CQ Politics' Web Picks

New York Post: Caroline’s Kids and Hubby All Aboard Run for Senate, Obama’s ‘Encouraging’

Q&A With Caroline Kennedy: In a sit-down with The Post, President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, who has spent years guarding her family’s privacy, said her three children - Rose, 20, Tatiana, 18, and John, 15 - and husband Edwin Schlossberg completely back her effort to be appointed to the Senate seat of Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, although they realize it will mean a family adjustment.

New York Daily News: How JFK’s Daughter Flubbed the Audition to Become the Next Senator Kennedy

A strange thing is happening on the way to the coronation. The wheels of the bandwagon are coming off. Fantasy is giving way to inescapable truth. That truth is that Kennedy is not ready for the job and doesn’t deserve it. Somebody who loves her should tell her. Her quest is becoming a cringe-inducing experience, as painful to watch as it must be to endure.

Washington Post: Families Ask Bush to Seize Land Parcel for 9/11 Memorial

Efforts to buy property for a national Flight 93 memorial have bogged down in federal red tape and a protracted land dispute, angering family members and risking plans to hold a dedication ceremony on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The delays have prompted an advocacy group, Families of Flight 93, to ask President Bush to personally intervene during his final weeks in office to allow the federal government to seize the land needed for the memorial and to allocate part of the money for the project.

Associated Press: GOP Official Blasted for Distributing Obama ‘Magic Negro’ CD

The chairman of the Republican National Committee said Saturday he was “shocked and appalled” that one of his potential successors had sent committee members a CD this Christmas featuring a 2007 parody song called “Barack the Magic Negro.”

Weekly Standard: Don’t Know Much About Economics

Barack Obama is an awfully good politician but not much of an economist. His model for lifting America out of its economic slump is President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The trouble with FDR’s policy, however, is that it didn’t come close to reviving the economy and restoring it to pre-Depression vigor. But FDR did use the New Deal quite successfully in another regard: to build a coalition that kept Democrats in the majority for a half century.

Politico: Obama Bristles as the Bubble Closes In on Him

The president-elect appears increasingly conscious of the confines of his new position, bristling at the routine demands of press coverage and beginning to chafe at boundaries that are only going to get smaller.

Indianapolis Star: Q and A with Ron Klain

Although he’s been in the private sector for most of the past decade, Ron Klain ran debate preparations for the Obama-Biden campaign and was an advocate for the campaign’s decision to contest Indiana.Klain spoke with The Indianapolis Star about why he’s heading back to government and how he hopes to avoid being portrayed in any more HBO movies.

Washington Examiner: Rahm the Enforcer

In Washington, where big personalities create even bigger legends, Democrat Rahm Emanuel has achieved mythic status. He throws cells phones. He once sent a dead fish to a pollster who displeased him. At a dinner to celebrate Bill Clinton’s 1992 election, Emanuel repeatedly stabbed the table with a steak knife, shouting the names of his political enemies. Journalists have trouble quoting him, because his routine utterances are replete with profanity.