Ben Katcher is a Research Associate at the New America Foundation. In a post on Monday, Steve Clemons referred to Anatol Leiven’s critique of John McCain in the Financial Times.
. . .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.
I don’t have a crush on Barack Obama — though a slug of my friends do. Here’s the latest on the political crush front from Obama Girl: I only wish I had met Amber Lee Ettinger last year and had gotten her to try out “Hagel Girl” first. History might be different today.
“Radical centrists” and dead armadillos have a lot in common. They are sometimes whacked in the middle of the road. In fact, my friend and New America Foundation co-founder Michael Lind originally proposed that New America choose a mascot of an “armadillo with a yellow stripe across it.
The first edicts that late-in-the-day Hillary Clinton Campaign director Maggie Williams issued to her staff as Patti Solis Doyle was heading out the door were: 1. Be respectful of your fellow staff members — generous in spirit, positive, constructive. 2.