Speechless

Yes. Just...yes.

Obama Visiting Troops In Iraq

We don't really have a "pic of the day" segment around here, but this picture of Obama visiting the troops in Iraq is too good not to highlight.

Wednesday Morning Links

1. Gay marriage activists hope the Vermont legislature's decision to legalize gay marriage will provide impetus to other states to do the same. This is true at least in D.C., which voted to recognize gay marriages in other states. On the other side of the world though in Iraq, gays and lesbians find that their lives are endangered because of their sexuality.

2. Small towns, suckered by investment bankers who sold them risky municipal bond derivatives.

3. Peru's Ex-President Alberto Fujimora is convicted and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for human rights abuses that occurred during the war against Maoist rebels Shining Path.

4. More details on the prosecutorial misconduct that undid the Ted Stevens prosecution. And McClatchy has another article on Judge Emmett Sullivan, who has "declared war" on what he sees to be a rising tide of government prosecutorial secrecy, incompetence and malfeasance.

5. Texas Republican lawmakers find themselves at odds with Gov. Rick Perry over a number of issues beyond stimulus funding. Texas Republicans are apparently not as receptive to marching orders as Congressional Republicans were during the Bush administration.

6. Former Australian government officials and academics applaud Obama's commitment to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Anne Applebaum says there are other more important priorities that Obama should focus on, but it seems to me that getting rid of nuclear weapons never seems to be worthwhile until somebody's threatening to use one. Why wait until we reach that point?

7. Michael Gerson, being a moron again, characterizes Obama as "the most polarizing President" in history. In fact, Obama is a broadly popular President among Americans, and is most vociferously opposed by a loud minority contingent of right-wing lunatics and Republicans who think the key to electoral victory is saying no to everything Obama proposes.

8. Al Franken emerges victorious in the re-count, but Coleman signals further appeals are on the way.

9. Student loan defaults are surging, which may increase calls for a student loan "bailout."

10. American intelligence officials warn that the United States' electrical grid has been infiltrated by hackers from China and Russia who may be looking to launch cyber attacks against the United States infrastructure in the event of military conflict. I remember a 2003 Frontline special warning of this very thing, a warning that appears to be coming true.

Idiot Legal Arguments (cont'd)

Amusing headline to this story: "Judge assails cases doubting Obama's citizenship." Quote:

In an argument popular on the Internet and taken seriously practically nowhere else, Obama's critics argue he is ineligible to be president because he is not a "natural-born citizen" as the Constitution requires.

In response last summer, Obama's campaign posted his Hawaiian birth certificate on its Web site. But the lawsuit argues it is a fake and that Obama was actually born in his father's homeland of Kenya, even though Hawaiian officials have said the document is authentic.

"This case, if it were allowed to proceed, would deserve mention in one of those books that seek to prove that the law is foolish or that America has too many lawyers with not enough to do," U.S. District Judge James Robertson said in his written opinion.

The lawsuit didn't even use Obama's legal name but called him "Barry Soetoro," the name he went by while attending elementary school in Indonesia. It's one of many that has been filed claiming Obama is ineligible to serve as president.

Robertson ordered plaintiff's attorney John Hemenway of Colorado Springs, Colo., to show why he hasn't violated court rules barring frivolous and harassing cases and shouldn't have to pay Obama's attorney, Bob Bauer, for his time arguing that the case should be thrown out.

Emphasis mine. So maybe the case won't end up in one of those books, but it will almost certainly end up on this website if people keep trying to make this stupid argument.

Afghanistan

I found this interesting tidbit in an otherwise conventional Time article on the troop increases in Afghanistan:

Obama began his terse statement Tuesday by acknowledging that "there is no more solemn duty as President than the decision to deploy our armed forces into harm's way." He has been personally writing letters to the families of each U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, hand signing them "Barack." Such letters no doubt will become more difficult to write in the months ahead, when the casualties begin to include some of those he ordered into combat.

I thought that was interesting so I looked it up, and found more detail at the Washington Times:

In his first few weeks in office, sometime between celebratory bill signings and phone calls from foreign leaders, President Obama sat in the Oval Office for the most somber task of his presidency - penning letters to families of troops killed in combat.

"This was real, it was personal, it was so important to us," said Thya Merz, whose son Marine Lance Cpl. Julian Brennan was killed Jan. 24 in Afghanistan.

The letter was signed "Barack," Ms. Merz told The Washington Times.

"Not 'president,' just his first name, and it just felt like, OK, my son has been acknowledged," she said.

Mr. Obama personalizes each letter, asking staffers to gather details about the service member, such as their hometown and where they were stationed, a White House aide said. The letters are sent to parents and spouses, and sometimes children of the fallen troops.

The president writes the notes by hand, then the letters are typed before he adds his signature.

According to the Washington Times, Bush did something similar (though there isn't as much detail in that article.) I applaud this. Every President should know something about each soldier who dies in war, so that he can understand the grave toll that war inflicts. But given how the situation is unfolding in Afghanistan, it's safe to say that many more letters will be written before Obama's time in office comes to an end.

President Obama signs economic recovery legislation into law

And he did it not in D.C., but in Denver where he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination back in August (he's also hitting other Western states to underscore parts of the package). It's an understatement to say this is a significant victory for a president just one month into his tenure:

The size of the new law and its speed moving through Congress -- it was approved within weeks of Obama’s inauguration -- place it among the most significant legislative accomplishments since President Franklin Roosevelt overhauled the U.S. government in his first 100 days, historians and political analysts say.

“We have plenty of big, complicated pieces of legislation that come down the pike, but this bill is unprecedented,” said Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst in Washington.

The Obama administration has also launched a new website where Americans can track the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Obama was elected so there's not really any racism, right?

Sigh...how I wish it was true. Just because white entertainers don't run around in blackface anymore and expect "coloreds" to sit in the back of the bus, folks (white folks mainly) insist that racism is over and done with. And seemingly all white guilt has been suddenly expiated as if black Jesus just died on the cross for their sins because now this kind of thing is just a joke instead of a racial slur:

Night Befo Crizzmus

Wus da night afo' Crizzmus, and all thru da hood,
everybody be sleepin' and da sleepin' be good.
We hunged up our stockins, an hoped like all heck,
dat dear Ol' Obama's, gunna brang us our checks.

All of da family, was ly'in on the flow,
my sister wif her gurlfriend, and my brother wif some hoe.
Ashtrays was all full , empty beer cans and all
when I heared such a fuss, I thunk...."Sh'eet, it must be da law".

I will not quote the rest, but if you want to see it, just google it. It seems to be quite popular right now. This is one of the most disgusting and blatant examples of racist mockery I've ever had the misfortune to see, and to know that I know some people who actually think this is funny disturbs me greatly. It also suggests to me that racism is still very pervasive in our society, even though most racists are well-trained enough not to say this kind of stuff out loud anymore.

Ah, yes, how is this related to Obama? I got this from a source who got it from a coworker who is a lifelong Democrat...who didn't vote for Obama. And yet insists that she's not a racist. And I know she didn't fall in love with McCain suddenly and did think Palin was a nutjob... but couldn't vote for the black candidate. Hmm, I wonder why that might be!

Sadly, this isn't even the same lady who freely uses the phrase, "They tried to jew me down" and suggested I should do a rain dance for an event. Nor are these two the only ones we know who think that those kinds of remarks and this kind of "joke" are acceptable or funny.

Just by way of clarification, if you think this "poem" is funny, yeah, you're racist. If you think it's true that black people are all criminals and deviants, you're a racist. It's one thing to insult Obama; he can take it. It's another to typify an entire race of people as nothing but a collection of negative stereotypes. That's called racism, and it's never funny. If you think it's ok to be racist and you're into white power, well, f*** you but I respect that. If you think it's not ok to be racist but this kind of joke isn't really racist and it's a bit funny anyway, well, all you get is the f*** you.

Will we ever move past this kind of simplistic racial thinking? Probably, but not as quickly as we would be if morons weren't still trying to perpetuate racial sterotypes.

In other news about Republicans (ooh, segue burn!) this guy just became chairman of the Texas College Republicans. Why is this a bad thing? Well, because his idea of a reasonable political demonstration is to burn the flags of Iran and N. Korea. Do I have to point out that if we get enraged at the thought of them burning our flags because we take it as an insult and threatening gesture, perhaps that's not actually an appropriate method to open political discourse? But then again, being a Republican I doubt he's actually interested in opening up a reasonable discourse with anybody who disagrees with his politics.

Alright, that's enough rambling. Go forth and destroy evil, you freedom-loving liberals!

Brennan is Out

John Brennan, an advisor to George Tenet who has expressed support for the Bush administration's torture and detention policies and who had been considered to be the leading candidate for the position of Director of Intelligence, has withdrawn himself from consideration thanks largely to the opposition of liberal and progressive bloggers (the famed "netroots", that is):

John Brennan, President-elect Barack Obama's top adviser on intelligence, took his name out of the running Tuesday for any intelligence position in the new administration.

Brennan wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to Obama that he did not want to be a distraction. His potential appointment as CIA director has raised a firestorm in liberal blogs that associate him with the Bush administration's interrogation, detention and rendition policies.

Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran, helped establish the National Counterterrorism Center and was its first director in 2004. He has privately and publicly said that he opposed waterboarding and questioned other interrogation methods that many in the CIA feared could be later deemed illegal.

"It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as the pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include waterboarding," he wrote. "It is with profound regret that I respectfully ask that my name be withdrawn from consideration for a position within the intelligence community. The challenges ahead of our nation are too daunting, and the role of the CIA too critical, for there to be any distraction from the vital work that lays ahead," Brennan wrote.

As Greenwald documents, Brennan's denials are largely, ahem, "disingenuous." But forget for the happy news that this member of the Beltway pro-torture establishment will have little or nothing to do with intelligence under the Obama administration, and concentrate on what's really important: telling Big Tent Democrat and James Kirchick to go suck it.

Dunbar Digs Deeper

Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, whose comments about Barack Obama have gained her some amount of notoriety, is defending herself by not really backing down from what she said:

"When I wrote this article, I wrote it as a private citizen," Dunbar said Wednesday. "I did not use it as a bully pulpit."

The column has sparked Internet debate and prompted phone calls and e-mails to other state board members, with many people asking for a public rebuke or even Dunbar’s resignation. Critics of the column question whether a state official who helps choose school textbooks and shape the state curriculum should express such political views.

On Wednesday, Dunbar told the Star-Telegram that her comments about Obama and a possible terrorist attack had been "misconstrued through repetition."She said she didn’t intend to imply that Obama was actually plotting with terrorists, as the headline said.

"My concern is that there are associations that would feel more comfortable and more safe to attack with Obama as president," she said.

She said her comments were based on Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s statement that Obama would be tested by terrorists within the first six months of his administration.

"My point was, I’m not saying that Obama would not respond to an attack, I just think the apprehension of not doing an attack would have been greater with McCain as president," Dunbar said.

Really? Now, what did she actually write in her original column? Oh yeah, this:

"I sincerely believe that an Obama Administration would ultimately mean one thing - the end of America as we know her."

So her qualifications are a little hard to buy. And, as she told the AP in an earlier story, "I don't have anything in there that would be retractable." So if she said America is ending, then America is ending! And if she's trying to end the controversy, it probably would help not to say things like this:

She remains unconvinced that Obama is a legal U.S. citizen, she said Thursday. The president-elect was born in Hawaii but lived in Indonesia as a young child. His mother is U.S.-born; his father was Kenyan.

His campaign posted an image of Obama’s birth certificate online and state officials attested to its authenticity, but theories that he is not a citizen persist.

"Yes, I’ve seen the birth certificate posted online. I’ve read all the articles," Dunbar said. "What concerns me is the time he spent in Indonesia. His time in Indonesia would be a substantive issue, and I really don’t know why it hasn’t been examined more closely."

A suit questioning Obama’s citizenship was thrown out of court early in the presidential campaign.

"The birth certificate does not address all the citizenship concerns raised in this suit," Dunbar said in a follow up e-mail.

I'm not sure why Ms. Dunbar would care to bother with so lowly an office as the State Board of Education, when she's clearly more suited for local right-wing radio talk show host or right-wing blogger.

And yes, she has the right to say whatever she wants. It's not that I think that as a state official, she suddenly loses the right to express an opinion about a critical election. It's more the quality of the opinion that she expresses. I'm writing about this because I think it's important to ask, if she's really this prone to believing paranoid fantasies and conspiracy theories, do we really want her deciding what Texas kids are supposed to be reading in their textbooks? And also, I just like giving right-wingers a hard time.

UPDATE: From comments, blane provides with a link to the original article. It's been scrubbed from the "Christian" Worldview Network's website, but if you'd like to see what all the fuss is about, click here. 

Wrong, Again

Christopher Hitchens, opining that much of the euphoria over Obama's victory was merely an outpouring of "white guilt."To which my response is: you sir, are a jackass. Hitchens is proof that while you may not be able to build a career on knee-jerk contrarianism, it can permit you to extend an otherwise credible career far beyond viability and profitability. 

How much?

Hilzoy asks an interesting question:

I've been mulling over the election, and it occurred to me that liberal blogs are about to be faced with an interesting question, namely: how much should we trust Barack Obama?

What she means of course is, how much should we shill for Barack Obama? Because as bloggers we consider not only whether to trust someone, but to what extent we should put our credibility (such as it is) on the line to defend someone else. Now if I were an ungenerous right-wing blogger, I'd be inclined to think that what Hilzoy is trying to do is set expectations for liberal bloggers to make all sorts of defenses for Obama that they wouldn't make for Bush in similar situations, while still trying to argue that they are maintaining something approaching objectivity and a lack of bias. But I'm not an ungenerous right-wing blogger, and that isn't what Hilzoy is trying to do. Rather she's genuinely is wondering how much leeway we should grant someone to meet the expectations they set for themselves to us, and at what point do we begin to call them out for failing those expectations? How much slack do we cut them?

Which is something I've sort of been pondering, though from a different angle. For the last year, we have shamelessly promoted Barack Obama first as the democratic nominee for President, and then as President. That was because we believe that Obama is the best man to lead America in the direction that we already believe it should go. But as you might imagine, writing in support or defense of a candidate entails (perhaps necessitates) a somewhat less critical eye. We accept that what they say is what they mean (unless evidence clearly dictates to the contrary) and defend what they say from others, in the hopes that this will persuade others to vote for our preferred candidate.

Now, there is no one to sell Obama to. And our previous advocacy of a candidate runs headlong into our now year four-years-and-running long opposition to much of what our government was doing. Someone who is not inclined to be charitable towards us would assume that we will continue with the former, and discontinue the latter.

I'm here to assure you that this most certainly will not be the case here. Just as the election has now ended, so too has our advocacy for one candidate over another.

Now don't get me wrong; all three of us advocated, donated and voted for Obama because we sincerely believe that his stance on the issues is closest to our own, and because he has demonstrated the type of character necessary to meet important goals in difficult times. He is not now suddenly our opposition because he embodies the government. And I for one am inclined to cut him some slack because by virtue of his conduct during his campaign he has earned a measure of trust. And he will continue to earn that trust-even if he doesn't do everything that we want him to do-so long as he deals with the American people in good faith.

But really, who would spend all their time writing about politics if they weren't naturally cynical, and wanted to criticize those in power? What fun would their be in heaping praise day in and day out on someone, or defending everything they do (I wouldn't know, but you can try asking some right-wing bloggers.) None of our natural cynicism and suspicion is gone simply because we heard "hope" in one ear and "change" in the other.  

What I'm trying to say basically is this: we are still a little bit teary-eyed over Obama's victory. We are jubilant that the man most qualified to lead our country to peace and prosperty has been elected. We are in awe of history shaping up before our very eyes. But that doesn't mean we've lost what little sense we ever had in our heads in the first place. Obama is off to a fantastic start, and we're ecstatic about it. But we have expectations, and Obama has also set a pretty high bar for himself. If he falters, or wavers, or reverses himself, you can be assured that our disappoitntment will most certainly be registered here.

Top Ten Best Speeches by Barack Obama

Barack Obama's meteoric rise was powered in part by his ability to write and deliver speeches that are both exciting and substantive, inspirational and instructive. They are key to understanding who he is and how he got to this point. Here are transcripts and audio of the ten most important ones (in my view), from when he was a state Senator in Illinois to U.S. Senator to President-elect:

2002 Speech Against Invading Iraq

2004 Keynote Address at the Democratic National Convention

2007 Speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner

2008 Iowa Caucus Victory Speech

2008 New Hampshire Concession Speech

2008 "A More Perfect Union" Speech on Race Relations

2008 Nomination Victory Speech

2008 Speech in Berlin

2008 Acceptance Speech at the Democratic National Convention

2008 General Election Victory Speech

Not So Fast

Earlier in the week I lauded Obama for his courageous stance on a college football playoff system. Tim Colishaw takes umbrage with Obama's position in today's column:

We have just sent a dangerous man to the White House. Let's not kid ourselves about it.

Say all the positives you want about the feel-good story of President-elect Barack Obama. The bottom line is this is a man ... who wants a college football playoff.

Obama said that very thing at halftime of ESPN's Monday Night Football . And we elected him, anyway.

What were we thinking?

Ha. The rest of Colishaw's column is worth reading, but really I don't see how his defense of the BCS doesn't just boil down to a "this is the way we've always done it so let's stick to it." I'm definitely not a fan of over-inclusiveness when it comes to playoff systems. Major League Soccer's system, where most teams will make the post-season, is a joke (though to be fair, that was more of a business strategy, and low-seeded teams routinely make it all the way to the championship game thanks to excessive league parity.) Something similar could be said for the NBA, where no team below the sixth seed has ever won the finals. Still, as far as I'm concerned, letting in a few teams that will prove only to be warm-ups for higher quality teams, is much more preferable to letting computers decide your champion.

"An Aggressive Agenda"

Democrats in Congress are looking to get important problems solved quickly:

Flush with victory built on incursions in the South and West, Congressional Democratic leaders promised to use their new power to join President-elect Barack Obama in pursuing an aggressive agenda that puts top priority on the economy, health care, energy and ending the Iraq war.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who spoke with Mr. Obama by phone on Wednesday morning, said that they had made plans to discuss coordinated efforts for the transition and the new Congress, but that a more ambitious agenda would unfold next year.

“Our priorities have tracked the Obama campaign priorities for a very long time,” Ms. Pelosi said at a news conference where she cited the economy, health care, energy and the Iraq war as topping the agenda.

She said Democrats were talking with the Bush White House about a potential $61 billion economic stimulus that could be approved in a lame-duck session.

But Ms. Pelosi said Democrats could open the 111th Congress in January with efforts to adopt measures blocked by President Bush, including ones to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and embryonic stem cell research. She said Democrats had no choice but to chart a centrist course. “The country must be governed from the middle,” she said. But Democrats on both sides of the Capitol were just beginning to digest the new faces in their expanded caucuses.

As Nat-Wu bluntly asked in an email "What's the bullshit talk about governing from the center?" I happen to think Pelosi is trying to game expectations more than anything (which are very, very high after the Obama win) but without a doubt there's still a class of pundits on both the left and the right who think that Democrats can only get done and maintain their political power by emulating Republicans to a large degree and governing as if America were still in it's heart of hearts a nation that leans to the right despite a wholesale rejection of the GOP.  And yet strangely, polls support Democrats on any number of issues, including the war, health care, labor policies, the environment, and so on. Without a doubt, Democrats are hampered in tackling some of these issues by the sheer scale of the economic downturn, but no Democrat in his or her right mind should think that they should be beholden to outdated notions held by some pundits about what Americans do and do not want. As Paul Waldman notes in the Think Progress post I like to above, "success builds upon success." Democrats will not advance their own interests or win further elections by governing in fearful anticipation of a phantom negative reaction by the public. They will win by demonstrating they can solve the most pressing problems faced by our nation, and by showing initiative, bold thinking and political courage. 

Hometown Hero

In Kenya, homeland of Barack Obama Sr., they celebrate the election of his son to the highest office in America. 

Obama's Keys to Victory

What were the keys to Obama's victory last night? I have my ideas. Here they are (though not in order of importance because honestly, I couldn't say which had more impact than others, at least not enough to rank them):

• The economy: Obama experienced some "luck" in this regard. What was horrendous for us was great for his campaign, as the rapid acceleration of the global financial meltdown absolutely swamped the McCain campaign. McCain, already percieved as weaker on the economy than matters of national security and foreign policy, was at a loss for what to do when the crisis broke. In what is probably his second greatest gambit after picking Palin for VP, McCain rushed back to D.C., only to appear mostly irrelevant to the bailout process. Instead of undoing Obama's natural advantage as a Democrat on the economy, McCain only damaged his own standing. 

• George Bush and the GOP: Republicans are quick to spin this election as a referendum on eight years of George Bush. The election wasn't entirely about Republican ineptitude, but any Republican candidate was going to start out behind thanks to the massive shift in the public mood against the GOP. It only hurt McCain that he was forced to play to the right-wing base in order to shore up support for his candidacy; in doing so, he only confirmed to many voters that he wouldn't be substantially different from what they'd already seen for eight years.

• The Death of the "Southern Strategy": It's hard to say with any confidence what this election means to the electorate as a whole, except in one sense; it's safe to say that the "southern strategy", the practice of pandering to racist voters in the South that has been carried out by every Republican Presidential campaign since Nixon, is dying if not already dead. The Republican party played this strategy to the hilt. Not only did Republican campaigns wink and nod to the racists in their party, they came to identify the white, working-class voter (who just so happens to be racist, or at least deeply suspicious of minorities) as the "ultimate American" voter and perpetuated a culture war that attempted to define their supporters as "real" Americans and Democrats as latte-sipping "elitists." But the Republican party was trapped by its own game, forced to nominate an unqualified governor for Vice President because the base of the party, now comprised of these white voters, could only relate to someone like themselves; anti-intellectual, under-educated, confidently ignorant, overtly religious, and white. Unfortunately, time and demographics have caught up to the Republican party. Voters comfortable with these tactics now tend to reside largely in the south and the plains states; what only two years ago was a region that was ceded in advance by Democrats, is now overnight the only safe region that Republicans can count on. If the Republican party continues to identify itself as primarily the party of these voters and continues to value the votes of it's poorer whites above other groups of voters, it will become at best a regional party incapable of fashioning a coalition sufficient to win national election.

• Sarah Palin: Speaking of playing to the base...McCain's greatest gambit was his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. The move was a blatant pandering to the right-wing base of the Republican party and although it energized the party faithful, it turned off swing voters and right-leaning Dems in droves. The McCain campaign sensed-probably rightly-that a safe, conservative campaign wouldn't be enough against Obama, and they had a serious enthusiasm gap to deal with. Unfortunately for them, the enthusiasm Sarah Palin generated could not hope to make up for the negative effect it had on the McCain campaign as a whole.

• The McCain campaign: Often, it appears that McCain's worst enemy was himself, or at least, his campaign advisors. McCain's advisors could never quite decide what they wanted to sell to the public. Part of the problem was they could never quite settle on what issue would damage Obama the most, largely because no attacks that they mounted gained any traction (for example Iraq, which was largely negated as an issue in the campaign.) At the same time, those attacks failed to gain traction in part because the campaign never gave them time to work. The Bush campaign in '04 settled on one strategy; identify Kerry's weaknesses and attack them relentlessly from beginning to end. But the McCain campaign could never quite figure out what they wanted people to like least about Obama; his associations, his ideology, his lack of experience, his anti-American leanings, etc., etc. Indeed it was a laundry list of things voters were supposed to reject, but the only thing McCain apparently asked them to embrace was his "experience." It wasn't enough. The McCain campaign was also extremely undisciplined. In the weeks leading up to the election we heard McCain's advisors make pronouncements about how they couldn't win if the election was about the economy as well as throw each other and Palin under the bus in anonymous quotes in major news articles. None of this gave Americans the impression that the McCain campaign had any idea what if was doing, and I think in large part Americans attributed this failing to McCain himself; his inability to pick quality advisors reflected on his judgment. That contrasts with....

• The Obama Campaign: It is generally agreed that Obama and his advisors ran a nearly flawless campaign. There were no serious gaffes, crises were dispatched hastily, advisors who appeared in the media were disciplined and on message, the grassroots organization was light-years beyond anything we've seen to this point, the 50-state strategy was bold and effective, and the message to the public was short, memorable and convincing. Obama credited his two most senior advisors in his speech last night, David Axelrod and David Plouffe, and he was right to do so; the two men engineered the kind of campaign that Joe Trippi could only dream about. The Obama campaign was essentially the anti-Rove campaign; instead of the 50+1 approach, Obama's campaign fought for votes in every state of the union. The landslide victory, and the political implications thereof (a mandate far beyond anything Rove ever hoped for) are the direct result. Of course, it would be criminal to overlook the literally millions of people who contributed or volunteered on Obama's behalf. The Obama campaign may have known exactly how to harness that power and enthusiasm, but it was these volunteers, many young, some old, all fired up for Obama, that delivered the votes to make this victory a landslide. 

• Barack Obama: Of coure, Americans did not turn out to vote for Obama's campaign; they turned out to vote for Obama. They are not likely to regret their choice. Obama demonstrated through the two-year long campaign that he was cool, level-headed, possessed of great equanimity, poised, well-spoken, intelligent and thoughtful. The reason many of the McCain campaigns attacks failed to work against Obama is because each time Obama appeared in the public eye, he demonstrated attributes in opposition to the ones McCain tried to paint him with. At no time was this more evident than in the flap over Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama proved to America that he was a different kind of politician when he turned the crisis, which threatened to derail his campaign, into an opportunity to confront the issue of race head-on in one of the most masterful political speeches of the modern era. In his speech Obama was direct, considered, and sincere. He treated the public as adults who could handle a frank discussion about race from a national figure, and he was not wrong. America has rewarded him in turn.

And so those are my thoughts. But I'm sure there are many things I'm leaving out. Your comments are welcome.

What now?

Nat-Wu here, and I thought I'd offer my thoughts on what happened last night and what's going to happen from today on. You've read enough about the facts, and there's no way I can compete with the news for coverage of people's reactions, but I'll contribute what little I have to the story. Today, a lot of people are ecstatic about Obama's victory, as well they should be. As you will read in story after story, people are calling this the culmination of Martin Luther King Jr's dream. I don't think even he could foresee a day when white and black children would play together in a US governed by a black President. Truly we are living in a special time.

That being said, I don't want to hear white conservatives going around saying, "See, we're not racists!" when the polls show that race is a major reason a lot of people didn't vote for Obama. It didn't cost him the win, however, and that's what's important.

The question now is, how do we move forward? Even if Democrats pull out the four contested senate races, it doesn't mean a new slate of progressive legislation is going to roll out and make gay marriage legal, turn America socialist or any of that nonsense. Obama is going to have to work with the Senate to get measures passed to address our immediate issues. Despite bounces in the stock market, the economy is still collapsing. Despite being in Iraq for 5 years, we've accomplished nothing except to put off the start of hostilities between sides, and after being in Afghanistan for nearly 7 years, we haven't caught Osama Bin Laden. Don't take this the wrong way, for once I'm not saying it's Bush's fault because at this point it truly doesn't matter. These are the problems Obama and his new Senate majority must solve. And it will not be easy, and some of it may not work. But we must continue the push to change America for the better.

Those of us who supported Obama and the Democrats now have a duty. We have a responsibility, both to the Democratic Party and to all the people of America, to make sure that our elected leaders walk a truer path than ever before. Our Democratic government must make an effort to divorce themselves from political backbiting to work together for the common good. My hope is that by proving that a progressive agenda does better for all Americans than a conservative one, we can win over more of the doubters. Right now we have people telling us that America is going to turn Socialist (which, if they were being rational, is ridiculous). We heard people saying that Obama was going to take all the guns away, etc, etc. Now I don't feel the need to reach out to people who insist Obama can't be President because he wasn't born in the US or that he's secretly a Muslim. If they're irrationally afraid, you can't reassure them. But if they're rationally afraid, you can. And we have to carry forward our progressive agenda while making sure they understand that we're doing this for them too. Their side says things like "America, love it or leave it!" We don't do that. I hope that my fellow progressives understand that Obama won on a message of hope and change for the better for all of us. Yes, Republicans, we will drag you into a new, more prosperous, more peaceful, and more free America even if it has to be kicking and screaming. And in a decade, I hope you learn to appreciate it.

First Thoughts on the Election

It's difficult to sum up the various thoughts that pass through the brain while contemplating Obama's historic victory. There are countless stories about African-Americans old enough to remember not being able to vote, casting their vote for the first African-American president in our nation's history. But as I was explaining to my wife last night, even I thought as recently as a couple of years ago that a black president was years down the road. That is has happened so soon, to the delight and surprise of many of us, is a testament to the power of Obama to appeal to ALL Americans, and not simply those who'd be most excited by the thought of his Presidency.

As to Obama's landslide...even though we'd been prepared by the polls for days (if not weeks) in advance, it was still quite a surprise to see the race end so quickly. As Democrats we are naturally suspicious of a commanding lead, and all Americans had grown sadly accustomed to bitterly divided elections thanks to 2000 and 2004. The question now arises, what does this mean? Much will be said about the redrawing of the electoral landscape, but I think it's too early yet to know the true impact of the race. Clearly, something has shifted in American politics; no one wins an election to so great a degree simply be being NOT a Republican (Kerry tried that already.) But to what extent is the shift due to characteristics of this election, and to what extent is it due to fundamental changes in the American electorate? It's hard to say.

Another consideration is that of a "mandate"; if Bush's 51% of the popular vote in 2004 was a "mandate" than Obama's 6% share is a charge to remake the nation from the ground up. Of course, Bush's mandate was just silly spin (spin that the Bush administration nonetheless bought into); there was no real mandate, just an opportunity to govern as if they had won broad approval, thanks to lenient Republicans in Congress and a judiciary that played catch-up to their unconstitutional activities. So what then does difference of seven million voters, out of three hundred million Americans, really mean? Probably both more and less than we make of it. But I think that, regardless of the scale of the victory, Obama is far too canny to govern as if the entire nation were now blue. For one, the lesson of Bush's failings is recent and stark and aptly demonstrated by last night's outcome. For two, I think Obama is a wiser, more thoughtful and contemplative leader than Bush could ever hope to be, and he will attempt to govern as a uniter for practical and pragmatic reasons, both for the future of the Democratic Party and the nation. At least though, the massive success of the Democrats appears to have undermined the talking points of pundits who think that Dems can win only by appealing to the center and the center-right.

As to the other side of the aisle...I thought McCain's concession speech was very gracious. It's unfortunate that his campaign was not. Nonetheless, he did the right thing. There are many right-wing voters who believe that America will now imminently turn socialist, that Barack Obama will fill his cabinet with people "who blow things up" (seriously, that's what one Dallas McCain voter said on the radio this morning) and who are genuinely afraid of the future. Most of them will be dragged into the Twenty-First century kicking and screaming, but McCain's words will soothe the transition for some of them.

There will be more thoughts to follow, as the implications of this election become apparent. For now though, it is truly remarkable to bask in the awe that comes from having lived at a pivotal moment in history and having witnessed historic change first-hand. And frankly, it's just flat out fun to win.

Obama Transition Begins

It's already started, as Obama has offered the job of White House Chief of Staff to Rahm Emmanuel, Democratic Rep. from Illinois.

UPDATE: Politico reports that Obama is considering Robert F. Kennedy to head the EPA. Of course, we've already reported the rumor that John Kerry is in line for State.

Obama in the Papers

A roundup of headlines on the Obama victory:

NY Times: "Obama: President-Elect Calls Outcome a Defining Moment"

Washington Post: "Change has Come"

LA Times: "Obama Wins"

Boston Tribune: "Voters Embrace Change, Barack Obama"

CNN: "U.S. Chooses Change"

McClatchy: "Obama Makes History, Wins Presidency"


MSNBC: "How He Did It"

Fox News: "As He Savors Historic Victory, Obama Also Faces A WORLD OF TROUBLE" (and Fox News will be the first to tell you about all of it)

Dallas News: "Obama Will Be Tested"

Houston Chronicle: "First Look at Obama Staff May Be Today"

Washington Times: "Obama Looks Ahead to Shape Cabinet"

Overseas:

The Guardian: "President Obama: Change has Come"

BBC: "A Historic Moment"

Le Monde (France): "Obama's Victory Ushers in a New American Dream"

El Pais (Spain): "The Change Has Come"

Bild-Zeitung (Germany): "Obama Superstar: Why is He a Hero to the Whole World?"