Spent much of the morning in the White House. It's been a few years since I have been inside the building. We did the East Wing/mansion tour and then spent time chatting with a handful of relatively senior staffers. Pretty interesting stuff for the wonkishly inclined. It's still somewhat heady to be in the actual White House for a few hours.
We had lunch at the State Department, followed by back-to-back Asia-related briefings wth some high-ranking Foreign Service officers, the first focused on the Five Party Talks about North Korea, and the second on the recent Burma crisis.
Our last stop of the afternoon was a visit to the city's premier lobbyist/law firm Patton Boggs. We talked to several senior partners there, including former U.S. Senator John Breaux of Louisiana.
Tonight we head to Georgetown for a chat over pizza with Newsweek editor-at-large Evan Thomas.
