By Steve Clemons

President Obama is out fast embracing the better than expected drop in employment stating that “the worst may be behind us” on the recession. Quick counterpoint.

I hope all of you are having decent weekends. I am and am blessed with this view just a 30 second stroll from where I am staying.

(post-2007 Australian American Leadership Dialogue Dinner: Anne Keating, Anne Wexler, Steve Clemons, Lesley Russell, Bruce Wolpe, Former Prime Minister Paul Keating; photo credit: Ambassador Joseph Duffey) One of the people who opened many otherwise closed doors for me in Washington, DC is Anne Wexler — an amazing politico in Washington married to the equally peripatetic…

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Here are my thoughts from an exchange with Keith Olbermann on Bill Clinton’s surprise trip to Pyongyang to secure the release of journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

Bill Clinton is flying back to the US with just pardoned journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in North Korea.

Tonight at about 8:15 pm EST and then again at 10:15 pm EST on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, I will be discussing Bill Clinton’s successful trip to North Korea that not only secured pardons and expected release of imprisoned journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling — but may have brought other constructive currents to the US-North…

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry might have brought Senatorial gravitas to the US-North Korea relationship and have opened connections for Pyongyang beyond the White House.

Tomorrow morning, at about 7:15 am EST, I’ll be chatting about Hillary Clinton’s seven nation tour through Africa on WNYC/National Public Radio’s “The Takeaway.

I’m not meaning to mock anyone with this — but here again is another priceless picture from a TWN reader visiting Okinawa, Japan — which is speckled with nearly 40 separate US military institutions.

This from a reader this morning in Okinawa, Japan. Someone call Conan O’Brien quick.