Jacob Heilbrunn, author of the soon-to-be-released They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, has a devastating critique of the mutually exploitive relationship between co-czar of the neocon establishment, Norman Podhoretz, and former New York mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani titled "Norman's Conquest."

There are two clips in particular that I want to highlight, but I highly recommend reading the entire piece.

First on neither Podhoretz or Giuliani having any substantial foreign policy experience at all:

In June, the former New York City mayor named Podhoretz a senior advisor to his campaign. It is no ceremonial post. Podhoretz speaks regularly with the candidate and trumpets their association.

"As far as I can tell there is very little difference in how [Giuliani] sees the war and how I see it," Podhoretz told the New York Observer in October. And indeed there isn't much daylight between what Podhoretz has written and what Giuliani is saying on the stump. Podhoretz has judged the war in Iraq an "amazing success"; Giuliani in November declared that he "never had any doubt" about the wisdom of invading Iraq.

On Iran, Podhoretz has said, "The choice before us is either bomb those nuclear facilities or let them get the bomb." Giuliani told an audience in October: "If I'm president of the United States, I guarantee you we will never find out what [Iran] will do if they get nuclear weapons, because they're not going to get nuclear weapons."

As a foreign policy guru, Podhoretz is hardly an obvious choice for Giuliani. The mayor has virtually no direct foreign policy experience, and neither does Podhoretz -- he is an editor, polemicist, and literary critic who has never worked in government. Podhoretz is certainly a prominent hawk, and Giuliani needs hawks in his camp to help insulate him from attacks on the right, particularly from social conservatives.

But there are plenty of foreign policy heavyweights who could play that role, from Henry Kissinger to Robert Kagan. And if the candidate wished to put some distance between himself and the unpopular current occupant of the White House, Podhoretz is no help; his son-in-law, Elliott Abrams, is Bush's deputy national security adviser.

And then this exceedingly juicy exchange between Newsweek International editor and leading realist Fareed Zakaria and Podhoretz:

In short, arguing over the finer points of foreign policy doesn't especially interest Giuliani or, at this point, his advisor. Like George W. Bush, they don't do nuance, and both men are less about debate now than about attitude. Increasingly, Podhoretz has been making his points by resorting to tired analogies and questioning the character of his opponents.

Appearing with Fareed Zakaria on the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer in late October, Podhoretz said, "I want to say that I think the attitude expressed by Fareed Zakaria represents an irresponsible complacency that I think is comparable to the denial in the early '30s of the intentions of Hitler that led to what Churchill called an unnecessary war involving millions and millions of deaths that might have been averted if the West had acted early enough."

Zakaria responded, "Norman, perhaps instead of calling me names, you could just explain why the arguments are right or wrong."

Zakaria was wasting his breath. Real men don't explain. They seek to intimidate and cow their opponents into abject submission -- which is why Podhoretz and Giuliani were probably fated to join forces. In becoming Rudy's maven, Norman has made his greatest conquest.

Again, this is why I really hope, though doubt, that Giuliani wins the Republican nomination. There is no one better to have a genuine battle with over the future of this country's national security direction.

-- Steve Clemons

Michael Schiffer is The Washington Note's blogger for the Iowa Caucuses and is a resident of Iowa. He is a program officer in Policy Analysis and Dialogue at the Stanley Foundation based in Muscatine, Iowa -- and was previously senior national security adviser and legislative director in the Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Thanks Steve, for an overly kind introduction. One of the first things you learn watching campaigns out here, however, is to try to ratchet expectations down, not up, before you go on. . .That said, I'll do my best to try to provide some snapshots and insight, live from Iowa, for the next thirteen days. After that, we get to go back to being Idaho. Or is it Ohio. . .

The last time I ran into Governor Huckabee -- and yes, one of the wonders of living in Iowa is that we get to say things like that -- was over the summer, when I, preoccupied on my cell phone, came pretty close to knocking him over as he crossed the street in Muscatine (a small town on the Mississippi). At the time he seemed happy to have the attention, accidental and near injurious or otherwise.

Today in Coralville -- the big-box suburb of Iowa City -- was a slightly different story. The hotel room used for his "meet and greet" was overflowing, and filled with the sort of positive buzz and electricity that campaigns just can't buy. Huckabee is the breakout phenomenon of the 2008 campaign in Iowa (all apologies to Barack Obama and Ron Paul), and in the flesh here in Iowa its easy to see why.

I've seen Michael Schiffer smile -- and by way of this blog entry, I'm encouraging the Stanley Foundation to get a pic of him up showing some teeth.

Michael Schiffer was one of Senator Dianne Feinstein's superstar national security advisers and was her legislative director. He's now running the Asia program for the Iowa-based Stanley Foundation.

Through the Iowa Caucuses and perhaps after if I can convince him, he will be posting regularly on the political machinations as he sees them. He's an insightful and plugged-in political analyst and commentator.

Schiffer admits that he's out campaigning for Barack Obama now -- but he's temporarily housing a Clinton campaigner -- and he said he's been nice today to some Edwards, Biden, and Richardson partisans.

But more importantly, he just heard Mike Huckabee an hour ago -- and I'm anxious for his first post and thoughts on what he heard.

Michael, welcome to the team of The Washington Note and the Note Takers. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Senator Obama's campaign has amended some of what it sent my way on his experience with Europe and with European leaders.

Before I post that, I should add that I'm not absolutely sure that having a light slate on Europe is such a bad thing -- as long as it comes packaged with a commitment to get to know Europe well enough to do the hard slogging ahead on any number of major global challenges. Sometimes, those with too much experience in any area get bogged down in the weeds. And those with less experience can possibly move the lines around in more creative ways. But we need to see some evidence of that kind of potential wizardry if we are to overlook some deficits in on the ground experience (or should it be in the air?)

I'm hoping that Senator Obama -- who has been right on target in US-Cuba relations and where they might go -- might respond by talking more about opportunities to leapfrog out of today's mess into a different arena of global institutional, bi-national and multinational arrangements. I still feel that Europe and Japan need to be brought into a re-energized, re-organized global structure -- but that we need to find places to build in Russia, China, Iran, Brazil, India, Nigeria, Indonesia -- and other of the world's major population and power centers.

But the new news is that Barack Obama has. . .

met with PM Blair three times, and Sarkozy once (who was Minister of the Interior at the time)

Senator Obama and Senator Lugar stopped in London on the CODEL to Eastern Europe and met with PM Blair

Thanks much to Senator Obama's campaign staff for sharing this information -- and please note that my information posted before about Senator Obama meeting PM Tony Blair on the way back from Moscow should now be replaced by the note above that he met Blair on the way to Russia and Ukraine.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Senator John McCain just sent the following Christmas and holiday message to his supporters -- and I thought it worthwhile to post here.

It surfaced emotions I felt when I saw the brilliant and disturbing Alex Gibney directed film, Taxi to the Dark Side which opens nationally on January 11th. In the movie, you'll hear of horrible things our American guards did to detainees -- a great majority of whom were innocent in the facilities at Bergram and Abu Ghraib.

To give you some sense of the conflict in prison guards, here is a YouTube video of one of the US guards at Bagram, Damien Corsetti -- who I think is one of the good guys. Another film to see to understand about good guards vs. bad -- and how there are some who have been able to resist the manipulation of guards in unusual circumstances that Rumsfeld and Cheney deployed -- is Michael Tucker's The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair.

A Message from John McCain:

Christmas Story

As a POW, my captors would tie my arms behind my back and then loop the rope around my neck and ankles so that my head was pulled down between my knees. I was often left like that throughout the night.

One night a guard came into my cell. He put his finger to his lips signaling for me to be quiet, and then loosened my ropes to relieve my pain. The next morning, when his shift ended, the guard returned and retightened the ropes, never saying a word to me.

A month or so later, on Christmas Day, I was standing in the dirt courtyard when I saw that same guard approach me. He walked up and stood silently next to me, not looking or smiling at me.

After a few moments had passed, he rather nonchalantly used his sandaled foot to draw a cross in the dirt. We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas, even in the darkness of a Vietnamese prison camp. After a minute or two, he rubbed it out and walked away.

That guard was my Good Samaritan. I will never forget that man and I will never forget that moment. And I will never forget that, no matter where you are, no matter how difficult the circumstances, there will always be someone who will pick you up and carry you.

May you and your family have a blessed Christmas and Happy Holidays,

John McCain

I think McCain's message is heartfelt -- but I should add that had McCain's guard been a Buddhist, a Muslim, or an atheist -- this should all be about human kindness -- not tribal clustering around one religion or another.

-- Steve Clemons

For those who want to watch the daily ticks in who's up and who's up less in the early primaries, this may be useful news:

Reuters, C-SPAN and Zogby International have joined forces to poll Americans on the 2008 presidential election, starting with polls in the key U.S. presidential primary and caucus states.

The effort will kick off on Dec. 30 with daily tracking polls from Iowa ahead of that state's caucuses scheduled for Jan. 3. Daily tracking polls from New Hampshire will begin on Jan. 4 ahead of that state's Jan. 8 primary. The polling will continue through the general election in November.

All polls will be released at 7 a.m. EST across the major platforms of Reuters and C-SPAN. Full poll questionnaires and methodologies will be available on Zogby.com.

Not sure yet how much of this I will regularly cover. I may just wake up on January 3rd and see where things are that day. . .these caucuses and primaries are way too early.

-- Steve Clemons

John Edwards is surging on populist themes, but Matt Cooper thinks American business should not worry too much if he wins.

Edwards' Senior Economic Adviser Leo Hindery is mentioned in the Cooper article. I've had numerous discussions with Hindery -- who is not anti-global but is pro-American industry and pro-American middle class.

The real question that has to be struggled with at some point is whether the multinational corporation should receive benefits, access, privileges, and the imprimatur of being American if they turn out be tools of other nation states. I don't believe they should -- but in my book, this makes rational sense as a centrist American. If the populists think that way too, all the better.

-- Steve Clemons

The Times of London has picked up on the issue that Senator Obama has not convened a policy related hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Europe and added to this something I reported yesterday -- which was that Europe does not figure into Obama's travel profile.

Many people are wondering why any of this travel experience matters -- particularly a bunch of my Obama-supporting friends.

This debate started with the Boston Globe's endorsement of Obama in which it proffered a strange line:

America needs a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world, with all its perils and opportunities. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has this understanding at his core.

My friend and New America Foundation board member Fareed Zakaria furthered this debate in a direction I don't agree with -- by suggesting that identity trumps experience and expertise.

We've had a president who rules from the gut -- and it was a huge mistake for the nation to go with someone who lacked the experience and facility with global affairs that George W. Bush came to office with.

I want to be clear to friends on all sides of this political campaign that I know Barack Obama has international experience, but it is not wrong to note that there are deficits in the profiles of the people we are considering to live in the White House.

If I'm being asked to support Obama because of innate instinct, I refuse. I would say the same about Hillary Clinton if asked. What we need to know about all of these potential candidates is not only how they operate and work but what the basis of their experience is. Then, for me, I want to see some evidence that the candidate is thinking creatively about how to leapfrog out of today's national security and foreign policy morass into some more stable order that propels American and global interests back in a positive direction.

At the beginning of the John Bolton battle in which I played a substantial part, Barack Obama and Russ Feingold were two early holdouts in our uniting the Democratic caucus on the Foreign Relations Committee against him. After watching a video tape of John Bolton "losing it" on the subject of the UN, when Bolton said that one could take some ten floors out of the UN and no one would notice (in an angry, frustrated voice), Obama changed course and opposed Bolton. This impressed me -- but there was nothing innate in Obama's thinking.

Hillary Clinton, in contrast, might have leaned more toward a minority constituency in New York that was supportive of Bolton, and allowed the "identity" of the situation trump sensible policy. Clinton's people listened to many -- and just knew that when it came to shouldering responsibilities for the American people in the world's most important international institution, Bolton was the wrong person for the job.

I hate this debate about experience vs. identity in making this choice. Both candidates have strengths and weaknesses.

But with me, experience -- or demonstrating bold capacity to requisition that experience -- is the primary driver of my political support. Obama supporters, I hope, will drop this cult-ish promulgation of identity politics and will get back on the experience track.

Then, we can have a sensible discussion about the differences between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Joe Biden -- and the rest.

It still bothers me that Mike Huckabee has been to Europe and Obama hasn't.

-- Steve Clemons

P.S. I want to make one note about Senator Obama and European travel. According to the Times of London story, Barack Obama stopped in London for a quick stopover on the way back from Moscow. I was not given this information by Senator Obama's office, so I am not adding it as of yet. The official material from the Obama office did not include this trip and thus may need to be amended at some point. Steve Clemons

Barack Obama has often said that he would like to have Republicans serve in his Cabinet if elected President. I think that this is a very smart move -- as the only way to get back to results-producing government is to win over enough dissident Republicans to generate a new, workable political equilibrium.

Obama has mentioned Schwarzenegger, Richard Lugar and Chuck Hagel as possibilities for a government he might run. At the same time, Bloomberg may decide to shock everyone with his own presidential run -- and Hagel is the rumored frontrunner for that VP ticket.

Just to fill out a bit more of the travel picture on where leading presidential contenders (and vice presidential contenders) have been, I asked Senator Hagel for his travel details.

In this case, Hagel responded in the format I originally asked all of the candidates -- which was to share the regions of the world he had visited and the frequency.

Here are the results:

Senator Chuck Hagel - International Travel

Europe

2004, twice in 2005

Africa

2004 (May)

Asia (including South Asia and Southeast Asia; i.e. India/Pakistan)

twice in 2006

Middle East

2004, 2005, twice in 2007

Latin America

2005 (April)

It is interesting to note that Senator Hagel made the time to go to Latin America -- something missing in the profiles of Obama, Clinton, Romney, and Biden, although as First Lady, Hillary Clinton went to Latin America on numerous occasions.

-- Steve Clemons

On Facebook, of which I've become a fan, there is a Google interactive travel map titled "Cities I've Visited." I've ticked off 227 cities listed in 42 countries. Each place has a little pin in it noting Steve Clemons has been there.

But in my case, South America, Africa, and Central Asia are pretty big voids.

But what about the Presidential candidates. I asked all of the campaigns to send me their contender's travel roster for trips outside the US since 2004. I don't yet have all of the data, but I will keep working on it.

An early snap shot though has produced some gaps as stunning as my own record in semi-public view on Facebook.

The biggest void that caught my eye was that despite serving as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Europe, Barack Obama has not been there (unless we count Ukraine. . .but I'm not ready to do that yet) -- at least not recently. This was a bit of a follow-up to a piece I wrote the other day that Obama did not call any issue or policy oriented hearings in the Subcommittee during his tenure.

Laurie Rubiner, Legislative Director on Hillary Clinton's Senate Staff, is departing her position by the end of the year -- i.e., in two weeks.

Rubiner has been one of the reasons why Hillary Clinton's Senate legislative profile has been praised by so many. Clinton gets high marks from nearly everyone for how she has worked the levers of the Senate's institutional machinery to achieve policy and political traction.

Laurie Rubiner, a former senior health policy adviser to Senator John Chafee (R-RI) and was the first Director of the New America Foundation's Health Care Program, shared in an email that she was going to be the new Executive Director of a new policy center in Washington affiliated with the NGO, Malaria No More.

Rubiner is Hillary Clinton's long serving legislative director, having served for three years.

According to a friend, "she is working 100% until the very end. She is literally in Iowa at this very moment (today), doing surrogate work as one of Hillary Clinton's primary health care advisors." This friend who is close to the central nerve center of the Hillary Clinton operation stated:

It's no coincidence, and it was noticed in people who follow the issue, that Hillary Clinton announced $1 billion to cure malaria by 2012 only days after Laurie told Senator Clinton what she would be doing. . .

This is an excerpt from the email Rubiner shared with associates recently:

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

I wanted to let you know that at the end of the year I will be leaving the Clinton office to be Executive Director of a new policy center in Washington DC devoted to putting us on the path to eradicating malaria.

Affiliated with Malaria No More in New York, the Washington policy center will be tasked with building the political will and financial support necessary to end deaths from malaria, the number one killer of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa.

It has been an honor and a privilege to serve as Senator Clinton’s Legislative Director for the last three years, and I will miss her and her wonderful and extraordinarily capable staff. But this was an opportunity that I felt was a once in a lifetime chance to make a tremendous difference in the lives of millions of children and I simply could not pass it up. . .

Laurie Rubiner

Legislative Director

Office of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

I have previously written about Laurie Rubiner's formidable intellectual and policy skills -- and these were noted in a major profile of Rubiner and her influence on Hillary Clinton's health care plan in the New York Times. Not only was the profile interesting in profiling Clinton's legislative and health policy czar, it was refreshing to see that Hillary Clinton herself had the confidence to allow such a high profile piece to be done on a member of her staff.

There will no doubt be much speculation about what Rubiner's departure means for the Clinton camp which is a couple of weeks from the Iowa Caucuses -- as Rubiner has been one of the inner circle players in "Hillaryland." I have talked to insiders though who have said that there is no drama here at all. One observer said "this is the time of politics and not policy, and Laurie Rubiner is a policy addict." Another friend stated that "Laurie 'agonized' for months, but her love of health care (second only to HRC's, and the basis of their close bond) won out. Laurie had seen the Health Care plan through it's development and successful introduction, so she felt it was a good time."

Rubiner -- who is known to be one of the few insiders who "talks real" with Clinton -- is going to remain part of Hillary's circle of trusted counselors.

In fact, a prominent Hillary Clinton spear-carrier reported to me:

. . .I would just note that many people leave Hillaryland and then come back -- including Neera [Tanden] who went to the DCCC, CAP; Howard [Wolfson] who went to DCCC, Glover Park; and Patti [Solis Doyle] who went to Glover Park, etc.

Nobody every really leaves Hillaryland."

In addition to the comments above, I was told that Hillary Clinton relies on Rubiner for tough-minded policy counsel and straight talk and definitely would have liked to keep her through this period. In addition, this source stated that if "Hillary captures the White House, President Hillary Clinton will want Laurie with her."

Truth in advertising -- Laurie Rubiner is a former colleague of mine at the New America Foundation -- and everything I have written about her powerful political, policy, and intellectual skills has probably been understated.

-- Steve Clemons

A regular TWN reader sent this endearing picture of his pup, Nickee. I empathize completely with the dog and feel up to my neck in all sorts of stuff.

More tomorrow.

-- Steve Clemons

Fidel Castro has just given the world the opportunity to ponder a new direction for Cuba. Castro has issued a statement that is vague but nonetheless signals that he sees himself departing the political front line and making room for a new set of leaders.

As Center for Democracy in the Americas Director Sarah Stephens said today on a journalist conference call, "Cuban leaders don't communicate by accident." She said that "change is in the offing." And that "Castro is writing the script" of his departure as 'the decider' on Cuba's political life and course.

Peter Kornbluh, also on the conference call, says that the smooth fading into the background by Fidel Castro -- at his own pace -- helps write the final chapter for Fidel and a chapter in which he's clearly in control of the optics of all of this and hasn't been compelled or forced out.

Julia Sweig of the Council on Foreign Relations, again on the conference call today, really drilled into the details of Fidel's statement. She gets Castro's complexity and sees this statement as a move in a multi-dimensional chess board in which he is both confident and aware of the many political pressures in Cuba's domestic political scene. She thinks Castro is not only saying that Cuba needs to cultivate a new generation of leaders -- but that Cuba needs to yield to them as well. And this may signal a future for a Cuba not run by either Raul or Fidel Castro.

The United States needs to tack now towards a new course. To miss yet another opportunity to change course in US-Cuba relations is a serious mistake. When Russia stopped supporting the Cuban economy, there was an opportunity to move forward US-Cuba relations. That was missed. This is the next chance.

Barack Obama has been supportive of a new course on Cuba. Frankly, Chris Dodd sets the gold standard and thinks that we need a complete overhaul of the US-Cuba relationship and a full opening of commerce, travel, and diplomacy. Bill Richardson just released this paragraph as part of a foreign affairs essay he just published:

The United States of America also needs to start paying attention to the Americas. We need better border security and comprehensive immigration reform. And to reduce both illegal immigration and anti-American populism in Latin America, we must work with reform-minded governments there to alleviate poverty and promote equitable development. We need to strengthen energy cooperation in the region and foster democracy and fair trade. Our efforts to promote democracy must include Cuba. We should reverse the Bush administration's policies restricting remittances to and travel to visit loved ones in Cuba, and we should respond to steps toward liberalization there with steps toward ending the embargo.

Hillary Clinton needs to tack in a new direction too. This is an opening for her to recast how she would modify US-Cuba relations given what Fidel Castro has done to make the question of whether we promote perpetuation of a US-Cuba relations cocooned in Cold War anachronism -- or whether we use Cuba as a template for signaling to the world a new and different strategy for dealing with the world.

And frankly, Mike Huckabee used to be a pro-engagement governor on Cuba but recently denied his past and said that he wants a regime even more strictly constraining than the Bush administration. Giuliani, Romney and Thompson have also not been visionaries on changing the course of both US-Cuban and US-Latin American relations, but all will need to provide a response on what their policy course would be given Castro's surprise announcement.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: To download a transcript of the conference call, click here.

Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are the clear frontrunners in the Democratic primary race, and the comparisons between them are going to be tough-edged over the next couple of weeks.

I have been very critical of both, and applauded both. I did not like Hillary Clinton's embrace of the Bush administration's policy of keeping Cubans isolated from us while nearly every other nation in the world -- even Israel -- is engaged commercially and increasingly culturally with Cuba. Cuba itself may not interest many or may seem irrelevant to the biggest debates of the day, but it provides a template for candidates to demonstrate whether they will sculpt a foreign and national security policy in the future that leapfrogs out of today's morass or whether they are going to continue a policy of incrementalism, thus reinforcing and validating many of the errors and missteps of the Bush administration.

That said, there is a great deal I do admire in Hillary Clinton -- and one of the things that simply can't be disputed is her work ethic. I've met her a number of times, usually at receptions -- and each time I decided not to waste the moment with trivial banter but to throw an idea at her or mention a person or issue that would help me understand how real, how informed, or alternatively -- how contrived -- she was.

Every single time she jumped on the issue I brought up and expressed two or three dimensions to the issue that showed she was deeply steeped in this or that policy. In my New America Foundation role, I helped build and support programs as diverse as debates about genetic scientific advancements to family work issues, health care, and wireless spectrum -- not to mention my own core interests in foreign policy, national security/defense issues, and international economic policy. Hillary Clinton and I have had quick encounters that involved her sharing incredibly diverse and serious policy commentary.

The last time I had such a discussion with her was after she had won her last Senate race in New York, and she and Bill Clinton were a bit early to a UN Foundation reception honoring Muhammad Yunus. We had a really interesting discussion about what should be on a roster of 21st century threats and how our national security and foreign policy resources should be reorganized to deal with future challenges rather than keeping vested interests tied to old threats well funded. Her quick grasp of what I was trying to get at -- and a detailed response that was serious and level-headed -- really surprised me as I'm used to politicians who typically have to fake their way through detail.

I get the sense that Barack Obama is also extremely intelligent, though I've not had the same kind of encounters with him that I have had with Hillary Clinton and thus can't give personal commentary.

But I am convinced of something about Hillary Clinton's commitment to use every lever and every aspect of government machinery to push her legislative and policy work that I'm disappointed to say that I can't find as strongly in Barack Obama's profile. My concern has to do with the fact that as Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations' Subcommittee on Europe, Obama has held zero hearings -- at least that is how the record appears to me.

Compare this to the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe, which is having constant hearings -- or to the Senate Subcommittee's work before Obama became Chair -- or to a comparative commitment of Hillary Clinton on a Subcommittee she chairs, and the zero hearing detail is disconcerting.

By the way, I have to praise the Environment and Public Works Committee for its website. I wanted to know what role Senator Clinton had played in the Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health and not only found testimony of all involved but found photos showing who was there.

I'm not trying to find a minor, nuanced difference between Obama and Clinton and inflate that to inappropriate levels. I am a fan of some of Obama's foreign policy positions -- though I think that I tend to appreciate his speeches influenced by Zbigniew Brzezinski that reflect tough-minded thinking and hard choices rather than those influenced by former Clinton National Security Adviser Anthony Lake that seem to want America to rush into every global cause without clear delineation of priorities and an accounting of potential costs and consequences to our national interest.

But the question of how a Chief Executive would utilize the machinery of government towards the public good has always been of interest to me. Senators do have the opportunity to demonstrate executive-style leadership (or not) in how they deploy the resources taxpayers provide them in pursuing or informing legislative process.

The first day I started as a staff member in Senator Jeff Bingaman's office more than 12 years ago, I was given a copy of Eric Redman's The Dance of Legislation, a chronicle of Redman's experiences and insights into legislative process during a two year stint he had in Senator Warren Magnuson's office decades ago. Jeff -- as we all called Senator Bingaman -- personally inscribed the book to me with a word of welcome and something along the lines of "we expect good work from you in the Senate."

I found the book gripping -- and it motivated me to move out of the predictable contours of legislative process. Redman tried some creative approaches to getting his legislation pushed, and I tried the same in projects I had to work on. In another essay one day, I'll share some of the unusual tactics and vehicles we used in Senator Bingaman's office to push our agenda while in the Minority.

I was a foreign policy and economic adviser to Senator Bingaman -- but I worked in many legislative arenas and felt that it was my responsibility to use every possible vehicle, legislative technique or trick, and support service -- particularly the Senate Parliamentarian, the Legislative Counsel office and Congressional Research Service -- to make our office an active place and not just reactive, passive, or floundering like so many other Senate and House offices I saw.

Senator Obama has a great team. Some of his staff are friends and former colleagues of mine -- though i can say the same about every one of the presidential candidates in both parties.

But his not calling any hearings in a Senate Subcommittee he chairs ought to raise some questions that he needs to respond to. His Subcommittee deals with Europe, with NATO, with various related political and security matters -- and he's got the gavel and can set the agenda.

Given the stress NATO is experiencing today on many fronts -- from the question of Europe's evolving security identity, to NATO's deployments in Afghanistan, to the evolving question of how to deal with Russia, Kosovo, and other common challenges -- it seems inconceivable that Senator Obama would not want to highlight important policy concerns by way of hearings.

I hope Senator Obama looks at this post as something to respond constructively to -- as we need to understand how this gap would be fixed or translate into a White House setting.

But while I want Hillary Clinton to get more creative (and Nixonian, in the good sense) in looking at foreign policy deal-making through a different lens, particularly on Israel/Palestine matters and Cuba -- which are important opportunities to telegraph change in America's posture to the rest of the world -- I want to commend the fact that she does work every aspect of the legislative machinery and knows these policy issues well.

Next time I see her, I won't be surprised at all when she teaches me a lot I didn't know about the Superfund.

-- Steve Clemons

(photo credit: Alexander Steffler)

I've just flown home from Pittsburgh and was looking through some photos that a good friend and blogger, Alex Steffler, took of my house. The one above is of a step after a recent snow.

-- Steve Clemons