Day: January 15, 2009

Lessons From the Bush Years

Buck Banks

In a column slated to run this Sunday in the Washington Post, Bob Woodward sumes up 10 hard-earned lessons that Barack Obama should draw from George Bush’s troubled presidency:

1. Presidents set the tone. Don’t be passive or tolerate virulent divisions.

2. The president must insist that everyone speak out loud in front of the others, even — or especially — when there are vehement disagreements.

3. A president must do the homework to master the fundamental ideas and concepts behind his policies.

4. Presidents need to draw people out and make sure bad news makes it to the Oval Office.

5. Presidents need to foster a culture of skepticism and doubt.

6. Presidents get contradictory data, and they need a rigorous way to sort it out.

7. Presidents must tell the hard truth to the public, even if that means delivering very bad news.

8. Righteous motives are not enough for effective policy.

9. Presidents must insist on strategic thinking.

10. The president should embrace transparency. Some version of the behind-the-scenes story of what happened in his White House will always make it out to the public — and everyone will be better off if that version is as accurate as possible.

God Will Be Most Conspicuous Guest at Inauguration

Trish

No wonder D.C.’s going to need so much crowd control on Tuesday — God will be taking up most of the seats. The Big Guy will be represented in almost every form, which says a lot about how religious-ized we have become.

There will be a God on hand for almost everyone.

  • The Most Rev. Donald Wuerl is head of the Roman Catholic archdiocese, and as such, is traditionally asked to say a prayer.

  • Three rabbis will recite: Reform Rabbi David Saperstein, Conservative Rabbi Jerome Epstein and Orthodox Rabbi Haskel Lookstein

  • Ingrid Mattson, the first female president of the Islamic Society of North America, the nation’s largest Muslim group, will offer a prayer at the National Cathedral

  • Rev. Sharon Watkins, the first female president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) will officiate at the Jan. 21 National Prayer Service that caps the inaugural festivities

  • V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, will kick things off on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial. Robinson entered into a civil union followed by a religious ceremony last year with his partner, Mark Andrew

  • Rev. Joseph Lowery, a Methodist civil rights leader, will give the inaugural benediction

  • Rev. Rick Warren, a Southern Baptist from Southern California who worked against same-sex marriage in that state and who compares the “sin of homosexuality” to the sin of pedophilia, will give the inaugural invocation

  • Finally, after all the other praying dies down, Obama will take the oath of office, and in an elective nod to the deities circling overhead, will end it by declaring, “so help me God.”

Yeah, but which one?

Tell Obama What You Think

Buck Banks

citizensbriefingbook.jpg

In yet another unprecedented move designed to put the new president in touch with the people, effectively bypassing the gasbags in the Congress, Barack Obama’s folks have created Change.gov, a Web site that enables regular folks (read: voters) to voice their concerns, opinions, gripes, etc., in a forum that supposedly goes directly to the Man. According to senior Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, just as the prez gets a briefing book daily on all the stuff that’s going on in the world, he will get a “citizens briefing book” filled with the rants of the hoi polloi.

OK, maybe this will actually happen. The only way to find out is to go to the site, sign up and let your beefs be known.