This is from an online "who should be appointed to Job so & so" thing at ajc.com
Politics aside, how hard it would have been to have found a slightly more flattering picture of potential Defense Secretary Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI)?

Are you saying the AJC may have an agenda here? Hence selecting a photo that makes him look like a village idiot?

Yup. The AJC is a bastion of conservative thought. :)

Well, Sam Nunn is one of the other contenders for the job (in their little poll at least).

I am about half way through that great Newsweek issue and it has been a fun read. I despised Bill Clinton before and now I do even more.

He doesn't like ice cream??? commie!

Swing State Project has an interesting post that examines electoral shifts from 1984 to 2008. Surprisingly, there are 97 counties that were so Democratic in 1984, they went for Mondale in the face of a landslide, but have changed so much that they went for McCain in a 7 point loss. Here they are:

AL: Colbert, Jackson, Lawrence
AZ: Greenlee
GA: Crawford, Greene, Marion, McIntosh, Mitchell, Taylor, Telfair, Webster, Williamson
IL: Franklin
IA: Dallas, Davis, Monroe, Ringgold
KY: Ballard, Breathitt, Floyd, Harlan, Knott, Letcher, Livingston, Lyon, Magoffin, Marshall, Morgan, Muhlenberg, Perry, Pike, Union, Webster
LA: Allen, Pointe Coupee, West Baton Rouge, West Feliciana
MI: Keweenaw
MN: Anoka, Chisago, Jackson, Pennington
MO: Mississippi, Oregon, Reynolds
NC: Tyrrell
OK: Coal, Haskell, Hughes
PA: Armstrong, Beaver, Fayette, Greene, Lawrence, Washington, Westmoreland
SC: Edgefield
TN: Benton, Cannon, DeKalb, Franklin, Grundy, Henry, Hickman, Humphreys, Lake, Lincoln, Overton, Perry, Robertson, Smith, Stewart, Trousdale, Van Buren, Warren, White
TX: Cottle, Dickens, Fisher, Morris, Newton, Orange, Robertson, Stonewall, Swisher
VA: Buchanan, Dickenson, Russell
WV: Brooke, Clay, Fayette, Hancock, Lincoln, Logan, Mingo, Wyoming


They also list counties that voted for Dole in 1996, but went for Obama in 2008. There were 85 of them:

AL: Jefferson
CA: Alpine, Butte, Mono, Nevada, Riverside, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Trinity
CO: Arapahoe, Jefferson, La Plata, Larimer, Ouray, San Juan
FL: Orange
GA: Douglas, Newton, Rockdale
ID: Teton
IL: Boone, Carroll, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, McHenry, McLean, Sangamon, Stephenson
IN: Marion, Tippecanoe
MD: Charles
MI: Berrien, Clinton, Eaton, Jackson, Kent, Leelanau
MN: Olmsted
MS: Oktibbeha
MT: Lake, Lewis & Clark, Gallatin
NE: Douglas, Lancaster
NV: Carson City, Washoe
NH: Belknap, Carroll
NJ: Somerset
NM: Los Alamos
NC: Forsyth, Pitt, Wake, Watauga, Wilson
ND: Cass, Grand Forks
OH: Hamilton
PA: Berks, Chester, Dauphin, Monroe
SC: Barnwell, Charleston
SD: Brookings
TX: Dallas, Harris
UT: Grand
VA: Albemarle, Chesapeake, Danville, Fairfax, Fairfax city, Harrisonburg, Henrico, Loudoun, Manassas, Manassas Park, Prince William, Staunton, Winchester
WA: Island
WI: Calumet, Waupaca


It's surprising to see more Mondale/McCain counties than Dole/Obama counties, but not too strange when you figure out the total populations.

Mondale/McCain: 3,197,000
Dole/Obama: 25,846,000

If only I had known before election day!

SI

Muslims don't eat ice cream, they eat sand, camel livers, and infidels.

Go Kent County!

I had to wiki Keweenaw County, but like I suspected, it's in the upper peninsula.

Flip Flopper!







He appears to have a Mint Chocolate fetish.

He is obviously willing to do things he doesnt like. this bodes well for our future and is in stark contrast to the presidents of the past who will stand steadfast for what they believe in even in the face of unending criticism and objection :)

You mean like Harry Truman? ;)

I keep hearing about the Democrats eying to reform 401k tax breaks and such. Any more info on this?

Go back a few pages. There was some subcommitte testimony and Miller and McDermott may or may not be interested, but nobody else has come out in favor and there and no plans to revoke the tax break.

Wow. So, Clinton is going to take Sec of State. I would have never guessed. I would think she would be much more powerful staying in the Senate.

I concur. I would have preferred her to keep her Senate role, where she could rise to even more prominence.

/tk

it'd take 3 terms more at least before she had the seniority to do anything but be the Junior Senator from New York.

Ugh. Looks like Palinmania will continue to run wild, as she's expected to get $7 million for a book deal. Ah well.

And in other election news, Huckabee throws Romney to the wolves:

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Huckabee settling old scores? « - Blogs from CNN.com

Huckabee sharply criticizes the former Massachusetts governor for shifting positions on key conservative issues shortly before he decided to run for the White House, saying his record was "anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president."

sounds like the battle between the fiscal conservatives and the religious conservatives is opening up with the first shots being fired by the religious side.

Well smart on Huck's part. Romney has enough money to change Huckabee's name and religion if he wants.

And after what the LDS folks did with Prop 8 in California, they're showing their muscle.

Speaking of Huckabee, did you see where he just signed on to do twice daily radio commentaries for the same syndicator (ABC Radio) that handles Paul Harvey?

They stopped considerably short of calling him a replacement for the venerable legend but along with Fred Thompson, they're definitely positioning themselves for the inevitable official end of Harvey's show.

Clinton must have known she didn't have the support to unseat the Nevada Gangster. At least that's my best guess.

Obama was for ice cream before he was against it before he was for it?

And Libermann's chair is saved:

Lieberman Keeps Chairmanship - NYTimes.com

And yet again the Dems show a lack of sack.

At least I'll be able to vote against him next time he is up for re-election.

Romney's not a fiscal conservative. He's not anything really.

So what happen to "change" with Obama? Seems like he stacking his cabinet/team with familiar DC people.

That's to a point because you don't want a new group flailing about when the nation is in a crisis, apparently. Obama seems to think he can't afford in a lot of cases to "grow people into the role"

I don't have any problem so far with how Obama has been setting up his cabinet. Since people on the right seem to be upset at the "no new faces" and people on the left seem to be upset at the "lack of balls" then he must be doing something right :)

That said, I think Jimmy Carter helped prove that you can't just bring a bunch of people who are strangers to Washington in and expect everything to go smoothly. You need to have people that are familiar with the ins and outs.

I like how supposedly Obama has been reaching across the aisle to look at some posts, as well as from what I understand he was one of the people who pushed for the Democrats to back off a bit on Lieberman as well. I'm not holding my breath any or anything, and I didn't vote for Obama this election (I voted for Barr).. but so far at least I am not terribly upset with how the pre-election period has gone.

I'm sure that will change some point around March (or even earlier) however :)

Big winner of the election (other than Obama): Nate Silver: Apparently he just signed a two book deal with Penguin Group USA, for an advance in the range of $700,000.

The books apparently are: One about the art of prediction and the other a Freakonomics-style guide to the mechanics of electoral politics.

And that goes to show you kids, making up stats can someday get you a book deal.

Making up stats?

Particularly when Obama himself is so inexperienced.

They know in detail about Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter, but they don't know which party controls congress, who Harry Reid is, or who Nancy Pelosi is. They know that Sarah Palin said "I can see Russia from my house", even though it was Tina Fey who said it. They think it was Palin who said she campaigned in 57 states (even though Obama said it). They think that the candidate who is a former plagiarist must be John McCain. Just a few-- the list goes on and on.

I raise with this:

Such a contrast to the many videos of highly educated Sarah Palin supporters that were all over the Internet in the run-up to the election.

edit: semi-beaten by cartman who posted a classic

SO FEW people are qualified to discuss politics in any meaningful way, for the rest of us it's just bias and spin and hopes and fears.

That's an interesting thing about the world to me - people much, much, much smarter than anyone posting here can disagree on this stuff. So doesn't that make all of our opinion shit?

But as entertainment, I love the stuff about dumb people on either side.

Howard Stern had a bit where he sent someone up to Harlem to describe McCain's policies to Obama's supporters. Except he told the Obama supporters that the McCain policies were actually Obama's, and of course the Obama supporters thought the policies were great ideas.

Ah yes, more "our side lost but look how stupid the other side is and what a bunch of sheep they are for voting for their guy! At least we're not that stupid!" videos.

Never a waste of time.

Nothing shocking. Simply a very well played campaign by the DNC.

Agreed. Obama's campaign was obviously very well funded and they did a great job of getting their message out and painting the other ticket in a negative light.


To be fair, you obviously haven't watched the video or the interviews of the producer of that video. He specifically states that the Obama supporters that were interviewed are not stupid at all. They are a product of the coverage and misrepresentation by both campaigns that creates such a flurry of soundbites that most Americans totally get lost in the facts behind each campaign. It's an indictment of the current political campaign process, not the voters who display the symptoms of the true problem.

The guy making this video had an interview with the fivethirtyeight guys, which is up on their site. Hilarious.

I'd have to disagree (at least I do if I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly).

The current process works, in part, because there's a lot of voters who simply aren't all that bright. Those voters aren't suddenly rendered stupid because of the process, most of them start out that way & don't bother to improve the situation.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jon. This campaign (not the result per se) would have look a lot different if the targets of the campaign were not willfully/unwillfully uninformed.

Heh that was great. Nate Silver <3

So Al Qaeda thinks that Obama is a house slave/Uncle Tom????? Good lord.

FOXNews.com - Al Qaeda No. 2 in Video Calls Obama Dishonorable - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Then he should have run on a platform of experiance, like Hillery.
He just burned up all his goodwill and he hasn't even been sworn in yet....

Change???
Hiring everyone from the Clinton administration is not change.

Right now I feel coned.

Just to be a little defensive, I believe Obama was running on change compared to the last 8 years, not the last 16. I believe that's how most of his supporters saw it as well. Granted, he ran on "change" against Hillary as well, and I'm sure that is your retort. Having said that, most dems aren't going to mind a few Clinton people in the white house, they still have a lot of supporters.

for once and in contrast to the spectacularness that was the Bush campaigns.