Defending DoD Spending

President Obama's 2009 defense budget is set for $527 billion, a $14 billion increase from 2008. That $527 billion is actually boosting 2009 defense spending to the number that the Bush Administration had projected for 2010.

But there's an emerging partisan argument that Obama is "cutting the defense budget" this year because the $527 billion is less than the DoD had requested. (As you know, when requesting funds, everyone always OVERrequests so they can get the right amount.) It's designed to make the new administration look bad, and weak.

Let's be clear - the defense budget is scheduled to INCREASE to $527 billion this year, from $513 billion last year.

A Long Time Coming

This country has just realized a whole lot of its potential, and everyone knows it. Let's revel in it, just a little longer.

/ a change is gonna come /

/ cheer /  Celebration at Fort Greene
Senior Action Center, Brooklyn, Jan. 20, 2009.

/ weep /  Vertie Hodge, 74, in Houston on Jan. 20, 2009,
after Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address.

/ rejoice /  US Army Command
Sgt. Maj. Julia Kelley watches the inauguration
from Camp Liberty in Baghdad, Iraq.

+ photos from The Boston Globe
+ "A Change Is Gonna Come," performed by Seal

The Inauguration

It happened. And after two and a half months, it's still hard to believe.

The Open-Source President

About that "open-source" president we were talking about a few nights ago: In a column in today's NYT business section David Carr leads with Netscape founder Marc Andreessen and his meeting with Barack Obama in the spring of 2007. An excerpt:

Always game for something new, Mr. Andreessen headed to the San Francisco airport late one night to hear the guy out. A junior member of a large and powerful organization with a thin, but impressive, résumé, he was about to take on far more powerful forces in a battle for leadership.

He wondered if social networking, with its tremendous communication capabilities and aggressive database development, might help him beat the overwhelming odds facing him.

“It was like a guy in a garage who was thinking of taking on the biggest names in the business,” Mr. Andreessen recalled. “What he was doing shouldn’t have been possible, but we see a lot of that out here and then something clicks. He was clearly supersmart and very entrepreneurial, a person who saw the world and the status quo as malleable.”

And as it turned out, President-elect Barack Obama was right.

...

“I think it is very significant that he was the first post-boomer candidate for president,” Mr. Andreessen said. “Other politicians I have met with are always impressed by the Web and surprised by what it could do, but their interest sort of ended in how much money you could raise. He was the first politician I dealt with who understood that the technology was a given and that it could be used in new ways.”

The juxtaposition of a networked, open-source campaign and a historically imperial office will have profound implications and raise significant questions. Special-interest groups and lobbyists will now contend with an environment of transparency and a president who owes them nothing. The news media will now contend with an administration that can take its case directly to its base without even booking time on the networks.

A new paradigm in governing? The level of intimacy that Obama has developed with the electorate via text message and the Internet has already shown what is possible - the first post-modern presidential campaign. What's next?

The President-Elect

What a crazy place.

I was moved far more than I expected tonight. Forget the electoral maps and 3-D graphics, the talky pundits and bloggerheads, and the day-to-day madness of the last 22 months. It's all over, and what we've ended up with is a genuinely historic moment.

Tom Friedman said (as have some bloggers) that the election of this black man brings us to the symbolic - and true - end to the American Civil War:

And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4, 2008, shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man — Barack Hussein Obama — won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States.

...

This moment was necessary, for despite a century of civil rights legislation, judicial interventions and social activism — despite Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King’s I-have-a-dream crusade and the 1964 Civil Rights Act — the Civil War could never truly be said to have ended until America’s white majority actually elected an African-American as president.

Look at all the screaming faces of excited young black children on TV, and you know that they - and all children - now have a new kind of hero.

On a smaller scale, many are relieved the Bush years are over; it's a democratic coup. The cheering, screaming, banging, honking and clapping that has not stopped on my block (and elsewhere across the country, literally) since 11 p.m. are not only hundreds of Brooklynites (hipsters and cab drivers alike) expressing support for Obama. It's also the very real, very palpable manifestation of that great catharsis.

On an even closer level: I've spoken with Republican friends and acquaintances, and universally the fear among them is that Obama is a reckless big-government liberal who will conspire with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to ruin America, morally and financially.

But maybe, we hope, this new president of ours will run a modest, useful, efficient government.

NYT:

Mr. Obama won the election because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He promised to lead a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world.

Sounds like some neophyte fantasy-world gobbledy-gook, right? Washington is gridlocked, impossible - "gummed up," as Obama so illustratively said in the video announcing his candidacy in 2007.

Still. Alex Castellanos, the Republican strategist, just this minute on CNN asked - rhetorically yet genuinely - if Barack Obama is going to be the "open-source" president for our new generation - by building government that serves the people. Working from the bottom up, not top-down. He meant it admiringly, in response to this, from Obama's election-night speech:

"And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn – I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too."

I, for one, am hoping.

The GOP Goes Subliminal

Hmmm, the GOP must think that Barack Obama's design team is responsible for the Democrat's lead down the homestretch, because they seem to have ripped off BarackObama.com's sans-serif-and-italics look, replete with shiny red donation button.



Perhaps they're just hoping people will donate to the GOP, thinking it's an Obama ad? My take is that it just ain't gonna work without a car magnet.

Screenshots: GOP.com | BarackObama.com

Bump

+ from TNR.com +

"Obamacons"

That's the term being used to describe conservatives who are going for Obama. It seems like Obama has been able to reach some pragmatic and moderate conservatives, especially in light of McCain's recent off-issue attacks and the disturbing selection of Sarah Palin.

In this video, after his on-air Meet The Press endorsement of Obama, Colin Powell expounds on his thoughts.

Over at Andrew Sullivan's blog, he notes that the Houston Chronicle, which he says hasn't endorsed a Democrat since 1964, cites the Palin Problem as a major determining factor in crossing over to Obama - as other Obamacons have.

Amazing.

Damnit, Text It To Me!

This is all so true. I mean, the more i think about it the more ingenious this idea is. People - including journalists, Obamamaniacs, Obama supporters, and politics junkies in general - are just waiting, waiting, waiting to receive a text message from ... Barack Obama?

It creates so much drama and anticipation, it's become like a pop-cultural event. It reminds me of last year, when everyone was eagerly awaiting the first review of the final Harry Potter book, which was secretly purchased first by the NYT a day early and reviewed by Michiko Kakutani within hours. It was all over the Internets.

Regardless of whether or not you support Obama, they've come up with some pretty nifty stratagems in this campaign.

Oh yeah, so I was wrong about the timing of it. Oh well.

Text It To Me, Baby

Barack Obama's vice-presidential text-message stunt may be superhip, but it's also getting a little silly. A Google News search for "Obama" and "text message" turns up thousands of hits for stories about it all. Everyone's a little breathless waiting for it.

So when is it coming? Well, the NYT story from a couple of days ago indicates (look halfway down the page) that the veep text will be coming early in the morning to take advantage of a full day's news cycle. The logical extension of that is that it would be on a weekday, when all the news shows and various media outlets are in full swing.

Even ignoring that fact, Obama has already announced that he will be appearing with his veep (whoever that may be) on Saturday at a big campaign event to lead into the Monday kick-off of the Democratic convention.

So using the logic I so carefully honed in college and with innumerable logic problems in high school and middle school, the conclusion is that the text message is coming out... early tomorrow morning, Friday.

Go sign up for your early morning veep text, and join the fray!

P.S. - Seriously, try the logic problems. Those are totally rad.
P.P.S. - Also, screw around with the biggest Obama fans you know. Send fake VP texts!

Nah, You're Elite!

Maybe McCain is the elitist. Although in all seriousness, I don't put much weight in this "out-of-touch" talk.

A Dream Come True?*

June 6, 2008  |  by Tom Toles, Washington Post
---

* The front-page slug at WashingtonPost.com

It's Still History

Everyone has been talking about this Democratic nominating contest as historic and unprecedented - to the point where us hapless TV viewers/newspaper readers don't even know what that really means anymore.

A Boston Herald columnist, Margery Eagan, helps crystallize that in her sum-up of Gloria Steinem's maybe-surprising switch in support to Barack Obama. Apparently lots of uber-Hillaryites were expecting the loyal Clinton supporter to be defiant during an appearance in Boston yesterday. (Sidenote: The degree of obstinance in some of the Hillary supporters has been kind of dumbfounding!)

Eagan says:

Yet lost in all this acrimony is that Hillary Clinton, as Obama himself said Tuesday, “has done what no woman has done before” ever, in our history. She won presidential primaries from coast to coast. She nearly won the nomination. She has answered the tough-enough question (yes, she is) for the next woman who may be today, this instant, what Obama was just a few years ago, an obscure but extremely gifted politician with a vision that resonates - because she is the right woman at the right time.

Clinton herself spoke Tuesday about “millions of Americans registering to vote for the first time, raising money for the first time, (about) mothers and fathers lifting their little girls and their little boys on to their shoulders and whispering, ‘See, you can be anything you want to be.’ ”

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have made that more true today in America than ever before. We shouldn’t lose sight of that happy fact, either.

Yes. She may have played dirty, and she may have been treated badly by Hillary Haters. But her candidacy, and Obama's, are more than just symbolic breakthroughs.

Crossing the Imaginary Aisle

It's hard to believe it's been over a year, but this whole Democratic primary process has really been draggin on for a while! Amazingly, in retrospect, Obama has emerged from unknown-quantity status to being the real-deal frontrunner, making Hillary look petty, shrill, and dour in the process.

Interestingly, Hillary was heralded (and derided) throughout 2007 for being the inevitable nominee for the Democratic party. Today Andrew Sullivan notes the prescience he displayed in his post of May 24, 2007 -- nine months ago! -- in which he said, after visiting an Obama event in DC as an observer:

Look at the polls and forget ideology for a moment. What do Americans really want right now? Change. Who best offers them a chance to turn the page cleanly on an era most want to forget? It isn't Clinton, God help us. Edwards is so 2004. McCain is a throwback. Romney makes plastic look real. Rudy does offer something new for Republicans - the abortion-friendly, cross-dressing Jack Bauer. But no one captures the sheer, pent-up desire for a new start more effectively than Obama.

...

From the content and structure of Obama's pitch to the base, it's also clear to me that whatever illusions I had about his small-c conservatism, he's a big government liberal with - for a liberal - the most attractive persona and best-developed arguments since JFK.

"Romney makes plastic look real." "Cross-dressing Jack Bauer"! Hahah.

The kicker is that Sullivan, who is a (Bush-disillusioned) conservative, is now a supporter of Obama despite the early misgivings he related in his post above. And you know what? I really think that's not delusion, or cultishness, as some people might have it. It's simply a belief that bargaining and bipartisanship and agreeability -- and, yes, inspiration -- have a place in government.

So how does Obama manage to reach across the proverbial aisle without actually picking his butt off the far-left wing of the Senate chamber? Well, some ideas transcend easy categorization, and Obama nailed that message in the Cleveland debate last night. Here's his explanation of what the National Journal deemed to be his über-liberal voting record:

"I supported an office of public integrity, an independent office that would be able to monitor ethics investigations in the Senate, because I thought it was important for the public to know that if there were any ethical violations in the Senate, that they weren't being investigated by the Senators themselves, but there was somebody independent who would do it. This is something that I've tried to push as part of my ethics package.

"It was rejected. And according to the National Journal, that position is a liberal position.

"Now, I don't think that's a liberal position. I think there are a lot of Republicans and a lot of Independents who would like to make sure that ethics investigations are not conducted by the people who are potentially being investigated. So the categories don't make sense.

...

"It's because people don't want to go back to those old categories of what's liberal and what's conservative. They want to see who is making sense... "

It's because people don't want to go back to those old categories of what's liberal and what's conservative. They want to see who is making sense.

'Renegade' Watch

The fear is always on the edge of peoples' minds - as people I know can attest to - that Barack Obama - codenamed "Renegade" by the Secret Service - somehow is not safe enough.

Mr. Obama has had Secret Service agents surrounding him since May 3, the earliest a candidate has ever been provided protection. (He reluctantly gave in to the insistent urging of Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, and others in Congress.) As his rallies have swelled in size, his security has increased, coming close to rivaling that given to a sitting president.

Bill Outshines the Rising Star

Bill Clinton swooped in on Hillary's behalf to win the endorsement of a prominent African-American South Carolina state senator, Robert Ford, who endorsed North Carolina's John Edwards in 2004 and whom Barack Obama was pursuing for the 2008 primaries. (Ford must have some street cred: Not only was he arrested 73 times during the Civil Rights movement, but it's a featured credential on his CV!)

It's simply an early demonstration of the huge presence everyone is saying Clinton will have in this race.

Maybe Clinton's "blacker" than Obama. It's been a topic of intense discussion recently, and I think that to assert that he's "not black enough" -- that is to say, he is not descended of African slaves of white Americans, was not raised in the face of racism and oppression, or otherwise hasn't had an authentic black American experience -- is antithetical to the notion of inclusiveness that black leaders have long petitioned for. In his TIME piece, sociology professor Orlando Patterson says that historically as an American, even a single drop of African blood would make you an African-American. He goes on to say:

Black identity was historically progressive in another important respect: from very early in the 19th century through the civil rights movement, it was strikingly cosmopolitan. Black leaders took a deep interest in oppressed peoples throughout the world. The Pan-African movement and early black nationalism were part of emerging notions of black solidarity. Blacks took deep pride in the Haitian revolution, and black American missionaries played an important role in the Christianization of Jamaican and other West Indian blacks. Black Americans were also open to the inspiration of black immigrants: W.E.B. DuBois's father was Haitian; James Weldon Johnson's mother, Bahamian. One of the first mass movements of African Americans was led by a Jamaican, Marcus Garvey, in the '20s. An impressive number of black leaders and civil rights icons--Stokely Carmichael, Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm, Louis Farrakhan, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, to list a few--were all first- or second-generation immigrants.

For some, "blackness" no longer connotes an inclusive family of the disenfranchised, but an exclusive club.