In the Loop: Shout at a dictator, get some v.p. cred

President Obama is off on Air Force One to attend the Summit of the Americas this weekend in the beautiful seaside city of Cartagena, Colombia.

Secretary of State Hillary “The Texter” Clinton will be taking her plane — then heading from there to meetings in Brasilia and Brussels.

And Hill folks will also be headed to the quadrennial mega-gabfest to grip and grin with 30 or more other heads of government.

(The fun will be to see how things go when they run into lefty anti-Americans such as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega .)

A couple of House congressional delegations — including a bipartisan group headed by House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chairman Connie Mack (R-Fla.) — are packing to go. Also signed up are Reps. David Rivera (R-Fla.), Albio Sires (D-N.J.), Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) and Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.).

Curiously, not many senators seem to be going. In fact, it may be that the only one going from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a possible vice presidential pick, who we’re told is flying commercial to attend.

Seems as if he’s going through a lot of trouble. “Senator Rubio has pushed to promote democracy” in the region, spokesman Alex Conant explained. “This summit is a good opportunity for Senator Rubio to discuss the importance of democracy with leaders from around the region.”

Well, if handled properly, it could also help boost his foreign-policy chops.

Reminds us of a foreign jaunt made by another potential vice presidential pick back in 2004. That would be John Edwards , whose criminal trial is set to begin Thursday in Greensboro, N.C.

Edwards is charged with violating campaign finance laws related to the payment by two wealthy donors of nearly $1 million to help hide his pregnant mistress while he was running for president. (What was he going to do with her and the kid if he won?)

Edwards gave a speech in June 2004 at the Bilderberg conference that was widely credited as one reason John Kerry chose him.

Edwards told the uber-secret global power brokers of “the insecurity of American workers that persists even when economic statistics” get better, the New York Times reported. (Might be a theme for Mitt Romney to pick up on if the economy is improving in the fall.)

Okay. So a nice shouting match with Hugo or Danny, appropriately videotaped, would be excellent.

The stuff that memes
are made of

Even Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is embracing the viral “Texts from Hillary” meme — which mashed up a photo of a sunglasses-wearing Clinton with captions that imagine her text conversations with everyone from Mitt Romney to Ryan Gosling. But not everyone was as thrilled, namely, the photographer who snapped the iconic image.

Diana Walker , the award-winning photographer who shot the picture while on assignment with Time magazine, was concerned when her photo started swirling around the Internet. She hadn’t been asked, paid or credited for the use of her work, she says.