By Scott Paul

I’m happy to see Tom Lantos is holding a hearing this morning called “Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Oil Dependence.

One of Steve’s and my partners in crime on the Bolton campaign has informed us that former Ambassador Bolton will be on The Daily Show tonight at 11. Should be entertaining. Interesting to note: Bolton and Jon Stewart have an interesting point of agreement: they both think France doesn’t matter.

What exactly did President Bush see when he looked into President Putin’s eyes? I recall he got “a sense of his soul.” After my post last week about Kommersant’s reaction to the death of Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, a couple of my Russian friends e-mailed me to tell me they were concerned for my safety….

Mark Lagon is one of the people in the International Organizations bureau at State who can play ball with high-level Bush appointees and still make the case for a strong U.S.-U.N. relationship.

There are a thousand reasons Nancy Pelosi might have decided not to push for a greenhouse gas cap & trade scheme by July 4, her timeline for global warming legislation. None of those reasons are compelling. I’ll be doing some fairly in-depth writing on climate change and energy policy on this site.

I’ll be watching closely on Thursday morning as Zalmay Khalilzad runs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee gauntlet. Acting Perm. Rep. Alex Wolff has been doing, by all accounts, a fantastic job at the U.S.

I’m a big Chuck Hagel fan. His roll call votes rarely turn out the way I’d like since he’s been a party loyalist for most of his career, but he’s been an important voice for comity in the political process and multilateralism in foreign policy for a long time.

Russian prosecutors believe journalist Ivan Safronov threw himself from a fifth story window to his death. Apparently we’re to believe that Safronov, who was about to publish a story detailing his investigation into Russian arms deals with Iran and Syria, suddenly decided to give up on life.

I’m honored that Steve has asked me to begin making regular contributions here at The Washington Note. Having worked with Steve on and off for about two years, I have developed a great deal of respect for him as a thinker, writer, convener, and all-purpose operative.