By Steve Clemons

A very close friend of mine “just came out” to his brother as a gay man. He did the same with his mother about ten months ago — and it didn’t go well. . .with either of them.

Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner and Annie the kid sis send their very best holiday wishes to everyone.

If the speech I went to yesterday by Mike Huckabee presented the kinder gentler face of economic populism (with Republican characteristics), today’s Iowa City event with John Edwards offered the full-throated, full-throttle version.

While most people find their mailboxes filled with Christmas cards and the like, this time of year in Iowa (well, this time of year every four years) mailboxes are stuffed to overflowing with campaign direct mail.

Jacob Heilbrunn, author of the soon-to-be-released They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, has a devastating critique of the mutually exploitive relationship between co-czar of the neocon establishment, Norman Podhoretz, and former New York mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani titled “Norman’s Conquest.

Michael Schiffer is The Washington Note’s blogger for the Iowa Caucuses and is a resident of Iowa.

I’ve seen Michael Schiffer smile — and by way of this blog entry, I’m encouraging the Stanley Foundation to get a pic of him up showing some teeth. Michael Schiffer was one of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s superstar national security advisers and was her legislative director.

Senator Obama’s campaign has amended some of what it sent my way on his experience with Europe and with European leaders.

Senator John McCain just sent the following Christmas and holiday message to his supporters — and I thought it worthwhile to post here. It surfaced emotions I felt when I saw the brilliant and disturbing Alex Gibney directed film, Taxi to the Dark Side which opens nationally on January 11th.