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WP: Why the Uniter Divided Us By E. J. Dionne Jr. Monday, January 19, 2009; A19 There are many reasons why most Americans are not mourning President Bush's departure. But our new president would do well to concentrate on the deeper causes of the public's disaffection with the man headed to Texas. From the very beginning of his presidency, won courtesy of a divisive Supreme Court decision that abruptly ended his contest with Al Gore, Bush misunderstood the nature of his lease on power, the temper of the country and the proper role of partisanship in our political life. His win-at-all-costs strategy in Florida became a template for much of his presidency, reflected especially in the way the Justice Department was politicized. Bush did not respect the obligation of a leader in a free society to forge a durable consensus. He was better at announcing policies than explaining them. He dismissed legitimate opposition and plausible doubts about the courses he wished to pursue. It is partly because of these failures that Americans reacted by selecting a successor with such a profoundly different political personality. Barack Obama's first response to a political problem is to offer a detailed analysis and put the challenge into some larger context. He loves sparring with his intellectual adversaries. And his "if you have a better idea, I'll take it" approach is the antithesis of the my-way-or-the-highway politics of the past eight years. Bush was capable of considerable charm, but he never really engaged his opponents. He rolled over them. He did not try to win expansive electoral majorities. Instead, he sought to build a compact, ideologically pure coalition that he could use on behalf of dramatic conservative departures. He claimed mandates he did not have.... *** Our new president will make his own characteristic mistakes. He risks overestimating his capacity to persuade his most implacable foes. He may forget that a two-party system inevitably creates its own dynamic of loyalty and opposition. But he is decidedly not an us-vs.-them guy. He gets both the uses and the limits of partisanship. He has been known to quote the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr on the dangers of moral arrogance. He could make nuance and complexity cool again. Of course it will take more than that to be successful. But it's a start. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...
President-Elect Sees His Race as An Opportunity By Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 19, 2009; A01 Throughout his barrier-breaking presidential campaign, Barack Obama avoided calling direct attention to race, long a divisive force in electoral politics. But now, as he stands on the verge of becoming the nation's first African American president, Obama is talking more about how his racial identity can unify and transform the country. "There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American," Obama said in an interview last week with The Washington Post. "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that." Beyond the symbolism of his historic achievement, Obama said, he hopes to use his presidency as an example of how people can bridge differences -- racial and otherwise. "What I hope to model is a way of interacting with people who aren't like you and don't agree with you that changes the temper of our politics," he said. "And then part of that changes how we think about moving forward on race relations. Race relations becomes a subset of a larger problem in our society, which is we have a diverse, complicated society where people have a lot of different viewpoints."... *** During the campaign, some black leaders grumbled that Obama was not vocal enough in articulating an African American agenda. But many of the initiatives Obama has championed -- creation of construction and manufacturing jobs, middle-class tax breaks, expansion of health care, increased funding for education -- would disproportionately benefit working-class people, many of them black. "I think a lot of the biggest challenges in terms of the African American community or Latino community have to do with economics," Obama said in the Post interview. "And if we get our economics right, then in my mind that is always a mechanism to improve race relations." At the same time, Obama has been able to use the reality of being biracial as a unifying fact, something he has been able to do for much of his political career.... *** "I think what you'll see in the White House will reflect Barack's view of the world," said Obama's longtime friend Marty Nesbitt. "It will be open and accommodating, and it will reflect what America looks like, which is broad and diverse. That is not because of some overt strategy, but that is because of who Barack is." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...
NYT: Obama Reaches Out for McCain’s Counsel By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK Published: January 18, 2009 WASHINGTON — Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama. As contenders for the presidency, the two had hammered each other for much of 2008 over their conflicting approaches to foreign policy, especially in Iraq. (He’d lose a war! He’d stay a hundred years!) Now, however, Mr. Obama said he wanted Mr. McCain’s advice, people in each camp briefed on the conversation said. What did he see on the trip? What did he learn? It was just one step in a post-election courtship that historians say has few modern parallels, beginning with a private meeting in Mr. Obama’s transition office in Chicago just two weeks after the vote. On Monday night, Mr. McCain will be the guest of honor at a black-tie dinner celebrating Mr. Obama’s inauguration. Over the last three months, Mr. Obama has quietly consulted Mr. McCain about many of the new administration’s potential nominees to top national security jobs and about other issues — in one case relaying back a contender’s answers to questions Mr. McCain had suggested. Mr. McCain, meanwhile, has told colleagues “that many of these appointments he would have made himself,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a close McCain friend. Fred I. Greenstein, emeritus professor of politics at Princeton, said, “I don’t think there is a precedent for this. Sometimes there is bad blood, sometimes there is so-so blood, but rarely is there good blood.” Professor Greenstein said Mr. Obama’s impulse to win over even ideological opposites appeared to date at least to his friendships with conservatives on The Harvard Law Review when he was president. For Mr. Obama, cooperation with his defeated opponent could also provide a useful ally in the Senate, where Mr. McCain has parlayed his national popularity and go-his-own-way reputation into a role as a pivotal dealmaker over the last eight years. But on the subject of Iraq, in particular, their collaboration could also raise questions among Mr. Obama’s liberal supporters, many of whom demonized Mr. McCain as a dangerous warmonger because of his staunch opposition to a pullout.... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/us/polit...
NYT: Lyrical Messages About an Inclusive America By JON PARELES Published: January 18, 2009  (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Bruce Springsteen performed at “We Are One,” a concert on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial celebrating Barack Obama’s inauguration. WASHINGTON — Gospel and soul set the tone on Sunday afternoon for “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.” The African-American music that finds the promise of hope amid tribulation was just about everybody’s music at an all-star event designed to be somberly uplifting and devout, as well as celebratory without triumphalism. The county music star Garth Brooks had a youth choir — in red and blue windbreakers — singing along as he segued “American Pie” into the Isley Brothers’ soul classic “Shout” and then his own ’We Shall Be Free,” a gospel-rooted song about community and the end of discrimination. And the concert’s finale belonged to Beyoncé, whose “America the Beautiful” started out sultry and turned into a hymn. In some ways, “We Are One” was the kind of all-star inaugural pageant that also began the Clinton presidency: pop performances sandwiched between quotations from presidents — and, at “We Are One,” from Rosa Parks and Thurgood Marshall — calling for unity and renewal. Hundreds of thousands of people attended, and it was telecast and broadcast live by HBO and National Public Radio.... Yet “We Are One” was also very consciously a recognition that Mr. Obama is America’s first African-American president-elect. There was video from the concert Marian Anderson gave at the Lincoln Memorial in 1939, after being refused the use of Constitution Hall. When the sexagenarian soul singer Bettye LaVette and the New Jersey rocker Jon Bon Jovi sang Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” they changed the last verse to declare: “A change has come.” And when U2 sang “Pride (In the Name of Love),” its song about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Bono spoke about the 1962 March on Washington and added, “On Tuesday, that dream comes to pass!”... *** It was, by design, a concert full of messages about an inclusive America. Its penultimate song had Mr. Seeger, who survived being blacklisted during the McCarthy era, leading a singalong on a full-length version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” with one of his admirers, Mr. Springsteen, by his side. Tom Hanks narrated Aaron Copeland’s orchestral setting of quotations from Lincoln, “A Lincoln Portrait.” But not all was earnestness. When Jamie Foxx followed quotations from Thurgood Marshall with quotations from Mr. Obama, he did an affectionate impression of Mr. Obama’s own delivery — drawing laughs down the length of the mall, and a broad, delighted smile from the president-elect. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/19/arts/mus...
A New National Scripture By ANTHONY LEWIS Published: January 16, 2009  ....“I have a dream” is the refrain by which (the speech the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave at the March on Washington in 1963) is known — better known to Americans today than any other speech, even the Gettysburg Address. (In 2008, according to one study, 97 percent of American teenagers recognized the words as King’s.) But for all its familiarity and indisputable greatness, the origins and larger meaning of the speech are not generally understood. The speech and all that surrounds it — background and consequences — are brought magnificently to life in Eric Sundquist’s new book, “King’s Dream.” A professor of literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, Sundquist has written about race and ethnicity in American culture. In this book he gives us drama and emotion, a powerful sense of history combined with illuminating scholarship. A remarkable fact of which I was unaware is that the last third of the speech — the part about the dream — was extemporized by King. He had a text, completed the night before. But as he was addressing the crowd, protesting the indignities and brutalities suffered by blacks, he put the prepared speech aside, paused for a moment and then introduced an entirely new theme. “I still have a dream,” he said. “It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ ” With that quotation from the Declaration of Independence, King made clear that his vision of the future for black Americans was for them to be part of the larger society, not embittered opponents of it. He reiterated the point a few minutes later. Faith in his dream, he said, will bring a day “when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.’ ” Those “I have a dream” paragraphs still bring tears to my eyes. The sources of that last third of the speech, fascinatingly explored by Sundquist, include King’s own previous speeches, Negro spirituals, the Bible. We hear Handel’s “Messiah” when he says, “I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted.” But of course the words come from the book of Isaiah.... *** Why did King abandon his written text that day at the Memorial? It may be, Sundquist suggests, that despite shouts of approval he felt he had not really connected with the audience. His wife, Coretta Scott King, thought the words “flowed from some higher place.” In any event, the result was for the ages. “Speaking suddenly from the heart,” Sundquist writes, “he delivered a speech elegantly structured, commanding in tone, and altogether more profound than anything heard on American soil in nearly a century. In the midst of speaking, King rewrote his speech and created a new national scripture.”... (Anthony Lewis, a former Times columnist, is the author of “Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment.”) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/books/re...
Source: NYT, Page One, lead storyPresident-elect Barack Obama is riding a powerful wave of optimism into the White House, with Americans confident he can turn the economy around but prepared to give him years to deal with the crush of problems he faces starting Tuesday, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll. While hopes for the new president are extraordinarily high, the poll found, expectations for what Mr. Obama will actually be able to accomplish appear to have been tempered by the scale of the nation’s problems at home and abroad. The findings suggest that Mr. Obama has achieved some success with his effort, which began with his victory speech in Chicago in November, to gird Americans for a slow economic recovery and difficult years ahead after a campaign that generated striking enthusiasm and high hopes for change. Most Americans said they did not expect real progress in improving the economy, reforming the health care system or ending the war in Iraq — three of the central promises of Mr. Obama’s campaign — for at least two years. The poll found that two-thirds of respondents think the recession will last two years or longer. As the nation prepares for a transfer of power and the inauguration of its 44th president, Mr. Obama’s stature with the American public stands in sharp contrast to that of President Bush. Mr. Bush is leaving office with just 22 percent of Americans offering a favorable view of how he handled the eight years of his presidency, a record low, and firmly identified with the economic crisis Mr. Obama is inheriting. More than 80 percent of respondents said the nation was in worse shape today than it was five years ago. By contrast, 79 percent were optimistic about the next four years under Mr. Obama, a level of good will for a new chief executive that exceeds that measured for any of the past five incoming presidents. And it cuts across party lines: 58 percent of the respondents who said they voted for Mr. Obama’s opponent in the general election, Senator John McCain of Arizona, said they were optimistic about the country in an Obama administration.... Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/us/polit...
Source: CNNHours after Israel and Hamas both said they would abide by a fragile cease-fire in Gaza, top Obama advisor David Axelrod told CNN’s John King Sunday to expect the president-elect to take diplomatic action worldwide “early and aggressively” after he’s sworn in, using career diplomats and special envoys. “I think that the events around the world demand that he act quickly, and I think you'll see him act quickly,” he said in an appearance on State of the Union. He also said again that Obama will be meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to “begin an orderly and responsible withdrawal from Iraq. He will be doing many of the other things that you heard him commit to during the campaign.” Axelrod and other senior Obama advisors have spent the past few weeks in discussions with congressional leadership on the shape of a stimulus package that currently stands at roughly $850 billion. “Well, first of all, let me say I think it's telling that (Obama’s) first acts happened before he was president,” the senior aide told King Sunday. “He came to town two weeks early to begin working on an economic recovery package, because getting this economy moving again is absolutely paramount. And so he is going to continue to work on that. Obviously, there are limits to what we can do, but we do have to think boldly right now, that the scope of the emergency we face is so large that economists from the right to the left agree we have to do something big.” The Obama stimulus plan is currently under consideration in the Senate. Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/...
Source: CNNA new national poll suggests that Barack Obama is more popular than ever, regardless of recent speed bumps on the road to transition. The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Sunday morning also indicates that most Americans see Obama's inauguration as a chance for the nation to come together. Eighty-four percent of those questioned in the survey say they approve of how Barack Obama is handling his presidential transition. That is up two points from the middle of December and up five points from the beginning of December. The rise in approval also comes after a series of missteps in the Obama transition the past few weeks — situations that have included New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announcing that he was withdrawing his nomination as commerce secretary, calling a federal grand jury investigation in his home state a distraction; the disclosure of Treasury Secretary nominee Timothy Geithner's failure to pay $34,000 in taxes, and some initial pushback by Republicans and even some Democrats to the naming of Leon Panetta as CIA director. "If the public is blaming Obama for those missteps, it isn't registering in his approval rating," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "You know the country is in the middle of a honeymoon when six in 10 Republicans have a positive view of Obama."... Read more: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/...
WP op-ed: At Long Last, Ready for the Real Deal By Maya Angelou Sunday, January 18, 2009; Page B05 In September 2008, I was invited to introduce Michelle Obama at an event in Greensboro, N.C. I had met her fleetingly during the Democratic National Convention in Boston, but I had no real sense of her personality. I telephoned Oprah Winfrey, aware that she knew the Obamas, and asked, "What is your take on Michelle Obama?" Oprah answered promptly and with conviction, "She is the real deal." I waited backstage in the Carolina Theatre wings. Mrs. Obama arrived, and we sat and talked for 45 minutes. We spoke about family, the economy, youth obesity, television, music, cooking and men. I was completely won over. She neither postured nor preened. I sensed no subterfuge in her conversation. She said what she thought and said it clearly, without bombast. When I was cued to go onto the stage, I shook hands with her warmly and went to the microphone. The theater was packed, and there was no standing room. I told the audience of some of Mrs. Obama's accomplishments, and then I told them of the conversation that I had had with Oprah. I ended my introduction by saying, "Now ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the 'real deal.' " The room exploded with the tumultuous sound of whistles and shouts, feet stamping and hands clapping. In the midst of all that explosive sound, Mrs. Obama took the time to thank me as she passed on her way to the microphone.... *** Sen. Jesse Helms appeared to rule the state of North Carolina from 1973 to 2003. He appeared to speak for all white Carolinians. Yet what I had just seen was Michelle Obama captivating an audience of white Carolinians who supported her husband. They were still shouting as I struggled to comprehend the event. The noise abated as Mrs. Obama stressed her husband's desire for fair play for all Americans. He had included whites, blacks, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans in his vision for our country. As Michelle Obama spoke, the assemblage showed its approval by applauding, standing and shouting out encouragement. "That's right, you say it," some called out, and a few even added, "You go, girl." I went home quietly and sat alone, giving myself time to understand the optimism I'd seen on the faces of all the people in that theater. Over the past five decades, our national spirit has ebbed, our self-confidence has waned. The presence of Barack Obama seems to return us to our national motto: "Yes, I can. I am an American." In the 18th century, Alexander Pope wrote, in his poem "An Essay on Man": "Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest." Many believe that this time, our nation has been blest. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...
WP: His Way With Words: Cadence and Credibility By Henry Allen Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 17, 2009 ....As much as anything else, Obama won the presidency with words. Obama is an orator.... *** This is an age of media hipness, when we're virtuosos of data bounced off satellites, when we get weird as wizards, talking on cellphones to electronic ghosts constructed of bandwidths and wavelengths. But Obama has reminded us that none of this modern science has the power of the human animal standing up on two feet and talking -- a sort of ritual shouting, actually, even chanting: oratory, probably not much different than the way it was done by the Old Ones in the forest primeval. We're not used to this. People call it "preternatural." "The crowd was quiet now, watching me," Barack Obama has written of discovering this power in college. "Somebody started to clap. 'Go on with it, Barack,' somebody else shouted. 'Tell it like it is.' Then the others started in, clapping, cheering, and I knew that I had them, that the connection had been made." Connect. Yes, we can. Connect with repetition, cadences, attitude, rises and falls of tone. Yes, we can. Obama's speech on Super Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2008: "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." This is poetry. WE are the ONES we've been WAITing for. It's ancient English metrics: WE are the CHANGE that we SEEK, a chant of dactyls, DA-da-da, DA-da-da, as in Longfellow's "THIS is the FORest primEVal." Rock it, Obama.... Analysts of Obama's oratory cite the influence of African American preaching tradition, but the influence is older, rooted like a mangrove in the swamp of the nervous system. "It's about the tune, not the lyrics, with Obama," says Philip Collins, who wrote speeches for Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. In a BBC report, Collins cites "the way he slides down some words and hits others -- the intonation, the emphasis, the pauses and the silences."... *** And there's the charisma factor in his oratory, the quality that powered Kennedy's stunning inaugural speech in the wild winter sunlight that day in 1961: "Pay any price, bear any burden" (alliteration: "pay"/"price," "bear"/"burden"); "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country" (the Greeks called this chiasmus, meaning a reversal of terms -- "country"/"you," "you"/"country"). About a century ago, Max Weber, the sociologist, said charisma defined its bearers as "set apart from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman or at least specifically exceptional powers." Obama has it now. It's impossible to believe it could fade, but it could.... With Obama's oratory there is also the factor of cool, which could be a subcategory of charisma.... Hence Obama's demeanor at the lectern -- the face lifted as if with a casual curiosity; utterly unneedy, like an aristocrat or a minor god; eyes narrowed with knowing that you know he knows you know.... He seems at ease with power. Recent presidents have hidden their personal power, their force, during their speeches. Maybe they were afraid of seeming like bullies, of offending political correctness by seeming macho. George H.W. Bush and Lyndon Johnson felt obliged to hide their aggressiveness behind forced smiles. They were men who acted like boys in futile hopes of reassuring their listeners. Obama has the charm of a boy acting like a man -- the magic of the boy king. His smile -- a big one -- is easy.... Speeches still have gestures, but they're more subtle....Obama has his smile, his thoughtful stare into the distance and his cool grace. Radio, amplification and film...introduced a conversational tone into speeches....Obama uses it to gain intimacy and trust, and to set off, by contrast, his higher-volume calls for belief and support. The sound and sight of a human being calling loudly to us still has force, maybe as much as it ever did. Now Obama is working the magic that we thought was part of the past. How enthralling. Feels so good.... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...
Source: NYT/APA top adviser to Barack Obama says the soon-to-be president will convene a meeting of high-ranking military officers to discuss the Iraq war and other issues on his first full day in office. The adviser said Wednesday's meeting will involve the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military commanders and aides. The adviser would speak only on condition of anonymity because the meeting has not been formally announced. Campaigning last summer, Obama said of Iraq: ''I intend to end this war. My first day in office, I will bring the Joint Chiefs of Staff in, and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war responsibly and deliberately but decisively.'' Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/01/17...
"FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA" National Geographic Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTrD9BEW-rU American landscapes, presented for the Inauguration of Barack Obama, Tuesday, January 20, 2009.  "CONGRATULATIONS, AND GODSPEED, MISTER PRESIDENT"
WP: The Age of Abe The Smithsonian's First Major Lincoln Retrospective Takes an Honest Look at the Towering Man By Philip Kennicott Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 16, 2009; Page C01  When Abraham Lincoln's top hat was brought to the Smithsonian in 1867, the top brass issued a gag order about its arrival. Secretary Joseph Henry worried that the hat would become a distraction. The Smithsonian's purpose, after all, was scientific. Although it already had some important historical and political treasures in its collection, it was not primarily a warehouse for presidential icons. And so, according to the National Museum of American History's Harry R. Rubenstein, curator of the new exhibition "Abraham Lincoln: An Extraordinary Life," the hat went into a box and straight into storage at the Smithsonian Castle. There is no reticence about showing it today. The ratty old hat, which has frayed around its edges and faded like an Old Master painting in a drafty church, is now the first and last thing you see when touring this small but poignant exhibition. Brent Glass, director of the museum, says the show, mounted as part of the Smithsonian's institution-wide celebration of the Lincoln birth bicentennial, is the Smithsonian's first major retrospective devoted to the 16th president. It is small but thorough, with objects ranging from Lincoln's blue-collar days as a young man in Illinois to the funeral pall that covered his casket. The exhibition opens today, in time for the inauguration crowds, but it was planned before the nation decided to elect Barack Obama, whose Illinois pedigree, long and lanky form, and self-professed admiration for Lincoln make the exhibition accidentally relevant to the new national mood. The Obamamania/Lincoln fetish echoes Lincoln's own self-fashioning. And the strength of "An Extraordinary Life" is its candor about these kinds of political myth.... *** What gets you into office can be a burden once in office. Rail-splitting, and even scientific invention, aren't necessarily qualifications for the social and political skill it takes to make the White House function as a power center. Next to the crude bricks of the Lincoln political myth, the exhibition displays the polished stone of the presidential facade: a silver service, gold watches, a beautiful purple dress with white satin piping for the first lady, all status symbols meant to establish the White House as an elegant cultural cynosure. Lincoln's success as president, the rhetoric that seemed to come from the deepest, Christian conscience of the nation, and the Emancipation Proclamation have all erased direct memory of the contradictions and masks he had to wear.... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...
WP: Bush Ends With a Whimper By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, January 16, 2009 President Bush bid the nation goodbye last night with a simpering speech that may have appealed to those who still believe in him, but offered nothing to change the minds of the vast majority of Americans who don't. Bush smirked and twitched while delivering a highly defensive farewell address in which he tried to hearken back to his glory days right after 9/11, sought credit for having made "tough decisions" and insisted his intentions were good. There was no real attempt to bind the wounds he leaves in his wake. There was no apparent awareness of irony when he held up his administration as a champion of moral clarity and human dignity. He even gave himself credit for his response to the financial crisis he didn't see coming: "When challenges to our prosperity emerged, we rose to meet them," he said. And he tried one last time to conflate his "war on terror" with the unrelated debacle in Iraq, recasting the American troops perilously occupying that benighted country as "part of a broader struggle" between "a small band of fanatics" who demand "total obedience to an oppressive ideology" and a system "based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God, and that liberty and justice light the path to peace." In a fitting end for a presidency that has often operated in its own reality, Bush was greeted warmly by his audience -- a hand-picked selection of hangers-on and human props -- even as public-opinion polls show that the nation is way past ready to move on. David Hiltbrand writes in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "At times, as he spoke before a handpicked audience in the East Room, Bush seemed as if he were channeling the Will Ferrell spoof of him, the blithely unaware leader who had declared the Oval Office 'a bummer-free zone.' The closest he came to acknowledging failure was a vague wave in its general direction. 'I have experienced setbacks,' he said. 'There are things I would do differently if given the chance.' But the strain Bush has been under showed. His right eye kept narrowing to an uncontrollable squint." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...
WP: A Plaque on All Their Houses By Dana Milbank Friday, January 16, 2009; Page A03 It seemed at first as if a prankster had hacked his way into the White House e-mail system. "Ceremony to Commemorate Foreign Policy Achievements," said the advisory from the White House Office of Presidential Advance. Two wars, the brink of global depression, and violence from Mumbai to Gaza? Par-tee! With fanfare, they walked into the gilded Benjamin Franklin Room of the State Department yesterday: President Bush, the first lady, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Rice's deputy, John Negroponte. They had come to praise great people. Namely, themselves. Rice presented Laura Bush with a framed "Certificate of Appreciation." Then she presented Bush with a "commemorative plaque." And another commemorative plaque, which, like the first, was sheathed in a gold curtain. Finally, she had an honor guard present her boss with five flags in nifty triangular boxes. "Mr. President, we've been through a lot together," Rice told Bush. "We've been through a lot together," Bush told Rice. "Mr. President, history's judgment is rarely the same as today's headlines," Rice assured Bush. "History will say that Condi Rice was one of the great secretaries of state our country has ever had," Bush assured Rice. Bush hung a Presidential Medal of Freedom around the neck of Ryan Crocker, his ambassador to Iraq. Everybody stood to applaud, and the president left to a Sousa march. As one might expect of a Ceremony to Commemorate Foreign Policy Achievements of the Bush Administration, it did not last very long.... *** (N)obody has been dishing out -- and seeking -- as much adulation as the current president. On Monday, he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to three world leaders, including former Australian prime minister John Howard (who had taken up residence at Blair House, across the street from the White House, and prevented the Obama family from moving in). To highlight his own praiseworthiness, Bush has released two legacy-burnishing booklets, the 40-page "100 Things Americans May Not Know About the Bush Administration Record" and the 50-page "Highlights of Accomplishments and Results of the Administration of George W. Bush." Laudatory though they are, pamphlets can't touch the grandeur of a ceremony at the State Department -- and Rice put on a show for her boss yesterday with all the fixings: the crystal light fixtures, the presentation of the colors, the framed medals and flags. With a flourish, the military aide pulled back curtain No. 1 to reveal the first plaque, and curtain No. 2 to reveal the second plaque. "This one shows what you have done to expand the circle of human freedom in the world," Rice announced. Bush had no awards for Rice, but he did come with praise for her ("She's like my sister") and for himself. "In short, we've made our alliances stronger, we've made our nation safer, and we have made the world freer," he said. And now he has proof: two commemorative plaques, a handsome boxed flag set, and a certificate for the wife. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...
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WELCOME!
 Welcome to DeepModem Mom's Keyboard! You'll find here a mixture of the important and the trivial, the profound and the silly -- whatever particularly piques my interest at the moment, usually from media sources. You'll also find quite a few entries about the media itself. As a "news junkie" since the age of ten, I have sadly watched much of our media, through the Bush years, fail to fulfill its role as the essential fourth branch of our democratic system of government, informing the people and protecting our right to know. (A NOTE: My webpage comes through the courtesy of the website www.democraticunderground.com . The site is a community of progressives, many of them news and political junkies like myself, and a source for an astounding amount of information. While the site is moderated, those who post there are unrestricted re. profanity and good taste. Welcome to the wild new frontier of the Internet. As you would expect from a Mom, there will be no profanity on this page, and the Keyboard will strive to remain well within the bounds of good taste.)  "Deep Throat" Mark Felt was at the centre of one of the longest-running mysteries in journalism. (BBC)  David Straithairn as Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night, and Good Luck" * "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson MOM'S DID-YOU-KNOW-THIS LIST
 A LEAVE OF ABSENCE, or a possible farewell to the Keyboard, 1/21/09: My purpose for the Keyboard was to inform. It was to make clear my view that the leadership of our country, since January, 2001, was not legitimate, and to shine a light on the consequences of that illegitimacy. I felt the democratic system the Founders left us was endangered not only by the illegitimacy itself, but by the lack of respect those in power had for that system and for our Constitution. With the inauguration of Barack Obama, legitimate government is restored to the U.S. The system the Founders gave us corrected itself. Not only is legitimacy restored, but a great majority of the American people now understand the consequences of illegitimate government. They have seen the damage inflicted by government – not of, by and for the people – but of Dick Cheney, by Karl Rove, and for George W. Bush. They can look around them and see where that kind of government has brought us. I have no interest in criticism of President Obama as he tries to pick up the pieces, make us whole again, and take us forward together. He faces odds that seem insurmountable. But we have faced those odds before. And leaders of greatness -- leaders able to lead with the power of words – have appeared to lead us: the Founders, Lincoln, FDR. It may take adding Barack Obama to that list for us to endure, and I believe he may possess the greatness we need. The final words on every page of the Keyboard have been words I did not believe when, in the darkest days, I first posted them. But I was wrong. "I know you are asking today, 'How long will it take?' I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow. How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.; 25 March 1965 *** *** ***  CNN: PRESIDENT OBAMA CALLS FOR HALT TO GITMO PROSECUTIONS http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/21/gua... *** ***  WP/AP: PRESIDENT OBAMA HALTS ALL REGULATIONS PENDING REVIEW http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... "One of President Barack Obama's first acts is to order federal agencies to halt all pending regulations until his administration can review them. The order went out Tuesday afternoon, shortly after Obama was inaugurated president, in a memorandum signed by new White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel....The waning days of former President Bush's administration featured much debate over what rules and regulations he would seek to enact before he left office." *** *** *** * CNN ON-AIR: OBAMAS DANCE THEIR WAY THROUGH NIGHT OF INAUGURAL BALLS  President Obama with First Lady Michelle Obama; her Inaugural gown is by Jason Wu * VIDEO: THE OBAMAS' "FIRST DANCE," AT THE NEIGHBORHOOD BALL, AS BEYONCE SINGS "AT LAST" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RRBYxZ7uxA  *** *** CNN ON-AIR: INAUGURAL PARADE MARCHES UP PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE *** *** CNN ON-AIR: PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY ATTEND LUNCH AT THE CAPITOL AFTER INAUGURAL CEREMONY  President and Mrs. Obama *** ***  CNN ON-AIR: OBAMAS, BIDENS ESCORT BUSHES TO HELICOPTER; IT TAKES OFF, BOUND FOR ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, FROM WHICH THE BUSHES DEPART FOR TEXAS MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW AMERICANS, THIS DAY DID COME -- HE IS GONE!!! *** ***  CNN ON-AIR: PRESIDENT OBAMA DELIVERS INAUGURAL ADDRESS FROM THE WEST FRONT OF THE CAPITOL  President Obama Link to text of Inaugural Address: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/01/20/oba... Link to CNN video of Inaugural Address: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/... *** ***  CNN ON-AIR: BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA IS SWORN IN AS 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES *** *** CNN: THE OBAMAS ATTEND PRE-INAUGURAL PRAYER SERVICE AT ST. JOHN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/... /  The Obamas arrive at St. John's Church *** *** ***  AP: CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS STUMBLES WITH WORDS OF PRESIDENTIAL OATH OF OFFICE http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci... "At one point, Obama paused abruptly after Roberts reversed several words in the oath. The oath includes the phrase 'that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States' but Roberts didn't say 'faithfully' until after saying 'president of the United States.' Obama apparently realized that something was out of order. With Obama not reciting, Roberts then repeated the phrase correctly, the brief awkward moment ended and Obama was back on track." *** *** LAT: WRITERS PRAISE OBAMA'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/inaug... "More novel than short story; more ballad than poem -- most writers agree that restraint and plain speaking were the qualities that distinguished President Obama's inaugural address. Long on plot (and it will thicken), it did what literature does best: the backward glance, the standing on shoulders, the salute to ancestors and other sources of wisdom. 'He is our first (in the best sense of the word) aristocratic president,' said author and journalist Malcolm Gladwell. 'Bush was a buddy. Clinton was the kindly uncle. Obama is a prince.' And yet, Obama is also a writer, and writers were not at a loss for words. Author Ron Carlson was watching the president's syntax. 'What courage,' he said, 'to use a complex sentence talking to a million people! By expecting the best of us, he just might get it.' Nonfiction writer Mark Kurlansky said the speech 'was the most sophisticated view of the world and our role in it of any inaugural address in history.' Others felt the call to action. 'With an Obama speech, listening is sometimes enough,' said Pulitzer Prize-winner Thomas Powers, 'but not this time. The inauguration speech is one we ought to read. It strikes me as clear and determined and grounded in confidence that of course we are still in the middle of the American story, not nearing the end.'" *** CBS NEWS: COLIN POWELL: "THE AMERICA WE REMEMBER IS BACK AGAIN" http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/01/20/po... *** CNN: FEDERAL SECURITY OFFICIALS INVESTIGATE INAUGURATION DAY THREAT http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/... / *** NYT, PAGE ONE: HINTS OF AGENDA AND TONE FOR NEW FIRST LADY http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/polit... *** * AP: MICHELLE OBAMA CHOOSES ISABEL TOLEDO DESIGN FOR INAUGURATION DAY http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articl... "First lady Michelle Obama wore a sparkling yellow-gold sheath dress with matching coat by Cuban-born American designer Isabel Toledo for the inauguration of her husband, a choice many applauded as a cheerful message of hope and a vote for the American fashion industry. She paired the embellished ensemble with green gloves from J. Crew and green shoes.... Their daughters were style icons in their own right, with 10-year-old Malia in a double-breasted periwinkle-blue coat with a blue-ribbon bow at the waist, and Sasha, 7, in a pink coat with orange scarf and satin belt, a coral-colored dress peeking out at the hem."  * LAT: MICHELLE WEARS JIMMY CHOO'S GREEN "GLACIER" PUMP http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage... *** * WP/AP: NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY GETS $250 MILLION FROM CARLOS SLIM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... * EDITOR&PUBLISHER: DEBT-RIDDEN NEW YORK TIMES IN TALKS WITH MEXICAN BILLIONAIRE CARLOS SLIM FOR BIG INVESTMENT http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/ne... *** *** MOM'S FEATURED VIDEO  BARACK OBAMA TAKES OATH OF OFFICE AS PRESIDENT, AND THE BAND STRIKES UP "HAIL TO THE CHIEF"! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1Yff-_9MZs *** *** CAPITOL HILL   LAT: SENATE CONFIRMS SIX OBAMA CABINET CHOICES; CLINTON, DASCHLE, GEITHNER, SOLIS DELAYED http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/inaug... *** ***  CNN ON-AIR: SENATOR KERRY REPORTS SENATOR KENNEDY IMPROVED; WILL BE HOSPITALIZED OVERNIGHT  CNN ON-AIR: SENATOR KENNEDY COLLAPSES AT INAUGURAL LUNCHEON, IS TAKEN AWAY IN AMBULANCE  CNN: SENATOR KENNEDY ATTENDS INAUGURATION CEREMONY http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/... /  Sen. Ted Kennedy arrives on the Inaugural stage. *** *** POLITICS WP/AP: NEW YORK GOVERNOR PATERSON ACKNOWLEDGES HE IS CONSIDERING ATTORNEY GENERAL ANDREW CUOMO FOR APPOINTMENT TO HILLARY CLINTON'S SENATE SEAT http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... *** ***  TO REPORT THREATS TO THE PRESIDENT: CONTACT NUMBERS FOR U.S. SECRET SERVICE FIELD OFFICES http://www.secretservice.gov/field_offices... ***  CORRECT THE GULLIBLE! RESPOND TO SLIME IN FORWARDED E-MAILS! Link to rumor-busting Snopes.com Barack Obama page: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama... MOM'S NOTE OF APPRECIATION FOR THIS WEEK GOES TO:
 BARACK OBAMA, 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES *** *** MOM'S YOU-SHOULD-BE-ASHAMED-OF-YOURSELF PRIZES FOR THIS WEEK GO TO: * BUSH, CHENEY AND ROVE * THE SUPREME COURT MAJORITY, BUSH V. GORE * THE OHIO ELECTION THIEVES, 2004 MOM'S MISCELLANY
NYT: VISITING THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS: THE GREAT LIBRARY JEFFERSON BEGAN, AND HOW IT GREW http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/arts/des... "What is remarkable about Jefferson’s library, which he organized according to a Baconian scheme of memory, reason and imagination, is its eclecticism. There are books of poetry and political philosophy but also texts on anatomy, beekeeping, stenography and the proper management of children. When some members of Congress objected that they didn’t need quite so much technical information, Jefferson said of his library, 'I do not know that it contains any branch of science which Congress would wish to exclude from their collection; there is, in fact, no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.'"  (Richard Perry/NYT) In the Great Hall a bronze statue holds a light aloft. *** NYT: 36 HOURS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.: "WASHINGTON IS SUDDENLY HIP AGAIN"! http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/trave... *** NYT: SAM MENDES PRODUCES "THE CHERRY ORCHARD," ADAPTED BY TOM STOPPARD, AT THE HARVEY THEATER, BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/the...  (Sara Krulwich/NYT) Ethan Hawke as the political idealist Trofimov and Sinead Cusack as Ranevskaya in the new production of "The Cherry Orchard." *** NYT: AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, A JEWEL OF A PAINTING COLLECTION http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/arts/des...  (National Gallery of Art) Vermeer’s dewy “Girl With the Red Hat” (1665-66) MOM'S RECOMMENDED DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND POSTS
FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS: "WE REJECT AS FALSE THE CHOICE BETWEEN OUR SAFETY AND OUR IDEALS" posted by G_j http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more." *** "THANK YOU FOR STANDING UP" posted by babylonsister http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "Charles Swift, for daring to take on his government over the illegal military tribunal system and then, unfortunately, being passed over for promotion. Richard Clarke, for speaking out about Bush’s pre-9/11 neglect of terrorism and post-9/11 attempt to link Iraq and al Qaeda....The Dixie Chicks, for being rightfully 'ashamed' of Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq war and then facing the blowback....Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson, for speaking out about Bush’s false case for war in Iraq and then suffering the retribution....New York Times and James Risen, for revealing Bush’s illegal warrantless wiretapping and aggravating Dick Cheney. Judge Anna Taylor Diggs, for striking down Bush’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program as an unconstitutional infringement on the right to privacy and free speech. John Podesta, for building and orchestrating the 'vast left-wing conspiracy.'...Cp. Pat Tillman and his family, for service to the nation both in defending it and demanding accountability from it....The retired generals who called on Rumsfeld to resign....Col. Morris Davis, for resigning his position as Chief Prosecutor at Gitmo after revealing the political interference from the Pentagon. Matthew Alexander, for revealing the torture that was carried out against prisoners in Iraq. James Hansen, for revealing the Bush administration’s attempts to censor science....Jack Goldsmith and James Comey, for standing up against their President’s attempts to manipulate the law....Helen Thomas, for daring to ask what most reporters are not willing to.Knight-Ridder’s Warren Strobel and Jonthan Landay, who were among the minority of reporters who looked critically at the Bush administration’s case for war in Iraq." *** THE AUSPICIOUS PORTENT AND SYMBOLISM OF FLIGHT 1549 posted by soupkitchen http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "Face it. The country's been flying with damaged engines for some time now. The GOP birdbrains managed to get themselves sucked into the turbines of government, flame out predictably ensued, with total disaster imminent. And then on the eve of a new administration, an administration which, if it is going to succeed in avoiding that disaster, must immediately restore America's belief in and respect for competence -- so thoroughly decimated by the other guys -- along comes Capt Sully Sullenberger to remind us what competency is all about." *** I WENT TO DEEP THROAT'S MEMORIAL posted by Downtown Hound http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "Happy journey, Mr. Felt. This nation owes you a great debt." *** YOU DO REALIZE THAT IN A MATTER OF A FEW HOURS THEY WILL BE GONE posted by givemebackmycountry http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "Today, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Americans, are gathered in freezing temperatures close to railroad tracks to see the man WE elected. Not the Supreme Court and fat Tony. Not the thieves in Ohio and Florida. US. You and I. WE did it. Yes we can, has turned into yes we DID." *** PHOTO OF THE DAY: NEW ARRIVAL IN D.C. -- HOPE (IT'S BEEN A LONG EIGHT YEARS) posted by Pirate Smile http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... *** LOOKING BACK, DID WE EVER THINK WE'D GET HERE? posted by FitzmasAgain http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "It's here, we can move on, now... God, please bless Barack Obama, President of The United States! Please, watch over him, us, the planet. It's here! And we're here to witness it! The moment's here at last!!!" *** SOME FOLKS NEVER GOT OVER THE STOLEN ELECTION OF 2000 posted by kentuck http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "They saw the danger signs even then. (Bush) and his friends would do anything to gain power, including stopping people from counting the votes. What did they have to fear? That they might lose? In the end, we all lost. Now, eight years later, he exits the stage. Every way we turn, we face a disaster....May we never again surrender to such...people in their pursuit of power and greed." (NOTE: ASK ANYONE WHO KNOWS MOM -- SHE WAS ONE OF THOSE FOLKS WHO NEVER FORGOT THE OUTRAGE OF AN AMERICAN ELECTION STOLEN, IN FULL VIEW OF PRESS AND PUBLIC, WITH IMPUNITY. MAY NONE OF US, AFTER THESE EIGHT YEARS, EVER FORGET!) *** "NA NA NA NA, NA NA NA NA, HEY HEY HEY, GOOOOODBYE!!!" I CAN'T GET THAT SONG OUT OF MY HEAD! posted by sparosnare (after Bush's Farewell Speech) http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... *** BEN & JERRY CREATED "YES PECAN" ICE CREAM FOR OBAMA; FOR GEORGE W. THEY CREATED.... posted by Are_grits_groceries http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "Grape Depression Abu Grape Cluster Fudge Nut'n Accomplished Iraqi Road Chock 'n Awe WireTapioca.... Heck of a Job, Brownie!" *** *** JFK: "I'M PROUD TO SAY I'M A LIBERAL" posted by DeeDeeNY http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu... "...if by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'" *** *** A REMINDER, POSTED BY H20 MAN "I know you are asking today, 'How long will it take?' I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth pressed to earth will rise again. How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever. How long? Not long, because you still reap what you sow. How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." -- Martin Luther King, Jr; 25 March 1965 *** *** ***  Visitor Tools
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