By Steve Clemons

Barack Obama is occasionally photographed carrying a weighty and important book around with him.

I just received an email from a leading public intellectual on US foreign policy who just returned from Israel and Palestine and reported that there were “construction cranes all over Ramallah.” The source commented that Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is getting something right.

Israeli media is reporting that former Clinton administration Secretary of Health and Human Services and University of Miami President Donna Shalala was “humilitated” at Ben Gurion International Airport. What makes matters a bit more complicated for Israel is that she was there to help protest the “academic boycott” of Israel.

Is it possible that even the center-right tilting viewing audience of Fox news programs is also open to significant upgrades of gay civil rights? That is what a surprising new, unscientific survey of a Fox web audience seems to be showing.

CNN show host and Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria has returned $10,000 and an award he was presented by the Anti-Defamation League in 2005 after ADL’s opposition to a mosque at the rebuilt World Trade Center site in New York. This is exceptional leadership on an important moral issue that I want to salute.

Some Republicans and Democrats can get their heads together now and then. When I had the privilege of working for Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) in the US Senate, I had just moved over from serving as founding Executive Director of the Nixon Center for Peace & Freedom, later renamed (thankfully) “The Nixon Center“.

This just in from my friends at UPI: ‘Oldest’ man actually died 32 years ago TOKYO, Aug. 5 (UPI) — A man thought to be Tokyo’s oldest resident at 111 years old actually died more than 30 years ago and was left to mummify in the family home, a report said.

(collection of photos from passports of individuals suspected in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh) This just in from CNN: — Alleged Israeli agent to be tried in Germany over charges relating to the murder of a Hamas leader in Dubai. G.

While I’m not surprised that the Pentagon has barred Michael Hastings from a previously approved “embed”, they are not handling this well and are messing up again. The President and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates should intervene and order the Pentagon to invite Michael Hastings back into the embed fold.

America and Japan: the cutest military alliance in the whole world. Occasional blogger Gen Kanai sent me this fascinating note referencing a CNNGo post by Matt Alt about manga cartoon love and the US-Japan security relationship. From Gen Kanai: This is pretty amazing.