At the White House press briefing on Monday, CNN's Ed Henry asked a question that I had tried to put to Obama's press team on Friday, after press secretary Robert Gibbs had declined to call on me: Where are those torture documents Dick Cheney wants?

The ex-veep-who-won't-go-away has been saying in interviews that he's requested the release of two classified CIA documents that supposedly outline all the essential intelligence that was produced by torture-assisted interrogations. (He, of course, does not call it torture.)

In response to Henry, Gibbs had no information to share. "I'll check on where that is," he said.

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.)

Not many topics are more prone to demagoguery than national security. Conservatives have been decrying the Obama administration's recent announcement--made by Defense Secretary Bob Gates--that it will be slashing a few big-ticket items in the military budget.

The hawks claim that Gates is presiding over a dangerous cut in the Pentagon's budget. Actually, the military budget will still be increasing in these troubled economic times, and the United States will still be spending more on the military than every one of its present and potential rivals combined.

The folks at the National Security Network have put together a good take-down on all this. I'll quote it at length because this has not yet been posted, as far as I can tell:

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 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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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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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,

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.

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:

Is this the fundamental problem of the economy: We have too much stuff?

That's the takeaway from a front-page article in The Washington Post headlined "Economy Strains Under Weight of Unsold Items":

The unsold cars and trucks piling up at dealerships and assembly lines as consumers cut back and auto companies scramble for federal aid are just one sign of a major problem hurting the economy and only likely to get worse.

The world is suddenly awash in almost everything: flat-panel televisions, bulldozers, Barbie dolls, strip malls, Burberry stores. Japan yesterday said its economy shrank at an 12.7 percent annual pace in the last three months of 2008 as global demand evaporated for Japanese cars and electronics. Business everywhere are scrambling to bring supply in line with demand.

That may be good news for shoppers who still have pocket money. But this raises a troubling notion: what is our economy based on when we're all shopped-out? If consumer spending is the engine of the economy, what happens when we run out of things to buy?

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:

Should the new Obama Administration dig through all the dark ugliness of the Bush-Cheney years--torture, renditions, the destruction of evidence, etc.--and start prosecuting former Bush officials, including the veep? I appeared on MSNBC's Hardball with hawk-of-all-hawks Frank Gaffney Jr. to discuss the matter.

By the way, if you haven't seen Stephen Hayes piece in which Cheney grouses about Bush not pardoning Scooter Libby, check it out. The article is a hoot. I encourage Hayes, Cheney's sympathetic chronicler-in-chief, to fuel more feuding between this out-of-power couple.

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.

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.")

I first posted this at motherjones.com. Tried to be nuanced. But did I end up just sounding naive? Feel free to tell me.

Eric Holder Jr., by all accounts, is a decent, smart, caring, competent fellow. President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be attorney general had a brilliant career in public service: he graduated from Columbia University law school, worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was a trial attorney at the Justice Department, a Superior Court judge in Washington, DC, a US attorney, and, then deputy attorney general. He has served on various nonprofit boards: George Washington University, the American Constitution Society, Morehouse School of Medicine, Save the Children Foundation, the District of Columbia's Police Foundation, and the Innocence Project. He's been a member of Concerned Black Men for over 25 years. He also, in a way, represents what's wrong with Washington.

That's not because of Holder's infamous role in the Marc Rich pardon. That episode--which Holder will certainly be asked about during confirmation hearings, which are scheduled to begin Thursday--was a case of Washington pay-to-play. There's little doubt that Rich, a fugitive financier indicted for tax evasion, racketeering, and trading with the enemy (Iran), was able to win that last-minute pardon from President Clinton (with Holder, as deputy attorney general, leaning slightly in its favor) because he had hired a former Clinton White House counsel to argue his case and because Rich's ex-wife had pledged money to Clinton causes.

Holder's role in the Rich pardon may not have been instrumental, but it was a mistake--a terrible way to cap off decades of public service. But he is a poster child for something perhaps more pernicious and extensive in the nation's capital: selling out. Months after the Clinton administration ended, Holder went to work for the influential law firm and lobbying shop of Covington and Burling. (He also joined the boards of Eastman Kodak and MCI.)

Holder was doing what so many routinely do in Washington: cashing in. He took years of experience he had gathered as a public servant and rented it to corporations accused of serious wrongdoing. He smoothly went from doing good to doing well. In 2008, according to his confirmation questionnaire, he made $2.1 million at Covington and Burling. And he expects in 2009 to bring in over $2.5 million, including his separation payment.

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:

Quick--name the current (and outgoing) secretary of commerce.

Of course, you can't. It's Carlos Gutierrez. His official bio says he's "a core member of President Bush's economic team." Well, how "core" has he been during the past few months, as the U.S. economy has melted down? I don't recall seeing him much on the tube, explaining policies and proposals that would revive the economy. That bio boasts that he has traveled the world to promote US exports--and also notes that as co-chair of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, he has been actively working on US-Cuba policy. Hooray for that.

Gutierrez is a reminder that Commerce has been the backwater of the Cabinet. Can you point to a single commerce secretary of distinction in recent years? (Clinton's appointment, Ron Brown, got into trouble for taking big Democratic funders on his trade missions.) But the department does do a lot of important stuff: trade, the census, patents, trademarks, telecommunications policy. It includes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is instrumental for developing science and policy relating to global warming. Wouldn't it be swell if it had a top-tier secretary?

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.

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

At a Washington dinner party I attended recently, much of the evening was consumed by a discussion concerning why President-elect Barack Obama has apparently chosen Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state. No one had a good answer. Team of Rivals run amok? Had there been a deal between the two of them: I support you, and you give me state? That doesn't make sense, given that Hillary Clinton had in the past few weeks been trying to negotiate some sort of position for herself in the Senate leadership. One (absurd) possibility was heading up a special Senate task force on health care reform. Why would she be shopping for a Senate leadership post if she had cut a deal with Obama earlier?

When I ran into a television news anchor over the weekend, I asked her what she thought was behind the Clinton pick. This TV person who is in the mix of all political stories. She shrugged her shoulder and said, "I have no clue." And she meant it.

Frustrated that I had no good inside lead on what had prompted this action, I called a person who is close to Joe Biden. I assumed that this person had spoken about the pending Clinton appointment to Biden about the Clinton appointment--or at least to people around Biden. Certainly, the Biden camp would be in the know, right? After all, Biden has a big interest in who becomes secretary of state.

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.

I know everyone is waiting for me to weigh in on the big question of the week: Hillary to State, yea or nay? Well, I offered some thoughts on this matter at MotherJones.com. And here they are:

I was agnostic on the matter of Hillary Clinton's possible appointment as secretary of state--until last night.

If Barack Obama, the president-elect, wanted to pull a Team of Rivals play, that had seemed fine to me. And placing Clinton in Foggy Bottom would remove her from the dicey business of passing health care reform. Would it unite the party? Well, judging from the election results, the party is pretty darn united already. Despite the griping of a few Hillaryites at the Democratic convention, her voters certainly swung behind Obama in the general election (see Pennsylvania), after HRC and WJC campaigned for BHO in the fall. Unless an explicit deal was made between Obama and Hillary Clinton, it did not seem that Obama, after bypassing her for veep, had to appoint her anything for the party's sake. Still, if Obama and his savvy band of advisers thought that handing her one of the best jobs in the Cabinet would generate political benefits they could use to advance their agenda, I, as a non-fan of Hillary Clinton, was willing to say, okay--for what that was worth.

But then this happened: the presidential transition of no-drama Obama became infected by the never-ending soap opera of the Clintons. And it really is time to turn that program off. There are plenty of policy and political reasons for a progressive not to fancy Hillary. She served on the Wal-Mart board when the mega-firm was fighting unions; she screwed up health care reform for almost a generation; she voted wrong on the Iraq war and then refused to acknowledge she had erred. But, worst of all, as the cliché goes, with the Clintons, it always does seem to be about the Clintons.

So we've had a week of will-she-or-won't-she and what-about-him. Couldn't this have been handled with a little more grace? Maybe not, since it involves the Clintons.

I don't know how the Obama camp approached the issue. But before Obama met last week with Hillary to talk about this, his team should have done a pre-vetting of Bill. And then Obama, at this meeting, ought to have said something like this to her:

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.

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: