Year: 2009

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.

At Last: An Openly Gay Obama Appointee

Trish
John Berry

People can’t say enough nice things about Obama’s likely pick for director of the Office of Personal Management (OPM), John Berry. In addition to being the highest-level openly gay member of the Obama team, Berry really knows what he’s talking about when he says, “This place is a zoo.”

John Berry, the current director of the National Zoo, has accepted an offer to serve as director of the Office of Personnel Management…

While he’s directed 240 employees and more than 2,000 animals since 2005, Berry is no stranger to Washington or the Federal bureaucracy. He previously served as executive director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, assistant secretary for policy, management and budget at the Interior Department, as the Smithsonian’s director of government relations and senior policy advisor, as legislative director for Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and as an associate staffer on the House Appropriations Committee.

FedBlog (who knew?) has more kind words.

From Colleen Kelley, the NTEU president’s, statement:

“The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) welcomes the apparent intention of President-Elect Obama to nominate John Berry, an experienced and respected public servant, to be the new director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). NTEU worked extensively with Mr. Berry during his service as legislative director for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). In that capacity, he earned the trust of agency management and unions alike, proving to be fair and determined in his pursuit of good government. He was involved in a number of legislative initiatives concerning federal employees, including the creation of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA).

In addition, Mr. Berry is widely regarded as having performed capably as Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget in the Department of the Interior during the late 1990s. Through that position and several others, including his current role as Director of the National Zoo, he has significant management experience and knows what it takes to run a federal agency. John Berry will help return respect to the federal workforce and help attract the best and the brightest to public service. I look forward to his confirmation by the Senate.”

Damn. Zoo jokes aside, this guy sounds good.

Pitts to Bush: Live Long So History Can Judge You

Buck Banks

As usual, Leonard Pitts nails it in his column today in the Miami Herald:

Dear President Bush:

I am glad you are, at 62, still a relatively young man. I am glad you are in robust health. This means there is a good likelihood of your being with us for decades yet to come, and I dearly want that. You see, history’s verdict is on the way, and I want you to see it for yourself.

We’ve been hearing the ”h” word a lot from your surrogates, your supporters and you as you make your final rounds before handing over the keys to the new team. History, we are told, will render the truest verdict on your time in office. History, it is implied, will say you were a far better president than we ever gave you credit for.

The failures rush readily to mind: Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Justice Department scandal, torture, Iraq War, Social Security, immigration . . . You leave a legacy of regression and division, and a nation worse off than before you took office.

You said it again Monday in your farewell press conference. History will have the final say.

It is a curious position for someone who has been, as the quote above suggests, rather dismissive of history’s judgment. It occurs to me that, as patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, so history is the last refuge of the failed president.

But you and yours keep returning to it, reminding us how Harry Truman left office not much more beloved than you are now, but history took another look and decided he was a better president than anyone thought at the time. Frankly, the very fact that you and your team repeatedly invoke the 33rd president in defending your legacy is rather telling.

That’s not a defense, it’s a Hail Mary pass. It’s hoping against hope. Truman enjoyed an extreme makeover, yes. Most presidents do not.

Yes, history does refine our initial assessments of a given president. But those refinements usually move in increments.

You would need more than increments of movement, sir. You would need a football field. I don’t see it happening.

Credit where it’s due: you were the best U.S. president Africa ever had. Your work to reduce AIDS rates on the mother continent never got as much attention — and praise — as it deserved.

But there the list ends: I find it impossible to think of another praiseworthy achievement. The failures, though, rush readily to mind: Katrina, Abu Ghraib, Justice Department scandal, torture, Iraq War, Social Security, immigration . . . You leave a legacy of regression and division, and a nation worse off by multiple measures than before you took office.

[…]

Obama’s Dinner Party from Hell

Trish

Graphic by Jake Turcotte appears at the Christian Science Monitor

If I were Barack Obama, I could think of few things worse than the dinner party he recently attended at George Will’s house.

Who was on the guest list?

The New York Times’s David Brooks, the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer, CNBC’s Lawrence Kudlow, National Review’s Rich Lowry, and the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol.

No Joe the Plumber? No. He’s over in Israel covering a war.

Good Lord. What must that have been like? I bet Obama staggered outside afterward and tossed back a few Rolaids, chased with a couple of stiff shots. At least that’s what I would have done.

Interns Filled Seats at Final Bush Press Conference

Trish

If, like me, you were caught in your car during the president’s last press conference and couldn’t punch the button fast enough to change the station, you heard these introductory remarks. And you were puzzled.

The last two rows in the seven-row briefing room were empty, and a press aide told White House interns to fill those seats

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Tapper. We have been through a lot together. As I look through the room, I see Jake, Mike, Herman, Ann Compton. Just seemed like yesterday that — that I was on the campaign trail and you were analyzing my speeches and my policies. And I see a lot of faces that travel with me around the world and — to places like Afghanistan and Iraq and Africa.* I see some new faces, which goes to show there’s some turnover in this business.

What, you wondered, does that mean? Turnover? No, just time marching on.

But when we find out the truth, the remark makes a lot more sense.

The White House had high expectations for yesterday’s final, historic news conference. “ONE CORRESPONDENT PER ORGANIZATION,” proclaimed the bulletin sent to reporters. “STANDING ROOM ONLY FOR NON-SEAT HOLDERS.” But when the appointed hour of 9:15 a.m. arrived, the last two rows in the seven-row briefing room were empty, and a press aide told White House interns to fill those seats.

Last September, ABC’s Martha Radditz noted that there were so few reporters at press conferences that Bush was beginning to be happy to see them.

The press is paying so little attention to him that he actually looks excited to see us when he ventures out. The briefings are so sparsely attended that practically everyone there could get a front row seat.

What must it be like to be George W. Bush these days? The proof of his failure is all around him yet he forges on, rationalizing and explaining it away.

* Africa. You know, a country, like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Let the Rewrites Begin! George and Laura Re-remember History

Trish

Appearing on Larry King Live, Laura Bush let it be known she was a little unhappy with that uppity black guy who showed so little respect to her husband during the presidential campaign.

George W. Peckerhead Bush now says he was above all that partisan name-calling. Let’s review.

…Laura Bush said she took some of Obama’s critiques of her husband personally.

“Were you angry at it?” King asked.

“Yes, sort of. George didn’t really even know about it because he didn’t really watch it that much,” Laura Bush said, laughing.

“So what’s new?” Bush piped in. “When you make big decisions and tough calls, you’re going to get criticized.”

“During the course of this presidency, I’ve been disappointed at times by the silly name-calling that goes on in Washington — it’s really not necessary,” Bush said. “I’ve done my best, though, to make sure I didn’t bring the presidency down to that level.”

Well, isn’t that nice? George W. Peckerhead Bush is above all that partisan name-calling because, you know, it’s just not necessary. And he’d never do any of that stuff.

Yeah. Let’s review.

President Bush and leading Republicans are increasingly charging that Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry and others in his party are giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq — a line of attack that tests the conventional bounds of political rhetoric.

Appearing in the Rose Garden yesterday with Iraq’s interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry’s statements about Iraq “can embolden an enemy.” After Kerry criticized Allawi’s speech to Congress, Vice President Cheney tore into the Democratic nominee, calling him “destructive” to the effort in Iraq and the struggle against terrorism.

It was the latest instance in which prominent Republicans have said that Democrats are helping the enemy or that al Qaeda, Iraqi insurgents and other enemies of the United States are backing Kerry and the Democrats. Such accusations are not new to American politics, but the GOP’s line of attack this year has been pervasive and high-level.

[…]

The Long Goodbye: Bush Wants Another 15 Minutes

Trish

Bush just can’t seem to get enough of saying goodbye. After his final farewell press conference yesterday, in which he made fun of a reporter’s name in his signature boorish style, he’s requesting 15 minutes of prime time on Thursday to bid adieu to the rest of us. Wonder if he’ll take any personal parting shots at you.

While the networks mull over whether to cover this little piece of newsy non-news, they must also consider the bottom line.

If the address sticks with tradition and goes at 9 p.m. ET, it would preempt or delay in East Coast markets tentpole shows including ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” NBC’s “The Office” and CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

Grey’s Anatomy, CSI, whatever. But The Office? A new episode? How could they? Thank God for hulu.

Actually, I think Bush’s farewell is news. We already know he thinks history will vindicate him, and that he and Laura plan to “write” books and give lectures and open a liberry that will show what a great president he really was.

For this address, I would expect a Nixonian Checkers-type pity party, in which Bush will claim to have done it all for America, and to have been misunderstood and wrongly maligned.

Adios, asshat.