Rashid Khalidi, Prof. of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University, and Michael Vlahos, Prof. of Strategy, U.S. Naval War College, discuss the spread of Mideast protests from Egypt to Iran, Bahrain, Yemen and Algiers.

Click here to read our compelling interview with Vlahos, exclusive to the Parker Spitzer blog!

Journalist Mansoor Al-Jamri describes thousands of protesters in Bahrain, camping out at Manama's Pearl Roundabout.

CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin looks at Italy's libel indictment against the parents of American Amanda Knox, convicted of murdering her British roommate in 2007.

Former UN weapons inspector David Albright says the Stuxnet computer virus set Iran's nuclear program back one year.

"PARKER SPITZER" EXCLUSIVE: Famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz, advising the legal team for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, says the U.S. is using a double standard on use of new media.

Check out our fascinating OFF-SET interview with Dershowitz, exclusive to the Parker Spitzer blog!

On tonight's program, Senators Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Mark Warner (D-VA) discuss the current challenges and politics of budget-cutting. In a most bipartisan way, they've been looking at the work of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and are discussing how to draft legislation based the conclusions reached by that deficit commission.

See the entire interview on Parker Spitzer on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011.

At a news conference this morning, Mr. Obama said that he had had conversations with Republicans and the Democratic leadership. "I did before the budget was released and I will afterwards."  He said that he expects all sides  to do a little posturing on television, speaking to their constituencies. He said he wants quiet, toned-down conversation.

The president referred to the Fiscal Commission as really just a "framework for a conversation."

He also said he's taking a "scalpel to the discretionary budget rather than a machete."

ONLY ON THE BLOG: Answering today's five OFF-SET questions is Alan M. Dershowitz, who has been called "the nation's most peripatetic civil liberties lawyer" and one of its "most distinguished defenders of individual rights." 

He is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. Dershowitz, a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School, he joined the Harvard Law School faculty at age 25 after clerking for Judge David Bazelon and Justice Arthur Goldberg. His newest and third novel is "The Trials of Zion."

EXCLUSIVE: Dershowitz is scheduled to appear on Parker Spitzer on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011.

As an adviser to Julian Assange’s defense team, what will you be doing?

I will be focusing on First and Fourth Amendment  issues, freedom of press and freedom of association and  limitations on the government’s power to intrude on these rights. I will also be interested in helping to develop the law involving the new electronic media.  FULL POST

Today's Number of the Day is 40.7%...

Our government is really an insurance company with an army.

So says Washington Post reporter Ezra Klein very cleverly, based on the grim reality that 40% of all government spending is related to insurance programs, including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Add that to defense and interest on the debt — and that’s where your money goes.  FULL POST

ONLY ON THE BLOG:  Michael Vlahos is a Professor of Strategy at the United States Naval War College.

He has served in the United States Navy and the CIA, and as Director of the Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. He was Director of Security Studies at SAIS-Johns Hopkins. His research focus is the interplay between war and culture in the dynamics of historical change.

Vlahos is scheduled to appear on Parker Spitzer on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011.

Here’s what’s concerning Vlahos, based on the pre-interview notes he sent to the program.

I have been sifting through the available "open-source intelligence" and I am guardedly optimistic that Egypt will get at least to open elections.

This means a six-month period at least of pressure on other Arab/Persian regimes. Most important, the Egyptian military, in trusted-steward mode, means a continuing erosion of other political models where the military suppresses political expression. This is especially applicable to Algeria, but also to some extent, to Iran's IRGC, (the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.)

But my greatest concern now is whether or not the US Government will be able to effectively go with the flow of change. FULL POST

OBAMA NEWS CONFERENCE TUESDAY – President Barack Obama plans to have a news conference at 11 a.m. ET Tuesday, a White House spokesman said. Meanwhile, it doesn't come as a shock that Republicans aren't thrilled with President Obama's budget proposal. But Democrats aren't exactly jumping for joy either. And the left is livid. Obama's budget targets community block grants, a program that helps low-income people pay their energy bills, and the popular Pell grant program to aid college students. All are part of the social safety net Democrats often fight to protect.  

IRAN PROTESTS – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will talk to the Iranian people in a live televised speech at 1230pET. He'll address both domestic and international issues. This comes one day after large opposition protests in the streets of Tehran were held, in solidarity with Egypt. Iranian lawmakers denounced Monday's protests and called for the execution of two opposition leaders for inciting the demonstrations, Iran's state-run Press TV reported Tuesday. Members of the Iranian parliament issued fiery chants against opposition leaders and former presidential candidates Mehdi Karrubi and Mir Hossein Moussavi.  FULL POST