— Steve Clemons

New York Times White House correspondent Sheryl Gay Stolberg is trailing President Obama who is campaigning in Pennsylvania today. In a pool report she filed a few minutes ago, she reports that she caught up with US Senator Arlen Specter on the airport tarmac.

My colleague, friend and sometime Washington Note poster Andrew Lebovich has a really excellent piece up at Foreign Policy analyzing Osama bin Laden’s new tape threatening France.

Just a week away from the 50th anniversary of the election of John F. Kennedy, Kennedy adviser, speechwriter, and close confidante Ted Sorensen has been struck by another stroke. I don’t know the prognosis as of yet — but close associates of Ted’s are keeping TWN informed.

(graphics credit: Vanity Fair, November 2010) I acknowledge that I am often pretty dimwitted when it comes to American pop culture — and this may be another occasion. I seriously don’t get what Vanity Fair is trying to do with this calendar.

I had the opportunity tonight to chat with PBS NewsHour Chief Anchor Jim Lehrer and former Afghanistan Interior Minister and National Defense University professor Ali Jalali about the solvency of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai given the acknowledgment that he is accepting “bags of cash” from Iran.

Tonight, I discussed the revelations that Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and his team were receiving “bags of cash” from Iran and what the implications of this were with Jim Lehrer on the PBS NewsHour. The other guest was National Defense University Professor and former Afghanistan Interior Minister Ali Jalali.

Former US Senator Chuck Hagel — now teaching students chosen by lottery for his classes over at Georgetown University and of course Co-Chairman of President Obama’s Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board as well as Chairman of the Atlantic Council — has written an elegant reminder of what elected public service ought to look like.

(click image for larger version) — Jonathan Guyer, who blogs at Mideast by Midwest, is the official toonist for The Washington Note.

Charlie Cook, who was the first major political commentator to note that the Republicans would come roaring back probably taking the House of Representatives, thinks that the Senate will most likely stay in Democratic hands.