Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) calls John McCain to come bail him out in his runoff.
A couple of potentially disturbing reports today in the Wall Street Journal, one suggesting that Obama is not going to substantially rein in Bush-era intelligence activities and another reporting that Obama is leaning toward asking Bob Gates to stay on as secretary of defense.
There’s tremendous pressure to report out anything that can be gleaned about the transition, so there’s a tendency for every scrap of information to get blown out of proportion, making it tough to know how much credence to give any single report. Once you start piling analysis on top of thin reporting, you’ve got yourself a house of cards held together with conjecture and speculation.
So I’m inclined to keep my powder dry until things shake out a bit more, but watching very closely.
Late Update: On the Gates reappointment specifically, I can’t imagine a Republican President keeping any of the big four cabinet secretaries (State, Justice, Defense, Treasury) from a previous Democratic administration. Yet it seems as if the Democrats are expected to play nice. There is a decidedly unequal expectation that, after they decried the ravenous partisanship of the Bush era, the Democrats must not engage in any partisanship, which is a silly and even dangerous false equivalency.
For a different point of view on Gates, see Ackerman.
Later Update: Chris Matthews made a related point about this double standard on his show last night:
The situations are very different. But does anybody remember that Bob Gates was CIA Chief at the end of the first Bush administration and made a big play with Clinton to retain him in the new administration?
As it happened, Clinton didn’t bite and instead picked James Woolsey as his first DCI, arguably the worst appointment he ever made.
Dean Baker: It’s very discouraging to see Obama turning for economic advice to the high priests of the Clinton-era bubble economy.
Before we slaughter the fatted calf and feast in celebration of Joe Lieberman’s happy return to the family fold, a look back at his wild living days:
The difference of course between the prodigal son and the prodigal senator is that poor Joe is still lost and blind, and defiantly so.
Full-size video at TPMtv.com.
[Special thanks to TPM intern Rachel Slajda for her work on this episode.]
GOP already trying to tar Minnesota secretary of state with political smears before Coleman-Franken recount even begins.
Obama team will start process of closing Gitmo. That and the day’s other transition news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
There’s a nasty stomach virus going around the city. And it took me out of commission all of Tuesday. So I woke up today having seen little if any of what had transpired over the previous 36 hours. And as near as I can tell, suddenly none of us like Obama any more because he’s sending all the wrong signals, appointing all the wrong people and generally making a hash of everything so that it’s basically already a failed presidency.
Perhaps I overstate a bit for effect. But aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves a bit? Putting together an administration, especially after the drama and disasters of the last eight years is a complicated, complex operation, with many different moving parts. I want to see the whole picture come into focus.