Wonkette

* The 126 House Democrats that voted against the Iraq war in 2002 enjoy feeling prescient, will soon enjoy chairing powerful committees. [WP]
* Robert Gates’s confirmation hearings begin tomorrow, learn all you never needed to know about him today. [WP, LAT]
* The “other” Iraq Study Group, working for Gen. Peter Pace, recommends more troops in Iraq. So, there’s that. [WSJ]
* National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley tells Russert that “significant changes” are afoot for Iraq, still hasn’t a clue what they’re likely to be. [WP, NYT]
* Barack Obama’s massive popularity and promise is pissing off other potential Presidential candidates… [NYT]
* …like second-generation White House grasper Evan Bayh, whose exploratory committee has begun exploring. [WP]
* President Bush can’t stop thinking about those Alaskan oil fields. [NYT]
* CIA unable to sway Venezuelan Presidential elections as Hugo Chavez wins easily. [LAT]
* Steven Spielberg, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Dolly Parton, and Smokey Robinson among those “knighted” at the Kennedy Center Honors last night. [NYT]

Apparently he wasn’t the World’s Best Boss:

One former senior aide to the National Security Council, who wished to remain anonymous, offered a different perspective, saying “They are doing cartwheels in the E ring and could not care who was nominated so long as Rumsfeld resigned. They would not care if Satan replaced him.”

Tough crowd! MORE »

We found this insane story last week about James Baker III shouting down Cheney and Bush 43 (in a fetal position) in some Godfather-style Oval Office takeover meeting right before the election. It was allegedly told by Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe to Chris Matthews during Election Night coverage, live on MSNBC at 4:30 a.m. — of course there are no transcripts, no YouTube evidence, etc.

But now that Newsweek has pretty much confirmed the whole story, we might as well repeat it here, after the jump.

MORE »

Here’s a great house for Robert M. Gates, because it’s being sold by another ex-CIA boss, Porter Goss! MORE »

How twisted is this country? An Iran-Contra crook and ex-CIA chief is immediately greeted as a sane, grown-up yet “fresh” replacement for the delusional old Donald Rumsfeld. MORE »