GOOD MORNING, WELCOME TO 2010 – AT 10:25 A.M. ET:  Despite the politically correct message above, we do hope you have the happiest of new years, and we do appreciate the support our readers have given us as we approach our second anniversary, on January 8th.  We forge ahead, as 2010 will probably be one of the most important years of our time, both politically and internationally.

Question one:  Where is Hillary Clinton?  Nile Gardiner, at Britain's Telegraph, asks that musical question.

The White House should send a search party to track down Hillary Clinton. America’s foreign policy chief has been missing from the world stage for several days, and has become as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel at the height of the French Revolution. I wrote earlier in the year that Clinton had become the invisible Secretary of State, and her current absence certainly reinforces that impression.

One would have thought that with a potential revolution on the streets of Tehran, and with scenes of horrific and savage brutality against protesters by the Iranian regime, that Washington’s official voice on international affairs might at least have expressed an opinion.

And...

As far as I can tell there is no foreign policy leadership at all in Washington at the moment, at a time when the United States is faced with a grave nuclear threat on the horizon from the Iranian dictatorship, and the world is anxiously watching as pro-democracy protesters are being beaten to a pulp and in some cases killed...

...It’s also significant that several of Hillary Clinton’s counterparts in Europe have already been vocal in condemning the actions of the Iranian government, and that includes even the usually meek David Miliband, hardly known for picking a fight with the Mullahs.

Finally...

It’s time for Hillary Clinton to make an appearance and project a strong US voice on the Iranian issue, condemning the sickening violence meted out by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s jackbooted thugs against Iranian protesters, and sending a clear signal that the United States is on the side of those fighting for freedom in Iran. Her striking absence from the world stage is a damning indictment of the lack of American leadership at a time of tremendous upheaval on the streets of Tehran, and when the United States is facing a mounting threat from an increasingly dangerous and hostile Islamist regime.

COMMENT:  It is a bit odd, until one considers Hillary's ambitions.  If she appears in public, she'd have to answer questions about the State Department's role in the airline terror attack.  The US Embassy in Nigeria, which received two visits from the attacker's father warning of his son's radicalism, probably dropped the ball rather badly.

Also, and this must be labeled as speculation, I'm not so sure that Hillary wants to be identified with the administration right now.  She may well see things unraveling.  She may even be planned her exit.  If Obama winds up as a one-term president, deciding not to run again in 2012 rather than face a humiliating defeat, the party almost has to hand the nomination to Hillary on an environmentally safe platter.

January 1, 2010