Google Documenting Iraqi Museum's Treasures

Google has sent workers to Iraq to photography a once looted museum's treasures, which will be displayed online:

Google is documenting Iraq's national museum and will post photographs of its ancient treasures on the Internet early next year, Google chief Eric Schmidt announced Tuesday.

The museum was ransacked in the chaotic aftermath of Saddam Hussein's ouster in April 2003, and only reopened to visitors early this year. Schmidt, who toured the museum with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill on Tuesday, said it was important for the world to see Iraq's rich heritage and contribution to world culture.

"The history of the beginning of — literally — civilization is made right here and is preserved here in this museum," Schmidt said at a ceremony attended by Iraqi officials. More at NPR

I love the Pentagon Channel:

Google Chief: You Can't be a Happy Dictator Anymore

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A Glimpse at the New Economy Post Recession

It will be much saner. Fingers crossed. The future looks bright, except for California, which is suffering from bigger woes, and could take much longer to turn itself around. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt talks about California's unique troubles:

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Entire Meet the Press show:

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Xerox CEO Says GM Bankruptcy Only Path

GM is expected to file for bankruptcy on Monday.
On Meet the Press, Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox, says GM has no other path but bankruptcy.
That's because the auto industry destroyed itself. It's interesting that people are playing it as if Obama destroyed the auto industry. These weren't companies just teetering on bankruptcy. They were companies teetering on oblivion. They ran an entire U.S. industry into the ground with bad management that wasn't able to work effectively with organized labor. The Obama administration is working on saving an industry, not a couple of companies.

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Google's Influence on Obama's Government

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt have a meeting of the minds on how technology could transform government.

NPR: In his position as CEO, Schmidt already is speaking out. This past year he publicly made a $3 trillion policy proposal to wean the U.S. off oil. In fact, it was discussions about green technology that first brought him into contact with then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. The two men discovered they shared a vision of how technology could transform the country. Both believe that more information is a force for good. Schmidt has been advising Obama on how to make government more open using the Internet.

"Much more use of social networking, much more use of involvement, much more than just Web sites for government programs, which was what was achieved a decade ago," he says.

Recently, President-elect Obama announced that documents from all official meetings with outside organizations would be available online; Schmidt has been giving technological advice for making that happen. The idea is to allow Americans to discuss government decision-making, and it's a reflection of Obama's grass-roots organizing background.

It's also a reflection of how Schmidt runs Google, says autnor Vise.

"Google on the technology side runs a very flat organization, which is quite similar in philosophy. Rather than being very hierarchical and having a lot of layers of management, Google, to this day, has tried to keep the size of project teams very small so that the best ideas could still bubble up," Vise says.

Romney Says Spend

On Meet the Press this morning, Mitt Romney says government needs to SPEND! Wowsa. Romney seems like a smart guy but he disturbs me, more than Sarah Palin, if you can believe that. Perhaps it's that phony smile he always has plastered on his face. Even as David Gregory wished him well -- his wife is dealing with some health issues -- he still had that fake smile. You never see an emotion. He also seems self-righteous.
Seems to me that everyone--republicans and democrats--on the roundtable essentially agreed on the fix -- government needs to invest.
Carly Fiorina made an excellent point: Why did the banks get the bailout money without being required to lend money? They're sitting on the money and businesses need loans. It seems to me there must be more to the story, but wouldn't Fiorina know if there was?
David Gregory did a good job. I'll post video when it's up.
The Meet the Press lineup this morning:

LISA MADIGAN (D)
Illinois Attorney General

LT. GOV. PAT QUINN
D-Illinois

GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM
D-Michigan

FMR. GOV. MITT ROMNEY (R-MA)
2008 Republican Presidential Candidate
Founder, Bain Capital

CARLY FIORINA
Fmr. CEO, Hewlett-Packard

LEE SCOTT
President & CEO, Wal-Mart

ERIC SCHMIDT
CEO, Google

MARY MITCHELL
Editorial Board Member & Columnist, Chicago Sun-Times
Radio Talk-Show Host, WVAZ-V103

CHUCK TODD
Here's Carly:

Political Director, NBC News

Here's Mitt:

Obama's Press Conference Nov. 7 Video

The press conference followed a private meeting of Obama's Transition Economic Advisory Board, a group of 17 leaders on economic issues that includes former U.S. Treasury Secretaries Robert E. Rubin and Lawrence E. Summers, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Warren Buffett.

Q&A portion

CNN's coverage of the event.

Politico. 

NYT

Prepared remarks

Q&A Portion
With that, let me open it up for some questions. And I'm going to start right here with you, Nedra.

Q Thanks, Mr. President-elect. I wonder what you think any president can accomplish during their first hundred days in office to turn the economy around. How far can you go? And what will be your priorities on day one?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Well, I think that a new president can do an enormous amount to restore confidence, to move an agenda forward that speaks to the needs of the economy and the needs of middle-class families all across the country. I've outlined during the course of the campaign some critical issues that I intend to work on.

We have a current financial crisis that is spilling out into the rest of the economy. And we have taken some action so far. More action is undoubtedly going to be needed. My transition team is going to be monitoring very closely what happens over the course of the next several months.

The one thing I can say with certainty is that we are going to need to see a stimulus package passed either before or after inauguration. We are going to have to focus on jobs, because the hemorrhaging of jobs has an impact obviously on consumer confidence and the ability of people to -- to buy goods and services and can have enormous spill-over effects.

And I think it's going to be very important for us to provide the kinds of assistance, to state and local governments, to make sure that they don't compound some of the problems that are already out there, by having to initiate major layoffs or initiate tax increases.

So there are some things that we know we're going to have to do. But I'm confident that a new president can have an enormous impact. That's why I ran for president.

All right.

Lee.

Q Sir, there's been some suggestion from House Democrats that the stimulus package may be in trouble, that it's going to be a hard time getting it out of a lame-duck session.

Are you still confident that you would be able to get something done before you actually take office?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: I want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later. If it does not get done in the lame-duck session, it will be the first thing I get done as president of the United States.

Jake.

Q Senator, for the first time since the Iranian Revolution, a president of Iran sent a congratulations note to a new U.S. president.

I'm wondering, first of all, if you responded to President Ahmadinejad's note of congratulations. And second of all and more importantly, how soon do you plan on sending low-level envoys to countries such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, to see if a presidential-level talk would be productive?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: I am aware that the letter was sent. Let me state -- repeat what I stated during the course of the campaign.

Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable. And we have to mount a international effort to prevent that from happening. Iran's support of terrorist organizations, I think, is something that has to cease.

I will be reviewing the letter from President Ahmadinejad. And we will respond appropriately. It's only been three days since the election. Obviously how we approach and deal with a country like Iran is not something that we should, you know, simply do in a kneejerk fashion.

I think we've got to think it through. But I have to reiterate once again that we only have one president at a time. And I want to be very careful that we are sending the right signals, to the world as a whole, that I am not the president and I won't be until January 20th.

Let's see.

Chip.

Q Picking up what you were just talking about, your meeting with President Bush on Monday, when he is still the decider obviously, stating the obvious, when you disagree with decisions he makes, will you defer? Will you challenge? Will you confront? And if it becomes confrontational, could that rattle the markets even more?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to meet with him and First Lady Laura Bush. We are gratified by the invitation.

I'm sure that in addition to taking a tour of the White House, there is going to be a substantive conversation between myself and the president.

I'm not going to anticipate problems. I'm going to go in there with a spirit of bipartisanship and a sense that both the president and various leaders of Congress all recognize the severity of the situation right now and want to get stuff done. And you know, undoubtedly there may end up being differences between not just members of different parties, but between people within the same party.

The -- the critical point and the -- I think the critical tone that has to be struck by all of us involved right now is the American people need help. This economy is in bad shape, and we have just completed one of the longest election cycles in recorded history. Now is a good time for us to set politics aside for a while and think practically about what will actually work to move the economy forward. And it's in that spirit that I'll have the conversation with the president.

Time gives Obama good marks.
Except for this:

Politico: President-elect Barack Obama telephoned Nancy Reagan shortly after his debut news conference on Friday to apologize for what he called a “careless and off handed remark” he made about her during his appearance in Chicago.

President-elect Obama Transition Team Spokesperson Stephanie Cutter said: “President-elect Barack Obama called Nancy Reagan today to apologize for the careless and off handed remark he made during today’s press conference. The President-elect expressed his admiration and affection for Mrs. Reagan that so many Americans share and they had a warm conversation.”

Obama had been asked whether he has “spoken to any living ex-presidents” as part of getting ready for the job.

His reply: “In terms of speaking to former presidents, I've spoken to all of them that are living. Obviously, President Clinton — I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances.”

Nancy Reagan consulted an astrologist, not a medium. Funny.

Fiorina Says Obama Out for Another Photo Op

Carly Fiorina says McCain is quietly learning the economy. Yeah, learning from people like Phil Gramm, now ousted for his large mouth, advising on the "mental recession."

McCain's campaign countered with a conference call in which top economic adviser Carly Fiorina told reporters the Republican has been "quietly talking" with economists and policymakers, including Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, over the past year.

"I think the American people are getting treated to yet another photo op by Barack Obama, but meanwhile John McCain has been out talking about the economy, understanding the economy, taking advice on the economy for many, many months," Fiorina said.

McCain's camp is just boiling mad that leaders across the world actually liked Obama. Darn it all. And now this. What a smart man to invite cameras. 

Today Obama convened a meeting with big names in economics -- Warren Buffett, Google CEO, even spicing it up with former Bush advisers, to hash out details of his economic strategy:

Present at the meeting were AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, former New Jersey Sen. Bill Bradley, Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, the former head of Wall street investment firm Goldman Sachs. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett joined via speaker phone

Participants said the free-flowing meeting did not reach conclusions but Obama sought out diverse opinions, but there was a consensus the economy was growing worse.

"This was a very serious conversation about serious issues. We were not discussing political tactics," Summers told reporters after the two-hour session concluded.

O'Neill, a former Treasury Secretary under President George W. Bush and a former CEO of Alcoa, said he had not endorsed either candidate but Obama was "inspiring lots of people to become involved." Schmidt described him as "impressively knowledgeable."

The key word is inspiring. Leaders inspire.