Scooter won’t let me blog this morning despite the fact that she woke me up at 3a.m. as she does every night/morning just to remind me that I have an hour and a half more to sleep until chow-time. I swear to God if I catch that cat sleeping today I am going to poke her awake every time just so she knows how it feels.

Anyhoo…

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton confers with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama prior to a reception in the Yellow Oval Room of the White House for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and his wife, Mrs Gursharan Kaur, Nov. 24, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Here is a photo from the State Dinner- apparently photos of Secretary Clinton in attendance are a well-guarded secret because for a day and a half I have been looking for photos and coming up empty. Maybe they will start to trickle out today. Maybe the party crashers brought their camera phones:

This much is known: About 7:15 Tuesday night, a glittering blonde, decked out in a red and gold sari, holding the hand of her black-tuxedoed escort, swept past the camera crews and reporters camped out to catch the red-carpet arrivals for the first state dinner given by President Obama.

“Hey, that’s a Desperate Housewife!” one reporter yelled out, alluding to the TV series named for a collection of them.

In fact, the couple — Michaele Salahi and her husband, Tareq — are Virginians who have been auditioning for a possible role in a different housewives TV franchise: “The Real Housewives of Washington.”

They swept past the camera crews and followed the trail of other bigwigs attending the dinner.

But neither Mr. nor Mrs. Salahi, best known in the Washington area for promoting wine and polo in Virginia, were on the guest list for the event, a fact first reported Wednesday morning on the Washington Post Web site.

A White House official confirmed Wednesday that the Salahis had not been invited nor seated for dinner.

It was not clear Wednesday night how close the Salahis got to Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, or to the guests of honor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, and his wife, Gursharan Kaur.

Edwin M. Donovan, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said Wednesday night that “initial findings identified a Secret Service checkpoint which did not follow proper procedures,” allowing the couple to gain access to the festivities, even though their names were not on the invitation list.

“It is important to note that these individuals went through magnetometers and other levels of security, as did all guests attending the dinner,” Mr. Donovan said in an e-mail message.

He declined to offer details, including what kind of procedures were not followed or whether the couple had been interviewed. He said the investigation was continuing.“The bottom line is that they should not have gotten in,” he said.

Mr. Donovan also said he was unaware of any other examples of this kind of party-crashing at the White House. “I’m not aware of any other incidents like this,” Mr. Donovan said.

The Salahis posted photographs of themselves at the dinner on their Facebook page: “Honored to be at the White House for the state dinner in honor of India with President Obama and our First Lady!”

As word of the incident spread on Wednesday night, Michaele Salahi’s Facebook page was flooded with comments from friends and acquaintances.

“Glad it was you, and not someone with malicious intent, who tested and beat White House security,” wrote Joe Galietta. “Hopefully the officers who failed to stop you will learn from this.”

…[emphasis added]

Well that’s reassuring to know that we all could have just put on our party duds, made our way through a little metal detector and spent the evening with the POTUS and foreign dignitaries. Me? I’d have skipped the POTUS and made a bee-line for Hillary’s table.

So, more later if I come across anything from the dinner.

Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Scooter in a box

And from 'Notch' who is still angry that Scooter is breathing the same air as she is...

Although we know, foreign policy never sleeps. However, hopefully the SOS will get some rest given she’s been going like the energizer bunny for, well, the last month with all her travel. She deserves a break.

Wednesday, November 24, 2009

Secretary Clinton has No Public Appointments.

Thursday, November 25, 2009

Secretary Clinton has No Public Appointments.

Friday, November 26, 2009

Secretary Clinton has No Public Appointments.

A very happy Thanksgiving to the Secretary of State!

Politico is live-streaming the State Dinner with Indian Prime Minister Singh at 6pm EST HERE.

And for your viewing pleasure here is a video of Secretary Clinton’s remarks at a luncheon for the Prime Minister and his delegation:

Just a quick post:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) gestures to a person across the room as she stands with Vice President Joe Biden (R) and his wife Jill (C) during an official arrival and welcoming ceremony for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the East Room at the White House in Washington, November 24, 2009. REUTERS/Jim Young

US President Barack Obama today accorded a warm welcome to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House saying his visit to the United States reflected the high esteem in which the people of America hold him.

The two leaders arrived in the East hall of the White House at 9020 hrs (local time) for the customary handshake and the opening remarks.

Both the leaders were accompanied by their spouses Michelle Obama and Gursharan Kaur. Shortly after they entered, the National Anthems of both the countries were played and the two leaders and the select audience stood in rapt attention.

Among those who attended were US Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, External Affairs minister S M Krishna, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and others.

The ceremony which was scheduled to be held on the lawns of the White House, was shifted to the East Hall because of rain.

And from CNN:

Citing India’s importance, President Barack Obama on Tuesday called it fitting that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be the first official state visit of his young presidency.

“This reflects the high esteem in which I and the American people hold your wise leadership,” Obama said in a welcoming ceremony for Singh at the White House East Room. “It reflects the abiding bonds of respect and friendship between our people, including our friends in the Indian-American community who join us here today.”

The president and first lady Michelle Obama welcomed Singh and his wife, Gursharan Kaur, outside on the South Lawn, but they went indoors because of the weather.

Singh said India and the United States “are separated by distance, but bound together by the values of democracy, rule of law and respect for fundamental human freedoms over the years.”

The two leaders will discuss a range of global, regional and bilateral issues, the White House said. Those discussions are likely to center on Afghanistan, climate change and nuclear energy cooperation. Singh has been quoted as saying that a Taliban victory in Afghanistan would be disastrous for Central and South Asia.

His visit comes amid his country’s continued tense relationship with nuclear rival Pakistan, regional concerns over the Afghan war and the burgeoning trade relationship between the U.S. and India. It also follows about a year after the deadly terror attack on the Indian city of Mumbai.

…

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greets Mrs. Gursharan Kaur during a State Arrival ceremony in the East Room of the White House for the Prime Minister of India, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009 in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

More photos:

9:15 a.m. Secretary Clinton attends the Official South Lawn Arrival Ceremony for His Excellency Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of the Republic of India, and Mrs. Gursharan Kaur, at the White House.
(MEDIA TO BE DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

10:20 a.m. Secretary Clinton attends Bilateral Meetings with President Obama and Prime Minister Singh, at the White House.
(MEDIA TO BE DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

1:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton and Vice President Biden host a Luncheon for Prime Minister Singh and Mrs. Kaur

3:05 p.m. Secretary Clinton signs a Memorandum of Understanding with His Excellency S. M. Krishna, Minister of External Affairs of the Republic of India, at the Department of State.

5:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton attends a Bilateral Meeting with Prime Minister Singh, at the Willard Hotel.
(MEDIA TO BE DETERMINED BY INDIA)

7:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton attends the State Dinner in honor of Prime Minister Singh and Mrs. Kaur, at the White House.
(MEDIA TO BE DETERMINED BY WHITE HOUSE)

(Photo by Dennis Brack-Pool/Getty Images)

President Obama’s Cabinet met yesterday and an announcement on troop numbers and an exit strategy could be announced within days:

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama held a “rigorous final meeting” with his Afghanistan war council and is expected to announce his revised strategy for the eight-year-old conflict just after his Thanksgiving break.

Military officials and others expect Obama to settle on a middle-ground option that would deploy an eventual 32,000 to 35,000 U.S. forces. That rough figure has stood as the most likely option since before Obama’s last large war council meeting earlier this month, when he tasked military planners with rearranging the timing and makeup of some of the deployments.

The president has said with increasing frequency in recent days that a big piece of the rethinking of options that he ordered had to do with building an exit strategy into the announcement — in other words, revising the options presented to him to clarify when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government and under what conditions.

As White House press secretary Robert Gibbs put it to reporters on Monday, it’s “not just how we get people there, but what’s the strategy for getting them out.”

Obama held the 10th meeting of his Afghanistan strategy review since mid-September on Monday night, with a large cast of foreign policy and military advisers, to go over that revised information from war planners. The two-hour Situation Room session was aimed at discussing “some of the questions that the president had, some additional answers to what he’d asked for,” Gibbs said.

[snip]

“After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days,” Gibbs said late Monday.

The White House is aiming for an announcement by Obama next week, either Tuesday or Wednesday, after Congress returns from its Thanksgiving break. Military officials, congressional aides and European diplomats said they expect Obama to deliver a national address laying out the revamped strategy.

…

Tentative schedule:

10:00 a.m. Secretary Clinton holds Weekly Meeting with the Assistant Secretaries of State, at the Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)

11:00 a.m. Secretary Clinton holds a Bilateral Meeting with Her Excellency Rumiana Zheleva, Foreign Minister of the Republic of Bulgaria, at the Department of State.
(MEDIA TO BE DETERMINED)

4:50 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with President Obama, at the White House.

Long overdue!

[I apologize for the copyright infringements from the bottom of my heart!]

Well, it’s only 10 months into the administration and the media have FINALLY realized that a) Hillary Clinton not only loves her job at State but she’s doing a fantastic job, b) she and Obama have a perfectly fine professional relationship, c) she is not hovering “in the shadows” in a burqa (speaking of which, Tina Brown’s been pretty quiet- it’s about time) and d) no, she’s not quitting her job as SOS in the next 15 minutes to go run for Governor of New York, Senator of New York, Dog Catcher of NY or any other GOP-inspired drivel. Hillary Clinton’s not a quitter like that former Alaska Governor who shall remain nameless on this blog;). And finally, Secretary Clinton has NOT been eclipsed by special envoys, so can we put that to rest, finally?

I’ve written repeatedly about the questionable, likely self-serving, baseless rumors floating around (see here also) and I’m glad to see that the oft-brain damaged media (no offense to brain-damaged persons intended) are finally coming around. Lets keep our fingers crossed that it lasts at least through the weekend.

I’m glad that ABC was able to get their hands on a copy of December Vogue (because it’s so much easier when someone else does all the leg-work like, say, Jonathan Van Meter, who wrote a great article.)

Then on Thursday the NYT finally put Secretary Clinton front and center and quite right too:

It is far from clear that President Obama can depend on President Hamid Karzai to bring order to this violent country, but it is becoming clear that he will depend on Hillary Rodham Clinton to be his go-between in dealing with the mercurial Afghan leader.

In a visit to Kabul, during which she held a 90-minute, one-on-one session with Mr. Karzai on Wednesday, and in an intense telephone call a few weeks ago in the aftermath of Afghanistan’s election, Secretary of State Clinton has built an unlikely rapport with the Afghan leader, according to administration officials.

It is a new and risky role for Mrs. Clinton — one that thrusts her into the thick of the administration’s most critical international problem, but that also hitches her reputation to a leader who has often proved unreliable. If Mr. Karzai lets down the White House again, Mrs. Clinton, as his principal intermediary with the administration, could find herself damaged along with him.

Mrs. Clinton, who got to know Mr. Karzai in 2005 when she took him to Fort Drum in upstate New York to thank American veterans of the Afghan war, seems to recognize the potential dangers.

“When I came into the administration, I was one of the few people who had a long-term positive relationship with President Karzai,” Mrs. Clinton said in an interview on Thursday, hours after seeing him get sworn in. “I continue to believe he has a tremendous historical opportunity.”

But she quickly added, “That doesn’t mean you make excuses for behavior that you want to see changed; you constantly push back.” In the meeting this week, a senior official said, she bluntly warned Mr. Karzai to crack down on corruption or risk losing American aid.

Her rapport with Mr. Karzai puts her in a distinct minority among senior American officials, some of whom have either clashed with him or, as in the case of Mr. Obama, never developed a relationship with him.

With Mr. Obama planning to announce his decision soon on sending more troops to Afghanistan, Mrs. Clinton has emerged, for better or worse, as the senior official best placed to push Mr. Karzai to help make that policy work. Mr. Karzai appears to appreciate the relationship; he moved up the date of his inauguration to accommodate her schedule, a senior American official said.

As Mr. Karzai begins his new term, Mrs. Clinton has worked to avoid a hectoring tone in her public comments about him. American officials had done too much of that in the past, she said.

[snip]

Mrs. Clinton “combines the hard-headed strength, the political clout and the human understanding to do it right,” said Mr. Riedel, who is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Of those qualities, her political bona fides may be the most relevant. When Mr. Karzai was wavering about whether to allow a runoff vote after almost a million of his votes were disqualified, she implored him to acquiesce, arguing that he would emerge with a stronger hand. (In the end, Mr. Karzai’s rival, Abdullah Abdullah, pulled out, making a second round unnecessary.)

In case Mr. Karzai did not get her point, Mrs. Clinton reminded him of her own bitter experience in the 2008 Democratic primaries, losing to Mr. Obama, who later named her the nation’s chief diplomat.

“One of the ways that I talk with President Karzai is in very political terms, because I understand that in politics, you’ve got to make some tough compromises sometimes,” she said.

American officials failed to make allowances for his circumstances in trying to govern an unruly country, she said. “We were trying to hold him to a standard that was not in sync with the historical standard.”

…[emphasis added]

And then of course there was the Time Magazine cover story by Joe Klein and while I didn’t necessarily agree with every little bit of his analysis, having her diplomacy be the focus of the publication was long overdue.