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Family Fugitive

This is the end. The very last post I'll ever do on Barack's White Lies. But it is also the beginning. Barack's White Lies is moving, and evolving. Think of it as Change You Can Believe In. The new blog will be called, after an adjustment period, Real Clear Thinker. All future posts can be found at realclearthinker.com. Starting now.

Just because the election is over, don't expect people like Bill Ayers to be forthcoming regarding friendship with Barack Obama.

Ayers was on Good Morning America today, trying to make it seem that the history between he and Barack consists of little more than the two being neighbors. Ayers states, remarkably, that the first time he "ever really met him" was the day in 1996 that he held a fundraiser in his home for Barack.

The college professor also argued to "Good Morning America's" Chris Cuomo today that the bombing campaign by the Weather Underground, the group he helped found, was not terrorism.

The Weather Underground bombed the Capitol, the Pentagon and the New York City Police Department in protest of the Vietnam War.

"It's not terrorism because it doesn't target people, to kill or injure," Ayers said.

Keep in mind that the year before the fundraiser, Barack was made the Chairman of the Board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization founded by Ayers that year, and a position for which Obama was immensely unqualified. They worked on the same floor of the same medium sized office building together.

Keep in mind, also, that in the release of his 2001 memoir, "Fugitive Days," which Ayers is apparently out promoting, Ayers writes this:

"[W]e had served together on the board of a foundation, knew one another as neighbors and family friends, held an initial fund-raiser at my house, where I'd made a small donation to his earliest political campaign."

Notice he calls he and Barack "family friends," a deliberate attempt, it would seem, to tease people anew about the closeness that he and Barack maintain. If you're not convinced that this is a little bizarre, Ayers explanation for it certainly is. He claims the reason he called Barack a family friend in his book is because that's how the relationship was portrayed during the campaign.

"I'm talking there about the fact that I became an issue, unwillingly and unwittingly," he said. "It was a profoundly dishonest narrative. ... I'm describing there how the blogosphere characterized the relationship."

"I would say, really, that we knew each other in a professional way on the same level of, say, thousands of other people," he said.

Ayers has a detached manner, free of remorse, that makes him read as a psychopath in the interview, arguing that he's been unfairly demonized in an attempt to taint Barack with guilt by association.

"The content of the Vietnam protest is that there were despicable acts going on, but the despicable acts were being done by our government. ... I never hurt or killed anyone," Ayers said.

"Frankly, I don't think we did enough, just as today I don't think we've done enough to stop these wars," he said.

It seems to me that voters had a right to know the truth about their relationship, that it's up to us to decide whether Barack's association with Ayers was a valid campaign issue, and that Ayers is plainly misrepresenting the relationship.

Further, Barack lied about his friendship with Jeremiah Wright before the Ayers matter became part of the conversation, and the evidence indicates that he's being equally dishonest regarding Ayers.

Secretary of Mate

More silliness about Hillary:

Imagine someone so inexperienced as Secretary of State?

Michelle's Choice

It's great to have options regarding where to send your kids to school - something that Democrats believe deeply in, but only for the rich.

President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle, came to town and did what people with young children usually do before moving. They looked at their new house and then Mrs. Obama checked out the school choices for their two young daughters.

The schools Mrs. Obama visited were private, not public. While no decision has yet been made, it seems obvious the girls enjoy their private school in Chicago and have flourished in it. Would the Obamas, in order to pander to the teachers unions, place their daughters in one of Washington, D.C.’s miserable public schools? Let’s hope not. That would be a form of intellectual and social child abuse.

True. No responsible parent would put their kids into public schools like these - and people with options generally avoid all public schools if they're not in segregated, privileged suburbs.

Should they choose either Sidwell Friends School (where Chelsea Clinton attended) or Georgetown Day School — Mrs. Obama visited both — or a public school, the Obamas have the ability to make a choice for their children, a choice the president-elect would deny to every other American who cannot afford to pay private school tuition. This is not the vaunted fairness for which Obama campaigned. This is not spreading the educational and intellectual wealth around.

How does Barack explain his behavior? Probably the same way other Democratic leaders, who throw a nice big slap into the face of those working people they preach public schools to.

This year, 1,900 D.C. schoolchildren were allowed to attend private schools, thanks to congressional vouchers. With Democrats about to be in charge of all three branches of government, will Obama and his fellow Democrats send them back to failed schools? D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton has suggested as much. Parents interviewed by Washington TV stations overwhelmingly want their children to remain where they are. Is it not cruel to force them back into a broken system?

Many Members of Congress choose private schools for their children. Senators Edward Kennedy and Hillary Clinton have been outspoken opponents of school choice yet have sent their children to private schools. According to a 2007 Heritage Foundation survey, “...37 percent of representatives and 45 percent of senators in the 110th Congress sent their children to private schools — almost four times the rate of the general population.” Yet many of them vote against letting the rest of us have the same choice.

Our kids deserve better schools, but the partnership between teachers unions and the Democratic party make that impossible.

This will offer children trapped in bad schools the brighter future they deserve and the country will get the better educated citizenry it desperately needs.

Doctrine Air

Thoughts on the Fairness Doctrine from Adam Reilly in the Boston Phoenix.

For most of the second half of the 20th century, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) asserted that the right to broadcast — on scarce, publicly owned frequencies — came with civic responsibility. Broadcasters, the FCC held, should devote some of their programming to controversial matters of public interest. They should also allow divergent points of view to be presented on their stations. That's the Fairness Doctrine in a nutshell. (In one famous case, the Supreme Court ruled that the author of a critical biography of Barry Goldwater had the right to respond to a torrent of criticism directed at him from a Christian broadcaster in Red Lion, Pennsylvania.)

The doctrine's intentions were commendable. But it was vague, and spottily applied, and co-existed uneasily with the First Amendment's right to free speech. And in 1987 — at the height of Reagan-era deregulation — it was voluntarily abolished by the FCC. The FCC's decision was upheld on appeal to the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in 1989, and subsequent congressional efforts to restore it have failed.

Many observers believe that's for the best. "The Fairness Doctrine had this perverse result," says Jane Kirtley, director of the University of Minnesota's Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law. "The way some broadcasters chose to provide equal time for opposing viewpoints to be heard was to say that they just weren't going to cover controversial issues. I have no reason to think that would change in 2008 or 2009." Factor in the rise of cable news and the Web, adds Kirtley, and the Fairness Doctrine's original rationale doesn't make sense anymore.

Media critic Rory O'Connor, who discusses the subject in Shock Jocks: Hate Speech and Talk Radio (AlterNet), agrees. "The Fairness Doctrine is a 20th-century response to 21st-century problems," he says. "It didn't work so well in the first place. It was misused and abused by political operatives in both parties." There is, O'Connor claims, "no way in Hell" that the Fairness Doctrine's going to be reinstated. Conservatives are only milking the subject to "excite the base, create outrage, and drive up ratings."

No question, the right's treatment of the subject is irresponsible. A restored Fairness Doctrine wouldn't "kill" the conservative-friendly medium of talk radio, or mandate "equal time" for the presentation of liberal and conservative perspectives. Instead, it would simply require conservative broadcast outlets to allow the occasional liberal voice, and vice versa.

To be fair, though, conservative fears aren't entirely unfounded. While Obama seems to favor regulating broadcasters to achieve specific aims, including increased minority ownership, he's indicated he doesn't want to restore the Fairness Doctrine. But other prominent Democrats disagree. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi recently told the conservative magazine Human Events that she supports the Fairness Doctrine. On Election Day, Democratic New York senator Chuck Schumer told Fox News you couldn't oppose the Fairness Doctrine while supporting government regulation of obscenity, as many conservatives do. And other Dems — including Massachusetts senator John Kerry, the subject of an attack documentary broadcast on Sinclair Broadcasting's 62 (conservative) stations during his 2004 presidential run — have made similar remarks.

Time for restraint
That some Democrats might relish the idea of punishing Limbaugh and his compadres is understandable. But there are strong arguments for restraint. The first is constitutional: the Fairness Doctrine would exist, yet again, in tension with the First Amendment. The second is strategic: the inchoate sense of grievance that currently animates the right has slim political potential — but that could change if Republicans can style themselves as free-speech defenders.

The most important reason for caution, though, is the nascent effort to link the Fairness Doctrine with Net Neutrality. Without Net Neutrality, the telecom industry will almost certainly create a two-tiered system that privileges some content, while consigning the rest — created, presumably, by those who lack big bucks — to a sort of virtual ghetto.

Thus far, Net Neutrality hasn't been a partisan issue. Obama supports it; so does NARAL Pro-Choice America; so does the Christian Coalition and the National Rifle Association.

But efforts to fragment the broad, pro–Net Neutrality alliance are already underway — and the Fairness Doctrine seems destined for a starring role. In an October 2007 paper titled "Net Neutrality: A Fairness Doctrine for the Internet," Adam Thierer of the Progress & Freedom Foundation — a think tank funded by, among others, AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable — suggested that Net Neutrality was actually a partisan ploy aimed at crippling the right. Groups such as the Christian Coalition, Thierer suggested, should reconsider their support.

Then, this past August, Republican FCC commissioner Robert McDowell made a similar argument at the conservative Heritage Foundation. Regarding Net Neutrality, McDowell asked, "Will Web sites — will bloggers have to give equal time or equal space on their Web site to opposing views, rather than letting the marketplace of ideas determine that?"

This is a stupid question. The Fairness Doctrine involved government mandating, in certain cases, that specific content be added to a particular media entity. In contrast, Net Neutrality doesn't involve intrusion into content; it only dictates absolute freedom of (virtual) movement. It's the opposite of what McDowell seems to think.

But as Joe Campbell, author of the blog 2parse.com, recently noted in a post linking Thierer's paper and McDowell's remarks, this is about tactics, not logic. If conservative Net Neutrality supporters come to see it as the Fairness Doctrine 2.0 — something that's more easily done if the Fairness Doctrine is already on everyone's brain, as it is today — they might rethink their support. Given Democratic gains in Congress and Obama's support for Net Neutrality, Campbell argues, "This is the big corporations' only chance to squash Net Neutrality."

Now that's a scary prospect. The Web is the future of news media. (It's also a battleground where, at the moment, Democrats are totally dominating Republicans.) Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is a dubious proposition, period. But if doing so could jeopardize the success of Net Neutrality, it's downright reckless.

Instead of reliving an old-media battle that's run its course, Democrats should focus instead on making Net Neutrality a reality. And Obama should help them by stating that he'll veto any legislation aimed at restoring the Fairness Doctrine that crosses his desk. Let the right worry about something else.

To read the "Don't Quote Me" blog, go to thePhoenix.com/medialog. Adam Reilly can be reached at areilly@phx.com.

DOA

Can this be for real, or is it just the usual gameplaying - make women feel good about Barack by pretending to be respecting Hillary?

George Stephanopoulos reported Clinton's name being in the mix last week on Good Morning America, but the buzz grew louder today after Clinton was spotted boarding a flight to Chicago.

It might have been about a job in the Obama administration, or maybe she had a craving for deep dish.

Her spokesman Philippe Reines would not discuss Clinton's schedule, and of course the Obama Transition Team would not comment.

The thinking about a Secretary of State Clinton is simple, I'm told: she's smart, she's strong, she's experienced, she's a team player, she is usually pretty diplomatic, and she also brings some gender diversity to an Obama Team concerned about such matters.

Let's be serious - why would Obama want Hillary around, and why would Hillary want to put her career in the hands of Barack. Secretaries of State last about 2 years, don't they?

She brings instant stature to the job, one Democrat told me. Many world leaders have known her for almost two decades.

"Clinton is the gold standard around the world, " said Chris Lehane, a former spokesman for Vice President Al Gore.

Ya, sure. Consider this idea DOA.

Introducing Auto Vote

Now that liberals are in power, it's important to remind ourselves just how dangerous they can be. For example, the Boston Globe has a delightfully humorous editorial today on fixing the "election mess -" funny but for its utter maliciousness.

BARACK OBAMA'S superior get-out-the-vote operation spared the country from another squeaker presidential election, with the claims of voter fraud and intimidation that have become so familiar in the previous two cycles. But that doesn't mean the problems in the nation's electoral system have disappeared. They're just not as visible at high tide.

It's true that the voter system isn't up to snuff for the close elections we've been turning out lately, although it would be more accurate to credit the financial meltdown with Barack's victory margin - but I'm nitpicking. What's funny about the Globe position, and demonstrates the paper's maliciousness, is what they think the real problem is - lack of access to the polls.

After the 2000 election made the United States look like something out of a Marx Brothers movie, former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter co-chaired a National Election Commission. Their report concluded that the country has one of the most burdensome voter registration systems - and one of the lowest participation rates - in the developed world. Even with the Obama wave, voter turnout this year was only about 61 percent of registered voters.

Huh? Burdensome voter registration? You have to fill out a form and attest to your residency - that's a world class burden?

One simple change would solve several problems that have bedeviled recent national elections: universal voter registration. Under this plan, promoted by the watchdog Brennan Center for Justice and others, the government would be responsible for automatically registering citizens when they turn 18.

I have a better idea. Why not automatically register all voters at age 18, and then automatically submit a vote on their behalf in favor of the Democratic candidate? That way, only Republicans would have to show up at the polls to alter their auto-vote. This would be the green solution, helping to curb global warming by keeping people off the roads. And it would lead to good government, as only Democrats would win elections.

Change is hard to accept for a Congress that, after all, got elected under the current registration system. But any technical or political obstacles pale in comparison with another election marred by fears of ballot-stuffing, voter suppression, and undermined confidence in democracy.

Not so hard to shift to a system that favors Democrats for a Congress controlled by Democrats.

Bitter Sweet

It must be with mixed emotions that Barack has announced his resignation from the U.S. Senate, effective Sunday.

President-elect Barack Obama is giving up his Illinois U.S. Senate seat effective Sunday, intensifying the jockeying to replace the only African-American in Congress' upper chamber as lawmakers return next week for a lame-duck session.

After all, it's been a wonderful 3 and 1/2 years - so many leadership opportunities dodged, so many missed votes.

Several Illinois politicians want the job, including at least three members of Congress. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who's also a Democrat, will appoint the successor of his choice to fill out the remaining two years of Obama's six-year term.

What's unclear is when Barack will lose interest in the presidency, and what office he'll seek next.

Obama, who was in private meetings in Chicago preparing for the transition, said in a statement Thursday that his partial term as a senator had been "one of the highest honors and privileges of my life."

Ah, but that goes both ways, doesn't it.

Pressing Sarah

At the Republican Governor's Conference in Miami, it might as well be reconfigured into the Sarah Palin Conference. After Barack, she's the biggest political star in the country.

At a short press conference, she was asked what she's doing since the last governor's get-together.

“I had a baby, I did some traveling, I very briefly expanded my wardrobe, I made a few speeches, I met a few VIPS, including those who really impact society, like Tina Fey,” she said.

And yes, she spoke again of “Joe the Plumber,” the Ohio man who briefly dominated the McCain-Palin campaign and its talk about taxes.

Ms. Palin thanked the people who attended her rallies, including young women she hopes she has influenced.

“I am going to remember all the young girls who came up to me at rallies to see the first woman having the privilege of carrying our party’s VP nomination,” she said. “We’re going to work harder, we’re going to be stronger, we’re going to do better and one day, one of them will be the president.”

That raised again the question surrounding Ms. Palin since the election ended: will she run in 2012?

“The future is not that 2012 Presidential race, it’s next year and our next budgets,” she said. It is in 2010, she said, that “we’ll have 36 governors positions open.”

Truth Be Told

Now that the election is over, the truth about Barack - always available, but protected by some - is flowing more freely.

About his friends, for example.

FALSANI: Do you have people in your life that you look to for guidance?

OBAMA:
Well, my pastor [Jeremiah Wright] is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for.

I have a number of friends who are ministers. Reverend Meeks is a close friend and colleague of mine in the state Senate. Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.

FALSANI:
Those two will keep you on your toes.

OBAMA:
And theyr'e good friends. Because both of them are in the public eye, there are ways we can all reflect on what's happening to each of us in ways that are useful.

I think they can help me, they can appreciate certain specific challenges that I go through as a public figure.

And his church.

“One of the churches that I became involved in was Trinity United Church of Christ,” Obama said in the interview. “And the pastor there, Jeremiah Wright, became a good friend. So I joined that church and committed myself to Christ in that church.”

Obama began attending the church in 1988 and formally joined Trinity in 1992. Falsani asked, “Do you still attend Trinity?”

Obama answered, “Yep. Every week. 11 o’clock service. Ever been there? Good service.

Hmm. This sounds a bit different from Barack said during the campaign.

“As young marrieds, Barack and Michelle (who also didn't go to church regularly as a child) went to church fairly often—two or three times a month. But after their first child, Malia, was born, they found making the effort more difficult. ‘I don't know if you've had the experience of taking young, squirming children to church, but it's not easy,’ he says.

“‘Trinity was always packed, and so you had to get there early. And if you went to the morning service, you were looking at—it just was difficult. So that would cut back on our involvement.’

Glib Guidance

The biggest failure in network news has some advice for one of America's biggest political stars.

Couric thinks Sarah Palin has a thing or two to learn about politics before she contemplates a White House run in 2012. "I think she should keep her head down, work really hard and learn about governing.

Katie is right, actually. That is what Sarah should do. Blow everyone away in a couple of years by just how informed she is.

But I'm not anyone to give advice to anyone about anything," she told Page Six at Glamour Magazine's 2008 Women of the Year Awards dinner at the Essex House.

Right again!

Although her interview with Palin made the Alaska governor look dumb (while rejuvenating Couric's flagging career in the process), Couric won't give herself too much credit. "I was really just a conduit that allowed her to air her views," she said. "I don't want to judge. I'll let the voters do that."

Of course you will.

Bad News

MSNBC got confirmation of the Sarah Palin Africa controversy from a McCain campaign insider who doesn't exist.

MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, had come forth and identified himself as the source of a Fox News Channel story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

How can such a thing happen to a major news organization?

Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. Yet neither he nor the institute exist; each is part of a hoax dreamed up by a filmmaker named Eitan Gorlin and his partner, Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Eisenstadt claim had mistakenly been delivered to Shuster by a producer and was used in a political discussion Monday afternoon, MSNBC said.

"The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air," said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. "We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes."

Gaines told the Times that someone in the network's newsroom had presumed the information solid because it was passed along in an e-mail from a colleague.

The hoax doesn't mean that Sarah knows where Africa is...

The hoax was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin — not the Fox News story itself. While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony.

It just proves that MSNBC doesn't know what journalism is.

Tin Men

Who would be dumb enough to fall for this crap. Barack is going back to his sizable donor list looking for more money!

It seems that in addition to his 6/10ths of a billion dollars to move into the White House, the Democratic National Committee spent way more than the $100 million in cash it had raised.

In fact, it took out "substantial loans."

Substantial loans? The DNC has debt to retire? How come they could get credit?

Well, it turns out now, the DNC's debts are far worse than originally imagined. Today, Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe sent another urgent e-mail to supporters seeking at least another $30.

Most people would slam the door on anyone knocking with this sort of pitch.

"We'll get to work transforming this country. But first, we need to take care of the DNC."

Did we hear that right? Now that Obama's the president-elect, the top priority is the Democratic National Committee?

To drive home the point elsewhere in the same e-mail Plouffe adds: "Before we do anything else, we need to pay for this winning strategy."

Cheap lines, tin man style lines, if you ask me.

Don't worry, you still get the Victory T-shirt for this $30. But it sounds like pretty much everything else is on hold. This change stuff is looking to be an expensive process, even before it gets started.

I Hate About You

The Obama girls won't get everything they want now that they're presidential kids.

It looks like U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s daughter won’t be starring in Miley Cyrus' hit TV show ‘Hannah Montana’.

An Obama aide has told the ‘New York Daily News’, ‘It's a generous invitation, but they simply aren’t going to be making decisions of that kind right now.’

Inviting Malia and Sasha Obama, to make a cameo, Miley’s father Billy Ray Cyrus told Access Hollywood, ‘They probably will. The invitation is there’, reports ‘Contactmusic’.

Barack will never allow such a thing. By all accounts, he's a responsible dad, Michelle's a devoted mom, and no one in their right minds would jump head first into adding to their children's corruption by giving Hollywood a piece of them.

’The Hannah Montana film comes out in April. Maybe something might happen around then,’ he added.

Obama is determined to keep his daughters away from the limelight, and while explaining his decision, he told U.S. TV show Good Morning America, ‘Generally, what makes them so charming is the fact that they're not spending a lot of time worrying about TV cameras or politics, and we want to keep it that way.’

Just chalk it up to clever promotion on the part of the Montana clan.

Huff & Puff

Controversial segment in which Dennis Miller goes after Barney Frank while talking with O'Reilly.

The Huffington Post is upset.

Dennis Miller appeared on The O'Reilly Factor tonight (Miller is a frequent guest on Bill O'Reilly's show) and went on a rant regarding what Barack Obama should do to the executives of AIG when he takes office, namely, that Obama "should flatten these punks" and "come down hard on them." After Miller finished his rant, O'Reilly chimed in that Obama's next move should be "to arrest Barney Frank, correct?" Miller replies, "Eh, Barney might want to be arrested."

It seems that Frank, the most prominent openly-gay member of the House of Representatives, is being slurred by Miller for his homosexuality. The reactions of O'Reilly and Miller confirm that Miller's joke was inappropriate, to say the least. Watch and judge for yourself.

Beast of Burden

What amazing trouble Barack has stepped into.

For all the fury over Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion emergency economic relief fund, it seems downright puny when compared to the running total of the government's response to the credit crisis.

Has his remarkable good luck run out, or is this just the opportunity he wants.

According to CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, the U.S. government has put itself on the hook for some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of the financial system.

You can't be a great president without bad times, and I think Barack's pretty eager to join the folks on Mount Rushmore.

The estimate includes many of the various solutions cooked up by Paulson and his counterparts Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve and Sheila Bair at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as the credit crisis continues to plague banks and the broader markets.

If Barack can lead America through this crisis, and get himself re-elected, he'll be viewed as one of the greats.

The Fed has taken on much of that total, including lending a cumulative $1 trillion in overnight or short-term loans since March to primary dealers through its emergency discount window and making a cumulative $1.8 trillion available through its term auction facility, a series of short-term transactions it began making available twice a month in January. It should be noted that a portion of the funds lent in these programs has been repaid and that the totals represent what has been made available.

Barack's good luck streak will be severely tested.

End of the World

It's the end of the world as we know it.

"This is the end of the consumer-based economy," said Peter Schiff, who runs the investment firm Euro Pacific Capital Inc. in Darien, Conn. "Americans have been buying too much stuff, and now the epic shopping spree is over. It is a permanent change."

Wow. That's a dire prediction. Which explains, perhaps, the shift in the bailout plan that Paulson announced yesterday.

For years, consumers tapped into inflated home equity and use credit cards to finance their spending. Now those spigots are being shut off, and job losses are mounting.

What had been a Wall Street meltdown is now, a few weeks later, being seen in a different light - we are at risk of massive economic collapse.

The recent data has been startling: For the third quarter, consumer spending fell 3.1 percent, the worst performance in 28 years. Sales at established stores for October were the worst since at least 1969. The slump is continuing into November: Macy's says it expects a decline of at least 10 percent this month.

As we head into a recession which promises to be deeper than any we've experienced, wouldn't it be nice to have a seasoned old pro at the helm of the country - someone with the perspective of years, and someone who knows who to get on the phone to pull the right levers?

Even when home prices recover and credit becomes more available, Hoyt notes, Americans will have learned something: "They can't count on asset appreciation to meet their long-term goals."

As we head into a devastating downturn, wouldn't it be nice to not have Democrats in power - the party whose policies led us into this mess?

Say Anything

Like most politicians, Barack was willing to say anything to win the presidency. Dig any hole now, we can climb out of it later.

A suicide car bomber struck a U.S. military convoy passing through a crowded market in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing at least five civilians and a coalition soldier and wounding an additional 57 civilians, officials said.

In order to be a peace candidate while not being perceived as weak on defense, Barack embraced the war in Afghanistan - that's the war we need to fight, that's the war we need to win, he said - Iraq was the wrong war.

The bomber rammed his vehicle into the convoy as it traveled through Bati Kot district of Nangarhar province, said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

At least five civilians were killed in the blast, said Ghafoor Khan, the spokesman for the provincial police chief. Fifty-seven civilians were wounded, said Ajmal Pardes, a provincial health official.

Now, Barack has challenges other than looming economic disaster - how to responsibly (ie gradually) withdraw from Iraq after having built expectations that he'll draw down willy-nilly, and how to win the war in Afghanistan using troops who really need rest, not redeployment.

Lt. Cmdr. Walter Matthews, a U.S. military spokesman, said a member of the U.S-led coalition died of his injuries received in the attack. He would not disclose the nationality of the victim, but another U.S. spokesman earlier said that the wounded soldier was an American.

If confirmed, that death would bring the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year to at least 148, the highest annual tally of troop deaths since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. There were 111 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan in all of 2007.

Barack took ownership of Afghanistan in order to change the long held perception that Democrats can't be trusted to defend the nation. It's his war now, and he's got to win it.

The bomber struck the convoy near a crowded market, where people were trading sheep, cows, goats and other animals, Mr. Khan said. An Associated Press photographer said that an American military vehicle, two civilian vehicles and two rickshaws were destroyed.

Taliban militants regularly use suicide attackers and car bombs in their assaults against U.S., Afghan and other foreign troops in the country. But a majority of the victims in such attacks have been civilians. On Wednesday, a truck bomb in southern Afghanistan killed six people and wounded 42.

Moving Over, Not On

This is the end. But also the beginning. Barack's White Lies is moving, and evolving. Think of it as Change You Can Believe In. The new blog will be called, eventually, Real Clear Thinker. All future posts can be found at realclearthinker.com.

I took it in stride when Barack won, and decided that this is a time to adjust - we must accept his victory and learn the lessons that come with it. America has changed, and in order to be effective in doing political analysis, as well as affecting the course that the nation is following, it seems to me that you have to be here, in the moment - not stuck in some dream of the past.

If you'll permit me an analogy, think of those of us who enjoy the political process, study it, and try to move people's thinking to a better place, as singer/songwriters. We perform songs about the world we live in. While singing songs from the sixties might draw an audience - heck, it would even be fun - I don't want to be an oldies act. Singing nostalgia is valid because it offers escape, but I don't want to engage in escapism, I want to be relevant to now. I want to grab hold of the moment and say, "it's moving in the wrong direction, help me get it back on course."

In order to do that, I decided it is necessary to let go of some things. I'm not going to worry about Barack being too young and inexperienced, I'm going to try to trust that he is a gifted enough person that maybe he can rise to the occasion. I'm not going to wallow in the cruel hoax of turning to the people who are dismantling the American experiment and asking them to save it - I want to accept that Democrats have won because Republicans screwed up, and that's how it goes in the toggle mentality of a two party system.

Their worst goals must be resisted, yes, but as an optimist, I will trust that the flaws of liberalism, when seen up close, will reaffirm in America it's basic conservatism. We must help them be the tools of their own demise.

I also think we must accept that America has been altered inexorably - this is not the European culture we grew up in, the forces that sought to minimize it's whiteness and make it a multi-cultural place have succeeded. That's not a bad thing, per se, it's just a different thing. It only hurts when you fight it. At the same time, we must make sure that the new America loves and respects that which is America, that it isn't here just to enjoy the benefits without respecting the underpinnings that made the spoils possible.

In other words, if new people are going to be in charge, I can live with that. I don't care who is in charge, I care what is in charge. What philosophies are going to guide us, what are our values going to be? Bad values can be pushed by people of any culture or race, as can good ones.

So I decided that I had to accept the tipping point that Barack's election represents. Power has shifted to the new guys. Fighting that would be like trying to fight the British invasion of the 1960's. The Beatles were not the revolution - the forces of change were unstoppable - they simply rode the wave created by the enormous demand for change. Television, and access to money, gave kids a new voice in the marketplace, and we used those tools to, for better and for worse, adjust the world to meet our tastes.

The same has happened now - we have raised a couple of generations of suburban kids whose lives haven't known the struggles of necessity. It is foolhardy to expect, for a moment, that they would view life the way we do. How could a twenty-something professional of today, earning a comfortable upper middle class living while sitting at his computer in Starbucks, have even the vaguest notion of the life that formed the Greatest Generation? We must stop expecting the impossible.

I'm not arguing that the fight is over - the struggle between conservative and liberal values is a permanent one, as is the political fight between the groups aligned, however loosely, behind those banners. I'm just saying that we have to realize that some things have already been decided - that liberalism has, to a large extent, already won, and we must map carefully the piece of land we're standing on so that we can best defend, and perhaps extend, our ground.

It is in this spirit that I begin a gradual relaunch of Barack's White Lies. A new look, a new location, a new name. While I liked the edginess of the name for the election - I enjoyed that it made liberals uncomfortable - my old fashioned conservative sensibilities lead me to feel uncomfortable calling my blog Barack's White Lies.

I don't wish to be disrespectful to the office of the President of the United States, which, hopefully, will always be occupied by a person who loves the ideals and the brilliance of the men, and the document, that created it.

The blog will live on under the name of Real Clear Thinker. It's an amalgam of the names of a couple of my favorite places to read - Real Clear Politics and The American Thinker - not so much inspired by them as absorbed and reconstructed.

When shocked liberals ask how I have come to a particular conclusion, I just tell them that I thought about it. And that's the truth. I like thinking clearly, and I believe that if others engage in a similar enterprise, they'll come to conclusions that are pretty close to mine.

That's what Real Clear Thinker is all about.

Moving Over, Not On

This is the end. But also the beginning. Barack's White Lies is moving, and evolving. Think of it as Change You Can Believe In. The new blog will be called, eventually, Real Clear Thinker. All future posts can be found at realclearthinker.com.

I took it in stride when Barack won, and decided that this is a time to adjust - we must accept his victory and learn the lessons that come with it. America has changed, and in order to be effective in doing political analysis, as well as affecting the course that the nation is following, it seems to me that you have to be here, in the moment - not stuck in some dream of the past.

If you'll permit me an analogy, think of those of us who enjoy the political process, study it, and try to move people's thinking to a better place, as singer/songwriters. We perform songs about the world we live in. While singing songs from the sixties might draw an audience - heck, it would even be fun - I don't want to be an oldies act. Singing nostalgia is valid because it offers escape, but I don't want to engage in escapism, I want to be relevant to now. I want to grab hold of the moment and say, "it's moving in the wrong direction, help me get it back on course."

In order to do that, I decided it is necessary to let go of some things. I'm not going to worry about Barack being too young and inexperienced, I'm going to try to trust that he is a gifted enough person that maybe he can rise to the occasion. I'm not going to wallow in the cruel hoax of turning to the people who are dismantling the American experiment and asking them to save it - I want to accept that Democrats have won because Republicans screwed up, and that's how it goes in the toggle mentality of a two party system.

Their worst goals must be resisted, yes, but as an optimist, I will trust that the flaws of liberalism, when seen up close, will reaffirm in America it's basic conservatism. We must help them be the tools of their own demise.

I also think we must accept that America has been altered inexorably - this is not the European culture we grew up in, the forces that sought to minimize it's whiteness and make it a multi-cultural place have succeeded. That's not a bad thing, per se, it's just a different thing. It only hurts when you fight it. At the same time, we must make sure that the new America loves and respects that which is America, that it isn't here just to enjoy the benefits without respecting the underpinnings that made the spoils possible.

In other words, if new people are going to be in charge, I can live with that. I don't care who is in charge, I care what is in charge. What philosophies are going to guide us, what are our values going to be? Bad values can be pushed by people of any culture or race, as can good ones.

So I decided that I had to accept the tipping point that Barack's election represents. Power has shifted to the new guys. Fighting that would be like trying to fight the British invasion of the 1960's. The Beatles were not the revolution - the forces of change were unstoppable - they simply rode the wave created by the enormous demand for change. Television, and access to money, gave kids a new voice in the marketplace, and we used those tools to, for better and for worse, adjust the world to meet our tastes.

The same has happened now - we have raised a couple of generations of suburban kids whose lives haven't known the struggles of necessity. It is foolhardy to expect, for a moment, that they would view life the way we do. How could a twenty-something professional of today, earning a comfortable upper middle class living while sitting at his computer in Starbucks, have even the vaguest notion of the life that formed the Greatest Generation? We must stop expecting the impossible.

I'm not arguing that the fight is over - the struggle between conservative and liberal values is a permanent one, as is the political fight between the groups aligned, however loosely, behind those banners. I'm just saying that we have to realize that some things have already been decided - that liberalism has, to a large extent, already won, and we must map carefully the piece of land we're standing on so that we can best defend, and perhaps extend, our ground.

It is in this spirit that I begin a gradual relaunch of Barack's White Lies. A new look, a new location, a new name. While I liked the edginess of the name for the election - I enjoyed that it made liberals uncomfortable - my old fashioned conservative sensibilities lead me to feel uncomfortable calling my blog Barack's White Lies.

I don't wish to be disrespectful to the office of the President of the United States, which, hopefully, will always be occupied by a person who loves the ideals and the brilliance of the men, and the document, that created it.

The blog will live on under the name of Real Clear Thinker. It's an amalgam of the names of a couple of my favorite places to read - Real Clear Politics and The American Thinker - not so much inspired by them as absorbed and reconstructed.

When shocked liberals ask how I have come to a particular conclusion, I just tell them that I thought about it. And that's the truth. I like thinking clearly, and I believe that if others engage in a similar enterprise, they'll come to conclusions that are pretty close to mine.

That's what Real Clear Thinker is all about.

Whatever Sarah Wants

Whatever Sarah wants...

In yet another television interview, former Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin revealed on Wednesday that while she was focused on her job as Alaska’s governor she was open to the idea of a Senate bid.

While at first saying it was “not necessarily” the kind of post she would like some day, she was open to the idea.

Sarah gets.

“I’m not going to close any doors that perhaps would be in front of me and would allow me to put to good use executive experience and a world view that I think is good for our nation,” she said in an interview with CNN’s “Larry King Live.” “I’m not going to close any door there in terms of opportunity that may be there in the future.”

Just a day ago, in an interview on NBC the 44-year-old first-term governor said she wasn’t planning on seeking a Senate seat. “I’m not planning on it because I think the people of Alaska will best be served with me as their governor,” Palin said.

Sarah's not trying to calm presidential speculation, either.

The GOP vice presidential nominee has raised the possibility of running for the top job in four years in recent television interviews. Palin was attending the Republican Governors Association meeting Wednesday and was asked about speculation about her as the future of the party.

Palin told reporters: "I don't think it's me personally, I think it's what I represent." She added: "Every day hardworking American families — a woman on the ticket perhaps represents that. It would be good for the ticket. It would be good for the party. I would be happy to get to do whatever is asked of me to help progress this nation."

Bailing Out the Unions

Why the fear of General Motors going under? The demand for cars would remain the same, so the lost manufacturing would have to be replaced, wouldn't it?

...while the cries of certain Armageddon would be ear splitting in the event of a GM failure, the U.S. auto sector would actually emerge much healthier thanks to a change in ownership that would be the certain result of GM going under.

How would auto manufacturing, and Detroit, possibly do well if GM, and others, were allowed to fold?

Far from vanishing, many of GM's assets would be quickly purchased by competent foreign automakers eager to expand their capacity in what is the world's largest auto market. Happily, the list of well-run car companies, from Toyota to Nissan to Porsche, is long.

So GM would fold, others would buy the factories, new managers with new employment contracts (and hopefully no unions) would be in charge, with state of the art cars rolling off the production lines in a sustainable business model.

With capable auto executives finally overseeing GM's poorly deployed assets, the value and utility of each would rise, thus perpetuating the existence of jobs in the sector, all the while ensuring that other businesses that exist due to GM will enjoy more stable commercial relationships with competent management.

Would Democrats ever do such a thing? Of course not. Barack has already signaled clearly he has every desire to offer the capital the broken companies need to keep overpaying their help. The bailout of the auto manufacturers is a bailout of unions, which means it will kick the can down the road, but not fix the underlying problem.

Nothing to Fear

Conservatives are scared to death by the potential that Barack's radical past will travel with him to the White House. I can't help thinking that that's exactly what Republicans need.

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a new campaign today calling on President-elect Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and end the military commissions on Day One of his presidency.

Obama, as a candidate, pledged to "close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions." In a full page ad in the New York Times today, the ACLU urges Obama, as president, to fulfill those promises and immediately restore America's moral leadership in the world.

As the GOP questions how its philosophy and mission should be refined looking toward mid-term elections, wouldn't the clearest vision develop with a practicing liberal in the White House?

Labor unions want President-elect Barack Obama to move quickly on universal health care and to make it easier for workers to organize. Latino advocacy groups want immigration reform. Even the National Trust for Historic Preservation is urging Obama to seek full federal funding "to protect our heritage."

Interest groups are furiously drawing up wish lists for the incoming Obama administration, many of them hoping to cash in on the investments they made - in volunteers, political support, and campaign contributions - in Obama's commanding win.

The odds are pretty good that Barack will seek to thrown bones to liberals - with enough meat so he can argue that he's followed through on his campaign commitments - keeping the lefties calmed, but not happy, as he leads from the center. This is what conservatives must fear - a powerful, centrist administration that picks its spots carefully to push a liberal agenda. Like by pushing to courts carefully left.

The webpage of MoveOn.org, the antiwar group that was one of Obama's earliest and most active backers, said it all after Tuesday's election: "Together we did it!" the group said, claiming to have channeled 933,808 volunteers and $888,572 to Obama's campaign.

Translation: We helped you win, and now we want to see you pursue a liberal agenda in the White House. For the membership of MoveOn.org, that begins with bringing a swift end to the war in Iraq.

For Barack, there's nothing to fear but liberalism itself. His goal should be to be a problem solver who happens to be an ideologue. If he does that, the reinvention of the GOP will be a slow process.

If he chases faultline policies like the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, something much feared by conservatives, we'll have clear and powerful around which to coalesce - making the job of rebuilding the party much easier.

Lobbyist Schnobbyist

Barack's campaign stand against lobbyists was meaningless as policy - a deceptive stance of no practical meaning. Now, for the sake of real life, he's watered it down to make it even less meaningful, and more symbolic.

President-elect Obama, who campaigned against lobbyists' influence, on Tuesday opened the door for them to work for him if they sign an ethics code that restricts their role in and out of government.

Lobbyists can work for Obama's transition if they stop their advocacy efforts and avoid working in any field that they lobbied on in the last year. They also must pledge not to lobby the Obama administration on the same matters they focused on during the transition for a year after leaving Obama's service.

As bad as things are in Washington, all this symbolism and watering down of the campaign commitment actually represents a noticeable improvement.

The ethics policy allows Obama to hire any of the some 22,000 federally registered lobbyists who could be valuable assets because of their government experience, even though Obama railed against their influence on the campaign trail.

Of course, it's yet another abandonment of a strong policy stance. He was just kidding about his lobbying stand.

Podesta called the lobbying ban "the strictest, the most far-reaching ethic rules of any transition team in history." Yet the transition rules are not as strict as those that Obama has proposed for his administration's staff.

In a speech last November in Spartanburg, S.C., Obama said: "I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race ... I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."

They won't find a job in my White House. Now there's a White Lie.

At other times, he said lobbyists would not "run" his White House.

Under recommendations spelled out in Obama's campaign Web site, no Obama political appointees would be allowed to work on regulations or contracts "directly or substantially related to their prior employer for two years." And while people who work on the transition would be permitted to lobby the administration on their transition issues after one year, political appointees to administration jobs would be prohibited from lobbying the executive branch for the remainder of the administration, according to Obama's proposed rules.

Podesta said the specifics of the administration rules are still being worked out, but it would include the two-year ban that Obama pledged. He said it was shortened to one year for the transition because it's a short-term assignment before the Jan. 20 inauguration.

Government watchdogs applauded the ethics rules in an unusual statement issued through the campaign. Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution called the rules "tough and unequivocal" and said they come with a cost of keeping some honorable people from serving the transition, while Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute called them "far-reaching, bold and constructive" to restore trust in government.

Success Starts with W.

Can it be that the economic policies of the Bush administration have been this successful? Under Bush, those in poverty fell dramatically, while the number of families making over $100,000/year has skyrocketed to one in four!

In 1996, only 9 percent of the electorate said their family income was that high. Last week it had grown to 26 percent — more than one in four voters. And those making over $75,000 are up to 15 percent from 9 percent. Put another way, more than 40 percent of those voting earned over $75,000, making this the highest-income electorate in history.

It seems that W. should be known as the first poor president.

The poorest segment of the electorate, those making under $15,000, has shrunk from 11 percent to 6 percent over the past dozen years. And those making $15,000 to $30,000 annually — the working poor — also shrunk from 23 percent to 12 percent of the electorate.

At the same time, the voters have become more racially diverse (with white voters dropping 9 points from 1996 to 74 percent of the electorate and minorities) and better educated — voters who had attended some college are surging.

Government Lemons

Barack is pressing a bailout for automakers.

President-elect Barack Obama would like the government to find additional authority to deal with the liquidity crisis in the American automobile industry, Obama's transition co-chairman said on Tuesday.

The Obama team earlier leaked details of the disagreement over an auto bailout that arose between President Bush and Barack in their private meeting yesterday.

John Podesta said Obama stressed the need to help the ailing U.S. auto industry during talks with President George W. Bush at the White House on Monday.

"He's hopeful the government will look for additional authority to deal with the short-term liquidity crisis ... and get onto a program and a plan that would ensure that the auto industry can ... continue as ... independent companies ...," Podesta said in a briefing.

More on what Barack wants:

There are two primary ways President Bush could provide aid, either through the recently passed $25 billion in federal loans to help automakers retool (though automakers might needs those funds simply to make payroll) OR through the $700 billion in TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) funds, less than $500 billion of which has been allocated.

The Big Three automakers have asked for an additional $25 billion to help prevent their going into bankruptcy. On Saturday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to consider using the TARP funds to help the automakers, though the White House seemed to reject that idea on Monday;

Renegade

It's always the same question with liberal politicians - why don't their kids attend public schools?

Where will the Obama girls go to school? Will Michelle and Barack Obama choose private or public? What statement will their choice make? These are some of the questions on the minds of many Washington observers after the news that Michelle Obama visited a private school in D.C this week.

The unspoken reality is that people with the money to send their kids to private schools keep them out of urban public schools, owned and operated by Democrats and crippled by liberal ideology and the Democrats partnership with the teachers unions, and send them where they'll get a good education.

The Post's education columnist, Jay Mathews, is betting on Georgetown Day School as the Obamas' likely choice. Mathews says this is fitting on two fronts: Georgetown Day School was the first racially integrated school in D.C., and it is similar to the academically rigorous University of Chicago Laboratory Schools that Malia, a fifth grader, and Sasha, a second grader, currently attend. Several key Obama advisers send their children there.

Democrats should get called on it whenever they opt out of public schools - over time, perhaps voters would start to realize that Democrats operate on an educational double standard - they refuse to allow school choice, except for the affluent.

There is also the well-known fact that, despite some progress, D.C. schools are among the most dysfunctional, academically underachieving schools in the country. If Obama decides to send his daughters to a public school in the city, he would be the first president to do so since Jimmy Carter.

Tight Ship

As tight a ship as the Obama campaign was, we have to assume that any aides to Obama who were briefed on his meeting with the President are leaking details with campaign consent and knowledge.

Just hours after President Bush and President-elect Obama met in the Oval Office of the White House, details of their confidential conversation began leaking out to the press, igniting anger from the president, sources claim.

"Senator Obama would be wise to keep close counsel," a top Bush source warned.

"Senator Obama may not be familiar with a long-standing tradition of presidents holding their private conversations, private," a senior adviser explained to the DRUDGE REPORT.

If not, we should expect him to be firing the leakers any minute. After all, how many people would know?

"BUSH AND OBAMA AT ODDS OVER AID FOR AUTO INDUSTRY," splashed the NEW YORK TIMES in an exclusive Monday evening, quoting "people familiar with the discussion."

The two met at the White House in private, without staff.

"Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Obama and congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia," claimed the TIMES.

Is this Barack's idea for how to reward President Bush for the gracious transition he's running?

The ASSOCIATED PRESS quickly followed with details of the conversation, citing "aides who described the discussion on grounds of anonymity, citing the private nature of the meeting."

Bush advisers view the leaks as an effort to undermine the president's remaining days in office.

Needing A Newt Party

Newt running the GOP? Great idea.

Newt Gingrich has let it be known that, if Republicans want him, the former U.S House speaker is willing to serve as chairman of the national party and lead it out of the wilderness it’s blundered into.

The question is whether the 168-member Republican National Committee is open to the match.

“If a majority of the RNC thought he was needed, he would accept that appointment,” said Randy Evans’ Gingrich’s close friend and legal counsel. “He fully appreciates the urgency of the moment.”

He's conservative, smart, and competent - the last attribute being in particularly short supply. And he's not currently an RNC member. Meaning that he'd represent change. Newt ideas.

What might strike some as coyness is in fact caution. The odds are stacked against the former Georgia congressman, for several reasons.

For one thing, six days after the election of Barack Obama and substantial gains by Democrats in the House and Senate, Republicans have yet to decide whether a serious overhaul of the party is required.

Business as usual sound like a good idea? A party running so close to the middle that it fails to differentiate itself from Democrats - except to be viewed as less competent?

If a revolution is in order, then there’s the small matter of which side is issued the pitchforks, and whose castle is to be stormed. Is this a fight to purge moderates, or a battle to expand the tent?

“The RNC has to do some soul-searching and decide what level of change is necessary,” Evans said. “If that answer is bold, energetic change led by someone who has done it before, then Newt would be a good choice.”

If the party is eying a shift toward the middle, Evans added, “that isn’t Newt.”

Though he retains his reputation as a polarizing figure, Gingrich served as a sideline strategist for the GOP during the presidential season. He pointed McCain to the issue of offshore drilling. But Gingrich also helped generate skepticism over the Wall Street bailout — which McCain and other Senate Republicans supported.

A January decision is expected.

Bake Sale

The Money Machine never rests.

The election is hardly finished, and the fundraising has begun anew.The Obama campaign, which raised more than $600 million for the election of the junior senator from Illinois as the next president of the United States, is selling celebratory T-shirts.

Thirty bucks.

Obama T-shirts.jpg

The proceeds are going to the Democratic National Committee, which appearently has put itself in some debt with the massive organization it helped finance for the Obama campaign. President-elect Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, have their work cut out for them, a campaign e-mail explains, "But before we take the next step, we need to get our house in order.

Rebirth

Sarah's got herself in rehab.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, amid speculation she'll run for president in four years, blamed Bush administration policies for the defeat last week of the GOP ticket and prayed she wouldn't miss "an open door" for her next political opportunity.

Not drug rehab. Political rehab. She's redefining herself - trying to shed the bad news of the McCain run and maximize her potential as the country's most popular Republican.

"I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door," Palin said in an interview with Fox News on Monday. "And if there is an open door in '12 or four years later, and if it is something that is going to be good for my family, for my state, for my nation, an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that door."

With a horrible economy setting in, Palin is wise to separate herself from Bush, and Republicans, in general.

"It's amazing that we did as well as we did," Palin, who was Sen. John McCain's running mate, said of the election in a separate interview with the Anchorage Daily News.

"I think the Republican ticket represented too much of the status quo, too much of what had gone on in these last eight years, that Americans were kind of shaking their heads like going, wait a minute, how did we run up a $10 trillion debt in a Republican administration? How have there been blunders with war strategy under a Republican administration? If we're talking change, we want to get far away from what it was that the present administration represented and that is to a great degree what the Republican Party at the time had been representing," Palin said in a story published Sunday.

Palin has scheduled a series of national interviews this week with Fox, NBC's "Today" show and CNN. She also plans to attend the Republican Governors Association conference in Florida this week.

Media Bias

Was the Washington Post's campaign coverage tilted in favor of Barack? The Post's ombudsman says so. Here are some of Deborah Howell's observations.

The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts.

My assistant, Jean Hwang, and I have been examining Post coverage since Nov. 11 of last year on issues, voters, fundraising, the candidates' backgrounds and horse-race stories on tactics, strategy and consultants. We also have looked at photos and Page 1 stories since Obama captured the nomination June 4.

The count was lopsided, with 1,295 horse-race stories and 594 issues stories. The Post was deficient in stories that reported more than the two candidates trading jabs; readers needed articles, going back to the primaries, comparing their positions with outside experts' views. There were no broad stories on energy or science policy, and there were few on religion issues.

The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces about McCain, 58, than there were about Obama, 32, and Obama got the editorial board's endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain.

Stories and photos about Obama in the news pages outnumbered those devoted to McCain. Reporters, photographers and editors found the candidacy of Obama, the first African American major-party nominee, more newsworthy and historic. Journalists love the new; McCain, 25 years older than Obama, was already well known and had more scars from his longer career in politics.

Our survey results are comparable to figures for the national news media from a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism. It found that from June 9, when Clinton dropped out of the race, until Nov. 2, 66 percent of the campaign stories were about Obama compared with 53 percent for McCain; some stories featured both. The project also calculated that in that time, 57 percent of the stories were about the horse race and 13 percent were about issues.

But Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama's acknowledged drug use as a teenager.

One gaping hole in coverage involved Joe Biden, Obama's running mate. When Gov. Sarah Palin was nominated for vice president, reporters were booking the next flight to Alaska. Some readers thought The Post went over Palin with a fine-tooth comb and neglected Biden. They are right; it was a serious omission. However, I do not agree with those readers who thought The Post did only hatchet jobs on her. There were several good stories on her, the best on page 1 by Sally Jenkins on how Palin grew up in Alaska.

The King Demands Your Presents

Hey, cut her a little slack, wouldja? It's not like she came to the door wearing only a towel or nothin'! Jeez!

The co-chair of Barack Obama's Transition Team, Valerie Jarrett, appeared on Meet the Press this weekend and used, shall we say, an interesting word to described what she thinks Barack Obama will be doing in January when he's officially sworn into office. She told Tom Brokaw that Obama will be ready to "rule" on day one.

Ya, well so what? He is ready to rule the world.

It's a word that reflects the worst fears that people have for Obama the "arrogant," the "messiah," that imagines he's here to "rule" instead of govern.

Jarret told Brokaw that "given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one."

Hey, it's not like she thinks Africa is a country or somethin' stupid! She just said he's ready to take the throne!

A Wonderful World

In an historic moment drowning in history, the historic president-elect made his historic visit to the White House, as a transition steeped in history moves historically forward.

President-elect Barack Obama visited the White House on Monday for his first post-election meeting with President George W. Bush, a strikingly symbolic moment in the historic transition of power in Washington.

The outgoing president and first lady Laura Bush greeted Obama and his wife Michelle with smiles and handshakes as they stepped from their limousine to begin a tour of what will be their new home after Obama is sworn in on Jan. 20.

Obama's aides say after taking office he will likely move quickly to roll back Bush's executive orders that limit stem cell research and expand oil and gas drilling in some areas.

There was no outward sign of tension, however, as the Obamas began their White House visit.

Presidents-in-waiting traditionally make a trip to the White House between Election Day and inauguration but usually wait longer than Obama did.

He came calling after only six days, underscoring a sense of urgency in the transition process. It will be the first wartime transfer of presidential power in four decades and also comes as economic turmoil is shaking world markets.

Know Nothings

Are you feeling Bill's pain?

“It’s all guilt by association,” Ayers said. “They made me into a cartoon character—they threw me up onstage just to pummel me. I felt from the beginning that the Obama campaign had to run the Obama campaign and I have to run my life.”

Poor Bill - life as the former bomber friend of a candidate for president was not easy!

Ayers said that once his name became part of the campaign maelstrom he never had any contact with the Obama circle. “That’s not my world,” he said.

Yup. He was cut off after he became Kryptonite to the campaign. Which means that until his name became part of the conversation they were in regular contact?

One night, Ayers recalled, he and Dohrn were watching Bill O’Reilly, who was going on about “discovering” Ayers’s 1974 manifesto, “Prairie Fire.” “I had to laugh,” Ayers said. “No one read it when it was first issued!” He said that he laughed, too, when he listened to Sarah Palin’s descriptions of Obama “palling around with terrorists.” In fact, Ayers said that he knew Obama only slightly: “I think my relationship with Obama was probably like that of thousands of others in Chicago and, like millions and millions of others, I wished I knew him better.”

Oh, I see. When you gave Barack the job of his career, and had an office on the same floor of a small office building, and when you served on the board of the Woods Foundation, your relationship with Barack was like thousands of others in Chicago???

As we were getting ready to go, after an hour of front-stoop conversation, a neighbor came by and ironically reminded Ayers of the event that he and his wife held for Obama in 1995 when Obama was making his run for the Illinois state senate. "Everyone, including you, wants to have a coffee here," he joked to the neighbor. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do!”

That's right - I forgot about that fundraiser.