Rolling Stone‘s Michael Hastings is a consistent home run hitter. First, he profiled the culture of disdain that General Stanley McChrystal and his command staff had for their civilian leadership partners — ending McChrystal’s storied military career. Now, Hastings has something right out of bad fiction. Lt.

This is a guest note by Mark Leon Goldberg, Managing Editor of UN Dispatch, where this piece originally ran. Leave it to Muammar Qaddafi to bring together the Israelis and Palestinians at the United Nations.

Wow. This could be big. The conversation the right on the Afghanistan War is really beginning to happen. Huckabee could be No. 23. More from HuffPost‘s Sam Stein. To read more on US policy towards Afghanistan, a good resource is the Afghanistan Study Group report.

I wish Beck could be just laughed off. He’s absurd, ignorant, poisonous — but also dangerous. He does have an audience, some of which is obnoxiously pugnacious and alarmingly coercive. Today, Salon‘s Alex Pareene has a very good profile on Beck’s lunacy as he continues his Roger Ailes-sanctioned rant against George Soros and “reformed Judaism….

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Bing West www.colbertnation.

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com: Cost of a Barrel of Oil Exceeds $100 for the First Time Since 2008 [1:30 p.m.

I took this video clip in March 2010 when I visited Tripoli, Libya and was interested in counter-terrorism activities of the Libyan government.

Politico‘s Laura Rozen has the scoop that National Security Council Senior Director for the Middle East and North Africa Dan Shapiro will be moving to Tel Aviv to serve as the next US Ambassador to Israel.

The Los Angeles Times 2010 Book Prize finalists have just been announced — and I’m pleased to report that this year I served as a judge on the history panel.

Moammar Gaddafi: I will not leave the country and I will die as a martyr. I have no comment.