MICKEY KAUS: “Wherein lies the greatness of Tom Daschle? Just asking! … P.S. He’s always seemed to me the model of the modern Senate Majority Leader–i.e., the 50+ prima donnas that make up a majority don’t want a strong leader who might crowd their games, so they wind up with a Daschle, an amiable man who will not challenge them.” I think that’s what Obama found appealing, too.

POLITICAL WIRE: Gregg voted to abolish Commerce Department. “I guess if you can’t destroy it, go be in charge of it.”

YOUR LOVE PROBLEMS SOLVED, by the unbeatable team of Dr. Helen and Amy Alkon.

PROMISES, PROMISES: No lobbyists at WH, except …

UPDATE: More skepticism: Obama’s Pledge to Reform Ethics Faces an Early Test. “During almost two years on the campaign trail, Barack Obama vowed to slay the demons of Washington, bar lobbyists from his administration and usher in what he would later call in his Inaugural Address a ‘new era of responsibility.’ What he did not talk much about were the asterisks. The exceptions that went unmentioned now include a pair of cabinet nominees who did not pay all of their taxes. Then there is the lobbyist for a military contractor who is now slated to become the No. 2 official in the Pentagon. And there are the others brought into government from the influence industry even if not formally registered as lobbyists. . . . Several Democrats, including some who have advised Mr. Obama, said privately that he had only himself to blame for delivering such an uncompromising message as a candidate without recognizing how it would complicate his ability to assemble an administration.”

SOON YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO LEAVE HOME: Amazon selling downloadable PC games. With a 30-minute free trial on every game.

POLITICO: Daschle pushed Hindery for Obama job.

A GEITHNER/DASCHLE/RANGEL INSPIRED IDEA FROM JIM BENNETT: “There must be some way for the GOP to move out aggressively on the administration’s IRS problems beyond making speeches that will be forgotten within days. I am sensing a huge anger on this out there. What about the idea of a moratorium on IRS audits for middle-class taxpayers (using any of Obama’s campaign-trail definitions, from $250K/yr on down) for at least a year? Obviously the IRS is short on auditors, so why not deploy them where they are most needed?”

Plus, a proposal to audit all public officials. Seems fair to me!

IRAN LAUNCHES A SATELLITE. The French are “concerned.”

ROSS DOUTHAT: The Internet Taketh, and the Internet Taketh Away.

TENNESSEE GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE ZACH WAMP reaches out to blogs with a position statement on gun rights.

CHRIS DODD COUNTRYWIDE UPDATE: The Senator’s modified, limited mortgage hangout.

Heck, we’d all love the kind of courtesy that would have saved Mr. Dodd $75,000 over the life of the two loans he refinanced to the tune of $800,000, according to an analysis by Portfolio magazine. The savings came from rock-bottom interest rates and a free “float-down” — the right to borrow at a lower rate if interest rates fall before you’ve closed on the loan.

On Monday, with interest rates — even for non-VIPs — near historic lows, Mr. Dodd announced that he would refinance the sweetheart loans with another lender. The rates on the two Friends of Angelo loans were 4.5% and 4.25%, so the Senator will probably end up paying a bit more than he is now. But getting out from under the original loans doesn’t shed any light on the key question: Whether Mr. Dodd knew that he got the red-carpet treatment because of his central role in regulating the financial industry. That’s what former Countrywide employee Robert Feinberg has claimed to us and others. . . .

Countrywide was for years the biggest single customer of Fannie Mae, the giant government-sponsored mortgage securitizer that has since gone into federal conservatorship. Much of Countrywide’s business was built around its ability to sell loans to Fannie, and Mr. Mozilo helped push Fannie to accept dodgier and dodgier paper. Mr. Dodd in turn supported this goal by pressing Fannie to do more for “affordable” housing.

This nexus between Mr. Dodd’s public duties and Countrywide’s interests is a serious matter involving the Senator’s personal ethics and accountability to taxpayers who will be paying for Fannie’s bad loans for years to come. If, as Mr. Dodd claims, he has nothing to hide, then why is he still hiding it?

The “refinance” deal doesn’t answer any of the questions people have had about Dodd, except perhaps the one about “what kind of fools does he take us for?”

DANIEL PEARL AND THE NORMALIZATION OF EVIL: “When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?” When they’re not rewarded for it any more.

MAX BOOT ON Obama’s ill-considered defense cut.

UPDATE: Or is it an eight percent increase? The latter would certainly be more stimulative . . . .

BRUCE STERLING: 2009 will be a year of panic. “The nation-state is torn from both above and below. The global guerrilla and the Davos globe-hopper are cousins.”

WE DON’T WANT OUR CARS TO BE HOSTAGE TO HOSTILE REGIMES SO LET’S GO ELECTRIC: Er, oops. . . .

ISRAEL AND TURKEY: Behind the blow-out in Davos.

WITH ALL DELIBERATE SPEED: No rush to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’.

BEN BARTON reviews Robert Spitzer’s Saving the Constitution from Lawyers. My favorite bit:

The efficacy of these arguments is crippled, however, by [Spitzer’s] claim that the individual rights theory of the Second Amendment is fatally, obviously, and laughably wrong as a matter of constitutional theory, case law, and history. Unfortunately for Spitzer the Supreme Court held the exact opposite by a vote of 9-0 in District of Columbia v. Heller months after the publication of the book.

Ouch.

UPDATE: A couple of readers protest that Heller was a 5-4 decision, but the Court went 9-0 in favor of the Second Amendment protecting an individual right.

JAMES LILEKS: Imagine an England where the Thousand Acre Wood is unspoiled by Christopher Robin!

ANN ALTHOUSE: Feeling the strain of that 1-year time limit imposed — showily imposed — on Guantanamo.

JAMES TARANTO: “If a certain sort of conservative tends to be moralistic about sex, liberals tend to be moralistic about money. That makes Tom Daschle the equivalent of a televangelist caught in a sex scandal.” Plus, Marion Barry for Drug Czar! What, Willie Nelson wasn’t available?

THE G.O.P. HAS A CUNNING PLAN: “Senate Republicans circulated a sweeping plan to drive down the cost of mortgages by expanding the federal government’s role in the industry, officials said Monday night as debate opened on an economic stimulus bill at the top of President Barack Obama’s agenda.”

FRANK TIPLER: Macroeconomics ‘Experts’ Apply Astrology, Not Science. “Macroeconomists should realize that the inability of their theories to make accurate predictions means that they do not know what they are talking about. We non-economists should realize this also, and realize that our leaders, who are being advised by macroeconomists, haven’t got a clue where they are leading us.”

MICHAEL SILENCE: Obama transparency off to a ‘check back later’ start.

THE HILL: Bankrolling Charitable Gifts: “Financial firms and other companies receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout money spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for meetings and charitable gifts on behalf of lawmakers.” What kind of an economy is it where returns on political investments vastly outperform returns on actual investments?