Former Senator Jesse Helms may have died today in a mortal sense — but the brand of pugnacious nationalism that he seeded in America’s contemporary politics lives on in his former legal adviser John Bolton, Dick Cheney and others. We will be battling Helms as an ideological force for decades to come.

I’ve had a tough time getting on the internet the last couple of days here in Guilin, China — but eureka! It worked this morning. I’m told that Brian Beutler, who was shot three times in a mugging the other morning, is making good progress.

Apologies to some TWN readers who wanted to meet in Beijing. Unfortunately, I was able to meet one group that was pre-organized by someone but my schedule was extremely packed except early mornings. Now off to Guilin where I’m pretty sure there are no readers — but then Xian, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.

Liberal writer, blogger, activist Brian Beutler was shot this morning in my neighborhood near 17th and Euclid Streets NW in Washington, DC. He was shot three times in a botched robbery attempt.

For anyone who has not looked at the Washington Post this morning, they should flip to Karen DeYoung’s piece about a Baghdad Embassy report on progress in Iraq. According to the report, leaked to the Washington Post yesterday, Iraq has satisfactorily met 15 of the 18 benchmarks established by Congress.

Washington is abuzz with Seymour Hersh’s recent investigative piece which describes how the administration has launched covert operations that could bleed into military operations and provoke wider conflict with Iran.

A little over year ago after Paul Wolfowitz’s unceremonious departure from the World Bank, the newly appointed head of the World Bank, Bob Zoellick, went on a “listening tour” both as a symbolic gesture to the world to repair damaged relations with investors, but also to gather real “intelligence” of sorts on the needs and…

I was in Beijing just a little over a week ago. Steve isn’t kidding about the smog — on the bad days, visibility is about 10 blocks. On the very worst day, I couldn’t see clearly from one side of Tienanmen Square to the other.

China’s been out of the game for a few hundred years, but it’s back. The Chinese themselves believe that their collective ascendancy is fragile and fraught with problems — particularly environmental degradation associated with growth. The smog in Beijing really stings the unconditioned eyeball.

I’m glad Barack Obama’s campaign has stated that it is giving up the morphed Obama/Presidential Seal podium sign. I didn’t like it. But Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars had an excellent retort on presidential seal hubris. See above graphic and the link to her piece.