TPM Reader JF points to this quote from the WSJ and notes that the GOP has entered its Red Dawn phase:

“We have to have a remnant of the Republican Party who are recognizable as freedom fighters,” Mr. DeMint said. “What I’m looking to do as a conservative leader in the Senate is to identify those Republicans, and even some Democrats, and put together a consensus of people who can help stop this slide toward socialism.”

Says JF, “The first Republican member of Congress who cries “Wolverines!” on the House or Senate floor has to be considered the front-runner for the 2012 Iowa caucus.”

In case you missed it, ABC’s Robin Roberts asked Obama last night about the missed exchange between him and the chief justice (from the transcript released by the White House):

Q: During the taking the oath of office, Chief Justice Roberts inadvertently switched some words — you were trying to help him out there a little bit it seemed with your look.

THE PRESIDENT: We’re up there, we’ve got a lot of stuff on our mind, and he actually, I think, helped me out on a couple of stanzas there. So over all, I think it went relatively smoothly, and I’m very grateful to him.

Fired U.S. Attorney David Iglesias told local TV in New Mexico this morning that he’s been called back up to work as a JAG prosecuting terror cases at Gitmo. You’ll recall that Iglesias was the inspiration for the Tom Cruise character in A Few Good Men, and he’s still in the Navy Reserves.

TPM Reader LP:

Before Republicans are allowed back into the better graces of the American people and into the political half-way house of provisional respectability, they have to prove to the country they can be long-term, honest participants in the positive governing consensus now beginning the process of building out the country as a modern state capable of living, compromising, and playing well with others.

Late Update: Au contraire, says TPM Reader JP:

I don’t think I could disagree more. Ad hominem attacks against all Republicans are not constructive. While I certainly think this is a fair critique of some in the Repbulican party, consensus will only come about if Democrats include them in the discussion if the governing consensus is to succeed. Like it or not, Republicans represent a significant point of view in our polity. Exclude them from the discussion and dismiss them as something other than honest participants and the fragile governing consensus will collapse. Perhaps that’s why Obama is seeking input from McCain, Graham and others in the more moderate end of Republican thought.

After the report based on statements from Palestinian President Abbas’s spokesman (that Obama placed his first call to a foreign leader to Abbas), White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs just put out this statement …

“This morning, the President placed phone calls to four Middle Eastern leaders: President Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Olmert of Israel, King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. He used this opportunity on his first day in office to communicate his commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term, and to express his hope for their continued cooperation and leadership. In the aftermath of the Gaza conflict, he emphasized his determination to work to help consolidate the ceasefire by establishing an effective anti-smuggling regime to prevent Hamas from rearming, and facilitating in partnership with the Palestinian Authority a major reconstruction effort for Palestinians in Gaza. He pledged that the United States would do its part to make these efforts successful, working closely with the international community and these partners as they fulfill their responsibilities as well. The President appreciated the spirit of partnership and warm nature of these calls.”

Note the order of the names listed.

This issue is referenced more or less obliquely in a few articles out today. But here’s something to keep an eye on in those swooning bank stocks that pulled down global markets yesterday. Clearly, the staggering losses these banks reported for the fourth quarter of 2008 have raised renewed questions about their solvency and value. But I think it’s more than that. Is the Obama administration considering a second bailout that would clean out the current shareholders? i.e., making the current stocks worthless? I’m a little unclear why that hasn’t happened already in several cases, since a lot of these institutions are only in business because of various Fed-support and taxpayer bailouts. But the issue of potential nationalization is clearly figuring into these stock fluctuations as well.

Whether or not we have capital-N nationalization of the banks in the near term, they may end up more like highly regulated public utilities in the not too distant future.

Hard for me to figure if we’re actually going to get that place where bank CEOs aren’t high-flying quasi-Trumps with snazz profiles in the glossy mags. But could be.

Obama: “Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.”

When my first-grader came home yesterday, she proudly announced that the first thing she’d written in her journal at school was, “Today is the integration in Washington.”

My wife gave her a puzzled look.

“Wait, what’s the word?” my daughter asked.

“Inauguration?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean. Inauguration.”

She had not a clue.

A federal judge declined to mandate that Vice President Cheney turn over all his office’s documents to the National Archives before leaving office because … wait for it … a low-level documents custodian in the OVP said she would make sure they did.

The plaintiffs in the suit are calling it, rightly, a “triumph of obfuscation.”