Reid in Synch With Bush Administration on Gaza

Senator Harry Reid reiterated on Meet the Press that the U.S. stands by Israel, no questions asked. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has called for a cease fire.
Reid said Israel gave Gaza to the Palestinians in an effort toward peace and all it got in return was rocket fire from Hamas, which matches exactly what Israel's foreign minister Tzipi Livni said (that video here).
Reid even said he agreed with Bush on this issue (later Reid went on to reiterate that Bush is the worst president ever).
The two religious groups will go on hating each other for eternity unless someone can figure out a genius way to tackle that region. I'm not sure if Obama's policy will be radically different. There's too much inertia against solving the problems there. 
In the meantime, Israel says it's not planning to retake the Gaza Strip but they may as well:

NYT: “We don’t plan to retake the Gaza Strip but there are several places we control now and will control later,” he said. “If it will be needed, we are prepared to stay there.”

The military has warned that the campaign could take “many long days.”

The full Meet the Press webcast. Reid talks about Israel in the beginning:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ann Coulter Dishes More Slime

I think people like Ann Coulter are going to take up residence with the cockroaches this year. Coulter, and others like her, are going to creep into the cracks and disappear. But you know what they say about cockroaches.

E&P: Ann Coulter will be dropping her latest bomb in bookstores this week. New York's Daily News has the latest preview, in which Coulter slams Michelle Obama as a faux-Jackie O, refers to "B. Hussein Obama" and claims the media "literally" wanted to have sex with him during the campaign.

Excerpt from Daily News follows.
*
Lashing out at the President-elect's wife, Coulter wrote, "Her obvious imitation of Jackie O's style - the flipped-under hair, the sleeveless A-line dresses, the short strands of fake pearls - would have been laughable if done by anyone other than a media-designated saint."

Gaza Lesson

I've got my fingers crossed that Obama will actually come out and say something like this:

CSM: When the smoke finally drifts from Gaza, and the human rights investigations begin – into the death of schoolchildren in midday rocket attacks or the demolition of a women's dormitory – sober voices will ask why Israel has still not learned a fundamental lesson: By trying to crush your enemy, you only make him stronger.

American can't continue to side with Israel. We can't side with the Palestinians either. There is some sort of foreign policy in between. 
Update: Israeli ground troops attack Hamas. Whatever.

Bob Schieffer Reflects on Cheney

Schieffer says 9-11 changed Dick Cheney. 9-11 changed everyone but it didn't turn everyone into a war monger. This is the administration that bet it all on Iraq, he said. But he's not judging Bush. You can't judge an administration until 5 years have passed, he said.
I don't know why so many people are hedging on the Bush administration. It was terrible. Horrible. Dreadful. Awful. It won't take one year or two or 10 to figure that out. We don't need to wait for history. We lived it.

Obama's Weekly Address Jan. 3

Our problems aren't democratic problems or republican problems. They are America's problems. Obama talks about his economic recovery and reinvestment plan in this week's address. Politico says the plan could be ready for a vote real soon:

No draft or outline is circulating yet, but the biggest special spending bill in history should be ready for a vote the week of Jan. 12, a week from Monday, House officials tell Playbook. 'We are hoping for a House vote on Week 2 (week of Jan. 12),' a House official said. 'It could slip if we decide to hold regular approps hearings. But I think a vote is likely the week of Jan. 12.'

Inaugural Preparation Photos and a Few Others for the Heck of It

Thomas Jefferson's inaugural speechPreparing the capitol
Obama and the Dalai Lama
Mapping out the route? 


See more inauguration prep photos here.

Lawn Rangers Marching in Inaugural Parade

This is funny. Check out the video below. 

Amid the French horns and cymbals and soaring batons of the 56th Inaugural Parade, a spunky corps of lawn mower-pushing Illini will plow along the route from the Capitol to the White House.

The World Famous Lawn Rangers, hailing from “Amazing” Arcola, Illinois, are one of the many bands, troupes, and ensembles who have been invited to perform in the parade following the swearing-in of President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden on January 20.
....

Says Pat, one of the Lawn Rangers:

I have been asked many times as to why I think we were selected over the almost 1400 other groups who applied for this position. I can only think that we are known for having a good time and showing people how to have a good time with us, and the Inaugural Committee must think our services are needed. It is a definite American trait—the ability to laugh at ourselves—which may be needed now more than ever. Or it could be that we were the only lawn mower drill team to apply.

Says Tony, another Ranger:

Barack Obama will bring to the White House a combination of leadership and vision found but once in a generation, and I think he demonstrated that vision when he chose to invite the World Famous Lawn Rangers of Amazing Arcola to march in the 2009 Inaugural Parade.

White House: Gaza Doesn't Need Aid

Where is George Bush? Oh, that's right. He's still on vacation considering his legacy. In the meantime, the White House spokesman says the U.S. has seen aid flow into Gaza and says Hamas is hording the aid, and essentially, the White House says Not My Problem - I'm With Israel.
Seems to me that simply siding with Israel every time there is a conflict really isn't a foreign policy. That's kind of easy to do. It's loser foreign policy. Hamas may be scourge of the Earth but Israel is creating more problems down the road for EVERYONE by pounding Gaza.
Can't wait til the Bush administration is swept out of the White House. See the video.

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.

Republicans To Flee DC For Inauguration

This strikes me as cowardly and kind of funny.
If republicans were wise, they'd stick around and observe and learn a thing or two. But they don't seem to be interested doing much learning or changing at this point:

Politico: 'Republicans to flee DC for inauguration,' by Politico's Jonathan Martin: 'Out of power on both ends of Pennsylvania Ave and mostly out of favor on K Street, many emasculated elephants ... will begin the Age of Obama with what amounts to an extended holiday vacation. ... 'What better way to mark the Obama Inauguration (and his millions of adoring fans that will be in DC) than to get out of town to fabulous Las Vegas!' wrote Charlie Spies, a Republican lawyer and former CFO to Mitt Romney's campaign in a blast email to GOP friends. 'We hope you can join us for dinner and a fun evening on Monday, January 19th to celebrate the last few hours of our Republican president in the White House.' Spies and his wife Lisa, a Republican fund-raiser, have gotten about 15 takers so far for this last supper or, as they billed it in the e-mail, their own 'Inaugural in Exile.' ...

Obama To Meet Reid Monday

Obama is back in Chicago and the family is moving to DC this weekend. On Monday, he meets with democrats and on Wednesday, he'll meet with George Bush and his dad, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. 

Politico: The Honolulu Advertiser rubs it in with the front-page headline, 'Obama returns to cold, windy Chicago.'

Pool reporter Philip Rucker of The Washington Post: 'President-elect Barack Obama and his family arrived at their home in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood at 1:28 a.m. local time Friday. The motorcade from O'Hare International Airport was smooth. Along the way, the Obamas stopped a few blocks from their home to drop off Valerie Jarrett and her daughter, who returned from Hawaii aboard the president-elect's charter.'
....
'Obama's charter flight from Honolulu landed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport at 12:33 a.m. Friday, local time. The nearly eight-hour flight ... was largely quiet. Obama visited the press cabin just to wish journalists a happy new year. He exchanged pleasantries and chatted about shave ice and basketball, but quickly returned to the front of the plane. Barack Obama, ... Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha exited the airplane in winter coats onto the cold, windy tarmac. Barack and Michelle Obama each carried their own bags down the staircase.'

Obama meets with Reid and Pelosi on Monday and is working on a meeting with the republicans.

Politico: 'President-elect Barack Obama will meet with congressional leaders on Monday during his first full day back in Washington in an attempt to assuage rising concerns among Republicans and some Democrats that his economic stimulus plan is too costly and too rushed. Obama will first sit down with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to discuss the scope and timing.'

Meetings with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Republican Leader John Boehner are likely but are not finalized, Politico's Martin Kady II points out in 'The Huddle.'

Chuck Todd's Obama Book Hits the Shelves

In a few days, Chuck Todd's Obama book, telling how he won, will be out. 
A slew of other Obama books-- good and bad-- are due out in January and February.
Here are the highlights from Amazon:

Product Description
How Barack Obama Won—by one of the most lauded political journalists of our time, and one of the most respected pollsters in the business—gives us not only the inside state-by-state guide to how Obama achieved his victory, but also the essential toolbox for understanding the political implications of the 2008 presidential election—where the country stands vis-à-vis Red and Blue states, where it currently is and is headed politically, and whether a political realignment has taken place.

The book features an introduction by Chuck Todd, putting the 2008 presidential election in political and demographic perspective, even as it reveals national trends. The final electoral map will appear in the front matter, as will unexpected "fun facts." The book is divided into four parts, each of which proceeds alphabetically state by state: Battleground States (e.g., Colorado, Florida, Idaho); Emerging Battleground States (e.g., Arizona, Georgia, Montana); Receding Battleground States (e.g., Michigan, Pennsylvania); Red and Blue States (e.g., Idaho and Mississippi, California and New York).

The votes in each state for Obama and McCain are broken down by percentage according to gender, age, race, party, religious affiliation, education, household income, size of city, and according to views about the most important issue (the economy, terrorism, Iraq, energy, healthcare), the future of the economy (worried, not worried) and the war in Iraq (approve, disapprove). Comparative figures for the 2004 Bush–Kerry election are provided. Each state profile is comprised of a table of numbers—with crucial lines highlighted—and analysis. From the book's treasury of facts you will learn about:

First Time Voters: The ratio of first-time to previous voters was identical to the 2004 split. Eleven percent (11%) of the electorate voted for the first time in 2004 and 2008. In 2008 70% voted for Obama whereas in 2004 only 53% voted for Kerry.

White Voters: Obama won the white vote in 18 states and the District of Columbia: CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, IA, ME, MA, MI, MN, NH, NY, OR, RI, WA, WI and VT. Obama received less than 35% of the white vote in 13 states, with Louisiana (14%), Mississippi (11%) and Alabama (10%) picking up the rear.

The Bush Factor: With the exception of Missouri (which barely went to McCain), Obama won every state where Bush's approval rating was below 35% in the exit polls; he lost every state where Bush's approval rating was above 35%. Bush's approval rating was highest in Utah (47%), which supported McCain by a 29 point margin, and lowest in Washington,D.C. (8%), where McCain received only 7% of the vote.

Florida: Votes for McCain were 25,000 fewer than for Bush in 2004; Obama's exceeded Kerry's by 540,000.

Ohio: Votes for Obama were 34,000 fewer than for Kerry in 2004; McCain's, however, were 350,000 short of Bush's.

By the way, since 1928 there has not been a winning Republican presidential/vice-presidential ticket without a Bush or Nixon.

Obama Picks Cecilia Rouse as an Economic Advisor

Cecilia Rouse will become the third member of Obama's Council of Economic Advisors. She focuses on the economics of education. Do you see where we're going here? Big focus on education from Obama. 

Read Rouse's publication on school vouchers (anti) here.  

WSJ: President-elect Barack Obama is expected to round out his economic team next week with the selection of Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton University labor economist well-known for her work on the economics of educational investments, according to an Obama economic transition aide.

Ms. Rouse will join Christina Romer and Austan Goolsbee as the third member of the Council of Economic Advisers, which advises the President on economic policy. All three are academic economists with distinct specialties: Ms. Romer is an economic historian schooled in the Great Depression while Mr. Goolsbee is a taxation expert.

Mr. Obama is expected to draw on Ms. Rouse's expertise in the economic benefits of education investments as he prepares a stimulus package to help jumpstart the ailing economy. Among other things, the package is expected to focus on preparing workers for jobs in a global economy.

Here is her biography:

Cecilia Elena Rouse is currently the Theodore A. Wells '29 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Her primary research and teaching interests are in labor economics with a particular focus on the economics of education. She has studied the economic benefit of community college attendance, evaluated the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, examined the effects of education inputs on student achievement, tested for the existence of discrimination in symphony orchestras, and studied unions in South Africa and the effect of financial aid on college matriculation.

Her current research evaluates Florida's school accountability and voucher programs. In addition, she is currently conducting randomized evaluations of technology-based programs in schools in three large urban school districts as well as a randomized evaluation of strategies for increasing educational attainment among community college students. She is also studying the impact of student loans on post-college occupational choices.

Rouse is currently a senior editor of The Future of Children (a Princeton-Brooking publication) and an editor of the Journal of Labor Economics. She is the founding director of the Princeton University Education Research Section and is currently the director of the Industrial Relations Section as well. She is also a member of the MacArthur Foundation's Research Network on the Transition to Adulthood. In 1998-99 she served a year in the White House at the National Economic Council. She holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

Roland Burris Monument

How much more wackier can Illinois politicians get? Roland Burris has already built quite the resting place for HIMSELF. 

Maybe there's a logical explanation. 

Tennessee Newspaper: State Needs to Move Past 1959

Much of the bigotry that we've seen throughout the election, and still from the Chipper, distributing racist songs to his fellow republicans, has come from the Tennessee republican party. But take a look at the comments at the end of the story and you'll see, Tennessee still has a long way to go, or at least the readers of the newspaper do.

Leaf Chronicle: Tennessee may be a red state for politics, but some select members of the GOP have left the state red-faced this year.

During the presidential campaign, the state Republican party released a press statement called "Anti-Semites for Obama." It used Barack Obama's middle name of Hussein and described a photo of him wearing traditional Kenyan clothing as "Muslim attire." The party also produced a video criticizing remarks made by Michelle Obama that brought Barack Obama to a spirited defense of his wife.

Both incidents received negative publicity nationwide and made Tennessee look like a haven for backwoods bigots.

Now, former Tennessee GOP chairman Chip Saltsman, who aspires to the post of Republican National Committee chairman, has sent a Christmas message to top Republicans. Included was a CD with the song, "Barack the Magic Negro."

The paper's editorial team's conclusion is definitely not heeded by many of its readers:

We agree with Gingrich. Chip Saltsman should not hold a position of prominence in the GOP. If the Republicans have any hopes of expanding their base and remaining a true national party, they must be inclusive and not resemble an all-white men's club that engages in bathroom humor.

Moreover, the Tennessee branch of the Republican Party would do well to undergo introspection of its own. Why, for example, did it give official blessing to attacks on Obama that were of the variety usually found in anonymous e-mail spam?

Tomorrow, we turn the page on a new year — 2009. When it comes to race and politics, some in Tennessee need to stop acting as if it's still 1959.

What Kind of Judges Might Obama Appoint?

I've heard Obama say that he will appoint judges who look out for the most vulnerable. Here's part of a discussion at PBS:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, Professor Cassell, you said a minute ago that there's the potential at the district and the circuit court level for there to be more activist judges appointed. What do you mean by that? What makes you believe that?
PAUL CASSELL: Well, if you look at President Obama's record when he was in the Senate, he was really on the far left of his party. He wasn't, for example, in the Gang of 14 that tried to take a centrist approach to judicial nominations. He voted against Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.

And so while he was in the Senate, I think he was very much on the extreme edge of his party.

Hopefully, as he becomes president now and the responsibilities that weigh on the office come to bear, I think maybe he'll take more of a centrist approach. Maybe he would appoint someone like a Justice Breyer, if you want to go back a little bit, a Justice Byron White, who had a bit more of a liberal bent, but was still very much in the mainstream of American jurisprudence.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Professor Karlan, we know that the president-elect taught constitutional law for a while at the University of Chicago. How much is known, do we know right now about his judicial philosophy?

PAM KARLAN: Well, we know things that he said in the campaign debates and on the stump. And he's talked about wanting judges who've had some real-world experience. He wants judges who are empathetic.

He taught courses related to voting rights when he was at the University of Chicago, and he takes, I think, a fairly traditional moderate-to-liberal view that one of the things courts are supposed to do is to protect people who aren't able to protect themselves fully through the political system.

I don't think he's outside the mainstream in any sense. The mainstream is a very wide river, and it ranges from people who are quite liberal to people who are quite conservative, but they're all in that mainstream.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So based on that, what would you expect him to do?

PAM KARLAN: Well, I would expect to see, for example, that he'll appoint a number of judges who have done legal services work for poor people. He's likely to appoint more judges who have been criminal defense lawyers than some of the Republican presidents, who've really only appointed people who have been prosecutors. He may appoint people who've worked for some of the civil rights groups to the bench.

But I think, you know, his own background suggests that he cares tremendously about competence and intelligence and technical skill. And those things can be found in lawyers from a wide range of backgrounds and from a wide range of practice areas.
Read the whole thing.

A Year of Shared Sacrifice?

Maybe. If all goes well.

WaPo: Thanks to my parents, I grew up with an idea of FDR's New Deal as a golden age of American togetherness. You'd travel across the bridges that ribbed the country and look for the date they were constructed, and it always seemed to be in the 1930s. The defining images were of a country down on its luck, but always pulling together.
That's what I hope Obama will teach our kids in this new year: Talking not of rescue, but of shared sacrifice; reminding us that bills come due, and have to be paid; ending the bizarre period of national denial that is Bailout America.

Pamela Davis Kickstarted the Blago Investigation

Pamela Davis, mother of three and CEO of Edward Hospital, just wanted state approval to expand her Illinois hospital. But some business men tried to extort her -- If you don't use this contractor then you can't expand, they told her. Her call to the FBI (they laughed at her) eventually led to the wiretapping of Blago. This is a really interesting (and short and sweet) story because the New Yorker writer tells the story from the perspective of a working mom learning spy craft. She'll have a book coming out. 

That episode helped start United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s Operation Board Games. For the next seven months, Pamela Davis, hospital administrator, became Pamela Davis, secret agent, helping to expose a multimillion-dollar scam that at times resembled a spinoff of “The Sopranos,” guest-starring the back office from “Grey’s Anatomy.” Davis attended long lunches and boozy dinners with crooked businessmen, listening (and taping) as they talked of grafting off the hospital industry. She would slip the tapes to her F.B.I. handlers at Marshall Field’s makeup counters in malls around suburban Chicago.
Davis taped all sorts of incriminating conversations, but she never quite got used to spycraft. “The wire is a little tiny square thing I put inside my bra. I thought it would fall out all the time,” she said. “Oh, the logistics of getting this stuff done! One morning, I had to meet one of the F.B.I. guys in my office at 6 A.M. so he could hook up a wire to tap my phone. He was under my desk, on the floor. It looks kinky! My administrative assistant pops her head in, and there’s this man under my desk, and she says, ‘Oh, my goodness,’ and leaves. And I go, ‘What am I supposed to tell her?’ He says, ‘I don’t know. That never happened to me before.’ ” Read the whole thing.

Commander in Chief's Ball Only For Military

This is one of the 10 balls that Obama will attend.

HONOLULU (AP) -- President-elect Barack Obama will have a Commander in Chief's Ball during his inauguration with military personnel, their spouses and those wounded fighting in the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as guests.

In announcing this Thursday, officials said that tickets for the Jan. 20 military-only ball will be free to guests. The formal event will be at the National Building Museum in Washington.

"It is a privilege to honor our men and women in uniform during our inaugural festivities by continuing the tradition of the Commander in Chief's Ball. Our troops represent the best America has to offer, and without their dedication and sacrifice we would not be able to enjoy the freedoms that we are coming together to celebrate on January 20," Obama said in a statement released while he vacationed here in his native Hawaii.

"They deserve our thanks and our gratitude. Michelle and I look forward to attending the Commander in Chief's Ball and sharing this special evening with representatives of our armed forces," his statement said.

Happy 2009 - It's a New Day!

19 days until inauguration. It's the year of hope.

ITS A NEW DAY

by will.i.am

I WENT TO SLEEP LAST NIGHT

TIRED FROM THE FIGHT

IVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR TOMORROW ALL MY LIFE

YEAH I WOKE UP THIS MORNING FEELING BRAND NEW

CAUSE THE DREAMS THAT IVE BEEN DREAMING HAS FINALLY CAME TRUE

ITS A NEW DAY (5X)


VERSE 1


ITS BEEN A LONG TIME COMING

UP THE MOUNTAIN KEPT RUNNING

SONGS OF FREEDOM KEPT HUMMING

CHANNELING HARRIET TUBMAN

KENNEDY LINCOLN AND KING

WE GOTTA MANIFEST THAT DREAM

IT FEELS LIKE IM SWIMMING UPSTREAM

IT FEELS LIKE IM STUCK IN BETWEEN

A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE WEVE BEEN THROUGH THE HEARTACHES

AND LIVED THROUGH THE DARKEST DAYS

IF YOU AND I MADE IT THIS FAR WELL THEN HEY WE CAN MAKE IT ALL THE WAY

AND THEY SAID NO WE CANT

AND WE SAID YES WE CAN

REMEMBER ITS YOU AND ME TOGETHER


CHORUS


I WOKE UP THIS MORNING FEELING ALRIGHT

IVE BEEN FIGHTING FOR TOMORROW ALL MY LIFE

YEAH I WOKE UP THIS MORNING FEELING BRAND NEW

CAUSE THE DREAMS THAT IVE BEEN DREAMING HAS FINALLY COME TRUE

ITS A NEW DAY (5X)


VERSE 2

ITS BEEN A LONG TIME WAITING

WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT

ITS BEEN A LONG TIME PRAYING

PRAYING FOR THIS MOMENT

AND HOPE FOR THIS MOMENT

AND NOW THAT WE OWN IT

CLOSER IMA HOLD IT

AND I WONT LET IT GO

THIS IS FOR OUR FATHERS, OUR BROTHERS, OUR FRIENDS WHO FOUGHT FOR FREEDOM, OUR SISTERS OUR MOTHERS, WHO DIED FOR US TO BE IN THIS MOMENT

STOP AND CHERISH THIS MOMENT

STOP AND CHERISH THIS TIME

ITS BEAUTIFUL AINT IT

WE DID IT FOR HER AND HIM AND HE AND SHE AND YOU AND ME TOGETHER


CHORUS


YEAH I WOKE UP THIS MORNING FEELING BRAND NEW

CAUSE THE DREAMS THAT IVE BEEN DREAMING FINALLY COME TRUE

YEAH I WOKE UP THIS MORNING FEELING ALRIGHT

CAUSE WE WASNT FIGHTING FOR NOTHING

AND MALCOLM WASNT FIGHTING FOR NOTHING

AND MARTIN WASNT DREAMING FOR NOTHING

AND LINCOLN WASNT TRYING FOR NOTHING

AND CHILDREN WASNT CRYING FOR NOTHING


ITS A NEW DAY (7X)