I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
While Gov. Bill Richardson‘s name gets bandied about for an Obama administration post, Aussie Stephen Morris, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, D.C., pooh-poohs anything smacking of “secretary of state.” Writing in the Sunday edition of The Australian, an online newspaper, he said of Richardson’s globe-trotting prowess:
Richardson, governor of New Mexico and former UN ambassador under Bill Clinton, in his run for the Democratic nomination this year promised to bring all troops home by December (a technical impossibility) with utter disregard for the bloody consequences that would ensue. He has expressed faith in his ability to negotiate successfully any problem with anybody. This is truly frightening in the light of the demonstrated intransigence and deception of the Iranians regarding their nuclear program, and the repeated violation of past signed agreements on nuclear matters by the North Koreans, in which Richardson was personally fooled by Pyongyang.
Morris was similarly unimpressed with Democratic Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry:
Kerry, by his dour demeanour, pedantic personality, and history of being on both sides of an issue, is hardly an attractive choice to be both chief diplomat and wise counsel to a novice president.
And retiring Republican Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel:
Like Richardson, Hagel thinks talking to the Iranians is the panacea for Iranian nuclear ambitions. Hagel is an emotional man, not a wise strategic thinker.
But he found no major complaints with Republican Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar:
Lugar, the leading Republican on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, has had long experience in foreign policy and is being considered. Though not an incisive thinker, Lugar is an open-minded man who listens to all viewpoints. When the pressure was on for him to break with the president over the surge, he was responsible enough to say it should be given a chance to work, because no other policy offered prospects of a decent outcome. Unlike Hagel, Lugar was proven correct.
Morris wouldn’t mind seeing former United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke pulled into service, though his ties to Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Clinton could make that politically impossible:
A former aide to Henry Kissinger, assistant secretary of state under Jimmy Carter, Bosnian peace negotiator and UN ambassador under Clinton, Holbrooke is a highly intelligent and prominent member of the foreign policy establishment. He understands that diplomacy, economic rewards and sanctions, and the credible threat of force, are integral parts of the foreign policy of a great power.
(Clinton’s archived presidential campaign Web site, by the way, has a classy update congratulating President-elect Barack Obama and running mate Joe Biden on their win.)
Wonkette clearly held a different opinion of a Richardson secretariat last week, though for reasons the guv would likely prefer not to claim:
He is fat and jolly and ribald and fun to hang out with.
Santa Claus with a wicked sense of humor, in other words.
