[The New York Times]
A USA Today/Gallup poll just found that Obama is the first president-elect since Dwight Eisenhower to be picked by Americans as the most admired man in the world. A more fascinating measurement is the number of Republicans who disapprove of Obama’s public performance—it’s dropped by half since the election.

[Harper's Magazine]
Former U.S.-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has denounced the policies of George W. Bush as an “utter failure” that gave rise to the sectarian venom that ravaged his country.

[Parade]
The United States will give an estimated $26 billion in foreign aid in 2008—70% more than when George W. Bush took office (the figure doesn’t include funds related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). More than 150 countries get financial assistance from the U.S. Here are the six that received the most this year.

[Harper's Magazine]
Americans may wish to avoid what is necessary. We may believe that concerns about presidential lawbreaking are naive. That all presidents commit crimes. We may pretend that George W. Bush and his senior officers could not have committed crimes significantly worse than those of their predecessors. We may fear what it would mean to acknowledge such crimes, much less to punish them. But avoiding this task, simply “moving on,” is not possible.