A Senior White House official told me earlier today the President's speech to the nation (laying out a new strategy in Iraq) will indeed now likely be in January. While this runs contrary to what I was told just yesterday, and while this official understands a lot could happen between now and then (exposing the President to the risk of having to "react" to external events), this official explained the White House would rather "get it (the speech) right... than just get it OUT." Given the voracity of the Washington press corps for a drumbeat/theme story -- the past few news cycles have been dominated by the President's "listening" to various experts and branches of government prior to whatever pronouncement is coming -- and that will likely continue.  On CNN (where Jack Cafferty just said "the DECIDER has decided not to decide until January..."), they just ran a large graphic headline saying "WAY FORWARD STALLED." And I note that on MSNBC is the on-screen graphic: SHOULD BUSH CONSIDER FORMING A BIPARTISAN WAR COUNCIL?" With Robert Gates now days away from taking over as SecDef, someone at our editorial meeting noted that Rumsfeld has given an interesting interview to Cal Thomas -- specifically his comments about the phrase "War on Terror." 

Our broadcast will likely begin with some combination of the White House and Iraq.  Among our other topics tonight: immigration, the Mt. Hood rescue mission, the "other fronts" in Afghanistan (we have some great reporting from Jim Maceda on top of what the New York Times published from the region yesterday) and as promised, a look at who's watching the various charities during this busy giving season.

TROPHY STRIFE
If you heard this next item on sports radio this morning on the way to work, and doubted its veracity, doubt no more. It's true. In an incident that may say as much about the glaring absence of common sense in our national airline security policies as any other of late, Troy Smith, the winner of this year's Heisman Trophy, was not allowed to take the trophy on board his flight home. He was forced to ship the Heisman. You'll hear more about this item on the air.

WHEN LIGHTNING STRIKES
Whenever lightning struck the Coyote, Road Runner, Yosemite Sam or any other of the friends we grew up with, they would instantly dissolve into a pile of ashes. It's the cartoon way. Who can blame a generation of Americans for believing that the same thing happens in real life? Well, cut to today's Science Times section of the New York Times (NYTimes.com login required for link). A reader wrote the editor: "If a high-intensity lightning bolt hit someone, would the person's body turn to ash?"

Where to begin? 

The reply from C. Claiborne Ray of the Times debunks the "cartoon ash pile" theory of lightning strikes, and goes on to supply some interesting facts. There are about 70 lightning-related deaths each year, and only 1 in 10 lightning-strike victims survive a bolt out of the blue (and here we're not counting the kind that hit me the day I met my wife), and often victims are left with neurological problems. While a lightning bolt can blow the clothing off your body (insert your own material here), the most common cause of death in such incidents is cardiopulmonary arrest, and not burns (or, as the editor puts it in debunking another cartoon image, being "split in half"). Lightning-strike survivors, we're told, can be easily distracted and irritable, which tells me that about half of my co-workers must have some lightning-strike stories of their own to tell.

And with this discovery in this morning's paper, C. Claiborne Ray of the New York Times takes the title of Second-Best Name I've come across in the last 24 hours. Last night's PBS documentary about England's King Edward and Mrs. Simpson featured comments from Sir Peregrine Worthstone. No more calls, we have a winner.

As we return to the serious business of putting together a newscast, we hope you will join us for the Tuesday edition of the broadcast.

"We would rather get it right than simply get it out." That's how a Bush administration official characterized the president's ongoing deliberations about Iraq to Brian recently. That story is our likely lead tonight, as Brian explains in the vlog.

Click here or on the image to watch.

The Onion headline a few days ago read: "DISCOURAGED PRESIDENT BUSH BEGINS SEEKING APPROVAL OF OTHER NATIONS." While that's a few steps removed from reality, the President today embarked on a well-choreographed "tour" of several branches of government... starting with the State Department. This afternoon, he's meeting with military and academic types, including not one but two of our colleagues: Retired U.S. Army Generals Barry McCaffrey and Wayne Downing -- both retired 4-stars, both good friends of ours. Gen. Downing was my traveling companion in Iraq at the start of the war. We will talk to both men tonight, though we understand there will be obvious limits on what they can share with us about any counsel they gave the Commander in Chief. Back to the President's "listening tour" -- while a high-placed lawmaker made the point to me today that "it's nothing the President couldn't learn in a phone call," that's not quite the point. It's all part of the very public run-up to the President's pre-Christmas speech, one component in the Iraq Study Group aftermath, and it's in preparation for possible changes in strategy in Iraq. That's IF the news media don't elect Sen. Barack Obama president by acclamation and consensus by then... which brings us to another story we'll cover tonight: the senator's trip to New Hampshire this weekend, which gathered a crowd of 1,500 including 150 accredited members of the news media. Check your calendars. Deep breaths, everyone.

I urge you to look for Andrea Mitchell's reporting on Iran tonight. They're holding a panel on the Holocaust and one of the speakers is someone (an American) we haven't heard much from of late, for good reason. Robert Bazell has a sobering report on early diagnosis of Alzheimer's, and Anne Thompson has a great piece on the icons of the Baby Boomer generation and how they get you to buy.

CULTURE CLASH/MONDAY OBSERVATIONS
I am fortunate to have several televisions in my office, some tuned to cable news, others to the broadcast networks. I often look up and take in a "snapshot" of all that's on the air at any one moment -- and I often wonder what, if anything, it all says about who we are. Earlier today, that snapshot included video of a man attempting to set himself on fire on an Italian talk show, alongside what appeared to be a very special Christmas edition of the Dr. Phil show (who knew?) while on another channel there was spectacular video of the space shuttle passing over the horn of Africa. On another channel was a car chase in Los Angeles that ended with the spectacular crash of an SUV.

There are a few simple, constant rules of television: Rachel Ray is always on (she is usually cooking, somewhere, on some channel) and so is the guy who sells "OxyClean" and those new wall hooks that can be used to mount a frozen turkey in your den. A few more rules of television: Dane Cook is on HBO most hours of the day... and when you come across "Pulp Fiction" while channel surfing, it's usually at the point in the film just before the twist contest at Jack Rabbit Slim's. On a related topic, a staff member in our 2:30 p.m. editorial meeting, who can thank me forever for not using her name in this instance, estimates she watched 20 old episodes (by her own count) of "That Girl" this weekend during a marathon run on TV Land. While she was strongly urged by loving colleagues to get a life in a hurry, several of us admitted to having watched various C-Span fare over the weekend... and marveled at the black leather blazer worn during an interview by Ret. Gen. Garner, he of first-generation Iraq Provisional Authority fame. Mondays are like that around here.

Back to the serious business of putting together the broadcast. We hope you can join us for our Monday night effort.

Whenever we discuss a story about Alzheimer's, a lot of people around the room ask whether their forgetfulness is the beginning of this horrible disease. This is especially true concerning our story tonight, which is about younger people with the disease, and features a man who was diagnosed at age 45.

There is no simple answer to the question, but the Alzheimer's Association does offer a guide to the warning signs. The association's report on the prevalence of the disease in younger people can be seen here. In fact, the association's general Web site is an enormously helpful resource as is the Web site of the National Institute on Aging.

Editor's note: We also have an extensive collection of Alzheimer's coverage on MSNBC.com, including a special look at "Maintaining your Memory" as you age.

Current and former U.S. officials say no U.S. intelligence agency ever targeted Princess Diana for intelligence collection.

Their comments follow stories over the weekend in British papers, reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies were spying on her. Some say her phone calls were being monitored, and some say specifically that it was done by the U.S. Secret Service.  These stories are said to be based on the British report due out later this week on her death.

However, Homeland Security and U.S. Secret Service officials today say it is untrue that the Secret Service ever gathered intel information on Diana. "The Secret Service had nothing to do with it," the official says.

Separately, a former senior U.S. intelligence official says Princess Diana was never targeted for intelligence gathering in any way. But, the former official says, her voice MAY have been picked up while others were targeted. Even so, he says that as far as he knows, there were no intercepts of her in Paris the night she died, contrary to what the British papers are reporting.

He also confirms that there were, indeed, many references to her in the NSA database, some of them innocuous, including references by targets overseas to romantic liaisons with people who the targets thought looked like Princess Di. "So if you did a search on her, references like that would show up," he said. And he explained that if the U.S. learned of any threats to the British royal family, they, too, would have been recorded in the database.

The fact that U.S. intelligence agency files contained references to her has long been known. As far back as 1998, NSA said in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that it had a Diana file amounting to 1,056 pages. At the time, NSA officials were quoted as saying the references to her were incidental and that she was never a target.

In case you missed it, our anchorman was on MSNBC-TV's "The Most" this afternoon, talking about his favorite subject, this blog. The first few minutes were live on the cable TV broadcast, and the last 1:00 was for Web viewers only.

I've stitched them both together for your viewing pleasure.

Click here to watch.

From President Bush to Kofi Annan to Sen. Barack Obama, most of Monday's news comes out of Washington, as Brian explains in today's vlog.

Click here or on the image to watch.

On Dec. 13, 2003, the U.S. military caught up with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein who had been in hiding since the beginning of the U.S. invasion. Here, NBC's Richard Engel remembers his tour of Saddam's "spider hole" and the tiny farmhouse where he lived in squalor.

I looked down into the hole through its tiny entrance, a square no bigger than a placemat. It felt like I was looking into an underground cave that had been accidentally discovered by a child who slipped in and was now trapped. I was on my knees, peering into the opening, my head below ground. It was dark, musty and damp, and the air didn’t circulate. It seemed like the kind of a place where spiders would live.

I'll admit it: I was excited.  I was about to descend into the final place where Saddam Hussein took refuge, take pictures and show them to the world.  I felt a bit like Jacques Cousteau.  I stood up, brushed off the dust and pulled off my flak jacket, ripping back the velcro straps somewhat excitedly.  There was no way to fit inside with the bulky Kevlar jacket lined with ceramic 'strike plates.' Jacket off, I put both feet into the hole and lowered myself into the depths. 

My feet quickly landed on the floor of 'the room' below me.  I switched on my flashlight and painted the walls with dim yellow light.  It looked like a subterranean tomb: rectangular, 10 feet long, four feet high, and three feet wide.  All that was missing was a sarcophagus. 

The walls were covered in rough concrete.  The floor was lined with a few boards, and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling.  A fan sat in the corner, attached to a plastic hose that exited the chamber the wall to the outside.  The hose and fan let Saddam breath when the tomb was plugged, like it was when U.S. forces arrived without preamble, unexpected and uninvited.

"When we opened the hole, Saddam popped his head out," explained the colonel, encircled by a knot of about a dozen reporters.  The colonel was relaxed, smiling, joking and swapping persiflage with the journalists.  It was a 'good news' day and this was the military's chance to play show and tell.

"Saddam put his hands up and said, 'I am Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq and I am ready to negotiate,'" the colonel said.  The scribblers frantically scratched notes into pads, cameramen marked time codes, and the snappers shot every angle, their big black cameras clicking like crickets. 

"And what did the soldiers say to him?" one of us asked.

"One of the soldiers said, 'President Bush sends his regards.'"  We all chuckled.

Saddam's cave, or 'spider hole' as some U.S. military commanders and American commentators started calling it, wasn't isolated in the center of a field.  It was in the backyard of a tiny farmhouse, surrounded by a fence, pomegranates and wildflowers.  According to the military, Saddam spent most of his time in the farmhouse, and only slipped into his underground bunker when danger was close.  The colonel gave us a half hour to explore the house before the Blackhawks would fly us back to base.  Ironically, the base was one of Saddam's main palaces just a few miles away in Tirkrit.  While Saddam was living in squalor, and sometimes like a mole, the U.S. troops hunting him were down the street in his palace.  It must have annoyed Saddam more than just a little a bit.

The farmhouse had only one room, appointed with a twin bed and wooden dining table. It had the feel of a poor-man's bachelor pad, inhabited by someone clearly not used to cooking, cleaning or taking care of himself.  The bed was unmade.  The sheets were dirty.  Broken eggs were rotting on the floor.  Saddam apparently gave up cooking.  A half-eaten candy bar sat on his bedside stand, along with a tube of face moisturizer.

Saddam often compared himself to Baghdad's ancient caliphs, the leaders of the Islamic empire who governed with a mix of cruelty and beneficience, striving to be both loved and feared.  In the fabled accounts of their exploits like the epic "Tales of 1,001 Nights" the caliphs would often dress as commoners and walk the streets in disguise to gage the public's opinion of their rule.  Standing in Saddam's farm house, I couldn't help but think that he was like a caliph who'd fled his palace with only the clothes on his back, abandoned by all but a few of his servants and totally unable to function on his own.

After we filmed, photographed and documented every corner of the farmhouse and the 'spider hole' out back, we loaded into the choppers and returned to base.  As far as I know it was the only tour the U.S. military gave to reporters.  The military said it would destroy the spider hole, filling it in, so it wouldn't become a tourist attraction, or shrine for Saddam loyalists.

Saddam is now on trial, ironically again in a courthouse close to one of his former palaces occupied by the U.S. military.  He lives in a cell not much bigger than the farmhouse where he hid.  His visitors tell me the cell has a small, enclosed pen where Saddam reads, smokes, writes poems and tends a few plants.  In November, Saddam was sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.  Although few doubt Saddam's guilt or overall responsibility for the deaths and oppression of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, many human rights groups said his trial lacked necessary judicial standards.  Saddam is expected to be hanged sometime between January and March.

Click here to watch the NBC Nightly News coverage of Saddam Hussein's capture.

I have mentioned it before in this blog... but I will say it again.  The crowds outside Rockefeller Center seem bigger than ever this year.  This spot seems to have become America's crossroads... and a destination for so many during the holidays.  In the years since 9/11 ... it has been a pleasure to watch people return to what some of us believe is the best city in the world. That said... we move on to tonight's broadcast.

Iraq is on our radar.  Secretary Rumsfeld is in Baghdad... out in the green zone... saying farewell to the American troops.  However, this was another difficult day in Iraq… with more sectarian killings. NBC's Jim Maceda is in Baghdad tonight.

NBC's Jane Arraf is in eastern Baghdad embedded with some of the American forces helping to train Iraqi troops... what could be part of an American exit strategy.

We're following Senator Barak Obama's first trip to New Hampshire... as he considers a possible run for the Presidency.  NBC's Chip Reid is in New Hampshire.

Also... the wife of the poisoned spy is speaking out... and pointing fingers at those she believes are responsible for her husbands death.  NBC's Ron Allen reports.

The weak U.S. dollar has foreign tourists flocking to this country in search of a good deal.  CNBC's Margaret Brennan is covering that story.

NBC's Tom Costello shows us the spectacular launch of the space shuttle last night.

And the effort to save the Florida everglades.  NBC's Mark Potter reports.

It's all coming up tonight.  We hope you'll join us.

The good thing about this job is that every so often you really win one. Far from the unpleasant scenes and long hours we sometimes face, a few of us spent a spectacular day boating across Florida Bay in search of roseate spoonbills. Those pink and white wading birds with their odd-shaped gray bills have chosen a remote island near the Florida Keys as their winter nesting site. Audubon scientists took us along to watch them count nests and eggs. The sun was high, and the water was as smooth as glass, making it a very nice day at the office.

On tonight's Nightly News broadcast, we'll show you some of the pictures from our trip. They're part of a report we've done on an increase in wading bird populations in the Florida Everglades. While many credit this increase to favorable weather conditions, some say it's in part due to a successful attempt by biologists and Everglades water managers to create better feeding and nesting conditions. Working together, they're trying to make sure that water is where it's needed, when it's needed. It hasn't always been that way.

For decades, the Everglades have been a huge man-made plumbing project, with canals and spillways controlling the water flow from Lake Okeechobee southward through the River of Grass. Wading birds are very sensitive to that flow. There needs to be a lot of water in the summer and fall, so fish populations can grow. And the area must be dry in the winter when the birds are nesting, so they can easily feed on fish now trapped in small pools. In the past, when water management led to flooding and drought at the wrong times, the birds suffered, and the populations dwindled.

No one is saying that all the problems of the Everglades are being corrected -- far from it. We heard impassioned complaints from environmentalists that the federal government is falling short on its commitment to help restore this valuable and unique wetland. But, we did see the apparent results of a nice first step, and we talked to a lot of people who truly care about the health of birds and their nesting grounds. Heading back from the remote island with the sun beginning to set, it felt as if we'd experienced reason for hope.

Editor's note: Mark and his NBC News crew captured some of the beautiful sights and sounds from their reporting trip and were kind enough to put together a natural sound tour of the Everglades. Click here or on the image to watch.

Despite the talk here at home about trying to provide security to the people of Iraq... there was more violence in that country today.  President Bush is facing some big decisions about the war in the coming week.  He's under pressure to change strategy in Iraq.  But what course will he take? NBC's Jim Maceda and NBC's Kevin Corke have our reports.

Also tonight, the story of a young American on the front lines in Iraq... he tells us what it's like "In His Own Words."

NBC's John Larson has the sad story of the Oregon family stranded in the wilderness... and why years ago someone else was stranded in just about the same place.

NBC's Natalie Morales reports tonight on a new movie coming out about diamonds... and the message it's sending to people who buy and sell the gems.

It's all coming up tonight.  We hope you'll join us.

It is so hard to predict what will become of the paperback document (and the nine months of work by 10 public servants that went into it) and tonight we'll look back on the week and try to look forward to what might come next. Given the seemingly insatiable desire among some in Washington to reflexively attack anything new -- insisting on finding party lines to define it -- the odds might be longer than some might think.

Also tonight, and in no particular order: Taco Bell, hand grenades, jobs, housing, and foul shots. The latter refers to our Friday night "Making a Difference" segment. And, as Andrea Mitchell has done so beautifully on this blog today, we'll remember Jeane Kirkpatrick.

RANDOM NOTES FOLLOW-UP/OFF TO A SHAKY START
It was nice to see that one of the first e-mails posted following my comments yesterday on sloppy e-mails... was addressed to "brain." So there's that.

And I wasn't going to do this, and forgive me, but one more word here on Katrina and its victims: Anyone attacking this news organization for not paying enough attention to the topic has simply not been watching this broadcast -- beginning with the Sunday evening before Katrina hit, and continuing through this evening. Our most recent story on Katrina's victims is airing tonight. It's coming out of our New Orleans bureau... the very bureau we set up to continue to cover this disaster across that region of the country.

ABOUT 41
After some newsroom deliberation, we aired videotape earlier this week of President George H.W. Bush getting emotional while giving a speech to the Florida Legislature. It was a speech about his son, Gov. Jeb Bush. There is an enormous well of good feeling in this country for the former president, and anyone who has watched him at all closely knows: he is a very emotional man. Positively mushy, in fact... which some find a huge part of his charm.  But when is a piece of videotape just a piece of videotape?  Was there another dynamic at work when President Bush broke down during this specific speech? Peggy Noonan artfully proffered a theory of her own on the Wall Street Journal Web site this morning:

"Think of what a loaded moment in history it was for Bush the elder. Barely more than a day after he spoke, the Iraq Study Group's report would be issued. It was chaired by his old friend, the one with whom he'd discussed serious things years ago only after the kids, George and Jeb and the others, left the room.

Surely Mr. Bush knew -- surely he was first on James Baker's call list -- that the report would not, could not, offer a way out of a national calamity, but only suggestions, hopes, on ways through it. To know his son George had (with the best of intentions!) been wrong in the great decision of his presidency -- stop at Afghanistan or move on to Iraq? -- and was now suffering a defeat made clear by the report; to love that son, and love your country, to hold these thoughts, to have them collide and come together -- this would bring not only tears, but more than tears."
-- Peggy Noonan, WSJ.com OpinionJournal, Dec. 8, 2006

We'll leave it at that. Wishing you all a good weekend, I hope you will join us for our Friday night broadcast.

Jeane Kirkpatrick was remarkable, an Iron Lady of U.S. diplomacy who took no prisoners. I should know: I was dumb enough to challenge her - clumsily - during a live interview 22 years ago and I barely survived the encounter. At the time, Kirkpatrick was the Reagan administration's uncompromising United Nations ambassador and, among other things, a fierce defender of the Contra war in Central America. I was co-anchoring an NBC prime time news magazine show with Linda Ellerbee, a program that was memorable only for occasional moments of unintentional hilarity. During a live interview in the summer of 1984, I asked Kirkpatrick to react to a report from Fred Francis, our correspondent in the field, who had evidence that the CIA was secretly mining the Nicaraguan harbor. In what was clearly intended as a "gotcha" moment, I played Fred's report and asked Kirkpatrick to respond. Instead, she sat across from me, studying her nails and swiveling in her chair, saying nothing. Clearly flustered, I repeated the question. All I got was stony silence from the ambassador. Finally, I pressed her again to answer. That's when she put me away by saying, "I don't respond to lies."

I'm sure there was a comeback, if I could have thought of it at the time. Later, my bosses told me it was one of the worst live interviews they'd ever seen. Unfortunately, my most important critic - my mother - agreed. When you've lost your mother, you know you've lost the audience. I learned a lesson about being courteous when asking tough questions. Within the cabinet,  Jeane Kirkpatrick frequently crossed swords with Alexander Haig, Ronald Reagan's first secretary of state and, nominally, her superior in the cabinet. He didn't last long. She was less successful in combating the president's chief of staff, James Baker, whom she likely thought was too "pragmatic." (Yes, the same James Baker who co-chaired the Iraq Study Group.) Over a remarkable career, Kirkpatrick was a widely respected professor, a tough diplomat, and an uncompromising neoconservative. Ronald Reagan admired her ability to stand up for his, and her, principles. Peacefully, in her sleep last night, Jeane Kirkpatrick died, one of the great  champions of the Cold War and a pioneer for women in foreign policy.

Brian anchors tonight from New York to close the week. The lead story is up in the air at this hour, as he explains in today's vlog.

Click here or on the image to watch.

I first heard about Austin Gutwein from a friend of mine, John Yeager, a fine reporter who put down his reporter's notebook a few years back, and now works for World Vision, the worldwide relief organization in Washington State. I called John looking for story ideas and he said, "You've got to meet this kid, he's like Buddha."

He was right, as you'll see in tonight's "Making a Difference" report on Nightly News.

It is easy to like Austin; he is a fun loving and easy going 12-year-old kid. He also is a bit unsettling -- unlike most 12-year-olds, he seems to not only know where he's going, but how to get there and have fun in the process. His father Dan, a salesman for Intel, says that Austin started showing an unusual sensitivity for others at a young age. "The first thing I remember was when he was six, and he heard about a program for the homeless," says Dan.

The family was living in California and Austin heard an ad for the Orange County Mission.  It said the mission could feed a homeless person a Thanksgiving meal for $1.23. Austin went home and raided all the coin jars in the house, put the change in a Ziploc bag, and presented it to his parents. "He told us we needed to take this to the mission," his Dad says, "and so we did." Austin had enough money to feed 20 people.

I asked Dan Gutwein about his son's evolved sense of charity. Where does it come from? He smiled. "I don't know, but he's always been an amazing, passionate kid."

In fairness, Austin's Mom Denise, Dad and church probably had a lot to do with it. The family's church was Saddleback Christian, their minister was Rick Warren, bestselling author of "The Purpose Driven Life." Warren encouraged his congregation to do great things, and help people who needed help. It was after just such a sermon the Gutweins signed up to sponsor two African children through World Vision. One of those children was a boy from Uganda named Ignatius - Austin's future pen pal who would begin to focus Austin on Africa.

When Austin first told his parents that he wanted to raise money for AIDS orphans by shooting baskets, his parents helped put together a Web site for Austin's Hoops of Hope, but never thought much would come of it. 

"I remember the first night I told Denise we might have to be the anonymous donor online every night, saying, 'Hey look Austin! Someone donated anonymously again!' But we never did," recalls Dan.

Austin raised $3,000 that year.

World Vision helped a lot - hosting his Web site and offering advice and support. Austin began getting noticed. Local TV and newspapers did stories about him. Austin spoke with Rick Warren at a national conference on HIV/AIDS. By the time his second Hoops of Hope arrived, Austin had signed up more than 1,000 kids. They raised $38,000.

Austin believes Hoops of Hope works because kids his age just want a chance to do something great. "They think it's awesome and a lot jump on board and want to be a part of something like this. They want to make a difference, and it is something that they can do at the age of 12 or 13."

When Austin told World Vision he wanted to do something even bigger this year, World Vision told him about a proposed school for HIV/AIDS orphans in Zambia. It was going to be dedicated to a World Vision staffer, Johnathan Sim, who had passed away in 2005. The school would also be an orphanage, housing 450 students and teachers. Some money had been raised, but World Vision needed at least $60,000 more to build the school. Austin decided he wanted to build the school. "I'm not out there to find a cure for AIDS, I'm out there to help the kids who are orphaned by it," he says.

In fact, Austin had only a rough idea of what AIDS was when he began. "I know it is a disease that when it gets to parents it kills them, and I feel that pain that the kids feel -- waking up and their parent are dead. (They) are left on their own to care for their many brothers and sisters."

His father thinks there is an important lesson in what Austin and 1,000 other kids are doing. "Does he understand all the details and all the politics around AIDS?" asks Dan. "No. (The kids) don't ask all these detailed questions about, how did you get this way? Or, how did you get AIDS. They don't want to figure out, how do we get funding to support this? They just went out and did it."

World Vision now says, because of Austin, they have enough to break ground for the school in the spring. Not bad for a kid who first decided to do something at the age of nine. "When I first heard about this, Uganda seemed like a totally different planet, but this is something that I realized that if you do just the littlest, littlest thing you can make a difference, and that's what I'm trying to do," he says.

I spent a day with Austin and his family and found them inspiring.  His story, I believe, challenges us all. The first thing I thought as I drove to the airport was: "What was I doing when I was 12?" And then, of course, the next thought: "What, exactly, am I doing now?"

Back from Washington and tonight we'll examine the ramifications and reverberations from yesterday's Iraq Study Group findings. Our reporting will come from David Gregory, Jim Miklaszewski and Dawna Friesen. Jane Arraf will report from the streets of Baghdad. There's an interesting update on the spy story in London (are we all going to end up involved in this in some fashion before this is over?), and Dr. Nancy Snyderman will have an important report on the intersection of autism... and legislation.

THE AFTERGLOW/THE AFTERMATH
Last night before leaving our studios on Capitol Hill in Washington, I literally ran into retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and retired Sen. Chuck Robb. Like many ISG members, they were on a media tour of sorts. We had a very pleasant conversation. I told them I had interviewed the ISG creator Frank Wolf, R-Va., and they explained they'd been unable to find him to ask him how he felt about how it all went. As she did at the news conference, Justice O'Connor said to me, "It really is up to you people (in the media) to take this before the public so the people will pay attention." I told them both that all three broadcast networks had carried the event live, and would anchor from Washington last night, and I related the non-stop cable coverage all day yesterday.

Many who watched the news conference yesterday felt a kind of bipartisan warmth -- a rare event in Washington. Others waited an hour or two before seeming to almost taunt various ISG members -- who as far as I could tell were enormously proud of the outcome, while candid in expressing their frustrations over the limited options. As was said yesterday: There is no magic bullet. Far from it. Some of the  recommendations clearly fall in the "fantasy" category, while others are being seriously mulled in various corners of the Capital City.

The most vicious attack on Baker, Hamilton and their eight fellow members was this cover of this morning's New York Post. Both men are depicted as you might imagine, given the headline. The lead of the article reads: "Sound the retreat!" It goes on from there. So much for the afterglow... the warm and fuzzy feeling that some were voicing yesterday about our senior statespeople getting together to try to solve the most pressing issue we currently face.

At very least, as a friend of mine in government said yesterday (who was and remains opposed to the ISG), perhaps something will shake loose. Pull a frozen rope taut, the thinking goes, and the ice will fall, giving way to new flexibility. We'll see.

RANDOM NOTES
After going through a few day's worth of postings on this blog, some thoughts: 1) I never thought this reporter or this news organization would be accused of anything close to ignoring the victims of Katrina. Let's keep our eyes on the ball. 2) To the e-mailer who complained that the Iraq Study Group didn't contain any members who were against the war in Iraq, look again. 3) If you're going to e-mail us, please take as much care to write it as we try to, while writing hundreds of words on deadline, each day. Nothing takes the steam out of a blowhard e-mail ("How dare you...") tantrum quite as much as embarrassingly bad writing, sloppy use of the English language, or punctuation errors. Paper letters that get sent here (complaining about our journalism) that contain mistakes get sent back to the sender. If we kept to that same standard where e-mails were concerned, the number of comments we publish would change dramatically. Sloppy e-mailers: you can do better.

It is also clear that yesterday's blog on the public airing of intimate life details via cellphone conversations struck a nerve among our readers, and is probably fodder for a series of stories on this annoying and fairly recent societal development. I believe wheels are already turning to convert it into a television story.

HIGH EMOTION IN HAWAII
I've been lucky in life to have known Tom Brokaw for a long time. Today, the 65th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, I watched via satellite from my office as Tom delivered the keynote address, which I believe was the best speech of his life, and that's saying a lot. Tom has already left an indelible mark on our society -- quite apart from his two decades in the chair I now occupy -- having long ago popularized the term "The Greatest Generation" which so perfectly sums up the men and women he paid tribute to at Pearl today. While he accepted their thanks and generous applause, he returned the compliment with great elegance, with soaring words, and with such obvious and great respect for them and for those serving in uniform at this very moment. Tom ended with a sentiment that many in the audience seemed to share: In the event of a national military emergency, some of the very first hands in the air to volunteer -- would be from those who have already served with great distinction. I have asked our Web folks to post the videotape of Tom's speech in this space, in its entirety.  Please make time to watch it. Your investment will be richly rewarded. Tom will join us from there tonight for the story of one Pearl Harbor survivor.

We hope you can join us for our Thursday night broadcast.

Editor's note: Click here or on the image to watch Tom Brokaw's speech marking the 65th anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

Brian anchors the broadcast from New York tonight, but David Gregory brings you today's early view of the stories we're working on. Click here or on the image to watch.

The Iraq Study Group's book is a slim volume: 142 pages, only 96 if you ignore the appendices. The paperback version could easily slip into a Christmas stocking. We were all surprised to see how small it was. 

Photo caption: Four recent commission reports from the NBC News Washington library. Photo by Daily Nightly editor Rob Merrill.

Sales of the Iraq Study Group report on Amazon.com seem to be doing well... yes, sales. Although it's available free on the Internet, you too can own this volume for less than a bucket of chicken. It was holding steady on the Amazon list at No. 26, jumped up to No. 18, and has dropped a bit to No. 22 at this writing.

Now, one of the good things about forking over your money for a book that's available for free, is that the publisher says that a portion of the proceeds will go to the National Military Family Association, a nonprofit group that helps military families. 

Author's note: None of the  measurements of the aforementioned books is meant to cast any aspersions on the various committees' investigative work or their editing skills.

I am just back from spending some time with Secretary Baker and Congressman Hamilton. On days like this, at events like this, the networks draw lots for major interviews. The last time we did this was to interview Congresswoman Pelosi, the day after the election. Today, NBC was fourth in the order -- a place in the batting order which really amounted to a chance to see some colleagues. Charlie Gibson was exiting the Hart Senate Office building as we drove up. Then I saw Brit Hume, who had just finished his interview. Anderson Cooper next, as he was walking out. Katie and I waited in a holding room, and she followed our interview slot. Luckily, we all get along very well (of the group, I've spent the most time and flown the most miles with Brit, who covered the Clinton White House for ABC while I covered for NBC). As quarters are close, we go to so many of the same events, and we all see each other often.

I came away very pleased with our conversation with Messrs. Baker and Hamilton. I found their answers (as I did watching the press conference earlier) very candid and quite emotional. Speaking only as a citizen, it is so pleasing to see our very best public servants -- true patriots who have already given so much for their country -- come together and answer the call for what they see as the common good. The alliance between Presidents Bush (41) and Clinton is a wonderful example, as is the friendship forged between former rivals Ford and Carter. I think a huge percentage of the American people crave this kind of cooperation -- and today was a stark example of it.

I just spoke with Congressman Frank Wolf, R-Va., who is the originator of the Iraq Study Group. I covered him as a young TV reporter here in Washington in the 80s and got to know him then. He came back from his third trip to Iraq, horrified by the rise in danger there, and came up with the idea for a bipartisan panel... rammed it through and found the funding. There came a rather weighty and very sincere moment when he took me aside today and called it my "responsibility" (as a member of the media) to put as much of this on the air as possible... toward fostering public debate, he said, as a way to someday, somehow unify a nation at war.

All of which brings us to tonight's broadcast, which will dwell heavily on the topic that brings Nightly News to Washington tonight. David Gregory will start us off, we'll get the reporting of Andrea Mitchell, and we'll air a substantial portion of my interview and hear from Tim Russert, among other elements. It's a heavy coverage load for us (and we're back to our normal commercial load... Monday spoiled us, I'm afraid), and so there's a bit of a debate over the elective stories that remain to fill the small amount of remaining, available time.

We hope you will join us for the Wednesday edition of Nightly News from Washington tonight.

Photo captions: James Baker and Lee Hamilton remove their mics after more than an hour in the hot seat. They spoke with all the network news anchors, plus CNN & FOX, for 15 minutes each.
Second photo: The "official interview lineup" note for James Baker and Lee Hamilton.
Photos by NBC's Subrata De.

Convening a bipartisan "study" group is the oldest trick in the Washington playbook, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing. Most recently, the 9/11 Commission helped us find our way out of the paralysis resulting from the attack on our homeland. Two decades earlier, the Tower Report rescued Ronald Reagan from the Iran-Contra mess. In 1968, the Kerner Commission helped Lyndon Johnson find solutions to the race riots inflaming America's cities. Less successfully, the Warren Commission tried - and failed - in 1964 to bring the nation together behind a single theory of the assassination of John F. Kennedy a year earlier. And FDR used the Roberts Commission to investigate America's failure to prevent the attack at Pearl Harbor.

Watching today's news conference, and reading this report, I wondered whether this would in fact be one of those special moments of conciliation, whether today's blunt prescription could bridge the partisan divide between both parties in Congress and the White House. Certainly that's the obvious yearning of most voters in the midterm elections.

Contrary to selective leaks, the report is very detailed. The staff work was done primarily by the U.S. Institute of Peace, one of the lesser known but more effective Washington think tanks.

Most remarkable was reading and listening to the unanimity of the conclusions. Does anyone but me recall that former Attorney General Ed Meese was one of Jim Baker's fiercest critics when they both served in the Reagan White House? And that Leon Panetta was Bill Clinton's chief of staff when Sandra Day O'Connor was a decisive vote on the Supreme Court to end the Florida recount, giving the White House to George W. Bush? Most of the panel members are charter members of Washington's political establishment, but that doesn't mean they are logical partners in crafting a tough, detailed report like this one. And you have to go pretty far to beat Lee Hamilton's terse answer to whether the group was giving up on the president's original lofty goal to create a democratic Iraq: "We want to stay current."

There will be a lot of time for analysis. Was Jim Baker a stand-in for the president's father? Is George W. Bush capable of reversing course? Will the Democrats stop saying "I told you so" long enough to help rescue the administration, and the country, from one of its worst foreign policy crises? Will Iran and Syria stop fueling Iraq's insurgents and become part of an eventual solution? And will the secretary of state launch a high-risk "diplomatic offensive" without a guarantee of a successful outcome?

None of us knows how to answer those questions, but as a start, today was a pretty good day. Alan Simpson said maybe it's corny, maybe it won't work, "but it's sure as hell better than sitting there where we are right now."   

Brian anchors the broadcast from the nation's capital tonight, where all the news concerns the Iraq Study Group's report. You can read our latest story on it here, and you can read the FULL REPORT (160 pages, PDF doc) here.

Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory handles the vlog today, reporting from the north lawn. Click here or on the image to watch.

"Every war is a defeat for all of us... the practice of journalism is a commitment to life."
Jesus Abad Colorado
Photojournalist, winner of the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists in Nov. 2006

Journalism is an act of faith in the power of truth. We reporters are sometimes described as calloused, but under even the toughest exteriors lies an idealistic wish that if we tell you the truth about a wrong, you will want to help right it.

We felt this hope when our NBC news team recently reported about the atrocities in Darfur and neighboring Chad, where ethnic Arabs shouting racial epithets are systematically killing and raping black tribes people, driving them from their villages.

Our reports aired on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, the Today program, MSNBC, and MSNBC.com. Now, so that more people can see what is happening, NBC News has decided to take the unusual step of offering FREE downloads of these reports on iTunes, starting today.

Pretty cool, if you, like me, believe the heart of America beats with compassion, and for justice. Want proof? So many e-mails have overwhelmed NBC News in response to our reports, we are told they broke a record for our Web site. Most  writers have expressed outrage the violence has not been stopped and a desire to know how to help.

That more people say they understand what is happening in Darfur and Chad and care about it, as NBC Nightly News executive producer John Reiss puts it, "is all we can ask for."

But in fact we got more. One viewer, a philanthropist, called to ask our help in directing his response: a $1 million donation to help the victims of ethnic cleansing.

"Never again" is happening again. See for yourself and bear witness.

"Crisis in Darfur" is available as a free download. You can find it in the iTunes store. Click on the "TV Shows" category and then "NBC News" and "NBC News Specials." The 28+ minute video includes my reports for the network and a conversation New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof and I had recently about our travels to the region. I urge you to also read Nicholas' compelling columns. (If you have an NYTimes.com login, click here.) He, like me, knows the truth is powerful, and has faith it might save the people of Darfur and Chad.

We are awaiting the Iraq Study Group news conference. We will air it live from here on Capitol Hill on the NBC television network. It will also air live on MSNBC. Following the event, I will make my way to the Russell Senate Office Building for interviews with Secretary Baker and Congressman Hamilton.

All of us waiting for the 8:30 Delta Shuttle to Washington were subjected to a modern-day dynamic in this era of the cellphone as public address system: if it's important to YOU, it should be important to all those around you.
                                                   
I'm old enough to recall a time when calls placed to a loved one from an airport were hushed affairs, placed from a tiny booth with a hinged door that you closed up tight behind you. Onlookers could see only your moving lips as you discussed whatever topic needed discussing. It was back when phones were attached with wires, and back when the designers of the telephone foolishly assumed we would want the placement of the mouthpiece to correspond with the location of the average human mouth.
                                                         
We know so much more now. These days, we've learned the EAR is a better place for the microphone. Sure, you need to talk a little louder to make the sound bend up and around to the side of your head, but do you know anyone whose looks wouldn't be enhanced by a clip-on earpiece with a cool blue flashing light? With this discovery, the era of the "Bluetooth over-share" was ushered into American life. Americans learned the thrill of conducting a full-throated telephone conversation in close quarters, for all to hear, for all to share. Intimate family topics can be discussed at loud volume -- without those old concerns over "privacy"  -- our celebration of self means that complete strangers won't mind hearing it -- because it's a person or topic that's important to US. 

This particular phone call could only have been louder had the woman in question used that really cool police cruiser-style microphone with the "push to talk" button on the side... that the gate agents use to tell us our "equipment has arrived." While two placid, kind-looking nuns from Mother Theresa's order looked on (and listened with the rest of us), the caller went through her travel schedule through January 14th. She lamented to her father about her mother's problems with bathing and hygiene, and issues so personal that they cannot be repeated here... though our phone-user felt no such qualms before her live lounge audience. No single thought went un-uttered during this painfully detailed tour of her family and personal life. She wondered aloud about home nursing help and mapped out a mock schedule for when a nurse would be most-needed during the day. I could see the problem: the aide would be needed most in the morning and in the evening -- that's two shifts, with slack time in between. The meter's running. I get it. The nuns seemed to get it, too. I don't know about the other 100-or-so attendees of this morning's impromptu LaGuardia Healthcare Workshop, but I'm sure most are currently dealing with one aspect or another of longterm healthcare for a loved one. The problem, of course, was that only one of us could talk about it so loudly and openly -- and she already had the floor.

When I saw the woman with the phone stand (she kept talking, like a champ, while gathering her things, telling her Dad that she was "gathering her things"), and when I noticed she was boarding the Washington flight, I almost boarded the Boston flight instead. In an instant, I decided against it. I'm supposed to interview the co-chairs of the Iraq Study Group, and it could be weeks until they make some sort of joint appearance in Boston.

I was tempted to call someone and tell them this whole story.

When I awoke this morning, the e-mail in my BlackBerry reported the response to last night's special version of the broadcast, with limited commercial interruption: "it's in the thousands -- too many to count -- all positive so far."
                           
As a close friend and colleague said to me this morning, "Dick Salant (legendary former CBS News President) would be so proud." Dick became a good friend and mentor in the last years of his life -- that quote implies that Dick would have approved of what happened on the air last night. Thanks to a single underwriter, we were able to pack approximately 28 minutes of news into the 30 minutes the network gives us. Salant is a weighty name to toss around in our line of work, because of his steadfast protection of network news, so that was enormously gratifying to hear.    

The experiment truly did ignite a viewer response -- many of the e-mails praising us, but a good number praising Philips Electronics, who paid the freight last night. I'm happy to announce we'll be doing it again very soon. While it in no way CHANGED the news we delivered or reported on last night, it increased the VOLUME by several stories and several correspondents. How nice to come to the office and encounter a pile of e-mails that do not begin with the traditional "How dare you..." -- which is, all too often, the salutation we've become used to. This experiment, to the contrary, ignited passions of a different and positive sort.

We literally stopped counting the positive emails at 4,000. How nice. We're thrilled.

Thanks to all those who watched, and all those who wrote. We're a bit concerned that a ton of folks are going to tune in tonight expecting the same... but soon.

ABOUT TONIGHT
We will review the testimony of SecDef nominee Robert Gates today -- some interesting questions and answers and what many found to be very candid testimony. We have a report on the war on terror tonight as well from Richard Engel.

We will talk about the NASA plan to "colonize" the moon (a story that was out yesterday but received very little attention), and we will update the Russian spy story from London.

Robert Bazell will report tonight on postpartum depression, and we'll update the not-so-little ship that could: the USS Intrepid today made it to its new home in New Jersey. As a New Jersey native, born and raised, allow me to welcome our substantial visitor, the great carrier that in Navy slang was referred to as "36,000 tons of diplomacy" -- a welcome addition to the waterfront for the brief time we have her.

We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.