Thank goodness…

McConnell to Obama: You're no Margaret Thatcher

At least Barry's got that going for him.

Stuff I learned on the internet.

The top five authors of political books during the last decade have been prominent Democrats (Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Franken and Hilary Clinton, respectively).

I didn't know that until I read this.

Nice one…

…by Bob Weaver at Democratic Underground.


You can click it a bit bigger.

Just a few hours…

…and I'll be up to salute the new era over a champagne breakfast with the Brilliant and Beautiful Bride of Upper Left. Here's the uniform of the day…

The BBBUL's got one in white. Yeah, we're pretty hyped at this point.

It's just about here. It's going to happen.

It's been a long time comin'...

I hope they're right...

WASHINGTON (CNN) — More than two-thirds of African-Americans believe Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision for race relations has been fulfilled, a CNN poll found — a figure up sharply from a survey in early 2008.

...but I still have my doubts.

On the other hand, I admit that a year ago today I didn't imagine tomorrow would be possible. Whether the dream is fulfilled or not, the fact that I was wrong makes this the happiest MLK Day of 'em all.

'Course, I still have to go to work, but I'm not even going to grumble about it.

Practically President Obama…

...did join in on the singing for "This Land is Your Land."

Hey, maybe we can get him onboard…



(By the way, if anyone has a pointer to an mp3 of the Seeger/Springsteen performance, lemme know...)

The race may not go to the swift…

...nor the battle to the strong, but in the Senate, I'd bet on the side with the votes.

WASHINGTON — The nomination of Timothy Geithner to head the Treasury Department became a political tug of war Wednesday, with a top Senate Democrat saying that his confirmation is certain while a top Senate Republican said it wasn't.

Practically-President Obama seems to agree.

Pretty cool, huh?

Obamacards. With stickers and "inspiring quotes"!

A "major question"...

...as presented by Nancy A. Youssef for McClatchy...

Just how quickly the U.S. military can shift its weapons, tactics and mindset to Afghanistan after nearly seven years of training almost exclusively for Iraq is a major question as President-elect Barack Obama takes office promising to transfer combat units out of Iraq and into Afghanistan.

…brings to mind some other ones.

Like, for instance, how is it that we've been in Afghanistan longer than we've been in Iraq, with an ongoing commitment to the pursuit of Al Queda and the suppression of the Taliban being fundamental to an international "war on terror" promised on multiple fronts, and yet our military has been trained "almost exclusively" for Iraq. Kind of like the new baby getting all the attention at the expense of an older sibling, I guess.

Meanwhile, I'm wondering if the clock simply hasn't run out on any further productive pursuit of those twin missions of pursuit and suppression. In the former case, top leadership elements of Al Queda have proven quite elusive since we first closed in in the early days of the case. If we can locate them, which seems increasingly unlikely, it must be the case that we simply can't capture them, for a variety of reasons including questions of Pakistani sovereignty. The idea that the Bush administration had definitively located bin Laden & Co. and simply wouldn't act strains my credulity past the breaking point.

As to the latter element, our initial move against the Taliban was successful in removing them from national power, but before we could secure the ground we'd captured, the Iraqi diversion occurred. With nothing like the force needed to secure a national occupation, we have retreated to defending the capitol and some surrounding territory while the Taliban is resurgent in entire provinces, competing with drug lords and tribal factions, but hardly with American or NATO forces.

I'm not unsympathetic to the idea behind the plan Obama put forward during the campaign - to correct the error we made in taking our eye off the targets in Afghanistan who had legitimized themselves by launching and defending an attack on the United States. Once again shifting our attention back to those targets while bringing the diversionary activity in Iraq to an end seems reasonable enough on the surface. The ground, though, has shifted in the intervening years. One of our targets has become more obscure and elusive. The other has become, if anything, more formidable.

Meanwhile, we have an exhausted military, trained and equipped for the wrong tactics and the wrong terrain.

If a major new initiative on the Afghanistan front is one of the campaign promises Obama feels compelled to compromise, I'd be happy to overlook the oversight.

I suspect I'm not alone.

Did I say "alone"? Heck, looks like a crowd is forming...

And then there's the "honey do" list...

All I've gotta do is head for the perfect tavern for another double shift. Third in a row. Ouch.

I'm dragging the 12 string along, though, so Tuesday night tunes are on. Blogging will have to wait.

Thanks to Howie for the funny.

As usual...

… reading digby is beneficial.

Stay tuned. There are a lot of trial balloons being floated and we have no idea what's real and what isn't.

The full measure of change we need won't come as quickly as we'd like, as completely as we'd like or the ideal form in every instance that we'd like. Without continued vigilance and pressure, it likely won't come at all. We still have a long way to go.

Despite all that, though, there are long-absent opportunities at hand. The most disappointing rumblings from the Obama camp are still preferable to the proudest "achievements" of Bushco™.

To paraphrase Joe Hill, "Don't panic, organize."

He's got a secret.

The President-elect...

I think it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans.

See, I've been paying attention, and I didn't know that. I figure that a "fierce advocate for equality" would support giving my daughter and her partner recognition, protections, entitlements and benefits equal to those that my other daughter and her husband enjoy. Seems like a pretty minimal standard for "fierce" advocacy. It's called "marriage."

That's one of the reasons, I suppose, that the selection of Rev. Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation hasn't spiked my outrage as high as some other observers. Yes, I know, Obama came out against Prop. H8, and Warren was an advocate - a fierce advocate, you might say - for it, but at a base level, they both agree that one of my daughters should not be allowed to marry the person she loves, and should, as a result, be penalized for her affections. In fact, Warren actually invoked Obama's public opposition to marriage equality when he was stumping for H8.

Barack Obama is, though, a generally reliable ally on most issues involving the civil rights of GLBT Americans. Most though, isn't all, and fierce? That pretty much calls for all.

As for the Warren issue, like John Cole, I'll save my outrage for policy matters. Dump Don't Ask, Don't Tell in favor of enlistment equality, and fight for a repeal of DOMA and I can get over Rick Warren pretty quickly.

From the "Sez who?" file.

NBC Washington bureau chief Mark Whitaker on the President=elect...

"Our job is to hold him to account."

So, whose job is it to report the news, then?

I always thought the accountability piece belonged to the voters.

From the "Willing accomplice" file.

After running RNC Chair Mike Duncan's efforts to smear President=elect Obama with an imaginary link to Blago at the top of a post, the Hotline Blog reports the 'known knowns' and wonders...

...Obama did note today that he hadn't had any conversations about his successor with Blagojevich, and Obama said that he's "absolutely certain" his team was not engaged in any deal-making for his seat. He also pledged to release details of any meetings or conversations between his staff and Blagojevich.

What more exactly does Duncan want?

To get his smear at the top of as many blog posts and front pages as possible, maybe?

Just guessin'...

Quote of the day.

Via Darryl…

“An Obama job approval rating of 79 percent — that’s the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster. To many Americans, the Bush administration was a national disaster.”

Bill Schneider, CNN senior political analyst

Sheesh. I appear to be becoming mainstream in my autumnal years.

The bright spot…

…in the Blagojevich mess is that the next President of the United States comes across as encouragingly incorruptible (pre-bowdlerized by The Politico)...

[Blagojevich] also appears to think little of the president-elect, whom he calls a "motherf***er" at one point.

“F**k him,” Blagojevich says of Obama during a lengthy call with top aides and his wife recorded on November 10th, “For nothing? F**k him.”

In another section of the complaint, Blagojevich expresses exasperation that Obama and his team aren't willing to offer him an inducement in exchange for appointing an aide, apparently Valerie Jarrett, to the Senate.

Blagojevich "said he knows that the President-elect wants Senate Candidate 1 for the Senate seat but 'they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. F**k them,'" says the complaint.

I'm sure Barry O' appreciates the endorsement.

Hat tip to Joe Sudbay.

From the "Me neither" file.

TRex...

...I was never under the illusion that Barack Obama is Santa Claus and that The Plan was that he would make all our Progressive Dreams come true and give everybody a free scoop of Ben and Jerry’s in the process.

Me neither.

Of course, I'm still pretty skeptical of the whole notion of "Progressive Dreams," since it still seems to me that having been adopted by, among others, liberals afraid of being called "liberal," radicals afraid of being called "radical" and Republicans afraid of being called "Republican," "progressive" doesn't mean much at all.

Quote of the day.

The President-in-waiting...

"This isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about building a smarter government that focuses on what works."

I confess to lingering resentment about Bill Clinton's notorious declaration that the era of "big government" had come to an end. That's absurd, of course, in the context of a nation of hundreds of millions, with a vast territorial reach and vital social, economic and security interests on every continent. Worse, it implies that there's some legitimacy to the "big government" boogeyman that the right wing uses as a blunt weapon against every worthwhile government program or regulation.

Our government will be, by most any standard, "big." That's not the question. The question is, of course, whether the government is effective. Efficiency counts, too, but size? "Big" is unavoidable.

Nice to have a reality-based President on the horizon.

Hat tip to Jason Black at NPI.

From the "Since you asked" file.

Mike Malloy...

I would like to see Barack Obama succeed in leading this country back from the brink of collapse and on to the sort of balance we all desperately need.

Want to go along for the ride?

Since you asked, yes.

From the "Me neither" file.

Creature, via Fixer...

... I, for one, certainly didn't vote for Obama thinking he was Dennis Kucinich ...

Nope, me neither.