Hell-bent on keeping us informed, New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, gave over an entire issue to books devoted to Islam. Odd behavior for a guy who’s been slimed as a “noted neocon” (and thus a hater), dontcha think?

Get cracking, dear readers. There will be a test.

The Islam Issue
‘The Suicide of Reason’
By LEE HARRIS
Reviewed by AYAAN HIRSI ALI
Arguing that the West’s “fanaticism of reason” is no match for the fanaticism of radical Islam.

Essay
Reading the Koran
By TARIQ RAMADAN
The Book of all Muslims, Tariq Ramadan writes, can be understood on many levels.
‘The Adventures of Amir Hamza’

By GHALIB LAKHNAVI AND ABDULLAH BILGRAMI
Reviewed by WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
The “Iliad” and “Odyssey” of medieval Persia is presented in a hefty new English translation.

First Chapter ‘Arguing the Just War in Islam’
By JOHN KELSAY
Reviewed by IRSHAD MANJI
A professor of religion traces the thinking behind Islamic holy war.
‘American Crescent’

By HASSAN QAZWINI
Reviewed by RASHID KHALIDI
From his mosque in Michigan, a cleric argues that Muslims can be integrated into national life.

First Chapter ‘Jihad and Jew-Hatred’
By MATTHIAS KÜNTZEL
Reviewed by JEFFREY GOLDBERG
A German scholar argues that Muslim anti-Semitism can be traced to a project of the Nazi Party.

First Chapter Essay
The Clash
By FOUAD AJAMI
I doubted Samuel Huntington when he predicted a struggle between Islam and the West. My mistake.
‘God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215′

By DAVID LEVERING LEWIS
Reviewed by ERIC ORMSBY
David Levering Lewis’s history of Arab rule in Spain focuses on its ethic of mutuality.
‘Peace Be Upon You’

By ZACHARY KARABELL
Reviewed by JASON GOODWIN
Muslim rulers, Zachary Karabell says, did not force conversion upon their subjects.
‘Napoleon’s Egypt’

By JUAN COLE
Reviewed by TOM REISS
A historian takes a new look at Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt.

Essay
Beyond the Burka
By LORRAINE ADAMS
Muslim women’s voices are being heard as never before. But which ones?
‘Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy’

By PETER GOTTSCHALK AND GABRIEL GREENBERG
Reviewed by SHIBLEY TELHAMI
A look at American media since 9/11 makes the case that Muslims have been unjustly demonized.

First Chapter Caught in the Ayatollah’s Web
Reviewed by SARAH WILDMAN
Memoirs by Marina Nemat and Zarah Ghahramani, two women who survived political prison in Iran 20 years apart.

So, because we are a nation of narcissists, the news and the blogosphere are still all about the campaign.

In other news (courtesy of Google), Britney had a breakdown:

What Caused Britney’s Breakdown?
ABC News - 3 hours ago
The fallen pop star spent two nights in Los Angeles’ Cedars-Sinai Medical Center last week after failing to surrender her two sons to her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, initiating a three hour long standoff with cops.
Dr. Phil Defends Britney Visit, Denies Ambush E! Online

The Golden Globes are cancelled:

Golden Globes Telecast Canceled Due To Writers’ Strike: Report
MTV.com - 1 hour ago

Oh yeah. I almost forgot. There was a confrontation between American and Iranian warships in the Straits of Hormuz

According to CNN’s report, the Iranians radioed the Americans with a threatening remark. “I am coming at you,” the Iranian said, according to military officials cited by CNN. “You will explode in a couple minutes.”

U.S. troops manned their positions and officers prepared to give the order to fire, but the Iranians turned away, the U.S. officials told reporters in Washington. No shots were fired.

Dem partisans in the blogosphere are currently frothing at the mouth about New Hampshire, but some folks are talking about it. Here’s Wretchard:

The NYT’s Lede blog is probably correct in arguing that the Iranian actions are connected to the forthcoming trip by President George Bush to the region. “President Bush is arriving in the region on Tuesday, and The Washington Post reported today that he plans to rally support against Iran “even as a recent U.S. intelligence report playing down Tehran’s nuclear ambitions has left Israeli and Arab leaders rethinking their own approach toward Iran and questioning Washington’s resolve.” The Iranians are not the only ones making threats. Adam Gadahn, who is now a spokesman for al-Qaeda issued “an urgent call to our mujahideen brothers in Muslim Palestine, and in the Arabian Peninsula in particular, and all the region in general. They should be in full readiness to receive the crusader arch-killer Bush in his visit to Muslim Palestine and to the occupied Arabian Peninsula at the beginning of January. They should receive him not with roses and applause, but with bombs and booby-traps.”

Happy primary watching!

They are Bill Clinton’s heroes, equal in stature.

“I have been blessed in my life to know some of the greatest figures of the last hundred years. Because of what you did. You, you gave me the chance to be president. You voted for me twice here, and I’m very grateful.

“I go to Nelson Mandela’s birthday party every year and we’re still very close. I believe if Yitzhak Rabin had not been murdered in 1995 we would have peace in the Middle East. I loved him as much as anyone I’ve ever known.

“But if you said to me today, ‘I’m gonna give you one last job for your country — go and do this — but it’s hazardous and you may not get out with life and limb intact and you have to do it alone except I’ll let you take one other person,’ and I had to pick one person whom I knew who would never blink, who would never turn back, who would make great decisions under pressure and would never forget what the purpose of being there was, I would pick Hillary of the people I’ve known and I would never even think about it. It would be an easy choice.”

Sure, bub, because she saved your hide and stuck by you more times than anyone deserves. But that means nothing to rabid primary voters.

They’re just not that into her, it seems. And now she’s fighting back tears.

Here’s the vid—look! she’s human!

[youtube]http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4097366[/youtube]

Exhausted and facing the prospect of losing the second test of her primary campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton fought back tears as her voice broke at the close of a sedate event in a Portsmouth coffee shop.

She expressed the sheer difficulty of heading out to the trail each day — “It’s not easy,” she said — and suggested she faced “pretty difficult odds.”

And with audible frustration and disbelief, she drew the contrast between her experience and Sen. Barack Obama’s that suggests that her campaign’s current message — the question of who is ready — matches her profound sense that she alone is ready for the job.

“Some of us know what we are going to do on day one, and some of us haven’t thought that through enough,” she said.

I feel for her—who wouldn’t? Andrew Sullivan, that’s who. But he does quote an interesting e-mail from one of her supporters.

Obama won’t earn my vote until he stands up to his boorish supporters, the boorish “Hillary Haters” of the Right, and the media. Substituting “generational war” for “culture war” doesn’t get us anywhere toward “unity” or a better America. Especially when that “generational” war appears to just be a new name for the same old thing; hostility and disrespect toward the women who, bearing the brunt of massive social change over the last 40 years, stepped up to the plate, accepted new responsibilities, and worked to create new and better conditions and opportunities for their sons and daughters. Obama would not be where he is today without 40 years of commitment from the liberal women, black and white, of Hillary’s (and my own) generation. That unique “biography” that you claim as Obama’s advantage isn’t Obama’s alone — it is his mother’s, too, and perhaps most of all.

Yep. We’re the bitches in the house, and we are definitely not ready to hand over the reins just yet. Hear us roar.

What, you can’t hear us roaring? Listen closer.

Like John F. Kennedy Jr. said when he was launching his magazine George in the hopes of getting his generation interested in politics: Politics is the greatest show on earth.

Here’s a blast from the past, from Talk Left, titled “JFK was no Obama“:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAGyT-z9SlA

That was one of America’s greatest politicians in action—giving a great political performance. And he’s being compared unfavorably to the coolest cat in today’s race.

Naturally, the whippersnappers think they have to destroy the reputation of  somebody—anybody—in order to elevate their own prestige, and their own deeply detached but oh so rational point of view (which has never won any elections…but who’s counting?).

Here’s Matthew Yglesias:

 Among Democrats of a certain age, this seems to be an incredibly common sentiment. Barack Obama’s campaign often likes to invoke JFK. And in The Washington Monthly, Ted Widmer complains that Obama is no JFK. …

At some point, can’t we act like grownups and let this drop. The Republican hagiography of Ronald Reagan is embarrassing but the JFK business is even more detached from reality.

Of over 100 reactions to Yglesias’s post, this was my fave:

Matt, you are a young fresh turd.

Well, yeah. He loves being a turd—it brings in traffic!