Bohemian Grove's season

http://http://www.isgp.eu/organisations/Bohemian_Grove.htm

DOV'E' FINITA HILLARY?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/us/politics/16clinton.html

Michelle's rule

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/24/AR2009062403676.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

LUNCH AT WH

Charlie Gibson and I had the chance to lunch with the president at the White House today -- a traditional part of the rollout before a presidential speech to a Joint Session of Congress.

As always, the food was terrific (Maine Lobster Bisque with Chive Truffle Beignets. Seared Virginia Striped Bass, with Porcini Espuma, Crushed Potatoes, Braised Leeks and Swiss Chard. Vanilla Fresh Fruit Confetti, with Toasted Pound Cake and Lemon Sorbet) and the conversation was enlightening.

Even though much of the conversation was off the record, we can summarize it like this, with quotes attributed to a senior administration official.

Here's the analogy for how the White House is thinking about the economy and the speech: "the patient is sick" and the president is the doctor. Tonight he'll explain to the country "what's going on, what we're doing about it, and assure everyone we're going to be fine."

He'll be explainer-in-chief on the economy. The president believes his biggest job is to make sure that everyone "understands the links" between the credit crises and their lives.

He has "no interest in helping bankers who made $50-million bonuses," but has to explain that "we need the credit system to work." People have to come away from the speech understanding the link between their laid off neighbor and the rescue plan for the banks.

The speech will also address energy, health care, and education -- and how they fit Obama's overall strategy for the economy. A little foreign policy too, but President conscious of not trying to do too much in 45 minutes.

Most of the discussion about how to deal with the banks and the chances of nationalization was off the record.

The White House mantra is that the president will do whatever is required, and it's clear from the conversation that the president thinks his team has come up with the best approach possible among a series of uncertain and difficult options.

In this context, Obama often thinks of the person (a former president, I think) who reminded him: "by the time a decision reaches your desk, it's really hard."

Obama clearly relishing that part of the job, "the day to day work of figuring it all out." Also loves living above the store. (We also learned that he stretched out on the Oval Office sofa one day for his first official nap). He gets up every morning at 630am, works out and has breakfast with Michelle.

He's in the office from 9 to 6:15, then back to work in his Old Treaty Room study. Lots of paperwork most nights, but he did make time last night to see the movie Gran Torino. Also checked out Slumdog Millionaire a couple of weeks ago, but relied on us to fill him in on Hugh Jackman's performance at the Oscars.

The only part of the job that still chafes is the "bubble." Seems like it was especially frustrating at Sasha's basketball game last Saturday. But overall he approaches the job with "profound gratitude" and immense confidence.

George Stephanopoulos

Ma guarda chi incontra Obama! Il frivolo Blair!

OBAMA BOMBARDA I TALEBANI

Pioggia di missili sui mujaheddin in Pakistan. E sull'economia avverte i repubblicani, spiegando che c'è tempo «fino al 16 febbraio» per arrivare all'accordo sulle misure anti-recessione poi i mercati crolleranno

Una pioggia di missili contro i nascondigli dei taleban in Pakistan e la richiesta ai repubblicani di approvare in fretta il piano contro la recessione: Barack Obama inizia a dimostrare aggressività contro gli avversari giocando in contemporanea le pedine a disposizione sui tavoli militare ed economico. Quando alla 9.15 del mattino ha ricevuto il capo della Cia in pectore, Leon Panetta, e i vertici militari per il briefing sulla sicurezza nazionale l’attacco ai taleban in Pakistan era già avvenuto da diverse ore. Una pioggia di missili. Un drone della Cia ha lanciato tre vettori nell’arco di 10 minuti contro una casa del villaggio di Zharki, nel Nord Waziristan, uccidendo tutti i 15 occupanti, almeno 9 dei quali sarebbero mujaheddin, ed alcune ore dopo l’attacco dal cielo si è ripetuto nel Sud Waziristan, provocando la morte di almeno 8 persone. Sebbene Robert Gibbs, portavoce della Casa Bianca, non abbia voluto commentare i blitz, ed abbia mantenuto l’ambiguità sul termine di «guerra al terrorismo», altre fonti dell’amministrazione hanno confermato che si è trattato del primo attacco contro «Al Qaeda e i suoi alleati» lanciato dall’indomani dell’insediamento di Obama. Proprio il presidente era stato esplicito il giorno precedente nell’indicare la regione «a cavallo del confine fra Afghanistan e Pakistan» come la regione-chiave, e il blitz dimostra l’inizio concreto della collaborazione fra Panetta, in attesa della ratifica della nomina, e il Pentagono di Robert Gates. L’attacco contro Al Qaeda anticipa la partenza dell’inviato Richard Holbrooke per il Pakistan e tradisce la volontà di Obama di mettere alle strette Islamabad per ottenere più collaborazione per smantellare le retrovie dei taleban. Un passo, compiuto nel giorno in cui Obama ha promesso al segretario generale dell’Onu Ban Ki-moon «il forte sostegno degli Usa alle Nazioni Unite», che serve al presidente americano per bilanciare da subito l’impressione di non essere sufficientemente duro contro il terrorismo, come lamentato da gruppi di parenti delle vittime dell’11 settembre 2001 che gli hanno contestato la decisione di sospendere i processi di Guantanamo perché allontana «il momento in cui sarà fatta giustizia». Se il briefing con Panetta ha avuto al centro lo scenario di conflitto in Afghanistan-Pakistan, tre ore dopo Obama ha accolto nella Roosevelt Room i consiglieri economici, guidati da Larry Summers, per discutere come accelerare il varo del piano anti-recessione al Congresso. Il problema di Barack sono i repubblicani: ne cerca il consenso puntando a un accordo bipartisan ma il dialogo è tutto in salita. John Boehner, capo della minoranza alla Camera, non ha avuto peli sulla lingua dopo l’incontro alla Casa Bianca: «Siamo molto perplessi su alcuni capitoli di spesa nel pacchetto di misure, come si possono spendere centinaia di milioni di dollari in anticoncezionali? Cosa c’entra questo con stimolare l’economia?». I repubblicani vogliono limitare la spesa pubblica e aumentare i tagli fiscali ma Obama non ha molto tempo: «Serve un accordo entro il 16 febbraio» ha detto ai leader di entrambi i partiti facendo capire che ritardando si manderebbe un segnale negativo ai mercati. Al fine di ottenere una convergenza bipartisan lunedì Obama andrà di persona all’assemblea dei deputati e senatori repubblicani. Ma l’aver fissato una data limite lascia intendere che la flessibilità del presidente è minima. Anche perché alle sue spalle c’è Nancy Pelosi, presidente della Camera, che lo spinge allo scontro: «Andiamo al voto, i repubblicani non voteranno contro». Paolo Molinari da La Stampa

NANCY E MICHELLE

There are many important issues to discuss regarding Michelle Obama’s dress, including this one: its resemblance to Nancy Reagan’s 1981 inaugural dress, albeit in fluffier form. Both white; both one-shouldered. It’s almost as if someone took Nancy’s James Galanos gown and glued cotton balls on it, like on one of those oak-tag maps showing the natural resources of regions of the U.S. that you make in elementary school. (The hard part is pasting the coal on West Virginia.) How did that happen? Don’t First Ladies call each other the night before to make sure that they’re not wearing the same thing, or at least swing by the Smithsonian? Or was it a homage, like the Lincoln train-stop tour?

da NEW YORKER

PAPA', LA LUNA CHE SPLENDE SULL'ITALIA
E' LA STESSA LUNA
CHE SPLENDE SUGLI STATI UNITI

President-Elect Sees His Race as An Opportunity

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 19, 2009; A01

Throughout his barrier-breaking presidential campaign, Barack Obama avoided calling direct attention to race, long a divisive force in electoral politics. But now, as he stands on the verge of becoming the nation's first African American president, Obama is talking more about how his racial identity can unify and transform the country.

"There is an entire generation that will grow up taking for granted that the highest office in the land is filled by an African American," Obama said in an interview last week with The Washington Post. "I mean, that's a radical thing. It changes how black children look at themselves. It also changes how white children look at black children. And I wouldn't underestimate the force of that."

Beyond the symbolism of his historic achievement, Obama said, he hopes to use his presidency as an example of how people can bridge differences -- racial and otherwise. "What I hope to model is a way of interacting with people who aren't like you and don't agree with you that changes the temper of our politics," he said. "And then part of that changes how we think about moving forward on race relations. Race relations becomes a subset of a larger problem in our society, which is we have a diverse, complicated society where people have a lot of different viewpoints."

When Obama is sworn in tomorrow, many Americans will celebrate a once-unthinkable milestone achieved by a politician whose own mixed racial heritage -- he is the product of a black Kenyan father and a white American mother -- raised piercing questions of identity as he began his quest for the presidency. Is he black enough? some asked in his campaign's early days. Did his upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia make him too different to fully appreciate America's painful struggle for civil rights and racial progress that laid the foundation for his ascendancy?

Obama has confronted questions about his racial identity since his earliest days in politics. And now he is confronting new questions, as Americans of differing backgrounds are eager to claim him. Is he the first black president or the first biracial president? Why should the white part of his lineage give way to the black part?

"We did not elect our first African American president. Rather, we elected our first biracial president," Douglas Snyder of Bowie wrote in a letter published Saturday in The Post.

For his part, Obama is unambiguous in calling himself an African American, the identity he embraced early on.

Though he has always honored his white mother and grandparents, the young Obama read African American writers and studied the mien of the black guys he encountered on the basketball court. He was intrigued by the older African American men who played cards with his grandfather. He imitated the dance moves he saw on the television show "Soul Train," and he tried to curse like the late comedian Richard Pryor.

Obama's style, his habits, his sensibilities, some scholars say, will create a new White House iconography.

"The very fact that he is black means that we're going to be transforming the aesthetic of the American democracy," said Peniel E. Joseph, a presidential historian and professor of African American studies at Brandeis University. "Virtually every single thing that he will do from this point on is uncharted territory. His choice of a church. The State of the Union. News conferences. Those all become new."

Black-oriented Ebony magazine used a cover photo of Obama emerging from his SUV in a dark suit and black shades to celebrate him as an exemplar of "black cool." His fondness for pickup basketball is well chronicled. And even his friends have commented on how his loping stride gave him a look of confidence as the cameras caught him walking the White House colonnade during his first post-election visit with President Bush.

Many African Americans would find familiar Obama's short exchange during a recent visit with D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty to Ben's Chili Bowl, a locally renowned eatery. Obama paid the tab with a $20 bill. When the counter attendant asked if he wanted change, Obama responded: "No, we're straight." We're straight is a colloquialism uttered every day, but not normally by occupants of the Oval Office.

"He's a brother," said Obama's longtime Chicago barber, Zariff (who goes by one name). "His actions speak more than anything. He still has the same demeanor that he has always had."

Even Obama's decision to use his full name -- Barack Hussein Obama II -- while taking the oath of office signals something new for the presidency, even though Obama has explained that he is simply following tradition, not trying to make a statement. For all of that, being African American has been as much a choice as a birthright for Obama. As a young man whom everyone knew as "Barry," he was acutely aware of his unusual heritage, and he yearned for a singular identity. For much of his adolescence living with his white grandparents in Hawaii, he was "engaged in a fitful interior struggle," Obama wrote in his first book, "Dreams From My Father."

"I was trying to raise myself as a black man in America, and beyond the given of my appearance, no one around me seemed to know exactly what that meant."

Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard University professor who mentored Obama in law school, said his protege "has always confidently declared himself an African American. He is the last to say we are in a post-racial period. He has reminded people that we still have to think about race and address race issues."

When he takes office, Obama will be leading a nation that has undergone seismic changes as it has steered away from its tortured racial past. When Hiram Revels, the first African American to serve in Congress, arrived in the Capitol from Mississippi to fill his Senate seat in February 1870, Democrats argued that he was unqualified.

Revels, who was biracial, had become a citizen only with the 1868 ratification of the 14th Amendment, his opponents argued, leaving him short of the constitutionally required nine years of citizenship. Revels was eventually seated, but only after a three-day debate that lingered on the ugly question of whether black men were equipped to function at the highest levels of government.

Since then, the country has slowly relaxed its notions of race. For generations, American society defined individuals as black if they had even "one drop" of black blood, and the government took close stock of someone's black heritage. In 1850 came "mulatto," followed two decades later by "octoroon" and "quadroon." Since 1977, the federal government has used the same racial categories on census and other forms: black, white, American Indian or Alaskan Native, and Asian or Pacific Islander.

Only in the most recent census, in 2000, were Americans allowed to check more than one box for race. About 6.83 million people, or 2.4 percent of the nation's population, did so.

During the campaign, some black leaders grumbled that Obama was not vocal enough in articulating an African American agenda. But many of the initiatives Obama has championed -- creation of construction and manufacturing jobs, middle-class tax breaks, expansion of health care, increased funding for education -- would disproportionately benefit working-class people, many of them black.

"I think a lot of the biggest challenges in terms of the African American community or Latino community have to do with economics," Obama said in the Post interview. "And if we get our economics right, then in my mind that is always a mechanism to improve race relations."

At the same time, Obama has been able to use the reality of being biracial as a unifying fact, something he has been able to do for much of his political career.

"I think he just looks at people who would be divided by race and naturally sees what they have in common," said Michael Strautmanis, who met Obama two decades ago, worked with him on his Senate staff and will be joining him as a White House aide. "He is so comfortable in his own skin that he makes you comfortable in your skin, so you stop thinking about the things that would divide you."

State Sen. Rickey Hendon (D), who served with Obama in the Illinois legislature and early on needled Obama about his racial bona fides, said he has learned to appreciate Obama's way of dealing with race. Hendon, who recently authored a book titled "Black Enough, White Enough: The Obama Dilemma," recalled Obama's posture as he helped steer a racial-profiling bill through the state Senate.

While Hendon and other black legislators offered personal testimony about being stopped by police for "driving while black," Obama did not. Hendon said Obama made it clear that he never had that experience, striking a less adversarial posture that Hendon suspects helped make the legislation more palatable to some opponents.

"It is the beauty of Barack Obama," said Hendon, who supported Obama in the presidential race. "He is a good compromise person, probably because of his heritage."

His ability to reach out to people with conflicting views is something Obama has continued to trade on in the days leading to his historic inauguration. He has met with conservative columnists and with liberal ones. He has engaged Republican lawmakers and his fellow Democrats. He invited evangelical pastor Rick Warren, an opponent of same-sex marriage, to deliver his inaugural invocation. Then he asked Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who is gay, to give the opening prayer at yesterday's concert at the Lincoln Memorial.

"I think what you'll see in the White House will reflect Barack's view of the world," said Obama's longtime friend Marty Nesbitt. "It will be open and accommodating, and it will reflect what America looks like, which is broad and diverse. That is not because of some overt strategy, but that is because of who Barack is."

THE OBAMA'S PRICE

The Senate Tuesday night passed legislation to criminalize the sale of inaugural ticket scalping, just hours after the Sleuth revealed that a former House GOP aide was hawking tickets on the Internet.

As the Associated Press reports, the Senate unanimously approved the bill sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Now the bill goes to the House.

The Sleuth's posting from earlier today follows:

Selling inauguration tickets isn't illegal, not yet anyway. But it was still embarrassing for one former congressional aide who now works at a powerful lobbying firm when she was caught this week trying to sell tickets to Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony for big bucks.

The former aide is Gina Santucci, who now works as associate general counsel at BGR Holding, the lobbying, public relations and financial advisory firm formerly known as Barbour Griffith & Rogers, founded by current Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and veteran GOP political strategist Ed Rogers.

Until recently, Santucci worked as legislative counsel to Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas), whose office received its share of inaugural tickets on Tuesday. Santucci was on the congressman's distribution list, Poe's office acknowledged when contacted by the Sleuth.

But Santucci apparently had no intention of going to the inauguration herself. Her entrepreneurial spirit took over, and she headed straight for Craigslist, where she listed four of the highly coveted tickets to Obama's inaugural ceremony and fetched a speedy offer from someone willing to pay $875 a piece.

The email exchange between Santucci, who used her real name and personal email address, and the prospective buyer, who used the name "Jackie Kentucky" from a gmail address, was forwarded to the Sleuth.

"Jackie - Just to confirm, you'll pay $3500 for 4 tickets? Are you able to pay in cash?" Santucci wrote. "I am picking up the tickets on Wednesday afternoon and will be able to meet you after that."

Jackie Kentucky wrote back, agreeing to pay cash if Santucci could produce a letter or email proving authenticity of the inauguration tickets.

"Yes, I have an email, but will redact information identifying Member of Congress as he is a personal friend of mine and I do not want to cause embarrassment," Santucci replied. She added that she could thrown in an extra ticket, upping the price to $4,500 for five tickets.

Contacted by the Sleuth, Poe's spokeswoman, Deeann Thigpen, acknowledged the congressman's office intended to give Santucci tickets to the inaugural swearing-in. But she said the congressman didn't expect Santucci would sell them.

"Unfortunately it's not illegal to sell the tickets," Thigpen said, adding, "but that was not the intention of our office." She said Santucci would no longer be receiving tickets from Poe's office.

Jackie Kentucky, a Sleuth in her own right, forwarded the email exchange to us with a link to a photo gallery on Poe's congressional Web site that included a photo identifying Santucci as Congressman Poe's legislative counsel. (Here is a frame grab of the Web page she sent us; Santucci is the aide giving an award in that photo.)

Congressional aides have been warned repeatedly by House and Senate ethics officials and the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies not to sell any of the Obama inaugural ceremony tickets that are being distributed by Congress free of charge this week.

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the JCCIC, is still trying to win Senate approval of legislation to criminalize the sale of tickets to the presidential inaugural swearing-in ceremony by anyone - on or off Capitol Hill.

Contacted by the Sleuth, Santucci acknowledged her attempted sale of the tickets on Craigslist, saying, "I made a mistake. It was a bad idea. I won't be accepting the tickets and I clearly won't be selling them."

She didn't mention Congressman Poe by name but said, "I'm sorry for any embarrassment I've caused to anyone."

After realizing Santucci's intent to sell the tickets, Poe, a former judge and prosecutor who was recently appointed to serve on the House Judiciary Committee, sent an email to everyone on his distribution list reminding them that inaugural tickets are for personal use only and not to be sold.

Feinstein hopes Congress will pass her bill this week. It would make it a misdemeanor to sell or attempt to sell tickets to the swearing-in ceremony or create fraudulent tickets, punishable by up to $100,000 and imprisonment of up to one year. (For unknown reasons, the bill is being held up by certain GOP objections.)

Informed of Santucci's attempted sale of inaugural tickets, Feinstein told the Sleuth, "I believe the scalping of inaugural tickets runs contrary to the spirit of this historic inauguration. Anyone who has requested tickets from my office will be required to agree not to sell them, or will have their tickets revoked."

By Mary Ann Akers | January 13, 2009; 3:30 PM ET

ALL TO WASHINGTON!!!

Obama e di disillusi

di Massimo Gaggi

Prima la rinuncia a eliminare subito gli sgravi fiscali per i ricchi e a introdurre una tassa straordinaria sulle compagnie petrolifere, come promesso in campagna elettorale. Poi l'avvertimento che, dalla sanità alle pensioni, molti impegni e programmi di spesa andranno ridimensionati alla luce della gravissima crisi economica.

Le correzioni di rotta di Obama si stanno moltiplicando: alcune sono suggerite dalla recessione, altre vanno ben oltre. Come nel caso del prolungamento della presenza militare Usa in Iraq o in quello della rinuncia a chiudere subito il carcere di Guantanamo, un rinvio obbligato ma che ha fatto sensazione (visti gli impegni elettorali) tanto che il presidente eletto è stato costretto ieri a correggere il tiro. «Non mi sembra ancora il caso di andarlo a cercare col forcone, ma non è questo il cambiamento che ci aspettavamo» si sfoga sul Washington Post David Corn, il caporedattore di Mother Jones, magazine della sinistra radicale.

Nessuno mette apertamente sotto accusa Barack Obama per la formazione di un governo zeppo di centristi o per il ridimensionamento dei suoi impegni. Il personaggio è sempre popolarissimo e, del resto, non ha ancora nemmeno cominciato a governare. Ma, quando manca ancora una settimana al suo insediamento, tra i «liberal» e nella sinistra dei «blog» già serpeggia una certa delusione, mentre anche nella maggioranza democratica al Congresso si diffonde il malumore. Obama sperava di arrivare alla cerimonia del giuramento col suo piano anti- recessione — una legge di sostegni all'economia da quasi 800 miliardi di dollari— già approvato dalle Camere.

Invece, nonostante l'enfasi che ha posto sull'urgenza di intervenire per bloccare il rapido deterioramento del quadro economico, il nuovo presidente si è dovuto rassegnare a un iter tortuoso, col provvedimento che sarà esaminato da tutte le commissioni principali. E' durata poco l'illusione «di ottenere in Parlamento un trattamento da Immacolata Concezione» ironizza sul New York Times l'editorialista conservatore David Brooks. Certo, c'è chi contesta perché è stato «lasciato a terra», più che per preoccupazioni programmatiche. E' il caso di John Kerry, un critico puntiglioso della nuova amministrazione da quando Obama ha scelto Hillary Clinton, anziché lui, come Segretario di Stato.

Anche nelle severe e ripetute critiche di Paul Krugman all'inadeguatezza del piano di Obama i maliziosi vedono un riflesso della delusione dell'economista, fresco di premio Nobel, per non essere stato chiamato alla corte del nuovo leader. Ma forse nel caso di Krugman, più che di poltrone, il problema è politico: il neopresidente ha selezionato soprattutto personaggi che già avevano avuto esperienze di governo nell'era di Bill Clinton e ha fatto scelte politiche di centro, mentre Krugman, così come Joseph Stiglitz, è molto spostato a sinistra: non gli bastano stimoli e opere pubbliche, vuole un vero statalismo.

The Nation, voce ufficiale della sinistra radicale, invita i «liberal» a non fasciarsi la testa: «Certo, Obama si sta comportando da centrista e da pragmatico, ma viviamo in tempi straordinari e il suo può essere il modo giusto per ottenere risultati in un'ottica progressista ». E' nervosa anche l'attesa dei sindacati: Obama non si è rimangiato la promessa di varare una legge per facilitare il loro ingresso nelle aziende. Ma, da quando è stato eletto, non ne ha più parlato.
dal Corriere della Sera del 13 gennaio 2009

Closet Centrist

In Obama's Cabinet, the Audacity of Moderation
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; A17

It is a lineup generous in its moderation, astonishing for its continuity, startling for its stability.

A defense secretary, Robert Gates, who once headed the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M. A secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, who supported the invasion of Iraq, voted to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization and called direct, unconditional talks with Iran "irresponsible and frankly naive." A national security adviser, retired Gen. James Jones, most recently employed at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who served as a special adviser to the Bush administration on the Middle East. A Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, who is one of Henry Paulson's closest allies outside the administration. A head of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, whose writings and research seem to favor low tax rates, stable money and free trade.

It is tempting for conservatives to crow -- or liberals to lament -- that Barack Obama's victory has somehow produced John McCain's administration. But this partisan reaction trivializes some developments that, while early and tentative, are significant.

First, these appointments add evidence to a debate about the political character of the president-elect himself. Conservatives have generally feared that Obama is a closet radical. He has uniformly voted with liberal interests and done nothing to justify a reputation for centrism.

Until now. Obama's appointments reveal not just moderation but maturity -- magnanimity to past opponents, a concern for continuity in a time of war and economic crisis, a self-confidence that allows him to fill gaps in his own experience with outsize personalities, and a serious commitment to incarnate his rhetoric of unity.

All the normal caveats apply. It is still early. Obama is benefiting from being the only player on the stage -- all his pretensions of moderation could be quickly undermined by a liberal Congress, unhinged by its expanded majority. And Obama's social liberalism could still turn Washington into a culture-war battlefield.

But honesty requires this recognition: So far, Barack Obama shows the instincts and ambitions of a large political figure.

Second, Obama's appointments reveal something important about current Bush policies. Though Obama's campaign savaged the administration as incompetent and radical, Obama's personnel decisions have effectively ratified Bush's defense and economic approaches during the past few years. At the Pentagon, Obama rehired the architects of President Bush's current military strategy -- Gates, Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Raymond Odierno. At the Treasury Department, Obama has hired one of the main architects of Bush's current economic approach.

This continuity does not make Obama an ideological traitor. It indicates that Bush has been pursuing centrist, bipartisan policies -- without getting much bipartisan support. The transition between Bush and Obama is smoother than some expected, not merely because Obama has moderate instincts but because Bush does as well. Particularly on the economy, Bush has never been a libertarian; he has always matched a commitment to free markets with a willingness to intervene when markets stumble.

The candidate of "change" is discovering what many presidents before him have found: On numerous issues, the range of responsible policy options is narrow. And the closer you come to the Oval Office, the wiser your predecessors appear.

Third, Obama is finding the limits of leading a "movement" that never had much ideological content.

His transition has seen the return of a pack of Clintonistas -- Lawrence Summers, Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel -- prompting talk of Bill Clinton's third term. Some of this is unavoidable. Governing experience generally gathers in the stagnant pools of past administrations.

But the resurrection of Clintonism is more pronounced because Obamaism is so wispy and indistinct. Obama brings no cadre of passionate reformers with him to Washington -- no ideological vision cultivated in think tanks for decades. Instead, he has turned to experience and competence in his appointments -- which often means returning to the Clinton era. Experience is vital, especially in avoiding rookie mistakes. But, strange as it sounds, a president can become isolated within his own administration -- his agenda undermined by inertia, resistance or conflicting priorities. Obama eventually will need to define Obamaism and cultivate allies in his own administration who will fight for his enthusiasms.

Whatever the caveats, Obama is doing something marvelously right: He is disappointing the ideologues. This is more than many of us hoped -- and it is causing some of us to raise our hopes in Obama again.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

CHI HA PAURA DI HILLARY CLINTON?

In a period that has been less a traditional transition than an incremental inauguration, Obama so far has performed masterfully. Before the Mumbai terrorist attacks, he dominated the news and drove world financial markets with three successive press conferences, announcing a heavyweight economic team and previewing a deficit-heavy stimulus package. Last week, markets rose on the updraft of Obama’s words; evidently, there is a futures market for hope (though as Monday’s steep decline revealed, that doesn’t alter the dreary fundamentals).

At his national security press conference on Monday, Obama introduced a team that not long ago would have been as unexpected as his own election. He has engaged a retired Marine general as National Security Adviser and re-enlisted Bush’s Secretary of Defense to help engineer his withdrawal from Iraq. (I don’t share the apprehension of some Democrats about Obama’s choices; he won’t break his pledge on Iraq, which would shatter both his credibility and his party.)

The star turn belonged, of course, to Hillary Clinton, whose elevation to Secretary of State was opposed by some of Obama’s closest advisers. Some still worry about the risks, real or imagined. In the latter category is the notion that Clinton somehow will outshine President Obama. But no one in a cabinet outshines the President, and Obama has less to fear in this regard than most.

Other risks, however, are real. To dispel them, Clinton will have to pass the Hillary Test in the days and months ahead.

First, will she be a team player or a barely disguised competitor?

During the making of this Secretary of State, the leaks from her camp weren’t encouraging. She was inclined to say “yes” and then “no” and then “yes” again; she had to pick her subordinates; she needed guarantees about her role. High Clintonian drama was thus introduced into the precincts of No Drama Obama. Some of Clinton’s concerns were reasonable, but there was no reason to leak them—except as a pre-emptive excuse in the event of a vetting failure (think Bill, not her). Then the leaks abruptly stopped.

The test grows harder once she is in office. It will be difficult to sustain trust and coherence in foreign policy-making if unsourced stories proliferate, assigning Clinton credit for success, offering inside accounts of her dissents or blaming Obama for failing to heed her advice. She must resist such temptation, and I believe she will, not least because a split would likely endanger her future more than his.

However, it’s also possible that the new President will forge a genuine bond with the primary campaign rival he once said he liked “well enough.” Their relationship, after all, is a two-way street. The oft-cited comparison with Lincoln’s selection of his archrival, William Seward, for Secretary of State is instructive. Lincoln often walked across Lafayette Park to Seward’s home to confer with him. Seward, who in an early memo had proposed that Lincoln devolve presidential powers to him, became Lincoln’s closest friend in the Cabinet. Obama won’t be walking the two miles to Clinton’s residence off Embassy Row, but these latter-day rivals will succeed only if both principals work for it.

For her part, Clinton must be—and be seen to be—genuinely comfortable yielding center stage to Obama, as she did at the Democratic Convention. She will also have to foreswear a shadow political operation, including poll briefings from her strategist Mark Penn, the salient points of which would no doubt find their way into the press. (Come to think of it, she would have been better off without those poll briefings during her campaign, as well.) And President Bill Clinton will have to discipline himself to play a supporting role—for Obama as well as for his wife. Any hint of a policy split with the former president would be instantly attributed to Hillary.

Finally, atmospherics matter. In the 2000 Gore campaign, I witnessed the media’s fascination with each scintilla of interaction—every smile or scowl exchanged—between Al Gore and Bill Clinton. Any sign of discomfort generated speculation, headlines and damage. The same unforgiving klieg light will shine on the new President and Secretary of State when they’re together—or if they’re not together enough.

Hillary Clinton now has a big job. If she still aspires to the top job, she can’t afford to treat this period as an eight-year transition to her Presidency. If she contemplates a candidacy in 2016—and I suspect she does—the way forward is to focus on being an effective and loyal Secretary of State. Then, around 2014, she can resign and run from a position of greater strength than she was afforded in 2008. She will have no need of stories about sniper fire in the Balkans. And she will have proved that she can manage a large organization better than she ran her presidential campaign. In other words, to fulfill her ambition, Clinton must ignore it. For now.

Clinton was unquestionably a risky choice. But the move can pay off for Obama, for the country and ultimately for Clinton herself if she remembers something Obama himself has been repeating lately: We only have one President at a time.

That’s the Hillary Test.

BlackBarry for ever

By Ruth Marcus
Wednesday, November 19, 2008; A21

Barack Obama, poor guy, would just like to go out for a walk.
One of the most poignant moments in the Obamas interview with "60 Minutes" came when Steve Kroft asked the president-elect how his life had changed since Election Day.
"There's still some things we're not adjusted to," Barack Obama said.
"Like what?" Michelle Obama asked.
"Me not being able to take a walk," her husband replied. "I'd love to take you for a walk."
Every president-to-be goes through this transformation; every president chafes at it. Harry Truman spoke of "this great white jail known as the White House." Bill Clinton called it "the crown jewel of the federal penitentiary system."
Yet for most presidents, this loss -- the deprivation of both autonomy and anonymity -- is not the jolting event that it is for Obama. Some, like John F. Kennedy or George W. Bush, were born to prominence and scrutiny; others have become acclimated to it over years in politics. Before the White House has come the governor's mansion or the vice presidency, with cosseting staffs and hovering security details.
But Obama is unique in his warp-speed transformation from obscure state senator to 44th president in just four years. The obvious downside is his lack of experience, but the potential advantage is his unusual proximity to normality. In the isolation chamber of the White House, it can be useful not only to know real people but to have been one yourself in the not-so-distant past.
"I actually think that we are as close to what normal folks go through, and what their lives are like, as just about anybody who's been elected president recently," Obama told Kroft. "Hanging on to that is something that's important."
Different presidents experience the constraints of the office in different ways. Clinton craved human contact. He was happy -- delighted, actually -- if everyone he met knew exactly who he was, as long as he could talk to them.
In his autobiography, Clinton described going out for a run as president-elect, and stopping, as was his habit, at McDonald's, where he met a 59-year-old man who had lost his job in the recession. "I walked back to the hotel thinking about that man, and how I could manage to keep in touch with the problems of people like him from behind the wall that surrounds every president."
Obama, more self-contained, seems instead to yearn for the freedom of "being able to just wander around the neighborhood." That "loss of anonymity," he said, is "something that I don't think I'll ever get used to."
Perhaps not, but he seems to bring to the job a keen awareness of the need to push back against the closed environment of the White House. In "The Audacity of Hope," he described watching Bush hold forth before a mostly fawning group of senators. "I was reminded of the dangerous isolation that power can bring."
Jeff Zeleny wrote in the New York Times a few days ago about whether the new president will be forced to surrender his omnipresent BlackBerry. "A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful."
Bush made the choice to sign off before assuming the presidency. "Since I do not want my private conversations looked at by those out to embarrass, the only course of action is not to correspond in cyberspace," Bush wrote a group of friends just before his inauguration. "This saddens me."
I'd argue that Obama should cling to his e-mail as a 21st-century way to pierce the White House bubble. After all, Gore did it as vice president, BlackBerry included.
The arguments to the contrary will pile up like so many unread messages.
The lawyers will wring their hands over the prospect of disclosure down the road, if not sooner, invoking the specter of congressional investigators poring over presidential e-mails. So what? Everyone who uses e-mail should think twice before writing something embarrassing.
The security gurus will caution about the risk of being hacked. Find a way to make it secure.
The senior staff will bristle at the president's doing end runs around their carefully constructed processes. That's just the point. He needs unfiltered sources of knowledge and advice.

If the man can't take a walk, at least let him have his e-mail.

CLINTONIANS ARE BACK

By Alec MacGillis Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, November 18, 2008; A02

On the campaign trail, Barack Obama liked to defend himself against charges of inexperience by calling for fresh perspective in Washington. "The American people . . . understand the real gamble is having the same old folks doing the same old things over and over and over again and somehow expecting a different result," he would say to big applause.

But as the president-elect's White House team takes shape, it is becoming clear that Obama in fact sees value in having plenty of the "same old folks" around to help him. After selecting as his chief of staff Rep. Rahm Emanuel, a House power broker and Clinton White House veteran, Obama over the weekend added several other top advisers with deep seasoning in Washington and on Capitol Hill in particular.

Although Obama has shown a fondness for surrounding himself with big thinkers and visionary experts, his White House hires suggest that his West Wing, at least, will place a premium on skilled legislative practitioners.

Congressional Democrats are taking the hires of Hill veterans as an encouraging sign that Obama -- the first member of Congress to be elected president since John F. Kennedy -- plans to work closely with them, which they regard as a welcome change from Bush's administration, which even many Hill Republicans said left them out of the loop.

The staff choices "represent a new era in cooperative relations between the White House and Congress," said Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.). "It bodes well for an extraordinary period of legislative accomplishment -- for creating an atmosphere in which legislative victories will be maximized."

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said the Hill expertise is particularly needed given the shaky economy. "It sends a very clear message . . . that he is ready to work with us from Day One," she said. "We need to get past the 'getting to know you' phase quickly, and this helps get that done."

But some veterans of Republican White Houses are asking how Obama's promise of a clean break with the past squares with his elevation of so many Washington insiders skilled in partisan warfare.

"This is more 'Groundhog Day' than a fresh start," said Peter Wehner, a former senior adviser to Bush who is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

Wehner said he thinks Obama is trying to avoid the mistakes of the Clinton administration, which stumbled early on, but he warned against "overlearning history." "It's reassuring having people who have been around the block -- it means he'll step on fewer banana peels in the early going," he said. But "this just doesn't have the feel of a political transformation," he added.

Other veterans of GOP administrations said Obama could yet prove an agent of change -- on his own.

"The transformative part of his presidency is the president himself," said Douglas W. Kmiec, a Pepperdine University law professor who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and supported Obama. "The most important voice for change is his. And change is accomplished in our system not by erasing all of the lines on paper but by having people who understand government's structure and so can reinforce lines that have been wrongfully distorted or broken in terms of separation of powers."

Obama adviser Anita Dunn made a similar case. "What you're seeing is the same kind of approach he took to his campaign -- some new people, some old people, like Goldilocks," she said. "What you see is someone who is not going to make some of the mistakes administrations have made in the past of not understanding how to get things done in Washington. People who say 'Where's the change?' need only look at the president of the United States . . . the person at the top who sets the tone and the priorities."

The latest hires include Pete Rouse, an understated but highly regarded Hill veteran who will be a senior adviser in the White House after 30 years on the Hill -- 19 working for Thomas A. Daschle, a former Senate Democratic leader, and four as Obama's chief of staff. Hired as deputy White House chiefs of staff are Mona Sutphen, who worked for a D.C. consulting firm after serving on Clinton's National Security Council, and Jim Messina, who was the Obama campaign's chief of staff after serving in the same capacity for Sen. Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who is helping lead the way on health-care legislation.

Hired as Obama's top congressional liaison is Phil Schiliro, another highly regarded Hill veteran who in 25 years there served as Daschle's policy director and, most recently, as chief of staff to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Selected as White House counsel is Greg Craig, who served in the State Department under Clinton and acted as his counsel during his impeachment but broke with the Clintons to endorse Obama.

These experienced Washington hands will be joined by Obama's top confidants from Chicago -- David Axelrod, his chief campaign strategist, and Valerie Jarrett, a businesswoman and close family friend who is helping direct the transition alongside former Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta. She will serve as Obama's senior adviser and public liaison.

Several White House veterans said the mix represented a healthy combination of new blood and D.C. experience -- not unlike what Ronald Reagan brought in 1980, when he combined Washington hands such as James A. Baker III and Kenneth M. Duberstein with confidantes Edwin Meese III and Michael K. Deaver.

Obama, having collected relatively few loyalists during his rapid rise, has shown an eagerness to hire the best available people regardless of personal connections or ideology, the veterans said. The clearest example was his success persuading Rouse, who was looking for work after Daschle's 2004 defeat, to join the office of a freshman senator.

"Obama understands that in order to be an effective president, you need to win battles on Capitol Hill," said Duberstein, who was Reagan's chief of staff. "What he seems to be putting in place is a mixture of people who know how to get things done in Washington along with people who have known him for many years. That fits with what he has campaigned on . . . which is shrewdly bringing people together. It is all about putting together a pragmatic governing coalition and having the people on hand who know how to get things done."

Duberstein disagreed that Washington veterans undercut the change that the country voted for Nov. 4. "What the American people are saying is: 'Enough of the stalemate and gridlock. Get people in there who know what they are doing,' " he said.

Andrew H. Card Jr., President Bush's first chief of staff, praised Obama for filling so many White House jobs so quickly. But he warned that having so much Hill experience on the team could give it too much of a legislative mind-set.

"A member of Congress holds hearings and healthy debates before he makes a decision. A president doesn't have that luxury," he said. "He is required to make snap decisions. Members of Congress can be much more deliberative, where a president has to be decisive. If you're a senator, you're one-hundredth of one-half of a decision. When you're president, you're 100 percent of a decision. You have to be more nimble."

Leon Panetta, who was Clinton's chief of staff, dismissed this concern. "It doesn't take very long before you develop an executive mind-set. On Capitol Hill you usually have 535 different [bosses], and at the White House you only have one boss -- and you learn that real fast," he said. "I just look at it from the point of view of having people who can hit the ground running. With all the problems the country faces, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to have people who understand how Washington works."

One Cabinet Job Would Put Focus On Two Clintons

By Michael D. Shear and Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writers

Monday, November 17, 2008; A01

If Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is named the next secretary of state, she and her husband could be positioned to lead a public-private partnership on the global stage unlike any before it, one that experts say would bring with it a host of potential benefits and pitfalls for the new president.

Since leaving the White House, Bill Clinton has used his connections with world leaders to position himself as something akin to the world's philanthropist in chief -- and become rich in the process by collecting huge sums from foreign companies eager to hear him speak.

That arrangement could be complicated, though, by his wife joining the Obama administration, with the prospect of questions about any conflict of interest or attempts to curry influence.

For the past four years, Bill Clinton has convened the annual Clinton Global Initiative, a glamorous philanthropic conference that brings together hundreds of corporate chiefs, heads of state, humanitarians and celebrities. The William J. Clinton Foundation has ballooned into a global nongovernmental organization with a staff of more than 800, addressing chronic problems such as climate change, hunger, AIDS and malaria.

If President-elect Barack Obama selects Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state, she will oversee many of the U.S. government's foreign aid programs, potentially turning the couple into an overwhelming force in global aid, say some leaders in the philanthropic community.

"It boosts her stature, it boosts the work of the Clinton Global Initiative, it boosts the whole concept of American partnerships making a real difference on the global level," said Steve Gunderson, president of the Council on Foundations and a former Republican congressman.

"She will be able to say in many of her meetings, 'We're in a situation where I can't commit congressional foreign assistance, but let me work with the philanthropic community back in the United States to see if there are ways that they can be helpful,' " Gunderson said.

The choice of Clinton would present other potential problems for Obama. He would be investing his fortunes not only with his former rival for the presidency but also in an outsize figure on the global scene who has been conducting a kind of privately financed foreign policy all his own since leaving office. Obama and the former president have also continued to share a somewhat strained relationship since the end of the Democratic nominating contest.

Bill Clinton's web of personal financial ties and public policy pronouncements about the world's challenges would instantly become a source of possible discord with a new Obama administration as his wife travels the same world circuit as America's official emissary.

"He's a former president of the United States. He's been traveling around the world, and he's got his foundation and a lot of foreign policy efforts going on," said Leon Panetta, Clinton's former chief of staff and now a professor of public policy. "What they will have to obviously be careful of are the potential conflicts that might appear."

Supporters of the former first lady reject the idea that her selection as secretary of state would be viewed through a prism of either the benefits or the baggage provided by her husband.

"She was one of the most successful primary candidates," said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). "I really think that it's unfair to suggest that there's any type of a package that comes with her appointment."

But Hillary Clinton's presence in Obama's Cabinet would mark a shift in the kind of relationship that presidents have traditionally shared with predecessors who maintained a high profile.

Occupants of the Oval Office tend to keep former presidents at arm's length, sometimes turning to them occasionally to play roles such as special emissary during international disasters or humanitarian crises. President Bush asked both his father and Clinton to raise relief money after the Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. Bill Clinton, as president, enlisted predecessors to advocate for the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Former president Jimmy Carter was a thorn in the side of George W. Bush, traveling to Syria, Cuba and the Middle East to meet with leaders despite complaints from the White House.

"You want to be able to determine when you are going to make use of a former president in terms of foreign policy or trying to help on particular issues. That can be a very powerful tool if it's used well," Panetta said. "It has to be used with discretion. The last thing you want is to have a former president be a rogue."

Some foreign policy experts said seeking to exploit Bill Clinton's reach and experience could prove a mistake.

"They might be tempted to use him in the Middle East. That wouldn't be a wise thing to do," said Charles Hill, a Yale professor who served several secretaries of state. "It's too American. It's too visible. That's a danger that the Obama team has to face and deal with."

Hill said there is also the danger that the former president's constant presence could lead some world leaders to question the authority of the new president.

"He's got to maintain his stature. He should not want Bill Clinton getting all the ink. Or Hillary Clinton," Hill said. Selecting Hillary Clinton to serve, he said, would violate one of the cardinal rules of foreign policy: "Secretaries of state don't deal with ex-presidents. And if they do, the White House raps their knuckles."

For his part, Bill Clinton said last night that his wife would be "a great secretary of state." Speaking in Kuwait City before an international audience of economists and politicians gathered by the National Bank of Kuwait, Clinton said that if Obama "decided to ask her and they did it together, I think she'll be really great as a secretary of state," Agence France-Presse reported. He said he did not know whether she had discussed the post with Obama's camp.

Hillary Clinton would not discuss the matter Friday, saying in Albany, N.Y.: "I'm not going to speculate or address anything about the president-elect's incoming administration. I'm going to respect his process."

By taking the Cabinet post, Hillary Clinton would also force new scrutiny of her husband's charitable activities and his private financial dealings. Bill Clinton has raised millions of dollars for his foundation but has declined to publicly disclose its benefactors. Likewise, most of the donors who helped bankroll his presidential library in Little Rock have never been disclosed.

"It certainly is likely to sharpen the scrutiny that the press and critics will give to the types of things he does in raising the money," said Joel L. Fleishman, a philanthropy expert and professor of law and public policy at Duke University. Fleishman added that "her being secretary of state would tend to raise the scrutiny."

Since founding his global conference, Clinton says, he has facilitated charitable commitments valued at $46 billion that already have improved more than 200 million lives in 150 countries. And his personal wealth has ballooned as well: The Clintons earned a combined $109 million during the Bush administration.

The 63-page vetting document that Obama is using asks applicants whether there are "any categories of personal financial records . . . that you (or your spouse) will not release publicly if necessary. If so, please identify these records and state the reasons for withholding them."

Interestingly, in the margins of a copy of the application leaked from the transition team, the word "Clinton" is written next to that paragraph.

After earning $200,000 a year in the White House, the former president has raked in more than $40 million on the speaking circuit, often from foreign companies in countries where a Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would confront thorny issues in the next several years.

Even without a wife in Obama's Cabinet, Clinton has already raised eyebrows with his speeches. In February 2005, Clinton spoke about AIDS to a Swiss biotech firm whose American subsidiary eventually agreed to pay $704 million after pleading guilty to conspiracy. In 2001, he was paid $125,000 to speak to International Profit Associates, an Illinois company that was the focus of a federal investigation and a government lawsuit alleging widespread sexual harassment.

Clinton has also turned his friendships with wealthy businessmen into a source of personal income. Partnerships with billionaire California investor Ronald Burkle earned Clinton more than $5 million. The former president made more than $3 million as a consultant to InfoUSA, a consumer data business founded by his friend Vinod Gupta.

Clinton has also been linked to controversial foreign deals. A New York Times report suggested that the former president had played a key role in helping a Canadian mining executive, Frank Giustra, win a uranium-mining contract in Kazakhstan.

The paper reported that Giustra donated $31.3 million to Clinton's foundation shortly after the Kazakhstan mining deal was finalized.

Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.

Da vedere e leggere

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/speeches/obama-victory-speech.html

I RISULTATI

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/president/votes.html