She sidestepped a question or two but overall I think it a net positive for the Clinton campaign. At the very least, she reached a demographic that she has had trouble reaching, Obama supporters. Clinton was at her finest covering the economic challenges confronting the United States and in articulating her views on how to deal with Iran.

In the post interview analysis with Newsweek analyst Richard Wolfe, Keith Olbermann focused on if this constituted a departure from stated US foreign policy. Wolfe called it “brinkmanship” which is hardly the case. Brinkmanship refers more to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The issue with Iran falls more under the realm of deterrence that is making clear to Iran that any attack on an American ally in the region would be met with overwhelming force. Deterrence kept the peace in Europe for nearly fifty years and it can help in securing American vital interests and those of all US allies in the region. Clinton’s response should play well with the American public, excepting of course Obama’s supporters who simply think her a “warmonger.” Appartently, they believe that the US is simply going to abandon its allies. The irony is, of course, that if Obama were to think through his own position it would mirror Senator Clinton’s.

Of all the countries I have visited none is as special to me as Burma. I fell in love with the majesty and awe of this planet at an early age but the decision to want to travel was made a sunny weekend day perhaps when I was 8 or so in my uncle Juan’s library as I perused his collection of National Geographic when I opened one and unfolded an inset revealing the stupas that dot the Plains of Bagan in central Burma. I knew then that there I had to go and see that view with my own eyes. I fulfilled that childhood dream in December 2001 only to fall comletely head over heals with the beauty and the kindness of the Burmese people. It is thus to them I will make the effort to assist where I can in highlighting the cause of their freedom.

The military junta that has governed Burma, now known as the Union of Myanmar, has set a date of May 10 to hold a nationwide referendum on a new Constitution. Burmese embassies have been announcing to Burmese people who live and work abroad that they can go and vote at embassies for the constitutional referendum, according to exiled Burmese. The voting process has already begun at Burmese embassies in South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia. San Francisco boasts the largest Burmese community in the United States estimated at approximately 20,000.

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I was but a lowly freshman at Stanford taking an introductory Economics course. Paul Krugman was the professor. I have had many professors influence my thinking but none perhaps more deeply than Paul Krugman simply because he has kept teaching me twice weekly with his op-ed columns in the New York Times. I can’t say that in his column today entitled “Running Out of Planet to Exploit” is particularly earth-shattering news to me, though ironically he is actually talking about earth-shattering events, since I have held these views for quite some time. However, Paul Krugman has one talent that I don’t possess, he can say things very succinctly and in 800 words or less.

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And they say it couldn’t be done. I have no words that can sufficiently praise José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain’s recently re-elected Prime Minister. I have been traveling and so in catching up on my reading, I discovered that Zapatero, who prefers to be known by his maternal surname (a trait he and I share), has appointed a mostly female cabinet for the first in the history of the world barring the possibility that the Amazons did once exist.

His PSOE (Socialist) government already had quite the first term in terms of social legislation. Spain became the first country in the world to enact full equality of marriage by legislative fiat, elsewhere it had been achieved through the courts. But more than that, he passed a controversial gender equality law that included protection for Spain’s small transgender community. To expend political capital on 13,000 transgender Spaniards is quite an act. His reasoning: because it was the right thing to do. What a concept.

Now Zapatero has broken new ground in appointing Spain’s first female defence minister, Carme Chacon. That alone was controversial. The fact that she is seven months pregnant simply stunning. And today comes news of yet one more stunning development. She is paying a surprise visit to Spanish troops in Afghanistan. Obama can’t even call a subcommittee meeting on Afganistan in over a year. Here’s the full story in English from The Independent.

The praise I have for Zapatero is equaled by my derision for Italy’s new Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi whose misogynist attitudes are simply beyond the pale of human comprehension. Berlusconi’s comments about Spain’s cabinet included being “too pink” and “difficult to control”, coupled with photos of him aiming an imaginary gun at a female journalist, have produced incredulity and derision among Spaniards. Another story on this from The Independent.

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