I had an interesting lunch meeting yesterday with German Bundestag Member Steffen Kampeter who chairs the Bundestag’s CDU/CSU Parliamentary Budget Committee — and among the many topics we discussed was the impact of blogs and blogging on American politics. Our discussion included the still nascent emergence of German blogs and bloggers.

American Prospect editor-at-large Michael Tomasky has written a brave critique on The Guardian‘s “Comment is Free” Blog of Hillary Clinton’s reasons for not saying “sorry” after her supportive votes of President Bush’s Middle East military adventure.

This post will no doubt stir the wrath of many friends in New Mexico, where I visit frequently. I have never been a fan of eating chili peppers — though I seemed to have to when I worked for Senator Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.

(Jim Gibbons welcoming Vice President Cheney to Elko, Nevada) Former House of Representatives Member and incumbent Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons is now under investigation for receiving illegal gifts from an executive at a defense contractor, eTreppid Technologies from Reno.

Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) upped the stakes last night in threatening to object to any motion to adjourn for a recess this next week after Presidents’ Day.

I have been digging deeper and deeper into various aspects of the alleged Spring 2003 Iran proposal.

This afternoon at Brookings in a session moderated by former Ambassador and Brookings foreign policy division chief Carlos Pascual, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman and presidential contender Joseph Biden gave an impressive speech focused on U.S. options toward Iraq. Here is the video link for the Biden speech, and here is the audio link.

This conference will proceed as scheduled today — despite the weather. The US Senate just informed us that they are open, caterers are there — and I’ll be there. For those of you iced and snowed in, read Glenn Kessler’s piece today — and look for news from Flynt Leverett on this subject later today….

(Iran Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and former Swiss Ambassador to Iran Tim Guldimann) Imagine dealing with Iran when few Americans had heard of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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