Obama's Christmas Congress success

Despite it looking like Obama was going to end 2010 with little success after the November elections, Obama has managed to pull the START treaty out of the bag and the law allowing gays to serve openly in the military. The former should enhance his reputation abroad to get things done and the latter reassure his own party that he still wants to achieve the radical agenda promised in the 2008 election.
Happy Christmas everyone!

American political update

Lots to keep American politics students busy on a snow day... Another selection of interesting articles from the Economist - on the virtues and talents of Sarah Palin, on a Pentagon report leaving the way clear for gays to serve openly in the military, and on the Wikileaks fiasco. On the latter issue, Mike Huckabee (a 2008 Republican presidential hopeful) sees execution as the only option for dealing with those who leaked the information to Wikileaks and many other politicians are lining up to condemn those involved. Washington Post is concentrating on Congress and Obama's attempt to cut a deal with the Republicans over the Bush-era tax cut and whether to renew it as a whole or only for the middle class. Great topics for discussion and examples for your political analysis - and possible questions for Wednesday's current affairs test.