As threatened, the Bush Environmental Positively-useless Administration has repealed key parts of the Stream Buffer Act. Previously, the EPA had been cooperating with companies to subvert the act, but judges in some districts were still slowing down approval of mountaintop removal operations. Now even that token obstacle has been removed.

Approval by EPA and the White House Office of Management and Budget paved the way for Interior Department officials to finalize industry-backed changes in the 25-year-old stream "buffer zone" rule.

Environmental groups had fought the change, because they hoped that either court actions or moves by the incoming Obama administration might use the buffer zone as a tool to more strictly regulate mountaintop removal.

Despite the destruction of more than 400 mountains, and the routine violation of the existing rules, the Bush administration still hustled through this gift to the worst operators in the coal industry. In doing so, they fulfilled one of the dreams Bush has held since coming into office.

For nearly five years, since January 2004, the Bush administration has been working to essentially eliminate the more than 20-year-old buffer zone rule. Generally, that rule prohibits mining activities within 100 feet of perennial and intermittent streams.

Coal operators already can obtain variances to mine within the 100-foot buffer. To do so, though, companies must show that their operations will not cause water quality violations or "adversely affect the water quantity and quality, or other environmental resources of the stream."

Ridiculously, the EPA and Office of Surface Mining had already been issuing such variances to operations that completely buried flowing streams, because blasting a stream out of existence somehow negates the need to worry about water quality. That's how 1,200 miles of flowing water has been eliminated from the Appalachian region.

Now the EPA has stopped even the pretense of caring.

Way back when he was running (unsuccessfully) for a seat in Congress, Bush declared that he wanted to do away with both safety and environmental regulations. There are plenty of dead miners and ruined communities to mark his accomplishments in the White House.

If it happens, it will be a very big deal:

Two sources close to Jeb Bush, including one who has spoken to the former Florida governor within the past few hours, say he is seriously considering a run for Senate now that incumbent Republican Mel Martinez has retired.

"He is receiving a lot of encouragement from both in and out of the state," an longtime Bush adviser said tonight. "He is going to take his time and approach this very methodically."  Bush will weigh, according to this adviser, how a run would impact his family, his business, and whether the Senate would be the best platform for the causes he'd advocate -- education, immigration, GOP solutions to health care and energy.

Bush left office with high approvals, and would be the strongest candidate the Republicans could find for the seat (with the possible exception of Governor Charlie Crist, who doesn't seem interested in a Senate bid).

His entry would clear the field for the Republicans, and might knock a few Democrats out of the field as well, although it being an open-seat race, someone decent would no doubt take the plunge, figuring that the toxicity of the Bush name alone could help out, despite Jeb's personal popularity.

He could be beaten by a Democrat, but if he ran, he'd start the race as the favorite. He wouldn't be favored like Mark Warner was favored, but the race would start as his to lose.

Other folks reportedly considering the race:

Republicans: State House Speaker Marco Rubio; Attorney General Bill McCollum; Rep. Connie Mack IV; Rep. Vern Buchanan; former House Speaker Allan Bense.

Democrats: Florida CFO Alex Sink; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz; Rep. Kendrick Meek; Rep. Allen Boyd; State Sen. Dan Gelber; State Sen. Dave Aronberg.

Big three gasp for air
Heavy discount holiday
Long winter arrives

Also, also, too
Also, you betcha, wink, wink
Also, too, such as.

Haiku wednesday thread
Bill-O lurks from a distance
We will do it live

In the most coherent and cogent explanation I've seen of the financial crisis, AFL-CIO Associate General Counsel Damon Silvers lays out how the decline in unionization which began in the mid-Seventies led to the burst of the sub-prime bubble, and ultimately to today's recession.  And he wrote it way back in April.

But the real roots of the crisis do not lie on Wall Street. The cause of the crisis can be found in the long-term weakening of the real American economy in an era of globalization—in closed factories, outsourced high tech jobs and low wage jobs with no benefits, and in the unsustainable effort to maintain middle class living standards through borrowing. It is to be found in the reality of lives like that of Kimberly Somsel of Westland Michigan, a member of the AFL-CIO’s community affiliate Working America, an unemployed single mother of two battling breast cancer and facing foreclosure due to a ballooning "2 and 28" loan payment. She is selling the family car and her furniture just to get by. Five houses on her block are threatened with foreclosure.

Powerful voices in our country say that public resources should be there for Bear Stearns, but not for Kimberly Somsel, to keep the champagne flowing on Wall Street, but not to build a future for Michigan. But there is another way — a return to a high wage economy driven by productive investment in the United States. This way requires not that we retreat from the global economy, but that we insist that the globalized economy have real rules that work for working people. At the center of these rules must be labor market regulation, and in particular, regulation that empowers workers to speak for themselves by acting together. But rules are no enough. The United States must pursue a real national economic strategy in a globalized world economy.

For thirty years, America’s economic elites and their political allies have pursued a combination of economic and social policies designed to produce a low wage economy. These policies—our labor laws and our broader system of labor market regulation, our tax policies and our approach to globalization, have yielded decades of stagnant wages and rising economic inequality.

But at the same time, policymakers of both parties have sought, with some success, to maintain high levels of consumer spending. The pursuit of the contradiction of a low wage, high spending economy has systematically destroyed the various ways we individually and collectively save and invest. Instead of an income driven economy, we have become an economy driven by asset bubbles fueled by cheap debt. The ultimate unsustainability of this strategy has brought us to our current economic crisis.

You really need to read the whole speech.  It's the summary of how we got here that I wish I had written, and it's just another powerful reminder of how critical passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is to economic recovery.  Without a real opportunity to join unions and build bargaining power, American workers will continue to experience stagnant wages. And as Silvers eloquently explains, stagnant wages lead to unsustainable debt and a a downward economic spiral.  The Employee Free Choice Act isn't just about fairness in the workplace -- it's a tool for engineering stimulus.  And it won't cost the government a dime.

Cross-posted at Congress Matters.

Paul Blumenthal at the Sunlight Foundation points out a great piece of information about that anonymous hold on the nomination of Neil Barofsky as bailout Special IG:

The first thing of note is that secret holds were, for the most part, abolished during the 110th Congress. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act mandated the disclosure of the identity of a senator secretly blocking a "measure or matter" "not later than 6 session days" after the initiation of the hold.

The Barofsky nomination provides a good example of the loopholes in this mandate of disclosure. If a bill or, in this case, a nomination comes up prior to a long recess, the disclosure of the offending senator’s identity will have to wait until the Senate reconvenes for at least 6 session days, not calendar days. So far, since the nomination was blocked, the Senate convened for two session days. While they are expected to convene tomorrow for a pro forma session, it is unknown whether the Senate will convene for four more days by the end of the year.

I actually count three session days since Chairman Dodd's November 21st statement noting the hold -- pro forma sessions on the 24th, 26th and 29th. The calendar at Majority Leader Reid's site lists a pro forma session for yesterday, December 2nd, with another scheduled for Friday, plus a working session on Monday. That'd take us to six session days since Dodd's acknowledgment of the hold, which may or may not have been in place for a few days prior to the Dodd statement.

So in all likelihood, next week will see us pass the necessary sixth session day required under the new rule, and we'll know who the chowderhead behind this delay is.

Everybody already suspects Jim Bunning, of course. And why not? Who else is saying things like this about the bailout oversight?

"I wonder why taxpayers should pay $50 million to a watchdog who has nothing to watch."

Well, OK, what other Senator, I mean. I've surely said something like that, but I don't count. The point is that the Members of Congress who assured us that everything would come under strict scrutiny should want to see this gaping hole in the oversight plugged ASAP.

And indeed, Max Baucus (D-MT) says he wants exactly that. And for very good reason. Baucus, you may recall, was outspoken during the bailout debate in committing himself personally to the creation of the Special IG job, and presumably to its actually being filled and performed. Now Baucus has expressed his displeasure with the delays created by the hold. Hopefully he'll also be sure to stay on top of insisting that the requirements of the new rules be honored, and with at least six session days having passed by next week, will follow up by demanding the name of the Senator responsible.

We're in Day Negative 48 of the Failed Obama Administration, which is pretty incredible given that we're still 48 days away from the Obama Administration existing. Of course, the number of people doing the Chicken Little act are about as numerous as the PUMA brigades that were going to take Obama down.

It's important to remember that the President makes the final call. Cabinet members advise and implement. So George W. Bush launched his administration with a cabinet that included Colin Powell, Tommy Thompson, Norm Mineta (a Democrat), and Ann Veneman (who was floated as a potential veep candidate for Obama). Remember how Powell was supposed to moderate Bush's hawkishness? Instead, he delivered that shameful presentation at the UN knowing it was full of lies. Why? Because the President calls the shots, and he'll ultimately be judged for all of his cabinet's decisions. It ain't Rumsfeld that people blame for Iraq.

So what about the "controversial" picks?

Hillary Clinton at State? One of Obama's tough tasks ahead is to repair the damage Bush did to our relationships around the world. By picking Hillary Clinton, the second-biggest political celebrity in government today, Obama just told the world he takes that task very seriously. He essentially gave them the biggest name he possibly could, double-underscoring his commitment to re-engaging the world as partners, not as missile targets. On purely pragmatic grounds, it was extremely well played. Politically, I see zero downside, except maybe the idiot traditional media and their bizarre Clinton fetish. But screw them.

And Gates... Yeah, he's the one that makes me wince, apparently reinforcing the notion that only Republicans can competently handle defense matters. But there are three mitigating factors:

1. It's supposed to be a short-term appointment, a one-year gig to transition seamlessly.
2. Gates has already promised to make closing the Guantanamo prison a high priority. In fact, he has long argued for such a closing.

   March 22 [2007]— In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings at Guantánamo would be viewed as illegitimate, according to senior administration officials. He told President Bush and others that it should be shut down as quickly as possible.

   Mr. Gates’s appeal was an effort to turn Mr. Bush’s publicly stated desire to close Guantánamo into a specific plan for action, the officials said. In particular, Mr. Gates urged that trials of terrorism suspects be moved to the United States, both to make them more credible and because Guantánamo’s continued existence hampered the broader war effort, administration officials said.

   Mr. Gates’s arguments were rejected after Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and some other government lawyers expressed strong objections to moving detainees to the United States, a stance that was backed by the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, administration officials said.

   Since the President makes that final call (or in Bush's case, the Vice-President), Gates was ignored by Bush. But his stance on this critical issue probably helped convince Obama to keep him around to implement its closing. And given the politically sensitive nature of the move, it makes it harder for Republicans to attack the move since it's Bush Secretary of Defense pushing for the closing.

3. Gates is aboard getting our troops out of Iraq. And like #2 above, it becomes easier for Obama to sell the move to various important stakeholders by having Bush's guy plan the withdrawal.

All in all, I would've preferred a Democrat take the helm, but there is a valid rationale for keeping Gates aboard for a short time.

Beyond that, time will judge the wisdom of Obama's choices. I'm not ready to pass judgment now, not when we're still 48 days away from even having a President Obama.

Remember Jeff Frederick, the Virginia GOP chairman who told McCain canvassers to compare Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden? Well Mr. Frederick is sticking to his guns. Although he concedes his remark was dumb, he's defending it as 'true.'

Va. GOP chief: Obama remark was stupid but true

Virginia's Republican chairman said Tuesday that his remark tying Democrat Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden during the presidential campaign was stupid, but he refused to apologize...

...Frederick was asked about the remark Tuesday during a discussion of the 2008 Virginia presidential campaign with a group of newspaper editors. Obama was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Virginia in 44 years.

"It was a stupid joke I gave to somebody in a small crowd of people and that's what happens," Frederick said. "But you know, it's really unfortunate. We live in a 'gotcha' society."

Frederick said he got hate mail, angry phone calls and vicious e-mails for weeks.

Even so, he stood by the comment Tuesday, defending it as true and saying he was taking cues from Republican John McCain's campaign after running mate Sarah Palin said Obama had been "palling around with terrorists."

Notice that Frederick claimed he was just telling somebody a joke, and casts himself as a victim. But that's a load of bunk. He's no victim, and he wasn't telling a joke. Here's what actually happened, as reported in mid-October by Karen Tumulty of TIME:

With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." It is also not exactly true — though that distorted reference to Obama’s controversial association with William Ayers, a former 60s radical, was enough to get the volunteers stoked. "And he won’t salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don’t even know where Senator Obama was really born." Actually, we do; it’s Hawaii.

This is the modern GOP. A party for extremists -- and liars.

• I bet you didn't know that Karl Rove lies.
• Bowers discusses the fake liberal ideological gap.
• What? This sounds like a "purge", and the incoming Obama administration wouldn't do that, would they? That was their rationale for not giving Lieberman the boot.
• Obama's approval ratings per Ras: 67-30. It was 52-44 after the election.
• Hardly a week goes by that I don't get some email demanding I stop using words like "fuck" because it does something or other to me "credibility". I doubt James Wolcott would agree.
• After all these years, Conservapedia is still hilarious.
• Best headline of the day:

  Erick Erickson Dances In End Zone After Late Field Goal By Saxby Chambliss Makes Final Score 48-3.

  The rest of the post is equally hilarious.

• Bush Jr. is now blaming his father for the nation's economic ills. Those guys crack me up when they talk about "personal responsibility".
• The Vatican is jealous of all the negative attention the Mormon Church is getting.
• The Hispanic Caucus wants Obama to nominate Rick Noriega for Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

  I like Rick a lot. He ran the Katrina relief operation at the Astrodome, so he seems to have the ability to put together an effective operation. Then again, his campaign team was an embarrassing disaster. So maybe he can't put together an effective operation? Some candidates lost despite running great races (Jim Martin, for example). Noriega lost running a shitty campaign.

Update: Oh, and this comment by rweba is the 25,000,000 comment on Daily Kos since it moved over to Scoop in 2003.

Math is fun.

If you go through and add it up, leaving aside Minnesota's undecided 1.7 percent for now, only about 49.8 percent of the nearly 306 million people in the United States live in a state where there's even one Republican Senator. Only 24.4 percent live in a state where both seats are held by Republicans.

Taken from the other direction, 48.5 percent of the country's citizenry lives in states where the electorate wants to see only Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents run things in the Senate. Less than a quarter support having only Republicans do so. That's a 2:1 ratio of Democrat:Republican in terms of straightforward statewide mandates for one party or the other in terms of population represented. That leaves the potential public constituency for some sort of centrist (though it could as easily be center left as right, considering the presidential map and the makeup of the House) management of the Senate at slightly over a quarter.

To review, that's about a 2:1:1 ratio for left:center:right, with the cumulative left+center:right ratio of 3:1.

Yeah, the Senate, no matter what happened last night when a Republican shockingly won a Senate race in Georgia (gasp!), provides zero evidence of a "center-right" nation. Neither did the totality of the Democratic landslide the past two cycles:

"Our polling showed that more than 60 percent of voters identified Obama as a liberal," top John McCain aide Mark Salter told Politico. "Typically, a candidate is not going to win the presidency with those figures. But I think the country just disregarded it. People didn’t care."

Wrong. People did care. Obama ran on an explicitly progressive platform, and Americans responded enthusiastically, flocking to his campaign in mind-numbing numbers — rallies topping 100,000 people, 12 million on his e-mail list, a staggering 3.1 million donors. Republicans frantically screamed, "Liberal!" and America responded with a "Right on!" and pulled the lever for the guy. Is that what a "center-right" nation does?

Does a "center-right" nation take a 30-seat Republican advantage in the House and turn it into an 80-seat Democratic advantage in just two election cycles? Does it take a 10-seat Republican advantage in the Senate and turn it into a near-filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the same time frame?

But nothing disproves the "center-right nation" fiction more clearly than the campaign Republicans just ran.

They spent the bulk of the election ranting about "celebrities," "tire gauges," "Rev. Wright" and "William Ayers," then capped it all off with the silly "Joe the Plumber" nonsense. Fear-mongering isn’t a hallmark of a party confident that its agenda is squarely in the American mainstream. Rather, it’s a sign of insecurity — that it can’t win votes by running on substance.

Yet substance was all the voting public wanted this cycle, and they proved it by electing the "liberal."

Wise dude, the guy who wrote that.

Spin?

In a briefing going on right now with reporters, Al Franken's lead recount lawyer Marc Elias made a stunning announcement: According to the campaign's methodology of tracking the recount results, they believe Al Franken now leads Norm Coleman by a margin of 22 votes.

This would be the first time that Franken has claimed a lead in this drawn-out process, and was clearly made possible by the discovery yesterday of ballots in the suburban St. Paul town of Maplewood, which gave him a net gain of 37 votes.

Remember, this isn't an official count. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has Coleman leading by 303 votes, which is also not official. So what's going on?

The Star-Tribune count excludes challenged ballots (up to about 4,800 6,000 right now), and there's tons of frivolous challenges mucking up the count. So the Franken campaign is noting the opinion of the local election judges on each ballot, and assuming that the state canvassing board will uphold those original judgments. That may not necessarily happen, and Franken's own math could be off. And given that 138,000 ballots remain to be recounted, this still remains a tossup at best.

So a disappointing result last night, but not an unexpected one. Not a single poll showed Martin leading in the runoff, and when the early voting numbers showed African American turnout way down, well, the writing was on the wall.

Of course, while a Martin victory would've been the upset of the decade, Chambliss hanging on is now a stunning repudiation of Obama, or other such silliness. Yet it's about as significant as Mary Landrieu hanging on in a Louisiana runoff in 2002 while Republicans engaged in "Operation Icing on the Cake" (after knocking off Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and taking over the Senate). Well, the GOP didn't get their icing on the cake, but 2004 was a good enough consolation prize.

Nate Silver thinks Chambliss' victory may point a way forward for the GOP, but special elections are funny beasts, and it's not worth reading too much into them. Remember when winning tough early-2004 special elections in South Dakota (Stephanie Herseth) and Kentucky (Ben Chandler) meant things were looking up for us for November 2004? Remember how the GOP's strong performance in the Massachusetts 5th 2007 special election meant they were bouncing back from their 2006 drubbing?

What yesterday's election definitely taught us is something we already knew -- that Democrats generally perform better the higher the turnout. Too many of our core constituencies are low performing ones -- racial and ethnic minorities and young voters. Obama got them out, and made Georgia close. Martin did not, and he got blown away in what is still a Red state.

Throw in the fact that Democrats acted like the mission had been accomplished (Obama couldn't be bothered to lend too much of a hand), and there was little reason for his supporters to put in a similar effort. It may have been smart politics for Obama, since it's hard to see how he could've helped close that much of a gap anyhow, but the example is set at the top. If Obama acts like a race isn't worth his time, then neither will his supporters.

President-Elect Barack Obama named former presidential rival Bill Richardson as his choice for Secretary of Commerce this morning, making the former energy secretary and New Mexico governor the highest ranking Latino in the incoming administration.

The Hispanic Caucus is urging that more Latino appointments be made, and has offered up a list for consideration, according to Bloomberg:

The Hispanic Caucus letter recommends Colorado Representative John Salazar for agriculture secretary, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for Housing and Urban Development secretary and Texas Assemblyman Rick Noriega for veterans’ affairs secretary, among others.

Baca described the letter, sent to transition director John Podesta, as the "the beginning of demonstrating that we are ones to be reckoned with and not to be taken lightly." Baca and Gonzalez signed the letter on behalf of the 21-member caucus.

California Rep. Xavier Beccera has been offered the position of U.S trade representative, according to the article, but has not yet officially accepted.

Barack Obama's remarks today about Richardson's appointment, as prepared for delivery, are as follows:

Last week, Vice President-Elect Biden and I began the process of announcing our economic team.  Today, we are pleased to name another key member of this team: our nominee for Secretary of Commerce, my friend, Governor Bill Richardson.

With each passing day, the work our team has begun, developing plans to revive our economy, becomes more urgent.  Earlier this week, we learned that the U.S. economy has been in recession since December of 2007 and that our manufacturing output is at a 26 year low – two stark reminders of the magnitude of the challenges we face.  

But while I know rebuilding our economy won’t be easy – and it won’t happen overnight – I also know this: right now, somewhere in America, a small business is at work on the next big idea.  A scientist is on the cusp of the next breakthrough discovery.  An entrepreneur is sketching plans for the startup that will revolutionize an industry.  Right now, across America, the finest products in the world are rolling off our assembly lines.  And the proudest, most determined, most productive workers in the world are on the job – some, already on their second shift of the day; many, putting in longer hours than ever before.

After nearly two years traveling across this country, meeting with workers, visiting businesses large and small, I am more confident than ever before that we have everything we need to renew our economy – we have the ingenuity and technology, the skill and commitment – we just need to put it to work.  It’s time to not just address our immediate economic threats, but to start laying the groundwork for long-term economic prosperity – to help American businesses grow and thrive at home, and expand our efforts to promote American enterprise around the world.

This work is the core mission of the Secretary of Commerce.  And with his breadth and depth of experience in public life, Governor Richardson is uniquely suited for this role as a leading economic diplomat for America.

During his time in state government and Congress, and in two tours of duty in the cabinet, Bill has seen from just about every angle what makes our economy work and what keeps it from working better.

As Governor of New Mexico, Bill showed how government can act as a partner to support our businesses, helping create 80,000 new jobs.  And under his leadership, New Mexico saw the lowest unemployment rate in decades.

As a former Secretary of Energy, Bill understands the steps we must take to build a new, clean-energy industry and create the green jobs of the twenty-first century.  Jobs that pay well and won’t be shipped overseas – jobs that will help us end our dependence on foreign oil.

And as a former Ambassador to the United Nations, Bill brings both international stature and a deep understanding of today’s global economy.  He understands that the success of today’s business in Detroit or Columbus often depends on whether it can sell products in places like Santiago or Shanghai.  And he knows that America’s reputation in the world is critical not just to our security, but to our prosperity – that when the citizens of the world respect America’s leadership, they are more likely to buy America’s products.

To this crucial work of restoring America’s international standing, Bill will bring a leadership style all his own.  Bill has never been content to learn just from briefing books – never satisfied with only the official version of the story.  During his time in Congress, he held more than 2,500 town-hall meetings, so he could hear directly from constituents.  He was a regular in the U.N. cafeteria, mixing it up with U.N. employees over lunch.  And during his 2002 campaign for Governor, he actually broke a world record by shaking nearly 14,000 hands in just eight hours.

All of this reflects a determination to reach out and understand where people are coming from, what they hope for, and what he can do to help.  This approach, I believe, has been the key to Bill’s success as a negotiator and will be key to his work on the critical functions of the Commerce Department – from administering our census and monitoring our climate to protecting our intellectual property and restoring our economic diplomacy.

In the end, Bill Richardson is a leader who shares my values -- and he measures progress the same way I do.  Are we creating good jobs, instead of losing them?  Are incomes growing, instead of shrinking?  I know that Bill will be an unyielding advocate for American business and American jobs, at home and around the world.  And I look forward to working with him in the years ahead.

Yesterday, Plutonium Page asked for less drama and more facts on Hillary Clinton's nomination to be Secretary of State, but apparently Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times isn't ready to give up on the imaginary soap opera:

Usually, the men and women chosen for top cabinet roles are not well known to the public; if there is drama behind the scenes, most in the audience are blind to it.

That was hardly the case on Monday when President-elect Barack Obama introduced his national security team. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s speech was no ordinary public-service pledge; for plenty of viewers, it was the moment when Mrs. Clinton finally conceded the election for real.

Stanley, offering no examples of those "plenty of viewers," apparently forgot about Clinton's concession speech, her speech at the Democratic National Convention, or the following night when she moved that Barack Obama be "selected by this convention by acclamation." Apparently in Stanley's mind, none of those very public statements, nor the campaigning Clinton did for Obama, counted.

And, says Stanley, when Clinton "finally conceded the election for real," it was only possible with a ceremony "choreographed to avert awkward moments and camouflage past unpleasantness." Now, to the less discerning eye, it might have appeared to be a standard announcement and press conference, but apparently Stanley knows better. And along with her ability to know the minds of "plenty of viewers," Stanley recognized a:

...fleeting flashback to her primary season gamesmanship when she listed representing New York as a foreign policy credential.

Who knew? When Clinton said:

"You’ve also helped prepare me well for this new role," she told her Senate constituents. "After all, New Yorkers aren’t afraid to speak their minds and do so in every language."

...I simply took it as a rather charming and humorous way to thank and compliment her constituents, but apparently Stanley cracked some code that only she could hear. And not only does Stanley assign her own definition of what words mean, she can do the same thing with expressions. According to Stanley, when Obama was asked about the heated rhetoric during the course of the primary campaign:

Mrs. Clinton had greeted the question somewhat grimly, but as Mr. Obama answered, she slowly unfurled a smile. By the end, she managed to look almost as amused by the question as her new boss was.

Having watched the video, I saw Clinton nodding in agreement and looking genuinely amused when Obama joked with the reporter. Of course I didn't watch it with an agenda of pushing a non-existent drama and trauma story that so many in the media just won't let go of.

The good news: David Shuster cites a Daily Kos web poll showing that Kossacks are overwhelmingly comfortable with Barack Obama's national security team. (Just 5% called it a "sellout.")

The bad news: Shuster cites the poll as evidence that the left is "worried about the direction of Obama's foreign policy."

Now I normally love David Shuster (he did a great job with Countdown two weeks ago), but 5% is not exactly a majority, or even a large plurality, so unless there's some sort of new math that we don't know about, I'm thinking it might be time for MSNBC to start finding a new drama to flog.

(Also: 'Kos' rhymes with 'dose' -- not 'loss'.)

From the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism:

The United States can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study being briefed Tuesday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. It suggests the Obama administration bolster efforts to counter and prepare for germ warfare by terrorists.

"Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing," states the report, obtained by The Associated Press.  [...]

...led by former Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and Jim Talent of Missouri, acknowledges that terrorist groups still lack the needed scientific and technical ability to make weapons out of pathogens or nuclear bombs. But it warns that gap can be easily overcome, if terrorists find scientists willing to share or sell their know-how.

Am I dismissing this too easily? Somehow, reporting that terrorists would like to launch a biological or nuclear attack against the United States if they had the weaponry doesn't strike me as breaking news.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

One Big Happy...

While journalists, pundits and bloggers with big fancy degrees and lots of "experience" pore over the resumes and records of Barack Obama's proposed cabinet, I've decided to tap a different well to get a truer feeling for how the team will get along with their boss. It all starts with this:

Obama is a Leo.

I'm a Leo, too, so I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he'll be a thoughtful, courageous, compassionate, even-handed and action-oriented leader. But how will he get along with cabinet members who fall under different astrological signs? According to what I read on the first astrology web site I found using The Google (being a Leo, my first instinct is always correct), the future is mixed:

Obama and Sec. of State Hillary Clinton (Scorpio): "Career match-ups are not favorable here, since the kinds of relaxed attitudes that are typical between these two rarely bring people forward in the professional and business worlds. Leo-Scorpio partners interested in making a success of their endeavors will have to push themselves a bit more."

Obama and Sec. of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano & Sec. of Commerce Bill Richardson & VP Joe Biden (Sagittarius): Working relationships between these two are seldom successful except at the highest executive levels, where innovation may be most appreciated.

Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder (Aquarius): Work relationships between these partners can work out in the short term, but will rarely succeed in establishing a lasting financial or ideological basis. Enterprises involving media, public relations, publishing and the arts are particularly favored here. In the long run, Aquarius business partners may demand too much attention for Leo's taste, and may have too little psychological understanding of their colleague to keep him or her happy.

Obama and Sec. of Defense Bob Gates (Libra): As boss-employee pairs or co-workers in a team effort, Libras are likely to give direction and purpose to projects that feature the near boundless energy of Leo. Efficiency and planning will figure prominently in such efforts, for these two tend to be well prepared when they go into battle.

Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (Uh oh...another Leo): Co-worker match-ups between two Leos are strong, dependable and therefore of great value to the company of which they form a part. Occasional battles are inevitable between them, however, with Leo fur flying in all directions. Little if any quarter is generally given in such combat; nor is it advisable to come between Leo adversaries---they must be left to settle things alone, whether physically or verbally.

Well, at least we know this: it'll never be boring.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Wednesday is a good day to abbreviate.

NY Times:

If he is confirmed by the Senate as attorney general, Eric Holder, President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for the job, will inherit a Justice Department that has been mired in scandal and that has seriously lost its way in critical areas. Under President Bush, the department has been used to defend the indefensible, like indefinite detention and torture of prisoners, and to undermine rather than protect Americans’ cherished rights. Mr. Holder could be an exemplary choice to face this daunting agenda, but he must answer serious questions before the Senate votes on his confirmation.

Stuart Rothenberg: I don't like bloggers, partisans or Keith Olbermann. In fact, things have been going to hell in a hand basket since the Eisenhower era. And Obama's modest win won't change The Great American Cultural Divide, which I'm betting matters way more than those namby-pamby 18-29 year olds realize.

Things will never change.

Thomas Frank:

Health-Care Reform Could Kill the GOP. Bill Kristol was right to panic.

Can policy be both wise and aggressively partisan? Ask any Republican worth his salt and the answer will be an unequivocal yes. Ask a Democrat of the respectable Beltway variety and he will twist himself into a pretzel denying it.

Ramesh Ponnuru: Suck it up and acknowledge reality: Republicans are stuck with can't win without social conservatives.

There is no question that social conservatism repels some voters. But there is no real reason to think that it costs the Republican party more voters than it brings, or even that the party has overemphasized it.

Because, after all, it's easier to attack Republican wussies than address the issues brought up by Neal Gabler.

Michael Goodwin:

It's official now. George Bush has entered not just the twilight of his presidency, but the Twilight Zone of history.

His interview with Charlie Gibson on ABC News is chock-full of Jabberwocky tangles of the mother tongue. Even on his way out the White House door, you still need a translator to decipher the President's meaning.

Jon Ward: Bush launches campaign to improve image.

As the final 50 days of his two-term tenure expire, Mr. Bush - who has said repeatedly that he would entrust his legacy to historians - has used reflective interviews to tout as accomplishments his fight against AIDS and malaria, the creation of a government-funded prescription drug program for Medicare and his efforts to liberate millions in Iraq.

Good luck with that.

Michael Gerson: The only possible route to rehabilitation is to let Obama do it for us. Disappointed Republicans have little to do but try to stir up triumphant Democrats by not only claiming Obama as one of our own, but by pretending we were centrists and moderates all along. Of course, we don't trust him and never will. And our sniping will start on Jan. 20. But for now, let's pretend we are credible critics, bipartisans to the bone, won over by his cabinet choices.

Trust me on this. I've been right about everything, even more often than Dick Morris. Heh.