Ann Coulter, HumanEvents.com

 

With Time magazine comparing Obama to Jesus, I guess we should be relieved that, this week, liberals are only comparing him to Abraham Lincoln.

 

The one thing every liberal on TV seems to know about Lincoln is that he put rivals in his cabinet, as subtly indicated in the title to historian and plagiarist Doris Kearns Goodwin's book: "Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln." Like Lincoln, Goodwin is always open to contributions from her rivals, although Lincoln was better at crediting their words.

 

And hasn't Obama talked to former rival Hillary about becoming his secretary of state? Hasn't he had a sit-down with Sen. John McCain? Did I imagine this, or is he even now brokering peace talks between Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck?

 

Ergo: Obama is a genius.

 

Indeed, historians have just named Obama the best president-elect ever.

 

I don't recall the media swooning when President George W. Bush reached out to rivals, such as Sen. Teddy Kennedy, who was asked to co-write Bush's education bill. In fact, the way I remember it, Bush is liberals' most hated president ever (only because they can't remember George Washington or they'd hate him, too). Read article.

 

Janice Shaw Crouse, Townhall.com

 

Not surprisingly, many voters who cast their ballots for Barack Obama for president had no idea what he believed, what his voting record was or what his priorities would be as president. The YouTube videos showing voters’ ignorance during the just-completed election would be hilarious if they were not so sad.

 

The “Emperor” leading the presidential polls had no clothes, but who would speak out? The nation’s opinion leaders threw up smoke screens that protected the public from the reality. The media certainly was not going to expose the nakedness of its crown prince. His opposition kept looking the other way. The cheering crowds clothed him to suit their individual preferences.

 

During this election, Barack Obama said lots to make the public feel good. He made promises couched in vague language that could mean anything that the listener wanted them to mean. He used words like “change” and “hope." Read article.

 

Peggy Noonan, Online WSJ.com

 

Rumors, leaks, gossip, backbiting, an air of mounting mistrust. Looks like Lulu's back in town.

 

The smooth Obama transition has been disrupted by the great disrupter, and one wonders: Does he really want to go there? Hasn't he been there? How'd that go?

 

On the face of it, the apparent offering of the secretary of state job to Hillary Clinton is a clever, interesting choice: An experienced and sophisticated workhorse with her own standing in the country, and bearing a name that is popular in the world, will be the public face of U.S. diplomacy. Mr. Obama gets to put her in a subordinate position while appearing to be magnanimous, and her seat in the U.S. Senate will likely be filled by a more malleable Democrat who won't be plotting from day one to get to the White House. A threefer.

 

But the downside is equally obvious: To invite in the Clintons—and it's always the Clintons, never a Clinton—is to invite in, to summon, drama that will never end. Ever. This would seem to be at odds with the atmospherics of Obamaland. "Loose cannon," "vetting process," "financial entanglements," questions about which high-flying oligarch gave how much to Bill's presidential library, and what the implications of the gift are, including potential conflict of interest. Read article.

 

Dave Weinbaum, JWR.com

 

Now we know what Barack meant by "change" and "hope."

 

With his impending appointment of Hillary to Secretary of State, he's created the umpteenth version of "Back to the Future." Obama has reinvented the rerun, political style. Now that's change the far left can believe in!

 

There is no "I" in team, but there are four in stupid selfish idiots

 

Incompetence is in reach! Clintonites are leaking even before Hillary's acceptance speech. Bill is looking forward to vetting a whole new group of Obama girl interns. Scandals are being set in motion as I write.

 

Here's how bad the Clintons want this. Bill has agreed to come clean.

 

A Republican committing similar stuff as Bill would warrant 25 to 40 in a medium security prison. And we're talking about acts taken AFTER Bill's presidency. Bubba's taken millions from foreign powers of varying degree of friendliness to the USA and petitioned on their behalf without registering as a lobbyist.

 

But we live in double standard land, so Hillary will float through the Dem Controlled cesspool currently known as "the congress." Read article.

 

James Lyons, Washington Times.com

 

The ink had barely dried on the final vote count when the testing of President-elect Barack Obama began.

 

One of the first was by Vladimir Putin's puppet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev declaring that if the United States continued with its plan to deploy 10 ABM interceptor missiles into Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic, then Russia would move short range missiles into Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave on the Baltic, targeting Europe. Russia's excuse for this threat is that they were forced into it because the U.S. defensive system could be converted to an offensive system, targeting Russia. This is a contrived argument and Mr. Putin knows it is groundless.

 

What's more disturbing is that Mr. Putin's European proxies like the former German defense minister, Peter Struck, currently the parliamentary leader of the Social Democrats, called Mr. Medvedev's threat understandable and blamed President Bush for provoking Russia. This is incredible since he knows Russia was invited to participate in this very limited defensive shield whose fundamental purpose is to destroy any ballistic missile fired at Europe or the United States from a "rogue state" such as Iran. Read article.

 

Donald Lambro, Townhall.com

 

Former Secretary of State George Shultz has a few words of advice for Barack Obama about how to deal with Russian provocations: Negotiate without appearing weak.

 

"President-elect Obama has to consider what kind of relationship do we try to build with the Russians, and I personally think the idea that we just try to isolate them is a mistaken one," Shultz said during a wide-ranging interview in his office at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

 

Instead, Obama should pursue "a constructive strategic dialogue with them. After all, we did that in the Cold War, and we can do it now," said President Reagan's chief foreign-policy adviser, who headed the State Department during a turbulent period of instability in the Evil Empire.

 

As Obama prepares to grasp the reins of power, the Russians have already begun to test him in provocative ways. They've threatened to place nuclear missiles on Russia's border if the United States carries out its intention to deploy anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

 

Asked how Obama should respond to this and other bellicose gestures and actions following Russia's invasion of Georgia, Shultz chose his words carefully. Read article.

 

IBD Editorials.com

 

Among the new president's many problems is how he'll square private promises made to hundreds of thousands of federal workers with his public promise to cut federal programs.

 

According to the Washington Post, Barack Obama sent letters to workers at seven federal agencies, telling them he would, among other things: scale back private contracting, allow paid family leave, impose tougher industry regulation, add staff to the Social Security Administration, and expand bargaining rights to Transportation Security Administration officers.

 

Sounds like a wish list for a federal workers' union, and in fact John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, told the Post: "I asked (Obama) to put it in writing, something I could use with my members, and he didn't flinch."

 

Overall, Obama promised more spending to six of seven agencies. Defense was the only one that didn't get such a promise. Read article.

Clifford D. May, NRO.com

 

American troops in Afghanistan are fighting what will soon become Barack Obama’s war — not just because he will inherit it, but also because he has claimed it. This is “the right battlefield,” Obama has said. The war in Afghanistan “has to be won.”

 

How can that mission be accomplished? Extensive interviews with American military commanders, European diplomats, and Afghan officials lead to this conclusion: Although we are not currently defeating the Taliban and other belligerent groups in Afghanistan, we can prevail — if the incoming administration is prepared to fully resource a sophisticated counter-insurgency strategy similar to that implemented by General David Petraeus in Iraq.

 

A subtle and often misunderstood point: The war in Iraq was not turned around by “surging” more troops into the country to do more of the same. Rather, the key was transitioning to counterinsurgency — COIN — a form of warfare that requires many boots on the ground.

 

As COIN experts in Afghanistan explain, successful counter-insurgency requires four discrete steps: shaping, clearing, holding, and building. Read article.

 

David Ignatius, IBD Editorials.com

 

He has been running toward it for years, maybe his whole adult life, and suddenly he has arrived. And what he discovers is that inside his new cocoon of Secret Service protection, the presidency of the United States is a very lonely job.

 

That's what Barack Obama confided in a revealing interview last Sunday with CBS' "60 Minutes." Steve Kroft asked him if he had received any good advice from former presidents, and his answer was poignant.

 

"You know, they were all incredibly gracious," Obama said. "But I think all of them recognized that there's a certain loneliness to the job. That, you know, you'll get advice, and you'll get counsel. Ultimately, you're the person who's going to be making decisions. And I think that even now, you know, I — you can already feel that fact."

 

What did it feel like when Obama realized he would be president of the U.S.? "Well, I'm not sure it's sunk in yet," he answered. His wife Michelle tried to put it into words, and he agreed in wonderment, "How about that?"

 

The man who has spent his life "becoming," must now "be." Obama has been the sojourner, as David Brooks of the New York Times has written, passing through places and institutions, alighting but never putting down deep roots. He has always been on his way elsewhere, in a journey of discovery and self-actualization that may be unmatched in American political history. And now he is at the doorstep of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

Obama plays on a different stage now, and it's less forgiving. Read article.

 

Jack Thompson, HumanEvents.com

 

Get ready for an unprecedented government assault upon the First Amendment. President Obama will be at the heart of it. using his version of the “Fairness Doctrine”.

 

In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission created the “Fairness Doctrine,” which mandated that federally-licensed radio and television stations “provide a reasonable opportunity for the presentation of contrasting viewpoints” on “vitally important controversial issues.” Rather than be deluged with demands for air time by aggrieved listeners, the broadcasters generally opted not to cover controversial issues, thereby leaving the public less informed.

 

In 1987, President Reagan’s FCC jettisoned the Fairness Doctrine, and conservative talk radio grew like topsy, unencumbered by the logistical nightmare of determining what is “controversial” and what is “fair.” Rush Limbaugh’s meteoric, syndicated rise is directly attributable to this repeal, as radio stations were freed to air what listeners wanted to hear without airing what few wanted to hear. If you think that’s unfair, check out how Air America is doing. Read article.

 

Jonathan V. Last, JWR.com

 

Political myths take hold as quickly as urban legends, and often with even less supporting evidence. Someone stands in a particularly long line on Election Day and decides that it signals a once-in-a-generation eruption of civic engagement.

 

But anecdotes are not data. We now have enough exit-poll data from Edison Media Research/Mitofsky International to put the election in context. Let's examine some of the already established myths:

 

• An energized electorate produced a historic turnout.

 

Yes and no. On the one hand, 123,525,445 votes were cast for Barack Obama and John McCain - the biggest combined total in history. On the other hand, that number was up only 2 percent from 2004. And to really put the number in perspective, consider that the U.S. population grew by 2.7 percent in the intervening four years, so the growth in voting actually lagged behind overall population growth. Read article.

 

Lee Cary, American Thinker.com

 

Rahm Emanuel co-authored a book that reads like the precursor to Obama's primary campaign document, Blueprint for Change, Obama and Biden's Plan for America.

 

Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed wrote The Plan, Big Ideas for America (copyright 2006, amazon.com link here). We know who Emanuel is - he's about to become the second most powerful person in the federal government. Reed, according to the book's jacket,

 

...writes a daily political column for Slate and is the editor-in-chief of Blueprint, the leading magazine of new Democratic ideas...He is President of the Democratic Leadership Council.   

 

Many of the key proposals in Obama's Blueprint document were aired-out in The Plan. Here's a sample. A new social contract - universal citizen service, universal college access, universal retirement savings, and universal children's health care - that makes clear what you can do for your country and what your country can do for you. Read article.

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