From Politico:

"It would be a mistake to conclude that the international community's failure to reach a final treaty in Copenhagen is due to a lack of domestic legislation in the United States," said a senior White House official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity.

The United States, said officials, plans to propose a near-term emissions reduction target as part of a "meaningful submission" the country will present at the talks.

Just what that meaningful submission will be remains unclear. But the White House on Monday was clearly reaching out trying to change the negative narrative on the climate debate, making senior administration officials available to insist the U.S. will head to the climate change conference in Copenhagen next month with a real plan…

"I think we go into Copenhagen with a very, very strong hand," said one of the officials. "We have done I think more than anyone could have expected us to do in a short time."

The targets, said Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ed Markey, will demonstrate U.S. leadership on the climate issue and encourage other nations to make firm commitments…

From Bloomberg:

When Hillary Clinton heard that an 8-year-old Saudi girl had been sold to a man in his 50s to pay off her father’s debt, the U.S. secretary of state telephoned Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal to protest.

Clinton’s call -- on the type of issue usually handled by an aide -- symbolized her fervor for making women’s advancement a core part of her national-security efforts, even in dealing with problems such as Iran’s suspected nuclear threat or the Islamist violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Women are key to our being able to resolve all of those difficult conflicts,” Clinton said in an August speech. Since then, she has pursued initiatives to help women gain political power, personal safety and enough money to help their communities and countries improve economically and transition to democracy.

“There is nothing that has been more important to me over the course of my lifetime than advancing the rights of women and girls,” she said in a Nov. 6 Washington speech. “And it is now a cornerstone of American foreign policy…”

In case you missed it, from the New York Times:

…But with roughly a quarter of the stimulus money out the door after nine months, the accumulation of hard data and real-life experience has allowed more dispassionate analysts to reach a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working.

The legislation, a variety of economists say, is helping an economy in free fall a year ago to grow again and shed fewer jobs than it otherwise would. Mr. Obama’s promise to “save or create” about 3.5 million jobs by the end of 2010 is roughly on track, though far more jobs are being saved than created, especially among states and cities using their money to avoid cutting teachers, police officers and other workers.

“It was worth doing — it’s made a difference,” said Nigel Gault, chief economist at IHS Global Insight, a financial forecasting and analysis group based in Lexington, Mass.

Mr. Gault added: “I don’t think it’s right to look at it by saying, ‘Well, the economy is still doing extremely badly, therefore the stimulus didn’t work.’ I’m afraid the answer is, yes, we did badly but we would have done even worse without the stimulus.”

In interviews, a broad range of economists said the White House and Congress were right to structure the package as a mix of tax cuts and spending, rather than just tax cuts as Republicans prefer or just spending as many Democrats do. And it is fortuitous, many say, that the money gets doled out over two years — longer for major construction — considering the probable length of the “jobless recovery” under way as wary employers hold off on new hiring…