By Steve Clemons

Just arrived in Riyadh. This is the view from my window at my hotel — an overcast day. Things start up at 12:30 pm, two hours from now on Sunday here.

I am sitting at JFK Airport preparing to depart for Saudi Arabia in a couple of hours — and thought I’d post this picture I took of myself last week, standing next to Room 871 of the Mayflower Hotel — the grand establishment where Aldrich Ames took his first $50,000 from the Soviets launching his…

I’m leaving very early in the morning to spend a week in Saudi Arabia. I’ll be weighing in on matters from the road. Sameer Lalwani and others will be helping to cover — but wanted to keep the TWN loyalists informed.

Today I organized a media/blogger conference call with George Soros to discuss his concerns about the current financial crisis, which he thinks is the worst America has experienced since the 1930s.

Friday morning (tomorrow) I will be hosting a media/blogger conference call with financier and philanthropist George Soros at 10 am EST.

I’ve asked Leo Hindery to spend some time with us at the New America Foundation today. It’s a brown bag deal — but I’ll provide the sodas and cookies (though I’m on a diet).

Yesterday, I had coffee with a former three-star general who has outed himself as a political conservative in his post-military life. Joining us was a former conservative member of Congress, a conservative CEO, a top tier conservative organizer, and a conservative pundit. I discussed the Iraq War, Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan/Pakistan, nukes, and Cuba with them.

Frank Gaffney stands out as one of the leading original card-carrying Scoop Jackson Democrats who joined up with Ronald Reagan in tackling to its inglorious end the former Soviet Union — or at least that is the narrative that many Scoop Jackson-employed neoconservatives like to tell. Gaffney is an indefatigable advocate of Israel’s Likudist aspirations….

Ouch! Barack Obama’s spokesman Bill Burton just sent out a release of his own reaction to John McCain’s war-mongering criticism of Senator Obama that the latter has no experience in national security and warfare. Well, frankly, I’m impressed with Burton on this one.

Joseph Loconte offers a spirited defense of John McCain’s foreign policy and national security positioning in a piece that ran today in the Weekly Standard. I liked his essay because Loconte articulates the fault line that runs through conservative circles on foreign policy.