The President’s ongoing defense of a routenized system of unauthorized electronic eavesdropping is presenting one of the best opportunities for Democrat’s 2006 electoral chances. Most Republicans — at their core — also hate this kind of “big brother” behavior that their party leader is defending.

David Sanger has a stinging article in the New York Times today basically ridiculing President Bush’s notions of Iraq-related legacy building.

I’m taking the evening off to spend with some good friends in Philadelphia but wanted to underscore the point that this writer and The Washington Note are committed to trying to get this country’s policy course on a much better track in 2006 than during these last several years.

Over the next few weeks, you will notice design changes to the website. The first has been added today, just before New Year’s. I realize that these changes may have some kinks to sort out, particularly given the fact that people view them through different browsers. Just send a note if you are having problems….

TWN hopes everyone is preparing for a safe and fun New Year’s Eve. I’m back in Washington and headed to Philadelphia for the next couple of days. I just learned that I’ll be going to Saudia Arabia on January 5th for a few days and any insights appreciated.

I have received word this morning that two people, one whom I know, have had direct phone contact with Karim Chrobog, son of former German Foreign Ministry State Secretary Juergen Chrobog, who both along with three other family members have been kidnapped by Yemeni tribal clans.

(photo of Juergen Chrobog, former State Secretary of the German Foreign Ministry) A loyal reader of The Washington Note and very good friend, Karim Chrobog, as well as four other members of his family were kidnapped in Yemen according to various news reports.

Last August, I ran into Katrina van den Heuvel, editor of The Nation, who remarked to me after reading both something on The Washington Note and after Ari Berman’s excellent article, “The Strategic Class,” that “realism had become the new liberal ideology.

I don’t have much time to write about this now, but TWN — which was keenly focused on blocking John Bolton‘s confirmation as Ambassador to the United Nations — will be launching a “Bolton Watch” division of The Washington Note in early 2006.

I am in Los Angeles this morning and was drawn to two op-eds that ran in today’s Los Angeles Times, one by Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations and the other by journalist Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent of Britain’s The Independent.