With e-word of Buehrle's perfect game arriving as the president headed for the airport, bound for Chicago and some party fundraisers tonight (including a $30,400 per-couple dinner at the home of Chicago hotel heiress and business executive Penny Pritzker), Obama telephoned Buehrle by cell phone from the limousine The pitcher stepped into Jerry Reinsdorf's office for the president's call.
Buehrle had retired 27 Tampa Bay batters in a 5-0 victory today to claim his place in club history. He was aided by a big catch by Chicago center-fielder Dewayne Wise, who also denied a home run by Tampa's Gabe Kapler.
Obama congratulated Buehrle on his "unbelievable achievement" and suggested that perhaps it helped that Obama had worn a Sox jacket when he threw out the opening albeit short, pitch of the All-Star game the other week. (And a pair of baggy jeans for which the president has taken no end of ribbing.) Read more at the Swamp
Update: Pritzker takes herself out of the running -vetting problems. Also, Penny Pritzker has been asked to be commerce secretary. Pritzker won't mind a tax hike. She's the granddaughter of the founder of the Hyatt chain. She was Obama's national finance chair.
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is President-elect Barack Obama's top choice for homeland security secretary, according to multiple Democratic sources close to the transition.
Gov. Janet Napolitano is President-elect Barack Obama's top choice for secretary of homeland security, sources say.
One source said he believed the final decision depends on the vetting of the Democratic governor, much like the selection of Eric Holder to be attorney general.
Also, multiple Democratic sources say billionaire Chicago businesswoman Penny Pritzker is Obama's choice for commerce secretary. Pritzker ran Barack Obama's record-breaking fundraising effort, serving as the campaign's finance chair.
The sources say Pritzker would accept the job, which would be formally offered after vetting is complete. But whether the rigors of the Obama vetting process will present a challenge to a businessperson with no record in public office -- and presumably extensive financial holdings -- is still a question
Before the meeting, Obama said the sour economy didn't happen by chance, rather it's the direct result of an irresponsible Wall Street (or as Bush would say, a drunk Wall Street) and Washington. Here is some of what they discussed.
Here are the participants: The economic leaders who met with Senator Obama today included:
· Jared Bernstein (Senior Economist, Economic Policy Institute)
· Bill Bradley (Former Senator, D-N.J., U.S. Senate 1979-1997)
· Warren Buffet (Chairman and CEO, Berkshire Hathaway) - joined the meeting by phone
· Anna Burger (Chair, Change to Win; International Secretary-Treasurer, Service Employees International Union)
· Jon Corzine (Governor, State of New Jersey)
· William Daley (Chairman of the Midwest, JP Morgan Chase; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Commerce, 1997-2000)
· James Dimon (Chairman and CEO, JPMorgan Chase)
· William Donaldson (27th Chairman of the SEC 2003-2005)
· Indra Nooyi (Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo Inc.)
· Paul O'Neill (Special Advisor, Blackstone Group, Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 2001-2002; Former CEO, Alcoa)
· Federico Peña (Managing Director, Vestar Capital Partners; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Energy, 1997-1998; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept. of Transportation, 1993-1997; Former Mayor, City of Denver 1983-1991)
· Penny Pritzker (CEO, Classic Residence by Hyatt)
· Robert Reich (University of California, Berkeley; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Labor, 1993-1997)
· Robert Rubin (Chairman and Director of the Executive Committee, Citigroup; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1995-1999)
· Eric Schmidt (Chairman and CEO, Google)
· William Spriggs (Professor and Chair of the Department of Economics, Howard University)
· Lawrence Summers (Harvard University; Managing Director, D.E. Shaw; Former Secretary, U.S. Dept of Treasury, 1999-2001)
· John Sweeney (President, AFL-CIO)
· Laura Tyson (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Former Chairman, National Economic Council, 1995-1996; Former Chairman, President's Council of Economic Advisors, 1993-1995)
· Paul Volcker (Former Chairman, U.S. Federal Reserve 1979-1987)
Obama said he would be the president of everyone, not just the liberals, who have claimed him.
The media and the right extreme have painted Obama with a liberal brush. But really, he's not a liberal and he's never claimed to be a liberal.
The media is childish in its manipulation, writing glowingly about Obama when they approve and then breaking out the poison pen when they disapprove.
In case you hadn't noticed, newspapers are going out of business. The NYT is just mad because Obama isn't a puppet of any media outlet. So is the Huffington Post and DailyKos. As if Obama should let bloggers and newspaper writers tell him how not to "blow it." These people are just asserting their perceived power.
The Obama camp has done a brilliant job of running its campaign.
A president has to be willing to change his mind, when presented with new facts, otherwise you get George Bush. Obama doesn't think from the viewpoint of a liberal or whatever label you'd want to slap on him. He thinks independently while adhering to the fundamentals of a bottom up democracy, healthcare and education for all and world citizenship.
Everyone's so focused on their own little issues, their ideologies. You got to look at the bigger picture.
The New York Times looks naively at fundraising (it's no wonder the right gets annoyed at the "liberal media"). Of course, he has wealthy, elitist support. So does John McCain.
They then twist what Pritzker says. The way I read her quote is they haven't been able to get to the big money fundraisers because Obama's been busy.
Even his own chief money collector, Penny Pritzker, suggests that the magic of $20 donations from the Web was less a matter of principle than of scheduling. “We have not been able to have much of the senator’s time during the primaries, so we have had to rely more on the Internet,” she explained as she and her team busily scheduled more than a dozen big-ticket events over the next few weeks at which the target price for quality time with the candidate is more than $30,000 per person.
