CQ Politics' Web Picks

Boston Globe: Holder's Hearing Might be Rocky

The confirmation hearing for Eric Holder, Obama's pick for attorney general, promises to be bruising, with Republicans determined to explore Holder's role in controversial pardons under President Clinton, his views on gun rights, and his involvement in the case of Elian Gonzalez, the 6-year-old Cuban boy returned to his homeland by Clinton's Justice Department.

Wall Street Journal: Obama's Mideast Plans Face New Complications

President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to mediate the Arab-Israeli conflict aggressively from "day one" could be significantly complicated by Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, current and former Western diplomats said.

Lakeland, Fla. Ledger: Guess Who Gets a Raise?

If members of Congress do nothing when they reassemble in January - and they seem to be able to do nothing quiet well lately - they will automatically receive a pay increase of 2.8 percent over their current $169,300 salary. That's a raise of $4,700 a year - nearly $13 more a day. The raise is based on the Employment Cost Index, and while it's automatic, Congress can reduce the amount of the increase or reject it altogether. There are plenty of reasons to reject it this year ranging from economic policies to failure to police the behavior of its members.

The Daily Beast:  The President-elect's New Poet-elect is the Right Woman for the Job

This is excellent good news that there will be an inaugural poem on January 20. The peaceful handing over of power every four (or eight) years is a miracle that really ought to be celebrated in verse. The trick, of course, is getting verse that rises to the occasion, writes Christopher Buckley. The poet of the moment will be Elizabeth Alexander of Yale (Boola, boola! Sorry, couldn't resist). She is an appealing, unaffected and altogether becoming lady of 46, a professor, mother of two, an intimate friend of the P.E. (president-elect) and F.L.E (first lady-elect), and a one-woman Who's Who of the African-American establishment.

New Yorker: The Whistle Blower

Pamela Davis, blond suburban mother of three, was told that her bra would be the best place to wear the wire that kick-started a long investigation into Chicago graft and that ultimately caught the governor of Illinois trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat.

Chicago Sun-Times: Grading the Transition

The Obama team, pledging the ''most open and transparent transition in history,'' gets and ''A'' for disclosing donors to the Jan. 20 inauguration and a ''F'' when it comes to revealing transition meetings with groups, writes columnist Lynn Sweet.

New Orleans Times-Picayune: Witness in Jefferson Case Became Pals with Ney

One of the likely witnesses in the upcoming trial of Rep. William J. Jefferson, D-La., became friends with ex-Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, while both were serving time in the same federal prison, says David Harper, lawyer for Vernon Jackson, who expects to be testifying in the Jefferson case. (Second item in "On the Hill.)