Category: Blogroll
The Better World Campaign has narrowed a field of 5,000 ideas that President Obama should address “On Day One” down to a manageable 81. Follow Republican Florida Representative Hangs Up on Obama
According to the Associated Press, as reported in today’s Miami Herald, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) hung up the phone on President-elect Barack Obama yesterday:
When a man sounding remarkably like President-elect Barack Obama called a Florida congresswoman Wednesday, she assumed it was a crank call.
So Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen hung up. But, the Miami Herald reports, this was no prank.
“I thought it was one of the radio stations in South Florida playing an incredible, elaborate, terrific prank on me,” Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper. “They got Fidel Castro to go along. They’ve gotten Hugo Chavez and others to fall for their tricks. I said, ‘Oh, no, I won’t be punked.'”
The call came about 1 p.m. Obama congratulated her on her re-election, saying he was looking forward to working with her as the ranking Republican member of the House Foreign Affairs committee, Ros-Lehtinen told the newspaper.
The conversation lasted about a minute when she cut Obama off, telling him she wasn’t falling for the hoax and that he was a better impersonator than the guy on Saturday Night Live, she said.
Then Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, called the congresswoman to tell her it wasn’t a joke. But she hung up on him, too. It took a call from Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, to persuade Ros-Lehtinen that Obama really did want to talk to her.
When the two finally talked, Ros-Lehtinen said she and Obama had a good conversation and she congratulated him for his victory despite how hard she campaigned for his opponent, Sen. John McCain.
He didn’t even blame her for mistaking him for a radio-station prank, she said.
“He laughed a lot, saying in Chicago they do it all the time,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “He said, ‘I don’t blame you for being skeptical.'”
Repeated calls by The Associated Press to two office numbers for the congresswoman rang unanswered after hours Wednesday. An e-mail message to an Obama spokeswoman after hours wasn’t immediately returned.
Too bad it really was Obama — if anybody deserves to be punked, it’s Ros-Lehtinen.
Parting Shots from Bush — and Setting the Record Straight on Clinton
Pres. Lame W. Duck
Looks like Pres. Lame W. Duck will spend the last two months of his presidency the same way he spent the entire eight years: royally screwing things up.
Bush’s eleventh-hour changes would lift restrictions on commercial ocean fishing, ease controls on power plants’ emissions, relax drinking water standards, and loosen restrictions on dumping mining waste
The Bush administration raced last week to relax a wide array of regulations before its time in office expires. If enacted before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in, the rule changes could be reversed only after a lengthy and cumbersome review. Among other things, the changes would lift restrictions on commercial ocean fishing, ease controls on power plants’ emissions, relax drinking-water standards, and loosen restrictions on dumping mining waste. Consumer and environmentalist groups protested, but the White House said the proposals were in “the best interests†of the nation. “And yes,†said White House spokesman Tony Fratto, “we’d prefer our regulations stand for a very long time.â€
It could be worse, you say? At least he’s not raiding the White House for office furniture like Bill and Hillary Clinton did? Actually the Clintons got a bad rap. That’s right — lies were told about the Clintons. Shocking, isn’t it?
It was the stuff of sensational news reports and indignant commentary. Departing Clinton staffers, the reports said, had shamefully vandalized the White House, destroying office furniture, leaving obscene greetings on voice-mail machines, and defacing walls with graffiti mocking incoming President George W. Bush. The Clintonites had even trashed Air Force One, wrote the late presidential spokesman Tony Snow, then a columnist, leaving it looking “as if it had been stripped by a skilled band of thieves.â€
Except that it never happened. After a yearlong, $200,000 investigation, government inspectors said White House offices suffered only ordinary wear and tear. Nothing was taken from Air Force One. And what little intentional damage had been inflicted in the White House was trivial, such as scraping the “W†off computer keyboards. “What often happens in Washington,†Snow later explained, “is that gossip becomes news. That’s not a good thing.â€
The Bush administration is leaving things screwed up enough for Barack Obama, but as long as it’s still in office, there’s always potential for more. If history is any indicator, Bush and Cheney have plenty more depravity up their sleeves.
Hillary for Secretary of State? Not Feeling It
With the rumors flying that Obama’s pick for secretary of state could be Sen. Hillary Clinton, we are of mixed mind. On the one hand, maybe it would finally shut up all those diehard Hillary fans out there (but I doubt it). On the other, one worries about the toll it would take on our diplomatic relations.
After all, this is the woman who once joked that Ghandi “ran a gas station down in St. Louis.”
After all, this is the woman who said “hard working Americans, white Americans” would never vote for Obama.
She’s the one who once joked that Ghandi “ran a gas station down in St. Louis.”
She’s also the one who swore she was met with sniper fire instead of flowers and little girls reading poems when she visited Bosnia as First Lady.
If Clinton can keep her mouth in check and her brain engaged, she might make a good secretary of state.
Personally, I would rather Obama go with someone dreamier and more symbolically bipartisan, like Republican former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel. Leaving more Democrats in the Senate and fewer on the Cabinet will help Obama more in the long run.
Bush’s Dismal Approval Sets New Record
Don’t let the screen door hit ya on the way out:
No other president’s disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent
As President-elect Obama visits the White House, a new national poll suggests that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is the most unpopular president in the six decades since presidential approval ratings were first measured.
Seventy-six percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday disapprove of how George W. Bush is handling his job as President. That’s an all-time high in CNN polling, or in Gallup polling dating back to World War II.
“No other president’s disapproval rating has gone higher than 70 percent. Bush has managed to do that three times so far this year,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “That means that Bush is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned from office during Watergate with a 66 percent disapproval rating.”
Prior to President Bush, the record holder for presidential disapproval was Harry Truman, with a 67 percent disapproval rating in January of 1952, his last full year in office.
Meanwhile, in opposite world:
Nearly seven in 10 adults, or 68 percent, said they have a favorable opinion of President-elect Barack Obama. Almost that many — 65 percent — said they think the country will be better off four years from now.
“The reception he’s getting is unlike anything we’ve seen in decades,” says Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. “It’s a very high set of expectations to live up to. On the upside, it means people are going to be pulling for him.”
Before the Second Meeting
Political Wire ran this excerpt today from Barack Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope, in anticipation of this afternoon’s meeting between Pres. George W. Bush and Pres.-elect Barack H. Obama:
In anticipation of Monday’s afternoon meeting between President Bush and President-elect Obama, here’s an excerpt from The Audacity of Hope, where Obama tells of his first meeting with the man he will replace:
The inside of the White House doesn’t have the luminous quality that you might expect from television or film; it seems well kept but worn, a big old house that one imagines might be a bit drafty on cold winter nights.
On a chilly January afternoon in 2005, the day before my swearing-in as a senator, I was invited there with other new members of Congress. At 1600 hours on the dot, President Bush was announced and walked to the podium, looking vigorous and fit, with that jaunty, determined walk that suggests he’s on a schedule and wants to keep detours to a minimum. For 10 or so minutes he spoke to the room, making a few jokes, calling for the country to come together, before inviting us for refreshments and a picture with him and the First Lady…
“Obama!” he said, shaking my hand. “Come here and meet Laura. Laura, you remember Obama. We saw him on TV during election night. Beautiful family. And that wife of yours – that’s one impressive lady.”
“We both got better than we deserve, Mr. President,” I said, shaking the First Lady’s hand and hoping that I’d wiped any crumbs off my face.
The president turned to an aide nearby, who squirted a big dollop of hand sanitizer in the president’s hand.
“Want some?” the president asked. “Good stuff. Keeps you from getting colds.” Not wanting to seem unhygienic, I took a squirt.
“Come over here for a second,” he said, leading me off to one side of the room.
“You know,” he said quietly, “I hope you don’t mind me giving you a piece of advice.”
“Not at all, Mr. President.” He nodded. “You’ve got a bright future,” he said. “Very bright. But I’ve been in this town a while and, let me tell you, it can be tough. When you get a lot of attention like you’ve been getting, people start gunnin’ for ya. And it won’t necessarily just be coming from my side, you understand. From yours, too. Everybody’ll be waiting for you to slip. Know what I mean? So watch yourself.”
“Thanks for the advice, Mr. President.”
“All right. I gotta get going. You know, me and you got something in common.”
“What’s that?” “We both had to debate Alan Keyes. That guy’s a piece of work, isn’t he?”
I laughed, and as we walked to the door I told him a few stories from the campaign.
It wasn’t until he had left the room that I realized I had briefly put my arm over his shoulder as we talked — an unconscious habit of mine, but one that I suspected might have made many of my friends, not to mention the Secret Service agents in the room, more than a little uneasy.
Obama-Biden Now Hiring
Want a job?
If you are among the 6.5 percent of Americans left unemployed after eight years of George W. Bush, I have good news! Barack Obama and Joe Biden are hiring.
This website is designed to provide prospective applicants with information to help them apply for positions in the Obama-Biden Administration. President-Elect Obama will make appointments throughout the federal government. Some positions will require Senate confirmation while others will not. Some appointments will be made during the transition process and others during the early part of the new Administration.
Hear that? You might not even need Senate confirmation. What are you waiting for? Go to Change.gov, click on “Jobs,” and apply today!
New Parents Going Big for Obama Namesakes
Barack Hussein Obama Anderson-Wilson?With all the adoration and praise being heaped on Barack Obama as both a person and a symbol, it had to happen. People across the country are bestowing Obama-related names on their babies. Among them:
- Sanjae Obama Fisher, born in Hollywood, Fla.
- Benjamin Barack Kimbrough, born in Little Rock
- Sasha Malia Ann Taylor, born in Baltimore
One of the mothers followed election results during her 14-hour labor, and another watched the victory speech during her shorter one.
No one seems to have yet named a baby Hussein in Obama’s honor, despite the fact that it’s such a nice name. Sources say it means “good,” or alternately, “small, handsome one.”
In similar news, the wonderful web site A.Word.A.Day recently posted a list of words that sound campaign related.
- obambulate, a verb meaning to walk about, and using the same root as ambulance and preamble. Oddly, as one reader pointed out, this is also what John McCain did during the town hall style debate
- bidentate, an adjective meaning having two teeth or toothlike parts from the Latin bi- (two) + dens (tooth)
- palinode, a noun referring to a poem in which the writer retracts something said in a previous poem. Again, ironically, McCain might have wished many times to retract one or more of his choices
- meeken (kind of sounds like McCain), a verb meaning to become meek or submissive, from the same Old Norse word
- barrack, a verb meamnig to shout in support or against, from the Northern Irish word for bragging; also a noun referring to a building used to house soldiers, from the French baraque or Italian baracca
