President Elect Barack Obama's support for Israel grew during the course of the campaign. This weekend he received briefings from Bush's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice. In three weeks, he will be President and shortly thereafter, Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State.

David Axlerod, on Face the Nation today, was asked what Obama's response to the crisis would be. He waffled a bit, noting that it would inappropriate for Obama to take a strong position while Bush was still President, but repeated what Obama had said when visiting Israel this summer:

“If somebody was sending rockets into my house, where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” he told reporters in Sderot, a small city on the edge of Gaza that has been hit repeatedly by rocket fire. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”

So, what will Obama do once he is President? The New York Times lays out two options: [More...]

Watch the heads explode:

Joe Lieberman's 2006 primary campaign manager, Sean Smith, who accused Ned Lamont of hacking their website the day of the Connecticut primary in 2006, has been selected to be the new Administration's spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security. If there's any federal department that needs truth-talking more than DoJ, it's likely DHS. . . . Americans have many good reasons to distrust DHS.

Putting Sean Smith at the podium at the Department of Homeland Security is not going to advance the credibility of the department. Recall, please, that Sean Smith first proposed the "hacked website" canard in Connecticut the day of Ned Lamont's primary victory over incumbent then-Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman

That's a good point actually. This Smith fellow probably is the wrong choice here.

Speaking for me only

Via Drum, the NYTimes explains how the Obama Inauguaration team chose the printer for the invitations:

According to Mr. Donnelly, Precise Continental was selected over rival printers because it is a union company, it uses recycled paper and it is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which promotes responsible forest management.

Is Obama not President for all - including non-union, non-recycling, non-Forest Stewardship Council certified printers? How very uninclusive of Obama! How very stigmatizing! My point, for those who missed it, is that the Presidency is a bully pulpit on every issue and every decision made carries important symbolism. The power of the Presidency extends beyond those tangible powers granted by the Constitution. Moral suasion? Or "coercion and pressure?"

Update - Irony is lost on some.

(Speaking for me only)

From the time Sen. Barack Obama announced his candidacy, I wrote and wrote about his record on criminal justice issues, particularly with respect to our drug laws. I didn't like what I learned and said so repeatedly. While his policy positions and Hillary's were quite similar, the difference between them, I thought, was that he had spent a lot of time thinking about these issues and legislating on them as a state senator in Illinois. I felt, rightly or wrongly, that we least had a chance with Hillary to convince her on a few points since she hadn't paid a great deal of attention to these issues in the past, either as First Lady or as Senator. She'd be more of a blank slate. Of course, that's all water under the bridge. I only mention it because readers are bound to respond with, "Well Hillary wouldn't have been any better." It's beside the point.

On his website, Change.gov, Obama asked readers to ask a question about the policy change most important to them. The results: the number one question among 7,000 policy topics raised was legalization of marijuana. His response: No way. [More...]

One of the reasons I didn't support Barack Obama in the primaries was that I objected to his constant refrain, "We aren't red states or blue states, we're the United States." What's the point of electing a Democrat if he's going to give equal time to Republicans? We've had 8 years of Republican rule and we elected a Democrat to reinstate Democratic values and positions.

We didn't get that with Rick Warren, of course, and I'm not surprised. Obama today defends his choice.

Get ready for more of the same. The last line of the article quotes Obama as saying:

A "wide range of viewpoints" will be presented during the inaugural ceremonies.

Shouldn't President-Elect Obama be showcasing Democratic viewpoints and values as an indication to the country and world of the change he's going to bring from the last 8 years?

Bump and update: Our local news is reporting Sen. Salazar has been offered and accepted the cabinet position of Secretary of the Interior.

The speculation now turns to who Gov. Ritter will name to replace him. Top names mentioned: Reps. Ed Perlmutter and Diana DeGette , Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Colorado House speaker Andrew Romanoff. My choices: Diana DeGette, followed by Ed Perlmutter. [More...]

Can you imagine the chutzpah?:

A senior Justice Department official said Tuesday that "99.8 percent" of the department's work with President-elect Barack Obama's transition team has gone smoothly. The 0.2 percent snag: The department has reservations about granting the team's request to review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs.

(Emphasis supplied.) Check the shredders. Here's the excuse:

[AG Mukasey]said OLC opinions are issued at the request of other agencies with their "own equity or interest in the information. And so what we try to do is determine whether, and to what extent, we can clear that information and try to do it as quickly as we can so as to get it to the transition team so that they're aware of all the things that they need when they take over on the 21st," Mukasey said, according to a transcript provided by the department.

(Emphasis supplied.) Excuse me, what in the hell happened to the "Unitary Executive" (the relatively respectable one, not the crazy one (more here)) Theory? Can not the POTUS just say to Executive Branch officials 'give them everything they want?' Something stinks here, and I bet the "in the tank for Brennann, Hayden and McConnell" people have something to do with this. They are hiding what they did from Obama before he makes his intelligence choices. Just watch.

Speaking for me only

As someone who thought Jane Harman had learned her lessons about the Bush Administration and its "intelligence techniques," I thought those who favored Silvestre Reyes over her for Chair of the House Intelligence Committee were wrong. Reyes was not competent to fill the slot and had no record to speak of on the issues. But Speaker Pelosi's anti-Harman sentiments swept all this aside. Here is our reward, via Greenwald:

In an interview, Reyes said he believes that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael Hayden should be kept in their posts. . . . [Reyes]recommended to Obama's transition team that some parts of the CIA's controversial alternative interrogation program should be allowed to continue.

Reyes, knowing nothing about the subject, has been rolled by the intelligence community. He never should have been named Chair of the Intelligence Committee and gawd knows he should not be listened to now on the subject. Let's hope Obama has the good sense to ignore him.

Speaking for me only

Now we know Arlen Specter (R-PA) is seriously considering running for another term as Senator (and fears another challenge in the GOP primary from extreme conservative Pat Toomey.) He is proposing a confirmation fight over Eric Holder:

In a speech on the Senate floor today, reports The Hill, Specter expressed surprise that Leahy, the committee chair, had scheduled a January 8 kickoff for Holder's confirmation hearing for the Attorney General job. Barack Obama is scheduled to be sworn in January 20. Specter cited concerns about Holder's role in the pardon of Marc Rich in the waning days of the Clinton administration.

Specter voted for the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales after the worst confirmation hearing performance (not to mention a record of support for torture) that I can remember. Who is Specter kidding? This is about extreme conservative Pat Toomey running in another GOP primary against him in 2010. Book it now - Specter is voting no on Holder - and will make quite a show of it.

Speaking for me only

In the Times today, Nick Taylor argues for the New Deal PWA, Harry Hopkins led model:

THE plan by Barack Obama to attack unemployment by putting people to work on roads, bridges, schools and new energy projects sounds like a version of the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration. If Franklin D. Roosevelt is Mr. Obama’s model, and if the president-elect wants to avoid the disorganized hodgepodge that the financial bailout seems to be so far, then he should look to the structure created for the W.P.A. in 1935 to select the best plans for renovating the country’s outdated infrastructure.

It's an interesting take but not entirely uncontroversial historically. For example, the feud between Harold Ickes, Sr. and Hopkins may have been personal, but it was framed on the basis of policy differences. Here is a a discussion of some of them. It would be interesting to hear more from economists and historians on the relative merits of the Hopkins' WPA and the Ickes' PWA.

Speaking for me only

U.S. News and World Reports writes that President-Elect Barack Obama may keep Michael Hayden as head of the CIA.

I don't see Obama keeping Hayden. I hope the US News Report is just a rumor being floated for reaction.

Keeping Hayden would be unfortunate. It would represent the wrong kind of change for Obama who voted against Hayden's confirmation. Here's Obama's 2006 speech on why he opposed Hayden for CIA director. [More...]

Jon Favreau, the chief speechwriter for President-elect Barack Obama, engaged in behavior that embarrassed himself, embarrassed the President-elect, and embarrasses Democrats. What I end up asking my self is this - forget that the behavior was exposed to the public - in the privacy of his own mind, what was funny about it? What was he thinking? What was in his mind that he thought that was funny?

When we spent months railing about the acceptance of the sexism and misogyny against women (Keith Olbermann's casual sexism and misogyny and the Left blogs acceptance of it comes to mind as well as the behavior of the boyz of the blogs generally) - this is what we mean. I wonder if anyone was shocked by Mr. Favreau's behavior. They should not have been.

Speaking for me only. See also Shakespeare's Sister blog.