SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET:

GREAT MOMENTS IN JOURNALISM – From Fox:  "NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday that he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, recanting a claim that he and the network had repeated for years -- most recently on Friday night."  It wasn't a one-time error, exaggeration or misstatement.  It's gone on for years.  Pretty serious offense, it seems to me, and it will dog Williams forever.  The jokes are already starting.  Because a journalist's greatest weapon is his credibility, it might be wise for Williams to withdraw as anchor and become a "roving correspondent."  That's where they send you to the Himalayas and you roam and roam, and never come back.

THE WANTING OF WARREN – From The Hill:  "Susan Sarandon, Olivia Wilde and Edward Norton are among the more than 90 entertainers urging Sen. Elizabeth Warren to throw her hat in the 2016 presidential race.  The group — which also includes Mark Ruffalo, Natasha Lyonne, Julia Stiles, and “The Avengers” director Joss Whedon — penned an open letter this week to the Massachusetts Democrat, pushing her to make a White House bid."  Would someone please tell me who some of these people are? 

SCIENCE BULLETIN – From The Guardian, Britain's leading leftist paper: "Cockroaches may be ugly, they may be among the most loathed creatures on the planet but at least, scientists say, they have personality.  Researchers studying the behaviour of the insects have discovered that far from simply being a homogenous mass they have individual character traits.  The discovery is unlikely to change perceptions of them from skittering vermin to desirable beasts but it could go some way to explaining their evolutionary success."  I can't wait to talk to one.  I want to meet the cheerleader captain.

SETBACK – From Fox:  "A key Arab partner in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State stopped flying airstrike missions over Syria after a Jordanian pilot -- who was later killed -- was shot down in December, senior U.S. officials and diplomats from the region told Fox News.  The decision is a setback for the coalition, even as another member, Jordan, vows to ramp up airstrikes in the wake of its pilot being brutally executed by the Islamist terror group."  The ally who stopped is the UAE, which complained that American search-and-rescue units were not based close enough to the action to rescue any downed UAE pilots.

February 4, 2015