By Steve Clemons

This is very big. The regime may not fall — but the game is changed in Egypt and best I can tell the US does not have a set of contingency scenarios for political change there.

Word is breaking that John McCain’s long time aide and many decades long alter ego, Mark Salter, is the author behind O: A Presidential Novel. Truth in advertising first. I haven’t read the novel, though I really like the graphics of the “O” and the “ears” as well as the brilliant blue of the cover….

Visit msnbc.

At the 3rd Talking Points Memo Policy Roundtable hosted at the New America Foundation, State Department Policy Planning Director Anne-Marie Slaughter will share her views on America’s international engagement — particularly regarding the world’s crisis and not yet crisis (but almost) regions.

This is a very useful look back at what President Obama stated he wanted to accomplish one year ago. Kudos to the HuffPost‘s Shahien Nasiripour and Sam Stein for writing it.

I am in full agreement with Susan Rice: Statement by Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, January 25, 2011 I am appalled by the recent personal blog written by Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on “the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

This is video of Palestinian thugs pounding on the door and according to reports vandalizing Al Jazeera‘s Ramallah bureau before going after a person with a camera. Disturbing. The Palestine Papers, if they are valid, show how unaligned the peace negotiations process has been.

Read here. This has all been such a fiasco over the years.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Keith Olbermann and his producers made me a fairly regular commentator on politics and foreign policy on his show — borrowing me now and then from Rachel Maddow who originally brought me into the MSNBC world.

There must be a few iPhone geniuses out there. I just downloaded several hundred pictures from my iPhone to my computer — and this is one that downloaded with them. I had calls from TPM Media’s publisher Josh Marshall and from my New America Foundation colleague Daniel Levy.