Site   Web
powered by

The Blog Formerly Known As Vote '08


Slanted by Ideas & Enchanted with the Truth

Archive for the 'Changing of the Guard' Category

THE LAST TIME WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY HAPPENED

January 7th, 2009, 12:06 pm by Dan Lehr

Above: October 6th, 1981. The last time all current & former presidents met at the White House.

Read a good account of this encounter here.

It’s happening again today with President Bush, the President-Elect, & the surviving presidents having a White House lunch.

Read more about that here.

& this reminds me of one of my favorite Presidential jokes:

Q: Which 4 U.S. presidents aren’t buried on U.S. soil?

Read the rest of this entry »

A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

January 5th, 2009, 4:40 pm by Dan Lehr

“How did we transform from champions of human dignity and individual rights into a nation of armchair torturers? One word: fear.

Read the rest of this entry »

INTERNAL BLAGO REPORT RELEASED

December 23rd, 2008, 4:43 pm by Dan Lehr

Read the report here (PDF file).

The gist:

Read the rest of this entry »

SWORN IN ON LINCOLN’s KORAN— ER, I MEAN BIBLE

December 23rd, 2008, 10:20 am by Dan Lehr

Above: a look at the Bible President Abraham Lincoln used in 1861, for the 1st time he was sworn in as President.

Barack Obama plans to become the 1st president since Lincoln to use it at an inauguration. Details here.

Sorry, couldn’t resist the headline. If you only knew how many conversations I had with NewsChannel9 callers about “whether he’d swear in using the Koran.”

To which I always said, paraphrasing Colin Powell, “he wouldn’t use a Koran, he’d use a Bible - but so what if he did?”

THE NEW MAN BEHIND THE PODIUM

December 22nd, 2008, 1:26 pm by Dan Lehr

From the New York Times Magazine, in a piece on Robert Gibbs, the new WH Press Secretary:

“Podium alums share a bipartisan kinship, signified by the ceremonial flak jacket that hangs in the closet of the press secretary’s West Wing office. It was placed there originally by Gerald Ford’s podium man, Ron Nessen. Outgoing press secretaries write notes of advice for their successors and leave them in one pocket. Every previous note remains there, neatly arranged and tied together in a ribbon. “You can’t see the jacket,” Perino told me when I visited her office a few days before Thanksgiving. It’s reserved for club members, apparently.”

The article also had this interesting nugget:

Read the rest of this entry »

NEW FACES FOR THE CABINET

December 16th, 2008, 11:14 am by Dan Lehr

YouTube Preview Image

Above: The President-elect announcing his energy & environment team, yesterday. (note: Al Gore’s in the mix, too.)

Read more about the team here, & about the looming challenges they face here. Read a positive review of Nobel-winning physicist Steven Chu (Obama’s pick for Energy Secretary) here.

Read skepticism over a complete energy policy makeover here.

Obama announced his Health & Human Services Secretary in Saturday’s radio address, which you can watch here.

Also, later this week: he’s expected to name Arne Duncan as Education Secretary (background here). Click here for a piece on why he’d be a good addition & here for a piece on why he wouldn’t.

& Colorado Senator Ken Salazar (oh-oh! another Senate seat open!) as Interior Secretary later this week; read more about that here.

SHORT SHRIFT FOR SOUTHERNERS?

December 15th, 2008, 9:52 am by Dan Lehr

On this, the anniversary of the release of ‘Gone with the Wind,’ Marc Ambinder points out the dearth of southerners in the incoming Obama cabinet.

UH-OH

December 10th, 2008, 4:44 pm by Dan Lehr

coyote-06.jpg

Marc Ambinder:

“It’s quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama’s transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse… a lot worse.

Read the rest of this entry »

BLAGOJEVICH BLUSTER IN THE BLOGOSPHERE

December 10th, 2008, 10:25 am by Dan Lehr

Happy Birthday, loser!

Boy, what a creep this guy is, huh?

Read the rest of this entry »

BREAKING THE MOLD

December 4th, 2008, 3:30 pm by Dan Lehr

There’s a lot of ways to read into Obama’s recent choices for his cabinet; Marc Ambinder tries to find some commonalities, including this:

Read the rest of this entry »

A WATCHED PHONE NEVER RINGS

December 3rd, 2008, 4:40 pm by Dan Lehr

Kinda sad - but kinda funny - post at the Washington Note, written by a person, according to Steve Clemons, “who really does deserve a very top spot in Obama Land but is sitting pensively waiting for a call while trying to pretend he/she is not:”

“…I wait in a state of suspended ambition. I too have the dreams featuring, in no apparent order, Vice President Elect Joe Biden, Secretary of State-designate Hilary Clinton and, yes, even the man himself, President-Elect Obama.

Sometimes in these dreams they offer me a job, and sometimes they say they can’t offer me a job because they can’t find my resume amidst the other 300,000 on www.change.gov. I wake in a cold sweat.

Read the rest of this entry »

TWO LOCAL OBAMA TRANSITION DONORS

December 1st, 2008, 3:25 pm by Dan Lehr

It’s common to give to a presidential campaign; it’s far less common to give to a presidential transition.

Today the Obama Transition team released its list of 1776 donors on its website, & they include a pair of local folks:

Read the rest of this entry »

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER BAILOUT

November 24th, 2008, 10:30 am by Dan Lehr
YouTube Preview Image

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush says there could be more decisions like the government’s dramatic rescue of Citigroup if other institutions need help.
Bush also says he consulted with President-elect Barack Obama on the Citigroup rescue. Bush says “There is close cooperation” between his administration and the Obama camp.
Referring to the Citigroup rescue, Bush said “We have made these kind of decisions in the past. We made one last night and if need be we will make these kind of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future.”
He spoke outside the Treasury Department after consulting with Secretary Henry Paulson.

Read more about the Citigroup bailout here.

HE’D RATHER HAVE HER INSIDE THE TENT…

November 21st, 2008, 3:37 pm by Dan Lehr

Well, it looks like after several days of waffling, Hillary Clinton has decided to accept President-Elect Obama’s offer to be Secretary of State:

Mrs. Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation. Mr. Obama’s office told reporters Thursday that the nomination is “on track” but Clinton associates only confirmed Friday afternoon that she has decided.

The good news about this pick: it sends a great signal - & lesson - to world leaders who have rivals & factions & sects of their own. (see LBJ’s famous (& warning: salty) quote to understand the philosophy behind it)

She will be a good “face of the USA” around the world, there’s no question.

But in another respect, you should color me none-too-happy about this development.

Why?

I chose the picture above for a reason:

Read the rest of this entry »

MEET OUR NEW TREASURY SECRETARY…?

November 21st, 2008, 2:40 pm by Dan Lehr

MSNBC reports this man is whom Obama will tap to become perhaps the most important cabinet positions of ‘em all.

Yeah, I didn’t know who he was either.

Read on to find out (somewhat) more about him.

Read the rest of this entry »

THE HOLDOVER

November 21st, 2008, 9:51 am by Dan Lehr

Time Magazine’s Mark Thompson weighs the pros & cons of keeping Robert Gates on as Defense Secretary:

“Keeping Gates would make for a smoother transition amid two wars. (But that’s why the uniformed military leaders who are actually running the wars, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, don’t change when a new Administration takes over).

Keeping the Defense Secretary would continue his push to focus the military services on insurgencies of the type they’re facing in Iraq and Afghanistan, rather than on the hypothetical conventional wars for which they prefer to plan — and for which they continue to order up costly weapons. (But continuity would also keep Pentagon spending, already at World War II levels, climbing into the stratosphere on autopilot.)

Read the rest of this entry »

‘BEHIND THE SCENES’ AT THE TRANSITION: CLIMATE CHANGE

November 20th, 2008, 7:55 am by Dan Lehr
YouTube Preview Image

Above: the most recent offering from Change.gov.

I put ‘behind the scenes’ in quotes because you had better believe that this is not the full picture of what’s really going on behind the scenes.

Still: it’s nice to see the attempt at transparency.

Also from the blog: Obama addresses the Global Climate Summit earlier this week:

Read the rest of this entry »

PRIOR PRESIDENTIAL PITFALLS

November 17th, 2008, 5:12 pm by Dan Lehr

MSNBC runs through the early mistakes in the Clinton, Carter, & Kennedy administrations as lessons for Obama to learn. For Kennedy, it was the Bay of Pigs; for Carter, it was bringing in too many of his own people; for Clinton, it was pretty much everything.

Read the rest of this entry »

OBAMA ON 60 MINUTES

November 17th, 2008, 9:30 am by Dan Lehr

His 1st post-election interview.

Watch it here.

Read the transcript here (part 1), here, (part 2), & here (part 3).

Some highlights:

Read the rest of this entry »

CHANGING OF THE GUARD UPDATE

November 14th, 2008, 5:13 pm by Dan Lehr
YouTube Preview Image

From Change.gov.

THE 1st NEWS CONFERENCE AS PRESIDENT-ELECT

November 7th, 2008, 6:44 pm by Dan Lehr

YouTube Preview Image

Read the transcript as you watch, after the jump, plus, my take on what worked & what definitely didn’t…

Read the rest of this entry »

E-DAY PLUS 3, I-DAY MINUS 77***

November 7th, 2008, 9:41 am by Dan Lehr

Hamilton County Voter Turnout Bucks National Trend

Thanks go to my News Director, who found these on Hamilton County’s Election Commission site:

2008: 72%

2004: 78%

2000: 64%

1996: 67%

Nationwide 2008 turnout: Estimated at 62.5%, up from 60.3%

,

Unemployment Spikes

We learn today that 240,000 jobs were lost in October; the national rate goes up from 6.1% to 6.5%.

Read more about it here.

.

Transition Underway

Illinois Congressman Rahm Emmanuel signs on as WH Chief of Staff. Read the statements from both Obama & Emanuel here.

Why Rahm? Marc Ambinder muses.

Hillary Clinton approves of the pick, House Minority Leader John Boehner does not.

The Emanuel pick signals the transition will be quick; read more about the overall plan here.

Obama plans to give his 1st news conference as president-elect; read more about what he’ll reveal today here.

Before that newser, he’ll hold a conference with his economic advisers; read more about that here.

.

The Autopsy: What Went Wrong?

Charles Krauthammer says it was the economy:

“We have never had a full-fledged financial panic in the middle of a presidential campaign. Consider. If the S&P 500 were to close at the end of the year where it did on Election Day, it will have suffered this year its steepest drop since 1937. That is 71 years.

At the same time, the economy had suffered nine consecutive months of job losses. Considering the carnage to both capital and labor (which covers just about everybody), even a Ronald Reagan could not have survived. The fact that John McCain got 46 percent of the electorate when 75 percent said the country was going in the wrong direction is quite remarkable.”

Andrew Sullivan disagrees with Krauthammer’s premise.

He’s correct in that assessment, but I’d also give as much weight to the damaged Republican brand.

It’s my view that that the country did not swing more Democratic, as some left-leaning sites are saying. I would say this is a vote more against ideology & for pragmatism. This is a trend I’ve tracked ever since August 29th, 2005. & I believe Tuesday’s voters weren’t necessarily giving Democrats a big thumbs up - they were giving a thumbs-down to the ineffective policies of the party in power, which happened to be the Republicans.

Voters are hungry for results & had their fill of ideologues.

As I’ve said to many in the past 3 years, the successful politicians will be those who work to deliver results to their consituencies - no matter which party they belong to.

More thoughts throughout the day.

Weigh in yourself! Why did McCain lose?

***(note: “e-day” = election day, “i-day” = inauguration day)

7-Day Forecast
WX Warnings
StormTrack 9 Blog
7 Day Forecast
StormTrack 9 Radar
CURRENT CONDITIONS: Chattanooga Airport
Fair and 35 F (2 C)
Wind: From the North at 8 MPH
Dewpoint: 18 F (-8 C)
Pressure: 30.10" (1019.5 mb)
Last Updated: January 8, 2009 - 9:20PM
ADVERTISEMENT 
ADVERTISEMENT 
powered by
google
Search
        Search: Web    Site