This was strange exchange between a “senior administration official” traveling with President Bush in the Middle East and a journalist today in the United Arab Emirates at the Emirates Palace Hotel.

Al Jazeera anchor and senior correspondent Yosri Fouda — who interviewed al Qaeda leaders Ramzi bin al Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — sent me this clip this morning on stereotypes of Arabs in American films. It’s called “Reel Bad Arabs”, five minutes long and worth learning from.

Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giametti clowning it up as Ben Franklin and John Adams in new HBO miniseries.  January 11th was Alexander Hamilton’s 250th birthday — but he doesn’t have a movie or mini-series yet

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda play early morning catch at the Diaoyutai State Guest House in Beijing on 29 December 2007 Andrew Oros of Washington College has an interesting piece on Brookings Northeast Asia Commentary site on what impact 2008 elections both in the U.S.

One of the Bush administration’s toughest critics from the right has been Jim Pinkerton. Pinkerton is a friend, a New America Foundation colleague, a prolific opinion journalist, a Fox News commentator, and one of the most intelligent thinkers in Washington — but he’s just thrown me a bit of a curve ball.

Daniel Drezner just posted the following on his Facebook Profile and it’s also at his blog: Your dumb-ass quote of the day From John Kerry’s endorsement of Barack Obama: “Experience is not defined by years spent in Washington but by instinct and judgment and wisdom,” Mr Kerry told a crowd of about 2,000 at a…

Oops! Sudan acknowledged Thursday that its troops shot at a United Nations convoy in Darfur, reversing an initial denial, but it in part blamed the peacekeepers saying they should have notified Khartoum of their movements.

An American journalist, Nicholas Schmidle, who authored the article “Next Gen Taliban” that appeared in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine has been deported from Pakistan. He was forced to leave today — Friday, 11 January.

This week’s events on the Israel-Palestinian front with President Bush’s visit still leave the prospects for peace open to questioning.

I just ran across this May 2007 article by Bob Shrum about the Vice Presidential selection process that John Kerry went through in choosing John Edwards as his running mate.