A prominent national security expert zapped me a note the other day commenting positively on something I had posted on the blog, but he admonished me for taking Iowa so seriously. And he had a point.

The One Campaign — committed to generating international support to fight global poverty and disease — is slowly x’ing out the candidates. Michael Tomasky thinks Duncan Hunter is probably out next — and has written that Fred Thompson “Campaigns as though he can’t wait until he can drop out of the race.

Everyone knows the news. McCain and Hillary Clinton beat expectations — big time.

For presidential race junkies, I’ll be doing a couple of bits of media commentary tonight for different networks on the primary results in New Hampshire. But one of the best line-ups of commentators I’ve seen will be hosted by Brave New Films and “The Young Turks.

I have received a few dozen emails asking my thoughts on the Sibel Edmonds case. My response won’t please many of the readers advocating on her behalf or asking if there are ways in which I can help her get more mainstream press attention.

It has been a quite few days here in Iowa. No more phone calls from my new friends John and Joe and Hillary and Barack. No more invitations to dinners, rallies, concerts. No more bright and glossy objects in my mailbox. And, after a final frenzied night. . .silence. I feel so. . .used.

I don’t often link ads, but the language that Huckabee uses in this ad makes it impossible for me to support him. I know many of you probably aren’t surprised by that — but I keep a pretty open mind to various political possibilities across the political spectrum.

Okay not quite.

OK, I know that’s an odd way to put it, but I spent a lot of time years ago learning the most minor and trivial details about Japanese politics and nearly all of the leading and not so leading politicians in Japan’s National Diet — and that’s how they’d refer to smart people attached to…

Barack Obama has a tailwind — and the excitement about him is building. My friends in both camps are in shock. The Hillary Clinton team — at the worker level — is trying to figure out what the turn-around strategy is.