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.

George W. Bush the wise and somber presidential veteran.

Spare me. But as Bush prepares to leave office, he's trying to strike that sort of tone. I suppose it's easier to pontificate about the office of the presidency than to say, "Boy, did I screw up, I'm outta here." So at a press conference on Monday morning--probably his final as president--Bush discussed the burdens of presidential leadership and noted there will come a moment next Tuesday when Barack Obama, after taking the oath of office and watching the parade, settles into the Oval Office and says to himself, "Oh, my." (Maybe he will add, "Is this my beautiful house?")

But being president is really not that bad, Bush said. According to Fox News, he remarked: "Disappointments will be clearly a minority irritant." (Was that a Freudian slip? Or just another Bushism? According to the official transcript of the press conference, Bush actually said, "minor irritant.")

But the most surprising (I suppose) element of his non-mea-culpa is his insistence that he is unpopular because he did the right thing. For instance, he said that it would have been wrong for him to back the Kyoto global warming treaty just to be popular. Of course. But that doesn't mean trashing it was the correct thing to do. Bush seems to believe that popular disgust with some of his actions is a signal that he made the hard and right choice. See Iraq.

On Fox News Sunday, Bush had this telling exchange with Brit Hume:

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:

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.

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.

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: