Sunday punditry.

Frank Rich:

The one indisputable talent of his White House was its ability to create and sell propaganda both to the public and the press. Now that bag of tricks is empty as well. Bush’s first and last photo-ops in Iraq could serve as bookends to his entire tenure. On Thanksgiving weekend 2003, even as the Iraqi insurgency was spiraling, his secret trip to the war zone was a P.R. slam-dunk. The photo of the beaming commander in chief bearing a supersized decorative turkey for the troops was designed to make every front page and newscast in the country, and it did. Five years later, in what was intended as a farewell victory lap to show off Iraq’s improved post-surge security, Bush was reduced to ducking shoes.

Incoming.

Michael Lewis and David Einhorn: Another winning entry from the author of Liar's Poker on how screwed up Wall Street is – and how screwed we are because of it. Tho only one who can read this and think we should continue to deregulate is Bernie Madoff.

Joe Nocera: Of quants (numbers guys) and David Einhorn (see above) and predicting risk. Do you go with the numbers or do you go with your gut? There's nothing wrong with models – so long as you know how to interpret them. A must read for Nate Silver fans, poll watchers and intuitive predictors (there's something for everyone.)

David Ignatius: The Middle East is really tough to solve. That's my expert advice for Obama. Thank goodness for people like me.

Jim Hoagland:

A strange brew of wishful thinking and studied inaction passed for George W. Bush's Middle East peace policy for eight years. But in his final days, this president must act to contain the consequences of a regional conflict he has allowed to fester.

We want Bush to do for the Middle East what he's done everywhere else? Thanks but no thanks.

Nicholas Kristof: More on sex slavery.

James R. Lee: Climate change as military issue. And you thought the weather sucked. Just wait.

George Will: How the activist courts and the Congress ruined the economy in the name of fairness and civil rights. Wall Street? Eh. The real problem is that you don't belong in my college.

David Broder: Here are all the terrific Republicans in Congress I will miss. Their wisdom and counsel has been replaced by who knows what kind of riff-raff, and the place won't be the same again.

Putting aside the violence in Gaza; Roland Burris' surprise appointment to President-Elect Barack Obama's vacated Senate seat; the completion of the recount in the Minnesota Senate race; and, the fact that a new year began — this was a pretty uneventful week.

I doubt the talking heads will have much to say tomorrow morning, but for those of you interested in watching anyway, you'll find the lineup below the fold (along with some other stuff).

This evening's Rescue Rangers are a synthetic cubist, jlms qkw, HansScholl, Got a Grip, sunspark says, and shayera, with watercarrier4diogenes at the editor's desk.

The Rangers have sifted and sorted through a ton of diaries to bring you these 9 great examples of the excellent writing and breadth of subjects that Teh Orange has become known for.

• danps shares a revealing vignette on the reach of Cheney's duplicity in Preparing the Ground. (HansScholl)
• Avenging Angel analyzes the malignant problem within the GOP as he examines The Republicans' Old Black Magic. (sunspark says)
• AaronBa wonders about the bubbles created around Mayor Bloomberg and our public officials, and the money wasted to create and perpetuate them in Priorities and People. (HansScholl)
• juliewolf explains why Democrats need to stand firm and not cowtow to the GOP out of deference or habit in Asch and Conformity: some examples. (sunspark says)
• FrankCornish was inspired by a book, which led him on My Secular Pilgrimage. (shayera)
• From Austria and Germany in the aftermath of WWII, through misguided urban renewal in Florida, to a contemporary housing code violation in New Hampshire, hannah explains Why I Cannot Be Dispassionate in the face of bureaucratic efforts to unhouse those most vulnerable in our society. (HansScholl)
• In La Commune: The Rise Of The Proletariat, gjohnsit reminds us of a time and place, unlike our own, in which the left wing had both passion and imagination. (a synthetic cubist)
• At the end of an exhausting day, exmearden reflects on the limits of her own wisdom and experience in the midst of a late night call for help from her adult daughter in American mouth. (HansScholl)
• Donna O tells a sweet story of a To Dream of Squirrels. (sunspark says)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: January 2, 2008, while carolita brings us Top Comments 1-3-09 -- Moran-Speak Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread (even if you're the author! Here's where that's actually appreciated). And, of course, since it's an open thread, PLAY NICE, OK? 8^)

AP's Ben Feller offers more Halperin-bait:

WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush will be judged on what he did. He will also be remembered for what he's like: a fast-moving, phrase-mangling Texan who stays upbeat even though his country is not.

For eight years, the nation has been led by a guy who relaxes by clearing brush in scorching heat and taking breakneck bike rides through the woods. He dishes out nicknames to world leaders, and even gave the German chancellor an impromptu, perhaps unwelcome, neck rub. He's annoyed when kept waiting and sticks relentlessly to routine. He stays optimistic in even the most dire circumstances, but readily tears up in public. He has little use for looking within himself, and only lately has done much looking back.

Bush's style and temperament are as much his legacy as his decisions. Policy shapes lives, but personality creates indelible memories — positive and negative.

Call it distinctly Bush.

They still haven't realized that this isn't about Bush's personality. It's about the damage his presidency has caused.

A lot of people like Bush. They just don't like what he's done.

Michael Steele, one of six candidates fighting to become the next chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent out a memo to RNC members, outlining his vision for the Party. He may want to rethink this one:

I'm trying to avoid the use of words that start with 're,' words like renewal, rebuild, recharge, re-this and re-that. I'm convinced we should not re-anything.

Does that include Republican?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Great news for Al Franken (for real):

Recount is complete; Franken up by 226

By MIKE KASZUBA and KEVIN DUCHSCHERE, Star Tribune staff writers

Norm Coleman's term as a U.S. Senator ended at noon Washington time on Saturday, and by evening his hopes of winning a second term had been dealt an expected but serious setback as state officials counted previously rejected absentee ballots in St. Paul.

Democrat Al Franken held an unofficial lead of 226 votes over Coleman as this edition of the Star Tribune went to press, according to a newspaper tally of officials' count of the absentee ballots. Franken had led unofficially by 49 votes going into the day and gained a net 177 votes from the new ballots.

With the recount complete, focus immediately shifted to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which continued to consider a request from the Coleman campaign to alter the process and add more absentee ballots to be reconsidered. But by early evening there there was no word from the state's highest court as to when it would rule or hear arguments.

There's a celebration going on in Al Rodgers' diary.

:::

Update (6:41PM): The Tribune has updated the vote lead -- it is 225, not 226 (as noted in Al's diary).

Perhaps the most important part of the Amar and Chafetz argument is that even if we knew for certain that there had been no quid pro quo between Burris and Blago, there would still be very good reason to keep Burris out of the Senate.

To be sure, there is no evidence Burris bribed the governor to get this seat. But imagine if Burris had won election only because other candidates were wrongly and corruptly kept off the ballot. Surely the Senate could properly deem this an invalid election. Similarly, it now seems apparent that there were candidates that Blagojevich refused to consider for improper reasons—because one refused to "pay to play" early on, or because another is at the center of the impending criminal case against the governor.

The key point here is that there are at least two ways in which Blago's appointment could be improper. (1) There could be a deal with Burris. (2) Candidates who refused to bribe Blago could be excluded from consideration.

We can be almost certain that (2) has taken place. We don't know about (1), though most suspect that it hasn't. But that doesn't matter. The appointment process has still been corrupted.

The bottom-line is that when you have a Governor who was trying to sell a Senate seat, there is virtually no way for him (or her) to make an appointment that isn't tainted by his (or her) corruption.

Coming up on Sunday Kos ....

• Did white voters have a problem voting for Barack Obama?  The answer is yes and no. DHinMI will look at the data and show where Obama did fine with white voters, and where he did worse than Al Gore and John Kerry.
• Devilstower will look at that great eighteenth century blogger (well, would-be blogger) Joseph Priestley, in a review of Steven Johnson's book, The Invention of Air.
• Imagine what it would be like if Carson Daly secured the first post-presidency interview of George W. Bush, and you have some idea of what Adam B saw when he watched Frost/Nixon, which he will review in-depth.
• Bernie Madoff, the credit crisis, and a cratering stock market aren't the only things keeping corporate executives up at night.  Trapper John will look at the desperate backlash of the corporate class against the reform and middle-class stimulus promised by the Employee Free Choice Act.
• brownsox will continue his preliminary look at 2009 and 2010 elections.
• Sean Penn's smile alone makes his performance as Harvey Milk one of the great ones. And, as MissLaura will write, the decision to go for joy over Very Serious Film represents just one more degree in that arc bending toward justice we hear so much about.
• As we now know, the Bush Recession began in late 2007. Yet for most of 2008, George Bush, John McCain, and Phil Gramm were all trying to convince us that the economy was fundamentally sound and that we were merely experiencing a mental recession. Well, they were wrong, and we were right. Jed L will take a trip down YouTube's memory lane to assemble the clips of the G.O.P.'s leadership denying the reality we could see before our very eyes.

If you blinked, you missed it. Yesterday, the 110th Congress officially ended with a 27-second pro forma session, and on Tuesday, the 111th Congress will begin in what promises to be an action-packed week.

President-elect Obama and his family arrive in Washington tomorrow, ahead of a meeting on Monday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Republican leader John Boehner and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, to discuss the $800 billion stimulus package Congress hopes to have on Obama's desk by January 20th.

On Wednesday, Obama will meet at the White House for lunch with George W. Bush and former Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter.

And what about Vice President-elect Biden? He'll be at the Capitol Building on Tuesday, being sworn in for his seventh term as a U.S. Senator, before handing over the reins to Ted Kaufman.

If only every "changing of the guard" could go as smoothly as Delaware and Colorado's did, because as of this writing, only 98 Senators will be sworn in on Tuesday, as the never ending recount continues in Minnesota, and of course, the uncertain status of the appointment of Roland Burris.

The coming week also marks the start of the confirmation hearings of the nominees for Cabinet positions:

• 10:00 AM Thursday, January 8, 2009: Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services-Designate, Former Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.)
• 9:30 AM Friday, January 9, 2009: Confirmation Hearing for Secretary of Labor-Designate, Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-Calif.)

Follow the action at Congress Matters, where Kagro X will be providing real time analysis of the proceedings.

The upcoming week has the potential to be very interesting. We'll have an almost, a current, and three former Presidents coming together for the first time. With a planned Rose Garden photo-op, body language experts should have a field day. John Cornyn, getting a head start on Republican obstructionism, is promising to filibuster any attempt to seat Al Franken, while Roland Burris may face armed guards if he tries to be seated. And we can look forward to Republicans from both houses to suddenly remember their so-called fiscal conservatism, as they fight tooth-and-nail against the Democratic proposal for the economy. Good times.

From Reuters:

BAGHDAD, Jan 3 (Reuters) - Former U.S.-installed Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has denounced the policies of President George W. Bush as an "utter failure" that gave rise to the sectarian venom that ravaged his country.

In an interview published on Saturday in the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Allawi found fault with American management of Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 as well as the government of present Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

Allawi ruled Iraq for almost a year after U.S. occupation officials handed power to him in 2004 as prime minister of an interim government. He was selected by a council hand-picked by Washington after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

"Yes, Bush's policies failed utterly," said Allawi, describing the U.S. administration that once backed him. "Utter failure. Failure of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, including fighting terrorism and economic policy."

"His insistence on names like 'democracy' and 'open elections', without giving attention to political stability, was a big mistake. It cast shadows on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Egypt, and I believe this will be remembered in history as President Bush's policy," he said.

Perhaps Allawi didn't get the memo that "history will judge" Bush's actions......not the Iraqi people, the American people, the rest of the world, or anyone actually affected by his policies of disaster. Only unknown historians in another lifetime will be able to truly judge his legacy.

Over at Congress Matters, mcjoan looks at the shuffle of committee assignments for the incoming Congress and what that means for the key issues of net neutrality, and energy and climate change.

It's not as if Illinois doesn't have a history of electing African Americans to the Senate. In fact, it has sent two.

Days before Gov. Blagojevich was charged with trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder, top Senate Democrat Harry Reid made it clear who he didn’t want in the post: Jesse Jackson, Jr., Danny Davis or Emil Jones.

Rather, Reid called Blagojevich to argue he appoint either state Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth or Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis — both democratic congressmen from Illinois — and against Jones — the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama — because he did not believe the three men were electable. He feared losing the seat to a Republican in a future election.

Sirota:

Colorado has no dearth of very, very qualified people to be U.S. Senator [...] More specifically, we have a lot of people who have worked very hard passing good public policy and building the grassroots of the Democratic Party for years [in Colorado]. Looking at this bench, and then selecting a person with almost none of those qualities confirms that what gets rewarded in politics today is not legislative accomplishments nor even political ones - what counts is money, inside connections, Ivy League pedigree and a Beltway-padded resume.

If Michael Bennet was considered a caretaker appointment, this would make more sense. But it doesn't seem so. Bennet was chosen because he had the right pedigree and connections, not because he brings any relevant accomplishments to the table. Any appointment to an elected position should have, as a minimum, electoral experience (even of the losing variety). Instead, Bennet parlayed three years as schools superintendent into the second-highest elected office in the land. That's a sweet gig if you can get it. As one prominent Pueblo Democrat notes:

"We're in total shock," Stealey said. "We don't think he can win the next election. We think he is the wealthy man's candidate."

Well then, he'll fit in right at home in the Senate. Meanwhile, I look forward to a competitive primary in 2010 in the great state of Colorado. For all we know, Bennet will be far better than Ken Salazar. The bar is set pretty low on that front. But this system of gubernatorial appointments needs to end in the states that maintain it. It is patently undemocratic.

Cross-posted at Congress Matters.

As of noon today, Norm Coleman is a former U.S. Senator.

Sure, as a former U.S. Senator he'll have floor privileges...but he won't have voting privileges. Or will he? (Update, 5:23PM: Somehow, I forgot to link to the Politico article from which these quotes come. It's now included.)

Since he has not been certified a winner in the race, Coleman may have to give up his privileges as a senator, including his desk on the floor, his personal office and his right to vote on legislation, according to Democratic aides familiar with the rules.

Um, there's no "may" about this. We can debate Burris all we want, but there is no question about whether the senate has the authority to seat an unelected, unappointed Senator. It doesn't. Nonetheless:

It is possible, however, that all of Coleman's privileges may remain intact should the two parties reach an accommodation, and aides signaled that talks were occurring on the matter through Friday.

"We are still reviewing the situation," said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "Norm Coleman should respect the conclusions of the Minnesota State Canvassing Board."

There's nothing to review here. I can't really imagine that Harry Reid is seriously considering giving Norm Coleman voting privileges, but unless his quote has been twisted, Reid's spokesman seems to indicate that it's still an open question.

If it comes pass, it will be a WTF moment if there ever was one.

• In news of the absurd, a Russian military analyst has predicted the U.S. will break into six regions by 2010.
• After a 15 year absence from the military, 50 year old Paul Bandel and his wife were stunned when they received word he is headed back to combat.

  Anger's not the word. I was more concerned about the financial impact it's going to do. My pay's probably cut in half," said Paul Bandel.
  "Right now, I'm just in disbelief because it's like the disbelief that this could be happening 15 years after being out of the military. It's like a dream or a nightmare," said Linda Bandel.
  The veteran is dusting off his old uniforms and torn between his duty to his country and obligations as a grandfather.
  "I certainly never thought I'd be going back there at this point in my life," said Paul Bandel.
  The last missile system the veteran was trained to operate is no longer used by the military.

• Army investigators are looking into a "cluster" of suicides amongst Houston area military recruiters. Since 2001, five of 17 recruiter suicides have come from Houston area recruiting offices, causing many to question the practice of forcing combat veterans into recruiting roles.
• Researchers have coined a new term applicable to smokers --- third-hand smoke. Apparently the mere smell of a previously smoked cigarette on a person is now toxic.
• Programmers at Microsoft didn't check the calendar or forgot to account for 2009 2008 (edit: correction) being a leap year. As a result their Zune players began freezing up on January 1st. Pfft. That is sooo Y2K.
• Think Progress reports that Fox News has "recognized the error" of allowing a racist text message about Obama to air on New Years Eve:

  Fox News VP of programming Suzanne Scott explains, “We received tens of thousands of text message submissions during our New Years Eve special, and this particular viewer submission was inadvertently cleared for air. At FOX we recognize our error as opposed to networks who allow their hosts to utter crude vulgarities to the public.”

  One can only imagine Suzanne was referring to Joe Scarborough's accidental use of the "F word" on air. For the record, Joe immediately and repeatedly apologized. And for future reference for the Fox News PR Department, saying you "recognize the error" is not the same as apologizing. Particularly when your network has a history of racist commentary. (update: several readers have pointed out the Fox News rep was referring to an incident with Kathy Griffin on CNN. Either way, you have to love the "I know you are, but what am I?" defense.)

Someone's doing a good job with the transition so far, and it ain't President Bush. According to Gallup:

Gallup Poll Daily tracking finds support for Barack Obama among liberal Democrats holding steady at 93% despite news reports that his core supporters are disappointed with some of his cabinet appointments and other decisions. Meanwhile, in recent weeks, Obama's ratings have improved among conservative Republicans, up from 23% to 29%.

More:

Perhaps because his choices may signal a more politically moderate approach to governing, conservative, moderate, and liberal Republicans have become more confident in Obama's potential in recent weeks.

Perhaps. And perhaps Republicans are souring on their own party, given recent performance.

That's not speculation. This ABC/WaPo poll from 12/18/08, entitled Trust in GOP Reaches Record Low suggests exactly that:

A majority, 56 percent, trust the Democrats to handle the nation's top issues over the next few years, also a record in Post-ABC polling. But the GOP's recent losses have not translated into big Democratic gains, instead the proportion who trust neither party has climbed to 15 percent.

Trust in the GOP has fallen nine points since May, driven by a 19-point decline among conservatives. Nearly one in five in that group said they trust neither party.

Yet in that poll, even conservatives are increasingly likely (35% now compared to 28% then) to trust the Democrats. So what we know is that liberals and moderates (66% of the electorate v conservatives at 34%) approve of Obama, "conservative Democrats" approve in similar numbers to "all Democrats", and Republican conservatives are learning to live with him (we can see that Republican moderates feel even better about Obama; too bad there's only five of them left.)

Yep. Sounds like Obama's in trouble with his base, just like the conservative pundits tell us. They also tell us we are a center-right nation, and other bedtime fairy tales (the truth? We are a moderate-pragmatic nation, and only the media is obsessed with labels. More truth: the people really upset with the Democratic Presidential-elect are on the far right.)

To some staunch conservatives watching President Bush relinquish the reins of power to President-elect Barack Obama, a few too many ardent liberals are now crashing the gates.

Crashing the gates... that sounds vaguely familiar... now if I could only put my finger on why...