I work with some of the greatest minds in the country when it comes to understanding what is going on in the global terrorism field -- Steve Coll, Peter Bergen, Nicholas Schmidle, Robert Wright, Tim Golden, Afshin Molavi, and others. And we are close strategic partners with Karen Greenberg's NYU Center on Law and Security which has done so much to wrestle with the torture era America rushed into during the Bush/Cheney administration.

Both institutions are great resources for smart, informed commentary on the Mumbai terror disaster.

And then, of course, there is my friend Juan Cole. . .

So here are three pieces that can help most become smart quickly on what a muddle the Mumbai terror scene is:

Steve Coll: Decoding Mumbai

Paul Cruickshank: Hunting for the Killers

Juan Cole: India -- Please Don't Go Down the Bush-Cheney Road

-- Steve Clemons

The first blog post I did over four years ago at The Washington Note had to do with the subject of war profiteering and players in the national security establishment that were making money from defense contractors while also serving as so-called "objective" commentators on the war, weapons systems, and the like.

My target at the time was former Clinton administration CIA Director James Woolsey -- or "Jihad Jim" as some of his friends call him -- who was the first major national security voice on September 11, 2001 to try and tie the terrorist attacks that day in New York and Washington, D.C. to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Woolsey did not disclose that he was a lawyer representing the interests of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress at the time.

Now, the New York Times raises questions about the one-man punditry, war consulting, strategic advisory services provided by General Barry McCaffrey. There are a long list of others that deserve similar scrutiny.

-- Steve Clemons

Editor's note: Thanks to Ben Rosengart for sending this our way.

Joseph Stiglitz is an economist I wish Barack Obama would spend some more time with.

I can't attend this one time only showing of Around the World with Joseph Stiglitz but I would if in New York. I'll be on a plane to Brussels.

Hope some of you can make it and report back.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: There are a limited number of tickets for $5 available. If you would like one, please email acs76@columbia.edu.

Monday and Tuesday this next week, I have three events I am chairing at the New America Foundation -- and all of them are superb. If you are in the Washington, DC area, you are welcome to join us. I'll hyperlink the website for each of the specific events so that you can RSVP directly to our event staff.

The first features Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy James K. Glassman who will be speaking on the subject, "Public Diplomacy 2.0."

Glassman will be sharing his thoughts on how new technology, including social networking, is changing the face of public diplomacy - specifically, how new technology fits Glassman's new approach to engaging with foreign audiences by convening and facilitating rather than preaching and directing.

Glassman recently spoke at the New America Foundation after assuming his responsibilities (his talk can be viewed here) and made the sensible but not heard enough statement that a chief goal of American public diplomacy should not be trying to get the world to love America -- but rather to help those with grievances and those who want to protest their situation to find non-violent ways to do so.

That was a lot more sensible than much of what I heard from either Glassman's predecessor, Karen Hughes, or from the Cheney wing of the Bush White House.

Glassman's event will stream live at The Washington Note from 10:00 am til 11:30 am EST on Monday, 1 December.

NEXT, on Tuesday, 2 December, from 12:15 pm til 1:45 pm EST, I will be hosting Pulitzer-prize winning Washington Post correspondent Barton Gellman on his new book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, which I reviewed here.

This riveting book is essential for those who want to understand how Vice President Cheney and his chief legal aide and alter-ego, David Addington, sculpted the key memorable, disturbing features of the George W. Bush administration. This event will also STREAM LIVE at The Washington Note.

Gellman's book, I should add, just appeared on the New York Times Notable Books of the Year list.

Helene Cooper's House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood also ranked high on the Times Notable books list this year -- and has received rave reviews including from this writer.

Cooper is the newly appointed White House correspondent for the New York Times after previously serving as Diplomatic correspondent covering the State Department.

Helene Cooper will be speaking from 6:30 pm til 8:00 pm EST at an evening program at the New America Foundation on Tuesday, December 2nd. Her event will also stream live here at The Washington Note.

Here is a segment of my review of Helene Cooper's memoir:

Helene Cooper's childhood was best punctuated by the memories of her sisters -- one related by blood, Marlene, and the other adopted, Eunice -- in a 22 room house at Sugar Beach outside of Monrovia, Liberia.

Cooper's family was crowded with big personalities. Her uncle was foreign minister and was executed during the downfall of the Liberian government. Just about everyone in the government was a relative, or associated with relatives of her clan. Helene and her sisters watched her uncle and other relatives and friends die at the hand of executioners on television.

Her family connections on her father's and mother's side of the family were the equivalent of a hybrid of the Rockefellers and Jeffersons with a mix of the Andrew Jackson clan. This selection which references the "Cooper compound" gives one a flavor of where her family sat in Liberia's pecking order. Helene and her sister, Marlene, were spoiled children -- privileged would be an understatement given the less than miserable circumstances that so many others in Liberia suffered through each day. Eunice was adopted to be a playmate of Helene and Marlene -- and had her own family elsewhere -- but was taken in by the Cooper household as a real member of the family, a custom of sorts that Cooper's parents upgraded by making sure that their many servants never treated Eunice any different than the other two.

Then one day, the President of Liberia -- a man who had grown distant from the on the ground realities of those living in his country -- tried to raise the tax on rice. While many other factors interceded that helped a relatively stable nation disintegrate into run amok anarchy, the spark was this increase in the burden that those with the least in Liberian society had to pay. Ethnic and tribal divisions were already tense -- as they had been for decades. It didn't take much to finally get revolution to ignite. Such surcharges on basic foodstuffs have been significant destablizers in Kenya, Congo, Tanzania, and elsewhere.

But many died in the revolution that ensued. And social norms and habits -- at least those generated from the dominance of many by a privileged sect at the top -- came undone.

Helene Cooper tells the story of how her mother protected Eunice, Marlene and Helene from a marauding gang of US military-trained thugs loyal to Samuel Doe in the overthrow of the rice-tax raising democratically elected and subsequently assassinated President William Tolbert. The Cooper children were eyed by the renegade Liberian military at their home at Sugar Beach -- and Helene's mother negotiated with the soldiers to allow them to gang rape her while the children waited upstairs. Eunice, the adopted sister and daughter who had come from the roughest of life circumstances into privilege, calmed the other two and kept them from racing to their mother's aid.

This is a very moving, thoughtful book. We have titled Cooper's talk "When Nations and Lives Come Unglued."

Join us live on line when it is streaming - or join us Tuesday evening at the New America Foundation.

-- Steve Clemons

Hot damn! I am very excited today.

A book, America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy that I was very involved in helping to hatch made it to Michiko Kakutani's top 10 list for books from 2008.

And to top off a great day, my colleague and friend Steve Coll's The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century also made the cut.

Some of you have previously read about my enthusiasm for the writing and thinking of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, and David Ignatius. I recognize that these are not unknown voices -- and there are some whose enthusiasm for their views is something that they don't have too much problem controlling. I am very into the work of all three, however.

This is Annie, Oakley's little sister, at a thoughtful moment.

-- Steve Clemons

I got married to my partner of 17 years in San Francisco on August 18th of this year. We did so under the beautiful dome of San Francisco's magnificent City Hall -- and I had my picture taken (above) with Harvey Milk's statue. It was a powerful package for me -- paying a fee to the City for a contract that finally said that my partner and I had the rights and responsibilities of other married couples. We met others that day -- gay and straight couples -- who got married about the same time we did on those City Hall steps.

I don't often delve into the deeply personal in my blogging commentary -- although foreign policy, getting national security decisions right or wrong, economic frameworks that turn the wrong stakeholders into losers rather than winners are all personal matters for me. But this year the fear and bigotry that animated Proposition 8 in California has made this a strange Thanksgiving.

Yes, like everyone -- I'm pleased that Barack Obama won the White House. But it is only a small beginning in the right direction. But with Barack Obama, we also got Proposition 8. We have him talking about Iraq as the "bad war" and Afghanistan as the "good war". We have political appointments in both security and economic policy that either will be the height of brilliant personnel and policy maneuvering or alternatively could end up as a paralyzed cabinet and government disaster. There is only fog ahead, much yet we don't know.

We have wars going on in the Middle East that shouldn't be going on. I have friends there now being shot at -- and helping to kill others -- and this wasn't what the 21st century was supposed to be about.

I have been writing here for some time -- far before the National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2025 report came out chronicling America's global decline -- that America's mystique as a great nation had been punctured by the invasion of Iraq. We showed key limits in our military and economic capacity, leading allies and foes respectively to count on us and fear us less. The economic crisis is the punctuation point in America's fall from its once significant global perch. I'm worried about all of this -- making a traditional thanksgiving very uncomfortable.

Our new president preaches inclusion, which is a good thing -- and I think he has the potential to be one of the great stewards of the White House and the executive branch authority we have given him.

But how could people who helped deliver this man to the White House also spit on my decision to enter into marriage with someone I have been with for 17 years? Europe has embraced adjustments in marriage easily and in a socially healthy way, and yet we still stoke embers of nativism and fundamentalism in this country. Barack Obama's voice was used on anti-gay marriage robocalls to African-American and Hispanic voters in California. To my knowledge, he didn't ask for his voice not to be used.

I think intolerance is what undermines the glue of a nation, stirring up fear and violence at home and in wars abroad. We have a lot of intolerant Americans who helped elect George W. Bush twice to the White House, and now we have many other intolerant Americans who have come into their civic responsibilities as voters and have tainted the hope that people like my partner and I have for a better and more just nation that recognizes our relationship in the ways it should be recognized.

I'm going to see the movie Milk today starring Sean Penn reprising brilliantly the life of the assassinated first gay elected politician in the United States -- and no matter what Proposition 8 thought it achieved, I'll be wearing my ring.

So, this is an uncomfortable Thanksgiving holiday, and I hope that those who read this today do embrace their family and friends -- all of them, gay ones too -- and remember that this nation needs to stop dragging when it comes to bigotry.

-- Steve Clemons

Turkey's unique position as a NATO member and a Middle Eastern, Muslim nation with close ties to Iran would seem to make the country an ideal candidate to help solve the simmering conflict surrounding the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear energy program.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made this argument himself last week, when he suggested that his government mediate negotiations between the new Obama administration and Iran.

The Bush administration has been broadly supportive of Turkey playing such a role. Prime Minister Erdogan's government helped facilitate talks this past summer among the United States, Europe, and Iran and has hosted negotiations between Israel and Syria at Washington's request.

However, Washington's support requires that Ankara be committed to working toward an actionable solution that can satisfy all parties.

At the Brookings Institution during the G-20 summit in Washington, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cast significant doubt upon this premise. In response to a question about Iran's nuclear program the Prime Minister argued that, "We are against the possession of nuclear weapons in our region...but those who ask Iran not to produce nuclear weapons should themselves give up their nuclear weapons first."

Erdogan has been roundly criticized for these remarks, which have been interpreted as a pro-Iranian position. However, the notion that the United States must commit itself to eliminating its nuclear weapons arsenal is not a novel concept, and enjoys serious support in Washington, including among foreign policy luminaries George Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn. Most recently, Ivo Daalder and Jan Lodal provide a clear and compelling case for "The Logic of Zero."

Therefore, it is not Erdogan's remark in and of itself that is troubling, but rather the Prime Minister's failure to articulate this position within the context of a compromise that can suit all parties.

For Turkey to provide real problem-solving value to this issue, it needs to do more than call the United States hypocritical, while reaffirming that Iran should not build a nuclear weapon. This is a no-risk, no-reward position that does nothing other than allow the Prime Minister to hear himself speak.

Instead, Erdogan's government must utilize the trust that it enjoys with both the United States and Iran and its understanding of both sides' perspectives and national interests to develop a practical, achievable solution - and to articulate that solution loudly, clearly and consistently in Ankara, Washington, and Tehran.

I think that Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett's realist proposal for a grand bargain would be a good place to begin.

--Ben Katcher

There is great tragedy unfolding now in the middle of Mumbai. More than 900 wounded and more than 80 dead.

Gunmen are holding fort in the Oberoi Hotel and the Taj Hotel -- which are the two hotels I stayed at during recent trips to Mumbai. I knew a number of the staff in these two hotels and am very worried about them.

Condolences to all who have lost people in this sad episode. We need to think about the innocents who get caught up in this drama -- and in another context, when U.S. forces kill accidentally innocent people, we need to know that it's hurting many and breeding blowback and rage.

This is all so sad.

-- Steve Clemons

Bob Gates is keeping his Pentagon perch (which has been quite clear for some time).

I had moved close to the view that Gates should go. My thinking at the time was that Gates played a vital role "Out-Cheneying Cheney" in the last couple of years of G.W. Bush's term, but that his skill at crunching out the ambiguity in the national security decision making process that Cheney and Rumsfeld exploited would not be necessary in the Obama White House ecosystem.

In other words, one needed Gates to be a constraint on Bush, but why would Obama want to run the risk that Gates would constrain his team?

After speaking to some other national security policy experts very close to Bob Gates and General Brent Scowcroft, I changed course and began to see the value of Gates staying at DoD.

My hunch is that Gates wants a chance to make the kind of leaps in the Middle East I have been writing about for some time. He wants to try and push Iran-US relations into a constructive direction. He wants to change the game in Afghanistan -- and the answer will not be a military-dominant strategy. He wants to try and stabilize Iraq in a negotiated, confidence building process that includes Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey and other regional forces. And he wants to support a big push on Israel-Palestine peace and reconfigure relations between much of the Arab League and Israel.

This is a big order. And he wants to lurk in the shadows, behind the scenes and away from cameras and let other of Obama's team get the spotlight and credit.

National Security Advisor-to-be Jim Jones is on the same page as Gates -- and the two of them will constitute a considerably strong axis of power inside the Obama White House. My hunch is that Hillary Clinton and her State Department Deputy James Steinberg will work collaboratively to achieve this vision.

It's a big gamble. There is a large chance of paralysis between big foreign policy/national security guns that don't like yielding to power rivals in an administration.

But the gamble could be a very big payoff for Obama and the country -- and would actually deliver the "change" that so many are expecting.

We'll see -- not trying to be naive or to give Obama too many breaks. But I am trying to understand his choices and how he thinks he's going to achieve his policy targets.

-- Steve Clemons

Recently, Politico issued a roster of top policy and political hands who would be in line for key positions in an Obama government.

At the time, I thought it very odd that Clinton Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross was not on the list. Ross was rumored to be one of the four competing to be national security adviser to Barack Obama -- along with James Steinberg, Susan Rice, and Gregory Craig.

Now we know that General Jim Jones will be National Security Adviser. Former Warren Christopher aide Tom Donilon will probably be his deputy. Jim Steinberg will be Deputy at Hillary Clinton's Department of State, and Susan Rice will be the second Ambassador to the United Nations to follow the destructive tenure of the recess-appointed John Bolton.

But Dennis Ross has still not been selected for anything yet -- and his visibility has been low (well except for this disturbing "let's bomb Iran now and get it over with" report). There aren't a lot of rumors about him -- and there should be. He's an accomplished diplomat who should be in the mix somewhere -- but not just anywhere.

Ross is much more hawkish on Iran than I am. While I'm impressed with his ability to simultaneously sell conflicting themes -- like on one hand he wants to bomb Iran and undermine any engagement with Hamas while on the other he desires the sort of dovish position advocated by Search for Common Ground -- Dennis Ross is much more comfortable with neoconservatives than realists or liberal internationalists.

Dennis Ross, who I enjoy at a personal level and who I like to debate, is nonetheless part of the never-ending Middle East peace business in the country, and that is a business that needs to be put out of business.

Ross is close to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He would make an excellent U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Much better an Ambassador there -- than someone tasked with negotiating with Iran or trying to broker the birth of a viable Palestinian state.

Two of Ross' closest associates are Robert Satloff and James Woolsey -- and neither of these two believe in assembling all of the key stakeholders in the Middle East that are needed to stabilize Iraq, get Iran on a new track, and establish a viable, successful Palestine next to a secure Israel.

Until the leaks about Susan Rice's appointment to serve American interests in the United Nations, I thought Ross would be a good shoe-in there as well.

And then I heard someone saying what I thought on TV today.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was on MSNBC's Morning Joe talking with a panel of folks, including his daughter Mika Brzezinski, about his co-authored book with Brent Scowcroft and David Ignatius (which I had a hand in initiating and sponsoring) and about moving in a more productive direction in the Middle East.

Brzezinski said that after Obama made some clarifying statements about his objectives in the Middle East, he should appoint people to help achieve his goals.

Zbig dropped some names -- some big ones....and I liked how he did it.

He said hypothetically, Colin Powell could be the person asked to do the broad negotiating and arm twisting to achieve the Obama administration's foreign policy objectives with Iran and in Arab-Israel peace negotiations.

Brzezinski then said that Dennis Ross would make an excellent and important US Ambassador to Israel.

I think he's right -- and it's time to start whispering about Ross's fate again and get him back in the mix as envoy to Tel Aviv -- but not as czar of Middle East negotiations. With Jim Jones, Bob Gates, and others in the mix -- that would be paralyzing.

But Colin Powell, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, or even Richard Armitage -- those could be smart and interesting choices.

-- Steve Clemons

Here is a very quick clip of my views on the Citibank bail-out and the importance of realigning the interests of US-based multinational firms that take taxpayer money with the interests of America's workers. This segment played on PRI's The World which airs on National Public Radio affiliates around the country.

It may sound perverse, but as things look now, these large institutions are getting funds to make them solvent but are laying off workers left and right. There is nothing that is keeping them from moving even more jobs to lower-wage rate countries offshore.

And oh yes. . .the American taxpayer is financing the offshoring.

Not a good deal.

-- Steve Clemons

Over the weekend, Andy Revkin posted a very smart memo to the President-Elect from a group of "specialists on climate, energy, and technology policy," who have decided to write under the nom de plume "Justinian" reveal their identities in a few weeks. The release sparked such widespread interest that two blogs (Unity College and Local Warming) and zero mainstream news sources have referenced its existence. I think it's safe to say that Steve Clemons's weimaraners have received substantially more attention (not to put them down -- they are really quite adorable).

This begs the question: what were the strategic choices behind this paper's release? None of the usual rationales for anonymity make sense. And the authors of this paper are obviously knowledgeable about the workings of government and are probably respected by Mr. Revkin (guess on my part), so it's likely this would have been released in at least a few other places. It's possible that this paper was drafted by a set of young, up-and-coming experts in the field who figured that an anonymously released paper could create some buzz. Whatever the rationale, it appears, at least to this point, to have backfired. I'm looking forward to finding out why it went down this way in a few weeks when names are made public.

So consider this my case for paying attention to this paper. I should note, by the way, that I am in no way connected with the authors and don't know their identities.

I learned a lot by reading this paper, which immediately separates it from the nine out of ten policy papers on climate change that simply restate the facts and propose solutions that are unoriginal, vague, narrow in focus, or all of the above. Granted, we need these papers too, since policymakers have been simply unwilling to accept facts and consensus-supported scientific findings. But this memo takes a holistic view of climate change, and puts forward a new vision for tackling climate change via specific policy choices that President Obama can make.

It's not worth rehashing each of the twelve recommendations, but here's an example: the authors propose an elevation of the Council on Environmental Quality in the White House and a complementary demotion of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an institution that was first authorized to keep records and now essentially filters or cancels out environmental initiatives according to the narrowest kind of cost-benefit analysis. Considering how many disparate agencies in the government are now engaged in making environmental policy, we need CEQ to play the kind of traffic-cop role that it was envisioned to do, just as NSC does (or is supposed to do) on national security policy.

Decision-makers should consume this kind of analysis far more often. The entire memo is written from a point of view that emphasizes efficiency, smart governance, and global impacts.

Since I'm nit-picky by nature, I'll mention two shortcomings. First, the paper contains not a single meaningful mention of adaptation, which is fully half the global discussion on climate change. Mitigation alone won't solve the climate related problems we're facing. Second, I'm not crazy about the authors' idea of creating a volunteer Climate Corps. I do like the notion of emphasizing more climate-focused activities in Peace Corps, but most of the domestic goals of the proposed Climate Corps are being ably carried out now by non-profit groups. These groups could capitalize even more on the rising enthusiasm among young people if funding were directed their way instead of into new government programs that would do the same thing.

Anyway, do read the piece. Then sit tight with me until the authors reveal themselves and explain why their excellent analysis hasn't gotten more press -- or until I finish exams for my first semester of law school and need to whine about this some more, whichever comes first.

Scott Paul

A bit more than a decade ago, I received a briefing at Sandia National Weapons Laboratories on a few of their private-public partnerships, or CRADAs (Cooperative Research and Development Agreements). Intel had a CRADA with Sandia and Los Alamos Labs on developing extreme ultra-violet lithography. Many other top tier firms did too.

But the CRADA that interested me most was General Motors.

GM's tech team was with us -- and we learned about a great number of tax-payer supported national security research technological achievements that could prove useful to the auto industry. I asked whether these acquired technologies would be applied differentially to GM's production base in the U.S. -- and whether they would be careful of extending such technology in their China operations.

The answer was pretty shocking.

GM said that it was taking all of the technology it could get its hands on -- whether from the labs or elsewhere -- and fully deploying it in China.

GM felt that this was a way to embed itself deeply in the Chinese economy over the next three decades and would keep the car manufacturer ahead of the more technologically-stingy Japanese firms as well as Daimler and Chrysler which had already had hiccups at that time in their China activities.

In a different realm, Citibank has been a leader in off-shoring, pushing more and more of its financial services support base overseas.

Now taxpayers are being asked to bail out these large firms which showed little interest in the economic health of the nation and which engaged in "winner-takes-all capitalism" where those at the top, like Robert Rubin, became mega-wealthy with little regard to the eroding conditions of America's middle class.

American interests and the economic interests of firms were said by many economists -- including Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin and others -- not to be tied to each other.

Telecom and media CEO Leo Hindery, who served as senior economic policy advisor to the John Edwards for President campaign and then served on the economic advisory team to President-elect Obama, has been talking for a long time about getting the economic interests of major firms back in line with the interests of the American middle class and of America itself.

Hindery and others, particularly former IBM chief technologist and emeritus Sloan Foundation President Ralph Gomory, have said that re-aligning the interest of firms and the nation must be a priority policy goal.

Senators Sherrod Brown, Byron Dorgan, Jeff Bingaman, Patty Murray, and others have been equally vocal on this subject.

Then, why isn't anyone asking the question of the CEOs of these firms about what their new social contract with America and working Americans should be after having their companies literally "saved" during this economic crisis? What if we see the funds from the bailouts go to increasing the rapidity of off-shoring to India, China, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia?

Will that be the payoff taxpayers are expecting? I don't think so -- but few are talking about it.

Any big loans or bail-out equity acquisitions should come with a fundamental new condition: U.S. job creation and penalties for off-shored positions.

That should be the price of dipping into the public coffers -- for all firms, whether financial or manufacturing.

Had Leo Hindery been made Secretary of Commerce instead of Bill Richardson (whose new perch in government will be announced today), I would have had more confidence that the Obama administration would take seriously this requirement to rewrite the "social contract" with firms in this country.

We'll have to see how Governor Richardson handles this responsibility and whether he'll figure out a way to get behind the interests of America's middle class.

But it is essential to have the thinking of people like Hindery and Ralph Gomory considered when designing these bail-out packages.

Otherwise, on the Off-shoring front, we are just going to see more of the same, and the taxpayers will pay to help their own job base get shipped abroad.

-- Steve Clemons

A senior Obama campaign official shared with The Washington Note that in July 2008, the McCain and Obama camps began to work secretly behind the scenes to assemble large rosters of potential personnel for the administration that only one of the candidates would lead.

Lists comprised of Democrats and Republicans were assembled, sorted into areas of policy expertise, so that the roster could be called on after the election by either the Obama or McCain transition teams.

This kind of out-of-sight coordination is rare between battling presidential camps and provides some indication that both Obama and McCain intended to draw expertise into their governments from both sides of the aisle -- or at least they wanted to appear interested in doing so if the information leaked out about the list development process.

Fascinating tidbit on cooperation behind battle lines.

-- Steve Clemons

This is the segment I did last night on Countdown with David Shuster standing in for Keith Olbermann.

I'm back in the U.S. and can report that enthusiasm for Barack Obama throughout Europe is off the charts.

Closing Guantanamo and holding someone, anyone, responsible for America's use of torture against combat detainees, and putting forward a global climate change proposal may get a number of nations asking Obama if he can be their president too.

Let's hope that Obama gets a lot of constructive work done before the reality of our stressed world hits and his bubble bursts.

-- Steve Clemons

Just arrived in Washington from Barcelona. And now I'm off to chat with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC's Countdown tonight.

We will be discussing themes from this article on President-elect Obama's plans for Hillary Clinton.

On other fronts, you probably all know this -- an old Japan-hand acquaintance of mine, Timothy Geithner, will be the next Secretary of the Treasury. I approve.

Hillary looks like State is hers. Bob Gates seems to be in at Defense.

Bill Richardson gets Department of Commerce -- after Penny Pritzker turned it down. One might argue that Richardson has an extensive skill set in foreign policy matters -- but little profile at all in dealing with business, labor, and the complications of rewriting a new domestic social contract. My choice would have been former John Edwards senior economic advisor and business CEO -- preferred by labor -- Leo Hindery.

More later. Off to the studio.

-- Steve Clemons

Some might recall that Hillary Clinton, who good money suggests will officialy secure the position atop the State Department soon, once remarked that Putin 'doesn't have a soul.' This bridge will will require some maintenance work in early 2009.

Though the lack of an offical title has not constrained Putin's control, as early as next year Putin could formally have the reigns of 'mother Russia' once again. It would only require that his successor, Dimitry Medvedev, step aside, thus moving elections up from 2012 to somepoint in 2009.

The fact that Putin -- rather than Medvedev -- offered the soothing address to the United Russia party this week, guaranteeing the stability of the economy and the government's capacity to work through the global financial crisis, speaks volumes to the place he holds, and his legacy as premiere.

But to those looking at this as a 'great rollback' against democracy, I'm forced to pose the question: which is more damning, that he may seek reelection -- which is already outlined in the constitution as permissible, as long as it's not a third CONSECUTIVE term -- or that he currently wields so much power as Prime Minister?

I contend that the power he still controls, more than the likelihood of him returning to the seat of power, is main cause for concern. The argument can be made that the likelihood of his return to power is the very force retaining his influence. If that's the case, then certainly a constitution that provides for more than two terms, rather than the length of those terms, is the problem we ought to be discussing.

Democracy is a fickle being; and an indisputably organic phenomenon. That the constitution provides for a third, nonconsecutive term carries an important message about Russia, and its values in relation to governance. It echoes the importance of stability, as compared with the fear of overreach.

Furthermore, as America searches for its own leaders to believe in; as it looks out upon a more terrifying global recession than most of us have ever seen; it's difficult to assail another nation for turning to the leader whom it trusts so deeply.

So I put it to you -- is this a referendum on Russia, or the terrifying times we face? Is this step dangerous and unnerving, or a far less unsettling step than what is already outlined in the Russian constitution?

-- Brian Till

I'm flying back from Spain. We'll have much to discuss after I arrive back home.

-- Steve Clemons

I will be back to Washington on Friday after an excellent program in Madrid with the Spain- based alums of the London School of Economics. I am now in Barcelona.

For those interested, I wrote this piece for CNN today on Obama's maneuvers which despite the complicated cast of people he is drawing into the administration I am finding more and more impressive -- though risky.

-- Steve Clemons

Bashar al-Assad's regime finds itself dealing with an interesting mix of press in the lame duck days.

Today's papers report re-established intelligence ties between British and Syrian agencies; they come as British FM David Miliband makes a landmark visit to Damascus, in which he met with President Assad. The meeting of the pair -- as opposed to Miliband only meeting with his counterpart Walid Muallim -- speaks volumes to Syria's interest in re-establishing ties on a grand scale. And in setting up a meeting between Assad and Brown.

The meeting would be the first between leaders of the two states since Assad embarrassed Blair on the issue of afghani civilian deaths at a 2001 joint press conference in Damascus.

But the media swing is juxtaposed with today's release -- though there were early leaks to the press -- of an IAEA report suggesting uranium was found at the Al-Kibar site. It's the location Israel mysteriously bombed in September 2007. The attack set off wild speculation, Israeli intelligence largely remaining silent, though US officials leaked intelligence suggesting the site was a nuclear reactor built with North Korean assistance. Pictures eventually came forward, in addition to claims that Israeli intelligence had infiltrated the site to retrieve evidence, though no conclusive verdicts were reached in policy nor nuclear proliferation spheres.

Today, Muallim suggested that the uranium likely came from the munitions dropped by Israel. A claim, that while clever, doesn't seem instantly plausible. The uranium, which is not highly enriched, was also chemically processed and not simply naturally occurring in local soil.

The report, while clearly inconclusive on the issue, is a reminder to the Syrian regime of the distance it must go before it will be accepted into international society.

-- Brian Till

Today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt who is also Chairman of the Board of Directors at the New America Foundation (where I work) will give a speech and answer questions at an event organized by my organization and which I will stream live here at The Washington Note from 1:00 pm til 2:30 pm EST.

Schmidt's talk is titled "Technology, Economic Growth, and Open Government."

But it might just as well be called "America's Choices: The Google Way or the Xerox Way?"

With all due respect to Xerox Corporation management (and I have been a stockholder of Xerox for about the last eight years), Xerox is a big company with a lot of assets that just sort of goes nowhere. To me it looks like an under-performing firm that used to have potential that just never gets performing. Its stock performance has shown the collective view that it probably won't re-wire itself for strong future growth.

Google, in contrast, is a firm that has some weight and a lot of assets, but the valuation that it has in the market place, even in these stressed financial times, is based on the promise of strong future growth and of a firm that is constantly re-creating itself and opportunities to help design a bold and different future. Growth, promise, creativity all help make Google have a bigger economic footprint and valuation that many firms with the same income level and same general level of held assets.

But interestingly, Barack Obama had the CEOs of Google, Xerox, and the Chairman of Time Warner on stage with him after his meeting with his senior economic advisory team. Time Warner is another stock I've just held way too long that has gone nowhere. In corporate metaphorical terms, Obama had America's past and present with him -- and hopefully its future.

While I think there are future problems with Google -- like how much information we want to allow one big firm to have on us, our libraries, and all of human knowledge and whether a 900 lb. Google should be able to secure rules that benefit the Google World but not the AT&T or other infrastructure worlds out there -- I think that there's little doubt that it is an amazing firm that has captured the imagination of many who use its products and are investing in the promise of that into which it is still "evolving."

In a similar sense, China is considered to be globally important today because of the promise of what it is evolving into down the road. China is the "google among nations" today, and America looks a lot like Xerox -- both very big entities with lots of assets that have been systemically underperforming.

It's going to be interesting to see if Barack Obama and his team can absorb and deploy some of the futuristic techniques of a Google like approach to the world's complex challenges. If not, then they've also got Anne Mulcahey (who actually is a great person -- I just have problems with how her firm is running) to give advice.

I'll be watching Eric Schmidt -- who for the record has been a member of the Board of New America Foundation since the beginning when he was then CEO of Novell -- from Madrid, Spain where I'm speaking for a London School of Economics Forum on "Barack Obama's Foreign Policy."

(I'll post the video clips later here for people to watch after the fact.)

-- Steve Clemons

Rumor is that Obama's new presidential car, the Obamamobile, will look something like this.

Looks like a fun, tough tank of a limo. Whatever it takes to protect him is fine with me -- but bet this gas hog will put a dent in Greenland ice.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a sweet 77 seconds in TV history.

-- Steve Clemons

(Andrew Bacevich talking with Bill Moyers)

Fire Dog Lake has some of the best book salons on the web. They run in real time for two hours with a web-based exchange between an author and FDL readers. I have had the pleasure of hosting two of these -- one with Jacob Heilbrunn on his book, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, and another with Jane Mayer on her best-selling The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.

TPMCafe also does excellent salons -- and this week, starting tomorrow (Monday), I'll be participating with some others in a week long exchange with Pulitzer Prize winning author Barton Gellman on his book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. Should be an interesting week as well, and for those interested, my review of the Gellman book was published here.

But tonight, while in Germany, I got a note here that Andrew Bacevich, early Iraq War opponent and author of the new Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism was going to be online. I have become a genuine fan of Bacevichian thinking.

Bacevich's commentary, moderated by Chris Hedges, is straight, blunt, level-headed and smartly strips down the Bush administration foreign policy disaster into its component pieces. And like an increasing number of others, Bacevich's concerns are growing that Obama may have a tough time changing course. He's keeping his powder dry on Obama though to see what his next appointments and first moves will be.

I have reposted below a good number of Andrew Bacevich's responses to questions. I'm not going to post the questions as the answers themselves stand fine without them. There are a number that out to find their way into a book of aphorisms.

From Andrew Bacevich's salon on Fire Dog Lake:

I'd say that we have entered an age that blends conspicuous consumption with corporate capitalism run amok and imperial overstretch. In short, the problem we face has multiple dimensions and won't be easily fixed just because we are about to install a young, charismatic, and very smart president in the White House. One of the points I try to make in the book is that our predicament is in many ways a cultural one -- we'll need to change the culture to get out of this mess.

~

On the meaning of freedom: I hesitate to offer a definition. We live in a pluralist society so no one definition can possibly satisfy everyone. I believe, however, that any meaningful understanding of freedom has to be tethered to truth. The citizen reduced to consumer does not satisfy that standard.

~

What is the war on terror "about"?

Because the Bush administration both failed to understand the region of the world they set out to change and wildly overstated American power this scheme never had a chance of succeeding.

~

Whether Obama will embrace or junk the Global War on Terror as the organizing principle of US national security policy is certainly one of the $64 questions of the next six months.

Of late, I'm less hopeful -- the promises to send more troops to Afghanistan strike me as simple-minded at best, more likely outright stupid.

~

I've come to believe that American Exceptionalism is the root of all evils.

Of course, that's akin to saying that we should abandon our identity -- which isn't likely to happen.

~

If Obama persists in the GWOT -- persistence is likely to mean gradual draw-down from Iraq combined with an intensified military effort in Afghanistan / Pakistan -- then collapse will come when the army and the Marine Corps finally fall apart. That this has not already occurred is a tribute to the remarkable durability of the force. But that durability has limits. Once the services begin to deteriorate, the GWOT will be unsustainable.

~

Advice on Afghanistan: pay attention to history. Effective governance has never been exercised from Kabul. Local tribal leaders have always run the place. That should be okay with us so long as Al Qaeda is denied sanctuary. We should provide incentives to local leaders so that they will see it in their interest to keep Al Qaeda out.

~

Signs of the services falling apart will include the following:

Collective resistance -- small units refusing to go on missions

~

Normal nations pay their bills.

It means giving up on the delusion that we grasp history's purpose and have a God-given responsibility to bring history to its intended destination.

~

The market can't solve all of our problems but it can solve some of them. As the fossil fuel crisis worsens (costs plus environmental degradation) entrepreneurs will seize the moment to create alternative sources of energy. Won't be neat, pretty, or cheap, but I don't expect the country to grind to a halt. I do expect the country we end up with to look a lot different from the one we have now.

~

Within six months after 9/11 I had the impression that fear had pretty much dissipated everywhere except in Washington. Whenever Bush made some remark about the nation being "at war," I sensed that apart from people in the military and those living inside the Beltway, no one knew what he was talking about.

~

The honor code to which officers subscribe is very real -- and yet very limited.

The military profession rewards courage of a certain type and is intolerant of other types of courage.

~

[Condoleezza Rice] not worth evaluating. She was an utter failure as national security adviser and is the least consequential secretary of state since Cordell Hull spent World War II being ignored by FDR.

~

On David Petraeus. . .Very smart, savvy, and politically sophisticated. His achievements in Iraq are real but less significant (and probably less permanent) than the current conventional wisdom suggests. A failure, in my mind, in his inability or refusal to face up to the defects of the GWOT as a basis for policy.

~

I find it distressing. The "support the troops" rhetoric generally makes me want to puke. I find it phony in the extreme. We should support the troops in ways more meaningful than fastening a bumper sticker to our SUVs. A good place to start would be to ensure that the troops are not subjected to abuse as they have been in recent years.

~

In response to my question on whether Obama will deploy game-changing strategies or not. . .

Steve -

I do wish the new president well, but he will almost inevitably disappoint those who view his election as evidence of deliverance.

-- Steve Clemons

Congratulations to Cem Oezdemir who has been elected co-chairman of the German Green Party. It's the party's top political post. His victory makes him the highest-ranking German politician of Turkish descent. Turkish immigrants and their descendants number more than 2.5 million and make up 3% of Germany's total population.

I woke up Sunday morning in my hotel in Istanbul to find this article on the front page of the Turkish Daily News, the most popular English language daily here.

The article explains how Oezdemir employed many of President-elect Obama's campaign tactics.

In addition to the obvious parallel between Oezdemir's Turkish roots and Obama's African heritage, Oezdemir has utilized facebook to mobilize young German voters, and his supporters are employing the slogan 'yes we Cem.'

It mirrors a New York Times article I'm sure many of you saw Friday, pointing out the similarity between Benjamin Netanyahu's Web site -- in terms of color, font, layout, etc -- and the Obama campaign page.

I just thought I'd share this tidbit, which I think demonstrates the revolutionary nature of Obama's campaign as well as the popularity that America's next president enjoys throughout the world - at least for now.

By the way, Steve Clemons is at the Green Party convention in Erfurt, Germany and as I understand through the grape vine, was out celebrating with Oezdemir as I write this.

-- Ben Katcher

Los Angeles Times correspondent P.J. Huffstutter has pool reporter duty today and sent in this gem. . .

However, your pool reporter did spot something sort of charming in today's Chicago Sun-Times:

According to gossip Michael Sneed, Obama's new Secret Service name is "Renegade."

Mrs. Obama's is reportedly "Renaissance."

Your pool reporter has been unable to confirm this -- so it's not clear that it's true. But if it is, it's sweet.

It is true.

Way better than Maverick and Medieval. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Four days ago I published and then quickly "unpublished" this item on Hillary Clinton being in line for Secretary of State:

I just received some surprising news -- like, really surprising.

The deal is not done -- but at the moment -- Hillary Rodham Clinton is in the lead to be Secretary of State.

I thought she wouldn't take it if offered. I thought that she would wait until the 2010 midterms and see how Barack Obama does before choosing her next course -- just in case she wanted a rematch.

But as odd and difficult to believe as this is, I have excellent inside information that the job is hers if she wants it.

-- Steve Clemons

Let me state the reasons I posted and then unposted it. I had intended an immediate follow-up to make more nuanced my post, but my schedule proved too overwhelming at the time to get the piece up.

I received a tip from another well-connected friend who reported to me that last Saturday evening, one of Barack Obama's closest advisers told trusted friends that Hillary could very well be the next Secretary of State. I received the call Sunday morning.

The fact that this was being kibbitzed about could have been part of a process of trying to seem respectful of Hillary Clinton by leading members of the Obama team. It could have been a 'head fake.' Alternatively, it could have been real.

I thought that it was important enough of a piece of credible gossip that it should be out on the internet and be introduced to the discussion on who might -- and who should -- succeed Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State.

A few minutes later, I got on the phone to people who were part of the inside wiring of Hillary Land, and I was told bluntly that I was either being fed something that wasn't true and was a distraction or that "Hillary's senior team had not been 'read in'."

It seems that the latter may have been the case because of the news reports now that she is being seriously considered.

I had been told by other close Hillary Land keyholders that Hillary had never really acquiesced to being a Senator from New York forever. She wants to do something significant and distinctive with her life, I was told.

It would have been logical for her to keep her powder dry on what her next steps would be to see if Obama suffered serious political defeat in the 2010 midterm elections -- but others tell me now that she decided that there would be no way of unseating Barack Obama from the Democratic Party's endorsement in 2012, no matter the results in 2010.

This then opened the possibility of other options -- including Secretary of State.

So, to those who wanted to know what happened to the post I had up -- well, the real answer was very mixed signals. . .and I thought before I began to be misinterpreted as saying she "would" be Secretary of State as opposed to she "could" be Secretary of State, I wanted to modify the posting and didn't get to it.

I also began to wrestle with the framing that this is EXACTLY what George W. Bush did to his most serious rival in 2000, Colin Powell. He gave Powell Secretary of State and then began to box him up. Barack Obama may be on the same track with Hillary Clinton who is and was his chief rival in the Democratic Party today.

Many of you asked what was up -- and that's the whole story.

Very interesting.

-- Steve Clemons

My friend and former New America Foundation colleague Karen Kornbluh, who was principal author of the Democratic Party Platform and who has served as Policy Director in Senator Barack Obama's Senate office, just had a great profile/Q&A appear on CNN.

Karen is a great thinker, out of the box, and Obama's team (the ones who play it safe) would be wise to learn from her and her big ideas approach to life.

On other fronts, I'm at Washington Dulles Airport about to fly to Munich, and then Erfurt, Germany. Next week I'm in Madrid and Barcelona. I was supposed to be in Rome with friends Michael Lind, Ivo Daalder, and G. John Ikenberry for a big U.S. foreign policy conference there -- but there are just not enough days.

More when I land.

-- Steve Clemons

A 3 vote difference with 10,000 votes left to process. . .but hey, if it keeps Sarah Palin from the Senate. . .

This is the latest in this nail-biter Senate race:

The elections division still has over 10,000 ballots left to count today and thousands more through next week, but the latest numbers show Mark Begich leading Sen. Ted Stevens 125,019 to 125,016.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: There are actually 47,000 votes left to count. 10,000 of those will be left to count tonight -- leaving a balance of 37,000 that need to be counted before November 19th.

Barack Obama should keep his smile and not adopt the scowl that Vice President Richard Cheney often deployed to tenderize his victims, but he should pay careful attention to the way that Cheney animated hundreds of followers to move the Cheney agenda across the national security bureaucracy.

If one were to score "influence" within the G.W. Bush administration, Cheney would get top prize -- higher than G.W. Bush himself.

No one knows how the incumbent President Bush makes decisions. He's not consistent. He holds his cards close -- and sometimes tilts one way, sometimes another. Swagger is the defining characteristic of Bush's decisions -- not necessarily logic, or at least not a logical line that I can discern.

Condoleezza Rice has a few followers who do understand her approach to problems -- but she never worked to build a significant following.

Colin Powell, who advised caution and a review of every scenario in responding to a serious challenges, tended to matter when he was in the room -- and not, when he wasn't.

But as I have written previously and as Barton Gellman chronicles in his important new book Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Cheney succeeded in not only getting people loyal and beholden to him appointed throughout the vast wings of the country's national security and intelligence bureaucracies, he and his close team of David Addington, Scooter Libby and John Hannah conveyed a template for approaching the world and agitating for an expansion of Executive Branch authority in comparison to other branches of government.

Cheneyism is disdainful of international institutions like the UN, viewed Europe and other states essentially as supplicants of American power, pushed hard the "unitary executive" notion of presidential authority, reinstituted the secrecy regime to levels greater than Reagan's CIA chief Bill Casey, promoted taking the gloves off" in American demonstrations of power abroad and in the interrogation room, endorsed torture and viewed the Geneva Accords as rules for the weak, despised regulation of business and industry -- particularly the oil, forestry and steel industries.

There are many other dimensions to Cheneyism, but what is important is that his followers understood how Cheney thought and how he would respond to a problem or policy issues.

Dick Cheney has been the most powerful actor in the Bush administration because Cheney didn't have to tell people hierarchically or by Rumsfeld-style "snow flake memos" what to do or how to think. They knew. And if they didn't, Cheney might call and simply ask a loaded question of a bureaucrat -- even a person very far down the pecking order of an agency or department -- as to why he or she hadn't thought of an alternative way [the Cheney way] of doing something.

Now to think about the new team moving into 1600 Pennsylvania.

According to some reports, Barack Obama seems to think that his intellectual, policy formulation and speechwriting skills are better than those around him -- or so goes that narrative in a recent New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza:

Obama, who is not without an ego, regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics. Patrick Gaspard, the campaign's political director, said that when, in early 2007, he interviewed for a job with Obama and Plouffe, Obama said that he liked being surrounded by people who expressed strong opinions, but he also said, "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director."

Obama may very well be as skilled and confident as this passage suggests -- but if he follows that line of logic too far -- he'll end up hamstrung with a huge bureaucracy that won't necessarily understand the "Obama Way".

Others might emerge in Obama's White House with more power than he does to motivate and animate others because they may be more successful at communicating and telegraphing how to approach complex problems and challenges. Of those who are rumored to possibly be in the first Obama cabinet, potential holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates comes to mind.

At a New America Foundation economic policy event that featured the economic advisers to John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, Obama's adviser Austan Goolsbee made the seemingly sensible suggestion that when confronting complex trade and economic treaties, Obama would weigh each one on its merits. His basic point was that trade deals -- even deals that seemingly promoted free trade -- were hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pages long. They were not all the same and Obama would support some and not others.

On one level, this suggests flexibility. On another, this possible management approach suggests a micro-focus on policy that Obama can't afford. Jimmy Carter was a compulsive micro-manager, and it severely handicapped his presidency. Goolsbee's comment also implies that Obama may not be ready to telegraph to his Cabinet Secretaries, Deputy Secretaries, and others the DNA of his generic decisionmaking approach.

To be as successful as Dick Cheney was in influencing action in government, Obama is going to need to telegraph the secrets of "Obama-ism" to his people.

If not, we'll have an ad hoc presidency, a reactive presidency, a micromanaged presidency, or a presidency hijacked by others who slyly follow Cheney's approach.

So keep the smile, President-elect Obama, but begin to think about how you clearly convey to your team criteria for decision-making and a guide for responses to complex, unexpected challenges.

I have learned a lot from watching how the Project for a New American Century became so successful and consequential in a remarkably short period of time.

Barack Obama -- who ran a very large, successful campaign operation that empowered many -- should in governing nonetheless look to Vice President Cheney's example to understand how a pro -- even one who so damaged the interests of the nation -- managed power and purpose while in office.

-- Steve Clemons

This shot was sent in by frequent TWN commenter, POA.

It's a railroad trestle as seen from beneath. I think it's quite stunning.

Back from Pittsburgh yesterday. In DC. Off to Europe on Thursday.

-- Steve Clemons

Over the past five years, the ongoing U.S. military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought to the fore a host of challenges affecting America's armed forces. Few, however, have taken on greater prominence and touched on a wider array of management and oversight issues than the role of private security, military, and contingency contractors in the battle space. With a new Administration planning to take office a comprehensive review of the policy decisions that brought 230,000 private military contractors to Iraq and Afghanistan, in support of the U.S. missions there, is long overdue.

The New America Foundation's Privatization of Foreign Policy Initiative has brought together experts from across the political and policy spectrum for a discussion about the specific challenges presented by private security and contingency contracting. Their latest report, Changing the Culture of Pentagon Contracting examines the relationship between U.S. government agencies and private security, military, and contingency contractors and offers recommendations for managing this relationship in the future. The recommendations presented here are aimed at informing policymakers, both in the executive and legislative branches as well as the uniformed military, as they develop solutions to the growing challenge of effectively integrating private contractors into U.S. national security operations.

The New America Foundation will be hosting an official report release event Friday at 9:30 am. Michael Cohen, co-author of Changing the Culture of Pentagon Contracting, will be joined by military affairs columnist David Isenberg, former JAG Corp Counsel Tara Lee, and human rights lawyer Kevin Lanigan to discuss and debate the report's findings and recommendations.

Last night, I had a round with the smartest anchor on air, Rachel Maddow, about Joe Lieberman and what his future in the Senate could look like.

I have heard Joe Lieberman state on many occasions that "our children's education is a national security issue." I've heard him say the same about technology policy in which he has been an outstanding leader. Let him show that he cares about other arenas of national policy as much as he does about bombing Iran.

The problem the Democratic caucus has with Lieberman stems from his fear-mongering and his irresponsible posturing in matters of national security -- and domestic security. He should not have a leadership role in those policy arenas.

-- Steve Clemons

Imagine your country is suffering from the worst financial crisis in nearly a century (as in the UK) or that your export market is collapsing along with the promise of prosperity you've made to hundreds of millions of peasants (as in China). You have hinged your public support on creating effective regulation and creating the next monetary system (Merkel, Brown, Sarkozy) and you are coming to Washington DC to meet with the leaders of the G20 to accomplish these multilateral goals.

Would you want to meet with President Bush or President-elect Barack Obama?

The answer is obvious, but as James Galbraith said in an interview with the Telegraph, "The one president at a time rule will apply."

As leaders gather in Washington on November 14-15 for the G20 meetings, they should establish contact with Barack Obama but understand that he is constrained by his president-elect status, the magnitude of the Bretton Woods II agenda, and the limited resources at his disposal.

Members of the Obama team have rightly stated that they will maintain respect for the current president and have consistently responded "no comment" to questions about Obama's role at the G20 meetings. They are cautious about the risks associated with overstepping his bounds. But there will be serious pressure to have Obama's input on the problems facing the global economy and financial system in private discussions.

Deep involvement is risky for Obama, and it could be counterproductive and further complicate the already fractious G20. Furthermore, Obama and his staff are not ready to answer the questions at hand. The campaign, not the world monetary or regulatory systems, has been their focus for the past two years. The resources and expertise necessary to tackle these problems are only available to the current president.

Although foreign leaders would like to meet with Obama and forge a consensus on some of these key issues, they should recognize the constraints under which he is operating. They should also recognize, despite the pressure from Brown, Sarkozy and Merkel, that these debates will probably not be settled this weekend. In the future they can negotiate with a more informed and better equipped President - not President-elect - Obama.

-- Sam Sherraden

This is interesting. The Project for a New American Century -- the lilly pad for the neoconservative movement -- is back online.

For nearly a year, perhaps more, the site has been down. No one seems to have paid the bill to the internet site host. But it's back up.

Perhaps this is a sign that neoconservatives like Randy Scheunemann and others are looking at PNAC as a foundation from which to critique Obama foreign policy and national security moves.

We'll stay tuned. There are no updates on the site yet -- but why pay the bills unless someone is about to begin posting a lot of new stuff?

-- Steve Clemons

Today, my colleagues at the New America Foundation are having a half day forum titled "Recipes for Recovery: From Washington to Wall Street" at the Hyatt Regency on Capital Hill. It's free, open to the public and starts at 10 am EST. For those who are not nearby, there will be youtube video capsules posted later.

Headliners are Medley Capital CEO Richard Medley, former Michigan Governor and National Association of Manufacturing President John Engler, Former Congressman William Frenzel, and others. They are well worth listening to -- and those who can are invited to attend (I'll be in Pittsburgh).

But with all due respect to my colleagues, two fundamental aspects of the "recovery picture" are missing from this august set of panelists. First is someone representing labor -- even "main street" would be fine. But the link between Washington and Wall Street has been the problem. We need to see a recovery plan that links Washington's thinking and policy parameters to main street.

And now with the chatter all of a sudden about bailing out automakers, my favored speaker would be Michael Moore with a revival screening of Roger and Me.

More broadly, economic recovery in this country will not mean and can not mean putting everything back in place the way it was. Economic recovery cannot mean re-enabling the gluttony of manic consumption in this country without pumping up "production" and getting a more balanced portfolio between what we produce at home and ship in from others.

I would have incuded in this panel someone who could address the requirement of triggering new, much needed demand beyond American shores -- particularly in Japan and China. America cannot see its economic picture improve without some fundamental changes in global economic patterns.

The subprime real estate problems were nationally-self inflicted and toxic financial products were injected intravenously by the U.S. into global financial flows -- but the real weaknesses that this problem has triggered are far deeper and more profound. America has been overconsuming and underproducing for some time -- and other global dollar holders have been feeding us cheap money to keep us binging. America became the principal driver of global growth -- a single massive growth engine that employed people all around the world, while doing little to tend to job retention in the U.S.

And then the subprime crisis acted like a gravity switch -- and behaviors now need to change.

We need a global remedy to growth that unleashes demand elsewhere as the U.S. gets its economic house back in order.

-- Steve Clemons

I just received some surprising news -- like, really surprising.

The deal is not done -- but at the moment -- Hillary Rodham Clinton is in the lead to be Secretary of State.

I thought she wouldn't take it if offered. I thought that she would wait until the 2010 midterms and see how Barack Obama does before choosing her next course -- just in case she wanted a rematch.

But as odd and difficult to believe as this is, I have excellent inside information that the job is hers if she wants it.

-- Steve Clemons

Joe Lieberman wants to keep his status and committees and caucus with the Democrats. He has been a fear-monger and someone who has promoted a dangerous, reckless false choice between American relations with Israel and other parts of the Middle East. He is a devout neoconservative who has been a key enabler of many of the most nefarious groups that promoted the Iraq War and who want a series of new wars in the region.

But more than that, he strongly supported someone a heartbeat away from the presidency who knew virtually nothing about America's place in the world, who knew nothing of American history and its leaders and conventions and founders.

Lieberman is dangerous on so many levels -- and he has not apologized for any of his positions or offered any explanation that should make Americans feel comfortable with this Senator in the next four years as Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security.

If Dems would like to keep Joe Lieberman in the caucus, give him responsibility for education policy, telecom policy, health care -- but the price for the Dems keeping this fearmonger is that he be removed from any position with key responsibility for national security or domestic security matters.

It is useful to refresh the memory of what Joe Lieberman said about Sarah Palin, on stage with her, and what he remained on stage listening to as Sarah Palin talked about "Barack Obama's terrorist friends. . ."

This from TNR's Michael Crowley:

It was jarring, however, to hear Lieberman's full-throated endorsement of Sarah Palin, a woman with whom he has no prior relationship, and whose policy credentials you have to think the wonky 20-year Senator would find suspect in any other context.

"She's so strong, she's so capable, she's so competent," Lieberman told the cheering crowd. Emphasizing her "faith," he added that she is someone who "with your help--and God's help--will be the next vice president of the United States." More big cheers.

The religiousity continued when Palin bounded onstage. She commented right away on the number of American flags in the crowd, declaring: "God bless America--you guys get it!"

And then it was on with the attacks on Obama: "There are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are some candidates, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change," Palin said. She went on to reiterate charges that Obama is friendly with terrorists (Bill Ayers), wants America to lose in Iraq, and smears US troops in Afghanistan.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm not satisfied with the roster of economic personalities and thinkers we see Barack Obama mixing with.

I realize that there are a lot of players behind the scenes and those who walked out on stage (list below) are symbolic of clusters of other people and thinkers -- though every time I see Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers in the same group, it reminds me of the UK and France on the P-5 at the UN Security Council. Do we really need two European members in the same permanent body? Do we really need both Rubin and Summers at every meeting with press availability?

Below I have provided the roster of names who stood on stage with President-elect Obama yesterday at his first post election press conference.

But some who were missing who Obama should build in -- some are not now advisers and some are.

First of all, Jason Fuhrman and Austan Goolsbee are clearly going to be important parts of Obama's economic team. Goolsbee is rumored to be the likely shoe-in for Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. He really should be on stage too given that possibility and his influence in Obama's economic thinking. Fuhrman as well.

But beyond the obvious, I would like to see George Soros, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates on stage.

Soros not only predicted the global financial meltdown but wrote an entire book about it - and gave early warnings about needing to create new mechanisms to deal with credit default swaps -- which he called a "Damocles sword" hanging over the head of the entire global financial system -- earlier this year. Soros should be playing a bigger role in economic policy sculpting, and he shouldn't be in the background.

We know that Buffet is talking with Obama. But I'd include Bill Gates who understands the importance of investing in high multiplier economic infrastructure as opposed to investments that yield few long term positive recurring results.

I'd like to see Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, James Galbraith, Leo Hindery, Clyde Prestowitz, Charlene Barshefsky, C. Fred Bergsten, Adam Posen, Robert Kuttner, Robert Samuelson, Alan Murray, William Bonvillian, Doug & Heidi Rediker, Bernard Schwartz, Tom Gallagher, Sheila Bair, Sherle Schwenninger, and Kevin Phillips added to a discussion group on the economy. It would be far more diverse, less predictable, genuinely interesting and produce greater policy option possibilities than the quite "regal" group on stage.

Here is who made Obama's cut yesterday. . .

William Daley - Chairman of the Midwest, JP Morgan Chase; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Commerce, 1997-2000

Robert Reich - University of California, Berkeley; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Labor, 1993-1997

Penny Pritzker - CEO, Classic Residence by Hyatt

Roger Ferguson - President and CEO, TIAA-CREF and former Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve

Lawrence Summers - Harvard University; Managing Director, D.E. Shaw; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1999-2001

Anne Mulcahy - Chairman and CEO, Xerox

Richard Parsons - Chairman of the Board, Time Warner

Paul Volcker - Former Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve 1979-1987

Rahm Emanuel - United States Representative (IL-05)

President Elect Obama

Vice President Elect Biden

Jennifer Granholm - Governor, State of Michigan

Robert Rubin - Director and Senior Counselor, Citigroup; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1995-1999

David Bonior - Member House of Representatives (Michigan) 1977-2003

Laura Tyson - (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Former Chairman, National Economic Council, 1995-1996; Former Chairman, President's Council of Economic Advisors, 1993-1995)

Antonio Villaraigosa - Mayor, City of Los Angeles

William Donaldson - Former Chairman of the SEC, 2003-2005

Eric Schmidt - Chairman and CEO, Google

Roel Campos - Former Commissioner of the SEC

-- Steve Clemons

Update: Warren Buffett was involved in the meeting but on conference call.

I've been saying for some time that the day after Obama's election, all sorts of policy and personality battles would unfold around him.

This is happening as predicted, and the tension, backbiting, and jostling for position is fraying the nerves of many who are highest on the list of candidates Obama is considering for senior positions throughout the government.

One quite senior national security personality close to Obama told me that "I hate this. I hate this focus on people and personalities. It's the ideas that matter. I'm just sick of this back and forth about appointments and the people. It just doesn't matter."

I actually agree with the commenter that it should be policy that we focus on -- but where I disagree is that different personalities in a job telegraph different policies.

The notion that everything will derive from America's new great leader and inform every dimension of the work and objectives of those appointed is probably naive. People do matter because of the ideas that they bring to the table. Thus debating the "who" is also part of debating the "what".

We have already seen that John Bolton differed from Zalmay Khalilzad. Bob Gates was a radical departure in views and performance from Don Rumsfeld. The battle over John Bolton's confirmation at the United Nations in which this writer and blog were so involved was never about John Bolton personally, it was about stopping the further ascension of Jesse Helms-style pugnacious nationalism.

Dennis Ross, in the Democratic Party case, has different views of global affairs and a different sense of strategic priorities and how to approach them than James Steinberg. Susan Rice, who along with Gayle Smith, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Anthony Lake and Samantha Power, is a harbinger of an important new discussion the nation needs to have on 21st century national security threats and global justice does not have the same "structuralist" and "realist" tilts of a Charles Kupchan, Rand Beers, Robert Hutchings, Fareed Zakaria, or Gregory Craig.

Richard Holbrooke and Rahm Emanuel convey different approaches to national security and the conduct of power than a Tom Daschle and Chuck Hagel.

So the debate about "who" fills the positions of responsibility around the president does matter when debating the policy objectives of the incoming team.

But things are tense and still complicated in the process of selecting a national security team. There had been high-placed rumblings that we would hear soon who would occupy the top posts at the State, Defense, and Treasury Departments -- as well as the National Security Council but the process has been complicated and intense for those in the game.

To give the Obama team credit, they are working hard to consider who would be the best in these roles and a lot of the assumptions analysts previously held about who would get what posts needs to be reconsidered. There may be some suprise choices.

-- Steve Clemons

There is a strong chance that Lawrence Summers is going to be returned to the post of Secretary of the Treasury. If so, he's pulling a "Donald Rumsfeld" who served as Secretary of Defense twice -- the first stint under Gerald Ford and then of course under George W. Bush.

Others in the running for the post first held by Alexander Hamilton are New York Fed Chief and Summers protege, Timothy Geithner. Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker is on the list. Interestingly, many on the political left are making the case for former Bob Dole staffer and FDIC chief Sheila Bair, who has in the eyes of many performed brilliantly in organizing an FDIC response on the housing crisis. Laura D'Andrea Tyson is not much discussed in the news but has become close to Obama and would be a solid choice. New Jersey Governor and former Goldman Sachs executive Jon Corzine is also on the list and is the enthusiastic preference of the labor community.

I think that there are more and even better choices. Among the frontrunners, I'd prefer Geithner, Tyson, or Corzine.

Tim Geithner who is the smartest, most unassuming financial markets technician among the lot. Geithner is probably the closest thing we have to a modern version of John Maynard Keynes. I also like Laura Tyson who I think could be useful in launching a campaign of "Tysonomics" which values some elements of industrial policy in a national economic plan vs the manic neoliberalism of "Rubinomics." Finally, Corzine -- who understands better than the other contenders that America's social contract at home must be dramatically changed -- would be a fantastic choice. His only blemish is that he worked for Goldman Sachs -- though I think Corzine thinks that was the low point of his working career and wishes he hadn't spent much time there.

Rumor has it (unconfirmed) that Summers recently had dinner with Gloria Steinem as part of an image repair strategy. Summers has also been reaching out to many economists on the left who generally opposed the manic neoliberal vector that former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Summers had put the nation on during Bill Clinton's presidency.

I have been surprised about the quick rehabilitation of Summers in Obama Land -- particularly given Obama's promises to the labor community and his strident position during the campaign against the kind of trade deals that Summers and Rubin promoted.

If he is appointed over Geithner, Tyson, and others -- we need to quickly get a sense of whether or not the economic views of Summers have changed. Can he embrace a smarter version of globalization than he helped create? Can he help promote an alternative to the winner takes all capitalism that Summers helped to reify and which made people like Robert Rubin mega-wealthy? Can he embrace a genuine re-write of the American social contract that pushes forward the rights and position of labor? Can he abandon the fiscally conservative ideology of the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project that he and Rubin helped hatch?

We need to know the answers to these questions. I find it strange that Obama is seriously considering someone whose previous work and profile is so at odds with the goals Obama has proffered in his campaign. If Summers is appointed, we have to hope that he is not the Summers we knew eight years ago.

Larry will have to prove to us that he is different. He will have to prove to us that he is not the harbinger of Clinton Term III.

I spoke to one of the world's leading, successful financiers Tuesday night who told me he prefers Summers to Geithner at Treasury. But I countered that Larry Summers will probably continue his work as one of Bob Rubin's chief acolytes -- and Rubinism is one of the chief reasons that this economy has been trampling the Middle Class and labor in favor of the super-wealthy financial elite. This financier told me that Rubin and Summers are quite different in fact but few knew of the tensions between them. I told him I'd love to hear more about that as it could help me appreciate Summers more than I do now.

I will keep an open mind, but we are beginning to see trends that if Obama does bring back Summers -- and possibly keeps Gates at Defense -- that he is not ready to make the first term of an Obama administration about the new great leaps forward we need. He may be crafting a hybrid of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush holdovers.

Indeed, there is a chance that Obama I could turn out to be GW Bush III & Clinton III.

-- Steve Clemons

An Unhappy Squeaker:

Democrat Al Franken trails incumbent Senator Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race by 477 votes.

A Happy Squeaker:

Democrat Jeff Merkley now seems to be the winner in Oregon's Senate race that was not called until last night. Merkley leads incumbent Senator Gordon Smith 742,227 votes to Smith with 719,101 with 79% of precincts reporting. Why is the Oregon count so slow?

An Unhappy Squeaker:

Netroots darling Darcy Burner is trailing in Washington's 8th District behind incumbent Congressman Reichert. With 55% of precints reporting (another slow count state), Burner has 93,368 to Reichert's 95,221. An insider close to this race tells me that the absentee ballots which have not yet been tallied will break Burner's direction, but we'll have to see if the break is enough to overcome the gap.

A Happy Squeaker:

I have a lot of close friends watching the race in Virginia's 5th District. Huge progressive investment in trying to exile Republican Virgil Goode from his office in the Longworth House Office Building. As it stands right now, Democratic challenger Tom Perriello leads Goode by 80 votes. Perriello is at 157,456 and Goode's numbers stand at 157,376 with 100% of precincts reporting.

Another Happy Squeaker

Democrat Frank Kratovil is 915 votes ahead of Republican right wing candidate Andy Harris in Maryland's 1st District. I have a house out in this district -- in Chestertown, Maryland -- and we really need to avoid spending time with Andy Harris in Congress.

-- Steve Clemons

WNYC's Brian Lehrer and I are about to do a cool live show -- video and audio -- through Skype. Check it out.

-- Steve Clemons

Right now, I'm going to be chatting, as I do every week, with Sydney's ABC 702 morning show anchor Deborah Cameron.

At 6 pm EST or thereabouts, I'll be in an in-studio chat with the so very excellent Rachel Maddow on Air America Radio. We both seemed to be just getting past our hangovers from last night.

In between, I'm taping a BBC World Service radio piece that will air tomorrow. The person will grill me is Kim Ghattas.

And then at about 7:40 pm EST, I'll be on Brian Lehrer Live. Brian Lehrer dominates the informed news scene on New York's NPR affiliate. You can watch it here or download the audio and video at a later point.

And then I need some more Advil and some sleep.

-- Steve Clemons

Bill Kristol says that he was off on a conservatives-only cruise to Alaska to see glaciers and icebergs when he discovered the high sizzle Murkowski-slayer Sarah Palin.

Well, from this Newsweek piece, it seems that we have perhaps only seen the "tip" of the iceberg on Palin gossip:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family--clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

-- Steve Clemons

Many in the movement left are having a heart attack that the first major move of President-elect Barack Obama is the appointment of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel has accepted.

I preferred Senator Tom Daschle for the job. Daschle has vision and implementation skills that many will never be able acquire -- but Daschle didn't want the position in the end.

The Rahm Emanuel I know is tenaciously focused on results and will do nearly any thing to win -- and if winning for the Obama administration and the American public is what we are putting forward here, then his appointment can be a good thing.

My greatest fear about Emanuel is that he might perpetuate a "false choice" orientation towards Israel in Middle East affairs that he's going to have to compensate for and get under control. There are no rational alternatives in the Middle East than actually delivering on a Palestinian state and finally putting the Middle East peace business out of business.

Emanuel needs to prove his judiciousness by not preempting serious progress in Israel/Palestine affairs and not encouraging Barack Obama to make the mistake of trying to define his presidency by exploiting some national security conflict. There are downsides to the JFK comparison.

-- Steve Clemons

According to the latest vote results from CNN, Norm Coleman's lead over Al Franken in the initial vote tally has now shrunk to 314 votes.

Under state law, there will be an automatic recount.

Coleman (Incumbent)
1,211,403 42%

Franken
1,211,089 42%

Barkley
437,376 15%

-- Steve Clemons

(Interior of San Francisco City Hall where many gay -- and straight -- marriages are conducted)

I knew Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson quite well when I lived in Los Angeles and frequently drove her home from parties to her swank penthouse apartments in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She was the stepmother of Howard F. Ahmanson Jr. who has been one of the principal funders of California's Proposition 8 assault on same sex marriage.

Caroline Ahmanson was a values militant in helping to expose people to arts and literature. She funded the "Medici Awards" of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce -- which were incredible gala affairs noting distinctive accomplishments in the many different dimensions of the arts.

She'd be appalled by the divisiveness of her son's campaign, and I know she'd say "Shame on you" if she were around to see how he has thrown California backwards and help reestablished a foundation of bigotry and discrimination in the state.

Shame on you Howard Ahmanson.

-- Steve Clemons

Rosa had to sit so Martin could walk,
Martin had to walk so Barack could run,
Barack had to run so our children can fly.

I have little to add. Hopefully, President-elect Obama will select a team that can meet the promise of his inspirational campaign and thoughtful policies.

-- Scott Paul

Note: I can't post today without acknowledging deep disappointment in Florida, Arizona and (probably) California voters, who chose to write discrimination into their respective state constitutions. Government has no business defining family, religious and spiritual institutions this way. Hopefully we can move together to correct these embarrassing mistakes before long.

Here is a statement from Al Franken's campaign calling for a recount. He is within 1,100 votes of incumbent Senator Norm Coleman.

A STATEMENT FROM AL FRANKEN

The Secretary of State's office reports that all but nine of Minnesota's 4,130 precincts have reported in. And this race is too close to call, with a margin of just about 1100 votes out of 2.9 million cast. That's four one-hundredths of one percent of the vote. And we expect that when those final nine precincts are counted this morning, that 1100-vote margin will shrink into the hundreds.

Under Minnesota state law, we will now enter into an automatic statewide canvass and recount. It will be the first one since 1962, when I was 11 years old. I remember that year very clearly for two reasons. The recount between Elmer L. Anderson and Karl Rolvaag. And the Gophers were in the Rose Bowl that year.

And we have twice as many ballots to count this time.

Let me be clear: Our goal is to ensure that every vote is properly counted.

The process, dictated by our laws, will be orderly, fair, and will take place within a matter of days. We won't know for a little while who won this race, but at the end of the day, we will know that the voice of the electorate was clearly heard.

There is reason to believe that the recount could change the vote tallies significantly.

Our office and the Obama campaign have received reports of irregularities at various precincts around the state. For instance, some polling places in Minneapolis ran out of registration materials. Our team has been working on those issues for several hours already, and they will continue to do so this morning as the recount process begins.

Let me be clear: This race is too close to call, and we do not yet know who won. We are lucky enough to live in a state with built-in protections to ensure that in close elections like these, the will of the people is accurately reflected in the outcome.

This has been a long campaign, and it's going to be a little longer before we have a winner. Senator Coleman, Senator Barkley, and I have done a lot of talking. Minnesotans have waited a long time to have THEIR say. And thanks to our state's laws, we will eventually understand precisely what they have said.

We'll watch this with interest.

-- Steve Clemons

We are going to learn a lot in coming weeks, months, and years about the drivers that pushed John McCain in certain directions that undermined his presidential campaign. Sarah Palin is the biggest of these mysteries.

But last night, I give McCain a great deal of credit for embracing the notion that this is a historic moment and that the nation has embraced the transformational promise of Barack Obama.

I thought Senator McCain was at his old best last night -- and he moved me with statements like "Barack Obama has been inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving."

It was a gracious and magnanimous concession speech, but McCain had an ugly audience. And we need to remember that there are many in America who are not swept up in this moment and who may try to stand in the way of progress.

One of the interesting things I noted in McCain's posture last night was a quick acknowledgment and dismissal of Sarah Palin. He basically said she would do well "in Alaska." He hugged her quickly, shook Todd's hand fast -- and departed as fast as he could away from them off the other side of the stage. He didn't stand with them at all, at least as I saw this on television.

But she won't fade from the scene.

-- Steve Clemons

OK. The right team won. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will take this country in a new direction.

Hopefully, they will pick a competent team and apply themselves the challenges that matter, not just the tasks that are easy.

I was all over New York last night -- and I have to say that the crowds, the noise, the excitement in every corner of people watching the returns made it impossible to analyze and comment on what was really going on.

Zbigniew Brzezinski was the first major foreign policy voice I respect to endorse Barack Obama. I now hope Obama performs at the level deserving of Zbig's support.

More soon. After I pop some Advil and recover a bit.

And what is going on with Proposition 8??

-- Steve Clemons

[I will be live blogging at this link and at Huffington Post all day today.]

BECAUSE I AM MOVING TO PARTY MODE AND HAVE TO LEAVE MY COMPUTER, I WILL BE POSTING ONGOING UPDATES AND REACTIONS ON A LIVE BLOG PORTAL BELOW. JUST CLICK -- AND YOU'LL FIND ALL THAT I HAVE POSTED BEFORE AND THE STUFF I'LL HAVE UP THE REST OF THE NIGHT. . .I HOPE

6:30 pm

Some Senate Exits

-- New Hampshire: Sen. John Sununu down 18 points to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen

-- Minnesota: Sen. Norm Coleman down 12 to Democrat Al Franken

-- Kentucky: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is up two over Democratic challenger Bruce Lunsford

-- Georgia: Senator Saxby Chambliss up three over Democrat Jim Martin

-- New Mexico: Rep. Mark Udall is up 51 percent to 44 percent over Republican Bob Schaffer

-- North Carolina: Democrat Kay Hagen is up 52 percent to 43 percent over Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole

-- Louisiana: Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) is "winning" her race against Republican challenger John Kennedy

5:44 pm

Chris Nelson of the Nelson Report Weighs In on What to Look For Tonight

The Nelson Report -- Nov. 4, 2008

WHAT TO WATCH FOR RIGHT AWAY...

SUMMARY: no analysis for now...let's wait until tomorrow. Here's what to look for, starting in about one hour from now (at 6pm Eastern) when polls start to close.

PRESIDENTIAL "BATTLEGROUND" INDICATORS

The following goes by closing time:

6 PM:

If McCain is really in trouble, as nearly ALL the polls and experts feel, this will be clear right away in Indiana. If Indiana isn't called early FOR McCain then you can say, flat out, "Obama wins"....Bush won in '04 by 21%

Almost a ditto for Kentucky, in that if McCain does NOT win Kentucky by DOUBLE digits, he's in for a long night.

7 PM:

Florida, THE "battleground" up front, it's a "must win" for McCain, but lately has been "leaning Obama". So if Obama wins here...it's over. Being as it's Florida, of course, expect screw-ups.

Georgia has been leaning McCain, so if its even a little bit close, that means it's a blow-out nationally for Obama. Republicans start drinking heavily.

Virginia, has been leaning Obama, and is the best early state to watch. If Obama wins Virginia, he doesn't have to win Florida. It's over for McCain. (Former Gov. Mark Warner is very popular Dem, will be elected Senator, and this should help Obama.)

N. Carolina has been a dead-heat lately, so if it stays close best bet is final count goes to Obama.

7:30:

Ohio has been leaning Obama, so if he wins, it's hard to see how McCain pulls it out elsewhere. BUT if Ohio stays too close to call, it could be a long night.

8:00:

Missouri has been a toss-up, and IF McCain has won BOTH Virginia and Ohio, he will win Missouri, and the Obama folks have a fight to the death on their hands.

KEY SENATE RACES TO WATCH...ALL are Republicans

Forget the "magic 60" beloved of pundits, as we reported earlier, not even that can overcome institutional and practical impediments to "dictatorship". Anyhow, Dems already control the agenda. Still, if the D's get close to 60, it will make things real tough for the R's, obviously.

6:00:

Kentucky, watch to see if Mitch McConnell can pull out a victory, it's leaning his way now. If he loses to Lunsford, then the D's likely WILL get 60.

7:00:

Georgia is leaning Chambliss, but he's been shaky and IF he loses, to Martin, he would likely BE the "60"th for the D's...it would be that kind of a night.

7:30:

N. Carolina, Liddy Dole has lost her lead and NC is now leaning to Ms. Hagan. SO, if Dole comes from behind, that will be an upset, and stop "60".

8:00

Maine has been leaning to the popular moderate Republican incumbent Collins, so once again, if it's a Big Night for the D's, and Allen is elected...60.

New Hampshire has been leaning to former Dem Gov. Shaheen, against incumbent Sununu, so if he pulls an upset, many bets will be paid out.

Texas has been leaning toward incumbent Cornyn, so if the D's Noriega pulls an upset, "GOP Armageddon".

THAT'S ENOUGH FOR NOW...LET'S RECONVENE IN THE MORNING...

5:22 pm

Early Exit Poll Data

From Jonathan Singer at MyDD:

The Economy: 62 percent

Iraq: 10 percent

Terrorism: 9 percent

Healthcare: 9 percent

Amazingly, more than a quarter of voters -- 27 percent -- indicated that they had been contacted by the Obama campaign.

A more progressive America: A full 51 percent of voters say they believe government should be doing more to fix the country's problems, while just 43 percent say the country should be doing less.

Fear: 30 percent of voters are scared of the prospect of a McCain victory, while 23 percent are scared of the prospect of an Obama victory.

Prepared: Just 38 percent believe Sarah Palin is prepared to be President, significantly less than the 67 percent saying Joe Biden is prepared.

Taxes: Voters expect to see their taxes raised; 49 percent foresee their taxes will be raised no matter who is elected, 61 percent see their taxes going up under McCain, 70 percent see their taxes going up under Obama.

More as we get it...

4:45 pm

I am beginning to think about the day after and am concerned that I am not hearing rumors about Senator Chuck Hagel serving as Secretary of State. The people I am hearing about are very much part of a Clinton III administration -- not an Obama I administration. I hope the rumor-mongering is wrong and off target. We'll see soon enough.

The rumors about Rahm Emanuel as Obama's Chief of Staff are hardening. I have heard from insiders that it is "his if he wants it." And on Emanuel's side, I'm told, "he is thinking he wants it."

But this is not the night for thinking through these appointments -- but it is important to see the Senate's and country's best strategic thinkers put to work for the administration. That means Hagel and others.

Some are saying that Larry Summers is moving ahead of Tim Geithner and Laura D'Andrea Tyson to be Secretary of the Treasury. Clinton III. . .There is even a "rumor" that Summers had a "what can I do about my female problem" dinner with Gloria Steinem. Can't confirm the dinner -- but it sounds fun.

More later.

4:29 pm

Fighting Intimidation Tactics -- Tim Robbins Purged from Voting Rolls?! Reinstated!

This in from my friend Michael Shtender-Auerbach:

Dear Steve,

So I voted today for Barack Obama at my local polling station in Chinatown. (Image attached). Something horrible happened though. The gentleman in front of me asked "I only have an out-of-state ID - but am registered at his location". The poll worker (the Republican observer poll worker) refused to allow him to vote. I told her she was mistaken and that was not the law. She argued with me until I proved it to her. You can bring student id, out of state drivers license, utility bill, passport, public housing bill, etc...

The man was very appreciative of my intervention. I then quipped "obviously it's the Republican poll worker" - he shot back, "I am a Republican." All votes count. Don't let anyone get in your way today. Don't let anyone tell you you can't vote or your not on the rolls or you don't have proper ID. Even Tim Robbins was purged from the rolls in NY this morning at his polling place for over a decade and had to go to a Judge to be reinstated.

Do whatever is necessary.

4:14 pm

Have been doing some news interviews -- a bunch of foreign outlets. Sorry for being offline a bit.

Check out InTrade's numbers. InTrade is a "futures/probabilities market" for social, economic and political events. It's very interesting -- not always right -- but usually so.

This is looking more and more like a genuine national landslide for Obama/Biden.

2:18 pm

Katrina vanden Heuvel Edits Post-Election Commentary in Poll Line

One of my spies in New York, Bill Hartung, sent this in on his voting experience this morning -- and notes that Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel may have been editing a post-election editorial. . .

My polling place on the Upper West side of Manhattan was packed when I got there at about 8 a.m. One of the two machines assigned to us was down because it wouldn't let anyone vote McCain (not a big audience for that in my neighborhood anyway, but they rightly took the machine out of service). The wait left lots of time for shmoozing with folks like my friend Lee Sigal, a specialist on the North Korean nuclear deal; and Katrina vanden Heuvel from the Nation who was looking over a piece that looked suspiciously like their post-election editorial (don't want to jinx anything, but you may imagine who the editorial was focused on). Unfortunately, the line eventually moved and I had to get back to normalcy; by 9 o'clock I was on the way to the subwaym, then on to work, catching up on emails, thinking about foreign policy, etc. Looking forward to seeing how our talented bunch seeks to influence (and infiltrate?) the new administration.

2:09 pm

Vote and Vax?

This from Deputy Director of New America Foundation's American Strategy Program Patrick Doherty:

Also voted in DC. Took 15 minutes.

Besides the fact that we still suffer from taxation without representation, the most notable presence at the polling place was the flu shot station, part of a "vote and vax" campaign.

And this from California-based oil and energy expert Lisa Margonelli, author of Oil on the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank, wrote this to me:

1. About 6 minutes. I arrived in at the precinct in Berkeley, CA two minutes before the polls opened, joined a short line, and then I was number five in my precinct to feed my ballot into the machine.

2. When I voted the people in line were predominantly asian and south asian, and seemed very young. The precinct was asking people to cover their ballots with a folder, which they called a "secrecy sleeve." The elderly poll worker seemed uncomfortable saying the word "secrecy sleeve' so the much younger ballot feeder kept barking "Take a secrecy sleeve!" over the mumblings of the guy handing them out.

Oakland and Berkeley are big democratic zones, obviously, but in Oakland there's a sort of party machine that runs the show. In '04 I went to vote absentee at an East Oakland polling place and the woman minding the absentee ballot box refused to take my ballot until I stated whether I was Democrat or Republican. At first I protested that that was unnecessary but she made it clear in a loud way that she wasn't going to put my ballot in the box until I said I was a Democrat. The process made me really dislike the machine though I basically agree with their votes. And it was ironic because so many Kerry voters were spinning conspiracy theories about how their votes would be stolen that year. This year, though, I had my secrecy sleeve.

1:43 pm

Bernard Schwartz is having a 1,000 person black tie gala election watching party tonight at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. His right hand just asked me what TVs and programs they should turn into for tonight's coverage.

I said MSNBC (isn't Rachel Maddow just everything? I'm so excited be doing her radio show on Air America in studio tomorrow) and CNN (I really like Jeff Toobin).

And of course -- Jon Stewart and Colbert. But if there are other greats out there, zap me a note.

This is also in from "Rebecca" who is one of the great Helen of Troy's of Obama's Ohio field operation:

Hello from Ohio. I'm out knocking on doors.1) 2.5 hours2) I voted early (yesterday) in cleveland. Lines have been between 2-5 hours all week. Cuyahoga county didn't turn out in the numbers hoped during the primaries so this is signifcant. African American turnout is huge. LOTS of people bringing kids along. We knocked 1 million doors in Ohio yesterday.

1:33 pm

Rational Exuberance?

This just in from yet another colleague:

LINES AROUND THE BLOCK!!!! And then driving into work every polling place I saw was lines and more lines. . .Woman at the front of the line got there at 5:00 a.m. The lines and the fact that it rained (not too common in L.A.) were the most noteworthy. And that I resisted yelling "vote obama!!!" in the polling place. . .

Oh. . .and I hit a car coming into work (no injuries or too much damage) because I was so excited and distracted about the election!!!

1:27 pm

Voting in Florida???

I just received this rather pithy note from a colleague of mine who voted already: "Nothing too interesting about my ballot except that I voted absentee two weeks ago in the infamous Palm Beach County, FL, so either my vote won't be counted at all, or it will be counted five or six times."

1:17 pm

A major Democratic Party donor just sent me this pic of Harlem voting and said "this is what it was all about."

1:11 pm

Recently, I visited Vienna, Austria as part of the Department of State Visitor's Program and met a really interesting array of people -- all about a week before right wing icon Joerg Haidar's death.

One of the cool places I encountered was MODUL University in Vienna and its Department of New Media Technology run by Arno Scharl. Dr. Scharl has been running a comprehensive survey of the political leanings of the top political new media and blogs.

The New Media center just posted its findings -- with data from the very last minute before voting today -- on line about 20 minutes ago.

This MODUL University survey finds that Barack Obama has captured 42% of media attention and John McCain 35%.

Joe Biden captured 5% of total medai -- and nearly all of it positive. Sarah Palin attracted 18% of the media pie -- with a real mixed assortment of negative and positive attention.

12:19 pm

I just did an interview with the German Sueddeutsche Zeitung DC Bureau Chief Christian Wericke on the talents of the ever-balanced John Podesta, who was Bill Clinton's last chief of staff and who now serves as President of the Center for American Progress.

Made the train and am hearing stories of very long lines at Starbucks all over D.C.

One of my enterprising colleagues at the New America Foundation asked folks to weigh in on their morning poll experiences -- noting anything unusual that they saw or experienced. Here are a few of the vignettes from folks who have chimed in:

1. 1 hour, 10 minutes in Falls Church, although by the time I got out (8:15) there was virtually no line--I think it was a matter of getting the process underway.

2. Well I cast my ballot about two weeks ago with an absentee ballot at the Board of Elections in Brooklyn. And I waited about 45 minutes because there were so many people waiting to vote!

3. Bin Laden watcher and terrorism expert Peter Bergen wrote "Steve, I waited an hour and a half at the polling place at 15th and R NW. there were more than two hundred in line at just after 7am."

4. My colleague Jamie Zimmerman wrote:

a) 1 Hour 15 minutes

b) Surprised that 2 school buses, 1 church bus and about a dozen cars honked at the line all the way down the block....sigh, not that noteworthy, I guess, but, I got a call from my mom in Georgetown Kentucky at 8:30 saying she and my father waited in line for "over an hour" to vote in that tiny town notorious only for a Toyota Plant, a Bengals Training Camp and a tiny private christian college. In every election she can remember, this is the only time she's had to do anything more than walk right in and cast a ballot. Noteworthy? Maybe, for Kentucky....

On other fronts, my Irish blogging nomadic friend, Gavin Sheridan, is live-blogging from the streets of Chicago. Catch his photos and vignettes here.

Everyone on Amtrak is talking about the election -- even in the "Quiet Car." Shame on them. . .sort of. It is an exciting day.

I'm anticipating lots of happy tears tonight.

9:12 am

I snapped this pic while voting this morning. The line extended way outside the building and down the street. In 2004, I was in and out of this polling station in three minutes flat -- but then again, I went about 11 a.m.

A friend wrote this to me about working phone banks in New York last night:

I was at Barack's HQ phone bank at wall street last night and 700 to 800 people came to make phone calls and they had to stop letting people in because there was no room left...

This note came in from a close Israeli friend who was at the huge gathering for Obama in Manassas, Virginia yesterday evening. Highway 66 was gridlocked:

I returned home a little while ago from the Manassas rally - very powerful, very moving. As someone who does not have the right to vote here - it is such a privilege to be in this country at this time - and I have gained an enormous amount following this campaign. thank you.

It is important to think about the impact an Obama win will have around the world - how that will reverberate, what it means for how the US is viewed, the hope this will inspire so far beyond your borders. Obviously - with Israeli elections around the corner - and the paucity of choices there - I am also more than a little jealous......

Hopefully this will be a day to savour - after that the huge expectations will have to begin to be met. . .

Now I need to begin making my way to New York.

8:30 am

I was just off a bit before 7 am this morning to vote at the Reeves Center at 14th and U Streets NW in Washington, DC. I got out of there at 8 am and thought it was an hour well spent.

I have voted, picked up my Starbucks Tall Coffee and snapped this pic:

For those of you who missed it, I did issue this note about who I voted for and why. I rarely publicly endorse and don't vote a straight party line ticket.

However, I have supported Lincoln Chafee for Senate in the past. I always support Jeff Bingaman, my former boss in the Senate who now chairs the Senate Energy Committee. I like Republican congressman Jeff Flake in Arizona. Darcy Burner would be my choice in Washington State. I am opposed to Proposition 8 in California. I preferred Senator Chuck Hagel as my presidential choice but didn't get that opportunity. Joe Biden was my choice for VP over Evan Bayh and other contenders. This morning, I voted for the Barack Obama/Joe Biden ticket.

In the first local election held -- Dixville Notch, New Hampshire -- Barack Obama won over McCain 15-6. Obama is the first Dem to win that contest since 1968.

I'm training up to New York in a few minutes and will be checking in all day with updates and live-blogging later here and at Huffington Post.

To check out what a lot of other writers, pundits, or bloggers are doing tonight as the returns roll in, here's a list from Media Bistro -- and yes, I'm included. For those who don't like hearing about the parties I go to, don't click it.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The Washington Note

Despite the pleas of a number of my favorite (and even not so favorite) readers, I have kept quiet until now about who I planned to vote for.

My support for any candidate or party is something I tend to keep on hold until getting very close to voting. I don't believe in unconditional support for anyone or any organized political institution.

There are also some issues I care about more than others, and my approach is subjective, dependent on ever changing postures and issues. I mull things over, reconsider, change course, and sometimes change back.

I have known and admired Senator John McCain since 1993. I have met Senator Barack Obama several times personally and have studied his record, habits, and words very closely. I have colleagues and friends who work at the highest levels in both organizations.

Despite my having applauded John McCain's political career and often brave policy positions many times in the past, I can't support him and his vice presidential running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, tomorrow.

The reasons I can't support John McCain are three. First, despite having a credible and impressive record in the United States Senate on a great number of policy issues, he chose to make military and national security issues the primary foundation of his campaign. Rather than recruiting Colin Powell, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, Richard Armitage, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, Robert Zoellick and others to be the primary sculptors and advisers to his campaign, he neglected most of these and ignored others in favor of foreign policy hands that reflected militant neoconservatism and strident, pugnacious nationalism.

Rather than conveying that he was a national leader who understood war and peace and would be cautious with deployments of troops and American commitments, McCain telegraphed a "recklessness" when it came to U.S. foreign policy and key national security questions.

Secondly, amplifying this recklessness, John McCain failed to make competence and a clear understanding of what America's history and great debates and challenges are an absolute requisite for anyone he would put in line for the presidency. He chose Sarah Palin who I doubt knows much about the very DNA of the nation. I have heard no evidence of her knowledge or awareness of the founding fathers, the Federalist Papers, the Civil War, womens' suffrage, the civil rights battles of our near term history, or many other great debates and challenges in our past. I don't get the sense that she is ready in any serious way to drive the ship of the United States of America. I think had McCain selected Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Joseph Lieberman, or even a Meg Whitman as his running mate -- this race would be tighter. Picking Palin was a reckless move -- amplifying significant doubts about John McCain's judgment.

Thirdly, I am a fan of some leading members of John McCain's team -- including Rick Davis, Trevor Potter, and Douglas Holtz-Eakin. I have seen them all in better times managing better challenges and issues. Holtz-Eakin is one of the least partisan economic policy players in Washington and has provocative, constructive ideas on a wide range of domestic policy issues. McCain allowed Senator Phil Gramm to squelch Holtz-Eakin's views and work early in the process and to make every answer to every problem the single refrain of "tax cuts." McCain was largely unprepared and had not thought through what were obvious fragilities in the U.S. economy.

This was a failure of leadership and judgment.

The reasons why I am voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden are several.

I think Obama's limited record and the fact that so many have affixed their expectations and aspirations on his campaign -- despite the fact that these aspirations between different groups are in fundamental conflict with each other -- have made supporting Obama a challenge for me.

I'm not someone moved by the questions of race and identity about his past. I know others are, but these qualities of leadership and "breakthrough" are not so high on my list when voting for national leadership.

I admire sharp-edged thinking, the establishment of clear priorities, a commitment to move the nation's interests forward and the conceptualization of a broader global vision that may help to promote opportunity, stability and justice.

On the whole, Barack Obama has convinced me he is capable of seeing America's challenges in these terms -- though i think that there are a great many close advisers around him who want to continue the "third term" of the Clinton administration -- or whose vision is defined by inertia and incrementalism -- rather than the big leaps forward that Obama frequently flirts with.

This nation is at a pivot point in its history. We have to change and rethink things. We need to anticipate crises and tests of America's power -- exactly as Joe Biden suggested will happen. He is right.

America needs a new global social contract -- and a domestic social contract that reshuffles the costs, opportunities and responsibilities between our stakeholders at home and abroad. Winner-takes-all capitalism and unilateralist foreign policy has to be shelved. We need a "smart globalization," not manic neoliberalism.

America needs to re-engage, needs to end an idiotic, self-damaging Cold War against Cuba and its people; needs to put the Middle East Peace Business out of business and produce and impose if need be a two state solution that respects Israel's needs and Palestine's.

We need game changers with Syria, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran to offer them compelling reasons to take Libya-like tracks out of the international doghouse. We need to understand what Russia's and China's highest national priorities are and see if we can help them achieve what they want in exchange for helping us on Iran, nuclear proliferation, climate change, the global economy, and other important global causes.

We need to reconnect with and re-marry Europe because that partnership is vital to momentum and to being taken seriously anywhere else around the world. We need to respect the Arab world, the Muslim world, need to stop making false choices between our relations with the Saudis and other Arab states on one hand and Israel on the other.

We need to buy the opium product of Afghanistan and redirect the production targets of farmers and warlords there, deal with the Taliban, and do what needs to be done to help pragmatic leadership in Pakistan seduce its tribal regions to support national goals with the U.S. not antagonizing an anti-Western nationalism there.

We need to see the checks and balances of our form of democracy restored and the usurpation of unprecedented and dangerous powers by the White House rolled back. We need to pursue accountability for the collapse of trust at home and abroad and reform the nation's balloting process in order to make certain that citizen voices are heard restoring again a representative form of government.

I think that on the whole Barack Obama represents the kind of leader who knows that we need to find our own 21st century versions of John Maynard Keynes and Dean Acheson and have to regain global leverage as "systems designers" and "systems integrators", collaborating with other globally responsible stakeholders to re-engineer the world and create a new equilibrium.

These are terms that I think Obama thinks in -- and they are very much the kinds of benchmarks that inspire the work that Joe Biden and his team have done.

As I have written before, I am a great fan of Joe Biden's work and approach to problems. He takes risks with ideas -- and we need that.

Incrementalists are not jumping ahead and not taking the risks that tomorrow's challenges require of us -- and my hope is that Obama tempers himself and rejects the security blanket of taking too many personalities and too much thinking that will make his administration look like "Clinton III."

We'll see. I have concerns. I have hopes. But I want seriousness and a fresh run at getting America back on track to restoring health and solvency to its national security and economic portfolios.

To my regret, John McCain and Sarah Palin are not up to these challenges.

I believe that Barack Obama and Joe Biden may be -- and I hope to work with them, in my think tank role and in a constant run of constructive counsel here on this blog -- as they help move the nation out of the incredibly bad mess it is in.

-- Steve Clemons

This is so sad. Barack Obama's grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died in Honolulu.

The day before it is all about to happen.

Sincere condolences to Senator Obama and the other members of Madelyn Dunham's family.

-- Steve Clemons

It's time for tolerance to break out in this country.

I was the first blogger to put the disgusting Republican National Committee mailers from the 2004 race on line which suggested that Democrats would ban the Bible and turn their states into havens of homosexuality. These flyers were sent to church parish rosters in Arkansas, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and other key battleground states in that Bush-Kerry race.

That flyer was not about homosexuality breaking out everywhere or that Dems would not support the Christian religion. It was about generating fear of change -- and designed to promote bigotry and discrimination.

The notion that America should embrace versions of marriage that help perpetuate discrimination needs to be abandoned. This battle over Proposition 8 in California is not about marriage. It is a crusade funded mostly by a group of Mormons obsessed with maintaining laws that are discriminatory against homosexuals.

No on 8. . .Please lead America in a healthier direction.

-- Steve Clemons

Apologies to some folks in Chicago last time who contacted me about meeting when I was in the city for a few days. I did have two meetings, but I lost email access for a day and a half and was handicapped in getting back to some who wanted to talk. I'll be in Chicago again before long and will try to reschedule a TWN coffee chat.

But in the spirit of advance planning, which I am trying to do more of, let me share some of the cities I'll be in through the end of the year. I'm not always in control of my schedule, but I do try to meet people if schedules "easily" mesh. If they don't, there's nothing I can do about it.

But I will be in New York on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. I'll be live-blogging the election results for Huffington Post and The Washington Note. I'll be doing some video bits here and there during the day and night with some people I run into at the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center and other gatherings I'll be attending.

If you have great "short" clips of your own election parties -- no longer than 90 seconds -- that are "clean" and "interesting", send them to me. I'll consider posting them here at TWN.

On November 10-11, I'll be in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania doing a series of talks for the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh.

November 14-16, I will be in Erfurt, Germany for the German Green Party National Convention as a guest of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

November 19 takes me to Madrid and then November 20 to Barcelona for programs organized by the London School of Economics. I'll be doing some meetings with the fascinating IR thinker Michael Cox.

On December 4, I will be in Brussels for a single day. Coffee chat still possible -- but it will be "brief."

December 9-10, I will be participating in a conference in Paris organized by IFRI.

And then finally but still not confirmed, I may be in Havana, Cuba on a research trip from December 15-19, but I need the Department of Treasury to approve the reasons for the trip before departing. Still waiting.

This is a pretty busy season -- but I did want to let folks in these various places know that I might be heading your way.

-- Steve Clemons

I am returning to DC today from New Haven, Connecticut -- where I talked to a number of folks who have never before voted in an election and who planned now to vote for Barack Obama. Expectations are high in this race on both sides of the equation -- but I think a bit higher among those African-Americans and others who have felt sidelined in the American political scene.

The Washington Post today considers the consequences of "loss" for one of the two sides of the ticket and those who supported the loser.

But I have to say that I think given current expectation levels if Obama does not win on Tuesday, there will be a lot of violence that erupts. That is no reason for people to support Obama -- and frankly, I think that violence in elections is a sign of immaturity. But it doesn't change the fact that many who have not traditionally participated in American elections are going to do so -- and right now, they expect a payoff for that participation -- and most polls show Obama sliding to victory Tuesday.

The Post piece doesn't mention the word "violence," but it's hard for me not to think about that as a possible outcome if Obama loses.

And even if McCain loses, which I think he will at this point, we could see violence in some parts of the country.

-- Steve Clemons

(Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin)

In a candid statement meant to be heard only by those attending a weekly meeting of the Israeli Cabinet, Shin Bet spy chief Yuval Diskin has acknowledged serious concern about violent Jewish settler extremists trying to assassinate Israeli political leaders and willing "to use firearms in order to halt diplomatic processes."

The assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yigal Amir, has acquired star status among many extremist settlers and security authorities in Israel are worried about attempts to generate violence linked to the November 4th anniversary of Rabin's murder.

This raises the question of why Israel and the United States don't work to classify factions of settler extremists -- organizing to propogate violence -- as terror organizations or terror-supporting individuals.

Such classification of these groups and/or individuals would allow the freezing of their financial assets in the United States and would create penalties for those who aided and abetted in their violence. Some very wealthy Americans are financing some of the expansionist settler activity in occupied Palestinian territories -- and creating penalties for this assistance could be one way of squelching the violent dimensions of settler activity.

Such classification of violent settler extremists in Israel as terrorists would give both the Israeli and U.S. governments tools that will help protect Israel's political leadership from tactics of intimidation and violence and would help to generate a new equilibrium in the region that satisfies both Israel's legitimate security needs and the imperative of a viable Palestinian state.

-- Steve Clemons

"Angler" is the Secret Service's name for Vice President Cheney, who has now formally endorsed the McCain/Palin ticket.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are 'delighted' that Cheney and Bush have put their nudge behind the Arizona Senator and Alaska Governor.

To remind yourself what "Angler" has done to undermine America's moral, economic, and political position in the world, read Barton Gellman's Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency (which I review here).

-- Steve Clemons

Many years ago, I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska as a kid -- and I always felt on the frontier of civilization.

Not that much seems to have changed. Sarah Palin had a investigative report filed against her for abusing her authorities as governor and which was released by a unanimous panel dominated by Republicans -- and yet, there is no legal sanction or punishment imposed for those abuses.

And now while some compulsive obsessive Republican poll watchers are spending more time trying to purge voting roles of convicted felons rather than getting new voters to participate in the franchise, Senator Ted Stevens -- who is now convicted of a felony -- has been issued a formal waiver allowing him to vote for himself.

This is just another chapter in our "who you know democracy."

-- Steve Clemons