I’m a “criteria guy.” We are going through a hiring process at the New America Foundation, and I am one of the folks who harps a lot about establishing criteria for decisions. But I think that these criteria should be obvious to all.

Yesterday, I lunched with Last King of Scotland Director Kevin McDonald on the set of his new film, State of Play. McDonald told me that on Saturday he and Russell Crowe and some others were racing a car in a scene around the Library of Congress.

Jacob Heilbrunn has ‘penned’ a fascinating, no punches pulled essay on Samantha Power’s resignation and her place in the foreign policy establishment. I don’t agree with all of it and am myself a Samantha Power fan who thinks that, more than most, she has the ability to think somewhat strategically about ethereal global justice problems….

It’s true, I’ve given Hillary Clinton a harder time for her fear-based messaging than I’ve given Barack Obama for his. Well, I have my reasons.

John McCain pushed to suspend Russia’s membership in the G8 as early as 2005. Hillary Clinton says she looked into Vlad Putin’s eyes and saw that he didn’t have a soul and she says nothing will change with Dmitry Medvedev’s election. Barack Obama’s position seems pretty similar.

I think that Samantha Power is one of the outstanding intellectuals of our time. She has struggled with the question of how nations should respond to the signs of genocidal trends and been one of the key points of conscience within our foreign policy community.

When is a tent just too big? Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake both support Barack Obama. They come from different corners of a many-cornered foreign policy arena. George Soros supports Obama — and now a Soros-nemesis Martin Peretz has thrown his enthusism behind Obama.

Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner and Annie his kid sis showed up in these outfits the other day. I have a problem with their attire as I remain uncommitted to any of the candidates — and would prefer them to be wearing Chuck Hagel attire.

If folks are free this evening and local, I’ll be participating in a panel discussion at 7 pm EST with former New York Times correspondent and All the Shah’s Men author Stephen Kinzer and Treacherous Alliance author Trita Parsi at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

I’ve talked to both Obama and Clinton campaign staffers tonight — and both acknowledge that tonight’s results were another amazing twist in an exhausting marathon battle between two compelling personalities in the Democratic party. But serious Obama strategists say that the “big difference” in the Clinton operation was her campaign’s “ground game.