Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton struggling against each other for every superdelegate, every pending state primary, every vote is the best thing America has had going for it in some time on the “global public diplomacy” front.
(Title: Blue Lake; Photo credit: Crede Calhoun – VisionQuestStudios.com) I have been completely off-line since Friday afternoon — taking some time to visit a rental property I have in the Allegheny Mountains at Deep Creek Lake. I needed to get the place ready for spring and summer rentals.
A chunk of TWN readers live in the Northeast corridor and enjoy the events I help organize and chair at the New America Foundation, but they complain that I don’t give enough notice some times.
Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of The Nation, has challenged Nation contributors Jeremy Scahill and Naomi Klein with misreading the tenor of the magazine’s endorsement of Obama. Her main point is that despite suggesting editorially that he is the best candidate, The Nation‘s endorsement is not full-throttled and highlights serious concerns about him.
. . .or so says Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynn. According to a report from the New York Times‘ The Lede, Wynne said: In an organization as large as the DOD, the largest and most complex in the world, there will be mistakes,” he said.
The first question Condoleezza Rice received at the meeting was one about her “political future.” She responded by saying that she was not interested in more government service at this point — that she wanted to return to California and write a book that reflected on her time and work in the Bush administration.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is speaking this morning to Grover Norquist’s weekly powerhouse gathering at Americans for Tax Reform of conservative associations, think tanks, and political operations.
The Center for a New American Security is taking a novel approach to thinking about climate change. CNAS — and particularly its CEO Kurt Campbell — are leading a consortium of think tanks and philanthropies in a planned simulated war game exercise on the consequences of climate change.
For those interested and nearby, the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs’ “Policy Innovations Group” will be hosting a panel discussion on blogger ethics on April 3rd in New York over lunch. They are calling it “Cyberethics: The Emerging Codes of Online Conduct” but I like the title “Blogger Ethics” better.
Barack Obama has said that “Washington is the place where good ideas go to die.” I have to agree with him in part that the ideas industry in Washington and the public policy field in general tends to be risk-averse and more comfortable with policy-retreading than policy-innovation.
