A new kind of politics?

To succeed at modern diplomacy, it helps to take the long view. As word trickled out that President-elect Barack Obama was considering Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, Clinton was on the phone with the President of Pakistan. Asif Ali Zardari was calling with a long-overdue thank-you. Back in 1998, when Zardari's late wife Benazir Bhutto was powerless and out of favor with the United States, the then First Lady had received her at the White House, over the objections of both the State Department and the National Security Council. Bhutto eventually regained her influence, and before her assassination last December, became an important U.S. ally. But she had never forgotten that act of graciousness, Zardari told Clinton on Nov. 14. "To be treated with such respect was very important."
As he wrapped up his second week as President-elect, it was clear that Obama was taking the long view in both diplomacy and politics. How else to explain the fact that he had all but offered the most prestigious job in his Cabinet to a woman whose foreign policy experience he once dismissed as consisting of having tea with ambassadors? Or that Clinton might accept an offer from a man whose national-security credentials, she once said, began and ended with "a speech he made in 2002"? Nowhere did Obama and Clinton attack each other more brutally last spring than on the question of who was best equipped to handle international relations in a dangerous world. That they could be on the brink of becoming partners in that endeavor is the most remarkable evidence yet that Obama is serious about his declared intention to follow another Illinois President's model in assembling a "team of rivals" to run his government, in what could be a sharp contrast with the past 40 years of American Presidents. "I've been spending a lot of time reading Lincoln," Obama told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes. "There is a wisdom there and a humility about his approach to government, even before he was President, that I just find very helpful."
And a shrewdness as well. The surprising proffer to Clinton came the same week that Obama sat down with John McCain in Chicago and helped engineer a commutation for Senator Joe Lieberman, who had backed McCain in the election and faced possibly being stripped of his committee chairmanship. The general amnesty campaign, part of a promise to change the way Washington works, impressed some longtime partisans. "It's brilliant," says a senior Republican Party official. "My hat is totally off to the guy." Viewed more cynically, bringing Clinton into the tent could co-opt a potential adversary in 2012 and put a leash on her globetrotting husband, who has a propensity for foreign policy freelancing. Which raises a question: Would this move, if it happens, be just the first manifestation of that new kind of politics that Obama was promising in his presidential campaign? Or proof that he understands the oldest kind all too well?

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Obama's Cabinet taking shape

CNN's John King, along with his panel, discuss Obama's possible choices for his Cabinet.

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Barack Obama outlines job-creation plan.

President-elect Barack Obama offered an outline of his economic recovery plan Saturday, and jobs were the top priority. American workers will rebuild the nation's roads and bridges, modernize its schools and create more sources of alternative energy, Obama said in the weekly Democratic address, posted on his Web site.

"The plan will mean 2.5 million more jobs" by 2011, Obama said. His Web site clarified that the plan would "save or create" that many jobs.
"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis," he said. "These are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long."

Details of the plan are still being worked out by his economic team, Obama said, but he hopes to implement the plan shortly after taking office January 20.
He referred to figures out this week showing that new home purchases in October were the lowest in 50 years and that 540,000 new unemployment claims had been filed, the most in 16 years.

"We must do more to put people back to work and get our economy moving again," he said. More than a million jobs have been lost this year, he said, and "if we don't act swiftly and boldly, most experts now believe that we could lose millions of jobs next year."

The plan will be aimed at jump-starting job creation, Obama said, and laying the foundation for a stronger economy.

"We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges; modernizing schools that are failing our children; and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technology that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years head," he said.

He noted that he will need support from both Democrats and Republicans to pass such a plan and said he welcomes suggestions from both sides of the aisle.

"But what is not negotiable is the need for immediate action," he said. "Right now, there are millions of mothers and fathers who are lying awake at night wondering if next week's paycheck will cover next month's bills.
"There are Americans showing up to work in the morning, only to have cleared out their desks by the afternoon. Retirees are watching their life savings disappear, and students are seeing their college dreams deferred. These Americans need help, and they need it now."
Throughout history, Americans have been able to rise above their divisions to work together, he said.
"That is the chance our new beginning now offers us, and that is the challenge we must rise to in the days to come," Obama said. "It is time to act. As the next president of the United States, I will."

More Bad News for the Republicans

Photo: House Minority Leader John Boehner. Inset, top left: Rep. Eric Cantor. Bottom: Rep. Mike Pence.

Wall Street is not the only place where stocks are falling. The stock of the Republican party has gone from "bad to worse" in the last month according to a Gallup poll conducted Nov. 13-16. Sixty-one percent of those surveyed had an unfavorable view of the GOP, the highest since Gallup began taking this measure in 1992, while 34 percent had a favorable view. The public's view of Democrats remained about the same as before the election with a 55 percent to 39 percent favorable to unfavorable ratio.
Gallup also asked Republicans what direction they think the party should take in the wake of this year's elections. Fifty-nine percent wanted the party to go in a more conservative direction, 28 percent favored staying the same and 12 percent wanted the party to become less conservative. For an interesting Capitol Hill view of this, check out Salon's article today, The GOP's Problem? It's Not Right-Wing Enough:
To most observers, the elections two weeks ago sent a pretty clear signal: The nation was sick of George W. Bush, sick of his party, sick of conservatism as a governing philosophy. Don't tell that to House Republicans, though.
On Capitol Hill Wednesday, the House GOP (its ranks reduced by at least 20 seats for the second campaign cycle in a row, and possibly more depending on the outcome of some disputed races) elected a slate of leaders drawn from the most ideologically conservative bloc in their ranks, the Republican Study Committee. As expected, Minority Leader John Boehner, who has cultivated friends among just about every faction there is in the caucus, held on to his job as head of a shrinking party, holding off a challenge by Dan Lungren of California, who claimed he'd bring the party even more to the right than under Boehner's watch. But conservatives managed to push two other leaders out, freeing space for RSC members Eric Cantor of Virginia and Mike Pence of Indiana to move up in the ranks to the two positions right behind Boehner (who isn't exactly a moderate himself). Before the day was over, Cantor had already updated his title on his Web site to Republican whip, though the whip's office site still featured the departed Roy Blunt, a holdover from the days of Tom DeLay's reign whom the party's hardcore right wing didn't trust as much.
(Democrats have their own leadership battle coming Thursday, as California's Henry Waxman tries to unseat Michigan's John Dingell as head of the House Energy Committee. Waxman won a preliminary vote Wednesday among the generally liberal Democratic Steering Committee, but still has to win a majority of the conference.)
Glad to still be in charge, Boehner issued an optimistic statement after the private meeting where he was reelected. He sent a clear signal to the GOP base that he understands frustrations on the right. "The months ahead will present Republicans with an unprecedented opportunity to renew our drive for smaller, more accountable government and offer positive solutions to the challenges facing the American people," he said in a statement.
Translated out of Congress-ese, that means the House GOP is getting back to basics. (Think 1994.) The conservatives who dominate what's left of the GOP caucus -- mostly from the South or the West -- think the real reason Republicans have been losing the last few years is because the party wasn't conservative enough. "There's a strong consensus that Republicans need to start acting like the people whom we say we are," one senior Republican aide who is not involved in leadership said. "We've too often given people the ability to discern that maybe we're not the people who we claim to be ... If you go to the voting booth with the choice of a Democrat and someone who's acting like a Democrat but claiming to be a Republican, you'd go with the Democrat."

Saxby Chambliss Grabs Camera When Asked About Lawsuit

The pressures of the runoff election and the continuing questions about his ties to a large, scandal-scarred sugar company seem to be getting to Sen. Saxby Chambliss.
Asked by a reporter whether a lawsuit involving deaths at an Imperial Sugar plant -- a lawsuit in which Chambliss claims he has senatorial immunity from testifying -- were making his chances at reelection harder, the Georgia Republican responded by knocking away a nearby camera.
The video, put out by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is another chapter in a bizarre but brewing saga that could very well affect the outcome of the Senate race.

In February 2008, an explosion at the Imperial Sugar Factory in Savannah, caused largely by combustible dust particles, killed 14 workers and injured 40. The whistleblower who brought the issue to light came before Capitol Hill to testify on the matter. Chambliss sat in on the hearing, though he was not part of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. He was accused by his opponents of verbally harassing the whistleblower. Moreover, Chambliss continued to oppose a new combustible dust standard at the plant even after the explosion. Finally, when families of the victims filed a lawsuit, the Senator refused to give evidence or testimony, citing Senatorial immunity, which doesn't actually exist.

Imperial Sugar, which has funneled a moderate amount of donations into Chambliss' coffers, has defended the Senator's conduct as appropriate.

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Obama not endorsed by Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda's number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released his first message since the election. As the AP reported he

used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted Wednesday, describing the president-elect in demeaning terms that imply he does the bidding of whites.

Zawahiri also challenged Obama's policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan saying

Be aware that the dogs of Afghanistan have found the flesh of your soldiers to be delicious, so send thousands after thousands to them

The press is reporting this as Al Qaeda's first direct challenge to Obama. But what does it actually say about Al Qaeda? More than anything it demonstrates that Al Qaeda is genuinely concerned about an Obama presidency and views it as a strategic threat to its existence.
First and foremost, Al Qaeda is an organization that thrives on propaganda. It paints the United States as an evil empire that oppresses its own minorities and has little regard for the rest of the world. Al Qaeda uses these types of narratives to raise funds and recruit. The Bush administration played right into this trap. Its "with us or against us" mentality and invasion of Iraq damaged America's image around the world and reinforced Al Qaeda's narrative.
But Al Qaeda's narrative is now under siege and it's clearly uncertain about how to react. The election of the first African American President, one with a Muslim father, flies in the face of this narrative. It shows America as an open and tolerant society - not the oppressive empire Al Qaeda would like to portray. In fact, the overwhelmingly positive international reaction to Obama's election is proof of the the threat Al Qaeda faces. As a 29 year old at a Bangkok Starbucks explained,

What an inspiration. He is the first truly global US president the world has ever had. He had an Asian childhood, African parentage and has a Middle Eastern name. He is a truly global president.

Thus, it's not surprising that Zawahiri has resorted to calling Obama a "house negro" to try and paint him as just another American President. But this is clearly more a defensive and weak message than effective propaganda that might actually work.
Moreover, Zawahiri's message about Afghanistan and Pakistan portrays a certain level of nervousness over an administration that is actually going to go after the real terrorist haven on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Al Qaeda viewed the invasion of Iraq as a positive creating a recruiting and training ground for terrorists. As a 2006 National Intelligence Estimate explained:

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

Now, the U.S. is once again focused on the area of the world that the Intelligence Community agrees represents the most the direct threat to the homeland. It is the area of the world, which was the source of the 9/11 attacks and has been the source of just about every other major plot against a Western target over the past few years. This should raise some serious concerns for Al Qaeda's central leadership - especially since most of them are in fact believed to be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands.
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Just the Facts

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