Politico is reporting that Vice President Biden will be delivering a key address on the future of America's nuclear arsenal this Wednesday. Here's what to expect:

--It's likely that Biden will channel Secretary Gates' Oct 2008 speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In that address, the SECDEF spelled out precisely why America needed to modernize and maintain its nuclear arsenal. Gates did so in a most unusual forum, an institution dedicated to ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Obama faces a similar problem, in that he has to explain why he's pumping $11 billion into nuclear upgrades two months after receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for advocating nuclear disarmament.

From the AP: "Spokesman for Rep. John Murtha says the Pennsylvania Democrat has died at 77."

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Obama's counterterrorism adviser John Brennan claimed that Republicans should have known, based on his Christmas Day conversation with them, that terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be Mirandized:

This week in Tehran, it's déjà vu all over again:

Iran has formally informed the UN nuclear agency that it will start on February 9 to further enrich uranium stockpiles to a level of 20 percent, further fueling Western concerns that Tehran is secretly seeking a nuclear bomb-making capacity.

"We wrote a letter to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] that we shall start making 20-percent enriched fuel," the head of the Iranian Atomic Organization, Ali-Akbar Salehi, told Iran's Arabic-language state television channel, Al-Alam late on February 7. "We will hand over this official letter to the IAEA on [February 8] and shall start enrichment on [February 9] in the presence of IAEA monitors."

President Obama will host a bipartisan health-care summit, to be televised on C-SPAN, on February 25. Reaction to the event has been divided. Liberals mostly think it's a good idea, while conservatives are not sure. Michelle Malkin says Republicans shouldn't attend. Philip Klein notes that the event will be "pure theatre."

In my opinion, there's no harm in a televised discussion of health care reform. If Obama hasn't been able to convince the public his way is the right way by now, one more event won't make a difference. Nor will a single C-SPAN broadcast alter the political dynamic that is preventing Democrats from passing a final bill. What's more, Republicans will have an opportunity to present their ideas to lower the cost of individual health insurance and increase consumer choice. So let's say Republicans accept Obama's invitation, which they seem inclined to do anyway.

Sarah Palin's February 6 address to the Tea Party convention in Nashville opened the 2010 campaign season. It's arguable that it opened the 2012 campaign season, as well. Amazingly, however, the left has decided that the most important takeaway from Palin's speech was the fact that she scribbled some notes on her hand. Say what you will, Palin responded to the criticism in her own inimitable way.

Here is my off-the-cuff reaction to Palin's speech. NBC's First Read has a roundup of media reactions here. On February 7, Fox News Sunday broadcast Palin's first interview with a Sunday talk show. During her conversation with Chris Wallace, Palin clearly hinted that she will run for president in 2012. No real surprise there; former vice presidential candidates have recently campaigned in the next cycle: Lieberman in 2004; Edwards in 2008. Of course, neither was particularly successful -- political dynamics change massively within four years!

The LA Times reports that the president of the National Organization for Women is still outrageously outraged over the incredibly tame Focus on the Family/Tebow ad last night:

NOW president Terry O'Neill said [the Tebow ad] glorified violence against women. "I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it," she said. "That's what comes across to me even more strongly than the anti-abortion message. I myself am a survivor of domestic violence, and I don't find it charming. I think CBS should be ashamed of itself."

The "violence against women" O'Neill refers to occurs when Tim Tebow tackles his mom Pam in an attempt at slapstick.

The only thing more analyzed than quarterback play after the Super Bowl is the commercials: Were they funny, offensive, pointless? Money well spent, or 30 seconds of confusion? How does the MTV set view the last 25 years of politics?

This weekend, the Left freaked out at the revelation that Sarah Palin had notes on her hand during her speech in Nashville. I truly have no idea why this is an issue for the supporters of Capt. TelePrompter, but there you have it.

The next day, Palin struck back, scribbling "Hi, Mom!" on her hand at a Rick Perry rally. Ha.

A lot of people have been looking to find someone to blame for President Obama's failures: the Constitutional order, the right-wing noise machine, the dull, dim-witted American people. Funnily enough, one person rarely seems to get fingered.

Last week I noted that the Washington Generals are hiring, which was occasion to relive some of the storied franchise's great moments: Red Klotz's invention of the barnstorming losers; their 6-13,000 record against the Harlem Globetrotters; and their final victory against the Globetrotters, in 1971. The last of which prompted this fantastic note from Wade Cook:

Late-night junkies (you know who you are!) will no doubt want to read this tick-tock of how the Letterman / Leno / Oprah ad during last night's Super Bowl came together.

Sneak peek: It involves Leno wearing a disguise.

The New York Times reports on President Obama's offer to host a bipartisan health care summit at Blair House on February 25. The president made the offer during his Super Bowl pre-game interview with Katie Couric. Republicans quickly accepted. Not everyone is pleased, however:

Separately, some Congressional staff members expressed concern that Mr. Obama’s meeting would simply prolong an already tortuous process. And Democrats still face steep challenges in reconciling the differences between the House and Senate bills.

Some House Democrats are firmly opposed to a proposed tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance policies, which they think will hit some middle-class workers and violate Mr. Obama’s campaign promise not to raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 a year.

Don't forget Bart Stupak, either--his supporters may still balk at the Senate's abortion language. The bottom line is that Congress is stuck on health care, with Pelosi and Reid in a Mexican stand-off over which chamber will hold the next vote.

Via Steven Ertelt, this is the supposedly "controversial" Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad that the National Organization for Women fought tooth and nail to keep off the airwaves:

When Burger King opted to go with "The King"—a sort of adult version of Ronald McDonald that some have described as "creepy"—it took a huge risk. But it was a calculated risk: BK executives decided they would focus their marketing energies on "super fans" (18- to 34-year-olds) instead of older adults, parents, or children. The ads would be hip. There were no promotions for Happy Meals or fruit snacks or oatmeal. Double cheeseburgers would go for $1, much to the dismay of some franchisees. Has it worked?

Sarah Palin's speech to the Tea Party convention in Nashville showcased all of the former Alaska governor's strengths. She was confident, funny, down-to-earth,  at times emotional--and she took a scalpel to the Obama administration and congressional Democrats. Ignore the critics who will say Palin spent too much time looking at her notes; her off-the-cuff approach and decision not to use a TelePrompTer was clearly calculated to highlight President Obama's reliance on scripted events and canned speeches.

The timing of the speech was also significant. Palin used the talk, broadcast live on Fox News Channel and C-SPAN, to respond to the president's State of the Union address from last week. Palin's mention that today is Ronald Reagan's birthday positioned her squarely among his heiresses. More interesting, Palin started off with a concentrated attack on the Obama administration's national security policies--not an issue for which the Tea Partiers are known. Palin noted that the president spent hardly any time on foreign policy during his annual report to Congress--indeed, she spent more time on our Israeli and Japanese allies, our Iranian and jihadist adversaries, and our strategic competitors than he did. And when Palin said that America needs a commander in chief, not a law professor, the crowd went wild; one was momentarily transported back to her famous speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

President Obama’s economic policy has run smack into reality. No one believes that he can keep spending even to the massive levels he projects, or eventually lower the deficit, or persuade congress to switch from profligacy to prudence, or … well, you get the idea. Worse still, even if you believe all of these things and more, the deficits projected by the president are simply unsustainable, and would drive the combination of federal, state and local government debt to well over 100 percent in 2020 -- a level that most observers believe will stifle economic growth.

A new paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, professors of economics at the University of Maryland and Harvard University respectively, covers the experience of 44 countries over 200 years and concludes, “Our main finding is that across both advanced countries and emerging markets, high debt/GDP levels (90 percent and above) are associated with notably lower growth outcomes…. Seldom do countries simply ‘grow’ their way out of deep debt burdens.” If you are the worrying sort, add to these your answer to a question put by Larry Summers, now the president’s economic adviser but at the time free to speak his mind, “How long can the world’s biggest borrower remain the world’s biggest power?” Efforts to reach Mr. Summers to obtain his current answer to his question proved unavailing.

Many of us have fond memories of Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution. In fact, it seems like it was just yesterday that we were all cheering the throngs of pro-democracy Ukrainians who threw out the nations entrenched post-Soviet oligarchy. And who could forget the faces of the revolution's two dynamic leaders -- presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, his face disfigured from attempted assassination by dioxin poisoning,  and his fiery sidekick Yulia Tymoshenko, the blonde-braided orator?

Jeffrey Goldberg: Matt Labash's book, Fly Fishing with Darth Vader, is the funniest book of the year.

The 2010 Herzliya Conference in Israel ended with a whimper on Wednesday evening. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, delivering the 2010 Herzliya Lecture, stunned the audience of Israeli and international security experts by using his prime time platform to speak about almost every issue except Israel's security.  

As if the French offering to sell Russia an amphibious assault ship wasn't bad news for Georgia, Eli Lake at The Washington Times reports that:

The Republic of Georgia is charging a Paris-based satellite provider with caving in to Russian pressure after the company blocked a Georgia-based Russian-language station from broadcasting into the Caucasus region.

The other day I came across Barbara Mackay's Washington Examiner review of a new production of Shakespeare's Anthony & Cleopatra at the Lansburgh Theatre here in D.C. Here's Mackay:

Synetic Theater has taken on major challenges in each of its wordless Shakespeare productions. Now in "Antony & Cleopatra" at the Lansburgh Theatre, Synetic presents a stunning version of one of Shakespeare's most complex plays, whose geographical setting is nothing less than the entire Roman Empire, and whose central conflicts are vast: West versus East, duty versus pleasure, reason versus emotion, public versus private life.

Say wha'? Wordless Shakespeare? Isn't the whole point of Shakepeare the, um, words? Next thing you know, they'll come up with silent music.

Oh, wait.

You probably changed the channel by then, but at one point in his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama brought up offshore drilling. Here is what he said:

To create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.

Note that Obama does not mention exactly who will be making these tough decisions -- it certainly won't be him! For more than a year, his Interior Department has sat on a Bush administration proposal to open the outer continental shelf to oil and natural gas exploration and development. Like every such proposal, secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar opened it up to public comment for an extended period. When that period ended in September 2009, the Interior Department said it had received more than 530,000 comments. But it wouldn't reveal whether those comments were pro or con.

In his questions session with Democrats this week, Barack Obama chastised Republicans for not backing the Conrad-Gregg deficit commission, which failed to meet the 60-vote threshold to end debate last week.

Earlier this week, I wrote a post tracking the money race between likely candidates for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination. A follow-up post quoted a perspicacious reader who observed,

Huckabee's PAC led in donors. He had more than 16,000 for 2009; Palin was second with 14,000. That means he had more people donating to his PAC than anybody else, just with less money -- underscoring that his support is truly with the masses. (Pawlenty had about 2,700 donors and Romney doesn't say.)

I asked Romney's Free and Strong America pack if they'd let me know the number of people who donated to the group in 2009. Their answer: 16,593.

That puts Romney's PAC ahead of Palin's--and neck and neck with Huckabee's. Republican presidential politics get more interesting all the time.