So Is This

The Obamas truly are America's finest. Whether it's this casual personal interview, or a serious discussion with a head of state, I will be so proud to have them represent America. I totally trust that they are sincere about doing what they say if for nothing other than the fact that they truly and genuinely want to make their own children proud just as they are of their own parents.

jay
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Obama said he has already talked to Bush I remember. It was the same day he made the Nancy Reagan joke

"W was not ideological." Completely disagree. I think much of W's policy was based on a Christian ideological core forged to sharp edges by neoconservative blacksmiths. There may have been times when that ideology was used as a rationalization for mere cronyism, but it was central to the man and his Administration.

I think much of W's policy was based on a Christian ideological core forged to sharp edges by neoconservative blacksmiths
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Above and on the KT thread, I expressed concern that I was being suckered by performance by Obama.
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I have no doubt that the whole thing from Bush is an act, a bit used to obtain power for the purpose of kleptocracy. The wingnut base are rubes, and Bush and Rove were the hucksters.
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An interesting question is which Palin is, huckster or rube. I assume she's a huckster, and just needs a better handler.
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This is one of the extraordinary failures of the traditional media--in not explicitly exposing the republican program.
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One other interesting failure is the presentation of the Tom Daschele wing of the dems, taking out the DLC. Stoller has written about this, and we're seeing it in all the legislative types being appointed to Obama's team. Not saying this is a bad thing, but this is an interest group conflict not being covered.

Obama said he has already talked to Bush I remember. It was the same day he made the Nancy Reagan joke
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Sad things happen to parents. It will be sad, for Bush, that he has a more receptive audience in Obama than in his eldest son.

I'm sure that if you ask a conservative or a liberal they will say their ideas work. I wonder what criteria Obama plans to use to reach a trans-ideological platform? What ideas does he plan to use first, in order to find out if they work or not.

Now come on pourmecoffee,

Every appointment he made in his administration was based on ideology. So many incompetant selections based on the litmus test: were you a true believer. The Justice Dept. .. you had to be a true believer and agressively establish voter fraud campaigns, support voter intimidation programs and prosecute any Democrat that was gaining traction. Their job was to prosecute to establish a permanent Republican majority. Health .. you had to be an abstinence believer. Your job was to not foster the criminalization abortion but to outlaw even basic contraceptive use. Expl: Encourage pharmacists to deny filing contraceptive pill orders based on religiuous objections. Treasury.. their job was to eliminate every possible oversight and allow a fraud free environment for Republican supporters. Defense Dept: Open to flood gates of appropriations to friendly Republican led businesses. W was ideological, he was criminal.

Now come on pourmecoffee,

Every appointment he made in his administration was based on ideology. So many incompetant selections based on the litmus test: were you a true believer. The Justice Dept. .. you had to be a true believer and agressively establish voter fraud campaigns, support voter intimidation programs and prosecute any Democrat that was gaining traction. Their job was to prosecute to establish a permanent Republican majority. Health .. you had to be an abstinence believer. Your job was to foster the criminalization abortion but to outlaw even basic contraceptive use. Expl: Encourage pharmacists to deny filing contraceptive pill orders based on religiuous objections. Treasury.. their job was to eliminate every possible oversight and allow a fraud free environment for Republican supporters. Defense Dept: Open to flood gates of appropriations to friendly Republican led businesses. W was ideological, he was criminal.

Computer caused the double post sorry.

@newfloridian - Read, please. Follow who's arguing what.

Sean: "You're the President and you have an affair with a young impressionable intern that works for you?" Young impressionable intern? She stalked Clinton. That he was willing to be stalked is another matter, but she was certainly no victim.
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jay and others on Obama: "He is able to explain complex issues clearly and in simple terms. This is his exceptional talent." Bill Clinton is also extraordinary at this, arguably quite a bit better at using effective framing to explain policy tradeoffs. But with Clinton you could/can always see the wheels turning. With Obama you see someone simply saying things that are true.

palininatowel -
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agree with your assessment of both Obama and Clinton, to wit:

And here's the primary way they are different: Clinton needed acknowledgment, acceptance and approval. All the time. He was needy (and somewhat insecure) in that sense.
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Obama is far more comfortable and confident in who he is. He does not need to be validated by others the way Clinton did/does. That makes Obama a far more powerful leader than Clinton, at least in potential.

Can Jay point out a single instance where a president elect has declared that he would not be "bi-partisan", and wouldn't be "ideological", etc. etc. etc....

I mean, Obama gave us boilerplate, and the media is treating it like its manna from heaven. It was bad enough before the election -- but the media's treatment of Obama since then looks more like the way the media treated Bush in the wake of 9-11 (not merely uncritically, but worshipping)

Hmmm, the srewed Chicago politician is now the equal of "FDR, Reagan, and Lincoln". You all are so wiped in political bullcrap you have no clue who he is and where he has come from. Obama knows one thing very well, how to screw everyone out of everything he wants.

Quite drinking the kool-aide children and take off the rose colored glasses. Obama is the greatest snake the White House will ever house to date.

Let me remind you quickly of his most favorite Pastor, of over 20+ years. "God Damn America!!!"

newfloridian and pourmecoffee, I think part of the confusion is it's difficult to define what an ideology is. The difference between neoconservatism and liberalism, traditional conservatism or even socialism, is that neoconservatism is purely a phenomenon of obscure academic circles that somehow took over the government. Absolutely no regular person calls themselves a neocon. McCain could never have announced to a Ohio town hall, "I will pursue neoconservative policies as President." There are no Joe the neoconservative Plumbers.
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I think that lack of popularity reflects neoconservatism's weaknesses. And it really is obscure even within the academic world (I believe fascism was too, BTW). It couldn't stand up to the scrutiny of strong intellectual debate. I've never met a neoconservative professor, although I know they exist. In addition, in domestic policy neoconservatism is very poorly defined. So simply calling Bush a neocon doesn't explain his domestic agenda.
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Anyway, I still think that Bush's Presidency would have been less awful if he had followed an established ideology whose influence is seen in functioning governments, such as conservatism.
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Sean DeCoursey, I agree with your criticisms of Bill Clinton, although I'm appalled by the personal life of most Presidents, so I don't even think about them anymore. I also know it's difficult to fully evaluate someone's life unless you know everything - it's quite possible that Bush has started drinking again, and we wouldn't know.
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Can Jay point out a single instance where a president elect has declared that he would not be "bi-partisan", and wouldn't be "ideological", etc. etc. etc...
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plukasiak, okay I have to admit that's true. Good point. But I still think Obama is more serious about pragmatism than most Presidents.

"White House will ever house to date"?
That's one fine piece of construction Physician, Viet Nam vet, successful businessman, who has friends and family in Iraq.

i don't think it matters what 'joe the plumber' identifies with on a semantic level, neoconservativism was certainly the ascendant ideology of the Bush II administration. it doesn't matter whether they begged, borrowed or stole to get there. they were socially conservative, with a caveat that unlimited time and effort be put into aggressively expanding the american model of governance through military force, backed by divine right and exceptional status. that = neoconservativsm. it certainly wasn't pretty, but it was what it was.

For any former or current Ron Paul supporters who might be lurking
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http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/ron-paul-decries-looming-new-world-o

Is "choke on my balls, Jay Carney" an ideological solution, or not? Cabinet-position vetters want to know.

wvng,
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Wow. Really? The "she wanted it so she had it coming" defense?
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It obviously takes two to tango. It's wrong because the power relationship is so, so skewed. High school teachers aren't supposed to sleep with their students (even the ones that are 18) for the same reasons. You think that would be ok too?
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Rose,
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Neocons don't have a domestic policy outside of spending lots of money on the military budget, running patriotism classes in schools and supporting domestic spying to keep the state strong. Honestly, neoconservatism is like a nice-ified Hitler Youth on the domestic front. On the foreign policy front, they're at least as aggressive as the fascists were ideologically.
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Rusty,
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You do have one point. It is way, way too early for all the Lincoln/FDR/Kennedy comparisons on Obama. He hasn't even taken the oath yet. Let's wait at least a year or two and see what he actually manages to accomplish.

"Let me remind you quickly of his most favorite Pastor, of over 20+ years. "God Damn America!!!"
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Um, Rusty, did you know that the election is over?
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And Rusty? Don't mix your phyla, please! Obama's a mammal, just like the rest of us. Except you.
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You're a spirochete.
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Of matters of real import, I don't think that Reagan is going to have a lot to offer Obama. He was on watch when the USSR collapsed, so he gets some credit, but the collapse began with the Solidarity movement in the '70s.
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I think though, that if there are things he has to offer that Obama can borrow, more power too him.

"Rumsfeld never could have happened if the military hadn't been purged of warriors in favor of CYA bureaucrats during the Clinton years."
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Wow. More "Blame Clinton for what Bush did" stuff?
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You got as much cred on Clinton as you do on Katrina, don't you?
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Did anyone ever point out to you that Bill, at that particular time, was working on a fiendish plan to cause earthquakes in California?

rusty,
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Obama is "the greatest snake the White House will ever house to date?"
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Were you laughing when you typed that, given that he is replacing the very people who looted the national treasury in what has been the most massive organized crime heist in the history of mankind?
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Hell, even if Obama was a crook, they emptied everything -- the safes, the cupboards, the drawers, the mattresses, everything -- over the course of the last eight years.
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What's left to steal after the Cheney-Bush criminal cabal cleaned out the bank accounts? They even stole the silver!

palin, does the construction "ever house" followed by "to date" make a bit of sense? No? Then welcome to, long time Swampland favorite, Rusty's world.

The general elections in democratic countries can be quite puzzling.

Take for instance the latest elections in the US. Less than 63% of the eligible electorate cast their ballots. Of this about 52% voted for the winner. In other words, the president-elect won hardly one-third of the total eligible votes – which indeed translated to some 63 millions.

The US has a population of 310 millions with about 190 million voters. Whatever happened to the almost 70 million of them who opted not to exercise their rights, probably thinking that elections were a waste of time and money?

This would suggest that the presidency had been won with a minority, seemingly countering the sacred notion of a democratic government by the majority. It is quite pathetic that such situation prevails among most nations.

One wonders if general elections ought to be made compulsory for every voter (a few countries do). Otherwise it simply does not appear right.