Senate Confirms Clinton...

     as the nation's newest Secretary of State by a vote of 94-2 with only Republican Sens. David Vitter of Louisiana and Jim DeMint of South Carolina voting in the negative.

Republicans and Democrats alike said her swift confirmation was necessary so that Obama could begin tackling the major foreign policy issues at hand, including two wars, increased violence in the Middle East and the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Obama's presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, was among those who spoke in Clinton's favor.

"This nation has come together in a way that it has not for some time," said the Arizona Republican, on the Senate floor for the first time since the inauguration.

Voters "want us to work together and get to work," McCain said.

  it is a nice thing to see Senator McCain being back to his old self once again.

The administration also planned to name former Senate Democratic leader George J. Mitchell as Clinton's special envoy for the Middle East. Dennis Ross, a longtime U.S. negotiator, was also expected to advise Clinton on Mideast policy, according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the move.

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Obama Continuance Granted In Gitmo Cases

   On Tuesday, the Obama administration requested an 120-day suspension of the legal proceedings against detainees at Gitmo.

The same motion was filed in another case scheduled to resume Wednesday, involving a Canadian detainee, and will be filed in all other pending matters.

The motion prompted a clear sense of disappointment among some of the military officials here who had tried to make a success of the system, despite charges that the military tribunals were a legal netherworld. Military prosecutors and other commission officials here were told not to speak to the news media, according to a Pentagon official.

"It's over; I don't want to say any more," said one official involved in the process.

      This morning ( Wednesday ) a judge granted the request to suspend the trials.

President Obama's request to suspend all war crimes trials at Guantanamo was promptly accepted by military judges today in what may be the beginning of the end for the Bush administration's system of trying alleged terrorists.
The judges agreed to the 120-day halt the cases of five men charged in the Sept. 11 attacks and a Canadian accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan. Similar orders are expected in other pending cases before the Guantanamo military commission.

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