The Financial Times is reporting that the North Korean government has invited Eric Clapton to perform. The invitation comes on the heels of a historic visit by the New York Philharmonic to the Hermit Kingdom.
Judging by the New York Times' account of the intensely emotional concert, we can't even begin to imagine how "Slowhand" will be received. That is, by those North Koreans who have actually been permitted to listen to the British guitar icon's music.
FT reports that Clapton agreed to a concert "in principle," although his reps have yet to confirm it. Rock and pop are banned in North Korea. Some will have fun imagining Kim Jong Il rocking out to "Cocaine" -- but AP reports that his son, Kim Jong Chol, is the family's Clapton fan.
Canada's Conservative government proposed a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan by 2011 at the open of parliamentary debate on the future of the Canadian mission there.
"It is the opinion of the House that Canada should continue a military presence in Kandahar beyond February 2009 to July 2011 in a manner fully consistent with the U.N. mandate on Afghanistan," said Royal Galipeau, the Conservative deputy chair of Committees of the Whole House.
The Canadian House of Commons is debating that country's lead role in the Afghanistan mission. Support for the ongoing mission has dwindled among Canadians, who have seen a disproportionately large number of casualties in the Afghan conflict.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has bristled at what it sees as reluctance among the other large NATO members to contribute resources and manpower to the fight against the resurgent Taliban. The patchwork-style NATO mission -- with Canadians, Britons, Dutchmen and Americans doing the lion's share of security and reconstruction work -- is facing Taliban fighters who have adopted tactics used by al-Qaida and insurgents in Iraq (e.g., suicide bombings) and a rampant opium trade that Afghan farmers are reluctant to abandon.
Ahead of a contentious NATO meeting in Lithuania early this month, Harper's government threatened to bring the Canadian mission to an end if other NATO countries did not increase their contributions. That threat still holds as the Canadian parliament hammers out its Afghanistan timeline.
Pervez Musharraf, who seized power illegally and whose unpopularity now prompts rioting in Pakistan's streets, isn't going anywhere.
Not if he can help it, anyway. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal(subscription), Musharraf stubbornly insisted on his relevance to Pakistani politics and said he would help shepherd in the newly elected government.
But the leaders of the two parties that won big in Monday's parliamentary election -- former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-N Party and Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party -- called on Musharraf to step down. The two are meeting today to discuss, in all likelihood, forming a broad-based coalition government that does not include Musharraf.
"He used to say that when people expressed no confidence in him that he would leave. Now the people have announced their decision," said Sharif, who was tossed out of office in the military coup led by the former general in 1999.
Military Poll: Armed Forces -- And U.S. -- Highly Vulnerable
Is the military broken?
That is a question the Pentagon and Washington have been asking since late 2003, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeldinadvertently signaled that the country was in for a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Soldiers themselves have been generally more positive about their mission than American civilians are. A new survey of military officers shows that while most maintain that the military is not broken, it cannot persevere under present conditions for long.
Just 42 percent of respondents described the military as broken, compared with 56 percent who disagreed. But 60 percent said the military was weaker. Just 25 percent said the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan had helped the military grow stronger.
The results are largely in line with other surveys of military officers, such as those conducted by the Military Times publishing group. But as warnings from the military about its own health have intensified over the years, the strain placed on active-duty troops has only grown. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the new 15/12 deployment schedule last April, and there are no indications that those rotations will be eased this year, even as troop levels are brought back down to pre-surge levels. If anything, the Pentagon appears to be hinting that they will not.
When asked whether the war in Iraq had stretched the military "dangerously thin," a whopping 88 percent of respondents said yes. More gravely, the officers said, the military is currently ill-prepared to respond to other major conflicts. More than 80 percent said it was unreasonable to expect the military to engage in another war today. And on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning completely ready, the officers gave America's readiness to go to war with Iran a 4.5.
That may be because many see the current mission in Iraq as untenable: Nearly three-quarters said the goals set for the military by civilian leadership after the fall of Saddam Hussein were unreasonable.
Two men being held in the Dec. 27 assassination of Benazir Bhutto have confessed to participating in the suicide bombing plot that killed the former Pakistani prime minister and more than a dozen others.
Hasnain Gul and Rafaqat, who goes by one name, told Pakistani authorities they provided the suicide bomber with shelter, "a suicide jacket and a pistol," the lead police investigator said.
A state of emergency has been declared in the small Southeast Asian island nation, one day after an assassination attempt on two of its top leaders. President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao were attacked in a failed coup.
Ramos-Horta remains on life support in an Australian military hospital with gunshot wounds in the chest, back and stomach. Gusmao escaped uninjured.
The state of emergency suspends large public gatherings and imposes an 8 p.m. curfew, according to the deputy prime minister.
Australian security forces have been called into the country to help enforce the state of emergency, and an op-ed this morning in the Boston Globe stresses the need for international intervention. The U.N. has maintained a presence in the country since Indonesia withdrew its control in 1999; East Timor won its independence in 2002.
See the CNN and Washington Post stories for more on East Timor's history and the current conflict.
AP is reporting that two U.S. fighter jets intercepted two Russian bombers flying too close to the USS Nimitz over the weekend.
According to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity, a Russian Tupolev 95 swooped to a low altitude close to the Nimitz, while another "circled about 50 nautical miles out."
The incident coincides with another confrontation involving Japanese naval vessels. Japan lodged a protest against Moscow, claiming a Russian bomber violated the island nation's airspace. According to AFP, Japanese officials said a Tupolev 95 flew over "Sofugan, 650 kilometres (406 miles) south of Tokyo, for about three minutes" early Saturday morning.
Gregg William Bergersen, 51, of Alexandria, Va., has been charged with passing on classified information he obtained as a Pentagon employee to two Chinese spies.
According to the Justice Department, Bergersen traded secret documents on the U.S. space program and military sales with Taiwan, an enemy of China, to Tai Shen Kuo and Yu Xin Kang both of New Orleans. The Washington Postreports that the trio met at various times in "Northern Virginia, Charleston, South Carolina and Las Vegas."
Bergersen, a weapons policy analyst at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, faces up to 10 years in prison.
After being called in several weeks ago to probe the death of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Scotland Yard investigators have concluded that a suicide bomb -- not a gunshot -- killed the former prime minister.
The report confirms that a gunman fired shots in Bhutto's direction just before the Dec. 27 blast, as previously reported, but that he missed and she was actually killed by the force of the explosion which caused her head to slam against her car. It also states that the gunman himself set off the bomb.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied that her surprise visit to Kandahar today was Washington's way of sticking it to NATO allies not doing their fair share in Afghanistan.
"It's just the rationale of being able to get outside of Kabul and see one of the areas that's been very active," Rice said before touching down, according to Reuters. "I don't think there's any message there to anyone."
Poignantly -- or not, if Rice's statement is taken at face value -- she and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband were touring Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold in the country's south. Most trips by top foreign dignitaries are confined to the much safer capital city of Kabul. Kandahar remains dangerous, but it is also a prime example of the effectiveness of NATO forces in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
And in what has over the years become a ritual, Afghan President Hamid Karzai denied there were tensions between his government and its Western allies.
More than a year after a coup removed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, Thai citizens chose one of his close allies for his old job in today's round of elections. Samak Sundaravej, a 72-year-old right-wing politician, was elected with a substantial majority in parliament, in a step largely seen as a move back toward democracy following a big shake-up in the country after the September 2006 coup.
But the New York Times is predicting trouble ahead for the new leader: "Samak is disliked by the Thai press and intelligentsia and is deeply resented by civil rights groups for his support of deadly crackdowns on peaceful protesters in the 1970s and 1990s." See the full story for more.
If 2007 seemed like a bad year for democracy, that's because it was, according to new data from Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization that monitors and promotes freedom around the world. The group recently released its report on 2007, citing a "notable setback for global freedom" for the second consecutive year.
Freedom House uses its own set of criteria to divide nations into three categories: "free," "partly free" and "not free." In 2007, one-fifth of the world's nations experienced a decline in freedom, the group says. Although the number of countries in the "not free" category did not grow over the last year, "there were many changes within these broad categories" that demonstrate an alarming trend, a press release announcing the report claims. These reversals were seen in countries across the globe -- from sub-Saharan Africa to the former Soviet Union.
Nearly four times as many countries saw declines in levels of freedom as showed improvement. Dishearteningly, several countries that had been experiencing progress toward democracy in recent years, such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Kenya, took steps backward in 2007. Two former Soviet countries that underwent "color revolutions" fairly recently -- Kyrgyzstan and Georgia -- also reversed track last year, Freedom House reports.
President Bush sought to assure investors and consumers that a relief package was on the way, though he made no promises about when.
"I believe we can find common ground to get something done," he said, flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. They were joined by Bush's economic team at the White House for a briefing on Bush's recent trip to the Middle East as well as a discussion of the $150 billion stimulus package the president proposed on Friday.
"The economy is inherently strong, but it needs to get a boost. We need to make sure this uncertainty doesn't translate into more economic woes for our workers and businesspeople," Bush said.
Bush was discussing the nation's economy with opposition leaders in Congress on a day of dizzying volatility in the U.S. and global markets. This morning, the Federal Reserve Board made its first emergency rate cut since shortly after the 9/11 attacks, voting to slash its benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to 3.5 percent. The move was meant to provide immediate relief for debtors in an economy seized by a two-fer liquidity and credit drought.
The surprise announcement came one week before the Fed's regularly scheduled meeting, at which it was expected to further nick at rates by 50 basis points. The move did nothing, initially, to mitigate fears that the U.S. economic slowdown is having a tsunami effect on global markets. The Dow plummeted more than 460 points soon after the opening bell.
But the emergency cut was also a signal that the Fed stands at the ready to react aggressively to the economy's downturn. By noon the sell-off had slowed, and the Dow mostly recovered to close down 128 points, or 1.1 percent.
At least six people were killed and six more injured when a suicide bomber exploded and militants opened fire on a luxury hotel in Kabul earlier today, according to U.S. officials and a Taliban spokesman.
State Department officials told AP that at least one American died in the attack, which was aimed at Western civilians staying at the Serena Hotel. A Norwegian journalist was also reportedly killed.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the militants were targeting Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere, who was in the hotel basement at the time and survived unhurt.
According to the New York Times, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, "calling it a coordinated assault by four men armed with guns and suicide belts." The attack was "one of the most brazen assaults by the Taliban in the heavily protected heart of the Afghan capital," the Times reports.
Musharraf 'Not Fully Satisfied' With Handling Of Bhutto's Death
In a press conference one week after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf today forcefully denied claims that his government had any involvement in the slain former prime minister's death, and he offered his request for an inquiry by Scotland Yard as proof.
"We don't mind going to any extent, as nobody is involved from the government or agency side," he said. Musharraf also denied accusations that Bhutto's security detail was inadequate and suggested that she was partly responsible for her own death. "Who is to be blamed for her coming out (of) her vehicle?" he asked. The president expressed hope that British investigators will be able to come up with answers.
Despite his denial of any government role in Bhutto's death, Musharraf indicated that he was unsatisfied with the way Pakistan handled the aftermath.
In case you missed it, and there's pretty much no chance you have, the Iowa caucuses are tomorrow, Jan. 3, more than eight months (!) before the first party nominating convention will be held. The ground in both fields has shifted dramatically this month alone, which indicates that what the tiny percentage of Iowans who caucus tomorrow have to say will probably not hold.
Nonetheless, there are more media outlets on the ground in Iowa today than ever before, and coverage is wall-to-wall. We've explained before why Iowa polls are unreliable. The new Register surveys, which show Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee in the lead, were conducted Dec. 27-30, when enough Iowans to skew the results were probably traveling and therefore were unable to pick up the phone. There are also questions about whether Iowans, who by some accounts are receiving more than one campaign-related phone call a night, are still picking up their phones at all. (Think about it: Would you?)
Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal -- a new National Journal Group colleague (welcome!) -- has some must-readexplanations of Iowa polling.
Moreover, there are long-lingering questions about the actual significance of the Iowa caucuses. Democratic caucus-goers tend to be more liberal than primary voters elsewhere, and GOP caucus-goers more conservative. Fewer than 10 percent of Iowans, who are overwhelmingly white, participate, but the outsized media coverage arguably has a king-making effect. Those candidates who don't place in the top five might be considered road kill by Friday morning, which could doom them in other states where they are faring better.
Georgetown's Christopher Hull crunches the numbers in his new book, "Grassroots Rules" (seriously, there are charts and graphs). If you want to understand Iowa's effect on party nominations, read this book. His ultimate conclusion is that Iowa is important. But: "Controlling for New Hampshire results and measures of exhibition season performance, Iowa is not a statistically significant predictor of overall primary performance."
Before the Christmas break, we wrote that Americans' dwindling interest in the Iraq war might be perilous to the national interest, as Alasdair Roberts recently contended in Foreign Policy. Now the war on terrorism -- which even critics of President Bush must admit now includes Iraq -- is back in the headlines, thanks to yesterday's tragic events.
The view from Washington is that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a serious kneecap blow to U.S. foreign policy. To quickly review: President Pervez Musharraf, an ally by necessity, is increasingly unpopular at home and for good reason. (People who live under military dictatorships generally do not enjoy the experience.) Meanwhile, there's a virulent strain of anti-Western, Islamic fanaticism seeping through Pakistan at the moment, which means this White House's usually cherished principles of liberty and democracy do not apply.
The Bhutto-Musharraf power-sharing compromise was seen as the most feasible shot at calming Pakistan's restive populace. In Bhutto, Washington saw a more reliable and transparent ally in the war against extremism, in part because of her shady ethical past. She had something to prove.
Now that she's gone, we're back to where we were, and less than two weeks before Pakistan's elections no less. No doubt there is panic in the Beltway today, if only for the dearth of available options now.
A roundup of how editorial boards and pundits reacted to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto:
"Bhutto was a flawed and undeniably courageous leader. Her return to Pakistan two months ago raised hopes that her country might find its way toward democracy and stability. Her assassination on Thursday is yet one more horrifying reminder of how far Pakistan is from both -- and how close it is to the brink." -- New York Times
"Ms. Bhutto was the most powerful advocate of secular democracy in her country; she had the courage to confront both Islamic militants and the autocratic government of President Pervez Musharraf.... Her tragic death may open the way to violence and political chaos that could be exploited by al-Qaeda and the Taliban, unless Mr. Musharraf and the country's surviving moderate forces act quickly and wisely." -- Washington Post
Bhutto Assassination: U.S. Policy Unchanged... But For How Long?
UPDATED.
Officials in the Bush administration said that current White House policy toward Pakistan hadn't immediately changed in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, despite questions about whether President Pervez Musharraf had a role in today's attack.
"U.S. policy has always been based on promoting a... peaceful, moderate country" in Pakistan, said State Department spokesman Tom Casey. "Our efforts have not been focused on any individuals, but on achieving that goal."
President Bush and Musharraf are to speak by phone today. Administration officials are being careful not to go beyond expressing condolences and general condemnations of terrorism as they monitor the delicate political crisis in Pakistan. Fires broke out as Bhutto supporters rioted in the streets. Islamabad declared a "red alert," meaning police were on guard against violent outbreaks related to her death, but stopped short of imposing martial law.
(For our report on Bhutto's assassination and the initial reaction, click here.)
Administration officials said they would offer whatever help Pakistan needed but that they had not been asked to assist in a pending investigation into the attack. If the White House is questioning whether Musharraf could have provided greater security for Bhutto, as it requested, officials aren't saying. Pakistan's military and intelligence services are riddled with Islamic extremists. Whether that is a result of Musharraf's ineptitude or relish for political expediency is another question observers are asking, but that the White House is not -- out loud, anyway.
"We are going to continue working with President Musharraf," Casey said. "We are going to continue working with the PPP [Bhutto's opposition Pakistan People's Party] and other moderate democratic elements in Pakistan to try to bring us all together to achieve those goals."
Casey continued, "We intend to move forward with current policy."
Outraged supporters of Benazir Bhutto have taken to the streets following confirmation that the Pakistani opposition leader was assassinated today, with at least one province placed on emergency alert.
Bhutto had just spoken at a campaign rally in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad, and had gotten into a car when a gunman opened fire. The apparent assassin then blew himself up. There are conflictingreports on how she was killed. Some witnesses said she had been shot in the neck and chest, while a doctor at the hospital that treated her told the New York Times she had shrapnel wounds but would not confirm she had been directly shot.
At least 15 other people were also killed in the attack, according to various news reports. "Police in Sindh have been put on red alert," a police official told Reuters, referring to Bhutto's home province. "We have increased deployment and are patrolling in all the towns and cities, as there is trouble almost everywhere."
Television footage is showing mobs of people setting fires and destroying property in the streets.
At least 50 people were killed in Pakistan today when a bomb exploded inside a mosque during the celebration of Eid al-Adha, a Muslim holiday marking the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
Worshippers inside the Islamabad mosque were observing the holiday with Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao, Pakistan's former interior minister, whose political party has been targeted before. Sherpao and his family were not injured in today's bombing, but he was also targeted in an April suicide attack near Islamabad that killed nearly 30 people.
"It was a massacre," Sherpao told the New York Times. "I can tell you that." Sherpao is running in the parliamentary elections set for mid-January, which will likely change the balance of power in Pakistan. (BBC News has a profile of Sherpao.)
So, Russia has just delivered the first shipment of 80 tons of uranium fuel rods to Iran's disputed Bushehr nuclear reactor. Now what?
Wait-and-see time, apparently. It is not clear how close the Bushehr facility is to full production capacity. A spokesman for Iran's Atomic Energy Agency said that Bushehr was 95-percent finished, according to the Los Angeles Times, but Iran has walked a tricky line between simultaneously exaggerating and denying its nuclear capacity for years.
Taking a question on Iran during a speech on the economy this morning, President Bush seemed to welcome news of the arrangement, but with a caveat.
"Interestingly enough, today Russia sent some enriched, or is in the process of sending enriched uranium to Iran to help on their civilian nuclear reactor. If that's the case, if the Russians are willing to do that -- which I support -- then the Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich," Bush said. "If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there's no need for them to learn how to enrich," he repeated.
Memo To Congress: Maybe Try Doing Things Another Way
Just a year after voting for a partisan makeover, Americans think Congress is the pits. The main reason: that body's seeming inability to get anything done.
Considering all those lengthy floor debates and filibusters don't seem to get bickering lawmakers much closer to compromise, perhaps the ladies and gentlemen of the House and Senate ought to try settling their differences the old-fashioned way.
Flanked by the vice president and the rest of his Cabinet-level officials, President Bush cheerfully reminded Congress of the mountain of legislative work they must tackle before departing for the holidays.
"I thank the Senate and congratulate the Senate for passing a good energy bill," Bush said at a press conference on the White House lawn. "Now the House must act."
Bush emerged to speak with reporters this morning following his weekly Cabinet meeting. He scored a victory yesterday when the Senate overwhelmingly passed an energy package minus a Democratic-sponsored $21.8 billion provision that would have reduced tax breaks for oil companies. The overall bill remains tough on automakers, however, and is expected to make it through the House next Tuesday with relative ease.
Even in the blogosphere, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets a little tetchy.
From a post dated 11/18/07: "Since my last post on the blog, a few months have passed. But this doesn't mean that I have not been keeping my promise of spending fifteen minutes per week on it. As a matter of fact, I have spent more than the allocated time on the blog."
Hear that, world? Now back off. Ahmadinejad's most recent post is dated 12/1, so it looks as if the president's a little busy these days. If you'd like to send him a little note -- what's Persian for "wassup?" -- there's a comments section. The blog is available in Persian, Arabic, English and French. (Hat tip: IHT)
Now on to North Korea. A fewdevelopments here, but if you are keen to know what life is like inside the Hermit Kingdom, NPR producer Madhulika Sikkadescribed her recent visit on "Morning Edition" today.
Bali Summit Rattled By Earthquake & Dubious Progress
The 10,000 attendees of the U.N.'s two-week climate change conference got a reminder of the Earth's fragility today, when an earthquake hit 150 miles southwest of Bali, Indonesia.
The quake wasn't strong enough to cause damage or injury -- just 5.4 on the Richter scale -- but the walls and floors in the complex hosting the conference shook for about 10 seconds. Attendees from 190 countries are working on striking a deal to address global warming and other international environmental concerns.
Organizers of the conference may have been struck another kind of blow, as well: A U.N. official said today that it's unlikely the U.S. will agree to any binding deal to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Climate Change, said the discussion started "very enthusiastically," but several developing nations along with the U.S. will probably reject the standards and the international community has failed to agree on an approach to global warming.
In an unusually personal move, President Bush sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Il a letter, according to a Pyongyang news agency.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill reportedly handed over the letter yesterday during a meeting with North Korean diplomats. Hill was in China to give a briefing on his three-day visit to the region to discuss Pyongyang's continued uranium enrichment and a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. After inspecting the reactor complex yesterday, Hill told reporters that its dismantling is on track. U.S. inspectors have been overseeing work on the plant, which North Korea agreed to shut down earlier this year.
Contents of the letter were not disclosed, but Korea expert Noriyuki Suzuki speculated in Reuters reports that it "was aimed at backing what Christopher Hill had been telling to the North Koreans in the past negotiations... The letter must contain the basic U.S. stance that Washington is ready to drop North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, improve relations and normalize diplomatic relations with North Korea on condition that the North disable and abandon its nuclear weapons programs."
...where officials might learn a thing or 10 from Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and even Macao(!). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released the results of its 2006 testing of 15-year-olds' math and reading skills from around the globe; the Financial Times and Washington Post have writeups.
"The US, the world's largest economy, is below the OECD average in science and maths, and fails even to make the tables in reading because a misprint in the test confused too many students and invalidated the results," FT reports. Ouch.
The Financial Times is reporting that the North Korean government has invited Eric Clapton to perform. The invitation comes on the heels of a historic visit by the New York Philharmonic to the Hermit Kingdom.
Canada's Conservative government proposed a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan by 2011 at the open of parliamentary debate on the future of the Canadian mission there.
Pervez Musharraf, who seized power illegally and whose unpopularity now prompts rioting in Pakistan's streets, isn't going anywhere.
That is a question the Pentagon and Washington have been asking since late 2003, when then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld 
Gregg William Bergersen, 51, of Alexandria, Va., has been charged with passing on classified information he obtained as a Pentagon employee to two Chinese spies.
After being called in 
"It's just the rationale of being able to get outside of Kabul and see one of the areas that's been very active," Rice said before touching down, according to 
If 2007 seemed like a bad year for democracy, that's because it was, according to new data from Freedom House, a U.S.-based organization that monitors and promotes freedom around the world. The group recently released its report on 2007, citing a "notable setback for global freedom" for the second consecutive year.
UPDATED.
In case you missed it, and there's pretty much no chance you have, the Iowa caucuses are tomorrow, Jan. 3, more than eight months (!) before the first party nominating convention will be held. The ground in both fields has shifted dramatically this month alone, which indicates that what the tiny percentage of Iowans who caucus tomorrow have to say will probably not hold.
UPDATED.
Flanked by the vice president and the rest of his Cabinet-level officials, President Bush cheerfully reminded Congress of the mountain of legislative work they must tackle before departing for the holidays.
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill reportedly