By Steve Clemons

I love holidays — nearly all of them, but there is a clutzy side to me that sometimes reveals itself too much when I get into religious and cultural festivities that are a degree removed.

Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, in response to declining interest in H1N1 immunization from risk group citizens, opened up the immunization pool to those who wanted it. I’m out at the colonial era founded liberal arts college founded in 1782, Washington College, and decided to go ahead and get immunized.

Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) has this soft side that Ted Kennedy often connected with — and it’s on display in this video (hat tip to Adele Stan and Mike Rogers).

I have to admit that since watching Afghanistan Commander General Stanley McChrystal‘s mesmerizing interview on 60 Minutes, I have made time nearly every day to get back in shape and do some running.

Sitting in my Berlin hotel room last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning at about 1:30 am, I saw a note from the White House come through the transom that was not about the President’s West Point speech on Afghanistan and Pakistan but rather about new presidential appointments.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) is speaking at Brookings today on the Obama administration’s course in Afghanistan. His speech, while largely supportive of the frame that Obama has brought to the challenge — a narrowed mission, discussion of an offramp, and more — also includes lingering doubts.

This is a guest note by Nicholas Kitchen, Editor of IDEAS Reports and a Fellow of the LSE IDEAS — or for acronym-challenged, Diplomacy & Strategy at the London School of Economics Barack Obama: Last Transatlantic President? When Barack Obama took office in January, expectations of what the new President could bring to international affairs…

The Carnegie Endowment’s Karim Sadjadpour is one of the best commentators explicating the Iranian Government’s behavior in the business. He recently did and interview with Middle East Progress on the state of play in Iran that I found insightful.

Hillary Clinton would have probably flown more miles this year had she not badly injured her wrist in a nasty State Department parking lot fall, but she still logged a very impressive 185,731 in flight miles so far this year.

I just had the privilege of attending the swearing-in ceremony for my old friend David Huebner as the next US Ambassador to New Zealand. Demonstrating the importance of this appointment to the White House, Vice President Joe Biden gave the oath to the openly gay lawyer turned diplomat.