Bush leaves today to visit Israel, the Palestinian territories, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Dana Perino, White House spokeswoman, said senior staff including Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Counselor to the President Ed Gillespie and Perino would post periodic updates on whitehouse.gov in a blog called "Trip Notes from the Middle East."

"This is new to us," Perino said at a press briefing. "We encourage you to log on and to check back often to read some of the updates that the staff will be posting throughout the trip. So it will be just a little bit of a blog."

Perino made the first post today, which includes Bush’s schedule, goals, background and introductory comments. Perino writes," This trip will reflect the President’s commitment to the Middle East region and his belief that the future of the region has a direct impact on the security of America."  
 

Like a bag of Oreos and a quart of Hawaiian Punch, there were topics in 2007 that bloggers couldn’t help from overindulging in during the year.

Blog tracking application maker BuzzLogic said bloggers couldn’t get enough of hotel heiress and weeping jailbird Hilton this year. Obsessing over Hilton easily outpaced postings about mother of the year candidate Britney Spears, and the blossoming train wrecks of the careers of Lindsay Lohan and Amy Winehouse.

Michael Vick and his dogfighting case brought out a lot of sports blog commentary. The flashy star’s 23-month federal sentence today capped off several months of speculation in and out of the blogosphere.

The Red Sox have a World Series crown, but people couldn’t stop blogging about the Yankees when it came to teams being talked about in the most influential blogs. Barry Bonds and Tom Brady received a lot of attention for very different reasons.

Politics may be the fuel that fires the blogosphere, even more than technology due to the way it appeals across social and economic bounds. President Bush and Republican laywer-shooing Vice President Dick Cheney weren’t just the two most talked about men in politics, but in blogs as a whole, according to BuzzLogic.

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