He probably won’t run for New York governor but might for the U.S. Senate … or will he?
     
That’s the speculation swirling around Rudy Giuliani, the Republican former New York City mayor who walked tall after the Sept. 11 attacks and ran for U.S. president in 2008.
    
A spokeswoman says the 65-year-old former federal prosecutor has made no decisions.
    
But the New York Daily News, the New York Times  and the New York Post  all report that Giuliani has decided not to run for New York governor in 2010.
    
Analysts think he could defeat Democratic incumbent Governor David Paterson without much fuss. But overcoming a possible challenge from New York’s Democratic attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, could be have been difficult. Cuomo has not announced his candidacy.
    
The Daily News reports that Giuliani is strongly considering a Senate run against Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term. Clinton, who lost in last year’s Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, is now U.S. secretary of state.

The Daily News cites poll numbers showing Giuliani losing to Cuomo 53 percent to 43 percent in a race for governor,  but beating Gillibrand 54 percent to 40 percent for the Senate.

But the Senate speculation may not last long.

The New York Post quotes people close to Giuliani as saying a run for the Senate is unlikely.

And even the Daily News  seems to be hedging its bets with a story saying Giuliani doesn’t need to run for the Senate because he already has plenty of money and influence and a private life that’s working out just fine.
    
Giuliani ran for the Senate in a 2000 campaign that pitted him against Clinton. But events and declining poll numbers were against him and he withdrew after a quick succession of revelations: he had prostate cancer, he had a girlfriend, and he was separating from his second wife.
    
Giuliani has since beaten cancer, divorced his second wife, Donna Hanover, and married his former girlfriend, Judith Nathan.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Giuliani)

President Barack Obama admits he has crossed the grey line.

In the well-worn tradition of those who entered the White House before him, the president’s hair has greyed. And it’s only his first year in office.

Perhaps not exactly the change he was hoping for.

“My hair has gotten a lot greyer because I was at the age where my hair was going to start getting grey. Having said all that, you know this has been an extraordinary year,” Obama said in an interview with NBC.

The economy, healthcare, Afghanistan war are all on his mind — “I would be lying if I said that those aren’t weighted questions that I carry around on my shoulders every day.”

As for questions about whether he is losing weight under the stress of the office, Obama says his weight is about the same.

“My weight fluctuates about five pounds - it has for the last 30 years, it’s unchanging, I still wear the same stuff when I got married 17 years ago,” the president told NBC.

(Perhaps it may be time to update the wardrobe?)

But after the initial splash of Obama’s round of TV interviews, the president still couldn’t command the obvious excitement on some of the morning TV shows that Sarah Palin’s book tour was about to begin.

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell was out near Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she talked about how some people had camped OVERNIGHT so they could get a wrist band so they could meet Palin.

ABC showed more of Barbara Walters interview with Palin.

And Hillary Clinton has landed in Afghanistan. It’s her first visit to the country as Secretary of State.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama in Shanghai this week), Reuters/Mike Segar (Obama when presidential candidate with former President Bill Clinton in September 2008)

Is she running for president? Seeking a coffee summit with Hillary Clinton? Or just selling her book?

The only clear answer about Sarah Palin’s intentions is that the questions are drawing lots and lots of U.S. media attention. 
  
This week, the former Republican vice presidential candidate and Alaska governor is on the cover of Newsweek magazine. She’s also going on-air for separate interviews with TV’s Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters of ABC News.
    
It’s all about promoting her new memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” which goes on sale Tuesday. But the notion that she also might be testing the waters for a 2012 presidential run is what’s drawing the serious attention.
    
Supporters liken her to a populist 21st century Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater. But not all the coverage is as she’d like it.
    
Newsweek, which pictures her on its cover as an attractive young woman in running shorts, scoffs at the idea of a Palin 2012 presidential campaign.
    
“Her brand of take-no-prisoners partisanship is not good for the Republicans in the long run and not good for the country,” Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham told MSNBC.
    
“When you have a kind of ‘death panel’ ideology, where you make pronouncements that are factually untenable and tend to inflame the conversation … that’s not good for governance.”
 
She got a warmer reception from another woman of the campaign trail, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom Palin thinks she might like to meet over coffee.
 
“I absolutely would look forward to having coffee. I’ve never met her. And I think it would be, you know, very interesting to sit down and talk with her,” Clinton, now U.S. secretary of state, said over the weekend.
    
But the last word is likely to be Palin’s. Her book promotion is expected to draw huge crowds across the country. And while a Washington Post/ABC News poll shows that 60 percent of Americans don’t think she’s qualified to be president, a similar percentage of Republicans say she is.
  

Photo Credits: Reuters/Nathaniel Wilder (Palin); Reuters/Jason Reed (White House); Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Clinton)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is open to having coffee with former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, whose new book about the 2008 presidential campaign is stirring controversy.

“I absolutely would look forward to having coffee,” Clinton said from Singapore  Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Clinton told ABC’s “This Week” that she would look forward to having a chance to actually get to meet Palin.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, gives a nod to Clinton in her book, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” Clinton lost the race for the Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama.

Palin, a popular conservative firebrand who has been communicating mostly via Facebook since quitting as governor, opens a campaign-style book tour on Tuesday that will hit a dozen states.

Is she laying the groundwork for a 2012 presidential campaign, or simply selling her book, which currently sits atop the Amazon.com Top 100 Books list?

For the moment, all that she is saying (on Facebook early Sunday) is that she’s looking forward to the tour. “I’m most looking forward to meeting many of you, shaking your hands, and telling you, ‘Thanks for loving America,’” Palin says.

Grappling with the alphabet stew of world insurgencies can have its pitfalls.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton discovered as much Friday as she fielded questions about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front during a town hall-style gathering in Manila.

MILF has the same acronym as an obscene phrase that gained currency in recent years. It was used in a Saturday Night Live political sketch last year in which characters playing Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton criticized sexism in the U.S. election campaign.

Questioned repeatedly about peace efforts with the MILF in the southern Philippines, Clinton struggled with how to speak the acronym.

“I’m encouraged by what I hear about the progress in the peace efforts that are going on between the government and MILF,” Clinton said, pronouncing it like a word — the same way as the acronym for the obscene phrase.

Then she switched and adopted the local usage — saying the letters individually.

Clinton said the time seemed ripe for a peace deal with the MILF, which has been fighting the Manila government for nearly 30 years.

She urged both sides to work to clinch an agreement while the timing is right, noting how Middle East peace efforts had been idle for years after her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, failed to secure a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians in the late 1990s.

“If people are in the mood and willing to make peace,” she said, “do not sleep, do not rest until you finally get there.”

Other tidbits from an hour of fielding questions at the town hall session at a Manila university:

Clinton had a crush on singer Fabian as a girl and headed a Fabian fan club.

Hillary and Bill Clinton try to schedule time for themselves when not occupied with their busy schedules.

“We like to take long walks, we like to go to the movies, we like to go out to dinner, we like to catch up on our sleep,” she said.

And will daughter Chelsea follow her parents into politics?

“I don’t think so,” the secretary of state said. “I think she has really carved out her own life and her own privacy.”

“I think she respects and appreciates the political world but has no plans for being part of it at this time in her life.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Cheryl Ravelo (Clinton arrives at a Manila university for a televised town hall-style meeting; Clinton fields questions at the session)

U.S.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid a wreath on Friday at the Manila American Cemetery,  paying tribute to American war dead in the Pacific two days after the U.S. Veterans Day holiday. 
 
Most of the 17,202 Americans buried in the 152-acre (61.5-hectare) cemetery were killed in the defense of the Philippines and East Indies during World War II in 1941 and 1942 or in the battle to recapture the islands. 
 
The cemetery, located on part of the former Fort William McKinley U.S. military reservation, has a limestone tower at its center with a small chapel inside and a relief sculpture adorning one side.
 
The memorial courtyard is ringed by two hemicycles whose walls bear the names of 36,285 missing.
 
Clinton placed a wreath at the chapel during the ceremony, which was attended by a small group of veterans.
 
The Security and Escort Battalion of the Armed Forces of the Philippines played “Stars and Stripes Forever” and “Semper Fidelis” and a pair of buglers played “Taps.”

The site is maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, which oversees the U.S. military cemeteries in Normandy and other locations.
 
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Photo credit: Reuters/Erik de Castro (Clinton at Manila American Cemetery ceremony)

If you’re a hard-traveling foreign secretary and need a place to recharge your batteries after a week of diplomacy, the Philippines seems to be the place to go.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton got an enthusiastic welcome on arrival in the capital Manila Thursday after a week of visits that included stops in Berlin and Singapore.

Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo called her “the most popular foreign secretary the world over.”

“The Filipinos love her,” he told a news conference. “I told her that there are Hillary fans and fanatics here.”

To demonstrate the point, she was greeted by a couple thousand cheering school students when she visited Malanday High School in suburban Marikina.

The school was inundated during massive flooding in September that left the first floor of the multi-story building under water.

The school has been receiving U.S. aid to help it get back on its feet, including desks, fans and some 50,000 books. Clinton brought with her a pledge of another $5.2 million in flood relief for the Philippines, which has been hit in quick succession by Tropical Storm Ketsana, Typhoon Parma and Typhoon Mirinae.

The U.S. secretary of state seemed invigorated by the excited school kids and the warm welcome.

She told the crowd she’d learned a new word as she toured some of the classrooms, but then had to bring a girl up to the podium to help her pronounce it.

After a moment’s whispered consultation with the youngster, Clinton turned back to the microphone and said “mabuhay!”

The popular Tagalog greeting, meaning “long live,” is  roughly the English equivalent of “live long and prosper.”

Clinton later received the Sikatuna award with the rank of Datu from Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The award is given by the Manila government to foreign diplomats or officials who have worked to improve ties with the Philippines.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Erik de Castro (Clinton shakes hands at Malanday High School in suburban Marikina; Clinton learns the word “mabuhay!”)

When the Berlin Wall topples for a second time Monday, more may be laid bare than the inherent weakness of a political system.

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the wall, Berliners have erected a wall of giant painted dominoes.

During the evening’s festivities the domino wall will be toppled along several blocks near Brandenburg Gate.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to visit the domino sponsored by the U.S. Embassy.

She met with the east Berlin school students and teachers who designed and painted the giant block and pronounced it “very impressive.”

The scene on the domino shows the back of a popular East German car traveling through a wall from darkness into light. Overhead are a rainbow and a white dove of peace.

Clinton said she liked “the light breaking through the dark.”

“Let’s do a picture with everybody in front of it, on both sides. I don’t want to cover it up,” she said.

“Thank you so very much for doing this and for coming out to see me,” Clinton told the youths. “Good job. Good job.”

The scene on the other side of the domino?

The back of a nude angel ascending toward heavenly light, all discreetly hidden by a U.S. Embassy sign during Clinton’s appearance.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Pawel Kopczynski (Clinton poses with students in front of U.S.-sponsored domino)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used an awards ceremony Sunday in Berlin to push European allies for greater cooperation in confronting extremism, nuclear proliferation and other challenges of the 21st century.

Her remarks came as thousands of people crowded into the city on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall.

“We should look to the examples of the generations who brought us successfully through the 20th century and once again together chart a clear and common course to safeguard our people and our planet, defeat violent extremists and prevent nuclear proliferation,” Clinton said.

“We need to form an even stronger partnership to bring down the walls of the 21st century and to confront those who hide behind them,” Clinton said, like suicide bombers and those who attack girls for trying to go to school.

“In place of these new walls, we must renew the trans-Atlantic alliance as a cornerstone of a global architecture of cooperation,” she said.

Clinton’s remarks come as President Barack Obama is facing a difficult decision on whether to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan.

The administration has had difficulty convincing European allies to shoulder a bigger role in the conflict, and analysts said Clinton’s call for renewed commitment was not likely to change that.

“Facing difficult pressures on Afghanistan, the Obama administration marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by revving up a rhetorical trope that President Bush favored –- drawing a parallel between the Cold War and the fight against radical Islamist terrorism,” said Tom Carothers, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Europeans and others never found it very convincing under Bush,” he added. “I suspect they won’t like it much better now.”

The awards ceremony, held by the Atlantic Council, honored the citizens of several countries involved in the Cold War struggle for freedom, from the United States and Germany to Poland and the former Czechoslovakia.

U.S. and European officials reminisced about the collapse of the Iron Curtain on Nov. 9, 1989. The events that led to the collapse of communism were not inevitable, they said, and did not lead to the conflict-free world that many people predicted.

“Challenges are endless,” said former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who introduced Clinton. “Every solution of one problem is an admission ticket to another problem.”

Kissinger, who served Republican President Richard Nixon, said a journalist had asked him to write a thousand-word assessment of Democrat Clinton.

“I said, ‘What do I say after the first three words?” Kissinger said.

“He said, ‘What are those three words?’”

“I said, ‘I like Hillary.’”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach (Clinton and Kissinger at Atlantic Council Freedom’s Challenge awards ceremony in Berlin)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton griping about Pakistan while in Pakistan.

She says it was “hard to believe” that no one in Pakistan’s government knew where al Qaeda leaders were hiding. She talked about her tough talk in a series of morning television interviews, and said on CNN “trust is a two-way street.”

Top military brass coming over to the White House this afternoon. President Barack Obama meets with the military Joint Chiefs of Staff on Afghanistan and Pakistan this afternoon in the Situation Room (so you know it’s important).

Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are also down to attend the meeting where they are all expected to go over recommendations on troop strength and strategy.

No definitive word yet on when Obama will issue his decision on a new U.S. strategy on Afghanistan, so the waiting continues…

On the economic front, consumer spending fell in September and sentiment turned gloomier, underscoring the fragile nature of the economic recovery, while signs emerged that manufacturing activity may be picking up.

And it’s Halloween weekend so there will be plenty of ghosts and goblins out on the streets, may all your spirits be friendly ones…

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Photo credit: Reuters/pool (Clinton in Lahore, Pakistan, on Oct. 29)