By Steve Clemons

Tony Blair has informed his Queen and his Cabinet that he is stepping down as Prime Minister. Americans tend to look at other country’s heads-of-state through the prism of their own president — but Blair even more so. Blair used to seem a lot like Clinton. Now sadly, he looks a lot like Bush.

In international finance circles, Michael Mussa is a legendary figure who used to work at the thin air levels at the International Monetary Fund.

Barack Obama‘s policy shop is kicking out some good stuff. I find this proposal reported by Bloomberg of his to help American automobile manufacturers offset retiree health care costs for gains in cutting carbon emissions intriguing.

One of the unwritten but hard as concrete rules in the governance of the world’s two most important transnational financial institutions is that a European heads the International Monetary Fund and an American heads the World Bank. . .always.

Kevin Kellems, who previously worked as spokesman for Vice President Cheney and then became a senior adviser to Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, has announced he is resigning his position. He is the first to fall in Wolfowitz’s camp after the turmoil triggered by allegations of nepotism and mismanagement by Wolfowitz at the Bank….

I agree with Scott Paul that John Bolton’s co-mingling during his Bradley Prize acceptance speech of Senator Chris Dodd and and former Senator Lincoln Chafee with prominent citizens of Pyongyang, Havana, Damascus and Tehran was at first glance disconcerting.

Today at 12:30 pm EST, I will be moderating a meeting with my colleague Daniel Levy — Director of the New America Foundation’s Middle East Policy Initiative and a Senior Fellow at both the New America Foundation and Century Foundation — titled “The Report into Israel’s Lebanon War: Strategic and Political Implications”.

Ken Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, has poked some fun at Paul Wolfowitz’s teetering tenure as President of the World Bank.

Chris Nelson, in his Nelson Report, reveals the flavor of a recent alleged meeting of Bush friends and supporters with the President.