Civil War Politics...2009?

The battle in Washington is not between liberals and conservatives; it is between the Union and the South.

On Wednesday, January 28, 2009, President Barack Obama’s $819 billion stimulus plan passed the House of Representatives, despite the solid opposition of the Confederates.

By the Confederates I mean the Republican Party and their allies among Southern conservative Democrats. The battle in Washington is not between liberals and conservatives; it is between the Union and the South.

The Republican Party that voted unanimously against the stimulus bill is, in essence, the party of the former Confederacy. In the House of Representatives, there is not a single Republican representative from New England. In the U.S. Senate, there is not a single Republican from the Pacific Coast.

The Republican congressional delegation is disproportionately Southern. Half of the four congressional leaders of the Republican Party are Southerners: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Virginia). (Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl is from Arizona and House Minority Leader John Boehner is a relic of the dying Midwestern wing of the GOP). The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Mike Duncan, is from Kentucky. Half of the candidates for the RNC chairmanship are Southerners: Duncan himself, Katon Dawson, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, and Chip Saltsman, former chairman of the Republican Party of Tennessee. (The other three are Michael Steele of Maryland, Ken Blackwell of Ohio and, Saul Anuzis of Michigan.) If you think most GOP spokesmen on TV seem to speak with a drawl, you’re not imagining things.

In addition, a majority of the 11 House Democrats who voted against the stimulus bill are Southerners or from states that border the South: Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith, both of Alabama; Gene Taylor, of Mississippi; Heath Shuler, of North Carolina; Jim Cooper, of Tennessee; Allen Boyd, Jr., of Florida; Frank M. Kratovil, of Maryland; and Brad Ellsworth, of Indiana. (The other three are Walt Minnick of Idaho, John Peterson and Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania.) Congressman Boyd, a prominent Blue Dog Democrat, was the only Democrat to support President Bush’s bill to partly privatize Social Security, which he co-sponsored. Appropriately, his 2nd Congressional District in the Florida Panhandle near Georgia and Alabama includes Dixie and Calhoun counties.

Do you see a pattern here?

The vote about the stimulus package was not about economics. It was about nullification. It was the bipartisan Confederacy sending a message to the rest of America, stricken by the greatest crisis since the Depression. That message? DROP DEAD.

Those who think that the Democrats could have won over more Republicans by making more concessions do not understand the neo-Confederate/Dixiecrat mentality. There was no one to bargain with on the other side. The Republiconfederate “alternative”—a joke of a bill consisting almost entirely of tax cuts—would not be taken seriously by any mainstream conservative economist. It was pure provocation.

The rest of the country needs to understand. This is not the nation-minded Republican Party of Lincoln and McKinley, Eisenhower and Dole. Nor is it the party of Herbert Hoover who, if he were alive, would be denounced by the Southern Right as the flawed but public-spirited Progressive he was. No, this is the party that was hijacked after the civil-rights revolution by former Democrats on the Southern far right. Its spiritual ancestors are the old states’ rights Southern conservative Democrats, like John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis and Strom Thurmond and Orval Faubus. The slogan of the segregationist Democrats—“massive resistance”—characterizes today’s Southern conservative resistance to necessary federal economic action, just as it inspired yesterday’s Southern conservative resistance to equal rights for black Americans.

The new Republican Party is a strange version of the old Democratic Party. It's the Dixiecrat wing without any other wings. The morphing of the Grand Old Party into a Southern-dominated faction goes back half a century to the so-called Southern Strategy to win a slice of the Southern vote in the Electoral College. Under George W. Bush, it would have seemed that this strategy reached its climax. But after the utter repudiation of Bush's presidency and the experiment with conservative Republican Party rule, the congressional Republicans left in the rubble are turning even more to the right—and the South.

Next time a Southern Republican or Blue Dog Democrat frets about big government, remind him or her of the Confederate Constitution, a bizarre document that sheds light on the mentality of today’s Southern conservatives. Southern opposition to capable national government is nothing new. In the Confederate Constitution, provisions modeled on those of the US Constitution that empowered the federal government of the Confederate States of America were followed by clauses frantically limiting the very powers that had just been bestowed.

According to Section 8 of the Confederate Constitution, the Confederate Constitution shall have power:
To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States.

This is the only constitution in history, to my knowledge, which banned the government from promoting and fostering branches of national industry. But it gets better. Here’s Section 8 (3), giving the Confederate Congress the power:
(3) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this, nor any other clause contained in the Constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce; except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids to navigation upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors and the removing of obstructions in river navigation; in all which cases such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.

Imagine that. The Confederates, in their constitution, tried to ban all government infrastructure spending to facilitate commerce, but then had second thoughts and included lights, beacons, buoys, and harbors—but nothing else, really, we mean it! The political descendants of these people are the ones who today want to bind the Confederate—excuse me, I mean the US Congress to rigid and inflexible “pay-go” rules no matter what the circumstances and, like the Confederates, want to make transportation rely on user fees like tolls on interstate highways rather than pay for public goods out of taxes.

It is because I am a Southerner and the descendant of Southerners that I recognize the suicidal nature of this pathological regional political culture. I like Southern manners, food, music, and literature—but I hate the reactionary strain of my native region’s politics (there is an enlightened, minority strain in Southern politics, from the Kentuckians Clay and Lincoln to LBJ, the Gores and Bill Clinton). The greatest victims of Southern conservatism have always been the majority of Southerners of all races.

The Republican/Blue Dog approach to political economy was tried in my part of the country for generations, and the result was economic backwardness and military defeat. The antebellum South was hostile to government promotion of industry and investment in public transportation—and, ultimately, the Union, relying on the factories and railroads of the North, crushed it. Unable to compete on the basis of public investment and public education, the South in the 21st century, like a broken-down banana republic, now uses anti-union laws and low taxes to lure corporate investment in low-wage factories.

So let’s be clear. The battle over the stimulus is not a gentle debate among thoughtful libertarians and well-intentioned progressives, with reasonable points made on both sides. It is nullification. It is sabotage. It is the latest episode in the Southern conservative strategy of massive resistance to necessary government and national progress. It will not be the last.

UPDATE: This article originally misstated the Republican congressional delegation as the Southern congressional delegation.

Michael Lind, the Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics.

What are your thoughts about this issue?

Do you think we still have regional political issues in the U.S.?

Is this a good or bad thing?

30,000 More Troops to Afghanistan

Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Admiral Michael Mullen, the most senior American military officer, said the U.S. will probably deploy close to 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to shore up deteriorating security there.

In an interview, Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also said he is hopeful that other NATO nations will contribute additional military and civilian resources this year to the fight against a resurgent Taliban. The Islamist militia, which once ruled Afghanistan and sheltered al-Qaeda, is threatening large areas of the country with mounting attacks.

Mullen said the new resources are needed to buy time for a broad, long-term buildup of Afghan security forces that will allow the U.S. to “put an Afghan face” on the effort and dispel perceptions of a foreign occupation.

“It’s fine for me to say this isn’t an occupation,” Mullen told Bloomberg editors and reporters yesterday. “But it’s important that the people of Afghanistan don’t think it’s an occupation.”

Mullen, 62, has said in recent weeks that the U.S. will probably send between 20,000 and 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in response to a request from Army General David McKiernan, the American commander there. Yesterday, he said he anticipates the final level will “tend toward the higher number of those two” figures.

“I believe it’s not going well,” Mullen said of the Afghan conflict, “which is one of the reasons it’s important that we get these forces moving.”

Election Delayed

Afghanistan’s presidential election was postponed this week to Aug. 20 from May 22 because of security concerns and logistical difficulties. U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai has been unable to extend his authority much beyond the capital, Kabul, which itself is now menaced by the Taliban.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a Jan. 27 Senate hearing that Afghanistan is “our greatest military challenge.”

“There is no purely military solution,” Gates said. “But it is also clear that we have not had enough troops to provide a baseline level of security in some of the most dangerous areas.”

Mullen said the military’s capacity to fulfill McKiernan’s request remains dependent on its ability to keep withdrawing forces from Iraq.

And that, he said, will in turn be shaped by whether Iraq continues to draw back from the sectarian violence that convulsed the country in 2006 and progresses toward political reconciliation along milestones like tomorrow’s provincial elections, which he called “absolutely vital.”

Improving Conditions

“It would be very difficult to slip back to the chaos that was there in 2006,” Mullen said. “The longer we are able to see conditions continue to improve, those words ‘fragile and reversible’ start to disappear.”

He cautioned that hard-core insurgents such as the group Al-Qaeda in Iraq still pose a danger. “They’re very much diminished, but there are still pockets of al-Qaeda, and the potential for major events is still there.”

In addition, he said, Iraqi leaders must still resolve some difficult political issues, such as passage of a law that gives all regions and ethnic groups a share of energy revenue and a dispute between Arabs and Kurds over control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

As a consequence, Mullen said, “we are in great part dependent on how the politics play out in 2009” as U.S. leaders consider prospects for new troop withdrawals from Iraq.

Deployed Troops

There are currently about 142,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and about 36,000 in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department. Other North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries have about 30,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, although some of those nations bar their forces from deployment in areas of intense combat.

The goal of the buildup in Afghanistan, Mullen said, is to enable the U.S.-led coalition to execute what he called the “classic counter-insurgency” strategy of expelling enemy fighters from an area, holding the territory against new incursions and then building up the area’s economic and physical infrastructure.

At present, the coalition has only enough resources to accomplish the first of those three stages, he said.

“When we’ve been in situations where we’ve been in combat, we’ve actually been able to significantly impact the Taliban,” he said. “The problem is, we haven’t had enough forces there once that occurs to hold the territory, so that we would then build in the classic counter-insurgency mode.”

Tribal Areas

Mullen said the situation in Afghanistan is closely linked to events in Pakistan, where Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are roosting in the rugged mountains of that country’s northwest tribal areas.

Mullen has made eight trips to Pakistan in the past year to prod military leaders to take action against the fighters. He said he is encouraged that Pakistani leaders now are serious about battling the insurgents.

Even the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which is often accused of collaborating with Islamic extremists, is “evolving in the right direction,” at least at the leadership level, he said.

Mullen also said the Pakistanis have taken new and significant steps in recent weeks to crack down on Lashkar-e- Taiba, an Islamic extremist group blamed by India for the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

‘More Steps’ Needed

“There are still more steps to be taken” against the group, Mullen said, adding that Pakistani authorities were “working to get those who have been arrested into their judicial system.”

U.S. and Indian officials have previously asserted that Pakistani intelligence authorities have assisted and turned a blind eye to the group’s violent activities and training camps. Lashkar-e-Taiba, or “Army of the Good,” is dedicated to overthrowing Indian control of the disputed, Muslim-majority territory of Kashmir.

The group is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. It was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002, although its training camps in the Pakistani part of Kashmir continued to operate, according to U.S. and Indian intelligence officials.

In the aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, Pakistani authorities arrested several alleged Lashkar militants.

Obama's First Bill

Barack Obama has signed the first legislation of his presidency: a bill that makes it easier for workers to sue for wage discrimination. The law counteracts a Supreme Court decision, and is strongly opposed by business groups.

The new law removes limits on the length of time a worker has to file a wage discrimination lawsuit against an employer.

President Obama says the law sends a clear message.

"That making our economy work means making sure it works for everybody. That there are no second class citizens in our workplaces, and that it is not just unfair and illegal - but bad for business - to pay somebody less because of their gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion or disability," he said.

Called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, the law is named after a female Alabama tire company employee. The 70-year-old Ledbetter says, near the end of a 20-year career, she became aware that she had been paid significantly less than her male co-workers while performing the same duties. The cumulative pay gap allegedly totaled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

A jury found in her favor. But the case was appealed, and the Supreme Court eventually threw out the complaint. The court ruled that Ledbetter should have filed a claim within 180 days of when the alleged discrimination began. Ledbetter says she only became aware of the pay difference years later.

Ledbetter's case drew national attention, and Congress moved to craft legislation to give workers more time to file wage discrimination lawsuits. Last year, then-presidential candidate Obama embraced Ledbetter's cause; she addressed the Democratic National Convention and appeared in an Obama campaign ad.

"I worked at this plant for 20 years before I learned the truth," she said. "I had been paid 40 percent less than men doing the same work. I had the same skills as the men at my plant. My family needed that money."

Corporate America is not cheering the new law. America's biggest business federation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, says eliminating time limits for lawsuits will cripple the ability of employers to mount an effective legal defense.

"Voluntary mediation and prompt resolution of disputes are only possible when claims are raised in a timely manner," said Michael Eastman, the chamber's labor policy director. "The law's purpose cannot be served if plaintiffs are allowed to wait for years before filing a claim. The result of this legislation will be more frivolous claims against employers that will only benefit lawyers."

The Ledbetter case highlights that fact that some women and minorities continue to be paid less than their male or non-minority co-workers. The White House says wage discrimination is never acceptable, and is particularly harmful during tough economic times.


Do you believe this is a good piece of legislation?

Old Time Religion

Obama plans to install a principal campaign adviser on religious affairs, Joshua DuBois, to lead a revamped office of faith-based initiatives, according to sources familiar with the decision.

DuBois, 26, a Pentecostal pastor, built strong ties with leaders of the moderate and progressive religious communities during the campaign, and headed up outreach to conservative faith leaders who were more acquainted with Republican presidential candidates.

Highlighting Obama’s personal faith as a Christian, DuBois led organizing efforts across the country to broaden the president’s appeal with more religious voters.

Obama performed better than John Kerry in 2004 among voters of almost all faiths, even though those gains were in the single digits, according to Election Day exit polls.

Aides are nearing the final stages of discussions on how to structure and staff the White House faith-based program and religious outreach. Faith leaders who have been consulted by the White House said they expect an announcement within a week. The New York Times first reported the appointment Thursday.

Obama pledged during the campaign to overhaul former President George W. Bush’s faith-based office, saying “the promise of that office was never fully realized.” He said he would establish the President’s Council for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, and pledged to depoliticize it and expand its reach.

Among the major outstanding questions is whether Obama will repeal a Bush rule that allows religious groups to hire only staff members who share their faith – a move criticized as government condoning discrimination.

Scoreboard....GOP Motivation

"I won."

When President Barack Obama used those words to reply to Republican objections to the massive spending bill working its way through Congress, he did much more than deliver a good laugh line and declare the GOP proposals irrelevant.

Obama also signaled to us all that the campaign talk about bipartisanship and “a new way” was just the clever rhetoric of a highly choreographed campaign.

“I won” is the confident declaration of a leader who doesn’t need his opponents’ approval or votes.

“I won” is a little extra measure of contempt, though surely delivered with a grin.

“I won” means the Republicans lost and they had better get used to being ignored.

It is also a tremendously liberating and unmistakable message to the GOP as its House wing gathers on retreat this weekend. They don’t have to worry about being accused by the president’s wall-to-wall admirers in the mainstream media of a grumpy, “old politics” attachment to partisanship in Washington’s new era. Obama brought the curtain down on the 48-hour era of bipartisanship with those two words.

“I won” is of course a celebration of partisan triumph, and a hard-earned and clearly defined victory it was. Many voters didn’t think they were voting for an “I won” kind of guy, but observers of the always competitive Obama can’t be surprised. Hillary Clinton knows. John McCain knows. And now House and Senate Republicans know.

Maybe even some of the smitten press will figure it out. This is a tough Chicago pol, not some sort of faith healer.

So what to do? I was invited to join the House GOP in West Virginia this weekend, but try getting from California to there and back in time for the Super Bowl. Here’s what I would have said had they had the good sense to gather on the West Coast:

Every day requires a disciplined message delivered by a senior figure that focuses on a key difference between the president’s agenda and that of the Republicans, a message that contains facts about what the Democrats are proposing and how it affects voters.

There should always be a designated member or senator ready to go on any radio or TV show — no matter how inconvenient the timing or how small the market — to make that and related points. The party needs to vote as a party and explain its opposition every step of the way. Keep asking Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal and other senior GOP figures to appear alongside you in D.C to make points and guide press coverage. Deliver expertise on such things as cap and trade, and rebuild the platform into a coherent whole.


The party has to establish and fill the coffers of funds devoted exclusively to taking back House and Senate seats. The new party chairman and Minority Leaders John A. Boehner and Mitch McConnell have to talk about restoring balance to D.C. as soon as possible in order to stop the hemorrhaging of money that has begun in the first week of the new administration.

Candidate recruitment is already behind schedule. List the 50 most competitive House seats held by Dems and rally behind a viable candidate. On the Senate side, open an account for whichever Republican eventually wins the primary in Arkansas and other states where the GOP can mount a challenge to an incumbent Dem. The country is 21 months away from a recalibration of the power grid in D.C. Take every opportunity to say: “This might have worked out if the Democrats didn’t run everything.” Tell incumbents they are on their own. Raise money for challengers.

On Monday, Boehner’s office distributed a guide to the spending proposed by House Democrats that included notes on the $600 million set aside to buy new government cars, $50 million for arts funding and $44 million for rehabbing the Department of Agriculture. These are the sorts of data points that define the Democrats in the public’s mind and raise the chances of a snap-back in 2010. But they are needed on every single bill that crosses the Congress from House to Senate or Senate to House.

And in the new media world, the GOP staff should be distributing not just e-mails but audio and video of the Democrats saying what they really think. Republicans are along for the ride, with zero control over direction or destination, but with a perfect back seat from which to describe the inanity of the driving and the direction. Don’t wait for Rick Sanchez on CNN to discover the zaniest thing John Conyers has said today — push it out to him and every other talking head across the country. Help the networks and talk shows and blogs tell the story of the Obama era in all its details, not just the ones the White House wants to push.

The new media outreach effort to activists is not remotely up to speed, but there are signs it is getting better. Check out ReadTheStimulus.org for a glimpse at what distributed networks can achieve.

Americans wanted a stimulus bill that would produce rapid expansion in jobs and economic activity. They are instead being offered a federal fire hose of payoffs and pork, the only utility of which is to underscore that a long eight years out of the White House didn’t change basic Democratic impulses. This is a teaching moment with few equals, and the GOP needs to pound it home again and again: Giving the Democrats all of the power meant giving them all of the money, and they intend to spend it.

“I won” was a sharp slap in the face of the GOP, but it ought to have hit the American people as well. At this point, all the GOP can do is make a play-by-play commentary of where the money is going. They have begun to do that and need to keep it up.

Stimulus Passes House

Just eight days after his Inauguration, President Obama’s recovery plan cleared the House Wednesday evening after Republicans failed in back-to-back efforts to shift the focus more to tax cuts and traditional highway and water infrastructure projects.

Final passage of the nearly $820 billion package came on a 244-188 vote with no Republicans supporting the president. This was a far cry from the bipartisan showing Obama had hoped for, but he remains firmly in command and Senate Republicans now concede that the president is likely to prevail there as well, with no reason to fear a protracted filibuster fight.

Changes could still be made in the course of the Senate floor debate which will stretch into next week. Republicans are pressing for more tax relief aimed at housing, and there is bipartisan interest in revisiting a small business capital gains exclusion that Obama himself supported as a candidate.

But the White House’s bigger worry could the final negotiations between the House and Senate, where a growing urban-rural split among Democrats threatens to delay a settlement.

This was seen most sharply Tuesday night when rural Democrats and Republicans in the Senate Finance Committee wrecked havoc with a delicately negotiated compromise between House and Senate leaders over the distribution of $87 billion in Medicaid funds in the Obama plan. The same split is infecting disputes over a $1 billion crop disaster aid program favored by the Senate and how big a role the Commerce and Agriculture Departments should play in allocating billions of new dollars sought by Obama to expand access to broadband.

Democrats predicted that Republican support will grow as the bill moves closer to passage after these talks. “This is not Herbert Hoover time, the time for action is now,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) in closing debate.

In an interview, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) pointed to the fact that Democrats had worked with President Bush, a Republican, last fall when the Treasury Department sought a massive $700 billion rescue fund for the financial markets.

“We have acted in a bipartisan fashion working with a Republican president. Now we see President Obama come down to talk to Republicans and before he gets there (Republican leader John) Boehner directs his people to vote against his program.”

In the votes running up to passage, the same partisan climate was evident, though there are clearly 30 to 40 Republican votes for some mix of stimulus spending beyond just tax breaks.

Taxes were the primary focus of the chief Republican alternative which proposed $445 billion in cuts together with about $34 billion in expanded jobless benefits. That measure failed 266-170, and minutes later Republicans came back with a plan to cut about $103 billion from the total package while also shifting some $60 billion into water and highway projects.

That also failed 270-159 with 31 Republicans voting in opposition. And in a prior vote to cut all of the new appropriations 43 Republicans had broken with their party to support the Democrats.

Anticipating trouble, the White House had downplayed its hope of winning over Republicans this early in the House. But to get no votes from the opposition party was striking, given the efforts Obama had made to reach out.

"I don't think this is the final reckoning on this bill by any sense of the imagination," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said. "I think the process will work, and ... I don't think people will be able to ignore the human stories of suffering that's going on in the economy right now."

He added: "I do believe that there will be people in districts all over the country that will wonder why, when there's a good bill to get the economy moving again, why we still seem to be playing political gotcha."

Just a day before the vote, Obama came to the Capitol to meet with rank-and-file Republicans in both the House and Senate, and he planned to host congressional leaders from both parties Wednesday evening at a reception in the White House residence.

"Someone reported that this was a celebration party for passage of the bill in the House," Boehner joked to reporters before casting his vote against the bill. "If so, I don't know why they'd want the skunk at the garden party. But I'm going to go and smile."


In earlier remarks before business executives Wednesday, the president had addressed Republican complaints about the bill and sought to underline business support for the measure which includes $275 billion in tax cuts as passed by the House.

“Most of the money we’re investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job-creation, generating or saving three to four million new jobs,” Obama said in the East Room, alluding to the GOP claims that the package won’t be immediately boost the economy. “And the vast majority of these jobs will be created in the private sector – because, as these CEOs well know, business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country.”

Obama’s out-reach seems one part political but another simply communication. However huge in itself, the recovery bill is just the first piece in a larger action plan in which he must address a new global scheme for financial regulations, the foreclosure crisis for homeowners and a banking industry teetering near insolvency.

A phone call Tuesday afternoon between the president and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe is illustrative. The Maine moderate had announced her support that morning for the Obama package in the Finance panel, and she told Politico the president called to thank her after also meeting with her colleagues in the Capitol.

“He has said and he emphasized repeatedly yesterday we are in unprecedented times,” Snowe said. “The crisis is so great that we can ill afford to be miscommunicating between branches and that’s what it all about .”

As seen in the Committee Finance Committee markup Tuesday night, Democrats may need to work on some of their internal communications as well.

The $87 billion in Medicaid funding is the largest single piece of state aid in the president’s plan and will be hugely valuable to governors struggling with deficits of their own. House and Senate leaders had agreed to effectively let the two chambers have an equal voice, with a little more than 50% of the money distributed according to a Senate formula and the remainder under a House-backed system of bonus payments to target the most relief to states with the biggest increase in unemployment.

Finance Chairman Max Baucus, whose home state of Montana would fare better under a pure Senate formula, had sought to keep faith with this compromise with a 60-40 Senate-House split. But he was overwhelmed by Republicans and rural state senators on his panel, and the final bill goes toward an 80-20 split.

The result is to cut the House bonus payments by more than half, impacting billions of dollars for major states like New York, Michigan and California with large delegations in the House. And this kills any expectation of a quick deal once the Senate has completed its bill.

“There will be a conference,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Cal.) flatly told Politico.

Here's a list of the House Democrats who voted against the economic stimulus. The bill passed on a 244-188 vote.

Allen Boyd (FL),

Bobby Bright (Ala.)

Jim Cooper (Tenn),

Brad Ellsworth (Ind.)

Parker Griffith (Ala.)

Paul Kanjorski (Pa)

Frank Kratovil (Md)

Walt Minnick (Idaho)

Collin Peterson (Minn.)

Heath Shuler (N.C.)

Gene Taylor (Miss.)

Do you think it's alarming that the bill hard ZERO Republican votes?

What could be done to get the GOP on board with this bill?

Do you think it matters if there is no bipartisan support for the bill?

Would You Know It If You Saw It?

Chuck Grassley knows it when he sees it.

The “it,” of course, is pornography. And Grassley has seen it deep in a demurely titled section of a report from the National Science Foundation — a report that says NSF employees have been spending significant amounts of company time on smut sites and in other explicit pursuits.

Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, on Tuesday fired off a letter to the NSF’s inspector general requesting all documents related to the “numerous reports” and seven investigations into “Abuse of NSF IT Resources” cited in the foundation’s 68-page semiannual report.

Despite the less-than-lurid sound of the probes, the employees in question weren’t just logging onto their Facebook accounts or buying birthday gifts on Amazon.com. The report says they were watching, downloading and e-mailing porn, sometimes for significant portions of their workdays, and over periods of months or even years.

In one particularly egregious case, the report says one NSF “senior official” was discovered to have spent as much as 20 percent of his working hours over a two-year interval “viewing sexually explicit images and engaging in sexually explicit online ‘chats’ with various women.”

Investigators calculated the value of the time lost at more than $58,000 — for that employee alone.

Following an initial wave of incidents, the grant-making agency — which has an annual budget of $6.06 billion, and was created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science; advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; secure the national defense — reveals that probers then “selectively sampled” a single internal server and found even more workers harboring everything from software that can allow users to set up camera-to-camera connections to hard-core images and titillatingly titled bookmarks.

Committee investigators also learned from sources that one employee even had camera-to-camera software to facilitate his on-the-job sexcapades – and that the employee had complained to the IT specialist that his camera was working too slowly.

The foundation has since installed filtering software to prevent employees from accessing inappropriate websites and is currently trying to address the fallout from the agency’s adult-entertainment problem. This includes finding ways to support staffers who were “acutely embarrassed” by the filth-filled environment — like the employee who learned of a co-worker’s adventures in porn via sounds overheard from said co-worker’s computer speakers.

Grassley’s office has asked the foundation to turn over all “specific reports of investigations, audit reports, evaluations and information supporting the examination of the NSF network drive” by Thursday in an effort to “ensure that NSF properly fulfills its mission to strengthen scientific and engineering research, and makes responsible use of the public funding provided for these research disciplines.”

“The semiannual report raises real questions about how the National Science Foundation manages its resources, and Congress ought to demand a full accounting before it gives the agency another $3 billion in the stimulus bill,” Grassley said.

An NSF spokeswoman said the agency had no comment on the report or its content.

Obama Plan Hits the House Floor

President Barack Obama’s economy recovery plan hits the House floor Wednesday after a day of final adjustments by Democrats, adding more tax relief in the Senate and excising a handful of expenditures that have drawn the ire of conservatives.

House-Senate differences over the distribution of Medicaid funds in the bill broke into the open Tuesday night in the Senate Finance Committee. But when the dust settled, the president’s plan was through committees in both chambers, setting the stage for floor debate and what promises to be a pivotal set of negotiations next month

Rising above the fray Tuesday — but almost omnipresent — was Obama himself, meeting with rank-and-file House and Senate Republicans and making his case that the floor votes ahead are just the first steps in a larger action plan to address financial regulations, home foreclosures and banks teetering near insolvency.

“His presentation was a tour de force,” New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg told Politico. The top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, Gregg has been an outspoken critic of the level of new spending in the administration’s plan but said: “I felt much better. ... He’s clearly moving forward aggressively on all the different fronts. I was very impressed. If he puts it in the context of an integrated effort, I’d consider it.”

In his meetings with Republicans, Obama hinted he will take steps soon to give relief to homeowners facing foreclosure, and Democrats expect a major commitment of Treasury rescue funds to be announced next week.

“The statistics every day underscore the urgency of the economic situation. The American people expect action,” Obama told reporters between meetings. The $825 billion package, almost certain to pass the House Wednesday, is “just one leg in a multi-legged stool.”

“We’re still going to have to have much better financial regulation,” Obama said. “We’ve got to get credit flowing again. We’re going to have to deal with the troubled assets that many banks are still carrying and that have locked up the credit system. We’re going to have to coordinate with other countries because we now have a global problem.”

“I am absolutely confident that we can deal with these issues, but the key right now is to keep politics to a minimum.”

Winning over a fiscal conservative like Gregg would be a major step forward, given the respect that the New Hampshire conservative commands in his party. The president’s immediate task is to broaden support so that his “stool” doesn’t collapse under him before he has secured the first leg.

The biggest single change Tuesday came when the Senate Finance panel adopted a $69.8 billion amendment by the top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, to protect often upper-middle-income families from the alternative minimum tax. But many of the smaller adjustments were colorful tales in themselves as Democrats and the new White House team struggled to make peace with Republicans — and sometimes with one another.

Obama and his often stormy Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel interceded in the House to strike a provision related to the purchase of contraceptives with Medicaid funds. A $200 million appropriation in the House bill to improve the National Mall in Washington was dropped after pressure from Blue Dog fiscal conservatives. At the same time, the Senate Appropriations Committee leadership stepped in to dramatically scale back an Obama-backed proposal to devote as much as $2.6 billion for the purchase of new energy-efficient vehicles for the government’s fleet.

As recently as Friday, the committee had included the funds in a press release. But when the final bill was made public Tuesday, the vehicle purchases had been cut back to $600 million, with $2 billion instead devoted to high-speed rail corridors. “We would have been killed,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) told Politico. “Someone didn’t think that out very well.”

General debate in the House began late Tuesday, even as the Democratic leadership finalized what changes would be made through the Rules Committee — and what amendments would be permitted for Republicans.


With her commanding majority after November’s election, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is more in control, and this affords her more discretion to allow debate. The Rules panel thus granted Republicans the chance to offer a handful of amendments as well as a substitute that will focus largely on tax cuts.

Pelosi must be mindful still of restless Blue Dog fiscal conservatives in her own ranks, and several scenarios were in play, either to drop some expenditures or promise greater fiscal discipline in the future.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag was enlisted for this purpose. And in a sternly worded three-page letter — released Tuesday — he warned that “this recovery and reinvestment plan is an extraordinary response to an extraordinary crisis” and should not be seen “as an opportunity to abandon the fiscal discipline that we owe each and every taxpayer in spending their money.”

“Furthermore, the president is committed to paying for any of the temporary tax cuts included in the recovery plan that he would like to make permanent and will detail the manner of doing so in his budget submission.”

Senate floor action won’t begin before Friday, but the bill had cleared both Appropriations and Finance by Tuesday night. Between taxes and entitlement programs, Finance controls more than half of the measure and the 14-9 vote was a victory for Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) who held his party together and picked up one Republican, Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine.

But the Medicaid fight is a serious one for his party and dashes any expectation of a quick conference or speculation that the House could simply take the Senate bill. Large states with high unemployment had been promised a greater share of bonus payments for Medicaid under the House bill. Baucus tried to hold together this compromise but was overridden by a combination of Republicans and more rural state Democrats from Arkansas, New Mexico, and North Dakota. And the outcome is sure to anger urban Democrats in the House.

Going forward, the chairman’s long courtship of Snowe could pay political dividends, and the typically soft-spoken Maine moderate was direct and forceful in giving her endorsement.

“We are in the vanguard of creating the jobs for the 21st century,” Snowe said. “I think we have a twofer here, Mr. Chairman. I think we have the possibility of economic stimulus as well as economic transformation.”

But the sheer size of the package is overwhelming for many Republicans, who are distrustful of government spending in any case. And unless Obama can make his argument in some larger context — as Gregg felt he did Tuesday — it will be a very difficult sell.

The long-term debt service costs of paying for the $825 billion commitment are estimated to be near $347 billion — nearly the size of the appropriations portion reported by Inouye’s panel. And even as he voted to send the bill to the Senate floor, Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, the ranking Republican, said he remained “extremely wary” of the package.

“We need to remember that acting boldly does not necessarily translate into success. ... There are trade-offs between alacrity and prudence,” Cochran said. “The fact remains that we are effectively being asked to take a leap of faith that this massive amount of spending will in fact stimulate a suffering economy despite evidence that much of the funding will not be spent in the next year or two.”

As Cochran’s comments reflect, the rate at which the money will be pumped into the economy remains an issue as well.

The Congressional Budget Office reported Monday night that only about two-thirds of the House bill will reach the real economy in the first 18 to 19 months — falling short of the administration’s goal. But Inouye and the Senate Appropriations panel have made adjustments that give them a better score than the House from CBO. And with the addition of the added tax relief in the Finance panel, Democrats were confident that the Senate bill would meet the test that 75 percent of the total money would be out into the economy by Oct. 1, 2010.

Do you think that this plan will #1 pass the House, #2 work.
Any ideas of your own on how to solve the crisis?

Dems Seek to Shed Lobbyist Label

With Democrats running the show in Washington and President Obama pledging to block most lobbyists from the White House, the revolving door is in full effect for Democrats — but it’s spinning in reverse.

Some Democrats who had found refuge on K Street during the Bush administration and now have their eyes on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. are trying to wash off the lobbying taint with a pit stop on Capitol Hill — in some cases at half the pay.

“I’ll cleanse myself there and then go to the administration,” said one Democratic lobbyist who is trying to find a job as chief of staff to a senator.

“Any Democrat who is worth their salt in this town wants to go work for the administration,” said the lobbyist. “But they’re just not talking to us. I’ve tried to e-mail someone I know in the administration and he won’t even return my e-mails.”

But while the White House door may be closed to them, another has opened. In the past month, more than a dozen high-ranking Democratic Hill staffers — including Dan Turton, staff director of the House Rules Committee; Sean Kennedy, chief of staff to Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.); and Jay Heimbach, chief of staff to Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) — have left Congress for the White House.

To replace that talent, lawmakers and senior aides are now reviewing a flood of résumés for chiefs of staff, committee staff directors and legislative directors.

“It’s competitive,” said one Senate chief of staff who has reviewed a slew of résumés in recent days. More applications are expected to pour in over the next three to five months as the Obama administration continues to fill slots with Capitol Hill staffers — opening their old positions for lobbyists looking to shift into government work.

To be sure, the so-called cleansing is not the only consideration for lobbyists jumping to the Hill; many Democrats want to serve in their party’s expanded majorities.

“Unless they worked on the Hill before ’94, [Democrats have] never known life in the majority,” said Blair Bennett, a partner at top recruiting firm Korn Ferry International. And those who have arrived since 2000, she added, have “never known life with a Democratic president.”

Not to mention, Democratic lobbyist Andy Rosenberg said, “Democrats love government. We believe in government and we enjoy working for government. And so the temptation is always there and the pull is even stronger at a time of such historical significance.”


Still, many lobbyists who weren’t on board with Obama early share a different audacious hope — that scoring a Hill job will increase their odds of landing one in the White House down the rroad.

But one Democratic lobbyist said, “If you’re that damn desperate to get cleansed to get into the Obama administration, you’re probably a true believer who has already done enough quietly to get themselves considered anyway.”

White House officials would not comment on the reverse revolving door. Instead, they pointed to last week’s executive order that prevents former administration officials from ever lobbying the Obama White House — a prohibition that goes further than any previous presidential ethics rules.

Former President George W. Bush, for example, enacted a year-long lobbying ban for those leaving the administration — a move that makes more sense, according to Dave Wenhold, the president of the American League of Lobbyists and a partner at Miller Wenhold Capitol Strategies.

The administration’s strict rules on lobbying are “good in theory, but they don’t work in reality,” Wenhold said. “Lobbyists are experts in their fields, period. I don’t think [Obama] is doing what he needs to be doing to get the best people in the job. ... You wouldn’t run a business that way.”

“If they can’t lobby for two to six years, is that really a smart business move?” Wenhold said. “I doubt it. I think you’re going to find a lot of people taking a hard look at that.”

But others say the tighter rules are unlikely to discourage lobbyists from angling for White House jobs because they don’t prevent them from returning to Capitol Hill, where most advocacy work occurs.

“You can always go make money. You don’t always get the opportunity to work in the government at a time like this,” said Democratic lobbyist Heather Podesta, the sister-in-law of transition co-chairman John Podesta.

But lobbyists scrambling to find a way into the administration have some reason to hope.

Eric Holder, the incoming attorney general, was a lobbyist with Covington & Burling. Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Bill Corr lobbied for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. Ron Klain, Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, worked for O’Melveny & Myers. And that’s not to mention the administration’s special waiver for Deputy Defense Secretary-designate and former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn.

One lobbyist applying for a Hill job called the Obama era “a great opportunity to make a difference.”

Considering the tighter restrictions, he said, “It’s not so good for me, but I give them credit. The administration has kept their pledge and they’ve stood strong on this.”

Do you think these moves will do any real difference in Washington when it comes to lobbyist?

Big Brother Was Watching

NSA whistleblower Russell Tice was back on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program Thursday evening to expand on his Wednesday revelations that the National Security Agency spied on individual U.S. journalists, entire U.S. news agencies as well as "tens of thousands" of other Americans.

Tice said on Wednesday that the NSA had vacuumed in all domestic communications of Americans, including, faxes, phone calls and network traffic.

Today Tice said that the spy agency also combined information from phone wiretaps with data that was mined from credit card and other financial records. He said information of tens of thousands of U.S. citizens is now in digital databases warehoused at the NSA.

"This [information] could sit there for ten years and then potentially it marries up with something else and ten years from now they get put on a no-fly list and they, of course, won't have a clue why," Tice said.

In most cases, the person would have no discernible link to terrorist organizations that would justify the initial data mining or their inclusion in the database.

"This is garnered from algorithms that have been put together to try to just dream-up scenarios that might be information that is associated with how a terrorist could operate," Tice said. "And once that information gets to the NSA, and they start to put it through the filters there . . . and they start looking for word-recognition, if someone just talked about the daily news and mentioned something about the Middle East they could easily be brought to the forefront of having that little flag put by their name that says 'potential terrorist'."

The revelation that the NSA was involved in data mining isn't new. The infamous 2004 hospital showdown between then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Attorney General James Comey over the legality of a government surveillance program involved the data mining of massive databases, according to a 2007 New York Times article.

But there was always a slight possibility, despite the suspicions of many critics, that the NSA's data mining involved only people who were legitimately suspected of connections to terrorists overseas, as the Bush Administration staunchly maintained about its domestic phone wiretapping program.

“There’s no spying on Americans,” former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell insisted to the New Yorker last year.

But Tice's assertions this week contradict these claims.

With regard to the surveillance of journalists, Tice wouldn't disclose the names of the specific reporters or media outlets he targeted when he worked as an analyst for the NSA but said in the part of the program he covered, "everyone was collected."

"They sucked in everybody and at some point they may have cherry-picked from what they had, but I wasn't aware of who got cherry-picked out of the big pot," he said.

The purpose, he was told, was to eliminate journalists from possible suspicion so that the NSA could focus on those who merited further surveillance. But Tice said on Wednesday that the data on journalists was collected round-the-clock, year-round, suggesting there was never an intent to eliminate anyone from the surveillance.

New York Times reporter James Risen, who co-authored that paper's 2005 story on the warrantless wiretapping program with colleague Eric Lichtblau, suspects he could have been among those monitored, because Bush Administration officials obtained copies of his phone records, which they showed to a federal grand jury. The grand jury is investigating leaked information that appeared in Risen's 2006 book State of War about a CIA program, codenamed Operation Merlin, to infiltrate and destabilize Iran's nuclear program. Risen doesn't know if his records were obtained by the FBI with a legitimate warrant or through the NSA program that Tice described.

Risen told Olbermann that the NSA program to monitor journalists was likely intended to be used to ferret out and intimidate possible sources "to have a chilling effect on potential whistleblowers in the government to make them realize that there's a Big Brother out there that will get them if they step out of line."

Who else might have been among those targeted by the NSA?

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) said, in a separate interview, that he could very well have been targeted, too.

Rockefeller was speaking to MSNBC host Chris Matthews and gave a cryptic reply when Matthews asked him what he thought about Tice's spying allegations (see 4:14 in the video below).

"I'm quite prepared to believe it," Rockefeller said. "I mean, I think they went after anybody they could get. Including me."

Matthews replied, "They didn't eavesdrop on you, did they Senator?"

"No," Rockefeller said shaking his head, "and they sent me no letters."


If the allegations are true, what do you think, if anything, should happen?

Do Over

So apparently there was enough Constitutional concern about the flub of the swearing in that the two got together again and did it right.....

Weird

7 Reasons for Healthy Skepticism

Even in a city of cynics, the Inauguration of a new president — and the infusion of new ideas, new personalities and new energy that comes with it — summons feelings of reverence.

Barack Obama, especially, is the object of inaugural good feelings. He has assembled an impressive White House and Cabinet team. The country is clearly in his corner. With the economy gasping, and two wars dragging on sullenly, even many Republicans who ordinarily might enjoy seeing Obama fail now root for him to succeed. The stakes are simply too great.

Amid all these high hopes, it may seem needlessly sour to point out why expectations must be kept in check. But it is also realistic.

Here are seven reasons to be skeptical of Obama’s chances — and the Washington establishment he now leads:

1. The genius fallacy

There is no disputing Obama has built a Cabinet of sharp and experienced public officials. His staff, especially on national security and economic matters, is often praised as brilliant — and that’s by Republicans.

But recent history teaches us to be wary of the larger-than-life Washington figures supposedly striding across history’s stage. Consider the economy. Everyone seems to agree Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner are smart, vastly qualified to manage and repair the economy.

Everyone was saying the exact same things about the two economic geniuses of the 1990s: Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan. Now Rubin has been reduced to making excuses for his involvement in high-risk investments and for helping oversee the demise of Citigroup, which lost $10 billion in the past three months alone. The onetime oracular Greenspan has admitted to Congress that his once-revered economic philosophy had “a flaw,” and many blame him for turning a blind eye to the housing bubble.

As it happens, the Obama economic team is full of Rubin protégés, including Geithner and Summers. Geithner had to recently admit he failed to pay taxes on a big chunk of income — as part of his confirmation process to run tax policy and the Internal Revenue Service. As president of the New York Fed, he was integrally involved in the decision not to rescue Lehman Bros., which many see, in retrospect, as a grievous error.

The reception of the Obama economic team recalls the reception of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy team eight years ago. Many Democrats applauded the experience of Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

As Bush named his national security team in 2000, The New York Times editorialized: “Putting superstar players on the court does not always guarantee harmony or success.” In retrospect, that was an understatement, indeed.

2. The herd instinct

The most bipartisan tradition in Washington is to laud bipartisanship, even while lamenting that there is not enough of it.

But the instinct for bipartisanship overlooks an inconvenient fact: Some of Washington’s biggest blunders occur when the government moves to do big things with big support. Bush won the much-regretted Iraq war resolution of October 2002 with strong Democratic backing.

The current economic crisis produces similar pressure to get on board the train — never mind for sure where it’s going.

It is easy to sympathize with the temptation. Top officials on Obama’s team told us in recent days that things are much worse than most people appreciate. The Obama staff and top lawmakers are getting stern warnings that the banking system in particular is extremely fragile and could collapse. So they are moving with amazing speed to pump money into the economy.

First up is the stimulus package that could top $900 billion. It is a mind-numbing number rarely contemplated in U.S. history — and yet it might not work. There are no guarantees people will spend money the government doles out or that it will be enough to offset miserable economic performance elsewhere.

The history isn’t encouraging.

Rewind just a few months back. Republicans and Democrats alike said the best of many bad options was to approve $700 billion to prop up banks, mainly to thaw the credit freeze and juice the economy. Half the money is gone now. Many banks took the cash and sat on it. Some used it increase lending. But much of it was wasted or unaccounted for. Now Washington wants to spend the rest of it.

And a top Hill aide told Politico’s David Rogers that Democrats will probably need to request even more.


3. We are broke.

The past several months have produced a rare convergence. Something that politicians of both parties find pleasurable — spending money — has overlapped with what economists and policy experts of all ideological stripes said is urgently necessary. As “Saturday Night Live’s” Church Lady used to say, “How convenient.”


One month from now, Democrats will likely have passed the massive stimulus bill and Obama will have signed it into law. The new Treasury Department will be well on its way to spending the second $350 billion chunk of the $700 billion bank bailout fund.

After this rush of activity, the ability to spend during the balance of Obama’s first term — never mind if there is a second — will be sharply constrained.

Instead, the new administration and lawmakers on Capitol Hill will awaken to another first: the prospect of the national deficit approaching $2 trillion. For most, these numbers are simply too big to ponder. But ponder this: This country has never reckoned with deficits like these.

Wait, it gets worse. Remember those entitlement programs the elderly and poor need more than ever: Social Security and Medicare? In budget terms, they are more troubled than ever.

Social Security’s surpluses “begin to decline in 2011 and then turn into rapidly growing deficits as the baby boom generation retires,” according to one recent report. “Medicare’s financial status,” the report said, “is even worse.”

Basically, the government needs more money than ever at a time when people are losing jobs, income and confidence.

4. Words, words, words

Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, though starkly different men, both viewed the presidency as pre-eminently a decision-making job. Clinton often waved away speech drafts bloated with lofty language by saying: “Words, words, words.”

Obama seems to have a different view of the presidency. He thinks that the right decisions can be reached by putting reasonable and enlightened people together and reaching a consensus. He believes his job as president is to educate and inspire, largely matters of style.

He knows he is good with words. He knows he has great style. So that’s why he projects exceptional confidence in his ability to do the job.

We don’t know yet how justified Obama is in his self-confidence — or how naive.

But he is almost certain to face many tests, probably imminently, in which the test will be Obama’s ability to act quickly and shrewdly — and not merely describe his actions smoothly or impress people with nuance. And an unlike a governor — who must decide what’s in a budget and what gets cut, or whether a person to be executed at midnight should be spared — Obama has not made many decisions for which the consequences affect more than himself.

5. He rarely challenges the home team.

Obama frequently talks of the need to transcend partisanship. And he invokes his support for charter schools — a not-terribly-controversial idea — as evidence that he is willing to challenge Democratic special interest groups.

In fact, there are few examples of him making decisions during the campaign or the transition that offended his own party’s constituencies, or using rhetoric that challenged his own supporters to rethink assumptions or yield on a favored cause.

Has Obama ever delivered a “Sister Souljah speech”? Ever stood up to organized labor in the way that Clinton did in passing North American Free Trade Agreement?

This is not a good sign. By Obama’s lights, the national interest usually coincides with his personal interest. Back to you, Church Lady.


6. Everyone is winging it.

No matter how much confidence Obama or other politicians project, the reality is the current economic crisis has totally scrambled the intellectual assumptions of almost every policymaker. People who used to bemoan deficits want to spend like crazy. Improvisation is the only proper response. But the chances that improvisation will take the country to exactly the right destination — without some serious wrong turns along the way — seem very slight.

7. The watchdogs are dozing.

The big media companies that once invested in serious accountability journalism are shells of their former selves. The Tribune Co. — in other words, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune — has slashed its Washington staff by more than half. Newspaper chains such as Cox are fleeing D.C. altogether.

The end result: There are few reporters in this country doing the kind of investigative reporting that hold government officials’ feet to the fire. Think back eight years to the pre-Iraq war reporting and consider the words of Scott McClellan in his otherwise humdrum book.

“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise,” McClellan wrote. “In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”

Rigorous reporting is even more important when you have one-party rule in Washington. Democrats, like Republicans, are simply less likely to scrutinize a president of their own. The end result here: Don’t expect the Democratic Congress to investigate the Obama administration or hold a bunch of tough oversight hearings. That means the only real check on Obama is the same one it’s always been — the voters.

Will American's Sacrifice?

Obama's inaugural address warned of sacrifices and "unpleasant decisions" ahead, but did not offer detail. What specific sacrifices--who gives up what--are needed over the next couple years to meet the nation's problems?

Obama's 2nd Day Executive Orders

President Barack Obama on Wednesday ordered a pay freeze for top aides making $100,000 or more and signed a series of orders aimed at creating the open government he promised on the campaign trail.

Obama said the moves were aimed at helping to “restore that faith in government without which we cannot deliver the changes we were sent here to make,” drawing a barely veiled contrast between himself and a predecessor who was accused by critics of excessive secrecy and abuses of the law.

In the executive orders and memoranda he signed Wednesday afternoon in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Obama announced that no lobbyist will be allowed to take a job in an area where they lobbied. Nor would former lobbyists who come to work for him be allowed to lobby the administration after leaving government service.

He banned gifts from lobbyists to administration officials. And he said he’d require all those who serve him to commit in writing to refrain from influencing colleagues for two years. The moves represent “a clean break from business as usual,” Obama said.

Obama’s announcement fulfills a campaign pledge – but one that he watered down significantly over the course of his presidential campaign.

Initially, the new president pledged that lobbyists would not be allowed to work in his administration.

"They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president,” Obama told Iowa Democrats in November of 2007.

He eventually tweaked his stump speech to promise that lobbyists wouldn’t “run” his White House.

The White House has yet to release the text of the rules, making it difficult to gauge their strictness.

But they don’t seem to bar former consultants, who often function in ways similar to lobbyists, from working on their pre-White House portfolios, nor do they limit officials from working on issues on which their spouses lobby.

Also, in a nod toward the difficult economic times many in the country are facing, Obama said his senior White House staff would be subject to a pay freeze. Aides said the freeze would kick in for senior staff making $100,000 or more.

The new president also said Freedom of Information act requests would be more routinely approved by his administration.

“For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city,” Obama said. “The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over.”

Hinting more directly at Vice President Dick Cheney, who sought to keep information about White House meetings concealed, Obama added: “The mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean that you should always use it,”

In a statement sent out following Obama’s announcement, the White House said that senior aides would be tasked with producing an “Open Government Directive” within 120 days directing specific actions to implement the principles in the memorandum. The memorandum on FOIA instructs gives the Attorney General the same time frame to issue new guidelines on government transparency.

Before deciding to bar information from public view, Obama said he would consult with his Attorney General and White House counsel – a move aimed at curbing the Bush administration’s penchant for making information classified. President George W. Bush argued that as president, he had the right to classify – or declassify – information as he saw fit.

Further, and in a move that will greatly please historians and students of the presidency, Obama issued an order aimed at offering more access to White House documents.

Bush angered scholars and open-government advocates with an executive order in 2001 giving ex-presidents and presidents the authority to block release of White House records.

What signal does this send to the public?
Do you think these orders are a good idea?

President Obama's Inuagural Address

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land - a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America - they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions - that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions - who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works - whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account - to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day - because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart - not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort - even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed - why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Thank you.

God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Viva la Revolution?

By JOEL KURTZMAN
Mexico is now in the midst of a vicious drug war. Police officers are being bribed and, especially near the United States border, gunned down. Kidnappings and extortion are common place. And, most alarming of all, a new Pentagon study concludes that Mexico is at risk of becoming a failed state. Defense planners liken the situation to that of Pakistan, where wholesale collapse of civil government is possible.

One center of the violence is Tijuana, where last year more than 600 people were killed in drug violence. Many were shot with assault rifles in the streets and left there to die. Some were killed in dance clubs in front of witnesses too scared to talk.

It may only be a matter of time before the drug war spills across the border and into the U.S. To meet that threat, Michael Chertoff, the outgoing secretary for Homeland Security, recently announced that the U.S. has a plan to "surge" civilian and possibly military law-enforcement personnel to the border should that be necessary.

The problem is that in Mexico's latest eruption of violence, it's difficult to tell the good guys from the bad. Mexico's antidrug czar, Noe Ramirez Mandujano was recently charged with accepting $450,000 from drug lords he was supposed to be hunting down. This was the second time in recent years that one of Mexico's antidrug chiefs was arrested for taking possible payoffs from drug kingpins. Suspicions that police chiefs, mayors and members of the military are also on the take are rampant.

In the past, the way Mexico dealt with corruption was with eyes wide shut. Everyone knew a large number of government officials were taking bribes, but no one did anything about it. Transparency commissioners were set up, but given no teeth.

And Mexico's drug traffickers used the lax law enforcement their bribes bought them to grow into highly organized gangs. Once organized, they have been able to fill a vacuum in underworld power created by Colombian President Álvaro Uribe's successful crackdown on his country's drug cartels.

The result is that drug traffickers are getting rich, while Mexico pays a heavy price in lost human lives and in economic activity that might otherwise bring a modicum of prosperity to the country.

In 2008, Mexico ranked 31st out of 60 countries studied in the Milken Institute/Kurtzman Group Opacity Index. The cost to ordinary Mexicans from poorly functioning institutions has been huge. My colleague, Glenn Yago, and I calculate that if Mexico were to reduce corruption and bring its legal, economic, accounting and regulatory standards up to U.S. levels (the U.S. ranks 13th and Finland ranks first), Mexico's nominal per capital GDP would increase by about $18,000 to roughly $28,000 a year. And it would also receive a lot more direct foreign investment that would create jobs.

And this impacts the U.S. Thanks to Mexico's retarded economic growth, millions of Mexicans have illegally moved to the U.S. to find work. Unless the violence can be reversed, the U.S. can anticipate that the flow across the border will continue.
To his credit, Mexico's President Felipe Calderón has deployed 45,000 members of his military and 5,000 federal police to fight drug traffickers. This suggests that he is taking the violence and the threat to civil government seriously.

But the path forward will be a difficult one. Not only must Mexico fight its drug lords, it must do so while putting its institutional house in order. That means firing government employees who are either corrupt or not willing to do the job required to root out corruption. It will also likely require putting hundreds, or even thousands, of police officers in jail.

For more than a century, Mexico and the U.S. have enjoyed friendly relations and some degree of economic integration. But if Mexico's epidemic of violence continues, that relationship could end if the U.S. is forced to surge personnel to the border.


Mr. Kurtzman, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, is co-author of "Global Edge: Using the Opacity Index to Manage the Risk of Cross-Border Business" (Harvard Business School Press, 2007).

So how should the U.S. respond to this in the coming years?

My Fellow Americans'...for the Last Time

Here is the text of President Bush's prime-time "Farewell Address to the Nation" on Thursday, as prepared for delivery:

Fellow citizens: For eight years, it has been my honor to serve as your President. The first decade of this new century has been a period of consequence – a time set apart. Tonight, with a thankful heart, I have asked for a final opportunity to share some thoughts on the journey we have traveled together and the future of our Nation.

Five days from now, the world will witness the vitality of American democracy. In a tradition dating back to our founding, the presidency will pass to a successor chosen by you, the American people. Standing on the steps of the Capitol will be a man whose story reflects the enduring promise of our land. This is a moment of hope and pride for our whole Nation. And I join all Americans in offering best wishes to President-elect Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls.

Tonight I am filled with gratitude – to Vice President Cheney and members of the Administration; to Laura, who brought joy to this house and love to my life; to our wonderful daughters, Barbara and Jenna; to my parents, whose examples have provided strength for a lifetime. And above all, I thank the American people for the trust you have given me. I thank you for the prayers that have lifted my spirits. And I thank you for the countless acts of courage, generosity, and grace that I have witnessed these past eight years.

This evening, my thoughts return to the first night I addressed you from this house – September 11, 2001. That morning, terrorists took nearly 3,000 lives in the worst attack on America since Pearl Harbor. I remember standing in the rubble of the World Trade Center three days later, surrounded by rescuers who had been working around the clock. I remember talking to brave souls who charged through smoke-filled corridors at the Pentagon and to husbands and wives whose loved ones became heroes aboard Flight 93. I remember Arlene Howard, who gave me her fallen son’s police shield as a reminder of all that was lost. And I still carry his badge.

As the years passed, most Americans were able to return to life much as it had been before Nine-Eleven. But I never did. Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our Nation. And I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe.

Over the past seven years, a new Department of Homeland Security has been created. The military, the intelligence community, and the FBI have been transformed. Our Nation is equipped with new tools to monitor the terrorists’ movements, freeze their finances, and break up their plots. And with strong allies at our side, we have taken the fight to the terrorists and those who support them. Afghanistan has gone from a nation where the Taliban harbored al Qaeda and stoned women in the streets to a young democracy that is fighting terror and encouraging girls to go to school. Iraq has gone from a brutal dictatorship and a sworn enemy of America to an Arab democracy at the heart of the Middle East and a friend of the United States.

There is legitimate debate about many of these decisions. But there can be little debate about the results. America has gone more than seven years without another terrorist attack on our soil. This is a tribute to those who toil day and night to keep us safe – law enforcement officers, intelligence analysts, homeland security and diplomatic personnel, and the men and women of the United States Armed Forces.

Our Nation is blessed to have citizens who volunteer to defend us in this time of danger. I have cherished meeting these selfless patriots and their families. America owes you a debt of gratitude. And to all our men and women in uniform listening tonight: There has been no higher honor than serving as your Commander in Chief.

The battles waged by our troops are part of a broader struggle between two dramatically different systems. Under one, a small band of fanatics demands total obedience to an oppressive ideology, condemns women to subservience, and marks unbelievers for murder. The other system is based on the conviction that freedom is the universal gift of Almighty God and that liberty and justice light the path to peace.

This is the belief that gave birth to our Nation. And in the long run, advancing this belief is the only practical way to protect our citizens. When people live in freedom, they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue campaigns of terror. When people have hope in the future, they will not cede their lives to violence and extremism. So around the world, America is promoting human liberty, human rights, and human dignity. We are standing with dissidents and young democracies, providing AIDS medicine to bring dying patients back to life, and sparing mothers and babies from malaria. And this great republic born alone in liberty is leading the world toward a new age when freedom belongs to all nations.

For eight years, we have also strived to expand opportunity and hope here at home. Across our country, students are rising to meet higher standards in public schools. A new Medicare prescription drug benefit is bringing peace of mind to seniors and the disabled. Every taxpayer pays lower income taxes. The addicted and suffering are finding new hope through faith-based programs. Vulnerable human life is better protected. Funding for our veterans has nearly doubled. America’s air, water, and lands are measurably cleaner. And the Federal bench includes wise new members like Justice Sam Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts.

When challenges to our prosperity emerged, we rose to meet them. Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took decisive measures to safeguard our economy. These are very tough times for hardworking families, but the toll would be far worse if we had not acted. All Americans are in this together. And together, with determination and hard work, we will restore our economy to the path of growth. We will show the world once again the resilience of America’s free enterprise system.

Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.

The decades ahead will bring more hard choices for our country, and there are some guiding principles that should shape our course.

While our Nation is safer than it was seven years ago, the gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack. Our enemies are patient and determined to strike again. America did nothing to seek or deserve this conflict. But we have been given solemn responsibilities, and we must meet them. We must resist complacency. We must keep our resolve. And we must never let down our guard.

At the same time, we must continue to engage the world with confidence and clear purpose. In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led.

As we address these challenges – and others we cannot foresee tonight – America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This Nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.

President Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” As I leave the house he occupied two centuries ago, I share that optimism. America is a young country, full of vitality, constantly growing and renewing itself. And even in the toughest times, we lift our eyes to the broad horizon ahead.

I have confidence in the promise of America because I know the character of our people. This is a Nation that inspires immigrants to risk everything for the dream of freedom. This is a Nation where citizens show calm in times of danger and compassion in the face of suffering. We see examples of America’s character all around us. And Laura and I have invited some of them to join us in the White House this evening.

We see America’s character in Dr. Tony Recasner, a principal who opened a new charter school from the ruins of Hurricane Katrina. We see it in Julio Medina, a former inmate who leads a faith-based program to help prisoners returning to society. We see it in Staff Sergeant Aubrey McDade, who charged into an ambush in Iraq and rescued three of his fellow Marines.

We see America’s character in Bill Krissoff, a surgeon from California. His son Nathan, a Marine, gave his life in Iraq. When I met Dr. Krissoff and his family, he delivered some surprising news: He told me he wanted to join the Navy Medical Corps in honor of his son. This good man was 60 years old – 18 years above the age limit. But his petition for a waiver was granted, and for the past year he has trained in battlefield medicine. Lieutenant Commander Krissoff could not be here tonight, because he will soon deploy to Iraq, where he will help save America’s wounded warriors and uphold the legacy of his fallen son.

In citizens like these, we see the best of our country – resilient and hopeful, caring and strong. These virtues give me an unshakable faith in America. We have faced danger and trial, and there is more ahead. But with the courage of our people and confidence in our ideals, this great Nation will never tire … never falter … and never fail.

It has been the privilege of a lifetime to serve as your President. There have been good days and tough days. But every day I have been inspired by the greatness of our country and uplifted by the goodness of our people. I have been blessed to represent this Nation we love. And I will always be honored to carry a title that means more to me than any other: citizen of the United States of America.

And so, my fellow Americans, for the final time: Good night. May God bless this house and our next President. And may God bless you and our wonderful country.

As a student of Government and future or present tax paying citizens, give your outgoing president a letter grade and a brief explanation of your grade.