Wednesday 7th of January 2009
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by any other name .....

by any other name .....

So far, so good. 

The first week of Barack Obama's transition to the presidency has gone about as well as anyone could imagine. His few public appearances have been gaffe-free, and his initial decisions in setting up his administration have been strongly reassuring.

One area of legitimate questions about the president-elect concerns his ability to organize, direct and motivate his administration. Nothing in his prior life in Illinois or Washington required or tested those skills. His campaign - a model of efficiency and innovation - certainly augured well.  

But there is a world of difference between running for the White House and leading the country - witness the stumbles of every new president since Ronald Reagan. 

What we have seen so far suggests that Obama's skills will carry over to his new and expanded responsibilities. His victory speech in Grant Park, his first news conference and his meeting with President Bush went off almost without a hitch. 

He wisely emphasized that all executive authority - on issues here and abroad - remains in Bush's hands until Jan. 20, but at the same time he urged the president and Congress to do everything in their power to address the sinking economy. 

The new president's first decision - to name Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff - was a positive step on two levels. 

It is significant that Obama began structuring his White House staff before he turned to the construction of a Cabinet. Bill Clinton did the reverse and paid a high price for it. Clinton dawdled in filling the Cabinet jobs, preoccupied with achieving racial, ethnic and gender diversity. It was almost Inauguration Day before he told his campaign aides what jobs they were getting in the White House. 

Obama's Good Start


the bushit breeds into the public service...

Administration Moves to Protect Key Appointees
Political Positions Shifted To Career Civil Service Jobs

By Juliet Eilperin and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 18, 2008; A01

Just weeks before leaving office, the Interior Department's top lawyer has shifted half a dozen key deputies -- including two former political appointees who have been involved in controversial environmental decisions -- into senior civil service posts.

The transfer of political appointees into permanent federal positions, called "burrowing" by career officials, creates security for those employees, and at least initially will deprive the incoming Obama administration of the chance to install its preferred appointees in some key jobs.

Similar efforts are taking place at other agencies. Two political hires at the Labor Department have already secured career posts there, and one at the Department of Housing and Urban Development is trying to make the switch.

Between March 1 and Nov. 3, according to the federal Office of Personnel Management, the Bush administration allowed 20 political appointees to become career civil servants. Six political appointees to the Senior Executive Service, the government's most prestigious and highly paid employees, have received approval to take career jobs at the same level. Fourteen other political, or "Schedule C," appointees have also been approved to take career jobs. One candidate was turned down by OPM and two were withdrawn by the submitting agency.

The personnel moves come as Bush administration officials are scrambling to cement in place policy and regulatory initiatives that touch on issues such as federal drinking-water standards, air quality at national parks, mountaintop mining and fisheries limits.

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rubbish bushit fertiliser....


rednecking singing...

For Some, ‘Puff’ Loses Its Magic

In his campaign for chairman of the Republican National Committee, Chip Saltsman, a Tennessee political operative, distributed a song to potential supporters this week called “Barack the Magic Negro,” a parody that questions President-elect’s Barack Obama’s racial authenticity.

The song, by the political satirist Paul Shanklin, was first broadcast last year on the Rush Limbaugh radio show, and Mr. Limbaugh defended it then against accusations of racism. But after an election in which Republicans lost badly among minorities — spurring vows of new efforts to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate — party leaders were not amused.

read more at the NYT and see toon at top...


de-hogging politics

Politics Is No Longer Local. It's Viral.

By Jose Antonio Vargas
Sunday, December 28, 2008; B01

Around this time last year, I was driving through the snow-covered flatlands of the Hawkeye State, headed to a bowling alley where a dozen college students from the University of Northern Iowa were holding court at lanes 27 and 28. All members of a group called UNI Students for Barack Obama, they were dressed from head to toe in Obama gear. This was their last gathering before Jan. 3, the day of the Iowa caucuses, scheduled smack in the middle of their winter break.

As talk turned to their plans for caucus day, it also inevitably turned to the Internet.

It was on Facebook, after all, that the group had been born. Brandon Neil, a 21-year-old junior, had created it on Feb. 12, 2007, the day Obama announced that he was running for president.

It was through news clips posted on YouTube -- and through Obama's YouTube channel, which lists more than 1,800 videos -- that the group learned about the Illinois senator's policies and positions.

And it was mostly on the Internet, in one of those ubiquitous, inescapable Web ads -- the campaign spent $8 million on online advertising -- that they heard about Obama's text-messaging program. "I only get texts from my friends," Andy Green, a 20-year-old sophomore, told me. "Let me correct that: I only get texts from my friends and from Obama."

Looking back, I realize that it was on that Thursday night that a new political reality was cemented in my head. In the past, we've thought of politics as something over there -- isolated, separate from our daily lives, as if on a stage upon which journalists, consultants, pollsters and candidates spun and dictated and acted out the process. Now, because of technology in general and the Internet in particular, politics has become something tangible. Politics is right here. You touch it; it's in your laptop and on your cellphone. You control it, by forwarding an e-mail about a candidate, donating money or creating a group. Politics is personal. Politics is viral. Politics is individual.

And we're just getting started.

see toon at top and read more at the Washington Post...