David Rothkopf wins the house pool. Leon Panetta will be the next SecDef. Months ago Rothkopf and I met to discuss who might succeed Bob Gates as Secretary of Defense.

Last night and this morning, Pocantico Hills was covered in very thick fog — much like that which dominated the scenes in Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Didn’t see Ichabod Crane — but wouldn’t have been surprised.

Australian Prime Minster Julia Gillard met with her Japanese counterpart, Naoto Kan, in Tokyo last Thursday. In addition to expressing her heartfelt support for the Japanese people after the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis, Ms. Gillard pledged to move “forward a vision for bilateral security and defense co-operation” with Japan. Mr. Kan agreed. Today, Ms….

(Northern California coastline; photo: Steve Clemons; click image for a much larger version) I like this picture a lot; taken from my car driving South along Northern California coast a couple of weeks go.

In a long, fascinating interview that Syria President Bashar al-Assad did with the Wall Street Journal’s Jay Solomon in January, Assad spoke extensively about reform.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy I was off at the movies last night seeing the quite good Water for Elephants when my iPhone text messages began buzzing, buzzing more, and then buzzing again. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

President Obama’s recently co-written oped, done with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron, asserted Transatlantic concerns about affairs in Libya — and intentionally or not, proclaimed ownership of the conflict.

When I was getting hooked on the public policy world, one of my on-ramps was the “Fred Friendly Seminar” series initiated decades ago by former CBS President Fred Friendly.

Atarin18 loaded this YouTube video of fellow Marines stationed in Afghanistan lip-synching to Britney Spears’ “Hold it Against Me.” The note that went with the video was touching I thought: Thank you everyone for the support! Sorry i had to take down the? other videos.

At the beginning of the Libya intervention debate, President Obama said he thought America’s involvement would “be limited to days and not weeks.” Now, it seems that we will have to update that ‘hope’ to be “months if not years.