The handling of General Zinni’s appointment and un-appointment is simply shameful. What is wrong over there?

The Washington Post suggests President Obama not look a gift horse in the mouth: “Oddly, the biggest beneficiary of the election other than Mr. Maliki may be President Obama, who has been a skeptic both of progress in Iraq and the value of elections in unstable states. . . [T]he president would do well to recognize, value and exploit the very real political progress Iraq has made — and to be careful not to undercut it by acting too quickly on his exit strategy. ”

Is the New York Times online going to start charging again? Oh, puleez! How I miss the days of TimesSelect. (When I didn’t feel compelled to read a column arguing that it is okay the stimulus is messy because the columnist’s desk is messy. As is her reasoning.)

If this report is any indication, the press honeymoon is over.

And E.J. Dionne confirms that, really, his fellow journalists are liberal propagandists, but unreliable ones: “In just two weeks, the elation of Inauguration Day has given way to a classic form of partisan hardball. Obama and his advisers have been forced to learn basic lessons on the run. For starters, the media cannot be counted on to be either liberal or permanently enchanted with any politician.”

Darth Vader plays mind games with the Obama team. Yeah, go ahead and change those Bush-era policies and be prepared for an attack on America. Or is it Clint Eastwood?

Well, maybe he can snag a spot as a Fox political analyst: “‘You have Daschle with his tax problem. You have [Treasury Secretary Tim] Geithner with his tax problem. You have Charlie Rangel, who’s chairman of the Ways and Means Committee — doesn’t understand the tax code. You have Chris Dodd, who got special — alleged special terms’ on a mortgage. ‘If I look at that from our standpoint I’d start to worry about it if I were a Democrat. There’s nothing more dangerous, politically, than hypocrisy. At some point, here, we’re going to get critical mass.”

Republicans get excited about their prospects in New Jersey at their own peril. Still, Governor Corzine’s numbers look awful.

Governor Paterson ended Caroline Kennedy’s political career — and did a rather effective job of damaging his own. I’m thinking that 2010 Governor’s race is going to be competitive.

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) must be in the (blue) dog house. He backpedals on his claim that the White House encouraged him to vote against Nancy Pelosi’s stimulus bill.

Would you let this woman draft your most important piece of legislation? (Okay, we knew she wasn’t good at math.)

Tax cuts are an effective stimulus, it turns out. Who knew? The Congressional Research Service, actually.

Meanwhile, the timing on this couldn’t be better: “Republican Rep. John R. Carter of Texas offered legislation Wednesday that would require Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel to relinquish his gavel until the ethics committee completes an investigation into Rangel’s finances. Under the rules of the House, members must consider Carter’s resolution by next Tuesday, forcing Democrats to confront Rangel’s ethics in the same week they will try to move the massive economic stimulus and a handful of late appropriations bills.”

And Rangel has more problems: failure to disclose book royalties.

Next up: “The White House’s nominee for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Leon Panetta, has earned more than $700,000 in speaking and consulting fees since the beginning of 2008, with some of the payments coming from troubled financial firms and from a firm that invests in contractors for federal national security agencies, according to financial disclosures released Wednesday.” You can’t make this stuff up.