In criticizing Barack Obama's national security speech, my fellow CQPolitics.com blogger Bill Pascoe argues that the president has lost the Gitmo debate. He writes:

Obama was explaining, in a defensive posture, how it was that he found himself whipsawed between, on the one hand, a MoveOn.org Left that wanted Gitmo burned to the ground the moment he took his hand off the Bible, and, on the other, a Congress that wanted no part of explaining to its constituents why their local jail might be fortified to hold Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

I don't deny that Obama has had a difficult week. But that's largely because GOPers and Dick Cheney were being successful demagogues and fear-mongerers. When they whip up the anxieties of constituents about bringing KSM and other bad guys into the United States, they are being disingenuous.

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?