The Video here.

KJL:

A friend of mine was at a fundraiser for Rudy Giuliani in Los Angeles last night. His walkaway thought: “[Rudy] might have a tough time in the primary but he will crush in the general.”

Said friend says of last night: “I have to tell you the man is very impressive. When he talks about the war on terror he does so more clearly than anyone I have heard including the President. He doesn't bash the President ever and this was LA where he could really get away with it.”

Rudy did an immigration bit that was “to the right of everyone else except maybe Tancredo. He talked about immigration in terms of national security. He said we needed to revamp our entire system so that we can get good people. He also said that if the twelve million already here expected to get any type of citizenship they would have to prove that they could read, write, and speak English.”

The fundraiser was sponsored by Bill Simon (who worked with Rudy in the U.S. Attorney’s office). My friend, who is the rare pro-life, Hollywood hawk, left wondering if he could support Rudy if it came to that. “We all know where Rudy is on abortion but my question is what does he think of Judges Roberts and Alito? If he says that he would appoint judges of like mind then I think he can skate on the abortion issue because it does come down to the judges.” It was Hollywood though so no one asked about any social issues.

It's no surprise that John Kerry took himself out of the presidential race early this last week. He wanted to be fully free to go abroad and slam the U.S. in Davos.

The Corner:

"Rather than back a non-binding resolution of disaproval, why didn't the gutsy Senators, like Chuck Hagel, who are riding the surf of public opinion opposed to the troop surge and taking on a president with approval ratings at the freezing level vote aginst General Petraeus' confirmation? Their convictions hold that he has endorsed a wholly unjustified escalation and will be leading troops on a futile mission. They want a role in the conduct of the war and with the need to win Senate confirmation of Gen. Petraeus the Constitution has given them one, but they have taken a pass. " If Petraeus succeeds, they'll be bragging that they voted for him. If he fails, they'll note that they opposed the surge. As John F. Kennedy noted, political courage is scarcer than physical courage . . . .

I rather doubt that an answer to O'Beirne's question will be forthcoming in the very near future.

Of which there is no doubt:

"Mrs. Clinton's acolytes are floating the idea of Hillary as another Margaret Thatcher to get past the question, "Can a woman be elected president?" This is based on the many, many things
Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher have in common, such as the lack of a Y chromosome and ... hmmm, you know, I think that's it.

Girl-power feminists who got where they are by marrying men with money or power -- Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), Arianna Huffington and
John Kerry -- love to complain about how hard it is for a woman to be taken seriously.

It has nothing to do with their being women. It has to do with their cheap paths to power. Kevin Federline isn't taken seriously either.

It is as easy to imagine Americans voting for someone like Margaret Thatcher or Condoleezza Rice for president as it is difficult to imagine them voting for someone like Hillary. (Or Kevin Federline.) Hillary isn't piggybacking on Thatcher because she's a woman, she's piggybacking on Thatcher because Thatcher made it on her own, which Hillary did not."

Appropriately smacks Wolf Bliter down, and hard. Blitzer doesn't seem to understand the line between public and private life, and it is highly likely that at his advanced age he will be susceptible to remedy.

It was better than I expected, but my expectations were fairly low, anyway. Despite that, Mr. Bush did a fairly good job. He seemed a bit more comfortable than one would have expected, given his first such speech in front of a Democratically controlled Congress, and Nancy Pelosi being seated behind him. "You didn't vote for failure" in Iraq was a good and effective line, and one could hardly boo it. There was no jeering or other disrespectful behavior from Democrats, which some had predicted earlier today. There were no angry scowls on faces, as some had also predicted (or wished for).

One senses that the President may have made some slight headway this evening in convincing Congress to hold its fire on slapping serious restraints on his new strategy in Iraq. It will be interesting to see the overnight and next few days polling on the matter, however.

It's warped logic, and it is contemptible, but it is understandable - from an emailer to Dean Barnett:

It's simple: If the surge succeeds, then the president, the Republicans and the Democratic supporters won't learn any lessons. In the USA victory only makes you more arrogant. Today Iraq, tomorrow Iran, Thursday Dafur, Friday Pakistan, Sunday Beijing, etc... Success would bring us into a state of perpetual war until we make a truly deadly decision. Making the same mistakes each time.

The emailer suffers from a monumental intellectual hernia, but does likely represent a significant portion of those who positively wish for a U.S. failure in Iraq, and their rationale for doing so.

The United States, Harry Reid notwithstanding, is making its warnings to Iran unambiguous:

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - A second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the Middle East is Washington's way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said here Tuesday.

Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, ruled out direct negotiations with Iran and said a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran was "not possible" until Iran halts uranium enrichment.

"The Middle East isn't a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn't a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That's why we've seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region," Burns said in an address to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, an influential think-tank.

"Iran is going to have to understand that the United States will protect its interests if Iran seeks to confront us," Burns continued.

Hopefully, at least 24 hours will go by before Harry Reid and other Democrats attempt to undermine the latest warning to Iran.

James Burkee:

The nation needs today...a president respected by both Republicans and Democrats who can restore trust in politics. It needs new faces and new ideas if it is to confront advancing crises of war, debt and entitlement reform. And it needs a president who can assume office in 2009 swimming in the political capital that only a mandate can bring. The nation needs a candidate who can win 55% or more.

And that will not happen with a Bush or Clinton on the ballot.

Agreed.

If the President of the United States believes that the worldwide war against terrorism is the "central calling of our time," then why does he not have each and every of the most prominent members of his administration out selling his new strategy for Iraq every day? Why the almost non-follow-up to the speech of last week? Why is the president allowing his enemies to go unopposed on mainstream media with their criticism of the policy, and distract from and defeat his message?

The president must bring a full-fledged effort to the information war, and rebut the criticisms as well as vigorously argue his case for the surge of troops in Iraq, otherwise he risks defeating his own policy.

Dick Morris doesn't think the public will take lightly the impression of support for nepotism that Obama has created.

Obama is a blank slate and media darling at the moment, but when the media honeymoon inevitably ends then it is likely he will have some serious explaining to do.

And one would hope that many, many more cities will implement it.

It could only have come from the 9th Circuit:

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on today vacated the sentence of ``millennium bomber'' Ahmed Ressam, who was arrested near the U.S.-Canadian border and convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport.

Ressam was arrested in December 1999 in Port Angeles when he drove off a ferry from British Columbia with a trunk full of 124 pounds of explosives. Prosecutors said he was intent on bombing the airport on the eve of the millennium.

The arrest raised fears of terrorism attacks and prompted the cancellation of millennium celebrations at the Space Needle.

He was sentenced to 22 years after being convicted of all nine charges, including terrorism conspiracy and explosives charges. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed his conviction on one of the charges and sent the case back to a lower court judge to issue a new sentence and explain the rationale behind the original 22-year term.

Unbelievable. Only the 9th Circuit would have trouble understanding the rational for Ressam's long sentence.

Nancy Pelosi has been fully in favor of passing a law requiring a minimum wage increase, except for large companies in her own district.

And it seems that Rep. Charles Rangel is more than a little perturbed over Pelosi's determination to do an end run around committees like his (Ways and Means) in an effort to rush legislation through during the Democrats' first hundred hours of leadership:

Rangel, who took over the powerful Ways and Means Committee after 36 years in Congress, smacked down the idea Pelosi raised on Sunday of repealing tax cuts for those earning more than $500,000 per year.

"We haven't gotten that far to be talking about tax increases," Rangel told The Post. "She hasn't discussed it with me . . . We haven't gotten into tax policy."

Pelosi had said nixing tax cuts for half-million-dollar earners "might be more important to the American people than ignoring the educational and health needs of America's children."

But Rangel, whose committee handles tax policy, dismissed Pelosi's idea as unlikely to happen, since the speaker didn't bother to vet it with him in advance.

"Saying it to me in private is far more important than whatever she says nationally," he huffed, referring to her weekend TV appearance.

By calling out Pelosi, Rangel, a liberal firebrand himself, has emerged as the first old-school committee "baron" with the political juice to spar with the ascendant speaker.

In another swat at Pelosi, Rangel sided with Republican lawmakers by opposing his leadership's high-profile push to jam through legislation in the first 100 hours of Democratic rule.

Pelosi decreed that none of the early legislation would go through the normal committee process, hoping to keep her party in lockstep to enact key agenda items and boost her own and the party's national image.

"I don't think the chairman [Rangel] likes the idea that there were no hearings on a lot of the bills that were coming up in the 100 hours," said the Democratic lawmaker.

Sources say Rangel went to Pelosi urging that his committee be allowed to review legislation allowing the feds to negotiate with drug companies over prices and taking away tax breaks for big oil companies - but she refused.