Obama forgot to say “pretty please,” because Iran still has the drone and claims to be almost finished decoding it and also trying to build a copy for themselves:

Iran claimed Sunday that it had recovered data from an American spy drone that went down in Iran last year, including information that the aircraft was used to spy on Osama bin Laden weeks before he was killed. Iran also said it was building a copy of the drone.

Similar unmanned surveillance planes have been used in Afghanistan for years and kept watch on bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. But U.S. officials have said little about the history of the particular aircraft now in Iran’s possession.

Tehran, which has also been known to exaggerate its military and technological prowess, says it brought down the RQ-170 Sentinel, a top-secret drone equipped with stealth technology, and has flaunted the capture as a victory for Iran and a defeat for the United States.

After the drone went down in Iran, options to prevent the drone from falling into Iranian hands included sending in a special-ops team to retrieve it or blow it up, or launching an airstrike to destroy it. President Gutsy Call didn’t employ any of those options, much to the dismay of Dick Cheney.

What Iran could do with the technology is questionable:

A former intelligence official told Fox News it’s unlikely the Iranians could figure out how to recreate the drone, and that the pressing concern would be to try to use the technology to bargain with the Chinese or the Russians.

While China does not necessarily have the technology to help significantly advance Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for access to drone parts, China could offer Iran an IOU of sorts — for a favor like a veto at the U.N. Security Council, the former official said.

The Russians would also be interested in any U.S. intelligence collection capability, and could offer Iran ballistics technology useful for a nuclear delivery system.

I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Early indications are that Iran is in fact having trouble replicating the technology, as this photo of Tehran’s first test flight of their copy of the captured US surveillance drone seems to confirm:

Update: Dennis Miller: By “copy” the drone, Iran means they’re going to trace it.

“I want to thank President Santos and the people of Colombia for the extraordinary hospitality in the beautiful city of Cartagena,” said Obama. “We’re having a wonderful time. And usually when I take these summit trips, part of my job is to scout out where I may want to bring Michelle back later for vacation. So we’ll make sure to come back sometime in the near future.”

For some reason, a record number of Secret Service agents have requested to work Obama’s detail if he returns to Colombia for R & R. Hopefully after January of next year, when The One becomes The Done, he’ll able to take an extended vacation.

“One of the most amazing things to me about this Keystone pipeline deal is that they ever filed that route in the first place since they could’ve gone around the Nebraska Sandhills and avoided most of the dangers, no matter how imagined, to the Ogallala [aquifer] with a different route, which I presume we’ll get now, because the extra cost of running is infinitesimal compared to the revenue that will be generated over a long period of time,” he said.

“So, I think we should embrace it and develop a stakeholder-driven system of high standards for doing the work,” Clinton added.

With gas prices what they are and not expected to get any lower anytime soon, Clinton’s trying to give Obama a nickel’s worth of free advice:

What’s interesting about Clinton’s support for Keystone is that it’s the State Department that has to sign off on the full project, and Bubba is married to the Secretary of State. That means that if Bill wants to help Obama get re-elected, all he’s got to do is wake up in the morning, whisper his opinion into his lady’s ear, and then that lady can call Hillary and finally get the pipeline underway.

They’re just now questioning the “peace” cred of some of the past recipients?

The nomination deadline for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize has expired amid renewed criticism the award committee has drifted away from the selection criteria established by the prize’s founder.

Stockholm’s County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations and trusts in the city, is investigating claims the Nobel Foundation has widenened the scope of the prize to a point where it no longer reflects Alfred Nobel’s will.

Unless Alfred Nobel’s will was to give his Peace Prize to a terrorist, an appeasing failure of an ex US president who emboldens thugs around the world, a enviro scam artist and a president who had done nothing up to that point except read speeches from a teleprompter and has since turned into a killing machine, they might want to re-visit the criteria.

Jon Huntsman officially dropped out of the race earlier today, which means two things heading into tonight’s South Carolina debate: Michelle Malkin’s mute button finally gets a chance to cool off, and the field has now been narrowed down to five:

The remaining Republican presidential candidates treated Jon Huntsman’s endorsement of Mitt Romney as he bowed out of the race Monday much they way they treated Huntsman during his candidacy — with barely a glance.

“I like Jon Huntsman. I actually got a chance to meet him and his wonderful wife and family and I wish him the very, very best, and he brings something to the table. But this is a race about who’s going to be the strong conservative against Barack Obama,” Rick Santorum told Fox News.

With Huntsman gone and with Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and the South Carolina Republican Party literally setting their debate stage Monday night with one less lectern, many pundits and voters — and even a candidate — agree that should Romney pull of the hat trick this Saturday in South Carolina and go 3-0 in the early GOP contests, it could be very tough to stop him

The race is down to five now, which means four are tweaking their strategy to undo Romney’s substantial lead in the polls, both in South Carolina and across the nation.

The action (if you can call a debate “action”) starts at 9 p.m. EST. Watch live on Fox News or online here. Romney’s stretching his lead nationally and this could be the last chance for the remaining four to throw everything they’ve got. Could be entertaining.

Additional drinking game rule: Double shot when Romney says something along the line of “four Pinocchios, Newt – four Pinnocchios!“