Gen. David McKiernan, the top U.S. commander in Afganistan, said yesterday that the U.S. "will have to keep about 60,000 troops in Afghanistan for at least the next three to four years to combat an increasingly violent insurgency." McKiernan said that an additional 10,000 troops will be needed beyond the 17,000 President Obama ordered to Afghanistan this week.

"A handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package," which "opponents say puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents struggling" through the recession. Some governors, like Rick Perry of Texas and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, have opposed the stimulus, but eventually admitted they would take the money.

Though none has outright rejected the money available for education, health care and infrastructure, the governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alaska, South Carolina and Idaho have all questioned whether the $787 billion bill signed into law this week will even help the economy.

And while not a big Clyburn fan:

In fact, governors who reject some of the stimulus aid may find themselves overridden by their own legislatures because of language Clyburn included in the bill that allows lawmakers to accept the federal money even if their governors object.

He inserted the provision based on the early and vocal opposition to the stimulus plan by South Carolina's Republican governor, Mark Sanford. But it also means governors like Sanford and Louisiana's Bobby Jindal - a GOP up-and-comer often mentioned as a potential 2012 presidential candidate - can burnish their conservative credentials, knowing all the while that their legislatures can accept the money anyway.

Brad Van Pelt, All American defensive back, 1972 Maxwell Trophy winner as the year's outstanding college football player, 14 years with the New York Giants, 10 Pro Bowls, voted the greatest New York Giant of the 70s, elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2001.

Died today (02/19) at 57 of an apparent heart attack.

Of course, in some other areas....

"The Obama Justice Department has moved to dismiss or delay a lawsuit by Mohammed Jawad -- a teenage prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay prison who says he was detained unlawfully after being tortured.

And last week, the Justice Department told an appeals court it concurred with a Bush administration argument that a lawsuit by former detainees who say they were subject to extraordinary rendition and then tortured should be thrown out in its entirety because the case relies on "state secrets."   (Reuters)

Former Bush Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove has a new president urging Congress not to force him to testify next week.

President Barack Obama.

In a court brief quietly filed Monday, Michael Hertz, Obama's acting assistant attorney general, said it was necessary to delay an effort to force Rove to be deposed in a congressional investigation into the firing of nine US Attorneys and the alleged political prosecution of a former Alabama governor.

Hertz said an effort was underway to find a "compromise" for Rove, and requested two weeks to broker a deal before proceeding in court.

"The inauguration of a new president has altered the dynamics of this case and created new opportunities for compromise rather than litigation," Hertz wrote in the brief released late Monday by McClatchy's Washington, D.C. bureau. "At the same time, there is now an additional interested party -- the former president -- whose views should be considered."