Happy New Year to all from Oakley the Amazing Weimaraner, Buddy & Annie! — Steve Clemons

Brian Till is author of the forthcoming Conversations with Power: What Great Presidents and Prime Ministers Can Teach Us about Leadership — and when he read my answer to a question in a profile of yours truly in The Washington Blade, he said that he “choked on his Coke.

In November, my Japan Policy Research Institute co-founder Chalmers Johnson passed away. I wrote about him here at the time, but in early December I did an interview with WBEZ Chicago’s Jerome McDonnell which I never posted here and really liked.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson knows all the great news angles and pardoning Billy the Kid, as he was thinking of doing, would have kept him ablaze in the press for at least a week. Richardson and this pardon may have been the single threat to Anderson Cooper’s & Kathy Griffin’s ratings tonight.

Greetings from Chestertown, Maryland where I’m currently tallying up President Obama’s recent foreign policy achievements vs. failures and challenges left on the table.

2010 certainly wasn’t a dull year. Between Wikileaks and BP’s leaks, D’s and R’s battling for Congress, iPads making many forget what books feel like, and of course the now ubiquitous tea partiers — there was maybe too much material.

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) Barack Obama’s team is working better and delivering results that just weeks ago seemed out of reach. Tomorrow, I’m going to be offering thoughts on these results and how the Obama White House is gaining ground.

(Holiday Tree credit: Sarah Vignale and Ling-Ling Benter; click image for larger version) Greetings from Claremont Village, California — where I feel Jimmy Stewart’s ghost haunting the corners of town.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab! — Steve Clemons

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Yesterday on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, I had a discussion with Washington NBC Bureau Chief Mark Whitaker on the implications and political context for the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal.