Barack Obama on The Huffington Post

D.C. Churches Compete To Attract The Obamas

2008-11-22T11:13:29Z

There have been letters, discreet inquiries and bold appeals. Some are using their connections; others are just seeking a foot in the door.

It's part of the spirited competition among Washington churches to land the most sought-after Christians in town: the Obama family.

NY Times: Obama "Surrounding Himself With Pragmatists Rather Than Ideologues"

2008-11-22T09:47:13Z

President-elect Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination with the enthusiastic support of the left wing of his party, fueled by his vehement opposition to the decision to invade Iraq and by one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate.

Now, his reported selections for two of the major positions in his cabinet -- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state and Timothy F. Geithner as secretary of the Treasury -- suggest that Mr. Obama is planning to govern from the center-right of his party, surrounding himself with pragmatists rather than ideologues.

Nancy Snow: Obama Grows a Beard

2008-11-22T09:22:07Z

I can't be the only one who has noticed that this President-elect who ignited his Democratic base and the world has grown in stature and gravitas since the election. Just this past Sunday, 60 Minutes broke a nearly 10-year record in viewership with the first interview with the Obamas since the election. Over 25 million Americans listened as the former junior Senator from Illinois said that he's noticed a lot more people around him now and that he's not sure the whole thing of winning it all has sunk in yet.

This is why he told Steve Kroft that he's been reading a lot more about past presidents, notably Lincoln, Kennedy, FDR, Truman, and Reagan, all classic persuader-in-chiefs. The one whose legacy draws so many comparisons is Lincoln, famous for keeping his enemies closer to the point of appointing them to his inner cabinet. But there is that other characteristic that Obama shares, even if just metaphorically.

Geoff Gehman of the Morning Cal describes Lincoln as a

high-wire diplomat who deflected criticism with humor and common sense, picked a diverse cabinet of strong rivals and promoted union in his inaugural address. He ended the speech by urging a divided nation to obey ''the better angels of our nature.''

Harold Holzer, co-chair of the U.S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission and author of more than 30 books on Lincoln and the Civil War describes the "cultivating whiskers" during the interregnum period:

You know, he is still the only president-elect who changed his appearance between election and inauguration. I think Lincoln thought about growing a beard very calculatedly, as he did everything else. It was not just the fact that it would be inconvenient to shave; there were plenty of convenient places to shave on the tour. I think he knew he didn't take great photographs, knew the artistic media was achieving great power in spreading pictorial reassurance across the country. He thought a beard might make him seem a more wise, avuncular statesman, add more gravitas to his log cabin-to-White House story. His beard also enabled the country to not focus on the secession crisis for a few weeks, which was a relief.

Obama too has grown a beard. He appears so presidential with his solid choices, asking that those who come to work with him check their ideology and political labels at the door. His new cabinet posts will be in fuller view after Thanksgiving, but I imagine a lot of us sitting down with our loved ones this week will be satisfied not only with what's on the plate before us, but with the president-elect who will take full command on January 20, 2009.

Obama Promises "Immediate Action" On The Economy

2008-11-22T09:07:08Z

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday outlined his plan to create 2.5 million jobs in coming years to rebuild roads and bridges and modernize schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.

"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis; these are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama said in the weekly Democratic radio address. The economic recovery plan being developed by his staff aims to create 2.5 million jobs by January 2011, and he wants to get it through Congress quickly and sign it soon after taking office.

David Quigg: Don't Tell William Langewiesche to "Have a Safe Flight" (And Other Ways to Avoid Self-Destruction in the War on Terror)

2008-11-22T02:35:48Z

The very first reader of my previous HuffPost piece interpreted some quotes I used so differently than I'd intended that I worried I'd been criminally clumsy in the way I'd framed another person's words.

Three facts made my worry more sickening:

1) The person I'd quoted is a writer I've admired for years: William Langewiesche of Vanity Fair.

2) The point of my piece -- that President-elect Obama could fortify America immeasurably by talking to us like grownups about terrorism -- means so much to me. I hated to think I might have bungled the job.

3) That very first reader of my piece was my wife. We were about to go to lunch. Together. So I didn't have the luxury of shrugging off my possible screwup. What's more, my wife loved Langewiesche's writing before I did -- especially his reporting from the wreckage of the World Trade Center. So she wasn't predisposed to think of him as naive. Which is what she was doing.

Here's the quote that messed up my lunch. Langewiesche spoke the words in 2007 during a speech about his book on the spread of nuclear weapons:

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to live in a world where the United States would do the completely unrealistic and say in advance, 'If you hit us, we will take the hit. We don't want to be hit. But we'll take it and we'll not complain. We will not overdo our reaction. So we will diminish the effect of what you want to do to us. We will mourn our dead. And there will be possibly several hundred thousand. We will rebuild the city as quickly as we can and we will accept whatever level of radiation poisoning without complaint. So go to hell."

My wife read that quote and thought it was tantamount to advising a battered wife to just sit back, take the beatings, and hope her husband eventually would get bored and disappear from her life. Langewiesche's phrase "radiation poisioning without complaint" particularly bothered her.

I defended Langewiesche's position. I argued that he'd surely want America to hunt al Qaeda -- not just literally sit back and accept a massacre. But my defense made it more and more clear that I was guessing at the details of what Langewiesche believed. This was no good.

Two days later -- after a kick in the butt from my newspaper-editor aunt who reminded me that journalists ask questions instead of guessing at details -- I got Langewiesche on the phone.

"Of course, bin Laden should be pursued," he said Friday in answer to my first question. "In the Middle East, which is an area I know well, you definitely don't turn the other cheek. That's seen as a weakness."

It's about calibrating our response, he said. Get al Qaeda? Yes. Use 9/11 as a pretext for going off on a tangent and invading Iraq? No.

Now, if my interview with Langewiesche had merely settled a misunderstanding in my marriage, I wouldn't be writing this post. Langewiesche did more. Much more. He guided me to a trailhead.

Yes, he's pessimistic. Yes, he thinks we Americans would punish Obama or any other leader who dares to talk to us like grownups about terrorism. But he pointed to a spot on the map where a president could start to steer us away from our default reactions to terrorism: shock, panic, and a lust for scattershot vengeance.

That spot on the map is marked "safety."

Our problem, according to Langewiesche, is that we have "embraced safety as the highest value." He said you can see this in everything from the laws passed after 9/11 to the words we use to see each other off at the airport:

"'Have a safe trip. Have a safe flight.' It's deeply embedded in our culture right now. If that's our highest value or one of our highest values, then we are doomed to self-destruct ... after a terrorist attack."

Langewiesche argued there's a direct link between our indulgence in "huge public displays of grief" and the "famous massive failure of the American press" in the months before the Iraq War.

America is not supposed to act like this. Langewiesche noted that America only rose to its spot in the world's hierarchy by embracing risk -- in everything from economics to everyday life.

As he spoke, I thought of the American Revolution, of the fact that our country only exists because our forefathers stuck a thumb in the eye of the most powerful empire on Earth.

Not safe.

I thought of the reason my own unique DNA even exists: A Polish teenager left her family, made her way to Antwerp, boarded a ship, crossed an ocean in steerage, disembarked, and tried to make a life for herself in a country where she couldn't even speak the language.

Not safe.

A risk.

A risk that allowed the Polish girl to meet my great-grandfather. A risk that, in turn, led to the birth of my grandmother, to the birth of my father, to the moment my father met my mother, to their marriage, to my own birth.

Risk, when you reflect on it, is so obviously how we got to where we are as a people, as a country. It's depressing that safety has elbowed risk aside to such an extent. For all our bluster, so many of us are so scared.

Langewiesche thinks we are probably too scared for a president to reason with us -- about terrorism, about our self-defeating wish for total safety: "The fault is with us that our politicians can't speak honestly about this even if they want to."

I'm not so sure. I'm still intoxicated enough by the election results to believe that Americans are ready to hear the truth. But the truth needs to be delivered carefully and it needs to be delivered before the next terrorist attack. Langewiesche and I do agree on that.

"That's correct," he said. "It has to be done in advance. It really does."

So what could Obama do if he took the political risk of talking to us like grownups about terrorism, about fear, about safety?

"Let's talk about safety," Langewiesche said. "We know how to construct a very safe society. Basically, it's what dictatorships do."

With that bleak truth in mind, Obama could ask us the key question: Do we want to live in a society organized around what Langewiesche termed "the pursuit of safety at any cost"?

As it turns out, this is a question I've thought about a lot. Back in June, I gave my own answer to the question in a piece called "Live Tyrannized and Die Anyways." As I wrote then, "We can risk being murdered before our next birthday as proud citizens of a country that stands for something. Or we can slog into inconsequential old age as cowering, hunted inhabitants of some putrid corpse of what America once was."

Americans need to come up with their own answers. I think Obama can be the one to get us to think hard about what kind of a country we want to call home.

"Of course, Obama is capable of it," Langewiesche acknowledged.

He just doesn't think it will happen. He doesn't think we, as a people, are up to the conversation.

I'd love to prove him wrong. I suspect he'd love to see us prove him wrong. That's my guess, at least.

But I've already fouled up one lunch date by guessing at what Langewiesche thinks. So scratch that.

Whatever Langewiesche thinks or doesn't think, let's be grownups about this. Let's reject "the pursuit of safety at any cost." Let's take the risk of protecting America, its founding values, and the quality of our own lives.

It's a risk well worth taking. We could do it. With brave leadership at the top and a new notion of patriotism all through our society.

Mark Joseph: Secretary of State Clinton? I Just Don't Get It

2008-11-22T02:16:04Z

For the life of me I just don't understand why a) President-elect Obama would want to choose Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State and b) she would accept the post.

Why would Obama want to tarnish his brand new administration with the Clinton soap opera of Monica, Whitewater, Vince Foster, Marc Rich and company when he could start fresh with an entirely new team? And why would he want a mortal enemy like Hillary who is probably at this very moment plotting her comeback strategy for 2012, inside his administration, leaking to the press and undermining him? I thought he put the Clintons away for good. He seems too smart to do something like this.

Then again I don't understand Hillary's reasons either. Why would she want to take the post of Secretary of State, not exactly traditionally a stepping-stone position to the Presidency when she could stay in the Senate, knock off Harry Reid and become Majority Leader and be in good shape either for a rematch against Obama in 2012 or a run at Joe Biden in 2016.

Hey, they can get hitched if they want to, but it just doesn't make any sense to me.

Christina Bellantoni: Obama not selling Chicago home

2008-11-22T01:51:28Z

First published at WashingtonTimes.com

The CBS affiliate in Chicago captured a nice scoop today when President-elect Barack Obama stopped in at Manny's Deli.

In this raw video, Obama tells a woman he seems to know that he and Michelle plan to keep their Hyde Park house.

Huffington Post caught the clip but didn't note the news in the headline, and the CBS station posted it as a "Web extra" but also didn't catch the news.

"We're keeping our house," Obama says with the trademark grin.

"We're staying in there for awhile. Now's not the time to sell."

HuffPo also noted that the woman seemed to hint that Obama had White House ambitions more than a decade ago, teling the president-elect, "'Well you asked for it. I remember 12 years ago ..."

There was a protective pool reporter with him today and she filed a funny report about his corned beef order at the famed restaurant, but from the looks of it the press shuttled there by the transition team was kept out of earshot of his interaction with the crowd.

— Christina Bellantoni, White House correspondent,
The Washington Times

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Marcia DeSanctis: Piracy and Us

2008-11-22T00:39:08Z

Every day seems to bring another headline-grabbing act of piracy in the lawless waters off the Horn of Africa. When I recently wrote my Masters thesis relating maritime insecurity in Africa to U.S. national security objectives, I reported that, according to the International Maritime Bureau, acts of piracy in the seas around Somalia had tripled, from 10 in 2006 to 31 in 2007. So far in 2008, that number has doubled. If the seas represent global connectivity - the conduit of trade and commerce - then acts of crime on them may have global effects, as well. Otherwise said, piracy in the Gulf of Aden might seem like a pebble dropping, but the ripples may be felt everywhere.

It was not long ago that problems besetting Africa were far down the list of U.S. national security priorities. In 1995, the Department of Defense put the matter bluntly: "Ultimately, we see very little traditional strategic interest in Africa." Then came the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the 9/11 attacks and the war on terror, the spike in oil prices, and a recognition of the potential for global destabilization posed by interlocking threats such as poverty, AIDS and global warming. So the U.S. reassessed that strategy and in 2006, President Bush stated, "Africa holds growing geo-strategic importance and is a high priority for this administration."

Washington affirmed its commitment with the 2007 establishment of a unified Pentagon command, AFRICOM, that replaced the parceling out of Africa to the Pacific, Central and European Commands, and which became fully operational on October 1 of this year. On the continent, it had been widely criticized as militarization of aid, colonialization with a modern face, or a cynical attempt to secure energy and other resources against growing Chinese dominance. Furthermore, there remained distrust after historic policy failures in Somalia and Rwanda. No one wanted U.S. military bases or insta-intervention in Africa, and only Liberia stepped up to host the Command, which remains based in Stuttgart, Germany. The election of Barack Obama may change that perception.

AFRICOM's mission is to work with other U.S. agencies, allies and African partners - in the words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, "to prevent war, not to wage it." As such, with the Pentagon suffering a branding crisis in the wake of two unloved wars, and with the changing nature of conflict, it may be the right time for a new strategic paradigm like AFRICOM. Piracy in the Horn is just one of the non-traditional threats to which the Command, with its coalition partners, will likely respond (for the time being CENTCOM still leads the effort.)

With expensive wars on top of a worldwide financial crisis, it may be difficult to prioritize policy towards Africa, particularly as it consists of 53 independent countries, each with their own distinct relationship with the U.S. Recently, Congress cut AFRICOM's budget by one-third. But the continent must remain a focal point of the new administration's policies and the President-elect is and will be a potent symbolic figurehead to lead it. Without overstating the potential for complete Malthusian doom, several violent current conflicts in Africa could have widespread spillover effects. Humanitarian crises emanating from large populations displaced from civil wars and natural disasters, combined with corruption and exploitation of natural resources, may increase the adverse affects on human security and hence, national security. Much has been made of the link between disaffected populations and militancy, including Islamic fundamentalism, in countries like Somalia that is 99 per cent Muslim. Whether or not this actually holds true, people fatigued by poverty, hunger and hopelessness are not ideal candidates to help to breed stable democracies. Unilateral military response is not the answer, but rather recognizing the relationship between security and development to deal with potential threats and their root causes.

Not the least of these threats is piracy in the Horn of Africa. If piracy is a consequence of the failed Somali state and economic hardship from war and drought, it also exacerbates the problems - this in a country where the UN estimates 3.5 people in need of humanitarian assistance by the end of this year. Ships containing food and other critical aid require coalition naval or NATO escorts (Somalia has no navy to patrol its waters), and once on the ground, supplies are frequently hijacked. Lawlessness and vast ungoverned spaces allows the transit of other illegal vessels, which wipes out local fishing and creates conditions where other crime or terrorism may flourish. And crucially, the narrow Bab-el-Mandab Strait - a vital sea line of communication - passes by the Horn of Africa, connecting the Gulf of Aden with the Red Sea. Roughly 40 per cent of all transoceanic oil tankers, containing 3.3 million barrels a day, pass through it each year. Acts of piracy underscore the vulnerability of these chokepoints and of the world's oil supplies, 60 per cent of which are transported by slow-moving tankers. Furthermore, with 95 percent of all global trade travelling by sea, diverting ships around the southern tip of Africa adds time and an estimated $500,000.00 per ship, increasing consumer cost, - yet another toll of piracy's threat to global commerce and freedom of the seas.

On Africa's west coast, the situation is also dire, with 24 reported incidents of piracy in Nigeria and the Gulf of Guinea in just the third quarter of this year. As the fifth largest - and growing - exporter of petroleum to the U.S., with the ninth largest proven reserves of liquefied natural gas, Nigeria's strategic importance is intertwined with our dependence on fossil fuels. Acts of piracy by Nigerian rebels against international energy concerns in the vast Niger Delta aim to destabilize the world's oil and gas economy and have successfully and repeatedly done so.

Darfur has temporarily dropped off the mainstream news radar, but the escalating number of pirate attacks in the Horn of Africa is bringing Africa back into sharp focus. With a President of partial Kenyan descent, it remains to be seen how U.S. policy towards Africa will evolve or progress. To the poor countries in the world, Barack Obama's activities as a community organizer show an appreciation of what it is to be powerless. Knowledge, rooted in his heritage, leads him to an understanding of the needs of developing countries, and the citizens of those countries are counting on that empathy. African citizens have celebrated his election as an implicit rejection of the too-common corruption of that continent's leaders. So the expectations must be high and with that, AFRICOM may be afforded some leeway at first.

If AFRICOM adheres to its mission - works with allies and partners, retains its focus on the prevention of conflict, and keeps an eye towards helping African countries improve the human and economic environment where threats like piracy can take root and grow - it may prove to be a strategic concept whose time has come.

Verizon Fires Workers For Looking At Obama's Cell Phone Records

2008-11-21T22:59:12Z

Verizon Wireless has fired employees connected with a breach of records from a cell phone used earlier this year by President-elect Barack Obama, a Verizon source told CNN Friday.

The source would not say how many people were terminated, but said that "we now consider this matter closed."

Bush: Obama Ran A "Very Effective Campaign"

2008-11-21T22:02:32Z

President Bush praised his successor for a "very effective campaign" in a new interview, but showed some skepticism about President-elect Barack Obama's promise of change.

In an interview with a Peruvian television network released Friday, Bush said he hopes Obama "succeeds in his job." Then he was asked about Obama's campaign theme of "el cambio," or change, for the United States.

Sidwell Friends : Obama's School Choice

2008-11-21T20:56:51Z

President-elect Barack Obama and his wife have chosen Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters, opting for a private institution that another White House child, Chelsea Clinton, attended a decade ago.

"A number of great schools were considered," said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama. "In the end, the Obamas selected the school that was the best fit for what their daughters need right now."

She said Sidwell can provide the security and privacy that Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, will need as part of the new first family and Sidwell can help with that. She also said that Sasha and Malia had become good friends with Vice President-elect Joe Biden's grandchildren, who go to the school.

Sidwell is a private Quaker school with a campus in northwest Washington for grades 5-12 and another in suburban Bethesda, Md., for kindergarten through fourth grade. Malia is in fifth grade and Sasha is in second grade, suggesting that the girls would attend schools at different locations.

Huff TV: Arianna On The Value of "First Granny" Moving Into the White House

2008-11-21T19:39:33Z

Inspired by the news that "First Granny" Marian Robinson is moving to Washington, Arianna reflected on the importance of having grandmothers be a part of their grandchildren's lives.

Watch the segment from MSNBC.

Shahed Amanullah: The Surprise Effect of Anti-Muslim Rhetoric in the Election

2008-11-21T18:33:30Z

If there was any doubt as to the depth and extent of anti-Muslim feelings among portions of the US electorate, this year's presidential elections have most certainly put it to rest. The extent to which candidates and voters alike propagated anti-Muslim themes in order to support a political agenda has been unprecedented. Nearly every major candidate relied on fear of Muslims at some point to stir voter sentiment through fear: Mitt Romney often railed against "radical Islam", Rudy Giuliani routinely invoked the spectre of "Islamic terror," Fred Thompson warned that the US is in a "global war with radical Islam," and John McCain called the fight against "radical Islamic extremists" the "transcendent challenge of the 21st century." Even Barack Obama, who was himself the target of anti-Muslim sentiments - tapped into this theme when he called upon Americans to wean themselves off of Middle Eastern (i.e. Muslim) oil.

Voters - many of whom I would guess couldn't tell the difference between an Islamist and the Muslim next door - responded to these overtures with one of the most sustained and organic email campaigns in recent memory. Repeated tales of Barack Obama's alleged Islamic past and/or present were so effective that in one Texas survey taken only a week before the election, 23% of all voters still believed that Obama was a Muslim. The level to which people clung to this meme despite two years of repeated statements in the media to the contrary is a startling reminder of how deep-seated the fear of Muslims remains.

It didn't stop there. One of the more ambitious attempts to stoke anti-Muslim feelings in order to sway the election was the mailing of 28 million copies of a DVD entitled "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West" to households in swing states. Like the emails and statements above, the "Obsession" film blurs the lines between violent radicalism and ordinary Muslims, playing into legitimate fears that many Americans still have in the wake of 9/11.

But despite the extent and volume of anti-Muslim rhetoric, candidates who embraced these methods this year universally failed to get elected.

From the earliest days of the primary, campaigns seemed to falter in direct proportion to the extend politicians tried to make anti-Muslim feelings the foundation of their campaigns. Giuliani and Romney, by far the more strident of the Republican candidates, found no traction with the anti-Muslim arguments and dropped out early. In contrast, John McCain - who rejected Pastor Rod Parsley's endorsement solely due to his anti-Muslim comments and publicly stated that Muslim-Americans were qualified to hold any office in the land - rose to the top of his party.

There's another beneficial side effect that this rhetoric had: it galvanized Muslim-Americans to take control of their own political destiny. After all, if you're already a part of the elections (in an imaginary sense), why not dive in yourself and provide some Muslim reality?

While Muslim-American organizations took a low profile for fear of unwittingly contributing to the stigma, everyday Muslims took it upon themselves to get involved at a grassroots level, where they could stay under the radar and confront anti-Muslim feelings at a personal level. Buoyed by an affinity for Barack Obama, in part due to the slings and arrows that he took on their behalf, thousands of Muslim-Americans gravitated to his campaign and fought back through the political process. And Muslim Republicans, though smaller in number, worked from within the party to excise anti-Muslim sentiment, with some degree of success.

Will the next crop of presidential candidates learn from the lessons of 2008 and stick to more meaningful issues than who can be harder on Muslims? Only time will tell, but even if they don't, there will be a new generation of Muslim grassroots political activists in both parties waiting to confront them.
Cross-posted from Beliefnet's Progressive Revival blog

Jason Notte: Cheer Up, Axl, You're Not that Irrelevant

2008-11-21T18:24:35Z

Sometime in the near future, a young man will ride the L train between Brooklyn and Manhattan wearing a bandanna around his neck, $100 jeans with a studded belt and a crisp, new Guns 'n' Roses T-shirt.

We hate to break this to you, Axl Rose, but this person has no intention of buying Chinese Democracy. A few things have changed since you and the guys you once hung out with - we'll call them Velvet Revolver for the sake of brevity - released your tragic cover album swan song The Spaghetti Incident? back in 1993.

For starters, there is no real music industry anymore. Sure, you have "major" labels clinging to life-raft acts such as Lil' Wayne, U2, Beyonce and a handful of others, but nobody really shops for the stuff anymore. While you've been in your cave braiding your hair and eating whole wild buffalo, people have latched on to something called "the Internet," which has made music a hell of a lot more accessible. Instead of paying $13.99 for an album of two decent songs and eight tracks of filler, which I believe was referred to as Use Your Illusion in your day, you can either pay a buck for each track you want, join a service that offers the same track for pennies or take your chances downloading them from other users.

It seems chaotic, but it's a system you helped create when the only way to hear new Guns 'N' Roses material was to download leaked tracks. You didn't seem to mind the leaks when people were singing along at Rock in Rio or at your MTV Video Music Awards appearance, but you went and had a blogger thrown in jail back in August for doing the same thing.

Speaking of which, the music media's changed quite a bit, too. The death of the music industry was like the fall of Babylon, and musicians were scattered to the far corners of the earth to commune with fans and sell scads of merchandise as they saw fit. This led to the creation of thousands of blogs on for every genre imaginable, with the writers devoted to some ambiguous concept called "indie rock" holding a great deal of sway.

Remember how you took shots at the press on that Use Your Illusion II song "Get In The Ring," asking Bob Guccione Jr. at Spin "What, are you pissed off because your dad gets more pussy than you?" Hilarious. With such vital publications as Circus Magazine, Hit Parader and Kerrang marginalized by the slow death of print media, a new "Get In The Ring" would require a whole boxed set to address the "indie" bloggers steeping beyond their jurisdiction to cover you these days.

You may be saying to yourself "Well, some of these guys have to be fans of mine, right?" Not necessarily. A lot of them are willing to acknowledge Appetite For Destruction as a great album, but it's a rough road from there. The biggest fans of your music, it seems, are douchebags. You'll recognize them by their blue button-down shirts, doughy complexions and permanent state of intoxication. They're the guys who bellow "Paradise City" at an Applebee's happy hour or spill their beer on the folks in front of them and shout "whooooo" every time a stadium sound man plays "Welcome To The Jungle" to fire up the crowd. This happens about 389 times per game at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.

This isn't really your fault, Axl. Music really just isn't a cool enterprise anymore. The labels don't really have time or money to waste on ruffling feathers, so songs about one girl kissing another but not really being lesbians are what pass for risque these days. Even rappers aren't as brazen as N.W.A. was when they borrowed "Appetite For Destruction" as a song title years ago, referring to drugs and crime in encypted wording that makes "Mr. Brownstone" look like a 1-2-3-4 locker combination. As for concerts, if you're not some geriatric has-been charging $90 for nosebleed seats in a hockey arena, you're a band that the other band's fans aren't sticking around for because they just got a text message about a party somewhere else. If you're lucky, your best song was that person's ringtone.

This is why you shouldn't take it too personally when people say Guns 'n' Roses isn't relevant anymore. Granted, Chinese Democracy contributor Sebastian Bach's last musical effort of note was with Hep Alien on the WB's Gilmore Girls, but relevancy in this climate means making a minor contribution and then bowing the hell out before anybody notices you're gone. Ever heard of Chamillionaire, Colbie Calliat, the Vines or We Are Scientists? No? Neither did we, really. There's a lot of disposable music out there, and mainstream rock is the Fresh Kills landfill of it.

The same people who are writing off Chinese Democracy as a relic probably haven't had the misfortune of hearing what comprises "modern" rock today. The music that Velvet Revolver made with Scott Weiland, whose drug and mental health issues make you look as serene as Barack Obama, was mired in an Sunset Strip sound that no longer exists. You don't have to worry about Vince Neil threatening to kick your ass, as he and his Motley Crue bandmates have become reality show parodies of themselves and spent their last album, Saints of Los Angeles, looking back on yesteryear and abdicating the throne. In their place are two forms of rock bands: Hard bands that sound the same (Seether, Disturbed, et. al) and softer rockers who sound like potential date rapists (Hinder, Stain'd, etc.).

In today's music environment, you have the distinct advantage of being paid millions (upwards of $13 million for Chinese Democracy alone) to take risks and make whatever music you'd like. Coming into a deep recession, the high crime, junkies, prostitures, winos and drifters that were the foundation of your greatest work are slowly coming back into Vogue. You have the chance to give people not only a free Dr. Pepper, but a voice in what could be a very depressing era.

Let them wear their ironic T-shirts and mock your contracting hairline and expanding gut. Let them laugh at the fact that three different presidents have been elected since you began this vision quest. Let it all run off your sagging, leather-draped shoulders Axl.

You may have taken your precious time with Chinese Democracy, but you also may have timed it just right.

Obama Aides: Lieberman Would Have Helped McCain

2008-11-21T17:48:19Z

Top advisers to President-elect Barack Obama's presidential campaign said Thursday that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) would have been a powerful boost to the Republican ticket.

During a conference on the 2008 election hosted by Politico and the University of Southern California, Obama-Biden deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand said choosing the renegade senator as his running mate would have helped McCain undermine Obama's claim to represent a new kind of politics.

Sidwell Friends Famous Alumni (SLIDESHOW)

2008-11-21T17:48:17Z

It's official: after much speculation, the Obama girls will be attending Sidwell Friends School when they move to Washington, DC in January. Check out our slideshow of famous Sidwell Friends alumi below:

****See more Obama slideshows****

Earl Pomerantz: "Uncle Grumpy -- On Race"

2008-11-21T17:44:49Z

Here we go, boys and girls. It's Uncle Grumpy - on race. Please, always remember. It's Uncle Grumpy talking. Not me.

Uncle Grumpy. Not me.

My grandmother was left-handed. She told me how, when she was a kid, the teachers would strap her left hand to her side, and force her to write with her right hand.

Why did they do that? Because the culture of that time believed that left-handed people were biologically inferior. Worse than inferior. They were bad. Do you know what the Latin word for "left" is?

Sinister.

Left-handed people were considered to be sinister. Why? It was never explained.

Wherever you looked, the interests of left-handed people were ruthlessly ignored. The world belonged to the right-handed, and everything was tailored to their needs. Scissors. Can openers. Notebooks. (The coiled wire rubbed on the lefty's arm.)

Negative messages insinuated themselves into the language. You've heard of a "left-handed" compliment? That is not a good compliment. "Southpaw?" I don't know its derivation, but just the sound of it -- "southpaw" -- it doesn't make you wish you'd been born one. In the reactionary culture of baseball, left-handed pitchers were viewed as unstable, bordering on crazy.

Left-handed children were stamped as a lower category of humanity, suffering treatment consistent with their status. Throughout in the culture, the message was crystal clear:

Right-handed. Good.

Left-handed. Bad.

At some point, maybe science had something to do with it, maybe folks just came to their senses, there was a liberating change. The "handedness" issue became irrelevant. It was as if a light had been turned on. "That stuff is all wrong!" People thought back on the demonization of the left-handed and it was like:

"What were we thinking?"

Finally they had realized the obvious: "Handedness" was something you were born with. Valuing one hand as being superior to the other hand was ridiculous.

After centuries of misbehavior resulting from a mistaken belief, the concept of "handedness" came to be seen as what it had always been:

A meaningless distinction.

I thought you were talking about race, Uncle Grumpy.

Uncle Grumpy?

Earl Pomerantz's blog can be reached at earlpomerantz.blogspot. com

Wendy Block: Can We?

2008-11-21T17:20:54Z

"I can't go on. I'll go on." -- "The Unnamable" by Samuel Beckett

Yea us! Americans just spent over a billion in time, energy and dollars and changed our government.

I'm exhausted. For two weeks, my brain has been floating on dreamy currents in the South Seas.

So one recent morning just before I punched the radio button for "Democracy Now," I was not thinking. Because right after the funky opening music, there was Amy Goodman spurring Naomi Klein to Shock Doctrinize me about how banks are violating the Wall Street bailout bill by using $250 billion to pay bonuses to top management and dividends to shareholders (though some have apparently reevaluated this decision), rather than helping revive the economy by loaning money to institutions which will then loan it to consumers and small businesses; and about how Congress knows this is illegal, but won't stop the criminal activity because it's afraid of further disrupting the markets and the economy.

The Federal Reserve won't reveal which banks (and maybe other corporations) it's loaning to, supposedly because customers will fear the worst and withdraw their money. At the same time, Gordon Brown's British bailout deal forces English banks to guarantee Britons seats on Boards of Directors, voting rights going forward, curbs on executive pay, suspension of shareholder dividends, the institution of repayments to government, and the distribution of bailout loans to homeowners and struggling businesses.

Goodman and Klein were not finished, but I was.

Then on the way to my kitchen, I should not have glanced at David Sirota's prescient new book The Uprising. I could hear his cod liver oil reminder that real change requires us to hold our government accountable now -- post-election thrill and lame duck Congress be damned. It's barely two weeks since we voted in our spectacular new president and strapping Democratic Congressional majority. I'm not ready to return to the same non-adrenaline-rush grassroots work that propelled Obama and the Dems to such a decisive victory.

Sirota and his inspiration, community organizer extraordinaire Saul Alinsky, addressed this disinclination. Sirota writes, "any effective organizer in any uprising... will tell you the campaigns that attract the most loyal followings are usually those that make the activism fun for the activists." Alinsky wrote, "A good tactic is one your people enjoy." Besides enjoyment, people need to feel they're doing something important, taking "a significant part in the action" according to Alinsky and Sirota, and "solving their own crises."

Turns out that even if my brain's still vacationing, I remember that my body returned to work two days after the big win -- helping pack up the San Fernando Valley Democratic Party's election headquarters for its move out. It was fun and more aerobic than the workout I escaped that afternoon.

Grassroots meetings are underway too, to keep the progressive agenda moving, to fight California's absurd gay marriage ban and to gain some control over the bailout process, if that's possible. Regulars are showing up along with a few newbies, but I am worried about how to convert the passion of these awakened activists into ongoing commitment that supersedes boredom, discouragement and desperate times.

My email network shows that MoveOn's leaders are scheduling "Fired Up" house parties across the country, and that many groups and individuals are holding their own versions. It feels like a movement.

I wonder if the new progressives know that without them, banking and other corporate lobbyists, their starve-government cronies and high-salaried, amoral minions will have little trouble trashing our still scruffy alliance. But I know those other guys are just biding their time.

MJ Rosenberg: The Arab Peace Initiative: What Obama Should Do

2008-11-21T17:19:59Z

The Palestinian Authority, in a brilliant display of public relations, ran Hebrew-language ads this week, in Israel's four major newspapers, endorsing the Arab Peace Initiative (formerly known as the Saudi plan) and calling on Israelis to support it, too. The Palestinian Authority is also urging President-elect Barack Obama to put his prestige behind the initiative as a critical first step to help end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The British media claims that President-elect Obama has endorsed it, but these reports are false. The British media has always been rather dodgy when it comes to issues relating to the United States.

I wish it were true. And I hope Obama does endorse the initiative early in his term. But he hasn't yet.

One of the stellar accomplishments of the Obama campaign's Jewish outreach
team was its ability to prevent the candidate from taking stands on specific Israeli-Palestinian issues--leaving him with maximum flexibility.

That is not why he received almost 80 percent of the Jewish vote. Jewish voters do not cast their votes with the Middle East foremost in their minds. Nonetheless, the campaign's studied ambiguity probably helped deliver some key precincts in battleground states like Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Nevada.

The campaign is over and governing time approaches. The new administration will soon have to decide how to proceed. One thing is certain. It has a stronger hand than any new administration in recent history. It won in a landslide; Obama is the first Democrat to win a majority of the popular vote since Lyndon Johnson. His party controls both the House and the Senate. And Jewish voters are in his corner.

So where should he start?

He should start by endorsing the Arab Peace Initiative--the best offer the Arabs have ever made to Israel.

Forget what some Israeli officials and Jewish organizational types say about the Arab League plan. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. I say that because every provision in it requires the agreement of both Arabs and Israelis. So what if its language on borders presupposes full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-'67 lines? So what if it contemplates the return of more refugees than Israel can handle? Or that it envisions the full return of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians?

None of that matters because the language of the Arab Initiative represents the maximum Arab position, an opening position. The Saudis (and the other Arabs) are not saying "take it or leave it." They are saying, "let's negotiate."

In fact, to avoid misunderstanding, the reference to the return of the refugees--the most controversial part of the initiative--specifically refers to Israel's agreement. It calls for the "achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem agreed upon (my emphasis) in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194." Could anything be more clear? A solution to the refugee problem would not be imposed on Israel; it would have to be accepted by Israel.

That is true of everything in the initiative. In fact, it specifically states that its provisions are derived from UN Resolutions 242 and 338--the U.S.-drafted resolutions (endorsed by Israel) that call for direct negotiations to end the Arab-Israeli conflict on the basis of land for peace.

Of course, 242 and 338 have not resolved the conflict. This is in large part because, until recently, the Arab world was not ready to accept Israel's right to peace and security while Israel refused to accept Palestinian rights. Even after 1993, when the Palestinians and Israelis exchanged mutual recognition, the Arab world as a whole remained steadfast in its refusal to accept the presence of a Jewish state in its midst.

But now Israel accepts the Palestinian right to statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. And the Arab Peace Initiative offers Israel not just acceptance, but also full recognition and normalization of relations with the entire Arab world.

The initiative states that following successful negotiations, every single Arab state will: "(I) consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region, and (II) establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace."

So why is Israel dragging its feet rather than accepting the plan and starting to negotiate? The reason is, almost surely, the settlers. It's always the settlers!

No peace plan is going to permit a few hundred thousand Israeli settlers to remain in the West Bank--settlers, who have no intention of leaving. For instance, this weekend some 20,000 settlers (and their supporters) are descending on Hebron to defend their right to remain in a Palestinian home they seized. The army will ultimately move to evict them, but the militants say that the Israel Defense Forces is the enemy and that they will fight them. Past experience has demonstrated that they will attack the IDF soldiers who are ordered to move them. (In fact, attacks on soldiers began yesterday.)

This whole business of attacking soldiers is hard for an American to fathom. In the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson all had to send in troops to break the back of segregation in the Deep South. The segregationists were every bit as entrenched as the settlers--and they were armed--but once the president sent in the troops, resistance collapsed. Americans do not physically attack their own soldiers. Besides, the U.S. show of force was so overwhelming that the segregationists understood that they were beat.

What's wrong with Israel? Has the occupation so degraded attitudes toward the military that settlers feel that they can spit on them, throw rocks at them, or worse, and get away with it? Talk about democracy run amok.

That is not America's problem. Our problem is to resolve a conflict that harms American interests throughout the Muslim world, and has done so since 1967. Perhaps the American interest hurt most of all is Israel's long-term prospects for survival.

Time is running out. The Arab Peace Initiative presents an unprecedented opportunity. Obama should run with it.

MJ Rosenberg is the Director of Israel Policy Forum's Washington Policy Center.

Tom Cosgrove: Barack Obama, "These Kids" and Charter Public Schools

2008-11-21T16:18:38Z

Barack Obama, in a pre-election speech, told the story of a teacher he encountered who complained of a "these kids" syndrome - the tendency to explain away the failures of our education system by suggesting that "these kids" don't want to learn or "these kids"are just too far behind.

They're not "these kids," the teacher said, they're "our kids." And we need to see to the needs of "our kids," Obama said, all of them.

As Washington Post education columnist Jay Matthews pointed out in a recent piece http://boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/10/26/grade_change/, we spend too much time obsessing about how many young engineers we're turning out in some never-ending race against China and India - a race, by the way, that is a lot closer than news reports would have us believe - and not enough time focusing on the real problem: the failures of the schools serving our most vulnerable students.

"For those who look carefully at the performance of our schools, the real problem is not that the United States is falling behind, or that the entire system is failing," Matthews writes "It is the sorry shape of the bottom 30 percent of US schools, those in urban and rural communities full of low-income children."

The nation, he argues, should be looking at charter schools that have succeeded in reaching low-income children in areas like Harlem, Oakland and the Anacostia neighborhood in Washington D.C.

I'd add another community to that list: Barack Obama's own Chicago. Check out this Obama YouTube video: