Think Tank Quickies (#193)

• Foreign Affairs: China's think tank trouble. 
• The Diplomat: The rise of Asia's think tanks.
• New Republic flashback: "Meet the Think Tank Scholars Who Are Also Beltway Lobbyists."
• Brookings President Strobe Talbott attends China State Dinner at the White House.
• Bruce Bartlett: "Washington think tanks are a cesspool of corruption." 
• Brookings scholar & former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke pens new, 600-page memoir.
• How Stephen Harper and his think tank colleagues have transformed Canada.
• Atlas Network brings us "Think Tank Shark Tank" competition.
• CSIS maps Iran nuclear deal timeline to 2026.
• New RAND study on the effectiveness of China's submarine fleet.
• Deep think tank thought of the day via Dan Kaszeta: They are call "think tanks," not "know tanks."

Brookings Head Has "Direct Line" to Hillary Clinton

New reporting about the ongoing saga of Hillary Clinton's emails while at the State Department has uncovered some interesting nuggets about Clinton's close ties to think tankers.  One of her closest ties is with Strobe Talbott, the current head of the Brookings Institution.  Here is an excerpt:

The emails underscored the privileged status of having Mrs. Clinton’s direct address. Strobe Talbott, the former deputy secretary of state who now heads the Brookings Institution, wrote to her directly, expressing concerns that “time-sensitive messages” were not getting through Ms. [Cheryl] Mills’s State Department email.

Mr. Talbott became friends with Bill Clinton when both were Rhodes Scholars at the University of Oxford. Talbott went on to become Deputy Secretary of State under Mr. Clinton.

Interestingly, Strobe Talbott's wife, Brooke Shearer, also had access to Hillary Clinton's email address.  Shearer was a former aide to Hillary Clinton.

Moreover, Center for American Progress (CAP) President Neera Tanden also had access to Hillary's email address.