I have to go to an appointment with a certain prime minister, and that’s going to take up my morning, so I’m going to invert a blog tradition and give some links for your morning reading.

– Is Obama’s nominee for a top State Department economics post too close to the Sudanese genocidaires?

– That white backlash to Obama’s comment on Skip Gates? This morning it comes from Bill "Maybe it was Professor Gates who behaved stupidly, or at least arrogantly" Kristol.

– The largest U.S. embassy in the world may be functionally overstaffed, but I’d think hard on the question of whether now’s the time to reduce our diplomatic presence in Iraq.

– Right after Clinton edged toward greater arms sales with India, Pakistan asks for more military tech. Particularly drones. Pungent quote: "We cannot afford to denude our eastern border." So does that mean if we give them the drones, they’ll substitute a drone-based schwacking for a counterinsurgency (such as it is) fight in the tribal areas?

Off I go.