The Job of the Corporate Accountant

The game is afoot.  A high stakes game.  A game in the neighborhood of 1,000 billion dollars.  Government dollars.  Taxpayer dollars.  The bail out of Wall Street – or call it a rescue package – is the new game in town.  And Corporate Accountants are scurrying around looking for the best possible outcome for their […]

Obama weighing idea of “auto czar,” aide says

CHICAGO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama is considering naming a point person to lead efforts to help the distressed auto industry return to health, an Obama aide said on Thursday. General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC are seeking a federal bailout of up to $50 billion. Automakers and Democratic congressional leaders have […]

Wag the Blog: Media Bias?

By Chris Cillizza It seems that every social event The Fix attends — and that list includes plane flights, field hockey games and shopping with Mrs. Fix, among others — there is someone who asks about bias in the media. Usually the “inquiry” comes in the form of an assertion — the media is far […]

Change ahead on environment under President Obama

By Rocky Barker | Idaho Statesman Western Democrats and environmentalists will have more influence on federal land decisions in Idaho and the West under President Barack Obama. Decision-makers will defer more to scientists on resource issues and spending priorities will shift toward protecting land, fish and wildlife, Democrats said Tuesday night. But there is a […]

Obama’s Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani

Tuesday November 11, 2008 The most detailed and fascinating explication of Barack Obama’s faith came in a 2004 interview he gave Chicago Sun Times columnist Cathleen Falsani when he was running for U.S. Senate in Illinois. The column she wrote about the interview has been quoted and misquoted many times over, but she’d never before […]

Obama election spurs gun sales

by Frank James When President-elect Obama was campaigning and talking about change, he probably wasn’t thinking of this kind of change: people going on a gun-buying spree in reaction to his election. Here’s an excerpt from our colleague Howard Witt’s report today: HOUSTON — A week after the election of Barack Obama, gun buyers across […]

What Benedict Hasn’t Said About the Holocaust

James Carroll Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to a synagogue in New York this week will evoke his visit to the oldest synagogue in Germany nearly three years ago. On that occasion, addressing leaders of Cologne’s Jewish community, Pope Benedict properly addressed the question of the Shoah. He deplored Hitler’s campaign to eliminate the Jewish people, […]

To the Victor goes the Spoils

Sarah Palin: Obama articulated change

Posted November 11, 2008 9:45 AM by Mark Silva The view from Sarah Palin’s kitchen: She would have been happy to speak out for herself more during the presidential campaign. President-elect Barack Obama did “a great job” of speaking for himself, the Republican Party’s vice presidential nominee said in an interview with Matt Lauer of […]

The Early Word: A Party Asks, ‘What Now?’

By Michael Falcone Updated It’s been a difficult week for the Republican Party, whose leaders have had to contend not only with defeat in the presidential election but also in key House and Senate races as they watch the public transfer of power to President-elect Barack Obama. Today The Times’s Adam Nagourney reports on the […]

A Brief History of the “F-Bomb”

A Brief History Of The “F-Bomb” By M.J. Stephey Monday, Nov. 10, 2008 Comedian George Carlin performing his infamous 1973 monologue “Filthy Words” “The F-word is one of the most graphic, explicit and vulgar words in the English language,” U.S. Solicitor General Gregory Garre proclaimed last week during a Supreme Court hearing on the First […]

Obama’s Election Night Speech

“. . . But, in a larger sense, we can not improve, we can not consecrate – we can not hallow – this ground. This brave man, who struggled here, has consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. . . . It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated […]

Obama Drives the American Mini Van

Barack Obama has taken the reins, he is behind the wheel, with a delicate foot on the gas pedal.  The American family Mini Van is on a new journey.  With President-Elect Obama at the wheel, Rahm Emanuel riding shotgun, and the back of the van is loaded with the children of an American President. This […]

The Barack Obama Fan Club

Barack Obama has a fan club.  The fans own the club.  They are the club.  Without the fans there would be no club.  The Barack Obama Fan Club is inclusive, anyone who wants to join is welcome.  And no one knows this better than Barack Obama.  Obama defined the rules before the Fan Club was […]

Palin Calls Her Critics ‘Jerks’

By Lisa Tozzi Gov. Sarah Palin, who returned to work at the governor’s office in Anchorage Friday, called her critics “jerks” and said it was “immature” and “cowardly” for McCain staff members to be making anonymous allegations about her. Ms. Palin spoke to reporters from several news organizations, including the Anchorage Daily News, defending herself […]

First Press Conference

Well, if the presidential campaign didn’t convince you that Barack Obama is one disciplined fellow, his first public appearance as President-elect certainly should have. The press conference was notable for several things: –he did not stray from or change a single position that he took during the course of the campaign. He emphasized his previous […]

First Dude

It turns out Todd Palin is a closet metrosexual: On top of the $150,000 first outlined in Federal Election Commission filings, Palin spent “tens of thousands of dollars” on additional clothing, makeup and jewelry for herself and her family, including $40,000 in luxury goods for her husband, Todd, our colleague Michael Shear reports. The campaign […]

Trust God, But Lock Your Car

The Federal Government of the past eight years reminded this writer of an old computer axiom – we can now make a million mistakes a minute. In 1972 I worked in the world of finance with an IBM 370, Model 145 – one of those mainframe computers with a front panel of flashing white, yellow, […]

CNN’s Hologram – Cool Techonology

Well, this about takes the cake.  Technology is advancing rapidy – but look at this – you still have to read these words.  That is about as old as Abraham.  The differencs is that we have people from Hobart, Australia, reading this commentary.  They might be rednecks but they are able to use the internet. […]

Palin didn’t know Africa’s a continent

President-Elect Obama is busy putting together a smooth transition.  John McCain reports he is ready to get back to work in the Senate.  And Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has gone home to Alaska – some say to prepare for 2012.  Like everyone else, this writer was shocked at Palin’s seeming lack of knowledge and lack […]

The Early Word: McCain-Palin Post-Mortem

By Michael Falcone As all eyes turn to President-elect Barack Obama, his transition to the White House and the changing political landscape in Washington and across the country, epilogues to the 2008 presidential race abound. Today The Times’s Elisabeth Bumiller goes inside the McCain campaign to find out what went wrong in the closing days […]

This Election Was Personal – And Angry

This election was exhausting.  The campaigns were passionate in a time when deep fears griped each of us.  Even George Bush supporters believe he was treated unfairly by world events beyond his control – but those events happened to all of us.  All of us, Americans and our fellow earthly citizens, have been deeply impacted […]

Catholics Turned to the Democrat

By Michael Luo Much was made in 2004 of the so-called “God gap” between Republicans and Democrats, becoming part of the conventional wisdom explaining President Bush’s victory over Senator John F. Kerry. As a result, the Democratic Party, including Senator Barack Obama, focused heavily on outreach to religious voters, including white evangelicals who voted overwhelmingly […]

2008 Election: Winners and Losers

By Chris Cillizza Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. John McCain will not, likely capping a long and well-decorated political career with a loss. Democrats will expand their majorities in the House and the Senate. Republicans will be relegated to minority status in both chambers, forced to re-calculate what their […]

Mr. Ayers’s Neighborhood

Early this morning, the Obama family voted at the Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School, in Hyde Park. Long after they had gone, the lawn in front of the school was filled with reporters, mostly Europeans, filming voters. While I was talking to an eight-year-old kid dressed as George Washington, my colleague Peter Slevin, of the Washington […]