This Obamamania is getting out of control. We'd better not get our expectations too high because he is facing a lot of difficult issues that will take time to deal with. I am VERY leery of the way the media is already making him a combination of Lincoln, FDR and JFK. Remember what they do best is build peole up so they can tear them down. If he doesnt restore the economy and end all wars, sorld hunger, and solve global warming in three months these geniuses will start bloviating about a "failed presidency."

Not everyone is an Obamamaniac:
Kansas Church:"America we have a Muslim president. This is sin against the Lord."

That's ridiculous. And people get mad at me for making fun of small town America. Sorry, but I'd much rather be thought of as a stuck up, pompous, New York City ass, than as a hateful goober from Small Town, U.S.A.

I'm a practicing Catholic, yet I never, ever try to shove my religious beliefs down anyone's throat. I'm a graduate of Fordham University and minored in theology there, where the Jesuits implored us to study other religions and to respect the beliefs of others. I guess that's where my deep respect for Judaism sprang from (plus, I worked in the Jewish community for over twenty years).

My point is, what if Obama is a Muslim? As long as he's not a fundamentalist, religious zealot----which ALL religions unfortunately spawn, including Christianity and Judaism----what's the difference?

At least I have good reason to root against Kansas in college sports now.

Newsweek.com

Obama's Attorney General

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 1:57 PM
By Michael Isikoff

President-elect Obama has decided to tap Eric Holder as his attorney general, putting the veteran Washington lawyer in place to become the first African-American to head the Justice Department, according to two legal sources close to the presidential transition.

Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, still has to undergo a formal “vetting” review by the Obama transition team before the selection is final and is publicly announced, said one of the sources, who asked not to be identified talking about the transition process. But in the discussions over the past few days, Obama offered Holder the job and he accepted, the source said. The announcement is not likely until after Obama announces his choices to lead the Treasury and State departments.

Holder, 57, has been on Obama’s “short list” for attorney general from the outset. A partner at the D.C. law firm of Covington & Burling, Holder served as co-chief (along with Caroline Kennedy) of Obama’s vice-presidential selection process. He also actively campaigned for Obama throughout the year and grew personally close to the president-elect. Holder has not returned a call seeking comment; a spokeswoman for the Obama transition team told Newsweek in an e-mail early Tuesday afternoon that no decision has been made.

The sources said the Obama transition team is still debating over who should serve under Holder in the key post of deputy attorney general. One top candidate, favored by Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and other former Clinton White House officials, is Elena Kagan, dean of the Harvard Law School and a former lawyer in the White House counsel’s office under Clinton. Another top candidate, favored by other Obama advisors, is David Ogden, a former chief of staff to Attorney General Janet Reno, who is currently heading Obama’s Justice Department transition team. Kagan brings legal policy credentials; Ogden has more experience in the Justice Department trenches.

The only hesitancy about Holder’s selection was that he himself had reservations about going through a confirmation process that was likely to revive questions about his role in signing off on the controversial pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich. Although there is no evidence that Holder actively pushed the pardon, he was criticized for not raising with the White House the strong objections that some Justice Department lawyers and federal prosecutors in New York had to pardoning somebody who had fled the country. But after reviewing the evidence in the case, and checking with staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Obama aides and Holder both decided the issue was highly unlikely to prove an obstacle to his confirmation, one of the sources said--especially given the Democrats’ more sizable post-election majority in the Senate.

A New York City native who graduated from Columbia University and Columbia Law School, Holder spent years as a federal prosecutor—a job in which he earned a reputation as tough and aggressive foe of public corruption. After serving in the pubic integrity section of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and later a District of Columbia Superior Court judge, Holder was named by President Clinton as U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. He became deputy attorney general in 1997 under Janet Reno and was viewed as a centrist on most law enforcement issues, though he has sharply criticized the secrecy and the expansive views of executive power advanced by the Bush Justice Department.

I don't know a lot about Eric Holder, except he was Deputy AJ for Clinton I believe.

I agree with DT in that we certainly can't expect Obama to perform miracles. I am hoping the public and his supporters in general will be well aware of the fact that he has so much on his plate, it would be virtully impossible to accomplish everthing he wants to (if that) probably through his first term. I think many are just so high on hope and so happy for change, they are having a hard time containing it. As one pundit said earlier, most people are high on celebrating change that they are not dancing on the Bush grave (so to speak).

Speaking of which. I hear they expect at least 4 million to attend the inaugration. Here, I seriously wanted to go right???? Ha ha...what a joke. They say tickets are very very limited. Some have tried selling them on Ebay I hear. Diane Fienstein just came out and said it was illegal. They should be free. BUT, hotels in the area are jacking up there prices. Wow!!! I guess I'll watch on tv and go to D.C. later.


TIS

Democrats: Clinton to help Hillary get State job

By BETH FOUHY

CHICAGO (AP) — Former President Bill Clinton has offered several concessions to help Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, his wife, become secretary of state, people familiar with President-elect Barack Obama's transition vetting process said Wednesday.

Clinton has agreed to release the names of several major donors to his charitable foundation and will submit future foundation activities and paid speeches to a strict ethics review, said Democrats knowledgeable about the discussions.

They also said that Clinton would step away from day-to-day responsibility for his foundation while his wife serves and would alert the State Department to his speaking schedule and any new sources of income. The Democrats spoke only on grounds of anonymity because of the private nature of the Cabinet-selection process.

Since Sen. Clinton has emerged as a top contender for the State job, her husband's international business deals and the fundraising he has done for his foundation and presidential library have come under careful review by Obama's transition team. The former president had indicated earlier that he would be willing to significantly increase the transparency of those activities if it would boost the former first lady's chances of getting the job.

A team of attorneys is representing the Clintons in negotiations with Obama officials, in talks which have taken place this week at a law firm in Washington.

Aides familiar with the negotiations said the vetting has gone smoothly and both Clintons had been fully cooperative with the process. One Clinton adviser noted that former President George H.W. Bush has given paid speeches and participated in international business ventures since his son, George W. Bush, has been president — without stirring public complaints or controversy about a possible conflict of interest.

Bill Clinton's network of business deals and charitable endeavors became an issue during Hillary Clinton's run for the Democratic presidential nomination.

One Democrat who advised her campaign said few of her senior strategists knew anything about the former president's business arrangements and whether they would hold up under scrutiny if she won the nomination. The adviser spoke on background, not authorized to speak publicly for Hillary Clinton's political operation.

During his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, Obama pressed the former president to name the donors to his library. Bill Clinton refused, saying many had given money on the condition that their names not be revealed. He promised to make the donors' names public going forward if his wife won the Democratic nomination.

The former president has engaged in other deals that could complicate his wife's work with foreign governments as secretary of state. Records show he raised money for his foundation from the Saudi royal family, Kuwait, Brunei and the Embassy of Qatar, and from a Chinese Internet company seeking information on Tibetan human rights activists.

While many people familiar with the New York senator's thinking say she is inclined to take the secretary of state's job if it is offered, others say she is also considering the consequences of leaving the Senate, where she had hoped to take a leading role on health care reform and other issues.

"Would she be willing to give up her independent stature in the U.S. Senate, Robert F. Kennedy's seat, to be in the Cabinet? It will be a considerable decision for her," said Lanny Davis, a former Clinton adviser not involved in the vetting. "It's a completely different life than you lead in the Senate, where you are your own spokesperson, your own advocate. When you join the Cabinet of the president of the United States, that is no longer the case."

Clinton declined to discuss any part of the selection process Tuesday. "I've said everything I have to say on Friday," she said.

At the State Department, the prospect of Clinton as secretary is creating some anxiety among career foreign service officers worried that she would install her own loyalists and exclude them from policy-making. Some at the State Department see her as a foreign policy lightweight, although there is grudging acknowledgment of her star power.

Well it seems Al Quaeda has now put in its two cents on Obama, calling him a "house negro." Sounds like they got their racial sensitivity from Frank Pentangeli.

What I laughed was when they attacked Obama because he wasn't "a Honorable American."

WAIT WAIT WAIT

"A Honorable American."

So has Al Qaeda gone from wanting to totally destroy the Great Satan of the West to saying that some parts of it are good?

Wow, the Obama election must have really fucked up their propaganda plans.

Daschle will be secretary of HHS

Former Senator Majority leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) will be secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration, with the delicate mission of shepherding a health-care bill through Congress at a time of punishing budget constraints, a senior Democratic official said.

Daschle was also considered for health care czar in the White House, but President-elect Obama’s transition team decided he could be more effective with “Secretary” in front of his name.

“Of all the proposals that Obama wants to enact, health care requires the most input and tough negotiations,” the official said. “No one knows the House and Senate like Tom Daschle.”

Daschle, one of Obama’s most prominent early supporters during the Democratic primaries, was also considered for White House chief of staff before that post when to Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.).

Daschle, who will be 61 next month, will focus on what the official called the “30,000-foot” part of the job, with powerful deputies handling day-to-day matters. “He’s going to do the broader perspective,” the official said.

Daschle also served eight years in the House. He was Senate majority leader from 2001 to 2003, when Republicans regained the Senate majority. His official biography says: “During his tenure as Leader, Daschle co-managed only the second impeachment trial of a U.S. president, led the Senate in response to the attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the anthrax attack on his office one month later.

Daschle is a special public policy adviser in the Washington office of the law firm Alston and Bird. His biography adds: “Born in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Senator Daschle attended South Dakota State University and graduated in 1969. Following college, he served for three years as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force Strategic Command. After military service, he spent five years as an aide to South Dakota Senator James Abourezk.”

Roll Call first reported Daschle’s selection at HHS.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15780.html

I don't know but do you think she will go from being the boss to take a position where she has a boss?

I'm going back and forth on this one Miggie. No doubt she has the smarts for the job, and I really believe she can be a team player. The real wild card is Bill.
He could easily screw things up royally....if she was negotiating something, say in the Middle East, he could be telling his Kuwaiti pals "Don't pay any attention to what she is saying, Barack calls the shots and he's keeping things from her." The guy is a total loose cannon. I thought he was a good president, but I really think that heart surgery made him soft in the head.

What happened? I thought Obama was supposed to be a friend to terrorists...

All kidding aside, there's something to that. Call it whatever you like, but after his heart surgery he really went off the deep end.

Mayor sorry for kids' 'Assassinate Obama' chant


By JOHN MILLER - Associated Press Writer
Edition Date: 11/18/08

Comments (76) | Recommend (1)
BOISE, Idaho — The mayor of an eastern Idaho town where second- and third-grade students on a school bus chanted "Assassinate Obama" after the Nov. 4 election has publicly apologized, saying there's no excuse for such behavior.

Rexburg Mayor Shawn Larsen wrote in a guest editorial sent Tuesday to local newspapers that he was saddened by the notoriety his community had received over the incident, both across the United States and abroad.

Larsen told The Associated Press that a formal response to the incident in his city was sorely needed.

"When people don't stand up and say, 'That's not appropriate, that's wrong, and those are hateful remarks,' it's almost like they are saying that it's an OK thing to do. And it's not," he said. "The mayor doesn't have any authority over the school system, but I do think it reflects upon the community."

In his editorial, Larsen recounted seeing Barack Obama speak in Washington, D.C., in early 2006 about his faith and how his upbringing had influenced his policies and his priorities. Larsen said he left the event inspired.

Idaho voters overwhelmingly favored Republican John McCain in the presidential election. In Madison County, where Rexburg is located, 85 percent of voters chose McCain over the Democratic candidate, and some claim it's the "reddest county" in America.

But Larsen wrote that is no explanation for "hateful and vile comments" about a man about to lead the nation.

7 and 8 year olds?? Gee, I wonder where they learned it?

Al Queda feared an Obama win. I heard today on NPR that Al Queda is afraid because so many other countries seem to like Obama (unlike the current Presiden) and it might cause them to actually unite in various ways against them. I also heard what they claim was a more exact translation of the Obama smear, calling him, more or less, a slave, or white man's slave of some sort (something in that line).


TIS

But Obama is a mulsim! And a terrorist too. So Al Quaeda should have no problems with him, right?

Ha ha ha. Yea, you'd think they'd invite him over for tea, or whatever terrorists drink these days.

Evidently they are not as gullible as some Americans.

TIS

ABC News is now confirming that Hillary Clinton will be Obama's choice for Secretary of State.

Sources: Jones leading choice for national security advisor
Posted: 10:36 AM ET

From CNN White House Correspondent Ed Henry

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) – Two sources close to the Obama transition team tell CNN retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones has emerged as President-elect's leading choice to become national security adviser in the White House.

The sources said Jones has been given the impression by the President-elect that the job is his if he wants it. But the officials said there are still private discussions underway and no final decision has been made.

The discussions are focused on precisely how much power Jones will have in the staff job since he is used to being in a command role. Among his many posts, Jones served for several years as the operational commander for NATO.

In the third and final presidential debate, Obama noted that he deeply values advice from Jones, who has four decades of military service.

One person close to the transition noted Jones is a bipartisan figure who has warm relationships with both current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who may stay on the job for at least a brief period, as well as Sen. Hillary Clinton, who is now on track to be nominated as Secretary of State after Thanksgiving.
CNN first reported last week that Jones was getting serious consideration for either national security adviser or Energy Secretary.

This would be a superb choice. Obama is putting together quite a team (although I am nervous about Hillary).

Report: Hillary Clinton next Secretary of State

Posted by LCraven November 21, 2008 15:38PM

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state, making her the public face around the world for the administration of the man who beat her for the Democratic presidential nomination, two confidants told The New York Times today.

The apparent accord between perhaps the two leading figures in the Democratic Party climaxed a week-long drama that riveted the nation's capital.

Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation.

Obama's office told reporters on Thursday that the nomination is "on track" but this is the first word from the Clinton camp that she has decided.

"She's ready," the confidant reportedly said, adding that Mrs. Clinton was reassured after talking again with Obama because their first meeting in Chicago last week "was so general." The purpose of the follow-up talk, he noted, was not to extract particular concessions but "just getting comfortable" with the idea of working together.

Obama picks Geithner for Treasury: report
By Jeff Mason and Caren Bohan Jeff Mason And Caren Bohan 26 mins ago

CHICAGO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama has selected Timothy Geithner to be his Treasury secretary, putting the respected head of the New York Federal Reserve in a key role as the U.S. economy staggers toward recession, NBC news reported on Friday.

Geithner, 47, was seen as one of two main candidates for the Treasury job along with former Clinton administration Treasury chief Lawrence Summers.

The New York Times, meanwhile, reported that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton had accepted Obama's offer to become his secretary of state, bringing his onetime chief Democratic rival for the presidency into a pivotal role in his new administration.

"She's ready," the Times quoted one of two Clinton associates who confirmed the deal as saying.

But Clinton senior adviser Philippe Reines told Reuters: "We're still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature."

If confirmed as Treasury secretary, Geithner would be at the helm of efforts to pull the country out of a financial crisis which some analysts predict could lead to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

U.S. stocks jumped sharply higher after reports that Obama had picked Geithner, sending major indices up more than 4 percent within minutes.

A further cabinet job appeared locked up as NBC reported that New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson -- who also had sought the Democratic presidential nomination -- had received Obama's nod to become commerce secretary.

Richardson's elevation to the cabinet would give the Obama administration its first high-profile Hispanic member as its main liaison to the business community.

Obama, who beat Republican John McCain in the November 4 election, takes over from George W. Bush on January 20. He has criticized the Republican's administration sharply for harming the United States' stature in the international community.

Retired Marine Gen. James Jones emerged as a leading contender for White House national security adviser, according to Democratic sources. Jones is a former top operational commander of NATO.

Obama is also leaning toward keeping Robert Gates as secretary of Defense.

Has he reached across the aisle yet for a pic?

Unless its reversed, Robert Gates will stay on for Defense.

Hillary is like the Angeline Jolie of American Politics...an Attention-whore Drama Queen.

Hopefully this brilliant stroke of political calculation on Obama's part won't backfire on him because of Hillary being...Hillary.

I wonder how pissed Richardson is that he endorsed Obama over Hillary in the primaries, but she gets the Secretary of State office instead of him?

Oh well, he's still a good cabinet pick none the less, even if I don't understand how as a previous Secretary of Energy and US Ambassador to the UN will work as Commerce Secretary, especially considering that the Commerce job was booked for the Obama Campaign's financial chief (winning campaign treasurers usually get that post) but she backed out reportedly because of shady deals worthy of the name Chicago.

What are you talking about? Senator Clinton was twice chosen by a sizeable number of the people of New York to be one of their US Senators. She was selected by an even greater number of people across the US to be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. You ought to show her respect for achievements which, by the way, you can't match.

Geithner is a former Republican, turned Independent.

Hilary has achieved a lot but she's still scary...