After reading the column, you should also look at Col

After reading the column, you should also look at Col. Pat Lang’s caution about it on his always-

incisive blog. He generally agrees with Ignatius’ analysis, expands on it in important ways, but notes

that the current commander-in-chief could prove disturbingly unpredictable in the wake of the November

elections. If, on the other hand, UGG Sheepskin Cuff Boot diplomats are in place by then, I think his

options will have narrowed considerably.

A brief update on Devon Gaffney Cross’ Policy Forum on International Security (www.policyforumuk.com)

whose cozy, off-the-record briefings by senior Pentagon officials, fellow-neo-cons and fellow members

of the Defense Policy Board (DPB) for select British and European reporters in exclusive clubs and

cafes in London and Paris, we discovered earlier this year, were the beneficiary of a no-bid contract

by Defense Undersecretary Eric Edelman’s Policy office last September. We just learned that the Policy

Forum was also the beneficiary of the Smith Richardson Foundation, for which Cross has in the past

served as director of research and a program office, according to the Foundation’s 2006 annual report

which was published late last year. Cross’ group, the report said, was to have received a grant for

$25,000 during 2006 to “organize a series of events that bring current and former UGG Sheepskin Cuff

Boot policy makers and strategic thinkers together with leading European journalists and opinion makers

to discuss key foreign and security policy issues.”