THEY TOLD ME THAT IF WE TOPPLED SADDAM HUSSEIN, gas would be cheaper than it was in 2001. And they were right!

DANIEL DREZNER is now blogging over at Foreign Policy.

DAWN JOHNSEN as head of the Office of Legal Counsel. Another good appointment, I’d say.

POLITICS AS REVIVAL MEETING. My advice: Be the skunk at the picnic!

MORE ON CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON:

Look at New York’s Senator Charles Schumer, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. According to The New York Times, the week after he attended a breakfast of financial high rollers and promised them that Democrats would make sure their $700 billion bailout got through Congress, those same fat cats sent $135,000 in campaign contributions.

Or New York Congressman Charlie Rangel, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, who reversed himself on a tax break for a business called Nabors Industries the same month that company donated $100,000 to a City College school for public service named after — all together now, class — Charlie Rangel.

Life imitates satire — and vice versa.

Of course, these are just right-wing shills talking. You know, Bill Moyers, right-wing shill.

OBAMA’S STIMULUS STRATEGY: A trap for Republicans?

UPDATE: Kudlow likes the cut of Obama’s jib, but thinks the Republicans should offer a “bold alternative.” (How about making mortgage interest a refundable credit for three years? That should help the housing market!)

Meanwhile, Arnold Kling is against the stimulus bill.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Don’t take the bait!

POPULAR MECHANICS OFFERS continuous reporting from MacWorld and C.E.S. No, I didn’t go this year — I had originally planned to go to the Detroit Auto Show instead, but in the end that kind of looked like too much of a downer so I just stayed home.

MSNBC: “Rangel Watch: Charlie Rangel is still defending himself from allegations of fundraising improprieties. Given the Blagojevich situation and now the Richardson chatter, is Rangel even in more trouble? Will he have to temporarily give up his Ways and Means gavel at this critical time?”

MY POST LAST NIGHT on the 10″ Asus netbook produced an email from reader James Flanagan, who loves his 10″ Samsung N10: “The key selling point for me was the large keyboard, which feels like a ‘real’ laptop. And unlike my ‘regular’ laptop, never an issue about whether to pack it or not. Thanks for all your great netbook coverage.” Yeah, the Samsung looks cool and I considered it, but it’s a bit more expensive than the Asus.

And Scott Atkinson writes: “Further to your post on your Asus netbook, I am into the second day of use of an HP Mini 1035, a 10″ netbook, that I bought at Circuit City yesterday. Very impressed with the speed of XP and I am astonished at the quality of the screen. I am getting used to the keyboard but as you say, the nearly full size makes it easier to use, at least compared to what I was anticipating. Sufficient features for 90% of my personal computing these days, size and weight seem damn-near perfect and the build quality is impressive as well. Nice job, HP (or their partners at Inventec Hi-tech Corporation of Shanghai, China according to the side of the box).”

I like the mini-Note line, though the one I tested had Vista which slowed it down considerably. Great keyboard, though it seems a bit heavier than the others. Good battery life, though.

HOPE AND CHANGE! Pelosi Moves to Silence Minority By Erasing Long-Standing House Rules.

JULES CRITTENDEN OFFERS advice to the Taliban on how to refine their information-warfare techniques.

REPORTING on the RNC Chair debate.

HEH: Bill Clinton: CIA Pick Panetta Can Keep a Secret.

FROM LIAR TO GENIUS: Harry Reid on General Petraeus. At least he’s caught on to the fact that the Surge was more about different tactics than just more troops, something he could have learned by reading InstaPundit two years ago.

SO WHEN IT HAPPENS, boo. Loudly and lustily.

HERE’S A BIT MORE on the Brandon Darby story.

MOVING TOWARD ATOMIC-SCALE COMPUTING with nanotechnology.

ERIC POSNER ON BOLTON AND YOO ON THE TREATY POWER: “It didn’t take long for conservatives to rediscover limits on executive power. You’d think something—if not philosophical consistency, then at least manners—would cause them to hold off until, say, inauguration day.” Well, I thought the question of executive abrogation of treaties had been settled — practically, if not constitutionally — by Goldwater v. Carter. And Larry Tribe’s backdown on NAFTA suggests that inconsistency among politically connected academics is nothing new. Still, a decent interval and all that . . . .

CRUSADING AGAINST STILTED WRITING. [“Crusading?” Can you still say that? — ed. Yep. I may “lack fire,” but I am without fear!]

DUMB LAWSUIT OF THE DAY: Suing Cold Medication Manufacturers Because Drug Dealers Make Drugs out of the Medication. Can I sue these people for making the legal world just a little bit more ridiculous? I’d also like to sue the people who made it so goddamn hard for me to buy Sudafed when I have a cold.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON wonders who will police the police:

If it was true that when the Republicans enjoyed majorities in the House and Senate and ran the White House, there was no one to object when they overspent, grew the government, and ran up the debt, who now will police the Democratic police in matters of corruption?

Rep. Rangel oversees on Ways and Means US tax policy, but is himself a tax offender, among other, far greater charges and allegations about his behavior and character. Sen. Dodd simply cannot tell the truth about his cut-rate, quid pro quo mortgage deals. His actions and the Barney Frank-Franklin Raines exchange are metaphors for the entire subprime mortgage crisis. It would take a genealogist to sort out all the tribal ties, inside pay-offs, and pay for play deals involved in the selling of Obama’s Senate seat; meanwhile, we await the tapes of Jesse Jackson, Jr., Rahm Emanuel, and Co. Al Franken simply relied on Minnesota Democratic officials to keep counting until they came up with the right result. On matters of nepotism, entitlement, and insider favoritism, Democratic egalitarians will probably anoint Caroline Kennedy as Senator in New York. Bill Richardson didn’t even try to pull off being Secretary of Commerce. Nowhere is there anyone on the Democratic side to decry the culture of corruption as in the days of Duke Cunningham and Ted Stevens.

A fair, honest, and impartial press would do this. Wish we had one!

LEON PANETTA FOR CIA DIRECTOR: Richard Miniter comments: “Obama needs to explain why an inexperienced former congressman and lobbyist will be a better CIA director than the guy doing the job now.” Meanwhile, Dianne Feinstein may oppose him. In a related development, I saw Newt Gingrich on TV saying that the CIA “can’t be run by an outside political appointment.” I’m not so sure that it shouldn’t be, as I believe there’s some cleanup that needs to take place. Here’s a similar point from Angelo Codevilla: “Leon Panetta may not know very much about foreign affairs or defense matters. He is wholly unacquainted with the questions and quarrels that have roiled the US intelligence community for a half century. But, as veteran political warrior, he will do what President Obama expects of him: prevent CIA from making war upon him as it made war on George W. Bush.”

UPDATE: “They’ve got to put him somewhere.”

TUNKU VARADARAJAN: Five reasons why India can’t “do a Gaza” on Pakistan.

SO, A WHILE BACK I MENTIONED THE 10″ ASUS NETBOOK, but since then I’ve gotten one and used it enough to form an opinion. My opinion is that it’s a pretty neat little gadget. It’s only a little bit bigger than the 9″ Asus, but it feels a lot bigger. The bigger screen is nice, but it’s the keyboard — which goes from cramped-but-usable to nearly full-sized — that’s the big difference. And you get a lot for the $383 that Amazon is currently asking: Windows XP, wireless, webcam with microphone, a 160 GB hard drive, an Atom processor, and 1GB of RAM. Also, it has a surprisingly high-quality feel for the price — it doesn’t feel like a cheap netbook, it feels like a small laptop. The 9″ Asus is entirely usable, but at the 10″ size a lot of the compromises seem to melt away. Battery life is good, too — I’m not sure you’ll really get the claimed 6-7 hours, but I’ve gotten 4.5 hours with some time remaining so it’s pretty good for such a lightweight machine. And did I mention it’s cheap?

UPDATE: Reader Mike Robinson likes his: “I bought one from Amazon (free shipping of course) and it is just wonderful and a nice bright screen. Runs applications adequately and the size of the keyboard really doesn’t require any compromises. I also purchased a memory upgrade to 2GB, which cost an extra $30 bucks or so. Thanks for your earlier recommendation.”

And John Frederick has an Acer Aspire: “I’m typing this on my wife’s, I mean ‘our’, new Acer with extended battery and 160 GB HD. We love it. It’s like carrying a little book around. We got over 6 hours the other night using it for web surfing and basic tasks.” Yeah, I saw one of those when I was in the Caymans and it looked cool; the guy who owned it said it was great.

AND HERE I THOUGHT the “culture of corruption” was gone.