Obama: Clinton, Gates, Rice and more

by Mark Silva

Sen. Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, would have made a fine Secretary of State - and is among those whom President-elect Barack Obama has courted across party lines in his bid for an inclusive government.

But Lugar says he believes that Obama's national security team - reportedly to be led by Sen. Hillary Clinton at State and Marine Gen. James Jones as National Security Adviser - will do a fine job as well.

"I think they're excellent selections,'' Lugar said of Obama's lineup, in an appearance this morning on ABC News' This Week. " I think it will be a strong team. I would just say, as an individual, I look forward to working with each one of them. Bipartisan support of this team really is of the essence right now."

Lugar also downplays any conflict that might exist in former President Bill Clinton's profitable globe-trotting since he left the White House - noting that Clinton has agreed to disclose his foundation's donors and curtail his activities.

"I think it's a big step,'' Lugar said. "I think that the wide-ranging activities of
President Clinton are very substantial on this earth. They will continue to be... But I think the Obama campaign people have done a good job in trying to pin down the most important elements, and at this point hopefully this team of rivals will work".

Lugar was joined by Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat from Rhode Island, on the Sunday news show. See the rest of their remarks in this transcript provided, with thanks, by ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

Tribune Correspondent James Oliphant spent last week in Georgia, covering the U.S. Senate runoff between Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin. The race could determine the success of the Democratic legislative agenda. Here is his report:

by James Oliphant

ATLANTA - Here, in a campaign office on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Jim Martin is feeling the spirit.

The Democratic Senate candidate is normally so unassuming, he sometimes seems out of place at his own campaign events. But here at the historically black Morris Brown College, surrounded by former Barack Obama campaign staffers and African-American luminaries such as Reps. John Lewis and Bennie Thompson, the bespectacled, 63-year-old, white lawyer has discovered his inner preacher.

"We're all in this together!" Martin intones.

"Talk to me!" a man in the group shouts in response.

"The Republicans believe if they have 41 votes in the Senate, they can stop this great president!"

"That's right!"

"Now this isn't Landslide Jim, you're talkin' to," Martin says. "I need your help."

Martin was never supposed to be this close to a U.S. Senate seat. A relative unknown in Georgia politics, the former head of the state's Department of Human Resources had to survive two primaries before securing the privilege of receiving what promised to be a whomping at the hands of Republican incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

After all, this isn't some swing-state such as Ohio or Florida. This is Georgia, where John McCain topped Obama by 5 points and President George W. Bush won by 17 points four years ago. In 2002, Chambliss was able to unseat a decorated Vietnam War veteran, Max Cleland, in part by questioning his patriotism.

But Martin benefited from the heavy black turnout on election day Nov. 4 and was able to draw close enough to Chambliss to force a run-off election, to be held Tuesday.

For the past three weeks, the Georgia Senate race has given the political world a last campaign fix. Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Sen. John McCain have all stumped here. Monday promises the arrival of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to campaign for Chambliss.

The big-name attention to Georgia is rooted in the Democrats' effort to secure a 60-vote majority in the Senate, which would defeat Republican filibusters and allow easy passage of many pieces of legislation. Right now, they hold 58 seats, with two races, here and in Minnesota, still not settled. Chambliss repeatedly calls himself "the firewall," the man who can single-handedly derail the Democratic agenda.

by Mark Silva

Amid word that President-elect Barack Obama is ready to nominate his erstwhile political rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, for Secretary of State - on Monday in Chicago, the AP signals today - there appears to be some new interest in an age-old constitutional question: How can he?

It's not a question of the senator's husband, former President Bill Clinton, and all his foreign dealings since leaving office. He has agreed to divulge the identities of the contributors to his Clinton Foundation, bar foreign donations to his Clinton Global Initiative and submit his own global itinerary to State and the White House Counsel for vetting.

Rather, no shortage of law school students and bloggers, often one and the same, has been exploring that clause of the Constitution (Article One, Section Six) that reads:

""No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office."

While this would appear to be a fairly straightforward stricture, our colleague, Andrew Malcolm, notes at the Ticket this morning that Obama will not be the first president to find an end run around the "emoluments'' question.

by Mark Silva

ROCK HALL, Md. -- Out on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, up the windswept Maryland coast where Revolutionary War sea captains are memorialized -- "Lost at sea," reads the remote stone of one -- a Bald eagle rested on the branch of a barren tree today snacking on a silvery fish snatched from the mouth of the Chester River.

There are no elections out this way, no transition, no Cabinet seats to fill, only the insatiable appetites of water birds, both the locals and the migratory, feeding in the clear shallows where river meets bay.

The eagles -- regulars up and down this bay stressed by an overpopulation of the SUV-driving species, and even along the urban runoff known as the Potomac River -- were joined today where the Chester meets the Chesapeake by hundreds of Tundra swans, down from the Arctic chill, feeding here on the Eastern Shore, where it got above 40 degrees for a while this afternoon, cloudless and still. (Photos by Silva.)

by Frank James

All right, I admit it. I'm shamelessly putting up a Gov. Sarah Palin posting because the mere mention of her name at the top of a posting is good for driving up traffic, something we've noticed plenty here at The Swamp.

And what could be more fitting to write a Palin posting (a posting whose sole purpose is to try and ride the Palin Internet hits bandwagon one more time) that points readers to a Politico.com piece whose theme is that people continue to be so Palin obsessed that hers is still one of the most hit upon names on the Internet.

According to the Politico piece:

Three weeks after the Republican ticket suffered a sweeping defeat at the polls, Sarah Palin continues to dominate search engine queries, cable news and online video sites.

The Alaska governor now ranks fourth, just one spot below Obama, on the weekly Lycos 50 list.

by Mark Silva

Perhaps it is the alacrity with which President-elect Barack Obama has set about assembling a Cabinet and army of advisers - an economic team named this week, defense coming next week.

Or perhaps it is the expertise of the nominees - with a "towering'' economic team that includes the six-foot-seven Paul Volcker, and a national security team that is expected to center around Marine Gen. James Jones as national security adviser and Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a temporary holdover.

But public confidence in Obama's "ability to be a good president'' has held steady in the weeks since Election Day - 65 percent in the latest measure of the Gallup Poll, which has taken on daily tracking of public confidence in the economy (extremely low) and confidence in the president-elect (very high).

"Between 63 percent and 67 percent of Americans have said they are confident in Barack Obama's ability to be a good president in the weeks since his election on Nov. 4, a sentiment that doesn't yet appear to be have been affected, positively or negatively, by news coverage of the president-elect's staff and Cabinet appointments, or by reports of his economic and other policy plans,'' Gallup reports.

Gallup Poll Daily tracking has included the basic question, "Are you confident or not confident in Barack Obama's ability to be a good president?" every day since Nov. 5. "The results have been remarkably consistent,'' Gallup reports.

"The days since Obama's election have been filled with news reports of projected and actual staff choices, Cabinet member appointments, and his planned economic stimulus proposal, as well as his weekly radio addresses,'' the pollsters note. "Some of the news reports, including the probability that he will appoint former rival Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, have the potential to be controversial. Still, nothing Obama has done so far appears to have changed the basic -- and generally positive -- structure of American public opinion about his coming presidency.

"Notably, the percentage of Americans who are confident in his ability to be a good president substantially exceeds his share of the vote (53 percent) in the November election.''

That's a fairly solid net gain since Election Day

by Mark Silva

"Going into battle one more time,'' Sen. John McCain calls it.

That's his way of framing his relatively remote-control work for the reelection of Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, the Republican forced into a runoff election, this coming Tuesday, with Democrat Jim Martin.

Today, that means raising money.

"Today, I'm asking you to go into battle one more time for our party,'' the senior senator from Arizona and failed Republican nominee for president this year, writes in an email appeal to supporters. Both McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have gone to Georgia to help Chambliss, and while President-elect Barack Obama has not personally campaigned there since his own election victory, his standing campaign organization in Georgia has been pressed into service for the Democrat's campaign.

"The eyes of the country and the world will be on the state of Georgia next Tuesday,'' McCain writes. "If we lose, the Senate Democrats could reach 60 seats in the U.S. Senate. This would give them the power to enact an agenda out of touch with our values and beliefs and the ability to confirm activist judges and liberal administration appointees with little to no open debate.

"As Americans we must continue fighting for our shared values. We must fight for our men and women in uniform, we must fight for energy independence, we must fight to create better jobs and a better economy and we must fight to keep our taxes low.

"Our party is joining together to stop the liberals from railroading their misguided tax hikes and military funding cuts through the U.S. Senate.''

by Mark Silva

The idea that President-elect Barack Obama's runaway record campaign fundraising was driven by small donors turns out to be, well, an idea.

A new analysis of the more than $600 million that Obama raised shows that about one quarter of it came from people giving less than $200. About the same percentage - 25 percent - that President Bush collected in his own record-breaking reelection campaign fundraising in 2004.

Our colleague at the Ticket, Andrew Malcolm, cites a study of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute.

"The myth is that money from small donors dominated Barack Obama's finances," CFI's executive director Michael Malbin says. "The reality of Obama's fundraising was impressive, but the reality does not match the myth."

Only 26 percent of Obama's contributions through August and only 24 percent through Oct. 15 came from people whose total donations added up to less than $200, with Malcolm emphasizing "the key word there being 'total."

A small donor might be someone who scraped together $199, he notes, but not someone who donated $199 to the Obama campaign several times, perhaps totaling close to the $4,600 legal limit for the primary and general elections."In aggregate, that would vault him/her out of the small donor category that was so useful to the political campaign's public relations campaign portraying the donor base as about two times as broad as it really was.''

The analysis shows that Obama actually received 80 percent more money from large donors (those giving $1,000 or more total) than from small donors.

The $119 million raised by genuine small donors through the Democratic National Convention is "impressive,'' Malcolm notes, but perhaps "not as impressive'' as the $210 million raised by bundlers and large donors by that point.

"After a more thorough analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC)," the CFI study says, "it has become clear that repeaters and large donors were even more important for Obama than we or other analysts had fully appreciated."

Good mornng, it's Saturday, Nov. 29.

by Mark Silva

Some "Black Friday.''

First a temporary maintenance worker died opening the doors of a Wal-Mart to a bargaining-hunting crowd of human wolves. And now two are dead at a Toys "R'' Us.

Lay a little blame at the feet of the government, for exhorting Americans to spend more money and shake off that recession gripping the nation. Lay some blame on the media, for stoking the hype surrounding one day of retailing which is, in fact, nothing more than the first of 28 shopping days left until Christmas, with cable news hawking footage of ravenous shoppers storming the doors of stores opening at 4 am.

And in Palm Desert, California, where police say an argument preceded the shooting at a Toys "R" Us, lay some blame on a gun-happy culture which encourages the resolution of simple domestic disputes with the pulling of a trigger.

""Some people got into a fight," said Glenn Splain, manager of a gym across the street from the toy tore. "One of the guys here thought it was over a toy, but it got louder and louder and then there were gunshots."

It was an innocent maintenance man, a 34-year-old temporary employee, who was opening the doors at a Wal-Mart in Long Island for bargain hunters early this morning. Police in Nassau said about 2,000 people had assembled outside the store and the first wave trampled the man opening the doors for them.

The door frame was mangled in the crush, and several other people were taken to hospitals.

"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau County police spokesman Lt. Michael Fleming, descrbing the scene as "utter chaos."

Retailers already were calling this the worst shopping season in six years. Now it's unquestionable. If this is shopping, we might be better off with a recession.

(In the photo above, Nassau County Police stand beyond the broken door of a Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., where a ttemporary worker died after a throng of shoppers trampled him moments after the Long Island store opened. AP Photo/Ed Betz)

by Andrew Malcolm, writing for the Ticket

Back jn October then-Sen. Barack Obama granted a then-rare campaign interview. That time, not surprisingly, it went to the New York Times Magazine and the candidate reportedly whined to the writer:

"I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls. If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn't vote for me, right?

"Because the way I'm portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?"

It's not unusual for public figures to feel misportrayed or even abused by media organizations. John McCain and his people expressed some strong concerns several times about the same Times newspaper.

Now that the campaign is over and Obama is president-elect, his reticence to talk with the media is gone.Now, he's eager to spread the impression of abundant pre-oath energy and activity.

by Frank James

It's possible the terrorists in Mumbai, India may have wanted to destroy tentative moves towards a better relationship between sworn enemies India and Pakistan, kind of like Hamas in the past launching attacks into Israel at times of progress between Israelis and the Palestinian Authrority.

As the New York Times reports:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The terrorist attacks in Mumbai occurred as India and Pakistan, two big, hostile and nuclear-armed nations, were delicately moving toward improved relations with the encouragement of the United States and in particular the incoming Obama administration.

But no matter who turns out to be responsible for the Mumbai attacks, their scale and the choice of international targets will make the agenda of the new American administration harder.

by Frank James

Defense officials have been concerned for years about the threat to U.S. government computer networks posed by cyberattacks from American adversaries whether they're governments, criminal networks or hackers, with particular concern about China and Russia.

It turns out there was another one this past week, apparently of Russian origins, which was of such consequence that President Bush was informed.

As Julian Barnes of the Tribune's Washington Bureau reports:

Senior military leaders took the exceptional step of briefing President Bush this week on a severe and widespread electronic attack on Defense Department computers that may have originated in Russia -- an incursion that posed unusual concern among commanders and raised potential implications for national security.

by Mark Silva

President Bush usually is reluctant to talk about his own legacy, suggesting that historians will sort all of that out long after he is gone. But suddenly, with a chance to create his own entry in the archives of the Library of Congress, Bush sees a very clear legacy in his own mind.

The retiring leader, a born-again Christian who says he has "been in the Bible every day since I've been the president,'' declares that he is proud of something his father, too, can declare: They have not sold their souls.

Now, as interviewers go, you've got your Barbara Walters and a certain expectation about the questions that are likely to come your way. And if you're sitting in the Bush White House, you're more likely to steer clear of Keith Olbermann and perhaps opt for Sean Hannity.

But this one's in a class by itself: Doro Bush Koch, the president's sister, interviewing President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush for StoryCorps, the national oral history initiative, headed for the archives of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

The interview was held Nov. 12 in the White House residence, a week after elections that handed power to the Democratic Party - to President-elect Barack Obama --and an excerpt aired yesterday on National Public Radio as a run-up to today's StoryCorps "National Day of Listening.''

Listen to what Bush had to say of his legacy:

"How do you want to be remembered,'' sister Doro asked the president, "and what are you most proud of?

"I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process. I came to Washington with a set of values, and I'm leaving with the same set of values. And I darn sure wasn't going to sacrifice those values; that I was a president that had to make tough choices and was willing to make them. I surrounded myself with good people. I carefully considered the advice of smart, capable people and made tough decisions.

By Andrew Zajac

Most of the attention paid to the Justice Department these days focuses on its future in a new administration, presumably under the leadership of Eric Holder, President-elect Obama's pick for Attorney General to replace caretaker AG Michael Mukasey.

Holder will have his plate full restoring morale in the 110,000-employee agency plagued by scandal, including the unprecedented firings of nine U.S. attorneys and politicized hiring for civil service posts.

He also may inherit an unpleasant reminder of the partisan handiwork he'll be trying to undo.

by Mark Silva

That light at the end of the tunnel you see just might be the end of active U.S. military involvement in Iraq.

One way or another: President-elect Barack Obama has promised to withdraw combat forces within 16 months of taking office in January. And today, the Iraqi Parliament ratified a security agreement with the United States that sets a three-year timetable for troop withdrawal.

"Two years ago, this day seemed unlikely,'' President Bush said in a statement issued today - nearly six years after a U.S.-led invasion and ensuing war that has cost the lives of more than 4,000 Americans and tens of thousands more Iraqis.

The agreement was approved overwhelmingly, the International Herald Tribune reports today. With more than 140 of the 198 lawmakers present in the assembly voting for it. The agreement will come into play when a United Nations mandate now governing forces in Iraq expires on Dec. 31. The pact says that all American combat forces should withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30 of the coming year, and that all troops should be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

The agreement allows Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government, or its successor, to negotiate a later, separate, agreement with the Americans allowing them to stay longer if it believes Iraq is not yet stable enough. And the pact gives the Iraqis say over what sort of operations American troops can undertake, setting limits on home searches and detainment of suspects.

See the agreements here:Iraqi security agreement.pdf Iraqi security agreement II.pdf

And more on the vote and Bush's statement here:

by John McCormick

As he spends Thanksgiving in Chicago with dozens of friends and family at his Kenwood neighborhood home, President-elect Barack Obama's transition aides released a radio address he has recorded for broadcast on Saturday.

In the weekly Democratic Radio Address, Obama discusses the meaning of Thanksgiving and the challenges the nation faces.

"Times are tough," the president-elect says. "There are difficult months ahead. But we can renew our nation the same way that we have in the many years since Lincoln's first Thanksgiving: by coming together to overcome adversity; by reaching for - and working for - new horizons of opportunity for all Americans."

The full-text of Barack Obama's radio message is below.

by Mark Silva

Free-Range Roast Turkey.

Cornbread Dressing.

Cranberry Sauce.

Sautéed Green Beans

Morelia Style Gazpacho with Spinach Salad.

It's the Gazpacho that gives it away: These are the fixin's for the Thanksgiving table today at Camp David, where President Bush has retreated with his family for the holiday. An overcast, wintry pall had settled over the capital, and then the sky broke, with Thanksgiving dawning cold and clear. Up in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, where the presidential retreat once known as Shangri-La sits, the dinner table will be brimming with more than one dish of mashed potatoes today.....

Sharda Janardhan Chitikar, left, is consoled by a relative as she grieves the death of her two children in a terrorist attack while she waits for their bodies outside St. Georges Hospital in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

by Frank James

As we Americans prepare for our Thanksgiving dinners today, it is with fresh awareness that evil is no respecter of our traditions or sensibilities.

The terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India have riveted much of the world and cast a horrible shadow. We are shocked but not surprised at the carnage caused by a previously unheard of group that apparently styles itself the Deccan Mujahadeen.

On this day of prayers, our thoughts and prayers include the people of India and the many victims of the mayhem, both Indian and Western.

After 9/11, a French newspaper headline said: "We are all Americans" in solidarity. Today, we are all Indians, especially we Americans who have experienced epic terrorism too.

by William Neikirk

Happy holidays, folks, and here's some news. Citing the economic crisis, corporate America is cutting back on its charitable giving because of the economic crisis.

The Wall Street Journal told us so on Tuesday. The publication is superior in reflecting board-room sentiment across America. But valuable inferences can be gathered from this story. And they are rather disturbing.

One is the suspicion that among corporate executives charity is viewed as something you only do it good times. You put on a big bash to help a cause and get some good PR from it, a payoff in a way, a cheap payoff at that, a payoff lacking in sincerity.

It's odd that business should cut back charity in time when it is needed more greatly, putting more pressure on hard-pressed social groups to pick up the slack. I guess they think that George H.W. Bush's "Thousand Points of Light" will suddenly re-emerge and put up the millions they are refusing to give.

If a business really wanted good PR, perhaps now is the time to step up to the plate. Yet now is not the time for them. Not to pick on them, but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, flush with cash, has announced it is cutting back on grants this coming year. Financial and nonfinancial companies are cutting back on charities.

by Mark Silva

On the eve of Thanksgiving, the president-elect and his wife and young daughters turned up at a food bank on Chicago's South side.

Ten-year-old Malia Obama and 7-year-old Sasha Obama joined their parents in shaking hands and dishing out holiday wishes to hundreds who had lined up for hours at the food bank. The family handed out wrapped chickens to the needy at St. Columbanus Catholc Church, where boxes of potatoes, oranges, fresh bread, peanut butter, canned goods, oatmeal, spaghetti and coffee also were passed around.

The president-elect, dressed in a leather jacket, black scarf and khakis, called out "Happy Thanksgiving" and invited everyone to be casual: "You can call me Barack."

The father of two explained that he wants his girls "to learn the importance of how fortunate they are, and to make sure they're giving back."

As children from the church school came down to the auditorium, Obama climbed up on the stage to screams and cheers. "I just wanted to come by and wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving," he said, fielding questions from some. One wanted to know what it's like to be followed around all the time. Obama spoke of a certain loss of privacy.

""I gotta admit, sometimes it's kinda strange,'' the 47-year-old former junior senator from Illinois said. "You just want to go take a walk or go out and ride your bike or something, and you always have someone with you... So you don't have a lot of privacy and that's one of the things you have to sacrifice in order to run for president."

The Associated Press contributed.

by Mark Silva

There's something inherently sad about watching a retiring President George W. Bush pardon his last turkey.

The president pardoned 14 others, and commuted the prison sentences of two more, this week with an exercise of constitutional authority that he rarely has asserted during his two terms in office - only his father, in modern times, has granted fewer acts of clemency, though he had just one term as president.

It is the extra-constitutional acts for which this retiring president may be best remembered - the sweeping war powers he asserted under authorizations of military force granted by Congress after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and in the invasion of Iraq, the far-reaching executive powers he asserted with the secret authorization of domestic surveillance, the questionable assertions of "executive privilege'' he made in withholding the testimony of aides in the face of congressional inquiries of the firings of prosecutors and other matters.

So, somehow, the ceremonial pardoning of a turkey which will in turn star in a Disneyland Thanksgiving Day parade following the presidential sendoff from the Rose Garden today has an air of triviality to it - with the added sentimentality of a president performing this traditional rite for the last time. Bush, who has vowed to "sprint'' to the finish line, said the pardoned turkeys, Pumpkin and Pecan, will not be "trotting'' to their own.

"This is my final Thanksgiving as the president,'' Bush said today. "Over the past eight years, I have been given many reasons to be thankful. I'm thankful to our men and women in uniform and I am incredibly proud to have been their Commander-in-Chief. I am thankful for the armies of compassion volunteers who feed the hungry and shelter the poor. I am thankful for the teachers and nurses and pastors police officers and firefighters, and others who serve their neighbors and better their communities.

by Frank James

President-elect Barack Obama had his third press conference in three days as he attempted to drive home the message to Americans, the financial markets and the world, that he is fully engaged on economy even if as the president-in-waiting he isn't yet fully empowered.

He named Paul Volcker, the towering former Federal Reserve chair, to lead a new President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board meant to bring to the White House people who will challenge the new administration's assumptions. A president who encourages people to disagree with him would certainly represent a different style than has been witnessed in the White House in the last eight years.

Obama also said Austan Goolsbee, his chief economic adviser during the campaign, would be the staff director for the new organization which is patterned on an intelligence advisory board created by President Dwight Eisenhower.

Asked what he would tell consumers as the nation heads towards Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, the president-elect said he understood that Americans were worried for the future, but that the U.S. had experienced recessions before and would survive the present one too.

While he understood that Americans were concerned about spending, it was important to not be so cautious that it feeds further into a downward spiral. In an effort to communicate confidence of better days ahead, he said:

So people should -- should understand that help is on the way. And as they think about this Thanksgiving shopping weekend, and as they think about the Christmas season that is coming up, I hope that everybody understands that -- that we are going to be able to get through these difficult times, but we're just going to have make some good choices.

by Frank James

The Republican strategists trying to get Sen. Saxby Chambliss re-elected appear to have decided that in Georgia anxiety over crime trumps anxiety over the economy.

That's one conclusion to draw from an ad that the National Republican Senatorial Committee is running in an effort to get Chambliss over the top in his run-off race against Democrat Jim Martin, a lawyer and former state lawmaker and bureaucrat respected by both Democrats and Republicans in Georgia.

At a time when voters' economic anxiety is running at its highest level in years, it doesn't make much sense on the face of it to be running on law and order.

Also, we have arguably reached the point where voters are discounting such negative ads, diminishing their impact, especially after a presidential campaign that featured a tsunami of such ads.

by Frank James

John Brennan, the long-time intelligence official who advised President-elect Barack Obama during the presidential campaign has asked that his name not be considered for the job as Central Intelligence Agency director.

Evidently, liberal bloggers had launched a campaign against him because of his links to the agency at the time it was conducting severe interrogations otherwise known as torture, and extraordinary renditions, also known as kidnapping, as part of the war on terror.

Brennan reportedly had only a tangential relationship to those practices. He wasn't their author. But guilt by association, in his critics' minds at least, was enough to ask him to beg off.

As Greg Miller of the Tribune Washington bureau reports:

The leading candidate to be CIA director under President-elect Barack Obama withdrew from consideration on Tuesday amid mounting opposition from liberal groups, marking the first time that the incoming administration was forced to bow to outside pressure on a high-level appointment.

His withdrawal came just as Obama had finished naming most of his economic team and was turning his attention to top national security posts.

by Mark Silva

Candidate Barack Obama went to Philadelphia to talk about race in America, seeking "a more perfect union," at a time when it appeared that the issue could dominate a presidential campaign.

Now President-elect Obama will go to Philadelphia to talk about the economy in America, in the midst of a perfect storm of financial and manufacturing breakdowns that could dominate much of the first term of his presidency.

Most of the nation's governors will heed Obama's call for a meeting Tuesday to talk about the impact that the economic crisis is having on state budgets. Nick Shapiro, a spokesman for the Obama transition office, calls the conference at Independence Hall a chance to address "the unique challenges facing our states.''

Pennsylvania also is one of the key places where Obama cemented his electoral landslide victory, carrying a state where it once was believed that many white, blue-collar voters who didn't much care for Obama's depiction of the working class as "bitter'' about everything going on in the country might stand between him and victory.

But this will be a bipartisan meeting, hosted by Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, chairman of the National Governors Association, and Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas , a Republican, cochairman. Douglas says that 40 governors and governors-elect plan to attend.

The event was rather hastily put together. "It's short notice, some grumbled, but virtually everyone has cleared his or her calendar," the Associated Press quotes Douglas.

Rendell has dedicated his term as NGA chairman to advocacy for increased spending on roads, bridges, sewerage systems and mass transit - just the sort of public works that Obama hopes to make part of a two-year economic stimulus plan aimed at creating 2.5 million new jobs by 2011. That and "green" jobs..

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama wants his BlackBerry back - or at least some good way to communicate better with people outside the immediate circle of the president-elect.

And Obama isn't too impressed with the way that automakers have conducted themselves in negotiations with Congress over a bailout of the industry.

These are among the gleanings from an interview that Obama gave to ABC News' Barbara Walters today in Chicago which will air on Wednesday - starting with snippets on ABC's Good Morning America at dawn and then more with the fuller broadcast of Walters' interview with Barack and Michelle Obama at 10 pm EST.
.
How is the president-elect getting along without that BlackBerry which the Secret Service wasn't happy about the boss carrying?

"This is a problem,'' Obama says in the interview airing Wednesday night, according to excerpts released by ABC. "You know, one of the things that I'm going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation and the bubble that exists around the president. And I'm in the process of negotiating with the Secret Service, with lawyers, with White House staff and....''

Does that mean he'll get his Berry back?

"Well, I'm, I'm negotiating to figure out how can I get information from outside of the ten or 12 people who surround my office in the White House,'' Obama said. "Because, one of the worst things I think that could happen to a president is losing touch with what people are going through day to day.''

And talk about losing touch: The president-elect suggests that the Big Three automakers have lost it.

by Frank James

It's being widely reported that President-elect Barack Obama has asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on at the Pentagon and that Gates has agreed.

The move would maintain continuity at the Pentagon at a critical time since Obama has pledged to start reducing combat troops in Iraq as soon as he's inaugurated and add more U.S troops to Afghanistan where the Taliban has significantly increased its attacks.

In addition, it would leave a widely respected manager at Defense at a time when the new Obama Administration is likely to be seeking spending cuts, including discontinuing some weapons systems in order to offset the expected spending on fiscal stimulus.

Gates is widely credited with bringing accountability to the Pentagon, firing generals who failed to properly oversee Walter Read Army Medical Center or the nation's nuclear arsenal.

He also won plaudits early on from Democrats on Capitol Hill for answering their questions directly that he wouldn't recommend invading Iran, this coming at a time when others in the Bush Administration were sounding very belligerent towards the Middle Eastern theocracy.

It has been an open secret that Obama was likely to ask Gates to stay. Gates, who has served in other Republican Administrations in a series of roles, including CIA director, would give an Obama cabinet a bipartisan look.

by Frank James

The Drudge Report has had this story about a Russian political analyst saying that the U.S. is headed for towards disintegration for a good part of the afternoon, indicating it must be drawing some fairly good web traffic.

It's a pretty ridiculous idea that Igor Panarin, the reputed political expert according to the story, puts forward, this notion that because of the nation's current economic troubles the U.S. will break into six distinct parts.

An excerpt:

Asked why he expected the U.S. to break up into separate parts, he said: "A whole range of reasons. Firstly, the financial problems in the U.S. will get worse. Millions of citizens there have lost their savings. Prices and unemployment are on the rise. General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse, and this means that whole cities will be left without work. Governors are already insistently demanding money from the federal center. Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.

by Frank James

Sen. John McCain spoke with reporters today, confirming that he will run for re-election to the Senate in 2010, something he hadn't said publicly.

There weren't any surprises. McCain stuck to his story that he chose Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate because she was a reformer and that her being a woman didn't figure into the selection. "No. No, I think the fact that Governor Palin is a reformer is really what impressed me; that she was willing to take on the special interests..." He said she has a "bright" future in the Republican Party.

McCain also said he plans on traveling shortly to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to assess the situation in those places.

Asked what he would say to conservatives who remain afraid of President-elect Barack Obama, he said:

Well, I think my message to them, as I said on election night -- it's time for Americans to join together. It's time for us to work together. It's time for us to sit down together and address the enormous challenges that we face.

I think that -- frankly, that Senator Obama has nominated some people to his economic team that we can work with, that are well respected. And they -- I approve of many of --

Asked why he didn't use the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright in the campaign against Obama, McCain gave an answer many will find disingenuous.

No, Byron, I thought that that issue had been well ventilated and that it was -- that I think that what Americans really cared about was the economy and their future and their ability to hold a job, the ability to get health insurance; that those were the issues that really, I thought, were defining, particularly in the difficult times we're in.

If he really thought this, why did his campaign spend weeks attacking Obama over his relationship with Bill Ayers? There was no followup question from the reporters to get at this contradiction.

by Frank James

President Bush traveled today to Ft. Campbell, Kentucky, home of the 101st Airborne.

It was a chance for Bush to visit with one of the few groups of Americans where his popularity remains relatively high, the U.S. military. And it was another chance for him to make the argument that invading Iraq and ousting Saddam Hussein was the right decision despite all we now know which we didn't in 2003.

Most of the nation has heard his arguments before. Much of the nation has stopped listening to him at all.

But he was making his case as much to posterity as to the audience of soldiers sitting around him.

Here's a transcript:

PRESIDENT BUSH: Thank you. Please be seated. Unless of course, you don't have a seat. (Laughter.)

In recent weeks, this post has been the scene of heartwarming family reunions. Many of you recently finished deployments to Iraq. You have performed with courage and distinction on the front lines of the war on terror. You have returned on success. On behalf of a grateful nation, I'm proud to welcome home the Bastogne Brigade, the Strike Brigade, the Rakkasans Brigade. (Cheers.) Job well done.

by James Oliphant

So, want a back-channel into the new White House?

You could try being Ron Klain's Facebook friend.

Klain is the incoming chief of staff to vice-president elect Joe Biden. Perhaps nothing epitomizes the new administration's 21st century outlook than the fact that the COS to the VPOTUS can be your virtual BFF.

Klain is a longtime Washington lawyer and Democratic Party insider, so social networking probably is second nature to him. But will Klain keep his foothold in cyberspace in an administration in which the president-elect will have to surrender his trusted BlackBerry? It seems unlikely.

But Klain's page remains up and running for now. And it's hot. Klain now has more than 1,000 Facebook friends. And he is still making them.His Wall is filled with greetings from well wishers about his new assignment.

And if you don't know what I'm talking about, you are probably better off. You might even be reading a book or something.

(By the way, your correspondent has leveled off at about 300 friends. Loser.)

Hard to--no, make it impossible--to imagine anyone who worked in the notoriously secretive office of Vice President Dick Cheney hanging out online. Anyone want to "poke" Scooter Libby or David Addington? Didn't think so. Nor do they want to poke you.

After all, look at all the trouble Patrick Fitzgerald had to go through just to talk to them.

by Frank James

There are a probably a few wealthy recipients of farm subsidies today saying to themselves that it was nice while it lasted.

That's because in talking today about his plans to cut spending, President-elect Barack Obama cited a news report about wealthy farmers receiving government subsidies they weren't eligible for as an example of the kind of expenditure that could be ended.

It's safe to guess that now that Obama has mentioned this in such a high profile way, this will be a priority for whomever is the next Agriculture Secretary.

McClatchey's Michael Doyle wrote a piece based on the Government Accountability Office report that revealed the unnecessary spending.

An excerpt:

WASHINGTON -- Millionaire farmers continue to pluck crop subsidies they don't deserve, federal investigators say.

"USDA cannot be assured that millions of dollars in farm program payments it made are proper," the Government Accountability Office investigators noted in the report issued Monday.

by Mark Silva

All politics really are local, Nielsen suggests.

With a look at the overall TV campaign ad-buys of the Obama and McCain campaigns. (This doesn't account for the ads placed by the political parties or supporting organizations, as if this number is not big enough.)

President-elect Barack Obama placed 155 percent more "spot" TV ads in local media markets than Sen. John McCain did during their general election contest (early June through early November), according to Nielsen

It's not really surprising, in that the real contest for the presidency was waged in a dwindling number of battleground states that began with about 16 or 17 and shrunk to a handful in the final days. The deluge of ad-buys came in Ohio, Florida and the like.

This is Nielsen's tally:

SPOT TV BUYS (6/08 to 11/08):

OBAMA - 419,667

MCCAIN- 269,992

Yet the Republican nominee kept pace with Obama in cable and broadcast network TV ad buys if one looks back as far as January: (Going back to January, the two candidates aired a total of about 850,000 TV ads.)

CABLE AND NETWORK TV BUYS (1/08 to 11/08):

OBAMA - 3004

MCCAIN - 2868

by Frank James

President-elect Barack Obama apologized to McClatchy reporter Steve Thomma at today's press conference for his staff placing the reporter in the "Cubs," not "White Sox" section of the press seating area. Thomma, a White Sox fan, noted the indignity of it all in the pool report he wrote for the benefit of other reporters not in place to observe the scene.

The light moment gave Obama a chance to make a point that some might interpret as a slap at some other administration. The Bush Administration perhaps?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: All right. We've got -- I'm going to call on Steve Thomma. Where's Steve?

Thomma: on behalf of White Sox fans. (Laughing.)

by Frank James

The question-and-answer session following President-elect Barack Obama's press conference elicited some interesting answers from the president-in-waiting:

On voters' desire for an end to partisan ideology:

OBAMA: Well, first of all, we had, I think, a decisive win because of the extraordinary desire for change on the part of the American people. And so I don't think that there's any question that we have a mandate to move the country in a new direction and not continue the same old practices that have gotten us into the fix that we're in.

And I think what the American people want more than anything is just common-sense, smart government. They don't want ideology. They don't want bickering. They don't want sniping. They want action and they want effectiveness. And that's what Peter and Rob are going to help us provide.

When it comes to our budget, I think people don't want to continue a budget -- a(n) argument about big government or small government; they want smart government and effective government. And so what we're going to do is to work as closely as we can with the Republican Party. My chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, has already met with both caucuses. We want their input. We want their ideas.

by Mark Silva

Suffering from Palin withdrawal?

Miss those daily doseages of hunting caribou, shopping at Neiman Marcus, watching for Russians on the horizon and sorting out the countries of Africa?

The folks at Comedy Central have compiled a Best of Palin series for those who enjoyed the Alaska governor's run on the national stage, as running mate for Sen. John McCain, and want to reminisce about the good times.

by Frank James

Here's President-elect Barack Obama's opening statement from today's press conference at which he announced his nomination of Peter Orszag as director of his Office of Management and Budget and Rob Nabors as the deputy director.

Obama also sent the message that he planned to search the federal budget for spending cuts to off set the additional spending needed to prop up the economy.

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Good morning.

Before I explain why I selected these outstanding public servants, let me just say a word about the work I am asking them to undertake. As I said yesterday, the economic crisis we face demands that we invest immediately in a series of measures that will help save or create two and a half million jobs and put tax cuts in the pockets of the hard-pressed middle class. Many of those new jobs will come in areas such as energy independence, technology, and health care modernization that will strengthen our economy for the future.

by Frank James

Alaka Gov. Sarah Palin Georgia-bound next week to help fellow Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss who's in a tough run-off with Democrat Jim Martin.

We're guessing no farm of any kind will be on her itinerary after last week's infamous turkey farm visit.

Here's an excerpt from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will come to Georgia next week to campaign for incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss on the eve of the runoff election.

Palin has been lambasted by the left, but she is immensely popular with many conservative voters. The McCain-Palin ticket carried Georgia on Nov. 4 by about 200,000 votes.

by Frank James

The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department unveiled their latest plans to loosen up the mortgage and consumer credit markets.

The Fed is basically going to buy up to $600 billion in bonds and mortgage-backed securities of the government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are actually now government owned and operated since they were taken over in September.

That is meant to drive up the prices of the bonds and mortgage-backed securities and drive down their interest rates, which should make it easier for Fannie, Freddie and the rest to raise money at lower costs. That money in turn could used to make more mortgage loans. Here's the Fed's release which says the same thing, just in Fedspeak.

The Federal Reserve announced on Tuesday that it will initiate a program to purchase the direct obligations of housing-related government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)--Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Home Loan Banks--and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Ginnie Mae. Spreads of rates on GSE debt and on GSE-guaranteed mortgages have widened appreciably of late. This action is being taken to reduce the cost and increase the availability of credit for the purchase of houses, which in turn should support housing markets and foster improved conditions in financial markets more generally.

Purchases of up to $100 billion in GSE direct obligations under the program will be conducted with the Federal Reserve's primary dealers through a series of competitive auctions and will begin next week. Purchases of up to $500 billion in MBS will be conducted by asset managers selected via a competitive process with a goal of beginning these purchases before year-end. Purchases of both direct obligations and MBS are expected to take place over several quarters. Further information regarding the operational details of this program will be provided after consultation with market participants.

by Mark Silva

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around the Justice Department, with word that President Bush has offered clemency to several convicts, as presidents are wont to do near the ends of their terms.

Yet, this president has been exceptionally sparing with his pardon power, and the list rolled out by Justice this week looks a lot like previous George W. Bush-clemency lists: Generally low-grade offenders.

There is no Lewis "Scooter'' Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, in this lineup, though Bush already has commuted his prison sentence for obstruction of justice in the CIA leak investigation - no full pardon here. There is no Michael Milken, the junk-bond financier who did jail time for financial wrongdoing and has been seeking a pardon to clear his name for some time now.

There are a lot of relatively petty crimes behind this new crop - though P.S Ruckman Jr., an expert in presidential pardons at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Ill., says that one of the 16 to whom the president granted clemency was on his "Pardon watch:'' John Forte, whose sentence for possession with intent to distribute cocaine has been commuted. Bush granted pardons to 14 and commutations of sentence to two this week.

There are three Texans on the outgoing president's clemency list - and Ruckman previously has noted that the president's home state has topped this White House's pardon roster for some time now.

Before this round, the president had signed just 157 pardons and six commutations of sentences.

Requests for pardons and commutations have piled up at Justice, with a few thousand pending. But in modern times, only Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, has offered less clemency - 74 pardons and three commutations

Here's the read-out on the latest list from the Justice Department:

by Frank James

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a growing problem and it comes in the form of the raspy voiced Rep. Charlie Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The New York Times has a very strong story today which chronicles what is a clear appearance of conflict of interest on the part of Rangel who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.

The bottom line: Rangel supported keeping a tax loophole that was important to a wealthy oil-drilling executive who pledged $1 million to a City College of New York public-policy school that will bear Rangel's name.

As the Times reports:

Representative Charles B. Rangel has helped raise $11 million for a City College of New York school of public service to be named in his honor. In recent months, as questions have emerged about his fund-raising, he has insisted that he has kept his efforts to attract donors scrupulously separate from his official duties in Congress.

But Congressional records and interviews show that Mr. Rangel was instrumental in preserving a lucrative tax loophole that benefited an oil-drilling company last year, while at the same time its chief executive was pledging $1 million to the project, the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at C.C.N.Y.

by Mark Silva

It was a little-known fact about the White House that the place has great closet space.

Until departing First Lady Laura Bush let the secret out of the closet in a meeting with incoming First Lady-to-be Michelle Obama.

According to Bush, whose taped interview with Cynthia McFadden appeared on ABC News' Nightline, there were no personal problems and no weighty issues of state discussed when Obama visited the White House recently with daughters, Malia and Sasha, as friend Andrew Malcolm, keeper of all-things Good Housekeeping at the Ticket, notes.

The two mothers -- Bush has twin daughters, one married now -- talked about "what any women would talk about as one is moving out of a home and one is moving in."

Bush told Obama the White House has great closets.

The windows aren't bad either. And somebody else does them.

(White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

by Frank James

According to the experts, one reason for the world's present economic travails is too much debt. The world is "deleveraging" that is, shrinking its debt levels, which has led to a decline in consumer spending which has caused the economy to stop in its tracks.

So there's irony in the steps Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. is expected to announce today to free up the frozen credit markets so that consumers can get student and auto loans.

As The Wall Street Journal reports:

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, seeking to ease strains in the consumer credit market, plans to announce Tuesday the formation of a program to increase the availability of auto loans, student loans and credit cards, according to people familiar with the matter.

While the initial focus will be on consumer loans, the facility could eventually be expanded to cover all manner of assets, including mortgages.

by Mark Silva

How quickly we forget the last election:

Someone already has Iowa on his mind, or at least his itinerary.

Bobby Jindal, the young Republican governor of Louisiana, is making a traditional pilgrimage some 37 months away from the next Iowa caucuses. But really, things are more urgent than they seem: The Republican Party's Straw Polll in Ames is only 32 months away -- as our colleague Andrew Malcolm at The Ticket notes.

Jindal appeared at a fundraiser for the Iowa Family Policy Center at the Sheraton Hotel in West Des Moines. "The 37-year-old Jindal made light of the occasion, of course, joking to some 800 curious listeners that it was way too soon to be making political speeches,'' Malcolm notes, with MSNBC's First Read attributing this suggestion to Jindal: "You might want to consider getting involved in some kind of recovery program.''

"But, of course, that's exactly what he was doing anyway in the form of speaking about family,'' the Ticket adds of a party undergoing its own post-election recovery program. "As a parent," said Jindal, knowing his conservative audience had precisely the same feelings, "I'm acutely aware of the overall coarsening of our culture in many ways."

And he did add this:

"'Whether you voted for him or not," Jindal said of the incoming president, Democrat Barack Obama, "whether you supported the new leaders of Congress or not, they're our president. They're our Congress. They need our prayers. They need our support."

(Photo of Gov. Bobby Jindal and family by Associated Press.)

by Peter Brown

Barack Obama will be America's first urban president, and it's likely the decision he made as a young man about where to reside will show up in ways large and small during his White House years.

Let's be clear: Urban is not meant as a euphemism for black or liberal, although the president-elect is both.

Mr. Obama is a city guy -- not a suburban or rural person -- somewhat by upbringing, but more by choice as an adult who could live anywhere. As such, he sees the world through a different prism than those presidents who came from more suburban or rural locales.

"He chose an environment where he came face-to-face with issues that people who live in the suburbs don't know or think about," says Bill Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer.

Mr. Obama made the choice for an urban lifestyle when he became a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago. That decision set him apart from most of his countrymen, only about 20 percent of whom live in the big cities.

The nation's big-city mayors have long complained that the lack of a White House with an urban orientation meant their constituents suffered while the government paid more attention to the suburbs and rural areas.

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, wrote this for the Political Perceptions column at the Wall Street Journal Online. See the full column.

by James Oliphant

Delaware has been the Land of Biden for more than 35 years. And it appears poised to stay that way.

Monday, the governor of the state, Ruth Minner, named Ted Kaufman, a longtime aide to Joe Biden, now the vice-president elect, to fill Biden's vacated Senate seat.

Kaufman served as Biden's chief of staff in the Senate for almost 20 years and after moving on the private sector has continued to be a counselor and confidant to Biden, a six-term senator who twice ran for president. He is the co-chairman of Biden's vice presidential transition team.

"I have known Ted Kaufman for over 30 years," Biden said Monday in a statement. "He is a man of first-rate qualifications, unquestioned integrity and a long-time commitment to public service."

Kaufman, however, is widely believed to be keeping the seat warm for Biden's son, Beau, the Delaware attorney general. A captain in the state National Guard, Beau Biden was deployed to Iraq last month. A special election for the Senate seat will be held in 2010.

Joe Biden has yet to formally resign his Senate seat, but that's simply a matter of time. Minner's office said that Kaufman is likely to take his seat in early or mid-January.

by Frank James

Here's a transcript of President Bush's remarks today to the media after he visited the Treasury Department building next to the White House to discuss the Citigroup bailout (the president referred to the financial institution by its old name, Citicorp.)

It seems pretty clear the president had one goal -- to let the American people and the world know that his administration intended to "safeguard" the financial system. He used the word no less than four times in a very brief appearance before the cameras and microphones.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much for inviting me in for a cup of coffee.

Now, last night on Air Force One coming back from Peru I talked at length to the secretary about his recommendation on the decisions made to -- to safeguard Citicorp. We have made these kind of decisions in the past, made one last night, and if need be we're going to make these kind of decisions to safeguard our financial system in the future.

by Frank James

Here's the transcript for President-elect Barack Obama's news conference earlier today on the economy and his economic team:

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Please have a seat. Thank you all for being here.

While we can't underestimate the challenges that we face, we also can't underestimate our capacity to overcome them, to summon that spirit of determination and optimism that has always defined us, and to move forward in a new direction to create new jobs, reform our financial system, and fuel long-term economic growth.

by Frank James

Is General Motors trying to do a little high-profile, dramatic damage control here following its CEO's disastrous appearance along with the CEOs of the other Big Three automakers on Capitol Hill last week?

As the Associated Press reports:

DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp. said Monday it is ending its nine-year endorsement deal with golf superstar Tiger Woods as the automaker continues to cut expenses and hoard cash while trying to survive the worst sales downturn in a quarter-century.

Woods has endorsed GM products around the world and mainly has been seen in Buick commercials as the company tried to give the nameplate a more youthful image. He has carried the Buick brand on his golf bag since 2000, and his most recent promotion was to caddie for a contest winner for nine holes at Torrey Pines, where Woods won the U.S. Open this summer for his 14th career major.

by Frank James

We're planning to live-blog President-elect Obama's news conference in which he'll introduce his economic team, scheduled to start in a few minutes at 12:00 pm ET. We'll be using coveritlive.com's live-blogging technology. Feel free to join the live-blog and enter your comments as directed on the screen.

by Frank James

That President-elect Barack Obama has been talking to Brent Scowcroft, the first President Bush's National security Adviser, is worth knowing.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama has been talking with Scowcroft for some time.

The relationship between the president-elect and the Republican heavyweight suggests that Mr. Scowcroft's views, which place a premium on an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, might hold sway in the Obama White House.

"Compared to the other alternatives we face with Iran, we ought to give it a really good, sincere try," Mr. Scowcroft said. "I have a hunch that we'll be more successful than a lot of detractors think."

by Frank James

Here's one way for a president-elect to get around some of the limits placed on him by the Constitution which makes a president-in-waiting wait until late January to officially take office: choose as your Treasury secretary a guy already elbow-deep in the financial rescues that have become a frequent part of the global economic crisis.

By choosing Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal reserve Bank, to be his Treasury Secretary, Obama has someone who's been at the table for the Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG and now Citigroup emergencies. According to the Associated Press:

The Citigroup rescue came after a weekend of marathon discussions led by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who is being tapped by President-elect Barack Obama as his Treasury chief also participated.

by Frank James

Citigroup certainly has much to be thankful for this week since it's getting new and massive federal support to keep it solvent.

The rest of us, whether we know it or not, likely also have much to be thankful for since we can assume the response to a Citibank insolvency wouldn't be good.

Federal officials last night announced they will transfuse more money, $20 billion, into the wobbly banking giant, and also even more extraordinary, serve as backstop to up to $306 billion in toxic assets.

A joint statement issued by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said:

With these transactions, the U.S. government is taking the actions necessary to strengthen the financial system and protect U.S. taxpayers and the U.S. economy.

We will continue to use all of our resources to preserve the strength of our banking institutions and promote the process of repair and recovery and to manage risks. The following principles guide our efforts:

Citigroup's the latest financial institution to be deemed too big to fail, which it probably true, especially when global economies are on life support.

by Mark Silva

President-elect Barack Obama had maintained that there is "only one president at a time.'' But in these times, it's probably time for a second president to deliver a second opinion about a direly needed economic recovery.

And Obama is delivering that with the rollout of a high-octaine team of economic advisers whom the president-elect will assign to draft a recovery plan ready for action when a new Congress convenes in January and when he is sworn in as president on Jan. 20.

During the campaign, Obama spoke of a $175-billion one-year stimulus plan for economic recovery. Now he is talking about a two-year plan, with aides suggesting its cost could run upwards of $700 billion.

Obama's goal is to create 2.5 million new jobs by January 2011, and the team he is announcing today will become the architects of that job-creating venture, including plans for building not only bridges and roads but also new sources of alternative energy.

With gasoline prices at a three-year-low, it's time to think about averting the next energy crisis. And with the stock market at an even lower low, it's time to think about rebuilding that economy that was the envy of the world.

It just may take two presidents to tango on this one.

by John McCormick

Chicago businesswoman Desiree Rogers will be named to the position of White House social secretary, a source in President-elect Barack Obama's transition office said Sunday evening.

Rogers, 49, is a close friend of the Obama family and worked on the fundraising team for the campaign. She has been a fixture on Chicago's social and not-for-profit scene for years.

Last summer, she left her job as president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas to create a financial social networking program at Allstate Insurance Co.

She would be the first African-American to serve in a position that is responsible for working with the first lady on White House functions and ceremonies.

Rogers, who studied political science at Wellesley College near Boston and later earned an MBA from Harvard, was once married to Chicagoan John Rogers, Ariel Capital Management chief and another close Obama friend and fundraiser.

By Mike Dorning

WASHINGTON--Incoming White House senior adviser David Axelrod warned on Sunday that automakers will have to come up with a plan to restructure before the industry receives a federal bailout.

"They're going to have to retool and rationalize their industry for the future. And if they don't do that, then there's very little that taxpayers can do to help them," Axelrod said on ABC News' "This Week."

Former Commerce Secretary Bill Daley, an informal Obama adviser, echoed the point speaking as a surrogate for the Obama team on another Sunday morning news show.

"They have to do it. The responsibility is on the auto industry and the unions to come back with a plan," Daley said on NBC News' "Meet the Press."

Congress last week delayed a vote on an auto industry bailout until December. Congressional leaders told the three major auto manufacturers to submit plans by Dec. 2, with Congress returning to Washington the week of Dec. 8 to consider a taxpayer assistance package.

by Mark Silva

They don't have Sarah Palin to kick around any more.

So the good-humored folks at Saturday Night Live, who rode a wave of Palinoia to record ratings this fall, have turned their lens on the White House-in-waiting.

That's Rahm Emanuel, the President-elect Barack Obama-designated chief of staff whose mouth precedes him, addressing the nation in this clip from NBC's Saturday Night Live Web-site.

(Okay, it's not really the congressman from Illinois, but you get the picture, as the SNL-designated-chief-of-staff opens up with a humble introduction about all the challenges facing the new administration and his readiness to confront them in a spirit of bipartisanship.)

Never mind all those people who call Emanuel "hyper-partisan.'' The chief nicknamed "Rahmbo'' ala SNL has a coarse warning for anyone who crosses him:

"You will never see it coming...'' And that means you, John Boehner, House minority leader: "I will send you back to Ohio in a ------- box.'' And you, Joe Lieberman, I wouldn't have just stripped you of your chairmanship, SNL's Rahmbo says: "We would strip you naked and send your John McCain-loving ---- back to Connecticut.''

It's good theater. Check it out.

by Frank James

Many people have worried about President-elect Barack Obama's safety since he would be the first African-American president.

While this is obviously a non-trivial concern, modern presidents are hardened targets. The Secret Service is second to none when it comes to protecting leaders in open societies, having learned difficult but important lessons from earlier presidential tragedies.

What concerns me more is all those soft targets out there, African Americans who aren't protected by magnetometers, sharpshooters and serious plain-clothes law enforcement officers listening to the latest update on the president's movements over their earpieces.

Chicago Tribune national correspondent Howard Witt has a report that points to the rising potential for such violence based on the greater flurry activity among hate groups spurred by Obama's election.

An excerpt:

BOGALUSA, La.--Barely three weeks after Americans elected their first black president amid a wave of interracial good feeling, a spasm of noose hangings, racist graffiti, vandalism and death threats is convulsing dozens of towns across the country as white extremists lash out at the new political order.

by Frank James

There's been some thinking since Election Day that President-elect Barack Obama would want to emulate President Franklin D. Roosevelt in terms of staying out of the way until he was officially in office.

Roosevelt famously rejected the entreaties of President Herbert Hoover to help deal with the Depression. FDR didn't want his policies to be tainted by an association with his increasingly unpopular predecessor.

But the world Obama must deal with is much different than the one Roosevelt faced. It's much more connected with information and money moving far faster because of technology than was possible in Roosevelt's time.

So, as I wrote yesterday, Obama has clearly decided to seize the bully pulpit aspect of the presidency since President Bush's influence has waned to such a degree that it seems like the current Oval Office occupant has already mentally packed up his presidency and is just waiting for the movers to show up.

Peter Wallsten of Tribune's Washington Bureau has a story that elaborates on this theme.

"There's no question that Bush is still president, but people are looking for signs to see what's going to happen going forward," said an Obama aide who, like others, requested anonymity when discussing deliberations inside the transition. "We're going to attempt to do that in this period."

by Christi Parsons

Ellen Moran, executive director of EMILY's List, will join Barack Obama's White House as director of communications.

And Dan Pfeiffer, a key Obama communications strategist and sopkesman, will serve as deputy director of communications.

Both announcements came this afternoon, as the transition team made official that Robert Gibbs, a close Obama advisor, will become the familiar face and voice of the administration in the job of press secretary.

Obama called Moran a "talented new addition to our team," and praised Pfeiffer and Gibbs as longtime advisors who will help him "meet the challenges of this defining moment in history."

"O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again."
--- Thomas Wolfe, "Look Homeward, Angel"

President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy less than an hour before the president was killed November 22, 1963. Photo by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton REUTERS/JFK Library/The White House/Cecil Stoughton/Handout

by Frank James

We who remember this day 45 years ago, who recall where we were and what we were doing when we learned that President Kennedy was shot dead, no matter if we were little children, are haunted.

We are haunted not because of any loss of innocence. While it's been said Nov. 22, 1963 was the day America lost her innocence, that isn't true.

Americans had seen too much to be innocent. Kennedy's generation saw World War II. They saw segregation. They saw the Depression. They were intimately acquainted with evil. So it was not innocence that was lost.

What died that day with Kennedy was something more like the image we had of ourselves as a nation. We must be a remarkable people, indeed, to produce a president so charming, graceful and witty. From what we knew at the time about JFK, he reflected our best selves as we saw it -- courageous, dashing, vigorous, smart, curious.

But Lee Harvey Oswald, the presidential assassin, reminded us our conceit was incomplete, that we had a sick and cruel side too. He brought us down from our high. He killed our national buzz. That's what died that day in Dallas. And we haven't been the same since which we're reminded of every year when this date arrives.

by Mark Silva

President Bush has gone to Peru.

But Bush, making his last scheduled trip abroad as president, has not gotten away from the economic crisis that has beset his nation and many others near the close of his presidency.

"Thanks for letting me come by,'' Bush said today in Lima, in that characteristically familiar way the retiring president has of greeting fellow world leaders.

But there was nothing casual about the president's remarks to the assembled leaders of 20 other nations at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. The annual summit for Pacific-rim nations convenes at a time when even the fastest growing economies in the world, such as China's, are suffering from a global slowdown in business.

"This summit comes at a serious time during economic turmoil,'' Bush said today. "It is -- also comes at a time of unprecedented cooperation. A week ago in Washington, you might have heard that I had the honor of hosting a summit in what will be the series of international summits to address the financial crisis. I didn't believe we could solve all problems in one meeting, but I did believe it was important for us to host the initial summit to get it started, to lay the foundation for successful -- for meetings.''

See the rest of Bush's remarks, in a transcript, with notes, provided by the White House today:

by Christi Parsons

Barack Obama signaled this morning that he will push for a bigger economic stimulus package than he previously discussed, pledging to create 2.5 million jobs in the effort to combat what he called a "crisis of historic proportions."

Obama said he would offer a two-year stimulus proposal instead of the expected one-year one, calling it "a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face."

"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis," Obama said in his weekly radio address, "these are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long."

by Frank James

"It is time to act. As the next president of the United States, I will."

That's how President-elect Barack Obama ends his weekly address today, a short speech in which he says that he has asked his economic team to draft a plan that would create 2.5 million jobs by the start of 2011 in an effort to give lift to an economy that has stalled.

This address indicates a subtle shift in Obama's strategy. Until now, his team has stuck with the "we only have one president at a time" theme.

But in this address, made with Obama sitting in front of a presidential backdrop that has much more of an Oval Office feel than the setting he used earlier this week, Obama says he's pleased Congress acted to pass the extension to unemployment insurance.

Of course, there was little doubt the Democratic-controlled Congress would pass the extension. What was in doubt was whether President Bush would sign it, which he did.

But Obama doesn't mention Bush at all. He's clearly trying to point the nation's attention forward, to say the future will be better when he is president, which isn't very far away. By conjuring the trappings of a presidential address, he's attempting to communicate that he's taken charge already, at least as much as he can.

by John McCormick

There is some irony that it took winning the presidency for Barack Obama to settle into a schedule that borders on humdrum.

For now, he wakes up in his own bed, works out in the same fitness center each morning, goes into the office, comes home and has dinner with his family--a far cry from the frenzied campaign life of the previous 21 months.

While offering more routine, his existence is also more surreal, as he moves through Chicago largely sequestered in a security bubble even more robust than at the end of the campaign. Still, Obama seems to be savoring his time between Election Day and the move to the White House, one of the longest stretches he has had at home in five years.

Read the rest of the story about Barack Obama's transition life from Saturday's Chicago Tribune.