Thursday, December 07, 2006

When Our Friends Become Successful

For any American Footprints readers out there who might have missed it, that site's founder and most able steward, Blake Hounshell (nee Praktike), has moved on to greener pastures. Blake has taken a position at Foreign Policy magazine's new-ish blog, Passport (now included in the blogroll). To anyone familiar with the intelligent, insightful commentary that Blake has provided over the past several years, such recognition and advancement should come as no surprise. American Footprints' loss is most certainly Foreign Policy's gain.

I'll be taking over Blake's duties at American Footprints going forward. Some pretty big shoes to fill, but luckily that site is blessed with many other thoughtful contributors who can help to pick up some slack.

With those formalities out of the way, allow me to give a nod in the direction of Big Media Blake who is starting to heat up over at his new digs. He offers a useful primer on what the Baker-Hamilton report was not, as well as some speculation about the role of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim as a go between for Iran and the Bush administration.

I don't know if the dog will hunt, but there do appear to be subtle moves in the direction of creating back channels and other points of contact between the Bush administration and Tehran (as Blake himself noted a long time ago when he was fab).

Something to keep an eye on, on the off chance that Bush takes at least some of the Baker commission's advice. It would be a good first step.

// posted by Eric Martin @ 10:37 AM |


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