Fear and Loathing inside the Beltway

Steve Clemmons rubbed elbows with the high and mighty inside the Beltway and finds a nightmare confirmed. While hobnobbing with 60 of "America's and Europe's leading current and former political personalities" he reports "the conversations -- on the whole -- were about the crappy condition of America's national security position."

People were depressed and dismayed about current conditions. One very, very senior Bush administration official when asked by me what ideas he had to stabilize Iraq and stop our slow bleed situation said he had exhausted what he felt was possible.

Another top tier official when another guest pushed him to move the President into some rational deal-making that might trigger a more fruitful trend, ominously said "don't hold your breath."

Makes those presidential drinking rumors look even more credible, don't you think? Some days I wonder if we're going to survive two more years of this president.