This story's out today:

COPENHAGEN - A Somali man charged in connection with an attack on a Danish cartoonist was arrested last year over an alleged terror plot targeting Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, according to reports.

Quoting the Danish newspaper Politiken, Britain's Sky News reported that the 28-year-old was among four other suspects who were held over a foiled attack on a bus station and two hotels in Nairobi, Kenya.

The alleged plot coincided with Clinton's visit to the country during an 11-day tour of Africa, Sky News said. The suspect was reportedly released from custody the following month due to a lack of evidence and returned to Denmark.

The Somali man was charged with two counts of attempted murder on Saturday after allegedly breaking into the home of a Danish artist Kurt Westergaard, whose Prophet Muhammad cartoon outraged the Muslim world three years ago.

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(Allen, the shady Dulles brother)

Allen Dulles was head of the CIA from 1953-1961, putting him smack in the middle of the Cold War, the Middle East, Vietnam, the Red Scare, just about everything America found itself knee deep in during the Eisenhower years. It is also interesting to note that his brother, John Foster Dulles was Secretary of State during that time (until his death in 1959) - no doubt it was an interesting atmosphere around Washington then. But in 1968 we had the infamous Pueblo Incident, where an admitted spy ship was seized in North Korean waters and the resulting embarrassment lasted for years. Dulles comfortably assesses the damage from the comfort of his retirement. As always, the Cold War has really never ended, especially in 1968.

In this interview, conducted by Mitchell Krauss for the NET series "Newsfront" in February of 1968, Dulles busily promotes his new book "Great True Spy Stories" and skillfully evades some pertinent questions.

Allen Dulles: (with reference to the Pueblo incident) “It is very important to get the type of intelligence that a ship like the Pueblo can gather. And therefore it was reasonable that it should be in that general area in order to carry out its mission. Obviously, it’s important to know what the possible antagonist is planning and doing and so forth and so on. One of the ways is to pick up from the airwaves, you know, what he’s saying.”

All in all, a rather easy game of softball, but one of the rare interviews done by someone who certainly knew where all the mummies were buried.

In an interview on "Meet the Press," Sunday, Dec. 6, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates talked to David Gregory about President Obama's plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. Clinton insisted the plan is not an "exit strategy" or "drop dead deadline":

HILLARY CLINTON: We're not talking about an exit strategy or a drop dead deadline. What we're talking about is an assessment that in January 2011, we can begin a transition. A transition to hand off -- responsibility to the Afghan forces.

ROBERT GATES: We're not talking about an abrupt withdrawal. We're talking about something that will take place over a period of time. Our commanders think that these additional forces, and one of the reasons for the President's decision to try and accelerate their deployment is-- is the view that this extended surge has the opportunity to make significant gains in terms of reversing the momentum of the Taliban, denying them control of Afghan territory, and degrading their capabilities.

Our military thinks we have a real opportunity to do that. And it's not just in the next 18 months. Because we will have a significant -- we will have 100,000 forces -- troops there. And they are not leaving-- in July of 2011. Some handful or some small number or whatever the conditions permit, we'll begin to withdraw at that time.

Sara Bareilles - Many the Miles

How far do I have to go, to get some truth? Many the miles...many the miles. Obviously, the news this Sunday revolves around Obama's decision to send a surge to Afghanistan: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will be on no less than three of the bobblehead programs. Maybe on one of them, someone will ask them how we can justify $1,000,000 per year per troop to hunt down the less than 100 al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. At least soon-to-be GMA host George Stephanopoulos will have on Russ Feingold, who has been openly questioning the wisdom of the surge. And I know you've been missing him...John McCain back for his 878,967,543rd appearance on the Sunday shows. Will anyone ask him about his hypocrisy on his cozy relationship with big PhRMA lobbyists, despite decrying them on the Senate floor yesterday. Or judging by the Meter Questions on The Chris Matthews Show, maybe it doesn't matter, and the chance for health care reform has slipped by.

ABC's "This Week" - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Clinton; Gates.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Clinton; Gates; Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: John Heilemann, Katty Kay, Gloria Borger, Michael Duffy. Topics: Can Obama Do Anything Big Enough and Fast Enough to Help Unemployment? The Fame Game Behind the Grifters Who Crashed the White House State Dinner. Meter Questions: Will Obama Push A Big Jobs Bill Next Year? YES: 6 NO: 6; Will President Obama Sign a Health Care Reform Bill This Year? YES: 5 No: 7.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Gen. Jim Jones, national security adviser to President Barack Obama; Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Afghanistan: what will happen now that the president has announced a surge of troops? Fareed speaks with Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's Special Representative to the region, and Thomas Friedman. Plus, Mohamed ElBaradei -- who just left his post as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency - on whether we are reaching a dead end with Iran.

CNN's "Amanpour" - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai on President Obama's new military strategy in Afghanistan.

"Fox News Sunday" - Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and John Cornyn, R-Texas.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told NBC's David Gregory that a trial for the alleged 9/11 mastermind in New York City was "appropriate."

Clinton said New York City residents shouldn't fear the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. "All believe that New York City not only can handle this, but that it is appropriate to go forward in the very area where these people launched this horrific attack against us," Clinton said Sunday.

Not everyone is convinced that a trial so near the 9/11 attack is the best decision. Appearing on CNN Sunday, former mayor Rudy Giuliani said that the trial would put residents at risk.

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(Sen. James F. Byrnes - From Supreme Court to Secretary of State)

As the unemployment numbers keep creeping up, it's interesting to take a look at a similar situation 70 years ago, when Unemployment Compensation was a new thing (since 1935) and had it's detractors. There really were people who felt it wasn't the governments responsibility to take care of the unemployed - as there no doubt are now. Future Supreme Court Justice and later Secretary of State James F. Byrnes - on February 27, 1939 as Senator from South Carolina, addressed a radio audience to explain just what this unemployment compensation thing was all about.

Sen. Byrnes: “Unemployment assistance by government is not a new question. As early as 1894, ex-President Benjamin Harrison demanded that the federal government set up a work program to fight unemployment. In 1921 at the instance of Mister Hoover, then Secretary of Commerce, a conference on unemployment was held in Washington. Bills were introduced in the Congress but nothing was accomplished. Improved business conditions lessen the demand for Federal legislation. But from time to time during the years that followed, bills on the subject were introduced in the Congress. In 1929, our so-called ‘boom year’, the national income was eighty billion dollars. And yet, we had three million unemployed. With that national income today the number of unemployed would be greater than in 1929 because of the technicalogical changes. And the levying of a payroll tax tends to encourage these changes because the tax levied is upon workers and not upon machines.”

Seventy years later, it's still going. And they're still trying to cut the benefits.

So even though the Maine results are depressing, let's look at some real progress over at the western part of the country:

Washington state voters have approved Referendum 71, keeping a law that expands state benefits for registered same-sex and some senior domestic partners.

The tally Thursday afternoon saw the vote to approve R-71 widening its lead 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent.

That lead now appears insurmountable. The Secretary of State's Office estimates another 500,000 to 600,000 ballots statewide are still outstanding, with about half expected from King County, where the measure is being approved by slightly more than 2 to 1.

"Voters across the state listened to the personal stories of lesbian and gay families and the challenges they faced and sent a strong message that we want to see all families treated equally under the law in our state," said Anne Levinson, chairwoman of Washington Families Standing Together, which worked for the measure's approval.

But opponents of R-71 were not conceding Thursday afternoon.

Larry Stickney, head of Protect Marriage Washington, which worked for rejection of R-71, said: "There are a lot of votes out there still. We continue to have some hope that the votes cast later will move in our direction."

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(In case you were getting all dewey-eyed for the 70s)

Before George P. Schultz landed in the Reagan Administration as Secretary of State, he served for a while as Treasury Secretary under Richard Nixon, right during the fabled Energy Crisis of the 1970s.

Granted, we hadn't gone through this kind of thing before. It was 1973 and we were about to be distracted in a big way by Watergate, but the thought of skyrocketing gas prices, panic buying at the pumps and oil companies raking in massive profits just hadn't happened this way before or to this extent.

And so everyone, including Schultz was busy scratching their heads wondering what to do as is evidence by this exchange during his appearance on Meet The Press from December 2, 1973.

Irving R. Levine (NBC News): “Would not higher prices for gasoline favor higher income groups to the disadvantage of lower paid people?”

Schultz: “Not necessarily. The . . obviously you have a family budget with so much purchase of gasoline and fuel oil, and to the extent that lower income groups use proportionate to their income a little bit more than higher income groups, it has some of that effect. But I don’t think it’s a major problem in the family budget.”

Levine: “ But would not a lower . . .

Schultz: “It’s much more of a problem than if we don’t pay the price that is necessary and we don’t have any fuel.”

Levine: “But would not a person with a big income feel free to buy whatever amount of gas is necessary to do the driving that he wishes to do, where a lower income person would not be able to?”

Schultz: “That is true of all kinds of things that are reflected in the buying power of people at different incomes.”

Levine: “ Do You oppose rationing entirely, even as a last resort?

Schultz: “Well I said it should be the absolute last resort, and I’m not really sure that it is a genuine alternative in the sense of being really a workable type of system. Of course there are various kinds of rationing, and depending on how its designed it could work better or worse. I think it is worth remembering that toward the end of World War Two we had patriotic fervor and so on, we had six thousand people in OPA, enforcing . .getting after people in the black market, which I think gives you an idea the difficulties of a rationing system.”

Okay, no simple answer. But the disconnect associated with "well, only higher income people drive" strikes me as typical Republican response. Even during the course of the interview, Schultz offers a few snide asides about higher and lower economic brackets. And of course, he was very much in favor of letting the marketplace go insane.

Remember the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over expecting different results - or as a friend put it, doing the same thing over and over and knowing what the results are going to be.

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US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told NBC's Meet the Press that the US is doing everything possible to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. "We're going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon, but your pursuit is futile," she said.

Meet The Press:

MR. GREGORY: Let me turn to another hot spot, and that is Iran. A big headline this week, again, with your words: "Clinton's `Defense Umbrella' Stirs Tensions." The headlines goes on, "Suggests U.S. Will Have to Protect Allies From Nuclear-Armed Iran." You were in Bangkok on Wednesday, and this is what you said that got this started.(Videotape, Wednesday)

SEC'Y CLINTON: We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment, that if the United States extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the Gulf, it's unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won't be able to intimidate and dominate as they apparently believe they can once they have a nuclear weapon.(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Did you mean to suggest that the U.S. is considering a nuclear umbrella that would say to nations in the Arab world that an attack on you, just like NATO or Japan is an attack on the United States, and the United States would retaliate?

SEC'Y CLINTON: Well, I think it's clear that we're trying to affect the internal calculus of the Iranian regime. You know, the Iranian government, which is facing its own challenges of legitimacy from its people, has to know that that a pursuit of nuclear weapons, something that our country along with our allies stand strongly against. We believe as a matter of policy it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. The G-8 came out with a very strong statement to that effect coming from Italy. So we are united in our continuing commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions that if you're pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we're not going to let that happen. First, we're going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon. But your pursuit is futile, because we will never let Iran--nuclear-armed, not nuclear-armed, it is something that we view with great concern, and that's why we're doing everything we can to prevent that from ever happening.

Continue reading »

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George Stephanopoulos with Hillary Clinton this morning:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said President Barack Obama has "absolutely" answered questions she posed during the Democratic campaign about his lack of experience and ability to handle an international crisis.

In her first Sunday show interview since her presidential bid ended a year ago, I asked Clinton if Obama answered the questions she raised in her campaign's "3a.m." ad.

"Absolutely," Clinton told me in an exclusive "This Week" Sunday show interview-- her first as secretary of state.

"And, you know, the president in his public actions and demeanor, and certainly in private with me and with the national security team, has been strong, thoughtful, decisive, I think he is doing a terrific job," she said, "And it's an honor to serve with him."

Obama told Richard Wolffe that he had decided to offer State to Clinton during their primary battle. That came as a surprise to her.

"I never had any -- any dream, let alone inkling that I would end up in President Obama's cabinet," she told me.

"I was looking forward to going back to the Senate and, frankly, going back to my life and representing New York, which I love. And I had no idea that he had a different plan in mind."

Clinton also deflected Obama's first pass.

"When he called and asked me to come see him, and we had our first conversation I said, 'you know, I really don't think I'm the person to do this, I want to go back to my life. I really feel like I owe it to the people of New York,'" Clinton said.

"And I gave him a bunch of other names of people who I thought would be great secretaries of state. But he was quite persistent and very persuasive. And, you know, ultimately it came down to my feeling that, number one, when your president asks you to do something for your country, you really need a good reason not to do it."

"Number two, if I had won and I had asked him to please help me serve our country, I would have hoped he would say yes," Clinton said, "And finally, I looked around our world and I thought, you know, we are in just so many deep holes that everybody had better grab a shovel and start digging out."

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"You can only do two things with a base. You can sit on it and watch the world go by, or you can build on it. I believe we should build on it." - Colin Powell today on "Face The Nation," responding to Dick Cheney's comment that he would choose Rush Limbaugh over Colin Powell.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell calmly rebutted the GOP Gospel According to Dick on today's "Face the Nation." Cheney said in that interview he thought Colin Powell had "left the Republican party."

"By almost every demographic indicate, the Republican party is losing. The number of people who have identified themselves as Republicans have dropped significantly into the low 20s, and not all of them identify themselves as Republicans," Powell said. "I think the Republican party needs to take a good look at itself and decide what kind of party are we."

Host Bob Schieffer asked his reaction to Rush Limbaugh's statement that "the only reason he's [Powell] is voting for him [Obama] is because Barack Obama is black. Is he calling you a racist?" Powell called the remarks "unfortunate."

"Mr. Limbaugh saw fit to dismiss all those reasons [I gave] and put it in a racial context and ignored all the reasons I listed for it," Powell said. He said in 50 years, he voted for the person he thought was the best qualified at that time to lead the nation, and that he also voted for Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy and Jimmy Carter.

"He shouldn't have a veto over what someone thinks. He's an entertainer, he is a radio figure and he is a significant one, but he's more than that.

"When the chairman of the RNC, Michael Steele, issues even the mildest of criticisms concerning Mr. Limbaugh, and then 24 hours later, the chairman of the RNC has to lay prostrate on the floor, apologizing for it; and when two congressmen offer the mildest criticism of Mr. Limbaugh, they too then 24 hours later have such pressure brought to bear on them that they too, had to change their view and apologize for criticizing him - well, if he's out there, he should be subject to criticism, just as I am subject to criticism, " he said.

Transcript here.

It's great to see someone who believes in diplomatic engagement back in the White House, isn't it?

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago — President Obama, seeking to thaw long-frozen relations with Cuba, told a gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders on Friday that “the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba,” and that he was willing to have his administration engage the Castro government on a wide array of issues.

Mr. Obama’s remarks, during the opening ceremony at the Summit of the Americas, are the clearest signal in decades that the United States is willing to change direction in its dealings with Cuba. They capped a dizzying series of developments this week, including surprisingly warm words between Raúl Castro, Cuba’s leader, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Other leaders here said that in watching Mr. Obama extend his hand to Cuba, they felt they were witnessing a historic shift. And in another twist, Cuba’s strongest ally at the summit, President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, no fan of the United States, was photographed at the meeting giving Mr. Obama a hearty handclasp and a broad smile.

Oh yes, and wingnuts are already frothing over that!

(...) Mr. Obama’s message was not entirely new; he has said in the past that he was willing to engage with Cuba. But making a public pledge before leaders of 33 other nations, many of whom he had not yet met, gave his words added heft.

In news that surprises exactly no one, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today voted nearly unanimously in favor of appointing Hillary Clinton to be the next Secretary of State. The only thing left is a full Senate vote, expected to take place shortly after President-elect Obama is sworn in next Tuesday. The lone holdout on the committee to vote against HRC? Diaper David Vitter of Louisiana.

AP (via HuffPo):

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted overwhelmingly on Thursday for Hillary Rodham Clinton to become the next secretary of State, endorsing President-elect Barack Obama's promise to take U.S. foreign policy in a new direction.

The 16-1 committee vote paves the way for a full Senate vote after Obama takes office on Jan. 20. Clinton is not expected to hit any major roadblocks, with Republicans and Democrats alike praising her acumen on the issues.

But concerns about her husband's charitable fundraising overseas remain. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, who was among several Republicans who raised the issue at her confirmation hearing earlier this week, cast the lone opposing vote.

January 13, 2009 MSNBC

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From Saturday Night Live Dec. 6, 2008. The Clintons aren't going away any time soon and Hillary thinks her new job will be much better than being the Governor of Alaska, or the junior Senator from New York.