Obama's change means it's not just allies getting appointments. Instead he's forging a complex alloy cabinet.

If President-elect Obama chose his cabinet Secretaries from among his closest, long-time friends and asscociates he would hit the ground running with a known, trusted team but be accused of doing business the same way D.C. has been operating, of rewarding loyalty with political favors. It's almost certain that tomorrow Obama will formally designate Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) as his new Secretary of State while retaining Dr. Robert Gates atop the Defense Department, which detractors argue is a failure to engineer change in Washington. This speaks volumes about Obama's intentions.

Memo to the troops:

While there are other Pentagon appointments in the offing Obama is plainly endorsing the efficacy of Gates' approach and performance. The President-elect is sure to mandate examinations, including the procurement processes, but by retaining Gates he's giving a nod to the operational readiness and capability of the military. Obama's choice exhibits confidence in the Defense department's ability to carry out their missions - high praise for the work being done by the men and women who serve this country in uniform, while insuring a continuity that cannot pass unnoticed by those likely to provoke a military response and/or engage our armed forces.

Message to the world:

In contrast, the selection of Senator Clinton for the State Department signals Obama's philosophical preference for reliance upon the soft power of strong diplomacy. The (anticipated) Clinton nomination foreshadows his early focus will be on a makeover at State from top to bottom. Hillary and Bill Clinton already have considerable global standing and influence. This shrewd appointment nonetheless positions the Senator in a challenging management role with diplomatic responsibilities far afield from the domestic policy issues such as health care she is noted for championing.

Leaders and common people around the globe followed Obama's improbable political rise with extraordinary fervor. Selecting a rival to head his outreach effort not only signals his obvious intent to watch that department closely, this union also insures the regular, collaborative, "normalized" participation of a former President in Obama's diplomatic endeavors around the world.

Obama's challenge: re-engineering

Bringing major changes always provokes reactions from those who like the organization just fine the way it is. Try moving where the bread is in a grocery store and you'll find both staff and customers who resist. Now imagine the changes Obama envisions both within our borders and around the world: We've got people in the U.S. who think more government intervention will help immigration but less oversight is needed in the financial industry. Overseas, from drug profiteers to the Taliban bullies to pirates off the coast of Somalia, many want to exploit weakness while decrying the use of force by the United States and others fighting for fairness. Fortunately, peaceful co-existence, be it with your next-door neighbor or with a country steeped in traditions you don't understand, doesn't mean you have to kiss and like everybody.
What Obama has set out to build, both within his administration and ultimately throughout the world, is the best community possible. He seeks a composite in the mold that immigrants to North America and their descendants celebrate each November on the quintessentially U.S. holiday of sustainability: Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving ultimately commemorates the unified strength and durability built when settlers to this nation cooperated with natives to prepare for and survive the adversity of winter. Years after the event a rebellious cadre of intellectuals crafted the document that still epitomizes the best of what our government stands for, even though that government has not always acted as though our leaders embraced what the Constitution spells out.

Peaceful coexistence with the neighbors down the block and around the globe starts with accepting that all people are, in fact, created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights.

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No way Hillary hit a home run with her speech. No how!

If you've heard that used as a metaphor for Senator Clinton's speech on August 26th in Denver, you've been misled (as so often happens with metaphors) and the Senator from New York's been done a disservice. While pundits love sports metaphors, and admittedly America loves a home run, in the rarefied, thin air last night what Hillary engineered and delivered was much, much more.

I spent the evening in one of the 30 precious seats reserved inside the arena for bloggers approved and credentialed though the Democratic National Committee. Not great seats, bloggers are not by any means treated with the same respect as established commercial media, and our access is controlled by well-meaning volunteers who don't seem to have the same answer one moment to the next, but one can measure and sense the crowd - and this crowd was ready for Hillary's night in the spotlight.

On the heels of a moment of silence for recently deceased U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and a review of other friends no longer with us, from Ladybird Johnson to Shirley Chisolm, Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont took the stage and started the process of looking forward. "From the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, to the Green Mountains of Vermont," the man who lives at the end of a dirt road in a community of fewer than 2000 people, the Senator who clearly understands what it means that 8 million rural Americans now live in poverty told us he's ready for the United States to "turn the page."

The crowd was totally involved and excited a short while later when Congressman Dennis Kucinich, earlier a candidate for the very nomination the Democrats are gathered in Denver to proclaim this month, talked about the reality of not moving the country from right to left (as political pundits tend to opine in sound-bites,) but rather from down to up. Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin, after reminding us that he'd been in the Peace Corps himself decades previously, said his family had endorsed Senator Obama, "about five minutes in to the keynote speech in 2004." He called on the country to "Revive the spirit of [President John F.] Kennedy."

Steny Hoyer of Maryland listed the accomplishments that Democrats could take credit for with even the narrow majorities they'd attained in the U.S. House and Senate in the previous election, despite the fact that Senate Republicans remain in a position to frustrate progress. Janet Napolitano struggled to avoid berating McCain, but she did find that she could say something positive when McCain talked about the economy - she's "positive he doesn't understand the economy." Kathleen Sebelius advanced that point, noting that McCain favors renewing the Bush~Cheney agenda for another four years. Signs waved, and the increasingly packed house was full of a sense of anticipation during a series of well-crafted speeches. Massachusetts Governor Devall Patrick, noted for his association with Senator Obama, cited the progress his family had made in just one generation rising from such poverty that he didn't recall ever even owning a book as a child on the south side of Chicago. He segued into testimony for Obama's commitment to education, and fiscal responsibility to contrast and repair the effects of the largest expansion in Federal Government paired to the largest run-up of the Federal Debt in history under the present administration.

Perhaps the real high point before Senator Clinton took the stage was the animated, crowd-pleasing performance by Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, clearly enjoying his rapport as the crowd responded with enthusiasm, at times chanting, "Four more months" to describe their readiness to see new faces in the White House. The excitement mounted amid rumors that the Denver Fire Marshall had decided to close the floor...

Then along came Hillary, greeted with thunderous applause and a sea of white banners bearing just her first name.

No way; no how; no McCain!

Senator Clinton's much anticipated speech was much more than a home run. Not only did she touch all the points that analysts told us she needed to as part of healing the rifts, she crafted and delivered a masterful endorsement built to make it clear to those who aren't fully behind Obama's candidacy that not only is she herself committed to getting him elected, but she expects them to participate whole-heartedly as well. Hillary reminded the delegates - and her supporters not present in Denver - that too much is at stake, from health care to basic human rights, to let this moment pass. A home run is a single moment that comes together serendipitously, often unexpectedly. Hillary Clinton built and unveiled an epic monument to the power of a unified party to change the course of the United States of America.

Watch the speech

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Obama Selection Of Caroline Kennedy To Seek VP Candidate May Spell End for Clinton

Senator Barack Obama asked Caroline Kennedy to head the effort to find a Vice Presidential candidate, and that move could spell the end for Senator Clinton's quest for the number two slot. The reason is simple: Ted Kennedy doesn't think Clinton would make a good fit, and has said so.

Kennedy is joined by Eric Holder, the former Deputy Attorney General under Janet Reno, and Jim Johnson, the man who ran John Kerry’s veep search.

The Clinton's have not pleased Ted Kennedy, first with the whole MLK and race-bating campaign they waged, and recently with her TERRIBLE gafe regarding RFK and assassination.

Again, the term today is Popularometer, and Clinton's -- both Bill and Hillary -- is at an all time low.

I also think what may have happened is that Clinton wanted Obama to immediately ask her to be her VP and he said he was going to form a search committee and have a process. I'll bet that's what happened and explains why she didn't concede. But it all boils down to her not getting her way.

I can see the needle on the Popularometer falling yet again.

Did Hillary Clinton miss her moment?

In real estate, it's "location;" in politics, it's "Timing, timing, timing!"

Senator Clinton had an optimum moment in terms of what impact her concession might have had, and the attention that was focused on her and her statement. Senator Obama managed even more gracious praise for her contributions and efforts as he spoke last night at the XCEL Center in St. Paul, Minnesota - and the crowd was with him in that sentiment, clearly. He held the 20,000 people inside the arena nearly transfixed, and they roared approval when he held forth on Senator Clinton’s strengths and character.

The press will not ignore whatever subsequent statements she makes - and obviously it’s premature for an outsider to suggest concession is the course of action she will follow - yet at this juncture it’s already clear that the effect and the interest are rapidly, moment by moment, diminishing.

There are many effective, influential women rising through the ranks of political influence, so others will run and win soon. But it is difficult to predict there will be another moment when Hillary might soar as high as she could have - should have - on Tuesday night.

Did Senator Clinton miss her moment? Yes, I'm afraid she did.

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Clinton Cackle Annoying This Four Year Old Kid - No Kidding

I saw this over at the blog Wonkette :

BY SEANIBUS AT 10/01/07 07:30 PM
I just played Slate's recording of the laugh and my four year old came tearing over to my desk and said "Please don't play that Ha Ha Ha thing again, daddy. It is annoying me."
I am not making this up.

TPM: Obama Spot On About Pakistan, Gives Washington Insiders Bellyache

Obama and Pakistan
08.09.07 -- 11:16AM

By Josh Marshall - talkingpointsmemo.com

I'm always interested to try to tease apart and find the meta-debates operating beneath the surface of campaign debates. As I wrote a few years ago in what I called the bitch-slap theory of GOP electoral politics, the whole swift-boat saga was less about the specifics of Kerry's injuries forty years ago than whether he could defend himself from the charges today. Someone who can't defend himself is weak; and if a guy can't defend himself he can't defend you.

That's what that whole song-and-dance was about.

So what is this back and forth about Obama and Pakistan about?

What this has boiled down to -- and this became even more clear after Tuesday night's labor-hosted debate, when Biden and Dodd acted as Hillary's proxies -- is Hillary, in league with the party's foreign policy establishment, trying to make Obama, implicitly or explicitly, concede an error, that he misspoke.

Precisely what he misspoke about is largely beside the point. The key is that they get him to concede that in the complex and serious world of foreign policy big-think, where words have consequences, he made an error. Of course, it's almost good enough if most observers decide that Obama screwed up. But once he concedes it himself, if he does, he stipulates from now through the end of the Democratic primary campaign that his inexperience in foreign policy is a basic premise of the campaign upon which the battle between him and Hillary will be waged. He can learn, improve, make progress, whatever, but his inexperience compared to Hillary will continue to be the reference point throughout.

But I think he's done a pretty good job so far refusing to get put in that box. And the truth is that I think Obama's actual words are so clearly unobjectionable that this is all Kabuki theater of a particularly strained and disingenuous sort. All Obama said was that if we have actionable intelligence about the whereabouts of high-value al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, and Pakistan won't act, we will act.

Clearly, no Republican can quibble with this. They're on the record for invading countries because they might become dangers to us at some point in the future. They're hardly in a position to disagree with Obama if he says we'll hunt down people who committed mass casualty terror attacks within our borders. And I'm not sure Democrats are in much of a position to do so either.

The unspoken truth here, I suspect, is that Obama has struck on the central folly of our post-9/11 counter-terrorism defense policy -- strike hard where they aren't and go easy where they are. I think everyone can see this. But Obama got there first. So they need to attack him for saying it.

YearlyKos - Hillary Clinton Says She Takes Lobbyists' Money - Barack Obama Fires Back

Senator Hillary Clinton came to the Yearly Kos convention to be around some friends -- including the Daily Kos which has taken $5,000 in weekly ad revenues from her -- and annouced controversially that she takes money from lobbyists, saying they represent "real Americans."

Wow.

Tell that to the millions of Americans who can't afford health care because of the health care lobby that gives money to Senator Clinton. How is she supposed to reform the American health care system with this track record? Fortunately, Senator Barack Obama didn't let her brazen comments go without an excellent rebutal, one that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Think I'm kidding? Look at this video:



Since then, her comments are the talk of the Blogsphere and Vlogsphere, too. And the vast majority of them are not favorable, as can be seen by this Huffington Post article . I think we've reached a turning point here, and it may be that Senator Clinton's biggest campaign wound was self-inflicted. We're in an American where people seem to want a fair and level playing field for all, and the presence of lobbying money rings fowl to many today, as lobbyists are seen more as the reason problems persist, rather than the agents of change.

Finally, Senator Clinton said that her presence at the convention brought a dose of reality. Really? As if Bloggers are off in a fantasy world, I guess.