Steve, Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former assistant, on tonight's BBC Newsnight show predicted a "Chris Hill-type" diplomatic push btw the US and Iran "within the next 90 days".

The program can be watched on the BBC website, his comments come at the tail end. Any news through your grapevine?

".....and what I liked most besides her commitment to better health care policy was her call for "an end to cowboy diplomacy.""

Maybe this posturing fraud Hillary should worry more about ignorance than she should bronc bustin'. Besides, with the arms and defense industry drooling over the prospect of a Hillary presidency, we can fully well expect more middle east shootouts from her, undoubtedly at Israel's behest. Particularly considering AIPAC's considerable hold on Hillary's loyalty.

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/

Hillary: Experienced? Not Even Informed!

Hillary Clinton has made the campaign’s focal point as her “experience.”

But she doesn’t seem to see facts as important.

Yesterday I noted Mike Huckabee’s excuse for not being aware of the Iran NIE report.

Hillary Clinton is under the impression that President Musharraf is running unopposed for reelection in Pakistan. In fact, Musharraf was reelected on October 6. The upcoming elections are for parliamentary seats.

“If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election, then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow,” she told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (.pdf) Dec. 28. Two days later, she told ABC’s George Stephanopolous “[Musharraf] could be the only person on the ballot. I don’t think that’s a real election.”

A spokesman for Clinton, Howard Wolfson (one of the most obnoxious public spokesmen ever), said Clinton was referring to Musharraf’s party, not the president himself. However, Hot Air says that “she gets nearly everything about the Pakistani political situation and upcoming elections wrong.” Check his explanation.

Two comments about the Coffee Bean poll:

All the Republican votes together add up to less than any of the three top Democrats by themselves.

Why is Sen. Clinton the only candidate referred to in these lists by her first name?

New subject:

I am in the middle of reading a book that should be required reading for every single person in the Washington establishment. The theme of the book -- and it makes an excellent case for a thesis that isn't that difficult to support -- is that everything every politician, pundit, business leader, academic, think tank denizen, journalist, writer, and busybody in this town is full of shit.

Everything they say and everything they believe is wrong. To whit:

We can not and do not understand the past.
We can not and do not have a clear picture of the present.
We can not and do not have the ability to either predict or control the future.

The test is simple. All the above people make a living predicting what will happen next. Has anyone ever gone over their past predictions to see how often they have been right? Why is such a test avoided so carefully?

Why are people who have made carefully reasoned predictions that have been dead wrong paid so much to make more predictions?

The book, by the way, is \The Black Swan/ by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. In its way, it's as important as /The Origin of Wealth\ in its ability to show that the conventional wisdom is pure, unadulterated bullshit.

But then, when has that mattered?

this Matt Stoller guy is pretty funny and insightful... thanks for sharing his blog..

The establishment is most afraid of Edwards, Paul and Huckabee.

Like the neos and US Israelis insisting the US kiss off "old Europe"....Americans need to kiss off the "old establishment".

I want new blood. Period.