TO OUR READERS

Today begins our third subscription drive.  Subscriptions are the lifeblood of Urgent Agenda.  They're the reason we're still here.  This is a critical drive.  We must triple the number of subscribers to become financially stable.  Otherwise, Urgent Agenda will either disappear or be much reduced.

What do you get by subscribing?  First, you help insure the survival of this site, which has one of the most informed and intelligent readerships on the web.  We cannot, for privacy reasons, disclose our readers' names, but you're in very good, and sometimes well-known company.

Second, subscribers and donators now receive The Angel's Corner - sent each week by e-mail.  We discuss the trends of the week, but also go beyond politics, into movies, music and TV.  In addition, Angel's Corner gives the very coveted Pompous Fool Award, bestowed on only the most deserving candidates in politics and journalism.  You'll want to know their names, and what they've done to receive this rare honor.

How much does a subscription cost?  It's less than the price of a candy bar each week.  We think that's an awfully good deal.

If for any reason you wish to cancel your subscription, the unused portion will be returned, upon request.    

This is a momentous week, a great time to join.  So please consider subscribing, or donating, in the column on the right, so that we can keep going.  Our inaugural coverage is about to begin.  We'll go through this together.  Try to smile.  Try.

UPDATE:  Our first day thus far is a bit discouraging, and we have not met our goal.  Join us for our all-day inaugural coverage tomorrow, and do subscribe. Our first group of six-month subscriptions, entered in July, expired in the last three weeks, and we had an 80-percent renewal rate, which is very strong.  Subcribers are voting with their renewals, but we simply need more numbers to stay alive.

MONDAY,  JANUARY 19,  2009

QUOTE OF THE DAY - AT 3:10 P.M.  From Bill Kristol, in The New York Times:

Many of Bush’s defenders have praised him for keeping the country safe since Sept. 11, 2001. He deserves that praise, and I’m perfectly happy to defend most of his surveillance, interrogation and counterterrorism policies against his critics.

But I don’t think keeping us safe has been Bush’s most impressive achievement. That was winning the war in Iraq, and in particular, his refusal to accept defeat when so many counseled him to do so in late 2006. His ordering the surge of troops to Iraq in January 2007 was an act of personal courage and of presidential leadership.

COMMENT:  There's been so much tasteless commentary comparing Mr. Obama to Lincoln, even though Obama hasn't even taken the oath.  If there's a real comparison to Lincoln, it's President Bush's refusal to concede defeat, even in the face of hatred and ridicule, both of which greeted Lincoln in abundance. 

MORE SLUSH - AT 2:41 P.M. ET: The over-the-top stuff continues, as we approach inauguration.  There is this, on Obama's inaugural address, from ABC News:

That speech will begin shortly after his swearing-in with Michelle Obama holding President Lincoln's Bible.

Sources tell ABC News that the remarks delivered to a hushed nation tomorrow will last about 15 to 20 minutes, and the theme is an era of responsibility.

COMMENT:  "A hushed nation"?  How do they know that?  Is ABC News in every home?  Why not just tell us he's going to make a speech, and this is what we know about it?  Spare us the slush. 

OBNOXIOUS - AT 8:32 A.M. ET:  In another New York Times love poem to the president-elect, book critic Michiko Kakutani explores the relationship between Mr. Obama and books.  Perfectly fine.  But in the middle of the rapture, Kakutani goes vulgar, and brings in George W. Bush.  Don't you just know what's coming?

His predecessor, George W. Bush, in contrast, tended to race through books in competitions with Karl Rove (who recently boasted that he beat the president by reading 110 books to Mr. Bush’s 95 in 2006), or passionately embrace an author’s thesis as an idée fixe. Mr. Bush and many of his aides favored prescriptive books — Natan Sharansky’s “Case for Democracy,” which pressed the case for promoting democracy around the world, say, or Eliot A. Cohen’s “Supreme Command,” which argued that political strategy should drive military strategy. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, has tended to look to non-ideological histories and philosophical works that address complex problems without any easy solutions, like Reinhold Niebuhr’s writings, which emphasize the ambivalent nature of human beings and the dangers of willful innocence and infallibility.

COMMENT:  Disgraceful.  First, what evidence does Kakutani present that Mr. Bush "races" through books?  Did this critic watch the president read?  Did s he clock him?  And then, note the code language.  It's suggested that Mr. Sharansky and Mr. Cohen, two very bright men, are simply ideologues, which they're not.  By contrast, Mr. Obama reads books that "address complex problems without any easy solutions."  The idea, quite intentional, is that Mr. Bush seeks easy solutions and reads books that provide them.  You know, that speed-reading dolt.  We've come to expect this from The Times.  The paper doesn't disappoint.  Every writer seems determined to get his Bush-bashing points.   

OBAMA - FROM BRITAIN, WITH SKEPTICISM

Posted at 8:10 a.m. ET

We've said here before that British journalists often provide the most interesting perspective on American politics.  Janet Daley is one of the best of the Brit writers, and she's concerned about Barack Obama.  Her worry?  That, while he speaks beautifully, he may not do much.  Here's her take, in London's Telegraph:

The question must be whether the symbolism of Obama's election as president will be matched by his substance in office. Any attempt to answer it must run on the available facts, the first and most important of which is double-edged: Mr Obama is extraordinarily articulate.

Agreed.  But...

So why do I think that there is anything dubious about Obama's gift for words? Because the miraculous effect of them cannot be a substitute for action. Make no mistake: words can accomplish lots of things in themselves, notably changing the minds of your opponents, persuading the recalcitrant to support your plan, resolving disputes between partisans. But what I sense in Obama's love for abstract concepts and diffuse rhetorical devices is not so much the use of language as a facilitator of action, but as a way of disguising lack of decision.

Others have noticed the same thing, but Daley explains it better than anyone.

At how many points do his beautifully constructed passages connect with concrete reality? His failure to define or elaborate the famous "change we can believe in" mantra has been much commented on, but even giving him the benefit of the doubt on that point – after all, political slogans are often basically meaningless – how clear were any of his substantive intentions from his campaign speeches?

In fact, his policy pronouncements since being elected have been notable for their startling lack of any abrupt shift from the Bush years.

Well, maybe we're lucky.

All of this leads some conservative commentators to conclude that at least on the two main emergencies, the Obama administration may be comfortingly familiar. Charles Krauthammer has called the phenomenon "continuity we can believe in."

But Daley's concerns are serious:

When you are confronting national emergencies on two fronts – foreign wars and domestic economic crisis – is there time to indulge in a lengthy seminar? Government is not a think tank.

Finally...

What is going to happen when a clutch of Obama advisers disagrees with another clutch? Or when the most senior of them rejects advice from the more junior? Will Mr Obama himself have the decisiveness and resolution to make a final ruling and act on it without hesitation? Or is he going to preside over a talking shop that ties his administration up in endless qualifications and subtexts, which the President will be able to present with all the subtlety and thoughtfulness of which he is capable – but which will in the end amount to fatal vacillation?

The point is well taken.  There are times when Obama reminds me of Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic candidate for president, against Dwight Eisenhower, in the 1952 and 1956 elections.  Stevenson spoke beautifully, he was the darling of the intellectuals, but in point of fact he never said much.  No one remembers his ideas, most barely remember his name. 

We want the new president to succeed.  But Daley hits on something that has bothered the most thoughtful political observers - the fact that Obama has never actually done anything significant.  Now he must make the toughest decisions, and translate them into action.  Not everything can be explained away in an eloquent speech.  Sometimes you have to get it right and do it right.  And that is the worry about our soon-to-be 44th president.

January 19, 2009.      Permalink          

OVER THE TOP, BY FAR - AT 7:26 A.M. ET:  Look, we expected this. Some of the journalism surrounding Obama's inauguration is way, way over the top.  If you watched CNN last night, you saw a gang of borderline-adolescent reporters shoving mikes in the faces of startled black children, asking them their deep thoughts on this historic occasion.  You had to feel for the children, who apparently hadn't been told that this is bigger than the Second Coming.

But some lines just stand out.  Get this one, from a story in London's Telegraph, about Obama's upcoming inaugural address:

"He is a big game player," said Matt Bennett, who was a deputy assistant in the Clinton White House. "This will be the most consequential speech since Roosevelt's in the Great Depression and in the top two or three since Lincoln."

COMMENT:  Oh, be still my heart.  One of the top two or three speeches since Lincoln?  Look, we're not fighting a civil war.  We're not fighting a world war against Nazis and Japanese militarists.  We have economic problems, but the unemployment rate is about seven percent, not the 25 percent of the Great Depression.  The country is not falling apart.  Let's have a little perspective, shall we? 

THIS IS CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN? - AT 6:29 A.M. ET:  From the New York Post:

DESPITE claims that he's still undecided, Gov. Paterson is "certain" to pick Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Rodham Clinton in the US Senate, several unhappy contenders for the job have told friends and associates in recent days.

The contenders based their conclusion on the view that Paterson, after nearly two months of indecision, would "greatly embarrass" and "entirely humiliate" Kennedy, anger her prominent political family and even offend President-elect Barack Obama by picking someone other than President John F. Kennedy's daughter.

COMMENT:  What a disgrace.  Caroline Kennedy is, by all accounts, a fine woman, but she has flopped horribly in her campaign to be named senator.  Her qualification is her name, and this is not what we were promised for the new political age.  Add to this the embarrassment of Roland Burris, named by a corrupt governor in Illinois to replace Barack Obama in the Senate, and the shining city on a hill starts to show more than a little tarnish.   

THE COUNTDOWN

ONE DAY TO THE AGE OF OBAMIUS

Posted at 6:39 a.m. ET

We are one day away from the dawning of the Age of Obamius.  The current cold wave gripping the east is proof that Barack Obama has already cured global warming.  The impact is clear, and obvious.  Welcome, O cold, pure air.

The crowds gather in Washington.  The crowd tomorrow will be the greatest in all human history.  Ben-Hur never drew this number of customers to any of his chariot races.  The storming of Normandy in 1944 was an intimate get together compared with tomorrow.

Peace is blossoming, and June is busting out all over. 

We can report the following developments:

- There was a last-minute crisis as Hillary Clinton had second thoughts about becoming secretary of state.  She was discouraged when Bill told her that the throngs on the Washington mall weren't for her. 

- CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta was turned away from the CIA building in Virginia because they don't accept striped, plastic trench coats.   

- Washington choirs greeted President-elect Obama with hymns and patriotic songs.  MSNBC reporters greeted him with a chorus of "I Won't Grow Up," from "Peter Pan."

- The president-elect ordered Joe Biden not to add more than six paragraphs to the vice-presidential oath.

- The same Joe Biden camped out on the Capitol balcony, where he'll be sworn in, before being told by a cop that he didn't have to do that because he already had a ticket. 

January 19, 2009.      Permalink          

SUNDAY,  JANUARY 18,  2009

GOOFY 101 - AT 10:28 A.M. ET:  Just watched President-elect Obama and Vice-president-elect Biden laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington.  The president-elect has style, Biden does not.  Mr. Obama knew that, once you lay the wreath, you step backward, never turning your back on the tomb.  Biden, who didn't get the word, stepped back a few steps, then turned around, his back to the tomb, and walked away, with Obama, doing it correctly, beside him.  They're going to have to lock Joe in a box, or send him to a finishing school.   

MORE BAD VETTING - AT 10:08 A.M. ET:  It is remarkable how the image of the perfect presidential transition has been tarnished by the day-by-day reports of incompetent vetting by the Obama team - from the failure to detect Bill Richardson's legal problems to the failure to understand the significance of Timothy Geithner's tax headaches.

Now comes the latest - the participation in the inaugural ceremony of Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of America.  It now turns out that the society was linked in federal documents to Hamas. 

But that isn't all.  It also turns out that Mattson, who is Canadian-born, is a convert from Catholicism.  That is an insult to the nation's Catholics.  If there's one rule of thumb in inviting religious speakers to political events, it's that you stay away from converts...because they've turned their backs on another great religion. 

Someone didn't do the required homework here.  Mattson won't be dropped - that would inflame Muslims - but it's a debacle.  The Obama team is now in the major leagues, and some of its members must learn to play major-league ball. 

SHAKY CEASE-FIRE IN GAZA - AT 9:54 A.M. ET: 

GAZA, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Hamas said on Sunday it would cease fire immediately along with other militant groups in the Gaza Strip and give Israel, which already declared a unilateral truce, a week to pull its troops out of the territory.

A spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said earlier that if a ceasefire held in the Hamas-ruled enclave, Israel could start the process of withdrawing its forces.

COMMENT:  A lot of "ifs" here.  If Hamas keeps firing rockets into Israel, what will Israel do?  And what will President Obama do as of Tuesday?  If Israel is pressured to continue its cease-fire and withdraw, even in the face of rocket fire, that is the worst possible signal to send to Hamas.

PRESS NOTES

Posted at 8:58 a.m. ET

The state of the liberal press is reflected this morning in two stories.  From NewsMax:

Battered by a one-two punch of declining readership and ad pages, Newsweek magazine is getting an extreme makeover this year that will include a large circulation reduction, deep cuts in operating costs, and a new effort to attract advertisers by concentrating on an elite audience.

According to The New York Times, executives at Newsweek say the retooled magazine will focus on being a "thought leader" that focuses on telling readers how to think about news, rather than telling people what happened in the last week.

They don't understand their problem.  They've been telling people how to think about news, and what to think, for years.  That's one reason they've lost subscribers, including me. 

And from the New York Post:

The embattled New York Times Co., trying to wriggle out from under a pile of debt as advertising revenue dries up, is talking to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim about making a sizeable cash investment in the company.

Slim, said to be the world's second-richest person with $60 billion, bought a 6.4 percent common share stake in the Times Co. in September for about $118 million, but is interested in gaining a larger share of the company, according to a report last night in The Wall Street Journal.

Ditto The New York Times.  Journalism is a profession (or calling) known for its arrogance.  Many of our press lords don't seem to understand that the quality and credibility of their product has cost them support.  After all, they've been through recessions before, and have survived.  When news pages are turned into editorials, half the country falls away.  Some of the most prominent newspapers in trouble today - The New York Times, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have become infamous for their front-page editorial slant.

January 18, 2009.       Permalink          

THE COUNTDOWN

TWO DAYS TO THE AGE OF OBAMIUS

Posted at 8:31 a.m. ET

Is it not written?  The bitter cold over the northeast this weekend clearly is Divine cleansing of the air in preparation for the coming of Obama in two days.  The nations of the world wait, ready to feed the hungry and cure all disease within a week.  Soccer teams in Europe, and football teams in America, are declaring an end to brutal competition, and announcing new rules making every team a winner.  Harmony and love are about to break out, and Chris Matthews will be there to cover it.

Just feel the wonderfulness, as the Age of Obamius comes even closer.

We can report the following developments:

- In a bid toward diversity, the United States Marine Corps Band announced that "Hail to the Chief'" will be renamed "Hail to the Main Man."

- Mr. Obama confirmed that he'll take the oath on Abraham Lincoln's Bible.  He wanted other symbols at the ceremony, but the Ark of the Covenant wasn't available.

- CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta was gently escorted from a Washington bar last night after demanding that his glass of milk be "shaken, not stirred."

- Hillary Clinton said in an interview that she agreed with every aspect of Obama's foreign policy, and would be a dedicated, loyal subordinate.  She was then rushed to Georgetown Hospital, suffering from uncontrolled fits of laughter.

- President-elect Obama reaffirmed his intention to negotiate even with bitter enemies, the people he expects will give him the most trouble.  He immediately entered into talks with Democratic leaders of Congress.

- In the Lincoln tradition, the theme of his inauguration, President-elect Obama put finishing touches on his inaugural address by the light of a candle.  But he complained that he ran out of cartridges for his quill.

January 18, 2009.      Permalink