BIG THINKING

Bush’s going-away presents

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901914.html
In a burst of activity meant to leave a lasting stamp on the federal government, the Bush White House in the past month has approved 61 new regulations on environmental, security, social and commercial matters . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30labor.html
The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015856.php

Pardon alert

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015852.php

I always think it’s interesting when governors of either party, having to face real problems on the ground and make solutions work, converge on very similar and less ideological policy views. Today’s example: energy

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/29/18152/068/831/667356

Thinking Big

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/washington/27cong.html
Democratic Congressional leaders and the nascent Obama administration are moving quickly to assert control over federal policy, aiming to have economic, health and spending legislation waiting on the new president’s desk almost the minute he gets back down Pennsylvania Avenue from the inauguration.

Given the severity of the problems facing the nation, officials on Capitol Hill and in the Obama team say Democrats have put their schedule on fast-forward . . .

Big, big, big

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1108/Obamas_picks.html
Barack Obama’s picks for Cabinet and other senior posts are many things: centrists, veterans, rivals. Most of all, though, they’re big: big names, big intellects, and big egos.

The president-elect’s national security and economic policy teams, inside the White House and out, will be led by power politics veterans, all but one of them older than the president-elect, and all accustomed to being the most important voice in the room.

While official announcements and Senate confirmations await, it appears that on national security decisions, Obama will have a team of heavyweights: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Vice President Joe Biden, retired four-star Marine general Jim Jones as his National Security Adviser, and four-star General David Petraeus as chief of U.S. Central Command.

His economic team is of similar stature: new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will find his rival for the job, Larry Summers, in the White House, while former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker will also be in the mix as head of a new economic recovery advisory board.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel seems unlikely to be shy about his views in either arena. . . .

Who is James Jones (Obama’s pick for National Security Adviser)? No one seems to know very much

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/hes_in_love_with_jim_jones_whoah.php

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/29/jim-jones-versus-hillary-in-the-middle-east/

Can Obama establish himself as a credible Commander in Chief?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/29/AR2008112901912.html
Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went unarmed into his first meeting with the new commander in chief -- no aides, no PowerPoint presentation, no briefing books. Summoned nine days ago to President-elect Barack Obama's Chicago transition office, Mullen showed up with just a pad, a pen and a desire to take the measure of his incoming boss. . . .

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/military_meritocracy_/2008/11/depoliticizing_the_military.php

The attacks in Mumbai draw attention to the larger mess between India and Pakistan

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/bystanders-in-east-asia-by-dday-attacks.html
[Dday] The attacks in Mumbai are grisly enough, and it's a relief that they appear to be coming to an end. But the question over involvement of Pakistani groups has the potential to make things much, much worse, and really cripple any hope of stability in the region. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/world/asia/30diplo.htm
As evidence mounts that last week’s attacks in Mumbai may have originated on Pakistani soil, American officials’ aggressive campaign to strike at militants in Pakistan may complicate efforts to prevent an Indian military response, which could lead to a conflict between the bitter enemies. . . .

More: http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/india-please-dont-go-down-bush-cheney.html

http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/aljazeera-english-on-aftermath-of.html

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/11/pakistan_report.html

Obama’s Senate replacement?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/29/is-the-next-illinois-senator-danny-davis/

Center-left/center-right: the debate rages on

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/29/battle-royale-center-righ_n_147072.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/omegas-by-digby-heres-interesting-look.html

I hope the Big Thinkers of the GOP keep coming up with advice like this. Just learn to use the Internet better. (When their real problem is bad candidates, bad policies, and a bad record of governing.) Hey guys, I shouldn’t offer this advice but: it’s not the marketing, it’s the product

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/29/breaking-hugh-hewitt-discovers-opposable-thumb-inserts-in-ass/

More big thinking about what ails the GOP: make it smaller, more conservative, and more ideologically pure

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15980.html
[Mark Sanford, R-SC] I make that point because there’s a real temptation in Republican circles right now to try and be all things to all people. We tried that already — it was called “compassionate conservatism,” and it got us nowhere. . . . [read on!]

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015855.php

The pundits: so often wrong, but never discredited

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/29/13451/794/745/667434
[Peggy Noonan, 2006] [T]he Democratic Party seems to be near imploding, and for that most humiliating of reasons: its meaninglessness. Republicans are at least arguing over their meaning.

The venom is bubbling on websites like Kos, where Tuesday afternoon, after the Alito vote, various leftists wrote in such comments as "F--- our democratic leaders," "Vichy Democrats" and "F--- Mary Landrieu, I hope she drowns." The old union lunch-pail Democrats are dead, the intellects of the Kennedy and Johnson era retired or gone, and this--I hope she drowns--seems, increasingly, to be the authentic voice of the Democratic base.

How will a sane, stable, serious Democrat get the nomination in 2008 when these are the activists to whom the appeal must be made?

Advice not taken: a hilarious look back

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10199
[Heritage Foundation, 2001] President-elect George W. Bush laid out a dream and a remarkably detailed policy agenda during his election campaign, with proposals ranging from substantial reform of Social Security and Medicare to ambitious changes in federal education policy and ways to reduce the historically high tax burden on the American people. . . . [read on, and laugh!]

Rupert Murdoch dislikes Fox News (especially Bill O’Reilly)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/28/163821/93/801/667362

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/sunday_show_preview_101959.asp
NBC Meet The Press: First Lady Laura Bush, Afghanistan's Ambassador to the United States Said Jawad and Ted Turner, Author, "Call Me Ted"

ABC This Week: Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) of the Armed Services Committee and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) of the Foreign Relations Committee. A roundtable with ABC News' Matthew Dowd, Donna Brazile, Torie Clark, and George Will.

CBS Face the Nation: "A Look At An Historic Election: Annual Books and Authors Show" with authors Bob Woodward, Fareed Zakaria, Michael Eric Dyson and Jane Mayer.

CNN Late Edition: Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), Peter Bergen, CNN terrorism analyst, Sajjan Gohel, director of international security, Asia-Pacific Foundation, Ron Gettelfinger, UAW President, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling, Commander, Multi-National Division-North, Ed Rollins, Republican strategist, CNN political contributor, James Carville, Democratic strategist; CNN political contributor, David Gergen, CNN senior political analyst; former presidential adviser, Amy Walter, CNN political contributor; editor-in-chief, The Hotline, Ed Henry, CNN White House correspondent, Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst.

Bonus item: Follow-up on the Confederate flag story from yesterday

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/stars-n-bars-n-hammer-n-sickle-by-digby.html

***If you enåjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:58 AM

 
DEAD-ENDERS

“Bush’s Greatness”

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/bushs_greatness.php

Bush thinks so too: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015847.php

Sure enough, the Bushian ploy of holding back a translation of the Iraq SOFA agreement (because they want to be able to claim after the fact that it means something different from what Iraq thought it was agreeing to) has undermined the SOFA’s legitimacy on both sides of the agreement. They can’t even avoid screwing up the END of the war they started

http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/12-killed-in-mosque-bombing-controversy.html

Wingers still believe that an infatuated media vaulted Obama into office – ergo they are convinced that the same media will bring him down. They still haven’t come to grips with why he won, and why they lost

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/obama-remorse-sweeps-through-media/story.aspx?guid={02E39668-FF76-4780-9FA4-BCD109D90773}
[Jon Friedman] I'm starting to feel a little guilty about the media's treatment of President-elect Barack Obama -- and I may not be the only one.
Chalk it up to a phenomenon I'd like to call "Obama-remorse." You know how you feel buyer's remorse after you've spent a lot of dough on some big-ticket item, only to realize that you might have made a mistake? Well, it's going to happen to the president-elect as well. . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/kewl-kid-kabuki-by-digby-i-dont-know.html

Another example: now the Right thinks all they need is a better Internet strategy

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/28/18151/352/475/666687
[Kos] Now it's conservatives' turn to plead for their side to emulate our machine. Yet here's the funny thing -- their machine is still bigger and better funded than ours. If I could trade Daily Kos for Fox News and the entire AM radio dial, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd make some major changes at those media outlets, of course (beyond a change of ideology), most of them dealing with how they interact with their audiences online, but really, their problem isn't that they don't have an equivalent to Daily Kos or MoveOn, their problem is that their ideas suck, and now progressives have enough of a machine to counteract their lies and smears.

Remember, a party predicated on the notion that government sucks and can't do anything right can't possibly run an administration that doesn't suck and can do anything right. Competent conservative governance would instantly invalidate conservatism's core tenets. That's why Bush named horse lawyers to FEMA, and why fourth-tier law school grads have infested every corner of the Justice Department. . . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/28/195914/16

Why we still don’t have proper oversight of the bailout

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/unnamed_gop_senator_blocking_a.php
[Zachary Roth] Earlier this month, the Bush administration nominated Neil Barofsky, a federal prosecutor, to be the Treasury Department's special inspector general on the bailout program. That's a crucial post, given the astronomical sums at issue, the broad authority that Treasury has been given to distribute them, the concerns that have been raised about possible conflicts of interest, and the general urgency of our efforts to prevent an economic collapse.

So you'd think Congress would be doing everything it could to get Barofsky confirmed right away. You'd be wrong.

Last week, Sen. Chris Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the banking committee, issued a little-noticed statement saying that although the nomination "was cleared by members of the Senate Banking Committee, the leadership of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and all Democratic Senators," it was "blocked on the floor by at least one Republican member."

More bailout screw-ups: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/report_treasury_hired_staff_fo.php

Bringing science back into government

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/27/AR2008112702184.html
Few federal agencies are expected to undergo as radical a transformation under President-elect Barack Obama as the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department, which have been at the epicenter of many of the Bush administration's most intense scientific and environmental controversies. . . .

Karl Rove (remember him?), still giving Obama unwanted and unneeded advice

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/28/tsk-tsk-obama-disappointing-karl-rove/

More: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122783239069463007.html

Update on the Coleman/Franken recount in Minnesota

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/28/franken-coleman-recount-its-the-timelines-stupid/

Bonus item: The kind of people they are (thanks to Digby for the link)

http://nwanews.com/adg/News/244859/
[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette] Barack Obama’s presidential victory upset James and Linda Vandiver.

So, on election night, the couple — owners of the historic Faubus Motel in downtown Huntsville — walked outside, lowered Old Glory and raised the Confederate battle flag in its place.

It’s remained there ever since, flying high in silent protest of election to the nation’s highest office a politician the pair says is a “Marxist.” . . .

The Vandivers said they didn’t raise the Rebel flag to protest a black man moving into the White House, as many of their neighbors assume. Instead, they did it because they believe the country has abandoned the principles of its founders by electing Obama.

Linda Vandiver said the Democrat is a Marxist who wants to turn America into a socialist country.

Obama wants to redistribute wealth by raising taxes on the rich, create a universal healthcare system and institute a global tax aimed at eliminating worldwide poverty, she said.

“We think socialism is deeply rooted in him, and we’ll see it manifest in all areas,” Linda Vandiver said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with despising Mr. Obama’s color. We’d like to celebrate the fact that for the first time we have a black president. But we can’t.” Obama is also a friend to terrorists, James Vandiver said, referring to Obama’s association with William Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground. The group bombed public buildings during the 1970 s.

“If Obama was just a regular Joe Citizen, he would not be able to get security clearance to get in the White House,” James Vandiver asserted. “This is the only way I know to send a message to the people of our country that we are in protest of someone like this being in the position of president.” . . .

For Steve Maher of Whorton Creek near Huntsville, the Rebel flag is an “offensive symbol.” Maher wrote to the Record that townsfolk should boycott the motel, the City Council should condemn the action publicly and the town chamber of commerce should revoke the Vandivers ’ membership.

“I respect the freedom of speech, but this symbol of racism can’t be allowed to represent our community,” Maher wrote. “If we do nothing, we are silently supporting or at least accepting the symbolism of that flag.” For Loy Mauch of Bismarck in Hot Spring County, the Confederate flag is a symbol of America’s Christian roots, from which he believes the nation has strayed.

“The government has lost its moral authority over God-fearing Americans and I wish more patriots like James Vandiver would take their stand for what the Confederate Battle Flag truly symbolizes,” Mauch wrote. . . .

Heath Bradley, pastor of Huntsville United Methodist Church, asked his congregation the Sunday after the flag first flew to send the Vandivers letters asking them to lower it. He’s also called for the Vandivers to take the flag down in a posting on his church Web log.

“Regardless of his motivations, it’s going to be seen as a racist symbol,” Bradley said “And as followers of Jesus, we feel any symbol of racism... cuts against the grain of our faith.” “We do see it as a blemish on our town.” However, James Vandiver said all the feedback he’s gotten has been positive.

Steven Fowler, an accountant from nearby Alpena, which sits on the Boone-Carroll county line, called Vandiver to tell him that he supports what he’s doing after he read about it in the Record.

The Battle Flag of the Confederacy, with a version of St. Andrew’s cross emblazoned across it, is a symbol of Christianity first and foremost, Fowler said.

But it also represents the supremacy of the states over the federal government.

By flying it, Fowler said, the Vandivers are warning against an Obama presidency that he believes will expand the federal government by nationalizing health care, redistributing wealth and broadening the welfare system.

“And it’s not just Obama. [GOP candidate John] McCain would do the same thing. The trend is toward centralizing power,” Fowler said. “The [Confederate] flag is a symbol of defiance against tyranny and centralization of power. I urge everybody to learn what the flag truly represents and fly it.” Van Owens, the Arkansas chairman of the League of the South, called James Vandiver and offered him membership in the group after hearing about what he had done.

The league advocates peaceful Southern secession and “an end to federal tyranny in every area of our lives,” according to the group’s Web site. . . .

Vandiver didn’t join the league, Owens said, but will let him advertise his motel at no cost on the group’s Web site.

Owens flies a Confederate flag at his home in Mammoth Spring in Fulton County. He said he considers himself a Confederate American being held against his will by an oppressive federal government.

Owens said he thinks the majority of people in Huntsville understand why the Vandivers are flying the flag and have no problem with it — they’re just afraid to say so.

“There was a time when Americans were free to do what they wanted. But now we have to measure up to some politically correct ideal,” Owens said. “People ought to take [James Vandiver] at his word. He has a right to make a statement against a political figure.” Linda Vandiver wrote in a letter to the Record printed Wednesday that blacks, gays, Democrats — even liberal filmmaker Michael Moore — are all afforded a right to freedom of speech and political protest. So why not white, Southern Christians who are disenchanted with the incoming administration ?

“Our statement in raising the flag is ‘ Barack Obama is not our president, ’” Linda Vandiver said in an interview. . . .

How long will the protest go on?

James Vandiver wouldn’t say.

That’s up to God and the American people, the hotel’s proprietor said.

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/dispatch-from-real-america-by-digby-did.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:23 AM

 
AROUND THE WORLD

What the hell is happening in Mumbai?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/27-10
[Deena Guzder] Most Americans were shocked to learn that coordinated terrorist attacks struck the heart of Mumbai, India's commercial capital on Wednesday evening. After all, India is not Iraq or Afghanistan or even Pakistan. According to pundits such as Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, India is a shining capitalist success story and the next global superpower. In the pro-globalization narrative, India's eager-beaver working class has benefited greatly from neoliberal economic policies. . . . [read on]

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/foreign_policy_/2008/11/the_mumbai_bombings_and_the_us_stake_in_an_indiapakistan_deal.php
[Mark Kleiman] The important context for the Mumbai bombings must surely be the peace initiative launched by the Pakistani President earlier in the week and seemingly moved forward by a meeting of the two foreign ministers yesterday. That makes the obvious suspects the folks who have the strongest interests in keeping India and Pakistan at daggers drawn: the Pakistani ISI (which Zardari had already stripped of its role in domestic politics) has to be the prime suspect, and apparently India has such suspicions. But there's also the Pakistani military, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Hindu nationalists.

Of all the things that might conceivably happen in the next few months, it's hard to imagine one that would be a bigger win for U.S. long-term interests than a rapprochement between India and Pakistan. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.counterpunch.org/tariq11272008.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015835.php

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/all_around_the_world.php

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/11/27/india.attacks.responsibility/index.html

The Status of Forces Agreement passes the Iraqi parliament. What does it mean?

http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/security-agreement-is-passed-by-iraqi.html
[Juan Cole] Reuters reports that the Iraqi parliament passed the US-Iraqi security agreement, which stipulates that all US troops will be out of Iraq by 2011. of 275 members of parliament, 198 attended and 145 voted in favor. That means it barely passed from the point of view of an absolute majority, though it was a clear simple majority. Apparently the al-Maliki government bowed to Sunni Arab demands that the agreement be submitted to a national referendum, California-style. If that is true, it is possible that it could still be rejected by the Iraqi people. But al-Maliki got it through parliament by painting opponents as implicitly opposing a US withdrawal, and that campaign tactic may work with the general public, too. . . .

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2008/11/27/war-is-over-if-you-want-it/
[Spencer Ackerman] According to AFP, the SOFA's passage comes thanks to the Sunni-mollifying proposal to hold a popular referendum in 2009 that gives the Iraqi people a chance to essentially move up the SOFA's deadline for a 2011 U.S. troop withdrawal. The final parliamentary maneuver was to move the schedule for that referendum up to May 30, 2009. What's that mean? . . .

The English translation (finally): http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/27/14192/684/66/667080

More: http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/passage-of-security-pact-strengthens-al.html
McClatchy reports the views of analysts who fear that al-Maliki may get too powerful in the wake of this victory. He is establishing tribal councils, which have a paramilitary element, and which some fear will become the prime minister's private militia, and might intimidate voters so as to strengthen al-Maliki's Da'wa Party. . . .

http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/iranian-radio-says-referendum-will-arm.html
The USG Open Source Center translates a radio broadcast from The Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran praising the passage of the Security Agreement between Iraq and the US by the Iraqi parliament. The celebratory style shows that official Iran has swung behind the agreement as a tool for getting the US military out of their western neighbor. . . .

Did John Brennan get a raw deal from the left blogosphere?

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2008/11/26/brennantorturereconsidered/
[Spencer Ackerman] Glenn [Greenwald] has led the charge against John Brennan for being "an ardent supporter of torture." Without touching on Glenn's evidence, I looked at the case made by an anti-Brennan coalition and found it to be dubious. . . . [read on]

There is a raging debate over whether Obama and the Dems should press ahead with, basically, war crime trials for Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. Torture, rendition, and imprisonment without charges or trial are serious crimes against humanity, condemned regularly here in this blog since its first days during the Abu Ghraib horrors.

Digby lays out the case below. She expresses the view, shared by many, that it is politically cynical to set aside these trials so that other aspects of Obama’s political and legislative agenda can take priority. She also utterly rejects the non-prosecutorial approach of some “Truth and Reconciliation” style panel (which would yield little truth and no reconciliation). Maybe so.

But criminalizing these actions, even though justified, would create a surprising backlash of sympathy and support for people who “went too far, but with the high motives of keeping America safe from another 9/11 attack.” Remember Ollie North, who EMBRACED the Iran/Contra charges against him, and became a national hero to many? (“I thought it was a pretty neat idea.”)

We have to remember that a sizable number of Americans, who might never admit it, secretly had little trouble with what was done to “those people,” just so long as they were kept safe from another 9/11. Then there is the murky issue of whether DOJ memos gave people the patina of legitimacy in BELIEVING that they were operating within the law. It would be a legal mess, caught up in courts and appeals for years – and driving every other issue off the front pages. The outcome? Likely acquittals, or (in the worst cases) pleas to lesser charges. Nuremberg it won’t be.

Meanwhile, call it cynical, but an historic opportunity to pass real reform, provide a fairer health care system, rebuild our country and put millions of people back to work, will be squandered. Obama’s legacy will be written around the narrative of partisan payback, not around building a new and possibly enduring national progressive consensus

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/torture-zombie-by-digby-i-have-always.html

Denial is a river . . .

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGMzODEwMTJlNDBmYjRiYzRmMmY3ZTdhODkwMDAzNWM
[Victor Davis Hanson] George Bush is neither the source of all our ills nor the “worst” president in our history. He will leave office with about the same dismal approval rating as the once-despised Harry Truman. By 1953, the country loathed the departing Truman as much as they were ecstatic about newly elected national hero Dwight Eisenhower — who had previously never been elected to anything.

As for Bush’s legacy, it will be left to future historians to weigh his responsibility for keeping us safe from another 9/11-like attack for seven years, the now increasingly likely victory in Iraq, AIDS relief abroad, new expansions for Medicare, and federal support for schools versus the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, the error-plagued 2004-2007 occupation of Iraq, and out-of-control federal spending. As in the case of the once-unpopular Ulysses S. Grant, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry Truman, Bush’s supposedly “worst” presidency could one day not look so bad in comparison with the various administrations that followed.

But these days even that modest assessment that things aren’t that bad — or all that different from the past — may well elicit a hysterical reaction from an increasingly hysterical generation.

I strongly support this man as head of the Republican party, and I hope they will organize all their resources behind a national campaign for Sarah Palin as their standard-bearer

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/feature/2008/11/26/gop_south/index.html

Bonus item: Give thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XblF3z-ST0Y



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:45 AM

 
ONE PRESIDENT AT A TIME

I have nothing to say here about the horrific attacks in Mumbai – but I did note that on the news coverage I watched, Obama’s statement appeared first, and was more strongly worded, than Bush’s

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/27/41044/449/177/666969

Good politics, good theater, good substance

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/26/obama-and-the-guvs/
[Emptywheel] In a really smart move, Obama is quickly pulling together a meeting between him and the nation's governors (and always the master of theater, he's holding it at Independence Hall in Philly). . . . [read on]

We’ve been covering the daily commentary on Obama's appointments, as people read every tea leaf for signs that Obama is shifting rightward. Maybe he is. But the fact is, his policy statements have all been very, very good: and he clearly has to cover his right flank in order to implement them. Josh puts it well, I think

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245921.php
[Josh Marshall] Though I might have chosen differently in one or two cases, overall, I'd say I'm very pleased with the announced or prospective nominees so far from Barack Obama. But for those who are more critical, I try to keep focusing everyone's attention back on the salient point. With a strong president, appointees, particularly cabinet appointees execute policy. They work for the president. They execute his policies. I think we have a strong president. And unless and until I see policies that don't square with the platform he ran on (which I don't expect) I see no reason to revise that judgment.

Here’s the way I’d put it: Obama isn’t shifting toward the center – the center is shifting toward Obama

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/obamas-agenda-difference-between.html
[Nate Silver] There is, to say the least, a lot of jumping to conclusions about just which type of President Barack Obama is liable to be, by which I mean whether he'll govern from the left or the center. This speculation has been principally based on his cabinet appointments, a subject that people may be reading too much into. . . .

Most of this discussion, moreover, has dwelt in the realm of tactics, presentation and salesmanship rather than grand strategy. One can "govern from the center" and implement a number of liberal policies . . . [read on]

A to-do list for Obama

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/2047

Interesting: finding something for Richard Holbrooke to do

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/holbrooke_to_islamabad.html

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/just_the_man_for_the_job.php

Good news coming for FEMA

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/26/1003/8372/944/666202

Bailouts, loans, loan guarantees – we’re hearing about federal spending in the trillions to stimulate the economy and backstop failing financial markets. But it’s different kinds of money. Here’s the full menagerie

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245993.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/what_were_doing_--_and_spendin.php

Sarah Palin’s future

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/26/bonus_quote_of_the_day.html
"I happen to think the media is up to a bit of mischief here. I think the media wants to take Sarah Palin and make her, subliminally, the face of the Republican party. They want to make her: this is what Republicans are, the face of the party, the leader of the party, because it amuses them to do that."

-- Former White House speechwriter Peggy Noonan, on MSNBC.

[Taegan Goddard] During the presidential election, Noonan was caught on a live microphone saying Sen. John McCain's pick of Palin doomed the Republican ticket.

More: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/checker.aspx?v=e4qGyteuaG



Bad news for Al Franken

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/key_franken_request_on_recount.php
In a setback for Al Franken's chances in the Minnesota recount, the state canvassing board has just rejected the Franken camp's request that the board review the thousands of rejected absentee ballots and potentially re-admit ballots that might have been excluded because of clerical errors -- keeping any such ballots out of the count for now. . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/faced_with_setback_franken_cam.php
The Franken camp, faced with a big setback today, is regrouping for the moment but vowing to fight on -- and may even contest the election result in court or the United States Senate itself later on. . . .

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/26/franken-coleman-recount-112508-absentee-ballots-and-stiffed-students/
Itasca County isn't waiting for the canvassing board to act: They're going to go ahead and review the rejected absentee ballots from their own county, thus setting a precedent that has got to have Coleman sweating bullets. . . [read on]

The GOP is trying to find ways to motivate Senators to stick together to maintain their filibustering minority. The latest whine: those darn Democrats have just been too mean to us

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015822.php

More: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_irrelevant_house_republicans.php
I would suggest that what matters here is less the number of moderates than the number of people representing states Obama won. Namely — Senators Collins, Snowe, Spectre, Voinovich, Lugar, Grassley, Burr, Martinez, Ensign, and possibly Coleman. Obama will have a strong argument to make that the voters of those states would like to see congress cooperate with the Obama agenda, and he has the organizational tools at his disposal to ensure that voters who feel that way are able to express their feelings to their senators.

Pathetic

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/26/torture/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] How the media talks about torture . . . [read on]

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/26/16549/210/359/666795

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10163

The damage George Bush can still do

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/25/AR2008112502743.html
As the Bush administration prepares to issue its ruling on whether to limit greenhouse gases, it's sending out a message to some of its allies: Tell us how much you don't want us to regulate emissions linked to global warming. . . . [read on]

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/26/124030/69/454/666700
The Environmental Protection Agency seems on the brink of issuing a new regulation that would make it easier for power plants to operate longer hours — and emit more pollution. . . . [read on]

Don’t let the White House doors hit you on the way out

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/bushism_the_highest_form_of_conservatism.php
[Ryan Avent] [Bush] very easily could have asked Congress to send him a stimulus bill, even a modest one, amid an intensification of what will likely be the worst recession in thirty years, if not longer. It would have made a difference. It would have made the season a little more bearable for the growing numbers of unemployed, and it would have made Obama’s task a little less daunting.

Instead, he’s spending his waning days weakening environmental rules, helping his cronies get jobs in the professional bureacracy, and preparing his pardons. What a stupid, despicable man. History can’t judge him too cruelly. . . [read on]

Can’t work up much sympathy, sorry

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1862307,00.html
[Joe Klein] We have "only one President at a time," Barack Obama said in his debut press conference as President-elect. Normally, that would be a safe assumption — but we're learning not to assume anything as the charcoal-dreary economic winter approaches. By mid-November, with the financial crisis growing worse by the day, it had become obvious that one President was no longer enough (at least not the President we had). So, in the days before Thanksgiving, Obama began to move . . .

It is in the nature of mainstream journalism to attempt to be kind to Presidents when they are coming and going but to be fiercely skeptical in between. I've been feeling sorry for Bush lately, a feeling partly induced by recent fictional depictions of the President as an amiable lunkhead in Oliver Stone's W. and in Curtis Sittenfeld's terrific novel American Wife. There was a photo in the New York Times that seemed to sum up his current circumstance: Bush in Peru, dressed in an alpaca poncho, standing alone just after the photo op at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, with various Asian leaders departing the stage, none of them making eye contact with him. Bush has that forlorn what-the-hell-happened? expression on his face, the one that has marked his presidency at difficult times. You never want to see the President of the United States looking like that. . . .

It is too early to rate the performance of Bush's economic team, but we have more than enough evidence to say, definitively, that at a moment when there was a vast national need for reassurance, the President himself was a cipher. Yes, he's a lame duck with an Antarctic approval rating . . .

In the end, though, it will not be the creative paralysis that defines Bush. It will be his intellectual laziness, at home and abroad. Bush never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and regulation that was necessary to make markets work. He never understood, or cared about, the delicate balance between freedom and equity that was necessary to maintain the strong middle class required for both prosperity and democracy. He never considered the complexities of the cultures he was invading. He never understood that faith, unaccompanied by rigorous skepticism, is a recipe for myopia and foolishness. He is less than President now, and that is appropriate. He was never very much of one.

What Joe used to say: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/26/klein/index.html

Bonus item: MSNBC gets snarky

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_lame_duck_2.php

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:53 AM

 
“THE GROWN-UPS ARE COMING”

Paul Krugman: “the grown-ups are coming”

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/the-grownups-are-coming/

More: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/11/25/obama-s-health-care-team-they-mean-business.aspx
Obama's Health Care Team: They Mean Business

Is Obama “moving toward the center”? Or was he always there? And what does “center” mean right now?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_advisers_hes_not_moving.php
Obama Advisers: He's Not Moving To The Center

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_pursuing_bipartisanship.php
Obama Preparing To Redefine The "Center"

Obama may have a chance to make a major impact on the Supreme Court: who’s on the list?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/11/19/supreme_court/index.html

Some evaluations: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/25/scotus-a-go-go/

The future of stem-cell research

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/25/21551/579/560/665569

As expected, Obama is keeping on Robert Gates as Sect’y of Defense

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/reports_gates_to_stay_as_secre.php

The pros and cons: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/25/19433/518

John Brennan, in line for a top intelligence post, withdraws his name from consideration; the progressive blogosphere rejoices

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/brennan_out_of_running_for_top.php
[AP] In a letter Tuesday, Brennan wrote to Obama that he did not want to be a distraction. His potential appointment has raised a firestorm in liberal blogs who associate him with the Bush administration's interrogation, detention and rendition policies. . .

Cheers: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015817.php

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/25/john_brennan/index.html

What next? http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/25/16819/362/830/666340

Obama’s “pragmatic” foreign policy team – is this a good or bad thing?

The team: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_new_team.php

“Pragmatism vs. ideology” http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/25/pragmatism-v-ideology-international-relations/

“How to engage with Iran”

http://www.middleeastprogress.org/2008/11/us-engagement-with-iran-a-how-to-guide/

More: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/how_to_engage_with_iran.php
[Matt Yglesias] One thread running through this advice is that for a diplomatic strategy to succeed, the people carrying it out need to be primarily concerned with trying to make it succeed, hoping that the fruits of a breakthrough would provide the political justification for having undertaken the mission. If you go in trying to guard your right flank and “look tough,” it’s going to be hard to follow this advice.

A sad, little voice

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/25/202839/19/383/665770
[AFP] US President George W. Bush believes the Iraq war was a success and is "very pleased" with what is happening there . . . "I think the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was right” . . .

Bush plans to stiff Iraq over the troops agreement – you watch

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/56474.html
The Bush administration has adopted a much looser interpretation than the Iraqi government of several key provisions of the pending U.S.-Iraq security agreement, U.S. officials said Tuesday . . .

Officials in Washington said the administration has withheld the official English translation of the agreement in an effort to suppress a public dispute with the Iraqis until after the Iraqi parliament votes. . . .

In some areas, three officials told McClatchy, the U.S. and Iraq have agreed on the words but have different interpretations of what they mean. All three declined to speak on the record because the administration, which had planned to release the official English language text last week, has instead designated it "sensitive but unclassified." [read on]

Is Afghanistan getting ready to kick us out too?

http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2008/11/25/you-aint-gotta-go-home-but-you-gotta-get-the-hell-up-outta-here/

The new Bush stance on torture: pardons aren’t necessary, because DOJ legal opinions made it legal

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/report_bushies_who_approved_to.php

More: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122756675347954409.html

Jonathan Turley rips them up: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#27917883



We’re paying for Alberto Gonzales’ legal bills

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015808.php

Rove rewrites history

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015815.php

The GOP has a death wish

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245803.php
[WSJ] The [Obama economic stimulus] plans brought a quick retort from House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio. He said lawmakers "should start listening to the American people, who do not believe increasing government spending is the best way to put our economy back on track." He proposed eliminating the capital gains tax, which is currently 15%, as well as other tax cuts.

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/25/the-tax-history-conservatives-want-us-to-forget/
[David Sirota] Grover Norquist is regularly billed as one of the leading intellectual lights of the conservative movement - and I think you will agree that the arguments he made in a debate with me over taxes this morning on CNBC highlight not merely the shocking intellectual bankruptcy of the movement he leads, but just how out of touch Republicans in Washington really are.

The debate revolved around President-elect Obama's potential plans to put off raising taxes on the very wealthy. Norquist begins the debate with the claim - I kid you not - that "the economy is in the present state because when the Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006 you knew those tax increases were going to come in 2010." He insisted that, "The stock market began to collapse as soon as you recognize that those old tax rates were coming back." Yes, because under "those old tax rates" - ie. Clinton-era tax rates - the economy was so much worse than it is today.

As you'll see, the CNBC reporters start laughing at Norquist, having trouble taking him seriously. And I must say, I really wasn't sure he was being serious - but, of course, he was. . . . [read on]

Some Republicans understand the problem

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015811.php
[Roger Simon] The old labels that the Republicans used to hang on the Democrats did not stick.

"The Democrats talked about middle-class tax cuts! They weren't the party of the poor anymore! They weren't the party of gun control anymore! What did Republicans want? Tax cuts for the rich! And small government," he says.

Small government -- the mantra of the Republican Party ever since Ronald Reagan -- will not work anymore, the senator says.

"We can't revive the ghost of Ronald Reagan," he says. "People want government in times of need." . . .

"Sarah Palin is not the voice of our party."

In Minnesota, it’s all coming down to contested ballots

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/25/17816/964

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/franken_camps_claim_were_only.php

Update: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10154

In Georgia, it’s all coming down to turnout

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/25/one-week-before-the-vote-chambliss-martin-senate-runoff-within-the-margin-of-error/

McCain’s ad guy says, we never even used the really vicious stuff

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/25/ads_we_never_saw.html

“Disgusting,” yes

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245805.php
[Josh Marshall] You've probably noticed Mark Halperin's claim that the level of pro-Obama bias in the election coverage this year was so bad it was "disgusting." I'll leave it to others to analyze what "disgusting" means when deployed by someone who takes his journalistic cues from Matt Drudge . . . [read on]

Bonus item: Who knew it was so simple?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/ann-coulters-jaw-wired-shut.html
Ann Coulter's jaw wired shut

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:11 AM

 
OH CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!

The mess we’re in

http://www.newsweek.com/id/163449
[Fareed Zakaria] Some of us—especially those under 60—have always wondered what it would be like to live through the kind of epochal event one reads about in books. Well, this is it. We're now living history, suffering one of the greatest financial panics of all time. It compares with the big ones—1907, 1929—and we cannot yet know its full consequences for the financial system, the economy or society as a whole. . . . [read on]

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/12/01/081201fa_fact_cassidy
[John Cassidy] Bernanke, working closely with Henry (Hank) Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, a voluble former investment banker, was determined to keep the financial sector operating long enough so that it could repair itself—a policy that he and his Fed colleagues referred to as the “finger-in-the-dike” strategy. As recently as Labor Day, he believed that the strategy was working. . . .

The most serious charge against Bernanke and Paulson is that their response to the crisis has been ad hoc and contradictory: they rescued Bear Stearns but allowed Lehman Brothers to fail; for months, they dismissed the danger from the subprime crisis and then suddenly announced that it was grave enough to justify a huge bailout; they said they needed seven hundred billion dollars to buy up distressed mortgage securities and then, in October, used the money to purchase stock in banks instead. Summing up the widespread frustration with Bernanke, Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a liberal think tank in Washington, told me, “He was behind the curve at every stage of the story. He didn’t see the housing bubble until after it burst. Until as late as this summer, he downplayed all the risks involved. In terms of policy, he has not presented a clear view. . . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245596.php
[David Kurtz] The $700 billion bailout package passed by Congress is small potatoes compared to the $7.4 trillion that the Fed has pledged to throw at the credit crisis . . . So far, $2.8 trillion has actually been tapped by financial institutions, but the Fed is still refusing to disclose who got the loans recipients and what collateral secures the government loans.

More: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109

http://www.propublica.org/article/the-feds-secret-893-billion-loan-portfolio-1124/

Watch: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/peter-schiff-guy-who-predicted-housing.html



Now, Citigroup

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/business/23citi.html
In September 2007, with Wall Street confronting a crisis caused by too many souring mortgages, Citigroup executives gathered in a wood-paneled library to assess their own well-being.

There, Citigroup’s chief executive, Charles O. Prince III, learned for the first time that the bank owned about $43 billion in mortgage-related assets. He asked Thomas G. Maheras, who oversaw trading at the bank, whether everything was O.K. . . . [read on]

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-many-billions-will-govt-lose-in-citi-deal-1124/
[Paul Kiel] The government's bailout of Citigroup is different from the Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and AIG bailouts. It's most clearly put this way: The government has agreed to absorb up to $247.5 billion in losses in exchange for a $7 billion fee. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015791.php
Paul Krugman notes this morning that a Citigroup bailout, under the circumstances, may have been worthwhile, but this bailout is outrageous: "a lousy deal for the taxpayers, no accountability for management, and just to make things perfect, quite possibly inadequate, so that Citi will be back for more. Amazing how much damage the lame ducks can do in the time remaining." . . . [read on]

Oh, very nice. Treasury Sect’y Paulson said that he wouldn’t be able to spend all the $700 billion allocated to the bailout, and would turn over half of it to Obama to use in light of his priorities after he took office. Well . . .

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, less than a week after indicating he would let the Obama administration decide how to use the second half of the $700 billion financial fund, is considering asking for the money. . . .

Astonishing, if you think about it. Joe Lieberman says, offhandedy, that we’re “between Presidents.” Well, you know, we’re not really. We HAVE an elected President – not that you can tell

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27873500/page/2/
SEN. JOE LIEBERMAN (I-CT): As everyone knows, this is an unprecedented economic situation. I mean, just think about the effects. We've lost about $8 trillion of value in the stock market. There are millions of Americans whose home mortgages are either in foreclosure or about to go into foreclosure. Unemployment is rising. We need to work together to, to get the economy going again. I was . . . I'm concerned that we're between presidents now and in the meantime, the economy is continuing to cycle down and, to, to a lot of people, out of control.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27873500/
[James Baker] I think that a lot of what we're seeing out there today is a lack of confidence, and the president-elect and, as a matter of fact, the current president have to face this problem over the next 60 days. It's unfortunate that we're in this interregnum of a transition, but I think that something very useful might even come out of the two of them sitting down together and addressing not the, not the midterm, not the mid and long-term problem that we face that was the subject of the president-elect's speech, but the--but facing--but addressing stability of our financial system and to see if there isn't something that they could do jointly, together, over the next 58 to 60 days that would help us make sure that the--that the financial system is stabilized and, and secure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/24/AR2008112402117.html
[Eugene Robinson] The problem, and it's becoming serious, is that no one is prepared to orchestrate a comprehensive program to stabilize the financial system, put a floor under housing prices and keep the economy from sinking into a long, punishing recession.

Bush could and should do it -- he is still president, and preventing economic collapse is part of the job description. But he won't. It's ironic that after being so aggressive and proactive in other areas, the Decider is so indecisive and passive about the economy. He has limited his role to signing off on whatever Paulson says . . . [read on]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/opinion/23friedman.html
[Tom Friedman] If I had my druthers right now we would convene a special session of Congress, amend the Constitution and move up the inauguration from Jan. 20 to Thanksgiving Day. . . .

[NB: It's a silly idea, of course -- but it reveals so much that he would even suggest it]

Mister Cellophane

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245627.php
[David Kurtz] President Bush appeared this morning with Henry Paulson -- I guess just to affirm that he'd signed off on the Citigroup bailout, in case we were concerned that he'd delegated all of his powers to Treasury and the Fed.

Song reference: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/c/chicagolyrics/mrcellophanelyrics.html
Cellophane
Mister Cellophane
Shoulda been my name
Mister Cellophane
'Cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there...

Yes, health care IS an economic recovery issue

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/key_obama_adviser_health_care.php

Obama is making Rush lose his mind, apparently

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_112408/content/01125106.guest.html
[Rush Limbaugh] He is promising you here a collectivist, socialist agenda. This is right out of FDR and the TVA and all these make-work projects, building roads, crumbling roads, bridges and so forth . . . This is a rerun of FDR . . .

He is turning crisis into opportunity. This that he is announcing today with his economic team, his speech on Saturday, his radio address, all of this spending. This has nothing to do with reform; it has nothing to do with improving the economy. It will not work, not as you and I define work. It will work for them. It will work for Obama and the Democrats. It will continue to create crisis. It will not create two-and-a-half million private sector jobs. It may create two-and-a-half million government jobs. They could do that overnight if they wanted to, and that may be what they intend. . . .

Two-and-a-half million jobs would more than double the federal workforce, or thereabouts, if that's what he has in mind. By the way, does anybody want to continue the discussion that Obama is governing from the center, that Obama is a moderate? This is full-fledged, FDR, New Deal collectivism that he is outlining; and I listened to a little bit of his announcement ceremony that's taking place today, and it is pretty much what I thought it would be. He's making these radical proposals . . . But he is doing it with an air of confidence and assuredness that is a continuation of the image. It's sort of like the way FDR mesmerized people with the fireside chats. He just inspired confidence. He sounds like he knows what he's doing; he sounds like he's in charge . . .

An emerging right-wing meme: Obama only won because he won the stupid vote

http://brighthall.aol.com/2008/11/20/obama-voters-are-stupid-zogby-says/

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081123/OPINION03/811230310/1008/OPINION01

Al Franken too: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15904.html

Mark Halperin joins the chorus that the press shamelessly flacked for Obama (this despite the obvious evidence that McCain was BELOVED by the press until his campaign turned stupid and ugly)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/24/11302/306/554/665591

Republican obstructionism: how far can they go?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/obstructionism.html

Republicans still try to insist that they’re relevant, and Obama has to deal with THEM. Uh, guys, isn’t it vice versa?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245687.php

Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) ran ads in 2002 depicting triple-amputee war hero Max Cleland as a Bin Laden-lovin’ traitor – so you know he’ll do anything to win. But even for him . . . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/24/just-like-he-did-to-cleland-saxby-chambliss-swiftboating-jim-martin-with-disgusting-new-ads/

It’s working: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/poll_gop_senator_hangs_on_to_s.php

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/25/insideradvantage_chambliss_holds_small_lead_in_run_off.html

Missing ballots in Minnesota

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/franken_camp_warns_of_another.php

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/franken_camp_claims_race_still.php

Spying on our friends

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/report_nsa_listened_in_on_blai.php
Did U.S. intelligence listen in on the personal phone calls of Tony Blair . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015796.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/report-us-spied-on-tony-blair.html

Bonus item: “Thank you Sarah Palin” – I kept waiting for this to turn into a parody. It never does

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/palins_not_going_anywhere.php



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:07 AM

 
A NEW BROOM

It’s pretty clear now that Obama is going to push hard for a very big stimulus/new energy/employment/infrastructure package. You don’t get many chances, and this is a big one: and I see no way the Republicans can block or filibuster it. I’d like to see them try

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/11/goal-stimulus-p.html
Democratic sources tell ABC News that President-elect Obama's transition team is working with lawmakers on Capitol Hill so that on Obama's first day in office, Jan. 20, 2009, an economic stimulus package has passed both houses of Congress and is awaiting his signature. . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245569.php

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/stimulus_update.html
[WP] "Democrats can't seem to stop trying to outbid each other — with the taxpayers' money," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. "We're in tough economic times. Folks are hurting. But the American people know that more Washington spending isn't the answer."

Obama has a dilemma: he doesn’t want to start off his administration with a series of difficult (and seemingly vindictive) investigations into Bush/Cheney wrongdoing. On the other hand, he wants to draw a clear line with the previous administration’s policies of rendition, torture, and imprisonment without trial that have sullied the US reputation around the world. A possible solution? Instead of criminal investigations or congressional hearings, a 9/11 style bipartisan committee devoted to factfinding and bringing actions to light, rather than punishments that might never be achieved anyway

http://www.newsweek.com/id/170368
Despite the hopes of many human-rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible. "At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened," said one senior adviser . . . [read on]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/beating-torture-by-digby-wasnt-michael.html
[Mark Benjamin] The plan would not rule out future prosecutions, but would delay a decision on that matter until all essential facts can be unearthed. Between the time necessary for the investigative process and the daunting array of policy problems Obama will face upon taking office, any decision on prosecutions probably would not come until a second Obama presidential term, should there be one.

The proposed commission -- similar in thrust to a Democratic investigation proposal first uncovered by Salon in July -- would examine a broad scope of activities, including detention, torture and extraordinary rendition, the practice of snatching suspected terrorists off the street and whisking them off to a third country for abusive interrogations. The commission might also pry into the claims by the White House -- widely rejected by experienced interrogators -- that abusive interrogations are an effective and necessary intelligence tool.

A common view among those involved with the talks is that any early effort to prosecute Bush administration officials would likely devolve quickly into ugly and fruitless partisan warfare. Second is that even if Obama decided he had the appetite for it, prosecutions in this arena are problematic at best: A series of memos from the Bush Justice Department approved the harsh tactics, and Congress changed the War Crimes Act in 2006, making prosecutions of individuals involved in interrogations more difficult. . .

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/the_torture_commission.html
[Kevin Drum] I find myself surprisingly torn by all this. My instinctive reaction is to turn over every last shred of paper in open court and mercilessly toss into jail anyone associated in any way with this stuff. But I suspect Obama is reacting more wisely than me in this matter. Not only would trials and jail sentences set off a firestorm of protest, but in the end they might not accomplish much either. That's discouraging as hell to write, but at bottom we still have a public opinion problem here: like it or not, half the country still seems to think that torturing al-Qaeda suspects was perfectly acceptable.

So in the end, perhaps we'll get half of a Truth and Reconciliation commission: we'll get the truth, but not the reconciliation, since I doubt that any of the perpetrators of this stuff are inclined to show the slightest remorse for what they did. I suppose that here in the real world this might be the most we can expect, but I don't have to like it. And I don't.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/what_to_do_with_war_criminals.php
[Matt Yglesias] I think it’s important to draw a distinction between simply declining to engage in war crimes prosecutions as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, and actually taking prosecution off the table. The latter should be done, if at all, only in exchange for confessions, expressions of remorse, and cooperation with investigations. The former may is probably the better part of wisdom for now, but many of the perpetrators can be expected to live for decades and absent something like a real Truth and Reconciliation Commission the door should be left open to doing something down the road if circumstances change. I don’t think it’s even remotely acceptable to just give a full retrospective stamp of approval on everything that was done during the Bush years merely because that might be the most convenient way to build legislative support for Obama’s domestic agenda.

Undoing the Bush/Cheney web of secrecy

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0811.homans.html
[Charles Homans] In 1974, Congress ordered a lockdown on all records kept by the Nixon White House, afraid that the outgoing president would try to wipe out the paper trail of his disastrous second term and chastened by the recent destruction of decades’ worth of FBI files by the late director J. Edgar Hoover’s loyal secretary. . . .

Fortunately, an accounting of the Bush years is a less daunting prospect than it seems from the outset. If the new president and leaders on Capitol Hill act shrewdly, they can pull it off while successfully navigating the political realities and expectations they now face. A few key actions will take us much of the distance between what we know and what we need to know.

TREAT THE NAVAL OBSERVATORY LIKE A CRIME SCENE . . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015787.php

Special access to Obama for Hillary?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/us/politics/23hillary.html
The thaw in the resentful relationship between the most powerful woman in the Democratic Party and her younger male rival began at the party’s convention this summer, when Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton gave such a passionate speech supporting Senator Barack Obama that his top aides leapt out of their chairs backstage to give her a standing ovation as she swept past.

Mr. Obama, who was in the first steps of what would become a strategic courtship, called afterward to thank her. By then, close aides to Mrs. Clinton said, she had come to respect the campaign Mr. Obama had run against her. At the least, she knew he understood like no one else the brutal strains of their epic primary battle.

By this past Thursday, when Mr. Obama reassured Mrs. Clinton that as secretary of state she would have direct access to him and could select her own staff, the wooing was complete.

“She feels like she’s been treated very well in the way she’s been asked,” said a close associate of Mrs. Clinton . . .

What will Obama do about the Bush tax cuts?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10112

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/obama-not-likely-to-push-repeal-of-bush.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/23/for-the-good-of-the-economy-the-bush-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-must-expire/

Politics versus policy

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10114
[David Rothkopf] "This is the violin model: Hold power with the left hand, and play the music with your right” . . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/pushing-argot-of-left-by-digby-david.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10118

Obama’s appointments: not liberal enough?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/23/obama/index.html
[Glenn Greenwald] I've been genuinely mystified by the disappointment and surprise being expressed by many liberals over the fact that Obama's most significant appointments thus far are composed of pure Beltway establishment figures drawn from the center-right of the Democratic Party and, probably once he names his Defense Secretary and CIA Director, even from the Bush administration -- but not from the Left. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10113

Obama’s appointments: not bipartisan enough?

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15893.html

Brent Scowcroft: behind the scenes

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122747548224451435.html
Many of the Republicans emerging as potential members of the Obama administration have professional and ideological ties to Brent Scowcroft, a former national-security adviser turned public critic of the Bush White House.

Mr. Scowcroft spoke by phone with President-elect Barack Obama last week, the latest in a months-long series of conversations between the two men about defense and foreign-policy issues, according to people familiar with the discussions.

The relationship between the president-elect and the Republican heavyweight suggests that Mr. Scowcroft's views, which place a premium on an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, might hold sway in the Obama White House. . . .

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/23/20750/902

Here’s something we don’t talk about very much: the future of agricultural policy under Obama

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/24/3838/2901

Here's a man with his priorities straight: Obama skips church, goes to the gym

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15902.html

More on the “center-right nation” myth

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/23/13598/305

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/22/AR2008112202120.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10115

For what it’s worth: Nate Silver predicts that Franken will win the recount in Minnesota

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/27_votes.html

Last weekend, George Will shared with us some of his favorite personal theories about the Great Depression. Unfortunately for him, Paul Krugman was sitting there to school him on his historical inaccuracies and sloppiness of reasoning. This week, without Krugman there, Will repeated exactly the same nonsense. (A slow learner, I guess)

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10117

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/macroeconomic_policy_/2008/11/still_pissing_on_fdrs_grave.php

Last week: http://pbd.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html#8338694589607386249

Joe Lieberman: a weasel to the very end

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015785.php
[Steve Benen] He twice referenced remarks made in the "heat of the campaign," for which he feels "regret." Brokaw noted, "I hear the word regret, but not the word apologize." Lieberman responded that he's "going forward," adding, "You can take from the word "regret" what you will. I wish I had not said some of the things I've said. But again, we all do it."

In the same interview, Brokaw asked which campaign remarks he regretted most, Lieberman said, "I don't want to go into the details." . . . [read on]

Bonus item: Govt officials score lower on civics exam than ordinary citizens

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/23/22302/443/910/664226

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:31 AM

 
GOOD RIDDANCE

As it starts to come to an end, let’s think back on the era of politics the Republicans have given us, starting (let’s say) with the Lewinsky impeachment. Faux outrage, hypocrisy, sanctimonious moralizing, lies, jingoism, relentless partisanship, lawlessness, cover-ups, authoritarianism, corruption, cronyism, and political appeals to resentment, ignorance, hate, and the lowest common denominators of human motivation.

They’ve put us through two wars without end, countless constitutional crises, a ruinous economic catastrophe, and a legacy of torture, secret prisons, surveillance, and a blatant disregard for human rights. We’ll be living with the aftermath of their reckless incompetence and ideological extremism for years to come – but we won’t be living with most of them any more.

The lasting question, about which I have no great hopes is, Has the nation learned a lesson? Will there still be a gullible majority the next time a candidate comes waving cross and flag, promising tax cuts for everyone and calling everyone who opposes him (her?) a godless traitor and enemy of the Real America?

In today’s news:

Many Republicans are going to fight to the death to block health care reform – not because they think it can’t work, but because they’re terrified that it will

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015769.php
[James Pethokoukis] Recently, I stumbled across this analysis of how nationalized healthcare in Great Britain affected the political environment there. As Norman Markowitz in Political Affairs, a journal of "Marxist thought," puts it: "After the Labor Party established the National Health Service after World War II, supposedly conservative workers and low-income people under religious and other influences who tended to support the Conservatives were much more likely to vote for the Labor Party when health care, social welfare, education and pro-working class policies were enacted by labor-supported governments."

Passing Obamacare would be like performing exactly the opposite function of turning people into investors. Whereas the Investor Class is more conservative than the rest of America, creating the Obamacare Class would pull America to the left. Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, who first found that wonderful Markowitz quote, puts it succinctly in a recent blog post: "Blocking Obama's health plan is key to the GOP's survival."

We can’t say they aren’t clear about it: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015770.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/watching_conservatives_/2008/11/gaffe.php

“Why conservatives can’t govern” (thanks to Alicia for the link)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.wolfe.html
[Alan Wolfe, prescient in 2006] Eager to salvage conservatism from the wreckage of conservative rule, right-wing pundits are furiously blaming right-wing politicians for failing to adhere to right-wing convictions. . . .

The collapse of the Bush presidency, in other words, is not just due to Bush's incompetence (although his administration has been incompetent beyond belief). Nor is it a response to the president's principled lack of intellectual curiosity and pitbull refusal to admit mistakes (although those character flaws are certainly real enough). And the orgy of bribery and special-interest dispensation in Congress is not the result of Tom DeLay's ruthlessness, as impressive a bully as he was. This conservative presidency and Congress imploded, not despite their conservatism, but because of it.

Contemporary conservatism is first and foremost about shrinking the size and reach of the federal government. This mission, let us be clear, is an ideological one. It does not emerge out of an attempt to solve real-world problems, such as managing increasing deficits or finding revenue to pay for entitlements built into the structure of federal legislation. It stems, rather, from the libertarian conviction, repeated endlessly by George W. Bush, that the money government collects in order to carry out its business properly belongs to the people themselves. One thought, and one thought only, guided Bush and his Republican allies since they assumed power in the wake of Bush vs. Gore: taxes must be cut, and the more they are cut--especially in ways benefiting the rich--the better.

But like all politicians, conservatives, once in office, find themselves under constant pressure from constituents to use government to improve their lives. This puts conservatives in the awkward position of managing government agencies whose missions--indeed, whose very existence--they believe to be illegitimate. Contemporary conservatism is a walking contradiction. Unable to shrink government but unwilling to improve it, conservatives attempt to split the difference, expanding government for political gain, but always in ways that validate their disregard for the very thing they are expanding. The end result is not just bigger government, but more incompetent government. . . . [read on]

They can’t govern, they won’t be bipartisan – but they sure can whine

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10048
[NYT] The House Republican caucus has so far balked at a chance to meet with Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, the former House Democratic strategist who has been named the new White House chief of staff. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-era-of-comity-and-bipartisanship-by.html
[The Hill] Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Friday sent a message to Democrats that Republicans are not prepared to bend to a stronger majority.

In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), McConnell urged Reid to adopt a more conciliatory tone and warned him that Republicans will unite against Democrats if he does not. The letter was signed by all 40 GOP senators . . .

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/22/breaking-conservatives-react-sensibly-to-election-losses-eschew-acting-like-loons/

Love them earmarks

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/22/16152/806/383/664753

The kind of people they are

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/national_gop_groups_accuse_cri.php
[Eric Kleefeld] Now this is really something. The NRSC and Freedom's Watch are now airing ads in the Georgia Senate runoff accusing Democratic candidate Jim Martin of being against cracking down on people who abuse and prey on children.

The problem: Martin's own daughter was abducted when she was eight years old. Fortunately, she was returned safely. When asked for comment by Election Central, the NRSC declined to comment . . .

Newt gets pwned big time by his little sister, Candace. Ouch!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/candace-gingrich/a-letter-to-my-brother-ne_b_145739.html
Dear Newt,

I recently had the displeasure of watching you bash the protestors of the Prop 8 marriage ban to Bill O'Reilly on FOX News. I must say, after years of watching you build your career by stirring up the fears and prejudices of the far right, I feel compelled to use the words of your idol, Ronald Reagan, "There you go, again."

However, I realize that you may have been a little preoccupied lately with planning your resurrection as the savior of your party, so I thought I would fill you in on a few important developments you might have overlooked.

The truth is that you're living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as -- and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past.

Welcome to the 21st century, big bro. I can understand why you're so afraid of the energy that has been unleashed after gay and lesbian couples had their rights stripped away from them by a hateful campaign. I can see why you're sounding the alarm against the activists who use all the latest tech tools to build these rallies from the ground up in cities across the country.

This unstoppable progress has at its core a group we at HRC call Generation Equality. They are the most supportive of full LGBT equality than any American generation ever -- and when it comes to the politics of division, well, they don't roll that way. 18-24 year olds voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8 and overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. And the numbers of young progressive voters will only continue to grow. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning, about 23 million 18-29 year olds voted on Nov. 4, 2008 -- the most young voters ever to cast a ballot in a presidential election. That's an increase of 3 million more voters compared to 2004.

These are the same people who helped elect Barack Obama and sent a decisive message to your party. These young people are the future and their energy will continue to drive our country forward. Even older Americans are turning their backs on the politics of fear and demagoguery that you and your cronies have perfected over the years.

This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It's a movement of progress -- and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.

Then again, we've seen these tactics before. We know how much the right likes to play political and cultural hardball, and then turn around and accuse us of lashing out first. You give a pass to a religious group -- one that looks down upon minorities and women -- when they use their money and membership roles to roll back the rights of others, and then you label us "fascists" when we fight back. You belittle the relationships of gay and lesbian couples, and yet somehow neglect to explain who anointed you the protector of "traditional" marriage. And, of course, you've also mastered taking the foolish actions of a few people and then indicting an entire population based on those mistakes. I fail to see how any of these patterns coincide with the values of "historic Christianity" you claim to champion.

Again, nothing new here. This is just more of the blatant hypocrisy we're used to hearing.

What really worries me is that you are always willing to use LGBT Americans as political weapons to further your ambitions. That's really so '90s, Newt. In this day and age, it's embarrassing to watch you talk like that. You should be more afraid of the new political climate in America, because, there is no place for you in it.

In other words, stop being a hater, big bro.

Obama’s Karl Rove?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015771.php
[T]he Obama transition announced yesterday that the Office of Political Affairs will remain in place, and it will be led by Patrick Gaspard, a longtime labor activist with the SEIU and the national political director for the Obama campaign. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/22/AR2008112201998.html

The Bush recession

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/measuring-bush-recession

The future of the US auto industry

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/tnr-on-why-we-cant-afford-to-let-auto.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/21/homework-assignment-for-the-big-two-and-a-half-solve-retirement-and-health-care/

Obama’s weekly address lays out an exciting plan to jump-start the economy

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m17pz0R_qZo



Text: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/22/105213/85/22/665098

Commentary: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/22/14244/025/986/665159

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015772.php

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/22/how_obama_is_already_taking_ch/

Updates on the Coleman/Franken recount in Minnesota. It’s all going to come down to disputed ballots and uncounted absentee votes -- and Coleman's attempt to create the perception that he's already "won" and that Franken is trying to steal it from him

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/22/92453/531

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/its-what-they-do-by-digby-karl-rove.html

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/22/19302/326/258/664854

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/after-another-day-of-recounting-ballots.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/22/222533/98

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/coleman_has_very_good_day_in_m.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10108

Lots of interest now in Tim Geithner, nominee for Sect’y of the Treasury. Who is he?

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/reading_about_timothy_geithner.php

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1952

The task ahead for Eric Holder

http://www.slate.com/id/2205185/
[Dahlia Lithwick] The U.S. Justice Department faces an internal crisis in morale and a public crisis in credibility. And while every Justice Department pushes its political agenda alongside its lofty goals of upholding the law, the Bush Justice Department sometimes pushed its political agenda in direct violation of the law. The question now is whether Eric Holder, Barack Obama's pick for attorney general, can fix it. . . .

Funny moment between Obama and Clinton during the Iowa debate

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245525.php

Obama’s Cabinet: missing liberals?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2008/nov/22/obama-white-house-cabinet-liberals

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015778.php#more

Excellent question: why are we hearing so often, post-election, that the US is a “center-right nation”? If we were, would it have to be repeated so often?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/chart_of_the_day_11222008.html
[David Sirota] The media has exponentially increased the amount of times it claims that this country is a "center-right nation" — at the very same time public opinion data shows the country is a decidedly center-left nation. . . . [read on]

More: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_new_center_right.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015777.php

Bush’s war on science continues

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015776.php

Ironic: we just had a campaign in which a central theme was the difference between celebrity and qualified leadership. Looks like someone hasn’t learned that lesson yet

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/move-aside-michael-deaver-sarah-palin.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/23/0451/3489/371/659656
ABC This Week: Incoming White House senior adviser David Axelrod on the Obama transition; Sens. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on the economic crisis.

NBC Meet the Press: Former Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary James Baker; Obama transition adviser and former Secretary of Commerce William Daley; Scourge of the liberal blogosphere Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT).

CBS Face the Nation: Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Obama chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee.

CNN Late Edition: Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D); Failed Presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R); Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI); Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX); Pres. & CEO of Forbes Inc. Steve Forbes; Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Bonus item: A new reason for Thanksgiving

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015774.php
[Gail Collins] Thanksgiving is next week, and President Bush could make it a really special holiday by resigning. . . . [read on]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:33 AM

 
TWO MONTHS

We’re hearing more and more about Chapter 11 bankruptcy as an opportunity to restructure the auto industry. It very well might happen, but at what cost?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/21/prepackaged-bankruptcy-be-careful-of-what-you-wish-for/

What is it? http://www.superpages.com/supertips/what-is-chapter-11-bankruptcy.html

More on the dangers of a two-month wait between administrations

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/opinion/21krugman.html
[Paul Krugman] The interregnum of 1932-1933, the long stretch between the election and the actual transfer of power, was disastrous for the U.S. economy, at least in part because the outgoing administration had no credibility, the incoming administration had no authority and the ideological chasm between the two sides was too great to allow concerted action. And the same thing is happening now. . . . [read on]

Anybody out there have Verizon service?

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/11/21/verizon_obama/index.html
Yet another public figure's privacy has been breached: Verizon says some of its employees, without authorization, accessed President-elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone records. . . .

Obama announces more of his economic team

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obamas_cabinet_taking_shape_ge.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/21/18028/275/281/664847

The stock market responds

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/business/22markets.html
Stocks Soar on News of Choice for Treasury

More announcements on the foreign policy and national security side

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/hillary_all_but_certain_to_be.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/21/18312/761/285/664851

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE4AK08T20081121

The Cabinet so far

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/obamas_cabinet.html
[Kevin Drum] Whatever else you can say about this crew, there's not much question that Obama is assembling an extremely experienced and competent set of advisors. This is a team that can definitely hit the ground running. . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015768.php
[Hilzoy] I'm quite impressed by the way Barack Obama's cabinet is shaking out. Eric Holder seems to be a superb choice for Attorney General, as is Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security. I'm really happy about Daschle at HHS -- both because I think it raises the chances that we'll actually get a serious health care plan through Congress, and because Daschle's appointment indicates that that's a serious priority for Obama. I'm still reading up on Timothy Geithner, but so far I'm quite impressed by him as well. . . .

Anybody who’s surprised by this hasn’t been paying attention

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/22/us/politics/22assess.html
[Obama is] surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues. . . .

Surprised? http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10096

Why Obama HAS to govern from the center

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/21/blue-dogs-in-orbit-over-waxman-victory/

The Minnesota recount: Coleman’s lead is now under 100 votes

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/franken_camps_claim_weve_cut_c.php

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/21/22137/425

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10095

Mystery Man

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245478.php

Why have Republican favorability numbers dropped so significantly AFTER the election?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245379.php

More on the decline of Republicanism (thanks to Duckham for the link)

http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12599247
[The Economist] The Republicans lost the battle of ideas even more comprehensively than they lost the battle for educated votes, marching into the election armed with nothing more than slogans. Energy? Just drill, baby, drill. Global warming? Crack a joke about Ozone Al. Immigration? Send the bums home. Torture and Guantánamo? Wear a T-shirt saying you would rather be water-boarding. Ha ha. During the primary debates, three out of ten Republican candidates admitted that they did not believe in evolution.

The Republican Party’s divorce from the intelligentsia has been a while in the making. The born-again Mr Bush preferred listening to his “heart” rather than his “head”. He also filled the government with incompetent toadies like Michael “heck-of-a-job” Brown, who bungled the response to Hurricane Katrina. Mr McCain, once the chattering classes’ favourite Republican, refused to grapple with the intricacies of the financial meltdown, preferring instead to look for cartoonish villains. And in a desperate attempt to serve boob bait to Bubba, he appointed Sarah Palin to his ticket, a woman who took five years to get a degree in journalism, and who was apparently unaware of some of the most rudimentary facts about international politics.

Republicanism’s anti-intellectual turn is devastating for its future. . . .

The other day we heard about Bush appointees “burrowing” into permanent govt jobs. Guess where they’re burrowing?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/21/AR2008112103359.html
The president of the nation's largest general science organization yesterday sharply criticized recent cases of Bush administration political appointees gaining permanent federal jobs with responsibility for making or administering scientific policies, saying the result would be "to leave wreckage behind."

"It's ludicrous to have people who do not have a scientific background, who are not trained and skilled in the ways of science, make decisions that involve resources, that involve facilities in the scientific infrastructure," said James McCarthy, a Harvard University oceanographer who is president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "You'd just like to think people have more respect for the institution of government than to leave wreckage behind with these appointments." . . .

Iraqi protests over the SOFA agreement

http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/thousands-demonstrate-against-us.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2008/11/2008112192922854370.html

Iraq: Bush's legacy

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/21/frankenstein_in_mesopotamia/
[Tom Hayden] The most important things, some say, are the things left unsaid. If so, the unmentionable thing would be the police state America is leaving behind in Baghdad. . . .

For example, there has not been a single Congressional inquiry into the oblique revelations in Bob Woodward's latest book about secret operations launched in May 2006 to "locate, target, and kill individuals in extremist groups". The top intelligence adviser on these operations, Derek Harvey, told Woodward that the killings gave him orgasms. These were extra-judicial killings, with the Pentagon acting as judge, jury and executioner. The definition of "extremist" was stretched to include anyone named by an informant as a supporter of the Sunni insurgency, supported by an overwhelming majority of Sunnis. . . . [read on]

Will Afghanistan become Obama’s Iraq? (thanks to Ahmad for the link)

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175003/tariq_ali_flight_path_to_disaster_in_afghanistan

What we don’t know (yet)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/11/21/BL2008112101582.html
[Dan Froomkin] When and if the curtain is fully pulled back on President Bush's "war on terror," how much of what he said will turn out to be true, and how much of it will turn out to be fantasy and lies? . . . [read on]

The false debate over the Fairness Doctrine

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015759.php

O’Reilly: the Internet has a liberal bias. Hey, pal, right now DEMOCRACY has a liberal bias. Live with it

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/21/oreilly-internet-bias/

Bonus item: From 2004. Amazing irony, isn’t it?

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/cover-of-time-circa-2004.html



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:33 AM

 
STATE OF TRANSITION

We’re in a very dangerous time: a series of crises, an outgoing administration that seems mainly concerned with protecting its own “legacy” (what’s left of it), and a new administration with an aggressive change agenda but no opportunity to implement it for two more months. Can we hold out that long?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245273.php
[Josh Marshall] How much would things be different if Barack Obama had been sworn in on November 5th? . . . [read on]

The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Iraq. We already know that their Parliament has to approve it, while our Congress doesn’t. But even though it’s been signed, we haven’t even SEEN a translated version of it. Rachel Maddow tells us why

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#27831761



Bush’s pardon list: who’s on it?

http://www.propublica.org/article/i-beg-your-pardon-1120

A way of doing business

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR2008112002011.html
An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru, according to a senior lawmaker who called yesterday for a new criminal inquiry into the case.

The agency's inspector general said CIA officers repeatedly ignored rules of engagement in a joint U.S.-Peruvian campaign to halt airborne drug smugglers, resulting in the downing of at least 10 other aircraft without proper warnings. Afterward, CIA managers concealed the problems from lawmakers and the Justice Department, the agency watchdog said.

Even the White House was kept in the dark, as agency officials and lawyers withheld key details while cautioning their staff to avoid putting anything in writing that might be used later in a criminal or civil case, the inspector general said in a report. . . .

Will Obama change policies on illegal surveillance?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/20/eyes-on-the-spies-what-obama-can-do-about-illegal-surveillance/

What are the prospects (really) for bipartisanship in Washington?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015751.php

Yes, change is gonna come: here’s what Henry Waxman’s aggressive takeover of the Energy and Commerce Committee means

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245192.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/in_big_win_for_liberals_waxman.php

Karl Rove, aging and increasingly irrelevant Boy Genius, now says Obama’s unprecedented use of the Internet is illegal

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015749.php

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/conservatives_rediscover_passion_for_limits_on_executive_power.php

It definitely looks as if Hillary’s in as Obama’s Sect’y of State, and I think that’s a good decision. But people keep raising questions . . .

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/19/clemons.hillary/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/20/AR2008112003464.html
If Clinton's the Pick, Where Does That Leave Richardson?

Good question: why do Democrats feel they have to appoint Republicans as their Defense Sect’ys?

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10063

As the recount proceeds in Minnesota, Republican Norm Coleman’s lead keeps steadily shrinking. Could we see a big upset after all?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/so_whats_next_in_minnesota.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/20/161157/61/842/664286

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/20/franken-coleman-recount-update-is-that-toast-i-smell/

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10073

It’s just too much damn fun ridiculing Michele Bachmann

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/20/111341/01/11/664100

As Republican Tom Davis said, if it was dog food they’d have to take it off the shelves

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_16_archive.html#9155847376935236121
The Republican Party's image has gone from bad to worse over the past month, as only 34% of Americans in a Nov. 13-16 Gallup Poll say they have a favorable view of the party, down from 40% in mid-October. The 61% now holding an unfavorable view of the GOP is the highest Gallup has recorded for that party since the measure was established in 1992.

And what’s the BAD news?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/20/92651/757/76/664043
[Polico] The Republicans’ only glimmer of good news: When Stevens — the longest-serving Republican in Senate history — conceded his Alaska race to Democrat Mark Begich on Wednesday, he spared them the unpleasant task of having to expel him from their caucus.

Very smart: how talk radio HURTS the Republicans

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/did-talk-radio-kill-conservatism.html

More: http://www.samefacts.com/archives/watching_conservatives_/2008/11/conservatives_are_from_radio_liberals_are_from.php

A clever parody of Fox News

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10064

Bonus item: Yes, the word “turkey” definitely comes to mind

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#27831044



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:02 AM

 
LONG AND DEEP

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122706319966040053.html
"When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, 'We're OK with minor reform.' I'm challenging you today, we're going to have to do big, serious things," Rahm Emanuel said, speaking to The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council, a conference convened to elicit corporate opinion on the challenges facing the new president. . . .

Mr. Emanuel promised that a major economic stimulus would be "the first order of business" for Mr. Obama when he takes office Jan. 20. The focus of spending will be on infrastructure, specifically "green infrastructure," which he said would include mass transit, upgraded electricity transmission lines, "smart" electrical meters that allow consumers to save money by using electricity at off-peak hours, and universal broadband Internet access, which he said would encourage telecommuting.

He stressed that the new administration would "throw long and deep," taking advantage of the economic crisis to push wholesale changes in health care, taxes, financial re-regulation and energy. "The American people in two successive elections have voted for change . . .”

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/long_and_deep.php
[Matt Yglesias] I think everyone understands that Emanuel isn’t the most liberal Democrat in the universe. And it’s inevitable that any Democratic administration will include some folks who are to Emanuel’s left. And here’s Emanuel talking about the need to “throw long and deep,” provide major economic stimulus, and to overhaul the energy system. And that was during a talk whose subject was the fact that incremental health care reform isn’t good enough! That’s a lot of bold, ambitious policymaking and as long as we keep seeing progress toward these kind of bold progressive measures of course liberals will be mostly happy with Obama.

Serious about health care reform

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/optimism_grows_among_experts_t.php
Optimism Grows Among Experts That Obama Will Act Quickly On Health Care . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/dachle_pick_clearest_evidence.php
Daschle Pick A Clear Sign That Obama Will Attempt Ambitious Health Care Reform . . .

http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=11&year=2008&base_name=tom_daschle_health_czar#111033
[Ezra Klein] CNN is reporting that Tom Daschle will not only be Health and Human Services Secretary, but also health reform czar under the Obama administration. This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate. And he accepts because he has been assured that you mean to attempt health care reform. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245041.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/experienced-hand-by-dday-roll-call-is.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/2009_democratic_agenda_/2008/11/what_winning_looks_like_health_care_division.php
[Mark Kleiman] I think the outlines of the final deal are now in view: a mandate on employers to buy insurance for their employees (other than the small businesses whose sacred right to exploit the rest of us by skimping on public goods contributions must not be challenged) and an individual mandate for small-business employees, the self-employed, and the unemployed to buy their own insurance, supported by hefty public subsidies.

Yes, of course that just kicks the cost-containment can down the road. But I'm satisfied to solve one problem at a time. . . .

Glenn Greenwald on Eric Holder, likely nominee for Attorney General

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/19/holder/index.html

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/11/19/BL2008111902194.html

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/eric_holder.php

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/19/eric-holder-four-more-years-of-depravity-at-doj/

Gov. Janet Napolitano for Homeland Security: a sign that immigration reform will be high on the agenda

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/11/19/napolitano/index.html

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/20/2816/5058

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/19/napolitano-to-dhs-skeletor-to-be-buried

Sect’y of Commerce?

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/19/pritzker_tapped_for_commerce.html

Second thoughts about Hillary Clinton for Sect’y of State?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19friedman.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245046.php

I doubt Al Franken will win his recount in Minnesota, but this is good news

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/franken_gets_big_boost_from_ke.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/245139.php

Ted Stevens (R-AK) concedes

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/its_over_in_alaska_--_ted_stev.php

Goodbye Ted

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/02/sen-stevens-hilariou.html
“I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially...

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes. . . .”

A good old-fashioned coot off: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=114548&title=headlines-braked-alaska



Every additional Democratic vote in the Senate makes it easier to overcome filibusters: but as Lawrence O’Donnell spells out clearly, there really isn’t anything magic about the number 60 because (a) the coalition of 60 votes shifts from issue to issue and isn’t driven only by party, (b) several conservative Democratic votes will be harder to hold onto than several moderate Republican votes, depending on the issue, and (c) what really drives votes are the politics of survival for Senators in their states. And what about Joe Lieberman? Good analysis: watch

Additional insight: why Obama isn’t campaigning for Jim Martin in Georgia.



More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2008/nov/19/senate2008-begich-60dems

On Obama’s supposed “problem” with the left blogosphere

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=10040
[Chris Bowers] I feel the need to weigh in on the relationship between President-elect Obama and the progressive blogosphere.

The long and short of my view is this: it's all true. Everything you are writing and / or thinking about the progressive blogosphere is correct, almost no matter what you are writing or thinking. There is one exception: if you are arguing that the progressive blogosphere is any one thing, holds any one position, or represents any singular group, then and only then are you wrong. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_16_archive.html#7885354888978498221
[Atrios] I've been amused by the frequency at which "the bloggers" has become a new journalistic shorthand for "slightly unreasonable and noisy people on the internets" who the journalist can then courageously disagree with.

Hopelessly tone deaf

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/19/autos.ceo.jets/index.html
Some lawmakers lashed out at the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies Wednesday for flying private jets to Washington to request taxpayer bailout money.

"There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they're going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses," Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told the chief executive officers of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.

"It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. . . .”

The kind of people they are (deep denial edition)

http://crooksandliars.com/john-amato/michelle-bachmann-denies-saying-she-wan
[John Amato] Michelle Bachmann is a pretty wild person as we've seen, but after spewing venom at Barack Obama for a few minutes with Hannidate, she then lied to Alan Colmes and denied saying this . . . [read on!]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015722.php
[Steve Benen] I imagine it's traumatic losing a close campaign one expects to win, but Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, a very conservative Colorado Republican, seems to be taking her Election Day defeat to Democrat Betsy Markey a little too hard. . . . [read on]

Even if this is technically allowable, wouldn’t a person of integrity eschew it?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/56078.html
The Justice Department has agreed to pay for a private lawyer to defend former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales against allegations that he encouraged officials to inject partisan politics into the department's hiring and firing practices.

Lawyers from the Justice Department's civil division often represent department employees who're sued in connection with their official actions. However, Gonzales' attorney recently revealed in court papers that the Justice Department had approved his request to pay private attorney's fees arising from the federal lawsuit. . . .

The phony baloney “card check” issue: the real anti-union agenda

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/card-check-please-by-digby-i-have-been.html

Theocracy watch: Kathleen Parker, conservative columnist, loses faith

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/18/AR2008111802886.html
As Republicans sort out the reasons for their defeat, they likely will overlook or dismiss the gorilla in the pulpit. . . .

To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party and will continue to afflict and marginalize its constituents if reckoning doesn't soon cometh. . .

Simply put: Armband religion is killing the Republican Party. . . . The choir has become absurdly off-key, and many Republicans know it. . . .

Which is to say, the GOP has surrendered its high ground to its lowest brows. In the process, the party has alienated its non-base constituents, including other people of faith (those who prefer a more private approach to worship), as well as secularists and conservative-leaning Democrats who otherwise might be tempted to cross the aisle. . . .

Suffice it to say, the Republican Party is largely comprised of white, married Christians. Anyone watching the two conventions last summer can't have missed the stark differences: One party was brimming with energy, youth and diversity; the other felt like an annual Depends sales meeting. . . . [read on!]

The “Status of Forces Agreement” (SOFA) with Iraq: they want us O – U – T

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/examining_the_sofa.html

More: http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/parliament-session-on-security.html

Bonus item: A few years ago the Bushies stood astride the world, expanding their unaccountable authority over more and more areas of government, and building a “permanent Republican majority.” Now they seem tired, uninterested, and looking toward the exit

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_16_archive.html#5603735453640855592
[Atrios] As Dean points out, it's quite amazing how no one in this administration is ever responsible for anything that happens. Nobody could have predicted, blah blah blah. . . .

http://www.online-literature.com/shelley_percy/672/
[P.B. Shelley] OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/20/13758/594/133/663970



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:37 AM

 
TURNING THE PIVOT

Dems keep Joe Lieberman in their caucus and let him keep his committee chair. Lieberman sorta kinda apologizes for some of his anti-Obama comments during the campaign. A lot of the bloggers are unhappy that Lieberman didn’t get hammered – and I can understand why. But we’re learning something about Obama: he doesn’t operate that way

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244866.php
[David Kurtz] He keeps his homeland security committee chairmanship, but relinquishes a subcommittee chairmanship and a seat on the separate Environment and Public Works Committee. And the Dem caucus passes resolution "rejecting" Joe's remarks about Barack Obama during the campaign.

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/reid_vast_majority_of_dem_cauc.php

How Obama saved Joe

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/howard_dean_supports_senates_l.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/18/163850/55/62/663040

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9997

The latest press meme: Obama’s outreach to former rivals Clinton, McCain, and Lieberman is making the “left blogosphere” angry. This from people who never knew or cared what the “left blogosohere” said about anything ever before

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#27793606

Look. I don’t particularly like it when Obama’s people or the Dems go out of their way to distance themselves from the “left” – but let’s look at political realities. It’s not really surprising that they do this. If a bit of triangulating gives Obama and the Dems the political leverage to implement actually progressive policies, we ought to accept that

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/lieberman-suck-on-that-liberals/
[WP] Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question."

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/party-wont-turn-left-dem-leader-says-2008-11-18.html
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is challenging the idea that the expanded Democratic majority and its leaders will make a hard left turn.

“For the first time in decades, we are a true national majority party—and if we want to stay that way, we must govern like one” . . .

The netroots ARE angry: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/steny-hoyer-dont-expect-us-to-be-real.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/obamas-long-armshort-arm-stiff-of-the-netroots/

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/18/et-tu-howard/

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/18/11414/880

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/17/emanuel/index.html

This pivot toward the center, of course, is only justified if they actually follow through by implementing good policies. This is where we need to keep them honest. Here are some hopeful examples on energy, the environment, and health care

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/19/04337/000/781/663338

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/big-story-by-digby-there-is-lot-about.html

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/yes_we_can_combat_catastrophic_climate_change.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/how-can-we-afford-not-to-focus-on.html

More Cabinet speculation

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015715.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/kerry_for_interior.php

The fight already begins over Eric Holder, Obama’s Attorney General candidate and from all accounts a good and decent man. The GOP slime and slander machine rolls into action – they are eager to bloody Obama’s nose with one of his first Cabinet appointments, just as they did Clinton. They don’t really care who it is

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/eric_holder.html

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_obama_presidency_/2008/11/holder_as_ag_here_we_go.php

AP calls the Alaska Senate race: Ted Stevens is toast

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/stevens_loses_alaska_senate_ra.php

More evidence that we’re using other countries to hold prisoners indefinitely without charges or trial

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/suit_charges_us_using_other_co.php

More: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/117/story/56051.html

Bush political appointees “burrowing” deeper into the civil service bureaucracy (where they can stay in govt forever)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015713.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-laying-of-landmines-by-dday.html

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/bushies_burrowing_into_career.php

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/11/18/BL2008111801832.html

Not exactly stunning news, but Senate report concludes that Karl Rove DID have a hand in identifying US Attorneys for dismissal

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/new_senate_report_on_us_attorn.php

Chuck Hagel, possible Obama Cabinet nominee

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/18/hagel-takes-aim-at-limbaugh-senate-colleagues
"We are educated by the great entertainers like Rush Limbaugh," Hagel said Tuesday during a speech in Washington, according to the Huffington Post.

"You know, I wish Rush Limbaugh and others like that would run for office," a sarcastic Hagel continued. "They have so much to contribute and so much leadership and they have an answer for everything.”

Time magazine will soon pick their Person of the Year. Whatever your political persuasion, there’s not much doubt about who it should be, right? Well, there is if you work at the National Review

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTNkNmFjNWFiZDNhZDQxNmM1MWQ3OWU3ZGM1YTg2YmQ
[Kathryn Jean Lopez] I suspect that when Time magazine chooses their Person of the Year for 2008, there will be little internal debate. They’ve probably long picked The One — Barack Obama. . . .

But Time shouldn’t diss the not insignificant portion of the country that voted for Republican John McCain. And, specifically, they shouldn’t ignore the people who were energized by the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to his ticket. . . .

Bonus item: Campaign doodles

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/11/17/moos.doodles.cnn

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 5:39 AM

 
WHITE HOUSEWARMING

Obama has a number of housewarming gifts that will be waiting for him on the doorway when he arrives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244668.php
[Josh Marshall] Am I the only one worried that by the time Obama is sworn in on January 20th, the Paulson Treasury will have run through almost a trillion dollars to little or no effect?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/ok-well-stop-printing-money-now-by-dday.html
[Dday] The White House is saying that they may not use all of the bailout money before January 20 and that they will offer about $350 billion of it to President-elect Obama, in a magnanimous gesture, for him to use it as he sees fit. How gracious! The Bush Administration has only drawn $4 TRILLION dollars out of the Treasury and they're letting Obama handle the rest! . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/17/231858/72
[Jonathan Singer] Let the record reflect that George W. Bush is handing off a recession to Barack Obama . . .

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3823105&c=FEA&s=COM
Before the presidential election, reports began to circulate that the Pentagon was planning to propose a defense spending increase of roughly $450 billion over five years. That's in addition to the increases in the base budget already laid out in the 2009 Future Years Defense Plan.

The services have been laying the groundwork for the request for several months . . .

The withdrawal plan from Iraq

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/17/AR2008111703097.html
By agreeing to a fixed deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, President Bush contradicted years of promises that he would never agree to anything but a "conditions-based" plan for phasing out the American military role there. But he may also have given President-elect Barack Obama more flexibility in fulfilling his campaign promise to bring the troops home. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/testing-young-president-by-dday-day.html
[Dday] A day after the Iraqi Cabinet approved a withdrawal agreement that would remove US forces entirely from the country by the end of 2011, the White House is trying to snooker the press by saying that they agreed only to "aspirational dates." There is nothing aspirational about this agreement. It is a firm deadline for withdrawal that wouldn't even allow for residual forces in the country. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/world/middleeast/17iraq.html

And a gift in return . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015703.php
[AP] Barack Obama's incoming administration is unlikely to bring criminal charges against government officials who authorized or engaged in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists during the George W. Bush presidency. Obama, who has criticized the use of torture, is being urged by some constitutional scholars and human rights groups to investigate possible war crimes by the Bush administration.

Two Obama advisers said there's little -- if any -- chance that the incoming president's Justice Department will go after anyone involved in authorizing or carrying out interrogations that provoked worldwide outrage.

The advisers spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are still tentative. A spokesman for Obama's transition team did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

Additionally, the question of whether to prosecute may never become an issue if Bush issues pre-emptive pardons to protect those involved.

[Hilzoy] This is a big mistake. . . . [read on]

Updates on the five unfinished congressional races

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9985

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/17/184033/37

The war on Republican moderates

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015692.php

Is this the best the Republicans have to offer?

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/17/republican-governors-ready-for-prime-time/

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/11/17/gingrich_palin/index.html

Newt Gingrich, visionary

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015701.php
On the November 14 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, in reference to actions by individual protesters of Proposition 8, the recently passed California ballot initiative amending the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich stated: "I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us . . .” [read on]

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/newt-gingrich-thinks-his-gay-sister-is.html
Newt Gingrich thinks his gay sister is a fascist . . .

Theocracy watch (with the end of Sarah Palin’s candidacy we have downgraded it again from a “theocracy warning”)

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/17/begun-this-war-on-christmas-has/
I swear, War On Christmas season just gets earlier every year. . . .

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/holy-moly-by-digby-this-is-from.html
[Newsweek] According to a 2006 study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, a third of white evangelicals believe the world will end in their lifetimes. These mostly conservative Christians believe a great battle is imminent. After years of tribulation—natural disasters, other cataclysms (such as the collapse of financial markets)—God's armies will vanquish armies led by the Antichrist himself. He will be a sweet-talking world leader who gathers governments and economies under his command to further his own evil agenda. In this world view, "the spread of secular progressive ideas is a prelude to the enslavement of mankind" . . .

Bonus item: Talkin’ smack

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/11/17/huckabee_book/index.html
Michael Scherer (formerly of Salon) has a sneak preview in Time of former presidential contender Mike Huckabee’s book, which will be released tomorrow. It looks like Huckabee doesn’t go easy on his once and future rivals. . . . [read on!]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:10 AM

 
OFF TO A FAST START

Still waiting for Obama’s Cabinet appointments, but his WH staff is quickly taking shape. Many of them are smart, tough old pros. It’s wearying hearing the press bleat that this means Obama has sold out his message of change. This is just another of those damned-if-you-do-and-damned-if-you don’t stories that the lazy press loves. If Obama brought in a bunch of fresh faces and outsiders, the narrative would be, “too little experience in the ways of Washington, how can he get anything done?” If he brings in experienced hands, he’s not serious about change. The realistic answer is, of course, that the more serious Obama is about change, the MORE he will need people who can manage the levers of government and operate within the backhalls and corridors of Congress. And so it goes

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015683.php

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002986799

Who are they? http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/obamas_filling_the_white_house.php

http://news.aol.com/elections/article/obama-may-quickly-undo-bush-policies/242417

Obama’s an interesting case: at this stage it looks as if he’s going to do more or less EXACTLY what he campaigned saying he would do. What a concept!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111602440.html

A sticky situation for Hillary as possible Sect’y of State?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244634.php

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/hrc_/2008/11/circular_firing_squad_of_rivals.php

Clinton and the Middle East: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/14/clinton-to-state-is-mid-east-peace-back-on-the-table/

A debate over John Brennan, possible choice to be Obama’s CIA Director. Is he too friendly to the Bush/Cheney policies on harsh interrogation and imprisonment?

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/16/brennan/index.html

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/a_clue_as_to_the_identity_of_t.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/non-negotiable-by-digby-greenwald-and.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15643.html

Obama meets with Cheney: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9955

[NB: This debate raises some difficult issues for progressives. Any honest and realistic person understands that the dark, secret side of US foreign affairs involves a certain amount of ugly doings that never get made public, under either Democratic or Republican administrations. That doesn’t make everything morally equivalent: things clearly got badly out of control under Bush/Cheney. But Obama now faces his own reality check: which of these activities will he need to continue? What will he learn from his new intelligence briefings about international threats and dangers that might change his view of what is unfortunate but necessary?]

The Boss lays out the rules

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/obama_speaks.html
[Obama] I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm gonna make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.

Homeland Security?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111602309.html

How far should Obama go in bringing Republicans into his administration?

http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20081115_1043.php

Obama hasn’t even taken office yet and the pushback has already started

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/16/1002/9542/629/660423

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015681.php

More: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/803dbdbm.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/819jyryw.asp

Really? REALLY? Are Republican Senators actually willing to sit back and watch the US auto industry crumble?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/17/business/17auto.html
Top Republican senators said Sunday they will oppose a Democratic plan to bail out Detroit automakers, calling the U.S. industry a “dinosaur” whose “day of reckoning” is coming. Their opposition raises serious doubts about whether the plan will pass in this week’s postelection session.

Senators Richard Shelby of Alabama and Jon Kyl of Arizona said it would be a mistake to use any of the Wall Street rescue money to prop up the automakers. They said an auto bailout would only postpone the industry’s demise. . . .

Nice to have a Nobel Prize winner on our side

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015686.php
[Steve Benen] On ABC's "This Week" earlier, George Will explained his belief that FDR financial/regulatory policies discouraged investment and created an environment in which the "depression became the Great Depression."

Fortunately, Will was sitting next to Paul Krugman. . . .

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/will_v_krugman_on_the_depression.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/when-krugman-gets-scared-i-get-nervous.html

Joe Lieberman’s fate to be decided Tuesday

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/senate-dems-will-vote-tuesday-on.html
Senate Dems. will vote Tuesday on Lieberman -- and it's by secret ballot . . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/17/34245/574

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015687.php

What a map: the states that voted more Democratic, and those that voted more Republican, in the last election

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/16/193532/50/35/662026

Obama’s election unleashes an ugly side of America

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/losin-it-by-digby-good-news-is-that.html

Obama’s going to run a technologically savvy administration, but personally he’ll have to take step backwards

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/16/obama_forced_to_give_up_email.html
President-elect Obama is a big user of his Blackberry, "but before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off," the New York Times reports.

"In addition to concerns about e-mail security, there is the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A final decision has not been made on whether Obama could go against precedent and become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that was unlikely..."

"Obama, however, appears to be poised to make technological history in other ways: Aides said he hopes to have a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office. He would be the first American president to do so."

I find this hilarious. Cokie Roberts, the doyenne of DC establishment snobbery, reports knowingly that the “netroots” don’t like the idea of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. Now, I don’t know where she came across the term “netroots,” but I am pretty sure that she knows nothing about what the netroots actually think – and cares even less

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/cokie-thinks-netroots-will-be-upset-if.html

Background: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/31/1362/6498

Bonus item: Well, I guess THIS is what you’d call getting an early start

http://www.obamaimpeachment.org/

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:02 AM

 
LESSONS LEARNED (AND NOT LEARNED)

McCain-bashing continues

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/15/gop-senator-mccain-betrayed-republican-principles-2/
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint on Friday became one of the first high-profile Republicans to publicly criticize John McCain following his electoral defeat, blaming the Arizona senator for betraying conservative principles in his quest for the White House. . . .

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015676.php

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_09_archive.html#1246362073886231247

Why the election wasn’t such bad news for the GOP after all (a strange contrarian view from Chris Cillizza)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/13/AR2008111303287_pf.html

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/winners-by-digby-chris-cilizza-explodes.html
[Digby] Chris Cilizza explodes five myths of the election and what do you know? It's all good for Republicans! This was actually a defeat for progressives, blacks and young people voting Democratic doesn't mean much, McCain didn't mess up --- Republicans couldn't have won anyway, Palin was a big plus and this is only a slight setback for Republicans.

There has been a lot already written about the pernicious meme that Obama didn't win a mandate, and it may have had some effect. It's fading a little bit. But the nature of the mandate is still being defined, and if Cilizza is indicative of beltway thinking, the fact that Democrats won seats from Republicans means that the country has rejected liberalism . . . [read on]

The battle for the Republican future (this will be fun)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/opinion/11brooks.html
[David Brooks] It’s only been a week since the defeat, but the battle lines have already been drawn in the fight over the future of conservatism.

In one camp, there are the Traditionalists, the people who believe that conservatives have lost elections because they have strayed from the true creed. George W. Bush was a big-government type who betrayed conservatism. John McCain was a Republican moderate, and his defeat discredits the moderate wing.

To regain power, the Traditionalists argue, the G.O.P. should return to its core ideas: Cut government, cut taxes, restrict immigration. Rally behind Sarah Palin.

Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are the most prominent voices in the Traditionalist camp, but there is also the alliance of Old Guard institutions. For example, a group of Traditionalists met in Virginia last weekend to plot strategy, including Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. According to reports, the attendees were pleased that the election wiped out some of the party’s remaining moderates. “There’s a sense that the Republicans on Capitol Hill are freer of wobbly-kneed Republicans than they were before the election,” the writer R. Emmett Tyrrell told a reporter.

The other camp, the Reformers, argue that the old G.O.P. priorities were fine for the 1970s but need to be modernized for new conditions. The reformers tend to believe that American voters will not support a party whose main idea is slashing government. The Reformers propose new policies to address inequality and middle-class economic anxiety. They tend to take global warming seriously. They tend to be intrigued by the way David Cameron has modernized the British Conservative Party.

Moreover, the Reformers say, conservatives need to pay attention to the way the country has changed. Conservatives have to appeal more to Hispanics, independents and younger voters. They cannot continue to insult the sensibilities of the educated class and the entire East and West Coasts.

The Reformist view is articulated most fully by books, such as “Comeback” by David Frum and “Grand New Party” by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, as well as the various writings of people like Ramesh Ponnuru, Yuval Levin, Jim Manzi, Rod Dreher, Peggy Noonan and, at the moderate edge, me.

The debate between the camps is heating up. Only one thing is for sure: In the near term, the Traditionalists are going to win the fight for supremacy in the G.O.P. . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16rich.html
[Frank Rich] ELECTION junkies in acute withdrawal need suffer no longer. Though the exciting Obama-McCain race is over, the cockfight among the losers has only just begun. The conservative crackup may be ugly, but as entertainment, it’s two thumbs up! . . . [read on!]

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/15/144412/46

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/15/14390/797

Karl Rove: I was still right

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015673.php

The decline of the South as a political force

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/the_south.html
[Kevin Drum] For many years, the Democratic Party controlled the agenda of American politics and Southerners controlled much of the Democratic Party. So the South had enormous political influence.

Later, most Southerners switched to the Republican Party, but by then it was Republicans who controlled the agenda of American politics. So the South still had enormous political influence.

As of January 20th, however, the Democratic Party will control the American political agenda once again. But Southerners are still Republicans, which means that their political influence will be nearly nonexistent.

In other words, for the first time since Reconstruction, the South will be almost completely shut out of national power. . . .

Conservative paranoia: it’s their secret weapon

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/paranoia-industry-by-dday-i-know-that.html

http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2008/10/obamas-secret-police.html

Gitmo and torture: how will Obama handle them?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/kicking-it-down-road-by-digby-more.html

Can Obama remove the abortion issue as a major factor in national politics?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/old-relics-by-digby-e.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/15/1001/9816/245/660807

The Minnesota recount: reasons for optimism

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/15/professors_see_recount_favoring_franken.html

http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200811140017

Bad symbolism: $500 a bottle wine at the economic crisis summit

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/white-house-serves-500-wine-for.html

Right-wing talk radio: just as you suspected (thanks to Digby for the link)

http://www.milwaukeemagazine.com/currentIssue/full_feature_story.asp?NewMessageID=24046

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/sunday_show_preview_100741.asp
NBC Meet the Press: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), BP Capital Management founder/chair T. Boone Pickens and a roundtable with New York Times' Tom Friedman, BBC's Katty Kay, NBC's Andrea Mitchell and PBS' Tavis Smiley.

CBS Face the Nation: Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Newt Gingrich and Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA).

ABC This Week: California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and a roundtable with New York Times' Paul Krugman, Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts and George Will.

CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: Rep. Charles Rangel, (D) New York, Ted Turner, Author, "Call Me Ted", Leslie Sanchez, Republican strategist; CNN political contributor, James Carville, Democratic Strategist; CNN Political Contributor, and CNN's Ed Henry and Suzanne Malveaux.

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_09_archive.html#4206710714736583331
[Atrios] 7 Appearances by Republican current elected officeholders
3 Appearances by Democratic current elected officeholders.
2 Appearances by Republican former elected officeholders.
1 Appearance by a Bush Cabinet Secretary.
T. Boone Pickens
Ted Turner.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/15/no-girlz-aloud/
[Emptywheel] No girlz . . .

Bonus item: Bill Maher’s New Rules (thanks to David S. for the link)



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:07 AM

 
OPEN TO DEBATE

The pros and cons of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/14/clinton-met-with-obama-ab_n_143810.html

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/1108/Source_Clinton_serious_about_SoS.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/14/the-plusses-and-minuses-of-clinton-as-secretary-of-state/

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/11/14/1674694.aspx

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2008/nov/14/obama-white-house-hillaryclinton-state

The pros and cons of ousting Joe Lieberman

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/contrary-view-on-lieberman.html

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/marc-ambinder-hearts-joe-lieberman.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9928

“The myth of 60”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/13/235449/32/324/660728

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015661.php

It’s a simple thing, really, but this tells us a lot about why Obama “gets it”

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/obama-will-youtube-his-weekly-radio.html
Obama will YouTube his weekly radio address . . .

We’ve been waiting to see if the national Republicans react to their embarrassing defeat by withdrawing further into a neo-con shell, or begin restructuring their party to develop a new national message. I think we have our answer

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/house_gop_leadership_gets_more_conservative.php

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/11/boehner-to-face.html

A voice in the GOP wilderness

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/14/14202/519/436/660616
[Tim Pawlenty, Republican governor of Minnesota] "We cannot be a majority governing party when we essentially cannot compete in the Northeast, we are losing our ability to compete in Great Lakes States, we cannot compete on the West Coast, we are increasingly in danger of competing in the Mid-Atlantic States, and the Democrats are now winning some of the Western States," he said. "That is not a formula for being a majority governing party in this nation."

"And similarly we cannot compete, and prevail, as a majority governing party if we have a significant deficit, as we do, with women, where we have a large deficit with Hispanics, where we have a large deficit with African-American voters, where we have a large deficit with people of modest incomes and modest financial circumstances," he said. "Those are not factors that make up a formula for success going forward."

I’ve been waiting for someone to point this out: why are the Repubs worried about 2012? The real fight is for 2016

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/palins_emergence.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015670.php

Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s main foreign policy advisor during the campaign, gave him a lot of bad advice. But until now I didn’t realize how truly stupid Scheunemann is

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/07/mccain.palin
In response to the allegations that she was ill-prepared for interviews and debate, Randy Scheunemann, an aide assigned to Palin, called her "brilliant" and said she has a "photographic memory."

Ted Stevens (R-AK): goin’ down

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015669.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/still_more_signs_that_stevens.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/begich_expanding_lead_over_ste.php

Georgia Senate: a winnable fight?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/national_dems_start_pouring_re.php

Funny: if Martin wins in Georgia, the GOP warns us, Obama will silence Rush and Sean and Bill-O

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/14/republicans-obama-will-ban-rush-limbaugh-sean-hannity-and-bill-oreilly-if-saxby-chambliss-loses-the-georgia-runoff/

The Don Siegelman case: Exhibit A for the politicization of justice under the Bush/Rove regime

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/recused_us_attorney_kept_advis.php
Recused US Attorney Kept Advising Siegelman Prosecutors, New Docs Show . . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/14/error-in-justice-siegelman-prosecutors-sent-notes-back-and-forth-to-jurors-during-deliberations/
Siegelman Prosecutors Received Notes From Jurors DURING Deliberations . . .

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/siegelman_new_revelations_are.php
Siegelman: New Revelations "More Frightening Than Anything That Came Before." . . .

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/nothing-to-see-here-by-digby-both-dday.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015662.php

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/don_siegelman_update.html

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/14/no-wonder-the-prosecutor-didnt-want-an-investigation-of-the-juror-emails/

Consequences finally coming home to Blackwater?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/federal_prosecutors_have_draft.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/sources_blackwater_used_dog_fo.php

A lack of balance on the Sunday talk shows

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244475.php

Bonus item: “Dear Sarah Palin, Please Shut Up”

http://www.petitiononline.com/1113nov8/petition.html

Here’s why: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/14/10351/190/437/660615



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:23 AM

 
DON’T GET YOUR HOPES UP

It looks as if Obama isn’t going to encourage many after-the fact investigations of Bush/Cheney lawbreaking

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/of-course-you-know-this-means-war.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/13/173128/05/493/660575

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/obama_team_expected_to_broker.php

The Dems in Congress may have their own plans, however

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/disappointment_watch.html
[Kevin Drum] If you're looking for an indication of what the first schism between the Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress will be, consider the question of investigations.

Congressional Democrats are gearing up for a season of post-Bush inquiries . . .

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/senate_dems_to_white_house_pre.php
Senate Dems To White House: Preserve Records (Especially You, Cheney) . . . [read on]

More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/13/speaking-of-that-man-sized-safe/

No oversight for the bailout package: with predictable results

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/12/AR2008111202846.html

http://www.propublica.org/article/bailout-docs-still-redacted-1113/

Obama and the Dems want to bind other issues into the economic bailout/stimulus package

Energy: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/next-great-cause-by-digby-joe-klein-has.html

Health care: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/senate_staffers_begin_mulling.php

Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State? It’s a reminder that before the Bush gang used and stepped all over Colin Powell, and then replaced him with the feckless and cowardly Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State used to be a very powerful position (George Marshall, Dean Acheson, Henry Kissinger)

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/the_clinton_sos_speculation_re.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/13/235441/76

The future of conservatism?

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/13/the_anatomy_of_conservative_se/

They’ve created a monster. Sarah Palin seems to be under the impression that the more people see of her, the more they’ll like her – when polls tells us that the opposite is the case

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/13/lkl.sarah.palin/index.html
[CNN] Palin: I'm proud of Barack Obama. I pray for him, his family, the new administration. I look forward to the good things that are in store for this nation.

http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-palins-interview-with-cnns-wolf-blitzer/
[CNN] BLITZER: Because, you know, during a campaign, every presidential campaign, things are said, it's tough, as you well know, it gets sometimes pretty fierce out there. And during the campaign, you said this, you said: "This is not a man who sees America as you see it and how I see America."

And then you went on to say: "Someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

PALIN: Well, I still am concerned about that association with Bill Ayers. And if anybody still wants to talk about it, I will, because this is an unrepentant domestic terrorist who had campaigned to blow up, to destroy our Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol. That's an association that still bothers me.

And I think it's still fair to talk about it. . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/13/lkl.sarah.palin/index.html
[CNN]King: Are you going to go to the inaugural?

Palin: I haven't been invited. It would be something, perhaps, if I'm not too busy up there in the state of Alaska, I'd love to.

The more she talks, the more clear it is that she has nothing to say

http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-palins-interview-with-cnns-wolf-blitzer/
BLITZER: Let's talk about some of the current issues on the agenda . . . Right now a big issue, should the U.S. government, the federal government bail out the Detroit -- the big three automakers?

PALIN: Oh, that is the discussion of the day. And there is going to come a point here where absolutely the federal government must play an appropriate role in shoring up some of these industries that are hurting and will ultimately hurt our entire economy and the world's economy if there aren't some better decisions being made.

But we also have to start shifting some debate here in our country and start talking about personal responsibility and responsibility of management in some of these corporations and companies so that from henceforth it's not assumed that the federal government is going to be bailing out everybody who is going to soon line up, Wolf, for more taxpayer assistance.

And I'm talking about personal responsibility too in terms of homeowners and in terms of folks who maybe have extended their own credit. Sure, predatory lenders are to blame in all of this also, but we have got to make sure, for instance, we're not talked into buying a $300,000 house, because really we know we can only afford a $100,000 house.

And we've got to start living those lessons that we try to teach our children in terms of not living beyond our means and extending our own personal credit to the point of not being able to pay our monthly bills and then expecting government to grow and be the answer.

BLITZER: So, sorry, I'm still waiting for the answer, should the government bail out the big three automakers?

PALIN: Well, that -- it's in debate right now and I'm listening closely to the debate and there is a lot of information that even you and I certainly aren't privy to, to understand all of the ramifications if federal government were going to step in and bail out.

But we do know that the auto industry is that important that certainly it needs to be considered. But, you know, I'm not going to ignore the debate again that I think needs to lead to the personal responsibility, the management decisions that have been made in some of these companies and corporations that have also led us to where we are.

BLITZER: So I hear you saying you need more information right now.

PALIN: Yes, I do. Yes.

BLITZER: What about the $700 billion bail out of the financial industry?
Was that the right thing to do with hindsight, based on what you know right now, or the wrong thing to do?

PALIN: I still believe that it was the right thing to do to be able to propose this rescue package, certainly in the home mortgage industry, because with foreclosures up 71 percent, compared to where we were last year on foreclosures, this is the -- this is bad ultimately for our entire economy.

And it doesn't do any neighborhood or any community, any state any good to see the rate of foreclosures that we have. So with home mortgages and overall with the general bailout plan, yes, I think it was the right thing to do, the federal government had to take some action.

But it cannot be assumed again that taxpayers can be looked to for all of the bailouts as more and more corporations, companies, entities, come forward with their hand out for governments to…

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Should…

PALIN: … the bill.

BLITZER: … Congress go forward right now with another economic stimulus package to help the struggling middle class?

PALIN: I do want to see the struggling middle class be the ones at the end of the day who are not stuck with the bills and stuck with the burdens. But I am not one, again, to believe that it should be just assumed that it's taxpayer bailout that will be the solution to all of the problems, all of the financial challenges that our nation is facing.

Supportive of the $700 billion initial, now hearing more rumors, more speculation of even greater amounts being poured into that. There again, need more information but not being so enthused about a second, a third, a fourth stimulus package.

Watch: http://www.freedomslighthouse.com/2008/11/gov-sarah-palin-interview-with-cnns.html

Funny moment at the Republican Governors’ conference – 13 or 14 Governors hit the stage, but Palin grabs the microphone. The rest of them are reduced to standing behind her like Munchkins during her first “press conference.” After just four questions, four ninnying answers, and a lot of squirming from the background crew, fellow Governor (and future Presidential rival?) Rick Perry steps forward and abruptly calls it off. Watch

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/13/palins-first-press-confer_n_143576.html

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/13/gop-governors-unhappy-with-palin-press-conference/

58?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/ted_stevens_pollster_admits_he.php
[Greg Sargent] Looks like even Senator Ted Stevens' own pollster, Alaska-based David Dittman, can read the writing on the wall: Stevens is gonna lose to Dem challenger Mark Begich once all the remaining votes are counted. . . .

Saxby Chambliss, fighting for his life in Georgia, calls his infamous ad against Max Cleland six years ago “a myth”

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/13/131248/84/602/660458

A myth? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKFYpd0q9nE

John McCain, hypocrite: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/10/historical_quote_of_the_day.html

Looking ahead to 2010

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/13/203937/04
Charlie Cook: 12 GOP Senators Potentially Vulnerable, Just 6 Dems

Fox and Rush want you to know: the recession? All Obama’s fault

http://mediamatters.org/items/200811120011

Bonus item: Barack O’Bama? I never knew (thanks to Michael W. for the link)

http://dragonsbeard.gaia.com/blog/2008/10/theres_nobody_as_irish_as_barack_obama

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:40 AM

 
WHO’S IN CHARGE HERE?

They call it the “Troubled Assets Relief Program,” except . . .

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/taking_the_ta_out_of_tarp.php
[It] won’t actually be buying any troubled assets. . . .

More: http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/tarp_is_dead_long_live_tarp.html

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_09_archive.html#4661090397300454268
[Atrios] Shorter Hank Paulson: We are making this up as we go along.

In the midst of two wars and a major economic crisis, Bush seems to be losing interest. Time for a long Crawford vacation, George?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/11/12/BL2008111201617.html

Bush’s Executive Privilege will continue to protect him even after he leaves office

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/washington/13inquire.html

Blanket pardons: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/blanket-pardons-by-digby-evidently.html

Obama once again takes the high road, backs Joe Lieberman – and persuades Dick Durbin to change his mind and back him too. Let’s see if this buys him one smidgen of loyalty from Lieberman in return

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/12/lieberman_likely_saved_by_obama.html

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9901

The health care debate: a preview

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/baucus-move-by-dday-theres-been-lot-of.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/12/12438/026/195/659832

More on keeping Robert Gates as Sect’y of Defense: the role of Brent Scowcroft

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244060.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244162.php

This is important

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_transition_team_staffs_u.php
[Greg Sargent] The Obama transition team has just signed up two leading Web types for the transition's Internet outreach team, a welcome indication that the Obama team is moving to transfer its astonishing online successes during the campaign over to the world of governing. . . . [read on]

The kind of people they are, part one

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzMyMDk1MWNkYTU4MTFjYTMyNjdiOWM0ZDgwYzZkYzI
[National Review] In the late evening hours of Monday, November 3, 2008, my wife and I were surprised to hear my almost ten-year old daughter quietly crying in her room — well after her bed-time. I walked in to see what was wrong, expecting to hear that she’d had a bad dream or perhaps a bad day at school. Her real concern surprised me: “Daddy, I heard that Barack Obama wants to bring all the troops home from Iraq, and that we might lose the war.”

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/little-girl-cried-because-obama-wants.html

The kind of people they are, part two

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015630.php
[Politico] "The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her Down syndrome baby," [Michael] Barone said, according to accounts by attendees. "They wanted her to kill that child. . .”

Barone, a popular speaker on the paid lecture circuit, is a senior writer for U.S. News and World Report . . .

The kind of people they are, part three

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/gop_rep_broun_sorry_i_compared.php
Rep. Paul Broun, the Georgia Republican who made waves in the blogosphere when he compared Barack Obama's policies to both Marxism the rise of Adolf Hitler, has now apologized for his incendiary remarks, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports -- but he's still concerned about Obama's socialist policies. . . .

One the sleaziest things that happened during the campaign was when Immigration and Customs leaked the information that Obama’s aunt was in the US illegally – now ICE is investigating who leaked that information. (But they won’t tell us)

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/ice_wont_say_whether_itll_reve.php

The sourest of sour grapes: ladies and gentlemen, Victor Davis Hanson

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_10968288

In Minnesota, the Sect’y of State makes an innocuous comment about how (both) political parties try to politicize the recount process – which the Coleman campaign then seizes upon to further politicize the recount process. They look pretty worried . . .

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/coleman_camp_sec_of_states_com.php

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/12/coleman-cornered-pounds-on-the-table/

In Georgia, 50,000 registrations thrown out, many it seems illegally

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/georgias_non-citizen_voting_co.php

Mark Begich, Alaska Dem, pulls ahead of Ted Stevens in recount

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/12/begich_closes_gap_with_stevens.html

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244143.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015643.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9908
[Chris Bowers] Stick a fork in this one. Begich is going to win. . . .

It’s all about her



More: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/poll_palin_faces_bad_personal.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244102.php

Bonus item: Palin on those mean old bloggers



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:02 AM

 
WE GOT NEXT

The Obama transition

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_team_bars_lobbyists_from.php
Obama Team Bans Lobbyists From Transition; Mulling Reversals Of Bush Exec Orders . . . [read on]

More: http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/fwiw-by-digby-almost-everything-we-read.html

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/fiscal-responsibility-i-can-believe-in.html

What’s the matter with these people?

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/obama_security_force/2008/11/10/149787.html
Congressman Warns of Obama Dictatorship . . .

[NB: Ironic, coming from a party that has rationalized expansive executive power, disregard for the Constitution, secrecy, lying, and a rogue VP for years]

More on keeping Robert Gates at Defense

For: http://washingtonindependent.com/17875/another-years-worth-of-gates

Against: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243923.php

Watch out for Afghanistan and Pakistan

http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/obama-faces-major-challenge-in.html

Sarah Palin wants God to tell her if she should run for President

http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1108/Palin_waiting_for_crack_in_the_door.html
“You know, I have -- faith is a very big part of my life. And putting my life in my creator's hands -- this is what I always do. I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is. Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe I'll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss an open door. . .”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2008/nov/11/sarahpalin-god
[Michael Tomasky] What can one say? We've really had enough of this kind of nonsense. . . [read on]

Palin isn’t going away quietly, that’s for sure



More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/11/uh-sarahyou-sure-you-want-to-go-there/

I’ve never really expected Palin to appoint herself to fill the convict Ted Stevens’ seat – IF he wins reelection, and IF he gets kicked out of the Senate. Here’s why

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/11/palin-suggests-she-doesnt-want-uncle-toobz-seat/

What’s next for Joe Lieberman? Obama takes the high road, says he doesn’t hold a grudge – but the rest of the Dems? Not so sure

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015617.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/11/154159/26

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/11/schumer-and-durbin-want-lieberman-stripped-of-homeland-security-chair/

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/its_official_full_dem_caucus_w.php
It's Official: Full Dem Caucus Will Vote On Lieberman's Fate

“Lieberman Must Go”



The recount in Minnesota: Republicans treat it like a political campaign

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/before_recount_gop_smearing_mi.php
[Zachary Roth] The recount in the Minnesota Senate race hasn't even begun yet, but already the GOP is working to delegitimize it in advance, by smearing the man who will run it as a partisan Democrat.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has been distributing to reporters a three-page "backgrounder" that attacks Secretary of State Mark Ritchie . . .

Still counting votes in Alaska: 90,000 to go

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/tomorrow-all-eyes-on-alaska-again-as-up.html

The missing voters: http://www.propublica.org/article/the-mystery-of-the-missing-alaskan-voters/

Will we finally get serious about national voting reform?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/is_voting_reform_on_the_horizo.php

The U.S. is a Democratic country right now

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/center-wrong-watch-well-its-been-proven.html
In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Tuesday, 59 percent of those questioned think that Democratic control of both the executive and legislative branches will be good for the country, with 38 percent saying that such one-party control will be bad. . . . [read on]

The Republicans are becoming “a mostly regional party”

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/11/republicans-seek-permanent-minority-status/

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:53 AM

 
THE END OF AN ERA

The end of Guantanamo?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015600.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/10/192344/21/219/658807

A change of course in Afghanistan

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/10/AR2008111002897.html

The end of other Bush policies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/11/10/BL2008111001244.html

The end of unbridled Executive power

http://www.propublica.org/feature/where-obama-stands-executive-power-1107

More secret rules

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/washington/10military.html
The United States military since 2004 has used broad, secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks against Al Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Pakistan and elsewhere, according to senior American officials.

These military raids, typically carried out by Special Operations forces, were authorized by a classified order that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed in the spring of 2004 with the approval of President Bush, the officials said . . .

More falsified intelligence data

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/IAEA_suspects_fraud_in_evidence_for_1109.html

The return of sensible regulation

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_regulatory_difference.php

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_only_thing_we_have_to_fear_is_adequate_regulation_of_pollution.php

Yesterday we asked how Obama would handle the fact that he’s not President, and Bush still is. Later in the day, we found out

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/11/10/1667655.aspx
A source familiar with today's White House meeting tells NBC News that President-elect Obama focused on three economic issues during his conversations with President Bush this afternoon. The top topics: a stimulus package in the lame duck session, aid to the auto industry, and help for homeowners with adjustible-rate mortgages in order to prevent more foreclosures.

According to the source, Obama told Bush that action is needed on a stimulus package now - in a lame duck session - and cannot wait until after the inauguration.

Obama also urged help for automakers and encouraged the acceleration of the disbursement of $25 billion dollars for the industry.

On his third focus - housing - Obama voiced his concern that homeowners whose mortgage rates are about to go up will need aid to prevent more Americans from defaulting on home loans. . . .

What will Obama do in his first hundred days? Just what he said he would do

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/10/135711/17/413/658621

Handy: comparing the first 100 days of Presidents back to FDR

http://awesome.goodmagazine.com/goodsheet/goodsheet009First100Days.html

The GOP likes to proclaim itself the party favored by the military – but guess what?

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015602.php

Race and the Obama Presidency



Bob Gates to stay on as Sec Def?

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/change-by-digby-podesta-also-said-obama.html

The future of the Republican brand

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015599.php
[David Brooks] "World of pain," Brooks said. "A generation of pain. . .” [read on]

More:



More bad news: how the GOP blew the immigration issue, and with it Hispanic support

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/10/141120/20/395/658631

The GOP all-stars for 2012

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_09_archive.html#2557458783366648688
[Atrios] Mittens! Rudy! Palin! Huck! Newt!

It's gonna be so fun.

The future of the RNC

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/rnc_chairmans_race_newt_and_nu.php
[Marc Ambinder] The Politico's Mike Allen on Jim Nussle's run for RNC chairman. . .

And Newt Gingrich is quite happy to say that, yes, if the PEOPLE demand it, he will run for chairman of the RNC. . .

The future of the DNC

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2008/nov/10/howard-dean-dnc-resigning
[Michael Tomasky] So Howard Dean is getting ready to step down as DNC chair. . .

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/plouffe_wont_be_dnc_chairman.php
[Marc Ambinder] It's not clear what David Plouffe will be doing post-election. . . But here's one job he won't be taking: chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Ballots thrown away in Georgia

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/after_citizenship_challenges_b.php

“Governor Palin, the RNC is at the door. They want their clothes back”

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/10/update-on-the-underwear-audit/
[NYT] Republican National Committee lawyers were likely to go to Alaska to conduct an inventory and try to account for all that was spent. . . . [read on]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/palin_sorts_clothes_to_see_wha.php
[AP] Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spent part of the weekend going through her clothing to determine what belongs to the Republican Party after it spent $150,000-plus on a wardrobe for the vice presidential nominee . . .

Palin's father, Chuck Heath, said his daughter spent the day Saturday trying to figure out what belongs to the RNC.

"She was just frantically ... trying to sort stuff out," Heath said. "That's the problem, you know, the kids lose underwear, and everything has to be accounted for. . . .

The McCain-Palin campaign said about a third of the clothing was returned immediately because it was the wrong size, or for other reasons. However, other purchases were apparently made after that, the campaign official said.

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/palins-kids-lost-their-150000-underwear.html

Still freeloading

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9852
[Celtic Diva] Governor Palin did her first full interview with Channel 2 and the Anchorage Daily News tonight. . . .

Right off the bat, Sean Cockerham of the Anchorage Daily News asked the question I've wanted to ask. Her answer left my jaw on the floor and steam coming out of my ears. . . . [read on]

Palin blames Bush for defeat

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/11/palin-says-bush-record-led-to-gop-loss/

But seriously, folks

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1601
The Secret Service Blames Palin For Obama Death Threats . . .

A tale of two Presidents

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-10-06-bush-approval_N.htm
President Bush's approval rating has dropped to a record low.

A Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday finds only 25% of Americans approve of the way Bush is handling the job of president; 70% disapprove. . .

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/10/181227/99
Gallup: Obama favorability 70%

Ouch: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243726.php
TPM Reader DG: "I can't believe Obama is already sitting down with an unpopular, aggressive world leader without preconditions."

Bonus item: Barack Obama roasts (future) Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel (thanks to Taegan Goddard for the link)



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:26 AM

 
WHAT WILL HE DO?

Obama’s delicate balance: he’s not President yet, but the people who voted for him expect immediate leadership. How does he deal with Bush?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-presses-bush-to-do-more-to-save-economy-1003950.html

Will Obama take an aggressive, first 100 days approach, or proceed cautiously?

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/11/09/fareed-zakaria-to-obama-think-big.aspx

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015594.php

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/many_days_in_a_term.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/first-75-days-before-first-100-days-by.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/opinion/10krugman.html

Policy review

The economy: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/09/the_mini_depression_and_the_ma/
[Robert Reich] When Barack Obama takes office in January, he will inherit a mess. What to do? . . .

Education: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/11/07/want_better_schools_hire_better_teachers/
[Edward Glaeser] PRESIDENT-ELECT Barack Obama has declared that "now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation - to provide every child a world-class education." But how? . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/cabinet_speculation_/2008/11/picking_obamas_secretary_of_education.php
[Steven Teles] I seriously doubt that Secretary of Education will be one of the cabinet positions chosen in the next couple of weeks. That's good, because I hope that Obama's advisors take the matter very seriously. The tendency will be to pluck an aggressive K-12 reformer out of the field--someone like Michelle Rhee from DC, or Joel Klein in NYC. This would be a terrible mistake.

As Rick Hess argued persuasively in his book Spinning Wheels, one of the most important reasons why urban schools rarely improve is constant cycling of leadership. This cycling means that leaders of school districts are rarely in place long enough to transform their ambitious plans of reform into durable, institutionalized change. What is worse, this cycle of reform makes teachers cynical and causes them to withhold commitment to change, since they expect the superintendent to leave town in a couple of years, and a whole new set of plans to be put in place. Better to just keep your head down and do just enough not to draw attention to yourself. While Klein has been in place considerably longer than Rhee, both of them took over deeply troubled school systems that need deep, comprehensive reform. This is the kind of task that takes a decade to achieve. Obama should leave these talented people in the field, where they can do some good for their cities' schools, and set an example for leaders elsewhere.

In addition, much of what the Department of Education actually does concerns higher education. The federal governments programs in higher education are incredibly complex, overlapping, contradictory, badly run, and politically embedded. Fixing them will require a Secretary with an intimate knowledge of their workings.

If the US is to maintain its status as a great power in this century, there is simply no question that we need to get more of our students into math, science and engineering. Despite programs throughout the federal government, fewer students today receive undergraduate degrees in math, science and engineering than they did forty years ago. The Secretary of Education needs to be familiar with the problem and have a high degree of sophistication about strategies for remedying it.

Finally, a substantial portion of the national education agenda, both at the K-12 and higher education levels, concerns closing the achievement gap between African-Americans and whites (especially African-American males). The Secretary of Education only has a relatively small number of levers to pull where this is concerned, but he does have a very powerful bully pulpit, which can help him legitimate unpopular ideas, shine a light on things that work, and in the process help clear a path for reformers at the local level. . . . [read on]

Military policy and national security: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/9/2101/69985/328/653613

Federal judgeships

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/11/09/president_elect_to_face_dozens_of_federal_judgeship_openings/

The problem with giving Treasury Secretary Paulson so much discretion in the bailout

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/24592.php
Amit Paley reports for The Washington Post on a staggering tale of an illegal windfall for banks inserted into the $700 billion rescue package by the Treasury Department. “Did the Treasury Department have the authority to do this? I think almost every tax expert would agree that the answer is no,” George K. Yin, the former chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, told Paley . . . [read on]

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/paulson-discretely-eliminated-bank.html
Paulson discretely eliminated bank taxes . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/economy/10aig.html
A.I.G. May Get More in Bailout . . .

More: http://www.propublica.org/feature/was-aig-watchdog-not-up-to-the-job

Fascinating: how Obama won

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/17/081117fa_fact_lizza
[Ryan Lizza] “Voters actually did not know as much as I think the press corps thought they did about John McCain,” Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to Obama, told me. “What they’d heard about McCain most recently, and certainly during the primary process, was that he was like every other Republican—fighting to sound more like George Bush.” Benenson said, “What we knew at the start of the campaign was that the notion of John McCain as a change agent and independent voice didn’t exist anywhere outside the Beltway.” . . . [read on]

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/11/17/081117taco_talk_hertzberg
[Hendrik Hertzberg] This election was so extraordinary in so many ways that its meaning will take many years to play out and many more to be understood. But there is already the feel of the beginning of a new era. As in 1932 and 1980, a crisis in the economy opened the way for the rejection of a reigning approach to government and the forging of a new one. Emphatically, comprehensively, the public has turned against conservatism at home and neoconservatism abroad. The faith that unfettered markets and minimal taxes on the rich will solve every domestic problem, and that unilateral arrogance and American arms will solve every foreign one, is dead for a generation or more. And the electoral strategy of “cultural” resentment and fake populism has been dealt a grievous blow.

Obama is young, educated, focussed, reassuring, and energetic. He is as accomplished a writer as he is a speaker. His campaign was a marvel of discipline, organization, and prescience. He has, as a conservative critic acknowledged, “a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament.” We have had these qualities in our Presidents before, if rarely all in the same person. . . .

Anti-intellectualism in American life

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09kristof.html
[Nicholas Kristof] Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual. . . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015591.php
[Steve Benen] Given the Republicans' humiliating performance on Election Day, the party is receiving all kinds of advice about how to get back on track. Some suggestions are more sensible than others, and I'm not necessarily inclined to give the GOP guidance on how to improve.

But perusing the papers this weekend, there's a strain of thought Republicans would be wise to take seriously: it's time to abandon the anti-intellectualism that's come to dominate the party's ideology. . . . [read on]

Told ya

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/10/AR2008111000013.html
Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before it, Barack Obama will enter the White House with the opportunity to create the first truly "wired" presidency. . . .

Senate and House committees: changes ahead

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/09/breakdown_of_the_committees.html

Joe Lieberman thinks he’s more necessary than he is

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/lieberman_aide_booting_him_wou.php

Wow, what a miserable human being

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/hateful-bigot-marilyn-musgrave-who-lost.html

McCain’s “dilemma”

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/palin_/2008/11/from_the_language_police_blotter_dilemma.php

Bonus item: Bill Ayers speaks! (thanks to Robert M. for the link)

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4028/what_a_long_strange_trip_its_been/
What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been . . .

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:26 AM

 
THUNDER AND LIGHTNING

Job #1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/08/AR2008110801856.html
Transition advisers to President-elect Barack Obama have compiled a list of about 200 Bush administration actions and executive orders that could be swiftly undone to reverse White House policies on climate change, stem cell research, reproductive rights and other issues . . .

The first hundred days

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/us/politics/09promises.html

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/obamas_priorities.html

Looks as if 58, 59, even 60 seats in the Senate is still a possibility

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/8/183124/972

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243631.php

Norm Coleman is doing all he can to prevent a recount in Minnesota

http://www.twincities.com/ci_10935610
Coleman campaign requests halt of absentee ballot count . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243605.php
[Josh Marshall] I'm getting word that Coleman may be in the process of fielding the lawyers for a replay of President Bush's 2000 recount smackdown. . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243582.php
[Josh Marshall] As of Friday evening the number separating the two was down to 221 votes -- well within the margin that recounts can sometimes overturn. (Indeed, Jon Chait notes that optical scan machines could produce non-trivial swings in the vote since votes that don't register on the optical scan machines often have evident voter intent on visual inspection.) But, now, as he sees his margin dwindle, Coleman is trying to play the 'vote fraud' card in a desperate attempt to retain his seat. . . .

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/08/coleman-files-to-stop-statewide-canvass-in-minnesota-senate-race/
[Stirling Newberry] Senator Norm Coleman isn't waiting for the recount. He's filing to stop the canvass of votes that will certify the unofficial totals reported. That's right, Coleman wants to win the election based on the unofficial totals. This is not the mandated recount, which under Minnesota law must happen after a close election, in this case less than .5% of the ballots. Such a recount is by hand, according to intent of the voter, and happens unless the losing candidate waives the recount. Earlier Coleman was pressuring Franken to drop out . . .

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gMpTmr96V5hKIfyHT4Av4jsVQgrQD94AE8P80
An Associated Press analysis of votes in the tight, still-to-be decided race for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota shows that most ballots lacking a recorded choice in the election were cast in counties won by Democrat Barack Obama.

The finding could have implications for Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken, who are headed for a recount separated by the thinnest of margins — a couple of hundred votes, or about 0.01 percent.

About 25,000 ballots statewide carried votes for president but not for the Senate race. Although some voters might have intentionally bypassed the race, others might have mismarked their ballot, or optical scanning machines might have misread them.

More: http://www.startribune.com/politics/state/34024274.html

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/8/12259/1771/464/657529

And in Alaska. . .

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/uncounted-votes-may-push-begich-past.html
[Nate Silver] Although Ted Stevens currently holds a lead of approximately 3,200 votes in ballots counted to date in Alaska's senate contest, there is good reason to believe that the ballots yet to be counted -- the vast majority of which are early and absentee ballots -- will allow Mark Begich to mitigate his disadvantage with Stevens and quite possibly pull ahead of him.

The reasoning behind this is simple: some early ballots have been processed, and among those ballots Begich substantially leads Stevens. . . .

The future of filibusters

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015582.php
[Steve Benen] It's only been a couple of days since Barack Obama was declared the president-elect, but it's hard not to notice that congressional Republicans are already striking a confrontational pose. . . .

Emanuel and Lieberman: the strange dynamics of “party loyalty”

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/goin-rogue-by-digby-matthews-is-there.html

Obama’s Senate replacement?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/8/141826/892/425/657584

Palin on her critics

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/palin-calls-republican-campaign.html
"mean-spirited," "immature," "unprofessional," and "jerks" . . .

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/palin-calls-her-critics-jerks/
“cowardly,” “stinkers”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/29/palin-hillary-clintons-wh_n_122504.html
[August 29] Palin talked about what women expect from women leaders . . . and her feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton. (She said she felt kind of bad she couldn't support a woman, but she didn't like Clinton's "whining.")

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015583.php
[Steve Benen] [K]eeping this story alive for yet another day seems like a mistake. By speaking at length about the campaign's criticism yesterday, Palin has only produced yet another series of stories about whether she's a "diva," whether she asked for a lavish wardrobe for her and her family, and whether she has a basic understanding of geography. . . .

Is the U.S. really still a “center-right” nation?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200811070013

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9814

Prop 8: what happened?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/california_politics_/2008/11/prop_8_postmortem.php

Our scary nation

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/big-shots-by-digby-read-following.html
[McClatchy] Barack Obama said he would improve the economy. Turns out he already has, at least in one retail niche: gun sales. . . . [read on]

More: http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/palin-attacks-provoked-assassination.html

The return of the Fairness Doctrine?

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/the_fairness_doctrine.html

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/a_question_of_fairness.php

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/sunday_show_preview_100019.asp
NBC Meet the Press: Obama-Biden transition team co-chair Valerie Jarrett, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) and a roundtable with White House historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Newsweek's Jon Meacham and Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Mitchell.

CBS Face the Nation: Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, New York Times' David Brooks and Politico's John Harris.

ABC This Week: Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), George Will, Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Cynthia Tucker, Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria and former White House adviser David Gergen.

CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer: Sen. Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor of California, Jessica Yellin, CNN correspondent and Richard Stengel, managing editor, Time Magazine.

Bonus item: Hmmmm . . . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/the_obama_presidency_/2008/11/the_president_and_his_chief_of_staff_shock_and_awe.php
[538] In Hebrew, "Rahm" means thunder, and "Barack" means lightning. . . .

[NB: yes, I know that Obama's first name is Swahili, not Hebrew]

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:07 AM

 
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER



The election of Obama is already reaping benefits that wouldn’t have happened if McCain had won

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html
Barack Obama may have been elected only three days ago, but his victory is already beginning to shift the political ground in Iraq and the region.

Iraqi Shiite politicians are indicating that they will move faster toward a new security agreement about American troops, and a Bush administration official said he believed that Iraqis could ratify the agreement as early as the middle of this month.

“Before, the Iraqis were thinking that if they sign the pact, there will be no respect for the schedule of troop withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011,” said Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a major Shiite party. “If Republicans were still there, there would be no respect for this timetable. This is a positive step to have the same theory about the timetable as Mr. Obama.” . . .

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brandon-friedman/new-army-recruiting-tacti_b_142107.html
Well that didn't take long. Polls across America had been closed for less than 24 hours and Army Career Counselors were already exploiting Barack Obama's victory in an effort to recruit former soldiers back into units. This email was forwarded to me by an Iraq veteran and former Army captain who received it on Wednesday . . .

24 Month Mobilization Deferment. A President Elect who says he'll get us out of Iraq. What are you waiting for? Stop taking your chance's [sic] in the IRR and be safe from deployment for 2 years. By that time our new President will have gotten us out of these other countries.

It’s intriguing that Obama might put TWO Kennedys in his Cabinet – but Robert F. Kennedy?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/7/8140/84940/439/656545

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/11/say_it_aint_so_barack_say_you_aint_serio.php

The New New Deal

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1531

Chutzpah

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/lieberman-is-begging-to-keep-his.html
[NY Daily News] Sen. Joe Lieberman pleaded with Democratic bosses Thursday to keep his job as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee after stumping ceaselessly for GOPer John McCain. . . .

"You don't run around the country campaigning for McCain and saying you're afraid the Democrats will get a 60-seat [filibuster-proof] majority, and then beg to keep your chairmanship," said a senior Democratic source.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243492.php
[Josh Marshall] Joe Lieberman is putting out word that if the Democrats don't allow him to keep his chairmanship, he'll take up Mitch McConnell's invitation to join the Republican caucus. I think the answer has to be, go for it.

Says a Lieberman staffer: "Senator Lieberman's preference is to stay in the caucus, but he's going to keep all his options open. McConnell has reached out to him and at this stage his position is he wants to remain in the caucus but losing the chairmanship is unacceptable."

I think much of what Lieberman did over the last year was inexcusable. But magnanimity in victory is always a virtue and usually wise. So I don't think it's necessary to expel him from the caucus. And perhaps there are some perks of seniority he could be allowed to retain. But allowing him to keep his chairmanship is simply unacceptable. It's a position the Democrats hold because of the joint efforts of Democrats across the country pulling together to support Democratic policies and ideals and elect Democratic candidates. For Lieberman to enjoy the fruits of that labor after working so hard to stymie that effort would be unconscionable. . . .

And the simple fact is the Democrats don't need Joe Lieberman. He's not in a position to call anything 'unacceptable'. The Democrats didn't get to 60 votes or at least it now seems highly unlikely -- which was his only hope to have any continued relevance or position to bargain from. And the truth is that filibuster-busting votes are often made on an ad-hoc basis rather than on a party line. In any case, there'd be no more reason to trust he'd be there as a 60th vote as a Democrat than as a Republican.

Sen. Reid should take a cue from the one his fictional predecessor once heard in telling Lieberman how it's going to be: "My offer is this. Nothing."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015575.php
[Steve Benen] Look, Reid is offering Lieberman a very sweet deal. By some counts, much too sweet. Lieberman betrayed the Democratic Party and broke his word to his own Democratic constituents. Reid is nevertheless willing to a) let him stay in the Democratic caucus; b) keep his seniority; and c) give him the chairmanship of something else. That, by any reasonable measure, is ridiculously gracious of Reid. It's certainly more generosity than Lieberman deserves or has earned.

And yet, Lieberman thinks that's "unacceptable."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015577.php
[Steve Benen] This seems to be routinely overlooked, but take a moment to consider what the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs actually does: it's the committee principally responsible for oversight of the executive branch. It's an accountability committee, charged with investigating the conduct of the White House and the president's administration.

As chairman of this committee for the last two years, Lieberman decided not to pursue any accusations of wrongdoing against the Bush administration. Lieberman's House counterpart -- Rep. Henry Waxman's Oversight Committee -- was a vigilant watchdog, holding hearings, issuing subpoenas, and launching multiple investigations. Lieberman preferred to let his committee do no real work at all. It was arguably the most pathetic display of this Congress.

And yet, now Lieberman acts as if keeping this chairmanship is the single most important part of his public life. Why would he be so desperate to keep the gavel of a committee he hasn't used? I'll let you in on a secret: he wants to start using the power of this committee against Obama.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/7/154326/816
[Josh Orton] Joe Lieberman is entitled to disagree with other Democratic Senators on whatever issue he wants. And it's legitimate for him to express his opinions - whatever they may be - through his votes as a Senator.

But Lieberman went way beyond voting against his party - he specifically undercut Barack Obama and others on the very issue Republicans have consistently used since 9/11 to slime Democrats: national security.

Lieberman defended Norm Coleman when Al Franken raised the issue of Iraq War investigations (in a Senate race, it's worth mentioning, that's in a tight recount).

He repeated the smear that Obama voted to "cut off funding for our troops on the ground."

And at the GOP convention, Lieberman lied about Obama's Senate record.

So Lieberman's entitled to his policy differences - but it's absolutely unacceptable for Joe to maintain oversight of a powerful committee with jurisdiction over the subject he used to attack Democrats. It just doesn't make sense.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/reid_what_lieberman_did_was_im.php
Reid's office has now publicly confirmed that he may ask the other Dem Senators to vote on Lieberman's fate at their full caucus meeting on November 18th. At this rate, Reid will be left with no choice other than to take real action.

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/lieberman-was-offered-veterans-affairs-not-a-subcommittee/
Lieberman Was Offered Veteran’s Affairs, Not A Subcommittee . . .

More: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15401.html

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/reading-the-lieberman-tea-leaves/

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/more-on-joementum/

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/sanctimonious-joe-in-the-crossfire/

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/7/124911/997/204/656796

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/7/11475/0920

More Chairmanships on the move

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/senator-byrd-gives-up-chairmanship-of.html
Senator Byrd gives up Chairmanship of Appropriations Committee . . . [read on]

Rush calls Emanuel, Obama “Chicago Thugs”

http://www.thegmanifesto.com/2008/11/rush-limbaugh-calls-rahm-emanuel-a-chicago-thug.html
“Also, this notion of governing from the center? His first appointment, his chief of staff is Rahm Emanuel. Do we know if Emanuel has accepted? Rahm Emanuel wants to be Speaker of the House. Let me tell you a little bit about Rahm Emanuel. Hillary Clinton hates him. In the White House, Rahm Emanuel pushed NAFTA and made that go first instead of her health care baby, and her health care baby suffered. There’s no love lost between Rahm Emanuel and Hillary Clinton, and he is good a old-fashioned Chicago thug just like Obama is a good old-fashioned Chicago thug. . . .

More: http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_110608/content/01125109.guest.html

Though progressives aren’t very happy with the Emanuel choice either

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9792
[Matt Stoller] I just heard Michelle Bernard on MSNBC laud Obama's Rahm Emanuel pick because he'll be able to reign in the left. Marc Ambinder echoes this point: "Advisers say that Obama has sent a not-so-subtle message to Congress: President-Elect Obama will not cede much agenda-setting ground to liberals."

So get ready to be kicked in the face . . .

I don’t really care all that much about these stories any more, but don’t the Palins sound like those people who come to fancy buffet parties, and start stuffing food into their pockets to take home?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/reliable-source/2008/11/rs-palin7.html
The McCain-Palin campaign is over, but Wardrobe-gate lives on. More embarrassing details have emerged about Sarah Palin's infamous shopping sprees -- including even more designer duds, plus sprayed-on tans and fancy underwear.

On top of the $150,000 first outlined in Federal Election Commission filings, Palin spent "tens of thousands of dollars" on additional clothing, makeup and jewelry for herself and her family, including $40,000 in luxury goods for her husband, Todd, our colleague Michael Shear reports. The campaign was charged for silk boxer shorts, spray tanners and 13 suitcases to carry all the designer clothes, according to two GOP insiders. . . .

Palin fires back

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/06/palin-camp-fires-back-over-claims-by-some-mccain-aides/
“If they’re an unnamed source, then that says it all,” she said. “I won’t comment on anybody’s gossip, or allegations that are based on anonymous sources. That’s kind of a small, evidently bitter type of person who would anonymously charge something foolish like that, that I perhaps didn’t know an answer to a question. So until I know who was talking about it, I won’t have a comment on false allegations.”

More: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/07/mccain.palin/index.html

The sharks are eating each other

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/wingers-red-in-tooth-and-claw/

Will Palin appoint herself to fill Ted Stevens’ Senate seat?

http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/11/06/can-ted-stevens-thrust-palin-back-into-the-national-spotlight/

Hold everything: Stevens may not win after all!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/7/212253/549/808/657201

Eric Cantor, new GOP Minority Whip, already raking in the dough

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/07/eric-cantor-new-republican-house-whip-takes-bales-of-bailout-money/

Bonus item: “A mutt like me”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/07/obamas-first-press-confer_n_142201.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:05 AM

 
A TOUGH BUSINESS

Well, I take it as a good sign that the Republicans are apoplectic about Rahm Emanuel being chosen as Chief of Staff – but many progressives are concerned

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/obamas_pick_for_chief_of_staff.php
[AP] Rahm Emanuel combines political instincts, White House experience and a Chicago tough-guy attitude . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/11/06/BL2008110601694.html
[Dan Froomkin] In Emanuel, Obama would be putting a force of nature at his side -- a man who, for better and for worse, has a reputation as being one of the most aggressive political figures in Washington. . . . [read on]

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/11/boehner-assails.html
House Minority Whip John Boehner, R-Ohio, issued a statement decrying the appointment of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., as President-elect Barack Obama's White House chief of staff.

“This is an ironic choice for a President-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil, and govern from the center," Boehner said. . . .

[NB: Boehner is the Minority Leader, not the Whip. Roy Blunt, who is apparently stepping down, was the Whip]

More about Rahm: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9760
[Chris Bowers] I don't like Rahm Emanuel becoming Obama's chief of staff . . . Over the last few years, I agree with Kagro X in that it appears that Rahm's defining governing characteristic has been to approach legislation almost entirely from the perspective of how it will play in an election. That is a big negative, both because we just suffered through too much of that during the Bush administration and because it is a erroneous way of viewing the relationship between legislation and elections. . . . [read on]

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/why_rahm_a_message_to_and_from.php
[Marc Ambinder] Advisers say that Obama has sent a not-so-subtle message to Congress: President-Elect Obama will not cede much agenda-setting ground to liberals. While outside Democrats are interpreting Emanuel's selection as an institutional message for Nancy Pelosi, Obama advisers concede that Emanuel's ties to key party centrists and blue dog Democrats will be criticial to smoother relationships between the executive and legislative branches. (Emanuel is more liberal than these centrists, but he's not nearly the ideologue that people seem to think he is.)

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9768

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15388.html

Obama releases an org chart (with The Constitution over everyone) – and instantly repudiates the Bush/Cheney model of governance

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243435.php

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/obamas_constitution.html

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/obama-to-promote-oversite-at-fda.html

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/obama-may-create-climate-czar.html

The emerging Obama economic team

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_rolls_out_economic_trans.php

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/11/06/1659932.aspx

Opposition to Larry Summers builds: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/max-blumenthal/lawrence-summers-africa-i_b_141706.html

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15391.html

364

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/06/obama-wins-north-carolina_n_141803.html
President-elect Obama won North Carolina on Thursday, a triumph that underscored his political strength as he turned nine states that President Bush won in 2004 to Democratic blue. . . .

Maybe 365

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/6/162422/116/951/656033
Obama's chances of getting that Nebraska EV improve . . .

The three outstanding Senate races

Minnesota: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/7/23627/6445/512/656464

Alaska: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9766

Georgia: http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/06/georgia-republicans-call-in-the-eye-candy-for-the-recount/

Remember when Obama said, immediately after the Russian invasion of Georgia, that both sides were at fault and had to show restraint? Remember how he was savaged for his naivete? Remember how McCain hammered him for “blaming the victim” (Georgia)? Well, guess what?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243418.php

Campbell Brown, CNN, on Palin

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_02_archive.html#6234990507407760978
Tonight the scape-goating of Sarah Palin. Whatever you may have thought about John McCain’s running mate… about whether she was qualified, prepared or experienced enough for the job… try if you can to put all of that aside for just a moment. Because Sarah Palin is who she is. She did not become measurably more intelligent or measurably less intelligent during this campaign. . . .

Which is why I find it so stunning that the very people who introduced us to Sarah Palin… who told us she would make a great Vice President… have now turned on her with a vengeance. . . .

To those top McCain advisors who leaked the little story about seeing Sarah Palin in a towel. To those who called her and her family “Wasilla Hillbillies” while using her to stoke class warfare with redmeat speeches and an anti-elitist message. To those who claim she didn’t know Africa was a continent. To those McCain aides who say she is the reason they lost this election… can I please remind you of one thing: you picked her.

You are the ones who supposedly vetted her, and then told the American people she was qualified for the job. You are the ones who after meeting her a couple of times, told us she was ready to be just one heartbeat away from the Presidency. If even half of what you say NOW is true, then boy, did you try to sell the American people a bill of goods. If Sarah Palin is the reason some voters chose Barack Obama, that is no one’s fault but your own. John McCain, as he so graciously said himself the other night, lost this election. He lost it with your help, your advice, your guidance, and yes, your running mate recommendations. And that is crystal clear to everyone, no matter how hard you try to blame Sarah Palin or anyone else.

“How could we have known?”



Wheee! Now the bloodbath begins. Right-wing site declares “Project Leper.” Anyone leaking anti-Palin stories now will be blackballed from any future GOP campaign (and whoever hires them)

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015558.php

For example: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06mccain.html

Randy Scheunemann whines, “I wasn’t fired.” No, he was just shut out of campaign conversations and had his email and Blackberry taken away

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243275.php
Well, Randy Scheunemann now insists that he wasn't really fired by the McCain campaign in the final days of the election for hitching his wagon to the Palin trainwreck and dishing against McCain to the press, or at least so he now says. But . . .

“You blew it, now get out of the way and let us drive.” The Republican leadership revolt

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR2008110504266.html
Younger, more conservative lawmakers moved yesterday to assert their influence in the House Republican caucus as the GOP began the traditional period of soul-searching that follows a major electoral defeat. Conservatives also began jockeying to fill the post of Republican National Committee chairman early next year.

Republican leaders, especially on Capitol Hill, said the GOP had strayed too far from its traditional principle of limited government and must reclaim its reputation as the party most committed to cutting spending and taxes. But some were also deeply concerned about the drubbing the party's standard-bearer, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), absorbed among Hispanic and well-educated voters, as well as affluent suburbanites, and said that a more fundamental rethinking of the GOP message is in order.

On Capitol Hill, House GOP leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) appeared likely to hold onto his leadership post, but the No. 3 Republican, Adam H. Putnam of Florida, a major proponent of the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan, resigned his post late yesterday.

The fate of the No. 2 Republican, Minority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), was uncertain, and one of the younger party mavericks, Virginia's Eric Cantor, was poised to replace him amid widespread discontent among party rank-and-file . . .

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/politics_and_leadership_/2008/11/circular_firing_squad_forms_up.php
[Michael O’Hare] A smaller, leaner, meaner group of survivors means a smaller circle for better aim, I guess. The House Republicans are planning how to get past this little hiccup on the road to a permanent majority, and in the room, as far as I can tell from the story, are not a single black, Asian-American, Hispanic, or female person. Nor a new idea. . . .

Meet Eric Cantor: http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/06/blunt-stepping-down-as-minority-whip-eric-pelosis-mean-to-me-cantor-stepping-in/

More: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/6/14957/1562/104/655871

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15380.html

http://www.rebuildtheparty.com/

How long will the GOP be in the wilderness?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/06/gop.identity.crisis/index.html
The Republican Party faces a long list of problems with no clear national leader and an identity crisis that will play out during a period of good will for the first African-American elected president.

Barack Obama not only won a clear majority of the votes Tuesday night, but he won with a coalition that dramatically recolored the Electoral College map and creates an opportunity for Democrats to have the upper hand after a long period of Republican electoral dominance.

It is the combination of Obama's success among young voters and Latino voters that many Republican strategists see as particularly troubling to their party's long-term health. . . . [read on]

Speaking of “in the wilderness,” what’s ahead for Joe Lieberman?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243331.php
[Harry Reid, D-NV] Today Senator Lieberman and I had the first of what I expect to be several conversations. No decisions have been made. While I understand that Senator Lieberman has voted with Democrats a majority of the time, his comments and actions have raised serious concerns among many in our caucus. . . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/in_private_meeting_reid_tells.php
[Greg Sargent] In the private meeting today between Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman, Reid bluntly informed Lieberman that Dem sentiment against him had risen to the point where it would be tough for him to keep his plum Homeland Security Committee chairmanship . . .

More: http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/06/lieberman-meets-with-reid/

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/lieberman-is-learning-there-will-be.html

Hard to believe this isn’t a joke – but it’s serious. The failure of the Bush presidency, according to the Wall Street Journal, was OUR failure, the failure of a “disloyal” nation that refused to support him

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015557.php

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602693.html
The Decency of George W. Bush . . .

Bonus item: Too, too funny


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 6:31 AM

 
MOVING TO THE LEFT

Once the media embraces some conventional wisdom, you can’t crack it with dynamite. The US is a center-right nation, they chirp in unison. Even after a sweeping victory based on center-left principles, even after a direct repudiation of conservative politics and ideology, even after unprecedented turnout and new voting blocs, they can’t bring themselves to recognize a new alignment in the making

http://www.creators.com/opinion/david-sirota/mandate-08-reagan-vs-fdr.html

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/issues/2008/progressive_triumph.html

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=c261828d-7387-4af8-9ee7-8b2922ea6df0

More: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_progressive_center.php

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/a_center_left_country.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9720

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/msm_to_obama_be_wary_of_left-w.php

The numbers

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obamas_resounding_victory_by_t.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/121047/970/550/654400

Schadenfreude

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjBhMWEyZmZhYTYwZTNlMjIyM2E1NmQwOWUzODBlZTc
[National Review] What won this election was the packaging skills of David Axelrod, the swooning complicity of the media, the ruthless opportunism of Barack Obama, and the unprincipled thuggishness of his supporters.

What lost this election was the cloth-eared cluelessness of George W. Bush, the timid squeamishness of John McCain, and the deep lack of interest in conservative principles among Republican primary voters.

Sour? You bet I’m sour. Where was conservatism in this election? Where was restraint in government? Where was national sovereignty? Where was liberty? Where was self-support? And where are those things now? Where are they headed this next four years? Down the toilet, that’s where. Pah!

I don’t want to spend much time here on the question of “what if” for McCain, but after watching this guy sell his soul . . . for nothing, I do find it interesting to consider: What if he had truly been a maverick, rejecting Bush and Cheney policies early? What if he had stuck to the immigration issue and reached out to Hispanics? What if he had avoided the politics of race, perhaps gaining more than 4% of the black vote? What if he had stuck with the Mark McKinnons, John Weavers, and Mike Murphys instead of bringing in the Roveans? What if instead of the faux politics of “Joe the Plumber” he had made a real appeal for white working class voters, a la Hillary? What if he had formed a bipartisan ticket with Lieberman instead of pandering to the Christian Right with Palin? He would have lost much of the intensity of the base, of course – but he might have gained much stronger support from Independents, Jewish Americans, blue collar whites, etc. Would the outcome have been better? Who knows – but it could hardly have been much worse, and he’d still have his dignity

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/running_right.php

Blah! http://www.newsday.com/services/newspaper/printedition/wednesday/news/ny-a5912744nov05,0,2836529.story
In the end, we got to know the meaning of "Country First."

First, John McCain would make sacrifices for his country as the enemy's captive in a war. Decades later his party would sacrifice him as its captive in a national election.

Considering the perils he faced against Barack Obama, the Arizona senator comes out of the election more martyr than maverick.

McCain chose hard roads. . . .

Now this really ticks me off. Condi Rice, who on this like so many issues has been MIA for months, who with a single supportive sentence could have saved Obama a world of hurt and unfair attacks, who showed ZERO courage and independence during the campaign, now claims some deep emotional connection with the result. Thanks for nothing, sister

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/rice-congratulates-obama_n_141414.html

56 Senate seats, it looks like Oregon will make it 57 – and three more still to settle

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/05/merkley_wins_oregon_senate_seat.html
According to the Portland Oregonian, Jeff Merkley (D) has defeated Sen. Gordon Smith (R-OR). . .

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/the_latest_senate_map_more_dem.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/5/151323/358

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015539.php

Norm Coleman (R-MN), winner by 476 votes: we don’t have time for any bloody recount

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243080.php

It’s gonna happen: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/washingtonpostinvestigations/2008/11/minnesotas_tight_race_heading.html

Ted Stevens (R-AK) fights on

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/sen_stevens_fights_on_1.php

Ballot shenanigans? http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/what-in-hell-happened-in-alaska.html

In the House races

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/122142/070/534/654416

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/5/8230/41805

Very bad news: Prop 8 passed in California

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/11/05/MNHR13UGAT.DTL

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/13351/5326/393/654565

Lawsuit filed: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/lawsuit-filed-against-anti-gay-prop-8.html

Oh my: did Obama’s big victory HELP Prop 8?

http://www.slate.com/id/2203912

Trashing Palin

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-didnt-know-africa-i_n_141653.html
According to Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron, there was great concern within the McCain campaign that Palin lacked "a degree of knowledgeability necessary to be a running mate, a vice president, a heartbeat away from the presidency," in part because she didn't know which countries were in NAFTA, and she "didn't understand that Africa was a continent, rather than a series, a country just in itself."

***UPDATE*** Fox News Chief Political Correspondent Carl Cameron appeared on The O'Reilly Factor tonight and described in much fuller detail the truly astonishing behavior, and lack of knowledge, of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail, as well as the nasty infighting that resulted from, some would say, Palin's "diva" behavior. . . .

Cameron relates how McCain aides were terrified of Palin's lack of knowledge of international and national issues, and even basic civics. Cameron reports that Palin was unfamiliar with the concept of "American exceptionalism" . . . during debate prep Palin was unable to name all the nations in North America.

Palin was apparently a nightmare for her campaign staff to deal with. She refused preparation help for her interview with Katie Couric and then blamed her staff, specifically Nicole Wallace, when the interview was rightly panned as a disaster. After the Couric interview, Palin turned nasty with her staff and began to accuse them of mishandling her. Palin would view press clippings of herself in the morning and throw "tantrums" over the negative coverage. There were times when she would be so nasty and angry that her staff was reduced to tears.

Watch the clip . . .



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/obama-we-cant-solve-globa_n_141358.html
[Newsweek] -- McCain himself rarely spoke to Palin during the campaign and aides kept him in the dark about the details of her spending on clothes because they were sure he would be offended. Palin asked to speak along with McCain at his Arizona concession speech but campaign strategist Steve Schmidt vetoed the request.

-- Palin launched her attack on Obama's association with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber, before the campaign had finalized a plan to raise the issue. McCain's advisers were working on a strategy that they hoped to unveil the following week, but McCain had not signed off on it, and top adviser Mark Salter was resisting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/palin-once-greeted-mccain_n_141394.html
[Newsweek] At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said. . . .

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family--clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06mccain.html

“Defending” Palin (sorta kinda)

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/palin_/2008/11/spiritofgenerosity_dept.php

Red meat

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/report_threats_to_obama_ruse_a.php
[Newsweek] The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle asked a top campaign aide.

More juicy tidbits from Newsweek

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/05/obama-we-cant-solve-globa_n_141358.html
[Newsweek] On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain's core group of advisers--Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons -- met to decide whether or not to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had "a pulse."

There’s a serious question here: much of this reporting was clearly done well before the election. Why are we only finding out about it AFTER the vote?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243167.php
[CNN] Randy Scheunemann, a senior foreign policy adviser to John McCain, was fired from the Arizona senator's campaign last week for what one aide called "trashing" the campaign staff, three senior McCain advisers tell CNN.

One of the aides tells CNN that campaign manager Rick Davis fired Scheunemann after determining that he had been in direct contact with journalists spreading "disinformation" about campaign aides, including Nicolle Wallace and other officials.

"He was positioning himself with Palin at the expense of John McCain's campaign message," said one of the aides.

More: http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/06/birdbrains-of-a-feather/

Heh

http://www.eschatonblog.com/2008_11_02_archive.html#6514236120041821191
[Newsweek] When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

The Rahm Emanuel Chief of Staff rumors – and more on the transition

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06emanuel.html

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015541.php

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/rahm_emanuel.html

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/emanuel_spokesperson_denies_he.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/06rahm.html

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/obama_transition_for_later.php

Larry Summers? http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243197.php

The future of the Supreme Court

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/05/supreme_court/index.html

Goodbye Ralph – we used to admire you

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1467
Ralph Nader: Will Obama Be An “Uncle Tom For The Giant Corporations.”

Bonus item: Our Professor-in-Chief (thanks to A.G. for the link)

http://chronicle.com/free/2008/11/6651n.htm

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:35 AM

 
A MORE PERFECT UNION

The victory speech: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/obamas-acceptance-speech.html
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. . . .

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn’t start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington – it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston.

It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause. It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth. This is your victory.

I know you didn’t do this just to win an election and I know you didn’t do it for me. You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime – two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century. Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us. There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they’ll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor’s bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair. . .

Watch



52% - 46%

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/63522/1819/1/653924

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/52_percent.php
* The last time a Democrat got as much as 52 percent in a Presidential election was 1964.
* The last time a non-incumbent got as much as 52 percent in a Presidential election was 1952.

349 electoral votes, and still counting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR2008110501769.html

The latest map

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9715



Turnout

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15306.html
More than 130 million people turned out to vote Tuesday, the most ever to vote in a presidential election.

With ballots still being counted in some precincts into Wednesday morning, an estimated 64 percent of the electorate turned out, making 2008 the highest percentage turnout in generations. . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/54025/9539/19/653906
68% of Youth Vote Goes for Obama

The world reacts

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/world-reacts.html

How he did it

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015536.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/macro_spin_divide_in_two.php

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05recon.html

Goodbye George

Good riddance: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/good_riddance.php

Goodbye John

(And his hateful supporters) http://www.samefacts.com/archives/john_mccain_/2008/11/mccains_concession.php
McCain mentions Obama. Classy to the end, his crowd boos. . .




Goodbye Sarah (for now)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/4/14759/9273/244/652672

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/04/palin-sees-her-future-role-in-politics-as-a-uniter-then-attacks-liberal-media/
“The state of journalism today, the world, for the blogosphere, the 2-3-hour news cycles, where just too much is reported based on gossip and innuendo and things taken out of context," she said. . . . I have great respect for the world for journalism."





Dems unlikely to reach 60 in the Senate

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/dems_pick_up_five_senate_seats.php

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/05/democrats_pick_up_at_least_five_senate_seats.html

Erstwhile “Democrat” Joe Lieberman says he might support GOP filibusters

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/americas-hole-by-dday-joe-lieberman.html

A few noteworthy races

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/hateful-homophobic-marilyn-musgrave.html
Hateful, homophobic Marilyn Musgrave lost tonight

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/bachmann_survives_re-election.php
It looks like we'll still have Michele Bachmann to kick around. CNN and NBC are now projecting that the controversial GOP Congresswoman from Minnesota, who put her once-certain re-election in danger after she went on Hardball and called for a media investigation of Barack Obama and Congressional Dems for having anti-American views, has been re-elected.

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/11/04/shays/index.html
Chris Shays, last GOP congressman in New England, loses

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_el_pr/election_update845pm
Democrats are picking up another Senate seat from the South: Democrat Kay Hagan has defeated Republican incumbent Elizabeth Dole in North Carolina.

We don’t know yet

Al Franken? http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i50e90e3361925e2870a3669f6d66541e

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/35723/7155/74/653867

600,000 votes uncounted in Georgia: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242949.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/31224/2461/107/653834

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/in-georgia-chambliss-is-below-50-with.html

North Carolina, others: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/5/42451/4961/58/653883

We do know this: Joe Scarborough says, "This Is A Total Repudiation Of The Republican Brand"

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/4/19134/7500

Factoid

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015538.php
It's worth noting, then, that next year will be the first time in 45 years that there isn't someone with the last name Dole or Bush holding elected office in Washington.

What next?

http://www.slate.com/id/2203761

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/the_governing_to_come.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9718

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/04/AR2008110404549.html

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/11/kerry_for_state.php

Bill Ayers speaks!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/04/AR2008110404171.html
"Pal around together? What does that mean? Share a milkshake with two straws?" Ayers said in his first interview since the controversy began. "I think my relationship with Obama was probably like thousands of others in Chicago. And, like millions and millions of others, I wish I knew him better."

Bonus item: The Palin/McCain debate (wish l’d had this yesterday)



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***

- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:04 AM

 
VOTE!

Rushing a bit this morning, to get out and vote with my eight year old son, who’s an even bigger Obama fan than I am.

Don’t stop running til the race is over!

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/dont-think-for-minute-that-power.html
Obama: "Don't think for a minute that power concedes."

We haven’t heard the word “post” yet (as in “Post-Rovean”). We’ll see how things look tomorrow morning. But it feels like a realigning election – an unusual combination of movements and coalitions for Obama, and a similar set of trends against the policies and politics of the last eight years. These things are cyclical, but right now the GOP looks out of ideas, out of energy, and out of strong candidates for any future comeback. If moderates do bolt, or are subject to a putsch in some finger-pointing aftermath, the forces of the theocratic Right could be marginalized as a factor in national politics

Their darling: Sarah Palin. Does she have a future?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242294.php
[Josh Marshall] Palin is the first Republican presidential or vice-presidential since Richard Nixon to so genuinely appeal to the politics of resentment. Sure, the Bushes and McCain have played to it. But either economically or socially or both, these men were all to-the-manor-born -- elites who've lived their whole lives on greased rails.

To use a different analogy I think Palin (and perhaps Joe the Plumber too) appeal to the brainstem of conservatism, where the most primitive and persistent impulses are registered, even as the areas of higher reasoning and cognition (frontal lobes and all that) are flat-lining or tracking into oblivion. . . . [read on]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/02/AR2008110201718.html
[Peter Beinart] Why has America turned on Sarah Palin? Obviously, her wobbly television interviews haven't helped. Nor have the drip, drip of scandals from Alaska, which have tarnished her reformist image. But Palin's problems run deeper, and they say something fundamental about the political age being born. Palin's brand is culture war, and in America today culture war no longer sells. . . .

Palin on the campaign trail

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/palin_on_obama-biden_do_they_t.php
Palin On Democrats: "Do They Think The Terrorists ... Are The Good Guys?"

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/03/palin-warns-of-far-left-take-over-of-federal-government-outs-herself-as-a-klingon/
“We must win,” she said, “because Ohio, the far-left wing of the Democrat Party, not mainstream Democrat ideology, the values, the planks in the platform of the Democrat Party. It's the far-left wing of the party is getting ready to take over the entire federal government. . . .

..there must be something about San Francisco and he because it’s like I heard on Fox News today, it’s like a truth serum where when he’s there, he seems to be more candid, and remember it was there that he talked about, there you go, the bitter clingers, the cling-ons, all of us, I guess, you know holding on to religion and guns and, um, so something about he being there in San Francisco.”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242453.php
Palin has released a letter from her personal physician proclaiming her to be in good health and fit to serve -- instead of releasing her medical records, which she'd promised to do days ago.

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015499.php

Troopergate report on Palin from the ultra-friendly Personnel Board says exactly what we expected it to say

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/trooper-gate_report_initiated.php

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/11/03/governor-appointed-panel-clears-governor-of-wrong-doing/

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/report_palin_not_responsible_f.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/palins_emails_reveal_a_habit_o_1.php

Palin/McCain crowds: almost empty

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/3/133216/923/876/651039

Mitt Romney, covering his heinie for the future

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/03/romney-dignified/
Romney Can’t Bring Himself To Say That McCain Has Conducted A ‘Dignified And Honest’ Campaign

More indications of a “post” election

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/poll_mccains_attacks_on_obama.php
Poll: McCain's Attacks On Obama Completely Flopped

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/3/131330/278
The Ineffective Republican Smear Machine

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242436.php
Good News on 'Voter Fraud'?

Updates on the path to 60 Senate seats

http://firedoglake.com/2008/11/03/60-seconds-to-a-new-south-in-the-senate/

Bonus item: Drudge – did Obama give McCain the finger?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/4/0102/78917/229/651670

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:03 AM

 
AFTER THE BLOW-OUT?

Yes, Obama is going to win; but we need to continue to push for a huge, convincing Obama win. It isn’t just a matter of not getting complacent: the size of his victory, the power of his mandate, the margin of Democratic votes in Congress, are all going to matter in the months ahead if Obama is actually going to be able to implement the challenging agenda he has ahead of him. The Republicans are already trying to delegitimate this victory by suggesting that Obama is only winning because blacks are turning out to vote in record numbers (often illegally) for one of their own; we may see a tremendous youth vote, but what do kids know?

Meanwhile, an overwhelming victory might communicate something about the end of the Rovean era of politics. McCain has obviously proven to be a deeply flawed candidate, one who has run a strikingly inconsistent and ineffective campaign, shackled to one of the most ridiculous Vice Presidential choices in recent memory. But if after all that he were to even come close to victory, the message would be that if he had only done this or that he could have won. The message should be: this kind of divisive, hateful campaign doesn’t work any more, and a big vote against McCain and Palin may prove the kind of repudiation that sends political consultants back to the drawing board. OR, it will scare moderates out of the Republican party and leave it to the folks who think Sarah Palin is a pretty great leader. Either way, we win.

Then there is Obama’s GOTV effort, Internet data base, and grassroots organization. This is a GOVERNING machine, not just a campaign machine. The infrastructure is being put in place to create a truly effective Democratic apparatus that will play out in building popular support for new programs, future election campaigns, fundraising for a variety of purposes, etc.

His campaign’s use of the Internet, of course, is a key part of that Democratic machine. People don't realize what a powerful campaign this has become, how brilliantly it has been designed, and what that means for the long term. By voting, volunteering and contributing money, people are not just helping Obama win – we are all together building something with enduring political significance.

What comes afterwards?

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/3/54858/2050
[Shai Sachs] In full-blown panic about an almost certain loss at the polls, conservatives are now trying to win the post-election narrative - they're trying to claim that, despite the election results, the country is still conservative. . . . [read on]

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/11/the_future.html
[Kevin Drum] So what does the political world look like on Wednesday if the gurus at ABC News are right? They all announced their guesses Sunday morning, and the average of their projections is 352 electoral votes for Obama plus a pickup for the Democrats of 24 seats in the House and 7 or 8 seats in the Senate.

If this happens, the upshot is that both parties get moved to the right. Most of the Democratic pickups will be in centrist states and districts, which will move the Democratic caucus moderately toward the center. At the same time, it will remove these centrist states and districts from the Republican side, which will make the GOP caucus not just smaller, but even more conservative than it is now. As a touchstone, the Republican Study Committee, the hardcore conservative wing of the House GOP contingent, currently represents a little over half of their total strength. After Tuesday they're likely to represent nearly two-thirds, which means that the rump of the House Republican caucus remaining after Tuesday is likely to be almost entirely in the hands of the most faithful of the movement conservative faithful. These true believers are not likely to give in quickly to the notion that hardcore conservative ideology needs a bit of freshening up if the party wants to regain its competitive edge. On the contrary, they'll probably double down, convinced that they lost only because John McCain and George Bush abandoned the true faith that America truly yearns for. . . . [read on]

GOP soul-searching? Don’t hold your breath

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/opinion/03krugman.html
[Paul Krugman] Most of the post-election discussion will presumably be about what the Democrats should and will do with their mandate. But let me ask a different question that will also be important for the nation’s future: What will defeat do to the Republicans?

You might think, perhaps hope, that Republicans will engage in some soul-searching, that they’ll ask themselves whether and how they lost touch with the national mainstream. But my prediction is that this won’t happen any time soon.

Instead, the Republican rump, the party that’s left after the election, will be the party that attends Sarah Palin’s rallies, where crowds chant “Vote McCain, not Hussein!” It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who, observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that “the other folks are voting.” It will be the party that harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama’s Marxist — or was that Islamic? — roots.

Why will the G.O.P. become more, not less, extreme? For one thing, projections suggest that this election will drive many of the remaining Republican moderates out of Congress, while leaving the hard right in place. . . . [read on]

Obama lead continues to grow, into double digits in most major polls

WP/ABC: http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/11/02/wpabc_poll_obama_opens_11_point_lead.html
54% to 43%, among likely voters

CBS/NYT: http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/11/02/politics/horserace/entry4564135.shtml
With two days left until the presidential election, Barack Obama continues to lead John McCain by 13 points among likely voters, 54 percent to 41 percent

Gallup: http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2635
The election is almost over: Barack Obama kept his huge lead among likely voters in Sunday's Gallup Poll, with a 51-43 percent margin over John McCain.

More bad news for McCain: Obama is far ahead, at 52-41 percent, with all voters.

USAT: http://blogs.usatoday.com/onpolitics/2008/11/final-usa-today.html
Obama, 53%, McCain, 42%.

More: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/tpm_track_composite_obamas_lea_10.php

Even GOP-friendly pollsters admit the inevitable

Luntz: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241911.php

Zogby: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/right_wings_favorite_pollster.php

More: http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/every-pundit-on-abc-s-this-week-says.html

“Toss-ups” no more

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/chuck-todd-if-mccain-wins-all-toss-ups.html

What the Republicans don’t want to say out loud: they’ve been COUNTING on people not voting for Obama because he’s black

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241989.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/pennsylvania_gop_ad.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242000.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242105.php

They’ve failed: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/us/politics/03caucus.html
Level of White Support for Obama a Surprise

Voter suppression alert

Wisconsin: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/dems_question_wi_attorney_gene.php

Colorado: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/cos_secretary_of_state_calls_r.php

Georgia: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/ga_secretary_of_state_calls_de.php

More evidence that voter registration fraud DOES NOT mean voter fraud

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/mccain_camp_cant_give_example.php

WHO’S “destroying the fabric of democracy”?

http://www.propublica.org/article/mccain-advisor-says-voter-fraud-is-a-perception-that-plants-seeds-of-doubt/
For weeks Republican leaders have warned that widely reported problems with fake voter registrations could result in a flood of phony votes in pivotal states.

But Ronald Michaelson, a veteran election administrator and member of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, said in an interview that he could not name a single instance in which this had occurred. . .

Senator John McCain declared in the final presidential debate that ACORN -- the low-income advocacy group whose temporary staffers submitted thousands of faked applications -- “is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy.” . . .

Michaelson, who served for 27 years as executive director of the Illinois Board of Elections, said the sharp exchanges over registration fraud have undermined voters’ confidence in the electoral system.

“The fact that so many of these illegal registrations are being made public raises a perception in the minds of people,’’ he said. “That’s more of a general concern. You don’t want to perpetuate the idea that our election process is lacking integrity.”

Asked whether his own party was responsible for fostering that perception, Michaelson said, “Well, it doesn’t help. . . .”

Too late to make a difference in the vote, I expect, but this story blows the lid off McCain’s involvement with the Keating Five scandal, and how he saved his skin at others’ expense

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/02/mccain-did-not-disclose-k_n_140069.html

http://campaignsilo.firedoglake.com/2008/11/02/how-did-mccain-escape-expulsion-from-the-senate/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2008/nov/03/johnmccain-keatingfive-leaks

No longer news

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/us/politics/31poll.html
A growing number of voters have concluded that Senator John McCain’s running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, is not qualified to be vice president, weighing down the Republican ticket in the last days of the campaign, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. . . .

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/02/poll.one.party/index.html
A new national poll suggests Sarah Palin may be hurting Republican presidential nominee John McCain more than she's helping him.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Sunday indicates McCain's running mate is growing less popular among voters and may be costing him a few crucial percentage points in the race for the White House. . . .

McCain/Palin’s latest Big Lie about Obama and taxes

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/mccain_keeps_repeating_debunke.php

Sarah Palin says that she wants to be a policy advocate for special needs kids (as a parent of one herself now). Well, good for her – we’ll see what she does after this election is over and she’s no longer using it as a campaign ploy. But here are the facts about what she failed to do for special needs kids as governor (thanks to Leslie R. for the link)

http://mccombover.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/disability-organizations-outraged-by-mccain-palin-rally-attacks-on-the-disabled/
The National Coalition for Disability Rights (NCDR) pushed back today against the McCain-Palin campaign for ridiculing the legal rights of people with disabilities. News reports describe McCain-Palin campaign representative Senator Kit Bond (R-Mo), joining Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin at a rally in Rush Limbaugh’s hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, mocking Presidential candidate Senator Barak Obama for stating that he’s looking to nominate judges who empathize with “the disabled.” . . .

More: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/09/palin_and_special_needs_children.php
Palin actually slashed funding for schools for special needs kids by 62%. . . .

Was Cheney’s endorsement some kind of REVENGE against McCain?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/new_obama_ad_stars_dick_cheney.php

I was joking, but maybe it's true: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9642
[Daniel De Groot] Cheney simply has to know how his endorsement would play. So why do it? All I can come up with is simple revenge. . . . [read on]

Even if Ted Stevens (R-AK) wins, he loses

http://www.rollcall.com/news/29690-1.html
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) was forced into the middle of Sen. Ted Stevens’ (R-Alaska) re-election bid late Saturday night after a senior Senate Democrat endorsed Stevens and called on voters to disregard his seven-count felony conviction.

In a bluntly worded release from his office, Reid warned that Stevens would not only face an ethics investigation but also expulsion proceedings regardless of his efforts to appeal the convictions. . .

Norm Coleman (R-MN) in big trouble

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/242042.php

Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) in big trouble

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/liddy-doles-godless-americans-ad-is.html

Glenn Greenwald hates the overuse of “Commander in Chief” as the equivalent to “President.” Here’s why

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/11/02/biden/index.html

Bush and his staff are “sad” because the economic crisis is interfering with their plans to put a “legacy” in place during their final days. Like Steve Benen, I must say that it’s hard to work up much sympathy for them. The economic crisis is interfering with quite a few of our plans, too – only WE DIDN’T CAUSE IT

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015483.php

Bonus item: Joe the Plumber, regular guy, blah blah blah. Well, he’s enjoying his 15 minutes of fame now: book deal, country music career, and a regular spot on Fox News to spout whatever nonsense he likes

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/2/175355/842/781/650117
There's too many questions with Barack Obama and his loyalty to our country and I question that greatly.

More: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24581913-663,00.html

***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:01 AM

 
IS ANYBODY IN CHARGE HERE?

In a last desperate chance to manufacture some new pseudo-scandal, the GOP slime machine – with a big assist from the Bush administration – tries to make Obama’s AUNT a focal point of attention

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/ap_obama_aunt_from_kenya_livin.php
[AP] Barack Obama's aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living in public housing in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago . . .

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcement official. The information they made available is known to officials in the federal government, but the AP could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved in its release.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1108/ICE_investigating_leak.html
An update from Kelly Nantel, the press secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, on the leak of Obama's half-aunt's immigration status: “Early this morning, the matter was refered to Inspector General and ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility for action. They are looking into whether there was a violation of policy in publicly disclosing individual case information.”

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/the_anatomy_of_a_smear.php
[Zachary Roth] Here's how the right's big eleventh-hour smear on Obama was carried out.

First the Murdoch-owned Times of London reported Thursday that Obama's aunt, Zeituni Onyango, is living in a Boston public-housing complex. It's unclear how the paper learned of the woman's presence in the U.S.

From there, the story quickly got taken up by the right-wing echo chamber. Fox News (also Murdoch-owned, of course), Drudge, the Boston Herald, and various conservative blogs -- as well as some mainstream outlets -- began breathlessly hyping the story. . . .

More: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241682.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015471.php

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241737.php
[John Conyers, D-MI] Dear Mr. Chertoff:

I was startled to read in today's Associated Press that a "federal law enforcement official" has leaked information about an immigration case involving a relative of Senator Obama. Even more troubling, the AP reports that it could not "could not establish whether anyone at a political level in the Bush administration or in the McCain campaign had been involved," a very disturbing suggesting indeed. This leak is deplorable and I urge you to take immediate action to investigate and discipline those responsible. . . . [read on]

What will they do about it?

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/ice_probing_leak_on_obamas_aun.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/leak_on_obamas_aunt_violates_i.php

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/since-when-is-tsa-leaking-private.html

More of the same

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241739.php
[David Kurtz] The Republicans are at it again in Pennsylvania. Last week it was the email sent to Jewish voters by the state GOP warning of a second Holocaust. They had to disavow that one and fire a consultant over it.

No problem though. Now an GOP independent group is making the same claim in a mailer obtained by TPM Election Central.

Well, we can always hope . . .

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241501.php
[Josh Marshall] For my own part, obviously, I hope Barack Obama can pull off a victory on Tuesday. But more than that, I hope the result of the election can be a rebuke, a closing of the book on McCainism and the moral filth it has come to represent. I'm under no illusion that negative or even nasty campaigning will come to an end in the USA. I don't think that's realistic or even necessarily desirable. Hard-fought and brass-knuckle politics is something built into the fiber of American politics. It's part and parcel of the intensity of belief and passion that many of us have for the issues at stake in our elections.

But McCain's campaign has devolved into something altogether different ... what with its increasingly open appeals to racial conflict and aggressive invocations of blood hatred of Arabs and Muslims. . . . [read on]

Seriously, why? What is the point of having Dick Cheney endorse McCain? Is it inconceivable that it GAINS McCain more votes than it costs him by being linked with the Bush administration’s most hated member? Or is it somehow a sop to Cheney, since the outcome is a foregone conclusion now anyway? Or did Cheney do it without clearing it with McCain’s people? It doesn’t make any sense at all on its face, which makes me wonder what’s really going on



Obama has a field day


"I'd like to congratulate Senator McCain on this endorsement because he really earned it. That endorsement didn't come easy. Senator McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it. He served as Washington's biggest cheerleader for going to war in Iraq, and supports economic policies that are no different from the last eight years. So Senator McCain worked hard to get Dick Cheney's support.

But here's my question for you, Colorado: do you think Dick Cheney is delighted to support John McCain because he thinks John McCain's going to bring change? Do you think John McCain and Dick Cheney have been talking about how to shake things up, and get rid of the lobbyists and the old boys club in Washington? . . . ."

Fox News buries the story: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/21266/2734/521/649352

More: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015474.php

Meanwhile, Bush goes into deep hiding. Recall by the way that when Bush endorsed McCain he promised to appear with him regularly to campaign together. Since then, they have appeared together in public . . . zero times

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/bush-in-hiding-til-after-election-day.html

The endorsement: http://reuters.viewdle.com/video?vid=355-USA-MCCAIN_BUSH-1204771926.mpg&pid=cee6065e4cdf6539e3dd9c013f28da10

The SNL version:



McCain clearly is afraid of what his supporters at town hall meetings might say: he’s stopped doing them

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081101/pl_politico/15147;_ylt=Ahuh7A5UAHT28eRmQTRY3F1snwcF

Gee, I guess when you want to win Virginia, it might not be such a good idea to tell people in some of the most populous areas that they don’t belong to the “real Virginia”

http://www.americablog.com/2008/11/now-john-mccain-wants-all-those.html

The two GOP candidates can’t get their messages straight on balancing the federal budget. It was always a ridiculous, disingenuous promise. Now it’s simply impossible – but they keep saying it

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015476.php

Interesting. McCain/Palin rallies are starting to look like PALIN rallies

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/01/mccains-name-nowhere-to-be-seen-at-palin-rally/

Palin seems to think we are at war with Iran

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/did_palin_suggest_were_at_war.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/172823/919/728/649145

National polls continue to show a widening gap

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/tpm_track_composite_obama_lead.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/1/131616/944

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/174159/263/718/649163

Polling convergence: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241672.php

More: http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9610
Undecided Voters Not Breaking for McCain . . .

The massive impact of early voting: Obama has basically ALREADY WON some states

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241884.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/poll_obama_has_banked_big_lead.php

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/183811/930/671/649210

Unlike Florida, Georgia refuses to extend early voting hours

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/georgias_secretary_of_state_pr.php

No, we don’t need to worry about Pennsylvania

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/barack_obama_/2008/11/hear_me_i_gloat.php

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/11/1/202756/787

A Tale of Two Ground Games

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241837.php
We hear a lot about the Obama campaign's ground game. And in addition to the general perception that McCain's campaign is overmatched in this regard, word came out just yesterday that the McCain campaign has defunded much of its ground operation to make possible one last push on TV. But a short while ago Politico's Roger Simon gave his take on the difference between the two campaigns' ground operations. And it was very telling . . .



For example, Virginia: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/obama_dramatically_out-organiz.php

Peggy Noonan endorses Obama (sort of)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122539802263585317.html
He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice.

A great moment: When the press was hitting hard on the pregnancy of Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter, he did not respond with a politically shrewd "I have no comment," or "We shouldn't judge." Instead he said, "My mother had me when she was 18," which shamed the press and others into silence. He showed grace when he didn't have to.

There is something else. On Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, Mr. Obama won the Alabama primary with 56% to Hillary Clinton's 42%. That evening, a friend watched the victory speech on TV in his suburban den. His 10-year-old daughter walked in, saw on the screen "Obama Wins" and "Alabama." She said, "Daddy, we saw a documentary on Martin Luther King Day in school." She said, "That's where they used the hoses." Suddenly my friend saw it new. Birmingham, 1963, and the water hoses used against the civil rights demonstrators. And now look, the black man thanking Alabama for his victory. . . .

Proposition 8 in California: too close for comfort

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/california-emergency-by-digby-i-know.html

This won’t come as a surprise to YOU

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/1/182959/141/660/649205
Internet surpasses newspapers as source for campaign news . . .

Fox versus MSNBC: two views of reality (well, one view of reality, one view out of Roger Ailes’ rear end)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/us/politics/02tube.html

Sunday talk show line-ups

http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlDC/television/sunday_show_preview_99259.asp
NBC Meet the Press: Fred Thompson and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), and a roundtable with Washington Post's David Broder, NBC's David Gregory, NPR's Michele Norris and NBC political director Chuck Todd.

CBS Face the Nation: Obama strategist David Axelrod, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

ABC This Week: Axelrod and McCain manager Rick Davis, and a roundtable with Time's Mark Halperin, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, former Bush strategist Matthew Dowd and George Will.

CNN Late Edition: Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), VA Gov. Tim Kaine (D), Republican strategists Alex Castellanos, Ed Rollins and Leslie Sanchez, Democratic strategists Donna Brazile, Paul Begala, Hilary Rosen, former White House adviser David Gergen, and James Carville, CNN's Candy Crowley, Campbell Brown, John King, Bill Schneider, Howard Kurtz, and Gloria Borger, Washington Times' Tara Wall. Note: This is a special three hour show.

Bonus item: A prank call to Sarah Palin from “Nicolas Sarkozy”

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/the_prank_call_palin_thinks_sh.php

A few of the in-jokes: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015478.php

Extra bonus item: McCain on SNL. Notice the swipes against Palin. (McCain bought into these?) I ask you, is this the feel of a campaign that thinks it can win?



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 7:14 AM

 
OF COURSE NOT

Kinsley’s Law: the biggest “gaffes” in Washington are when someone blurts out the truth

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/31/eagleburger-blisters-pali_n_139524.html
Lawrence Eagleburger, who served as Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and whose endorsement is often trumpeted by McCain, said on Thursday that the Alaska governor is not only unprepared to take over the job on a moment's notice but, even after some time in office, would only amount to an "adequate" commander in chief. . . .

The remarks took place during an interview on National Public Radio that was, ironically, billed as "making the case" for a McCain presidency. Asked by the host whether Palin could step in during a time of crisis, Eagleburger reverted to sarcasm before leveling the harsh blow.

"It is a very good question," he said, pausing a few seconds, then adding with a chuckle: "I'm being facetious here. Look, of course not. . . .

Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be [pause] adequate. . . .

I can't say that she would be a genius in the job. But I think she would be enough to get us through a four year... well I hope not... get us through whatever period of time was necessary. And I devoutly hope that it would never be tested."

I would love to have heard the phone call Eagleburger received, because a short time later he came back with this abject apology


“I made a serious mistake yesterday . . .”

McCain makes a “serious mistake” too


Q. "Do you think she's the face of the Republican party going forward?

McCAIN: I think to a large degree as Vice President, or....OR...I think there's no doubt. Because she has united our party in a large degree, and she's in many ways an inspirational figure....”

Another long-time GOP honcho endorses Obama, trashes Palin

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/31/former-reagan-adviser-endorses-obama/
Former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein told CNN's Fareed Zakaria this week he intends to vote for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday.

Duberstein said he was influenced by another prominent Reagan official - Colin Powell - in his decision.

"Well let's put it this way - I think Colin Powell's decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama." . . .

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/10/31/143336/98/720/648120
After endorsing Obama, Duberstein appeared on MSNBC, where he launched into a full-fledged assault on John McCain's judgment for selecting Sarah Palin. It was a sight to behold . . . [watch!]

And another one!

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_11/015467.php
[Head of GOP Senate reelection committee] John Ensign says Sarah Palin is not experienced enough to be president and John McCain's presidential campaign "completely mishandled" her early days on the ticket. . . .

Constitutional scholar Sarah Palin explains that when the press calls her attacks on Obama “negative campaigning,” they are suppressing her First Amendment rights to free speech. Someone needs to tell her that freedom of the press is in the First Amendment too

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/palin-fears-med.html
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media. . . .

It's sort of perplexing to me, because I'm a practical person and plainspoken also, but just cutting to the chase and calling things like I see them, just like most Americans. But this has not left a bitter taste in my mouth, the bitter shots taken by the mainstream media and by some of the elitism there in Washington," Palin said.

"What this has left me with is a very energized and positive feeling about America, because there are enough Americans who are desiring the positive change that John McCain's gonna usher in."

Plante then suggested that in her next sit-down interview, Palin should tap the reporter on the knee and ask, "So who you votin' for?"

Palin laughed and said, "Yeah, maybe that just would say it all."

"I'm gonna try that," she said.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015460.php
[Steve Benen] Let's unpack this a bit.

If I understand her correctly -- and with Palin, it's sometimes tough to understand her general incoherence -- the governor believes she should make scurrilous, dishonest, and personal attacks against Democrats. She's afraid, however, that reporters might tell voters she's making scurrilous, dishonest, and personal attacks, and worse, that voters might recoil from her vicious style of campaigning.

And if that happens, politicians in the future might hesitate before launching scurrilous, dishonest, and personal attacks of their own. What a brutal "chilling effect" that would be.

So, as Palin sees it, the appropriate solution would be for her to accuse Obama of "palling around with terrorists," and for the media to simply pass that along without scrutiny. It's her job to wage vicious smear campaigns, and it's the media's job not to tell anyone she's waging vicious smear campaigns.

And if reporters disagree, and point out reality to voters, it undermines her First Amendment rights.

More: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/10/31/palin/index.html

Palin promised to release her medical records. We’re still waiting . . .

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015458.php

McCain/Palin: Obama will cut defense spending to finance his bleeding-heart domestic programs

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/obama_ad_hits_back_at_desperat.php

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015452.php
[Steve Benen] With this in mind, it's probably an inconvenient time to point out that John McCain has promised to reduce defense spending. He told ABC News in April . . . It wasn't just a random slip; this is actually a clearly articulated McCain campaign policy. . . [read on]

The McCain Pennsylvania experiment is flaming out

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/polls_mccains_pennsylvania_pus.php

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/if_its_all_about_pennsylvania.php
[Marc Ambinder] [T]he Obama campaign is betraying a certain confidence.

At this point, there are no plans for Sen. Obama to visit the state between now and Tuesday.

Boo-ya!

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/obama_going_up_on_the_air_in_g.php
Obama Going Up On The Air In Georgia, North Dakota, And ... Arizona!

McCain camp: this is a sign of Obama’s weakness! http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241645.php

Now, Louisiana! http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/this_is_getting_ridiculous.php

Money and ground game. Money and ground game . . .

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/10/31/advertisements-cant-hold-hands/

Election day weather in swing states: excellent!

http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/election_day_weather_update_su.php

Our cartoonish polity

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/31/campaign.wrap/index.html
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a raucous crowd in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday night that Sen. John McCain's opponent needs to beef up his policy plans. . . .

"He [Sen. Barack Obama] needs to do something about those skinny legs . . . make him do some squats . . .” he said to loud cheers.

The GOP governor introduced McCain at the rally, said the Arizona senator "is built like a rock" and called him a "real action hero."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015454.php
[WSJ] McCain introduced [Joe the Plumber] Wurzelbacher as "an American hero, a great citizen of Ohio and my role model." . . . [read on]

More: http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/10/31/19544/595

John Cleese on Joe and Sarah: perfect

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#27480381

Defending Rashid Khalidi

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241440.php

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/30/AR2008103003244.html

The undecideds are deciding, and Obama’s lead is widening

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241564.php

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/tpm_track_composite_obamas_lea_9.php

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9579

http://www.gallup.com/poll/111679/Gallup-Daily-Obamas-Lead-Widens-Some-All-Bases.aspx


Sometimes you just have to laugh: Republicans are criticizing Bush’s Justice Department for being too politicized – in favor of the Democrats!

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/boehner_doj_politicized_in_fav.php

More: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/conyers_to_boehner_enough_with.php

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/von_spakovsky_others_urge_doj.php

Erk!

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/241641.php
Minority Leader John Boehner, who may be looking for a job soon, unless no one else wants the one he currently has, called Barack Obama "chicken shit" in a campaign appearance in Oxford, Ohio.

We do still have a court system

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/another_court_rejects_gop_bid.php
The Indiana Republican Party just lost what looks like its last chance to shut down early voting centers in three heavily Democratic cities in Lake County [Indiana]

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/penn_judge_rejects_gop_suppres.php
Add Pennsylvania to the list of states where GOP voter suppression efforts are going down in flames.

A state judge yesterday declined to support a grab-bag of a lawsuit filed by the party, which had sought to require ACORN both to turn over a list of the 140,000 voters it says it has registered, which could have made it easier for the GOP to challenge voters at the polls. . . .

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9578
A federal judge today angrily ordered Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman to stop purging names on the state's voter registration rolls. . .

Russ Feingold (D-WI), our hero

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/feingold_weighs_in_on_wi_ags_p.php
Wisconin's junior senator, Russ Feingold, joined the fray over Attorney Gen. J.B. Van Hollen's announcement this week that he would be sending 50 state prosecutors and agents to polls to protect again voter fraud.

"[T]he announcement and execution of your plans may have the effect of discouraging legitimate voters from attempting to cast their votes, and I urge you to reconsider your decision," Feingold wrote in a letter to Van Hollen published by the Capital Times. "I also encourage you to ensure that criminal law enforcement personnel are not deployed at polling stations." . . .

Real policy: Obama on infrastructure

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/10/obama_on_infrastructure.php

Who will be Obama’s Chief of Staff?

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/10/31/rahm-ors/

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/10/31/daschle_still_favorite_for_obama_chief_of_staff.html

CONVICTED FELON Ted Stevens (R-AK) now says “I haven’t been convicted of anything”

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/31/stevens.debate

http://community.adn.com/adn/node/133719

Remember? http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_10/015456.php
[Steve Benen] Maybe there's something about scandal-plagued Alaskan Republicans that leads to denial. When Sarah Palin was found to have violated state ethics laws, she announced that she'd been cleared her of "any hint of any kind of unethical activity." This was the opposite of reality.

Will Palin vote for Stevens?

http://www.samefacts.com/archives/palin_/2008/10/you_have_to_laugh_otherwise_youd_scream.php
[Mark Kleiman] Sarah Palin refuses to say whether she plans to vote to re-elect a convicted felon to the Senate, because she believes in the secret ballot. . . .

Bush’s going away presents

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2008/10/31/BL2008103101735.html

Watch Rachel: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#27480765

Is the Drudge Era coming to an end?

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/media_figures_admitting_that_d.php

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/stop-presses.html

The kind of thing they’re getting sick of: http://firedoglake.com/2008/10/31/wingnuts-suddenly-outraged-by-a-presidential-campaign-limiting-media-access/

Bonus item: McCain’s runaround on taxes

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2008/10/dancing_mccain.php

Extra bonus item: John McCain: How low can you go? (don’t miss it!)



***If you enjoy PBD and support what we are doing, you can help by forwarding a copy of this issue to your friends (using the envelope link below) or by sending them a copy of its URL (http://pbd.blogspot.com).

I don't get anything personally out of this project, except the satisfaction of doing it (I don't run ads, etc). The credit really all goes to the people whose material I copy and redistribute. But if I do have a "mission," it is to get this information into the hands of as many people as I can.***
- posted by Nick Burbules @ 8:08 AM