KATHA POLLITT Columnist Pollitt just wrote the piece “Hillary Shows Feeling, Is Slammed,” which states: “Hillary Clinton, long criticized as cold, shows a bit of feeling and is attacked as overly emotional. It’s the latest installment of the ongoing double bind in which if she wears a black pantsuit she’s too masculine and if she…

CNN reports: “Five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats ‘harassed and provoked’ three U.S. Navy ships early Sunday in international waters, the U.S. military said Monday, calling the encounter a ‘significant’ confrontation.” AP reports that: “Iran’s Foreign Ministry says weekend incident between Iranian boats and U.S. Navy ships in Gulf was ‘something normal’ and was resolved.” The…

* Clinton’s “Experience” * Obama on Racial Justice and Africa * Edward’s Corporate Friend JUNAID AHMAD President of the U.S.-based National Muslim Law Students Association, Ahmad was last in Pakistan this August. He just wrote the piece “What’s Behind Bhutto’s Assasination?” Ahmad said today: “At the ABC debate on Saturday, Clinton called Musharraf ‘the elected…

WILLIAM HOPKINS An Iraq war veteran, Hopkins said today: “I joined the New Hampshire National Guard in May of 2001 at a time the World Trade towers still stood; it was not at all unusual to talk to fellow guardsmen who had been in for 25 years or more and not been deployed aside from…

KELLEY BEAUCAR VLAHOS Vlahos wrote a piece for The American Conservative titled “War Whisperers: The 2008 hopefuls promised a change in foreign policy then hired the old guard.” ALLAN NAIRN Currently in New York City, Nairn is available for a limited number of interviews through Monday. A noted independent journalist, he runs the new weblog…

ROB RICHIE Executive director of FairVote, Richie said today: “The Iowa caucuses showcased two principles of voting not available to many in the U.S. despite their common use around the world: proportional representation and second choice, ‘instant runoff’ balloting. “[In this case] proportional representation meant that the delegates were awarded relative to the number of…

GERALD LeMELLE Executive director of Africa Action, LeMelle said today: “The U.S. government initially expressed support for the government-announced outcome of the election despite overwhelming evidence that something was wrong. There seemed to have been some disconnect between the U.S. embassy in Nairobi — which has taken a relatively cautious approach to the crisis —…

FRANK CORDARO A member of the Des Moines Catholic Worker and a former priest, Cordaro said today: “[Mike] Huckabee claims to follow Jesus, but he has shown his true allegiance is to empire. He has more in common with the empire that put Jesus on the cross than the Jesus of love and peace who…

SHAHID MAHMOOD Mahmood was the editorial cartoonist for Dawn, a national newspaper in Pakistan. He is now internationally syndicated with the New York Times Syndicate. He recently wrote a piece titled “The Dream That Was Benazir Bhutto,” which states: “I too was swept-up in that initial euphoria and as a budding political cartoonist remember drawing…

SAMEER DOSSANI Director of 50 Years Is Enough, a group that scrutinizes major international financial institutions, Dossani, a Pakistani-American, said today: “While the death of Benazir Bhutto is the latest in a long and tragic line of blood that has been spilled in Pakistan’s history, it should not detract from our analysis of her legacy.…