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Its all just about to kick off, the old presidents, Clinton, Bush, Carter have all arrived.

Did you see how red Joe Biden got? Talk about loose lips sink ships.

Jill Biden said on the Oprah show that she wanted her husband to be vice president instead of secretary of state, chiefly because it would involve less travel.

"If you're secretary of state, you'll be away, we'll never see you, you know," she said, describing how she and her husband had talked about it.

"I'll see you at a state dinner once and awhile. But I said, if you are vice president, the entire family, because they worked so hard for the election, they can be involved. They can come to our home. They can go to events, they can be with us all the time. And that's what's important to us," she said.

Biden, seated at his wife's side, looked sheepish and tried to shush his wife after she made the remark.

Via / ABC News and Reuters

And here was Barack’s full speech in Baltimore:

As the reporter and my friend K both noted, it’s almost as if Obama is still campaigning. And as I replied, it strikes me that this because he truly wants a sea-change in the country. He genuinely wants Americans to reach out and help each other more, to look after each other and work together; to change the mood of a nation beyond doing so with intangible feelings like hope and optimism. As Obama said on the night of November 4th, his election is just the beginning. And as a result he will, perhaps, have to keep drilling his vision - or rather: the practical application of his vision - into the American people. I doubt he will ever let up. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

*Update* Just found footage from Delaware, including Joe’s full introductory speech. Gotta love around 5 minutes, where all the white secret service agents appear, followed by their black President. Magical :

“Advisers to President-elect Barack Obama say one of his first duties in office will be to order the closing of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. That executive order is expected during Obama’s first week on the job - and possibly on his first day, according to two transition team advisers.”

Here was Olbermann’s take on this - and Obama’s ‘looking forward’ policy - last night, with great commentary from constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley:

So here, instead, was Keith Olbermann’s coverage of it (ie the conference in nice, palatable chunks broken up by comment/sarcarsm/fact-correction):

Followed by Richard Wolffe’s input:

This man really hates being president. He really fucking hates it. All those people who said that Bush was a front for Cheney? Never believed it until this conference.

I tried to find a transcript of the conference online--but so far, this video clip of "Bushisms" is the only thing I can find.

It's sort startling to me--the reporter seems think these -isms are so cute and funny--I find them more than a bit horrifying.

Maybe someday, the press will catch up with the rest of humanity and realize it's not funny when a president talks about great job done as people drown.

Shihab Rattansi of Al Jazeera tries to make some sense of the nonsense coming out of the mouth of Democratic Congressman from New York, Eliot Engel.

This week, the US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution supporting Israel’s actions in Gaza. Not to be outdone, the US Senate passed by unanimous consent a resolution offering unconditional support to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

With the US Congress using the kind of thinking demonstrated by Rep. Engel in the Al Jazeera interview, we are well on our way to making all killing of civilians a justifiable action.

And here they are walking and talking and such. Well, talking, at least:

Know what struck me most as I watched that video? That it’s really close. It’s about to happen. Any day now (January 20th - Ed) Barack Obama is becoming President. Wow.

*Update* Rachel Maddow talks about the meeting (and includes footage of a new interview with Obama, which leaps rather strangely from talk of the economic stimulus package to body-surfing in Hawaii, but still):

“Obama had spoken to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday on the need to find a quick solution to defuse the dispute, according to Democratic officials. Reid was told by Obama that if Burris had the legal standing to be seated - despite controversy surrounding his appointment by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich - it should be done “sooner rather than later,” said an Obama transition aide, speaking on condition of anonymity because the conversation was private.”

Not any more, it ain’t.

Here was Keith Olbermann on the story:

And here’s more of an explanation of Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats’ behaviour, courtesy of Keith and the always brilliant Chris Hayes:

You know, little things like that.

Bob Cesca spells out what’s going on here - contrasting Obama’s clean record with Bush’s.

And Keith Olbermann and Richard Wolffe discussed (the latter rather disingenuously) the Obama camp’s response to the story last night:

See, Sarah Palin: this is ‘gotcha’ media.

focused on a 25 percent drop in overall drug use among youths since 2001, when he took office.

2008 survey found that at least one in eight high school seniors reported abusing prescription painkillers and stimulants obtained from friends, relatives or schoolmates.

Perhaps “who believes that global warming is man-made” is a better way of putting it.

Anyway: the man hotly tipped to be named the new American energy secretary, Steven Chu, is a breath of fresh air. Quite literally, given his views on greenhouse gases.

Here’s Chu in action. As it were (I’m sure other ‘in action’ footage could include him being boffin-like, in a white coat in a laboratory somewhere). This is long, but fascinating (well, the part I’ve watched so far ):

(Source: Oliver Willis via Bob Cesca)

Quite a lot of build up just to end by blaming America for the world’s problems.  Same sad song, Nth verse.

Although it would be wrong to say that the U.S. blameless in regard to its current low level of esteem around the globe, the nearly 20 years since the end of the Cold War have caused a lot of people living in countries that should remember the very real danger they passed through thanks to Uncle Sam’s protection to forget the world security dynamics of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

Yes, during the Cold War the U.S. supported bad people in Iran, Chile, and Nicaragua, among others, and fought bloody, ambiguous wars in Korea and Vietnam that prematurely ended or shattered many innocent lives.

But an objective observer has to question the degree of injury the U.S. dealt directly to Muslims even during the height of its obsessive Cold War zeal.  Arguably the worst thing the U.S. has done to followers of Islam was to set up the scenario through which the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran in 1979 and set up a totalitarian Islamic state that is still controlling speech and thought in Iran today while ensuring that no economic or social progress can be made there. 

As for America’s recent folly in Iraq, it’s a matter of common knowledge that the vast majority of Iraqi dead were killed by other Iraqis and imported Muslim terrorists and not by American troops.  True, we probably should not have deposed Saddam Hussein; however, that doesn’t change the facts about who did what to whom afterward.

No, Muslims’ anger toward the U.S. is primarily about Israel - the Jews who must be destroyed for Islam to be satisfied.

Understand that while the Palestinians in Israel have been aligned with Muslim nations and terrorists groups for several decades, there was not a great deal of Islamic fervor among residents of Palestine prior to that strategic alignment.  Neither is Jerusalem of any particular consequence to Muslims, historically speaking.  Its value is as a ransom, the prized possession of another faith held hostage.  Fundamentally, it’s America’s support for the Jews makes that us the enemy of Islamic radicals, not our actions in the world, though those often hurt relations as well.

MPACUK’s claim that America has made Islam violent is a fabrication.  Where are the murderous Vietnamese, who by rights should be setting off bombs in New York with all the fervor of a radical Wahabi?  They don’t exist.  Radical Muslims chose the path of violence deliberately, because they believe in it and that it can achieve their aims for them. 

But suppose you are a 16-year-old Muslim male with an opportunity to consider your potential futures and make a logical decision about how to spend the next 6 years of your life.  What makes more sense, becoming a foot soldier in the mullahs’ terrorist army or getting an education and making a place for yourself in civilized society?  The latter option is clearly more advantageous for you and your progeny save for one consideration:  Islam.

This is particularly obvious when one reads articles like this one in which the Houston Chronicle reports that many Egyptians are too poor to afford meat during the Eid al-Adha.

Their lives don’t have to be that way.  There’s nothing inferior about Arabs’ genes, intellect, or abilities.  But they, like the Iranian and Iraqi people, are hobbled by their governments and the prison of their religion.

“What does it say about me, and this country, when I have to ask the butcher to give me bones that he used to throw to the dogs?”  An Egyptian woman asked rhetorically.

What indeed.  One thing is certain: the rhetoric that terrorist apologists like MPACUK push on Muslims everywhere does absolutely nothing to help them ensure better lives for their children.  Quite the opposite.

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