Live From A Huge Foreign-Policy Confab

I’m in one of the two massive ballrooms of the Washington Convention Center, is going to present a tour of the foreign-policy horizon. That’ll kick off a day-long event sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Peace called “Passing The Baton,” outlining the national-security and foreign-policy picture bequeathed by the Bush administration to the Obama administration.

Accordingly, the event will offer a glimpse of how likely Obama appointees view the challenges ahead: speakers include Wendy Sherman, often mentioned as a possible State Department troubleshooter in east Asia; Daniel Kurtzer, a possible Israel/Palestine policy czar; Anne-Marie Slaughter, who may become the State Department’s chief of policy planning; noted counterinsurgency expert Janine Davidson, who’s part of President-elect Barack Obama’s Pentagon transition team; as well as two military officers you may have heard of: Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. Michael Mullen.

won’t be the only one offering a defense of the Bush administration’s record. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is in the lineup, as is outgoing Pentagon Undersecretary for Policy Eric Edelman and proliferation official Bob Joseph (he of the Sixteen Words). Naturally, I will be riveted. Dispatches will come throughout the day.

Update: Never mind! Rice, it was just announced, is in New York working with the U.N. Security Council on a Gaza ceasefire. However, I just saw former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry walk in, so there you go.