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1. President Elect Obama’s Transition Web Site
Te president-elect's transition Web site features a blog and a suggestion form, signaling the kinds of direct and instantaneous interaction that the Obama administration will encourage, perhaps with an eye toward turning its following into the biggest special-interest group in Washington.
More about how Barack Obama will create the first truly "wired" presidency, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream media is at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/10/AR2008111000013.html
2. 2008 Presidential Election: Winners by County (graphic)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/election/uscounties.html
3. Fox News Nailbiter! - Conservative channel pushed notion of a tightening election
- November 2:
"Two days and counting until you decide our next president. With the polls tightening, is John McCain about to pull off one more remarkable comeback?" --Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace
November 3:
SEAN HANNITY: Investors Business Daily, which was the most accurate poll in the last presidential election, now has it down to a two-point race.… You know, Colorado was just, you know -- a week and a half two weeks ago, it was supposed to be a blowout. It's now right there at the margin of error. The same with the state of Virginia. Again, that was, you know, supposed to be a blowout. And then we look, for example, we've got Senator McCain is up in Florida. He's tied in Missouri. He's now up in North Carolina, which was supposed to be a blowout for Senator Obama. There--something has happened here fairly dramatic. And do you think that this could even go further by the time people vote tomorrow?
More at http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3643
4. Election photos
An Intimate Portrait: behind-the-scenes moments from Barack Obama’s campaign for the White House: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-09/an-intimate-portrait/#
A collection of some of the best photos of President-Elect Barack Obama over the past several months: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/11/the_next_president_of_the_unit.html
Behind the Scenes on Election Night; David Katz, the official Obama-Biden campaign photographer, released a great set of pictures of the candidates and their families on Election Night (for a slideshow of the photos click click “Slideshow”) http://flickr.com/photos/barackobamadotcom/sets/72157608716313371/
5. Will.i.am: "It's A New Day" (music video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHWByjoQrR8&eurl
6. Obama and Bush: A Contrast in Popularity
Monday's White House meeting between President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama presents a remarkable contrast between one of the least popular two-term presidents in modern times at the close of his administration, and one of the most popular candidates to win the presidency.
According to Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Nov. 6-8, only 27% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing as president. This contrasts with the 70% of Americans holding a favorable view of Obama. Lydia Saad 11.10.08 http://www.gallup.com/poll/111838/Obama-Bush-Contrast-Popularity.aspx
7. From the DAILY GRILL
- "[Obama] neither received a broad mandate from the public nor the needed large congressional majorities." -- Columnist Robert Novak, on President-elect Barack Obama's 7.5 million popular vote margin win, 11/05/08
VERSUS
Q: Bob Novak, is 51 percent of the vote really a mandate?
NOVAK: Of course it is. It's a 3.5 million vote margin. -- Novak, on President Bush's 2004 re-election, 11/06/04
COURIC: Do you consider yourself a feminist?
PALIN: I do. A feminist who believes in equal rights. -- Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK), 9/30/08
VERSUS
WILLIAMS: Governor, are you a feminist?
PALIN: I'm not going to label myself anything, Brian. -- Palin, 10/23/08
VERSUS
"You know, I consider myself, too, as a feminist, whatever that means." -- Palin, 11/11/08
"I don't think this was a victory for a progressive, or a liberal victory." -- Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), 11/09/08
VERSUS
"51 percent said government should do more to solve problems, the first time even a narrow majority said so since exit pollsters started asking the question in 1994." -- AP, on presidential election exit polls. 11/08/08,
8. Andy Borowitz: Palin Hoping to be Named Ambassador to Africa
- Sarah Palin of Alaska has reached out to President-elect Obama's transition team to indicate her interest in being named "ambassador to the nation of Africa," the governor confirmed today.
Gov. Palin said that although she had planned to continue in her position in Anchorage, she was willing to leave the governorship "because Africa is just such a darned important country."
In other news from the Palin family, Bristol Palin's fiancé Levi Johnston said he was "totally stoked" about Tuesday night's election returns, calling the results "definitely a game-changer for me."
"The election of Barack Obama means different things to different people," he said. "To me, it means freedom, dude!" www.borowitzreport.com
9. Obama delivers the Democratic Weekly Radio Address
President-elect Barack Obama delivered the Democratic Radio Address this week, his first as President-elect. In this address, the President-elect spoke about Americans coming together in service of a common purpose and the need to put partisanship aside to solve the greatest economic challenge of our lifetime.
You can listen to the radio address at http://otrans.3cdn.net/a935f21490985cc7e6_z3m6ztacs.mp3
The text of the address is at http://www.demconwatchblog.com/2008/11/obama-weekly-radio-address.html
10. Could Obama be good news for shares?
According to stock market historian David Schwartz, US markets have risen on average 10% in the first year of a Democratic presidency. In the first year of Republican presidency, they have risen less than 2%.
Indeed, a recent study published in the New York Times showed that $10,000 invested in the S&P 500 in 1929 would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents, but to $300,671 under Democratic presidents. 11.05.08 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7711018.stm
11. Sarah Palin blamed by the US Secret Service over death threats against Barack Obama
Sarah Palin's attacks on Barack Obama's patriotism provoked a spike in death threats against the future president, Secret Service agents revealed during the final weeks of the campaign.
The Republican vice presidential candidate attracted criticism for accusing Mr Obama of "palling around with terrorists," citing his association with the sixties radical William Ayers.
The attacks provoked a near lynch mob atmosphere at her rallies, with supporters yelling "terrorist" and "kill him" until the McCain campaign ordered her to tone down the rhetoric.
But it has now emerged that her demagogic tone may have unintentionally encouraged white supremacists to go even further.
The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks.
Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Tim Shipman 11.08.08 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/sarahpalin/3405336/Sarah-Palin-blamed-by-the-US-Secret-Service-for-death-threats-against-Barack-Obama.html
12. Late-Night Political Jokes for Dems
- "And then today, the big transition process begins, because earlier today, Barack Obama met with President Bush at the White House. So you had the president-elect and the president-inept, so they were there together." --David Letterman
"There was a little confusion at the meeting there at the White House when President Bush was told that Obama was coming. He said oh, you mean we caught him?" --David Letterman
"Meanwhile, John McCain, don't forget about John McCain. While all of this was going on, John McCain was waiting for his name to be called at IHOP." --David Letterman
"Barack Obama attended a parent-teacher conference at his daughters' school the other day. And a very positive meeting. The teacher said, both the girls already reading at a President Bush level." --Jay Leno
"Everybody seems to be ganging up on Sarah Palin lately. Have you noticed that? Oh, boy. Now, when she goes hunting, the moose return fire. That's how bad it's gotten." --Jay Leno
"Well, according to a new post-election survey, people want Sarah Palin to run for president in 2012. That's what it says. It says she's been getting thousands of calls from people pleading with her to run, all Democrats." --Jay Leno
"This is true, according to a new report, I was reading this today in the paper, thousands of pregnant mothers in this country are planning to name their baby Barack. That's true. Yeah, after hearing this, Sarah Palin told Bristol, 'Don't even think about it.'" --Conan O'Brien
"I don't know if you saw this on TV this weekend. Commentator Joe Scarborough said the 'F' word on MSNBC. Of course, at MSNBC, the 'F' word is Fox News." --Conan O'Brien
"Of course, lots of sour news about the economy. The federal government has announced that due to the bad economy, it is going to have to lay off 40,000 postal workers. Yeah, 40,000 disgruntled postal workers. What could possibly go wrong?" --Conan O'Brien
"Bush, by the way, had a big, sort of a tearful farewell to his staff the other day in the Rose Garden, and it came out that he's shopping his memoirs. They're called The Audacity of 'Huh?'" -Bill Maher
"Couple of problems. He hasn't been offered as much money as he thinks he deserves for his memoirs, and when they asked him to write an autobiography, he said, 'I don't really know that much about cars.'" -Bill Maher
"Did you see Obama's news conference today? Wow. I have to say, nice to see adults back in charge of government. The White House press corps, you could tell, they were ecstatic. It's been years since they've heard a complete sentence." -Bill Maher
"We found out that the Mormons are the ones that financed this thing against Prop 8. They spent $20 million on Prop 8, because they say that marriage should be between a man and his multiple child brides." --Bill Maher
"This was actually in the paper today, that both parties are already preparing for 2012. Isn't that unbelievable? But I was thinking, it's going to be tough for Barack Obama to come up with a campaign slogan for 2012. I mean, what's it gonna be? 'Don't change, everything's fine, don't change anything, keep it exactly the same!'" --Jay Leno
"The rumor is the GOP is blaming Sarah Palin for losing the election. But to be fair, Sarah Palin didn't pick Sarah Palin. Isn't that right?" --Jay Leno
"A reporter from Fox News who interviewed Sarah Palin said that Sarah Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent. To which President Bush said, 'I didn't know either. I thought it was a vowel.'" --Jay Leno
"Did you see this story in Newsweek this week? One of the things they complained about, that when some campaign staffers went up to Sarah Palin's hotel room to talk to her, she answered the door wearing nothing but a towel. Apparently, some of the guys on the campaign staff complained. Yeah, yeah, the ones it didn't happen to." --Jay Leno
"It was revealed that Dick Cheney, we haven't seen much this week, spent Election Day in South Dakota, shooting peasants, I mean, pheasants." --Jay Leno
"I feel bad for John McCain. I guess that endorsement from Dick Cheney came a little too late." --David Letterman
"By the way, don't worry about Sarah Palin, she's already back to selling Mary Kay products, so she's going to to be fine." --David Letterman
"And this is sad, you hate hearing about this, but staffers are saying that John McCain is depressed. And I think there is something true to the story, because I heard today that he had made an appointment with Joe the therapist." --David Letterman
"Obama held his first news conference today as president-elect. Some veteran White House reporters were actually a little bit confused, because he didn't make up any words and almost everything he said made sense." --Jimmy Kimmel
"Today, at his first press conference as President-elect, Barack Obama said America will succeed if we can put aside partisanship and politics. Nice. Yeah, in other words, we're totally screwed." --Conan O'Brien
"Sports Illustrated says Barack Obama is going to install a basketball court at the White House. Isn't that cool? Yeah, yeah. And in order to make room, workers at the White House will have to get rid of President Bush's Slip 'n Slide. " --Conan O'Brien
"In fact, starting today, Barack Obama is now going to receive the daily White House intelligence briefing on things like, you know, security and terrorism, stuff like that. It's the same briefing President Bush gets every day, but without the pictures and the color by numbers." --Jay Leno
"Barack Obama spent his first day as president-elect putting together his transition team. And if you believe MSNBC, by tomorrow he will have chosen all 12 of his disciples." --Jay Leno
"Don't you love how the different news outlets put their own slant on it? Like see how Fox News is covering Barack Obama's first 24 hours? They said, 'Day One: American Held Hostage!'" --Jay Leno
"People are now asking if the Obamas being in the White House will be a return to Camelot. You know like what it was during the Kennedys? As opposed to the last eight years, which is return to the 'Dukes of Hazzard.'" --Jay Leno
"Barack Obama promised a new America in which the powerless will have a voice. So, he's already reaching out to Republicans." --Jay Leno
"Of course, a lot of famous sound bites will be remembered for this campaign. There were some good ones. Barack Obama saying, what was his one? Oh, 'We are the change that we seek.' John McCain saying, 'I would rather lose an election than lose a war.' Sarah Palin saying, 'Do you have this in size 6?'" --Jay Leno
"Rumor is, still a lot of infighting within the McCain campaign, between the Palin people and the McCain people. Now, I don't know if that's true or not, but earlier today, Sarah Palin put McCain's campaign bus on eBay." --Jay Leno
"I get this feeling that the country's starting to come together. And actually, it was borne out today in the newspaper. Yesterday, apparently, First Lady Laura Bush called Michelle Obama and invited her and her young daughters to the White House. Isn't that nice? And Laura Bush told Mrs. Obama, 'While I give you a tour, the girls can watch 'Spongebob' with the president.'" --Conan O'Brien
"President-elect Barack Obama spent the day thanking the people who helped him win the election. Yeah, and actually, Obama's first phone call was to Sarah Palin. He sent her flowers." --Conan O'Brien
"Attention passengers, the Straight Talk Express is no longer in service." --David Letterman
"Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama is our new president. And I think I speak for most Americans when I say, anybody mind if he starts a little early?" --David Letterman
"At the end of the evening, the electoral vote count was 349 for Obama, 148 for McCain. Or, as Fox News says, too close to call." --David Letterman
"But right about now Joe the plumber is meeting with his transition team. They're going to help ease him from obscurity back to oblivion." --David Letterman
"How about Sarah Palin, ladies and gentlemen. Right now on her way back to Alaska. And I'm thinking oh, I wouldn't want to be a moose now." --David Letterman
"Did you see the concession speech last night? John McCain was generous. He was gracious. He was statesman-like. And I was thinking well, he should have tried that earlier." --David Letterman
"People all over the world are celebrating Barack Obama’s victory. In fact, Sarah Palin watched the Russians celebrating from her house." --David Letterman
"And, of course, it was a huge celebration over at Barack Obama headquarters, otherwise known as MSNBC." --Jay Leno
"And people were worried about the Bradley effect. Apparently, it was not nearly as strong as the Bush effect." --Jay Leno
"After congratulating President-elect Obama, President Bush called John McCain to commend him on his well-fought campaign. President Bush also phoned Sarah Palin and she said, 'Oh yeah, I'm sure this is the real Bush, I'm not falling for that again.'" --Jay Leno
"When one door closes, another opens up. That's how the world works. And did you see that hologram thing they were using on CNN? That was pretty neat. They use a 3-D hologram image of a person projected right in studio. Made it look like the person that was really there in person. Same technology they use to make Larry King look like he's still alive." --Jay Leno
"You know who is really, really happy that John McCain did not win last night? The boyfriend of Sarah Palin's daughter. He doesn't have to get married now. 'Whew, thank God!'" --Jay Leno
"And of course the big mantra was 'Yes, we can!' Unless you're a gay couple in California, then it's, 'No, you can't.'" --Jay Leno
"Schwarzenegger was asking people to get out and vote. I think that's what he said. Either that or he was asking 'the public to get more boats.'" --Jay Leno
"And in what has to be one of the most ridiculous moments yesterday, it looks like convicted Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska has won re-election. How does that make the guy who lost feel, huh? What's that concession speech like? 'We gave it our best, but the voters are preferred a convicted, 84-year-old felon who's going to prison.'" --Jay Leno
"All the major networks declared Barack Obama the winner at 11 last night, except for MSNBC, which declared Obama the winner six months ago." --Conan O'Brien
"Barack Obama won the state of Florida, which means that it went from a red state to a blue state. That’s huge, yeah. It’s historic, because it’s the first time something turned blue in Florida and they didn’t have to call a medic." --Conan O'Brien
"President Bush called Sen. Obama last night to congratulate him and this is an actual quote. He said, “What an awesome night for you and your family.” I think his eloquence is what we will remember most about Bush." --Jimmy Kimmel
"Obama thanked the President for his call and for all he did to help him get elected." --Jimmy Kimmel
"The real challenge, though, is for Joe Biden because he's got to figure out how to get Dick Cheney out of the vice presidential mansion. As you know, Dick Cheney is armed and has a history of shooting old men." --Jimmy Kimmel
"Barack Obama won the popular vote by a 52 percent to 46 percent. And electoral vote 360 to 173, so basically a six percent popular vote victory translates into a two-to-one Electoral College drubbing, proving once again the Electoral College makes perfect sense." --Jon Stewart
"I watched Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park. I actually loved watching the shots of the crowd, which looked like a Benetton ad — different races, different ages, all different kinds of people. I thought it was fantastic. Meanwhile, over at McCain’s speech, there were all different kinds of white people. They had tons of them -- yuppies, golfers, Osmonds." --Craig Ferguson
"The stock market dropped over 400 points today, which is not a reflection on Obama. No, the brokers just realized they’ve still got three months of George Bush." --Craig Ferguson
13. A Bill Moyers: An essay on change and the new administration (video)
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11072008/watch.html
14. Scott Bateman (videos)
- Barack Obama speaks to the press: http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/comedy/2008/11/10/bateman_obamawon/
On Fox, the foibles of Sarah Palin: http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/comedy/2008/11/07/bateman_foxpalin/index.html
On Fox, "it's a fascinating time to be a conservative": http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/comedy/2008/11/06/bateman_ingraham/
Looking back in anger at campaign 2008: http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/comedy/2008/11/04/bateman_campaign2008/
15. Obama will take his Internet army to Washington
Obama reaches the White House with the biggest, best organized, fastest-acting grass-roots army in the history of presidential campaigning, a triumphant army of 3.1 million Internet-linked donors and volunteers.
Moreover, because his Internet operation was miles ahead of Republican John McCain's , Obama's liberal-to-libertarian electronic activists are in a position to dominate the new political medium much as conservative Republicans dominate talk radio.
As for political utility, many thousands of volunteers will be deployable within hours, with great precision and at almost no cost, thanks to the campaign's state-of-the-art information-management systems. Frank Greve 11.05.08 http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/3092737
16. Jon Stewart interviews Fox News’ Chris Wallace (video)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=209408&title=Chris-Wallace
17. “Center-Right Country” - Conservatives Grasping At Straws (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oc9MR192zk&eurl
18. It's not just Limbaugh and Hannity
While there has been much discussion about the role that nationally syndicated radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have played in perpetuating smears and falsehoods about progressive candidates and ideals, little has been said about the vast network of lesser-known syndicated and regional radio hosts who have served as an echo chamber for conservative talking points and falsehoods.
This year, Media Matters for America has greatly expanded its monitoring of regional radio and has produced numerous items documenting falsehoods, smears, and baseless attacks on progressives in that time. While the hosts vary in the degree of vitriol they spew and in their ratio of rebuttable falsehoods to unbridled smears, Media Matters and Colorado Media Matters have identified common themes that many, if not all, promote. 11.06.08 http://mediamatters.org/items/200811060005?f=h_top
19. Denver Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall's Aborted Glove Celebration (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mVYo693bK8&eurl
20. 15,000 physicians urge enactment of single-payer system
A group of over 15,000 U.S. physicians has called on President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress to “do the right thing” and enact a single-payer national health insurance plan, a system of public health care financing frequently characterized as “an improved Medicare for all.”
“The only effective cure for our health care woes is to establish a single, publicly financed system, one that removes the inefficient, wasteful, for-profit private health insurance industry from the picture,” he said. “Single payer has a proven track record of success - Medicare being just one example - and is the only medically and fiscally responsible course of action to take.” Physicians for a National Health Program 11.05.08 http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/november/doctors_citing_mand.php
21. Bush Administration's Midnight Regulations
The Bush administration is trying to push through a wave of new regulations despite a promise by the White House to ban last-ditch rule-making in the waning days of the presidency, say watchdog groups and experts.
"The administration wants to leave a legacy," said Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which has been critical of these proposals. "But across the board it means less protection for the public." EMMA SCHWARTZ 10.30.08 http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=6146929
22. Bill Maher: Farewell (video)
http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2008/11/farewell.html
23. Obama Roasts Rahm (video)
A video clip from 2005, then newly-elected Sen. Barack Obama roasts his future White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdphzxz64BY&eurl
24. After Citizenship Challenges, Ballots Thrown Out in Georgia
Most of the almost 5000 Georgia voters whose citizenship was challenged before the election will not have their ballots counted.
The requirement that newly registered voters verify their citizenship has been questioned by the U.S. Department of Justice and is the subject of a lawsuit. Zachary Roth 11.10.08 http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/after_citizenship_challenges_b.php
25. Pollster ranking by final poll error
- CNN: 0.5
Ipsos: 0.5
Pew: 0.7
Rasmussen: 0.7
ARG: 1.5
Research 2000: 1.7
ABC: 2.5
IBD: 2.7
Hotline: 3.7
Gallup: 4.5
Zogby: 4.5
Battleground: 5.7
CBS: 5.7
Fox: 5.7
- http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/11/11/11352/204/263/658755
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- 26. You Can Forget My Taxes
Today the gay citizenry of this state will pick themselves up and dust themselves off and do what we have been doing for years. We will get back into it. We love this state, we love this country and we are not going to leave it. Even though we could be married in Mass. or Conn, Canada, Holland, Spain and a handful of other countries, this is our home. This is where we work and play and raise our families. We will not rest until we have the full rights of any other citizen. It is that simple, no fearful vote will ever stop us, that is not the American way.” -- Academy Award-winning and Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Melissa Etheridge 11.06.08
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1. William Greider: President Obama: This Proud Moment
We are inheritors of this momentous victory, but it was not ours. The laurels properly belong to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and all of the other martyrs who died for civil rights. And to millions more before them who struggled across centuries and fell short of winning their freedom. And to those rare politicians like Lyndon B. Johnson, who stood up bravely in a decisive time, knowing how much it would cost his political party for years to come. We owe all of them for this moment.
Whatever happens next, Barack Obama has already changed this nation profoundly. Like King before him, the man is a great and brave teacher. Obama developed out of his life experiences a different understanding of the country, and he had the courage to run for president by offering this vision. For many Americans, it seemed too much to believe, yet he turned out to be right about us. Against all odds, he persuaded a majority of Americans to believe in their own better natures and, by electing him, the people helped make it true. There is mysterious music in democracy when people decide to believe in themselves. 11.04.08 http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081117/greider_election
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2. David Corn: Obama Wins and Redefines Real America
So who's a real American now?
With his decisive triumph over Senator John McCain, Senate Barack Obama made obvious history: he is the first black (or biracial) man to win the presidency. But the meaning of his victory--in which Obama splashed blue across previously red states--extends far beyond its racial significance. Obama, a former community organizer and law professor, won the White House as one of the most progressive (or liberal) nominees in the Democratic Party's recent history. Mounting one of the best run presidential bids in decades, Obama tied his support for progressive positions (taxing the wealthy to pay for tax cuts for working Americans, addressing global warming, expanding affordable health insurance, withdrawing troops from Iraq) to calls for cleaning up Washington and for crafting a new type of politics. Charismatic, steady, and confident, he melded substance and style into a winning mix that could be summed up in simple and basic terms: hope and change.
After nearly eight years of George W. Bush's presidency, Obama was the non-Bush: intelligent, curious, thoughtful, deliberate, and competent. His personal narrative--he was the product of an unconventional family and worked his way into the nation's governing class--fueled his campaign narrative. His story was the American Dream v2.0. He was change, at least at skin level. But he also championed the end of Bushism. He had opposed the Iraq war. He had opposed Bush's tax cuts for the rich. He was no advocate of let-'er-rip, free market capitalism or American unilateralism. In policy terms, Obama represents a serious course correction. 11/04/08 http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/11/10690_obama_wins_real_america.html
3. Rebecca Solnit: The Jubilant Birth of the Obama Era
Citizenship is a passionate joy at times, and this is one of those times. You can feel it. Tuesday the world changed. It was a great day. Monday it rained hard for the first time this season and on Election Day, everything in San Francisco was washed clean. I went on a long run past several polling places up in the hills around my home and saw lines of working people waiting to vote and contented-looking citizens walking around with their "I Voted" stickers in the sun and mud.
People have again found one of their—our—most buried and powerful desires: to make a better world together. I ran across an online collection of photographs of people crying in public, so moved by what is happening in this country, and I cried a little myself last weekend and choked up again when my local paper ran a story on a woman who'd crossed the country 40 years ago for Martin Luther King's funeral and left her polling place Tuesday singing hallelujah, amazed like so many older people that she'd lived to see the day.
You can argue against Barack Obama. I would myself, on the grounds that electoral politics are inherently flawed, corrosive, disempowering. My leftist friends, already cranky about him, warn me that I will be disappointed, but I'm not sure I will, because my expectations are realistic. I love his style, but he's not my messiah.
Who he is is so much better than we had any right to expect in a country left to the jackals for so long, even if he's just a pretty gifted liberal Democrat with an uncanny ability to see beyond the binaries and describe what might lie there.
What he is, in all his hyphenated hybridity, is a sign of a new world being born—not, certainly, the "another world is possible" of the anti-globalization movement, but another world of mingling and crossing borders, of making new ethnicities out of love across old divides. He is a living invitation to come in from the cold for a lot of those who have been left out for decades, for centuries. 11.06.08 http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/tomdispatch/2008/11/day-of-the-citizen.html
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4. Adrianne Appel: Don't Be Afraid to Spend, Economists Tell Obama
President-elect Barack Obama will inherit an ailing economy and the way to help right it is to spend -- and spend some more, independent economists say.
'We need proposals that will stimulate demand' for goods, Allan Mendelowitz, a director on the Federal Housing Finance Board, told IPS.
People and businesses are not buying as much because they can't afford to, Mendelowitz said. They have lost their jobs or fear they may, and the cost of oil, gas and food has risen. At the same time, homeowners are watching the value of their houses sink, and for some, their mortgage payments rise.
What would help now is spending to create jobs, like road repair and alternative energy start-ups, and extending unemployment benefits and food stamps for people out of work, he said.
'People are feeling less secure and feeling poor because they are poor. When people's wealth declines they respond by cutting consumption,' Mendelowitz said.
The government needs to get money into the hands of U.S. workers, as quickly as possible, he said. The goal is to get people working and spending again, and paying taxes, Mendelowitz said.
To recommend spending as a way to help the economy may sound like advice tailor-made for a president who espouses progressive ideals, as Obama does.
However, 'It has nothing to do with left, right or progressive ideology. It's good economics,' Robin Hahnel, professor emeritus of economics at American University, told IPS. 11.07.08 http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=1829
5. PAUL KRUGMAN: The Obama Agenda
Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, is a date that will live in fame (the opposite of infamy) forever. If the election of our first African-American president didn’t stir you, if it didn’t leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there’s something wrong with you.
But will the election also mark a turning point in the actual substance of policy? Can Barack Obama really usher in a new era of progressive policies? Yes, he can.
Right now, many commentators are urging Mr. Obama to think small. Some make the case on political grounds: America, they say, is still a conservative country, and voters will punish Democrats if they move to the left. Others say that the financial and economic crisis leaves no room for action on, say, health care reform.
Let’s hope that Mr. Obama has the good sense to ignore this advice.
About the political argument: Anyone who doubts that we’ve had a major political realignment should look at what’s happened to Congress. After the 2004 election, there were many declarations that we’d entered a long-term, perhaps permanent era of Republican dominance. Since then, Democrats have won back-to-back victories, picking up at least 12 Senate seats and more than 50 House seats. They now have bigger majorities in both houses than the G.O.P. ever achieved in its 12-year reign.
Bear in mind, also, that this year’s presidential election was a clear referendum on political philosophies — and the progressive philosophy won.
Maybe the best way to highlight the importance of that fact is to contrast this year’s campaign with what happened four years ago. In 2004, President Bush concealed his real agenda. He basically ran as the nation’s defender against gay married terrorists, leaving even his supporters nonplussed when he announced, soon after the election was over, that his first priority was Social Security privatization. That wasn’t what people thought they had been voting for, and the privatization campaign quickly devolved from juggernaut to farce.
This year, however, Mr. Obama ran on a platform of guaranteed health care and tax breaks for the middle class, paid for with higher taxes on the affluent. John McCain denounced his opponent as a socialist and a “redistributor,” but America voted for him anyway. That’s a real mandate. 11.07.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/opinion/07krugman.html
6. Poker with missiles
There were elaborate explanations as to why the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, had chosen to greet the election of a liberal to the White House by deploying nuclear missiles in its western enclave of Kaliningrad. Russia, we were told, was laying down a marker. It was saying: you can not ignore us. Or Medvedev was testing a greenhorn leader to see how he would react. There was every explanation except the obvious one: cause and effect.
The cause was America's decision to deploy missiles and a radar system on Russia's border. It was a decision which no Russian president of any hue could ignore. The radar is capable not only of tracking incoming Iranian missiles but of directing a warhead anywhere on Russia's territory to an accuracy of metres. Try as Russia might to talk to America, Washington would not be deflected from its course. Sergei Ivanov, then first deputy prime minister, warned in July 2007 that if America did not modify its plan, Russia would station missiles in Kaliningrad. Now it is doing so. That is the effect, so where is the surprise?
One move in this poker game soon leads to another. Thanks to America's insistence on a shield of unproven worth, and Poland's backing for it, eastern Europe now faces the nightmare return of the short-range missile. Go back 16 years to discover just how dangerous this bluff was. Taking the chips off the table is going to be more difficult, even though Barack Obama told Radek Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, about his doubts concerning the effectiveness of the missile shield. Whatever the truth about the Pentagon's claim that the shield is not aimed at Russia, the installation has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It invites Russian targeting, from which the missile base now has to be defended. The result is that missiles are springing up like green shoots. And no one can afford to wait for the next frozen conflict of the region - an area that runs from the Baltics, through which Russian military convoys travel to Kaliningrad, to the Caspian Sea - to leap out of the deep freeze. Georgia could erupt again. 11.07.08 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/07/russia-us-news
7. Ronald Brownstein: Bush's Failing Final Grade
It detracts nothing from Barack Obama's achievement to note that his historic electoral success rests atop the epic political failure of George W. Bush. If Obama is shrewd enough, there's a lesson for the new president in the failure of the old one.
Bush and his chief political strategist, Karl Rove, dreamed of cementing a lasting Republican electoral majority. Instead, Bush has left his party in rubble.
The 2008 election represented a final grade on Bush's bruising and polarizing political strategy. To a degree unmatched by modern presidents, Bush governed more by mobilizing his base than by reaching out to voters and interests beyond it. His legislative strategy centered on minimizing dissent among congressional Republicans; his electoral strategy revolved around maximizing his vote among Republicans and conservative independents. On both fronts, his guiding principle was deepen, not broaden.
Only the most culturally conservative areas remain reliably red.
Through Bush's first term, that approach generated undeniable successes. The congressional Republican majority, demonstrating levels of party unity unequaled since around 1900, passed key elements of his agenda. A skillfully engineered surge in Republican turnout powered his re-election and GOP congressional gains in 2002 and 2004.
But through Bush's second term, this insular strategy grew unsustainable. By targeting so many of his policies toward the priorities of his conservative base, Bush ignited volcanic opposition from Democratic voters and steadily alienated independents. Because he had done so little to court voters beyond his ardent core, he lacked a well of good will to draw on when events turned against him, first with Katrina and Iraq, later with the economy. His disapproval rating soared to heights unsurpassed in modern polling.
That ferocious dissatisfaction fueled the Democratic recapture of Congress in 2006 by stampeding independent voters in their direction. Discontent with Bush again provided a huge tailwind for Democrats this week. Exit polls showed that a breathtaking 71% of voters Tuesday disapproved of Bush's performance. Two-thirds of them voted for Obama. That in itself effectively sealed the election against John McCain. 11.07.08 http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/politicalconnections.php
8. BOB HERBERT: Take a Bow, America
The markets are battered and job losses are skyrocketing, but even in the midst of a national economic crisis, we should not lose sight of the profound significance of this week and what it tells us about the continuing promise of America.
Skip to next paragraph
Voters said no to incompetence and divisiveness and elbowed their way past the blight of racism that has been such a barrier to progress for so long. Barack Obama won the state of North Carolina, for crying out loud.
The nation deserves to take a bow. This is not the same place it used to be. 11.08.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/08/opinion/08herbert.html
9. Tom Engelhardt: Foreclosed - The George W. Bush Story
The results were sadly predictable. The bubble world of George W. Bush was bound to be burst. Based on fantasies, false promises, lies, and bait-and-switch tactics, it was destined for foreclosure. At home and abroad, after all, it had been created using the equivalent of subprime mortgages and the result, unsurprisingly, was a dismally subprime administration.
Now, of course, the bill collector is at the door and the property -- the USA -- is worth a good deal less than on November 4, 2000. George W. Bush is a discredited president; his job approval ratings could hardly be lower; his bubble world gone bust.
Nonetheless, let's remember one other theme of his previous life. Whatever his failures, Bush always walked away from disastrous dealings enriched, while others were left holding the bag. Don't imagine for a second that the equivalent isn't about to repeat itself. He will leave a country functionally under the gun of foreclosure, a world far more aflame and dangerous than the one he faced on entering the Oval Office. But he won't suffer.
He will have his new house in Dallas (not to speak of the "ranch" in Crawford) and his more than $200 million presidential "library" and "freedom institute" at Southern Methodist University; and then there's always that 20% of America -- they know who they are -- who think his presidency was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Believe me, 20% of America is more than enough to pony up spectacular sums, once Bush takes to the talk circuit. As the president himself put it enthusiastically,"'I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers.' With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, 'I don't know what my dad gets -- it's more than 50-75' thousand dollars a speech, and 'Clinton's making a lot of money.'"
This is how a legacy-student-turned-president fails upward. Every disaster leaves him better off.
The same can't be said for the country or the world, saddled with his "legacy."
Still, his administration has been foreclosed. Perhaps there's ignominy in that. Now, the rest of us need to get out the brooms and start sweeping the stables. 11.02.08 http://tomdispatch.org/post/174997/the_end_of_a_subprime_administration
10. John Nichols: Dysfunctional election process needs to be repaired
The fundamental flaw in our electoral system is that it really is no system at all.
The United States has no baseline standard for organizing federal elections. And thus, federal elections are as often gamed as they are won fairly.
Thus, in Ohio a prospective voter must register his or her intention weeks before election day in order to be able to cast a ballot.
In Minnesota, on the other hand, a resident can show up on election day and vote.
In Texas, voters can cast ballots weeks before election day and they don't even have to get out of their cars. "If you can drive or if you have a friend or relative who can drive you, you don't even have to get out of the car," announces the Texas secretary of state. "Call ahead to notify the early voting clerk that you want to vote from your car. This procedure is called 'curbside voting' and is available to any voter who has difficulty walking or standing for long periods."
In Pennsylvania, on the other hand, there is no "curbside voting." In fact, there is no early voting. Barry Kauffman, the executive director of Common Cause Pennsylvania, says that "Pennsylvania is very tradition-bound and not inclined to change with the time unless forced to."
And so it goes through every other aspect of the voting process. Different states, different rules. In some cases, within the same state the rules differ from county to county, or even within counties.
What that means is that the American electoral system, while it may last week have produced a satisfying result, is not functioning as it should. Lots of Democrats said during the Bush years that the party needed to win by enough that the election couldn't be stolen. But that should not be the standard in a nation that presumes to offer the world a democratic model.
"If we are an advanced society, if we are monitoring elections around the world, why not make voting right?" asks Douglas Wilder.
If this is to be a transformational moment, then let us begin by transforming our electoral system into one that is finally and truly democratic. 11/12/08 http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/column/313955
11. Howad Zinn: Obama's Historic Victory
Those of us on the Left who have criticized Obama, as I have, for his failure to take bold positions on the war and on the economy, must join the exultation of those Americans, black and white, who shouted and wept Tuesday night as they were informed that Barack Obama had won the presidential election. It is truly a historic moment, that a black man will lead our country. The enthusiasm of the young, black and white, the hopes of their elders, cannot simply be ignored.
There was a similar moment a century and a half ago, in the year 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln had been criticized harshly by the abolitionists, the anti-slavery movement, for his failure to take a clear, bold stand against slavery, for acting as a shrewd politician rather than a moral force. But when he was elected, the abolitionist leader Wendell Phillips, who had been an angry critic of Lincoln's cautiousness, recognized the possibility in his election.
Phillips wrote that for the first time in the nation's history "the slave has chosen a President of the United States." Lincoln, he said, was not an abolitionist, but he in some way "consents to represent an antislavery position." Like a pawn on the chessboard, Lincoln had the potential, if the American people acted vigorously, to be moved across the board, converted into a queen, and, as Phillips said, "sweep the board."
Obama, like Lincoln, tends to look first at his political fortunes instead of making his decisions on moral grounds. But, as the first African American in the White House, elected by an enthusiastic citizenry which expects a decisive move towards peace and social justice, he presents a possibility for important change. 11/08/08 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/08-0
12. Guy Reel: The Truth Will Tell
In a few months, it should soon become apparent to all but the lowest knuckle-draggers that Barack Obama is not a terrorist sympathizer, he's not a Muslim, he's not going to take away your guns, he's not a Black Liberation theologist, he's not going to raise taxes on the poor or middle class, he won't surrender in Iraq, he isn't supported by al-Qaeda, he won't play nice with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he isn't a socialist and his health care plan isn't even universal, much less "socialized medicine."
All of these outright lies — which formed the basis of John McCain's run for the presidency — will be easily disproven as events unfold during the Obama administration.
So when the predictive lies don't come true, and the others are exposed as utter nonsense, I'm going to expect an apology from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and all the other professional liars. They must come before the nation and say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong. And I also lied." Nothing short of a statement like that will atone for the outrageousness of their claims. 11/08/08 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/08-9
13. Robert Fisk: Obama has to pay for eight years of Bush's delusions
American lawyers defending six Algerians before a habeas corpus hearing in Washington this week learned some very odd things about US intelligence after 9/11. From among the millions of "raw" reports from American spies and their "assets" around the world came a CIA Middle East warning about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in east Asia.
That this nonsense was disseminated around the world by those tasked to defend the United States in the "war on terror" shows the fantasy environment in which the Bush regime has existed these past eight years. If you can believe that bin Laden drops by a shopping mall on an American military base, then you can believe that everyone you arrest is a "terrorist", that Arabs are "terrorists", that they can be executed, that living "terrorists" must be tortured, that everything a tortured man says can be believed, that it is legitimate to invade sovereign states, to grab the telephone records of everyone in America. As Bob Herbert put it in The New York Times a couple of years ago, the Bush administration wanted these records "which contain crucial documentation of calls for a Chinese takeout in Terre Haute, Indiana, and birthday greetings to Grandma in Talladega, Alabama, to help in the search for Osama bin Laden". There was no stopping Bush when it came to trampling on the US Constitution. All that was new was that he was now applying the same disrespect for liberty in America that he had shown in the rest of the world. 11/08/08 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/
commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-obama-has-to-pay-for-eight-years-of-bushs-delusions-1001092.html
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14. Ronald Brownstein: Bush's Failing Final Grade
It detracts nothing from Barack Obama's achievement to note that his historic electoral success rests atop the epic political failure of George W. Bush. If Obama is shrewd enough, there's a lesson for the new president in the failure of the old one.
Bush and his chief political strategist, Karl Rove, dreamed of cementing a lasting Republican electoral majority. Instead, Bush has left his party in rubble.
The 2008 election represented a final grade on Bush's bruising and polarizing political strategy. To a degree unmatched by modern presidents, Bush governed more by mobilizing his base than by reaching out to voters and interests beyond it. His legislative strategy centered on minimizing dissent among congressional Republicans; his electoral strategy revolved around maximizing his vote among Republicans and conservative independents. On both fronts, his guiding principle was deepen, not broaden.
Only the most culturally conservative areas remain reliably red.
Through Bush's first term, that approach generated undeniable successes. The congressional Republican majority, demonstrating levels of party unity unequaled since around 1900, passed key elements of his agenda. A skillfully engineered surge in Republican turnout powered his re-election and GOP congressional gains in 2002 and 2004.
But through Bush's second term, this insular strategy grew unsustainable. By targeting so many of his policies toward the priorities of his conservative base, Bush ignited volcanic opposition from Democratic voters and steadily alienated independents. Because he had done so little to court voters beyond his ardent core, he lacked a well of good will to draw on when events turned against him, first with Katrina and Iraq, later with the economy. His disapproval rating soared to heights unsurpassed in modern polling. 11.07.08 http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20081106_5653.php
15. JAMES RAINEY: Right-wing media feeds its post-election anger
You have to give Rush Limbaugh a perverse kind of credit. At least when he is demonizing Barack Obama, fabricating Obama policies, blaming Obama for single-handedly causing the recession and the stock market crash, he doesn't pretend to be fair.
Opening his first post-election rant against the president-elect, Limbaugh launched in with a certain relish. "The game," he told his radio listeners, "has begun."
Sean Hannity, on the other hand, insisted on feigning a post-election detente, telling his Fox News television audience last week, "I want Barack Obama to succeed."
Didn't he think anyone would notice that, just a moment later, he was back parroting the failed campaign argument that Obama is a "mystery"?
"I fear [this] is the guy that has these radical associations 20 years ago," Hannity added, an odd way of demonstrating support for the new commander in chief.
A healthy skepticism is not only the media's right but its obligation. Indeed, commentators at many mainstream outlets -- including the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal -- have already argued that Obama's best bet to succeed will be if he hews to a centrist path.
But many on the losing end of last week's election want to hold on to their anger. And there are those in the media -- led by the likes of Limbaugh and Hannity -- only too ready to feed that animus, along with their own ratings. 11.09.08 http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-onthemedia9-2008nov09,0,800478.story
16. Gary Kamiya: The GOP's last chance: Become Democrats
Perhaps the most noteworthy development in the election is that Obama carried college graduates, possibly the first time a Democrat has ever done that. The Republican majority used to be made up of a combination of working-class whites and wealthy, educated businessmen and professionals. Now the college graduates and the professionals (who vastly outnumber the businessmen) are voting Democratic.
As if the rise of the professionals wasn't enough, the GOP also has to deal with the triple whammy of women, Hispanics and young people. All supported Obama, and there's no obvious way for Republicans to win them over without altering the nature of their party.
When you add all these things up, there is nowhere for the GOP in its current form to go. Any action it takes to shore up one group will hurt it more with another. If the right continues to make the culture war its main strategy, it will shore up its base with working-class white men in rural areas. But this "Deliverance" strategy, in which the GOP lets the Democrats have every part of the country where large numbers of people live together and targets lone white men surrounded by vast open spaces, is only a ticket to dominance in places like Utah, Arkansas, Idaho and Oklahoma, with their rich treasure trove of 22 electoral votes. The post-election map already shows a weird correlation between unpopulated areas and Republican votes -- not a trend the GOP should be encouraging.
The only thing that might allow the GOP to postpone its day of reckoning would be a failed Obama presidency -- admittedly a real possibility, considering the daunting obstacles he faces. But if Obama succeeds, the only viable path for the GOP if it wants to continue to be a mainstream political force is to reject its extreme economic libertarianism and its extreme social conservatism, lose its harsh, messianic tone, and remake itself as a moderate party that supports effective government but is wary of excessive Democratic social engineering and is slightly more traditional on social issues. It could also appeal to the center by rejecting neoconservative militarism and returning to a quasi-isolationist stance. (If Obama ends up being a liberal interventionist, this would ironically mean that the parties had reverted to their traditional foreign-policy roles.)
In effect, such a remade GOP would be a Rockefeller or Eisenhower party, one virtually indistinguishable from the right wing of the Democratic Party. This strategy would allow it to survive -- but at the cost of its hardcore base, which would become an embittered and perhaps radical rump movement.
In the coming years we will witness a war between conservatism's pragmatists and its true believers. If the pragmatists win, America will have finally arrived at the era of broad political consensus that pundits erroneously forecast after Lyndon Johnson's demolition of Barry Goldwater in 1964. If the true believers win, we may witness a Palin candidacy in 2012 -- and a likely electoral landslide that will bury the GOP so deeply it may never dig out. 11.10.08 http://www.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2008/11/11/republicans/index.html
17. Rupert Cornwell: After the victory, what next?
History's turning points come in many guises. Some, like the implosion of the Soviet Union, unfold in slow motion. Some, like 11 September 2001, are split seconds of cataclysmic horror. Then there are those like last Tuesday evening, in the gizmo-laden TV studios where, the instant the polls closed on America's west coast, the networks announced that Barack Hussein Obama, half-Kenyan by birth and without even a full Senate term behind him, would be the next President of the United States.
Oddly, the endgame itself was almost routine, compared with the two-year roller coaster of a campaign that preceded it. The eve-of-vote polls were correct; the much-bruited "Bradley Effect" did not materialise, and on the night itself, the result was scrystal clear at least an hour before the anchors called it at 11pm eastern time.
Never, surely, has the election of any national leader, in America or any other Western democratic country, whether on the right or the left, expected or unexpected, been laden with such symbolism. None has so completed one cycle of history and ushered in a new one. Not Bill Clinton, the kid from Hope in 1992; not Tony Blair at the moment of his "New Labour, New Britain" triumph five years later; not even the impossibly glamorous Jack Kennedy in 1960, as the torch passed to a younger generation of Americans. The arrival of Barack Obama is all these things and more. 11.09.08 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/rupert-cornwell-after-the-victory-what-next-1003959.html
18. FRANK RICH: It Still Felt Good the Morning After
If there were any doubts the 1960s are over, they were put to rest Tuesday night when our new first family won the hearts of the world as it emerged on that vast blue stage to join the celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park. The bloody skirmishes that took place on that same spot during the Democratic convention 40 years ago — young vs. old, students vs. cops, white vs. black — seemed as remote as the moon. This is another America — hardly a perfect or prejudice-free America, but a union that can change and does, aspiring to perfection even if it can never achieve it.
Still, change may come slowly to the undying myths bequeathed to us by the Bush decade. “Don’t think for a minute that power concedes,” Obama is fond of saying. Neither does groupthink. We now keep hearing, for instance, that America is “a center-right nation” — apparently because the percentages of Americans who call themselves conservative (34), moderate (44) and liberal (22) remain virtually unchanged from four years ago. But if we’ve learned anything this year, surely it’s that labels are overrated. Those same polls find that more and more self-described conservatives no longer consider themselves Republicans. Americans now say they favor government doing more (51 percent), not less (43) — an 11-point swing since 2004 — and they still overwhelmingly reject the Iraq war. That’s a centrist country tilting center-left, and that’s the majority who voted for Obama.
The post-Bush-Rove Republican Party is in the minority because it has driven away women, the young, suburbanites, black Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, educated Americans, gay Americans and, increasingly, working-class Americans. Who’s left? The only states where the G.O.P. increased its percentage of the presidential vote relative to the Democrats were West Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. Even the North Carolina county where Palin expressed her delight at being in the “real America” went for Obama by more than 18 percentage points.
The actual real America is everywhere. It is the America that has been in shell shock since the aftermath of 9/11, when our government wielded a brutal attack by terrorists as a club to ratchet up our fears, betray our deepest constitutional values and turn Americans against one another in the name of “patriotism.” What we started to remember the morning after Election Day was what we had forgotten over the past eight years, as our abusive relationship with the Bush administration and its press enablers dragged on: That’s not who we are.
So even as we celebrated our first black president, we looked around and rediscovered the nation that had elected him. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Obama said in February, and indeed millions of such Americans were here all along, waiting for a leader. This was the week that they reclaimed their country. 11.09.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/opinion/09rich.html
19. Chris Hedges: America the Illiterate
We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and clichés. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.
The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge. 11.10.08 http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081110_america_the_illiterate/
20. Paul Krugman: Franklin Delano Obama?
History offers important lessons for the incoming administration.
The political lesson is that economic missteps can quickly undermine an electoral mandate. Democrats won big last week - but they won even bigger in 1936, only to see their gains evaporate after the recession of 1937-38. Americans don't expect instant economic results from the incoming administration, but they do expect results, and Democrats' euphoria will be short-lived if they don't deliver an economic recovery.
The economic lesson is the importance of doing enough. FDR thought he was being prudent by reining in his spending plans; in reality, he was taking big risks with the economy and with his legacy. My advice to the Obama people is to figure out how much help they think the economy needs, then add 50 percent. It's much better, in a depressed economy, to err on the side of too much stimulus than on the side of too little.
In short, Obama's chances of leading a new New Deal depend largely on whether his short-run economic plans are sufficiently bold.
Progressives can only hope that he has the necessary audacity. 11.10.08 http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/10/news/edkrugman.php
21. Christopher Buckley: Sarah Palin, the Sequel
With respect to Gov. Palin’s future, there are two likely narratives. One could be called “Forgetting Sarah Palin.” The second, “The Education of Sarah Palin.”
It would seem ungenerous and ungentlemanly to rehash the arguments in favor of scenario No. 1. Suffice to quote the incomparable Christopher Hitchens, who with his unequalled gift for le mot juste, reduced her to a “religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus.”
“The Education of Sarah Palin” script is—perhaps—already in development at Neo-Con Studios, helmed by the able team of William Kristol and Fred Barnes. Doubtless, they will have input from some of those standing on the starboard side of the cruise ship as she steams through the turquoise waters of what we used to call during the Reagan years the Caribbean Basin Initiative. Ou sont les sables d’antan!
It would be pointless, to say nothing of downright idiotic, to make predictions four years out. And anyway, the political fortunes of the Alaska governor are hardly Topic A at the moment. A bit more urgent is how to extricate ourselves from this stinker of a GECSTGD. (Greatest Economic Crisis Since The Great Depression.)
But politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum, and so we’re going to be hearing about it endlessly. If, in the months ahead, references start popping up about putative similarities between Gov. Palin and Gov. Ronald Reagan (western, charismatic, professional sportscasters in their youths, look great in a bathing suit, and—ha, ha, ho, ho—always underestimated!), then we’ll know that the second movie has been green-lighted and that principal casting has begun.
Meanwhile, the pollsters at Rasmussen Reports tell us—brace yourselves—that 91 percent of Republicans have a “favorable” view of Gov. Palin. One-third have a “very favorable” view of her. A mere 8 percent have an “unfavorable” view, and three percent have a “very unfavorable” view. I think I’ve met them. As for 2012, guess who comes in second as the most favored candidate? Mike Huckabee. I believe Hitchens dismissed him as a “clown.” Reagan, thou should be living at this hour. America hath need of thee… 11.10.08 http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-10/sarah-palin-the-sequel/
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