Calling all readers and commenters -- POA, Linda, WigWag, Tahoe, Paul Norheim, ..., Dan Kervick, JohnH, JohnM, JohnS, John, Bil, BillS, TonyForesta, jonst, easy e, Spunkmeyer, erichwwk, all of you......and ALL others who happen by. . .

I hope you'll click here at this link and vote for TWN as the best "very large blog" in the 2008 Weblog awards.

Many thanks in advance.

-- Steve Clemons

I have always liked Leon Panetta. He's human, smart, generally straightforward. I dealt with him a number of times when I was working in the Senate for Senator Jeff Bingaman -- and Leon never steered me wrong.

But I've always found it a bit amusing that Leon Panetta serves as "Institute Director" of the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy at Cal State Monterey Bay. Leon Panetta also serves on the Board of Directors of the Leon & Sylvia Panetta Institute which hosts each year the Leon Panetta Lecture Series and which also is home to the Leon E. Panetta Archive.

Maybe -- but innocent til proven guilty -- Charlie Rangel was trying to get a gig like this going. Only problem is that Rangel is still in office -- and at least Leon and his wife Sylvia have built this public policy center on their own time -- and it's nowhere near as self-branding as the "Clinton Global Inititiave".

Well, Barack Obama has had to jump through quite a few names -- one of them a good friend of mine who no doubt will be DCI in a few more rounds -- to settle on Leon Panetta as his new Director of Central Intelligence.

My only question is will we be naming the CIA the Leon E. Panetta Central Intelligence Agency?

Offered in humor. . .

-- Steve Clemons

Norm Coleman will no doubt soon be joining a lobbying firm, or a conservative think tank like the American Enterprise Institute or Heritage Foundation. Coleman described himself as John Bolton's best friend in the US Senate during the failed bid(s) to secure Senate affirmation of Bolton as US Ambassador to the United Nations. In the end, Bolton secured the job temporarily in an unconfirmed recess appointment.

Coleman is 225 votes short of victory after a massive recount of Minnesota ballots. Reports are leaking out that the State Canvassing Board will declare challenger Al Franken the victor on Monday.

Wow. The Democratic Caucus will now control 59 US Senate seats. I am really going to miss Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) in the mix as a key balancer pushing sensible, realist approaches to foreign policy. Hagel tried in the last Congress, but his Democratic partners were too weak.

Hagel, for the time being, is keeping his powder dry as to his next steps, but there is word that he is going to be doing some work with international financier James Wolfensohn.

Congratulations Al Franken and to all those who have been coaching Franken on national security and foreign policy issues.

I plan to send Al the Brzezinski-Scowcroft-Ignatius book as a good supplemental primer.

I'm off to Geneva.

-- Steve Clemons

Geneva, Switzerland. Monday through Thursday.

-- Steve Clemons

I only have time for a short comment as I'm heading to the airport to fly to Europe, but Commerce Secretary nominee Bill Richardson has withdrawn from his appointment because of an ongoing grand jury investigation into whether he traded New Mexico government contracts for campaign contributions.

Here are the statements from Barack Obama and Bill Richardson:

STATEMENT OF PRESIDENT ELECT BARACK OBAMA

It is with deep regret that I accept Governor Bill Richardson's decision to withdraw his name for nomination as the next Secretary of Commerce.Governor Richardson is an outstanding public servant and would have brought to the job of Commerce Secretary and our economic team great insights accumulated through an extraordinary career in federal and state office. It is a measure of his willingness to put the nation first that he has removed himself as a candidate for the Cabinet in order to avoid any delay in filling this important economic post at this critical time. Although we must move quickly to fill the void left by Governor Richardson's decision, I look forward to his future service to our country and in my administration.

STATEMENT OF GOVERNOR BILL RICHARDSON

For nearly three decades, I have been honored to serve my state and our nation in Congress, at the U.N., as Secretary of Energy and as governor. So when the President-elect asked me to serve as Secretary of Commerce, I felt a duty to answer the call.I felt that duty particularly because America is facing such extraordinary economic challenges. The Department of Commerce must play an important role in solving them by helping to grow the new jobs and businesses America so badly needs.

It is also because of that sense of urgency about the work of the Commerce Department that I have asked the President-elect not to move forward with my nomination at this time.I do so with great sorrow. But a pending investigation of a company that has done business with New Mexico state government promises to extend for several weeks or, perhaps, even months.

Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact. But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process.Given the gravity of the economic situation the nation is facing, I could not in good conscience ask the President-elect and his Administration to delay for one day the important work that needs to be done.

So, for now, I will remain in the job I love, Governor of New Mexico, and will continue to work every day, with Lieutenant Governor Diane Denish, to make a positive difference in the lives of New Mexicans. I believe she will be a terrific governor in the future.I appreciate the confidence President-elect Obama has shown in me, and value our friendship and working partnership. I told him that I am eager to serve in the future in any way he deems useful. And like all Americans, I pray for his success and the success of our beloved country.

So, that's the second person who didn't make it through the process. Penny Pritzker was the first in line, but she also removed her name.

I think that the Obama team needs someone who understands the economy and the vital need to reinvest in high wage job growth creation, who understands the importance of redesigning America's domestic social contract between labor, firms, capital and government, and who is familiar with business -- and liked by labor.

There are very few who fit that bill, and Leo Hindery -- who was senior economic advisor to the John Edwards campaign and then was an economic advisor to the Obama campaign as well and authored the interesting book It Takes a CEO -- is a real stand out who the Obama team should consider for Commerce.

-- Steve Clemons

I have just been communicating in the last few minutes with two friends over Facebook -- one a prominent Jewish American blogger now visiting family in an Orthodox community in Israel -- and the other a prominent Arab Muslim blogger living in the Middle East.

I don't want to disclose the identities of either.

But my friend in Israel asked me for some help on shaping questions that he might pose to various Israel pols.

I shared with him some of my thoughts on what he could ask. . .particularly the question of how Israel views long term US support.

I told him that in my view America's increasingly consequential failures to generate stability in the Middle East is like an eroding levee in New Orleans -- and those levees at some point are going to fail leaving Israel quite vulnerable unless Israel and other stakeholding neighbors achieve a different equilibrium in the region. . .and soon. There is great doubt around the world in the ability of America to pursue and achieve its objectives -- and this doubt has consequences for Israel's national security calculus, whether it is acknowledging it or not.

This friend is not far from the action in Gaza, and he has serious doubts about Israel's course.

I give him a lot of credit for trying to think this through, particularly given the hawkishness of many around whom he is living right now.

And from my Arabic blogging friend, I received this note -- and I should add that this guy is about as positive about "modernity" as one can find in Middle East blogging circles:

Happy new year Steve .. :)

though GAZA is making this new year very sad for us here .. but i'll try to smile whenever i can ..

i might stop blogging until the war finishes .. it is really hard watching death day and night so close by ..

any way ..

how are the 1st world countries doing ? :)

I agree with Zbigniew Brzezinski that the worsening tragedy in Gaza is part of the blur we have been seeing for some time. I put a lot of the blame on Labor Party Leader and Defense Minister Ehud Barak who has been itching to manage a war.

But as Brzezinski said, the Israelis and Palestinians have proven unable to rise to a level of strategic, forward-looking maturity to solve this problem and others now need to stabilize the situation, engage in a credible peace negotiation process that involves the other major Arab stakeholders, the US and Europe.

Having the Saudis, Jordanians, Egyptians, Americans, and Europeans impose a solution can't be worse than what we are seeing today.

-- Steve Clemons

A number of DC insiders -- including Paul Begala, Katherine Kennedy, Margaret Carlson, Peter Fenn, George Vradenburg, Winston Lord, Strobe Talbott, Grover Norquist, Jim Moran, Dana Perino, Steve Clemons, and others -- shared their thoughts on movies that "tickled their fancy" for the year in Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin's Yeas & Neas column today in the DC Examiner.

My list was:

Steven Clemons, New America Foundation

"Milk," "The Dark Knight," "Slumdog Millionaire," "Frost/Nixon," and "War Child."

I also liked "Valkyrie" and "Iron Man" but not as much as those above.

"War Child" is not out yet on national distribution but the moving story of hip-hop artist Emanuel Jal who made it out of the bleakness of a conscripted child soldier in Africa is sweeping a lot of film awards out there and was directed by my friend Karim Chrobog and co-produced by my colleague Afshin Molavi.

But there are some DC outsiders (who nonetheless are mostly local and who allow me honorary membership) have their own best movie of the year contest.

Will Bower, now infamous for helping to launch PUMA (go research it on your own) in the wake of Hillary Clinton's loss in the Democratic primary to Barack Obama, launched some years ago the Annual Willoughby Awards for best films of the year.

Bower has about three dozen diverse friends -- from all walks -- who go through a rigorous process of movie and performance selection. First, before the end of the year, nominators have to select "two best movies" and "two best performances". No supporting and primary actors -- no division for men and women -- no distinction between comedies and musicals and documentaries and independents and major features.

Then they get a chance to redo their choices -- which I just did -- and resubmit by January 6. Then there is another round in a few weeks.

So, for fun, here are the Willoughby 2008 choices as they stand at this moment:

Film:

The Dark Knight
The Fall
Frost/Nixon
Hamlet 2
I've Loved You So Long
In Bruges
King Fu Panda
Milk
Mongol
Slumdog Millionaire
Snow Angels

Performances:

Colin Farrell (In Bruges)
Ralph Fiennes (The Duchess)
Frank Langhella (Frost/Nixon)
Heath Ledger (Dark Knight)
James McAvoy (Wanted)
Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
Kristin Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long)
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)

I'm on a movie kick this week, and I know many other TWN readers are as well. Sometimes I do need a distraction from the economic and foreign policy morass that the US is in today.

I will be seeing "Doubt", "Revolutionary Road", and "Australia" this weekend with friends -- and before closing, I should say that I have now seen "Bottle Shock" about six times this last month on long-distance United Airlines flights. Has anyone else seen it?

The more I had no movie choices on the flights other than "Bottle Shock", the more I really liked it -- and feel like I should have added it to my roster for the DC Examiner.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Over at The Century Foundation's blog, Taking Note, Patrick Radden Keefe highlights five books that anyone who wants to dig into the DNA of the G.W. Bush era could use as a down payment on future penetrating exposes that we can expect once the incumbent office holders get back to baseball, ranching and oil-drilling.

Three of the books are high on my list -- and two I have not read but will do so right away.

Here are Keefe's big five, including America and the World: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy that was sponsored in part by the New America Foundation/American Strategy Program which I direct as my day job:

THE DARK SIDE: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror turned into a War on our Ideals, by Jane Mayer. A definitive, harrowing narrative account of the development of torture as a tool in the war on terror, and the incremental series of legal obfuscations and outright lies that led to rendition, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib.

ANGLER: The Cheney Vice Presidency, by Barton Gellman. A terrific companion to Mayer's book; Gellman exposes the extent to which Dick Cheney and David Addington sacrificed the constitution and the rule of law in their efforts to hijack American policy and reshape the office of the presidency.

THE SHADOW FACTORY: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America, by James Bamford. A long-awaited followup from the definitive chronicler of the National Security Agency. Bamford exposes not only the legal transgressions of America's biggest and most powerful spy agency, but the dangerous inefficiency associated with monitoring innocent American citizens rather than pursuing terrorists.

THE FOREVER WAR, by Dexter Filkins. Filkins' extraordinarily vivid and immediate account of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq is not a polemic or analysis, but a lyrical act of witness, and a vital corrective to the sanitized, distant wars that Americans have been lulled into expecting.

AMERICA AND THE WORLD: Conversations on the Future of American Foreign Policy, by Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft, moderated by David Ignatius. This penetrating and wide-ranging discussion between two lions of American foreign policy deals only in part with the many missteps of the Bush administration, but the erudition and common sense of Brzezinski and Scowcroft, and their careful evaluation of the nature of America's national interest, amount to an implicit (and sometimes explicit) repudiation of the from-the-hip neoconservatism that has dominated America's relationship with the world in recent years. More importantly, Brzezinski and Scowcroft look to the future, and the promise of a new foreign policy.

I still need to read James Bamford's The Shadow Factory and Filkins' The Forever War. We all should.

-- Steve Clemons

Feel free to add your own stories, but I think that given the number of times I (and all of us) are asked for customer feedback, I might as well make it public.

I have three culprits to harangue today:

AirTran

Racism towards Muslims in America must stop -- and there is nothing more than ignorance and bigotry that can explain why AirTran would not allow a Muslim family from reboarding its plane after TSA authorities cleared the passengers as a threat of any kind to the aircraft. They were removed from the flight when other passengers heard member of the family talking about where "the safest place to sit" on the airplane would be.

I have heard Christians, agnostics, Jews, and pagans talk about where the safest part of a plane might be -- particularly when planes today have run off airways, burst into flame, and even crashed. My United Airlines plane from San Francisco to JFK on New Year's Eve actually came within feet of touching ground and then abruptly aborted landing, shooting upwards, because of high winds. I wondered to myself whether being up near the front of the plane was better than sitting in the back -- but I don't think United has any interest in banning me from its aircraft for wondering such things.

In any case, banning Muslims who are American citizens from normal life activities -- particularly when they have already been subjected to security screening -- deserves criticism and scorn.

Update: AirTran offers public apology and airfare compensation.

AT&T and I-Phone

I recently met a high-ranking AT&T executive who confided to me that he/she keeps a Verizon phone around at all times because AT&T's phone signal is undependable.

Despite hearing that advice, I allowed my staff colleagues at the New America Foundation to push me away from my old, always dependable LG Verizon phone to a new Apple made 3G I-Phone. I've had it for about four months, and I've been practically miserable ever since, at least in a phone sense. I never know whether I will be able to connect with people who call. I really can't do cell phone interviews on radio any longer -- and after I landed on the once aborted United flight to JFK on New Year's eve -- I needed to place a call to a transport company, and my call was dropped seven times despite all the bars being at "full" on the phone.

I have a very expensive piece of junk as far as I'm concerned -- and am on the verge of going back to Verizon. So while this may sound like personal bitching -- I can't believe that I can barely connect in this so-called broadband world we are supposed to be living in.

US Airways

I do a ton of traveling and prefer United Airlines -- but as a high-level frequent flier in the Star Alliance, I also frequently fly US Airways. Anyone who flies a lot has to get used to the many adjustments that airlines need to make to be able to handle the complexities of weather, of safety systems, of engine and other machinery wear and tear. I think it's tough to be an airline in today's environment and thus I typically am pretty understanding of airline travel bumps in the road, so to speak.

But recently, when flying back from Pittsburgh to Washington, I arrived early enough at the airport to catch a flight that left two hours before the one I was booked on. If I paid a $50 fee, US Airways said it would allow me on the plane - which was nearly empty. I had no bags -- it would have been zero problem for US Airways to allow me on the flight to get back early, as part recompense for the many, many times that US Airways had mismanaged by traveling situation in the past, or bumped me from a flight, or been chronically late, or had been incommunicative about what was happening with some respective flight having problems getting going. I would have loved to charge US Airways $50.00 for each time it had a problem.

But when US Airways had the opportunity to do something small -- something easy -- for someone who clearly had to deal with these problems all the time, they refused.

So, I'll keep flying US Airways -- unless like the Muslim family mentioned in the AirTran Hall of Shame segment above I get banned -- but I think that the airline's attitude and approach to dealing with passengers could use improvement.

But wait. All that said, credit where credit is due.

KUDOS to US Airways for allowing the AirTran-booted Irfan family to fly on its airline after AirTran wouldn't take them back. So, I have moved US Airways up a few notches in my own assessment of how they operate.

I hope all of you have better experiences that I and the Irfan family have had with these three firms and otherwise have a great start to your new year.

-- Steve Clemons

I'm just back to Washington after a fun holiday.

Happy New Year to everyone -- but it's back to the real world tomorrow, and it's a messy place.

I'll have some more thoughts on Gaza tomorrow -- but a friend just told me that 2009 is one of the few "normal" years -- meaning 365 days long -- that has three "Friday the 13th's".

-- Steve Clemons

Later today, Josh Marshall will be announcing the winners of his spoofy "Golden Duke Awards" -- named for the now-in-jail scion of the corrupt fringe of America's military industrial complex, former California Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham.

Above are the nominees -- outlined by Josh -- and his categories are fun, but the roster of personalities is a good primer on all the mess we've been through this last year.

More when I get to New York. Happy New Year!

-- Steve Clemons

Greetings all. It's quite early in the morning here in Carson City, Nevada -- and am now off to Reno Airport, then to New York City where I'll be saluting the new year with friends.

Consider this an open thread.

All best and more later.

-- Steve Clemons