CYNTHIA WEBB ASKS WHETHER TELECOM IS BACK? Well, maybe for the oligopolistic Baby Bells, but the innovative technology players are struggling hard to get us the infrastructure that America’s so-called “information age” needs but doesn’t yet have. The news on broadband and high-speed, big information pipe connectivity is mixed.

THE NELSON REPORT, Chris Nelson’s intriguing daily report on everything interesting in Washington, is worth reprinting in part today. He sent this before the news that Condi Rice gets Powell’s perch, but the line-up that Chris has linked to this State Department decision is fascinating.

DANIELLE PLETKA, AEI FOREIGN & DEFENSE POLICY PROGRAMS CHIEF, will be appointed Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs. This just hit in from a little birdie — not on the wires yet.

I AM ONE WHO BELIEVES THAT THINGS HAVE GONE SO WRONG IN IRAQ that the American “brand” is no longer seen as a legitimate deliverer of stability and democracy there.

SOME TIME AGO, I PRAISED PETE COORS AND BLASTED KEN SALAZAR because of their respective comments on the Iraq War resolution.

THIS SHORT PIECE (IN GERMAN) RAN IN BERLIN’S LARGEST DAILY, Der Tagesspiegel. The Washington Note got a nice plug. Recently, the Heinrich Boell Foundation hosted a group of German journalists here in the U.S. — and many of them seemed interested in doing more to encourage political blogging in Berlin and Brussels.

THE MOST POPULAR MEMBER OF THIS BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S CABINET has tendered his resignation. Powell’s memoirs are going to fetch a mint for him, and Democrats ought to see if there is any way at all that this guy might switch parties.

FRED PHELPS IS THAT NUT WHO SPENDS ALL HIS TIME HARRASSING GAY people. Finally, some folks on the far right said enough and sent Fred and his idiotic followers packing. Phelps tried to invade the conservative, bible-belting town of Sand Springs, Oklahoma to harrass 17-year old Michael Shackelford and his fellow evangelical parishioners.

I HAD THE PRIVILEGE OF WORKING WITH ROBERT KAPLAN for a couple of years when he was a Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation.

JAMES K. “JAMIE” GALBRAITH HAS A LEVEL-HEADED REVIEW of the ongoing debate about voting machines, spoiled ballots, and provisional ballots. He works through the numbers on voter turn-out and rejects most of the claims of those who believe that Kerry won the election after all.