Visit msnbc.

Barack Obama has an easy choice to make: fire a general who has established a culture of insubordination and indifference toward civilian leaders and partners in government or defer yet again to a general who acquires power like medals every time he outwits or outmaneuvers the White House.

This is a guest note by former U.S. Senator Ernest F. “Fritz” Hollings (D-SC). MONEY Reading Michael Hager in The Washington Post last Friday (18 June), “Congress needs a mediation tool to dissolve gridlock,” notes that we are going to extremes to solve simple problems.

(Photo Credit: State Department Photo by Michael Gross) George Washington University Middle East Studies Program Director and Foreign Policy Middle East Channel Editor Marc Lynch has an excellent post up on the legacy of a counter-productive Bush administration narrative.

This was my wake up view this morning. Oakley continues to make good progress.

Oakley has pulled through the worst of this stomach-turning nightmare, his as well as ours. Those of us who are attached to this pup thank everyone for their effusive, really wonderful and thoughtful notes that have come to us in large waves.

I’m flying across country today, on my way to Reno, Nevada — where from a dingy hotel according to Jonathan Alter’s fascinating new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, then candidate Barack Obama triggered the start of a serious White House transition plan.

I was honored last night to be invited to a small showing of the movie Budrus, a documentary about one town in the West Bank that successfully and non-violently resisted Israeli efforts in 2003 to build the separation barrier in a way that would have encircled the town, cutting the residents off from their land…

I just received the press announcement from Bruce Stokes and Andrew Kohut at the Pew Research Center on the just released Pew Global Attitudes Survey. Fascinating stuff — and disturbing. 49% of Nigerians have a “favorable” view of al Qaeda, and a majority of Pakistanis “favor” an Iran nuclear weapons program.

One of my couple of north stars in my life is, in part, a pup named “Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner.” Two days from tonight on June 18th, Oakley will be eight years old. Tonight, he is recovering from surgery — and hopefully can pull through.