Later today, Josh Marshall will be announcing the winners of his spoofy "Golden Duke Awards" -- named for the now-in-jail scion of the corrupt fringe of America's military industrial complex, former California Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Above are the nominees -- outlined by Josh -- and his categories are fun, but the roster of personalities is a good primer on all the mess we've been through this last year.

More when I get to New York. Happy New Year!

-- Steve Clemons

Greetings all. It's quite early in the morning here in Carson City, Nevada -- and am now off to Reno Airport, then to New York City where I'll be saluting the new year with friends.

Consider this an open thread.

All best and more later.

-- Steve Clemons

Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski spent some time educating the nation -- and Joe Scarborough -- about the way to frame the current Gaza tragedy and what needs to be done to move forward.

Brzezinski laments the tragedy and loss of life in the Israeli attack on Gaza -- but he properly diagnoses this as yet another stage in the predictable cycle of violence that neither the Israelis nor Palestinians seem able to pull them self away from. In other words, Brzezinski is saying that the Gaza mess is old news, old politics, and a predictable manifestation of strategic and moral immaturity on all sides.

Brzezinski's exchange with Joe Scarborough is sweeping the internet now because of his statement to Morning Joe's namesake:

You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you.

Ouch. . .yes. But as Mika Brzezinski said about her father and growing up in her household, that sort of statement by Zbig almost reflects 'affection.'

But that exchange, while entertaining, is not important.

What is significant is that Brzezinski essentially issued a challenge to Obama and his team to re-engage seriously -- to go back to what was achieved at the Taba negotiations just before the Bush administration aborted the entire project.

The most important thing that Brzezinski said to Scarborough was (paraphrased from memory...but watch the video above):

Taba. It's spelled T. . .A. . .B. . .A. Go look it up. You might learn something.

And Zbigniew Brzezinski is right.

-- Steve Clemons

I do not follow the whole "awards for blogging" business, but I may need to NOW as The Washington Note just made the cut for "Best Very Large Blog (Authority between 501 and 1000)". Cool!!

But I sort of feel like TWN just doesn't fit in many of the cool categories very well. Years ago, it might have been listed as Best Blog on John Bolton's Every Move. Or, if there was a category for best Radical Centrist Blog or best Ethical Realist blog, or Best Blog Commenters. . .I might have placed higher up.

Seriously though, this is an outstanding roster of blogs. I have so many friends on the roster that it's tough to mention them all -- but quickly,

Congrats to Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Ben Smith at Politico, Andrew Sullivan, The Guardian's Comment is Free. . ., Lindsay Beyerstein, Think Progress, TruthDig, Taylor Marsh, Crooks & Liars, Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory, The Entire Josh Marshall-led team at Talking Points Memo, RedState, Power Line, Foreign Policy Watch, No Quarter, Volokh Conspiracy, The Bilerico Project, Pam's House Blend, The Moderate Voice, The Agonist and others. . .

Next year, perhaps I'll make a run for Best Blog with Weimaraners. . .or Best Foreign Policy Blog with Weimaraners. . .

Or Best Blog on Foreign Policy, LGBT stuff, coffee shop visits, and Pics of Pets. . .

But first things first.

ON JANUARY 5, you can start voting on which of these blogs should be winners in their announced catories -- including BEST VERY LARGE BLOGS!!

Thank you to our readers -- even those who knock me in the head now and then -- and to those who nominated TWN. Really. . .thanks from our entire TWN team.

-- Steve Clemons

Roland Burris has few detractors and may be a very interesting, somewhat unassailable choice to fill Barack Obama's Senate seat. Burris -- a former Attorney General and Comptroller of Illinois -- seems to be a decent guy. (photo courtesy of The HistoryMakers)

The only problem is that scandal-plagued Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich wound mortally wound even the very, very best prospective candidate's legitimacy by selecting him or her.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Senate Democratic Leadership had this to say about Blagojevich's moves to fill Obama's seat:

We again urge Gov. Blagojevich to not make this appointment. It is unfair to Mr. Burris, it is unfair to the people of Illinois and it will ultimately not stand. The governor must put the interests of the people of Illinois and all Americans first by stepping aside now and letting his successor appoint someone who we will seat.

Reid and his team are right. Blagojevich, until and unless he is cleared, has zero legitimacy in the eyes of most of his citizens, and should not sully Roland Burris's name and record with this appointment.

But Reid and the Senate leadership should make a positive, constructive statement about Roland Burris and his service -- and indicate publicly that he is the kind of person who should be on any person's list as candidates to fill the vacant Illinois Senate seat.

And if nominated formally, I hope Roland Burris does not accept from Blagojevich.

-- Steve Clemons

A friend sent me this pic of her dad's dog looking wistfully out the window after reading a good chunk of Barton Gellman's much acclaimed Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post written by Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative. These comments and views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Washington Note or Huffington Post. Barghouti is a former secular candidate for President of Palestine and has been a strong advocate of non-violent responses to Israeli occupation. Barghouti is thought by many to be a leading contender in the next Palestinian presidential election. The Washington Note has also solicited perspectives from various national leaders and incumbent Knesset leaders in Israel.

Here is a link to an interview that Steve Clemons did with Barghouti in July 2008 regarding Barack Obama's trip to Israel and Palestine.

Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood

The Israeli campaign of 'death from above' began around 11 am, on Saturday morning, the 27th of December, and stretched straight through the night into this morning. The massacre continues Sunday as I write these words.

The bloodiest single day in Palestine since the War of 1967 is far from over following on Israel's promised that this is 'only the beginning' of their campaign of state terror. At least 290 people have been murdered thus far, but the body count continues to rise at a dramatic pace as more mutilated bodies are pulled from the rubble, previous victims succumb to their wounds and new casualties are created by the minute.

What has and is occurring is nothing short of a war crime, yet the Israeli public relations machine is in full-swing, churning out lies by the minute.

Once and for all it is time to expose the myths that they have created.

1. Israelis have claimed to have ended the occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

While Israel has indeed removed the settlements from the tiny coastal Strip, they have in no way ended the occupation. They remained in control of the borders, the airspace and the waterways of Gaza, and have carried out frequent raids and targeted assassinations since the disengagement.

Furthermore, since 2006 Israel has imposed a comprehensive siege on the Strip. For over two years, Gazans have lived on the edge of starvation and without the most basic necessities of human life, such as cooking or heating oil and basic medications. This siege has already caused a humanitarian catastrophe which has only been exacerbated by the dramatic increase in Israeli military aggression.

2. Israel claims that Hamas violated the cease-fire and pulled out of it unilaterally.

Hamas indeed respected their side of the ceasefire, except on those occasions early on when Israel carried out major offensives in the West Bank. In the last two months, the ceasefire broke down with Israelis killing several Palestinians and resulting in the response of Hamas. In other words, Hamas has not carried out an unprovoked attack throughout the period of the cease-fire.

Israel, however, did not live up to any of its obligations of ending the siege and allowing vital humanitarian aid to resume in Gaza. Rather than the average of 450 trucks per day being allowed across the border, on the best days, only eighty have been allowed in - with the border remaining hermetically sealed 70% of the time. Throughout the supposed 'cease-fire' Gazans have been forced to live like animals, with a total of 262 dying due to the inaccessibility of proper medical care.

Now after hundreds dead and counting, it is Israel who refuses to re-enter talks over a cease-fire. They are not intent on securing peace as they claim; it is more and more clear that they are seeking regime change - whatever the cost.

3. Israel claims to be pursuing peace with 'peaceful Palestinians'.

Before the on-going massacre in the Gaza Strip, and throughout the entirety of the Annapolis Peace Process, Israel has continued and even intensified its occupation of the West Bank. In 2008, settlement expansion increased by a factor of 38, a further 4,950 Palestinians were arrested - mostly from the West Bank, and checkpoints rose from 521 to 699.

Furthermore, since the onset of the peace talks, Israel has killed 546 Palestinians, among them 76 children. These gruesome statistics are set to rise dramatically now, but previous Israeli transgressions should not be forgotten amidst this most recent horror.

Only this morning, Israel shot and killed a young peaceful protester in the West Bank village of Nihlin, and has injured dozens more over the last few hours. It is certain that they will continue to employ deadly force at non-violent demonstrations and we expect a sizable body count in the West Bank as a result. If Israel is in fact pursuing peace with 'good Palestinians', who are they talking about?

4. Israel is acting in self-defense.

It is difficult to claim self defense in a confrontation which they themselves have sparked, but they are doing it anyway. Self-defense is reactionary, while the actions of Israel over the last two days have been clearly premeditated. Not only did the Israeli press widely report the ongoing public relations campaign being undertaken by Israel to prepare Israeli and international public opinion for the attack, but Israel has also reportedly tried to convince the Palestinians that an attack was not coming by briefly opening crossings and reporting future meetings on the topic. They did so to insure that casualties would be maximized and that the citizens of Gaza would be unprepared for their impending slaughter.

It is also misleading to claim self-defense in a conflict with such an overwhelming asymmetry of power. Israel is the largest military force in the region, and the fifth largest in the world. Furthermore, they are the fourth largest exporter of arms and have a military industrial complex rivaling that of the United States. In other words, Israel has always had a comprehensive monopoly over the use of force, and much like its super power ally, Israel uses war as an advertising showcase of its many instruments of death.

5. Israel claims to have struck military targets only.

Even while image after image of dead and mutilated women and children flash across our televisions, Israel brazenly claims that their munitions expertly struck only military installations. We know this to be false as many other civilian sites have been hit by airstrikes including a hospital and mosque.

In the most densely populated area on the planet, tons upon tons of explosives have been dropped. The first estimates of injured are in the thousands. Israel will claim that these are merely 'collateral damage' or accidental deaths. The sheer ridiculousness and inhumanity of such a claim should sicken the world community.

6. Israel claims that it is attacking Hamas and not the Palestinian people.

First and foremost, missiles do not differentiate people by their political affiliation; they simply kill everyone in their path. Israel knows this, and so do Palestinians. What Israel also knows, but is not saying publicly, is how much their recent actions will actually strengthen Hamas - whose message of resistance and revenge is being echoed by the angry and grieving.

The targets of the strike, police and not Hamas militants, give us some clue as to Israel's mistaken intention. They are hoping to create anarchy in the Strip by removing the pillar of law and order.

7. Israel claims that Palestinians are the source of violence.

Let us be clear and unequivocal. The occupation of Palestine since the War of 1967 has been and remains the root of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Violence can be ended with the occupation and the granting of Palestine's national and human rights. Hamas does not control the West Bank and yet we remain occupied, our rights violated and our children killed.

With these myths understood, let us ponder the real reasons behind these airstrikes; what we find may be even more disgusting than the act itself.

The leaders Israel are holding press conferences, dressed in black, with sleeves rolled up.

'It's time to fight', they say, 'but it won't be easy.'

To prove just how hard it is, Livni, Olmert and Barack did not even wear make-up to the press conference, and Barak has ended his presidential campaign to focus on the Gaza campaign. What heroes...what leaders...

We all know the truth: the suspension of the electioneering is exactly that - electioneering.

Like John McCain's suspension of his presidential campaign to return to Washington to 'deal with' the financial crisis, this act is little more than a publicity stunt.

The candidates have to appear 'tough enough to lead', and there is seemingly no better way of doing that than bathing in Palestinian blood.

'Look at me,' Livni says in her black suit and unkempt hair, 'I am a warrior. I am strong enough to pull the trigger. Don't you feel more confident about voting for me, now that you know I am as ruthless as Bibi Netanyahu?'

I do not know which is more disturbing, her and Barack, or the constituency they are trying to please.

In the end, this will in no way improve the security of the average Israeli; in fact it can be expected to get much worse in the coming days as the massacre could presumably provoke a new generation of suicide bombers.

It will not undermine Hamas either, and it will not result in the three fools, Barack, Livni and Olmert, looking 'tough'. Their misguided political venture will likely blow up in their faces as did the brutally similar 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

In closing, there is another reason - beyond the internal politics of Israel - why this attack has been allowed to occur: the complicity and silence of the international community.

Israel cannot and would not act against the will of its economic allies in Europe or its military allies in the US. Israel may be pulling the trigger ending hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives this week, but it is the apathy of the world and the inhumane tolerance of Palestinian suffering which allows this to occur.

'The evil only exists because the good remain silent'

From Occupied Palestine. . .

-- Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi

This is a guest post by New America Foundation Middle East Task Force Co-Director Daniel Levy

For many people, what has happened today between Gaza and Israel may have all too familiar a ring to it - Israel warns and then retaliates to an alleged or real Palestinian escalation of violence, there is Arab condemnation and international exasperation, eventually things de-escalate but according to Israel's timetable as the U.S. prevents effective early international mediation, and we're back to where we started - with the addition of more blood and death (many innocent, some less so), more wounded and more shattered families.

Most of those involved, often including Israel, tend to regret things not coming to a halt sooner. The Israel Defense Forces with their modern weaponry try to pinpoint targets but invariably, predictably, and painfully there are plenty of "misses"; the Palestinians - well their weaponry is by definition more crude, they use what is available and the results are correspondingly messy and indiscriminate. Bottom line - Arabs and Jews are killing each other - so what's new?

And why on earth would America want to be involved?

Here's the bad news folks - America is involved, up to its eyeballs actually. Today, after Israeli air-strikes that killed over 200 Palestinians in Gaza, the Middle East is again seething with rage.

Recruiters to the most radical of causes are again cashing in. If Osama Bin Laden is indeed a cave-dweller these days then U.S. intel should be listening out for a booming echo of laughter. Demonstrations across the Arab world and contributors to the ever-proliferating Arabic language news media and blogosphere hold the U.S., and not just Israel, responsible for what happened today (and that is a position taken, for good reasons, by sensible folk, not hard-liners).

America's allies in the region are again running for cover. America's standing, its interests and security are all deeply affected. The U.S.-Israel relationship per se is not to blame (that is something I support), the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is - and thankfully we can do something about that.

Why did today's events occur?

The list of causes is a long one and of course depends who you are asking. Here are five of the most salient factors as I see them:

(1) Never forget the basics - the core issue is still an unresolved conflict about ending an occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state - everything has to start from here to be serious (this is true also for Hamas who continue to heavily hint that they will accept the 1967 borders).

(2) The immediate backdrop begins with the Israeli disengagement from Gaza of summer 2005, ostensibly a good move, except one that left more issues open than it resolved. It was a unilateral initiative, so there was no coordinating the 'what happens next' with the Palestinians. Gaza was closed off to the world, the West Bank remained under occupation and what had the potential to be a constructive move towards peace became a source of new tensions - something many of us pointed out at the time (supporting withdrawal from Gaza, opposing how it was done).

(3) U.S., Israeli and international policy towards Hamas has greatly exacerbated the situation. Hamas participated in and won democratic elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council in January 2006. Rather than test the Hamas capacity to govern responsibly and nurture Hamas further into the political arena and away from armed struggle, the U.S.-led international response was to hermetically seal-off Hamas, besiege Gaza, work to undemocratically overthrow the Hamas government and thereby allow Hamas to credibly claim that a hypocritical standard was being applied to the American democracy agenda.

American, Israeli and Quartet policy towards Hamas has been a litany of largely unforced errors and missed opportunities. Hamas poses a serious policy challenge and direct early U.S. or Israeli engagement let alone financial support was certainly not the way forward, but in testing Hamas, a division of labor within the Quartet would have made sense (European and U.N. engagement, for instance, should have been encouraged, not the opposite).

Every wrong turn was taken - Hamas were seen through the GWOT prism not as a liberation struggle, when the Saudi's delivered a Palestinian National Unity Government in March 2007 the U.S. worked to unravel it, Palestinian reconciliation is still vetoed which encourages the least credible trends within Fatah, and unbelievably Egypt is given an exclusive mediation role with Hamas (Egypt naturally sees the Hamas issue first through its own domestic prism of concern at the growth of the Muslim Brothers, progress is often held hostage to ongoing Hamas-Egypt squabbles).

(4) Failure to build on the ceasefire. Israel is of course duty bound to defend and protect its citizens, so as the intensity of rocket fire in 2007-8 increased, Israel stepped up its actions against Gaza. But there was never much Israeli military or government enthusiasm for a full-scale conflict or ground invasion and eventually a practical working solution was found when both sides agreed to a six-month ceasefire on June 19th 2008. Neither side loved it. Both drew just enough benefit to keep going. That equation though was always delicately balanced.

For the communities of southern Israel which bore the brunt of the rocket attacks, notably Sderot, the ceasefire led to a dramatic improvement in daily life, and there were no Israeli fatalities during the entire period (only today, following the IDF strikes did a rocket hit the town of Netivot and kill one Israeli). Israel was though concerned about a Hamas arms build up and the entrenching of Hamas rule (which its policies have actually encouraged). For Gaza the calm meant less of an ongoing military threat but supplies of basic necessities into Gaza were kept to a minimum - just above starvation and humanitarian crisis levels - an ongoing provocation to Hamas and collective punishment for Gazans. The ceasefire needed to be solidified, nurtured, taken to the next level. None of this was done - the Quartet was busy with the deeply flawed Annapolis effort.

(5) A disaster was waiting to happen, and no-one was doing much about it. There was of course a date for the end of the ceasefire - December 19th. As that date approached both sides sought to improve their relative positions, to test some new rules of the game. Israel conducted a military operation on November 4th (yes, you had other things on your mind that day), apparently to destroy a tunnel from which an attack on Israel could be launched, Hamas responded with rocket-fire on southern Israeli towns.

That initiated a period of intense Israeli-Hamas dialogue, albeit an untraditional one, largely conducted via mutual military jabs, occasional public messaging and back-channels. Again though the main reliance was on Egypt - by now in an intense struggle of its own with Hamas. When Hamas pushed the envelop with over 60 rockets on a single day (December 24th), albeit causing no serious injuries and mostly landing in open fields (probably by design), Israel decided that it was time for an escalation. That happened today - on a massive scale - with an unprecedented death toll.

Israel clearly felt it was time to make a point, there was pressure (often self-generated) to act, and don't forget that Israel is in an election campaign (the vote is on Feb 10th). Hamas too had scores to settle - not only with Israel, but it was also time to pressure Egypt, Fatah, and Arab actors who had done little to address the blockade of Gaza.
So here we are, in a dangerous escalatory cycle that is already sweeping the region, with scores of Palestinian dead, horrific images, a highly-charged blame-game and no obvious exit-strategy. Both Israel and Hamas are looking to emerge with a better deal than what previously prevailed - both are preparing their publics to take harsh hits over the coming days, weeks or even longer, and over 200 families in Gaza and one family in Israel already know what that means, first-hand.

So, what needs to happen next?

Sadly it is too late for preventive action but there is an urgent need for a de-escalation that can lead to a new ceasefire - and that will not be easy.

Useful lessons can be drawn from some very recent, and ugly, Middle East history - though it seems that to its dying day the Bush Administration is refusing to learn (today the White House called on Israel only to avoid civilian casualties as it attacks Hamas - not to cease the strikes, Secretary Rice was more measured).

In the summer of 2006 an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah led to a Lebanon war whose echoes still reverberate around the region. There were well over one thousand civilian casualties (1,035 Lebanese according to AP, 43 Israelis), thousands more injured, and other fatalities including the Israeli government which never recovered its poise, what little American credibility remained in the region (Secretary Rice was literally forced to return to Foggy Bottom as allied Arab capitals were too embarrassed to receive her) and much Lebanese infrastructure. That time it took 33 days for diplomacy to move and for a U.N. Security Council Resolution (1701) to deliver an end to fighting. The U.S. actively blocked diplomacy, Rice famously called this conflict "the birth pangs of a new Middle East" - it was no such thing, and the Middle East itself did not know whether to laugh or cry (the latter prevailed).

Just as in 2006, Israel needs the international community to be its exit strategy - and there is no time to waste. Even what appears as a short-term Israeli success is likely to prove self-defeating over a longer time horizon and that effect will intensify as the fighting continues. Over time, immense pressure will also grow on the PA in Ramallah, on Jordan, Egypt and others to act and their governments will be increasingly uneasy.

Demonstrations across the West Bank are calling for a halt to all Israeli-Palestinian talks and for Palestinian unity.

If the U.S. is indifferent or still under the neocon ideological spell then Europe, the rest of the Quartet, Arab States and other internationals must act - with a variety of players using leverage with Israel and Hamas to de-escalate. Escalation poses dangers at a humanitarian and regional-political level. International leaders should head to the region before the new year, even if the warring parties discourage it, and for some of them Gaza must be on the itinerary, the boycott (anyway unwise) is a secondary matter now. High-level visits in themselves can create a de-escalatory dynamic.

Both sides will want to land the final big punch and both will need a dignified narrative for home consumption - any ceasefire deal will have to take this into account (and this during an Israeli election campaign, with violence usually helping the right, and the centrist government desperate for an image make-over after that Lebanon 2006 debacle).

The obvious ingredients will have to be creatively re-configured for this to be possible, including ending rocket fire at Israel and removing the blockade on Gaza. New ingredients may also be necessary and while extending the ceasefire to the West Bank is (unfortunately) probably out of the question, it might be possible this time to establish a monitoring mechanism for the ceasefire. Such a mechanism could serve both sides' interests (Israel gets a more solid guarantee, Hamas gets more recognition).

There is a precedent for this - after the April 1996 Israel-Hezbollah conflict a formal Ceasefire Understanding was reached that included the establishment of a Monitoring Group consisting of the U.S., France, Syria, Lebanon, and Israel (with Syria basically acting as guarantor for Hezbollah). That mechanism proved useful and met with constructive IDF cooperation - something similar might be needed now.

In addition efforts need to be revived for achieving Palestinian national reconciliation (which itself could ease the management of the Gaza situation) and for allowing Gaza greater access to the outside world through Egypt via the Rafah border crossing.

But there is a bigger picture - and it is staring at the incoming Obama administration. Today's events should be 'exhibit A' in why the next U.S. Government cannot leave the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to fester or try to 'manage' it - as long as it remains unresolved, it has a nasty habit of forcing itself onto the agenda.

That can happen on terms dictated to the U.S. by the region (bad) or the U.S. can seek to set its own terms (far preferable). The new administration needs to embark upon a course of forceful regional diplomacy that breaks fundamentally from past efforts. A consensus of sorts is emerging in the U.S. foreign policy establishment that this conflict needs to be resolved - evidenced in the findings of a recent Brookings/Council of Foreign Relations Report or the powerful statements coming from elder statesmen like Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, themselves building on the findings of the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.

It will require tenacity and bold ideas - in framing the solution, bringing in previously excluded actors, creating mechanisms to implement a deal (such as international forces) and utilizing the Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative - but the alternative is far worse, its what we see today and it guarantees ongoing instability in a region of paramount importance to the United States.

-- Daniel Levy

One of the most important and sensible comments made during the last stretch of the campaign came from the straight-talking Joe Biden. The then Democratic vice-presidential nominee said that Barack Obama would be "tested" by crisis early in his presidency.

Biden was right -- and if anything, probably understated the frequency and severity of these tests of America's resolve and objectives in the world. To be fair, I believe that a McCain administration would have been tested equally.

Part of what is going on today with Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak's unleashing of massive Israeli airpower against Hamas offices in Gaza is a test of Obama's America. Hamas's decision to end its "lull", or temporary ceasefire with Israel, also has a lot to do with testing the U.S. and seeing what the outlines of Obama's policy will be.

Barack Obama cannot afford to allow his presidency and its foreign policy course to be hijacked by either side in this increasingly blurry dispute. Israel's actions today just created thousands of aggrieved and vengeful relatives committed to delivering some blowback against Israel.

Hamas, at the same time, overplayed its hand at a fragile time. Hamas will never play the role of supplicant or subordinate to Israel's interests -- but its resumption of violence before the Israeli elections and during a time of transition in US politics triggered a devastating responce from Israel that signficantly undermined its own interests as a potentially responsible steward of a Palestinian state.

The violence we are watching is just yet another installment in the blur of tit-for-tat violence from both sides of this chronic foreign affairs ulcer.

The US -- and the incoming Obama administration -- must move an agenda forward in Israel-Palestine negotiations that works at levels higher than the perpetrators of this violence. It's time to get this conflict out of the weeds, and time to stop allowing any actors in this drama to hijack the foreign policy machinery of governments trying to push forward a Palestinian state.

America has to get out of the role of "managing" this conflict -- and must solve it. Israel and the Palestinians have shown themselves unable to maturely end their conflict -- and short of a results-oriented strategy that puts the "Middle East Peace Business" out of business, America will be constantly tugged into this conflict and blamed for it.

My colleague Daniel Levy who co-directs the Middle East Task Force of the New America Foundation will be weighing in later with his own thoughts from Israel later today or tomorrow.

But for now, the Obama administration must set its sites higher than this tragic episode and sculpt a national security strategy that this minority view, or that minority view, armed with guns and rockets and planes and bombs can't hijack and derail at will.

It's time for a new course -- to get beyond false choices between Israel's interests and Palestinian interests -- and to generate a new equilibrium that can withstand these predictable pin-pricking provocations.

-- Steve Clemons

Just received the following from one of the principal shakers in the self-described "pro-Israel, pro-Peace" activist group, J Street. From Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street's Executive Director:

While this morning's air strikes by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza can be understood and even justified in the wake of recent rocket attacks, we believe that real friends of Israel recognize that escalating the conflict will prove counterproductive, igniting further anger in the region and damaging long-term prospects for peace and stability.

Respecting Israel's right to defend itself, we urge leaders there to recognize that there is no military solution to what is fundamentally a political conflict between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Today's IDF strikes will deepen the cycle of violence in the region. Retaliation is inevitable, though we don't know how far the violence will spread or how many more Israelis and Palestinians will die and suffer in the days and weeks to come.

We call for immediate, strong diplomatic intervention by the United States, the Quartet and allies in the region to negotiate a resumption of the ceasefire which dramatically reduced violence and preserved quiet for over five months.

The United States, the Quartet, and the world community must not wait - as they did in the Israel-Lebanon crisis of 2006 - for weeks to pass and hundreds or thousands more to die before intervening. There needs to be an urgent end to the new hostilities that brings a complete cessation to the rocket fire out of Gaza and that allows food, fuel and other civilian necessities into Gaza.

The need for diplomatic engagement goes beyond a short-term ceasefire. Eight years of American neglect and ineffective diplomacy have led us directly to a moment when the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hang in the balance and with them the prospects for Israel's long-term survival as a Jewish, democratic state.

We urge the incoming Obama administration to lead an early and serious effort to achieve a comprehensive diplomatic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli conflicts.

This is a fundamental American interest as we too stand to suffer as the situation spirals, rage in the region is directed at the United States, and our regional allies are further undermined. Our goals must be a Middle East that moves beyond bloody conflicts, an Israel that is secure and accepted in the region, and an America secured by reducing extremism and enhancing stability. None of these goals are achieved by further escalation.

Even in the heat of battle, as friends and supporters of Israel, we need to remember that only diplomacy and negotiations can end the rockets and terror and bring Israel long-term security and peace.

More later. About to depart for airport and trip to Carson City, Nevada.

-- Steve Clemons

I love reading the "pool reports" of those hardworking journalists who forfeit their holidays to trail Barack Obama's every public moment.

The New York Times' Jackie Calmes weighs in with this cute story of Barack Obama doing the hang loose, "shaka" thing -- with thumb and pinky pointed out. It would be great if President-elect Obama gave the "shaka" sign getting off of Air Force One. That could be as dramatic as Nixon's famous two-armed, two-handed victory wave.

Calmes reports:

Pool Report #2, Saturday Dec. 27, 2008 -- Kailua

Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett left Semper Fit Center at 8:48 a.m., an hour after they'd entered; the men -- President-elect Obama and friends Eric Whitaker and Martin Nesbitt left about 16 minutes later.

Roughly 30 people of all ages had waited to see him, and the earliest arrivals stayed through a brief but feisty rain. The Secret Service agents had subjected all to the weapons-detecting wand. When Obama emerged, his Chicago White Sox cap backwards, he briefly flashed the Hawaiian hand gesture known as the "shaka," according to a couple residents in the pool van, who say the gesture connotes "hey there," "hang loose" or "thanks, dude". Photographers in the pool caught the moment. Obama righted his cap as he walked toward the assembled group in the parking lot and loudly called, "How are you?"

He moved from left to right down the line that was about three deep, saying variously "How are you?," "Good to see you," "Nice to see you." He lofted four babies and posed for pictures with them. After about two minutes he went to the SUV and the motorcade returned to the Kailua neighborhood where he is staying. Holding here now. It's cloudy but the sun sometimes comes out.

Jackie Calmes, New York Times

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

From a CNN news alert:

-- Israeli aircraft launch air attacks across Gaza, causing many deaths and injuries, according to CNN journalist.

Over 100 now reported killed in attack.

-- Steve Clemons

(UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown receiving bust of John F. Kennedy from Caroline Kennedy)

Caroline Kennedy is having a rough time convincing fellow New York-based Dems that she's good for them. If she really, really wants to be in the rough and tough of hard scrabble politics -- and show us all what she is made of -- I wish she had decided to enter the political fray via election rather than appointment.

George W. Bush and Richard Cheney abused this democracy, built an imperial presidency, emasculated Congress, launched an illicit war, spied in massive proportions on American citizens, authorized torture as a tool in interrogations. They ruined what "democracy" means in the eyes of many American citizens -- but also for many around the world who want to knock back their totalitarian governments and achieve some form of real democracy and self-determination.

To succeed the Bush era with a high profile appointment of the untested, iconic Caroline Kennedy does not bolster the Democratic Party's message that democracy at home needs to be rebuilt and revitalized.

Caroline Kennedy's first efforts to sell herself to New Yorkers -- but also to make herself look like a compelling choice other than having a good "brand name" to Americans at large -- has not gone well.

Barack Obama should stop this grilling and torment that is being prepared for Kennedy and all who helped push her candidacy for "appointment" by offering Kennedy the Court of St. James, the U.S. Ambassadorship to Great Britain.

Kennedy has an outstanding record of public service to those in need, and she is savvy about the who's who of the political world. In fact, she's playing the role of Ambassador on behalf of her father's memory and her clan for a long time -- while maintaining a tight lid on her private affairs. She's incredibly "ambassadorial" already.

Caroline Kennedy would perform well in London and could help to bolster Obama's relationship with the UK and with Europe more squarely -- something that is vital. If she did a superlative job in her role, she might be able to translate that into some kind of compelling campaign to later "run" for public office.

But seriously, Obama should make Caroline Kennedy his ambassador to Great Britain.

There have been rumors that outgoing Senator Chuck Hagel has been discussed by some close to Obama for this role in London -- but in my view, this would be a waste of Hagel's considerable talents at a macro-level on American foreign policy. Hagel should wait for appointment as Secretary of State or as a top envoy for some form of global negotiations.

Kennedy would be perfect in London.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a special pic of Annie pup a few years ago.

I want to wish all a very safe and happy holiday, a great Christmas and a high sizzle New Year.

I am off to Los Angeles now - though I'm writing this from San Francisco. In a few days, I'll be off to spend some time with friends in Carson City, Nevada -- and will watch my friends ski at Squaw Valley. I'm too afraid of running into a tree to do that sort of thing -- but I'll be blogging with lots of snow around.

And then, I'll be flying on New Year's Eve morning to New York where I'll be for the first moment of 2009.

All the best to everyone.

-- Steve Clemons

Norm Coleman loses a key decision in the tug of war over ballots in the still undecided Minnesota U.S. Senate race.

Congratulations Al.

A final report of election results from the Minnesota State Canvassing Board still probably won't come in til the new year, but it's hard to see how Franken's slim but real lead can be overcome now.

-- Steve Clemons

This is a guest post for The Washington Note written by Hillary Mann Leverett, a former State Department and National Security Council official who participated in numerous rounds of secret negotiations with Iran.

Monday's news that the Iraqi government is moving quickly to prepare the expulsion or deportation of the MEK - the Saddam-era Iraqi-based Iranian terrorist group -- from Iraq is an important story that needs to be understood in the context of the post-9/11 U.S.-Iranian dialogue over Afghanistan and al Qaida, a dialogue in which I directly participated.

During US talks with Iran in 2002-2003 when it became clear the US was going to invade Iraq, the Iranians made clear that they would turn over suspected al Qaida figures in Iran to the U.S. in exchange for the U.S. allowing MEK leaders based in Iraq to be turned over to Tehran.

In 2003, the Bush Administration inexplicably rejected this offer and then had the gall, as the occupying military power in Iraq, to give the MEK "protected status" under the Geneva convention, which essentially prevented the Iraqi government from turning the MEK operatives over to Iran. The Bush Administration's reasoning was that they wanted to have the MEK on hand to use as necessary to be a thorn in the side of the Iranian government - and, perhaps even a paramilitary force supporting a U.S. strategy to achieve regime change in the Islamic Republic.

Since the US and Iraqi governments have concluded the SOFA, the US government can no longer protect the MEK. And, it is clear that the Maliki government is moving to assert its own sovereignty by laying the ground work for the MEK's deportation to Iran. Now, Iran may get hold of the MEK forces without having to give up a single thing.

On the talk shows this weekend, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claimed that the conclusion of the SOFA shows that the US is winning over Iran in the battle for influence in Iraq.

The story I've just recounted strongly suggests that, as usual, Rice is out of touch with on the ground realities.

-- Hillary Mann Leverett

This is a guest post for The Washington Note by businessman and regular TWN reader Richard Vague. Vague is the founder of AmericanRespect.com, author of "Terorrism: A Brief for Americans", and publisher of DelanceyPlace.com.

On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, the price of oil was $28 per barrel. If the war had never happened, the current $40+ price would seem painfully high.

The price of oil didn't rise because of supply and demand--since demand didn't increase but about 1% per annum during that period--but instead because of war risk, a weakened dollar, and the speculation that invariably follows a rising price trend. Several months ago, when the price of oil was still well above $100, we wrote in these pages that the price of oil would come down closer to its March 2003 price once the risk of wider wars abated and the dollar strengthened against other currencies.

Now our global economic collapse has pushed discussion of oil prices to the sidelines, and a rash of explanations and proposed solutions for this collapse are being urgently debated. It is rightly the center of attention, for it is one of the worst in U.S. history and will likely last at least another year or two, since--among other things--the oversupply of housing that is at the heart of the problem is not projected be absorbed until the end of 2010.

Stated simply, we got into this mess because lending institutions were operating with far too much leverage (the ratio of loans against the capital a lender is required to maintain) which allowed assets such as subprime loans to be overbought. Now that the inevitable crash has occurred, some lending institutions have failed, and fear has brought in a contraction in even the sound lending activity so necessary for a sound economy. Lending institutions became over-leveraged because they used complex financial instruments such as credit default swaps that allowed more loans without requiring enough additional capital -- and because some of these institutions and instruments were outside of the purview of regulators and thus able to operate without appropriate capital levels. Lenders and borrowers were further strongly incented down this precarious path by the negative real interest rates in place during much of this past decade, an unfortunate product of Greenspan's easy money policies.

Some believe that it was lending that got us into this trouble to begin with, and therefore believe that part of the solution is to constrain lending. But a careful examination of the numbers will show that it was almost entirely the unprecedented excesses in mortgage loans that led us to this point. And, with proper capital levels, lending remains integral to economic growth. Restricting sound lending to worthy borrowers will significantly exacerbate our problems, and in fact, across the country, bank loans are now contracting.

To restore the economy, we need to get the banks lending again. Properly, prudently, but lending again. The problem is severe enough to need job creation programs as well, but all the public works projects we can muster cannot preserve or create as many jobs as a restored level of sound lending can. Estimates for the number of jobs that will be lost in this recession range as high as 6 million, and the new administration's jobs program is rather optimistically targeting the creation a number of jobs far short of that--2.5 million.

Like the Crash of 2008, the Crash of 1929 was initially caused by high leverage--as evidenced by the 90% margin loans on purchased stock. But the Crash of 1929 didn't have to turn into the Great Depression. It could have been just another nasty recession that took a few years to dig out of, and by 1932, the economy would have been sailing along again. Instead, the Depression ground cruelly along for the entire decade. And a decade's worth of domestic public works projects--the PWA, the WPA, the TVA, and on and on--did not pull the country out of the Depression.

There were two major reasons the Crash of 1929 metastatized into the Great Depression. The first was that the nascent Federal Reserve Bank acted to contract the money supply by as much as 25% believing it was the correct thing to do. This was such a destructive and misguided strategy that in some parts of the country currency itself was literally no longer available. This is the one lesson of the Depression that the Fed has truly internalized, and it has acted in almost every crisis since then--the Crash of 1987, the Internet bubble of 1999, September 11, 2001 to name a few--to rapidly increase the money supply and flood the market with new money. In fact, M2, the measure of the money supply, has increased almost 4% since Lehman Brothers failed in September, and 8% since the beginning of the year--a huge increase by historical standards designed to help stave off the contraction from reduced lending and economic activity.

The second reason was the contraction in lending from banks. This lesson should have been as remembered as indelibly as the money supply lesson, but has not been. In the Depression, this contraction was reinforced and exacerbated by a string of bank failures--most indelibly the failure of the Bank of United States, which failed not because of any bad loans it had made, but instead because of a run on its deposits. The BOUS could have been saved through an extension of liquidity from the Fed or from the New York Clearing House banks--which had acted in that role for other banks on previous occasions--but instead it was allowed to fail, in some respects as a misplaced moral judgment against the bank. The result was that scores of the bank's small business customers who were operating profitable businesses lost their access to credit--and as a direct result failed.

In 2008 this principle of preventing loan contraction was abandoned when the government allowed Lehman Brothers fail, and markets across the board have been fearful or frozen since that day. This was the major turning point--the point at which confidence disappeared--and without this mistake we would be in far better condition today. As a result, the contraction in lending seen in the Depression is being seen again--if in somewhat different forms. In my own recent experience, I am aware of a number of small to medium size businesses that were profitable and strategically sound, but have failed or are failing because their banks are reducing or cancelling their working capital loans. In addition, car lenders, including GMAC itself, have made across-the-board increases in credit score requirements above what I would view as needed, resulting in fewer loans and fewer cars being sold. Leasing companies are slowing their level of leasing--I am familiar with sound small businesses that have used leases to readily obtain business equipment such as photocopiers, but can no longer obtain such a lease. Further, mortgage lending markets are still in disarray and creditworthy customers are still finding difficulty borrowing, with unfavorable implications for the housing recovery.

In many cases, the reasons these lenders have pulled back is that their capital has been depleted because of large losses, and they must reduce lending until that capital can be replaced. In other cases, depleted capital levels or the fear that has gripped the banking system has meant that they themselves don't have access to funding to make the loans.

It is this multiplying effect of loans that makes it crucial to preserve lenders in the face of a crash. But, as I have argued in these pages previously, preserving the operations of a lender does not also mean that management or shareholder value has to be preserved. And thus the "moral hazard" aspect of a rescue can be avoided. The management of a firm that took it to ruin can be ousted, and the shareholders that funded that firm can lose their investment without the borrowing customers and counterparties of that firm being punished as well. A path along these lines was successfully taken in the rescue of both Bear Stearns and Countrywide Mortgage. (And, on a much different note, this path could arguably be taken with the Big Three automobile companies)

To get lending institutions lending again, they must be fully capitalized. Much has been done in this area, most of it good, and the support that is in place should remain. But the task is not fully done. One key and completely free source of capital is for regulators to change back the relatively recent "mark-to-market" accounting regulations to the "held-to-maturity" accounting that was previously in effect.

The regulatory community has often overreacted detrimentally to credit problems and should not do that here. My experience has long been that regulators were too lenient when times were good and too tough when times were bad--the proverbial case of closing the barn door after the cow has already gone.

Alongside this, since the government still controls so much of the mortgage market, it should move to make sure loans are more widely available to worthy borrowers.

The tendency of our politicians will be to focus primarily on public works--which is where they feel most sure of themselves. But they should pay as much attention to lending markets, where greater gains can be achieved. With the continued monetary policy support of the Fed and movement to insure sound, properly capitalized, but robust credit markets, our economy will return to health. And sound job creation programs which focus on projects with enduring value--especially infrastructure projects--will add beneficially to this.

POSTSCRIPT: Once we our economy has recovered, we will have two major problems yet to deal with--inflated currency from the decade-long high growth in the money supply, and unprecedented levels of government debt. But first things first.

-- Richard Vague

Ben Smith at Politico and a friend at AIPAC sent me this cool video clip of "LIVNI BOY."

Remember Obama Girl? Maybe we can get them to do a scene together. . .

-- Steve Clemons

A friend and member of my New America Foundation/American Strategy Program Director's Council, Richard Vague, was profiled this morning in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I will be posting today a guest post by Vague here at The Washington Note, but this morning's profile by Joseph N. DiStefano deserved special mention.

Vague used to be a fairly conservative businessman and a giant in the U.S. credit card business. He got out of that sector and is now a leading innovator in the retail energy sector, but thinks that jobs and economic hope are better motivators than bullets in our foreign policy efforts.

Here is a section of this snapshot by DiStefano in which Vague raises doubts about increasing the military stakes in Afghanistan:

Richard W. Vague, chief executive officer of Philadelphia electric-power marketer Energy Plus Holdings L.L.C., cheered when Sen. Joe Biden (D., Del.) was tapped as Barack Obama's No. 2. (photo credit: Jonathan Wilson/Philadelphia Inquirer)

Vague's career as a Wilmington credit card bank boss resulted in his becoming friendly with Biden. Last year, Biden placed Vague, who was organizing public-policy forums questioning the Iraq war before that was fashionable, on the State Department's Advisory Committee for International Economic Policy.

"I've been faithfully attending," Vague told me, "but there are a whole lot of cooks in the foreign-policy kitchen these days."

Vague was "very discouraged" to hear over the weekend that the United States plans to send up to 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan next year.

"My sense is, that is the last thing we need to do," Vague said. "Obama said in his campaign that he would escalate in Afghanistan, but I had hoped he was saying that as a way to deflect questions regarding Iraq without appearing soft, and when the time came he would exit Iraq but resist escalating in Afghanistan.

"The trouble is that we could defeat the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the warlords in Afghanistan again and again, but unless someone provides a viable economic path forward for the broad citizenry there, it won't matter. They'll just come back."

Vague said analysts had suggested that the United States buy Afghanistan's illicit drug crops as a way of easing tensions. He says that's no crazier than the way the United States paid tens of thousands of insurgents - "our former Sunni antagonists" - to stop shootings in Iraq.

"This all seems absurd in the context of our current economic crisis," Vague added. He hopes spring reinforcements will be the last troops we'll need to send.

Richard Vague's article on the economy, written for The Washington Note will be up in a couple of hours.

-- Steve Clemons

Fantastic news this morning. It has been rumored for some time that James Steinberg, Dean of the LBJ School of Public Policy at UT Austin, would be appointed Deputy Secretary of State under Hillary Clinton.

Well, Steinberg -- who has been patient, careful, and never leaked a thing to anyone about his position (despite my best efforts) -- got the white smoke signal that he gets the Deputy slot.

This is important news because Steinberg and other friends of his, like Kurt Campbell who heads the Center for a New American Security and plays a leading role on the Obama Transition Team, have been grappling with how to simultaneously modify the process of presidential decision-making as well as adjust the calipers for thinking about and confronting increasingly complex national security threats.

Steinberg, who used to serve as Vice President of Brookings running its foreign policy division, was one of the first leading national security Democrats to call for withdrawal from Iraq because of the deterioration of America's moral credibility in that war. Interestingly, Steinberg wrote the piece with Michael O'Hanlon, who of course later changed his view on the matter. Steinberg did not.

During the campaign, one of the things few noted was that Steinberg remained distant from all of the presidential contendors. He offered private counsel to all of them -- but not on an exclusive basis. When Obama won the race, Steinberg made himself more fully available.

Steinberg was not in the Hillary Clinton camp -- nor in the Obama camp, which gives him some latitude and legitimacy in helping to squelch down the drama that still persists between those who were loyal to Hillary before they were loyal to Obama.

-- Steve Clemons

Today, 12:15 - 1:45 pm EST, I will chairing an interesting session with WALTER RUSSELL MEAD and DANIEL LEVY that will run live on The Washington Note and also run LIVE on C-Span.

Mead, a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written an important new essay that has just been issued in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs magazine titled "Change They Can Believe In: To Make Israel Safe, Give Palestinians Their Due."

This article is a major piece by Walter Russell Mead, outlining a proposal for Palestine that may appeal to many who have been dragging their feet and souls on the subject.

Mead is also author of the acclaimed books God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World as well as Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World.

Daniel Levy, my colleague at the New America Foundation co-directing our new Middle East Task Force, will offer comments. Levy also writes the blog, Prospects for Peace. (I keep telling Levy that I no longer really believe in peace -- just equilibrium).

If you can join us in person in Washington or watch the exchange of ideas live on this blog or C-Span.

-- Steve Clemons

Still Life with Dog -- Boyd Gavin

Artist Boyd Gavin has figured out that I'm seriously into weimaraners. . .and luckily, he's seriously into painting.

Got this note from him this morning. . .

Since you are very fond of weimaraners, I thought you would be interested to see my painted rendition of one. I needed something going on in the foreground, so I borrowed the dog from a neighbor. Weimaraners have such a beautiful coat. Regards,

Boyd Gavin

Great painting. Many thanks to him for letting me post it here at The Washington Note

-- Steve Clemons

I'm off to see the holiday decorations in the East Wing of the White House this morning. Should be fun. I'll try to snap all of you some good pictures.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: No pics. For some reason, they weren't allowing "cameras" in to the White House today -- even though a ton of folks were discreetly snapping pics from their "cell phones".

My close friend took this happy clip of Annie, Oakley and Buddy.

-- Steve Clemons

With just 31 days left in his term, President Bush has pardoned Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors for years of misdeeds, inefficiency, uncompetitiveness, and poor quality.

The White House will give the auto manufacturers $17.4 billion in low interest loans.

That doesn't mean that Chrysler will keep the switch turned on at 30 plants it is completely shutting down over the next 30 days. It doesn't mean that any of these firms will stop laying off American workers.

And it doesn't mean that this loan money from the government will stop the offshoring of American jobs overseas.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: An ABC News Alert stated that the bailout package from the White House totals $17.4 billion, but CNN reports that it is $13.4 billion. When the White House issues a formal release, I'll correct the number above.

For those interested, here is the audio and text of a clip on the Clinton Foundation's donor list which was made public yesterday.

I spent some time speaking on the subject to Peter Overby of National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

-- Steve Clemons

I thought I'd share this cartoon, which my colleague Doga Cigdemoglu found on the Hurriyet Daily News website. Here is a link to a slide show of 34 cartoons about the now famous "shoe attack."

I am a bit surprised at the response here in the United States - which has been more amused than outraged. An Iraqi journalist disrespected our president in the worst way - and we think it is funny.

Can you imagine the Iraqi reaction had an American thrown his shoe at President Talabani during his visit to Washington?

--Ben Katcher

I was notified this morning that the Clinton Foundation had posted on its website its roster of donors.

Good luck looking to it and through it -- which I did at length in the first few minutes after receiving the email.

But ever since, the Clinton Foundation site has been crashing. Tons of traffic.

Here is the release from the Foundation:

-- Steve Clemons

This morning, I will be doing a web-based exchange with people all over the world about U.S. foreign policy and what may be coming next from an Obama-led America.

The site is here, but the Facebook page for this U.S. State Department global chat network titled Co.Nx conveys a bit more about this interesting forum.

My understanding is that folks began posting questions at 8 am EST, and I'll be answering them from 9:00 til 10:00 am EST.

And for those who want to connect with me on my facebook page, it is here -- as is a Washington Note page.

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight. 9:45 pm EST. MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show.

Whither political dynasties? Why are so many so uncomfortable about Caroline Kennedy being appointed to New York's U.S. Senate seat?. . .and still so attracted to political aristocracy?

Clinton. . .Bush. . .Gore. . .Biden. . .Salazar. . .Udall. . .Murkowski. . .Kennedy. . .Roosevelt. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Former IBM top technologist and Sloan Foundation President emeritus Ralph Gomory has a provocative think-piece up at Huffington Post today titled "Autopia: A Tale of Two Bailouts."

The piece is intriguing because Gomory casts winners, losers, and the narrative of the financial and auto bailouts at a distance -- as if it were all unfolding on a distant planet.

Here is a chunk of the essay, but it's worth reading the entire thing -- and asking ourselves what part of the social contract with workers and firms and capital we want to proactively change in this era of bailouts so as to get out of the bleakness of Autopia:

Once upon a time on a distant planet there was a nation that looked a lot like ours -- we'll call it Autopia. They were indeed much like us, only with some things backwards. Autopia's car companies looked and acted like our Wall Street, while Autopia's financial companies acted a lot like our car companies.

In Autopia, the car industry did just fine for many years. It was a good industry and many people worked hard and got reasonably wealthy. But then a fundamental change of viewpoint took over the entire nation. This new and pervasive viewpoint dictated that all companies and this included the auto companies, had only one goal: To earn as much profit as possible. To a very large extent the companies came to care less about product quality, the fate of the middle class, and the overall state of the country. Instead it became accepted and even mandatory to measure everything solely based on profit. Elaborate rationales were invented that justified this new profit-centric doctrine and argued that maximizing the profit margins of the various companies benefitted all people throughout the nation.

This was the setting when HCG arrived. For a very long time cars in Autopia had been constructed out of metals and high-grade plastics. But with the introduction of this new material that the Autopians called HCG, everything changed. HCG was short for Highly Compressed Garbage. Highly Compressed Garbage was created by taking ordinary household garbage, condensing it in a high pressure compressor, and spray painting it. It looked and felt like metal and it was cheap, cheap, cheap. It really paid to introduce HCG into cars.

No one knew if HCG would hold up over time, but that was beside the point. HCG was cheap, and the cheaper the product, the higher the profit. Once the trend started, everyone had to join in or be left behind in the race for the only thing that mattered - profits.

There were a few truly golden years. Profits at the car companies soared to unprecedented heights. There were individuals who made a billion Autopian dollars in a year. The stock prices of the car companies soared, and very few people even noticed that all this wealth and happiness was based on an investment in garbage.

But after a while, bad news started to trickle in. A few HCG cars had started to fall apart, then a few more. This was ignored at first, but the trickle of failures soon became a stream, and the stream became a torrent. Soon all around Autopia, and in countries to which they exported, HCG cars were falling apart, and no one knew which cars would be next. Cars were collapsing and people were being stranded everywhere. Even the tow trucks sent to rescue them often broke down and joined the list of stranded vehicles.

Now you might think this would lead to a disaster for the car companies in Autopia, but fortunately for them, while they had been unwise with HCG, they had acted wisely in a political direction. Car companies always had considerable political influence in Autopia, but during the golden years their influence became immense. All major political parties vied for their contributions and were extremely responsive to lobbying from the car companies. As a result of this quid-pro-quo, many of the corporate beneficiaries of the use of HCG paid little tax. A car company executive even served as Secretary of the Autopian Treasury. So when the HCG crisis hit, the political investments of the good years turned to solid gold.

True, there were some hesitations before the government poured an unprecedented flood of money into the car companies. After all, profit was believed to be the only thing that mattered and the car companies were losing money and collapsing at an unprecedented rate, faster than any other industry ever. But the need for new solid cars to replace the old ones was too urgent. It was pointed out that the world might well come to a stop if there was not a flood of new money that would enable a fresh start, and this fear overcame even the doctrine of profits. The flood of money came, without strings. There was no change required in the way the industry worked; they didn't have to give up their high compensation or buy back the broken garbage cars. After all, they had shown they could be profitable.

This treatment contrasts strikingly with the way the Autopian government handled another down-on-its-luck industry. Autopia's financial companies had all kinds of problems, which started years back. Before profits became the only thing that mattered, and in a less competitive world, the financial companies had made share-the-wealth arrangements with their unionized workers. They had relaxed and become complacent. Foreign companies caught up with and surpassed their services. When they struggled back and provided competitive services, they were handicapped by the binding promises they had made to their workforce--promises that were no longer being made in the new profit-oriented world, and which their new competitors never had to make -- and by the bad reputation they had with the many who used their services in the days before their services improved.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

There is a dark truth in the national security establishment. Generals, intelligence directors, national security advisors, and the President prepare themselves to make judgments that may cost American lives. Part of their world involves very tough choices and occasional tragedies.

But none of these would ever say that they were "delighted" sending Americans to their death, even if a greater good was accomplished and a major policy objective secured.

And yet that is exactly what Frank Gaffney said on MSNBC's Hardball tonight. . .Unbelievable.

From a transcript posted at Crooks and Liars (the video is also available at this site):

MATTHEWS: You guys sold the war as a nuclear threat to the United States. You sold every trick you could to get us into this war. And now you're backpedaling. And I do find it astounding....four thousand people are dead because of the way you feel and, Frank Gaffney, you're wrong about this.

GAFFNEY: It is regrettable that they had to die, but I believe they did have to die. The danger was inaction could have resulted in the death of a great many more Americans than 4,000. And that's the reason I'm still delighted that we did what we did.

Delighted. . .? Very bad framing. Very sad and tragic message from those who helped concoct the Iraq invasion.

-- Steve Clemons

From the Obama watch pool report tonight:

Pool Report -- Dec. 17, 2008

On a snowy Chicago night, President-elect Barack Obama left the federal building at 7:30 p.m., about eight hours after he arrived. It was unclear whether his economic meetings lasted the entire time, whether he was conducting other business or whether he was waiting for evening traffic to ease from the biggest snowstorm of the season.

The motorcade navigated the slippery streets to the South Side, taking alternative routes along the way, including Lower Wacker Drive that led to a long service road that ran parallel to the train tracks near Grant Park. We emerged from the winding short-cut near McCormick Place and slowly proceeded to the Obama home on Martin Luther King Drive and other surface streets, all to avoid a clogged Lake Shore Drive.

The president-elect made a brief stop in the Hyde Park-Kenwood neighborhood, dropping off an unidentified person a few blocks from his house. (emphasis added) He arrived at his residence about 8:05 p.m.

With a lid called, your pool bus began the snowbound trek back downtown.

Jeff Zeleny, New York Times

So who is this mystery person?

I am addicted to these pool reports, but I can't wait until January 20th when we can get on real news.

But seriously, who was it?

-- Steve Clemons

Streaming Video by Ustream.TV

Not really. I'll be in DC tomorrow.

I'm just participating in a forum (pdf here) via the net titled "The US - A New Reality" sponsored by the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Primorska with support from the US Embassy in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

I 'think' that the forum will be running live on the above screen -- but for those interested in my section, I'll be streaming live at 12:15 pm EST or 6:15 pm in Paris, Berlin, and Ljubljana.

-- Steve Clemons

TWN blogger and syndicated columnist Brian Till has a piece that is making the rounds where he admits as a free-riding news consumer who rarely pays for anything he's reading to his own culpability in destroying the newspaper industry.

I think he is too hard on himself -- and without ginning up the entire net neutrality debate today -- I think he's looking at too few dimensions of the news media industry in his analysis. (My limited understanding of the net neutrality debate is that some want all bits to be treated equally in the web world -- sort of a completely socialized commons -- without tiers of "bit flow" in which some might pay for faster connections and greater volumes of data transfer.)

First of all, he's right that newspapers in their classic form seem to be dying, and the on-line version of these papers don't yet have a business model that can support the job base that they currently have. A friend at Newsweek told me last night that with the exception of a couple of sales offices, the entire writing/editorial team (for the most part) of the magazine will work from their own homes on laptops. Even the DC bureau is apparently planning to shut down -- or most of it, according to this source.

Cheap news, or free news in newspaper or print form may be becoming a thing of the past. However, unlike Till, I pay plenty for news, analysis, reports -- from very high end sources. The budgets I spend on financial, political and policy reporting runs into five figures. What I think is happening is that new media, low or no cost media (like blogging) is circumventing the lower end of the news business -- but the higher end of the specialized media establishment is still doing well.

I think that we should be concerned that much of the media establishment is going to disappear. There are some best practices in that environment that blogs would be good to absorb -- but essentially, the time for concern was a few years ago. My contacts at senior levels of news organizations had little interest in changing the way that they did business and made little effort to understand the web and its implications.

So, if free-riding, as Brian Till calls it, expedited their fall -- then they had it coming.

-- Steve Clemons

The Federal Reserve Board just reduced the federal funds rate to a range between zero and 1/4 of a point. Unbelievable.

The Fed is also moving on a bundle of other fronts to hold this economy together and to try and get loans and financing moving again in the system.

We have become Japan. . .and Germany, except that they have current account surpluses and underconsume. But like them, we have banks and institutions now too big to fail.

I have been arguing for a while that the problem in the financial system today is not rate-related. Lowering rates is simply reducing to ever greater degrees the leverage the Fed might have when borrowing kicks back in. This is exactly what happened when the Bank of Japan reduced its rates effectively to zero in the 1990s.

The difference with Japan though -- it must be said -- is that Japan's central bank authorities dragged out their response to credit implosion, and the Federal Reserve Board in the U.S. is actually moving at impressive speed. The problem is that the scale of the financial crisis hitting the American and global economies is significantly larger than that which helped "steal Japan's last decade."

I had a private dinner with a top tier Hong Kong business magnate last night, and while the dinner should be considered off the record -- he made a comment that I think he won't mind my sharing.

He said that what we have seen in America so far is just a "financial crisis. . .it is financial. . .but the impact we have to worry about is what will unfold in the real economy." My only caveat is that we are already seeing it hit the real economy with projections of negative 5 to 6% GDP contraction annualized this quarter.

That part is still coming. This is big -- and we are no where near a fix or a resolution to the hemorrhaging.

-- Steve Clemons

These three can fix any bad mood.

-- Steve Clemons

This is an interesting little clip of Bill Clinton discussing Richard Nixon with Elvis Costello.

When I helped organize a major Nixon Center conference in Washington in April 1995, Bill Clinton keynoted the event -- and I could sense his admiration of and intrigue about many aspects of former President Richard Nixon.

I think it would be interesting for Barack Obama -- who is proving to be more Nixonian than many of his fans thought possible -- to speak for the Nixon Center next year and to share some insights into what his "Nixon Goes to China" efforts might be.

-- Steve Clemons

Move over Schwarzenegger. Barack Obama works out every day. EVERY DAY. (Damn him!)

I get the pool reports of his comings and goings. A sample of his daily routine going to the gym:

From: Helene Cooper Sent: Tue Dec 16 09:13:04 2008 Subject: Pool report 1

PE Obama left his hyde park home at 754 for his morning workout at regents park apts gym. Pool is holding at istria cafe enjoying a nutmeg latte and raisin muffin.

and then returning:

From: Helene Cooper Sent: Tue Dec 16 11:29:20 2008 Subject: Pool 2

PE obama left regents park apts gym at 9:04 am and returned home. At 9:50 his motorcade departed his hyde park home for the 20 minute drive to dodge renaissance academy, where he is to hold a press conference.

His work out discipline has just made me feel terrible about my episodic ventures to any of three Washington, DC gyms to which I belong and rarely go.

I have no idea which U.S. Presidents were in the best shape, but Obama has got to be right up on the very top of the list.

Here is a short roster of the time he has spent at the Regents Club at the Regents Park Luxury Apartments in Chicago -- and this is just a small snapshot of a much longer trend:

BARACK OBAMA'S TIME AT THE GYM: A DAILY ROSTER

16 December -- 70 minutes

15 December -- 71 minutes

14 December -- 148 minutes

13 December -- 80 minutes

12 December -- 76 minutes

11 December -- 77 minutes

10 December -- 72 minutes

9 December -- 78 minutes

8 December -- 91 minutes

7 December -- 108 minutes

6 December -- 94 minutes

5 December -- 70 minutes

4 December -- 65 minutes

3 December -- 86 minutes

and it goes on and on and on. . .

Inspired and irritated by his example, I have started going to the gym every day too -- and I can barely walk and move after the aggravation of muscles I forgot I had. . .

But I'm doing it -- and I bet many other Americans are going to get the Obama gym bug too.

-- Steve Clemons

John Kerry takes Foreign Relations. Lieberman keeps Homeland Security. . .

REID ANNOUNCES ANTICIPATED COMMITTEE CHAIRMANSHIPS FOR 111th CONGRESS:

Senator Herb Kohl, Chairman, Senate Special Committee on Aging
Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman, Senate Committee on Agriculture
Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations
Senator Carl Levin, Chairman, Senate Committee on Armed Services
Senator Christopher Dodd, Chairman, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs
Senator Kent Conrad, Chairman, Senate Committee on Budget
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Chairman, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Senator Jeff Bingaman, Chairman, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Senator Barbara Boxer, Chairwoman, Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works
Senator Max Baucus, Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance
Senator John Kerry, Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (upon the resignation of Senator Joseph Biden)
Senator Edward Kennedy, Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
Senator Joseph Lieberman, Chairman, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Senator Byron Dorgan, Chairman, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs
Senator Dianne Feinstein, Chairwoman, Senate Intelligence Committee
Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman, Senate Committee on Judiciary
Senator Charles Schumer, Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Administration
Senator Mary Landrieu, Chairwoman, Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship (upon resignation of Senator Joseph Biden and Senator John Kerry assuming Chair of Foreign Relations)
Senator Daniel Akaka, Chairman, Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs
**Senate Committee on Ethics Chairperson will be recommended by the Senate Majority Leader and adopted by Senate resolution
**Joint Economic Committee Chairperson alternates with each Congress. The House of Representatives will chair the Committee in the 111th Congress

-- Steve Clemons

I have very mixed feelings about the news that Caroline Kennedy is now seeking appointment to Hillary Clinton's soon to be vacated Senate seat.

It seems hypocritical to on the one hand challenge Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's qualifications and readiness to have potentially assumed the presidency if something had happened to John McCain and if, of course, their ticket had won on November 4th and then on the other, say nothing about Caroline Kennedy's dearth of real policy and political experience to assume one of the most powerful offices in the country -- even if a Senator is usually not as consequential as a President.

I feel that it's important that vacant Senate seats be taken seriously by both the Democratic and Republican parties -- and selecting celebrity family members from political dynasties feels undemocratic.

Caroline Kennedy -- when she shows she has thick-skin. can take tough-minded criticism for the mistakes she no doubt will make, and when she articulates coherent policy views on serious challenges facing the country -- may make in fact make a great Senator from New York. I hope that she does and that she grows into the role.

But can Caroline Kennedy publicly support a process that leads to a viable Palestinian state and explain to her constituents why? Can she embrace that ending America's anachronistic Cold War with Cuba is low hanging fruit on America's roster of foreign policy opportunities and that more enlightened policy there can create a positive echo effect elsewhere? Can she make informed decisions on whether American force should be deployed to achieve policy objectives -- and can she also stand up to the President, someone of her own party, and work to deny the White House of war-making authority when a conflict is undermining the interests of the country?

Can Caroline Kennedy legislate the contours of what it might take to establish a new social contract in domestic America? Can she distinguish between the features of 'smart globalization' and manic globalization? Does she understand that none of the tough policy choices in the country are binary ones -- that there are mostly shades of gray and nuanced differences between the policy options facing the country but that these nuances can be enormously consequential?

JFK was a Democratic hawk, much in the mold of what Hillary Clinton, Evan Bayh, and Ben Nelson have conveyed in their political views -- but over the years, Caroline Kennedy and her late brother John worked hard to assert a narrative about their father that he was a Wilsonian progressive in foreign policy, someone committed to global justice with a soft touch. Will Caroline Kennedy be part of the pacifist, idealistic wing of the Democratic Party? or will she join the muscular wing of values militants that have emerged as a strong force? or will she be a pragmatic realist -- closer to where Barack Obama seems to be?

How will Caroline Kennedy be as an "excecutive" in a powerful legislative seat, sculptng what is too often typically a passive role of voting nay or yea into something that will add value for New Yorkers and Americans?

There are many questions in store for Kennedy as she pursues this Senate seat, and she needs to show a readiness to be grilled.

While the Kennedy clan is clearly one of America's strongest and most enduring political family dynasties, the Kennedys that mattered were always the ones who stunned the public with their brilliance and tenacity.

Each of the most famous Kennedys -- their audience would feel -- could have been a successful political heavyweight even without the Kennedy name.

That will be the test for Caroline Kennedy. Can she show that she can be one of the best crafters of policy and one of the strongest animators of activism in ways that show that she should have always been in the Senate on her own merits -- and not just because she got her resume read because of her last name?

I hope she shows us much we haven't yet seen and stuns us like other members of her family have. We'll see.

-- Steve Clemons

I think it was pretty poor form of a journalist to throw anything and to engage in soft violence against President Bush during his press conference in Iraq.

That said, it's clear that the history of America's invasion of Iraq and the human drama there are still a long way from the rosey narrative that the White House prefers.

And it also has to be said that President Bush has great reflexes. He ducked those shoes like a pro.

-- Steve Clemons

I will write much more about this subject in coming days, but I am increasingly worried about the framing that America's next President and his team are applying to Iraq and Afghanistan.

To be blunt, they have been arguing that "Iraq was the bad war and Afghanistan is the good war," not in those precise words -- but close enough.

A mutual friend of Katrina vanden Heuvel and mine wrote this to her (and then me) in an email:

"Afghanistan. The place where the dreams and hopes of the Obama Presidency are buried."

We have to be careful of who we think we are fighting in Afghanistan. What army exactly is America trying to squelch? If we are now in a full on war with the Taliban, then this country will see its global leverage deteriorate to even lower levels than what is the case today.

More later -- but we shouldn't allow corruption scandals and other silly posturing on Sunday morning shows to distract us from the reality that we are on a quite negative trajectory in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) right now -- and we need whopping game-changing moves there that are as significant, if not more, than challenges about America's auto sector.

-- Steve Clemons

Travel Update: In Pittsburgh today -- off to see the Andy Warhol Museum and then Mt. Washington. In Washington, DC Monday. Plan to be in New York on Tuesday.

I just posted a post that I have taken down. I got punk'd or whatever they call it.

Here is a brilliantly written "fictional" transcript -- that appeared on Daily Kos -- but I thought it was real.

Lots of profanity, but you will like it. Because it's not the real deal, I won't repost the whole transcript here.

But can't you imagine Rahm in a call just like this?

-- Steve Clemons

I'm down visiting with the ARCA Foundation Board at Musgrove on St. Simon's Island in Georgia after a couple of harsh travel days. Great ideas being bounced around here on how to help animate better public policy and policy activism. Very impressive people here.

However, jet lag is robbing me of my consciousness -- and I must sleep. I just wanted to share this pic of a tree I encountered. It's a tree that has seen a lot.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Just after the election, the realization of Governor Palin's privilege to fulfill Senate vacancies drew gasps from liberal circles. The scenario that played out in the left's collective fear involved Sarah Palin, who had been banished back to Juneau after losing, appointing herself to Ted Stevens' seat, should the convicted felon win reelection. The thought was that the Senate Ethics Committee would likely refuse Stevens, thus opening the seat to Palin's discretion.

Mr. Smith -- err Mrs. Palin -- sends herself to Washington.

Alas, such fears have been allayed, in part because Alaska state law requires that a special election be held to fill the seat, but mostly because Stevens lost the race.

But there are only several states, including Wisconsin, Oregon and Alaska, that have stripped the power of Senate appointment from their governors and returned it to their publics.

So why not? Would it be that complicated to have votes to replace Hillary in New York, Biden in Delaware and Obama in Illinois?

Voting machines are still practically warm from November's go around.

I'm not sold on arguments that it would be too expensive and time-consuming of a process to have replacement elections. Each state party nominates a candidate; any third party candidates that can poll at a reasonable level can be included; have two debates, possibly a week apart, then hold elections before the end of January.

This isn't a complicated process -- and one that Illinois is already looking at to replace Rahm Emanuel. So why not Illinois; but, more importantly, why not everywhere?

This is one of the intricacies of our democracy that high schoolers stumble upon with disbelief. As unbelievable as Governor Blago's auction, is that we still have this system in place.

-- Brian Till

About a year ago, Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier in the Sudanese Civil War and rap artist for peace, performed at a DC nightclub. I was on crutches from a biking injury and hobbled to a space in the back. After months of sitting incapacitated at home, my life seemed grim - until I heard Emmanuel's story of a seven-year-old orphan with a gun in hand, fighting for revenge for the death of his mother.

That night, I danced on one leg and crutches until near collapse. I wasn't dancing because I suddenly realized the insignificance of my injury relative to his. I danced because after experiencing hell, Emmanuel Jal could still sing for peace and for the betterment of Africa.

Footage from that show was included in the new documentary, War Child, which chronicles his time as an orphan soldier with the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), his daring escape to Kenya, and a career as a musician and activist. The film shows for the last time Thursday at the E Street Cinema in Washington, DC. If it does well in Washington it may be taken to theaters across America.

The film weaves his childhood with his first return to Africa in 18 years. It shows the progression of his musical career and painful and awkward reunions with family members. It even shows his first hit music video shot in Nairobi, Kenya.

As Emmanuel's story spread, several UN workers who were stationed at a refugee camp in Ethiopia revealed they had film of Jal living in the camp as a young boy. Filmmakers obtained the footage and integrated it into the documentary. The UN workers took a particular interest in Emmanuel Jal and filmed him in school, singing with friends, and talking about his dreams of becoming a pilot. In a role no different from today, he was a spokesperson for his people.

Over two million people died in the Sudanese Civil War. For every one Emmanuel Jal, there are hundreds of thousands who never escaped or did not survive. In this way, the War Child is not Emmanuel, but all African children ensnared in civil conflict.

-- Sam Sherraden

Last night, I took this picture at the grand plaza at Concorde in Paris. I'm now flying to Chicago, and then to Jacksonville, and then to. . .

Soon, it will end.

On the trip, I've been thinking about how undefined and blunt the word "corruption" is. What Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich did seems to me to be the most crass, gross kind of corruption. But it's different than the corruption of a Tom DeLay.

And I've been thinking about the useful sides of corruption in failed states and lesser developed nations. There seems to me to be a substantial difference between the type of corruption we saw historically in the Philippines and Vietnam when under American and French stewardship and the corruption in Japan and South Korea -- or the kind of corruption China is orchestrating in African states in which it is doing business.

I'd be interested in any thoughtful commentary by others on this subject.

Off to catch a flight.

-- Steve Clemons

While traveling in Turkey last month, it occurred to me that a little empathy would go a long way toward repairing the United States' relationships with both our traditional allies in Europe and with states such as China, Russia, and Iran with which we have some substantially divergent interests. I am not talking about compassion or kindness, but realist foreign policy decision-making based on a sophisticated understanding of other countries' unique strategic calculuses.

Empathy might seem like a foreign concept to policy practitioners used to thinking in terms of the harsh realities of an anarchic international system characterized by realpolitick, the pursuit of self-interest, and ruthless competition. However, the importance of empathy, properly understood as "the capacity to recognize or understand another's state of mind or emotion," flows logically from the centrality of self-interest to power politics.

Executing an empathetic foreign policy means both appreciating other countries' perspectives and understanding how our words and deeds affect their behaviors. In other words, empathy must be part of both our foreign policy development and our approach.

The Bush administration's greatest failure to empathize in the Turkish context was its inability to appreciate that even a successful overthrow of the Baathist regime in Iraq was likely to result in greater autonomy for Iraqi Kurds and instability along Turkey's southeastern border. It was this fact, rather than anti-Americanism or weak knees, that was the decisive factor in the Turkish parliament's decision on March 1, 2003 to prohibit U.S. forces from using its territory to open a northern front against Saddam.

We also need to understand that the manner in which we engage with other states matters. For example, when I met with Republican People's Party (CHP) second-in-command Onur Oymen, he emphasized the need for Turkey and the United States to "think together." That way, even when we cannot agree, we will understand.

Too often, U.S. policy under the Bush administration has been characterized by what former Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris has termed "exploitative myopia," meaning that we only talk to other countries when we need something from them (Iraq war, Russia-Georgia war in the case of Turkey). But a true strategic partnership is more than just a functional relationship during times of crisis. We need to nurture our global partnerships and remain aware of other countries' unique sets of interests, constraints, ambitions, and fears.

Incoming Secretary of Commerce Bill Richardson seems to get this. He said last year with regard to Iran that, "In my dealings with North Korea, and with other hard-line governments around the world, I have learned that a basic level of respect for - and understanding of - your adversary is crucial for agreements to be reached...we need to recognize [Iran's] national pride and its own perceptions of threats to its security."

I hope that the rest of Obama's team is on the same page.

--Ben Katcher

I'm currently sitting in the United Airlines lounge at Washington Dulles Airport -- about to fly to Paris. I will be meeting some TWN readers over there.

Coincidentally, Francis Fukuyama is sitting here too -- going to the same conference I am. . .and to punctuate that I plan to read his latest blog post, "A New Era," which I have not read yet.

Here is an interesting section that caught my eye first:

There are three core Reaganite ideas that need to be reformulated or discarded altogether if the United States is to navigate the current crisis and restore its credibility in the new era.

The first has to do with deregulation and the role of the government in the economy more broadly. The Wall Street collapse and the big recession we are heading into occurred for reasons intrinsic to the Reagan model, that is, because the government had permitted the emergence of an enormous, wholly unregulated shadow finance sector under the belief that this sector would be self-correcting.

Financial market liberalization had proven highly dangerous in any number of earlier cases, most notably the Asian economic crisis of 1997-98 and the Swedish banking collapse of the early 1990s, but these warning signs were not heeded and no one imagined that this could happen to the United States itself. In this the Democrats were fully complicit, not just in their support for loan expansion by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but in Clinton Treasury Secretaries who pushed financial market liberalization on the developing world.

The current crisis of course has many other causes, such as the more than $5 trillion of excess savings pouring into the country from China and other Asian countries after 2002, but the idea that history was on the side of ever-expanding deregulation was ultimately an important cause of the collapse.

The Reagan-era joke, "Hi, I'm from the government and I want to help" doesn't sound so ironic in light of the Fed and Treasury's heroic efforts to keep the economy from walking further off a cliff.

More soon.

-- Steve Clemons

With oil now below $45 a barrel, and Merrill Lynch projecting that it'll drop to $25 in the next year, I think it's worth glancing around at those economies that'll be ravaged if these trend lines continue.

Early in the recent oil spike, the World Bank lauded producer states for taking wiser steps with profits than they had amidst past booms. Namely, using profits to bolster basic macro-economic tenets, like reducing debt and growing other spheres of the economy.

But Russia's budget for 2009 requires oil to sell at $95 a barrel to break even, Venezuela at $60, Iran between $55 and $60. Many producer states, it seems, have fallen into an old trap, expecting booms to last longer than they actually will. Let it be granted that those forecasts seem modest given the $147 high witnessed last summer.

The most common refrain I've heard from energy folks is that an OPEC cut will bring oil up to $60, but not for long. Back down somewhere toward $30 is what most forecast for the early months of 2009.

With US demand down 6.2 percent on the year, and unlikely to rebound, it's difficult to foresee cartel states balancing books this year.

The most pedestrian conclusion is to believe that struggling domestic spheres will lead to more reckless acts in the international sphere. That Iran and Russia, attempting to turn inner angst against an outer foe, will become all the more boisterous and rogue. But it's difficult to imagine these states taking more aggressive tacks then those that which they're already on. I wonder if we might, ironically, see the opposite: domestic aggression combined with a softening toward the international society.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, facing elections in June, is in a very tight spot, grappling with 27 percent inflation in addition to the fallout in the oil market. He's already sacked two major economic officials, and plans to unveil a new economic plan in coming days.

Steps toward a softening with the US would significantly bolster his position, and could yield lifting of some of the restrictions that have crippled the economy.

The New York Times had an interesting piece yesterday on Uralkali, a Russian mining company that's fighting to avoid hostile takeover by the state. The case looks to be an example of the Kremlin -- in concert with Vladamir Putin's view that the nation was remiss to privatize natural resources in the 1990's -- searching for new sources of state revenue.

Like with Iran, building a new security status quo with the Obama administration -- one that respects Russia's strengths and eases Russian nervousness over a missile shield -- could provide serious domestic capital for Medvedev.

So, might we see something quite counterintuitive? Downturn accompanied by softening? Time will tell.

-- Brian Till

(photo credit: Lou Linwei for The New York Times)

The U.S. government is about to kick $15 billion over to the U.S. auto industry. And what we have seen with all of the bailout cases thus far -- from AIG to Citibank -- is that that amount is probably just a down payment on a future bigger draw.

Michael Moore has compellingly argued that the best way to save the American auto industry is to force it to choke on its mistakes and bad management -- and change. In a public letter, Moore has offered the shocking truth that anyone could buy the entire American auto industry for less than $3 billion -- and U.S. taxpayers are about to pump 5 times that into the uncompetitive sector.

And on top of that -- there is NOTHING in the current outlines of the auto bailout package that requires the auto industry to keep jobs in the U.S. This money can go to help them manage their facilities abroad -- in lower wage countries -- while facilities continue to shut down in the U.S. with jobs shifted overseas.

In fact, despite some minor verbal, non-binding assurances from the auto chiefs that American taxpayer funds would not be applied to offshoring activities, there are no deals, no guarantees at all -- and if faced with a much higher, less efficient production base in the U.S. compared to cheaper platforms elsewhere -- this bailout money could in fact be financing a new major offshoring trend.

Even Paul Krugman alluded to this in his Stockholm remarks accepting his Nobel Prize, suggesting that gravitational forces are going to unwind Detroit's auto sector, no matter what Obama does. He said "the concentration of the industry around Detroit would disappear."

Obama's pre-government team in collaboration with Bush's outgoing economic officials are trying to diminish the sense of crisis in key sectors in the economy by guaranteeing loans and promising huge cash infusions. . .but, there are 'smart' ways to help move industry in new directions and then there is dumb spending.

Not dealing with the question of a new "social contract" inside the U.S. when taxpayer dollars are being pumped into the auto sector is a major mistake.

-- Steve Clemons

The New York Times offered a strong critique of one of George W. Bush's exit interviews -- and Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley has just issued his protestations.

The Times offered this powerful punch:

It was skin crawling to hear him tell Mr. Gibson that the thing he will really miss when he leaves office is no longer going to see the families of slain soldiers, because they make him feel better about the war. But Mr. Bush's comments about his decision to invade Iraq were a "mistakes were made" rewriting of history and a refusal to accept responsibility to rival that of Richard Nixon.

At one point, Mr. Bush was asked if he wanted any do-overs. "The biggest regret of the presidency has to have been the intelligence failure in Iraq," he said. "A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction" were cause for war.

After everything the American public and the world have learned about how Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney manipulated Congress, public opinion and anyone else they could bully or lie to, Mr. Bush is still acting as though he decided to invade Iraq after suddenly being handed life and death information on Saddam Hussein's arsenal.

The truth is that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had been chafing to attack Iraq before Sept. 11, 2001. They justified that unnecessary war using intelligence reports that they knew or should have known to be faulty. And it was pressure from the White House and a highly politicized Pentagon that compelled people like Secretary of State Colin Powell and George Tenet, the Central Intelligence director, to ignore the counter-evidence and squander their good names on hyped claims of weapons of mass destruction.

Stephen Hadley offers in his statement the definitive dismissal of Vice President Cheney's continuing under-the-breath grumblings that Sadam Hussein did have weapons of mass destruction stockpiled, but he then rejects the Time's claims that the Bush/Cheney team pressured the intelligence community to generate cause for a war they wanted.

In a statement issued from his office today, Hadley writes:

Sunday's New York Times contains an editorial expressing inaccurate and incomplete statements on pre-war intelligence and the war in Iraq.

While the President has repeatedly acknowledged the mistakes in the pre-war intelligence, there is no support for the Times' claim that the President and his national security team "knew or should have known [the intelligence] to be faulty" or that "pressure from the White House" led to particular conclusions. Nothing in the many inquiries conducted into these matters supports the view of the Times' Editorial Board. Indeed, the independent Silberman-Robb Commission and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that no political pressure was brought to bear on the Intelligence Community.

As the President has stated, he regrets the intelligence was wrong, but it was intelligence that members of Congress, foreign governments as well as the Administration all believed to be accurate. Working with Congress, the President has since put in place a number of intelligence reform measures to try to ensure that such mistakes do not happen again.

While Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, he was a threat, and his removal has opened the door to a democratic Iraq in the heart of the Middle East that is an ally of the United States.

The New York Times continues to have difficulty acknowledging the undeniable success of the President's decision to surge an additional 30,000 troops into Iraq. Because of the surge, Iraq is a more stable and secure country. It is the success of the surge that is allowing American troops to withdraw from Iraq and return home with a record of heroic service and still unheralded success.

I have two quick points.

First, Richard Perle told me in October 2002 that "we would not find WMDs in Iraq." Richard Perle said this to me in a conversation which I have written about before -- and at that point, Perle was still very much a part of the inner circle of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and other fellow travelers. We have many others who have since made clear that the administration cherry-picked intelligence that fit pre-held biases towards war.

Secondly, Hadley's justification of the invasion of Iraq on the basis of removing a bad leader and seeding some elements of democratic society is wrong-headed.

America does not have unlimited resources to topple the world's bad leaders and engage in unlimited nation building. Thus, traditionally America has had to depend on a complex array of tools to apply leverage here and there to achieve outcomes that we and the world need.

By invading a mostly boxed-in nation and displacing a rational, self-dealing thug -- we have undermined our ability in many other parts of the world to affect the calculations of other thuggish leaders who will not trust American rationality. They will see an America that has tilted towards justice crusades no matter what the costs, and this assessment in turn will make their behavior less predictable and more dangerous.

Hadley makes as clear as I have seen it a Bush administration embrace of an "emotional war" -- one that undermined America's core interests and which had repercussions globally for how other states viewed us and our behavior.

The Iraq War is a total disaster in that it has made America look small, limited, incapable of achieving its objectives, and as a state run by emotional whims and not serious strategists.

Hadley's statement only further justifies the overall assessment of the New York Times.

-- Steve Clemons

What else can be said about Sean Penn other than that he is an unbelievably extraordinarily gifted actor with a sense of self and social conscience matched by very few in Hollywood.

I was totally captivated by his ability to channel Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician elected to major political office in the United States, and to to just become him on the screen. The themes of Gus van Sant's brilliant film titled Milk are rolling around in my head, stuck there -- clearly, loudly relevant today.

San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and his political network helped definitively beat a social conservative-designed anti-gay referendum in California known as Proposition 6. Had Harvey Milk been alive today, I don't think we would have seen California give its nod to the discriminatory referendum, Proposition 8, that targets and bans same sex marriages.

My hunch is that either Sean Penn will now get the best actor Oscar at the Academy Awards -- and/or the film Milk will win. Hollywood should have done more to stop Proposition 8. I should have. We all should have -- but Hollywood and the performance community in my view probably feels some guilt for not having united in a more powerful force to stop the anti-gay machinery that the referendum proponents were able to put together.

So, Milk will win something big -- and should.

But on the darker side of performances, I have seen no actors reach the depths (or heights?) that Heath Ledger did as Joker in The Dark Knight.

Spencer Ackerman in an insightful review depicted the battle in this latest and darkest Batman to be one between Dick "willing to do anything to win" Cheney as Batman and a criminal in the form of the Joker who wants to kill and destroy just because he can. The Joker, according to Ackerman, was a metaphor for al Qaeda.

Whatever was animating Heath Ledger in his art, however -- his performance convinced me of an innovative, brilliant evil that also rattles around in my thoughts a lot.

Can both Sean Penn and Heath Ledger win?

Can we have one Oscar for the Dark Side? and one for the, well, Good Side?

-- Steve Clemons

This has been a good year for policy books -- particularly ones that I think have moved the policy needle in better directions than they have been going.

The Washington Post has just published its roster of "Best Books of 2008."

Many of the books that the Post has highlighted are on the best book lists of the New York Times -- scoring big time Northeast corridor support. I haven't seen a Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, or Chicago Tribune list yet -- but it would be great if my book project with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and David Ignatius scored in other parts of the country as well.

Of particular note to me from this new Washington Post roster are:

Foreign Policy

America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy by Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, and David Ignatius. (This book was a joint project of the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program which I direct and Basic Books.) (Here is a program I moderated with Brezinski and Scowcroft.)

The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew J. Bacevich (Here is a set of excerpted Bacevich comments at an excellent book salon hosted by Fire Dog Lake with Bacevich.)

Politics

Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman (see my conversation with the author -- one hour program including Gellman and Steve Coll and alternatively 5-minute clip)

They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons by Jacob Heilbrunn (here is a transcript of a session I moderated with the author at Fire Dog Lake)

The World

The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper (This is a five minute interview I did with Helene Cooper -- and this is a great one hour program she did at the New America Foundation)

Terrorist-Related

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll (Steve Coll is my colleague and President of the New America Foundation. Here is a video of Coll, Peter Bergen and myself talking about this book.)

The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How The War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer (Here is a video file of my interview with Jane Mayer)

Business and Economics

High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families by Peter Gosselin (Here is a video of a program I did with Peter Gosselin at the New America Foundation.)

All of these are eye-opening treatments of important political and policy issues. Any (or all) of these would make great holiday gifts.

-- Steve Clemons

It is painfully clear that we are not "winning" in Afghanistan, and that we need a new strategy.

While President-elect Obama has carefully calibrated and qualified his "timetable" strategy for Iraq, he has unequivocally promised to send more troops and more resources to fight the "good war" in Afghanistan.

Today's front-page story in the New York Times explains that General David D McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan, is planning to deploy the "vast majority" of the 4,000 new troops arriving in January to protect Kabul, rather than to fight the insurgency in the tribal areas. This sounds like a tactical stopgap measure to protect President Karzai's extraordinarily weak government, rather than a strategic shift.

The Obama administration needs to be clear with the American people about what our strategic goals in Afghanistan are, what tactics his administration intends to employ to achieve those goals, and how this conflict fits into our broader national security portfolio.

He needs to explain why sending more troops and more money to Afghanistan - while we are hemorrhaging jobs at home and face a multiplicity of challenges abroad - is an appropriate use of our scarce resources.

We can't afford any more open-ended, open-wallet, "trust me" wars.

--Ben Katcher

I recently hosted Helene Cooper for a discussion about her best-selling book, The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of A Lost African Childhood.

What's above is a short clip I did for the blog, but this is a one hour video of an interview discussion I had with Helene Cooper at the New America Foundation.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Tevi Troy's business card reads "The Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services."

That's right. He's not one of five deputies. He's the second highest ranking guy in the Department.

Tevi Troy is smart, modest, self-effacing, and an author of an excellent book, Intellectuals and the American Presidency: Philosophers, Jesters or Technicians?

And I wanted to share this picture I snapped of him -- way back in the back of the plane -- flying economy class back from Brussels to Washington, DC. He didn't have an "economy plus" seat even though many of those were open. Indeed, lots of business class seats were open.

I'm not one who thinks that Ambassadors and Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries ought to be flying around the world first class -- but on long flights, I think that these hard working civil servants ought to get a break now and then. He had about the worst seat United Airlines could have assigned him.

I know one of United's lobbyists in DC -- a former top Democratic party House staff member -- and he flies first class wherever he goes on the airline's dime.

Not that United needs to hand out leg room and free cookies in comfy chairs to senior government officials -- but geez, the Deputy Secretary ought to at least get 'economy plus' seating.

To his credit, Tevi Troy didn't utter a word of complaint. He worked the entire flight.

Let's see where United Airlines seats incoming Obama administration HHS Secretary-nominee Tom Daschle's Deputy in the next administration. . .

-- Steve Clemons

I think you'll enjoy this five minute chat with Barton Gellman, author of the best-selling Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, a book which I think makes a great holiday gift.

A video of an event discussion I held with New America Foundation president Steve Coll and Bart Gellman is available here.

Gellman really has produced the best profile on Cheney, his deputy David Addington, and their influence yet written.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm just back from Brussels -- pretty tired, or jet-lagged technically. Next week -- Paris, California, Georgia. . .

The pups haven't said hello as a threesome lately, so greetings from Oakley, Annie and Buddy - a family of amazing weimaraners.

More when I wake up.

-- Steve Clemons

As I'm sure the Obama Administration transition team is aware, Poznan, Poland is currently hosting a very important UN-sponsored climate change conference. At stake is nothing less than the next round of emissions reduction commitments (a Kyoto successor) -- which Barack Obama has said he wants the U.S. to participate in.

If they haven't already, the Obama folks need to make contact with the U.S. delegation in Poznan immediately. One would think that the U.S. Del. would take the initiative itself, but I'm getting word that they feel that the ball is in Obama's court.

Apparently, current U.S. delegation members -- mostly career people with honorable intentions and a willingness to continue to serve (with some notable exceptions) -- are waiting for the call. This is no time to fight about protocol, or who is supposed to call who. It's time to start turning the ship around.

Things are going to slow down for the weekend and then pick up again on Tuesday. The framework that comes out of this week can still be quite ambitious and, at the same time, workable in the U.S. and in the Senate. The Obama people have from now until Tuesday to make their goals for Poznan clear, but the sooner, the better.

Obviously, the global emissions goal should come up in this conversation, along with adaptation and a host of other issues on the negotiating table. One thing the Obama people might want to articulate: this is no time to celebrate the "success" of the Major Emitters process (MEM), which President Bush convened last year mostly as a talk shop. Whether or not an ongoing dialogue of major emitters should continue parallel to the UN process is a reasonable question. But the Bush and Sarkozy Administrations are actually planning a party to celebrate its success. This should beg the question: in what way exactly has the MEM succeeded?

Sadly, this celebration is the symptom, not the disease. It's a symptom of relative indifference to the real and tragic consequences of climate change. It's a symptom of incompetence in policy matters. And it's a symptom of conference-itis, which tends to infect members of both parties, civil society, business, and everyone who microscopically views negotiations and meetings as ends in and of themselves.

Obama folks: if you haven't done so already, please pick up the phone. Your input is needed.

-- Scott Paul

Just arrived in Brussels and in the hotel lobby ran into the very smart Tevi Troy who is Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. This will probably be his last European Ministerial meeting during this stint of government service.

Troy used to be George W. Bush's deputy domestic policy adviser and wrote a terrific book titled Intellectuals and the American Presidency: Philosophers, Jesters or Technicians?

During the campaign when McCain/Palin were ahead of Obama/Biden for a short period, I wondered to myself what kind of addendum Tevi would add to his book about the Alaska Governor and her interaction with intellectuals.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

I just heard that Matt Cooper commented on MSNBC Live that Secretary of Commerce-designate Bill Richardson is the guy to lead on Cuba. I think Cooper nailed it--the outgoing governor of New Mexico it is a natural fit with an elegant dash of poetic justice rarely found in Washington.

Richardson, many will remember, was famous for his one-on-one negotiations with nasty international characters, including Saddam Hussein and John Garang of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and traveled to Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea to handle tough negotiations on behalf of American interests.

Even Republicans agree he's got the skills. Assistant Secretary Tom Shannon, who heads up Western Hemisphere affairs for Secretary Rice at the State Department had this to say in a Reuters interview about Gov. Richardson's role in freeing American hostages in Venezuela earlier this year: "Governor Richardson is a skilled negotiator with a lot of experience in this field and I am sure he has a lot to offer in terms of understanding possible resolutions of the hostage situation." That will come in handy as many believe our entire Latin America policy is being held hostage by our failed Cuba policy.

But the poetic justice is really that Gov. Richardson will be replacing Carlos Gutierrez as Commerce Secretary. As the highest-ranking Cuban American in the Bush administration, he's been the great defender of the embargo at home and around the world. He even lobbied European ministers, unsuccessfully, to stop the EU from ending their remaining sanctions against the island nation that now exports doctors, not revolution. Secretary Gutierrez also co-chairs the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, a creation of the Bush administration that coincided with the administration's tightening of the Cuban-American travel restrictions that, in turn, heralded the end of the unified Cuban-American voting bloc in South Florida.

In fact it is thanks to the over-reach of Secretary Gutierrez that Gov. Richardson will be able to go to Havana knowing that domestic politics - not to mention U.S. national interests - are on his side: Obama won Florida with only 35% of the Cuban American vote and a poll released just today says that anyway, 55% of Cuban Americans in South Florida want an end to the embargo completely.

Gov. Richardson will certainly benefit from the mission, should he in fact be offered it. In Congress, he led the House Hispanic Caucus and worked hard to bring the Latino community into the Obama camp. So look for an early negotiated trade with Cuba around the "Wet-Foot/Dry-Foot" policy that allows Cubans and only Cubans who elude the Coast guard or Border Patrol and set foot on American soil get fast-tracked to citizenship. No other ethnic group gets that treatment, and it's a thorn in the side of the Latino community that both Richardson and Obama can reap a lot of capital from plucking.

Welcome back to Washington, Mr. Secretary.

--Patrick Doherty

This blog post has not been written by Steven Clemons or any member of The Washington Note team. It is written by someone who really does deserve a very top spot in Obama Land but is sitting pensively waiting for a call while trying to pretend he/she is not.

Waiting for the Call. . .

I can't tell you who I am. Like you, I'm hoping to get a political appointment in the Obama administration. I'm trying to project the aloof and elite appearance of a soon-to-be-announced Schedule C.

But the truth is, I'm just like you. I toiled in the opposition for 8 years. I supported Barack Obama. And I'm now officially desperate to get a plum job in the administration. So, like you, I wait for that long-lost important contact make "the call" and offer me the job of my dreams.

But until then, I wait in a state of suspended ambition. I too have the dreams featuring, in no apparent order, Vice President Elect Joe Biden, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton and, yes, even the man himself, President-Elect Obama.

Sometimes in these dreams they offer me a job, and sometimes they say they can't offer me a job because they can't find my resume amidst the other 300,000 on www.change.gov. I wake in a cold sweat.

Like you, I keep a secret "A list" of positions I would kill for, including all manner of ambassador slots, sub-secretary -ships and senior director positions.

I have my secret "B list" of fall back positions I would also kill for, including senior advisor, special assistant, and even the Deputy Assistant Secretary-ship. Of course, I tell almost no one about these lists.

If people saw the B list, that might reduce my chances of getting an A list job. And if they saw the A list, people might think I was too arrogant, too demanding, and too self-delusional to serve in the administration. It takes a lot of skill to project A-list, aspire to B-list, and secretly wonder if you're on any list at all.

Like you, I have started to act like a person in the know. I never mention except to my closest friends that no one from the transition team has called me. When anyone mentions the transition in conversation, I nod silently and knowingly. I start every sentence about politics by saying "I am not officially part of the transition but . . . ."

I have avoided my usual press calls, fearful that the wrong quote will kill my chances at any position on the A or B lists, and hopeful that people remember my past appearances on CNN.

I read the lists of names on the transition teams, making mental notes of people I know well, people I pretend to know well, and the dreaded category of people I wish I had made the effort to know well before they were on the transition team. I check to make sure I have all of their e-mail addresses and send them a note congratulating them and offering to do anything I can to help.

A good day for me is when I resist the urge to e-mail the same 5 people I do know on the transition team again, congratulating them and offering to do anything I can to help.

Like you, I am getting phone calls from people even less connected and in the know than I am. I try to offer them advice, without being too obvious about my lack of connections and without being too obvious when I discourage them from going after any of the positions I want. "Perhaps the Hill would be a good place to look" I tell them. "There are sure to be lots of good jobs there (that I don't want)."

Like you, I am convinced that everyone I know in Washington is in the know about the transition and is being considered for some great job I would be great at. I am shocked when I find out that they too are not getting any phone calls and are as filled with angst and self-doubt as I am.

Why aren't we getting the call? Why did I do all of that volunteer work on the campaign? What did I do wrong? How can they treat me this way? Most importantly, don't they know who I am? (Literally?)

Of course, it should come as no surprise that there are many people in the same boat. We moved to Washington to serve our country, and now is our time.

And while some of our transition angst is driven by ego, the overriding impulse is a desire to serve our country at a time of great challenges . . . . oh wait, that's my phone. Gotta run.

-- Anonymous

Anonymous is a highly accomplished policy veteran in Washington who is clearly on the edge while waiting for that call. . .

Apparently, John Bolton isn't the only one who didn't get the message that he's irrelevant.

Harlan Watson, chief climate negotiator under the Bush Administration, is up to his old tricks. This time, he's not just distorting science -- he's misrepresenting Barack Obama, dismissing prospects for progress, and ignoring the tone of his own boss, all in an official diplomatic capacity representing the United States of America.

According to a friend who's in Poznan, Poland for this year's conference on the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol, Watson told the press that Obama's position on getting out in front of developing countries on climate change is identical to Bush's. He said that Obama has been "silent" on the international dimensions of climate climate change. He proclaimed that there would be no Congressional action "anytime soon." Finally, Watson generally derided the prospects for international agreement, saying consensus on long-term targets and baseline years won't be forthcoming.

All this despite insistence from his boss, Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky, that the current team plans to politely defer everything important to the next administration. Watson, who was first installed at ExxonMobil's request, doesn't seem to care.

Fortunately, Watson's destructive comments are falling on deaf ears. So far, America's partners are going right on ahead with negotiations, plodding towards an agreement for the next emissions reduction commitment period and discussing how to make the existing regime work.

This is a big week in Poznan -- negotiators are cobbling together the framework for the "long term vision," which may contain a global emissions goal for the principals to negotiate next week. I understand that Ban-Ki Moon is also scheduled to appear. But in the meanwhile, a loose cannon is firing. Hopefully the damage can be controlled.

Stay tuned -- more to come.

-- Scott Paul

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

Tonight, she will be speaking from 6:45 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.

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

She is worth spending time with.

-- Steve Clemons

Today Tuesday, 2 December, from 12:30 pm til 1:45 pm EST, I am 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.

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

This event will STREAM LIVE at The Washington Note starting at 12:30 pm DC time.

-- Steve Clemons

This morning, some time after 8:00 am EST, I'll be discussing President-elect Obama's national security team with Amy Goodman.

Journalist and author Robert Dreyfuss will also be on the show.

Later this morning, I'll be giving a talk on US-Japan-Russia issues at the Nixon Center in DC. . .

. . .then hosting the Washington Post's Barton Gellman on his new book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, at the New America Foundation at 12:15 pm. DC dwellers are invited to join us. And this event will STREAM LIVE here on line from 12:15 - 1:45 pm EST.

. . .and THEN, the coolest person in the White House press corps.....Helene Cooper, White House Correspondent of the New York Times this evening -- with wine -- at the New America Foundation. The public is welcome, but do RSVP here. This event will also STREAM LIVE here from 6:30 pm - 7:45 pm EST.

Cooper will discuss her memoir, The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood.

Tomorrow evening, I'm off to Brussels. . .for this.

Busy times.

-- Steve Clemons

Tonight, a bit after 6 p.m. EST, I will be on Rachel Maddow's Air America show talking about terrorism in Mumbai as well as Barack Obama's national security team unveiled today.

Then, later this evening, I'll be chatting about Obama's big foreign policy hires on Keith Olbermann's Countdown.

And for those who want more on the dangerous escalation between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai terror drama, my New America Foundation colleague and New Yorker staff writer Steve Coll will be on the Charlie Rose Show tonight.

-- Steve Clemons

Hillary Clinton is going to add yet another chapter to her incredibly fascinating life -- lawyer, feminist, first lady, healthcare diva, U.S. senator, and now secretary of state at a time when America's foreign policy and national security positions are dramatically eroded.

I think the Clinton we saw during the campaign will give herself, her views and approach to complex national security challenges a "makeover." She's going to push women's rights, democracy, human rights, poverty reduction and the like -- but I think she is going to be party to a realist-tilting, crafty Obama-led, Bob Gates-designed, Clinton-out-front process to get a strategic shift in U.S. foreign policy. We applaud that.

James Glassman, her undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, has some ideas on how to move her agenda forward -- and she should consider using a lot of the tools that Glassman and his team are developing.

-- Steve Clemons

I have become an increasingly mesmerized fan of social networking sites like Facebook and vehicles like Twitter in changing and essentially rewiring the "connectivity of people to ideas."

James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and successor in that role to Karen Hughes, has also been thinking about networks and technology in how he thinks about facilitating dialogues at home and abroad about violence, self determination, and civic involvement.

Glassman's talk today at the New America Foundation is titled "Public Diplomacy 2.0".

We should have called this meeting "Facebook/Twitter Diplomacy". I will chair the meeting -- and it will stream live here between 10:00 am and 11:30 am EST.

For those interested, this may be one of the projects that Glassman discusses. This was sent to me by Columbia Law School professor and former State Department Policy Planning Staff Deputy Director Matthew Waxman.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm going to make a list of books here -- some out recently -- and some others that I think are just great reads for people to consider picking up over the holidays. I'm going to make this an ongoing list as I get so many requests from people for books to read.

So this will start a core list, and I'll add over time.

I'm going to first suggest America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and David Ignatius. This book was high up in Michiko Kakutani's Top Ten for 2008 and the American Strategy Program of the New America Foundation helped produce this book for the New America Foundation/Basic Books imprint series.

Another Kakutani pick was my colleague Steve Coll's The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century. Think you know how to really research an issue? See what detail Coll can get into. . .

I'm then going to suggest a number of books of friends and others with close relations either to me personally, or to The Washington Note, or to the New America Foundation. Many of these books, though not all, were mentioned on the New York Times Notable Books of 2008 list.

Here are books that people should read, some new and some old (in no particular order):

1. America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft, and David Ignatius

2. Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency by Barton Gellman

3. House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper

4. The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in an American Century by Steve Coll

5. Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World by Samantha Power

6. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein

7. Fixing Global Finance by Martin Wolf

8. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer

9. The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means by George Soros

10. They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons by Jacob Heilbrunn

11. Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East by Robin Wright

12. The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria

13. The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic by Chalmers Johnson

14. The Consequences of the Bush/Cheney Government Ignoring the Powell Doctrine by Colin Powell [I wish!] (actually, General Powell has no such book out under this name. I just wish he would write one along these lines -- and I know that shortly after January 20th, Colin Powell is going to be working on his own book)

15. The Second World: How Emerging Powers are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-First Century by Parag Khanna

16. The American Way of Strategy: U.S. Foreign Policy and the American Way of Life by Michael Lind

17. The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of the War on Terror by George Soros

18. The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew Bacevich

19. Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower by Zbigniew Brzezinski

20. Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician by Anthony Everitt

21. Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World by Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman

22. Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi

23. Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation by Barbara Slavin

24. The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran by Hooman Majd

25. Obama's Challenge: America's Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency by Robert Kuttner

26. Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values by Philippe Sands

27. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang

28. Normalizing Japan: Politics, Identity, and the Evolution of Security Practice by Andrew Oros

29. America: Our Next Chapter -- Tough Questions, Straight Answers by Chuck Hagel and Peter Kaminsky

30. Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia by Richard Samuels

31. The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace by Aaron David Miller

I'll keep adding to and refreshing this list.

Happy reading.

-- Steve Clemons