New West Notes

Monday Morning Quarterback, And More

Bill Bradley — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 15:45:44 +0000

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Barack and Michelle Obama discussed the big change in their lives last night on 60 Minutes.

NOTE: New West Notes is scheduled to move to a new server tonight. Or Tuesday. NWN is NewWestNotes.com.

Remember that the correct web address for NWN is www.newwestnotes.com.

I’m also doing some traveling this week.

** HUGE CHUNK OF LAST MONTH’S FEDERAL BAILOUT PACKAGE TO GO UNUSED UNTIL OBAMA’S INAUGURATION. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has decided to leave $350 billion of the big bailout package authorized last month – supposedly for immediate emergency use – unused for the remainder of the Bush Administration. I hear it may actually be $410 billion.

Paulson and Bush officials have had trouble defining their mission.

** IRAN LIKES THE NEW U.S.-IRAQ STATUS OF FORCES AGREEMENT. AND WHY NOT? Iran, which wields tremendous influence in Iraq since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, has long opposed all status of forces agreements allowing any continued presence of US troops in Iraq. But a very senior associate of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – who was erroneously reported by elements of the far right to be dead in January 2007 – says Iran likes the new agreement negotiated by the Bush/Cheney Administration and just approved by senior elements of the Iraqi government.

Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, head of the Iranian judiciary, says that the Iraqi government did “very well” in working out a new status of forces agreement with the Bush/Cheney Administration. Current authorization for the the US to remain in Iraq, granted by the United Nations, was set to expire at the end of the year.

Under the new agreement, all US forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by mid-2009, with a withdrawal from Iraq to be completed by the end of 2011. US troops will be subject to trial in Iraqi courts and no US offensive operations are to be undertaken without the approval of the Iraqi government. Iraqi detainees in US custody are to be handed over to Iraqi authorities, and all arrest warrants must be issued by the Iraqi government.

The agreement has been approved by the Iraqi cabinet and is now in the hands of the Iraqi parliament.

Ayatollah Sharoudi, as it happens, is actually from Iraq. He previously led Iraq’s largest Shiite political party, and the one most closely aligned with Iran – the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (now known as the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq – when the party was still based in Tehran in the 1980s. Shahroudi also is a mentor to Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, a notorious opponent of the US in Iraq, in the latter’s quest to reach ayatollah status.

** BROWN MOVES FOR IMMEDIATE SUPREME COURT RULING ON PROPOSITION 8. Former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown this morning moved for a quick ruling by the California Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative passed by four points earlier this month. Brown wants the state’s high court to take up the lawsuit seeking to invalidate the measure, which would place opposition to same-sex marriage as an amedment in California’s constitution. Frequently, court challenges must work their way through lower courts.

In addition, Brown says that all same-sex marriages conducted from the time the Republican majority California Supreme Court invalidated an earlier anti-gay marriage initiative and declared same-sex marriage legal in California and the passage of Prop 8 are legally valid. Brown has vowed to defend each of these marriages in court even if Prop 8 is upheld.

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President-elect Barack Obama appeared last night on 60 Minutes.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK

Quite a week on tap. Barack Obama continues his transition to the presidency, meeting today with John McCain, with much speculation centering on the possible appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. (Look for my upcoming column.) Iraq and the US seem to have an agreeement for an American withdrawal from that troubled country. Lots of bad economic news is slated to be released this week. And Arnold Schwarzenegger, first inaugurated as governor five years ago today, oversees the management of the latest Southern California firestorm and hosts a state summit on small business and a global summit on climate change.

Will John McCain revert to the old maverick, rather than the new partisan we saw in the general election? Probably. Will Hillary Clinton be the new secretary of state? Possibly.

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This past weekend’s G-20 summit in Washington produced a vague outline of an action plan to stabilize the global economy and fix the underlying financial crisis.

On the economic front, we’re going to get a lot of bad news this week. Because this is the week in which various economic statistics are reported.

Did the G-20 group of 19 industrial nations and the European Union come up with a plan? Not really. More of a notion, perhaps an outline of a plan for global economic stimulus and global regulation of high finance. It all awaits President Obama. And another summit in a few months, probably in London hosted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was one of the world’s most successful finance ministers working with Tony Blair.

Will there be a federal bailout of the US auto industry? Almost certainly, because Obama wants it. The Bush/Cheney Administration was at first opposed, but now appears more amenable. But that doesn’t mean it will happen in the lameduck Congress.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger was first inaugurated as governor of California five years ago today following his landslide win in the 2003 recall election. Here are scenes from his second inaugural in 2007 in this NWN video.

As we mark the fifth anniversary of Schwarzenegger’s first inauguration as governor, we’re not seeing much progress on the deepening and chronic state budget crisis with the lameduck Legislature. Schwarzenegger is off managing the latest Southern California firestorms. This week he hosts a state summit on small business and a global summit on climate change. I’ll have a lot more on the latter.

** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. He meets with Senator John McCain today to discuss working together on various issues such as the environment, the financial crisis, and health care. He’s already called Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to express support on the Calfornia fire situation. Schwarzenegger said yesterday on ABC’s This Week that’s ready to what he can to help Obama’s presidency be a success, bearing in mind that he has over two more years to serve as California’s governor.

The drama over the potential role of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state is playing out today, with former President Bill Clinton’s various international endeavors and fundraising emerging as an obvious area of concern.

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger goes to Opti-Solar in North Highlands outside Sacramento to sign an executive order that will streamline California’s renewable energy project approval process.

The order builds on the 2006 Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that mandates more energy from renewable energy sources in order to achieve 33 percent renewable power by 2020 and will advance the development of RPS-eligible renewable energy resources.

The event takes place at 2:15 PM and will be webcast live on www.gov.ca.gov.

** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my new column.

** OBAMA’S AMERICA: OBSERVING THE OBSERVANCE OF VETERANS DAY. It’s just a week since the election of Barack Obama, and we’ve already seen a telling new approach to one of America’s most venerable holidays, Veterans Day.

President Bush downplayed the cost of war. He appeared frequently with able-bodied heroes he was decorating for bravery, but to my knowledge never attended even one of the thousands of funerals for those Americans killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In stark contrast to this sweep-it-under-the-rug approach favored by the outgoing administration, the president-elect yesterday laid a simple wreath at Chicago’s Soldier Field to honor our nation’s military veterans. He was accompanied by Illinois veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth, a decorated Iraq War veteran and Army major who lost both her legs when the helicopter she piloted was shot down by Iraqi insurgents.

Without making a big deal of it, Obama thus acknowledged the cost of war in a way that the current administration — which cut taxes and borrowed endlessly to finance its largely misbegotten strategies — has never dared. …

What is the meaning of Veterans Day in the Age of Obama? More to the point, what is the meaning of Veterans Day in the an age in which America is embroiled in two wars — one a war of retribution, the other a war of faulty strategy — in a world beset by Islamic jihadism and marked by an emerging multi-polarity?

Let’s start with a great irony. Veterans Day was originally Armistice Day, established to mark the end of World War I. Which, as you know, was “the war to end all wars.” It didn’t work out that way.

Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.

We do live in a world in which military service is a necessity, and in which military force — or at least its highly credible threat, explicit or implicit — is necessary to pursue America’s strategic ends.

Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From Wednesday’s column.

ATTENTION NEW WEST NOTES READERS: Now that the crush of the election season is out of the way, New West Notes is moving to its own server. I had planned to have the move, which these days can happen quite quickly and in a pretty straightforward way, completed over the weekend.

However, because of several underlying tech-related issues with Pajamas Media, there has been a delay. As it has always been, New West Notes will be available through NewWestNotes.com. So if you have bookmarked the Pajamas Media version, remember this instead … New West Notes is www.newwestnotes.com.

** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN. It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.

I must say that this campaign, for all its excitement, its twists and turns, and its thrilling outcome, was something of a disappointment. In Barack Obama and John McCain, we had the two most compelling figures in the two parties, representatives of an emerging set of values and an enduring tradition. … From my Friday Huffington Post column.

** GLOBAL OBAMA: BIG OPPORTUNITIES, BIGGER CHALLENGES. If he wins, Obama will have the global popularity that no American president has had in a great many years. But what sort of challenges will counter the global opportunity that an Obama presidency might afford America? … From my October 24th 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 $57 to $58 per barrel range.

OPEC forecasts a 0.6% decline in global oil consumption in 2009. But sees a 2.5% growth in oil consumption in developing nations.

The drop of $90 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 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.

Weekend Edition

Bill Bradley — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:30:00 +0000

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Quantum of Solace, the immediate sequel to the smash 2006 Bond franchise reboot Casino Royale, has just broken the domestic box office opening weekend record for a spy flick. It was already a big international hit. Here’s a scene from the film.

** NEW BOND FILM PROVES FIRST BLOCKBUSTER OF THE OBAMA ERA. Quantum of Solace is a huge hit, bigger than anticipated. Starring Obama booster Daniel Craig as James Bond, the immediate sequel to the smash 2006 franchise reboot, Casino Royale, set a new record for an opening weekend for a spy film at the domestic box office, taking in over $70 million. Meanwhile, the picture, which opened the weekend before last in Britain and several other nations, has now taken in $251.6 million at the international box office, giving it a stunning $322 million in global box office already.

The previous spy film opening weekend box office record holder, last year’s The Bourne Ultimatum, starred another Obama booster, Matt Damon.

I’ve seen the new film and am not ready yet for a full-on review, but Craig again plays Bond as Sean Connery-meets-Steve McQueen, with bigger acting chops. The film is pared down, not as elegant as Casino Royale, but far more action-packed. Which may make it even more internationally appealing than that big hit.

It also has a big political subtext. Which we’ll be getting to.

** SCHWARZENEGGER ON THIS WEEK. Governor Arnold Schwarznegger appeared Sunday morning on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He said that Hillary Clinton could be “a great move” as President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state. He noted that the Republican Party is going in the wrong direction, as great Republican presidents of the past championed issues the far right eschews, with Teddy Roosevelt a champion of universal health care and the environment and Dwight Eisenhower a champion of infrastructure development.

He also said that he agrees with Obama that the US auto industry needs a bailout, but only if it is reformed in the process. And that he expects Prop 8, the anti-gay marriage initiative, to be thrown out by the California Supreme Court.

Schwarzenegger is touring fire hot spots today in Southern California.

** G-20 SUMMIT SETS A ROUTE, BUT DOESN’T PROVIDE THE TRANSPORT. Saturday’s G-20 (Group of 20 industrialized nations – actually 19 countries, some European, plus the European Union) summit in Washington laid out a different course for the global economy than that pushed by outgoing summit host President George W. Bush. But the details, as the BBC notes, are left waiting for the incoming Obama Administration.

The outline for the agreement was largely provided by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who will assume the G-20 chairmanship for the next meeting of the group this spring in London.

Agreements made at the G20 global financial summit in Washington provide a “route map” to economic recovery, Gordon Brown has said. The prime minister hailed as “historic” the countries’ vow to act together to reverse the global economic slump. Commitments were made to boost growth and reform global financial markets.

The G-20 also agreed that international finance should come under a new form of international regulation, something the Bush/Cheney Administration staunchly resisted any discussion of until Wall Street’s epic crisis had a domino effect around the world. But the details are left to the advent of President Obama.

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President-elect Barack Obama is turning the weekly presidential radio address into a video address as well. Here is the first such in the new weekly series.

** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama continues to hold private meetings and discussions in Chicago. His emissaries to the G-20 summit on the global financial crisis this weekend in Washington, former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Congressman Jim Leach, are holding private meetings with various foreign heads of government and finance ministers.

On Saturday, Obama presented his weekly radio address as president-elect, which he is making a weekly video address as well, as you see above. He will continue this practice every weekend through his inauguration as president of the United States on January 20th, and beyond.

In this address, he calls for the prompt adoption of a new package to further stimulate the economy and provide extended benefits to the unemployed. Failing that in the lame duck session, he says it will be his immediate priority following his inauguration.

Obama will meet on Monday with his Republican rival, John McCain, in his presidential transition headquarters in Chicago.

On Sunday, Obama resigns his seat in the U.S. Senate. Here is his statement: “It has been one of the highest honors and privileges of my life to have served the people of Illinois in the United States Senate. In a state that represents the crossroads of a nation, I have met so many men and women who’ve taken different journeys, but hold common hopes for their children’s future. It is these Illinois families and their stories that will stay with me as I leave the United States Senate and begin the hard task of fulfilling the simple hopes and common dreams of all Americans as our nation’s next President.”

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is touring fire damage in Santa Barbara. He has declared states of emergency in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties due to the fire situations there. At 10 AM Saturday, he holds a briefing at Santa Barbara’s Earl Warren Showground.

The event will be webcast live on www.gov.ca.gov.

On Sunday, Schwarzenegger appears on ABC’s This Week.

** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my new column.

Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.

Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From Wednesday’s column.

** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN. It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.

** DEMOCRATS: THE NEW WESTERN STRATEGY IS PAYING OFF. The election hasn’t happened yet, so it’s too soon to start counting electoral votes from the Democrats’ new Western strategy. But the dramatic re-shaping of the electoral battlefield is already clear enough. While the current party leadership deserves credit for a new path to presidential power, much of the new Western strategy has long been championed by former Senator Gary Hart.

The new strategy came into clear focus, fittingly for a party that knew it had to gamble on a new route to the White House, in Las Vegas, in January 2007 over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. The snow on the famed Las Vegas Strip the day before seemed only a little less unlikely to many in the national media and political establishments than the new moves that were unfolding. … From my October 31st column.

** 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, on word of a new internation energy assessment forecasting declining energy demand with the slumping global economy, closed yesterday at $57.04 per barrel. Energy markets are closed on the weekend.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) cut its 2008 and 2009 oil demand forecasts today, citing the global financial crisis’ impact on the lower demand for gasoline, the Financial Times reported.

The drop of over $92 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 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.

Non-Random Notes

Bill Bradley — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:15:57 +0000

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President-elect Barack Obama with French President Nicolas Sarkozy this past July in Paris.

** MIAMI BLUES: PALIN AND NATIONAL REPUBLICANS LOOK LIKE THE SAD CALIFORNIA REPUBLICAN PARTY. … From my new column.

** OBAMA CAMPAIGN BONUSES. With the advantage of record-shattering fundraising, President-elect Barack Obama is offering every campaign staffer a set of unprecedented perks. Everyone gets a bonus equal to a month’s pay. (Some, of course, get more. It’s “Animal House.” The novel, not the movie …)

Plus they get to keep their campaign-issued laptop computers and smart phones.

I am told there are no such perks in the John McCain campaign. Though staffers are welcome to watch the spectacle around which articles of clothing VP nominee Sarah Palin and her family hang on to.

** BIBI COPIES BARACK. The once and perhaps future prime minister of Israel, conservative Likud candidate Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, has altered his web site. It now looks entirely like that of that Manchurian Candidate out to destroy Israel and elevate Iran, Barack Obama. You know, the president-elect of the United States.

Despite endless fear-mongering amongst the far right in Jewish-American politics, Obama won 78% of the Jewish-American vote.

** MAKING IT OFFICIAL: CALIFORNIAN DAN LUNGREN GOES FOR THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER POST. Former California Attorney General Dan Lungren, now Sacramento area Congressman Dan Lungren, made his campaign for the House minority leadership, which I mentioned a few days ago, official today. He is challenging Ohio Congressman John Boehner. I ran into Boehner on the campaign trail. While he is assailed by right-wingers as insufficiently conservative, I can assure you that by any objective measure, he is quite conservative.

Lungren, even in his currently gerrymandered district, had some trouble getting re-elected, defeating Dr. Bill Durston, a Vietnam War vet, by a 50-44 margin.

Lungren is an amiable fellow, son of Richard Nixon’s personal physician, who ran for governor of California in 1998 and was blown away by Gray Davis. The election was one of the biggest landslides in California history, with Davis crushing Lungren, 58-38.

I knew Lungren had a big problem when I recorded him saying: “Californians are even more conservative than they know.”

** CLINTON IN PLAY FOR SECRETARY OF STATE. Yes, it is true. Hillary Clinton has suddenly become a top contender to be Barack Obama’s secretary of state. The New York senator, former first lady, and tenacious former frontrunner for the presidency, made an unscheduled trip yesterday to Chicago to meet with President-elect Obama regarding a top role in the new Obama Administration. The principal focus of that role is that of US secretary of state.

Team Obama has been somewhat slow – though this is all happening fast in historical terms – to pick between 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and Vietnam War hero Senator John Kerry, who launched Obama’s presidential career by picking him to keynote the 2004 Democratic national convention, and Governor Bill Richardson, who delivered his state of New Mexico to the Obama candidacy and has ample experience as an international troubleshooting House Intelligence Committee member, US ambassador to the UN, and US secretary of energy.

I’m told by both Obama and Clinton sources that the interest in Hillary Clinton as Obama’s secretary of state is deep and genuine.

Obama’s favorite book is Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals,” about Abraham Lincoln and his emergency cabinet of former opponents and contentious political rivals.

** SARKOZY AND RUSSIA LOOK TO “REGULATED CAPITALISM.” French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose election was touted by the American right-wing as a sign of a major shift in global politics to their end of the spectrum, met yesterday with Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in advance of this weekend’s summit meeting of G-20 nations in Washington. France and Russia are in agreement on Sarkozy’s plan to promote “regulated capitalism” on a global basis in the wake of the epic financial meltdown on Wall Street.

The reason this meeting is taking place is that the European Union, under Sarkozy’s leadership, proposed to firmly regulate the world’s 30 top banks in order to avert any further manifestations of what we’re going through.

Needless to say, this is not what the far right in America anticipated when it hailed Sarkozy’s election as president of France over Socialist candidate Segolene Royal. Sarkozy took a hard line against Islamic jihadism in his country. Which the right mistook for a fundamental conservatism, ignoring his stance against the greenhouse effect, which they don’t believe in. Oops.

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Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin had an embarrassing conversation just before the election with “French President Nicolas Sarkozy,” actually an over-the-top-radio comedian from Montreal.

** PALLING WITH PALIN. Watch for the link to my upcoming column on the state of the Republicans. For those who know the state of the California Republican Party, my view of the state of the national Republican Party will not be unfamiliar.

Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.

Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From Wednesday’s column.

Obama will meet on Monday with his Republican rival, John McCain, in his presidential transition headquarters in Chicago.

According to Obama spokesperson Stephanie Cutter: “On Monday, President-elect Barack Obama and Senator John McCain will meet in Chicago at transition headquarters. It’s well known that they share an important belief that Americans want and deserve a more effective and efficient government, and will discuss ways to work together to make that a reality. They will be joined in the meeting by Senator Lindsey Graham and Congressman Rahm Emanuel.”

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Los Angeles today for private meetings and conversations, some of them around the very slow-starting special legislative session on the deepening nature of California’s chronic budget crisis – featuring the lame-duck Legislature — and two public events.

At 11:15 AM, Schwarzenegger will be in San Francisco to participate in a press conference welcoming United Airlines’ groundbreaking green flight from Australia. The first of its kind to touch down in California, the flight is part of the Asia and South Pacific Initiative to Reduce Emissions (ASPIRE) partnership to increase flight efficiency by reducing fuel consumption and aviation greenhouse gas emissions.

Schwarzenegger’s global governors’ climate change summit is next week in LA at the Beverly Hilton. NWN will cover this event and provide exclusive material. California and other US states will be signing cap-and-trade agreements on greenhouse gases with Indonesia and Brazil. And Schwarzenegger is of course looking forward to President-elect Obama’s commitment to greenlight the California climate change program.

At 1:30 PM, Schwarzenegger will join U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and California Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman in a press conference to highlight an agreement that will lay the groundwork for the largest dam removal project in history. California, Oregon and various federal and private partners are undertaking to improve water quality, water supply and fish populations in the Klamath River region, which is in the farthest reaches of Northern California.

The press conference will be webcast live at 1:30 PM Pacific at www.gov.ca.gov.

** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN. It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.

The drop of $92 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 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.

Quick Hits

Bill Bradley — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:45:17 +0000

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John McCain, in his first post-election appearance, Veterans Day on The Tonight Show.

** PALIN STEALS THE SHOW IN MIAMI, YET BAFFLES. Alaska Governor Sarah Palin stole the show today at the Republican Governors Association’s woe-is-us-Republicans session in Miami. Everyone was waiting on her every word.

Yet … she essentially recycled her old stump speech. And her ballyhooed press conference? She took only four questions, delivering very vague answers, before getting the hook from Texas Governor Rick Parry.

You know, I think I have a column coming out of this. Something about the national Republican Party becoming the California Republican Party.

** CALIFORNIA STORY: NO SURPRISES, BUT SOME DISINFORMATION DEBUNKING. Incidentally, I saw top California pollsters Mark Baldassare and Mark di Camillo today. Who had no surprises, though they debunked some prominent disinformation out there about Barack Obama and Prop 8. I’ll have an item about their thoughts tomorrow.

** WHAT’S THE COUNT? Well, in those unresolved US Senate races … Anchorage Mayor Nick Begich has taken nearly a thousand vote lead over Republican incumbent Ted Stevens. It looks like Alaska will be a seventh pick-up for the Democrats.

In Minnesota, comedian Al Franken is just 200 votes behind incumbent Republican Norm Coleman. Before the recount begins. This will be a nail-biter for more than a month, but Franken has an even chance of being an eighth Democratic pick-up in the Senate.

Georgia goes to a run-off, with incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss held below 50%. With Barack Obama not on the ballot, this will be a tough seat for the Democrats to pick up.

Which brings us to Joe Lieberman. While a lot of Dems want him tossed from the Democratic caucus, the most important Democrat, President-elect Obama decidedly does not. His vote is needed. Expect to see him around for quite awhile on the Democratic side of the aisle.

In California, the ongoing count has not dented the four-point lead for the Prop 8 anti-same sex marriage initiative. Prop 11, the redistricting reform initiative championed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is seeing its margin slowly but surely going up, to about two points. And in that hotly contested congressional race outside Sacramento, longtime right-wing icon Tom McClintock, carpetbagging his way 400 miles north of his longtime Southern California legislative district, has a lead which is slowly but surely going up, to around 1300 votes.

Humanity is, in many respects, defined by the differences between us. That won’t be changing anytime soon. We do not live in a world in which pacifism is a winning approach.

Which makes the determination of those strategic ends literally a matter of life and death. … From yesterday’s column.

** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama holds private meetings and discussion on the presidential transition today in Chicago. Although heads of government and other top officials are beginning to gather in Washington for this weekend’s emergency summit of the G-20 (group of 20 industrial nations) on the global financial crisis, Obama will not be in attendance. President Bush hosts the meeting. Obama has dispatched former US Secretary of State and UN Ambassador Madeline Albright, a Democrat, and former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, a Republican, as his emissaries to the summit. They will be meeting for international leaders on Obama’s behalf.

Meanwhile, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Jill Biden will today tour their new residence in Washington, the Naval Observatory, and have dinner with Vice President Dick Cheney and Lynn Cheney. Cheney is said by those who know him to be a gifted raconteur and interesting conversationalist, notwithstanding his Darth Vader image.

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger participates in the Golden Guardian Exercise today, leading California through its largest emergency response drill to test the state’s readiness and response to a major earthquake. The exercise will simulate a 7.8 magnitude earthquake along the southern portion of the San Andreas Fault and more than 5,000 participants from more than 100 local, state and federal agencies will participate.

Schwarzenegger operates out of the National Guard base in Los Alamitos, then holds a press conference in Mission Hills.

** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN. It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.

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Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, in an interview yesterday with Le Figaro, says that compromise is still possible on the current US plan to place an anti-missile shield in Eastern Europe.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

Quick Hits

Bill Bradley — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:30:52 +0000

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Fox News anchor Shepard Smith blows off the notion that the “liberal MSM” elected Barack Obama. Pay attention to this, because my read is that Fox owner Rupert Murdoch regrets going with the Republicans. Murdoch has personally embraced the climate change issue, and his adult children were mostly for Obama.

** CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN? OBAMA IS THE FIRST MACINTOSH PRESIDENT. Barack Obama is the first Mac user to become president of the United States. Here you see him using his white MacBook.

** PALIN WANTS TO PAL AROUND WITH OBAMA. Remember Sarah Palin’s nasty attacks against Barack Obama as un-American, a guy who “pals around with terrorists?” Well, it seems all previous statements are inoperative, as someone once put it. Now embarked on a feverish media tour to rehab her image, Palin was on CNN today and had this remarkable exchange with anchor Wolf Blitzer:

PALIN: It’s historic and I think this time is full of optimism. And it’s an opportunity for everybody to get it together and start working together. For us as Republicans to reach out to Barack Obama and the new administration that will be ushered in and offer the solutions that we see for meeting some of America’s great challenges right now.
This is an opportunity to all be working together. And of course, President-elect Obama had promised also bipartisan efforts to meet the challenges. So let’s seize this opportunity, let’s take him up on that offer. And let’s start working together.
BLITZER: Are you ready to help him?
PALIN: Absolutely. Especially on energy independence, energy security that we need for this nation, being the governor of an energy-producing state knowing that we have the domestic solutions there in our state and in other energy-producing states.
I’m more than willing and able to help President-elect Obama to start tapping into the domestic solutions that we have now so we can quit being so reliant on foreign sources of energy.
BLITZER: So if he reaches out to you and says, Governor Palin, I need your help on energy or some other issues, kids with special needs, for example, and says, I want you to be part of a commission, you would be more than happy to say, yes, Mr. President.
PALIN: It would be my honor to assist and support our new president and the new administration, yes. And I speak for other Republicans, other Republican governors also, they being willing also to, again, seize this opportunity that we have to progress this nation together, a united front.

** OBAMA DISPATCHES ENVOYS TO THE G-20 MEETING. Barack Obama will not attend the G-20 (group of 20 industrialized nations) summit on the global financial crisis hosted later this week in Washington by President Bush, but he is dispatching two envoys to attend the summit and meet with international leaders. They are former US Secretary of State Madeline Albright, a Democrat, and former Iowa Congressman Jim Leach, a Republican. Albright served under President Bill Clinton, and was also US ambassador to the United Nations. She backed Hillary Clinton during the primaries. Leach is a moderate Republican who endorsed Obama over John McCain.

** COMING UP: My new column on the enduring value of Veterans Day in the new age of Obama.

** QUINNIPIAC POLL: STRONG NUMBERS FOR OBAMA. President-elect Barack Obama now has very high favorables in not only the Gallup Poll, previously reported, but also the Quinnipiac Poll. Obama is favored by 67% of American voters. Just 19% have an unfavorable view of him.

In contrast, President Bush has a 23% favorable rating and a 71% unfavorable rating.

If you want to hang your hat on one fact about this election, there it is.

Big majorities think that Obama will restore credibility and honor to the White House, and make a big impact on America’s looming problems. And which problems are those? In this poll, the top issues selected by US voters are: 68% economy, 5% war, 3% terrorism, 2% energy crisis, and 2% health care.

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President-elect Barack Obama visited President Bush in the White House on Monday.

** OBAMA TODAY. President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden hold a series of private meetings today in Chicago. While no appointments are expected this week to the national security and economic teams of the new administration, that is a principal focus of today’s meetings. Obama is also walking back the characterization of former Senate Armed Services Commitee Chairman Sam Nunn’s role. He is a senior advisor to Obama, but he is not the sherpa of the defense transition. As I’ve already reported, I expect current Defense Secretary and former CIA Director Bob Gates to remain as Obama’s defense secretary.

Leaders of the G20 group of top industrialized nations are beginning to converge on Washington for a summit on the global financial crisis hosted by President Bush. But Obama will not be in attendance, and I’m told has no plans for separate meetings with any of the leaders.

In related action, the Republican Governors Association conference kicks off today in Miami. Sarah Palin, who has been more available to the press since her defeat than she was for her entire campaign, will be much in evidence.

That cheering you hear is from the Democratic Party, which wants to run against Palin in 2012.

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger meets today with the Fresno area Chamber of Commerce to discuss the deepening nature of California’s chronic budget crisis.

** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN. It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.

Your posts are welcome in the Forum.

Veterans Day, And More

Bill Bradley — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:30:58 +0000

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Former U.S. Navy Secretary-turned-U.S. Senator Jim Webb, the most highly decorated Marine combat officer of the Vietnam War, introducing Barack Obama three weeks ago in Roanoke, Virginia.

** NEW AWARD: MOST INCREDIBLY OBNOXIOUS WEB SITE – MATT DRUDGE. The poor aging kludge boy, a former dumpster diver who was at his best then, has a horrible, out of tune, audio track attached to his illiterate maunderings. Maybe it sounds good in those Miami discos.

** WELCOME TO THE FRINGE. Here is Georgia Congressman Paul Broun, a far right Republican, naturally, seriously comparing President-elect Barack Obama to both Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler.

Now, not to put too fine a point on it, but this fellow, as I can assure you from far more direct knowledge than this poor soul has, is quite irrational in his “assessment.”

But … this is relatively standard fare for the far right precincts of the blogosphere and talk radio.

Oh, and as I think goes naturally without saying these days, poor Mr. Broun never wore the uniform of the US Armed Forces. Happy Veterans Day, sport.

But daddy was a Democratic state senator, which is why this poor soul has his misbegotten political career in the first place.

** COMING UP: My new column on the enduring value of Veterans Day in the new age of Obama.

** OBAMA TODAY.

Barack Obama lays a wreath at Chicago’s Soldier’s Field to honor America’s veterans, accompanied by Illinois veterans affairs director Tammy Duckworth, a disabled veteran of the Iraq War.

His transition director John Podesta, former Clinton White House chief of staff, current director of the Center for American Progress, and one of the world’s biggest X-Files fans, holds a pen-and-pad today with the press in Washington.

Obama sources also leaked out some details of the president-elect’s private meeting yesterday in the Oval Office with outgoing President Bush. The leaks focused on Obama’s desire to salvage the US auto industry. The iconic General Motors is at death’s door. Bush, while eager to bail out the financial industry, has been slow to deal with the auto industry, the long-time backbone of American manufacturing.

In many respects, Bush is responsible for the woes of US automakers. The Bush/Cheney Administration refused to prod Detroit into keeping up with foreign automakers in fuel efficiency.

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has no public appearances today. His office announced that among the co-hosts of his Governors’ Global Climate Change Summit in LA on November 18-19 are Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle.

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Russian media is having some fun with a tale of President-elect Barack Obama’s brief 2005 detention at an airport in Perm.

** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN. It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.

The drop of $89 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 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.

Obama Behind The Scenes, And More

Bill Bradley — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:00:17 +0000

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President-elect Barack Obama behind the scenes in this 2007 NWN video. You observe the then underdog candidate without entourage.

ATTENTION N.W.N. READERS: Now that the crush of the election season is out of the way, New West Notes is moving to its own server. I had planned to have the move, which these days can happen quite quickly and in a pretty straightforward way, completed over the weekend.

New West Notes is www.newwestnotes.com.

** COMING TOMORROW: My new column on the enduring value of Veterans Day in the new age of Obama.

** QUICK HITS. Howard Dean is stepping down as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, continuing the tradition of having an incoming president name the party chairman. There are many potential replacements; none clearcut yet. Dean did a better than expected job as Democratic national chairman. His 50-state strategy was symbolically important and helped Dems do better than otherwise in seemingly unpromising parts of the country, though as a practical matter a 40-state strategy makes more sense. He did adopt the Western strategy pushed for decades by Gary Hart. … Barack Obama doesn’t want Joe LIeberman booted out of the Senate Democratic Caucus. … The chair of the Obama Inauguration Committee, Californoa’s senior Senator Dianne Feinstein, warns people not to buy scalped tickets to the Inaugural. … Friends of Gray Davis join the former California governor tonight in Sacramento to celebrate the 10th anniversary of his landslide election as governor over then state Attorney General Dan Lungren. … The aforementioned Lungren, who had a tough race for re-election to his Northern California congressional seat, is apparently putting together a run for House Minority Leader. … Former NBA All-Star and Cal All-American point guard-turned Sacramento Mayor-elect Kevin Johnson announced the leaders of his transition team. They include former Arnold Schwarzenegger communications director Adam Mendelsohn. Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio managed the Obama supporter to a 58% to 42% landslide over incumbent Heather Fargo. … Sarah Palin tries to ride the comeback trail with an interview tomorrow with NBC Today Show host Matt Lauer. Palin spent most of Saturday sorting through her wardrobe to determine what she needs to give back to the Republican Party. … John McCain joins Jay Leno on The Tonight Show tomorrow night to celebrate Veterans Day. …

** OBAMA HAS HIGHEST POST-ELECTION FAVORABLE RATING IN GALLUP POLL SINCE THAT MEASUREMENT BEGAN. The Gallup Poll reported today that Barack Obama has a 72% favorable rating amongst all Americans, 68% with voters, the highest since Gallup began tracking post-election favorability in 1992. Only 23% of Americans view Obama unfavorably.

** SECRET SERVICE CODENAMES.

Barack Obama: Renegade

Michelle Obama: Renaissance

Sasha Obama: Radiance

Malia Obama: Rosebud

Joe Biden: Celtic

Jill Biden: Capri

** THE U.S. MARINE CORPS ANNIVERSARY. Today is the 233rd anniversary of the founding of the U.S. Marine Corps. The then Continental Marines began as detachments of sea-going soldiers on the sailing ships of the Continental Navy in the war of the 13 American colonies for independence from Great Britain. They served as boarding parties during naval battles and as amphibious detachments for raids on coastal targets.

Today, of course, the Marines have a much more expansive role in the US military portfolio. I’ve know quite a few Marines, and they are proud, tough bunch. Which you would expect. But the Marines have also been perhaps the most innovative of the armed services, frequently embracing reform doctrines much sooner than their counterparts. So let’s hear it for the Marines! And if anybody posts “gung hay fat choy” instead of “gung ho,” it will not be pretty.

** THE IRISH COFFEE ANNIVERSARY. Today is the 56th anniversary of the launch of Irish coffee in America. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Stanton Delaplane discovered a version of it in, naturally, Ireland, and brought what he’d learned of the concoction to Jack Koeppler, owner of San Francisco’s Buena Vista Cafe.

The two experimented with versions of the ingredients – the principal of which are coffee and whisky, topped with a thick dollop of whipped cream – and loosed the beverage on an unsuspecting America. It’s hard to beat on a chilly morning, or blustery day, or a foggy evening, for that matter. Irish coffee, like the Buena Vista – with its view of the bay just beyond – has endured, and then some.

The Morning Column: OBAMA BEHIND THE SCENES.

What a spectacular election, for all its ugliness, and for all that it went as anticipated for months on New West Notes.

This has been, clearly, a powerful election result. Between the 2006 elections and the 2008 elections, Democrats have picked up at least a dozen seats in the U.S. Senate and more than 50 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Barack Obama, the freshman Illinois senator who was still a state legislator just four years ago, took no less than nine red states away from the Republicans, with one more state still up for grabs (though I have Missouri in the McCain column). With a decisive 53% to 46% victory over John McCain in the popular vote, and at least 365 electoral votes – he picked up one last week, as I expected, in Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, based in what many called Obamaha (Omaha) during the primaries (Nebraska being one of only two states which split electoral votes) – he is in a commanding position.

And that’s before you get to the demographics. Obama carried every age group of voters under 65. He won voters 18 to 34 by 2 to 1. That positions Obama and the Democrats for the future, as partisan identification usually sets in at a young age. He split college-educated white voters, previously a Republican bulwark. He won Latino and Asian American voters by better than 2 to 1, African American voters 95-5. For all the caterwauling about him as a “Manchurian candidate” out to destroy Israel, Obama did even better with Jewish voters than John Kerry, beating McCain 78-22, despite the fact that McCain is a longstanding great friend of Israel.

Obama carried independent voters and moderate voters by healthy margins.

The truth is that the fearmongering of the far right failed in this election. Polling even by the Republican-owned Rasmussen organization showed that it backfired. Take, for example, Obama’s attenuated relationship with ’60s vintage domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, now a professor accepted by the business establishment of Chicago. Most voters felt that raising that issue hurt McCain and the Republicans. Nobody outside the conservative Republican base cared.

The Wright Stuff, i.e., the oft-replayed snippeted rantings of Obama’s long-time pastor Jeremiah Wright, achieved over-exposure in the primaries. When a 527 committee spent millions on ads pushing it again at the close of the campaign, it made no difference. Some on the right believe that McCain should have made it a major focus of his campaign. They’re wrong. Once again.

Bittergate, as I dubbed it, Obama’s tortured explanation to supporters at a private San Francisco fundraiser about why some small town Pennsylvanians weren’t supporting him? Obama won Pennsylvania by a bigger margin than any Democrat in decades, 55-44.

Fox News anchor Brit Hume put it well on election night. These attacks and more – Obama the “socialist” who “pals around with terrorists” – didn’t work because voters have taken the measure of the man. They don’t see it. The people who push those themes seem delusional.

And so we have Karl Rove and others now claiming that Obama ran as a “centrist.” But, wait, he was the most dangerously radical presidential candidate in history just a few days earlier. The truth is that Obama is center-left, which is where most of the country is, along with being future-oriented.

As I said all along, McCain had much bigger problems being linked to President Bush and Vice President Cheney than Obama had with those dust-ups.

In fact, when Obama meets with Bush today at the White House – and steps inside the Oval Office for the first time (hmm, I’ve been in the Oval Office before) – he may be extra nice, knowing how much he has to thank Bush for.

It’s not often that a candidate gets to run against a party that has lashed itself to the mast of a presidency responsible for mismanaging two wars and the economy.

Of course, as you can see in the video above, Obama is a naturally cool and collected customer, whip-smart and grounded in reality. Who is nonetheless able to rouse crowds into feverish passion.

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It wasn’t all ice cream and roses for Obama. He bombed in the first Democratic presidential forum he participated in, last year in Las Vegas, seen in this NWN video.

It’s been a very long campaign, beginning two years ago with the dramatic Democratic victories in the 2006 congressional elections and the plunge in popularity of the the Bush/Cheney Administration. Now what may be even more interesting has begun.

It was about 22 months ago that I decided I had better check out this fellow Barack Hussein Obama. I’d seen him give a great speech keynoting the 2004 Democratic national convention. I had his latest book which was sitting in a pile. But there’s more to running for president than being a great speaker and a fine writer.

So I traveled to several cities to scout Obama at his appearances, meet him, spend time in the vicinity, and study it all. Obama was pretty tentative at first. I filmed him bombing in a candidate forum in Las Vegas. But the thing was, he kept improving. He had a strong and very smart campaign organization. He had policies in the center-left groove where most of the country lives today. In other words, he had what it took to win the presidency.

Now we’ll see if he has what it takes to be the president. I expect him to be very good indeed.

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The very first Democratic presidential forum – which Obama was the only candidate to skip – was in Carson City, Nevada. Watch an amusing encounter in the box lunch line with future Vice President Joe Biden and a later exchange with him on the crumbling situation in Afghanistan in this NWN video.

The West was key for the Democrats in winning this sweeping and historic victory. The Western strategy first championed by Gary Hart decades ago came to fruition in this election, with Obama sweeping the West Coast and increasingly dominating the Rocky Mountain West, winning big in Colorado, New Mexico, and Neva.

Since California provided one-fifth of the electoral votes needed to win the White House (though Barack Obama won 95 more electoral votes than he needed), about a fifth of Obama’s campaign money in contributions of $200 and up, nearly a third of is national popular vote margin over John McCain, and thousands of volunteers who helped push Obama over the top in various swing states, the Golden State is in pretty good with the new president-elect of the United States.

So which Californians will be joining the Obama Administration? It’s still emerging obviously, and it’s early, though Obama has hit the ground running, much faster than did Bill Clinton. But some names are clearly in play.

The biggest name that has been out there, for some months, is that of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. To be some sort of climate change/energy czar. There’s always been one big problem with that. Schwarzenegger has over two years left as governor of California. So that makes it virtually impossible for him to play that sort of role with Obama, at least in the first part of Obama’s first term as president. Obama and company didn’t take Schwarzenegger’s criticisms of him the Friday before the election at a Columbus, Ohio rally, Schwarzenegger’s only McCain campaign event of the fall, all that seriously. They shrugged off the hit on Obama’s purported tax program and, when the former Mr. Universe dubbed Obama to be “scrawny,” Obama chief strategist David Axelrod said only that they were looking forward to getting Arnold on the basketball court after the election.

In any event, Obama won Ohio, as expected, so, in basketball terms, no harm/no foul. But if Schwarzenegger were to take a post with Obama later on in Obama’s first term, California First Lady Maria Shriver could have a major role as well. She was a prominent backer of Obama.

The Californian who is apparently very much in the running now for the Obama Cabinet is former state Controller and ex-eBay honcho Steve Westly. The Silicon Valley venture capitalist, who ran a near-miss campaign for the 2006 Democratic gubernatorial nomination, is one of Obama’s earliest and biggest supporters, having served as Obama’s first California chair, a national finance co-chair, and as chair of a coalition of greentech business people for Obama.

Westly, who also co-chaired the winning California redistricting reform initiative with Schwarzenegger, is clearly in the mix to be U.S. Secretary of Energy. He’s also considering another run for governor in 2010.

Schwarzenegger’s choice as chair of the California Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols, is reportedly in the mix to head the Environmental Protection Agency. She first chaired the ARB under then Governor Jerry Brown, was assistant chief of the EPA under Clinton, and served as California resources secretary under then Governor Gray Davis.

Intriguingly, the structure of energy and environmental policy-making in the Obama Administration may be in flux. Former Clinton White House chief of staff John Podesta, co-director of the Obama transition and one of the world’s biggest X-Files fans, now heads the Center for American Progress. CAP has issued a report calling for a National Energy Council, to operate alongside the National Economic Council set up under Clinton. Which was set up to elevate economic issues to the same cross-cutting stature as was done with the decades ago establishments of the National Security Council.

Professor Laura Tyson, currently head of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, is under consideration for very high economic posts. After being co-director of the Silicon Valley-centric Berkeley Roundtable for the International Economy in the ’80s, she went on to head the National Economic Council under Clinton. Obama sources describe Tyson as a brilliant briefer on economic issues, one well-suited for Sunday show appearances.

Tyson’s UC Berkeley colleague, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, is also under consideration for major posts. Reich is more associated with Harvard, of course, where he was a prominent senior lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government. He was one of the first Clinton Cabinet members to break with the Clintons and go with Obama.

Bay Area Congressman George Miller, a major ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, chairs the House Education and Labor Committee. He came out for Obama right after Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary, and could have a major post with regard to the workforce and education issues.

Oakland lawyer Tony West is a top litigator who raised a lot of money for Obama and has an easy rapport with the president-elect, as you can see on the NWN behind-the-scenes video. West is a Harvard-educated former assistant US attorney.

His sister-in-law, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, is another up-and-comer who played a major role with Obama as California co-chair. The charismatic Harris is interested in running for California attorney general in 2010 if former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown moves toward a third term in the office he held in the ’70s and early ’80s.

** OBAMA TODAY.

Barack and Michelle Obama visit George and Laura Bush today in the White House. Obama sets foot in the Oval Office for the very first time. The visit begins at 11 AM Pacific. Expect a little TV coverage …

** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tours the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory this morning with Lawrence Lab director George Miller and former US Secretary of State George Shultz. Schwarzenegger will focus on the lab’s research into new energy systems and explore the nearly completed National Ignition Facility (NIF). Expected to be completed in March 2009, NIF will be the world’s largest laser system.

** THE AMERICA THAT CAN BE/THE AMERICA THAT HAS BEEN. It was the America That Can Be vs. the America That Has Been. The future won. Yet there is much in the past that is of enduring value.

The drop of $86 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 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.