From Manhattan With Love

Council on Foreign Relations & American Politics

By William P. Litynski

Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ) (left), Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) (center), and vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska during a rally outside the Delaware County Courthouse in Media, Pennsylvania on September 22, 2008. Thousands attended the late afternoon rally in support of the candidates. John McCain and Joe Lieberman are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Getty Images)

U.S. Senator Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Connecticut) (left) and U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) (right) smile after conducting a procedural vote on health care reform at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on December 21, 2009. Joseph Lieberman and Olympia Snowe are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Getty Images)

U.S. President Barack Obama, a member of the Democratic Party, meets with (from left to right) former U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry; former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (D-Georgia); former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Shultz; and former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office on May 19, 2009. William Perry, Sam Nunn, George P. Shultz, and Henry Kissinger are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)

Sarah Palin (R), the Governor of Alaska and vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party, meets with Council on Foreign Relations member Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State, at his office in New York City on September 23, 2008. (AFP/Getty Images)

President Barack Obama drops by National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones' meeting with former national security advisors in the Situation Room of the White House on March 24, 2010. Seated at the table, from left to right are: Brent Scowcroft, Robert "Bud" McFarlane, Colin Powell (former U.S. Secretary of State), Dennis Ross (Senior National Security Council Director for the central region), Sandy Berger, Frank Carlucci (former U.S. Secretary of Defense and former Chairman of the Carlyle Group), and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Everyone seated at the table in the Situation Room except for Barack Obama is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Democratic Party presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama talks with former 9/11 Commission vice chairman and former U.S. Congressman Lee Hamilton (left) as he meets with a foreign policy panel of former U.S. government officials at a hotel in Washington, D.C. on June 18, 2008. (Reuters)

Democratic Party presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama is flanked by Laura DAndrea Tyson (left) and Council on Foreign Relations Co-Chairman Robert E. Rubin (right) addresses a press conference following a meeting with economic advisors at Bank United Center in Coral Gables, Florida on September 19, 2008. (AFP/Getty Images)

President-elect Barack Obama holds his first post-election press conference at the Hilton Hotel flanked by his vice president-elect Joe Biden (5th L), his new chief of staff Rahm Emanuel (5th R), and members of his Transition Economic Advisory Board in Chicago on November 7, 2008. Left to right: Bill Donaldson, Laura DAndrea Tyson, New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine, Council on Foreign Relations Co-Chairman Robert Rubin, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, Barack Obama, Paul Volcker, Rahm Emanuel, Time

Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, unidentified, Lawrence Summers, and Roger W. Ferguson Jr. Donaldson, Tyson, Rubin, Volcker, Parsons, Summers, and Ferguson are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Getty Images)

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (center) shakes hands with Vice President Dick Cheney (right) on Capitol Hill on January 4, 2007 as U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is dressed in red, looks on. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

This photo, supplied by Gingrich Productions, shows former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taping a message for the Alliance for Climate Protection in Washington D.C. on April 3, 2008. Gingrich just filmed a new environmental commercial with Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Newt Gingrich is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. (AP Photo by Callista Gingrich)

U.S. Senator John F. Kerry (left, member of the Democratic Party) and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry (center) watch Vice President Dick Cheney (right, member of the Republican Party) administer the oath of office on January 5, 2009. John F. Kerry, Teresa Heinz Kerry, and Dick Cheney are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Photo: The Boston Globe)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers a foreign policy address at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. on July 15, 2009. (Getty Images)

U.S. Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on July 29, 2009. Janet Napolitano is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Getty Images)

President George W. Bush speaks to the Council on Foreign Relations about economic progress in Iraq during a speech in Washington, D.C. on December 7, 2005. (EPA/Shawn Thew)

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) gives a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on December 3, 2003. Senator John Kerry is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of Skull & Bones at Yale University. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice addresses Council on Foreign Relations members at the Organization of American States (OAS) building in Washington, D.C. on October 9, 2007. Condoleezza Rice is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Lawrence Summers, the outgoing Director of the National Economic Council, addresses the Council on Foreign Relations' Symposium on Global Economics in New York City on November 17, 2010. Lawrence Summers, also a former Secretary of the Treasury, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. (Getty Images)

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke smiles before delivering remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. on March 10, 2009. (Reuters)

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan speaks during a luncheon meeting held by the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. on November 19, 2002. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff appears with former NBC News anchor and Council on Foreign Relations Director Tom Brokaw at a Council on Foreign Relations meeting in New York City on March 23, 2006. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images)

David Rockefeller (front row, second from right), Louis V. Gerstner Jr. (front row, fifth from right), and other Council on Foreign Relations members listen as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld delivers a speech at the Harold Pratt House in New York City on October 4, 2004. (Department of Defense photo by Master Sgt. James M. Bowman, U.S. Air Force)

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (left) smiles with Senator Joe Lieberman (right) at the opening of the seventh Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on May 30, 2008. The Dialogue, also known as the Asia Security Summit, is a meeting of defense and national security officials and analysts that is organized by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, an independent think-tank. (AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, left, speaks with U.S. Navy Adm. James G. Stavridis, center, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe, and U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, right, during a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Bratislava, Slovakia on October 23, 2009. Gates, Stavridis, and McChrystal are members of the Council on Foreign Relations. (U.S. Department of Defense photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison)

Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Gen. Michael Hayden speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City on September 7, 2007. General Michael Hayden is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. (AP Photo by Louis Lanzano)

Democratic presidential candidate Senator John Kerry (left) accepts the microphone from former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin at a fundraising event in New York City on April 14, 2004. (Photo by Stephen Chernin/Getty Images)

Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA) (L) is greeted by Vernon Jordan after being introduced at the National Urban League Conference in Detroit on July 22, 2004. Kerry and vice presidential candidate Senator John Edwards (D-NC) will be formally anointed next week at the Democratic convention in Boston as the party's challengers to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the November 2 election. (JIM YOUNG/Reuters/Corbis)

Ambassador Richard Holbrooke (left), Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (center), and Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), speak during the Global Business Coalition Gala Awards dinner in Washington, D.C. on September 28, 2005. (Photo by Chris Greenberg/Getty Images for the Global Business Coalition)

Council on Foreign Relations members Henry Kissinger (left), Zbigniew Brzezinski (center), and Madeleine Albright are seen laughing together. (Photo: U.S. State Department)