Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/us/politics/12holder.html
March 11, 2010
Holder Did Not Disclose Briefs on ‘Enemy Combatant’
By CHARLIE SAVAGE and BERNIE BECKER [Obama White House] [111th congress, 2nd session] [inherited President W. Bush TSPs and illegal enemy combatants and “enhanced-interrogation techniques”. . . ] [thought that is always the case following a transition] [AG Holder’s difficult choices on a variety of potentially criminal issues remaining from the last gang] [followup] [did he mislead senate confirmation hearings???] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — During his confirmation last year, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. failed to notify the Senate that he had signed several briefs urging courts to reject President George W. Bush’s claim that he had the power to imprison an American citizen as an “enemy combatant,” the Justice Department acknowledged Thursday. [many have argued agains the expansive view of presidency known colloquially as unitary theory of executive power] [apparently, this goes well beyond in that he worked on brief(s) of same?] [*]
“The briefs should have been disclosed as part of the confirmation process,” said Matthew

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/08/us/AP-US-TSA-Nominee.html
March 8, 2010
Retired General Is Said to Be T.S.A. Pick
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:45 a.m. ET [Obama White House] [residual from Presidents Bush and predecessors] [bureaucratic] [TSA, DHS, others] [airline travel in the US and beyond] [followup] [cross in individual] [*]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama plans to appoint a former senior Army official with a career in intelligence to lead the Transportation Security Administration.
The president is expected to announce his choice, retired Gen. Robert Harding, on Monday, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public. [*]
The president's decision to appoint someone with an extensive intelligence background is significant because it comes after the attempted Christmas airliner attack, when the government's intelligence programs came under scrutiny and attacks

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/04/AR2010030404866.html
Wittes has gone from critic to central character in her role at State Department
By Laura Blumenfeld
Friday, March 5, 2010; A16 [obama administration] [state department under SecState Clinton] [the powerful Near Eastern Affairs bureau] [Ms. Cofman Wittes, deputy assistant sec for Near Eastern Affairs] [*]
Tribal rugs, weak light, visitors sporting oil-barrel black mustaches -- the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the State Department wafts like a Middle East teahouse. But for Tamara Cofman Wittes, deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, there are no desultory, hookah afternoons.
Wittes leads the bureau's effort to promote democracy, one of State's more frenetic jobs. She is the department's own Joe Biden -- an outspoken critic during the Bush administration, sitting at a desk once claimed by a Cheney. [*]
Wittes, 40, holds Liz Cheney's old portfolio. As a Middle East specialist at the Brookings Institution, Wittes wrote "Freedom's Unsteady March," a 176-page book critiquing the Bush

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/us/politics/04commissions.html
March 3, 2010
Senator Proposes Deal on Handling of Detainees
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [gitmo detainees: groups such as gitmo 7, gitmo 50ish and others?] [in past couple days, supremes declined to hear their case?] [followup] [Senator Lindsey Graham appears to offer comprimise???] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — Senator Lindsey Graham wants to make a deal on detainees with President Obama. If the White House agrees to the bargain, it would be a defining moment for the administration — and could transform how the government deals with terrorism suspects.
Mr. Graham, a South Carolina Republican, has been talking in recent months with Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, in hopes of resolving a host of thorny legal problems. [*] In exchange for some Republican support for closing the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Mr. Graham is pushing the administration to prosecute those accused of plotting

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/01/AR2010030103934.html
Hotheaded Emanuel may be White House voice of reason
By Jason Horowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 2, 2010; A01 [individual-role] [Emanuel] [Obama’s chief of staff] [only indirectly an NSC member but he may be ad hoc principal in Obama’s NSC???] [cross in govt] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
Rahm Emanuel is officially a Washington caricature. He's the town's resident leviathan, a bullying, bruising White House chief of staff who is a prime target for the failings of the Obama administration. [*]
But a contrarian narrative is emerging: [*]Emanuel is a force of political reason within the White House and could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts.
It is a view propounded by lawmakers and early supporters of President Obama who are

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/21/AR2010022104078.html
Petraeus foresees heavy casualties in Afghanistan war
Monday, February 22, 2010; A04
AFGHANISTAN WAR
Petraeus foresees heavy casualties
[Obama white house] [bureaucracy, and high officials therein] [defense department, CENTCOM, CENTCINC] [Patraeus on meet th press yesterday] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [cross in individual-role] [*]
Predicting that the level of U.S. casualties in the fight to win control of the southern Afghan town of Marja will be "tough" to bear, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus said Sunday that the assault is just the beginning of a 12-to-18-month campaign to wipe out havens for the Taliban and other Islamist militants.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/world/asia/22petraeus.html
February 22, 2010
U.S. Commander Describes Marja Battle as First Salvo in Campaign
By JOSEPH BERGER [Obama white house] [bureaucracy, and high officials therein] [defense department, CENTCOM, CENTCINC] [Patraeus on meet th press yesterday] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [cross in individual-role] [*]
Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, said Sunday that the battle being fought in the Taliban stronghold of Marja was the “initial salvo” in a military campaign that could last 12 to 18 months.
In an interview on NBC’s news program “Meet the Press,” the general, who oversees the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, sought to put the Marja battle “into context” by explaining its part in the overall effort by American, Afghan and other forces to defeat the Taliban. He said that international forces had spent recent months mapping strategy, gathering resources and preparing the leadership of a “comprehensive civil-military campaign.”

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/politics/21haig.html
February 21, 2010
Alexander M. Haig Jr., Commanding White House Aide, Dies at 85
By TIM WEINER [Gen. (retired) Alex Haig] [obit] [Nixon admin chief of staff] [arm twister for ignominious deal in late 1972-early ’73 with Thieu in Vietnam] [not high point] [subsequently, SecState for Reagan’s first 13 months] [ended with “I’m in charge”—unfortunate but simply attempting to restore calm] [never really eminence grise, not sure why] [Ms. Reagan loved him, Pres Reagan more or less too] [but White House Troika loathed him so blackballed him] [never fully recovered but seen as elder statesman of sorts in past decade] [*]
Alexander M. Haig Jr., the four-star general who served as a confrontational secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan and a commanding White House chief of staff as the Nixon administration crumbled, died Saturday at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, according to a hospital spokesman. He was 85.
Mr. Haig was a rare American breed: a political general. His bids for the presidency quickly came undone. But his ambition to be president was thinly veiled, and that was his undoing.

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http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/02/cheney2.html
[accessed 2/20/10 1:43:15 PM]
Cheney 'A Complete Supporter' of Obama Afghanistan Strategy
February 14, 2010 9:20 AM [individual-role] [cross in govt] [inasmuch as I made reference to Cheney’s comments on Obama’s AfPak strategy and “surge” n today’s external, I thought I better put something in the archive (the record) documenting same] [I first saw this recently on blog] [I did not archive at time] [so I grabbed first place I found it] [Mr. Cheney on Obama has AfPak right] [he still insists Obama’s hurting US national security in any number of other areas] [but he admits Obama has done well on AfPak] [interesting] [*]
In an exclusive interview this morning on “This Week,” former Vice President Dick Cheney got behind President Barack Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan.
“I’m a complete supporter of what they are doing in Afghanistan. I think the President made the right decision to send troops into Afghanistan,” Cheney said. “I thought it took

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/nyregion/20prosecutor.html
February 19, 2010
Top Terror Prosecutor Is a Critic of Civilian Trials
By BENJAMIN WEISER [Obama white house] [residual from Bush and Clinton] [gsave] [mostly bureaucracy] [111th congress, 2nd session] [use psci 355, 455] [federal judiciary] [dept of justice—top law enforcement and IC at once] [former hero of jihadi prosecutions: Mr. Andrew McCarthy] [use psci 350, 355, 455, 469] [cross in individual-role] [continuity in USFP?] [*]
He was the lead prosecutor 15 years ago in one of the country’s biggest terrorism trials: a group of men led by a blind Egyptian sheik had plotted to blow up the United Nations, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and other city landmarks. [on Mr. McCarthy, hero in justice of Southern District court in Manhattan] [why has he turned on civlian trial???] [whatever reason, it’s an incredibly important development and leaves Obama’s attempt to be practical with both in some trouble?] [**]
“Are you ready to surrender the rule of law to the men in this courtroom?” the prosecutor, Andrew C. McCarthy, told the jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan in a closing

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/us/politics/15veeps.html
February 15, 2010
Dueling Vice Presidents Trade Barbs
By HELENE COOPER [Obama white house] [gsave] [Obama’s NSC team: president-NSC-policymaking model] [veep Biden] [former veep Cheney continues to most asinine of comments] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [cross in individual-role] [someone needs to set the record straight on what Bush did, how much similarity there is between Bush and Obama administrations, and Cheney’s personal history] [this has continued too long with Cheney not paying any price for irresponsible talk!] [*]
WASHINGTON — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former Vice President Dick Cheney engaged in the latest round of their war of words on Sunday in dueling television appearances, in which each offered sharply different positions on national security and forceful defenses of their administrations’ policies.
Mr. Biden accused Mr. Cheney of trying to rewrite history in his critique of how the Obama

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/us/politics/15holder.html
February 15, 2010
After 9/11 Trial Plan, Holder Hones Political Ear
By JODI KANTOR and CHARLIE SAVAGE [Obama white house] [gsave] [mostly bureaucracy] [111th congress, 2nd session] [use psci 355, 455] [federal judiciary] [dept of justice—top law enforcement and IC at once] [AG Holder’s education to political realities] [cross in individual-role] [continuity in USFP] [*]
WASHINGTON — Last winter, when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. called the United States a “nation of cowards” for avoiding frank conversations on race, President Obama mildly rebuked him in public.
Out of view, Mr. Obama’s aides did far more. Rahm Emanuel and Jim Messina, the White House chief and deputy chief of staff, proposed installing a minder alongside Mr. Holder to prevent further gaffes — someone with better “political antennae,” as one administration official put it. [pretty funny actually] [the AG must be more politically attuned] [imagine such in Bush with Ashcroft then Gonzo?—probably should have but they resisted for various reasons] [*]
When he heard of the proposal at a White House meeting, Mr. Holder fumed; soon after, he

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/us/politics/04mullen.html
February 4, 2010
Admiral’s Opposition to Gay Policy Was Years in the Making
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [Chairman Mullen] [CJCS] [“don’t ask, don’t tell”] [the story of Chairman Mullen’s change of mind over time] [individual mostly though some role stuff probably made it hard and slow] [*]
WASHINGTON — As Adm. Mike Mullen had written it, he would tell the Senate committee that “allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”
But moments before he surprised even his close friends on Tuesday by voicing his opinion as he called for the end of the 16-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” law, Admiral Mullen changed “homosexuals,” the word often used by older members of the military, to “gays and lesbians” — opting for a less clinical phrase in what is now the most talked-about sentence of his career.
The story behind that sentence, Admiral Mullen’s friends and associates said on

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/us/politics/02pentagon.html
February 2, 2010
Gates Shakes Up Leadership for F-35
By CHRISTOPHER DREW and THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [gsave] [SeDef Gates] [Gates strikes again?] [he seems determined to do what he thinks needs doing before he returns to private life] [he gave Obama 2 years and if he sticks with that timeline, this is his last year to straighten things out that have taken years to get screwed up] [cross in individual] [it’s a bonus to have a SecDef who is not running for future office of any kind; gives unusual freedom] [*]
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Monday that he was replacing the general in charge of the Pentagon’s largest weapons program — the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter — and withholding $614 million in award fees from the contractor, [*]Lockheed Martin. [last year Gates took on the raptor program and its layered and myriad beneficiaries, including defense contrators and bureaucracy] [now he’s reading riot act to the F-35 replacement in order to clean up some of the contracting “fraud” that plagues military-industrial complex, so it appears?] [**]
The surprise announcement came from a Pentagon chief who has sought to impose

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/world/asia/24military.html
January 24, 2010
Pentagon Memo
Gates Sees Fallout From Troubled Ties With Pakistan
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [Obama white house] [SecDef Gates, while on trip to SAsia] [it’s often interesting reading his words carefully] [as former official in IC, he doesn’t let much slip] [thus, one must listen more carefully] [cross in external, govt] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Nobody else in the Obama administration has been mired in Pakistan for as long as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. So on a trip here this past week to try to soothe the country’s growing rancor toward the United States, he served as a punching bag tested over a quarter-century. [*]
“Are you with us or against us?” a senior military officer demanded of Mr. Gates at Pakistan’s National Defense University, according to a Pentagon official who recounted the remark made during a closed-door session after Mr. Gates gave a speech at the school on Friday. Mr. Gates, who could hardly miss that the officer was mimicking former President George W. Bush’s warning to nations harboring militants, simply replied, “Of course we’re with you.” [I admire him] [he knew he was going to be trashed when he left for Islamabad] [he knew that US action from long ago (when he was in IC) during Reagan and Bush41 were going to follow him] [*]
That was the essence of Mr. Gates’s message over two days to the Pakistanis, who are angry

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012204395.html
Analysis: To Gates, Taliban a 'cancer' but part of Afghan 'political fabric'
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, January 23, 2010; A06 [Obama white house] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model] [SecDef Gates in SAsia] [and NSC principal] [NSC policymakers, congressional oversight, and bureaucratic implementation] [cross in role] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [see today’s external for companion news from NYTs] [*]
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- On his first trip here in three years, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had a hard time making up his mind about the Taliban.
During a series of speeches and interviews, Gates lumped all Taliban factions into the same category, calling them a "scourge" and a "cancer" that colludes with al-Qaeda and other extremist groups along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. He urged Pakistani leaders to show no mercy to Taliban militias operating in their territory, even ones the country has

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011803594.html
One year later: How Obama has learned to become a wartime commander in chief
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 19, 2010; A01 [President Obama] [commander in chief] [the 1-year assessments have been coming fast and furiously] [why it’s Wilson rather than Balz or Woodward?] [perhaps he earned it?] [good stuff] [cross in govt] [use psci 355. 455] [*]
Through a haze of grief, Dona Griffin watched President Obama turn toward her, opening his arms to offer a hug.
A midnight knock on her door the previous evening had brought her from her home in Terre Haute, Ind., to the morgue at Dover Air Force Base and into a presidential embrace.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/18/AR2010011803455.html
In Obama's first year, successes outweigh missteps
By Fred Hiatt
Tuesday, January 19, 2010; A17 [oped] [columnist] [on Obama’s 1st year] [cross in individual-role] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
On Wednesday one year will have passed since President Obama's inauguration. Much of the tidal wave of assessments has been negative: Falling poll numbers. Unfulfilled promises. Disappointed supporters, disillusioned independents, angry opponents. He's been too cool or too egotistical, too left-wing or not left-wing enough. And if voters repudiate his policies in a special Massachusetts Senate election on Tuesday, as is quite possible, the tidal wave will become a tsunami. [in short, he’s offended all sides which is often the sign of a good, moderate president in terms of governances] [continuity in USFP] [*]
So before that happens, I'd like to interrupt the anniversary-bash-Obama-fest with a simple

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/19/opinion/19brooks.html
January 19, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
The Pragmatic Leviathan
By DAVID BROOKS [oped] [columnist] [in his yearly roundup of American society, he stumbles nicely onto parts of ethos] [use American ethos] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
When I was in college, I was assigned “Leviathan,” by Thomas Hobbes. On the cover was an image from the first edition of the book, published in 1651. It shows the British nation as a large man. The people make up the muscles and flesh. Then at the top, there is the king, who is the head and the mind.
When the Pilgrims left Britain to come to America, they left behind that metaphor as well. [the rejected it wholesale] [they were enthused with classic Euro Liberalism] [*] For these settlers, and the immigrants who have come since, the American nation is not a body with

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/16/AR2010011602950.html
TESTING THE PROMISE OF PRAGMATISM
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 17, 2010; A01 [Obama White House] [111th congress, 2nd session beginning] [1-year assessment of Obama now found in several papers] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
A month before he was inaugurated, Barack Obama pinpointed one of the biggest challenges he would face as president. Could he restore confidence in government, even as he was proposing the biggest federal intervention in the domestic economy in a generation?
At the time, Obama said he did not think his victory marked an abrupt end to the skepticism ushered in by President Ronald Reagan toward top-down government and social engineering by Washington.
"What we don't know yet is whether my administration and this next generation of

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/us/politics/17leiter.html
January 17, 2010
For Antiterror Chief, a Rough Week Ahead as Hearings Begin
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [gsave] [Obama’s NSC team: president-NSC-policymaking model] [it hasn’t taken long: I have commented for few days now on NCTC’s apparent systemic failure] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [NCTC was one of the big creations of IRTPA] [congress?] [federal judiciary] [meta debate about criminal versus war (as if it’s one or the other!)] [followup] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — Not long after President Obama was inaugurated, Michael E. Leiter, the man in charge of the agency that is supposed to “connect the dots” to prevent terrorist attacks, took a stroll on the National Mall with a friend. The friend, a New Jersey doctor named Arthur Gross, mused aloud about what a new president feels when he learns of all the threats against the United States.
“I said something like, ‘Can you imagine what it must be like to walk into the White House and just be president, you’ve made all these promises, and somebody has to sit you down

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/14/AR2010011404133.html
Intelligence community's chief human capital officer to retire
By Joe Davidson
Friday, January 15, 2010; A22 [Obama administration] [111th congress, 1st session] [bureaucracy: IC] [ODNI (most recently)] [probably some policymaking responsibilities, especially in ODNI] [cross in govt] [*]
When it comes to navigating the dense terrain of the federal government's people systems, few have strode through more quicksand and survived to march again than Ronald P. Sanders. [*]
But after 37 years of federal service, many spent designing and running those systems, [most change and reorganization is evolutionary where individuals have little opportunity to put their impramatur there] [but since 9/11 and IRTPA that resulted, some dramatic reorganization] [and his impramature almost certainly involved] [*] had enough. Next month, he'll retire as the intelligence community's chief human capital officer.
"I'm ready to go climb another mountain," he said.
Here's hoping the next one will have fewer sharp cliffs and a cool breeze instead of

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/12/AR2010011202767.html
Generals should be guided by truth, not politics
By Lawrence J. Korb
Wednesday, January 13, 2010; A19 [oped] [Korb is an odd bird: worked in Reagan administration but is fairly progressive or at least eclectic] [on CJCS Mullen] [I have like Mullen for most part] [but suggestions here of political expediency] [of course, one couldn’t ever become CJCS without some political expediency but …?] [cross in individual-role] [*]
In his Dec. 27 column, ["An admiral who found the center," op-ed], David Ignatius distorts the proper role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He glosses over Adm. Mike Mullen's professional failures, particularly on Afghanistan and his handling of the firing of Gen. David McKiernan. [*]
Ignatius is wrong to argue that any military officer, especially a member of the Joint Chiefs,

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/weekinreview/10cooper.html
January 9, 2010
The Label Factor: Is Obama a Wimp or a Warrior?
By HELENE COOPER [President Obama] [white house, NSC, bureaucracy, etc] [but this is mostly about the president and idiosyncratic characteristics] [the opposite of role] [not dissimilar to the Wimp factor when George HW Bush became president] [these things get started and they are typically characitures but with seeds of idiosyncratic truths] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
WASHINGTON — Like every Democratic president since John F. Kennedy, President Obama is battling the perception that he’s a wimp on national security. [*]
It’s not just coming from Republicans (for example, Dick Cheney’s accusation that Mr. Obama is trying to pretend that the country isn’t at war). Now barbs are coming from the center too. This week’s Foreign Policy magazine has a provocative cover: Mr. Obama next to Jimmy Carter with — gasp — an “equals” sign in the middle. [*]New York Times/CBS polling

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/05/AR2010010503805.html
When Obama is faced with a problem, what does he do? Review.
By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, January 6, 2010; A02 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [President Obama response to Xmas Day plot] [use psci355, 455, 469] [followup] [given Milbank is a columnist whom I would normally archive in societal] [cross in societal] [*]
Where does President Obama stand on the Under-bomber? Let's review:
"I've ordered two important reviews," he declared on Dec. 28, three days after Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to blow up a plane over Detroit with explosives hidden in his briefs.
"I announced two reviews," he repeated the next day. "The reviews I've ordered will surely tell us more."
On Saturday, the president told the nation that he had "received the preliminary findings of the reviews that I ordered."
Finally, after returning from Hawaii to the White House, Obama went before cameras on

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/us/politics/06obama.html
January 6, 2010
Obama Says Plot Could Have Been Disrupted
By JEFF ZELENY and HELENE COOPER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [President Obama response to Xmas Day plot] [use psci355, 455, 469] [followup] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama said Tuesday that the government had sufficient information to uncover the terror plot to bring down a commercial jetliner on Christmas Day, but that intelligence officials had “failed to connect those dots.” [*] [pretty quick and pretty good acceptance of systemic failure] [it remains to be seen what he does in response to help ensure it doesn’t happen again] [*]
“This was not a failure to collect intelligence,” Mr. Obama said after meeting with his national security team for nearly two hours. “It was a failure to integrate and understand

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/magazine/17Terror-t.html
January 17, 2010
Magazine Preview
Inside Obama’s War on Terrorism
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [gsave] [Obama’s NSC team: president-NSC-policymaking model] [president headed back from Hawaii] [schedule tonight(?) to have major meeting on gsave] [in coming days we should get some leaks on what comes out of the meeting] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [cross in individual-role] [a deputy NSC adviser in the newly reorganized homeland security-NSC structure!] [John Brennan] [excellent piece] [some new details on Yemen and on NTCT; good stuff on Brennan and on President Obama] [useful info on continuity in USFP!] [*]
The evening before he was sworn into office, Barack Obama stepped out of Blair House, the government residence where he was staying across from the White House, and climbed into an armored limousine for the ride to a bipartisan dinner. Joining him in the back seat were John Brennan, his new counterterrorism adviser, and two foreign-policy advisers, Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert. [*]

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http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/declassified/archive/2010/01/01/exclusive-obama-got-pre-christmas-intelligence-briefing-about-terror-threats-to-homeland.aspx
[accessed 1/2/10 9:54 AM]
Exclusive: Obama Got Pre-Christmas Intelligence Briefing About Terror Threats to 'Homeland'
Friday, January 01, 2010 6:55 PM
By Mark Hosenball [Obama white house] [gsave] [Obama’s NSC team: president-NSC-policymaking model] [president updating the American people from his holiday in Hawaii] [bureaucracy] [IC, homeland defense, defense dept., NSC, so forth] [continuity in USFP] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [eerily similar to what happened to President Bush in August 2001] [stunning really the degree of continuity between administrations] [and should be serious wakeup call to the bureaucracy about how little IRTPA has changed the fundamental problems therein] [*]
President Obama received a high-level briefing only three days before Christmas about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the U.S., NEWSWEEK has learned. The briefing was centered on a written report, produced by U.S. intelligence agencies, titled

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/us/politics/01waiver.html
January 1, 2010
Obama Aide Gets Waiver to Investigate Airline Plot
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [from bureaucracy to NSC level] [IC] [ODNI, DNI, other pillars of intelligence-gathering and analysis bureaucracy] [IRPTA’s provisions after it became law in Dec 2004] [the substantial changes that have occurred in the FBI, in particular, since IRTPA] [additionally, the Obama team seemingly integrated homeland security adviser (John O Brennan) into Jones NSC structure (though what all that meanus is as yet unclear)] [first reported May 27] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [cross in ind-role][*]
The White House has granted a special ethics waiver to allow President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser to conduct a review of the intelligence and screening breakdown that preceded the failed Christmas Day bombing attempt on an American passenger plane over Detroit.
John O. Brennan, the deputy national security adviser for homeland security [interesting that

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-cia-digest29-2009dec29,0,2395015.story
latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-cia-digest29-2009dec29,0,2395015.story
latimes.com
A White House intervention for bickering leaders of U.S. intelligence
A classified order is issued to defuse tensions between Dennis Blair, head of national intelligence, and the CIA's Leon Panetta. It deflects a power move by Blair but keeps him closely in the loop.
By Greg Miller
1:04 PM PST, December 28, 2009
Reporting from Washington [Obama white house] [residual from Bush white house] [bureaucracy] [from bureaucracy to NSC level] [IC] [ODNI, DNI, other pillars of intelligence-gathering and analysis bureaucracy] [IRPTA’s provisions after it became law in Dec 2004] [the substantial changes that have occurred in the FBI, in particular, since IRTPA] [WMD, counterterrorism, interagency activities, …?] [use psci355, 455] [followup: see November 17 for previous piece] [this has become downright embarrassing] [this should have been over in November!] [cross in role-individual] [*]
The White House this month issued a classified order to resolve mounting frictions between

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http://washingtonindependent.com/71831/national-security
The Washington Independent
[accessed 12/29/09 10:30 AM]
[a special year-end roundup of the important national-security advisers no one has heard of] [well not actually, but they are mostly below the radar while being big-time insiders whom President Obama trusts] [and McChrystal became well know sometime during the summer when his name first began circulating as someone who had Obama’s ear on counterinsurgency] [*]
Top Five National Security Players of 2009
By Spencer Ackerman 12/23/09 6:00 AM
5. John Kerry
http://washingtonindependent.com/71839/national-security-5
By Spencer Ackerman 12/23/09 6:00 AM

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/weekinreview/20stolberg.html
A President Who Loves Deadlines
December 19, 2009
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [individual-role] [President Obama] [general info on his individual style] [habits, and so forth] [use psci355, 455] [*]
WASHINGTON — Barack Obama had been in office just two days when he established himself as the Deadline President.
On that day, Jan. 22, Mr. Obama affixed his curlicue signature to an executive order requiring him to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within one year — a hard and fast date, set down in black and white for every American to see. In the 11 months since, the president has employed deadlines and timetables on issues ranging from health care to Iran — and watched many of them slip away.
Now, as his first year in office draws to a close, the man who campaigned on the “fierce urgency of now” is confronting a painful reality: the not-so-fierce urgency of next year. [clever] [and accurate in that Obama has discovered what a big, unruly machine over which he presides] [*]
On Capitol Hill, Mr. Obama set what his senior adviser, David Axelrod, calls “a very

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[*] [did not archive yesterday due to grading finals all day] [*]

Continue reading "[*] [did not archive yesterday due to grading finals all day] [*]" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:21 AM | Permalink

[*] [I didn’t archive anything from past couple of days as I was grading finals examinations for Fall 2009 classes] [*]

Continue reading "[*] [I didn’t archive anything from past couple of days as I was grading finals examinations for Fall 2009 classes] [*]" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:06 PM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/15/AR2009121504851.html
Richard Armitage on Colin Powell, Condi Rice and Hillary Clinton
By Al Kamen
Wednesday, December 16, 2009; A17 [cross in societal as Kamen is pundit-columnist] [another insight (?) into Bush’s once he had become confident after 9/11?] [*]
The GOP's 11th Commandment -- "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican," popularly associated with Ronald Reagan's 1966 California gubernatorial campaign -- was never much honored in practice before its formal interment in New York's 23rd Congressional District election last month.
And the commandment never much applied to historically less partisan foreign policy disputes.
Still, some of the direct pops that former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage takes at his former colleagues in the first edition of Prism, [*]a new foreign policy magazine

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.html
December 11, 2009
Accepting Peace Prize, Obama Offers ‘Hard Truth’
By JEFF ZELENY [role] [Obama’s Novel Prize speech] [written by Obama’s speechwriters as all speeches for presidents are] [but he inputs on drafts and the speechwriters attempt to capture essence of president’s character and so forth] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [evolution of the Obama Doctrine] [cross in govt] [ditto] [*]
OSLO — President Obama used his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday to defend the idea that some wars were necessary and just, remind the world of the burden the United States had borne in the fight against oppression and appeal for greater international efforts for peace.
“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: we will not eradicate violent conflicts in

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/world/12sanger.html
December 12, 2009
On Washington
Obama Outlines a Vision of Might and Right
By DAVID E. SANGER [role] [Obama’s Novel Prize speech] [written by Obama’s speechwriters as all speeches for presidents are] [but he inputs on drafts and the speechwriters attempt to capture essence of president’s character and so forth] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [evolution of the Obama Doctrine] [cross in govt] [*]
Eleven months into his presidency, a set of Obama principles, if not quite a doctrine, is beginning to emerge — a philosophy about when to use American military force, when to forsake it and when to threaten its use to back up diplomatic pressure. [Obama Doctrine has begun to emerge?] [role theory] [*]
The president’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday explored what happens when the concept of “just and unjust wars” intersects with the realities of

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/world/middleeast/12gates.html
December 12, 2009
Gates Expects New Sanctions on Iran
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [Iran and Iraq insurgency] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [SecDef Gates on UN sanctions] [followup] [role too][*]
ERBIL, Iraq — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that he expected the United States and its allies to impose more stringent sanctions against Iran because the country had not followed through on promises it made in October to open its nuclear program to international inspection.
“I think you’re going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community, assuming that the Iranians don’t change course and agree to do the things that they signed up to do at the beginning of October,” Mr. Gates said during a

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/world/europe/11prexy.html
December 11, 2009
Accepting Peace Prize, Obama Evokes ‘Just War’
By JEFF ZELENY [individual] [Obama’s Novel Prize speech] [written by Obama’s speechwriters as all speeches for presidents are] [but he inputs on drafts and the speechwriters attempt to capture essence of president’s character and so forth] [use psci355, 455] [*]
OSLO — President Obama, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize here on Thursday, acknowledged the age-old tensions between war and peace but argued that his recent decision to escalate the conflict in Afghanistan was justified to protect the world from terrorism and extremism. [*]
“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth,” Mr. Obama said. “We will not eradicate

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/05/AR2009120501376.html
Obama pressed for faster surge
AFGHAN REVIEW A MARATHON
'What was interesting was the metamorphosis'
By Anne E. Kornblut, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 6, 2009 [Obama’s role and idosyncracies] [the NSC process in the Obama administration] [decision announced 120109 on Afpak] [use psci 355, 455, 469?] [cross in govt] [*]
President Obama, seated at the head of a conference table strewn with papers in the White House Situation Room, stared at charts showing various options for sending additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/world/asia/06reconstruct.html
December 6, 2009
How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [President Obama made pitch for sending 30,000 more troops to AfPak last night at West Point] [remarkably similar to Bush’s “surge” in Iraq] [dramatic evidence of role and govt inputs resulting in continuity in USFP outputs] [use psci355, 455, 469] [more on process: how did Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model work] [followup] [cross in individual] [*]
WASHINGTON — On the afternoon he held the eighth meeting of his Afghanistan review, President Obama arrived in the White House Situation Room ruminating about war. He had come from Arlington National Cemetery, [*]where he had wandered among the chalky white tombstones of those who had fallen in the rugged mountains of Central Asia.
How much their sacrifice weighed on him that Veterans Day last month, he did not say. But

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
December 01, 2009
Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Eisenhower Hall Theatre, United States Military Academy at West Point, West Point, New York
8:01 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. To the United States Corps of Cadets, to the men and women of our Armed Services, and to my fellow Americans: I want to speak to you tonight about our effort in Afghanistan -- the nature of our commitment there, the scope of our interests, and the strategy that my administration will pursue to bring this war to a successful conclusion. It's an extraordinary honor for me to do so here at West Point -- where so many men and women have prepared to stand up for our security, and to represent what is finest about our country.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/02/AR2009120204282.html
Narrowing of mission reflects Biden's goal
By Greg Jaffe and Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, December 3, 2009 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [use psci355, 455] [cross in govt] [*]
President Obama's decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan looks at first like a defeat for his vice president, who pushed hard for holding down the number of U.S. troops in the country. But the plan also gives Vice President Biden a lasting victory: a strategy that lays out far more modest goals for the embattled nation.
Biden originally argued that it would be fruitless -- perhaps even naive -- to add more forces

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/world/asia/02policy.html
December 2, 2009
Obama Sets Faster Troop Deployment to Afghanistan
By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [incredible leaks in past week or so] [bureaucracy] [another NSC meeting for final touches of decision I think he made before he traveled to APEC] [i.e., he made the decision and they are simply waiting to announce until after thanksgiving] [tonight is the West Point speech that, for better or worse, will come to be known as famous Obama speech and perhaps even mark an Obama Doctrine?] [use psci355, 455, 469] [c.f., “Among Obama Aides, Debate …”] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama has decided to expedite the deployment of 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan over the next six months, in an effort to reverse the momentum of Taliban gains and create urgency for the government in Kabul to match the American surge with one using its own forces, [*] [?] according to senior administration

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/30/AR2009113002012.html
34,000 troops will be sent to Afghanistan
OBAMA DETAILS PLAN FOR ALLIES
Other nations to be asked for more forces
By Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 1, 2009 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [incredible leaks in past week or so] [bureaucracy] [another NSC meeting for final touches of decision I think he made before he traveled to APEC] [i.e., he made the decision and they are simply waiting to announce until after thanksgiving] [tonight is the West Point speech that, for better or worse, will come to be known as famous Obama speech and perhaps even mark an Obama Doctrine?] [use psci355, 455, 469] [*]
President Obama will outline Tuesday his intention to send an additional 34,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan, according to U.S. officials and diplomatic sources briefed Monday as Obama began informing allies of his plan. [*]
The new deployments, along with 22,000 troops he authorized early this year, would bring the total U.S. force in Afghanistan to more than 100,000, more than half of which will have

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/world/asia/01orders.html
December 1, 2009
Obama Issues Order for More Troops in Afghanistan
By ERIC SCHMITT [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [incredible leaks in past week or so] [bureaucracy] [another NSC meeting for final touches of decision I think he made before he traveled to APEC] [i.e., he made the decision and they are simply waiting to announce until after thanksgiving] [tonight is the West Point speech that, for better or worse, will come to be known as famous Obama speech and perhaps even mark an Obama Doctrine?] [use psci355, 455, 469] [affirmation of Obama’s counterinsurgency policy] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama issued orders to send about 30,000 additional American troops to Afghanistan as he prepared to address the nation Tuesday night to explain what may be one of the most defining decisions of his presidency. [Post says 34,000] [*]
Mr. Obama conveyed his decision to military leaders late Sunday afternoon during a meeting in the Oval Office and then spent Monday phoning foreign counterparts, including the leaders of Britain, France and Russia.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/magazine/29Biden-t.html
November 29, 2009
After Cheney
By JAMES TRAUB [individual] [Veep (former) Cheney versus Veep Biden] [comparison of if-how Biden fits into Obama NSC policymaking model] [use psci355] [*]
When Vice President Biden travels to Iraq, which he does every two months or so, [*] he flies on Air Force Two to an airbase in southern England and then transfers to a cargo plane, a C-17, retrofitted for vice-presidential comfort with an Airstream trailer bolted on to tracks in the center of the hold. With its porthole and shiny rivets and gleaming chrome, this strange conveyance looks like something out of Jules Verne. Captain Biden holds court in a wood-paneled galley just large enough for his half-dozen or so aides to pile into. Unlike Nemo, he is a gregarious knee-squeezer who has to be ordered by his staff to stop talking so he can get some rest.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/politics/14bauer.html
November 14, 2009
Obama Chooses an Inner-Circle Man
By JOHN M. BRODER [Obama’s White House counsel] [Mr. Craig just announced he’s leaving] [fell on sword over gimto?] [replacement, friend of president] [*]
WASHINGTON — In being named White House counsel less than a year into President Obama’s tenure, Robert F. Bauer is reversing a longstanding trend.
Many presidents initially name a close friend and ally to the post, and then turn to a well-known Washington legal fixture when they run into legal or political trouble. In this case, Mr. Bauer, a trusted back-room counselor who was one of the first people Mr. Obama hired

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111118432.html
Correction to This Article
Earlier versions of this article, including in the print edition of Thursday's Washington Post, misstated the rank of Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry when he retired from the U.S. Army. He was a three-star general.
U.S. envoy resists increase in troops
CONCERNS VOICED ABOUT KARZAI
Cables sent as Obama weighs deployment options
By Greg Jaffe, Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [for few weeks now leaks-‘o’-plenty on looming AfPak decisions and McChrystul’s recommendation] [so yesterday, united front reported in NYTs of Gates-Clinton-Mullen in favor of McChrystul’s recommendation or some version] [then last night, I heard on CNN that Eikenberry had sent President Obama 2 cables with blunt stuff about Karzai and warnings not to send the troops???] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [serious leaking here!] [sabotage?] [potentially explosive!] [ditto] [*]
The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/us/politics/12policy.html
November 12, 2009
U.S. Envoy Urges Caution on Forces for Afghanistan
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and MARK LANDLER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [for few weeks now leaks-‘o’-plenty on looming AfPak decisions and McChrystul’s recommendation] [so yesterday, united front reported in NYTs of Gates-Clinton-Mullen in favor of McChrystul’s recommendation or some version] [then last night, I heard on CNN that Eikenberry had sent President Obama 2 cables with blunt stuff about Karzai and warnings not to send the troops???] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [serious leaking here!] [sabotage?] [potentially explosive!] [*]
WASHINGTON — The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, [*]three senior American officials said Wednesday.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111127507.html
Feeling the weight of war
From Fort Hood to Afghanistan, trying times for the commander in chief
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [for few weeks now leaks-‘o’-plenty on looming AfPak decisions and McChrystul’s recommendation] [so yesterday, united front reported in NYTs of Gates-Clinton-Mullen in favor of McChrystul’s recommendation or some version] [then last night, I heard on CNN that Eikenberry had sent President Obama 2 cables with blunt stuff about Karzai and warnings not to send the troops???] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [serious leaking here!] [sabotage?] [cross in individual-role] [*]
War and tragedy are putting President Obama through the most wrenching period of his young administration. Visibly thinner, admittedly skipping meals, he is learning every day

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111127507.html
Feeling the weight of war
From Fort Hood to Afghanistan, trying times for the commander in chief
By Joel Achenbach
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 12, 2009 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [for few weeks now leaks-‘o’-plenty on looming AfPak decisions and McChrystul’s recommendation] [so yesterday, united front reported in NYTs of Gates-Clinton-Mullen in favor of McChrystul’s recommendation or some version] [then last night, I heard on CNN that Eikenberry had sent President Obama 2 cables with blunt stuff about Karzai and warnings not to send the troops???] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [serious leaking here!] [sabotage?] [cross in individual-role] [*]
War and tragedy are putting President Obama through the most wrenching period of his young administration. Visibly thinner, admittedly skipping meals, he is learning every day

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/politics/13zeleny.html
November 13, 2009
On the White House
Obama Purposely Taking Time on Troop Decision
By JEFF ZELENY [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model and early info on process, operations] [for few weeks now leaks-‘o’-plenty on looming AfPak decisions and McChrystul’s recommendation] [so yesterday, united front reported in NYTs of Gates-Clinton-Mullen in favor of McChrystul’s recommendation or some version] [then last night, I heard on CNN that Eikenberry had sent President Obama 2 cables with blunt stuff about Karzai and warnings not to send the troops???] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [serious leaking here!] [sabotage?] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama has not made a decision about his new military strategy for Afghanistan. And the White House is happy to say so.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111017808.html
TSA nominee questioned over FBI censure
Erroll Southers had background check run on ex-wife's boyfriend
By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 [Obama White House] [residual from Presidents Bush and predecessors] [bureaucratic] [TSA, DHS, others] [Obama’s nominee to lead TSA] [senate hearings] [*]
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) questioned President Obama's nominee to lead the nation's airport security agency Tuesday about a censure he received from the FBI in 1988.
Erroll Southers, who was serving as an FBI special agent at the time of the censure, asked a co-worker's husband who worked for the San Diego Police Department to run a background check on his ex-wife's boyfriend. [*]
Under questioning by Collins, Southers said that he has not misused government databases to receive personal information on anyone since the incident and that he would not do so in

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111018995.html
Correction to This Article
Earlier versions of this story misstated events that caused Tammy Duckworth's Iraq war injuries. It also misstated the injuries suffered by Joe Dan Worley. This version has been corrected.
'She is the face of the new generation'
At VA and among vets, Duckworth is trying to reshape perceptions
By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Five years ago this week, an insurgent shot down the Army Black Hawk helicopter that Tammy Duckworth was co-piloting in Iraq. Now an assistant secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Duckworth lost her legs in the attack.
On Thursday, her Black Hawk crewmates who pulled her from the wreckage will be in Washington to celebrate her "alive day" -- what some veterans call their "second birthday"

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/02/AR2009110203525.html
Dick Cheney and the use of classified information
By WALTER PINCUS
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 [former bush white house] [the 2003 imbroglio that became the Plame case] [veep’s office and staff] [Veep Cheney, his role as veep, his habits, and the NSC process accommodated for him?] [*]
Then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney gave a surprisingly honest description of how top administration officials treat classified information when he was questioned more than five years ago by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel investigating the leak of the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson, [*]who was then a covert CIA employee.
According to the FBI report on the May 8, 2004, session, released last week, the vice president was asked about testimony by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his chief of staff. Libby

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/world/europe/22biden.html
October 22, 2009
Mending Fences, Biden Assures Poland That U.S. Is Watching Over It
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [veep’s trip to Euro] [missile defense] [veep Biden] [special care of Poland and Czech Republic] [followup] [*]
WARSAW — Standing next to Poland’s prime minister, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. wanted to make sure no one missed his point.
The United States guarantees Poland’s security, he said. “This strategic assurance is absolute, absolute, Mr. Prime Minister,” Mr. Biden declared. It is “a solemn obligation,” he went on. Then he added, “Make no mistake about it: Our commitment to Poland is

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/world/22clinton.html
October 22, 2009
Clinton Says Iran and North Korea Must Curb Nuclear Ambitions
By BRIAN KNOWLTON [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 1st session] [DPRK, US-DPRK relations, US-DPRK negotations over latter’s WMD?] [bureaucracy] [SecState Clinton] [followup] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton took a tough approach on Wednesday on several proliferation issues, saying that Iran and North Korea must take decisive action to curb their nuclear programs, and not just talk about doing so, if they expected to enjoy an easing of global pressures.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102103858.html
Clinton urges support for U.S.-Russian arms-control treaty
Secretary also backs global pact banning nuclear testing
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 22, 2009 [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 1st session] [Russia, US-Russia relations, US-Russia arms control agreements] [bureaucracy] [SecState Clinton] [followup] [role?] [*]
With a congressional battle looming, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday defended the administration's broad arms-control agenda and said that reducing U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles would be a critical first step in preventing the spread of the deadly weapons to other countries.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/21/AR2009102101088.html
Massachusetts man arrested on terror charges
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 22, 2009 [Obama White House] [residual from Presidents Bush and predecessors] [NSC to lowly bureaucracy] [from kinetic military force to diplomacy to economic suasion and everything along the continuum] [recruitment and attraction of American jihadis] [global-jihadis hydra in American and abroad] [watch to see if this pans out or whether it’s an overreaction?] [followup] [*]
A Massachusetts man has been arrested on a charge of conspiring to support terrorists by seeking training from Islamic extremist fighters overseas, federal authorities said Wednesday.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100902568.html
Obama Wanted a Petraeus. Buyer Beware.
By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 11, 2009 [oped] [on McChrystul’s similarites to Patraeus] [cross in individual-role] [use psci355] [*]
It is hard not to look at Stanley McChrystal without seeing David Petraeus.
Both generals are fitness freaks, capable of running soldiers half their age into the ground. Within hours of taking command of faltering wars, both were vowing to remake their forces. "We must change the way we think, act and operate," McChrystal wrote in September instructions to his troops in Afghanistan. He was practically channeling Petraeus, circa 2007, who challenged his troops in Iraq to adopt a new "warrior-builder-diplomat" mind-set.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:48 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100904578.html
Obama Selects U.S. General to Oversee Efforts to Train Afghan Forces
By John Milburn
Associated Press
Saturday, October 10, 2009 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [Obama’s NSC announced “counterinsurgency” strategy in late March-early April] [protect population centers; incoporate local police and security into the daily effort (it’s counterproductive to do it for them when they can do it themselves), stablize financial incentives for participating with insurgents; lead with your powerful ideas such as freedom to choose the sort of state they build)] [Gen William Caldwell IV, Obama’s choice to train Afghan forces] [*]
TOPEKA, Kan., Oct. 9 -- President Obama has nominated the commander of Fort Leavenworth to lead U.S. and NATO efforts to train Afghan forces.
Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV would join the war's top U.S. commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, if confirmed by the Senate this fall. McChrystal is pushing for more help in

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/world/10nobel.html
October 10, 2009
Obama Says He’s ‘Surprised and Humbled’ by Nobel Prize
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and WALTER GIBBS [individual] [obama nominated, surprisingly, for nobel peace prize] [we visited the building (in 2008) where they do it and hold the dinner] [close to where Bjorn Borg and other celbrities lived, in bueatiful luxury condo building, on waterfront] [lovely area] [why Obama? Apparently his desire for peace?] [hey, I desire peace, what about me?] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” a stunning honor that came less than nine months after he made United States history by becoming the country’s first African-American president.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:32 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/world/middleeast/06petraeus.html
October 6, 2009
General Petraeus Has Prostate Cancer
By ERIC SCHMITT [General Patraeus] [personal health issues] [*]
WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commander of American military forces in the Middle East, received a diagnosis of early-stage prostate cancer in February but has undergone “successful” radiation treatment to deal with the illness, according to a statement issued late Monday.
General Petraeus, 56, who as head of the United States Central Command oversees operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, underwent two months of radiation treatment at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which had “minimal impact on his work schedule,” according to the statement.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/world/05military.html
October 5, 2009
Military Memo
Voice of Bush’s Favored General Is Now Harder to Hear
By ELISABETH BUMILLER 4,339 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave, -iraq, elsewhere in CENTCOM’s area] [CENTCINC, General David Patraeus] [was popular with Pres Bush, and largely responsible for “surge”] [new president, different structure and process] [potentially, explanation for his notable absence in recent debate][*]
WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, [but impression that overshadowed] [*] and will be back for two more

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/world/asia/03mcchrystal.html
October 3, 2009
Obama Meets Top Afghan Commander as He Mulls Change in War Strategy
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [gsave] [AfPak and elsewhere] [Obama’s NSC announced counterinsurgency strategy in spring, early April as I recall] [the latest kurfufel in Pentagon (probably manufactured on Capitol Hill rather than in Pentagon but we’ll see soon) over AfPak and President Obama’s decision—which has yet to be made!] [the politics of president-NSC-policymaking model] [use psci355, 455] [followup] [cross in individual-role] [*]
COPENHAGEN — President Obama held an unannounced meeting here on Friday with Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, his Afghanistan commander, to discuss a possible change in strategy and a proposed troop buildup in the eight-year-old war.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092103431.html
What's the News? Just Ask Secretary Gates.
By Walter Pincus
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 [SecDef Gates] [holdover from Bush administration where he replaced Rummy in November 2006 (just after the election)] [interesting stuff about his pragmatism] [cross in govt] [ditto] [*]
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is someone whose words, whether in a speech or a news conference, should always be examined. Held over from the Bush administration, he has become the senior government official who most speaks his mind and as a result provides a great deal of news, especially if you look closely at what he says.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/22/us/politics/22gates.html
September 22, 2009
A Pragmatist, Gates Reshapes Past Policies He Backed
By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER [SecDef Gates] [holdover from Bush administration where he replaced Rummy in November 2006 (just after the election)] [interesting stuff about his pragmatism] [cross in govt] [*]
WASHINGTON — On his tenth day on the job, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates signed off on an ambitious if politically charged plan to build a new missile shield in Europe. Just two weeks later, he supported an even more wrenching decision to send additional American

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/world/asia/15policy.html
September 15, 2009
Obama Rejects Afghanistan-Vietnam Comparison
By JOHN HARWOOD [obama white house] [a spate of Vietnam-Afghanistan comparisons made during 2009] [mostly, that Obama undertook review of America’s gsave activities in Afghanistan] [President Obama rebuts some of them and makes argument in favor of AfPak’s uniqueness] [clearly, the McChrystul study and process are weighing on Obama] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama rejected comparisons on Monday between the war in Afghanistan and the conflict in Vietnam a generation ago, but he expressed concern about

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091403358.html
Study Faults Bush's Emphasis On Daily Intelligence Brief
By Walter Pincus
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 [bush white house] [SIGs; in this case the brookings insitution (solid reputation) has released study on Bush’s president-NSC-policymkaing model (in my NSC book’s model) machinery] [principal conclusion: President Bush relied too much on PDB] [important potential debate and the lessons potentially “learned” by President Obama could be important] [use psci355, 455] [use nsc] [*]
Under President George W. Bush, the President's Daily Brief -- the highly classified intelligence paper delivered each morning to the White House -- rose to "an unprecedented level of importance," with negative consequences [*]for the intelligence community, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution.
These included "skewing intelligence production away from deeper research and arms-length

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/11/AR2009091104134.html
Attacks Were Defining Moment for Obama
Many Decisions Now Rooted in Threat of That Day, but Critics Question Focus
By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 12, 2009 [individual-role] [President Obama] [I don’t remember reading much on how he was affected by 9/11] [I find this interesting, insofar as it’s accurate] [he’s just like anybody else] [*]
In marking his first Sept. 11 anniversary as commander in chief, President Obama told a solemn audience at the Pentagon on Friday, including relatives of those who died there eight years ago, that "no passage of time and no dark skies can ever dull the meaning of this moment." [let’s not put too much in a speech that’s been written by speechwriters] [*]
It was not hollow rhetoric. The attacks and the steps that the Bush administration took to prevent another one have defined the way Obama views the world and have influenced, more than any other event, his understanding of national security. [*]

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/us/30scotus.html
August 30, 2009
Supreme Court to Revisit ‘Hillary’ Documentary
By ADAM LIPTAK [Obama white house] [SecState Clinton] [during campaign when she was candidate] [a hit “documentary” came out] [it was campaign thing in guies of documentary] [not directly related to USFP but just enough stuff to be worth archiving] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will cut short its summer break in early September to hear a new argument in a momentous case that could transform the way political campaigns are conducted.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101772.html
It's 3 a.m. Do You Know Where Hillary Clinton Is?
She's not answering those crisis calls at the White House. But she's quietly revolutionizing American foreign policy.
By David Rothkopf
Sunday, August 23, 2009 [oped] [Rothkopf—on SecState Clinton] [he was minor official in Clinton’s NSC (treasury)] [wrote a very good book on the NSC] [now he’s taking an interest in SecState Clinton] [cross in individual-role] [*]
When it comes to Hillary Rodham Clinton, we're missing the forest for the pantsuits.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:36 PM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082102311.html
Leadership 101
By David Ignatius
Sunday, August 23, 2009 [oped] [columnist] [Obama’s presidency] [cross in individual-role] [*]
It's crunch time for the Obama administration on two of its toughest foreign policy challenges -- the Arab-Israeli peace process and the war in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, these tests are coming at a moment when Obama is weakened by the health-care debate and has less political capital to spend. [*] [perhaps; on the other hand, I’ve seen this guy written off several times, each of which was premature] [*]
Obama and his aides understood long ago that they would have only a limited window of opportunity. Way back in the summer of 2007, when few people gave him much chance of

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:35 PM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082102309.html
'Is He Weak?'
By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, August 23, 2009 [oped] [columnist] [Obama’s presidency] [cross in individual-role] [*]
Shortly after the Group of 20 summit concluded in London in April, Nicolas Sarkozy blurted out to a small group of advisers a question that weighed on him as he watched President Obama glad-hand his way through the gathering: "Est-il faible?" (Is he weak?)
The French president did not answer his own blunt query, which faded as the American leader commanded a hectic round of domestic economic intervention and agenda-setting abroad in the weeks that followed. Initial doubts about Obama's toughness went on the shelf at the Elysee Palace and elsewhere.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:34 PM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/17/AR2009081702379.html
Clinton Puts Spotlight On Women's Issues
Elevating Rights Is a Focus of Secretary [Obama White House] [SecState Clinton, apparently tired form the whirlwind trip] [cross individual-role] [followup] [SecState Clinton making clear she will make women’s issues one of her signature ones] [I don’t think this makes it the only or the most important—that remains to be seen] [she’s quite capbable so let’s wait to see what she emphasizes] [*]
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
She talked chickens with female farmers in Kenya. She listened to the excruciating stories of rape victims in war-torn eastern Congo. And in South Africa, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited a housing project built by poor women, where she danced with a choir singing "Heel-a-ree! Heel-a-ree!"

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/us/politics/16emanuel.html
August 16, 2009
Emanuel Wields Power Freely, and Faces the Risks
By PETER BAKER and JEFF ZELENY [Rahm Emanuel] [President Obama’s chief of staff] [Chicago style] [cross in govt] [*]
WASHINGTON — As White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel was the one to bring the hammer down on Sidney Blumenthal.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton wanted to hire Mr. Blumenthal, a loyal confidant who had helped her promote the idea of a “vast right-wing conspiracy” more than a decade ago. But President Obama’s campaign veterans still blamed him for spreading harsh attacks against their candidate in the primary showdown with Mrs. Clinton last year. [seems pretty petty given how well Clinton has functioned on team concept] [*]

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/weekinreview/16gettleman.html
August 16, 2009
Hillary Clinton’s Folksy Diplomacy
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN 2009 [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 1st session] [complex world or traditional state threats coupled with ubiquitous transnational threats] [bureaucracy: mostly department of state along with IC and DoD even when latter’s mission is nearly opposite as they compliment one another] [SecState Clinton just returned from her Africa whirlwind] [followup] [cross in individual-role] [*]
SANTA MARIA, Cape Verde — Think of it as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s informational interview of Africa. Eleven days, seven countries of friendly, engaging, edifying talk — but with no urgent American interest on the line. [*]There were no nukes to stop; no peace deal to start; no young American women to free (Bill Clinton’s shadow loomed large

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/13/AR2009081303773.html
Hagel Climbing the Ladder in Obama White House
By Al Kamen
Friday, August 14, 2009 [Obama White House] [Bush White House residuals] [NSC level] [Obama’s national-security team] [Senator (former) Chuck Hagle, Republican, Nebraska] [bureaucracy too] [cross in individual-role] [use psci355] [watch] [*]
Former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel (R), a senior administration official-in-waiting either later this term or in President Obama's second term (if there is one), is taking another step into Obama's national security team. We're hearing Hagel is in line to co-chair the important President's Intelligence Advisory Board (formerly known as the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board).

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/12/AR2009081203306.html
Cheney Uncloaks His Frustration With Bush
'Statute of Limitations Has Expired' on Many Secrets, Former Vice President Says
By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 13, 2009 bush white house] [veep cheney] [how Cheney gamed the system before Bush knew what Cheney was up to] [stunning in Cheney’s usurpation of presidential powers] [stunning arrogance and hubris] [TSPs] [the legality of NSC programs that came to light in late 2005, early 2006] [use psci355, 455] [Cheney’s congnitive dissonance that was serious and costly for US [followup] [107th congress 2nd session?] [*]
In his first few months after leaving office, former vice president Richard B. Cheney threw himself into public combat against the "far left" agenda of the new commander in chief. More private reflections, as his memoir takes shape in slashing longhand on legal

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:25 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/us/05terror.html
August 5, 2009
Court in North Carolina Hears Tapes in Terror Case
By VICTORIA CHERRIE [Obama White House] [residual from Presidents Bush and predecessors] [NSC to lowly bureaucracy] [from kinetic military force to diplomacy to economic suasion and everything along the continuum] [recruitment and attraction of American jihadis] [in the deep south!?] [use psci355, 469b] [global-jihadis hydra in American and abroad] [followup] [*]
RALEIGH, N.C. — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday bolstered their case against Daniel P. Boyd, the man accused of being the ringleader of a group of Islamic terrorists, playing recordings in court in which he advocated violent jihad against the West. [*]

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/world/asia/05korea.html
August 5, 2009
In Release of Journalists, Both Clintons Had Key Roles
By MARK LANDLER and PETER BAKER [Obama administration] [111th congress, 1st session] [Bush administration] residual [Obama’s diplomatic and national-security teams] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [Sec Def Robert Gates held over from Bush] [and SecState Clinton of the state department] [bureaucracy] [the impressive job done all the way around with DPRK] [carefully and patiently (some 5 months during which time economic meltdown and AfPak and –ir all concomitantly) separated DPRK’s unacceptable bombastic behavior in terms of missile and nuclear proliferation (and any number of other tantrums) from humanitarian and other issues that had to be decoupled: the journalists grabbed in March] [followup] [cross in external and indivual-role] [case for psci355] [*]
WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton left North Korea on Wednesday morning after a dramatic 20-hour visit, in which he won the freedom of two American journalists, opened a diplomatic channel to North Korea’s reclusive government and

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/02/AR2009080202046.html
'High Risk, High Reward'
John McCain Was Looking for a Way to Shake Up His Campaign. He Took a Surprising Gamble on a Relative Unknown.
By Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson
Monday, August 3, 2009 [individual-role] [had McCain become president?] [*]
Adapted from the book "The Battle for America 2008: The Story of an Extraordinary Election"
A black car pulled up next to the stairs of a Learjet parked at the executive terminal at Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. Inside was Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, driven by her husband, Todd. It was shortly before 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008, and Palin had just finished an appearance in town. She told Todd goodbye and, along with aide Kris Perry, boarded the plane quickly, lest anyone notice her leaving. In

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/26/AR2009072602348.html
Amid Scrutiny, Yoo Pushes Back
Quietly but Forcefully, Author of Detainee Memos Rebuts Critics
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 27, 2009 [attorney John Yoo] [we now know that his direct supervisors, Comey and others, say they were not told when the White House (especially the vice president’s office and David Addington and others) reached down for specific memos from this guy it was not due to his broad-based intelligence or brilliance seen by his cohort] [rather, he was a known wingnut with ideas that were out there: his reading of the Consitution comes down to all the stuff about the legislative and judicial branches is embellishment] [once the commander in chief is activiated—and Yoo seems to think it’s virtally always activated—he has power that no other branch can mitigate or constrain] [it defies the most basic understanding of rule of law!] [it belies an otherwise literal reading (that’s what he does, though quite selectively) of say article I that comes before the executive’s article II and could reasonably be read literally as only when congress declares a war does the president’s war power authority kick in] [he was ideological enough to suit the wingnut contingent that ran amok during the Bush presidency] [the irony of it all is we have President Bush to thank that it didn’t go futher] [e.g., the Lackawanna NY example where President Bush shouted down the Cheney wing on sending in the military contrary to posse comitatus and others] [*]
Some public figures, if their judgment and ethics come under fire, retreat into solitude.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/27/AR2009072701903.html
No Burqa For Clinton
By Anne Applebaum
Tuesday, July 28, 2009 [oped] [columnist] [SecSTate Clinton] [use psci355] [use nsc] [cross individual-role] [*]
"It's time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa." It's a line that brilliantly managed to belittle our female secretary of state under the guise of supporting her, to offend her and "defend" her at the same time: No wonder the insult that Tina Brown lobbed at the White House two weeks ago continues to echo around

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:27 PM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/us/politics/27clinton.html
July 27, 2009
Clinton Says Nuclear Aim of Iran Is Fruitless
By DAVID E. SANGER [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s diplomatic team, state department bureaucracy and so forth] [SecState Clinton] [after an impressive start, a broken arm (contre temps) has slowed her down and created drag where there was once movement] [use psci355] [she is the sort of person who will compete so long as she’s the boss of state; and I respect her stamina and determination] [she keeps flicking Ahmadinejad’s nose] [it’s like a pair of siblings: she’s the big sister sitting astride Ahmadinejad, with the latter shoulders pinned to the floor, ans she’s flicking his ears and nose painfully!] [she’s actually a master at this sort of thing; cross in individual-role] [*]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Iran’s leaders on Sunday that if they were seeking nuclear weapons, “your pursuit is futile,” and ruled out explicitly the

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:12 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/world/asia/25diplo.html
July 25, 2009
News Analysis
Asia Trip Propels Clinton Back Into Limelight
By MARK LANDLER [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s diplomatic team, state department bureaucracy and so forth] [SecState Clinton] [after an impressive start, a broken arm (contre temps) has slowed her down and created drag where there was once movement] [use psci355] [she is the sort of person who will compete so long as she’s the boss of state; and I respect her stamina and determination] [on DPRK and a raft of bilateral and multilateral issues, not least of, nukes] [SecState Clinton is the sort who makes her own luck] [cross in individual-role] [*]
PHUKET, Thailand — At every stop during her visit to Southeast Asia this week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered the same message: “The United States is back.” She was talking about America’s role in a region where its visibility had dimmed during the Bush years, but she might as well have been talking about herself. [don’t kid yourself, she was] [it was no mistake that she used the pronoun we; she used

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/world/asia/24diplo.html
July 24, 2009
Clinton Trades Jibes With North Korea
By MARK LANDLER [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s diplomatic team, state department bureaucracy and so forth] [SecState Clinton] [after an impressive start, a broken arm (contre temps) has slowed her down and created drag where there was once movement] [use psci355] [she is the sort of person who will compete so long as she’s the boss of state; and I respect her stamina and determination] [on DPRK and a raft of bilateral and multilateral issues, not least of, nukes] [SecState Clinton is the sort who makes her own luck] [cross in individual-role] [*]
PHUKET, Thailand — The United States and North Korea fell into an acrimonious exchange on Thursday, with the North Korean government ridiculing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a “schoolgirl” and a “pensioner,” two days after she

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/23/AR2009072301541.html
Biden Offers Georgia Solidarity
Russian Invasion In 2008 Decried
By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 24, 2009 [Georgia] [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia’s military exercises (likely planned long ago) and the propinquity to last year’s similar activities and the latter’s connection to August war] [Vlad and his proclivities represent a lot of Russians who don’t care for the way the world has changed since 1991] [in new assertive Russia] [Russia ethos] [use psci350] [use ir text] [Saakashvili’s mischief and the personal battle between Saakashvili and Putin] [Russia’s “Near Abroad” such as Georgia, Ukraine,] [Grandap Joe dabbling in Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [followup] [cross in govt] [*]
TBILISI, Georgia, July 23 -- Breaking with the cautious tone the Obama administration has adopted toward the Kremlin, Vice President Biden told a room of Georgian children Thursday that Russia "used a pretext to invade your country" in the hope of wrecking its economy and persuading its people that "democracy doesn't work." [well, in the NYTs version I didn’t see where Grandpa Joe’s medicines were wearing off] [he appeared fully

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/world/europe/24georgia.html
July 24, 2009
Biden Pledges Support for Georgia, but Warns Against Militarism
By ELLEN BARRY [Georgia] [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia’s military exercises (likely planned long ago) and the propinquity to last year’s similar activities and the latter’s connection to August war] [Vlad and his proclivities represent a lot of Russians who don’t care for the way the world has changed since 1991] [in new assertive Russia] [Russia ethos] [use psci350] [use ir text] [Saakashvili’s mischief and the personal battle between Saakashvili and Putin] [Russia’s “Near Abroad” such as Georgia, Ukraine,] [Grandap Joe dabbling in Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [followup] [cross in govt] [*]
TBILISI, Georgia — Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. gave a rousing speech at Georgia’s Parliament building on Tuesday, raising his voice to a shout in denunciation of Russia’s “19th-century notion of spheres of influence,” [*] and urging the world not to formally recognize the separatist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. He received

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/15/AR2009071503163.html
Clinton: U.S. Urges 'Multi-Partner World'
Secretary Seeks to Define Approach
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 16, 2009 [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s diplomatic team, state department bureaucracy and so forth] [SecState Clinton] [after an impressive start, a broken arm (contre temps) has slowed her down and created drag where there was once movement] [use psci355] [she is the sort of person who will compete so long as she’s the boss of state; and I respect her stamina and determination] [in early administration while things fall into place partly in response to external stimuli, partly in response to domestic ones, SecState Clinton makes her own luck] [cross in individual-role] [*]
The Obama administration is attempting to build a "multi-partner world" in which governments and private groups work collectively on common global problems and in

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/us/politics/16clinton.html
July 16, 2009
For Clinton, ’09 Campaign Is for Her Turf
By MARK LANDLER [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s diplomatic team, state department bureaucracy and so forth] [SecState Clinton] [after an impressive start, a broken arm (contre temps) has slowed her down and created drag where there was once movement] [use psci355] [she is the sort of person who will compete so long as she’s the boss of state; and I respect her stamina and determination] [in early administration while things fall into place partly in response to external stimuli, partly in response to domestic ones, SecState Clinton makes her own luck] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped back to center stage here on Wednesday to present an ambitious blueprint for America’s role in

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/13/AR2009071302787.html
Holder Faces Avalanche Of Work, and Scrutiny
Attorney General Blasted From Left, Right
By Carrie Johnson and Krissah Thompson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, July 14, 2009 [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [inherited President W. Bush TSPs and illegal enemy combatants and “enhanced-interrogation techniques”] [Obama’s national-security team] [IC, ODNI, DNI, NCTC, and other post-IRTPA changes] [the Obama administration has done little to reverse the trend begun under the Bush administration] [followup] [use psci355] [enhanced-interrogation techniques, attributed to military and CIA] [but caveats: military within timeframe out of which it appears rougues and malconents (or an occasional overreaction) and with CIA mostly “contractors” who were not in-house CIA guys?] [followup] [*]
July cannot be counted as the warmest of months for Eric H. Holder Jr. The attorney general clashed with Congress over national security policy, fielded complaints from

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12intel.html
July 12, 2009
Cheney Is Linked to Concealment of C.I.A. Project
By SCOTT SHANE [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [inherited President W. Bush TSPs and illegal enemy combatants and “enhanced-interrogation techniques”] [Obama’s national-security team] [IC, ODNI, DNI, NCTC, and other post-IRTPA changes] [the Obama administration has done little to reverse the trend begun under the Bush administration] [followup] [use psci355] [was it political appointees near top or rank and file who bought into the Bush disasters?] [first broke yesterday; I have the 43-page report (PDF) but will read it this weekend] [use psci355] [*] [note: I read the 43-page report yesterday and concluded that Cheney was neck deep] [W. Bush did not have the gumption to order some of the tough actions with administration DOJ officials attributed to him AND Addington was nearly always in the key meetings; hence it must have been Cheney!] [*]
The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, [parsing the language: counterterrorism program sounds much more like paramilitary than it does like clandestine intelligence collection] [*] the

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/11/AR2009071103011.html
Democrats May Investigate Secret Program
By Paul Kane and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 12, 2009 [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [inherited President W. Bush TSPs and illegal enemy combatants and “enhanced-interrogation techniques”] [Obama’s national-security team] [IC, ODNI, DNI, NCTC, and other post-IRTPA changes] [the Obama administration has done little to reverse the trend begun under the Bush administration] [followup] [since Panetta became director of CIA he’s become understandably protective (parochialism)] [but he also comes from congress and understands how critical oversight it] [he’s now discovered that during Bush administration somebody directed CIA to shed its risk aversion and accept all sort of new risks, against CIA’s better interests?] [use psci355] [was it political appointees near top or rank and file who bought into the Bush disasters?] [first broke yesterday; I have the 43-page report (PDF) but will read it this weekend] [use psci355] [*]
House Democrats said yesterday that they expect to launch a formal investigation into a secret CIA program that was not disclosed to Congress for almost eight years, a probe

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/06/AR2009070603771.html
Remembering McNamara's Hope for Peace
By Walter Pincus
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 [Robert Strange McNamara] [his middle name said most of it] [he died early yesterday—see OBIT yesterday] [use psci358] [perhaps the man most responsible for chaning the perception of the secretary of defense to the cabinent slot with the most] [until sometime after McNamara, secretary of state was the most important cabinent post] [that began changing after McN and has remained since] [state and defense are pretty much seen as equal these days with one or the other outshining depending on whom the occupant is] [personal aspects of the man] [use psci355] [*]
Robert S. McNamara's last message to his wife, Diana, was typical, no nonsense. "No funeral/memorial service" was the way it began. [he loved to talk about how important he was in indirect ways so it looked like he was being humble when he wasn’t] [*]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html
July 7, 2009
Ex-Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara Dies at 93
By TIM WEINER [OBIT] [Robert Strange McNamara] [his middle name said most of it] [he died early today] [use psci358] [perhaps the man most responsible for chaning the perception of the secretary of defense to the cabinent slot with the most] [until sometime after McNamara, secretary of state was the most important cabinent post] [that began changing after McN and has remained since] [state and defense are pretty much seen as equal these days with one or the other outshining depending on whom the occupant is] [Clinton probably outweighs Gates simply because who she is] [use nsc] [use psci355] [*]
Robert S. McNamara, perhaps the most influential defense secretary of the 20th century, who helped lead the nation into the maelstrom of Vietnam and spent the rest of

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/world/05nuclear.html
July 5, 2009
Obama’s Youthful Ideals Shaped the Long Arc of His Nuclear-Free Vision
By WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER [Obama administration] [President Obama] [in formative years his impressions on nukes and Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD] [cross govt] [**]
In the depths of the cold war, in 1983, a senior at Columbia University wrote in a campus newsmagazine, Sundial, about the vision of “a nuclear free world.” [not long after Reagan, of all people, also began calling for nuclear free world] [see Rekajavik summit] [*] He railed against discussions of “first- versus second-strike capabilities” that “suit the military-industrial interests” with their “billion-dollar erector sets,” and agitated

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/us/04flournoy.html
July 4, 2009
The Saturday Profile
A Pentagon Trailblazer, Rethinking U.S. Defense
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON [Obama administration] [DoD] [Michele Flournoy, from the Center for a New American Security?] [really interesting thinktank from which the Obama administration has drawn some impressive talent] [she was heading or co heading it before joining] [“one of the highest-ranking” women in the history of the Pentagon] [under secretary of defense for policy] [cross govt] [**]
MICHÈLE A. FLOURNOY, one of the highest-ranking women in the history of the Pentagon, did not have a childhood that would immediately suggest a future as a

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/02/AR2009070203608.html
New Evidence Cheney Swayed Reaction to Leak
Discussions of CIA Agent Listed in Filing
By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 3, 2009 [bush white house] [veep cheney] [it gets weirder and weider] [his was so role busting and personal that one does not even know where to begin] [more pretty convincing evidence, if pieced together with other threads, that Libby lied to cover up for Cheney] [that would certainly explain why Cheney was angry at Bush for refusalb to pardon] [I suspect Bush was angry at Cheney for going behind Bush’s back so much] [strange] [use role theory] [cross in govt too] [use psci355] [cross in govt] [*]
A document filed in federal court this week by the Justice Department offers new evidence that former vice president Richard B. Cheney helped steer the Bush administration's public response to the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/30/AR2009063004026.html
Some Graphic Language at This Intelligence Agency
By Al Kamen
Wednesday, July 1, 2009 [obama white house] [intelligence community: IC] [NSC generally and NSC bureaucratically, and its large, parochial IC] [bureaucracy] [the forced marriage of Leon Panetta (director of CIA or what used to be called DCI before IRPTAA) and the director of national security (DNI Blair)] [somewhat surprisingly, they can’t seen to get along] [Panetta has been captured, so it would appear, by elements within the CIA that are set on fighting turf battles and refighting battles that were apparently settled already] [cross in individual-role] [*]
Seems Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and CIA Director Leon Panetta

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/world/30nato.html
June 30, 2009
For a Post in Europe, a Renaissance Admiral
By THOM SHANKER [obama white house] [general bureaucracy at most] [DoD and Pentagon, Navy] [SOUTCOM] [since GNA (1986?), the regional commands each have a commander in chief (statutory not constitutional!) know as CINC] [so former SOUTHCINC (and CENTCINC) from 2006-recent, moving on to NATO?] [note: will partner with AfPak’s commander (theater) General McChrystyk about whom much ink has been used in past month or two] [Obama administration looks to be quietly enlisting additional NATO help in AfPak (once had but lost after –Iraq invasion)] [*]
WASHINGTON — When Adm. James G. Stavridis [*]took over the military’s Southern

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/28/books/review/Wheatcroft-t.html
June 28, 2009
I Led Two Wars
By GEOFFREY WHEATCROFT
Skip to next paragraph
WAR OF NECESSITY, WAR OF CHOICE
A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars
By Richard N. Haass
336 pp. Simon & Schuster. $27 [Bush white house] [president-NSC-policymaking model] [NSC principals; NSC deputies; interagency process; IC; virtually all the vast foreign-policy and national-security bureaucracy] [a tale of two wars: Afghanistan where the US had little choice but to respond to attack (and recall the genuine concern that much more was on the way) and Iraq where President Bush and his neoconservative coterie were absolutely certain that Saddam lay at the crossroads of jihadis and WMD] [so certain were they that they circumvented the IC by creating a parallel DoD entity (Feith’s Little Shop of Horrors, or in bureaucratese, the office of special operations)] [a process bereft of checks and balances and which ultimately hurt the president] [veep cheney’s office and its steroid-induced behavior] [role cockup] [use psci355, 455] [use nsc] [cross in societa] [**]
“All wars are fought three times,” Richard N. Haass writes. “There is the political

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:13 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixonside.html
June 24, 2009
Tapes on G.O.P. Women and Anti-Semitism
ON GOOD-LOOKING REPUBLICAN WOMEN [Nixon administration] [historical interest] [politicization of policy, domestic and foreign] [use psci358, 355] [**]
When I spoke to the South Carolina Legislature, I noticed a couple of very attractive women, both of them Republicans, in the Legislature. ... I don’t want to go through with a Lenore Romney thing, but I want you to be sure to emphasize to our people: God, let’s look for some. Understand, I don’t do it because I’m for women; I do it because I think

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:51 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/us/politics/24nixon.html
June 24, 2009
On Nixon Tapes, Ambivalence Over Abortion, Not Watergate
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [Nixon administration] [historical interest] [politicization of policy, domestic and foreign] [use psci358, 355] [**]
WASHINGTON — On Jan. 23, 1973, when the Supreme Court struck down laws criminalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, President Richard M. Nixon made no public statement. But privately, newly released tapes reveal, he expressed ambivalence.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:50 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062303508.html
Democrat Endorsed Cambodia Invasion
Nixon Papers Cite 1970 Conversation
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 [Nixon administration] [historical interest] [politicization of policy, domestic and foreign] [use psci358, 355] [**]
Five days before U.S. and South Vietnamese troops made their surprise move into Cambodia on April 29, 1970, then-President Richard M. Nixon got the approval of the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee for that action, according for documents released yesterday by the Nixon library.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/books/24cheney.html
June 24, 2009
Cheney to Publish His Memoir
By MOTOKO RICH [former Bush White House] [former Veep Cheney] [in some ways this is what President Bush gets for letting this guy pick himself as veep] [in other ways, he’s really trashed President Bush’s reputation in some ways] [and Cheney is always quick ot put Cheney’s needs and what’s best for Cheney ahead of President Bush’s needs (or America’s) and what’s best for the US] [so here’s Cheney kicking dirt in President Bush’s face again—this time over Cheney’s memoirs versus Bush’s] [that’s pretty awful when the veep’s memoirs fetch more and are far-mopre anticipated than are the president’s] [use psci355] [**]
As widely expected, Vice President Dick Cheney has signed a deal with an imprint of

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:49 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/us/19bush.html
June 19, 2009
Bush Hopes Closing Won’t Harm Security
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Obama administration] [111th congress, 1st session] [former Bush administration] [Obama’s national-security team] [bureaucracy] [former President W. Bush] [in month 6th month of news Obama presidency] [former President Bush gave speech to raise some coin] [I didn’t think is was particularly savage or fire breathing] [I also don’t thin he really violated his pledge to keep his yap closed and let the new guy do his job without a lot of commentary from the peanut gallery] [**]
ERIE, Pa. (AP) — Former President George W. Bush said he hoped his successor’s plans to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, would not compromise

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/15/AR2009061502884.html
New Afghanistan Commander Will Review Troop Placements
By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 [Afghanistan] [hydra] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [thus far the “spring offensive” has been relatively mild] [it feels as though US-West are all waiting for some big event] [Pakistan’s robust role in transnational war, villany, complications?] [followup] [Afghanistan (read Karzai) limps toward another round of elections?] [President Obama’s selection of McChrystul receives the batton] [counterinsurgency is underway?] [now that he’s in command, he needs to shape the forces for the mission—the counterinsurgency mission now be undertaken] [cross in govt and individual-tole?] [**]
KABUL, June 15 -- Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who took over Monday as the top

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-clemons/can-national-security-adv_b_214672.html
[6/13/09 3:06 PM]
The Huffington Post
June 13, 2009
Steve Clemons
Can National Security Adviser James Jones Survive a Second Round of Attacks and "Longer Knives"?
[individual-role] [Obama white house] [NSC level: principals and deputies] [president-NSC-policymaking model] [NSC advisor General (retired) James Jones] [use nsc] [use psci355, 455] [**]
I am here in London where I'm participating in an interesting forum sponsored by the Princeton Project on National Security and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Transatlantic Program, I've received not just one email -- but three -- from prominent insider journalists and policy hands that Jim Jones' tenure as National Security Adviser

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061203322.html
How's Biden Doing These Days?
Sunday, June 14, 2009 [individual-role] [veep Biden] [nearly 5 months deep] [and it’s first post-1—day measurement time?] [punditocracy, regular media, political hacks that are not necessarily part of the government] [suss out Veep Biden ROLE in this administration] [probably wouldn’t be so important except for fact that Veep (former) Cheney was so influential and his role still poorly understood overall] [cross in societal] [use role theory] [does this tell us anything about Veep Biden’s role in president-NSC-policymaking model?] [use nsc] [use psci355, 455] [**]

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061204044.html
Obama's Friends, Aides Help Shape Stance on Settlements
President Sees Expansion as Blocking Mideast Peace Deal
By Glenn Kessler and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 13, 2009 [cross in govt] [use nsc] [some president-NSC-policymaking model: process] [also, invidual idiosyncratic stuff] [use psci355] [**]
President Obama's close friends and key advisers have helped him shape the toughest line against the continued expansion of Israeli settlements since the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/11/AR2009061101767.html
Petraeus: 'Tough Months' Lie Ahead in Afghan War
Counterinsurgency Strategy Outlined
By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 12, 2009 [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s national-security team] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [Sec Def Robert Gates held over from Bush] [and SecState Clinton] [bureaucracy and some NSC levels] [CENTCOM, DoD, Pentagon, NSC] [AfPak and gsave; counterinsurgency] [use psci355] [each week this becomes increasingly President Obama’s baby!] [cross in govt] [***]
Violence in Afghanistan last week reached its highest levels since the U.S.-led

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:48 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/world/asia/11command.html
June 11, 2009
U.S. Commander in Afghanistan Is Given More Leeway
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s national-security team] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [Sec Def Robert Gates held over from Bush] [and SecState Clinton] [bureaucracy and some NSC levels] [CENTCOM, DoD, Pentagon, NSC] [AfPak and gsave; counterinsurgency] [use psci355] [each week this becomes increasingly President Obama’s baby!] [cross in individual-role] [***]
WASHINGTON — The new American commander in Afghanistan has been given carte blanche to handpick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans, as he moves to carry out an ambitious new strategy that envisions stepped-up

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:37 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/opinion/10dowd.html
June 10, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Can The One Have Fun?
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON [oped] [columnist] [President Obama] [ostensibly about Pres Obama’s trip to Europe and Middle east] [his wife and kids met him in Europe] [and the GOP went nuts about him using tax payer money to fly his wife and children] [wtf?] [what about W. Bush’s million special trips to Crawford and Camp David?] [cross in individual-role] [**]
The fun police are patrolling Pennsylvania Avenue.

Continue reading "Can The One Have Fun?" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:34 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/world/middleeast/10mideast.html
June 10, 2009
U.S. Envoy Reassures and Presses a Wary Israel
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [followup] [President Obama’s Cairo speech nearly 2 weeks ago now] [former Senator Mitchell back to the region when the rubber meets the road] [a lot of hand holding and probably a lot of winks and nodds ever since the speech continue in earnest] [cross in govt and individual-role] [**]
JERUSALEM — President Obama’s Middle East envoy sought Tuesday to allay fears

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/us/politics/09intel.html
June 9, 2009
Turf Battles on Intelligence Pose Test for Spy Chiefs
By MARK MAZZETTI [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 1st session] [Obama’s national-security team] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [Sec Def Robert Gates held over from Bush] [and SecState Clinton] [bureaucracy] [IC and other bureaucracies] [turf wars continue] [post-IRTPA reorganizations and America’s imperative for accurate intelligence] [use psci355] [this series entirely on the Obama watch!] [cross in individual-role] [***]
WASHINGTON — On May 19, Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, sent a classified memorandum announcing that his office would use its authority to select the

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:38 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/05/AR2009060502832.html
Jim Jones's Team
By David Ignatius
Sunday, June 7, 2009 [oped] [columnist] [Ignatius’ sources on how the Obama-president-NSC-policymaking model functions] [use nsc] [use psci355, 455] [cross in govt and individual-role] [****]
Defense Secretary Robert Gates doesn't give interviews all that often. So it was interesting that Gates reached out last week to talk about Gen. Jim Jones, the national security adviser, and how he is managing the foreign policy process in the Obama

Continue reading "Jim Jones's Team" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:32 AM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/04/AR2009060404541.html
Pakistan Says Tide Has Turned in Swat; Refugees Not So Sure
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 5, 2009 [Pakistan] [hydra] [Pakistan became the clear staging area for operations into Afghanistan during 2007] [AfPak] [additional indications that offensive is on: Taliban getting bolder in their stronghold] [hard to know where the insurgency ends and common criminality begins] [Swat and other accomodations] [followup] [use psci469b] [Taliban and jihadis move closer to Islamabad] [general populace has fled Talibanization] [use psci469b] [cross in govt and individual] [***]
SWABI, Pakistan, June 4 -- Pakistan's army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, declared

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-at-Cairo-University-6-04-09/
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Cairo,Egypt)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 4, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING
Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt
1:10 P.M. (Local) [obama white house] [originated in campaign last year] [proably mostly bureaucracy for weeks into the administration] [slowly but surely NSC levels (including principals and deputies) growing involvement] [NSC level and possibly political shop likely behind the careful threading of the needle represented in the speech] [cross in individual: Obama apparently loves incredible challenges] [my training makes me cynical about prospects] [but the environment is such that who knows what might happen?] [for certain: historic speech] [111th congress, ast session] [use psci350, 355, 469b] [****]
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I am honored to be in

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/02/AR2009060203999.html
Cheney Led Briefings of Lawmakers To Defend Interrogation Techniques
By Paul Kane and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 3, 2009 [bush white house] [veep cheney] [it gets weirder and weider] [his was so role busting and persona that one does not even know where to begin] [use role theory] [cross in govt too] [use psci355] [*****]
Former vice president Richard B. Cheney personally oversaw at least four briefings with senior members of Congress about the controversial interrogation program, part of a

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/world/asia/03gates.html
June 3, 2009
In Air and on the Ground, Trials Marked Gates’s Trip
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [obama white house] [SecDef Robert Gates] [just returning from important trip abroad including Asia] [one cockup after another] [while this is mostly amusing info] [some texture on his idosyncracies and personal pecadillos] [****]
ANCHORAGE — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates runs the most powerful military in the world, but his six-day trip to Asia and Alaska this past week proved how much

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/obama-to-name-ny-congressman-the-army-secretary
The Caucus - The Politics and Government blog of The New York Times
June 2, 2009, 9:00 am
Obama to Name N.Y. Congressman the Army Secretary
By Carl Hulse [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [nominee for secretary of the Army] [another Republican] [I cannot imagine him having much trouble passing muster] [archive individual-role also] [****]
Representative John M. McHugh, a Republican congressman from New York, will be nominated by President Obama to be secretary of the Army, according to officials, as

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:06 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/01/AR2009060103732.html
McChrystal to Face Questions on Plans for Afghanistan
By Karen DeYoung and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 1st session] [its advice and consent prerogatives] [national-security team] [NSC princiaps and bureaucracy] [gsave and Patraeus counterinsurgency strategy in AfPak] [obama has apparently bought in all the way] [now comes the house cleaning to put the right parts in place] [my gut tells me Patraeus was principally responsible for McChrystal’s supplantation of McKeirnan] [McChrustal has special ops and those special military units (SMUs) all over him] [he appears to thrive as square peg in round hole] [archive in individual-role] [****]
Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal will appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee today to answer questions about the future -- including his plans for

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:05 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/26/AR2009052602787.html
Colin Powell's Truths
By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, May 27, 2009 [oped] [columnist] [former Bush speech writer on Powell-Cheney dichotomy] [****]
Last week's explosive Cheney-Obama rhetorical showdown ended in a damp fizzle of substantive agreement about the continuation of military commissions, about the need for indefinite detention of some terrorists and about the three-ring foolishness of a "truth commission." The sharpest dispute, it turned out, concerned interrogation practices discontinued six years ago. Meanwhile, President Obama continues the targeted killings of terrorists by drones in Pakistan and the rendition of terrorists to friends less punctilious in their application of the Geneva Conventions. It is hypocrisy -- but

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:37 PM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/world/asia/26command.html
May 26, 2009
Nomination of U.S. Afghan Commander Revives Questions in Tillman Case
By THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [national-security team] [NSC princiaps and bureaucracy] [gsave and Patraeus counterinsurgency strategy in AfPak] [obama has apparently bought in all the way] [now comes the house cleaning to put the right parts in place] [my gut tells me Patraeus was principally responsible for McChrystal’s supplantation of McKeirnan] [McChrystal has special ops and those special military units (SMUs) all over him] [he appears to thrive as square peg in round hole] [archive in individual-role] [****]
WASHINGTON — One was a football hero who roused the nation when he quit a high-

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/24/AR2009052400863.html
Powell, Answering Critics, Urges GOP to 'Reach Out'
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 25, 2009 [former SecState Powell] [first W. Bush term] [apparently getting bugged by Cheney and others shoting mouths off about who constitutes a rebpuclican and who doesn’t] [most Americans have no idea how far back the bad blood between them is] [See Woodward’s The General for HW Bush’s second choice for secdef, Cheney who tangled with Powell and diliked the access and influence Powell had as CJCS] [use psci355] [****]
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell yesterday reaffirmed his allegiance to the Republican Party and called for a "no-holds-barred, candid" debate about the party's

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/24/AR2009052400863.html
Powell, Answering Critics, Urges GOP to 'Reach Out'
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 25, 2009 [former SecState Powell] [first W. Bush term] [apparently getting bugged by Cheney and others shoting mouths off about who constitutes a rebpuclican and who doesn’t] [most Americans have no idea how far back the bad blood between them is] [See Woodward’s The General for HW Bush’s second choice for secdef, Cheney who tangled with Powell and diliked the access and influence Powell had as CJCS] [use psci355] [****]
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell yesterday reaffirmed his allegiance to the Republican Party and called for a "no-holds-barred, candid" debate about the party's future.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/us/25talkshows.html
May 25, 2009
Powell Jousts With Cheney on Path of Republican Party
By ADAM NAGOURNEY [former SecState Powell] [first W. Bush term] [apparently getting bugged by Cheney and others shoting mouths off about who constitutes a rebpuclican and who doesn’t] [most Americans have no idea how far back the bad blood between them is] [See Woodward’s The General for HW Bush’s second choice for secdef, Cheney who tangled with Powell and diliked the access and influence Powell had as CJCS] [use psci355] [****]
WASHINGTON — Colin L. Powell challenged Dick Cheney on the legacy of the Bush administration and the future of the Republican Party on Sunday, declaring that

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/23/AR2009052301871.html
STATEMENTS OF U.S. PRESIDENTS
Sunday, May 24, 2009 [Obama administration] [US presidential administrations since 1967 if not before] [continuity in USFP] [archive in role too] [US-Israeli relations] [Israeli-Arab conflicts] [*****]
"Our position on the settlements is very clear. We do not think they are legal, and they

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/us/politics/23cheney.html
May 23, 2009
Cheney Seeks Book Deal on Bush Years and More
By JIM RUTENBERG and MOTOKO RICH [former veep cheney] [AEI] [one-man crew set on defending much that is indefensible] [in fariness, I think it’s important to be honest about it] [most of us were so scared after 9/11 that we wanted dramatic action] [but even inside the bush administration people came to realize lines had been crossed] [see Brooks oped today] [here Cheney comes off as Cheney: arrogance and hubris supreme] [sort of stunning really] [illustrative example][he was clearly miffed that he had to wait for Obama before his speech could get max media coverage] [use psci355] [****]
WASHINGTON — With his sustained blitz of television appearances and speeches,

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:58 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052203555.html
In TV Appearance, Powell Plans To Answer Right-Wing Critics
By Michael D. Shear and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, May 23, 2009 [former SecState Powell] [first W. Bush term] [apparently getting bugged by Cheney and others shoting mouths off about who constitutes a rebpuclican and who doesn’t] [most Americans have no idea how far back the bad blood between them is] [See Woodward’s The General for HW Bush’s second choice for secdef, Cheney who tangled with Powell and diliked the access and influence Powell had as CJCS] [use psci355] [****]
Under intense fire from the right, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is preparing to

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:57 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104427.html
Cheney Says Current Policies Put More Americans at Risk
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 22, 2009
Unrepentant and newly unbridled, former vice president Richard B. Cheney has embraced two missions in his political retirement: to forcefully defend the Bush

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/22/us/politics/22cheney.html
May 22, 2009
POLITICAL MEMO
A ‘Freer’ Cheney Makes Case (With Dual Focus)
By JIM RUTENBERG [former veep cheney] [AEI] [one-man crew set on defending much that is indefensible] [in fariness, I think it’s important to be honest about it] [most of us were so scared after 9/11 that we wanted dramatic action] [but even inside the bush administration people came to realize lines had been crossed] [see Brooks oped today] [here Cheney comes off as Cheney: arrogance and hubris supreme] [sort of stunning really] [illustrative example][he was clearly miffed that he had to wait for Obama before his speech could get max media coverage] [use psci355] [****]
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney made clear on Thursday his disdain

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104353.html
A Week of Meetings Shaped Address
Friday, May 22, 2009 [obama white house] [president obama] [on US security and US values and principles] [the rewrite bush43’s 1st term revisionists have been pushing hard on the new administration, particularly and uncharacteristically, veep cheney] [veeps like presidents are supposed to fade away] [cheney has intentionally gone after early and often on 9/11 national security] [war of SIGs involved] [ineed just after obama gave this scheduled speech] [former veep cheney gave a rebuttal-type speech at (shocker!) AE!] [use psci355, 455] [use individual] [*****]
President Obama paced the Oval Office, the debate about torture and detainees clearly

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-On-National-Security-5-21-09/
[accessed 5/21/09 3:18 PM]
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________
For Immediate Release May 21, 2009
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON NATIONAL SECURITY
National Archives
Washington, D.C.
10:28 A.M. EDT [obama white house] [president obama] [on US security and US values and principles] [the rewrite bush43’s 1st term revisionists have been pushing hard on the new administration, particularly and uncharacteristically, veep cheney] [veeps like presidents are supposed to fade away] [cheney has intentionally gone after early and often on 9/11 national security] [war of SIGs involved] [ineed just after obama gave this scheduled speech] [former veep cheney gave a rebuttal-type speech at (shocker!) AE!] [use psci355, 455] [use role theory] [archive in govt too] [*****]
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. Please be seated. Thank you all for being

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 04:10 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051903404.html
Little New in Obama's Immigration Policy
While Embracing Bush's Programs, President Says Nuance Makes the Difference
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 [role] [Obama white house] [versus Bush white house] immigration policy] [continuity in USFP] [use psci355] [arcive govt too] [****]
Although President Obama has spent much of his time in office moving away from the policies of his predecessor, on immigration enforcement, he has embraced several

Continue reading "Little New in Obama's Immigration Policy" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/19/AR2009051903404.html
Little New in Obama's Immigration Policy
While Embracing Bush's Programs, President Says Nuance Makes the Difference
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 [role] [Obama white house] [versus Bush white house] immigration policy] [continuity in USFP] [use psci355] [arcive govt too] [****]
Although President Obama has spent much of his time in office moving away from the policies of his predecessor, on immigration enforcement, he has embraced several

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/opinion/20dowd.html
May 20, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Cheney Grabs a Third Term
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON [oped] [columnist] [on Cheney-Rummy cabal and odd relationship during the Bush presidency (almost exclusively 1st term as we have learned that Bush and Cheney had row over Ashcroft-Comey-resignations/mutiny-over TSPs that DoJ said were illegal] [Dowd apparently among the liberals-progressives who are “disappointed” with Obama] [you’d think she might know better having watched a few transitions] [use role theory] [****]
Dick and Rummy are at Cafe Milano in Georgetown, holding court. The maître d’ fawns.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:16 AM | Permalink

http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_9217
[accessed 5/17/09 11:04 AM]
AND HE SHALL BE JUDGED
Former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld has always answered his detractors by claiming that history will one day judge him kindly. But as he waits for that day, a new group of critics—his administration peers—are suddenly speaking out for the first time. What they’re saying? It isn’t pretty
By Robert Draper [individual] [Draper who’s usually pretty good] [but this doesn’t even pass smell test] [it has a Rummsfeld who was so interested in kissing Bush’s ass that

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/17/AR2009051701729.html
Gen. Jones and the Anonymous Long Knives
By Sally Quinn
Monday, May 18, 2009 [oped] [columnist] [another on NSC advisor Jones] [this one asserts the long knives are out for his scalp] use nsc] [archive in individual-role too] [use psci355, 455] [****]
The knives are out. The tom-toms are beating. And by Washington standards it's soon. Usually the trashing of the national security adviser takes longer.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/16/AR2009051601162.html
As President, Obama Is Unafraid to Disappoint His Allies
By Dan Balz
Sunday, May 17, 2009 [mostly individual] [Obama as a personality type] [confident] [like most everyone else he loves to be loved] [but he’s also surpremly confident—or gives that appearance—and seems comfortable in pissing off his supporters over issues on which he thinks he’s right or where the practical consequence matters] [he’s surely more interesting that Bush was] [use role theory] [****]
Through much of last year's campaign, Barack Obama enjoyed the acclaim of a politician who seemed adept at making himself all things to almost all people. Liberals,

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/us/politics/16obama.html
May 16, 2009
News Analysis
Obama After Bush: Leading by Second Thought
By DAVID E. SANGER [Role] [interesting comparison of Bush administration with its successor Obama administration] [mostly role though some idiosyncratic (individual) stuff too] [useful for psci355, 455] [use role theory] [archive in govt too] [****]
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s decisions this week to retain important elements

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/opinion/16blow.htm
May 16, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Chastise Cheney
By CHARLES M. BLOW [oped] [columnist] [on Cheney’s rather peculiar loquaciousness recently] [archive in individual] [*****]
This week saw some notable apologies and makings of amends.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/14/AR2009051404450.html
A Single-Minded Focus on Dual Wars
Defense Secretary Is Reorienting the Military to Meet U.S. Troops' Needs Now
By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 15, 2009 [Obama administration] [111th congress, 1st session] [SecDef Gates as war-time consigliere] [use psci469] [use psci355, 455] [a little bit of individual, a bit of role] [govt too] [****]
On a rainy night in March, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates traveled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to witness the military's ritual for welcoming home its war dead.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:56 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15cong.html
May 15, 2009
Pelosi Says She Knew of Waterboarding by 2003
By CARL HULSE [now Obama white house’s] [Bush white house] [gsave] [NSC principals and subgroupings thereof] [NSC, other venue] [the debates—and many of the critical ones occurred around 9/11—about whether this enemy actually constituted something the US had never seen] [while I recall how scared and worried many were] [a little thoughtfulness suggests that a) basic law enforcement had been successful in past prosecutions and b) in most ways the enemy was not that unique] [shocked, shocked that enhanced-interrogation techniques may have been used] [***]
WASHINGTON — The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, acknowledged for the first time

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:43 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/13/AR2009051303789.html
As Cheney Seizes Spotlight, Many Republicans Wince
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 14, 2009 [Obama white house] [former Bush white house] [former veep Cheney] [shoots off his mouth on as Senate Armed Service Committee report on detainee treatment released—not coincidental!] [enhanced-interrogation techniques] [it’s counterproductive as we can never—no court will allow testimony—prosecute the SOBs for what they did] [almost certainly info has come from “torture”] [but that’s quite different than saying it works] [Cheney strikes me as tough-kid wannabe who ducked military service but still wants to show how tough] [it just rings hollow] [use psci355, 455, 362, 469b] [among the truly scary civilians who wanted military muscle for every challenge] [followup from yesterday] [use this as the two other Veep Cheney pieces in this month’s role-individual for psci355, 455] [use role theory] [archive in societal too] [****]
As vice president, Richard B. Cheney famously spent much of the past eight years in undisclosed locations and offering private advice to President George W. Bush. But past

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/world/asia/13commander.html
May 13, 2009
Man in the News
A General Steps From the Shadows
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and MARK MAZZETTI [Obama white house] [national-security team] [NSC princiaps and bureaucracy] [gsave and Patraeus counterinsurgency strategy in AfPak] [obama has apparently bought in all the way] [now comes the house cleaning to put the right parts in place] [my gut tells me Patraeus was principally responsible for McChrystal’s supplantation of McKeirnan] [McChrustal has special ops and those special military units (SMUs) all over him] [he appears to thrive as square peg in round hole] [archive in individual-role] [****]
WASHINGTON — Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the ascetic who is set to become the

Continue reading "A General Steps From the Shadows" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:38 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/12/AR2009051203669.html
At Hill Hearing, Details Sought On Afghanistan-Pakistan Policy
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 [Obama white house] [gsave] [NSC and sub-NSC levels] [in matter of months, AfPak as deteriorated] [during transition and while Obama’s team underaking review] [now the counterinsurgency outlines is beginning to take shape] [expect increased bloodshed during 2009 into 2010] [then expect military to attempt t peel off reconcilables] [apparently, Patraeus wanted McKeirnan replaced by a new guy who knows counterinsurgency or at least Patraeus’s mo] [new guy: Stanley McChrystal and my guess on Patraeus as impetus looks vindicated] [****]
Some Democratic senators joined Republicans yesterday in questioning whether the

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:33 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/world/asia/13military.html
May 13, 2009
Switch Signals New Path for Afghan War
By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI [Obama white house] [gsave] [NSC and sub-NSC levels] [in matter of months, AfPak as deteriorated] [during transition and while Obama’s team underaking review] [now the counterinsurgency outlines is beginning to take shape] [expect increased bloodshed during 2009 into 2010] [then expect military to attempt t peel off reconcilables] [apparently, Patraeus wanted McKeirnan replaced by a new guy who knows counterinsurgency or at least Patraeus’s mo] [new guy: Stanley McChrystal and my guess on Patraeus as impetus looks vindicated] [see today’s individual for more on McChrystal[ [****]
WASHINGTON — Until now, the successive American generals in charge of the war in

Continue reading "Switch Signals New Path for Afghan War" »

Posted by Kent Bolton at 02:32 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/10/AR2009051002129.html
Obama Enlists Biden's Expertise About High Court
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 11, 2009 [individual-role] [veep Biden] [his years on judiciary and his expertise on grilling supreme nominees over the years] [it was something I admit I thought very little about when he was announced as Obama running mate] [overall, most of these factors have augered well for continuation of Vice President Cheney’s role-shattering tenure as veep] [not that Biden will replicate that but I think—and I argued it in my NSC book—we are in for a newly active veep in future NSC principals] [this will eventually affect how candidates select veep picks] [use role theory] [*****]
The person in the White House most knowledgeable about Supreme Court nominations

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/06/AR2009050604134.html
In Frenetic White House, A Low-Key 'Outsider'
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 7, 2009 [Obama administration] [Obama’s national-security team] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [individual-role sources of USFP in Obama administration] [finally some info on General Jones] [clearly, qui bono is question in terms of leaks] [use psci355, 455] [***]
President Obama's national security adviser, James L. Jones, looks for rare opportunities to ride his bike from his McLean home to work at the White House. On

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/us/07jones.html
May 7, 2009
National Security Adviser Tries Quieter Approach
By HELENE COOPER [Obama administration] [Obama’s national-security team] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [individual-role sources of USFP in Obama administration] [finally some info on General Jones] [clearly, qui bono is question in terms of leaks] [use psci355, 455] [***]
WASHINGTON—On a foreign policy team of supersize egos, Gen. James L. Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, is flying below the radar. Compared with

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/26/AR2009042602360.html
Holbrooke's Growing Orbit
By Al Kamen
Monday, April 27, 2009 [Obama white house in tall weeds on this] [111th congress, 1st session] [carry over from Bush administration] [Obama’s national-security team] [special envoy Holbrooke] [bureaucracy] [mostly state department] [his “orbit” of people] [archive in individual-role too] [***]
Lest anyone think all those new "special envoys" at the State Department come free, the department has submitted a supplemental budget request to the Hill for an extra $8.5

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/weekinreview/26harwood.html
April 26, 2009
Exit Growling
Dick Cheney: The Visible Man
By JOHN HARWOOD [Obama white house] [former Bush white house] [former veep Cheney] [shoots off his mouth on as Senate Armed Service Committee report on detainee treatment released—not coincidental!] [enhanced-interrogation techniques] [it’s counterproductive as we can never—no court will allow testimony—prosecute the SOBs for what they did] [almost certainly info has come from “torture”] [but that’s quite different than saying it works] [Cheney strikes me as tough-kid wannabe who ducked military service but still wants to show how tough] [it just rings hollow] [use psci355, 455, 362, 469b] [among the truly scary civilians who wanted military muscle for every challenge] [followup from yesterday] [use this as the two other Veep Cheney pieces in this month’s role-individual for psci355, 455] [use role theory] [***]
Washington — Dick Cheney became a one-of-a-kind vice president for two reasons: he

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403645.html
Cheney Requests Release of 2 CIA Reports on Interrogations
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 25, 2009 [Obama white house] [former Bush white house] [former veep Cheney] [shoots off his mouth on as Senate Armed Service Committee report on detainee treatment released—not coincidental!] [enhanced-interrogation techniques] [it’s counterproductive as we can never—no court will allow testimony—prosecute the SOBs for what they did] [almost certainly info has come from “torture”] [but that’s quite different than saying it works] [Cheney strikes me as tough-kid wannabe who ducked military service but still wants to show how tough] [it just rings hollow] [use psci355, 455, 362, 469b] [among the truly scary civilians who wanted military muscle for every challenge] [followup from yesterday] [***]
Former vice president Richard B. Cheney is asking for the release of two CIA reports in his

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/us/24cheney.html
April 24, 2009
Unemployed, Unapologetic and Unrestrained: It’s Cheney Unbound
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [former Bush white house] [former veep Cheney] [shoots off his mouth on as Senate Armed Service Committee report on detainee treatment released—not coincidental!] [enhanced-interrogation techniques] [it’s counterproductive as we can never—no court will allow testimony—prosecute the SOBs for what they did] [almost certainly info has come from “torture”] [but that’s quite different than saying it works] [Cheney strikes me as tough-kid wannabe who ducked military service but still wants to show how tough] [it just rings hollow] [use psci355, 455, 362, 469b] [among the truly scary civilians who wanted military muscle for every challenge] [followup] [***]
WASHINGTON — On the mornings he is in town, Dick Cheney wakes up at 6, climbs into his

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042003662.html
Obama's Gripping Style Overseas
By Dan Balz
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 [Obama administration] [111th congress, 1st session] [carry over from Bush administration] [Obama’s national-security team] [President Obama] [his style in the Summit of the Americas] [the tempest in a teacup over being polite to tinhat dictators] [was he supposed to scowl to keep the Newts of the world happy that American foreign policy isn’t naïve] [I’m not sure Newt could explain foreign policy if his life depended on it] [but he can demogogue it] [***]
President Obama's weekend of summitry in Latin America will be remembered most for his cordial encounter with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. The images of that handshake

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/20/AR2009042003649.html
Counterterrorism Official Urges Broader Approach to Foreign Policy
By Walter Pincus
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 [Obama administration] [111th congress, 1st session] [carry over from Bush administration] [Obama’s national-security team] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [Sec Def Robert Gates held over from Bush] [and SecState Clinton] [bureaucracy] [National Counterterrorism Center, NCTC] [***]
Michael E. Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, recently presented

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0904/03/cnr.01.html
CNN NEWSROOM
President Obama Takes Student Questions in Strasbourg; Employment Numbers Continue to Rise; Mobile Career Counseling
Aired April 3, 2009 - 09:00 ET [Obama White House] [President Obama on al Qaeda] [in response to an American-French student who asked about what President Obama wanted from Europe in terms of gsave] [I think it's an important answer] [I also thinks it shows how concerned he is with al Qaeda and potential for future attacks] [use psci355, 455] [*****]
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0904/03/cnr.01.html
CNN NEWSROOM
President Obama Takes Student Questions in Strasbourg; Employment Numbers Continue to Rise; Mobile Career Counseling
Aired April 3, 2009 - 09:00 ET [Obama White House] [President Obama on al Qaeda] [in response to an American-French student who asked about what President Obama wanted from Europe in terms of gsave] [I think it's an important answer] [I also thinks it shows how concerned he is with al Qaeda and potential for future attacks] [use psci355, 455] [*****]
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:45 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/us/politics/29biden.html
March 29, 2009
Speaking Freely, Biden Finds Influential Role
By MARK LEIBOVICH [Obama White House] [111th congress, 1st session] [henceforth, Obama owns AfPak] [Obama’s national-security team] [Dennis Blair as DNI] [Panetta as CIA director] [Gen (retired) James Jones as NSC adviser] [Sec Def Robert Gates held over from Bush] [and SecState Clinton] [bureaucracy] [DOD, IC, NSC, State, others] [gsave in AfPak] [the long-awaited plan] [Veep Biden’s influence] [use psci355, 455] [archive individual-role too] [****]
WASHINGTON — When President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:41 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/europe/26hague.html
March 26, 2009
Envoy Denies Immunity Offer to Leader of Bosnian Serbs
By MARLISE SIMONS [Clinton White House] [heldover in Bush and now Obama] [mostly bureaucracy] [but Holbrooke as individual-role] [international criminal tribunal] [ICC] [did Karadic get promises of immunity from the Clinton administration around the Dayton Accords?] [followup] [reportedly, Holbrooke promised him] [did Holbrooke have any such authority?] [archive in external too] [****]
PARIS — A member of the American team negotiating to remove the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic from power in 1996 said that he was never promised immunity

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Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:45 AM |