From last night’s Special Report with Brit Hume:

—On the New Congress—

MORT KONDRACKE: [E]ven at the get go, the 100 hours agenda is going to be voted on what the Democrats used to scream about, a closed rule basis — no amendment, no substitutes by the Republicans, no committee hearings. And the Republicans are now complaining about that. Of course that’s the kind of treatment that they used to mete out for the Democrats. So just over the horizon or maybe next week, you know, you can begin to see the good behavior breaking down.
FRED BARNES: Well, you know, it goes back to normal fighting . . . The question is whether there is going to be a new direction, as Nancy Pelosi suggested.
Look, I have great respect for Nancy Pelosi. When she came in as a Democratic leader in 2002, I thought that was lucky for Republicans, that’s she’d be weak. She turns out to be a lot tougher and stronger and more skillful than I thought, but there’s not going to be a new direction. I mean look . . . even after this election, who has the upper hand in Washington? The president does. He just has more tools to work with.

—On the Shake-Up in Iraq—

HUME: [O]fficials say the replacement as the top general in Iraq would be for General George Casey will be Lieutenant General David Petraeus.
KONDRACKE: Petraeus has this wonderful reputation, probably the best reputation, I think, of any general who served in Iraq. And I guess he’s putting in what he regards as the first team to get it done. There are also widespread reports that Zalmay Khalilzad, the ambassador to Iraq . . . is going to the U.N. . . . So, it’s kind of curious, frankly, that you take Khalilzad out at the same time that you would replace the generals, which means that there’s going to be a whole new team in place in Iraq, at a very crucial and scary time, especially politically.
BARNES: Yeah, we’re going to have a lot of very rough-and-tumble confirmation hearings, that’s for sure. Iraq will be on the agenda, intelligence on the agenda. I mean, there’ll be two people, we know this General Mike McConnell will be named to take over for Negroponte as director of National Intelligence, so he’ll have a confirmation hearing, then his No. 2 guy will have a confirmation hearing. So, all these issues are going to be bigger than ever.