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.

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.

Two weeks ago, the major national political narrative was congressional Republicans taking on the new president regarding a stimulus bill they decried as wasteful and ineffective. But that has shifted. The big-news story now is Republicans bickering among themselves. I was on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show on Monday night to discuss the take-the-money-or-not-debate that is weighing down (and perhaps further ruining) the Republican Party:

Meanwhile, there's more evidence of a snark-ridden riff within the GOP.

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,

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?