I have always liked Leon Panetta. He’s human, smart, generally straightforward. I dealt with him a number of times when I was working in the Senate for Senator Jeff Bingaman — and Leon never steered me wrong.
Norm Coleman will no doubt soon be joining a lobbying firm, or a conservative think tank like the American Enterprise Institute or Heritage Foundation. Coleman described himself as John Bolton’s best friend in the US Senate during the failed bid(s) to secure Senate affirmation of Bolton as US Ambassador to the United Nations.
Geneva, Switzerland. Monday through Thursday.
I only have time for a short comment as I’m heading to the airport to fly to Europe, but Commerce Secretary nominee Bill Richardson has withdrawn from his appointment because of an ongoing grand jury investigation into whether he traded New Mexico government contracts for campaign contributions.
I have just been communicating in the last few minutes with two friends over Facebook — one a prominent Jewish American blogger now visiting family in an Orthodox community in Israel — and the other a prominent Arab Muslim blogger living in the Middle East. I don’t want to disclose the identities of either.
A number of DC insiders — including Paul Begala, Katherine Kennedy, Margaret Carlson, Peter Fenn, George Vradenburg, Winston Lord, Strobe Talbott, Grover Norquist, Jim Moran, Dana Perino, Steve Clemons, and others — shared their thoughts on movies that “tickled their fancy” for the year in Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin’s Yeas & Neas column today…
Over at The Century Foundation‘s blog, Taking Note, Patrick Radden Keefe highlights five books that anyone who wants to dig into the DNA of the G.W. Bush era could use as a down payment on future penetrating exposes that we can expect once the incumbent office holders get back to baseball, ranching and oil-drilling.
Feel free to add your own stories, but I think that given the number of times I (and all of us) are asked for customer feedback, I might as well make it public.
I’m just back to Washington after a fun holiday. Happy New Year to everyone — but it’s back to the real world tomorrow, and it’s a messy place.
Later today, Josh Marshall will be announcing the winners of his spoofy “Golden Duke Awards” — named for the now-in-jail scion of the corrupt fringe of America’s military industrial complex, former California Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
