Hamid Karzai has been sworn in today as the president of Afghanistan for a second five-year term.  After an optimistic first presidential election in 2004, this second election was, in the words of President Obama, "messy." It was fraught with allegations of corruption, and looked like it might require a run-off.  However, today's inauguration officially secures Hamid Karzai as president for the next five years. The inauguration itself is to be held as a private event on the heavily-secured presidential palace grounds. Anand Gopal of the Wall Street Journal, on the ground in Kabul, gives us the scene during the inauguration.

President Karzai still faces great international pressure to address corruption in the government in order to continue receiving support from the United States.  Earlier this week the Afghan government announced plans to create a major anti-corruption unit to investigate senior officials.  This Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on ABC's The Week "I have made it clear that we're not going to be providing any civilian aid to Afghanistan unless we have a certification that if it goes into the Afghan government in any form, that we're going to have ministries that we can hold accountable."

We discuss this statement and the possible impact on the future of Afghanistan with Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

• Washington Takeout: Todd Zwillich was at a hearing on Capitol Hill yesterday where Attorney General Eric Holder defended his decision to try confessed 9/11 'mastermind' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in New York.
  
• Business Takeout: Retailers are struggling this holiday season, but luxury sellers like Saks Fifth Avenue are cutting inventory, so consumers can't count on blowout sales. New York Times reporter Louise Story explains this novel approach.
• Listeners: We received a lot of responses to yesterday's story about a physicians' group recommending people wait for particular cancer screenings.

President Barack Obama is finishing his trip in Asia and will soon return to unrest in the Senate over health care reform; pressures from all sides to decide whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan; and rising unemployment. All that and, to top it off – his job approval ratings are slipping, according to a new Quinnipiac survey. For an inside look at how Obama might be dealing with all of this, we talk with David Plouffe, president Obama’s campaign manager last year and the author of a new book, “The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory.”

Santas across America are asking for priority when it comes to getting vaccinated against H1N1. They say they're at high risk for contracting the flu as they deal with runny-nosed kids sitting on their laps, coughing and sneezing as they tell Santa what they want for Christmas. Ernest Berger, president and founder of Santa America, one of the largest volunteer Santa Claus organizations in the country, joins us to discuss why it is important for Santa to get vaccinated.

Facebook recently began offering memorial pages for website users who have passed away, allowing users to have a digital presence even after they die. It made us wonder: what happens to all those emails, pictures, and videos you've put on the web when you're no longer there to pay the monthly fees, and no one knows your password? Tech blogger Corvida Raven, from the She-geeks blog, says everyone should have a plan to pass on access to their online identity.  So does Jeremy Toeman, who started a company that helps you keep track of all your online accounts and will inform your loved ones of your passwords after you die.

Senate Democrats unveiled their health care bill [pdf, 2.5mb] yesterday - a massive tome of more than two thousand pages that the non-partisan CBO estimates will cost $849 billion over ten years. That's below the limit of $900 billion that President Obama set - and a figure that would actually decrease the deficit. Drafters of the bill patted themselves on the back during an evening press converence yesterday, breaking into laughter when Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) flahed the "V" for victory sign. But the wrangling and political horse-trading aren't over yet, and that "V" may yet prove premature. Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich says fights over abortion and the "public option" just aren't going away. Paul Starr is a veteran of these kind of debates. He is currently a professor of sociology and public policy at Princeton University, and was a senior health policy advisor in the Clinton White House. He wrote the book "The Social Transformation of American Medicine." Starr weighs in on whether the massive bill can slow the rise in health care spending or whether that goal is simply a pipe dream.

• Business Takeout: The House Financial Services Committee passed a measure yesterday that would let the government break up large banks, even if they're healthy. New York Times reporter Louise Story tells us why.
  
• Sports Takeout: Ibrahim Abdul-Matin takes a look at baseball's Managers of the year and attempts to predict who could win the NL Cy Young Award.
• The Value: Farai Chideya interviews Tanya Selvaratnama, a theater actor who is organizing a book drive for Sri Lankan children. Click through for a video of their interview.

In 2001, many were excited at the prospect of Hamid Karzai leading Afghanistan's transitional government forward.  After winning the country's first presidential election, hopes ran high that Karzai would usher in a transparent, clean government. The recent presidential elections, however, were messy and tarnished by allegations of fraud.  What's happened since the heady days of 2001?

We're joined by Ambassador Robert Finn, associate research scholar with the Liechtenstein Institute at Princeton and former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2002 – 2003.  We are also joined by Nadir Atash, former Afghan government official and author of "Turbulence – The Tumultuous Journey of One Man’s Quest for Change in Afghanistan."

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday defended his decision to try self-professed 9/11 'mastermind' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in New York City, rather than a military tribunal. In a heated exchange with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Holder speculated on whether this trial will set a precedent for how future terror suspects are treated. At one point, Graham asked whether the U.S. would have to read Osama Bin Laden his Miranda Rights if he was caught. James Cohen, a professor at Fordham Law School who is defending two Guantánamo Bay detainees says that Graham's question made the news, but that it's a moot point.

(click through for a transcript of Holder and Graham's exchange.)

Seat belts are a simple technology; they have saved many lives since their introduction in the 1950s.  Since then, however, concern over protecting children in traffic accidents has led to many models of child car seats, and many state laws requiring parents to put kids in them until they are six or seven years old.  In "SuperFreakonomics," Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt compare the safety record of car seats and seat belts, going so far as to buy their own testing time at a safety rating facility. Their analysis brings into question whether seat belts actually perform any worse than newer technologies.  Some people, including the Secretary of Transportation, are questioning these results.  Here is "Super Freakonomics" co-author Steven Levitt's response.

Attorney General Eric Holder faced energetic questioning from senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday; our own Todd Zwillich was there, and joins us, along with Matthew Waxman, associate professor of national security law at Columbia Law School.