Naturally, it’s about Secretary Hillary Clinton. For once, there was a GOOD article, calling out some of the sexism with which she has had to deal, while highlighting the incredible work she has been doing on behalf of the State4 Department, and our country. David Rothkopf had this article, “It’s 3:00 a.m. Do you Know Where Hillary Clinton Is?” I admit, when I first saw the title, I thought he was being snarky, and it was going to be yet another hatchet job on this amazing woman, this bright star. Imagine my delight when I read it, and discovered, far from snark, this was a serious article, about a serious role, and a serious person. All I can say is, it’s about damn time:

When it comes to Hillary Rodham Clinton, we’re missing the forest for the pantsuits.

Clinton is not the first celebrity to become the nation’s top diplomat — that honor goes to her most distant predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, who by the time he took office was one of the most famous and gossiped-about men in America — but she may be the biggest. And during her first seven months in office, the former first lady, erstwhile presidential candidate and eternal lightning rod has drawn more attention for her moods, looks, outtakes and (of course) relationship with her husband than for, well, her work revamping the nation’s foreign policy.

Even venerable publications — such as one to which I regularly contribute, Foreign Policy — have woven into their all-Hillary-all-the-time coverage odd discussions of Clinton’s handbag and scarf choices. Daily Beast editor Tina Brown, while depicting herself as a Clinton supporter, has been scathing and small-minded in discussing such things as Clinton’s weight and hair, while her “defense” of Hillary in her essay “Obama’s Other Wife” was as sexist as the title suggests.

Indeed, sexism has followed Clinton from the campaign trail to Foggy Bottom, as seen most recently in the posturing outrage surrounding the exchange in Congo when Clinton reacted with understandable frustration to the now-infamous question regarding her husband’s views. Major media outlets have joined the gossipfest, whether the New York Times, which covered Clinton’s first big policy speech by discussing whether she was in or out with the White House, or The Washington Post, where a couple of reporters mused about whether a brew called Mad Bitch would be the beer of choice for the secretary of state.

May I just pause here to say, THANK YOU for calling these “news” sources out for these sexist depictions/attacks on Clinton. Thank you.

As to the work of Secretary Clinton, the article continues:

Amid all the distractions, what is Clinton actually doing? Only overseeing what may be the most profound changes in U.S. foreign policy in two decades — a transformation that may render the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush mere side notes in a long transition to a meaningful post-Cold War worldview.

The secretary has quietly begun rethinking the very nature of diplomacy and translating that vision into a revitalized State Department, one that approaches U.S. allies and rivals in ways that challenge long-held traditions. And despite the pessimists who invoked the “team of rivals” cliche to predict that President Obama and Clinton would not get along, Hillary has defined a role for herself in the Obamaverse: often bad cop to his good cop, spine stiffener when it comes to tough adversaries and nurturer of new strategies. Recognizing that the 3 a.m. phone calls are going to the White House, she is instead tackling the tough questions that, since the end of the Cold War, have kept America’s leaders awake all night.

In these early days of the new administration, it has been easy to focus on what Clinton has not achieved or on ways in which her power has been supposedly constrained. Indeed, some of her efforts have been frustrated by difficult personnel approvals or disputes with the White House about who should get what jobs. But this is the way of all administrations. More unusual has been the avidity with which the new president has seized the reins of foreign policy — more assertively than either George W. Bush or Bill Clinton before him. Obama’s centrality amplifies the importance of his closest White House staffers, while his penchant for appointing special envoys such as Richard Holbrooke (on Afghanistan and Pakistan) and George Mitchell (on the Middle East) has been interpreted by some as limiting Clinton’s role.

Given the challenges involved, it was perhaps natural that the White House would have a bigger day-to-day hand in some of the nation’s most urgent foreign policy issues. But with Obama, national security adviser Jim Jones, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates absorbed by Iraq, Afghanistan and other inherited problems of the recent past, Clinton’s State Department can take on a bigger role in tackling the problems of the future — in particular, how America will lead the world in the century ahead. This approach is both necessary and canny: It recognizes that U.S. policy must change to fulfill Obama’s vision and that many high-profile issues such as those of the Middle East have often swamped the careers and aspirations of secretaries of state past.

Which nations will be our key partners? What do you do when many vital partners — China, for example, and Russia — are rivals as well? How must America’s alliances change as NATO is stretched to the limit? How do we engage with rogue states and old enemies in ways that do not strengthen them and preserve our prerogative to challenge threats? How do we move beyond the diplomacy of men in striped pants speaking only for governments and embrace potent nonstate players and once-disenfranchised peoples?

In searching for answers, Clinton is leaving behind old doctrines and labels. She outlined her new thinking in a recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, where she revealed stark differences between the new administration’s worldview and those of its predecessors: The recurring themes include “partnership” and “engagement” and “common interests.” Clearly, Madeleine Albright’s “indispensable nation” has recognized the indispensability of collaborating with others.

Who those “others” are is the area in which change has been greatest and most rapid. “We will put,” Clinton said, “special emphasis on encouraging major and emerging global powers — China, India, Russia and Brazil, as well as Turkey, Indonesia and South Africa — to be full partners in tackling the global agenda.” This is the death knell for the G-8 as the head table of the global community; the administration has an effort underway to determine whether the successor to the G-8 will be the G-20, or perhaps some other grouping. Though the move away from the G-8 began in the waning days of the Bush era, that administration viewed the world through a different lens, a perception that evolved from a traditional great-power view to a pre-Galilean notion that everything revolved around the world’s sole superpower.

Obama and Clinton have both made engaging with emerging powers a priority. Obama visited Russia earlier this year and will host Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his first state dinner in November. Clinton has made trips to China and India, and she would have been with Obama in Russia had she not injured her elbow. Both have visited Africa and the Middle East, reaching out to women and the Islamic world.

To anyone who has been following Clinton throughout her career, the manner in which she has been pursuing her position should come as no surprise. You may recall a book she wrote some time ago, It Takes A Village, in which these kinds of concepts have been discussed. She works in a collegial manner, holding the bigger picture firmly in hand as she goes about her work. It isn’t about her. It is about the world, the country, and the citizens here and abroad. It is about pulling women and children up out of poverty, having people be educated, allowing people to live their lives, and not just fight to survive. That’s her deal, and it has been for a long, long time. And it is that commitment that leads to this:

On many critical agenda items — from a rollback of nuclear weapons to the climate or trade talks — such emerging powers will be essential to achieving U.S. goals. As a result, we’ve seen a new American willingness to play down old differences, whether with Russia on a missile shield or, as Clinton showed on her China trip, with Beijing on human rights.

At the center of Clinton’s brain trust is Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Now head of policy planning at the State Department, Slaughter elaborated on the ideas in Clinton’s speech. “We envision getting not just a new group of states around a table, but also building networks, coalitions and partnerships of states and nonstate actors to tackle specific problems,” she told me.

“To do that,” Slaughter continued, “our diplomats are going to need to have skills that are closer to community organizing than traditional reporting and analysis. New connecting technologies will be vital tools in this kind of diplomacy.”

A new team has been brought in to make these changes real. Clinton recruited Alec Ross, one of the leaders of Obama’s technology policy team, to the seventh floor of the State Department as her senior adviser for innovation. His mission is to harness new information tools to advance U.S. interests — a task made easier as the Internet and mobile networks have played starring roles in recent incidents, from Iran to the Uighur uprising in western China to Moldova. Whether through a telecommunications program in Congo to protect women from violence or text messaging to raise money for Pakistani refugees in the Swat Valley, technology has been deployed to reach new audiences.

Of course, you need more than new ideas to revitalize the State Department; you need resources, too. The secretary has brought in former Bill Clinton-era budget chief Jack Lew to help her claw back money for statecraft that many in Foggy Bottom feel has been sucked off toward the Pentagon. She has also created special positions to back new priorities, such as Melanne Verveer as ambassador at large for women’s issues, Elizabeth Bagley to handle public-private outreach worldwide and Todd Stern as the chief negotiator on climate.

Even just a few months in, it’s clear that these appointments are far from window dressing. Lew, Slaughter and the acting head of the U.S. Agency for International Development are leading an effort to rethink foreign aid with the new Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, an initiative modeled on the Pentagon’s strategic assessments and designed to review State’s priorities. Stern has conducted high-level discussions on climate change around the world, notably with China. Clinton made women’s issues a centerpiece of her recent 11-day trip to Africa, where she stressed that “the social, political and economic marginalization of women across Africa has left a void in this continent that undermines progress and prosperity.”

Unlike other politicians, I don’t think Clinton appoints people to be “window dressing,” but to get the job done. That is further evidenced with the following appointment:

Clinton has also signaled the importance of private-sector experience by naming former Goldman Sachs International vice chairman Robert Hormats, a respected veteran of four administrations, to handle economic issues at the State Department, as well as Judith McHale, former chief executive of Discovery Communications, to run public diplomacy. In the same vein, she has opened up Cuba to American telecommunications companies and reached out to India’s private sector on energy cooperation — showing that this administration will seek to advance national interests by tapping the self-interests of the business community. As with any new administration, there have been inevitable problems. The old campaign teams — Clinton’s and Obama’s — still eye each other warily, but this feeling is gradually fading. And by most accounts, the administration’s national security team has come together successfully, with Clinton developing strong relationships with national security adviser Jones and Defense Secretary Gates. Her policy deputy, Jim Steinberg, has renewed an old collaboration with deputy national security adviser Tom Donilon; the two of them, working with Obama campaign foreign policy advisers Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, have formed what one State Department seventh-floor dweller called “a powerful quartet at the heart of real interagency policymaking.” Henry Kissinger may have overstated matters when he said this is the best White House-State relationship in recent memory, but it’s not bad, while the State-Pentagon relationship is in its best shape in decades.

Huh. Well, I’ll be. Who could have seen THAT coming? Oh, I know – the 18 million people who voted for her!

But Clinton is not looking back to what was. Rather, she is looking ahead to see how best she can fulfill her work, As such, again, she looks at the big picture, and how best to accomplish what needs doing, including:

At the heart of things, though, is the relationship between Clinton and Obama. For all the administration’s talk of international partnerships, that may be the most critical partnership of all.

So far, according to multiple high-level officials at State and the White House, the two seem aligned in their views. In addition, they are gradually defining complementary roles. Obama has assumed the role of principal spokesperson on foreign policy, as international audiences welcome his new and improved American brand. Clinton thus far has echoed his points but has also delivered tougher ones. Whether on a missile shield against Iran or North Korean saber-rattling, the continued imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma or rape and corruption in Congo, the secretary of state has spoken bluntly on the world stage — even if it triggered snide comments from North Korea.

It is still early, and a president’s foreign policy legacy is often defined less by big principles than by how one reacts to the unexpected, whether missiles in Cuba or terrorism in New York. Promising ideas fail because of limited attention or reluctant bureaucracies, and some rhetoric eventually rings hollow, as the self-congratulatory “smart power” already does to me.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that, seven months into the job, Obama’s unlikely secretary of state is supporting and augmenting his agenda effectively. Not as Obama’s “other wife,” not as Bill Clinton’s wife, not even as a celebrity or as a former presidential candidate — but in a new role of her own making. (drothkopf@carnegieendowment.org

David Rothkopf is a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the author of “Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making” and “Running the World: The Inside Story of the NSC and the Architects of American Power.” He will be online to chat with readers Monday at 11 a.m. Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.)

Indeed – she is embracing a “role of her own making.” It is hard not to consider what could have been had she been President instead of Secretary of State. Don’t get me wrong – as I have said a number of times, I am glad that Clinton is in such a crucial role for our country. Clearly, we need her. But the same intelligence; the ability, and vision, to hold the big picture in her grasp while determining the best course to achieve those goals, while finding the people who can affect those goals; the nation-building, yes, the community-building; are all the ingredients necessary for a good presidency. And I am pretty sure that a President Hillary Clinton would not have made any “wee-wee” remarks about the press corp, either. It’s a matter of decorum, the ability to hold things, events, people, in tension. It’s a matter of vision, and the ability to effect change in a real, meaningful way. That’s our Hillary. Thank heavens she is finally starting to get the recognition she so richly deserves.

Secretary Clinton can’t be seen to differ from the president without sabotaging her own power.
…
Left behind on major presidential trips, overruled in choosing her own staff—Hillary Clinton is the invisible woman at State. But Obama’s brilliant foreign-policy spouse may not stay silent forever.

It’s time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa.

Consider the president’s Moscow trip a week ago. In a cozy scene at Vladimir Putin’s dacha, the boys enjoyed traditional Russian tea and breakfast on a terrace. Sitting on Putin’s right was the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. Where was Lavrov’s counterpart? She was back home, left there with a broken elbow to receive a visit from the ousted Honduran president, José Manuel Zelaya.

Ms. Brown paints this as a deliberate slight by Obama, or a way to put his own ever-present and over exposed visage out front while keeping Hillary’s far more knowledgeable one out of the limelight. That may be so, but Brown leaves no room for the fact that Secretary Clinton may not have been able to travel last week due to her injury. No matter. Let’s try to harp on the fact that Hillary is diminished anyway. Other articles have been cropping up intimating the same and wondering “how long Hillary is going to put up with this.”

The far more important point Brown neglects to mention is that Obama’s solo trip was not considered a success. He made his amateurish pronouncements on the Cold War and received a long lecture by Putin and did not really get what he came for. President Obama’s actions will not be considered too clever in the long run if he reaps repercussions for having left the only adult in the room at home.

Ms. Brown continues…

Same thing last month, when the president stopped off to see King Abdullah en route to his oratorical home run in Cairo: no Hillary. Nor was there any sign of Middle East envoy George Mitchell or anyone else from the State Department on the Saudi leg of the trip, even though its main mission was to recruit Abdullah into a peace-making partnership with Israel. The king told Obama no, by the way, so it’s fair to ask whether the president could have used a bit more Foggy Bottom prep work. Jim Hoagland noted in Sunday’s Washington Post that the White House’s leak of Obama’s decision to send an ambassador to Syria took Clinton’s State Department by surprise and trumped State’s efforts to squeeze another concession or two out of Damascus first.

As. Mr. Hoagland rightly points out in his piece White House Fault Lines, this may be another strike against the Obama Administration, clearly making a mistake by trying to trump their own very loyal team at State – for no apparent reason.

Ms. Brown seems to delight in pointing out President Clinton’s being “curtailed” by Obama as a concession to his wife’s position. Yet I am sure Brown has a point in noting how Obama, together with Emanuel and Axelrod, need to stick their nose in appointments that should be left up to her:

Hillary, with her usual iron discipline about the big picture of power, is behaving like a stalwart team player. Before she took the job, she was assured she could pick her own trusted team. Yet she was overruled in appointing her own choice for deputy secretary, Richard Holbrooke. Instead, she was made to take an Obama guy, James Steinberg, who had originally been slated to become national-security adviser. (Hillary took care of Holbrooke, one of diplomacy’s biggest stars, by giving him the most explosive portfolio—Pakistan and Afghanistan.) She lost the ability to dole out major ambassadorships, too. A lot of these prizes are going to reward Obama fundraisers instead of knowledgeable appointees like Harvard’s Joseph Nye, whom she wanted to send to Japan.

Ms. Brown complains that Hillary was not given credit for getting Obama to put more troops in Afghanistan, inferring VP Biden is given credit for this. Well, this runs contrary to Ben Smith’s article in Politico, Clinton Gains Respect Out Of Spotlight, as quoted by CBS News, that Hillary trumped Biden on Afghanistan so perhaps Ms. Brown is overstating. Smith’s article is quick to point out that SoS Clinton’s popularity now stands at 71%, higher than the President’s. While pundits the likes of George Stephanopoulos intimated her portfolio and role is decreased because of envoys Holbrooke and Mitchell, Hillary always campaigned on hiring just such heavy hitting personnel to concentrate more diplomatic power in the middle east. Some choice quotes in this regard from the Politico article:

The envoys will be the primary metric through which you will judge her legacy…And even skeptical observers said Clinton appears to have won sufficient control over the envoys after a precarious start.

Rep. Mark Kirk, a Republican who serves on the House subcommittee that oversees the State Department and describes himself as a Clinton “fan” for her role in pushing for sending more troops to Afghanistan…

“Between her consideration and her final confirmation she had lost some authority and power as all of these envoys were appointed,” he said. “Once she did get confirmed, though, what we have seen is a steady increase in her authority and control as we have seen envoys seeming to now work with her.”

Leaders in the region, he said, view her as “pre-eminent.” …Clinton is also afforded a level of day-to-day deference that underscores her stature. …The deputy secretary of state, Jim Steinberg, described Clinton’s role with the envoys as “the closer.” ….”The envoys tee it up for her,” he said in an interview. “It’s an extremely powerful way to use someone with her stature.”

Hillary Clinton has also been credited on many fronts as having, in short order, put diplomacy back under the charge of the State Department, rather than the military. Smith states her style as SoS echoes her arrival in the Senate in 2001 — putting her head down, figuring out the job and working hard rather than looking for the spotlight. Tina Brown likewise points out how, historically, this suits Clinton’s work ethic even as she seemingly objects to it elsewhere:

The former first lady and New York senator is no stranger to the big game of politics. Obama’s presidency is tightly White House driven and she is not the only player on a tight leash. … But I doubt she cares about losing the spotlight at this time in her life when she’s not running for something. Unlike Bill, she hates glad-handing and does TV only because she has to. Policy is her meat and drink. On her State Department plane, Hillary is always eager to throw off her well-groomed public look and sit up front with no makeup, wearing sweats and her bookworm glasses, as she crunches her way through a big fat file of foreign-policy memos. She is as formidably well-informed in this job as she was at the Rose law firm in Arkansas, doing all the legal backup work for the guys on a big deal. Or when she played the canny sounding board and strategist for Gov. Bill Clinton in his run for president.

That’s the trouble. You could say that Obama is lucky to have such a great foreign-policy wife. Those who voted for Hillary wonder how long she’ll be content with an office wifehood of the Saudi variety.

To call Hillary a Saudi wife? That’s quite a leap. And if Hillary were out front and center, I’m sure Ms. Brown would complain about how “ego driven” and “power hungry” she is. Hillary certainly heard enough of that nonsense last year. Once again, I am sure the maddening tightrope a female politician or diplomat has to walk is far more precarious than that of any man in the same position.

I can’t make up my mind reading this article as to Ms. Brown’s end game. To degrade Hillary? To throw down the gauntlet and encourage her to speak out? To slap at President Obama pointing out how foolish he is not to make better use of Secretary Clinton’s considerable abilities?

It is interesting to note that a month ago, not three days before Hillary broke her arm, Ms. Brown penned another article entitled What Hillary Can Teach Sarah Palin. Brown stated that Hillary was an example of “what real female power looks like,” that she is a “dedicated policy wonk who worked on behalf of oppressed women in unpronounceable places long before it was fashionable.”

She then engages in some revisionist history of her own when she stated that Hillary was “humbled at the polls” by Barack Obama. Oh really? So the fact that she won more votes than any candidate in primary history – male or female – 300,000 more than him – that’s humbling? Being outspent three to one, stabbed in the back by your own party, trashed in the media daily, winning more votes and still not getting the nomination, well I have another word for that – and it has nothing to do with being humbled. Knee-capped, maybe.

Ms. Brown lectures Palin to

Take a leaf out of Hillary’s book. (Or from Condi Rice, for that matter. Clinton’s predecessor in the job likewise knows how to disappear herself for a bit while she recoups and rebrands.) Bide your time, don’t waste it.

Her words of wisdom here are “it’s the substance that sustains, not the exposure.” No kidding. Hillary is all substance, that’s for sure. But in her new article – Brown demands more exposure for Hillary. Tina needs to make up her mind. Is she going to believe that Hillary is “biding her time” and knows what she is doing or not?

While I do not particularly care for Ms. Brown’s tone, I’d love to see Hillary front and center myself. Selfishly I would feel safer knowing for certain she was in charge of the foreign policy portfolio at State rather than the rest of the Administration that keeps swapping seats in the clown car. But as Brown notes, when one is starting a job, it pays to build a firm foundation before making a lot of noise.

Let’s see if we start hearing more noise from Hillary.

O P E N   T H R E A D   T O O

John Batchelor’s show begins at 10 p.m. ET. Then, at 10:30 p.m. ET, DON’T MISS LARRY JOHNSON TONIGHT on the Batchelor show, via KFI 640 AM. [CLICK on this map to see it full-size. The map is from Bill Roggio's Long War Journal. Roggio is a guest with Larry Johnson tonight.]

Check out the full slate of guests and topics tonight. John Batchelor’s KFI show begins at 7:00 p.m., so tune in early. Here are the topics and fellow guests during Larry’s appearance:

If this is your first time listening, you’ll want to visit the site early in case you need to download an easily installed program to hear the show.

HERE is the full line-up of guests and topics tonight on KFI, from beginning to the program’s conclusion:

705P Pacific Time:  Tim Starks, Congressional Quarterly, re the Obama adminsitration release of the Torture Memos and the Byzantine debate between the Hil and the White House and the GOP.

 920P:  Joseph Sternberg, Asia Wall Street Journal, re Chinese official warns US on protectionism  A top adviser to the Chinese government warned the US that a proposed border tax on carbon sensitive materials ’smells of protectionism’ and could spark retaliation from developing countries

 Read more…

articlesortdate="0261694418.000000" articlesorttitle="orthodox easter sunday april 19, 2009 in ny, dc, sf, la." articlesortsource="" sourceindex="0" articlesortid="00000000000000000029" articlelocaldate="0262456484.377621" articleid="557304734dd991c2ea2a81a8464b24f61045432b">

Orthodox Easter Sunday April 19, 2009 in NY, DC, SF, LA.

John Batchelor

Is the Recession Over?  (Smile.)   705P Eastern Time:  Jon Hilsenrath, Wall Street Journal, re Ben Bernanke became Federal Reserve chairman intent on making the central bank less personality-driven than it was under Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker. But as he confronts an economic crisis that has pushed the Fed to shatter precedent and lend trillions of dollars, Mr. Bernanke is waging a public-relations offensive that casts him in the starring role.   Bernanke PR Push Rewrites Fed Script  720P:  Joe Bel Bruno, Goldman CEO: New Pay Standards Needed  Really wrote on Mon, 04/13/2009 – 1:43pm.  So lets see:
1. Mark to maybe
2. Post bonus amounts later
3. Get an overnight…

Apr 17, 1:53 PM

Is the Recession Over?  (Smile.)   

705P Eastern Time:  Jon Hilsenrath, Wall Street Journal, re Ben Bernanke became Federal Reserve chairman intent on making the central bank less personality-driven than it was under Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker. But as he confronts an economic crisis that has pushed the Fed to shatter precedent and lend trillions of dollars, Mr. Bernanke is waging a public-relations offensive that casts him in the starring role.   Bernanke PR Push Rewrites Fed Script
 

720P:  Joe Bel Bruno, Goldman CEO: New Pay Standards Needed  Reallywrote on Mon, 04/13/2009 – 1:43pm.  So lets see:
1. Mark to maybe
2. Post bonus amounts later
3. Get an overnight deposit from the Fed to bloat the Balance Sheet
4. Postpone all accts payable (issue IOUs)
5. Send a big check to O
6. Pay HP his ghost retainer.  

735P:  Professional Roundtable with  Jodi Schneider, Congressional Quarterly, John Fund, Diana West, DianaWest.net, re Tax Day and the Teabag parties, re Obama and MExico, re the new Border Czar.

750P: Continued re Homeland Security targets veterans?  Re the Obama administration   hesitates about waterboarding.

805P: John Bolton, AEI, Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, re North Korea breaks off with the IAEA and the Six Party Talks, re what is to be done?  North Korea to Boycott Six-Party Talks

 

820P: Roundtable on North Korea continues, re the United NAtions Security Council, re Beijing refuses to agree to new sanctions, re the farility of the North Korea regime.

835P:  Jim McTague, Barron’s, Financial Roundtable, John Tamny, Realclearmarkets.com, Tom Donlon, Barron’s, re the banks report profits, can we trust the banks?  Re Goldman Sachs aims to pay back TARP, will the Obama administration accept the money?

850P:  Continued re the bank stress tests are due May 4, does everyone pass?  And what then?

905P:  Malcolm Hoenlein, re Durban II conference opens in Geneva, re the United Nations and organized and hysterical anti-Israel propoganda.

920P:  Aaron Klein, WND, re the Obama administration commits to the Saudie plan for parallel talks for a two-state solution, Israel and PA, Israel and Syria.

935P:  Richard Beeman, author, Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution, re the drama and opera of the writing and rewriting of the Constitution by cranky, devious, sophisticated, ambitious young men, led by the bold and tireless James Madison in the spring and summer of 1787.

955P:  Exeunt with Joseph Menn, Financial Times, re Computer hackers stole more sensitive records last year than in the previous four combined, with ATM cards and PIN information growing in popularity as targets.

___________________________

KFI-AM 640

705P Pacific Time:  Nicholas Casey, Wall Street Journal, re next month, shipping giant AP Moeller-Maersk will make a move that was unlikely ten years back.  A line of 6000 container ships that now goes to Southern California will go instead dock at Seattle. Why?

720P: Dawn Kopecki, Bloomberg, re Fannie, Freddie Face Pressure to Revamp as Housing Collapse Wrecks Profits:  Say good-bye to Fannie and Freddie as you know them. The bailed-out mortgage finance companies will emerge from their travails combined as one, broken up or with substantially reshaped missions. 

 

735P: Professional Roundtable  Larry Johnson, No Quarter, Bill Roggio, Long War Journal, Hussein Yusuf, Somali national, re the pirates of Somalia, re Somali Extremists Have al Qaeda Ties  By Ali Soufan
Another failed state has become a training ground for terrorists.

750P: Continued re the pirates of Somalia continued, re the prospect of a stable Somalia government.

805P:  Barbara Kolm-Lamprechter, Hayek Institute, re the Austrian School of economics, re the prospect of recovery from the financial crisis. 

 

820P:  Bill Whalen, Hoover Institution, re the California economy and the sharp rise in unemployment, re the housing market collapse, re the 

835P:  Mark Rudd, author, “Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen,” re the 40 year travail of the outspoken and precocious leader of the Columbia University protest 1968, his life in the Weathermen, his life as a fugitive.  Nostalgiac, sparse, banal, fascinating.

850P:  Bob Zimmerman, author, “Universe In A Mirror,” re NASA prep for Hubble rescue mission, re Kepler opens its eye and sends initial pics of its portion of the sky in Cygnus, re the aimless space policy of the Obama administration.

905P:  Jim Rogers, Rogers Investment, from Singapore, re the prospect of a China led worldwide recovery, re the continuing commodity bull market, re the coming bull market in farm food.

 920P:  Joseph Sternberg, Asia Wall Street Journal, re Vietnam and the Obama administration, re Vietnam and the worldwide downturn in trade.

935P: Dave Cullen, author, “Columbine,” re the April 20, 1999 massacre and ten years after, the continuing silence of the parents, the remains of the mystery, the measure of Harris as a psychopath and Klebold as a companions in the homicial dyad like Bonnie and Clyde, re the still damaged lives of the victims, the survivors, the loved ones of the lost.

955P:  Exeunt:  Lou Ann Hammond, re the GM shedding of Saturn, Hummer, GMAC, Saab, and?

See larger map below the fold.

Update: Read “Taliban Advance: Is Pakistan Nearing Collapse? at Time magazine. Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey notes, “this Daily Mail piece has had me on edge since morning. The Kardari government gave the Taliban an inch by signing away Swat so now they’ve decided to take a mile in Buner. The wages of appeasement. … [Time's dispatch is] about the rapid shari’a-ization of Buner and spreading panic in Islamabad. How bad is it? Roggio ups the freak-out ante:

The Taliban takeover of Haripur would put the Taliban on the doorstep of Islamabad and would also put two major nuclear facilities at risk. Morrissey recalls reading that the U.S. has “emergency contingency plans to seize Pakistan’s nukes if things go haywire, but I’m naively hoping against hope that Zardari and the military leadership will voluntarily surrender them to keep them out of jihadi hands if they think they’re about to be overrun. …” (Read more reactions at Memeorandum.com.)

The Taliban take-over of Pakistan, city by city, region by region, is flat-out terrifying. And CNN’s Fareed Zakaria — who devoted his Sunday show to Pakistan — wants you to e-mail him at GPS@cnn.com, to answer this question: “Should the United States take dramatic action and interfere in the inner workings of Pakistan to keep it from falling apart?” What in the hell should we do?

Today, we learn that the crisis is growing exponentially as the Taliban is encroaching in the country, through Punjab and Peshawar, the capital of the restive North-West Frontier Province [map below], and now is only 60 miles from Islamabad, the nation’s capital. The Taliban has declared its goal of taking over all of Pakistan, which means those extremists would also be in control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

Check out the New York Times’s “Pakistan Sends Special Police to Taliban-Held Area.” Also read MSNBC’s “Pakistan troops rush to Taliban-infiltrated area – NATO truck base also attacked; Clinton urges Islamabad to focus on threat“:

“Gunmen attacked a Pakistani paramilitary force sent to a Taliban-infiltrated district just 60 miles from the capital Thursday, killing a police officer and feeding growing doubts about the government’s peace deal with extremists in the area.”

Each move and violent act, notes the NYT, provide “another indication of the gathering strength of the insurgency, and it raised new alarm about the ability of the government to fend off an unrelenting Taliban advance toward the heart of Pakistan.”

From the MSNBC article:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told American lawmakers in an unusually blunt statement Wednesday that Pakistan’s leaders were “basically abdicating to the Taliban.” On Thursday, however, she said the Pakistani government appeared increasingly aware of the threat. [Hillary has clearly seen new classified information telling her that the threat level is substantially higher than earlier thought.]

U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke talked to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari by telephone Thursday, but the president’s office would not say if Swat or Buner were discussed. The chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, was visiting Pakistan.

As reports filtered out about Taliban fighters moving into Buner — that they were patrolling roads, broadcasting radio sermons and ordering barbers to stop shaving beards — the government sent six platoons from the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary to the district this week.

Here’s a full map of Pakistan. Look closely, and you’ll see Islamabad and Punjab, the areas that the Taliban are now targeting:

On Sunday, in a very frank interview, Richard Holbrooke, our envoy to Afghanistan/Pakistan, laid it out in no uncertain terms, beginning with a description of the people who are living in Pakistan:

You have people who committed 9/11, who attacked Mumbai, who attacked Islamabad, who killed Benazir Bhutto, and without any doubt at all are planning attacks on the United States and our allies, as well as the government of Pakistan, as we speak.

It is very difficult. I can think of no other place in the world where history hangs more heavily over the situation, and current economic conditions makes it more difficult in Pakistan.

… Pakistan really matters to the national security of the United States. [...]

Below, Richard Holbrooke points out that the Taliban are now within 100 miles [now it's 60 miles] of Islamabad and creeping closer and closer to Punjab. We also hear from a preeminent Pakistani journalist on Punjab:

Holbrooke told Zakaria:

I would draw your attention to the fact that the day before yesterday the chief spokesman of the Taliban in the Swat area publicly renounced the part of the deal in which they’re supposed to lay down their arms.

And it seems to me that that ought to be a wakeup call to everybody in Pakistan that you can’t deal with these people by giving away territory as they creep closer and closer to the populated centers of the Punjab and Islamabad. They’re less than 100 miles from Islamabad after this deal.

And I am concerned at the growing risk that you’ll have more terrorist attacks in Lahore and Islamabad, perhaps in Karachi. So we are very concerned about this.

Here is the full interview of Richard Holbrooke:

Now hear from “leading Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid”:

::::::::::::::::::::::

In December 2007, CBS News’s Katie Couric asked each presidential candidate which country posed the greatest threat. Hillary Clinton answered, “Pakistan.” Barack Obama replied, “Iran.” Hillary had it right, of course.

If only she were president. However, it’s assuring that she is our Secretary of State. Doubtless, she is concentrating with all of her energy on how to cope with this crisis. I just pray she finds some way to slow, and hopefully halt, the progression of the extremist Taliban in Pakistan.

The alternative is too frightening to contemplate.

At the beginning of her remarks, Secretary Clinton announces that Rep. John Lewis and others will lead a CODEL — CODEL is an acronym that stands for a group of members of Congress who go on a “junket” — along with Ambassador Andy Young, former Senator Harris Wofford, and renowned musician/composer Herbie Hancock (!) (See also: “Secretary to Send Off Cultural Delegation to India.”)

I was curious to learn more, so searched for “Martin Luther King” at the State Department Web site. Here’s a snippet from one of the search results, under “Diversity In Exchange” program, which strives to “build trust between citizens of different backgrounds,” in “Austrian Historian Researches Muslims in the Military.”

Such a program almost seems naive in this cruel, tough world but I couldn’t help but be touched by the sincerity and dedication of the souls behind these efforts. And, as for the search result, “Austrian Historian Researches Muslims in the Military,” at first, I wondered if I’d gotten a “bad” result from my search, but soon the connection became apparent. The page begins with this explanation:

Austrian historian and ethnologist, Dr. Valeria Heuberger, has taken a keen interest in the roles that Muslims have played in both the Austrian and U.S. militaries. That interest, which spans from the First World War to the present-day, has led Heuberger down a path of research comparing and contrasting approaches to diversity on two continents. [...]

Heuberger’s exchange program facilitated meetings with a variety of people including Muslims from Arab countries, Afro-American Muslims, Christians, and NGOs assisting former refugees from Somalia. One meeting she found particularly valuable was with military personnel at the Foreign Military Studies Office (FMSO) in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

The page ends with this reference to Martin Luther King, and ties together the man who spoke about dreams and the people, like Heuberger, who hope to continue to make those dreams real:

Heuberger says that political and spiritual leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. have an impact worldwide. “What one can learn from them is never to give up, self-discipline, and compassion,” she says. Her next lecture on “Islam in the U.S.A.” will be in January 2009 at the University of Vienna.

If you’re curious about these kinds of programs, you’ll want to check out this section on cultural exchanges and educational programs.

Next, here’s the official announcement of Hillary’s first trip as Secretary of State:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Travel to Asia

In her first trip abroad since taking office, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Asia, departing Washington, DC on February 15. Secretary Clinton will visit Japan (February 16-18), Indonesia (February 18-19), the Republic of Korea (February 19-20), and China (February 20-22).

In all capitals, Secretary Clinton will be discussing common approaches to the challenges facing the international community, including the financial markets turmoil, humanitarian issues, security and climate change.

In Tokyo, Secretary Clinton will meet with senior Japanese officials for discussions on the strategic bilateral alliance and cooperation with Japan on regional and global issues. The Secretary then will travel to Jakarta to hold consultations will senior Indonesian officials to discuss the close and growing partnership with Indonesia and perspectives on common interests in Southeast Asia.

In Seoul, Secretary Clinton will meet with senior leaders to discuss our expanding global cooperative partnership with our ally, the Republic of Korea.

The Secretary will conclude her trip in China where she will meet with senior officials in Beijing to further develop a positive, cooperative relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.

Now, here’s what else is going on that’s of major importance:

Envoy Richard Holbrooke is in Pakistan:

REUTERS: Feb. 12 – On his maiden visit to Islamabad in his new role as U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Holbrooke mostly kept his own counsel.
Holbrooke is new to the region and has been charged with coming up with a fresh strategy to pacify Afghanistan and eliminate the al Qaeda threat from Pakistan. Deborah Lutterbeck reports. SOUNDBITES: Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair

Here are Secretary Clinton’s remarks on February 6th regarding the role of Envoy Richard Holbrooke. And below, just because I noticed it when I was scouring Reuters’ videos for news stories, a report on the progress that Pakistan is making in going after the plotters responsible for the horrific killings in Mumbai.

Special Representative Holbrooke’s Role in Afghanistan and Pakistan

QUESTION: Well, thank you so much for giving me a couple of minutes. The goal is a really nuanced, substantive profile of Special Representative Holbrooke. Boy, that’s a mouthful.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Yes.

QUESTION: You know, that gets – that doesn’t so much do a retread of his past, but really talks about the match between man and mission, and how he – what he’s done for the last eight years, how he’s approached this particular job. And so a lot of the story is about your relationship with him, and so all – pretty much all of the questions are geared to that.

The first thing I wanted to ask you about, though, is to tell me, in as much detail as you can, about the origins of your idea for some sort of special envoy or representative to this region. I understand that it was a trip to the region in ’07 and a series of meetings with leaders there that gave you the idea.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, thanks, Jodi, and I’m really happy to talk with you about all of this. I do believe, in general, in the utility of special envoys. I have seen the importance of zeroing in with all tools at our disposal on problems from the Irish Troubles to the Balkans, and I knew that the use of special envoys can be very helpful.

In 2007, I went as a senator to Iraq and Kuwait, Pakistan, Afghanistan, with two of my colleagues, Senator Bayh from Indiana and Representative McHugh from New York. And we had a series of meetings in both Afghanistan and Pakistan that illustrated dramatically the breakdown in communications between President Karzai and President Musharraf, between the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

And it was clear to me that there was a great deal of animosity that could lead to problems between them, and with us as well, in what we were attempting to do. I had a long conversation with both President Karzai and President Musharraf, where each complained at length about the other, and it raised alarm bells in my mind. And when I got back to Washington, I called the White House and I spoke to Steve Hadley, the National Security Advisor, and strongly recommended that the President consider assigning someone to be focused on the area and to interact with the leaders in the two countries.

And that was just not an idea that the Bush Administration thought was worth pursuing. And later, they did appoint General Doug Lute to oversee the military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that’s not what I was advocating. And I was convinced from ’07 on that so long as we remained involved in Afghanistan, and so long as Pakistan would impact what we could do in Afghanistan and also had implications for our security and policies in the region, that having an envoy made a lot of sense.

So when President Obama – President-elect Obama asked me if I would be Secretary of State, I told him in the very first conversation that I can recall that I had some ideas if I were to accept the job that I thought would be important to explore, and among those were the idea of immediately moving on someone for the Middle East and someone for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was positive about the idea. He told me to pursue it, work it up, get back to him.

And after I accepted the position and began looking at the broad array of problems that we were going to inherit, I put the Middle East, Pakistan-Afghanistan, among others, at the very top of the list, and began the process of, you know, recruiting people for both of those posts. And you know, it took some time, and I talked to a lot of people.

But I must confess that from the beginning, I recommended that Richard Holbrooke be the person that I and the President would send to Pakistan and Afghanistan. And I was, you know, delighted when the President agreed and we were able to work the necessary preliminaries from, you know, early – really, late December to mid January so that we could be in a position – because I wanted to nominate our two envoys for the Middle East and Afghanistan and Pakistan as soon as possible. And I explained to the President why I thought that would be an excellent way to, you know, get started and make a statement about what our priorities were, and he agreed. And as you know, we were able to accelerate the process and make the announcements, you know, on the second day of my – you know, of his tenure and the first day of mine.

QUESTION: Sure. And I would love – I mean, aside from the completely obvious parts – his achievements in the Balkans, et cetera, et cetera, his immense, long experience – can you talk a little bit about the specific match between man and mission? You said that immediately you sort of knew that Ambassador Holbrooke was the right person for this particular job. And you know, some of that is completely obvious to me, but since he was such a close advisor of yours so long – for so long, I’m curious about what qualities you saw in him that matched particularly well with the Af-Pak situation.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, as I have said many times, and as the President has reaffirmed, you know, we have to make diplomacy and development at the center of our foreign policy and national security. And I have said, we have got to be smarter about how we exercise our power, and at the heart of smart power are smart people. And as he has proven many times over his long career in service to our country, they don’t come any smarter or more capable than Richard Holbrooke.

You know, at his introduction ceremony, both the President and I emphasized that nowhere is the need for a vigorous diplomatic approach more apparent than in the two regions that epitomize the nuance and complexity of our interconnected world than the Middle East and Afghanistan and Pakistan. Richard represents the kind of robust, persistent, determined diplomacy that the President intends to pursue, and that I’m honored to help him fulfill.

And when I think about what we’re facing in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I believed that, you know, Richard brought a lifetime of experience. He’s passionate about securing peace in situations where it does not exist. He has seen the cost of conflict in terms of human lives with his own eyes going back to the early 1960s in Vietnam. He is single-minded in his desire to make the world a more peaceful place. And I know from many, many hours of conversation, going back many years, that he has a preexisting concern for Afghanistan. As a young diplomat, he traveled through Afghanistan. During the last eight years as he pursued his many interests, and particularly his work on behalf of the Asia Society, he returned to Afghanistan and Pakistan and the neighbors.

And the best way to know how somebody will handle a difficult situation is to look at what they’ve done in the past. And I’ve known of Richard Holbrooke for decades. I watched him up-close in the Clinton Administration. I admire deeply his ability to shoulder the most vexing and difficult challenges. And he does bring relentless focus and energy. He can wear you out, but it is necessary to keep everybody, you know, on point about what we’re trying to achieve.

QUESTION: Okay, great. And talk – let me just finish typing that quote, to keep everybody – can you talk a little bit about the art of managing Richard Holbrooke? I mean, this is a guy who even his closest friends admit that he is loving – you know, and they say this lovingly, that he can be overbearing, that he’s this enormous force of nature, that he can break a little crockery in the process of doing some very noble things. Can you talk a little bit about – since you are his boss – a little bit about, over the years, the best ways you’ve found to direct and focus him?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Gee, I’d never heard that he could be any of those things before. (Laughter.) You know, personally, because I do know him so well, I understand what drives him and, you know, how mission-oriented he is. He’s a consummate professional, and he is always looking for ways to advance the real and lasting solutions that are in pursuit of American interests and values. And obviously, you know, like any, you know, really focused and passionate person, occasionally he has to be, you know, brought down to earth and reined in so that he, you know, doesn’t levitate or, you know, levitate the rest of us.

But he is someone who, you know, is really such a dedicated public servant that I, you know – I am, you know, really grateful he took on this responsibility. It takes – you know, it takes a big change in his life to be able to relocate and do this. But I think that, you know, many – you know, many people who have worked with Richard over the years know that he’s someone who, you know, just doesn’t quit, is always trying to be creative and flexible, but without losing sight of what’s most important. He’s not somebody who gets – you know, loses the forest for the trees. He wants to count every tree, but at the end of the day, he wants to try to, you know, create the conditions that will lead to peace.

MODERATOR: Jodi, I think we’ll have to wrap up unless you have something very pressing.

QUESTION: Okay. Yeah, well, let’s do a couple of sort of fact-checky type things. These are things that I’ve been reporting that I would love your read on. Can you explain a little bit how control of the embassies in Islamabad and Kabul will work? I mean, does – essentially, does he have direct control over those embassies? Or will they work through the regular State Department machinery?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, you know, they’ll work through the regular State Department machinery, but in collaboration. You know, we have many Foreign Service and Civil Service professionals, you know, at State and in the countries, who have been and will continue to be, fully engaged on Afghanistan and Pakistan. You know, they are among the best we have. There are a lot of people of deep experience and expertise. They’ve been dedicated, often at great peril and personal sacrifice, and they’re going to be the underpinning of everything that our government does to achieve peace and stability in the region.

Obviously, I expect everyone to work together. And you know, we’re going to be, you know, looking to, you know, Richard to provide, you know, leadership. But we also will be, you know, seeking out the advice and opinions of others who have roles that are important in helping us determine our way forward.

QUESTION: Mm-hmm. Okay, great. Now, this is definitely something I want to check with you because it involves a pretty private conversation. Someone – not Richard, I should note – told me, obviously second or third hand, that when the President first approached you about the Secretary of State job, that your sort of initial, immediate reaction had been to say, I really think Richard Holbrooke might be the best Secretary of State. You know, I just wanted to run that by you before we even think of putting it in the paper.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I never comment on conversations with presidents. I started that when my husband was president, and I’m going to continue it now –

QUESTION: Okay.

SECRETARY CLINTON: — working for President Obama.

QUESTION: Okay, great. And one more personal anecdote. I have a little sketch of the dinner parties that Ambassador Holbrooke has thrown for you over the years in New York. It sounds like they were pretty fun affairs. Do you have any sort of favorite memories or moments from those?

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Richard and Kati are close friends of mine and, you know, I really enjoy spending time with them. And the annual Christmas dinner, which they started in the late ‘90s, was just a delight. I mean, a wonderful guest list of eclectic and interesting people. You know, one year Richard had the Salvation Army show up and sing Christmas carols, and another year we, you know, had the late Peter Stone, who was just so funny, start an annual tradition of delivering a poem. And you know, he – I was First Lady and he called me the “First Shiksa” of the nation. I mean, we’ve just had a lot of fun over the years, and they’re just great to be with.

QUESTION: Okay. I heard the toasts got considerably more outrageous than that. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, you’re not going to get any confirmation from me, Jodi. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Remember, I am now the chief diplomat of the United States of America. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Okay, fantastic. Well, thank you so much for this. It was really great to be able to talk to you.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Great to talk you. Have a good weekend.

And here’s one more Reuters video / story, related to Holbrooke’s mission:

Pakistan moves on Mumbai plotters

REUTERS: Feb 12 Feb 12 – The Pakistani government says for the first time that the attacks on Mumbai were launched and partly planned from Pakistan.

A government advisor said they were holding in custody the ringleader and five other suspects.

The attacks in India’s financial capital killed 179 people.

Pakistani officials have shared their findings with the Indian government, which has heralded Pakistan’s work as a ‘positive development’. — Basmah Fahim reports.