All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama.

-Caroline Kennedy, "A President Like My Father," New York Times

The potential upside of a great Obama presidency is enticing, but this country faces huge problems, and will no doubt be facing more that we can’t foresee. The next president needs to start immediately on challenges that will require concrete solutions, resolve, and the ability to make government work. Mrs. Clinton is more qualified, right now, to be president.

We opposed President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and we disagree with Mrs. Clinton’s vote for the resolution on the use of force. That’s not the issue now; it is how the war will be ended. Mrs. Clinton seems not only more aware than Mr. Obama of the consequences of withdrawal, but is already thinking through the diplomatic and military steps that will be required to contain Iraq’s chaos after American troops leave.

-Primary Choices: Hillary Clinton, New York Times editorial endorsing Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nominee. The Times endorsed John McCain for the Republican nominee.

“Never get into a wrestling match with a pig,” Senator John McCain said in New Hampshire this month after reporters asked him about Mr. Romney. “You both get dirty, and the pig likes it.”

Mike Huckabee’s pugilistic campaign chairman, Ed Rollins, appeared to stop just short of threatening Mr. Romney with physical violence at one point.

“What I have to do is make sure that my anger with a guy like Romney, whose teeth I want to knock out, doesn’t get in the way of my thought process,” Mr. Rollins said. …

But the New Hampshire debate was striking in that it amounted to a gang tackle of Mr. Romney, even though Mr. McCain was leading in polls in the state.

“The glee the other candidates go after Romney with is really unique,” said Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist who worked on Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign bid in 2000 but is not affiliated with any campaign now.

-Michael Lou, "Romney Leads in Ill Will Among G.O.P. Candidates," New York Times

You’re forced into, kind of, respecting yourself more. You learn more about yourself through your child, I guess. I think you also look at death differently. It’s like a Catch-22: I feel good about dying now because I feel like I’m alive in her, you know, but at the same hand, you don’t want to die because you want to be around for the rest of her life.

-Heath Ledger, in an interview for WJW-TV, a Fox affiliate in Cleveland, about I’m Not There, via the New York Times

TMZ is reporting that Ledger was suffering from pneumonia at the time of his death.

The current system relies too heavily on voodoo economics and not enough on the creativity and resourcefulness of journalists. … This company, indeed, this industry, must invest more in solid, relevant journalism. We must integrate the speed and agility of the Internet with the news judgment and editorial values of the newsroom, values that are more important than ever as the hunger for news continues to surge and gossip pollutes the information atmosphere. … We need to tell readers more about Barack Obama and less about Britney Spears.

-Former L.A. Times editor Jim O'Shea's departing memo, via L.A. Observed

Now news that The Associated Press has prepared an obituary for 26-year-old Britney Spears has put the spotlight on a debate transpiring within the business of reporting death: With people grabbing the celebrity spotlight at a younger age, and some of them living lives of obviously dangerous excess, is it time for news organizations to begin preparing for early exits from celebritydom's under-30 crowd? …

"Somebody like Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan or Amy Winehouse, you could arguably put something together," [Washington Post reporter Adam Bernstein ]said, naming three young stars who have lately become more prominent for bouts of bizarre behavior than displays of talent. …

It was [Anna Nicole] Smith's death that served as a "wake-up call" to be prepared to report immediately on any high-profile person with a public history of troubled behavior, said Lou Ferrara, the AP's managing editor for sports, entertainment and multimedia.

-The AP, on the AP's announcement that it had prepared an obituary for Britney Spears.

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[Anne Fletcher] makes the reasonably insightful, moderately funny point that modern American weddings, however they may strain for individuality and specialness, are all pretty much alike.

The problem is that much the same could be said about modern American romantic comedies. There is a touch of idiosyncrasy here and there — in this one the heroine’s dad is a widower who owns a hardware store! — but most of the elements might as well have been pulled off the registry list at a high-end chain store.

-A.O. Scott, "Bridesmaid Revisited, Again and Again," New York Times

The Cowboys lost their playoff game Sunday, or more significantly quarterback Tony Romo didn't win it.

Now the question is whether Romo did the right thing last week by going to Mexico with Jessica Simpson.

Yes, that Jessica Simpson.

Many believe Romo should have spent the bye weekend cuddling his playbook instead of canoodling his girlfriend.

The way they make it sound, what Romo did was more regrettable than playing two days of golf with O.J. Simpson.

-Mike Imrem, "One Shouldn't Be So Quick To Question Tony Romo," The Daily Herald, writing after the Cowboy's 17-21 loss to Giants yesterday.

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It's awesome. … It's the best time ever. I have two movies coming out, a baby, a fiancé – everything. … I don't know if anyone wants me in their movies [when I'm] six months pregnant. … I hope [my dress] won't pop while I'm up here. … And if it does, you're all women, and I think you'll understand it. [When you're pregnant], your breasts are engorged and your stomach is getting bigger. … And the ass, too, that's getting bigger by the second!

-Jessica Alba on People.com, showing her keen understanding of Hollywood.

Ten or 12 years ago, in his first editing job, “I’d have said, ‘Follow the traditional route [by starting out at small dailies], apprentice yourself to that mythical, grizzled editor … and build a body of work, and learn by doing it.’ But a lot of those local and regional papers no longer exist, a lot of those grizzled editors have been bought out, and along the way I’ve come to think of journalism schools as maybe the last resort in a lot of cases.”

-Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, on the new role of journalism school, from "Reviving the J-School," Andy Guess, Inside Higher Ed

-Hillary Clinton's victory speech in New Hampshire last night, after beating Barack Obama by a little more than 8,000 votes.

I’ve always been Jewish, but I didn’t become Orthodox until I was in my twenties. I chose this way of living because I liked the way Orthodox husbands looked at their wives–with smoldering sensuality, hidden knowing, and reverence. They spoke sweetly and didn’t play games, and I never saw the flicker of distance in their eyes. After years of dating guys who didn’t pay for my dinner, much less pay attention to me, I was ready for a real connection. Hooking up wasn’t getting me what I wanted: love. It was time to try something else, and this looked like a world I could get into. There are many elements of Judaism that keep me religious, but the most compelling one is observant marriage. …

It’s not just the mikvah that makes Orthodox sex so great: The entire system creates over-the-top intensity. To start with, you’re shomer n’giyah, so you don’t touch anyone of the opposite sex–no handshaking, air-kissing, or friendly hugs. In my world, every touch is electric.

-Lynne Meredith Schreiber, "Sex as an Orthodox Jew," Tango magazine

“The older professions are great, they’re wonderful,” said Richard Florida, the author of “The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life” (Basic Books, 2003). “But they’ve lost their allure, their status. And it isn’t about money.”

OR at least, it is not all about money. The pay is still good (sometimes very good), and the in-laws aren’t exactly complaining. Still, something is missing, say many doctors, lawyers and career experts: the old sense of purpose, of respect, of living at the center of American society and embodying its definition of “success.”

-Alex Williams, "The Falling Down Professions," New York Times

[via BarackObama.com]

There has been a breakdown in communications between (Spears) and Trope & Trope (law firm) making further representation of her interests impossible.

- Court documents filed by Britney Spears's latest lawyer Sorrell Trope, requesting to withdraw from Spears's custody case via People.com.

[Photo Credit: WireImage]

People hadn’t just come to laugh. They had come to laugh harder than they had ever laughed in their lives. They had come to laugh until their eyes and bladders welled up, laugh until they were struggling to breathe, laugh until they were dry-heaving, then laugh some more. Mr. Rock + New Year’s Eve = beyond-high expectations.

But meeting his fans’ expectations doesn’t seem to be Mr. Rock’s first priority these days. And who can blame him? Over the past decade he has established himself as arguably America’s most beloved — and most quotable — stand-up comedian. His high, braying voice has come to seem like a cultural institution. And his corrosive, minimalist approach — no props, no physical comedy, no long stories, no impersonations — has turned seemingly innocuous phrases (“Want a cookie?”) into catchphrases.

-Kelefa Sanneh, "Rock Is Back. Give Him a Cookie," New York Times, on Chris Rock's New Year's Eve performance.

As it turned out, “train wreck” was not only the perfect expression to describe Ms. Spears’s listless lip-synching, but a recurring theme for 2007, a year when many prominent figures from every arena of public life did harm to their reputations and livelihoods in devastating fashion.

This year celebrities seemed incapable of limiting their misdeeds to isolated bad choices: a flop movie, a regrettable interview quote, an on-air feud with Rosie O’Donnell. At times, their behavior was flat-out abnormal. If you were hoping to see your least favorite Hollywood princess fall on her crown, 2007 provided a parade of tempestuous starlets shaving heads (Ms. Spears), crashing sports cars (Lindsay Lohan) and checking into rehab (Ms. Spears and Ms. Lohan) or prison (Paris Hilton).

-"A One-Way Ticket to Disaster," Dave Itzkoff, The New York Times, on why we're excited to get hell out of 2007.

[Photo Credit: DitMartian via Flickr]

"Bruce Lee was more than a martial artist," said Ioane, 20. "He also had an amazing philosophy of life. He's a cultural icon recognized all over the world — except on this campus," where Lee studied for three years in the early 1960s.

Ioane and 20 other University of Washington students have collected more than 1,000 signatures — including from nearly all members of the men's and women's basketball teams — as part of the effort to build a monument to Lee.

-Tomas Alex Tizon, "They're Hoping Bruce Lee Can Bust On Through," L.A. Times, on a student movement at the University of Washington for a monument honoring martial artist and former student, Bruce Lee.

Young women today aren’t bound by questions of what they can or cannot do as women; they want to know how they can do it better. We’ve shattered so many barriers, but we’re not stopping here. Not when women still earn 77 cents to every dollar that men earn, not when all of the progress we’ve made on reproductive health stands to be threatened by the current administration. Come Inauguration Day, we’re going to shatter one more, but these young women are interested in pushing beyond the barriers. They’re looking at women’s “firsts” and aiming for “bests.”

-Hillary Clinton for Glamour's Glamocracy, a politics blog

[Photo Credit: Lauren Victoria Burke via Flickr]

The change has been more jarring for the biggest newspapers, like USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times. They have always lost the occasional writer to a better offer from a magazine or from television, but not on this scale.

“When you lose an established star like Howard Bryant, it’s a terrible blow, because they’re not easily replaceable,” said Mr. [Emilio] Garcia-Ruiz of The Post. “We’re used to being a destination, not a stepping stone.”

- Richard Pérez-Peña, "The Top Player in This League? It May Be the Sports Reporter," New York Times, on how the recent windfall for sports journalists has hurt print outlets.