It's time for a new episode of the PinkerCorn show on Bloggingheads.tv. Jim Pinkerton and I discussed President Barack Obama's recent news conference and the prospects for health care reform. When Pinkerton claimed that average Americans are growing skeptical of Obama, I accused him of projecting. We also gabbed about two matters that did not come up at that press conference: the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war. Since the Afghanistan war quickly became "the other war" after George W. Bush invaded Iraq, I opined, it remains insufficiently covered by the media, even though thisis an expanding conflict. (The monthly death toll of US and NATO soldiers is up in Afghanistan.) But you can hear and watch for yourself:

 

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Barack Obama certainly knows how to play the press to his advantage. On Wednesday night, he turned a presidential press coverage into an informercial for his leadership on health care reform. As question after question regarding his effort to remake the country's health care system was posed, the president turned each into an ongoing tutorial that demonstrated he's in command of the policy details and the big picture.

Which is crucial. Ultimately--and maybe very soon--Obama is going to have to sell a health care reform package as his plan. Let's face it: for most Americans, it's going to be difficult to understand the specifics of this complicated piece of legislation. And Republicans and industry groups yearning to defeat whatever is produced by Congress will look to whip up opposition and skepticism by focusing on a few details that can be made to seem unappealing or frightening (in or out of context). They will also rely on debate points that sound reasonable: Shouldn't we take our time when it comes to changing the entire health care system? Why rush through a program that could add costs or cause more problems when the economy is already on its knees?

To prevent such rhetoric and arguments--demagogic or not--from scuttling health care reform, Obama will essentially have to say, Take it from me, this is good legislation that the country needs now. And to do so, he will have to have a boatload of credibility. That's what he displayed in the East Room of the White House.

He began with opening remarks in which he tried to present an easy-to-fathom bottom line: "I realize that, with all the charges and criticisms that are being thrown around in Washington, a lot of Americans may be wondering, 'What’s in this for me? How does my family stand to benefit from health insurance reform?'"

No surprise, he had an answer ready:

If you have health insurance, the reform we’re proposing will provide you with more security and more stability. It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it. It will prevent insurance companies from dropping your coverage if you get too sick. It will give you the security of knowing that, if you lose your job, if you move, or if change your job, you’ll still be able to have coverage.

It will limit the amount your insurance company can force you to pay for your medical costs out of your own pocket. And it will cover preventive care like check-ups and mammograms that save lives and money....And, finally, no insurance company will be allowed to deny you coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition.

This is nothing he hasn't said before. But perhaps more Americans are listening now that the sausage-grinding is under way. And all this sure appears to be a good deal for many.

When the questions came, they were the obvious ones. How would you pay for this? How can you control costs? What are you expecting Americans to sacrifice--tests, referrals, end-of-life care? (An aside: why do mainstream reporters so often focus on the need for Americans to sacrifice?)

Each of Obama's replies was drenched with facts and figures--but each was accessible and easy to absorb. He claimed that two-thirds of the tab of health care reform will be covered by cutting costs and increasing efficiencies (and pushing wellness). He noted that he had wanted to reduce tax deductions for wealthy people to pay for the last one-third, but that Congress will probably come up with another funding mechanism--which he will only support if it doesn't place more tax burdens on middle class families. He explained that he has called for quick passage because "if you don't set deadlines in this town, things don't happen." He spoke favorably about a Republican-instigated plan to lower Medicare and Medicaid costs. He maintained that Americans will have to give up care that is driven by fee rates not best practices. He acknowledged that people were right to feel "queasy" about all the trillions of dollars being tossed about in Washington, while repeatedly contending that investing in health care reform was vital to the well-being and competitiveness of the economy.

Policy wonks and legislators can--and will--argue about Obama's assertions. But he uttered everyone with confidence. Those Americans who want to believe in him and whatever health care package he eventually okays--he's still not favoring particular legislative specifics--will have cause to do so.

But what Obama didn't say was also interested. Not once did he call upon Americans to get involved in the legislative process. He didn't pull a Reagan.

In Ronald Reagan's first months as president, he delivered several speeches urging Americans to support his ambitious economic plan, which involved tax cuts for the wealthy and severe reductions in social programs. Many Americans responded by flooding the House and Senate offices with phone calls demanding that the legislators support Reagan's initiative. Even though the Democrats controlled the House, this scared enough moderate and conservative Democrats into bucking Speaker Tip O'Neill and voting for Reagan's package. It passed.

During the Wednesday night press conference, Obama asked for understanding and support, but not participation. The off-shoot of his campaign, Organizing for America, which is part of the Democratic Party, has been powering up a nationwide organizing effort to support health care reform in general (since there's not one bill yet that the White House has embraced). This operation could do a lot with the list of 13 million Obama supporters it inherited from the presidential campaign. Still, Obama did not attempt to fire up his followers. His remarks on Wednesday evening were more about what he wants to do for you, not what he wants you to do for him. There was no Jerry Maguire-like call: help me to help you.

Perhaps that will come. It's hard to imagine legislative success for a decent overhaul of the health care system without pressure from the public. And given that it seems as if Congress will not finish the job by August 7, when the congressional recess starts, Obama, for good or bad, will have time to shift from eloquent explainer to power-politics leader.

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Did Obama make a mistake at the end of his press conference when he blasted the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police for acting "stupidly" when they arrested Skip Gates outside his house for disorderly conduct the other night? No doubt, this will become fodder for talk radio, maybe even cable news. (An hour-long special on Fox News?) What happened at Gates' home is somewhat in dispute. And even though the charges against the Harvard professor were dropped, the police might feel compelled to reply to Obama's blast, creating a dust-up that Obama doesn't need. After all, it doesn't take much to stir a controversy when an episode involves race and law enforcement.

This was first posted at MotherJones.com. You can follow David Corn's postings and media appearances via Twitter.

On the run--again--today. And I'm prepping for President Barack Obama's press conference tonight. There are usually two hundred or so reporters in the room, and he tends to pick about a dozen (from a prepared list) for questions. Thus, the odds are not good. Nevertheless, you have to have something in your notebook--in fact, a few queries, in case someone chosen before you are asks that pearl you had spent days composing.

I'm certain many of the questions tonight will focus on health care. And on NPR this morning, Julie Rovner, the public radio network's reporter covering health care, made an intriguing point about the legislation now being produced (or processed?) on Capitol Hill. She cited what she calls the 80/20 rule: every stakeholder (that is, interest group) may like or tolerate 80 percent of the health care reform legislation under construction, but also cannot abide by 20 percent of the bill. The problem is that this 20 percent is different for each group. Example: the insurance industry may support mandates but absolutely despise the public option. Business groups, though, hate mandates. And so on. Which means that each of the key components of the package enrages a powerful player. Total up all those 20-percents, Rovner says, and it adds up to 100 percent. Maybe more! So how to navigate all this?

Hey, maybe that's a good question for Obama.

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Is President Barack Obama's stimulus doing anything to help the economy? GOPers have been bitching it's a bust. And I confess: it's hard to suss out a good answer. You could also ask, has it done any harm?

A press release I received this morning contains some information that may help us evaluate the stimulus:

A small fraction of the total federal stimulus bill has been awarded in contract awards thus far, and while the pace of contract awards has increased in the last four weeks, the full effect on job creation has yet to be felt, according to Mike Pickett, CEO of Seattle technology company Onvia, whose data powers Recovery.org.

Testifying before the House Government Reform Committee today, Pickett described the most current state of stimulus spending.

Recovery.org is reporting that 1,330 contracts - totaling $21 billion in stimulus spending - have been awarded to local contractors. Applying the White House's Council of Economic Advisors' formula to the $21 billion in awards, Recovery.org estimates that 230,000 jobs have been created or retained so far.

"Employers are not going to retain or hire new employees until they have the contracts in-hand." said Pickett. "The job creation will come once the contracts are awarded."

Overall, Recovery.org is currently tracking $90.7 billion in stimulus spending over 18,451 projects. This is the total stimulus funding figure for projects that are in the "pipeline," having been publicly reported by Federal, state, local or regional government agencies...

"The good news regarding the nation's employment picture is that the pace of stimulus spending has accelerated dramatically over the last month," Pickett continued. "There is fifty percent more stimulus spending in the pipeline now than there was one month ago."

Of the $90.7 billion in stimulus funding currently being tracked, $18 billion is presently at the RFP stage, up from $11 billion at the RFP stage at the start of June.

"Since job creation comes from businesses winning government contracts and thereby hiring or retaining employees to perform on the contract, we are now in a position to determine how many jobs have been created by the Stimulus Bill," Pickett continued.

If  indeed only $21 billion of the $787 billion stimulus bill has actually hit the pipeline, then no one should expect much of a bang yet. And by Pickett's analysis, the pace is picking up dramatically.

Obama has called for patience in assessing his economic policies--including the stimulus plan--and has said that the best way to judge the stimulus spending will be to look at the jobs picture next year. He might be right.

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Yesterday I posted an entry--or at least thought I did--and when I checked hours later, it wasn't there. Technical gremlins? Human error? Mongolian hackers? I don't know. Here's that item. 

After Mark Sanford (from MIA scandal to sex scandal), Michael Jackson (from comeback to drop dead), and Sarah Palin (from political Cover Girl to inexplicable cover story), it's refreshing to return to policy wonkery. After all, it seems like ages since the national discussion was dwelling on the details of a possible public health insurance option or the pros and cons of taxing employee health care benefits. In the past week or so, it's as if a genii had granted the editors of PEOPLE magazine three wishes. (Well, I suppose if that had really occurred one wish would surely have involved Brad and Angelina.)

So how refreshing to receive several policy-drenched fact sheets and handouts from the White House on arms control and US-Russian relations. For instance. One declared:

On April 1, Presidents Obama and Medvedev agreed in London that America and Russian negotiators would begin work on a new, comprehensive, legally binding agreement on reducing and limiting strategic offensive arms to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which expires on December 5, 2009.

On July 6, Presidents Medvedev and Obama signed a Joint Understanding to guide the remainder of the negotiations. The Joint Understanding commits the United States and Russia to reduce their strategic warheads to a range of 1500-1675, and their strategic delivery vehicles to a range of 500-1100.  Under the expiring START and the Moscow treaties the maximum allowable levels of warheads is 2200 and the maximum allowable level of launch vehicles is 1600.

Good news: the United States and Russia are on the road to significant cuts in their nuclear arsenals, though each side will still retain enough nukes to cause a real mess should they be fired. Both governments also agreed to increase their joint efforts to prevent loose nukes from reaching the wrong hands and to work together on a number of issues related to Afghanistan. Moscow also gave Washington permission to transport weaponry destined for the war in Afghanistan through Russian airspace.

These were not total breakthroughs. But after George W. Bush bumbled US-Russian relations for eight years, this was not a bad start. And President Barack Obama (so far) has said nothing about seeing into the soul of Russian President Medvedev. A joint press conference held by Obama and Medvedev--only two questions a side--was televised live by MSNBC. So millions--make that, thousands--of Americans could hear the two leaders discussing strategic arms control issues and their still-unresolved differences on ballistic missile defense. What a change from mega-coverage of the latest on the MJ story. But look, there's live video of police chasing a car on Beltway 8 in Texas. Gotta go.

Today, of course, it's back to Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson--at least in TV land.  Fun fact of the day: "Michael respected artists like van Gogh" (c/o some expert on MSNBC whose name I didn't catch).

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Did Michael Jackson kill the Iranian revolution?

I don't mean that exactly. But the story of the Iranian crisis was subsumed by the mega-media coverage of the pop singer's tragic end. Iran now appears as barely a blip on our collective RSS feed. We've gone from the whole world is watching to much of the world has moved on.

A few data points. First, in recent days there have been few questions at the White House press briefings on Iran. On Wednesday, Fox News correspondent Major Garrett asked press secretary Robert Gibbs what the president thought about the Iranian police's conclusion that the Neda killing was staged y the opposition. Gibbs met that softball with the obvious swing: "shocking." I followed up with what I considered a more substantial query on Iran, asking Gibbs about Mir Hossein Mousavi's statement of that day. Mousavi had called for continuing protests, had declared the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "illegitimate," and had called for the release of detained opposition supporters. Did the president have any reaction, I asked, and has he called for the release of people who have been detained in Iran?

Gibbs said he was unaware if the White House had prepared any comment regarding Mousavi's statement, and he fell back on the usual talking points:

Obviously, David, you've heard the President speak on a number of occasions that the President strongly believes in the right for people to gather in protest without fear or harm or violence.  Obviously there are still a lot of questions that surround the most recent election.  And I think I'll leave it at that.

I've said for weeks that Obama, by and large, has struck the right tone in his remarks about events in Iran. But this response seemed a bit thin. Was it an indication that day to day events in Iran were not looming large within an already quite busy  White House?

On the other side of aisle, let's check in with John McCain's twitter feed, which is followed by over 915,000 people. When I looked at it on Thursday morning, I saw that McCain, who had been calling for more forceful US response on Iran, has not twittered on the subject for a week. But he has twittered about his various media appearances in Arizona during the past week. In twitter-terms, he has left the barricades.

I'll spare you the obvious chest-beating about the ADD of the American public and media. And, of course, the tyrants of Tehran have suppressed media reporting within Iran. No video or pictures--the story fades.

Many analysts who know Iran better than I do have been saying for weeks that given the weak leadership and poor organization of the anti-government movement, the opposition in Iran is in for a long slog. (The Islamic revolution of 1979 took two years to achieve victory.) So don't expect results in the flash of a tweet. Still, the autocrats of Tehran must be saying, "Thank you, Michael Jackson." (Ditto for Governor Mark Sanford.) Today, Americans know far more about the moondancer's will and Neverland  than what's happening--or not--in Iran. And, alas, they care more about it, too.
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To see a music video of a song by an Iranian pop singer who's been arrested for supporting the opposition, click here.
 
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Dana Milbank spanks President Obama and HuffPo's Nico Pitney for conspiring to provide the president a chance to answer a question from an Iranian at Tuesday's press conference. Milbank often is spot-on in his depictions of Washington's follies and foibles, but he may have misguided his outrage on this one.

Milbank accurately notes that the White House gave Pitney a strong indication that he would be called on at the press conference. That does sound as if the White House was planting a question. And here's how Milbank describes what happened:

Pitney asked his arranged question. Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row.

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, "The Obama Show."

A bad message to Iran? Oh my. But White House aides, having noticed that Pitney has been live-blogging the Iranian crisis, had asked him if he would solicit a question from Iranians for Obama. This was not exactly the same thing as arranging for a specific question--or even a sympathetic one. Obama didn't know what Pitney would ask, and Ptiney's query, as it turned out, was a tough one. Obama didn't really answer it:

PITNEY: We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of what the demonstrators there are working towards?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, we didn't have international observers on the ground. We can't say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country. What we know is that a sizeable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. It's not an isolated instance -- a little grumbling here or there. There is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.

And so ultimately the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States. And that's why I've been very clear: Ultimately, this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government.

Obama dodged. He did not state under what conditions he would accept an Ahmadinejad victory, and he did not say whether engaging with Ahmadinejad at some point would be a betrayal of the Iranian opposition. I bet that Iranian was disappointed--if he was able to learn of Obama's response.

Granted, there was something artificial about all this. The White House spurred Pitney to ask a specific sort of question and essentially told him he'd be called on. But, then, there is something artificial about the entire enterprise of presidential press conferences.

Before a press conference begins, the White House decides on the dozen or so reporters the president will call on. The rest of us need not be there at all. And while the White House does not tell journalists they are on this golden list, it's fair to assume that the wire service reporters and the major television network correspondents will be chosen. So about half of the reporters on the list, more or less, have advance notice every time the president holds a news conference. And this list isn't very long, given that Obama usually uses a question as an opportunity to recite, at length, his talking points (as eloquent as they are) on the matter at hand.

At presidential press conferences, there ought to be more spontaneity, more to and fro, and, more important, more questions from a wider range of questioners. (Spin a wheel?) That's the issue, not Nico-gate.
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By the way, I'm filling in for blogger Kevin Drum for a few days. Feel free to check out my postings on Jake Tapper and Mick Jagger and climate change.

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I'm sitting in the White House press briefing room awaiting a presidential press conference, which has been moved from the Rose Garden to this room. (Why? Too much humidity for the president?) And I'm thinking of a question, just in case.....Will you fight for a public health option by mobilizing your millions of supporters? Will you oppose a cap-and-trade bill that contains a big giveaway to polluters? Are you satisfied with the intelligence you've received on Iran? Have you consulted with any outside-the-government experts on Iran? If so, who? Are you going to be more transparent than the Bush administration and release the White House visitors logs? Forget about smoking, have you been drinking?

It's been a busy day or two for me. I've been blogging and Twittering much about Iran, and a Twitterer in Iran informs me that this blog and the Mother Jones website have been blocked in Iran by the autocrats of Tehran. It's an honor.

And last night, I trekked through woods, brambles, and poison ivy to reach the site of the tragic DC metro crash, which was just a mile or so from my house. I'm obsessive about finding alternative routes to avoid traffic. Thus, I was familiar with side streets that allowed one to get close to the site. Then I had to bushwhack my way to the tracks. I followed a culvert next to the railroad fence for about a quarter of a mile and found a small opening. I crawled through and walked along the gravel, right up to the crash. I snapped several iPhone photos before a cop approached and ordered me to leave. "It's a crime scene," he shouted, and he threatened to confiscate my phone. I quickly scurried up a steep hill next to the New Hampshire Avenue bridge--took a few more photos--and emerged in a cordoned-off area. I was surrounded by police officers and rescue workers. I didn't say anything, kept my head down, and quickly walked off. Here are the pics., several of which were featured on Good Morning America this AM. (A producer found them on Twitter and asked me for permission to use them.) And for a good sum-up of questions raised by the crash, check out JIm Ridgeway's take here.

Now back to pondering queries worthy of a president, just in case.

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President Barack Obama continues to walk a fine line on Iran. At Wednesday's press briefing, Robert Gibbs noted that Obama shares the "international concern" regarding Iran's flawed--or stolen--presidential election, but that it's up to Iranians to choose their own leaders. That is, he's not going to denounce Ahmadinejad or support Mousvai--and make it easier for the autocrats of Tehran to brand Mousavi a puppet of the Great Satan. Meanwhile, this gripping, historic moment continues.

I'm fortunate to be part of a listserv for experts around the world on the Middle East and Near East. Some are in Iran. Many have contacts--including friends and family--within Iraq. These listserv participants have been providing a good flow of news and views on what's transpiring in Iran. On Wednesday night, one member in Iran provided this "Tehran Update":

DEMONSTARTIONS INSPIRING. The discipline and self-control of demonstrators over the last several days, even after fatal violence on June 15th, was inspiring to watch and to be in! When an AN supporter appeared, they were confronted not with boos or hisses, but with a silent sea of hands in the air with the v for victory sign. I was proud to be there. One of the reformist clerics just before his arrest said "I have only just now realized how far behind our supporters we actually are." Of course the pro-electoral recount side are outflanked organizationally: without an organization or means of communication or accessible leaders it's not clear how much further the demonstrations can go. No objectives can be discussed or developed, and no planning can be coordinated. One cannot even tell if communications - such as the printed flyers yesterday, apparently from Mousavi, telling people NOT to demonstrate - are genuine or not. But then consider what is being achieved despite all these disadvantages! And it has become clear that this election struggle can have very wide implications for the entire political system.

RIOTS. Last night (night of June 17th) there was pitched battle in Gandhi street between ordinary youth on the one hand coming off the peaceful demonstration around Vanak Square and Basiji's on motorcycles on the other. The latter were smashing car windows and attacking people. It was good thing I was wearing sneakers! I was able to drive home after midnight when things had calmed down. There was an ambulance near Vanak Sq. apparently loading three people with gunshot wounds. There were hundreds of riot police sitting and standing in Vanak Sq. The pattern seems to be attack the stragglers on their way home late at night when its dark.

WHAT'S AT STAKE BEYOND THE ELECTION. One thing at least is about who will count as persons deserving respect in the nation. AN's victory speech was full of ominous - and historically all too familiar - references to his opponents as trash, flotsam and jetsam (Khas o Khashak) and dirt, who have to "submit" to the undifferentiated undivided will of the "nation." Interestingly the state TV yesterday has begun a more subtle and effective
strategy of inclusion: reminding everyone that all candidates were regime-approved and so are part of the family, and drawing a line between all candidates on the one hand and the forces of disorder on the other. This reflects a slight but significant distinction between AN and the Leader as well as the up till now latent struggle between them. AN wavers continuously on whether the "nation" is equivalent to the entire population (70 million), all those eligible to vote (46 million), all those that did vote (40 million), or only those that voted for him (24 million). He clearly leans to the last definition. The Leader, for obvious reasons, is wary of permitting the boundary of "we" to be drawn minimally exclusively around AN's supporters. But he is perhaps caught between the two. In sum, a big part of what is driving people is the outrage of being so openly insulted and dismissed, whatever the election results. Even by AN's official count, his opponents are still fourteen million people.

COMMUNICATION BLACKOUT INCREASING. As of this morning, all TV signals in my neighborhood are blocked. Some e-m gets through if one is using Outlook but not via a web-based e-m. No web site page is opening, although different parts of the city experience different degrees of access. So no access here to twitter. I am told the jamming of satellite signals use especially strong beams able to "jam" all satellite signals. I don't know the technology and I am worried about and its affect on us especially small children. We live right next to a communications ministry tower so apparently get the full blast. Mobile communications switched off throughout the day - when there is a demonstration beginning, and turned back on about an hour ago about midnight here. So no texting. Last night on Iranian state TV in an interview with the Guardian Council representative viewers where asked via ticker on the bottom of the screen to send in comments by text message. Someone called and said, "no text service is possible". The message was removed.

Elsewhere I've written about Tehran's war on satellite dishes.

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On Wednesday, the White House released its plan for reviving financial regulatory reform. And the plan nicely sums up how credit default swaps--complex financial instruments traded between financial firms to cover possible losses--helped grease the way to the current economic disaster:

One of the most significant changes in the world of finance in recent decades has been the explosive growth and rapid innovation in the market for financial derivatives. Much of this development has occurred in the market for OTC derivatives, which are not executed on regulated exchanges. In 2000, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) explicitly exempted OTC derivatives, to a large extent, from regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. In addition, the law limited the SEC's authority to regulate certain types of OTC derivatives. As a result, the market for OTC derivatives has largely gone unregulated.

The downside of this lax regulatory regime for OTC derivatives - and, in particular, for credit default swaps (CDS) - became disastrously clear during the recent financial crisis. In the years prior to the crisis, many institutions and investors had substantial positions in CDS - particularly CDS that were tied to asset backed securities (ABS), complex instruments whose risk characteristics proved to be poorly understood even by the most sophisticated of market participants. At the same time, excessive risk taking by AIG and certain monoline insurance companies that provided protection against declines in the value of such ABS, as well as poor counterparty credit risk management by many banks, saddled our financial system with an enormous - and largely unrecognized - level of risk.

When the value of the ABS fell, the danger became clear. Individual institutions believed that these derivatives would protect their investments and provide return, even if the market went down. But, during the crisis, the sheer volume of these contracts overwhelmed some firms that had promised to provide payment on the CDS and left institutions with losses that they believed they had been protected against. Lacking authority to regulate the OTC derivatives market, regulators were unable to identify or mitigate the enormous systemic threat that had developed.

But what's missing from this accurate summary is a list of the culprits--that is, those policymakers and legislators responsible for allowing swaps to go unregulated and turn into a financial Frankenstein's monster. I've written about ex-Senator Phil Gramm's underhanded role in this. But another key player was Larry Summers. In 1998, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission raised the prospect of regulating swaps. But Summers, then the deputy secretary of the Treasury (along with Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Fed chair Alan Greenspan) shouted, No!

These wise men each gazed with horror upon [CFTC chair] Born's proposed consideration of regulation for derivatives. Speaking for them, on July 30, 1998, Summers testified in the Senate against the notion of the CFTC even pondering rules governing the trading of derivatives. By releasing its memo, the CFTC, Summers complained, "has cast the shadow of regulatory uncertainty over an otherwise thriving market--raising risks for the stability and competitiveness of American derivative trading."

....Even "small regulatory changes," Summers cautioned, could throw the whole system out of whack. Determined to slap down the CFTC, his Treasury Department, the Fed, and the Securities and Exchange Commission crafted a proposal that would prohibit the CFTC from issuing new rules regulating any swap or "hybrid instrument.

How tables turn. These days, Summers is President Barack Obama's top economic adviser and had a strong hand in Obama reform plan that calls for regulating OTC swaps (but not private swaps between large institutions). If only Summers had been so cautious about swaps a decade ago. He might have saved himself some work--and saved the American taxpayers billions (or is it trillions?) of dollars in bailouts for swaps-enabled firms.

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In the latest issue of The New Yorker, CIA chief Leon Panetta says of Dick Cheney:

I think he smells some blood in the water on the national-security issue. It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point. I think that's dangerous politics.

Cheney today struck back, saying, "I hope my old friend Leon was misquoted."

Hours later, the CIA put out a statement:

The Director does not believe the former vice president wants an attack. He did not say that. He was simply expressing his profound disagreement with the assertion that President Obama's security policies have made our country less safe. Nor did he question anyone's motives.

This explanation hung on a thin reed: that Panetta had said that it was almost as if Cheney wanted another attack, not that he actually desired one. Still, it did look as if Panetta had been brushed back by Cheney.

And Chris Matthews, Michael Isikoff, and I sliced and diced this episode on Hardball:

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It's become almost a daily ritual in the White House press briefing room. Reporters ask press secretary Robert Gibbs what President Obama will fight for regarding the health care reform bill now under construction in Congress, and Gibbs refuses to discuss details. Will Obama oppose a move to tax employee-based tax health care benefits, per his campaign position? Gibbs won't say. What does Obama want to see in a public health insurance option? Gibbs won't say.

At Wednesday's briefing, NBC's Chuck Todd tried to push Gibbs on the taxing benefits issues. Gibbs wouldn't give. Then Todd asked, when it comes to the health care bill, what is Obama "inflexible on?" Gibbs replied,

President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo on relations between the West and the Muslim world was a tour de force. Watch it; read it. (My colleague Nick Baumann lists the nine hard truths in the speech.) But this episode is a reminder that a speech is composed of two elements: the words and the person delivering them. Look at this portion of the address:

Now, make no mistake:  We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan.  We see no military -- we seek no military bases there.  It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women.  It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict.  We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and now Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can.  But that is not yet the case.

...Today, America has a dual responsibility:  to help Iraq forge a better future -- and to leave Iraq to Iraqis.  And I have made it clear to the Iraqi people -- (applause) -- I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources

It is not hard to imagine George W. Bush, as president, saying those same words. Yet millions of people at home and abroad would not have believed his claim to have no interest in sustaining a US military presence in Afghanistan, Iraq or anywhere else. Why? Well, if you don't know, you slept through the first eight years of this century. The fine words that Bush did frequently speak about promoting democracy abroad and protecting the world from tyrants and terrorists were undermined by his misrepresentations of the actual threats (see WMDs in Iraq) and his actions (see rushing to war in Iraq when the UN weapons inspections process was under way and working).

Obama has no such baggage. More important, he is willing to acknowledge US errors:

I've been on the run today. But I've also been busy myth-busting.

In recent days, there has been a round of Ronald Reagan praising that's come from...Democrats. Yes, Democrats--including President Barack Obama. So I thought a remedial lesson was necessary. Here it is.

Also, yesterday Lt. General Stanley McChrystal, whom Obama has picked to head US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, appeared before the Senate armed services committee for a confirmation hearing. For years, he was in charge of the secretive Joint Special Operations Command, which in 2006 found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda in Iraq leader. And McChrystal comes across as a bright and confident commander. He seems competent. He has been widely praised. At the hearing, he frankly acknowledged that two key problems in Afghanistan have been civilian casualties caused by US troops and rampant corruption.

But McChrystal has some baggage. He ran JSOC when one of its units in Iraq was involved in abusive treatment of detainees at a secret base outside Baghdad called Camp Nama. (See here and here for graphic details.) Senator Carl Levin, the committee chair, did ask McChrystal about abusive treatment of prisoners, and McChrystal declared that he did not condone it. But neither Levin nor any of the other committee members asked McChrystal specifically about Camp Nama and reports that McChrystal visited the site.

This was a stunning omission. Clearly, the hearing had been orchestrated--so McChrystal would have the chance to condemn abusive treatment but not have to answer any tough questions about actual acts of abuse that happened under his command. Levin and the other senators wanted him confirmed without a fuss (perhaps because Gen. David Petraeus, whom everyone on Capitol Hill adores, wants McChrystal in this post). In any event, it was a low moment in confirmation hearings. The senators should have vigorously questioned McChrystal about Camp Nama. Instead, they gave him a pass. And dark questions remain.

I was able to complain about this later that day on PBS's Newshour. Transcript here; video here.

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On Monday morning, I attended the opening session of the Campaign for America's Future annual ProgFest, and as I noted at Mother Jones, the crowd was much smaller than previous years--the price of success, naturally. Moreover, the Obama White House showed the progs little love. Neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden are speaking at the three-day gathering, and only three administration officials are dropping by. That's not a lot.

One of those three was Jared Bernstein. The opening panel was supposed to feature him and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. I thought that could be a hot face-off. Stiglitz is critical of the Larry Summers-led economic bailouts of the Obama administration; Bernstein, a liberal-minded, working-class-oriented economist, would have to support administration policies. For policy wonks, this could have been Ali vs. Frazier.

Why did Willie Sutton rob banks? Because that's where the money is. Why do Democratic politicians go to Los Angeles? Same reason. A source involved in Democratic fundraising in the City of Angels tells me that by his count there have been eight Democratic senators working Tinseltown this week, while Congress is on a break. He says that may set a record for senatorial money-grubbing in a given week--and that traffic has never been so bad on the West Side.

That was particularly true, he adds, when President Barack Obama was in LA on Wednesday for a Democratic Party fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hilton that was expected to bring in up to $4 million. (The hosts included Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katezenberg, and David Geffen; top ticket was $15,200.)

I'm still looking for signs that President Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court will split the right. Earlier, I reported that conservative strategist Grover Norquist was happy with Obama's choice because it has united conservatives in opposition. Longtime rightwing poohbah Richard Viguerie has said the same thing, and he's been calling for an anti-Sotomayor crusade. But so far Senate Republicans and Michael Steele, chair of the GOP, have refrained from beating any anti-Sotomayor drums. And that means Norquist, Viguerie and the conservatives could end up being disappointed if Senate GOPers decide not to go after the first Latina nominated to the highest court.

In an email, I asked Norquist if he thought the Senate Republicans share his enthusiasm for opposing her. His response surprised me a little. He wrote:

It's Sotomayor Mania!

I'm watching Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch being grilled by David Shuster on MSNBC for claiming that Judge Sonia Sotomayor would put her "feelings" above the law. Shuster demands proof of that. Fitton refers to when she once said that a "Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Fitton accuses Sotomayor of racism. And other conservatives are latching on to this quote to denounce President Barack Obama's selection of Judge Sotomayor to succeed Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. Fitton also is saying, "Conservatives...expect Republicans to oppose this nomination in large numbers."

Well, they can expect all they want, but....Elsewhere I note that the Sotomayor pick could lead to a split on the right. Obama has handed Senate Republicans a tough choice: they can attack Sotomayor, the first potential Latina Supreme Court justice, and risk alienating Hispanic voters (and possibly women, too), or they can yield to Obama and tick off social conservatives who want blood. What to do?

One sign of this dilemma was the first reaction from the Republican Party. On Monday morning, the GOP zapped out a press release noting that when Howard Dean was Democratic Party chair, he immediately blasted the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito Jr. But, the release noted, Michael Steele, the current GOP chair, was not prejudging Sotomayor and was now calling for "thoughtful discussion" of her judicial record. So here was Steele using the moment to proclaim, "Hey, I'm no bombthrower."

That might help Steele, given that he's developed the reputation of a shoot-from-the-hip politico. But such let's-be-reasonable rhetoric must not hearten Tom Fitton and other conservatives ready for an ideological charge against Sotomayor. They want a fight. As of this early moment, there's no sign their Republican pals will give them that.

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My favorite passage from Dick Cheney's I-saved-America speech:

For all the partisan anger that still lingers, our administration will stand up well in history -- not despite our actions after 9/11, but because of them. And when I think about all that was to come during our administration and afterward -- the recriminations, the second-guessing, the charges of "hubris" -- my mind always goes back to that moment. To put things in perspective, suppose that on the evening of 9/11, President Bush and I had promised that for as long as we held office -- which was to be another 2,689 days -- there would never be another terrorist attack inside this country. Talk about hubris - it would have seemed a rash and irresponsible thing to say.

That's my emphasis, for Michael Isikoff and I wrote a book called, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Cheney, of course, is a major character in the book. I don't know if he read it, but a while back we were told by a reliable source that David Addington, who was Cheney's top legal adviser in the veep office, was spotted at a children's soccer game reading the book.

I have a more substantial review of Cheney's speech and a comparison of it to Barack Obama's same-day national security address here. What disappointed me about the Cheney event was that he did not take questions. Usually, there is a Q&A following speeches at the American Enterprise Institute (a.k.a. Neocon HQ), and it can often be a feisty session. An AEI official told me that Cheney's office had informed AEI that he would field queries after his address. Instead, he quickly trotted out of the room. The AEI people were left with no explanation of his sudden departure.

But it sure would have been appropriate if a co-author of Hubris had been allowed to question the ex-veep. At least, I think so. And I had several questions ready. One went something like this:

Now I'm worried. From the office of House minority whip Eric Cantor:

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement on legislation introduced by House Republicans to authorize and support President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan:

"President Obama has listened to the commanders on the ground, and put forth a reasonable strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan to ensure that the brave men and women of our armed forces overseas have a path for success.   

"To show support for the President's plan, Reps. Illeana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), John McHugh (R-NY), Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and Peter King (R-NY) have introduced twin pieces of legislation that will authorize the funding levels for each country as requested by the President without hamstringing and micromanaging the day-to-day operations of our commanders. These plans would also require the administration to submit an implementation plan to Congress to ensure sustainable progress.

"I hope that our colleagues, despite some reservation across the aisle, join us in swift and bipartisan passage of these bills to show support for the President, our military commanders, and our troops. I thank the sponsors for their leadership and their continued hard work on issues of vital importance to our national security."

Is Cantor reaching across the aisle in a true sign of bipartisanship? Maybe there's more to this than that. Cantor and other Republicans can see that some Democrats--mainly libs--are uneasy with Obama's Afghanistan policy. So they appear to be trying to place pressure on the Ds in a way that--just coincidentally, I'm sure--could exacerbate the brewing tension between President Obama and liberal Democrats regarding Afghanistan.

Liberals who are worried--or skeptical--about Obama's Afghanistan policy will certainly not be assuaged by the news that Cantor and Company believe that Obama is doing exactly the right thing. This is an endorsement that doesn't help.

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Is Hillary Clinton playing Barack Obama? Does she have a secret political plan? Are the Clintons up to anything? We discussed this all on Tuesday night on Hardball:

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Michael Steele, as he told me, is the gift that keeps on giving--but to Democrats. Now he's trying to boot up Steele 2.0. Or is it 3.0? Or 4.0? The Republican Party chairman is giving a speech on Tuesday to Republican Party state chairman, and MSNBC's "First Read" was given some advance excerpts:

According to excerpts of his remarks, Steele will say that the GOP isn't going to dwell anymore on past mistakes. "The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done... We have turned the page; we have turned the corner... From this point forward, we will focus all of our energies on winning the future." He also will announce that Obama's honeymoon is over. "Candidate Obama was very moderate in his views, but President Obama could not possibly be further to the far left... We are going to take this president on with class; we are going to take this president on with dignity. This will be a very sharp and marked contrast to the shabby and classless way that the Democrats and the far left spoke of the last president."

This is rich. After eight years of Republican misrule--the Iraq fiasco, a poorly managed war in Afghanistan, Katrina, torture, no real action regarding climate change, the subprime crisis, and economic policies that did nothing to avert the worst economic downturn in decades--Steele is now saying, "You can't touch this." He's like a grade-schooler trying to call "time out." Given that it's going to take the nation years--perhaps decades--to climb out of the hole that the Bush administration dug, it's a bit unreasonable for him to say the past is done and the political clock starts now. The folks who screw up the books don't get to say, "it's time to turn the page." Nah, the statute of limitations on these misdeeds and mishaps is longer than a few months. By the way, how long did GOPers run against Democrats on Vietnam and HillaryCare?

Steele is dreaming if he believes that his pronouncements can change a political landscape that remains scarred and ruined by the folks who were running his party just months ago. And one prominent GOPer--a fella named Dick Cheney--doesn't seem ready to turn any page.

Can President Barack Obama make any progress to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while the Israeli government is led by Binyamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington this week to meet with Obama and who has apparently never used the phrase "two-state solution"?

The folks at Americans for Peace Now are optimistic. Really. The group posted an analysis maintaining that the recently-elected Bibi is "susceptible to pressure." Why? Well, after two months in office, his approval ratings are moving in the direction of that of pork in a kosher restaurant:

His first fifty days in office have not been successful. The media criticized the manner in which he constructed his government and depicted it as too large, wasteful and poorly staffed. Then Netanyahu flip-flopped on the budget and now he is perceived as putting at risk Israel's relations with the United States - its chief national security asset.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that most Israelis are unhappy with Netanyahu's performance: 52% disapprove of his performance as prime minister according to a Friday Haaretz poll. Only 28% of those polled said they were satisfied with Netanyahu. Only 27% said they think Netanyahu is a better prime minister than his disgraced predecessor, Ehud Olmert.

Even more significantly, a solid majority, 57% said that Netanyahu should agree to a two-state solution when he meets with President Obama Monday. Not more than 35% disagreed. A full 40% of Likud supporters, Netanyahu's hard line support-base, said that he should say yes to Obama on the two-state solution.

That's some accomplishment--dissatisfying 72 percent of the Israeli public in seven weeks' time. And Netanyahu, to an extent, is held hostage by Obama. If the US president were to issue public remarks hinting that Netanyahu was being unreasonable, it would probably be a significant political blow for the Israeli PM. Consequently, Obama does have leverage. And he should use it.

Obama has already indicated he's willing to talk (somewhat) frankly about Netanyahu's intransigence. At his second prime-time White House press conference, Obama said that after Netanyahu's electoral victory the Mideast peace process was "not easier than it was." He's obviously not predisposed against hitting Netanyahu with a rolled-up newspaper in public--even if gently. And if any public wrist-slapping does emerge out of Obama's talks with Netanyahu, it will sting the Israeli leader at home.

Let me finish up with more from those Peace Now optimists, who this time around might actually have political reason for hope:

How's this for not building confidence?

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama met with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise appearance at the daily White House briefing to discuss the trilateral talks under way. Consider this one exchange:

Q Madam Secretary, senior administration officials in recent weeks have swung between fairly sharp criticism and praise of the Afghan and Pakistani governments. You, yourself, said that the Pakistani government was at risk of abdicating to the Taliban. First, do you still believe that is the case? And do you see a risk of sending a mixed message to these partners at a time when both their cooperation are needed in combating the resurgent Taliban?

Talk about Kabuki theater.

On Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama is scheduled to meet with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and President Asif Ali Zardari. No doubt, there will be plenty of smiles for the cameras.

And Obama will vow support for the "democratically-elected" governments of both nations. But it was less than three months ago that Obama said during a press conference that Karzai's government "seems very detached from what's going on in the surrounding community."

Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels tells GOPers in Washington to stop "whining.".

David Brooks complains that Republicans "are no longer the party of community and order" (as if they were ever the party of community) and that they "talk more about the market than about society, more about income than quality of life."

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney disses Sarah Palin for making Time's list of 100 most influential people: "[W]as that the issue on the most beautiful people or the most influential people? I'm not sure. If it's the most beautiful, I understand. We're not real cute." (Actually, Romney is kinda cute--certainly more handsome than influential these days.

After watching Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger lead Barack Obama and hundreds of thousands of others in singing "This Land Is Your Land" at the pre-inauguration concert at the Lincoln Memorial, I noted that the concert "was a moment of victory in the political cultural war that has gripped the United States since the tumultuous days of the 1960s":

The show at the Lincoln Memorial contained other moments signaling that the cultural civil war that began with the civil rights crusade, the movement against the Vietnam War, and the rise of hippie-dom was done--at least for now--and that the libs had won. Toward the end of the HBO-aired event, Bruce Springsteen, once a greaser-rocker, brought out folk music hero and activist Pete Seeger, once derided by conservatives as a commie, and Seeger led the crowd in "This Land Is Your Land." This song is the liberal national anthem, written by Woody Guthrie in 1940 as a populist-minded response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," which was too rah-rah for Guthrie's liking.

Well, Seeger Nation took another victory lap on Sunday night.

On Thursday night, I attended the National Magazine Awards ceremony in New York City. Mother Jones was nominated for three awards, including two for general excellence, but, alas, it bagged no Ellies. (The winners receive a gold elephant statuette; don't ask me why.) Our torture package lost in the public interest category to an article in Bicycling. But I was able to hobnob with all the swells of magazine publishing at cocktail receptions before and after the program. And I was struck by one thing. A couple of editors of top mags asked me about President Barack Obama's press conference of Wednesday night, noting that they had not watched the full show.

Not watched it? Are people already bored with Obama? For their benefit, I summed up what I had written: that Obama did not have to contend with a single question about either Afghanistan or the various financial system bailouts. And these are the two big-ticket items of his president and high-wire policies that could lead him into trouble. Interesting, my conversation-mates said. (Were they just being polite?) But this brought home a point for me. If New York Times-reading, intellectual, engaged editors didn't catch the fact that Obama wasn't pressed on the mega-matters of his nascent presidency, then I'm sure most Americans aren't fixing on this.

So is the president getting something of a pass? The in-control Democrats of Congress are hardly griping about the bailouts. Nor are they raising too many questions about Afghanistan. And who cares what the Republicans have to say? Obama, for the moment, has plenty of running room. I'm not sure that's good.

Which reminds me. Here's what I would have asked at the press conference, had he called my name:

Mr. President, earlier today at a town hall meeting in St. Louis, you said it was critical for us to restore "fairness" to the economy. But there are lots of Americans wondering if they're being taken for a ride. The Fed has issued about $2 trillion in loans to banks and financial institutions and won't reveal to the public which firms have received this money and under what conditions. The special inspector general for the TARP program says Treasury is not forcing TARP recipients to certify how they are using TARP money. And Elizabeth Warren, the head of the Congressional Oversight Panel, recently testified that "without more transparency and accountability" it is "not possible to exercise meaningful oversight" over Treasury's assorted bailouts. Doesn't all this signal that trillions of taxpayer dollars going to Big Finance institutions are not being managed well?

Too long?

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This was first posted at MotherJones.com....

During the White House press conference Wednesday night marking the hundredth day of his historic presidency, Barack Obama was asked not one question about the Afghanistan war or the multiple-trillion-dollar federal bailout of the financial system. He managed to tout his many achievements--passing the $800 billion stimulus package, winning congressional approval of budget that devotes record amounts to health care and clean energy, initiating the withdrawal of troops in Iraq, signing legislation to boost the number of children covered by health insurance, banning the use of torture--without having to explain or justify perhaps the two most controversial (and perhaps problematic) big-ticket items of his high-wire presidency. Was that just good luck?

These one hundred days have been something a blur--or, at least a policy blur. There is too much to keep track off, too much to juggle.

The questions put to Obama covered a wide range of substantial matters. (Nothing on the Air Force One fly-over of New York or the dog, though Jeff Zeleny of The New York Times did ask what about the presidency has "enchanted" Obama.)

There's been a lot of calls on the left for a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's use of torture (or enhanced interrogation techniques, if you're Dick Cheney). While a special prosecutor might be necessary to determine if any crimes were committed, the appointment of a Patrick Fitzgerald-like investigator would in no way guarantee that the public will learn the full truth about this affair. As I write for Mother Jones:

The other day I ran into a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, and this person noted that he fancied the idea of appointing a special prosecutor to probe the Bush administration's use of harsh interrogation tactics, a.k.a. torture. He noted that he even thought there was a chance that Attorney General Eric Holder might do so.

"That's not necessarily a good idea," I said. His eyes widened, and he asked why.

"Patrick Fitzgerald," I replied.

I go on to explain:

Tax Day is always a bitch. And I believe the Democrats have never fully gotten this. I'm not about to join one of those silly rightwing "tea parties" in protest of taxes. (Are the yahoos participating in these events willing to burn--or eschew later--their Medicare cards?) Nor am I advocating a simplistic flat tax that will result in big breaks for the well-to-do. But the tax system is convoluted, unfair, and totally exasperating. Many people--if not all--who interact with the IRS end up with good reasons for hating government. Years ago, I was involved in an audit during which the auditor refused to accept explanations for legitimate deductions with this argument: "I don't believe it." The result: pay $7000 in fees and penalties or take the IRS to court (which would have led to legal bills of $3000 to $5000, and perhaps more). I was forced to make the logical choice and write a check for $7000 that the government did not deserve. The system did not seem rational or functional--that is, functional for the taxpayer.

That's not only my complaint. Because I am fortunate to earn money for freelance work in addition to my salary, each year I have to pay estimated taxes in quarterly lumps to cover this outside earning. The problem for my accountant each year is guessing how much estimated taxes I will owe. At the start of the year, I have no way of knowing what gigs I will get. Thus, I cannot calculate how much I will have to pay in taxes on freelance earnings. A rational approach would be for me to earn what I earn and then pay the IRS the appropriate amount of taxes at the end of the year. But the IRS insists on quarterly payments that reflect the total amount owed. In order not to end up being penalized, I have to overestimate these payments. I am no tax rebel, but I do believe that a citizen should not have to pay more money to the government than he or she might owe. This is exasperating. And another thing: you don't have to be an advocate of a regressive flat tax that helps the well-to-do to ask, why can't the tax code be simple enough so that taxes can be easily calculated (using, say, a three-page form) without professional assistance?

This year, there's another problem--for me and my accountant.

I was stunned. The person sitting next to me this Easter morning had just accused President Barack Obama, a practicing Christian, of having thrown "Christianity under the bus." And CNN host/Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz was stunned, too.

We were on the set of Kurtz's Reliable Sources show--broadcasting live--and my fellow panelist, Tara Wall, the deputy editorial page editor of The Washington Times was on a rant. As other conservatives had done, she was attacking Obama for having noted, during a recent speech in Turkey, that the United States was a secular nation, not "a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We are a nation bound by a set of ideals and values." To set up the discussion, Kurtz had played clips from the usual shouting heads. There was rightwing radio talker Lars Larson griping, "I know that technically he's right, but I think that this country has its roots so deep in Christianity and in its traditions and its laws, I think that should be an affront to the American people." There was Sean Hannity grousing, "So, we're an arrogant country and we're not a Christian nation."

But when Wall was given the chance to explain these rightwing complaints, she turned the knob up to 11:

KURTZ: Tara, why are some pundits on your side of the spectrum saying that perhaps Obama doesn't believe in a Christian nation, when he was clearly just saying that America is a pluralistic society?

WALL: Well, you know, his idea to forge ahead and this idea of religious neutrality, he essentially threw Christianity under the bus the same way he did Reverend Wright. I mean...

KURTZ: Threw Christianity under the bus? Where is that...

WALL: Well, listen, the point is the history -- let's revisit our history here. This one dollar bill, all of our dollar bills say "In God We Trust." We are a country -- wait. We are...

The North Koreans launch a missile that fails to place a satellite into orbit and what does former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney, Jr. say? That this episodes indicates that the evildoers of North Korea could be planning to hit the United States with a super-duper secret electromagnetic pulse weapon that would throw America back into the Stone Age, that the U.S. ought to hit Kim Jong Il hard before such a catastrophe happens (whether an attack on North Korea triggers a major war in Asia or not), and that President Barack Obama is planning to "submit" to the Taliban and Muslim nations. Yes, that's what Gaffney said when he and I discussed--is that the right word?--the North Korean missile launch on Hardball on Monday night. What's the connection between an EMP sneak attack from North Korea and Obama surrendering to the Taliban? I'm not sure. But it's easier to show than to explain:

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Imagine if George W. Bush were still president.

Don't gag. But ponder what might have happened at the G-20. Would Bush have arrived with the same-old agenda and urged other nations to cut taxes for individuals and corporations and to resist the calls for too much reregulation of high-flying financiers? Would he have also advocated, as his fellow Republicans in Congress are doing these days, spending cuts in order to restrain government deficits? And if so, would he have been laughed out of London?

The problem in years past was that Bush, no matter what any foreign leader thought of him, led the biggest economic and military power on the globe. So he could not be laughed off. (See Iraq). Barack Obama, on the other hand, is appreciated, not merely tolerated. And though Bush had entered office promising a certain amount of humility in foreign affairs (and then dumped that vow after 9/11), Obama actually demonstrated how such a pledge could be put into practice. During a Thursday press conference, he said:

GM execs--those still with a job--were probably not happy when they saw the front-page of The New York Times on Thursday morning. The lead story: China wants to be the top dog in manufacturing electric cars:

TIANJIN, China -- Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that.

The goal, which radiates from the very top of the Chinese government, suggests that Detroit's Big Three, already struggling to stay alive, will face even stiffer foreign competition on the next field of automotive technology than they do today.

"China is well positioned to lead in this," said David Tulauskas, director of China government policy at General Motors.

There are advantages in running a command economy. Chinese leaders can snap their fingers and force the production of such cars, the purchases of such cars, and the installation of electric power-up stations throughout the nation. Sure, designing and building good products is always a challenge. But the Chinese government is in a better position to compel change than the US Energy Department, which has its own $25 billion program to develop electric-power cars.

China's move might also be a threat to Japan, where automakers have pushed ahead with electric cars and hybrids. But imagine this: what if China and Japan were to hook up? If the design and marketing experts of Honda or Toyota made common cause with Chinese carmakers, that would be one helluva challenge to whatever remains of Detroit. It may well be that in the 21st Century the motto of many nations will be, if you can't beat the Chinese, join 'em.

Detroit better wake up and hear the hum. And so should President Barack Obama. In addition to all his heavy burdens, he practically runs GM now. He has backed its and Chrysler's warrantees. And presumably there will soon be a deal that will lead to more federal billions for General Motors--and more direct federal oversight of the manufacturer's decisions and actions. If all that does happen, what will be bad for GM, will certainly be bad for Obama.

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My take on President Barack Obama's second press conference, first posted at MotherJones.com....

At the second press conference of his two-month-old presidency, Barack Obama sent a clear signal: I'm an establishment progressive, not an angry populist.

Before taking questions from reporters, Obama read a statement--a sort of mini-speech--off a teleprompter and recounted all the economic measures he has put into play: the stimulus package, a mortgage crisis plan, various plans to unclog credit within the financial system (including the toxic assets buy-back program), and his proposed budget.

Only after he explained how all this will help the economy recover did he note that was "as angry as anyone" about the bonuses paid to executives of AIG, the bailed-out insurance giant. Obama noted that the bonuses were another "symptom" of the culture of greed that allowed Wall Streeters to bring down the rest of the economy. Corporate executives, he warned, must realize that they cannot enrich "themselves on taxpayer's dime" and engage in "reckless speculation that puts us all at risk." But, he added, the "rest of us can't afford to demonize every investor and entrepreneur."

On Monday, as I was heading to the White House for the daily briefing, I ran into one of President Barack Obama's senior economic advisers. This person was holding a shopping bag from a bargain retail outlet.

"Shopping?" I asked. "On a day like this?" I was referring to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's unveiling of the administration's toxic assets purchase program.

"I'm not making any announcements today," this economist said.

I noted that the plan seemed a pretty good deal for the banks holding the junk and for the financial firms that will receive federal insurance to cover most of the purchase price of the assets they buy.

"It's not the only way to do this," this person said. "There are lots of ways you could do it."

Lots of ways? At Geithner's press briefing that morning, Geithner had repeatedly insisted that the administration did not have many alternatives to its proposed program. Without such a plan, he said, the government would either have to buy up all the toxic waste on its own, or it would have to stand idly by as financial institutions fold and the credit system further collapses. But this economist was suggesting there was an assortment of actions the feds could have tried. I wondered about Geithner's line--which would be echoed later in the day by White House press secretary Robert Gibbs--that his plan was the only reasonable course of action.

But, I asked, will this particular way work?

It could, this economist replied, with a shrug. But then she/he switched the subject and criticized Christina Romer, the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The day before, Romer had said of the firms that will be participating in the toxic assets program:

Sitck a fork in it. Obama's presidency is done. He's lost the people. He's adrift. He's screwed the pooch.

Some pundits are already pronouncing the O Era a bust--or suggesting it's near the cliff's edge. In the White House press room, reporters routinely ask press secretary Robert Gibbs if the Obama White House has already lost its mojo. Over at The Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes has declared Obama's stint a "flailing presidency." Given that Barnes considers the Bush presidency one of the best in this country's long history, his success-o-meter may be in need of recalibration. Barnes verdict is based mostly on the AIG bonus mess, which he calls a "crisis." Maybe for Senator Chris Dodd. But for most folks--including the man in the White House--the true crisis is the collapse of the economy. Certainly, the White House did not handle the AIG business well last week. But by bringing up Watergate while referring to the AIG business, Barnes shows how desperate he is to turn a bruise into a coma.

Over at Newser.com, media-poker Michael Wolff also went after Obama. He called him a "terrible bore." And--insult of insults--he compared him to Jimmy Carter. Obama's great sin, in Wolff's eye? He delivered a "turgid teachy fiscal lecture" on Jay Leno's show on Thursday night. Wolff goes on:

On the run today. But I just broke a story with my colleague Jonathan Stein: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's chief of staff--a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist--lobbied against a bill to curb CEO pay. And guess who introduced the bill. Yes, Barack Obama, when he was a senator. That is, a Washington influence-peddler named Mark Patterson who worked against Obama's effort to limit excessive corporate pay is now a key member of the Obama administration team that is supposed to contain excessive compensation in the AIG case and in general. Talk about the revolving door spinning wildly.

When Patterson's appointment was announced, good-government groups grumbled about placing a Wall Street lobbyist in a senior post at Treasury, and the White House had to grant Patterson a waiver from its new and strict ethics rules prohibiting lobbyists from obtaining jobs in areas related to their lobbying work. There's no telling if Patterson's previous endeavors for Goldman Sachs have unduly or improperly influenced his actions at Treasury. But it may be hard for some folks to understand how one can go from working against a policy as a lobbyist to working for the same policy as a senior administration official. Patterson presumably is toiling alongside Geithner these days to recover the AIG bonuses and to establish wide-ranging limits on corporate compensation elsewhere.

To get the full story, click here.

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On Wednesday morning, Senator Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat, announced he has formed a bloc of centrist Democrats in the Senate who meet every two weeks, and soon after that I was asked to appear on Hardball to discuss the rise of the Blue Dogs of the US Senate. The clip is below. But here are some thoughts.

* Though Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has played down Bayh's move, it was certainly something of a disloyal action, a dissing of Reid. In announcing the formation of the group on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Bayh brayed, "We want to make sure legislation is crafted in a practical way that will actually solve people's problems." Doesn't that imply that Reid--and President Barack Obama, too--aren't trying to do that? At a time when the economy is in the middle of various economic crises and the White House is working with Democrats in the House and the Senate to develop policies, did Bayh really have to declare that he was concerned his fellow Democrats were not getting it right? Also, he could have informally convened a group of like-minded legislators for periodic gab sessions. Nothing wrong with that. But by unveiling this bloc as a bloc, he suggested he was going to lean on the White House and the Senate's Democratic leadership.

* This may have more to do with politics than policy. Bayh is up for reelection in 2010. He shouldn't have a tough reelection contest. But shoring up his middle-of-the-road credentials probably won't hurt him in the Hoosier state. Moreover, Bayh is a fellow who has considered going for the big prize--the White House. If the president's economic agenda ends up crashing and burning, Obama could be vulnerable to a Democratic primary challenge. Bayh has been positioning himself as a Democratic deficit hawk worried about government spending. (He was one of three Dems to vote against the earmarks-loaded omnibus spending bill that Obama recently signed.) And there's always 2016. He'll only be 60.

* MOR is always popular. Lots of politicians like to show off centrist credentials--whether they are or not. The Democratic Leadership Council started off as truly a bunch of more conservative Democrats. Then lots of Ds joined, and the group became less ideologically defined as it had once been. The senators who have jumped on Bayh's bandwagon include those who are indeed conservative--for Democrats--such as Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, but others might be going along mostly for the ride.

* What's a centrist these days? The political center has shifted so much this past year. Dumping the Bush tax cuts, getting out of Iraq, spending trillions on bailouts and stimulus--that's all middle-ground politics now. So what will Bayh and his Senate Blue Dogs bark about? Perhaps card check. Maybe they'll grouse about some of the spending, though they did vote for the recovery package.

* Bayh is no Mr. Excitement. It's true that political reporters relish conflict and will gobble up any soundbite from Bayh that contains a hint of a jab against Obama or the Senate Democratic leaders. But he's hardly a rousing personality who can inspire millions across the country to question the president's decisions.

Jim Hightower likes to say that all you find in the middle of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos. To that not-so-stirring list, add Evan Bayh.

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Rage against AIG is all the rage. The Washington Post reports on its front-page:

President Obama's apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.

That might be a bit hyperbolic. Is there anyone saying, "I won't support Obama on health care or clean energy because of AIG?" But the uproar over AIG is real. Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has even suggested that AIG execs kill themselves, a la disgraced Japanese leaders. Stephen Colbert wielded an actual pitchfork on his show.

It's obvious: AIG has become the scapegoat for the economic collapse. Members of Congress who have been loathe to name names previously are now rushing to blast AIG. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to introduce legislation to kill those lousy bonuses. Of course, the company and its reckless executives deserve condemnation and scorn--and maybe jail cells. But the amount of the bonuses is minuscule compared to the amount of taxpayer money that has been poured into AIG by the Federal Reserve; in fact, it's about one-tenth of 1 percent of the AIG bailout.

It's easy to get upset about the AIG rewards. Just as it it's easy to get upset about Bernie Madoff. But focusing on either is something of a distraction. The real issue is not the AIG exec money-grab. It's how the system permitted AIG to jump so far off the rails and how the American taxpayers have been placed on the hook for AIG and so many other financial firms. Members of Congress and media pundits should spend as much time pondering financial reregulation and scrutinizing the various bailouts (to determine if they are indeed worthwhile) as they do demonizing AIG executives. For instance, the Federal Reserve since the collapse of the market has loaned $800 billion to $1.2 trillion to assorted banks, and it has refused to identify these institutions. That secrecy ought to prompt at least 5 percent of the outrage stirred up by the AIG bonuses. But it hasn't.

The AIG bonuses are truly outrageous. But they're chump change compared to what else is happening. No doubt, many bankers and Big Finance leaders are delighted to see AIG suck up this much oxygen. That means there will be less heavy breathing about all the other outrages still under way.

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For months, I've been waiting for populist rage at the economic collapse and the subsequent bailouts to explode and cause political fallout. In fact last September I thought there was a chance John McCain, looking for a game-changer, would oppose the (first) Wall Street bailout as a conservative populist and reboot and reenergize his campaign. McCain made a few head fakes in that direction, but ultimately he chickened out.

In the months since, politicians on both sides of the aisle have bitched and moaned about Wall Street and the assorted bailouts under way, but no one has truly ignited a populist crusade against those big-money players who have ruined the economy and their pals in Congress. In January, a consultant told me that he had conducted focus groups with Americans of different economic standing, different party affiliations, and different levels of education, and that he had found that few of them were willing to express any anger at either Washington or Wall Street. Many, he noted, had said that perhaps they had spent too much money on things they really didn't need. He was quite surprised by this. No matter how hard he tried to stir up populist resentment--with loaded questions--he couldn't get that sort of a rise of these people.

So where's all the outrage? MSNBC's First Read newsletter has an interesting take on this:

Rage Against The Machine: Anger at Wall Street and at America's financial institutions has been simmering for a while now -- the numerous bailouts, Bernie Madoff, and Jon Stewart vs. CNBC have been just a few examples. But with the news over the weekend that AIG, 80% of which is now owned by the federal government, is awarding millions in bonuses to executives has most likely turned that anger into a furious boil. As the New York Times' Nagourney writes, this populist backlash presents a huge challenge for an Obama administration that might have to hand out additional bailouts to further stabilize the banking industry. ("The biggest risk is that we don't have the political will," Fed chairman Ben Bernanke warned last night on "60 Minutes." "We don't have the commitment to solve this problem, and that we let it just continue.") But the populist rage also might present a bigger challenge to the political party that's more associated with big business, less regulation, and tax cuts for the wealthy. In fact, if there was a time for the Obama administration and Democrats to push to let the Bush tax cuts to expire, to press for the Employee Free Choice Act (or "card check"), or to institute new regulations, this is the time, right? Still, now's a time when everyone in Washington is suddenly going to be channeling his/her inner-populist. Who will have the most credibility doing it? As for the short term, Congress is going to want a pound of flesh (and then some) from AIG. Obama also will discuss AIG during his remarks today.

The White House does have to make a careful calculation. It does not want to end up on the wrong side of a populist wave. And Obama and his aides know this; recall his not-yet-detailed proposal to cap executive compensation and perks. But at the same time, Obama has to fix the system--which means he has to work with the institutions that caused the damage. It's tough to bash and build at the same time. (Obama, no doubt, will be slamming AIG for awarding bonuses to the execs who lead the company to ruin.) The Obama gang has demonstrated that it can thread political needles. But this will continue to be a tough one. Moreover, there will continue to be an opening for Republicans--if any have the spine to go for it.

I've been busy with a piece on Sarah Palin we at Mother Jones posted on Thursday afternoon. Bottom line: Palin, who ran as a scourge of earmarks, sought and received earmarks that are in the omnibus spending bill just passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama on Wednesday. Yes, you're shocked by her hypocrisy. On the campaign, she vowed that if she were elected veep she would go after Congress' abuse of the corrupt practice of slipping earmarks into spending bills--echoing John McCain's crusade against earmarks. And GOPers--including McCain--have howled about the earmarks in this bill.

Yet Palin's chief spokesperson told us that this spending legislation does contain earmarks she requested. He just wouldn't say which earmarks are hers or how many she obtained. By the way, Alaska will receive more money, per capita, from the bill's earmarks than any other state.

You can read the full piece here.

OBAMA OVERLOAD? On Wednesday, I posted my latest Bloggingheads.tv face-off with Jim Pinkerton, in which he advanced the latest GOP talking point: Barack Obama is doing too much and not focusing sufficiently on the economy. This is an attack-line that has been picked up within the media. When the White House held a health care reform summit last week, several MSM reporters in the press room grilled Robert Gibbs on whether Obama was ill-serving the nation by both working to fix the economy and by taking on the big task of remaking the health care system. Gibbs has batted down that meme by noting that health care is a big piece of our in-crisis economy. Still, Pinkerton pressed the case against overtime for Obama.

My pal Matt Cooper has weighed in. And he's cast several good points into this supposed debate:

First, distraction is a two-way street. Congress is constantly deviating from the economic emergency to deal with other stuff. I watched a fulsome debate on the transportation of chimpanzees and other primates the other day on C-SPAN. The House was taking up a bill in the wake of that chimp attack. It's not reasonable to focus just on one branch of government.

Second, Obama is talking about a lot of things but he's not sending up a torrent of legislation. There was the stimulus bill but everyone agreed there needed to be some kind of stimulus. He's encouraged Congress to come up with a health care plan but he hasn't forced a bill on them to consider. And besides is health care really a distraction? The facts show that you can't get entitlement reform or any control over future red ink without it. Why wait?

Third, Congress is a much bigger institution than it was in 1933 or even 1977....Staffs are bigger, there's more capacity to deal with more issues. If we have more of a logjam these days, it's owing to the partisan redrawing of districts, the culture of lobbying and so on but not an innate inability of Congress to handle more than a few things at a time.

As I said originally, if Obama suddenly decides to immerse himself in an obscure border dispute or something truly far afield, he ought to be called out on it. But green energy, health care, education, and other things he's pursuing all seem germane to the economy. You can disagree with them individually but it's hard to chide their relevance to the crisis at hand.

How reasonable.

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Is Barack Obama trying to do too much at once? Should Timothy Geithner go? Jim Pinkerton and I ponder all this and more in our latest Bloggingheads.tv diavlog. And, once again, we argue over global warming because Pinkerton continues to insist that it ain't happening and that all those scientists who say it is are part of some politically-driven plot. Yes, he does. Really.

By the way, this was filmed hour before Chas Freeman withdrew his name from consideration as head of the National Intelligence Council. In the diavlog, I said that Freeman might survive and that the issue was only at Defcon 4 or so. So once again we learn, beware making predictions. By the way, in the above diavlog, Pinkerton predicted that Obama will serve no more than one term, and I was forced--practically against my will!--to remind him (oh so gently) that he had predicted that Obama would lose about 40 states in the November election. A lesson to us all.

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In a recent interview with The New York Times, President Barack Obama said the United States was not winning the war in Afghanistan--but did not use the word "losing"--and he raised the possibility of talking to Taliban and Islamist factions in order to separate them from al Qaeda. The point: to isolate Osama bin Laden's murderous gang, both geographically and politically. Obama's remarks have generated much discussion about his policy on Afghanistan, though he does not yet have one. His national security team is in the middle of a review that is due to be completed by the end of the month. Obama has said he will send 17,000 additional US troops to Afghanistan in the spring and summer. But he has not yet said what the overall mission is there. While foreign policy experts and others await the results of the review, there's still plenty to discuss and ponder, and I did so Tuesday night on Hardball:

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For too long, the debate over primary education policy has been dominated by two positions: throw more money at public schools or reform the schools with vouchers (and beat back the powerful teachers unions to do so). And it's always been obvious that the correct answer is, kinda do some of both. That is, smart increases in funding, smart reforms, as well as the smart use of testing to measure results. In the past Democrats have generally tended to favor the more-money approach (and to not alienate the unions), and the Republicans have supported reforms, especially if they entailed bashing the unions. With his No Child Left Behind act, George W. Bush leaned heavily on heavy-handed testing and won Democratic support (from Ted Kennedy and others) for expanded programs, but then the Ds cried foul when Bush and his Republican colleagues in Congress would not fully fund the legislation.

With all that history to work with--or ignore--President Barack Obama is striding into the education debate with a proposed initiative that seeks to straddle the lines previously drawn. In a speech on Tuesday morning to the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, he explained his goals. He urged new investments in education and said he aims, as the White House puts it, to "upgrade workforce quality." He calls for dumping "off-the-shelf" tests, developing better assessment systems, and promoting curricula that foster critical thinking and problem-solving (not just answering test questions). And he embraces certain reforms, such as "dramatically expanding" programs that tie teacher pay to performance and "shaping new processes to remove ineffective teachers." No doubt, the unions will not be happy with that. But as a sweetener, Obama also proposes spending money to recruit better teachers and to support mentoring and teacher preparation programs.

Education is a policy mine field. And anyone who has a kid in school--or who ever attended a school--has opinions on what makes a school work or not. With two children in public elementary schools, I am now an expert on teacher quality. Of course, nothing is more important to a child's education than his or her teacher. I want the bad ones removed (somewhat gently) and the good ones encouraged and rewarded.

A White House fact sheet released in conjunction with Obama's speech notes,

You thought Rush Limbaugh was leading the conservative pack in terms of extreme anti-Obama rhetoric? Guess again. There are rightwingers claiming that President Barack Obama is part of a global conspiracy to destroy the US economy.

The other day, Human Events, the conservative magazine, zapped out an email pitching copies of a book called Obama Unmasked, written by Floyd Brown, a longtime conservative activist responsible for the infamous Willie Horton ad, and Lee Troxler, a former Reagan White House press aide. The book came out before the election. But the election results apparently have not voided the need for this book. In fact, the authors claim it is needed now more than ever. Really. Truly. That is, if you can handle the truth about Barack Hussein Obama.

Here's the bottom line:

On the run, at the moment. But please check out this piece below I posted at MotherJones.com. The point of the vignette: it must be damn difficult these days to be working for the Obama administration and trying to contend with the multiple crises at hand. And the conversation I describe below occurred before the news came out that 651,00 jobs were lost in February. How would you like the first item in your job description to be "miracle worker"?

On Thursday afternoon, as the White House summit on health carereform was ending, a parade of Washington pooh-bahs moved from the Old Executive Office Building, past the outside of the West Wing, to the front entrance of the White House for a final meeting, where President Barack Obama would hold a seminar-like session. ("Senator Mitch McConnell, got any thoughts to share?") As I watched Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, Rep. Henry Waxman and others strolling along, I spotted a senior administration official who handles economic issues. He, too, was heading to the East Wing, and he was holding a collection of thick briefing books.

"Having fun?" I asked.

"Any time I'm not working on AIG and Citibank, it's a good day," he said. "Health care is fun compared to that. Believe me, I'm glad to be out of the office doing this."

How encouraging, I thought.

"You know what makes everything so hard?" he asked me. Before I could answer, he stepped closer to me.

Talk about an odd couple.

It was only days ago that an irate John McCain took to the Senate floor to chastise President Barack Obama for signaling he would sign the gargantuan spending bill now being considered by Congress that contains a boat-load of earmarks. "Some much for the promise of change," the defeated Republican presidential candidate declared, his voice dripping with anger and sarcasm--and perhaps a touch of bitterness.

On Wednesday morning, though, there was McCain standing elbow-to-elbow with Obama, as the president unveiled a presidential memorandum that will reform government contracting, particularly Pentagon contracting. (A White House fact sheet released in conjunction with Obama's remarks notes that a General Accounting Office study last year of 95 major military programs found costs overruns on 26 percent, totally $295 billion. You can bail out a lot of banks with that kind of dough.) And Obama was praising McCain's efforts to reform military procurement:

I'm so pleased to support the goals of the bipartisan effort on procurement reform that has been led by our own Carl Levin and John McCain in the Senate. They have done extraordinary work trying to push this issue to the forefront. We want to see if we can partner with Senator McCain and Senator Levin to get this done as soon as possible. And thanks to Secretary Gates, some of the reforms that they've talked about are already beginning to take shape. And I've asked him to work with Senators Levin and McCain on developing this legislation as it moves forward,

Obama has played the magnanimty card well. When last month he held the financial responsibility summit at the White House, Obama conducted something of a seminar, calling on the major players in the room and asking for their thoughts. The first person he selected was McCain. And the night before his inauguration, Obama held a bipartisan dinner for McCain. Now, even after McCain kicked Obama in the teeth over earmarks, Obama hailed his past rival as a champion of military procurement reform.

Of course, this is good politics for Obama. Whenever Obama can drape some McCain-ess over an initiative or policy, it will help Obama, as well as indicate that Obama is making good on his vow to encourage bipartisan action in Washington. But plenty of presidents in the past have not been able to resist the temptations of vindictiveness. Obama is indeed showing that he can rise above petty politics. Cynics will say that he's doing so only to serve his own ends. (And, no doubt, some conservatives will be upset with McCain for allowing himself to be used by Obama in any fashion.) But sometime doing what's right politically is the same as doing what's right, period. Obama has demonstrated he can be generous and savvy simultaneously. That's a pretty damn good combination for a politician--and a leader.

It's always enjoyable when a senior government bureaucrat states the obvious--especially when it entails dissing a previous boss and complimenting a current one. On Meet the Press on Sunday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates was asked by host David Gregory "what's the difference between working for President Obama versus President Bush." Gates' reply:

SECRETARY GATES: I--that's--it's really hard to say. I think that, I think that probably President Obama is, is somewhat more analytical, and, and, he makes sure he hears from everybody in the room on an issue. And if they don't speak up, he calls on them.

MR. GREGORY: A marked difference from his predecessor?

SECRETARYY GATES: President Bush was interested in hearing different points of view but didn't go out of his way to make sure everybody spoke if they hadn't, if they hadn't spoken up before.

In other words, Obama is sincerely intellectually curious and wants to make sure he is not rendering decisions within a bubble of his own (or his advisers') making, while Bush was content to remain within his narrow comfort zone. Analysis? We don't need no stinkin' analysis.

No surprise here. Gates also raised the prospect of writing a book in which he would compare the different presidents he has worked for. It would be something if he could be truly forthcoming on that subject.

Here's the video:

Rightwing activists gathered at a Washington hotel this week for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where they listened to party leaders bash Barack Obama and George Bush and make excuses for the sad state of both the Republican Party and the conservative movement. Various speakers blamed the liberal media, the spending excesses of the Bush administration and congressional Republicans, and John McCain's lousy performance as a candidate for their movement's woes. What they neglected to do was consider whether the bedrock principles of conservatism--fetishizing the free-market and demonizing government--were no longer operative and out of sync with the present reality. I discussed this on Hardball:

By the way, if you haven't seen it yet, check out this story on how former UN Ambassador John Bolton jokingly suggested at CPAC that a nuclear attack on Chicago would teach Obama a much-needed lesson about national security. And the audience responded with laughter and cheers.

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The Defense Department is a big winner in the Obama budget unveiled on Thursday morning. The Pentagon's base budget gets a hefty $533.7 billion, up 4 percent from 2009--not a bad raise these days. And this figure excludes money for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The budget includes an additional $75 billion for "overseas contingency operations"--meaning Iraq, Afghanistan and other missions--for 2009 and $130 billion for 2010.

Some House liberals had been pushing for a cut in military spending to free up money for Obama's other priorities. He didn't hear them.

My take on President Obama's address to Congress, first posted at motherjones.com....

An organized mind at work is a wonderful thing to watch. During his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, President Barack Obama placed the mind of his presidency on display, and it was wonderfully organized. The speech--a State of the Union stand-in--presented a clear, mostly left-of-center agenda for his presidency and a series of forceful rationales for his proposed actions. Obama offered all this up with a now-familiar fair dose of charm and grace. It's been years since any BMOC in Washington has presented such an extensive and well-articulated plan for--dare one say it--change.

This was a political speech, so it had the predictable elements: Americans don't give up, we'll pull together and rise again. But the strategic thrust of the speech was deftly delivered: Obama declared that the crisis--make that, crises--of the moment offers opportunities for fundamental shifts in national policies related to the economy, energy, education, and health care. In other words, the current calamity provides additional cause to proceed rapidly and ambitiously on these fronts.

On Wednesday, I noted that Obama's ongoing review of Afghanistan policy is more important than his decision to send 17,000 more troops, for the key issue is what will be the mission of those troops. The Bush administration had two alternating approaches regarding Afghanistan: neglect and megalomania. By megalomania, I mean its messianic advocacy of transforming Afghanistan into a modern, Western-luvin' democracy. It's easy to spout noble-sounding rhetoric about human rights and such, but setting unrealistic goals for remaking another nation is arrogant. When Bush and his crew weren't ignoring Afghanistan--which was much of the time (see my 2006 article on that--they were promoting a mission there that was a bridge too far.

It's time to get real.

The National Security Network, a liberal-leaning policy shop in Washington, this week put out a policy paper listing of principles that ought to guide any review of Afghanistan policy. They are indeed reality-based:

With a four-paragraph statement released on Wednesday afternoon, President Barack Obama announced that he had approved a request from Defense Secretary Bob Gates to deploy another 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer. He said:

This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires. That is why I ordered a review of our policy upon taking office, so we have a comprehensive strategy and the necessary resources to meet clear and achievable objectives in Afghanistan and the region. This troop increase does not pre-determine the outcome of that strategic review.

The question is not so much the number of troops in Afghanistan but what those troops are doing. Hence the need for a rather candid strategic review. Surging to military victory seems rather unlikely in a land that has defied and defeated military powers of eras past. New thinking is needed more than new troops. "Less troops deployed with the right strategy would be better," a former CIA officer who worked on Afghanistan in the 1980s tells me. And by right strategy, he means one focused on rebuilding Afghanistan (by developing roads and power plants) and cutting deals with regional leaders (warlords) to buy (or rent) their support and isolate al Qaeda and die-hard Taliban elements.

The military actions conducted by US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are taking their toll on the mission. On Tuesday, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict released a report pointing out that the unrelenting stream of civilian casualties in Afghanistan caused by US/NATO military strikes is undermining support for US/NATO operations there:

Here's my take on President Barack Obama's first White House press conference.

I was in the East Room for the event, had a rather nice seat in the fourth row of one of the two center sections--closer to the man than Fox News' Major Garrett. But like 90-plus percent of the journalists there, I was not called on. Garrett was. In fact, all the obvious folks were tapped by Obama to ask questions, as the president worked his way down a list that had been placed on his podium: AP, Reuters, NBC, CBS, Bloomberg, ABC, CNN, The New York Times, etc.

Most of the questions were obvious. Why will your stimulus plan work? What are you going to do with Iran? He could easily reply with well-prepared remarks. I had come bearing two queries--just in case. The first concerned a matter I have been obsessing about the past few days. And it went something like this:

So those few centrist-luvin' Republicans are having their 15 minutes (and $100 billion) worth of fame, crafting a so-called compromise stimulus package that slices a chunk off the House's $920 billion version, while adding more tax cuts to the plan. And President Barack Obama has blessed their efforts.

He shouldn't have been so magnanimous--at least, not at first.

A nation in trouble elected Obama and his fellow Democrats decisively in the past election. The Republicans were disavowed by the public. So Obama owes them little. True, on the campaign he talked often about rising above partisan rancor. But what do you do when there is a real split in opinion between the parties and the minority party tries to obstruct the efforts of the majority party to address a profound crisis?

Obama was right to invite the GOPers to the table and hear them out. But when it became clear they were only committed to their usual same-old/same-old (tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts), he could have shifted gears and played hardball. He had the votes in the House. And in the Senate, he could have forced the GOPers to use the filibuster--rather than the threat of a filibuster. In that case, he would have a clear debate on his hand, and it would be up to him, as job losses pile up, to convince the public that his course of action (rather than Republican no-ism) was the right one. If the Republicans did succeed in blocking the stimulus with 40 votes, Obama could then bend and work out a compromise with the few moderate GOPers to break the filibuster. But the point would have been made: the Republicans were obstructionists. The end result, substance-wise, would have been the same compromise bill that exists now. But in the meantime, most Republicans would have been put on the spot.

Obama has been reluctant to get tough with the Republicans. He has spoken eloquently about his plan's benefit. And he has taken indirect shots at the GOPers. For instance, in his radio address this past weekend, the president noted,

In the item below, I asked, "Will Obama mobilize his millions," referring to the 13 million or so Amricans who had signed up with his presidential campaign. That is, would he call on these people to help him pass the stimulus package? I was able to put this question to the White House on Friday afternoon. Here's how it went, as I first reported at MotherJones.com:

Yesterday, I noted that President Barack Obama, as he makes the case for the stimulus plan, needs to get out more. That is, he has so far played mainly an inside game, trying to work Washington to get a decent package out of Congress. In doing so,

Obama and his aides have encountered the typical difficulties of Washington. It's hard to find experienced influence-makers for high-level appointments who are not tainted by the town's K Street culture. It's tough to score bipartisan points by working with partisans. It's a bitch to ask Capitol Hill machers to change their ways (of appropriating and legislating). It's not easy to control the message when a cacophonous media focus (sometimes rightfully) on missteps and conflict.

The Obama White House has not followed the gameplan that was so masterfully used by the Obama campaign. It's done little to mobilize the millions of Obama supporters to apply pressure on Congress. (Organizing for America, the continuation of the Obama for America campaign, has a mailing list of 13 million names.)

Joel Achenbach of The Washington Post echoed these sentiments (or noted that I had echoed his sentiments on this point):

I read this excellent David Corn column just now, and once again became aware of my own uncanny and unnatural blogtriloquism.

Corn: "President Barack Obama needs to get outside the Beltway...Obama has the communication skills of Reagan plus communications technologies that the Gipper could not have dreamed of. But he is only now beginning to ramp up."

Achenblog : "Don't go wonky. Keep making speeches to adoring throngs. Just because you finally have a real, executive-type job, and 2.6 million employees under your particular branch of government, doesn't mean you should stop doing what you do better than just about anyone, which is campaign -- or, more precisely, inspire people. You got the biggest megaphone in the world, so don't hesitate to use it. And the Republicans don't have to sign off on any of your speechifying."

Others I have spoken to expressed surprise and/or frustration that Obama hasn't been swinging harder--either rhetorically or by using the powerful populist apparatus he developed during the campaign. A former Clinton White House aide told me s/he was astonished that the campaign mechanisms had been allowed to fade. After all, Obama's political advisers had almost three months after Election Day to figure out how to turn the campaign machine into a support-the-president machine--and have it ready to roll and roar on Inauguration Day. An expert on politics and technology told me that s/he suspects that Rahm Emanuel and others at the White House are just not that into grassroots politics. (David Axelrod, where are you?)

Dick Cheney is not going quietly into his post-vice-presidential night. With an interview he did with Politico--in which Cheney practically said it's a certainty that President Obama's actions and policies will lead to a catastrophic terrorist attack against the United States--the ex-veep signaled that he will be lobbing missiles at the new guys from his newest undisclosed location. Think of him as Mr. Wilson of Dennis the Menace fame, ever-yelling at the new kid to keep off his lawn. And it seems that Cheney is living for the day when--after some horrendous event has occurred--he can say, I told you so. The good news for reporters and pundit: Cheney will continue to be the source of good copy. I got my chance last night on Hardball:

On the run today. Yesterday, as Tom Daschle was flaming out, I asked Robert Gibbs if it was harder to change Washington than either he or his boss had thought it might be. He basically replied, We never said we could do this overnight. That sidestepped the question of whether President Obama could transform Washington by picking longtime insiders to help him run Washington? But as Dana Milbank in The Washington Post notes in Wednesday's paper--referring to my exchange with Gibbs--the president offered a more straightforward reply to a similar query:

Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, Michael Steele, who was elected chairman of the Republican Party last week, said of name-calling and the politics of obfuscation: "I don't have time for it." He's obviously not taking advice from Karl Rove.

Steele was an interesting choice for the GOPers. The former lieutenant governor of Maryland and a onetime unsuccessful Senate candidate, he's something of a moderate--in both politics and style. (He supported stem cell research, for instance.) And he made history, becoming the party's first African American chief. But in pulling together some material on Steele, we at Mother Jones came across an interesting contradiction.

When Steele spoke to a mainly African American crowd in February 2008, he praised Obama and said, "I'm very proud to see Barack Obama do what Barack Obama has done and is doing. I am philosophically polar opposites with the man. But it doesn't change the fact that we are from the same community. And it doesn't diminish nor weaken my pride in what he's done." The crowd seemed to appreciate these supportive remarks. See the video:

But at the Republican convention in August, when interviewed by a conservative media outfit, Steele dismissed Obama as "media creation" and a "brand," noting that Obama's success was partly attributed to "a level of white liberal guilt" in the media. Here's that video:

Has Rush Limbaugh finally turned into a liability for the Republican Party? That would be delicious for liberals

One progressive group is trying to use Limbaugh as a blunt object against Republican senators who might vote against President Barack Obama's stimulus package, which passed the House with absolutely no Republican votes on Wednesday. Americans United for Change--which has joined with MoveOn.org, SEIU and AFSCME to air television ads targeting five GOP senators in four states--has launched a 60-second radio spot against three other Senate GOPers, and the commercial's main ammo is Limbaugh. The three senators in this line of fire are John Ensign of Nevada, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The commercial notes that Limbaugh has declared that he hopes Obama fails, and it asks whether these senators will side with the radio loudmouth or with Obama. You can hear it here. And the script:

The stimulus bill that the House passed on Wednesday night is not perfect. No doubt, it includes spending projects and tax cuts that are not all that stimulus-y. But it's the only train at the station these days. So even though the Republicans had threatened to withhold their votes from the bill, it was sort of surprising that not a single GOPer voted for the bill. In essence, the House GOPers are betting the farm on further economic collapse. They are truly selling short.

The House Republicans are now on record as wannabe obstructionists. They say they will continue to play a role in the bill when the House and Senate negotiate the final legislation after the Senate approves its version of the measure. But the House Republicans have lost any claim of authorship. If the stimulus package has any positive results, the GOPers will be out in the cold. President Obama and Democrats will not be shy about reminding voters that the Republicans were the Party of No when it came time to save the economy. The Rs can only hope--politically--that no good comes from this stimulus.

Most, if not all, of the House Republicans will probably not face much electoral trouble for their thumb's down. The Republicans who remain in the House generally hail from conservative districts. Call it Limbaugh Land. There are not many swing-district Republicans remaining. For the House Republicans still in their seats, voting against a spending bill will not cause them much direct political risk back home. But this collective, lockstep action does define the entire Republican Party. And GOPers running for office in non-Limbaugh areas--and that will include presidential candidates in the future--will have this albatross around their neck. (For his part, Obama ought to reconsider his approach to bipartisan politics.)

Tip O'Neill once famously said that all politics is local. That may be true. But even if these House members have scored points in their districts by opposing the stimulus, they are tainting their party's national image. They now have no choice but to root for the economy to continue its collapse. Then they can blame Obama and the Dems for making things worse (or not making them better) and wasteful spending. That's not much of a political strategy. But they've decided to stay off the bus--and wish for the bus to go flying off a cliff.

STEVE CLEMONS AND ME. Did I die? Clemons writes something of an obit for me at his blog. Seriously, it's very nice. And, yes, that's my ear next to Ben Affleck. I prefer the photo in front of the White House.

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Those folks who bother to worry about the war in Afghanistan--not a large slice of the population--had reason to fret on Wednesday morning when they picked up (or clicked on) the New York Times and read a front-page story noting that President Barack Obama is adopting a new "approach to Afghanistan that will put more emphasis on waging war than on development." The piece cited unnamed senior administration officials.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had said that the administration was in the early stage of reevaluating Afghanistan policy. He had noted that Obama intended to meet with US Army General David McKiernan, the commander of the NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, to discuss the course ahead. It seemed as if no decisions had been rendered about Afghanistan.

Yet the Times indicated key calls have already been made:

Yesterday, during the White House daily press briefing, I was pondering what question to ask. It really didn't matter because I was not called on. (I cannot complain. Press secretary Robert Gibbs pointed at me during his first briefing last week.) But one query I was considering was about background briefings at the White House. I wrote about this last week, noting that when one reporter had asked Gibbs why the White House wouldn't ID two officials who had given a background briefing regarding the executive orders on Gitmo and torture, other journalists in the White House press room chuckled and Gibbs dodged the question. Seems to me that a White House hailing transparency and accountability might want to explain its use of background briefings (during which senior officials give reporters info that the journos can cite, as long as they don't identify the officials.)

This may seem an insider-y issue. (My other questions concerned global warming and Afghanistan.) But it is symbolic. And my friend Jack Shafer, Slate's media writer, has joined the cause. On Monday, he penned (or is it tapped?) a column on the matter. He writes:

At Robert Gibbs' first briefing as White House press secretary last Thursday, I asked if President Obama had decided not to use the "war on terror" catch phrase that the Bush-Cheney crowd had coined. After all, earlier in the day, when Obama was signing executive orders banning torture and setting a deadline for shutting Gitmo, the new president had not used that three-word term. This question got one of the shortest replies of the briefing, as Gibbs said that Obama was using language consistent with his inaugural address (in which Obama said, "our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred") and that he (Gibbs) was not aware of any decision on Obama's part to scuttle the WOT characterization. Later in the day, while speaking at the State Department, Obama did refer to the "war on terror," in a glancing way.

Despite Gibbs' answer and Obama's reference to the "war on terror," I wondered if the president has an aversion to the term--which would be a good thing. Terror is an abstraction. You cannot defeat an abstraction. And the WOT offers a rather expansive--and easy to abuse--definition of the problem at hand. The United States is confronted by, as Obama said, a particular (though somewhat amorphous) network of evildoers. The enemy is this group, not the notion of terror. And it's still debatable whether "war" is the most appropriate way of describing this challenge.

Gibbs' answer did not resolve the issue, nor did Obama's quick mention of the WOT on Thursday afternoon. And the next day, at Gibbs' second press briefing, Fox News correspondent Major Garrett took another swing at it. He asked,

President Bush, after 9/11, said the United States and its government was engaged in a war on terror. Is that what this administration calls it, and if not, why?

Gibbs replied:

I attended Robert Gibbs' first (and very crowded) White House briefing as press secretary and asked whether President Obama--when he earlier signed an executive order banning torture--had not used the phrase "war on terror" purposefully. (Instead, the new president had referred to the "ongoing struggle" against violence and terrorism.) To find out what Gibbs said, click here.

Many of the queries at the briefing were about that executive orders and another one setting a one-year deadline for closing Gitmo. Gibbs made no news explaining and defending those orders. There were several questions about Wall Street Bailout II, and Gibbs patiently repeated the Obama claim--which seems credible--that he will handle and disburse the bailout funds in a more effective and more transparent manner than the Bush crowd did last year.

There was only one question on Iraq, and nothing on Afghanistan. (Ann Compton of ABC News asked if the military commanders with whom Obama spoke the day before had expressed any "reservations or concerns" about his plan to pull out combat troops within 16 months. Gibbs essentially--and unsurprisingly--said no.) The most buzzy topic was the second swearing-in conducted at the White House the previous night. The press corps dwelled on that a bit much. And then every journo in the room started scribbling furiously when Gibbs disclosed that Obama will keep his BlackBerry, while only using it for limited communications with a limited n umber of senior--make that, very senior--aides. Thinking of those possible millions of missing Bush White House emails, I threw in a follow-up: will Obama's BlackBerry messages be preserved and archived in accordance with the laws governing presidential records. Yup, Gibbs said.

One of the more intriguing questions of the sessions concerned a standard White House procedure: background briefings. This happens when administration officials talk to a group of reporters about a particular issue, and the reporters can use the information provided, but only by citing unnamed White House aides. They cannot ID these officials. The practice is useful for reporters. They get more information. And it's often no big secret in Washington who the unnamed officials are, given that a bunch of journalists know. But in a White House led by a man who has pledged greater transparency, should background briefings be continued? One reporter asked:

Day One was a pretty good day.

First off, President Barack Obama kept the nation safe from terrorist attack. And he also started un-Bushing the nation. He did the latter by issuing a series of executive orders and memos. One mandated that the military commissions under way at Guantanamo Bay be halted for 120 days. Another reshaped government policy so that it will be harder for ex-President George W. Bush (and other former residents of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) to block the release of their administration's records.

A third dealt with an issue near and dear to my heart: the Freedom of Information Act. I've been using this good-government law for years to pry information out of the federal government, and over the past two decades it has become emasculated. Some agencies have taken up to almost ten years to respond to FOIA requests I've submitted. (Foggy Bottom, I'm talking about you!) That can make FOIA useless--and damn irritating--for journalists and authors. As a symbol of open government, FOIA has become a tattered, worn-out flag.

Today, Obama tried to restore some of its lost luster. In a memo he sent to the heads of federal agencies and executive departments, he declared:

My take on President Obama's first speech, first posted at MotherJones.com....

With over a million exhilarated Americans filling the space between the civic shrines of the Capitol and the Washington Monument on the National Mall, President Barack Obama, in the first American inaugural address delivered by a black man, acknowledged the enthusiasm and hope he and his victory have inspired, but his speech was not overly celebratory. Instead, he attempted to guide the nation into what promises, due to circumstances heretofore beyond his control, to be a somber time and a trying presidency.

Underneath clear skies on a crisp, slightly-colder-than-usual day, the 44th president began, "I stand here today humbled by the task before us." He noted that he had just become one of the few presidents who takes office "amidst gathering clouds and raging storms." He outlined the obvious problems his administration faces: war, a weak economy (partly due to the "greed and irresponsibility" of "some"), job losses, businesses closed, homes lost, a broken health care system, and failing schools.

Vowing to meet these daunting challenges, the new president offered not policy details but, yes, hope. He praised the unsung workers (including slaves) of America's past, "obscure in their labor," who built this country. But, he added, the current challenges "will not be met easily or in a short span of time." He maintained that Americans "must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America." And that renewal, he said, would demand "bold and swift" action, including the building of roads and bridges, electric grids and digital lines. It also would entail reforming health care, developing alternative energy, and revitalizing schools. He acknowledged this is a big job.

Obama portrayed his response to the moment at hand as ideology-free: "What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them--that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works--whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified." Obama can try to depict his agenda as post-ideological, but these words do convey the opposite sentiment of Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address: "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." And Obama did challenge another fundamental precept of conservatism when he noted that the free market cannot always be trusted: "without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control." This was a speech of progressive notions--without explicitly championing them.

Will it never end?

I'm referring to the seemingly endless stream of parties, receptions, and events that have been transpiring in Washington since last week to mark the inauguration of Barack Obama. For those of you not in Washington, the past few days have been like a combo of Mardi Gras, Times Square (on New Year's Eve), and post-World Series victory partying. And it's both low-end and high-end. Town cars dart about the city. (Cabbies have asked to be hired out a $700 a day.) The politerati chatter about which hotspot is the hottest. Maureen Dowd's Sunday night bash was a maxed-out mash-up of Hollywood and Washington: David Geffen, Chris Matthews, Ron Howard, Howard Kurtz, Larry David, Tom Brokaw, Tom Hanks, Brian Williams, George Lucas, Andrew Sullivan. Wait--scratch Hanks. He couldn't get in the door. The house was so packed it became physically impossible to enter.

Gwen Ifill's book party. (Great crab cakes!). Al Gore's environmental ball (a hot ticket). Jamie Foxx at Norman Lear's Declare Yourself party. Oprah at The Root's ball. (What did she wear? I missed her by minutes.) And out on the streets of DC, there are people strolling about, looking happy--damn happy. On Saturday, folks were just hanging on the Mall, looking to catch the spirit. On Sunday, hundreds of thousands hoofed it to the Lincoln Memorial to see Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, U2 and others celebrate America and--let's face it--Barack Obama.

It's all been a blast--even if exhausting. The Lincoln Memorial show had its poignant and signficant moments.

But what's a bit odd is that all this excitement and celebrating is occurring at a time of...well, desperation. The economy is in the tank, and two wars are ongoing. I'm not suggesting that people should be moping at home in the dark. Obama's election is historic and we can hope (!) it will be consequential in the best sense. Yet come Wednesday, the parties will matter little. And the new president--and the entire nation--will be faced with one long horizontal to-do list. Despite the glitz of recent days, Obama's fundamental job is to clean up one helluva mess left behind by...oh, what's-his-name?

George W. Bush gave his final speech to the nation on Thursday night. I skipped it to see my daughter, who has known no other president, perform with her school chorus. But when I later sat before my television to see how the speech was being punditized on the cable news shows, I was surprised. The water-landing of a US Airways flight in New York City dominated the coverage. There was little chatter--almost nothing--about Bush's farewell.

After watching the speech on the White House website, I understood why. It was flat and short. Bush said little of interest. He dwelled mostly on 9/11 and the so-called war on terror, once again (and for the last official time) characterizing the invasion of Iraq as part of his effort to take "the fight to the terrorists." He suggested that although the Iraq war was the subject of "legitimate debate," there "can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil."

Was the nation's safety ensured because Bush invaded Iraq and did not finish the fight in Afghanistan? No doubt, he and his ever-dwindling band of defenders will continue to insist that it is so--just as a rooster might insist there is a connection between his crowing and the rising of the sun. And Bush defended himself for having been "willing to make the tough decisions"--as if making hard choices is the same as making wise ones.

Barack Obama, as I've noted before, will be the source of much emotional back and forth for progressives in the days, weeks, months and years ahead. He taps Rick Warren to deliver an invocation at his inauguration. Ugh. Then he adds Gene Robinson, a gay Episcopal bishop, to the lineup. Yay. He dines with conservative and neocon columnists who have helped run the country off the rails. Boo. Then he has breakfast with Rachel Maddow and E.J. Dionne. Hooray. His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, says Obama will end "don't ask, don't tell" and allow gays to serve openly in the military. Wow. Then Gibb says that changing the policy must wait. Well, okay.

One natural response is: this is life. But it does seem that Obama will keep all of us on our toes.

Black and white may not come so easy in the Obama era. Yesterday, I noted that Eric Holder, Obama's choice for attorney general, had some heavy baggage from his days as a corporate lawyer. And I happen to think that his role in the Marc Rich pardon scandal should practically disqualify him from further government service.

But it was hard not to cheer when Holder, at his confirmation hearing on Thursday morning, gave a clear statement: "Waterboarding is torture." And he noted that it was illegal. This is a real and profound switch. The last two attorney generals could not make this statement. And George Bush and Dick Cheney have repeatedly insisted that the U.S. has not tortured anyone--even though waterboarding has been used by the CIA. (In a front-page interview with Bob Woodward published on Wednesday, Susan Crawford, the top Bush administration in charge of bringing Gitmo detainees to trial, said that in the case of one detainee the U.S. has committed torture: "We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani.")

With one hand, he giveth, with the other....

By tapping Leon Panetta to be CIA chief, Barack Obama sent a clear signal: no to torture. A year ago, Panetta wrote an article declaring, "We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances." And he included waterboarding--which the CIA has used---as torture. In fact, Obama's reported first choice for the CIA job, John Brennan, a career CIA official, had had his chances scuttled after bloggers and others griped that he had been soft, if not supportive, when it came to torture and CIA renditions. A New Yorker piece by Jane Mayer identified him as a "supporter" of so-called enhanced interrogation methods. And in a 2006 PBS interview, Brennan said, "we do have to take off the gloves in some areas" but without going so far as to "forever tarnish the image of the United States abroad." He added that the "dark side has its limits."

Well, Brennan didn't get the top post at Langley. But Obama has selected him to be his chief counterterrorism adviser in the White House. The job requires no Senate confirmation. So Brennan will not be inconvenienced by questions regarding any past involvement with CIA renditions and waterboarding. (Brennan has reportedly told Obama he had no direct role in CIA's abusive interrogation policies and even internally expressed reservations.)

Is this another sign of the Big O's pragmatism? Brennan, no doubt, knows plenty on the subject of counterterrorism. And he has called for breaking with the Bush policy on Iran and the Middle East. For instance, he has criticized Bush and his aides for unduly bashing Iran. But tapping him does partially negate the message conveyed by the Panetta pick.

I think people are going to have to get used to this sort of Obama give-and-take. Critics certainly don't have to accept it. But they should expect more of these sorts of episodes. I assume there will be plenty of other instances when Obama will exasperate and hearten his supporters simultaneously. (And don't forget about Rick Warren.) In this particular case, Obama supporters can only hope that Brennan will now use whatever experience he collected on "the dark side" for the forces of good.

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The front page of The Washington Post screams, "Obama Is Under Fire Over Panetta Selection." The article notes that "current and former intelligence officials expressed sharp resentment over Obama's choice of Leon E. Panetta as CIA director." CQPolitics.com blogger and national security journalist Jeff Stein, quoting a former CIA operations veteran, reports that the rank-and-file reaction to Panetta at the CIA has been "overwhelmingly negative." Stein notes that many CIA field people aren't keen on bringing an intelligence establishment outsider into the CIA and would rather have someone who knows the nitty-gritty of spy work running the place--though Stein does report that "a number of former top CIA officials" have told him that Panetta could be a good choice, given that he can be expected to have the standing within the Obama administration to bring effective leadership to the agency.

I asked a former top CIA official who had served not too long ago to share his/her view of the Panetta pick. S/he would only do so if not identified. I know it's often unsatisfying to read a long quote from an unnamed source. But his/her perspective is interesting enough to merit presenting the full response. Let me add that this person is savvy in both the ways of Langley and Washington:

I was expecting to be surprised...and I was. It seems to me to be a reasonably good one pick given the cards they had dealt themselves. The Obama transition folks massively mishandled the [onetime contender for CIA chief] John Brennan situation. When they caved to a little outside pressure [which resulted from Brennan's previous association with the CIA's so-called enhanced interrogation procedures] and forced him to remove himself from consideration -- they ended up ruling out a whole class of potential candidates. (i.e. anyone who had served in a position of any significance in intelligence in the past 8 years). So then what could they do?

Yesterday, I posted a piece noting that Leon Panetta, Barack Obama's choice as CIA director, could draw opposition from CIA insiders and vets because he has been a fierce foe of waterboarding (a torture tactic used by the CIA), has advocated greater congressional oversight of CIA covert operations, and in the 1990s, as President Clinton's budget chief, pushed for cuts in the CIA's budget. Yet the first important blasts came from Democrats. Both Senator Dianne Feinstein, the incoming chair of the Senate intelligence committee, and Senator Jay Rockefeller, the outgoing chair of the committee, huffed that Panetta was no intelligence professional.

Their knee-jerk response--which seemed to contain a resentful dose of no-one-in-the-Obama-camp-asked-me-about-this--could give cover to those who object to Panetta on policy grounds and to CIA people who don't want an outsider taking control of a troubled agency that screwed the pooch on 9/11 and Iraq WMDs. Remember Curveball?

My CQ blogger colleague Jeff Stein raises a good point:

'Tis the season, so....

I was on Rachel Maddow's show on Friday night, discussing the Rick Warren wrangle. What a surprise, we agreed--mostly. But she seemed to think that the Warren controversy could remain the story of the inauguration from now until January 20. I noted that it was clear to me that the Obama crew had calculated that the current dustup is not nearly as big as the holy war that would ensue should the president-elect rescind his invitation to the super-pastor. Unless the present outrage widens, I observed, the controversy could fade.

But before it does, I'd like to take one more (polite) shot at Warren. I do find him an intriguing fundamentalist, given his interest in climate change and poverty alleviation. And he has certainly tried to oppose gay marriage without appearing like a hate-monger. I suppose that's worth something. But while campaigning fervently against gay marriage, he recently said:

The issue to me is, I'm not opposed to that as much as I'm opposed to the redefinition of a 5,000-year definition of marriage. I'm opposed to having a brother and sister be together and call that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.

Warren's critics have pointed to this quote as evidence that he equates gays and lesbians with incest-lovers and pedophiles. (Indeed, when asked if he thought these other examples are "equivalent to having gays getting married," he said, "Oh, I do.") But I'd like to note Warren's adherence to this 5000-year definition of marriage.

Why doesn't Warren know his Bible better?

I'm no biblical scholar. But I can use Google. And I found BibleGateway.com, a searchable version of the Bible. I plugged "wives" into the search box and came up with the following results:

On Friday morning, I was on the CBS' The Early Show to talk about the Rick Warren controversy. Opposite me (via satellite hookup) was Robert Jeffress, a Baptist pastor from Dallas, who was billed as a friend of Warren.

Asked by Harry Smith to explain why gay and lesbian outfits and progressives were upset by Barack Obama's decision to hand Warren the invocation slot at the presidential inauguration, I noted that it was good that Obama has an inclusive approach toward political and policy debates, that he should make common cause with Warren on issues like poverty and climate change, and that it was wrong for him to grant Warren this high-profile platform because Warren's anti-gay remarks--he recently compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia--are insulting to a large number of Americans, particularly many who worked long and hard to bring Obama to the White House. It's one thing to sit at the table with Warren and discuss how best to alleviate poverty; it's another to enhance his status.

When Jeffress had his chance, he went on about how it was unfair to slam Warren as a hate-monger because of his fervent opposition to gay marriage.

Gay marriage? Who said anything about gay marriage? Not me. I had pointed out that Warren's big sin had been to equate gays and lesbians with loathsome pedophiles. Is that hate-mongering? Some people might see it that way. But I was not going to judge Warren on that front. His words speak for themselves--and for him.

A week and a half ago, I published an article in the Washington Post in which I reviewed the reasons for progressives to be concerned about Barack Obama's first rounds of appointments (Clinton, Gates, Summers, etc.) and noted that the president-elect seemed to be pursuing a change-by-cooption strategy. He was, I speculated, recruiting centrists and conventional members of the Establishment to advance a left-of-center policy agenda.

That might still be the case. But what to make of Obama's decision to hand over a slice of his inauguration to Rick Warren, the best-selling evangelical leader?

Warren is not your father's fundamentalist. He has talked much about addressing climate change, poverty, and AIDS. But he does share with his fellow fundamentalists a passionate aversion to homosexuality and gay rights (and, of course, opposes abortion). He has fiercely opposed gay marriage. According to People for the American Way, he has compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia. (Warren also has said that nonbelievers are indeed going straight to H-E-double hockey sticks.) It's no surprise that some progressives are mighty ticked off.

They have a right to be.

I was on C-SPAN this past weekend, discussing all sorts of things. (You should be able to see the program here, but as of this writing the link was not yet operational.) And the host played the latest Republican Party ad, which, no shocker, tries to tie Barack Obama to Rod Blagojevich. Take a look:

Ominous music. Grainy footage. Headlines showing that Obama--OMG!--once supported Blagojevich. References in news reports noting that Obama aides might have had talked to Blagojevich about filling the Senate seat Obama vacated. And the kicker: "Questions Remain."

As the indictment filed against Blagojevich notes, the guv was not too pleased with the Obama camp. So it's unlikely that any talks that did occur were of the pay-to-play variety he fancied. But here's the bigger political picture: the GOP ought to be careful in deploying the usual political attacks against Obama in the near future.

At a moment when the country confronts several crises--an economic meltdown and two ongoing wars--a distinct majority of Americans are rooting for Obama. He won the popular vote with 53 percent of the electorate. And my hunch is that given the current economic troubles, there are a number of McCain voters--who are not ideologues or Obama-haters--who would like to see Obama succeed. After all, it's their economy, too. Would these McCain voters (who may be independents) rather watch Obama help preserve modern-day American capitalism or would they prefer to enjoy him being slammed by GOP mud balls?

As I noted in the previous posting, the "Outlook" section of Sunday's Washington Post featured a piece in which I evaluated Barack Obama's staffing decisions to date. I noted how several key picks had been either disappointing, upsetting or puzzling to some progressives. But I added that it was my hunch that Obama had adopted a change-by-cooption strategy, in which he will try to use centrist-oriented members of the Establishment to implement a left-of-center policy agenda.

And--boy!--how the responses have poured in. From the left, the right, and the in-between. On the left, the replies have been generally divided between those who are somewhat concerned by Obama's opening moves and those who say that they still believe he's a progressive leader and are hoping for the best but waiting to see what he can pull off with the team he is assembling. Those who claim to be moderates (or recovering Republicans) who supported Obama note that they did not vote for a president who would govern from the left, and they inform me that they are tickled pink that the candidate who promised to rise about partisan politics has loaded his White House and Cabinet with centrists. If he moves too much to the left, they warn, he will lose them.

Then there's the conservatives. They declare either that Obama is an empty suit and that progressives should not be surprised he is (as they put it) screwing them. Liberals should have realized, they argue, that there is nothing solid at this man's center and that he's a crass opportunist. You've been duped, they exclaim (somewhat joyfully). As one put it indelicately, "I don't blame you and the rest of the leftie idiots for having your nose out of joint. Obama used you and is now happily screwing you without even taking the time to kiss you first." Other rightwingers proclaim that Obama is a socialist, and none of his appointments can hide that. Once he starts this country on the road to socialism, they say, the citizenry will rise up against him--and he and the liberals will be vanquished in the next election.

That's some range of opinions. Reading through these emails, it occurred to me that Obama will be a Rorschach president. Citizens, voters, and, yes, pundits will see in him (or not see in him) what they want. I suppose this happens with most presidents. But given that Obama has been on the national stage a relatively short time, that he's a young black (or biracial) guy, and that he does indeed represent change more than your average president, it may be that he will be more Rorschach-y than most chief executives.

During the Bush years, there was never much debate over what Bush stood for or the meaning of Bush. Sure, there were lots of fights over his policies and whether he was up to the job. With Obama, I wonder if his supporters and foes will spend the next few years arguing over what's at his core. If so, that certainly will keep politics interesting and pundits employed.

I'm scheduled to do Hardball on Monday. And if you want to follow me on Twitter.com, you can. Go to Twitter.com/DavidCornDC.

In the past few weeks, I've been repeatedly asked by friends and acquaintances, "Well, what do you think of Obama's first appointments?" These various inquisitions gave me a chance to organize conflicting thoughts--which was fortunate, for The Washington Post's "Outlook" section asked me to contribute a piece on this question. The article will appear on the front page of the section on Sunday. But it's already been posted--old media meets new media--and here are some excerpts:

The more things change, the more they stay . . . well, you know. And looking at President-elect Barack Obama's top appointments, it's easy to wonder whether convention has triumphed over change -- and centrists over progressives.

A quick run-down: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who supported the Iraq war until she initiated her presidential bid, has been handed the Cabinet's big plum: secretary of state. And Bush's second defense secretary, Robert Gates, will become Obama's first defense secretary. The Obama foreign policy adviser regarded as the most liberal in his inner circle, Susan E. Rice, has been picked for the U.N. ambassador slot. Obama is elevating this job to Cabinet rank, but he's still sending Rice to New York -- and in politics and policy, proximity to power matters. For national security adviser, Obama has picked James L. Jones. The retired four-star general was not hawkish on the Iraq war and seems to be a non-ideologue who possesses the right experience for the job. But he probably would have ended up in a McCain administration, and his selection has not heartened progressives.

Obama's economic team isn't particularly liberal, either. Lawrence H. Summers, who as President Bill Clinton's Treasury secretary opposed regulating the new-fangled financial instruments that greased the way to the subprime meltdown, will chair Obama's National Economic Council. To head Treasury, Obama has tapped Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who helped oversee the financial system as it collapsed. Each is close to Robert Rubin, another former Clinton Treasury secretary, a director of bailed-out Citigroup and a poster boy for both the corporate wing of the Democratic Party and discredited Big Finance. Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board will be guided by Paul Volcker, the former Fed chairman whose controversial tight-money policies ended the stagflation crisis of the 1970s but led to a nasty recession. (A genuinely progressive economist, Jared Bernstein, will receive a less prominent White House job: chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.)

It's no surprise that many progressives are -- depending on whom you ask -- disappointed, irritated or fit to be tied. Sure, Obama's appointments do represent change -- that is, change from the widely unpopular Bush-Cheney status quo. But do these appointments amount to the kind of change that progressives, who were an essential part of Obama's political base during the campaign, can really believe in?

Perhaps Obama is trying to pull off something subtle -- a sort of stealth liberalism draped in bipartisan centrism. But it's understandable that progressives are worried....

So with these hawkish, Rubin-esque, middle-of-the-road picks, has Obama abandoned the folks who brought him to the dance?

My hunch is that Obama has made a calculation. In constructing his administration, he has decided not to create a (liberal) Washington counter-establishment. Instead, he's fashioning a bipartisan, centrist-loaded version of the Washington establishment to carry out his policies, which do tilt to the left. (And good news for the establishmentarians: Having screwed up on Iraq or the economy is no disqualification.) When asked at a Nov. 26 news conference whether his appointments of old Washington hands indicated that his administration was not going to be a festival of change, Obama replied, "What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking. But understand where the -- the vision for change comes from first and foremost. It comes from me." His job, he added, was to "make sure . . . that my team is implementing" his policies. In other words, la change, c'est moi.....

For the moment, the watchword for progressives ought to be a version of an old Reagan trope: hope, but verify....

You can read the conclusion and the entire piece here.

Dealing with a crashed computer today. See you soon....

The other day, The Washington Post reported that President-elect Barack Obama was considering tapping Richard Holbrooke, one of the many runners-up in the secretary of state sweepstakes, to be a special envoy for South Asia, focusing on thorny matters involving India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Whether Holbrooke is the ideal candidate for the post or not, this is a good idea. For years now, the United States has not had any high-level official with immediate White House access in charge of the Afghanistan mess. And though the portfolio for this post would extend beyond the war, tapping Holbrooke or some other diplomatic bigfoot as such an envoy would bring much-needed policy leadership to the Afghanistan war.

Two years ago, I wrote a piece noting that the largely forgotten war had been forgotten by the Bush White House:

George Bush has no senior-level official responsible for policies and actions in Afghanistan. "The situation is worsening," notes former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. "We have to have someone in government responsible for the whole picture--military, economic assistance and political. There's a nexus between each. But there's not one person in the government designated to be in charge of that nexus. It could be the ambassador. It could be someone else--if they have resources and clout and accountability. But this Administration has not been keen on accountability."

Since then, there have been no signs of much change on this front. Can you name any top Bush administration official overseeing Afghanistan issues? Let's hope Holbrooke--or some other runner-up--wins this consolation prize.

On Monday night, I attended a screening of Frost/Nixon, the new film directed by Ron Howard and written by British dramatist Peter Morgan. It's an excellent and highly entertaining tale recounting and recreating the 1977 interview of the resigned and disgraced president conducted by British talk show host (and man about town) David Frost. Though Morgan said after the screening that he had not intended the film to be a statement on the current occupant of the White House, the film does raises questions about Bush. In a key moment during the interview, Nixon (played astutely by Frank Langella) responds to a question from Frost (placed wickedly by Michael Sheen) about a White House plan for the systematic use of wiretappings, burglaries, mail openings and infiltration against antiwar groups and others. Nixon says (as he did during the actual interview), "When the president does it that means that it is not illegal." In the film, Nixon goes on to add, "But I realize no one else shares that view." (That quote does not appear in the transcript I found of that portion of the interview.)

How can this not conjure up recent history, when the Bush administration essentially argued the same point to justify its use of Gitmo, torture, unlimited detentions, extraordinary renditions and the like? Bush, however, has not noted that only he buys this argument. In fact, the White House counsel's office and Bush's Justice Department went to great lengths to come up with legal opinions supporting this view of the all-powerful chief executive. In the real Frost interview, Frost pushed Nixon on this point, asking, "Is there anything in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights that suggests the president is that far of a sovereign, that far above the law." Nixon answered: "No, there isn't. There's nothing specific that the Constitution contemplates in that respect."

At the screening, Morgan noted that he "never" wanted the film "to become a springboard for talking about George Bush." Though he has written a wonderfully engaging movie--that both nails Nixon and depicts him somewhat sympathetically--Morgan, alas, did fail in that regard. I wonder if Bush will watch it. The film opens this weekend, and Bush does seem to have time on his hands these days.

All the talk is Hillary, Hillary, Hillary. As President-elect Barack Obama announced his national security team on Monday morning, the headliner was indeed the junior senator from New York State. While this move remains a surprise and perhaps even a gamble--I've had my say on this--it could be that the more important pick of the day is retired General James Jones to be Barack Obama's national security adviser.

One of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's many accomplishments was to wreck the national security apparatus of the United States government--with key assists from Condi Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. For years, Foggy Bottom and the CIA were at war with the Pentagon and the White House, while the national security adviser (that would be Rice) became not a policy broker (as the job requires) but an enabler. She allowed ideologues to run wild and to trump expertise. She made sure that dissenting opinions were not placed front and center before the president. Foreign policy became the territory of a small band of arrogant know-it-alls who, it turned out, did not know nearly enough.

On Bush and Cheney's watch, the system broke down--by design. It's imperative that the foreign policy machinery of the US government be revived and restored. There needs to be a working balance between the intelligence community, the military, and the diplomats. There needs to be a free flow of ideas. The views of true experts inside and outside the government ought to be factored into major decision-making. And it is the job of the national security adviser to ensure this happens.

That mission will fall to Jones. At a press conference on Monday morning, Obama said that Jones

Barack Obama wins. Mitch McConnell is talking nice about the president-elect. And Henry Waxman bounces John Dingell from the chairmanship of the all-powerful House energy and commerce committee.

It's a good time to be a liberal in Washington.

Sure, Clintonites are scoring well in the Obama administration sweepstakes, and the Clinton years are remembered by liberals for the exasperating triangulations of Bill, Hill and their crew. But the combo of Obama's triumph and the far-from-over economic meltdown has provided liberals with their best opening since the days of the Great Society, or even the New Deal. Forget--for the moment, only for the moment, I promise--Hillary Clinton's possible appointment as secretary of state. There's something larger going on and it's truly a fundamental change: the market is dead. It cannot even take care of itself. So how can anyone rely on--or call for--market-driven solutions for the challenges that face the nation: the economy, the health care crisis, and global warming?

All the talk--and melodrama--about Hillary Clinton becoming secretary of state continues. On Tuesday, I noted that a good argument against her was her management--or mismanagement--of her presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton did a lousy job of putting together a team that could work cooperatively and competently. She veered from one tactic to the next. She engaged in spin above and beyond the call of duty. Her campaign was a mess. Could she do better at State--which desperately needs to be revived after having been kicked in the teeth for eight years by the Bush-Cheney White House?

But here's another reason to ponder. Consider how smoothly the Obama campaign ran. Were there many leaks? Signs of internal disputes? Short answer: no. It was a disciplined shop. Disagreements were worked out in private. No one ran to reporters to play the usual game of leaking. Now consider what has happened in the past week. There has been a flood of leaks about Hillary Clinton and the State Department post. Where are they coming from? The best guess is, the Clinton side. And that side is bifurcated between Bill's people and Hillary's people, who don't always get along. If Obama places Hillary in his cabinet, it's likely such behind-the-scenes scheming and leaking will continue. Imagine if there are any disagreements between State and the National Security Council or the Pentagon. Won't the Clinton ops go into their usual take-no-prisoners-and-leak-away mode? Does Obama want to bring the Clinton circus into his Big Tent?

The more this drama plays out, the more curious it appears. What's Obama thinking on this front? I don't see any leaks about that.

Meanwhile, this morning, I appeared on Democracy Now to discuss Obama's transition team and the initial appointments to his administration.

Scene: A Chicago conference room. Two men--one old, one young--sit at a table. Two other men sit in chairs away from the table.

B: It's good of you to come to see me on short notice.

J: Of course, I would.

B: Can I get right to the point?

J: Straight talk? Sure, fire away.

B: It was a tough campaign. But now it's over. And as I said on the campaign trail, I respect all you've done for this country. All you have given and sacrificed. I do. But now it's time to talk about what comes next. For you.

J: (Slightly sarcastic.) Thanks for thinking of me.

B: John, you're not going to have a lot of friends back there. There's Lindsey, Joe and...well, that's about it--

J: You don't have to worry about me--

B: I'm not worrying--

J: And you want to be my friend now?

B: Not your friend. Your partner. Listen, there's a lot we disagree on. But there are several big things we see eye-to-eye on. Guantanamo, torture, global warming, political reform. And I'd like to ask you, what would you now like to accomplish? What legislation would you like to pass? What do you want your legislative legacy to be?

J: Well, I was thinking of a different sort of legacy.

B: I get that. But now you have to ask yourself, what's the McCain Act of 2009 going to be? I'd really like for us to work together. And do something big. Neither of us needs the usual phony rhetoric that comes out of meetings like this. You don't need for me to issue some statement praising you and the spirit of bipartisanship. And I don't need empty words of support from you. That yada-yada-yada won't do us much good. And it especially won't help you back in the Senate where--let's be honest--you're not going to be the most popular guy in the Republican caucus--

J: I think you made that point already.

B: I know. But let's think about what you want to do. Whatever it is, it's not likely you're going to have a lot of support from your fellow Republicans. But if we can find something together, we can make it happen. I've already talked to Harry--

J: You have?

B: And he's all for this.

J: (Slightly sarcastic.) What a prince.

B: John, it's up to you. I am committed to passing the McCain-Whoever Act.

J: Even if it's with Joe?

B: (Sighs) Yes, even if it's with Joe.

J: (Resigned to the logic of the situation.) I see, my friend: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

B: No, John, it's putting country first.

J: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it: yes we can, right?

B: Actually, yes we can. If you want to.

J: Can we get back to you?

B: (Nodding to one of the other men.) Sure. Have Lindsey call Rahm whenever you want to move ahead.

J: Thanks.

B: Now, do you need a ride anywhere?

J: No, that's okay. Joe's downstairs with the car.

I have a day of medical stuff to do today--nothing serious--so I'll be brief.

Remember weeks ago, when a small number of public voices were counseling to go slow on the $700 billion bailout for Big Finance? They said there was--despite Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's urgent pleas--no need to rush. They said that Congress ought to hold hearings and examine various alternatives to Paulson's blank-check plan. They said that the Bush administration and the Democrats in Congress (including then-presidential candidate Barack Obama) were merely throwing money at a problem without proceeding in a deliberate manner. You can see here for examples of such naysaying.

Well, they (which includes me) were right. Take a gander at the top of the front page of The Washington Post. To the right, you will find a story reporting:

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. announced a series of moves yesterday that redefine the federal government's $700 billion rescue plan for the financial industry in order to tackle what he called a dire situation in the consumer credit markets.

In recasting the program, the Treasury no longer plans to buy troubled assets from financial firms, the idea initially presented to the country, but instead will offer aid to banks and other firms that issue student, auto and credit card loans in part by jump-starting the market that provides financing for these companies.

That is, Treasury is taking those hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars Congress gave it and now using it in a completely different manner than it said it would. Maybe this will be a better deployment of those bucks. Maybe it won't. But shouldn't there have been some public debate or discourse about the shift? Whose money is it, anyway?

Next, shift your eyeballs slightly to the left, and you will see a related article reporting:

In the six weeks since lawmakers approved the Treasury's massive bailout of financial firms, the government has poured money into the country's largest banks, recruited smaller banks into the program and repeatedly widened its scope to cover yet other types of businesses, from insurers to consumer lenders.

Along the way, the Bush administration has committed $290 billion of the $700 billion rescue package.

Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.

"It's a mess," said Eric M. Thorson, the Treasury Department's inspector general, who has been working to oversee the bailout program until the newly created position of special inspector general is filled. "I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing."

Get the picture? The program was misdirected, is being redirected, and has no oversight. By the way, it will probably cost more than the $700 billion first mentioned.

It is a mess. A gigantic mess. Just one of the several George W. Bush (with the help of Congress) is bequeathing Obama. The new president and his people better have some good ideas for making it work better. For even though it was made in the Bush administration, if this quasi-con game continues along this present course after January 20, Obama will own it.

It's already entertaining to watch how Republicans and conservatives are responding to the triumph of Barack Obama and the near-collapse of the GOP in Congress. Yesterday, I pointed out one extreme reaction: a letter sent to conservatives by Michael Reagan, talk show host and son of Ronald Reagan, who complained that a "new 'Evil Empire'...called Socialism" has "taken over our once-free nation." Reagan announced he was starting a new organization that would, among other things, expose the sexual "flings" of Democratic leaders.

I can't wait. That's exactly the sort of politics that independents and moderate Republicans want to see, right?

Not all conservatives are pulling out their hair in this fashion. My Bloggingheads.tv vlog-mate, Jim Pinkerton, reporting from the Republican Governors Association meeting, says all is well in GOPGov-land:

Here at the Republican Governors Association winter meeting, there is no great sense of defeat, but rather a sense of positive anticipation--and for good reason.

Despite the general GOP wipeout of 2008, no incumbent Republican governor was defeated for re-election this year; indeed, two Republican incumbents, Mitch Daniels of Indiana and Jim Douglas of Vermont, hung on, even as their states went for Obama. Indeed, the case of Vermont's Douglas is particularly striking: he won a fourth term with nearly 55 percent of the vote, while Obama was winning the Green Mountain State by more than 2:1.

So while the Grand Old Party's presidential candidate, and its Congressional wing, were both soundly repudiated at the polls earlier this month, Republican governors did well. Indeed, Republicans still have 21 governors--including a certifiably hot political property for the future, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who speaks here this afternoon.

Transition fever strikes! In Washington that means: who is going to get what?

The town is full of anxious and curious people. Some are wondering what posts they may end up with in the new Obama administration. Others are merely engaged in the rampant speculation that began about 17 seconds after CNN called the election for Barack Obama. At brunches and dinner parties, on the Metro and street corners--folks are talking about jobs. And I don't mean jobs for the middle class.

It's an interesting phenomenon to observe. I've talked to several Washingtonians who profess not to want a position, but if it should happen that they are asked to take one, well then....After all, it's not considered good form to lobby for yourself. It's much better if someone else champions you. (See Joe Klein making the case that his friend Richard Holbrooke ought to be named secretary of state.) Plus, no one wants to be publicly humiliated by being explicitly rejected. If Holbrooke is passed over at State--for Senators John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, or Chris Dodd, or retired General James Jones, or career diplomats Nicholas Burns or Chris Hill--it won't enhance his standing.

An aside: I'd be interested in Hill. He toiled on the Bosnia peace talks in the 1990s (with Holbrooke) and since 2005 has been in charge of the tricky negotiations with North Korea concerning its nuclear activities. He's also well-versed in Chinese matters, having worked closely with Beijing on the North Korea business. He's energetic and 56 years old. Putting a fresh face in charge of US foreign policy would send a signal. Talk about a reset.

As I wrote yesterday, it's hard to depict Representative Rahm Emanuel, who has been picked by President-elect Barack Obama to be his White House chief of staff, as an agent of change. After all, Emanuel has been a Washington player for years and, perhaps more important, a leading New Democrat, who, when he served in the Clinton White House, advocated small, modest policy measures over sweeping change. Ezra Klein is also ambivalent about the Rahmization of the Obama White House.

Emanuel, a highly effective partisan, is indeed a guy who gets things done. As head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he led the House Democrats back to majority status in the 2006 elections. Yet his selection--the first pick of the Obama administration--could be the wrong signal. I would have advised--not that anyone is asking--the Obama camp to open up with a more bipartisan (or less partisan) appointment, if only for show.

When I attended Obama's final campaign rally at Manassas, Virginia, on Monday night, I asked Obama supporters in the massive crowd what they wanted to see in an Obama presidency. There was a pattern in the replies: the older white guys all said they wanted Obama to move beyond partisan confrontations and remake the political culture of Washington. That is, they really were moved by his campaign trail vow to bring a new kind of politics to the nation's capital. So Obama ought to take steps that meet that rhetoric darn fast.

Appointing Emanuel obviously doesn't fall into such a category. And there's this: OpenSecrets reports that Emanuel was the "was the top House recipient in the 2008 election cycle of contributions from hedge funds, private equity firms and the larger securities/investment industry--not the most popular of industries in the current economy." The campaign money watchdog group notes:

It happened. Here's what I posted at MotherJones.com....

So who's a real American now?

With his decisive triumph over Senator John McCain, Senate Barack Obama made obvious history: he is the first black (or biracial) man to win the presidency. But the meaning of his victory--in which Obama splashed blue across previously red states--extends far beyond its racial significance. Obama, a former community organizer and law professor, won the White House as one of the most progressive (or liberal) nominees in the Democratic Party's recent history. Mounting one of the best run presidential bids in decades, Obama tied his support for progressive positions (taxing the wealthy to pay for tax cuts for working Americans, addressing global warming, expanding affordable health insurance, withdrawing troops from Iraq) to calls for cleaning up Washington and for crafting a new type of politics. Charismatic, steady, and confident, he melded substance and style into a winning mix that could be summed up in simple and basic terms: hope and change.

After nearly eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, Obama was the non-Bush: intelligent, curious, thoughtful, deliberate, and competent. His personal narrative--he was the product of an unconventional family and worked his way into the nation's governing class--fueled his campaign narrative. His story was the American Dream v2.0. He was change, at least at skin level. But he also championed the end of Bushism. He had opposed the Iraq war. He had opposed Bush's tax cuts for the rich. He was no advocate of let-'er-rip, free market capitalism or American unilateralism. In policy terms, Obama represents a serious course correction.

And more. In the general election campaign, McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, turned the fight for the presidency into a culture clash. They accused Obama of being a socialist. They assailed him for having associated with William Ayers, a former, bomb-throwing Weather Underground radical,who has since become an education expert. Palin indirectly referred to Obama's relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who once preached fiery sermons denouncing the United States government for certain policies. On the campaign trail, Palin suggested there were "real" parts of America and fake parts. At campaign events, she promoted a combative, black-helicopter version of conservatism: if you're for government expansion, you're against freedom. During her one debate with Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, she hinted that if her opponents won the White House there might come a day when kids would ask their grandparents what it had been like to live in a free country. At McCain-Palin rallies, supporters shouted out, "Communist!" and "terrorist!" and "Muslim!" when the Republican candidates referred to Obama. And McCain and Palin hurled the standard charges at Obama: he will raise your taxes and he is weak on national security.

Put it all together and the message was clear: there are two types of Americans. Those who are true Americans--who love their nation and cherish freedom--and those who are not. The other Americans do not put their country first; they blame it first. The other Americans do not believe in opportunity; they want to take what you have and give it to someone else. The other Americans do not care about Joe the Plumber; they are out-of-touch elitists who look down on (and laugh at) hard-working, church-going folks. The other Americans do not get the idea of America. They are not patriots. And it just so happens that the other America is full of blacks, Latinos, gays, lesbians, and non-Christians.

McCain, Palin and their compatriots did what they could to depict Obama as the rebel chief of this other un-American America. (Hillary Clinton helped set up their effort during the primaries by beating the Ayers drum.) Remember the stories of Obama's supposed refusal to wear a flag pin or place his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance? The emails about Obama being a secret Muslim? The goal was to delegitimize Obama, as well as the Americans who were moved by his biography, his rhetoric, and his ideas. It was back to the 1960s--drawing a harsh line between the squares (the real Americans) and the freaks (those redistribution-loving, terrorist-coddling faux Americans).

It didn't work.

I voted early Tuesday morning. I took my daughters with me. And as I watched them watching me cast a vote, I realized that this election will tell us who the real Americans are--at least for the next four years. Barack Obama and John McCain represent two very different American narratives and two very different constituencies. Having attended rallies for each--including Obama's final campaign rally, which he held in Manassas, Virginia, on Monday night--I remain struck by how different the McCain and Obama crowds look and how different the supporters of each candidate talk and think about the issues, the country, and the world. There are two Americas. And one will win today, and its citizens will have a president who represents their vision of the nation. It's a winner-take-all situation. So those on the losing side will have to contend with frustration, loss, and alienation. (This is my country?) Largely due to the campaign waged by John McCain, this race has been divisive along political-cultural lines. But the returns will show how large the gap is between these two Americas and, more important, which one is ascendant.

I am off to Chicago. Next time I "see" you, we will know.

This time it's personal.

Then again, it was personal in 2004.

In September 2003, I published a book immoderately titled, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. Its contention was a simple one: that Bush had gone beyond the normal boundaries of presidential spin in using falsehoods and misrepresentations to skew the public discourse on many fronts: stems cells, global warming, tax policy, and, above all, the invasion of Iraq.

At the time, this was not--in certain circles--a well-received argument. Conservative pundits, pointing to my book and others that came out at the time (Al Franken's Lying Liars, Molly Ivins' Bushwhacked, written with Lou Dubose, and Joe Conason's Big Lies), declared a new phenomenon was at hand: rabid, irrational Bush hatred. MSM commentators, ever looking to reside within the comfortable, above-it-all middle, observed that the left was now mirroring the extreme rhetoric of the Limbaugh-crazy, Coulter-loving right. I noted some examples of this dismissive reax in a recent Mother Jones essay. The New York Times' Matt Bai, citing my book, wrote, "the new leftist screeds seem to solidify a rising political culture of incivility and overstatement." Conservative columnist David Brooks proclaimed that "the core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it's the haters themselves." (Yes, I was more dangerous than George W. Bush.) What few of these commentators of the center and right bothered to do was to evaluate the case I (and the others) had put forward. That is, to confront the facts I had presented. Their aim was to discredit the very idea of anyone going so far as to call the president of the United States a liar. And National Review editor Rich Lowry opined, "I don't think the public is going to buy the idea that [Bush is] a liar."

Lowry got it wrong. By Election Day 2004, polls showed that a slight majority believed that Bush was not honest and trustworthy. Still, Bush managed to best John Kerry in an election that was something of a referendum on Bush's first term. But that election came too early. Had it been held a year later--post-Katrina--any Dem would have thrashed Bush and Cheney at the polls. And now about seven out of ten disapprove of his presidency, and most of the public agrees with the premise that Bush deliberately misled American citizens about WMDs and the threat supposedly posed by Iraq. Bush is heading toward the door widely regarded as a failure: Iraq, Katrina, the financial meltdown. He has become the vanishing president. Hardly seen. Barely relevant.

Bush's style of politics, his policies, his political party--it's all been discredited. Whatever happens in the presidential race, the GOP is poised to take a beating in congressional races. He has led his party to ruin. The battle over the W. story has been won by his critics--at least in the short run. The view that Bush has been a dishonest president and bad for the United States has become the majority position in the United States. If McCain somehow manages to win, it will be in spite of Bush.

Many presidents are elected as reactions to the previous president. George W. Bush's (faux) victory in 2000 was a reaction to the Bill Clinton soap opera. And a Barack Obama triumph would be the natural reaction to the W. years. Obama is the most progressive (or liberal) Democratic nominee since FDR ran for reelection. He is black (or biracial). He is an intellectual. He is no child of privilege. To sum up: he is the opposite of George W. Bush. Not only has Bush started two wars he couldn't finish, presided over a government that lost a major American city, and did little as a financial tsunami hit the nation; he has (I am guessing) created a yearning among many Americans for a non-Bush. And within the realm of conventional U.S. politics, Obama is about as non-Bush as it gets. No wonder Obama has a strong chance of becoming president. He spoke (endlessly) of change; he is an antidote to the Bush presidency.

Sarah Palin calls Barack Obama a socialist. John McCain equates Obama's appearance at a dinner for a Palestinian scholar with hanging out with neo-Nazis. At McCain-Palin campaign rallies, members of the audience call Obama a communist, a Muslim and a terrorist. Is there no doubt that the GOP ticket has the edge on extremism? Do you hear Obama referring to McCain as a war-monger? Do his supporters scream out "fascist" when Obama mentions his opponents?

And the McCain-Palin attacks are particularly hypocritical. McCain is board chair for the International Republican Institute, and the IRI gave nearly $500,000 to a group co-founded by the abovementioned Palestinian scholar, Khalid Rashidi. And Palin spreads the wealth of Alaska by sharing with every state citizen a slice of the state's oil revenue.

But for McCain and Palin, facts--as Ronald Reagan once said--are stupid things.

This has been a rough and tough campaign, but the dirtiest plays have come from the McCain side. On MSNBC this week [correction: it was CNN], McCain aide Michael Goldfarb pointed to Obama's association with Rashidi to claim Obama pals around with anti-Semites. (Rashidi is no anti-Semite.) This was a low moment of the campaign, but because it came late in the game, amid so much last-week hurly-burly, it received not much attention. But it was a good indicator of the McCain strategy: throw mud, see what sticks.

The McCain camp has shown a disregard for facts that extends beyond the S.O.P. of political campaigns. It has tried to deligitimize Obama and his supporters. Palin notes that only certain parts of the country contain "real Americans." A top McCain aide dismissed northern Virginia--where Obama is strong--as not being "real" Virginia.

McCain and his gang have tried to whip up fear and division and exploit both. If he gets whipped on Tuesday, it will be bad news for others who would practice the politics of hate.

I've listened to Sarah Palin several times in the past few days. (It's my job--what I get the big bucks to do.) And as she whips up the crowds that come to her rallies, her biggest argument against Barack Obama is that he WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. Did you get that? Oh, you missed the nuance. HE WILL RAISE YOUR TAXES. And her case is built on two facts. But they are not facts--or not full facts. And though these attacks have been debunked repeatedly by mainstream media factcheckers, Palin and John McCain keep using them. Call me naive, but I still find it surprising that they believe they can get away with such serial misrepresenting (or lying). So for the last time--I hope--let's look at these two claims.

Claim 1: Obama voted to raise taxes on people making as less as $42,000.

Here's how Factcheck.org evaluated that charge:

So Sarah Palin is a "brainiac." That's what Elaine Lafferty proclaims. And the reason her proclamation is the least bit interesting is that Lafferty is a Democrat and the former editor-in-chief of Ms. magazine, the feminist journal. In a piece she posted yesterday, she notes she has "worked as a consultant with the McCain campaign since shortly after Palin's nomination" and has traveled with Palin on her "cramped" campaign plane.

I have no idea how a onetime feminist activist, a former journalist, and a present Democrat came to be working for an antiabortion, media-blasting Republican vice presidential candidate. But Lafferty wants us to know that Palin possesses "a mind that is thoughtful, curious, with a discernible pattern of associative thinking and insight. Palin asks questions, and probes linkages and logic that bring to mind a quirky law professor I once had."

This is troubling. Why? Because I had assumed that some of the idiotic and false statements Palin had made on the campaign trail were due to a certain amount of ignorance on her part. If she is as smart as Lafferty says, then she would be more dangerous if elected. No intelligent person would say some of the following things, unless she was purposefully trying to fool people.

* To boost her foreign policy cred, Palin said "you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska," and she maintained that she had experience dealing with trade delegations, presumably those from Russia. But according to her calendars, she never met with a Russian official and rarely met with any foreign officials to discuss trade or anything else.

* Palin repeatedly said she opposed the Bridge to Nowhere--even though many news organizations reported she had been a supporter of the project before Congress soured on the project. Why would an intelligent person keep repeating the same mistake?

* Palin said Barack Obama has been "palling around with terrorists"--using the present tense and the plural to hype Obama's past casual association with just one ex-radical. Her intelligence certainly did not motivate her to be precise.

This is rich. Today, while campaigning in Florida, John McCain declared that Barack will say "anything to get elected."

I read this as a cry for help. A quick run-down of McCain self-contradictions and say-anything moments:

* McCain initially opposed the George W. Bush tax cuts, claiming they gave too much to the rich. Now, when Obama wants to reverse those tax cuts, the McCain campaign brands it socialism.

* McCain attacked robocall attacks in 2000. Now he perpetuates them.

* McCain said he doesn't care about a "washed-up terrorist"--meaning Bill Ayers--but he still makes Obama's past association with Ayers a key part of is campaign. (See the robocalls.) And Sarah Palin accused Obama of palling around with terrorists, using the plural form of the word. Putting Ayers aside, name another one.

* In an interview NBC is promoting today, McCain dismisses the elites who hang out at Georgetown cocktail parties. McCain has been a participant in many such gatherings over his decades in Washington.

* McCain stood by a campaign ad saying that Barack Obama pushed for teaching "comprehensive sex education" to kindergartners Obama did not.

* The McCain campaign claimed that Obama's use of the old lipstick-on-a-pig cliche was a direct, misogynistic swipe at Palin. It was not.

* McCain has insisted that Obama, if elected, would push everyone into a government-run health care system. That ain't true.

* McCain said he would skip the first debate unless a Wall Street bailout deal was reached. You know how that turned out.

You know that old joke: there are two types of people in the world--those who divide the world into two types of people, and those who don't. Well, in previous weeks, I've been dividing Republicans and conservatives I know between two types: those willing to acknowledge (even if only privately) that Sarah Palin was not--shall we say--the best pick John McCain could have made, and those who claim she is indeed qualified and will be a fine veep and a capable (should it come to that) president. My rough survey of the Rs and conservatives I have encountered on the street, at political events, and in green rooms at TV studios is that about one half to two-thirds will admit they believe is that Palin is either a misguided error on McCain's part that can be overcome or an act of blatant misjudgment that has led to a freakin' disaster.

When McCain announced her selection it did seem possible the choice would help his campaign. And his campaign did not appear to mind all the attention she drew. But in my recollection, I cannot recall a veep candidate who has so dominated the post-convention story of the election. Not even Dan Quayle. And in Palin's case, the news keeps getting worse. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 55 percent of registered voters believe she's not qualified to serve as president. That's up 5 percent from its last poll--suggesting that the more people see of Palin the less they are impressed. And her negative approval rating for the first time exceeds her positive approval rating, 47 percent versus 38 percent. Moreover, voters told these pollsters that McCain's selection of Palin was their top concern about McCain's candidacy.