Happy New Year and welcome to the very first Friday Morning Fix of 2009!

After more than six years of living in the sunny Caribbean I’ve finally moved back to Massachusetts (when I arrived it was 8 degrees Fahrenheit and snowing). Thanks to those of you who sent “good luck” emails and best wishes. I appreciate it.

On to business…

President-elect Obama’s inauguration (and George W. Bush’s much awaited departure from the White House) is a mere 18 days away. Expectations are sky-high and Obama’s detractors are already predicting an entire range of impending tragedies. Nobody has a crystal ball but one thing is certain – 2009 will be an interesting year. We can also be certain that anyone and everyone even remotely related to Barack Obama will continue to come out of the woodwork. From Politico:

“Once you become president, you get surprised [at] how many relatives you have around the world,” said Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for President George W. Bush. Fleischer and his boss had to deal with relatives in just one country — and at times had their hands full with that. The Obama family tree, by contrast, is a veritable ancestral Banyan, with roots and branches extending to four continents. There are many half-siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. That means there may be many stories to tell — but also many possible sources of heartburn.

There were the drinking problems of Lyndon Johnson’s brother, Sam Houston Johnson, and Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy; there was the loan Richard Nixon’s brother Donald took from Howard Hughes to keep his drive-in restaurant afloat; there was the rebellious behavior of Ronald Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis. Bill Clinton had his brother Roger (the Sibling Gone Wild, in excelsis), and the current president had his brother Neil Bush, whose divorce proceedings revealed that he’d had sex with women who knocked on his hotel room doors in Hong Kong and Thailand.

Obama’s diverse ethnic background is nothing new and attempts to use it as a way to embarrass him have failed miserably over the past two years. We already know about the illegal alien aunt and homeless brothers. Nobody cares. We voted for him anyway. In addition, I don’t worry about his safety too much. Yes, there are a lot of crazies in the world but we’re talking about the most protected man on earth. What I do worry about is the safety of his many family members, especially those living abroad. They won’t have the United States Secret Service watching their backs and attacking one of them would make for easy headlines. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.

Politico recently posted what they deem to be the Top Ten Weirdest Stories of 2008. Surprisingly, Sarah Palin only occupies two spots on that list (she could have filled out all ten). The only other real surprise is a video of Barbara Streisand hugging and kissing George W. Bush – a man she supposedly despises, constantly ridicules and wanted impeached/prosecuted for war crimes. I guess Babs was willing to give him a free pass in exchange for a medal engraved with the name Kennedy. Ironically, it was her step-son (Josh Brolin) who was cast by Oliver Stone to play Bush in the biopic “W.”

Speaking of Sarah Palin…her daughter Bristol recently gave birth and decided to continue the family tradition of cursing their children with strange and superficially significant names by naming her newborn “Tripp.” Palin’s other kids (Trig, Track, Willow, and Piper) are said to be overjoyed.

2009 marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution (led mainly by Fidel Castro and Ernesto “Che” Guevara). The Economist posted its original reaction from the archives. In 1959 they wondered:

General Batista’s downfall means one military dictator the less…but it is not at all clear what sort of regime will follow.

50 years later we know exactly what sort of regime followed. The “Revolution” has been an absolute disaster by any measure.

I’ve been listening to a lot of classic rock lately - mostly Queen. Inevitably, any discussion of Queen and Freddy Mercury (the best front man of all time) ends up in a discussion of their performance at Bob Geldoff’s 1985 super-concert “Live Aid.” I remember watching it live and am not surprised that Queen’s performance is widely seen as one of the greatest live performances of all time. This video is a brief overview of just how significant that particular outing was to Queen’s career and to music in general. If your curiosity is piqued you can see the entire 17 minute performance here. Great songs by a great band.

See you next week.

Happy Holidays and welcome to the final Friday Morning Fix for 2008. I’m writing this from my wife’s grandparents’ house nestled in the beautiful mountains of Constanza in the Dominican Republic – surrounded by great family and, of course, entirely too much food and drink. When I’m finished writing, my wife and I will jump into the SUV (“Yipeta” in Dominicanese) and roll down the hill into town where the government recently installed public Wi-Fi. In the past, our trips up here meant being almost completely incommunicado with only intermittent cell phone coverage. Now I can do pretty much everything. I love globalization.

On to business…

If you’re like me you’ve already had enough of the various “year in review” segments, special flashbacks, top ten lists, and “stories you missed” that make up the majority of TV, radio and internet programming this time of year. In spite of that, indulge me for a moment as I look back on my first complete year of blogging.

This blog began on January 1st, 2008 as TheCandidacy.com – a joint venture with my best friend of more than 25 years, best man at my wedding this year, and overall Renaissance man John Irving (not the famous one). I’ve always said of John that he could probably read a book about surgery then pick up a scalpel and do it. Anyway, the original plan was a semi-tongue-in-cheek run for a U.S. Senate Seat. I say “semi” tongue-in-cheek because we were prepared to go as far as we could until we learned that besides being dreadfully under-prepared to swim with the sharks, we were short about $10 million dollars. TheCandidacy.com thus morphed into RandallHMiller.com with me assuming sole responsibility (although John stayed on for a while as an overworked, completely unpaid yet much appreciated consultant). John also focused his scalpel on greener (i.e. more lucrative) pastures with PorschePurist.com which you should definitely check out. He’s the “King of the Porsche Blogosphere.”

As for me, I couldn’t be happier with this blog. I don’t particularly like sports (although my wife is a fanatic). I don’t play an instrument (aside from struggling through “Stairway to Heaven” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday” on guitar). I don’t sculpt, paint or sing. But I do like reading, learning, studying and analyzing current events. Blogging - as a serious hobby/extension of my professional career - is thus a no-brainer. What makes it even more worth it is each of the more than 15,000 visitors I’ve had from dozens of different countries. I plan on magically tripling my traffic in 2009.

Interestingly, when I look back on my statistics for 2008, my top posts were live-blogged! Yes, that means that the posts I took the time to think through, research, edit and marinate on before publishing lost out to posts that were basically extemporaneous. My top two posts for 2008 were:

(1) Live-blogging the Final Presidential Debate between Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama

(2) Live-blogging Election Day, November 4th, 2008.

Obviously, I’ll be live-blogging President-elect Obama’s inauguration on Januray 21st, 2009. Another no-brainer, right?

A few final thanks are in order…

Thanks to all who read my stuff on a regular basis and even to those who only pop-in when they have nothing else to do.

A special thanks to my wife for not complaining (too much) that I always seem to be at my computer reading, learning, and writing.

Thanks to my father for occasionally guest-blogging, commenting, and keeping my facts in check.

Thanks to my mother (a hard-core GOPista, McCain/Palin supporter and toughest horse-woman in Kentucky) for reading and not disowning me (presumably) for having completely different political views (although we didn’t talk the month prior to the election).

See you next week for the first Friday Morning Fix from my new location – the frozen tundra of Massachusetts.

I haven’t answered emails (at least not publicly) in a long time. Here are two that I recently received but hadn’t replied to yet. Comments and criticism are always welcome.

“You haven’t said ‘boo’ about the bailouts of the financial and auto sectors.”

Actually, I have. But let me reiterate my position in case I haven’t been clear. I am absolutely 100% against any bailouts of any kind. This is not the way capitalism and free markets are supposed to work. We don’t privatize profits only to socialize the losses when they become too big. On a side note - the $700 billion given to the financial sector turned my stomach, but the completely different treatment of the automotive industry (for a fraction of the money) makes me want to vomit. Bruce Raynor summed it up nicely in the LA Times:

When one compares how the auto industry and the financial sector are being treated by Congress, the double standard is staggering. In the financial sector, employee compensation makes up a huge percentage of costs. According to the New York state comptroller, it accounted for more than 60% of 2007 revenues for the seven largest financial firms in New York.

At Goldman Sachs, for example, employee compensation made up 71% of total operating expenses in 2007. In the auto industry, by contrast, autoworker compensation makes up less than 10% of the cost of manufacturing a car. Hundreds of billions were given to the financial-services industry with barely a question about compensation; the auto bailout, however, was sunk on this issue alone.

Would doing nothing cause mass unemployment and financial hardship for countless numbers of people? Yes, but I’d be willing to bet it wouldn’t be as bad as the pundits say. If Americans are the finest, most skilled, educated workers in the world they’ll find a way through it. Ironically, we all know what that letting businesses fail is the right thing to do for the markets in the long run (“for the children” to steal a phrase from Bill Clinton). We just don’t want to take the pain.

Try looking at it this way - we’ve never been asked to sacrifice. “The Greatest Generation” marched off to the battlefields of World War II in Europe knowing that many of them would not come back. But they did it anyway. They did it for their children and future grandchildren. They did it because they knew that freedom and democracy were in jeopardy and need to be saved through personal sacrifice. The entire country (even those who didn’t physically ship-out) made sacrifices and joined the effort for the greater good. What do we do? We put our children and grandchildren into deep, insurmountable debt while demanding that the government “make it all better” for us. We’re soft. We’re too accustomed to our bonuses, inflated stock options, and golden parachutes. It’s time to let the market correct itself and make some very painful personal sacrifices – not on the battlefields of Europe – right here in our own streets.

“When you move back to the states will you stop bashing the DR?”

No. Why would I? I have many permanent connections to the Dominican Republic which give me a vested interest in its future. If anything, you can expect more unfiltered criticism. Yes, I’ve been censoring myself a bit because this ain’t Kansas when it comes to free speech and criticizing the church or government. In addition, as a high school teacher there are some subjects that I didn’t feel comfortable blogging about. That will no longer be the case.

Living here for six years has been an absolutely fantastic experience. I learned some Spanish, experienced life as a foreigner/immigrant (an interesting perspective), learned about different perspectives on the world and my own country (sometimes painful perspectives), met and worked with some great people, and got married. However, at the end of the day, living in the developing world has given me a greater appreciation for the greatness of the United States. With all of its faults it’s still the greatest country on earth. Why else would so many risk their lives to get there? The video below is a graphic representation of American immigration between 1820 and 2007. Each dot represents 100 people. I’ll be one of them very soon.

See you next week.

Immigration to the US, 1820-2007 v2 from Ian Stevenson on Vimeo

If you’re like most people you work in something similar to these cubicles. Personally, I think I’d shoot myself if I were locked in an office all day long but people have to make a living, right? I do most of my work either on the fly or in my home office which, by the way, looks nothing like the one in this video (created by Architect Andrew Berman). Well, it doesn’t look like that yet, but I still have faith. Where do you do your best thinking?

Private Library from A Space In Time on Vimeo.

It’s been quite a week in the world of politics with the spotlight focused squarely on Illinois. The Governor, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested on corruption charges by the FBI after supplying them with an avalanche of incriminating statements surrounding his intent to sell President-elect Obama’s U.S. Senate Seat to the highest bidder. Honestly, you have to read his own words yourself to really get a grasp on exactly how dirty this man is. If you want the condensed version, Politico has a Blago’s Top Ten list right here. He’s likely going to the slammer for a very, very long time.

Speaking of Top Ten, Foreign Policy Magazine has an excellent article entitled “The Top Ten Stories You Missed in 200.” It’s worth taking a few minutes to check it out. The four that got my attention the most are these:

American Company Sells “Sonic Blasters” to China

Reporting from a Beijing police equipment expo in April, journalist David Hambling noticed a Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) produced by California-based American Technology Corporation (ATC) on prominent display. The LRAD works by emitting from a dish high-energy acoustic waves that are said to be, at close proximity, louder than a jet engine. It is capable of reaching 150 decibels, enough to incite panic, inflict pain, and even cause hearing loss among large crowds.

For some reason I think these “weapons” would have absolutely zero effect on Dominicans. James Carafano seems to prefer lasers for just about everything.

U.S. Building a Missile Shield for India

On Feb. 27, 2008, after two days of meetings in New Delhi, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates quietly announced negotiations between the United States and India to develop a missile defense program on Indian soil. Although still in its early stages, a missile shield on the subcontinent could have long-term implications for U.S.-China relations and regional stability.

The proposed missile shield in Eastern Europe has caused major rifts in U.S. – Russian relations while this project has received little attention. Proponents of both shields repeatedly emphasize that they are strictly defensive measures. Sure. Imagine the outcry we’d hear from Washington if Russia or China were doing the same with North Korea, Iran etc. Yes, missile shields are “defensive”, but they can also shield an aggressor-state from retaliation on their own soil. Thus, it’s not surprising that Russia and China are not crazy about their neighbors having those shields installed by the U.S.

A Billion Dollars of Our Money is Going to Build a Luxury Hotel in Georgia (not Atlanta)

The money was intended to “help Georgia sustain itself,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.

Let me get this straight. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili launches an “ill-advised military operation in South Ossetia”, unsurprisingly gets his ass handed to him by Putin and now we have to pay for a new luxury hotel in Tbisili? AIG anyone?

For First Time, U.S. Citizen Convicted of Torture Abroad

Since 1994, the U.S. Department of Justice has had the right to prosecute U.S. citizens on U.S. soil for crimes of torture committed abroad. But it wasn’t until a highly unusual case this year that the law saw its first conviction. Charles “Chuckie” Taylor Jr., son of the former Liberian president, was convicted of torture, conspiracy, and possession of a firearm by a federal grand jury on Oct. 30. War crimes clearly run in the family. His father is currently on trial at The Hague.

Do I even have to comment on this one? Please take the time to watch Torturing Democracy.

Here’s some not-so-great news from the New Yorker for any aspiring writers out there:

On Saturday, a California woman whose autobiographical novel was rejected by sixteen publishers hosted a funeral for her dream of a writing career, at which “attendees viewed the failed manuscript, rejection letters, refinance papers, useless MFA in creative writing, and the author’s much watched DVD copy of ‘The Secret.’”

The solution? Well, you could self-publish like I did. Or you could just start a blog! It’s relatively easy, cheap, and a lot of fun – especially when people take the time to read your stuff.

See you next week.

I met Howard Dean several times between 1991 and 1993 when he was Governor of Vermont and I was a cadet at Norwich University. I even had the opportunity to chat on-on-one with him for about a half hour once over lunch. During each encounter he came off as a warm, intelligent leader, legitimately concerned with the issues that my classmates and me would encounter after graduation. In short, I liked him and put him squarely in the “good guy” category.” Then he ran for president in 2004 and showed the world his nuttiness. I quickly moved him from the “good guy” category and onto the “loud, angry, fringe politician” list (see famous “scream” video below).

Amazingly, the Democratic Party decided that he was the best man to chair the Democratic National Committee and - if judged purely by election results - he’s done pretty well. The Democratic Party is stronger than ever and, according to him, has room in it for just about everybody. Politico reports:

Dean said that the Democratic Party was now a big-tent party. “We didn’t have just one message,” Dean said, speaking of those Democrats who ran for Congress and other positions. “You could be pro-life, pro-choice, a conservative and get supported and get resources.”

Throughout his term as DNC chairman, Dean also tried to open a dialogue with people who rarely voted Democratic. “We began a dialogue with evangelical Christians, especially those under 35, and I think it paid off,” Dean said. “We noticed from all data we were collecting that they were worried about the things Democrats are worried about: poverty, climate change, Darfur. And now they don’t have to feel that just because a Republican didn’t win they don’t have a friend in the White House.”

“We want to put the old politics of division aside,” Dean said, “and focus on the new politics of unity.”

I’m skeptical. Dean is one of the most ardent partisans I’ve ever seen and rarely (if ever) has a good thing to say about conservatives. My guess is that they can have a spot under the tent as long as they don’t make too much noise.

* Sidenote: Some on the far right continue to deny the solid Obama win we witnessed on November 4th. Denial is a killer. The world will continue to spin and life will go on whether the GOP faithful get their stuff together and regroup or not. Stop whining and get busy giving people like me a reason to vote for you again. And look on the bright side, according to longtime conservative pundit and speechwriter extraordinaire Peggy Noonan:

There is joy to be had in being out of power. You don’t have to defend stupid decisions anymore.

This is my first Christmas since getting married. My mother sent me this video. Is she trying to tell me something? This should be mandatory viewing for all men. Absolutely hilarious.

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter you might have noticed that I’m about to change locations. After six years of living and working in the Dominican Republic I’ve decided it’s time to “pop smoke” as we used to say in the U.S. Army (which means to literally activate smoke canisters so you can move from one place to another without being shot). The experience has been invaluable, but there’s more opportunity to do the things I love (write, teach, learn, explore, spend time with friends and family, eat clam chowder, drink Sam Adams, etc.) back in the great state of Massachusetts. The change will likely be transparent to my readers, but I figured I’d let you know anyway just in case anyone was planning on traveling to the Caribbean and sleeping on my couch.

On to business…

Jeb Bush, brother of George W. and the only Florida governor in history to serve two full terms (1998-2006), is reportedly thinking about running for the U.S. Senate in 2010. Personally, I feel for the guy because he did what is generally considered a decent job in Florida. In addition, he’s infinitely smarter than his brother as evidenced by his ability to speak in complete sentences and think on his feet. In my opinion, he has a shot at the U.S. Senate but zero chance of ever being elected to national office. Politico reports:

While Bush hasn’t yet committed to running for the open Senate seat—in an email Tuesday he told Politico, “I am considering it”—Florida Republicans, including other potential aspirants for the seat, were effusive about a potential Bush bid.

“Some have asked whether the Bush name is tarnished because of his brother but I don’t believe it is,” said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida professor who is an expert on Florida politics. “Jeb left office with one of the highest approval ratings and two years later, he’s still popular even though he’s taken a low profile since leaving office.”

With all of the talk and coverage surrounding the Mumbai attacks there’s been almost no coverage of the mayhem in Africa’s most populated state, Nigeria. Local elections run amok recently sparked sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims. Over 300 are dead and thousands are displaced. According to the Economist:

THE Katako market was still smouldering five days after it was razed to the ground by a mob of Christian youths. The bodies of ten people trapped in the fires that destroyed it had already been taken away and buried. Muslim men kicked up plumes of dust as they shuffled through the ashes of their stalls, which a week earlier had numbered more than 5,000. A dirty young man searched through a pile of blackened onions, picking out those that were not inedibly charred.

A few hundred yards away, students and teachers at an Augustinian monastery were also sorting through wreckage. Their monastery had been attacked on the same day, just 30 minutes later, by a group of Muslim youths. The monk in charge narrowly escaped death when a Molotov cocktail thrown into his tiny room happened to land in the toilet.

Don’t worry. I’m sure the Pope will continue with his message of love for all of God’s children. At any minute he’ll call for a stop to the violence and preach about equality and co-existence in spite of our differences. Ok, maybe not – he’s much too busy gay-bashing. Time magazine’s Jeff Israely writes about the Vatican’s new diplomatic maneuvers:

Benedict’s envoy to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, has announced that the Vatican will oppose a proposed U.N. declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals. At first blush, no one should be surprised to find the Catholic Church hierarchy butting heads with gay rights activists. But this particular French-sponsored proposal, which has the backing of all 27 European Union countries, calls for an end to the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation. Most dramatically, in some countries, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, homosexuality can be punished by death.

Papal spokesman Father Federico Lombardi was forced to clarify that the Vatican continues to condemn the use of the death penalty for any crime, including those associated with homosexuality. Instead, Migliore said the Vatican’s opposition to the U.N. proposal was driven by concern that countries that prohibit gay marriage would somehow be targeted. Said Migliore: “Countries that don’t recognize the union between people of the same sex as marriage will be punished and pressured.”

That might make sense (from their twisted perspective), if it weren’t completely untrue:

The U.N. declaration does not in fact mention gay marriage, and most of the nations that support it themselves don’t allow people of the same sex to wed. Archbishop Migliore confirmed on Tuesday that the Vatican had also refused to sign a U.N. document last May in support of the rights of the disabled because it did not include condemnation of abortion, and the rights the fetus with birth defects. Vatican officials nevertheless voiced support for the central principles of the disabled rights document, which Migliore helped craft before the final decision to withhold the Holy See’s signature.

So, no equality for disabled persons or gays. Oh, and no condoms, even in Sub-Sahara Africa between married couples where only one of them is HIV positive. It makes perfect sense, no?

In the “Special Thanks to John McCain and Sarah Palin” category here’s another piece from Time:

It’s not just right-wing kooks in Middle America who believe Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim: conspiracy theorists across the Middle East have embraced the idea with the same fervor they bring to other bizarre notions. I am not a bit surprised when, later in the conversation, Mohammed assures me that Israel was responsible for the 9/11 attacks and that Saudi Arabia had agreed to bail out the U.S. economy in exchange for an American invasion of Iran.
A Pew opinion poll a month ahead of the Nov. 4 election showed that 12% of Americans still thought Obama was a Muslim. There are no reliable statistics on how many in the Middle East believe that, but there’s some anecdotal evidence that the notion is especially popular among poor, undereducated Shi’ites in Iran and Iraq.

Bill Clinton recently spoke in Hong Kong about his wife’s upcoming role as President-elect Obama’s Secretary of State. He said he does not expect to be directly involved but would do anything asked of him. Mike Allen at politico speculates:

Clinton could be named as a sort of super-ambassador on a specific issue like India, or on a broad topic like restoring goodwill for the United States abroad.

Here’s a question: wouldn’t he be willing to do that anyway? I’ll say it again – I do not like the Hillary pick. If the roles were reversed, does anybody think Hillary would have even offered Obama an internship?

See you next week.

This collection of videos from security cameras, television crews, and bystander cellphones was put together by Sky News. At one point you can see what happened when the crowd got their hands on one of the terrorists. The exact details surrounding the attacks won’t be known for weeks or months. Meanwhile, tensions between India and Pakistan don’t seem to be subsiding.

(Hat tip to Andrew Sullilvan)

The dust is far from settled in Mumbai after one of the worst terrorist attacks on Indian soil was perpetrated last week. However, information and explanations are beginning to trickle out and the experts are trying to make sense of it all - not an easy task. Olivier Guitta writes in the Middle East Times:

All the signs point to the involvement of the Pakistani terror group and al-Qaida affiliate Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). LeT is in fact a group propped up by Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and mostly focusing until now on the “liberation” of the Kashmir province.

Not very surprising actually. The experts and scholars (like George Friedman at Stratfor and just about everybody at Counterterrorism Blog) have been talking about Pakistan’s key role in global Islamic terror for a long time. But what does surprise me - or at least gets my attention - is the reported use of technology by both the terrorists and the brave people who lived through this horrible event.

Globalization has been good to me. I love the modern tools at my disposal and use many of them to stay informed and connected with people around the world. For example, Facebook, Twitter and this blog are parts of my daily routine. They’ve made me more productive and much more responsive to friends, family, and students. Unfortunately these tools are also good for the bad guys. The Times Online reported:

that the terrorists arrived with only basic communications but had then seized mobile phones and BlackBerries from their hostages and used them to contact each other and monitor world reaction.

Smart move on their part and again not too surprising. But what did surprise me was the use of technology by the innocent bystanders and witnesses. Roderick Jones reported that Twitter was evidently the preferred means of communicating real-time events to the outside world (click HERE to see the thread). However, he was also quick to point out:

“Some of the commentary and links are off-base but it is a fascinating view into how the ‘crowd’ can monitor and report on real-time events. For example, there is a link posted to a ‘google doc’ spreadsheet listing known casualties. Terrorist attacks may remain disturbingly similar but the way they are reported and examined changes in step with the rapid pace of virtualization.”

Virtualization is a major component of globalization, one of my areas of interest. If you’re interested in two good reads on the topic, I recommend Has Globalization Gone Too Far? by Dani Rodrik (John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard) and Making Globalization Work by Joe Stiglitz. Don’t let the titles fool you, they aren’t hit pieces on globalization. Both are thoughtful looks at global realities.

But before you run off to read those suggestions, the Heritage Foundation’s James Carafano (who I mentioned in last week’s Friday Morning Fix) has a new piece entitled “After Mumbai: Could it happen here? What to do.” It’s worth reading.

PS: Here are my Facebook and Twitter profiles.

Is this story missing something - like the huge, glaring fact that Sarah Palin draws numbers because she’s such an ignoramus that she has no idea how much of an ignoramus she actually is? Politico sounds the bugle of the end times:

Three weeks after the Republican ticket suffered a sweeping defeat at the polls, Sarah Palin continues to dominate search engine queries, cable news and online video sites.

The only American politician who generates comparable interest is President-elect Barack Obama. No one else is close.

I don’t get it. Republican new media consultant David All takes a stab at it:

“People are projecting their values onto Sarah Palin, and in some sense, she reflects them back,” said Mark Corallo, a Republican media strategist. “She’s a conservative, she’s young and she’s attractive. She speaks to something that’s been missing from the Republican Party…There’s a heckuva lot of wind out there for Sarah Palin. Now she has to put up a sail to catch it,” he said. “She can use that Internet bully pulpit to help change the hearts and minds of folks. She has a unique opportunity to build up something massive.”

Perhaps she can mend her own image and that of her family - that ’s attainable, but there’s no way she’ll ever be seen as a viable candidate at the national level. On November the 4th, America reminded us that the majority still value ambition, intelligence and thoughtfulness. Her ambition is admirable, but she lacks the other two.

If the GOP thinks its long-term interests are best built around Sarah Palin, they are in big trouble. Her appeal ends with the shrunken, hard-core base. If they want wide appeal (which you need to win major elections - the base is never enough) they should begin to showcase their serious contenders for high office (Bobby Jindal, Romney, etc.)

I was way wrong when I said Hillary Clinton would never be Secretary of State. Am I wrong to dismiss Palin as a serious contender?

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’re already aware that I’m not crazy about the idea of Hillary Clinton serving as Obama’s Secretary of State. If not, you can catch up here. Other than her, I’ve been pretty satisfied with the team that Obama is putting together. Is it full of Clintonistas? Yes, but I’d argue that any Democrat who wasn’t involved with the Clinton administration was probably left out for a reason. In addition, this is politics - loyalties shift and I expect to see a lot more familiar faces accepting positions in the new administration. Most of them will go uncontested - unlike John Brennan who has surrendered any major intelligence position in advance because of expected (and much deserved) criticism of his participation in the war on terror. Pamela Hess of the Associated Press reports:

John Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran and career analyst who became the first head of the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004, preemptively declined to take any intelligence post in the new administration in a Nov. 25 letter sent to Obama.

Brennan has publicly disavowed waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning. But Soldz said his group considers the excessive use of isolation, sleep deprivation, cultural and sexual humiliation and other techniques in combination as torture, and Brennan had not repudiated their use.

Waterboarding is torture. Any other characterization is smoke and mirrors. Our policies have not made us safer in the long run, they have put Americans in great potential danger. If the SCOTUS hadn’t made the right decision in Boumediene v. Bush - when it ruled that Guantanamo detainees have habeas corpus rights - the U.S. government would have had a blank check to detain anyone they want, anywhere in the world for an indefinite amount of time without ever charging them with a crime. Does that mean they would run around doing so? No, but that’s not the point. The point is that government needs to be kept in check and our civil liberties always have to come first. Imagine the outcry if foreign states, for example, Iran, North Korea etc. detained Americans, subjected them to “enhanced interrogation techniques” (not to be confused with torture), denied them due process, and kept them in “single occupancy cells” (not to be confused with solitary confinement) for years, all in the name of national security. I don’t think it would go over very well.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about President Bush and whether or not he will preemptively pardon anyone involved in executing the war on terror under his administration. Opinions are all over the map. Here’s what James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation has to say about it:

What last minute Bush administration decisions, plausible or not, do you most fear or favor? (Hint: pardons, regulations, executive orders)
Can’t see why we would need a blanket pardon since I am not sure there is much to be ashamed about. This administration has been investigated and sued to death on every issue related to the war already. Don’t see the new administration going on a witch hunt. They would quickly find themselves persecuting the people they are trying to lead.

I chose to highlight Carafano’s position for a reason - he was my military history instructor when I was a brand new 2LT in Field Artillery training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He was not particularly approachable or well-liked. In fact, he seemed to hate the very presence of lieutenants (a common side-effect felt by many instructors after a few years of teaching). Regardless, he was smart and definitely knew his stuff. I recall a lecture he gave about his first trip to the World War II battlefields of Western Europe. He mentioned being struck by all of the “little white crosses” that seem to go on for miles. He argued that each cross represented the potential outcome of each decision an officer makes in combat and that those decisions should never be taken lightly. I wonder if he sees the same potential for more “little white crosses” in response to the way we’ve waged the war on islamic extremism. Probably not. And try to remember that we are not merely talking about “policy disputes.” We are in a struggle to save the soul of our country. Sacrificing our values will not only turn others against us, it destroys us from within.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past few days you know that there was a major terrorist attack in Mumbai, India. Details are still coming in over at Counterterrorism Blog. In a nutshell, it appears as if a group of terrorist reached India from Karachi, Pakistan via ship. There are over 100 dead, including 6 foreigners (as of right now). The terrorists hit multiple targets simultaneously and while they seemed to kill indiscriminately, they were reportedly looking for Brits and Americans in particular. Stay tuned to Counterterrorism Blog for up to the minute information and analysis - those guys know their stuff.

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Thanks for reading.

The Washington Post recently named who they think will be the top ten Republican players to watch in the next election. There are ten names on the list (noticeably absent are Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee), but the only two I like right now are Governors Mitt Romney and Bobby Jindal. In fact, that’s a ticket I might vote for if there were an election today. Romney has a ton of executive experience fixing things (especially financial disasters) and Jindal is as sharp as a tack (no to mention young and ethnic, two traits of immense value in today’s politics). This is what the Post had to say about the duo:

Bobby Jindal: There is NO hotter commodity in the Republican party these days than Jindal. Jindal is the rare candidate who both reformers and establishment types find appealing, and as a 37-year-old Indian American he is — literally and figuratively — the sort of new face the party is pining for. While Jindal is hot right now, it’s important to remember that he is the governor of a state with a complex political scene — meaning there will be myriad opportunities for Jindal to falter over the next few months and years.

Mitt Romney: Discount the former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate at your own peril. Romney has three big things going for him: he is, by almost anyone’s account, an expert on the American economy; he is incredibly ambitious and will work harder than almost anyone to make sure his voice is heard; and he has immense personal wealth and a willingness to spend it. Do his flip-flops on social issues (and his Mormonism) still make social conservatives queasy? You bet. But Romney is in the mix and will aim to stay there.

What do you think? An unstoppable team?

One of the things I’ve always liked about Obama is that he projects a “cool” image without making it look like he’s trying too hard. Contrast that with the wooden, grumpy John McCain that we saw during the election and it’s easy to see why he has such celebrity power. He’s easy to look up to. So why the hell is he playing the ultimate Hollywood groupie by trying to live a real-life episode of the West Wing?

I thought the West Wing was an incredibly well-written and spectacularly acted show. It was absolutely 100% left-leaning - conservative characters were just plain unlikable, as if the writers couldn’t think of a good thing to say about anyone on the right – but it was such a good show I didn’t care. In the finale, the new President elect (played by Jimmy Smits) reaches out to his former opponent (played by the elder statesman of fine actors - Alan Alda) and offers him the Secretary of State post. It was a cool ending, but naming Hillary Clinton as your Secretary of State (which appears imminent) is not a wise move (I wrote about why right here). Regardless, Obama’s connection to the West Wing is much more direct:

West Wing fans stunned by the similarity between the fictitious Matthew Santos and the real-life Barack Obama now know that the resemblance is no coincidence. When the West Wing scriptwriters first devised their fictitious presidential candidate in the late summer of 2004, they modelled him in part on a young Illinois politician - not yet even a US senator - by the name of Barack Obama.

Obama’s pick of Clinton has also breathed some life into Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. She spoke to Politico:

“Number one, what you’ve got is a president-elect who reads history and values it, and that’s just a great thing. … He called me after he read the book, way back at the beginning of the primary. My cell phone rang, I picked it up and he just said, ‘Hello, this is Barack Obama.’ He talked to me even then about the book, and then throughout the campaign he kept talking about it, how he would want to put people around him who would argue with him, have a range of opinions. His first step seems to be totally in step with that concept, both in terms of possibly appointing Hillary to be secretary of state, talking with John McCain.”

I still say it’s a bad move. I hope I’m wrong.

Evidently, some Somalis have seen too many Johnny Depp movies. Piracy is alive in well off the horn of Africa:

The surge in hijackings came as Saudi Arabia confirmed that a ransom demand had been made for the freeing of the Sirius Star supertanker, seized at the weekend with her crew of 25 and a cargo of oil worth $100 million (£65 million).

That’s some major booty.

Bold prediction: these guys will get cocky and either disrupt the transport of oil in the region or hijack a well-connected American or European ship and all hell will be unleashed on them. Then we won’t hear about pirates for a long time.

Governor Sarah Palin continues to massacre her own image. Watch this video and try to remember that the producer asked her if the background shot was OK. “No worries,” she replied. Also, while you’re watching the turkeys get slaughtered behind her, try to listen to her incoherent, cliché-ridden rambling. It’s as if her answers were written to coincide with the slaughter. Amazing.

A reader asks:

“What, no comment on Hillary for Sec. of State?”

I’m hoping that the drama around this is just drama. Hillary news sells papers and drives web traffic. I for one do not want the Clintons back in the White House in any capacity. This is supposed to be change. Dragging Hillary (a power-hungry, pathological liar who thinks she should be President) and Bubba back into the mix is not good for anyone. Yes, she is smart as hell and has balls of steel. So what? There are plenty of other picks who don’t come with the Clintons’ baggage. Bill Clinton wouldn’t pass muster for an entry level job at Homeland Security. Politico reports:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) is President-elect Barack Obama’s first choice for secretary of State but his aides are becoming exasperated by the Clinton camp’s pokey response to demands for extensive information about former President Bill Clinton’s finances, according to numerous Democrats involved in the process.

“The sense among the no-drama Obama world is: This is well on its way to winning best Oscar for drama,” said one well-connected Democratic official.

Bubba has made way too much shady money lobbying for foreign interests. By the way - that whole bit about “keep your friends close but your enemies closer” only works in the movies. Remember, the last time the Clinton’s were in the White House they tried to steal the furniture. Do anyone really want them back?

Speaking of lobbying, those guys and gals on K Street are real scumbags, right? Not exactly – don’t hate the players, hate the game. Tim Carney (a Washington insider with lots of experience in these matters) wrote a great piece about lobbying right here (complete with some Clinton examples). He concludes:

Don’t get me wrong: some of my best friends are lobbyists. More importantly, lobbying, at its heart, is nothing more than free speech. In fact, the right to petition one’s government is arguably the most important protection in the First Amendment. Efforts to “reform” lobbying—like efforts to “reform” campaign finance—usually end up restricting speech while not fixing any corruption.

The only way to end these conflicts of interest and tales of corruption would be to limit the government’s control over our lives and our money—the very free-market policies that get derided as “excessive capitalism” by the big-government types. With neither party really interested in such a reform, it doesn’t look like the game will get cleaned up any time soon, but at least we’ll keep getting good stories.

The day after the election I took the day off. The point was to disconnect and attempt to regain some normalcy in my life after blogging almost exclusively about the election for almost a year. I checked email only once and resisted the urge to surf through the blogs that make up my daily fix (scroll down on the right hand side to see them). It felt good. Ironically, I used the free time to buy and activate my first BlackBerry so I’d never be disconnected again! Life has not been the same.

My wife wasn’t crazy about the idea until I explained that I wanted one so I could be more productive and organized which would result in me having more time to spend with her. So far it’s been true - the three of us go everywhere together! President-elect Obama’s relationship with his BlackBerry during the campaign also made headlines but, unfortunately for him, the two are about to be legally separated. Sad, isn’t it? The New York Times reports:

But before he arrives at the White House, he will probably be forced to sign off. In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful.

For all the perquisites and power afforded the president, the chief executive of the United States is essentially deprived by law and by culture of some of the very tools that other chief executives depend on to survive and to thrive. Mr. Obama, however, seems intent on pulling the office at least partly into the 21st century on that score; aides said he hopes to have a laptop computer on his desk in the Oval Office, making him the first American president to do so.

As for me, you can have my BlackBerry when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. I ain’t going back.

Have you seen this man? This one-eyed, ethnic Pashtun’s name is Mullah Mohammed Omar. He’s the leader of Afghanistan’s notorious Taliban and a close accomplice of Osama Bin Laden (whose head I look forward to seeing stuffed and mounted on President Obama’s wall in the oval office in the very near future). Very little was known about Omar even before he went into hiding shortly after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, but most experts agree that he’s probably hiding out somewhere in Pakistan’s tribal region - the real front in the war on terrorism.

The conflict in Afghanistan, with its complex blend of ethnicities, religious sects, and divergent interests is an extremely difficult scenario to fully understand. Thankfully, we have warrior-scholars like Australian David Killcullen (Colonel, Ph.D. in Anthropology, insurgency and terrorism expert) to help clarify things for us. Some of his papers were required reading for me in grad school. The New Yorker recently interviewed him. It’s a short piece and well worth the time for anyone who wants to understand what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan. Here are his recommendations to President-elect Obama:

First, the draw-down in Iraq needs to be conditions-based and needs to recognize how fragile our gains there have been, and our moral obligation to Iraqis who have trusted us. As I said, we don’t want to un-bog ourselves from Iraq only to get bogged in Afghanistan while Iraq turns bad again. Second, our priorities in Afghanistan should be security, governance, and dealing with the Pakistan safe haven—and we may not necessarily need that many more combat troops to do so. Third, the Afghan elections of September 2009 are a key milestone—we can’t just muddle through, and the key problem is political: delivering effective and legitimate governance that meets Afghans’ needs. And finally, most importantly, this is a wartime transition and we can’t afford the normal nine-month hiatus while we put the new Administration in place: the war in Afghanistan will be won or lost in the next fighting season, i.e. by the time of the September elections.

The situation in Afghanistan is dire. But the war is winnable. We need to focus our attention on the problem, and think before acting. But we need to think fast, and our actions need to involve a major change of direction, focussing on securing the population rather than chasing the enemy, and delivering effective legitimate governance to the people, bottom-up, at the local level. Do that, do it fast, and we stand an excellent chance of turning things around.

Hopefully Obama will be more open to the advice of scholars and experts than President Bush was prior to his foray into Middle East conflict. For an absolutely fantastic overview of Islamic terrorism, see Michael Scheuer’s Imperial Hubris. It’s a sobering look at myth versus reality in the war on terror, backed up by over twenty years of experience heading the CIA desk responsible for all issues related to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror

Whatever your opinion of Bush there’s no doubting the fact that the U.S. has not experienced another major terrorist attack since September 11th. And while many of his tactics have been controversial (to say the least), the overwhelming majority of Americans are pretty happy not being blown up and don’t really care what measures are taken to achieve that goal. In spite of that, it’s also safe to say that many of us will not be entirely happy until Osama Bin Laden is confirmed dead-as-a-door-nail or captured (preferably the former). CIA Director Michael Hayden weighed in recently on OBL’s status:

Without directly referring to the CIA’s offensive blitz of unmanned missile attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan, the CIA boss said the US had successfully isolated the al Qaeda leader bin Laden, referring to him in the present tense.
“He appears to be largely isolated from the day-to-day operations of the organization he leads,” Hayden said in a speech delivered to the Atlantic Council in Washington.
Hayden said the failure to kill or capture bin Laden in the seven years since the 9/11 attacks, could be explained by the “rugged and inaccessible” terrain of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area and “the fact that bin Laden has worked to avoid detection.”

OBL can only run and hide for so long. Bold prediction - he’s confirmed dead or captured during the first year of the Obama administration.

Remember when Obama pledged to accept public money for the presidential campaign and then reneged on it? According to Politico, that not only gave him a serious money advantage in the election, it will also spare him an audit by the Federal Election Commission:

The Federal Election Commission is unlikely to conduct a potentially embarrassing audit of how Barack Obama raised and spent his presidential campaign’s record-shattering windfall, despite allegations of questionable donations and accounting that had the McCain campaign crying foul.

Adding insult to injury for Republicans: The FEC is obligated to complete a rigorous audit of McCain’s campaign coffers, which will take months, if not years, and cost McCain millions of dollars to defend.

Mccain is said to have put away over $9 million to pay for the process (lawyers, etc). Seems backwards, no? I’d much rather get a closer look at Obama’s fundraising and expenditures.

It used to be that illicit drug use and sexual trysts would disqualify you from major political positions (although at time they both seem mandatory). Now we can add emails, blog posts, text messages and
diaries to the list. Welcome to the 21st Century. The following disclosures are required from anyone seeking a major position in the Obama administration:

I guess I’ll go ahead now and add “politician” to the list of things I will never be:

Politician
NBA Player
Astronaut
Porn Star
Priest

Al Gore’s camp recently signaled to the incoming Obama administration that he is not interested in the proposed Climate Czar position:

“Former Vice President Gore does not intend to seek or accept any formal position in government,” Gore spokeswoman Kalee Kreider said. “He feels very strong right now that the best thing for him to do is to build support for the bold changes that we have to make to solve the climate crisis.”

Thank God. The last thing we need is more bloated government. (Get it? Bloated?)

Sara Palin won’t go away and recently decided to give her very first press conference. My favorite part:

Asked why she chose to hold her first formal news conference now, she replied, “The campaign is over.”

Well, yeah, because now that the election is over it’s the perfect time to give a press conference. You see the logic, right? The more she talks the worse McCain looks for choosing her after only meeting her once and doing zero vetting. As one of my readers commented in a previous post - the U.S. has dodged a bullet.

I recently wrote about Georgia Congressman Paul Broun’s moronic comments comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler. Well, it turns out that he’s sorry now:

“The point I tried to make is that he is extremely liberal, he has promoted a lot of socialistic ideas, and it just makes me concerned.”

Then why didn’t you just say that, Congressman?

As always, comments and criticism are welcome.

See you next week.

President-Elect Obama has voiced his support for a volunteer civilian national security force to help the U.S. meet its long term objectives. Progressive? Gutsy? Groundbreaking? Not really, George Bush supported the same thing in his 2007 State of the Union speech. But that didn’t stop Republican Congressman Paul Broun of Georgia from comparing Obama to monsters like Adolf Hitler. The following words slithered out of his ignorant mouth just a few days ago:

“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist…We can’t be lulled into complacency,” Broun said. “You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I’m not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I’m saying is there is the potential of going down that road.”

It’s impossible to know if he actually believes this garbage or if he’s just playing to his base. Regardless, I can’t help wonder if he had the same sinking feeling when the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld trio decided it was a good idea to spy on its own citizens, deny due process to anyone they deemed a national security threat, and authorized torture techniques identical to those used in Stalin’s gulags. Nah. Questioning those policies would be un-American! It’s much easier to just go with the crowd. Besides, those policies were for the “common good”, right Congressman?

If you’ve ever watched a movie about about any President of the United States (POTUS) you already know that the U.S. Secret Service uses code names for the President, Vice President and their families (the code names are actually assigned by the White House Communications agency.) Such names are used in an attempt to help keep schedules and locations confidential, but also for convenience. The family gets to choose the letter that they want their names to begin with and the WHCA does the rest. Do you know what Obama’s code name is?

Renegade.

What about Michelle Obama, the next First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS)?

Renaissance.

See if you can match the following presidents with their proper names?

The Presidents:
George W. Bush
Ronald Reagan
Bill Clinton
Jimmy Carter

Code Names:
“Deacon”
“Tumbler”
“Eagle”
“Rawhide”

Click here for the answers.

Those names seem appropriate to me. What about you? What would you change them to if you could?

The 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections are over and Barack Obama has won. His first order of business was to try and lower the stratospheric expectations of his presidency and he did so in his acceptance speech. The following statements stuck out like a sore thumb to me:

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America – I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you – we as a people will get there…..and we know that government can’t solve every problem.

Is it me or did he immediately start campaigning for 2012? Regardless, President-Elect Obama now has everything he wanted – the White House and a majority in both houses. What’s that they say about being careful what you ask for?

Obama won this election decisively. However, conservatives like Robert Novak are claiming that the victory was not decisive enough to be called a mandate. Whatever. McCain mentioned in his concession speech that not only had the American people spoken, but they had “spoken clearly.” Ed Morrissey does an even better job of addressing the issue right here:

In the first place, talk of “mandates” is, and always has been, irrelevant. What matters is whether the winning candidate has enough votes to move most of their agenda through Congress — and Obama clearly does. He may not have enough votes in the Senate to keep Republicans from blocking everything, but he has enough for all but the most radical measures to pass.

Besides, as Jazz Shaw points out, Novak declared 2004 a “mandate” for George Bush. In that election, Bush won fewer states, had a narrower popular-vote margin, and got a smaller Senate majority than the Democrats won last night. Obama broke through the red/blue line that had dominated national politics over the past eight years. If we’re talking mandates, that seems pretty clear.

Anyway, Politico immediately launched a new blog that I think is pretty cool (if not a bit stalkerish.) Politico 44 (Obama is the 44th POTUS) is an up to the minute diary/blog of the Obama administration that has already begun tracking his every move. For example, he arrived home today at 5:48PM EDT and tomorrow afternoon at 1:30PM EDT he’ll give his first press conference as President-Elect after he meets with his economic advisors.

The Sarah Palin phenomenon continues to baffle me. I asked several weeks ago if I was being too hard on her, but now that the campaign is over and the unfiltered (to use a Palin word) truth is starting to come out –it looks as if she’s much more ignorant than I had ever imagined. This video from Fox News (the official channel of the GOP) says enough about her utter lack of common knowledge, but Newsweek has even more about how strange this woman is, including:

At the GOP…One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. “I’ll be just a minute,” she said.

Yes, I know. She’s hot. But I’d prefer a VP with a clue.

Amazingly, there are still several Kool-Aid drinkers out there who remain mesmerized by Palin. Michael Ledeen of the National Review Online writes:

The continued trashing of Sarah Palin — IMHO the most qualified and by far the most exciting candidate of the four — is very disappointing, and the rash of unseemly whining from the McCain camp just shows once again why so many of us were depressed when he won the nomination.

The “most qualified of the four?” Wow. Trust me, we have not heard the last of the Palin stories from McCain staffers – aptly named “Lipstick Confessions” by the uber-liberal bloggers at the DailyKos.

The 2008 presidential race will not be forgotten and I had an absolute blast blogging about it. I especially appreciate the growing readership of RandallHMiller.com that joined me in the process. From my daily posts to live-blogging the debates and election night itself I’ve never felt alone. Instead, I’ve felt a momentum and enthusiasm (not to be confused with constant agreement) that makes me look forward to this next phase with great anticipation - and for that I am grateful.

A few weeks ago I asked if I had been too tough on Sarah Palin. I’ve also expressed several times in the past few months how much I was looking forward to the end of this election cycle and the information that would undoubtedly flow from for McCain staffers. Well, the wait is over. Watch this video. It seems that Palin is even more ignorant than I imagined.

This Newsweek article is also worth checking out. They write:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin’s shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain’s top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus.

According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent “tens of thousands” more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

It’s time to let Obama’s victory sink in and for the final votes to be tallied (there are also several Senate and U.S. House of Representatives seats still up in the air.) I won’t be posting at all today, but will be back in the saddle tomorrow (unless, of course, something extraordinary happens.)

RHM:
Any predictions?

Daniel:
I believe Obama will win, getting close to 300 electoral votes. A landslide is possible, but not likely. Supreme Court appointees are my main concern, as I don’t believe the economy will allow the next president to accomplish much else. And I’d like a slight shift to the left more than one to the right. I think Hillary cut a deal to become one of Obama’s Supremes, which, in a rock ‘n roll context, is amusing.

RHM:
Which way do you think your home state of Florida will go this time? Will the outcome affect your 2010 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives at all?

Daniel:
Florida will go for Obama, though it may be close. Either way, I Just hope we don’t embarrass ourselves like in 2000. Here in District 14, Connie Mack (R) should get re-elected. If the black vote is strong for Obama, as it is predicted, and Obama wins, they may become more interested in voting local politics - something that, historically, doesn’t happen - and still be riding the change wave. And Connie Mack is not considered a friend. I have a year yet to fully commit, though.

RHM:
Bob Barr - what the hell happened? Am I alone thinking he missed a historic opportunity? Are you still glad you bowed out of the race and endorsed