President Bush 41 has given a number of speeches this past year — one recently at the Germany Embassy — but in lots of other places where he goes out of his way to praise the team of people he had around him, particularly Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, and a few others.

This was a nice surprise yesterday. The Washington Note received a terrific write-up in the new Hill newspaper, Politico that has hired so many high-powered DC political writers away from the Washington Post and other publications — including John Harris and Jim VandeHei.

Keith Ellison (D-MN-5) is the first Muslim Member of the U.S. House of Representatives — and last night, I was impressed with some commentary he offered on the Al Jazeera English Satellite Channel.

The National Interest Online asked for a quick response from me about the foreign policy dimensions of President Bush’s State of the Union address last night. Here is a short article, “Bush’s Kitchen Sink Address” that was published this morning.

Just in from the White House media team: The 2007 State of the Union Policy Initiatives book including all of the State of the Union fact sheets is now available here in pdf form.

Early tomorrow morning, National Interest Online will feature an interesting line-up of fast action respondents to the foreign policy dimensions of the President’s speech tonight. The line-up thus far is: Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Minister of Defense Senator Joseph Biden, Chairman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee General William Odom, former Director, National Security Agency Nikolas K….

Wow. This just from MSNBC news alert: WASHINGTON — Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald used his opening statement in the CIA leak trial Tuesday to allege that Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff lied about Cheney’s early involvement in the disclosure of a spy’s identity.

Last night, I watched Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s first “Conversation” with Americans over the internet. There are three more sessions — one tonight at 7 pm just before the President’s State of the Union address (ouch!) and then on January 23rd and 24th, all 30 minutes long.

(Senator Prescott Bush — father of President George H.W. Bush; grandfather of President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush) Let’s just say that in 1992, you or someone you know and care about was eight years old.

Just about every day I get an email from the Department of Defense identifying casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.