New West Notes

The Obamas and the Bushes appeared together at the White House not long before Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States.

**  THE OBAMA CABINET TAKES SHAPE. So far, the U.S. Senate has approved Californian Steven Chu (Nobel Prize-winning physicist and former head of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) as energy secretary, Arne Duncan as education secretary, Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary, Peter Orzag as head of the Office of Management and Budget, and Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary.

**  THE CONTROVERSIAL WARREN INVOCATION. Orange County mega-pastor Rick Warren, who delivered the invocation today at Barack Obama’s inaugural as the president-elect reached out to younger evangelical voters, invoked little controversy amongst most voters despite the flap over his choice in the wake of his support for the barely-successful anti-same sex marriage initiative in California.

According to the new Gallup Poll, only 9% objected to his giving a stylized prayer at the inaugural ceremony.

Despite media reports of controversy over Barack Obama’s selection of megachurch pastor Rick Warren to give the prayer at Tuesday’s inauguration, the average American seems to be either unaware of the selection or to approve. Fifty-two percent of Americans say they don’t know enough about the decision to have an opinion either way. Among Americans who do have an opinion, those who approve outweigh those who disapprove 39% to 9%.

**  OH, YES, THE NEW OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL WEB SITE. At www.whitehouse.gov. It went live at noon Eastern time. The Bush White House instituted a series of some 2400 Internet rules which made the site extraordinarily difficult to search. The Obama crew has disabled all that.

**  PETRAEUS RETURNS TO THE U.S. WITH WORD OF NEW SUPPLY LINES INTO AFGHANISTAN. COURTESY OF RUSSIA. As I mentioned early this morning, General David Petraeus  –  who will confer tomorrow with President Obama and the Joint Chiefs of Staff on next steps in Iraq and Afghanistan  –  returns to Washington from the war zone with word of new supply lines to the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The US has relied on supply lines through increasingly unstable Pakistan. There have been recent closures of those lines, in the legendary Khyber Pass and elsewhere, due to Islamic jihadist attacks. Peshawar, the longtime regional capital, is increasingly unstable.

Petraeus has been touring Central Asian capitals of former Soviet republics, and high-level contacts have been taking place with Moscow, to gain new routes of supply for the Afghan War. Now new supply lines have been secured.

The U.S. has struck deals with Russia and neighboring countries allowing it to transport supplies to American troops in Afghanistan through their territory, the head of U.S. Central Command said Tuesday. Most supplies for U.S. and NATO troops must first pass through northern Pakistan via the Arabian Sea port of Karachi, a treacherous route sometimes closed because of attacks by Islamist militants.

A new relationship with Russia will be forged, as I’ve been suggesting for months, that is more accommodating to its traditional sphere of influence.

UPDATE: Senator Kennedy’s people say he took ill from fatigue after sitting through the frigid weather of the Obama Inaugural, and that he will be released from the hospital in the morning.

**  KENNEDY TAKEN FROM INAUGURAL LUNCHEON FOLLOWING CONVULSIONS. Senator Ted Kennedy, who with Caroline Kennedy figuratively passed the torch of the Kennedy family to his friend Barack Obama during his then uphill fight against the Clinton machine in the Democratic primaries last year, was taken from the Congressional inaugural luncheon honoring the new president after suffering convulsions.

Kennedy, who suffers from brain cancer, vowed during his memorable speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver to appear at Obama’s inauguration as president. He did it, as you saw on your TV screens earlier today. But after being out in the bitter cold of the inaugural day, he took a turn for the worse less than an hour later. Obama looked after Kennedy after he was helped from the luncheon table, then returned to the luncheon and asked his former colleagues to join in best wishes for Kennedy, who was first elected to the Senate in 1962, filling the seat previously held by his brother, John F. Kennedy.

Barack Obama has become the 44th president of the United States.

**  PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S INAUGURAL 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.

NOTE: As Barack Obama becomes the president of the United States, my column excerpted and linked to below  …  “Obama: Riding With History”  …  is at the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.

President-elect Barack Obama praised his Republican opponent, John McCain, at a private dinner he hosted last night for the Vietnam War hero and veteran Western senator.

**  OBAMA MEETS WITH PETRAEUS TOMORROW ON THE IRAQ AND AFGHAN WARS. General David Petraeus, the “surge” commander in Iraq who is now head of US Central Command, arrives in Washington tonight. Petraeus has just been negotiating new supply routes into Afghanistan  –  which I’ll discuss later today  –  and returns to the capital from the war zone for a meeting with Obama and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Obama will likely tell his military commanders tomorrow that he wants US combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months.

**  EMERGENCY LEADERS. With Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and most of the California’s top brass at the Obama Inaugural, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer is the acting governor today.

But here’s one for conspiracy theorists  …  One member of the Cabinet is staying away from the inauguration today in case of utter disaster. Who do did President-elect Obama designate? In a show of post-partisanship, and perhaps with a very somber view of things if the Capitol were to be wiped out during the inauguration, Obama picked the Republican he’s keeping on with his national security leadership team  –  Defense Secretary Bob Gates. The former CIA director, the first career intelligence officer to become director of central intelligence, is one of the most experienced national security managers of the past century. But if something were to happen, the 9/11 truthers will have a field day.

President-elect Barack Obama visited the Lincoln Memorial prior to the Sunday mega-concert and made his last big public appearance before his Inaugural Address.

**  OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. As the hours count down to his inauguration, Barack Obama must be hearing the hoofbeats of history. He certainly invokes it. Indeed, he seeks to be one of its great riders.

For all the president-elect’s evocation of Abraham Lincoln — and his own description of Lincoln in “The Audacity of Hope” as both deep-seated idealist and ultra-pragmatist was more revealing of Obama’s political character than anything produced by any media outlet — fate and his own design cast what Obama says as our brand-new president alongside somewhat more contemporary figures.

Obama takes office as the 44th president of the United States at a moment of multi-faceted crisis. But it is not a moment like that of Lincoln’s inauguration. President Bush and his essentially feckless administration leave behind the worst economy since the Great Depression, an environment increasingly out of whack, two troubled, troubling, and mismanaged wars, a black eye around the globe, and a sense of fatigue from years of overwrought hysteria. Lincoln’s challenge was of a very different nature.

So the figures of comparison for Obama, his fellow riders of history if you will, are, notwithstanding his hero Lincoln, different. …

From my new Huffington Post column.

The crowds began gathering early this morning in arctic weather on the National Mall in Washington for the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of the United States.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama has a rather busy day in Washington. He will be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States at 8:30 AM Pacific. His inaugural address begins at 9 AM Pacific, noon on the East Coast.

The Obamas and the Bidens begin the day by attending services at St. John’s Episcopal Church. The service begins at 6 AM Pacific.

At 6:55 AM Pacific, Barack and Michelle Obama are greeted by George and Laura Bush as the Obamas arrive at the North Portico of the White House.

At 7 AM Pacific, inaugural events begin outside the Capitol.

At 7:05 AM Pacific, the Obama, the Bidens, and the Bushes have coffee with the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies in the Blue Room of the White House.

At 8:30 AM Pacific, the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama begins outside the Capitol. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administers the oath of office to the president-elect, who will use the Lincoln Bible.

At 9 AM Pacific, President Obama delivers his inaugural address to a crowd of millions stretching across the National Mall and beyond, and billions around the world.

Following his address, President Obama and Vice President Biden attend the inaugural luncheon in their honor hosted by the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies at the Capitol. The committee is chaired by Senator and former San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein.

At 10:25 AM Pacific, former President George W. Bush makes remarks at a departure ceremony at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland.

At 11:30 AM Pacific, the inaugural parade down Pennslvania Avenue begins.

At 3:20 PM Pacific, former President Bush makes remarks upon arriving at home in Midland, Texas. The former president will actually live in Dallas, rather than his longtime presidential era ranch in Crawford.

At 4 PM Pacific, the first of 10 official Inaugural Balls begins. The Obamas will attend all of them, and the president will make brief remarks at each.

At 5:50 PM Pacific, the Bushes participate in a welcome home event in Waco, Texas.

The Obama Inaugural parties end tonight at, well, they’re not going to end for a long time  …

Meanwhile, Obama is catching a break on some geopolitical crises. Israel is scheduled to have all its troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Obama is sworn in as president. And Russia is about to restart natural gas flows to Europe through Ukraine. At a cost down the line to the notion of Ukraine joining NATO.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver are in Washington for the Obama Inaugural. They will attend the inaugural ceremony and President Obama’s inaugural address outside the Capitol.

Shriver, who endorsed Obama in February, was featured at a breakfast yesterday morning for the national service program. Shriver is also seeing her cousin and close friend, Caroline Kennedy. The daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy is likely to be the next U.S. senator from New York.

Schwarzenegger delivered remarks yesterday at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Arts Luncheon and accepted the 2009 Public Leadership in the Arts Award. Schwarzenegger’s backing for John McCain played a crucial role in McCain’s victory in the California primary, which essentially won the Republican presidential nomination for the Vietnam War.

But Schwarzenegger, who was praised by Obama during the campaign and offered words of praise for him, campaigned only once with McCain in the general election, on the Friday before the election in Columbus, Ohio. A standard practice for Schwarzenegger every four years on behalf of the Republican ticket.

Obama floated the idea of Schwarzenegger joining his administration as an energy and environmental czar, which won’t happen as Schwarzenegger has two more years as California’s governor, and delivered a video address to Schwarzenegger’s global climate change summit in November.

“Things Can Only Get Better,” the theme song of New Labour’s smashing 1997 victory.

**  ANOTHER DAY: 24 AND THE AGE OF OBAMA. One of the signature TV series of the Bush/Cheney years is back. What relevance, if any, does it have in the new age of Obama?  … From my January 13th column.

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my January 12th column.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my January 6th column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $34 to $35 per barrel range.

The drop of $113 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

Today is Martin Luther King Day. In 1963, King delivered one of the most famous speeches in history, “I have a dream,” speaking from the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd on the Mall in Washington. Following his inauguration tomorrow, Barack Obama will look out from the Capitol to another large crowd on that Mall for his inaugural address.

**  OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. As the hours count down to his inauguration, Barack Obama must be hearing the hoofbeats of history. He certainly invokes it. Indeed, he seeks to be one of its great riders.

So the figures of comparison for Obama, his fellow riders of history if you will, are, notwithstanding his hero Lincoln, different.  …

From my new Huffington Post column.

**  NEW COLUMN COMING  …  OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.

A fairly consequential week in politics  …  Barack Obama becomes the 44th president of the United States tomorrow, in an inaugural that is drawing unusual interest not only in America but around the world. He takes office at one of the messiest times in American history, with the economy in deep recession, the environment out of whack, and the country embroiled in not one but two troubled wars.

Obama will hit the ground running on his first day in office extending into Wednesday, pulling together a massive economic revival program reminiscent of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, convening the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his national security team on a plan to begin the withdrawal from Iraq and surge US forces in Afghanistan. He’s also expected to issue a number of executive orders and administrative decisions, reversing such Bush/Cheney Administration policies as those on torture, Guantanamo Bay, “black site” prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, and the emission of greenhouse gases.

Martin Luther King is not the only famed orator Obama will be compared with tomorrow. Here is part one of President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address of 1961.

Obama catches a break on the geopolitical front, with Israel planning to withdraw its forces from the Gaza Strip by the time he is sworn in tomorrow, having ended its wildly controversial offensive against Hamas with a unilateral ceasefire over the weekend. But many woes with regard to the Middle East and South Asia remain. In addition to the endless search for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, there is the matter of successfully disengaging the US from Iraq without letting the country fall into chaos or extremism. The simmering crisis between India and Pakistan in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks. The troubled war in Afghanistan, made more difficult by Pakistan’s growing instability and consequent threats to US supply lines.

Meanwhile, nothing much will be happening in California politics the first few days of the week, as the biggest players are all in Washington for the Obama Inaugural, from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Senators Dianne Feinstein (who chairs the inauguration) and Barbara Boxer, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown, and most every statewide elected official to the state’s Democratic legislative leaders. Will there be a resolution to the state’s chronic budget crisis this week? Time is running out.

The conclusion of President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama has a busy day in Washington on this last day before he is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, which of course is Martin Luther King Day. Joined by Martin Luther King’s son, Martin Luther King III, Obama began the day by visiting troops wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan at the Walter Reed Medical Center. Then, as part of the National Day of Service Obama has called, the two toured an emergency homeless shelter for teens. At noon, he addresses a luncheon on community service.

Late this afternoon and this evening, Obama hosts three dinners honoring three different figures. John McCain, whom he defeated in the November election. General Colin Powell, the former secretary of state national security advisor, and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who broke with the Republican Party to endorse Obama. And Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president.

Obama has been consulting privately with McCain since not long after the election. His hosting this dinner is an unprecedented move for a defeated rival of the opposition party, and may point to an alliance between the two during Obama’s presidency.

Meanwhile, Obama is catching a break on some geopolitical crises. Israel is scheduled to have all its troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Obama is sworn in as president tomorrow. And Russia is about to restart natural gas flows to Europe through Ukraine. At a cost down the line to the notion of Ukraine joining NATO.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver are in Washington for the Obama Inaugural.

Shriver, who endorsed Obama in February, was featured at a breakfast this morning for the national service program. Shriver will also see her cousin and close friend, Caroline Kennedy. The daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy is likely to be the next U.S. senator from New York.

Schwarzenegger delivers remarks at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Arts Luncheon and accepts the 2009 Public Leadership in the Arts Award. Schwarzenegger’s backing for John McCain played a crucial role in McCain’s victory in the California primary, which essentially won the Republican presidential nomination for the Vietnam War.

But Schwarzenegger, who was praised by Obama during the campaign and offered words of praise for him, campaigned only once with McCain in the general election, on the Friday before the election in Columbus, Ohio. A standard practice for Schwarzenegger every four years on behalf of the Republican ticket.

Obama floated the idea of Schwarzenegger joining his administration as an energy and environmental czar, which won’t happen as Schwarzenegger has two more years as California’s governor, and delivered a video address to Schwarzenegger’s global climate change summit in November.

President-elect Barack Obama and a host of the biggest music stars in the world appeared yesterday before a massive crowd in Washington.

**  ANOTHER DAY: 24 AND THE AGE OF OBAMA. One of the signature TV series of the Bush/Cheney years is back. What relevance, if any, does it have in the new age of Obama?  … From my January 13th column.

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my January 12th column.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my January 6th column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $34 to $35 per barrel range.

The drop of $113 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

President-elect Barack Obama and the crowd of supporters on election night in Chicago’s Grant Park.

**  NEW COLUMN COMING  …  OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY.

UPDATE: ISRAEL WILL WITHDRAW FROM GAZA A.S.A.P. AP newsflash says …  Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he wants to withdraw Israel’s forces from the Gaza Strip as soon as possible. Olmert said Sunday that Israel has no intention of remaining in Gaza, but wants assurances that a new cease-fire with the Hamas militant group will be stable.

**  THE GAZA CEASEFIRE. What does Israel’s unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, followed some hours later by Hamas, and the subsequent beginning of IDF withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, mean?

1. The Bush Administration is over. President Bush and Vice President Cheney were content to give tremendous backing to Israel in its anti-Hamas offensive, even after Israel flouted a UN Security Council resolution, partly worked out by the US. The incoming Obama Administration, while pro-Israel, is not aligned with Likudniks as most of the Bush/Cheney crew was. Israeli leaders knew that their window of opportunity in Gaza was closing.

2. Israel has achieved some of its objectives with regard to degrading the offensive capability of Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert claims that it achieved nearly all its goals. What else do you expect him to say? Israeli sources previously acknowledged that their air campaign against Hamas took down only one-third of Hamas’ offensive capability. The ground offensive barely went into Gaza City itself, where Israeli troops would have taken heavy casualties and the collateral civilian death toll would have further outraged most of the world.

The reality is that the US and European powers will have to help Israel stop smuggling of military materiel into Gaza. President-elect Obama and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton were in the loop when the outgoing administration agreed to help Israel on this. But this seems only a stopgap, a way of managing the situation so that Hamas does not become as powerful as Hezbollah, which it is not.

3. Hamas will think twice before being this provocative again. While Israel gets tremendous criticism around the world, and in much of the US, even in the Jewish community, for its operations, the crisis was precipitated by Hamas. Hamas is a radical group which pursue terrorist tactics. It’s not out to simply run a swath of the Palestinian territory in a good government sort of way. It wants something very different, as befits an organization that is diametrically opposed to Israel. This explains the otherwise hard to explain approach of Hamas, which was to fire off rockets into Israel on a daily basis.

Hamas leaders outside Gaza were against a ceasefire; most of those inside Gaza were for it. Gee, I wonder why.

4. Israel has done as much damage as it could without further inflaming the Arab world, both without and within. Demography is not on the long-term side of Israel, as much of its population is Arab and that is a fast-growing population.

**  OBAMA POISED TO TAKE OFFICE AMIDST WAVE OF OPTIMISM ABOUT HIS PRESIDENCY. The new CBS News/New York Times poll shows a big national consensus of optimism about the impending presidency of Barack Obama. This could be a problem for Obama, given the multiple crises besetting the US at the end of the Bush/Cheney Era. However, most Americans seem realistic about the nature of things, and of how difficult it may be to right the ship of state.

President-elect Barack Obama is the recipient of the highest levels of optimism and expectations of any modern president. Seventy-nine percent of Americans say they are optimistic about the next four years, according to the poll. Only 16 percent say they are pessimistic.

As a comparison, between 64 and 70 percent of Americans said they were optimistic before the presidencies of Mr. Obama’s five predecessors.

Expectations for Mr. Obama are exceptionally high overall. Sixty-eight percent think he will be a very good or a good president – higher than past expectations for both President Bush in 2001 (by 25 points), and for his father, President George H.W. Bush in 1989 (by 30 points).

Mr. Obama also enters the White House with the highest favorability ratings of any president in the last 30 years. Sixty percent view him favorably and only nine hold a negative opinion of him. By comparison, 44 percent had a favorable view of Mr. Bush in 2001, and 30 percent had a not favorable view.

As for the country, more than eight in 10 think things in the U.S. are worse now than they were five years ago, but 61 percent think things will be better five years from now.

Seven in 10 Americans believe Mr. Obama will bring real change to the way things are done in Washington, a theme of his campaign. Nearly all Democrats and almost half of Republicans agree. Seventy-one percent of Americans approve of Mr. Obama’s cabinet appointments.

Scenes from President-elect Barack Obama’s Saturday whistle-stop train tour from Philadelphia to Washington.

**  OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden attend the opening inaugural ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial. The event kicks off at 11:30 AM Pacific.   Beyonce, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Wonder, John Mellencamp, Usher, Shakira, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Bon Jovi, Josh Groban, and James Taylor are among the musical headliners.

Earlier this morning, Obama and Biden went to Arlington National Cemetery and laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. Then the president-elect and incoming First Lady Michelle Obama attended services at 19th Street Baptish Church.

But it’s not all ceremony and spectacle for Obama, as the hard work of managing the transition between two very different governments continues.

Bruce Springsteen’s musical introduction of the Obamas with “The Rising” at a huge rally in Cleveland the Sunday before the election presaged Obama’s taking of swing state Ohio out of the Republican column.

Obama got some good news today, as two major crises appeared to subside.

The guns have fallen silent in Gaza, with Israel declaring a unilateral ceasefire and Hamas and other Palestinian militant factions following along a few hours later. Now Israeli troops are beginning to withdraw from the Gaza Strip.

In Moscow, Russia has agreed to begin supplying Ukraine (and the rest of Europe) with natural gas once again. Meeting on the supposed sidelines of an international summit hosted by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko cut a deal for Russia to supply natural gas to Ukraine, at a 20% discount. The Russians says Ukraine is way behind on payments, and the former Soviet republic, its own gas cut off as a result, took to pilfering gas from pipeline flows intended for the rest of Europe, thus providing Russia with the pretext to shut off the gas.

It’s a safe guess that there is still more to the deal, for Timoshenko, elected a few years ago with President Viktor Yushchenko, was part of the country’s embrace of the US and NATO. Now Timoshenko is taking a more pro-Moscow stance and Yushchenko’s unpopularity makes Dick Cheney seem like the Beatles. Her delivery of this deal makes the “gas princess,” as she is known in Ukraine, the country’s key political figure.

Russia’s goal, of course, is to do through political and economic means what it did to Georgia through military means: Decisively turn it away from the NATO option.

As the US may need more Russian help  –  due to increasing instability in Pakistan  –  to prosecute the troubled war in Afghanistan, this is not unlikely to happen.

More about the Afghanistan/Pakistan/Central Asia/Russia/Post-Soviet Space equation another time  …

President-elect Barack Obama, addressing a crowd of 40,000 in freezing weather at the Baltimore stop of his inaugural train tour on Saturday afternoon, said that making needed changes in America will require the “perseverance and idealism” demonstrated in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

**  ISRAEL TO HALT GAZA OFFENSIVE DESPITE LACK OF NEGOTIATED CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert just announced that the IDF will cease operations in the Gaza Strip early Sunday morning, at 2 AM local time.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said late Saturday that Israel would halt its military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, laying out a cease-fire plan that will go into effect at 2 a.m. Sunday morning local time.

President-elect Barack Obama addressed a crowd of thousands in freezing weather at the train station in Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware.

**  BUSH RATED WORSE THAN NIXON. The new Gallup Poll shows outgoing President George W. Bush faring worse than Richard Nixon, forced to resign in the Watergate scandal, in historical assessment.

A mere 17% of Americans believe George W. Bush will go down in history as an outstanding or above-average president — out of sync with Bush’s own confidence that his presidency will be appreciated with time. Another 23% of Americans predict he will be remembered as “average” while 59% say “below average” or “poor.”

The bleakness of Americans’ current forecast for Bush’s historical stature is highlighted by the contrast between their ratings of Bush and those of several former U.S. presidents.

According to the Jan. 9-11 USA Today/Gallup poll, Americans think four of the last seven presidents are more likely to be remembered in positive than in negative terms. This includes highly praiseworthy ratings for Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Only Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Richard Nixon — the only U.S. president ever to have resigned from office — receive more subpar than stellar reviews.

Although Bush is about tied with Nixon in perceptions that history will remember him as an outstanding or above-average president, he fares worse than Nixon on the basis of his “below average” and “poor” ratings: 59% for Bush vs. 48% for Nixon. As a result, Bush’s net positive score (total percent outstanding or above average minus total percent below average or poor) is worse than Nixon’s: -42 for Bush versus -33 for Nixon.

There is also a bit of irony embedded in the presidential rankings. President Bush falls well below his father, George H.W. Bush, whose defeat in 1992 was reportedly one of Bush’s motivations for running for governor of Texas in 1994 and, later, for president.

President-elect Barack Obama kicked off his whistle-stop inaugural train tour to Washington this morning in Philadelphia. Full text of his address is below on NWN.

**  THE OBAMAS STOP IN WILMINGTON TO PICK UP THE BIDENS. The Obama inaugural train stopped just now in Wilmington, Delaware to pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Jill Biden. For decades, just-resigned Senator Biden made the daily train trip from Wilmington to Washington, and back again. He was busy much of that time raising his family, shattered by the death of his wife just before he was sworn into the Senate at the age of 30.

One of Biden’s close friends is the train conductor, who spoke at the rally sending him off to Washington to be the vice president of the United States. Biden told thousands of supporters in the freezing weather: “I tell you– spring is on the way with this new administration.”

Next stop, with more remarks from Obama and Biden  –  after another “slow roll” through Edgewood, Maryland  –  is Baltimore. The event is supposed to begin at 1:15 PM Pacific. The train then continues on to Washington, where it is scheduled to arrive at 4 PM Pacific.

Incidentally, there are two cars filled with Secret Service agents on this train. One car is filled with a heavily-armed special ops team ready to take on attackers.

Obama and wife, Michelle, greeted Joe and Jill Biden with hugs at the station in Wilmington — where the National Weather Service said the temperature was 16 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 6 Celsius) — before making remarks and continuing on to Baltimore. They are set to arrive in Washington this evening.

“This is more than an ordinary train ride, this is a new beginning,” Biden said.

“Yours are the stories that will drive us in the days ahead,” Obama told the Wilmington crowd.

At points along the route, cheering crowds ranging in size from about a dozen people to hundreds gathered in spite of the freezing temperatures.

The train slowed down in Claymont, Delaware, and Obama went to the back platform of the last car and waved. Several hundred onlookers cheered, holding handwritten signs, two of which read, “Hail to chief” and “Hallelujah we did it.”

While the train trip harkens back to the ride that President Abraham Lincoln took to his 1861 inauguration, it also is intended to echo Obama’s inaugural theme: “Renewing America’s Promise” — with celebrations held in cities central to that premise, aides say.

President-elect Barack Obama toured a wind turbine equipment factory yesterday in Ohio and spoke of the need for dramatic action to revive the American economy.

**  OBAMA CALLS FOR NEW DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. President-elect Barack Obama just spoke Saturday morning in Philadelphia prior to the beginning of his whistle-stop train tour to Washington. He’ll be in the capital city again tonight, with the train scheduled to arrive at Washington’s Union Station around 4 PM Pacific. Prior to that arrival, the Obamas pick up the Bidens in their home town of Wilmington, Delaware around 10 AM Pacific.

Here are Obama’s remarks in Philadelphia.

We are here to mark the beginning of our journey to Washington. This is fitting because it was here, in this city, that our American journey began. It was here that a group of farmers and lawyers, merchants and soldiers, gathered to declare their independence and lay claim to a destiny that they were being denied.

It was a risky thing, meeting as they did in that summer of 1776. There was no guarantee that their fragile experiment would find success. More than once in those early years did the odds seem insurmountable. More than once did the fishermen, laborers, and craftsmen who called themselves an army face the prospect of defeat.

And yet, they were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line – their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor – for a set of ideals that continue to light the world. That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by, and for the people can endure. It was these ideals that led us to declare independence, and craft our constitution, producing documents that were imperfect but had within them, like our nation itself, the capacity to be made more perfect.

We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first patriots but to take up the work that they began. The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right. Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast. An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil.

And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives – from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry – an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.

That is the reason I launched my campaign for the presidency nearly two years ago. I did so in the belief that the most fundamental American ideal, that a better life is in store for all those willing to work for it, was slipping out of reach. That Washington was serving the interests of the few, not the many. And that our politics had grown too small for the scale of the challenges we faced.

But I also believed something else. I believed that our future is our choice, and that if we could just recognize ourselves in one another and bring everyone together – Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, north, south, east and west, black, white, Latino, Asian, and Native American, gay and straight, disabled and not – then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.

This is what I believed, but you made this belief real. You proved once more that people who love this country can change it. And as I prepare to leave for Washington on a trip that you made possible, know that I will not be traveling alone. I will be taking with me some of the men and women I met along the way, Americans from every corner of this country, whose hopes and heartaches were the core of our cause; whose dreams and struggles have become my own.

Theirs are the voices I will carry with me every day in the White House. Theirs are the stories I will be thinking of when we deliver the changes you elected me to make. When Americans are returning to work and sleeping easier at night knowing their jobs are secure, I will be thinking of people like Mark Dowell, who’s worried his job at Ford will be the next one cut, a devastating prospect with the teenage daughters he has back home.

When affordable health care is no longer something we hope for, but something we can count on, I will be thinking of working moms like Shandra Jackson, who was diagnosed with an illness, and is now burdened with higher medical bills on top of child care for her eleven year-old son.

When we are welcoming back our loved ones from a war in Iraq that we’ve brought to an end, I will be thinking of our brave servicemen and women sacrificing around the world, of veterans like Tony Fischer, who served two tours in Iraq, and all those returning home, unable to find a job.

These are the stories that will drive me in the days ahead. They are different stories, told by men and women whose journeys may seem separate. And yet, what you showed me time and again is that no matter who we are or what we look like, no matter where we come from or what faith we practice, we are a people of common hopes and common dreams, who ask only for what was promised us as Americans – that we might make of our lives what we will and see our children climb higher than we did.

We recognize that such enormous challenges will not be solved quickly. There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency.

But we should never forget that we are the heirs of that first band of patriots, ordinary men and women who refused to give up when it all seemed so improbable; and who somehow believed that they had the power to make the world anew. That is the spirit that we must reclaim today.

For the American Revolution did not end when British guns fell silent. It was never something to be won only on a battlefield or fulfilled only in our founding documents. It was not simply a struggle to break free from empire and declare independence. The American Revolution was – and remains – an ongoing struggle “in the minds and hearts of the people” to live up to our founding creed.

Starting now, let’s take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union. Let’s build a government that is responsible to the people, and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable. Let’s all of us do our part to rebuild this country.

Let’s make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning. Join me in this effort. Join one another in this effort. And together, mindful of our proud history, hopeful for the future, let’s seek a better world in our time. Thank you.

President-elect Barack Obama delivers his weekly video/radio address, discussing the upcoming inaugural activities and their role at the heart of the American experience.

**  OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President-elect Barack Obama, with incoming First Lady Michelle Obama, depart Philadelphia for a whistle-stop train tour to Washington. The Obama inaugural train  –  which is not an express  –  stops in Wilmington, Delaware to pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Jill Biden, then continues on to Baltimore, Maryland and finally Washington, DC.

Michelle Obama’s birthday, incidentally, is today. She’s 45, the youngest first lady since Jackie Kennedy.

The trip is reminiscent of the whistle-stop train tour first popularized by President Abraham Lincoln, Obama’s personal hero.

The train will do a “slow roll” at several points along the way, rather than having scheduled stops as in whistle-stop tours. It’s a different era with regard to security, and the Secret Service is very concerned about threats to the first African American president in history.

Outgoing President George W. Bush isn’t scheduled to appear in public again until he welcomes President Obama to the north portico of the White House on January 20th.

Yesterday was the final day on the job for all but a few of Bush’s White House staff. With the federal government heading into a holiday weekend  –  Martin Luther King Day is Monday, the day before Obama’s inauguration as the first African American president of the United States  –  only current White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and a few others remain on the job.

Meanwhile, geopolitical crises continue. Israel and Hamas are moving closer to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, though there are some major hiccups which I don’t have time to go into. Israel has succeeded in substantially degrading the offensive capability of Hamas, but at a terrible cost in its public image, not to mention sowing future seeds of trouble. Russian natural gas still isn’t getting through Ukraine to much of Europe. There is a major international gas summit taking place this weekend in Moscow, to the side of which Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will meet with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, now pro-Russian. While more Pakistani troops are on the border with India in the wake of the still unresolved Mumbai crisis, Pakistan has moved to crack down on some Islamic jihadists and agreed to cooperate with Indian authorities in the Mumbai investigation. For its part, India dropped its demand that all suspects be handed over to it. But on the flip side, US forces are looking for alternate supply routes to Afghanistan with the Pakistani regional capital of Peshawar becoming increasingly unstable. General David Petraeus is in Central Asia looking for help from the former Soviet republics, now Russian allies. Hillary Clinton spoke earlier in the week about closer engagement with Russia, and this may be part of the deal.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public events this weeekend. He and First Lady Maria Shriver are planning on attending the Obama Inaugural in Washington.

**  ANOTHER DAY: 24 AND THE AGE OF OBAMA. One of the signature TV series of the Bush/Cheney years is back. What relevance, if any, does it have in the new age of Obama?  … From my new column.

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my Monday column.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my January 6th column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil closed on Friday at $36.51 per barrel.  Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

The drop of $111 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

President-elect Barack Obama accepting the Democratic presidential nomination on August 28th in Denver’s Mile High Stadium.

**  OBAMA IN PHILADELPHIA FOR WHISTLE-STOP TRAIN TOUR, ABOUT TO ORDER END TO TORTURE AND “BLACK SITE” PRISONS. President-elect Barack Obama is in Philadelphia tonight for the start tomorrow morning of his and Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s whistle-stop train tour to the inauguration. Here’s the pool report: PE Obama arrived in Philadelphia around 4:15 pm. He departed the plane about five minutes later and got into the motorcade without acknowledging at least one shouted question from the press. In the middle of the Philadelphia rush hour, Obama managed to make it from the airport to his hotel less than 15 minutes, thanks to traffic control. He arrived at the hotel, Sheraton Center City, at 4:36 pm. To the joy of the pool, a lid was declared two minutes later.

Notice anything about that report?

Meanwhile, Obama is reportedly about to issue an executive order banning torture and so-called “black site” prisons in foreign countries run by the CIA. Interrogatios would be handled according to the US Army Field Manual, and detainees would be transferred to US military facilities.

**  AXELROD GIVES UP STAKE IN CONSULTING FIRM, EX-GRAY DAVIS CAMPAIGN MANAGER REPLACES HIM AS A SENIOR PARTNER. AKPD Message and Media, the political consulting firm founded by Obama campaign senior strategist David Axelrod, today announced that top Democratic strategist and senior Obama aide Larry Grisolano will be joining the company as managing partner. Grisolano most recently served as Director of Paid Media and Opinion Research for Obama for America and Obama-Biden 2008.  He will be joining AKPD partners John Kupper and John Del Cecato.  Obama campaign manager David Plouffe, who first partnered with Axelrod nine years ago, will continue to serve as AKPD’s senior advisor.  AKPD founder, David Axelrod, has announced that he will be leaving the firm to serve as Senior Advisor to President-elect Barack Obama when he takes office next week.

Grisolano was the day-to-day campaign manager for Gray Davis’s 2002 re-election as governor of California.

**  THE PATH TO INAUGURATION. In four days, Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States. I won’t be in Washington myself for the festivities. It’s going to be an enormous mob scene. I’ve been to one presidential inaugural and that was daunting enough. California gubernatorial inaugurals, quite large and complex in their own right, are about the scale I’m comfortable dealing with. Add to the massive scale of the Obama Inaugural is freezing weather and great expense. And in any event, there will be so much media there that it is a set of events perhaps best viewed from a distance.

But I have several key contacts who will be on hand for the Obama Inaugural, and rather closely involved with it. So NWN presents the path to inauguration these next few days, looking back at Obama’s course to this historic occasion, and looking ahead to the presidency about to be.

**  OBAMA IN OHIO: NEED FOR ACTION NEVER MORE URGENT. President-elect Barack Obama went to Ohio this morning to talk up his big economic revival plan. As he did so, word came out that the inflation rate in the US is at a 50-year low. Which means we are in serious danger of deflation.

Here’s what Obama said: I want to start by thanking the folks here at Cardinal Fastener for the tour you just gave me. The story of this company – which began building wind turbine parts just two years ago, and is now poised to make half its earnings that way – is that a renewable energy economy isn’t some pie-in-the-sky, far-off future. It’s happening all across America right now. It’s providing alternatives to foreign oil now. It can create millions of additional jobs and entire new industries if we act right now.

The need for this action has never been more urgent. We’ve started this year in the midst of a crisis unlike any we’ve seen in our lifetime. Last month, we lost more than half a million jobs – a total of nearly 2.6 million in 2008. Another 3.4 million people who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs. With each passing day, families here in Ohio and across America are watching their bills pile up and their savings disappear. And economists from across the spectrum tell us that if nothing is done, and we continue on our current path, this recession could linger for years – and America could lose the competitive edge that has served as the foundation for our strength and standing in the world.

It’s not too late to change course – but only if we take dramatic action as soon as possible. The way I see it, the first job of my Administration is to put people back to work and get our economy working again. That’s why I’ve moved quickly to work with my economic team and leaders of both parties on an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will immediately jumpstart job creation and long-term growth. And I’m pleased that Congress has seen the urgency as well, and is moving quickly to consider such a plan.

It’s a plan that will save or create three to four million jobs in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries – and 90 percent of these jobs will be in the private sector. And I want to be clear – we’re not looking to create just any kind of jobs here. We’re looking to create good jobs that pay well and won’t be shipped overseas. Jobs that don’t just put people to work in the short-term, but position our economy to be on the cutting edge in the long-term.

That starts with new, clean sources of energy. We know that the possibilities here are limitless. Here in Ohio and across America, we’ve seen old factories become new clean energy producers. We’ve seen entrepreneurs turning solar energy into electricity, and corn and soybeans into bio-fuels. Our scientists and engineers are hard at work developing cars that use less gas, homes and appliances that require less energy, schools and offices that are greener and more efficient than ever before.

But we also know that we are nowhere near realizing the full potential of their work. Take the example of wind power alone: I’m told that if we don’t act now, because of the economic downturn, half of the wind projects planned for 2009 could wind up being abandoned. Think about that. Think about all the businesses that wouldn’t come to be, all the jobs that wouldn’t be created, all the clean energy we wouldn’t produce. And think of what’s happening in countries like Spain, Germany and Japan, where they’re making real investments in renewable energy. They’re surging ahead of us, poised to take the lead in these new industries.

This isn’t because they’re smarter than us, or work harder than us, or are more innovative than we are. It’s because their governments have harnessed their people’s hard work and ingenuity with bold investments – investments that are paying off in good, high-wage jobs – jobs they won’t lose to other countries.

There is no reason we can’t do the same thing right here in America. That’s why, as part of our Recovery and Reinvestment plan, we’re committing to double the production of renewable energy in the next three years, and to modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes.

In the process, we’ll put nearly half a million people to work building wind turbines and solar panels; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to new jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.

Here at Cardinal Fastener, that could mean going from operating at 50 percent capacity to 90 percent capacity and creating even more good, made-in-America jobs right here in Ohio.

With our Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, we’ll also create hundreds of thousands of jobs by improving health care – transitioning to a nationwide system of computerized medical records that won’t just save money, but save lives by preventing deadly medical errors. And we’ll create hundreds of thousands more jobs in education, equipping tens of thousands of schools with 21st century classrooms, labs and computers to help our kids compete with any worker in the world for any job.

We’ll put nearly 400,000 people to work by repairing our infrastructure – our crumbling roads, bridges and schools. And we’ll build the new infrastructure we need to succeed in this new century, investing in science and technology, and laying down miles of new broadband lines so that businesses across our nation can compete with their counterparts around the world.

Finally, we won’t just create jobs, we’ll also provide help for those who’ve lost theirs, and for states and families who’ve been hardest-hit by this recession. That means bi-partisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage; a $1,000 tax cut for 95 percent of working families; and assistance to help states avoid harmful budget cuts in essential services like police, fire, education and health care.

Now, given the magnitude of the challenges we face, none of this will come easy. Recovery won’t happen overnight, and it’s likely that, even with these measures, things will get worse before they get better.

But if anyone doubts that we can dig ourselves out of this hole, I invite them to come here to Ohio and look what you’ve done at Cardinal Fastener. I know it hasn’t been easy – and it hasn’t been without risk. But you’ve set your sights on the future, and you haven’t looked back. In an economy that’s losing jobs, you’re creating them. And they’re the kind of jobs that don’t just support families and sustain communities – but also help transform our economy, spurring growth not just today, but for decades to come.

That’s what we’ve always done in moments like this. We’ve looked ahead to the next big idea, that next new breakthrough. We’ve experimented and innovated, and when we’ve failed, we’ve picked ourselves up and tried again. And I know that if we can summon that determination and that great American spirit once again, we will meet the challenges of our time and build a better future for our children.

**  CALIFORNIA GRINDING TO A HALT. Still no resolution to the state’s chronic budget crisis and state government is about to run out of money in a few weeks, so the Pooled Money Investment Board, a key management group on infrastructure, met this morning and voted to halt or indefinitely suspend 5300 projects. You can check out the list here.

“Four Days In Denver,” the Obama campaign’s behind-the-scenes documentary.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama heads to Bedford Heights, Ohio today to campaign for his economic revival program. He’ll tour Cardinal Fastener & Specialty Company, which makes wind turbine equipment, and speak with the workers there.

He’ll return to Washington and continue transition work through the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. His principal task now? To finish his inaugural address, which has gone through at least three drafts. While a number of people are involved, including press secretary/strategist Robert Gibbs and senior advisor/confidante Valerie Jarrett, the speech is being principally crafted and now polished by Obama himself with chief speechwriter Jon Favreau and chief strategist David Axelrod.

Speaking of speeches, President George W. Bush gave his farewell address last night. Incidentally, Madame Tussauds museums around the world yesterday replaced their waxen effigies of Bush with those of Barack Obama.

I missed Bush’s speech. But he reportedly focused heavily on 9/11 and the lack of any subsequent terrorist attacks on the US. He also gave a remarkably rosy-eyed view of Afghanistan and Iraq, two messes being left behind for Obama, as well as the environment. I don’t think people buy it.

President George W. Bush delivered his farewell address to the nation last night.

Bush isn’t scheduled to appear in public again until he welcomes President Obama to the White House on January 20th.

Today is the final day on the job for all but a few of Bush’s White House staff. With the federal government heading into a holiday weekend  –  Martin Luther King Day is Monday, the day before Obama’s inauguration as the first African American president of the United States  –  only current White House chief of staff Josh Bolten and a few others will remain on the job after today.

The Obamas moved late yesterday from the Hay Adams Hotel, where they’ve been since the beginning of the month, to Blair House, the traditional temporary home for incoming presidents and their families. They weren’t at Blair House earlier because Bush had former Australian Prime Minister John Howard staying there in advance of his receiving the Medal of Freedom, which he also awarded to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who found accommodations elsewhere.

Team Obama works to sell the president-elect’s economic recovery plan.

Obama won a major victory yesterday when the Senate voted yesterday to release the second $350 billion tranche of the original Wall Street bailout, this time with oversight, safeguards, and money to provide direct relief to citizens.

The next big task? Passage of Obama’s new economic recovery plan, the House version of which checks in around $825 billion.

Meanwhile, geopolitical crises continue. Israel and Hamas are moving closer to an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, with Russia urging Hamas, with which it has relations, and Iran and Syria to back the deal. This comes after Israel shelled the United Nations headquarters yesterday in Gaza, claiming that machine gun fire had come from the compound, which the UN describes as nonsense. Israel’s prime minister apologized for the incident. Russian natural gas still isn’t getting through Ukraine to much of Europe. While more Pakistani troops are on the border with India in the wake of the still unresolved Mumbai crisis, early today Pakistan moved to crack down on an Islamic jihadist terrorist camp and agreed to cooperate with Indian authorities in the Mumbai investigation. For its part, India dropped its demand that all suspects be handed over to it. But on the flip side, US forces are looking for alternate supply routes to Afghanistan with the Pakistani regional capital of Peshawar becoming increasingly unstable. General David Petraeus is in Central Asia looking for help from the former Soviet republics, now Russian allies.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivered his State of the State address yesterday morning in the Capitol, then held more private talks on the budget crisis.

He continues to have private talks today in and around the Capitol.

His state of the state address focused only on California’s chronic budget crisis, rather than address a broader agenda for the state. Earlier plans to take the state of the state on the road, beginning in Sacramento, then delivering it anew in Fresno and Los Angeles, were scrapped.

This is why the speech was in the morning, when it’s usually around 5 PM, as legislative leaders kept to the original (non-public) schedule. Not, as some have speculated, because Schwarzenegger wanted to bury the speech.

How did the speech play? Rather well, along very predictable lines. California’s chronic budget crisis is much like the minuet, the highly-stylized 17th century dance that was all the rage, as it were, during George Washington’s era.

Schwarzenegger delivered a somewhat spirited recapitulation of the situation, with the fresh element of impending true disaster. Some liberals criticized him for proposed cuts to education and elsewhere, while others acknowledged that even liberal versions of the budget contain similar cuts. Conservatives took umbrage at Schwarzenegger’s blaming of hyperpartisan ideologies for being at the heart of the crisis, recognizing that his criticism applies far more to them  –  since liberals have been much more open to compromise  –  and their non-serious approach than to the left.

**  ANOTHER DAY: 24 AND THE AGE OF OBAMA. One of the signature TV series of the Bush/Cheney years is back. What relevance, if any, does it have in the new age of Obama?  … From my new column.

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my Monday column.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my January 6th column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $35 to $36 per barrel range.

The drop of $112 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

President-elect Barack Obama says everyone can take part in his inauguration, now just five days away.

**  OBAMA WINS ON TARP. The US Senate has just approved disbursement of the second tranche of $350 billion from the Wall Street bailout enacted last fall. Obama’s economic team promised transparency this time around, and more funds for relief of people as distinguished from financial institutions. The vote was 52 to 42.

Congress laid the foundation for President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan on Thursday with remarkable speed, clearing the way for a new infusion of bailout cash for the financial industry while majority Democrat proposed spending increases and tax cuts totaling a whopping $825 billion.
Two days after Obama personally lobbied for release of $350 billion in bailout funds, the Senate narrowly turned aside a bid to block the money.

**  NEW POLL: BIG SUPPORT F0R ECONOMIC REVIVAL PROGRAM, BIGGER SUPPORT FOR OBAMA. With five days until his inauguration, the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows big support for President-elect Barack Obama and his agenda.

Despite some bumps in the road this month for Obama’s transition, most are sloughing them off. 71% approve of Obama’s performance in the presidential transition. Those who view him positively outnumber those who view him negatively by a whopping 66% to 14%. In contrast, outgoing President Bush has only a 27% approval rating.

Intriguingly, individual elements of Obama’s economic revival agenda are much more popular than the overall package.

Obama’s stimulus package, which his team estimates will cost some $775 billion, includes: Distributing $500 in tax credits to individuals (and $1,000 to families)
Providing money for shovel-ready construction projects
Increasing production of renewable energy
Expanding unemployment benefits and government-assisted health insurance.
According to the poll, 43 percent believe the stimulus is a good idea, compared to 27 percent who think it’s a bad one, and 24 percent who don’t have an opinion.

Eighty-nine percent support the creation of new jobs through increased production of renewable energy (as well as making public buildings and schools more energy efficient). And 85 percent think it’s a good idea to generate jobs through the repair and construction of roads and bridges.

In addition, 67 percent approve of the the tax cuts in the stimulus plan, and 65 percent agree with the expansion of unemployment insurance and government-assisted health insurance.

This support isn’t too surprising given that nearly three-fourths of Americans believe that the current economic recession will continue for at least another year — and perhaps even longer.

By comparison, 4 percent believe that the recession is almost over or will be in the next six months.

So why the concern about the overall package? The overall numbers are daunting, especially in light of the nation’s already massive deficit.

**  GEORGE WILL V. JERRY BROWN. Conservative columnist George Will takes on former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown today for his move to have California’s Prop 8 banning same-sex marriage declared unconstitutional.

Will claims that Brown’s move would enable the courts to do whatever they want.

Brown’s audacious argument is a viscous soup of natural-law and natural-rights philosophizing, utterly untethered from case law. It is designed to effect a constitutional revolution by establishing an unchallengeable judicial hegemony.

Brown, who, incidentally, easily leads his potential rivals San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi in fundraising for a possible 2010 gubernatorial race, despite not being able to take the larger checks allowed those who have launched gubernatorial campaign committees, sees it differently, deriving his opinion from what he sees as a fundamental civil right.

I wonder what Will would say about an initiative to continue racial segregation, as undoubtedly would pass in the South of a few decades past. That used to be constitutional.

**  WOODWARD’S 10 KEY TAKEAWAYS ABOUT THE PRESIDENCY IN THE WAKE OF GEORGE W. BUSH. Writing for the Sunday Washington Post, Bob Woodward –  who has written four books centering on the Bush Presidency, which have ranged from very positive to quite negative  –  has 10 key takeaways for the new administration from what he now clearly sees as the cautionary tale of the outgoing president.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8. Righteous motives are not enough for effective policy.

9. Presidents must insist on strategic thinking.

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

**  SCHWARZENEGGER’S STATE OF THE STATE  –  LIVE WEBCAST THIS MORNING.

Here are excerpts from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s State of the State address.

The speech will be webcast live at 10 AM at www.gov.ca.gov.

I will not give the traditional State of the State address today, because the reality is that our state is incapacitated until we resolve the budget crisis. The truth is that California is in a state of emergency. Addressing this emergency is the first and greatest thing we must do for the people. The 42 billion dollar deficit is a rock upon our chest and we cannot breathe until we get it off.

It doesn’t make any sense to talk about education, infrastructure, water, health care reform and all these things when we have this huge budget deficit. I will talk about my vision for all of these things… and more… as soon as we get the budget done. …

The legislature is currently in the midst of serious and good faith negotiations to resolve the crisis, negotiations that are being conducted in the knowledge we have no alternative but to find agreement.  …

We meet in times of great hope for our nation. Although we hear the drumbeat of news about bailouts, bankruptcies and Ponzi schemes, the nation with great anticipation is also awaiting the inauguration of a new president. Our nation should be proud of what President-elect Obama’s election says to the world about American openness and renewal. …

This nation rightfully feels the hope of change. Californians, of course, desire change here in their own state as well. Yet they have doubts if that is possible.  …

People are asking if California is governable. They wonder about the need for a constitutional convention. They don’t understand how we could have let political dysfunction paralyze our state for so long. … It is not that California is ungovernable. It’s that for too long we have been split by ideology. …

One of the reasonable expectations the public has of government is that it will produce a sound and balanced budget. That is what the legislative leaders are struggling to do right now. There is no course left open to us but this: to work together, to sacrifice together, to think of the common good – not our individual good.  …

In December, we even had to suspend funding that affects 2,000 infrastructure projects that were already underway. So, now, the bulldozers are silent. The nail guns are still. The cement trucks are parked. This disruption has stopped work on levees, schools, roads, everything. It has thrown thousands and thousands of people out of work at a time when our unemployment rate is rising.

How could we let something like that happen? I know that everyone in this room wants to hear again the sound of construction. No one wants unemployment checks replacing paychecks.  …

When a budget agreement is reached, when some of the raw emotions have passed, I will send to the Legislature the package of legislative goals and proposals that a governor traditionally sends. These proposals are sitting on my desk. … But, our first order of business is to solve the budget crisis.  …

As you know, in the last 20 years of budgeting, only four budgets have been on time. … We should make a commitment that legislators – and the governor, too – lose per diem expenses and our paychecks for every day the budget goes past the constitutional deadline of June 15th.  … I mean, if you call a taxi and the taxi doesn’t come, you don’t pay the driver. If the people’s work is not getting done, the people’s representatives should not get paid either. That is common sense in the real world.  …

We have the best trained, the most selfless, the toughest firefighters in the nation. Thirteen of whom lost their lives. They gave their lives for this state. Ladies and gentlemen, the courageous examples of those firefighters should not be lost on us.

In our own way, we, too, must show courage in serving the public. Ladies and gentlemen, let this be a year of political courage.  …  Let us resolve the budget crisis, so that we can get on with the people’s work.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama is in Washington preparing for his inauguration on January 20th. Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton  –  who won easy confirmation from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on a 16-1 vote (the only dissent came from Louisiana Republican David Vitter, recently embroiled in a prostitution scandal)  –  give their Senate farewell addresses today.

President George W. Bush gives his farewell address tonight at 5 PM Pacific, which will apparently be roadblocked on all cable and broadcast news nets. Incidentally, Madame Tussauds museums around the world today replaced their waxen effigies of Bush with those of Barack Obama.

The Obamas move from the Hay Adams Hotel, where they’ve been since the beginning of the month, to Blair House tonight, the traditional temporary home for incoming presidents and their families. They weren’t at Blair House earlier because Bush had former Australian Prime Minister John Howard staying there in advance of his receiving the Medal of Freedom, which he also awarded to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who found accommodations elsewhere.

Obama is waiting for the Senate to vote to release the second $350 billion tranche of the original Wall Street bailout, this time with oversight, safeguards, and money to provide direct relief to citizens.

Meanwhile, geopolitical crises continue. Israel shelled the United Nations headquarters today in Gaza, claiming that machine gun fire had come from the compound, which the UN describes as nonsense. Israel’s prime minister apologized for the incident. Russian natural gas still isn’t getting through Ukraine to much of Europe. More Pakistani troops are on the border with India in the wake of the still unresolved Mumbai crisis. And US forces are looking for alternate supply routes to Afghanistan with the Pakistani regional capital of Peshawar becoming increasingly unstable.

Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs is taking a six-month medical leave from the Silicon Valley company.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers his State of the State address this morning in the Capitol, then holds more private talks on the budget crisis.

His state of the state address will focus only on California’s chronic budget crisis, rather than address a broader agenda for the state. And earlier plans to take the state of the state on the road, beginning in Sacramento, then delivering it anew in Fresno and Los Angeles, have been scrapped.

**  ANOTHER DAY: 24 AND THE AGE OF OBAMA. One of the signature TV series of the Bush/Cheney years is back. What relevance, if any, does it have in the new age of Obama?  … From my new column.

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my Monday column.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my January 6th column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $35 to $36 per barrel range.

The drop of $112 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs delivers the 2005 Stanford commencement address, in which he discusses success, failure, and success again in life and at Apple, and matters of life and death.

**  STEVE JOBS TAKES MEDICAL LEAVE FROM APPLE. Well, the other shoe has dropped. After months of speculation about his increasingly gaunt appearance, and his absence from the customary keynote address at last week’s annual MacWorld at Moscone Center in San Francisco, Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs announced today that he is taking medical leave from his post at the company that he and Steve Wozniak founded in a California garage over 30 years ago.

Here’s his letter to the Apple staff: Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.

I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.

Steve

Apple, of course, is one of the key technology companies on the planet, having been the first company to create a successful personal computer, having been the first company to bring the graphical user interface to commercial computing, having created desktop publishing, having introduced the iPod, having transformed the music business and online video, having the smallest complete notebook computer, and having been a design icon for decades. Amongst other things.

Ironically, this move by Jobs, one of the key figures in the history of global technology, who recovered from pancreatic cancer a few years ago, comes less than two weeks before the 25th anniversary of Apple’s launch of the Macintosh computer, one of the most revolutionary products of all time. (One of the original Macs sits on the hearth of my fireplace, beneath a Lichtenstein.) Having done some work with Apple during its first heyday in the 1980s, as assistant to the chairman of Regis McKenna Inc., Apple’s PR and marketing firm (Regis created the Apple logo), and having been present at the Macintosh launch, I’ve been planning a column for the anniversary. Jobs also created Pixar, which revolutionized computer animation and the movie business. This only heightens the significance. And increases the poignancy.

**  MOST SEE BUSH AS ONE OF WORST PRESIDENTS EVER. A new Rasmussen poll shows that President George W. Bush leaves office with a big majority of US voters seeing him as one of the five worst presidents in American history. The Republican-owned poll has a whopping 57% ratings him one of the worst presidents ever.

Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Americans say Bush is one of the five worst presidents in U.S. history, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just six percent (6%) say he was one of the five best, and 34% place him somewhere in between.

Republicans aren’t much help to the retiring 62-year-old GOP president. While predictably 81% of Democrats rate Bush as one of the five worst presidents, so do 20% of Republicans. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans (65%) put Bush in the somewhere-in-between category, while only 11% say he was one of the five best chief executives.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 62% rate Bush as one of the five worst presidents, 31% somewhere in between and two percent (2%) one of the five best.

In August, a month before Wall Street’s financial problems began hitting the front pages, 41% of Americans said Bush will go down in history as the worst U.S. president ever, but 50% disagreed.

A plurality (41%) say Bush will be best remembered for the war in Iraq, followed by 16% who say his response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and 14% for the economy. Six percent (6%) list the response to Hurricane Katrina and two percent (2%) his role in trying to achieve peace in the Middle East.

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton laid out the concept of “smart power” yesterday at her Senate confirmation hearing.

**  OBAMA BALANCES CONSERVATIVE WRITERS WITH LIBERAL WRITERS. President-elect Barack Obama held a private meeting this morning at his Washington transition headquarters with a number of prominent Washington-based writers and commentators on the left side of the spectrum.

Today’s group included the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne and Eugene Robinson, the Wall Street Journal’s Gerry Seib, National Journal’s Ron Brownstein, the New York Times Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd, and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, among others.

Some of those folks aren’t all that liberal. This comes on the heels of last night’s private Obama dinner with conservatives at the home of George Will. Some of the right-wingers came away wowed by the new president.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues work on his transition in Washington. He will confer with Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who had extended his trip to South Asia and the Middle East an extra day. The Gaza crisis continues in full flower, and the Mumbai crisis continues to percolate.

Obama and Biden will visit the Supreme Court this afternoon.

Obama had a surprise dinner meeting last night at the home of conservative columnist George Will with Will and conservative writers David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Larry Kudlow, Michael Barone, and Paul Gigot. It apparently went well.

Osama bin Laden has released a new tape taunting the US and the incoming Obama Administration, calling for jihad against Israel.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol today around his state of the state address on January 15th and California’s chronic budget crisis. He has no scheduled public events.

Schwarzenegger spent most of yesterday conferring with legislative leaders, but there’s no resolution yet.

His state of the state address will focus only on California’s chronic budget crisis, rather than address a broader agenda for the state. And earlier plans to take the state of the state on the road, beginning in Sacramento, then delivering it anew in Fresno and Los Angeles, have been scrapped.

**  ANOTHER DAY: 24 AND THE AGE OF OBAMA. One of the signature TV series of the Bush/Cheney years is back. What relevance, if any, does it have in the new age of Obama?  … From my new column.

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my Monday column.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my January 6th column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

Israel’s anti-Hamas offensive in the Gaza Strip may be uniting Palestinian groups.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $37 to $38 per barrel range.

The drop of $110 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

President George W. Bush stirred up a lot of controversy yesterday with what he says is his final press conference as president, alternately acknowledging mistakes and showing defiance. He delivers a farewell address Thursday night.

**  OBAMA ENCOUNTERS SOME TURBULENCE. While Hillary Clinton encountered and mostly surpassed expected questions about her husband’s foreign fundraising for his foundations (it remains to be seen how hamstrung his foundation activities will be by her ascending to secretary of state), President-elect Barack Obama had turbulence on other fronts today.

First, he told his former Democratic colleagues in the US Senate that he will veto any attempt to stop him from using the second $350 billion tranche of the already approved Wall Street bailout. But he will make the program more transparent than it’s been and send a big chunk of money to direct relief for homeowners.

Elsewhere during the day, Obama’s pick for treasury secretary, New York Federal Reserve chief Tim Geithner, found that a tax problem or four of his were now in the Senate’s domain. Team Obama maintains that this is routine, even for a financial expert.

And Obama’s pick for federal budget director, Peter Orszag, was blasted by Democratic Senator and former astronaut Bill Nelson of Florida for offering “mumbo-jumbo” instead of hard facts for his fiscal plans.

**  STATE OF THE STATE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will focus almost entirely on California’s chronic budget crisis in his state of the state address on Thursday. No bright colors in his palette for this speech, more a matter of blacks and grays.

Schwarzenegger and state legislative leaders have spent most of the day in Big 5 meetings on the budget crisis. No resolution yet.

**  ANOTHER DAY: 24 AND THE AGE OF OBAMA. One of the signature TV series of the Bush/Cheney years is back. What relevance, if any, does it have in the new age of Obama?  …  While there has always been a less remarked upon yet powerful lefty side to the show, let’s talk first about fictional agent Jack Bauer’s propensity to torture, a relentlessly hardball approach that has made him an icon to many on the right, and the show’s inevitable amping up of the terrorist threat.

The Bush/Cheney Administration essentially adopted the thriller approach to politics. What underlies that? The knowledge that most anything seems plausible if you keep things moving too fast for the audience to think about it.

The Bush/Cheney Administration essentially adopted the thriller approach to politics. What underlies that? The knowledge that most anything seems plausible if you keep things moving too fast for the audience to think about it.

We saw it again in the just-concluded season premiere of 24, when Bauer (played by the terrific Kiefer Sutherland), told a balky agent: ”You’re running out of time — you don’t have a better option.”

If that’s how you define the logic of the situation, then extreme measures always seem more plausible.

24 took the thriller genre and amped up the adrenaline even further with the show’s format, in which everything takes place in a 24-hour period, ostensibly in real time, with hour-by-hour episodes replete with not only the requisite fast cuts and handheld cameras of the modern thriller genre adding to the urgency but also regular split screens and a ticking clock motif. … From my new column.

**  GALLUP POLL: HILLARY’S SOARING POPULARITY. The new Gallup Poll has Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton at a 10-year high in popularity. That should hold through her confirmation hearings, as what I saw this morning, including her tour d’horizon, looked very impressive.

A new Gallup Poll finds 65% of Americans saying they have a favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton, the highest rating for her in almost 10 years. Clinton had not had a favorable rating above 60% since 1999, after having been consistently above that level during the Monica Lewinsky scandal that led to the impeachment but ultimate acquittal of husband Bill Clinton. That included Hillary Clinton’s all-time high 67% favorable rating immediately after the House of Representatives voted to impeach the president in December 1998.

Since late 1999, Hillary Clinton’s favorable ratings have been around 50%, ranging from a low of 44% in March 2001 to a high of 58% in February 2007.

The last measure in 2008, taken just before the Democratic National Convention last August and following months of a hotly contested Democratic nomination campaign with Barack Obama, was 54%. Since that time, her image has improved among most key demographic and political subgroups, but much more among women than men.

**  NEW COLUMN COMING UP  …  ANOTHER DAY: 24 IN THE AGE OF OBAMA.

**  OBAMA WILL REVERSE BUSH EXECUTIVE ORDERS. Not surprisingly, President-elect Barack Obama will swiftly reverse many of President Bush’s executive orders on torture and interrogation of terror suspects, the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, and increased secrecy in government.

Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) said he’s been informed that President Obama will support his proposed legislation to make public some opinions from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which issued some of the Bush Administration’s most sweeping claims of executive power. Obama also has promised to limit President Bush’s practice of using “signing statements” to amend legislation.

“Every day we get indications that they’re serious about reversing the abuses of the Constitution,” Feingold, a harsh Bush critic, told Politico. Feingold said Obama’s staff told him to expect executive orders rapidly reversing Bush policies on the interrogation and detention of terror suspects, and on keeping the records of past presidents secret. He declined to be more specific.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues work on his transition in Washington. He joins Democratic senators for their weekly lunch meeting and monitors confirmation hearings for members of his Cabinet, several of which are taking place today.

The principal one, of course, is for Hillary Clinton. She’s up on Capitol Hill promoting an approach called “smart power,” a blend of diplomacy and military options. As opposed, presumably, to dumb power, which we may have been watching for the past several years.

Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton talks Middle East strategy in her Senate Foreign Relations confirmation hearing.

Clinton has some questions to answer about an AP story which, not surprisingly, finds that Senator Clinton supported projects pushed by some of the contributors to President Clinton’s foundation.

Obama wants the second $350 billion tranche of the Wall Street bailout to be released, but Congress is balky. Probably because the first $350 billion was spent in ways largely unaccounted for. Obama says he, too, wants restrictions, and that much of the money should go to homeowners in need of relief.

Meanwhile, the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza continues. Troops have moved closer to the central area of Gaza City. Hamas rocket attacks into Israel are continuing, though causing few casualties. The Israelis say their goal is to stop the rocket attacks and smuggling of military supplies into Gaza.

And the Russia/Ukraine natural gas crisis, affecting all of Europe, continues, with both sides accusing the other of tactics preventing full natural gas flows. Russia’s deep aim, of course, is to turn the former Soviet republic, much flirted with by the US and NATO, back to an alliance with Moscow.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol today around his state of the state address on January 15th and California’s chronic budget crisis. He has no scheduled public events.

Will his state of the state address focus only on California’s chronic budget crisis, or will it address a broader agenda for the state?

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my new column.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my January 6th column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $38 to $39 per barrel range.

The drop of $109 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

President-elect Barack Obama unveiled his top intelligence leaders  –  CIA Director-designate Leon Panetta and Director of National Intelligence-designate Admiral Dennis Blair  –  and discussed the economic crisis in this Friday press conference in Washington.

**  THE ABSENT VOTER TREND CONTINUES. George Mason University’s voting project reports that 30% of US voters cast their ballots before the November election or by absentee ballot. That’s up sharply from 20% in 2004

In California, the figure was a whopping 45%. And in Florida, 52%.

**  BUSH DELIVERS FAREWELL ADDRESS ON THURSDAY. President George W. Bush delivers a farewell address to the nation on Thursday night in the East Room of the White House. Not every president does this. I don’t think this is a very good idea on his part. It’s his last scheduled public event before Barack Obama’s inauguration day.

**  CIA: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR. President-elect Barack Obama named his top intelligence leadership team on Friday. And, as I expected, new Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein rather quickly backed down from her opposition to Leon Panetta and championing of a CIA insider for the post, of only a few days ago. The whole exercise was very instructive in old and new political dynamics. … From my new column.

**  BIG LIVE AUDIENCE EXPECTED FOR OBAMA INAUGURAL FESTIVITIES. According to the latest Republican Rasmussen poll, 75% of US voters say they will watch all or part of Barack Obama’s inauguration as president and the activities surrounding it on January 20th. 28% say they will watch everything. Enthusiasm is greatest amongst younger voters and least amongst older voters.

21% say they won’t watch any of the Obama Inaugural  –  25% of men but only 18% of women.

**  NATURAL GAS FLOWS TO EUROPE START UP AGAIN TUESDAY MORNING. Ukraine has backed down on amendments to its deal with Russia on natural gas pipeline shipments to and through the former Soviet republic, paving the way for those shipments to resume Tuesday morning. With an arctic front over the continent, Ukraine in arrears on its own payments and Russia seeking to force the country away from the US and NATO, Moscow seized the opportunity to precipitate a crisis reminding both it and most of Europe about how dependent they are on Russian energy.

The Morning Column:   MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK

An eventful week on tap in presidential politics, geopolitics, and California politics. President-elect Barack Obama finds a new commerce secretary, tweaks his economic revival program, and monitors the confirmation proceedings on his appointees and several global crises. Oh, and works on that first inaugural address business.

All the while, geopolitical crises continue to percolate.

In the Mumbai crisis, Pakistan’s army has moved one of its two divisions in the remote Islamist hotbed of Waziristan to its border with India, as India continues to be unimpressed by the Pakistani government’s actions in the wake of acknowledging a substantial Pakistani role in the terrorist siege of India’s commercial capital.

In the Gaza crisis, Israel’s army has escalated its offensive against Hamas, with both sides now refusing a UN Security Council call for ceasefire. But Israel says it is close to achieving its objectives, whatever they are, which I think is tied to the Obama inauguration on the 20th.

And in the Ukraine crisis, Russia is declinining to renew natural gas shipments through its former Soviet republic neighbor, and hence to the rest of Europe, saying that Ukraine is trying to renegotiate a deal reached before the weekend. It’s getting pretty cold in Europe. Don’t expect the current pro-US Ukrainian government to last much longer.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden is in Iraq today, meeting with the Iraqi leadership. He’s wrapping up a tour of the Middle East and South Asia, having told the Pakistani leadership earlier it’s time for more cooperation with India on Mumbai. He’ll meet with Obama and the top national security and intelligence leadership team this week to discuss what he’s found.

In California politics, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders continue trying to find a solution of sorts to California’s chronic budget crisis. Schwarzenegger gives his state of the state address on Thursday, which I doubt he intends to be solely on the budget.

Speaking of which, there are some signs that some Republicans are getting ready to go along with tax increases. They haven’t presented a budget alternative which does the job without them. Schwarzenegger is pushing his latest combination of tax increases, program cuts, and borrowing, having rejected the Democratic alternative which refashions tax hikes as fee hikes to get around California’s unusual two-thirds legislative vote requirement. The legislative analyst has called both Schwarzenegger’s and the Democratic plan risky  –  Schwarzenegger because of a few assumptions, the Democrats because of the legal issue around the tax-as-fee gambit.

President George W. Bush gave what may be his final press conference as president early this morning in Washington, admitting mistakes on the economy and geopolitics in a sometimes defiant performance.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues work on his transition in Washington. He meets with Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, whose confirmation hearing is tomorrow, after refusing something of a demand from the New York Times that he provide the newspaper with monthly reports on former President Bill Clinton’s activities.

Obama also meets with Mexican President Felipe Calderon. It’s traditional that a new American president hold his first foreign head of state meeting with the president of Mexico. They actually have a great deal to talk about, as Mexico’s stability is in increasing question with the increasingly bold advent of powerful drug cartels corrupting and assassinating the country’s security services with apparent impunity.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden is on the last leg of his tour of the Middle East and South Asia, meeting with Pakistani President Jalal Talabani today in Baghdad. Biden has been getting the lay of the land out there in his guise as outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committe chairman. John Kerry takes over tomorrow to preside over Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearing.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions in and around the Capitol today around his state of the state address on January 15th and California’s chronic budget crisis.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my Monday column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $37 to $38 per barrel range, down three dollars since its Friday close on fresh signs of weak demand.

The drop of $110 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

24 returns with a two-part season premiere Sunday and Monday nights. Is it still relevant in the new Obama era?

**  24 RETURNS. The hit thriller series 24 is back, with a four-hour season premiere spread out over Sunday and Monday nights. The show, which swept the Emmy Awards in its fifth season in 2006 and endured a notably sub-par sixth season in 2007, was supposed to be back a year ago. But the writers’ strike, and the need to retool, wiped out 2008 for the show. So now its seventh season begins, amidst questions about its relevance.

The show had increasingly embraced torture as a foolproof means to get information. While that’s a useful story-telling crutch for a TV show with a ticking clock motif, it’s not a serious reflection of how things work, nor a worthy policy for America. Yet it’s still a dangerous world, if not as dangerous as many ideologues like to imagine.

I’ll write about the show at length after I’ve seen the season premiere.

**  OBAMA TODAY – SUNDAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues work on his presidential transition in Washington. He appeared this morning on ABC’s This Week, where he focused on the economic crisis and his program  –  bumping up against a trillion dollars  –  to revive the US economy. He also said that, while he is going to close Guantanamo, as he said again Friday when he introduced his top intel leaders, it won’t be during the first 100 days. The outgoing administration, which treated every situation as if it were an episode of 24, has thrown together bad guys and non-bad guys, which with its messy procedures will take some sorting out.

Meanwhile, with Israel continuing its anti-Hamas offensive in the Gaza Strip  –  flying in the face of a UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire  –  Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that the embattled country is close to reaching its goals. I’d say they’re about nine days away from that.

President-elect Barack Obama discusses the historic economic crisis in his weekly video/radio address.

**  OBAMA TODAY – SATURDAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues work on his transition in Washington, and appears Sunday on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He continued his campaign for his economic recovery program with his weekly video/radio address. You can watch it above and read excerpts below.

We start this new year in the midst of an economic crisis unlike any we have seen in our lifetime.  We learned yesterday that in the past month alone, we lost more than half a million jobs – a total of nearly 2.6 million in the year 2008.  Another 3.4 million Americans who want and need full-time work have had to settle for part-time jobs.  And families across America are feeling the pinch as they watch debts mount, bills pile up and savings disappear.

These numbers are a stark reminder that we simply cannot continue on our current path.  If nothing is done, economists from across the spectrum tell us that this recession could linger for years and the unemployment rate could reach double digits – and they warn that our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world.

It’s not too late to change course – but only if we take immediate and dramatic action.  Our first job is to put people back to work and get our economy working again.  …

I asked my nominee for Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, Dr. Christina Romer, and the Vice President-Elect’s Chief Economic Adviser, Dr. Jared Bernstein, to conduct a rigorous analysis of this plan and come up with projections of how many jobs it will create – and what kind of jobs they will be.  Today, I am releasing a report of their findings so that the American people can see exactly what this plan will mean for their families, their communities, and our economy.

The report confirms that our plan will likely save or create three to four million jobs.  90 percent of these jobs will be created in the private sector – the remaining 10 percent are mainly public sector jobs we save, like the teachers, police officers, firefighters and others who provide vital services in our communities. The jobs we create will be in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries.  And they’ll be the kind of jobs that don’t just put people to work in the short term, but position our economy to lead the world in the long-term.

We’ll create nearly half a million jobs by investing in clean energy – by committing to double the production of alternative energy in the next three years, and by modernizing more than 75% of federal buildings and improving the energy efficiency of two million American homes.  These made-in-America jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, developing fuel-efficient cars and new energy technologies pay well, and they can’t be outsourced.

We’ll create hundreds of thousands of jobs by improving health care – transitioning to a nationwide system of computerized medical records that won’t just save money, but save lives by preventing deadly medical errors.  And we’ll create hundreds of thousands more jobs in education, equipping tens of thousands of schools with 21st century classrooms, labs and computers to help our kids compete with any worker in the world for any job.

We’ll put nearly 400,000 people to work by repairing our infrastructure – our crumbling roads, bridges and schools.  And we’ll build the new infrastructure we need to succeed in this new century, investing in science and technology, and laying down miles of new broadband lines so that businesses across our nation can compete with their counterparts around the world.

Finally, we won’t just create jobs, we’ll also provide help for those who’ve lost theirs, and for states and families who’ve been hardest-hit by this recession.  That means bi-partisan extensions of unemployment insurance and health care coverage; a $1,000 tax cut for 95 percent of working families; and assistance to help states avoid harmful budget cuts in essential services like police, fire, education and health care.

Now, given the magnitude of the challenges we face, none of this will come easy.  Recovery won’t happen overnight, and it’s likely that things will get worse before they get better.  …

Obama’s inaugural committee also announced that the president-elect will host a “bipartisan dinner” the night before his inauguration toasting his Republican opponent, John McCain. There will also be dinners that night honoring Colin Powell and Joe Biden.

Meanwhile, the vice president-elect is in South Asia today. Biden, in his guise as outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  –  he had himself sworn in to the Senate earlier (he won re-election in November as he was also elected vice president)  –  is leading a congressional delegation which finished visiting the Middle East and is now on the South Asia portion of its tour. That means Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan are on the itinerary. Biden is pushing Pakistan’s government to be more forthcoming about the Pakistani role in the Mumbai attacks to avert war with India and examining the troubled situation in Afghanistan.

Biden is in Afghanistan today, meeting in Kabul with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and General David McKiernan.

There were protests across the Islamic world on Friday against Israel’s anti-Hamas offensive in Gaza.

Speaking of war, the US finally went along with a UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza crisis. But Israel is not complying, at least, not so far. The clock is ticking on Israel’s push to pull the teeth of Hamas.

On another front, Russia is relenting on its cut-off of natural gas to Europe occasioned by its dispute with Ukraine. The European Union and Russia signed an agreement on the details of the monitoring of the flow of Russian natural gas through Ukraine to Europe. Now Ukraine must sign the deal. But even if Ukraine signs swiftly, natural gas shipments won’t begin again until Monday at the earliest.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions today around his state of the state address on January 15th and California’s chronic budget crisis.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my Monday column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my January 2nd Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil closed yesterday at $40.83 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

The drop of $107 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

President-elect Barack Obama began his campaign for passage of his big economic recovery package.

**  QUICK HITS. Russia is evidently re-starting natural gas flows to Europe via Ukraine, with European Union monitors in Ukraine to see that the country doesn’t steal the energy flow. The Russia/Ukraine row shut down natural gas flows into Europe as an artic front lingered over the continent. Of course, there is a deeper issue than lack of payment for energy involved; namely, Moscow’s plan to turn Ukraine away from the US and NATO back to its sphere of influence. …  Israel rebuffed the UN Security Council’s call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and Hamas followed not soon after. I‘m thinking this lasts about another week and a half  …  Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger intends to shut down most California state operations on the first and third Fridays of each months to cut spending. Will the public notice?

**  NATO, AFGHANISTAN, AND THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS. US Army General John Craddock, director of operations for NATO, says that the financial crisis which began on Wall Street is beginning to affect the troubled war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Asked whether the global slump would affect participation by allies, U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock, the alliance’s operational commander, said, “It will increase the risk that they won’t be able to stay longer.”

Craddock, speaking to reporters at a breakfast, said budget problems could have an impact on alliance operations in the Balkans and the Mediterranean Sea as well. “We are going to have some hard times ahead and it’s going to impact… the ability of nations to stay in operations,” he said.

Let’s think back, to just a few months ago, when the word from the financial smart guys in New York was that the real threat was Barack Obama’s idea to spend more money to stimulate the economy.

**  JOHNNY BURTON’S ONLY OPPONENT DROPS. Not that anybody was going to beat him, but the sole opponent to former California Senate President Pro Tem John Burton for chair of the California Democratic Party has dropped out of the, frankly, non-existent race.

I’ve been acquainted with Burton for a long time. And am something of a history buff. So we will have a bit of fun with this.

I’m thinking of starting  –  say, next week  –  some notable John Burton quotes. NWN posters should feel free to suggest their own  …

And, naturally, NWN may generate some new ones, depending on what time of the day that I call.

**  FAR RIGHT WEB SITE OPPOSES PUBLIC VOTE IN CALIFORNIA. The Flash Report, a highly ideological web site curiously influential with Republican legislators, opposes any public vote on the state’s chronic budget crisis. So readers who abhor the site don’t have to click through, the gist is that the site’s proprietor  –  political consultant Jon Fleischman, a state vice chairman of the Republican Party who formerly headed the extreme right-wing California Republican Assembly  –  says that a democratic vote in California on fiscal matters would be unfair because Democrats are too strong.

Fleischman was the longtime PR man for disgraced Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona, the target of a multi-faceted federal prosecution alleging that the former deputy marshal engaged in a systematic conspiracy to use his office to enrich himself since 1998.

**  NEW COLUMN COMING UP  …  C.I.A.: THE PANETTA PICK AND THE FEINSTEIN FACTOR.

**  OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues work on his transition in Washington.

At 7:30 AM Pacific, he holds a press conference to announce his top intel leadership. The event will be roadblocked on all cable news nets. Retired Navy Admiral Dennis Blair, former chief of Pacific Command, will be director of national intelligence, as I reported right after the election, and former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta, the former California congressman who is now head of a California think tank, will be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

LA Congresswoman Hilda Solis, Obama’s pick for secretary of labor, has her Senate confirmation hearing this morning. It’s expected to go smoothly.

General Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, national security advisor, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who broke with his old friend John McCain to back Obama, holds a press conference today as co-chairman of the Obama Inaugural Committee to talk about Obama’s call to national service.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden is in Pakistan today, meeting with the troubled ally’s president, prime minister, and army chief of staff. Biden, in his guise as outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  –  he had himself sworn in to the Senate earlier (he won re-election in November as he was also elected vice president)  –  is leading a congressional delegation which just finished visiting the Middle East and is now on the South Asia portion of its tour. That means India anad Afghanistan are on the itinerary. Biden will be pushing Pakistan to be more forthcoming about the Pakistani role in the Mumbai attacks to avert war with India.

The UN Security Council has called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza crisis.

Speaking of war, the US, as I reported yesterday, finally went along with a UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza crisis. But Israel is not complying, at least, not so far.

**  FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has private meetings and discussions today around his state of the state address on January 15th and California’s chronic budget crisis.

**  CIA: PARSING THE PANETTA PICK. … From my new column.

**  OBAMA: VACATION’S END. …  From my Friday Huffington Post column.

** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the new Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti.

While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, which I know as a former DemRussia advisor, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.

** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included.

Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation.

** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. After crashing over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, crude oil is trading in the $41 to $42 per barrel range.

The drop of $106 per barrel since the record high over the summer comes on acknowledgment that the weak US economy will cut future demand and on the easing of previous geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. It is clear that that, contrary to much chatter, neither the US nor Israel is about to launch a strike against Iran. And the Russian war with Georgia, confounding much speculation and reporting to the contrary, actually decreased the geopolitical risk premium in the oil market.

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