Princeton Progressive Review's Asheesh Siddique hosted the national security policy seminar. Given the great job Cheney, Rummy and Dubya have been doing on foreign policy, it's hard to come out of a seminar on the real security situation in America without wincing. Then again, knowledge is power - if we're the next generation of Madeline Albrights and Colin Powells, we gotta know what's happening to do something about it.

Robert Boorstin of CAP set the tone: when it comes to national security, "we're in trouble, and we shouldn't be". Yet progressives can't get their act together! “The Emperor has no clothes, and yet Democrats and progressives act like that reality tv show “project runway” - everyone has their own color scheme, everyone's got their own style.” Boorstin said it's not all about messaging, but about Substance - hope the CAP's "Integrated Power" strategy, which Boorstin co-wrote, will help out in that department.

Peter Singer of Brookings said we need to stop focussing only on the radical core of anti-American Islamic movements and start worrying about the tolerant or even nurturing environment they're in. News flash for the Bush admin: the islamic world HATES america, and we gotta do something about it. He also gave the intriguing stat in the title of this post.

Dr. Susan Rice talked about the G8 Summit and how it's basically only a 'half-loaf' of what Tony Blair wanted. She reminded us about how important international development, in stopping the failing of states, helps kill hotbeds of terrorist growth and a slew of other transnational threats.

Maybe Michelle Flornoy is not the best person to end this post with - her projections were the most dire. We need more troops to handle an uncertain world, and the way the Bush admin is treating the military, we're not going to be able to face international threats the way we should be able to. All the panelists called for a broad and long-term strategy. If you're taking notes, Mr. Bush, that's not the 'strategery' tripe that you've been passing for policy. Make sure Mr. Rumsfeld gets the memo.

Michael Tomasky modated "Write all about it", with three kick-ass young journalists who def. know what they're talking about. Tomasky talked about how important it is to READ (go figure) as a journalist. How do you know what to cover if you don't know what's going on in the world?

Anya Kamenetz of the Village Voice, Benoit Denizet-Lewis of the New York Times Magazine and Sarah Wildman of The American Prospect told us of the need to balance molding our stories to our audience and getting underreported stories out to the public, the importance of creating trusting relationships between sources and reporters and of having good personal spokespeople for your stories (those who are affected, not just wonks from lobby groups and parties!).

Reporting is a matter of discovery and learning. It's more important than "the 8,400,000 liberal opinion columns out there" . How many op eds did it take to break the recent Karl Rove stories, or for that matter, Watergate, or Mai Lai, or Abu Ghraib?

How do we kill the "cult of objectivity" that lets radical conservatives get equal time on mainstream networks with moderate and liberal voices? Actually report the story! Sometimes there aren't two sides to a story.

Kamenetz, when asked how to get important stories onto the public agenda, answered quite concisely: "touch people on their own hearts and on their kitchen tables.” Can't beat the eloquence of journalists, can ya?

Really great seminar. Looking forward to the National Security seminar.

The terror attacks in London (and Madrid, and Bali, and Riyadh, to name a few over the past few years) remind us that we're not doing enough to fight terrorism. Let's not pass up this opportunity as progressives to remind the world what a sensible anti-terrorism policy could look like (we haven't seen one in the US for... years?)

After years of terror attacks by the IRA, this is nothing new to the Brits. This just keeps Al Qaeda on our minds before the next (we can only hope not imminent) attacks on the United States. Let's use this, and Madrid, and all other attacks by Al Qaeda on our allies as the example from which we learn - let's not have to rely on another 9/11 or on more deaths in Iraq to break the learning curve.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. More so, it seems, if you’re a finance executive at a conservative think tank based firmly on the principles of ‘free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom … and a strong national defense’.

Sadly, it’s a lesson that hasn’t quite been drilled into the vast majority of those Americans not a part of the Heritage Foundation. 105-pound communications assistant at the Academy for Educational Development Kristin Hall was put in her place in the Darwinian struggle of the free market when retired Navy lieutenant and Heritage’s current vice president for finance and operations Ted Schelenski shoved Hall while she was still on her bike at a busy Washington DC intersection.

The bicyclist, Kristin Hall, 23, said the trouble began about 8:30 a.m. June 14. She was riding on the sidewalk, about to turn onto the 300 block of Massachusetts Avenue NE, when a car stopped in front of her, blocking her path, she said. She stopped her bike and asked the man to move his silver Acura, she said.

But Schelenski wouldn't move, and the two yelled at one another, she said in an interview yesterday.

“When he got out of the car, I told him: ‘You're crazy! Get back in the car!’” [Hall said].

But Schelenski came at [Hall] and shoved her to the ground while she was still straddled on her bicycle, she said.

“I was pretty scraped up and bruised,” Hall said. “And he just got back into his car and floored it. He took off.”

I guess this isn’t the compassionate part of compassionate conservatism. I wonder if Heritage scales its pay to general ruthlessness. But hey – to his credit (and perhaps to the detriment of his paycheck), Schelenski later tried to apologize. He’ll have to save it for the judge – he’ll be in court July 27th for a status hearing.