By Steve Clemons

Just received this release from the White House — which is quite relevant to my immediate post below this one on the role of Hillary Clinton.

Glenn Kessler has written an excellent front page profile of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton titled “A Team Player Who Stands Apart” in today’s Washington Post.

Irving Kristol has died at 89. Kristol is the primary intellectual godfather of the neoconservative movement — which his son Bill Kristol helped transform into a major political force. Kristol and his wife, Gertrude Himmelfarb, were and are respectively profoundly significant intellectuals whose work and public commentary had an enormous impact on Washington’s political culture….

I know — not the best headline and easily misunderstood as a cheap shot, which I don’t intend. . .

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams ran an excellent clip last night on the “unfairness” of some Americans being allowed to travel to Cuba while others are blocked.

I am up this morning in Pittsburgh speaking in a forum sponsored by the RAND Corporation and the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh about the political context of next week’s G-20 meeting. We’ve just gone through one morning panel, and I will be in the next segment that starts at 9:45 am.

(photo courtesy of Atlantic Council of the United States) Barack Obama has invited Colin Powell in to see him today — and knowing General Powell’s respect for the Office of the President, whether occupied by Barack Obama or George W.

Charlie Cook, one of the best political handicappers in the country, sees the Democratic camp diverging in three directions — loyal Obamites, Liberal purists, and skeptics.

Politico‘s Ben Smith got the scoop on a letter today drafted and signed by a number of realist-tilting scholars and commentators raising many of the key questions and concerns about growing US presence in Afghanistan that were Obama’s concerns about Iraq.

Big conference on America’s debt mess today. I’m moderating a big chunk. Here is the rundown of a very interesting symposium thinking through the challenges of private debt overhang and the public debt debate. The bursting of the housing and credit bubbles has left the United States with a huge debt overhang.