve for successes in Iraq and the broader war on terror." As part of his list, the conservative pundit wants to see some pardons.

...Bush should consider pardoning -- and should at least be vociferously praising -- everyone who served in good faith in the war on terror, but whose deeds may now be susceptible to demagogic or politically inspired prosecution by some seeking to score political points. The lawyers can work out if such general or specific preemptive pardons are possible; it may be that the best Bush can or should do is to warn publicly against any such harassment or prosecution.

But the idea is this: The CIA agents who waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and the NSA officials who listened in on phone calls from Pakistan, should not have to worry about legal bills or public defamation. In fact, Bush might want to give some of these public servants the Medal of Freedom at the same time he bestows the honor on Generals Petraeus and Odierno. They deserve it.

I can understand why Kristol might be worried about this. As we discussed last week, Newsweek reported that Obama is considering a 9/11 Commission-style investigation of the administration's crimes torture interrogation practices.

But there are, not surprisingly, a few things wrong with Kristol's request. First, there's Kristol's frightening belief that those who commit acts of torture deserve rewards. It's just, on its face, twisted.

Second, there's the fact that the Bush White House "isn't inclined to grant sweeping pardons for former administration officials involved in harsh interrogations and detentions of terror suspects." Why? Because a) the torture policies are, as far as the president's team is concerned, legal; and b) pardons for those involved might lead some to think the policies weren't legal.

And third, as Faiz Shakir noted, the idea of the Medal of Freedom going to U.S. torturers would be offensive, but it would also be consistent with Bush's use of the honor: "In the Bush era, the Medal of Freedom has come to absurdly represent a reward for those who carried out policy failures at the urging of the Bush administration. By this standard, the implementers of torture and wiretapping certainly qualify for such a medal."

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... For readers who haven't been around the past couple of weekends, I have brought back "This Week in God" as a regular Saturday feature. The weekly piece highlights some of the news from the world of religion, most notably instances in which faith intersected with politics and/or public policy. TWIG was on hiatus during the height of the election season, but by popular demand, it's back.

First up from the God Machine, he Rev. Ed Young, pastor of the evangelical Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, recently challenged the married couples in his congregation of 20,000 to have sex on a daily basis. As Young sees it, "congregational copulation" brings people closer to God, closer to their spouse, reduces the likelihood of adultery, and sets a loving example for children.

So, how's it going?

It is not always easy to devote time for your spouse, Pastor Young admitted. Just three days into the sex challenge he said he was so tired after getting up before dawn to talk about the importance of having more sex in marriage that he crashed on the bed around 8 p.m. on Tuesday night.

Mrs. Young tried to shake him awake, telling her husband, "Come on, it's the sex challenge." But Mr. Young murmured, "Let's just double up tomorrow," and went back to sleep.

Also from the God Machine this week:

* Remember Ted Haggard, the resident of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals? You know, the one caught up in a sordid scandal involving a male prostitute and methamphetamine? He's apparently trying to make a comeback as a a Christian businessman and insurance salesman.

* Pope Benedict XVI apparently isn't big on interfaith dialogue. According to Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading daily newspaper, the pope will argue in his soon-to-be-published book that "an interreligious dialogue in the strict sense of the word is not possible." In theological terms, Benedict argues, "a true dialogue is not possible without putting one's faith in parentheses."

* And in Croatia, government officials have curtailed official Christmas and New Year parties due to a lack of funds. Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said the decision was dictated by the need for fiscal prudence. "For that goal we forbid buying of Christmas and New Year's gifts as well as organising of Christmas and New Year's receptions," Sanader said. Here's hoping no one tells O'Reilly about the decision. (thanks to reader V.S. for the tip)

ZAWAHRI STILL DESPERATE.... About two weeks ago, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri looked quite foolish attacking Barack Obama, calling the president-elect a "house negro."

Zawahri drew considerable international ridicule for the video, and it appears his p.r. team decided to make matters worse.

Al-Qaida's No. 2 leader appeared in a new video posted Friday calling on Americans to embrace Islam to overcome the financial meltdown, which he said was a consequence of the Sept. 11 attacks and militant strikes in Iraq and Afghanistan. [...]

Appearing in a white turban and robe, Zawahri discussed the roots of the U.S. economic crisis. He said it was a repercussion of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, and that the crisis would continue "as long as the foolish American policy of wading in Muslim blood continues."

"The American economy was afflicted by a downturn and loss of investor confidence in the market following the events of Sept. 11," he said.... Zawahri then called on the American people to "embrace Islam to live a life free of greed, exploitation and forbidden wealth."

One wonders if Zawahri realizes how ridiculous he sounds. Either way, it is encouraging to see him becoming increasingly desperate.

THEY'VE GOT THE POWER.... There was a spate of campaign resignations earlier this year related to controversies over intemperate rhetoric. The most unfortunate of these was the departure of Samantha Power, who had served as a top foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama.

I'm delighted to see she will, at a minimum, have a role in the transition.

Samantha Power, the Harvard professor who was forced to resign from Barack Obama's presidential campaign last spring after calling Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "a monster," is now advising the president-elect on transition matters relating to the State Department -- which Clinton is slated to head.

Power is listed on Obama's transition Web site as part of the team reviewing national security agencies. Her duties, according to the site, will be to "ensure that senior appointees have the information necessary to complete the confirmation process, lead their departments, and begin implementing signature policy initiatives immediately after they are sworn in."

In short, she is part of a team that is likely to work directly with Clinton, a potentially awkward situation for the two women.

I appreciate that this might appear to be an awkward dynamic, but it's worth remembering that to consider Power's career and accomplishments with only one stray campaign comment in mind is a ridiculous mistake. We're talking about a Pulitzer-prize winning scholar who has spent most of her professional life combating genocide and raising awareness of human rights abuses and global humanitarian issues.

Yes, in March, she said something intemperate. She'd hoped it would be off the record, and when it wasn't, Power apologized immediately and profusely, before resigning a few hours later. But here's the thing to remember: Americans are better off if Power has a role in our government.

The obvious story here is that Power offered a rude comment about Clinton during the heat of the campaign, Clinton is poised become the Secretary of State, and Power will now have a transition role at the State Department. But if I'm not mistaken, this political season is supposed to be about magnanimity and graciousness.

Kevin noted, "If we accept the conventional wisdom that Obama's choice of Clinton as Secretary of State is a generous gesture meant to help unify the party, then there would be few more forthright ways for Clinton to reciprocate than by nominating Power for some kind of meaningful position at Foggy Bottom. It would be a good sign that those hatchets have been well and truly buried."

I couldn't agree more. The nation and the world would be well served by Power's public service. Here's hoping soon-to-be Secretary of State Clinton agrees.

THE REASON FOR THE SEASON.... Good lord. (via Atrios)