Obama's Inauguration Ceremony: in 13 days, 1 hour, 38 minutes, 56 seconds
(Well, I couldn’t leave you with a photo of GWB on New Year’s Day, now, could I?)
I’ve just stumbled across TIME magazine’s behind-the-scenes White House photo blog. It’s addictively clickable - and includes this cute shot of Obama by Callie Shell:
as well as the resulting photograph:
Eight years a-sobbing,
Seven houses standing,
Six guys a-playing,
Five bold things,
Four scientists,
Three million jobs,
Two little girls,
And Joe Biden for VP!
*Update* Here’s a look back at Bush’s failures - thanks to the brilliant David Letterman:
- and here’s the very last word on the Bush years.
The PIC has announced that the inaugural celebrations will kick off on Sunday 18th January with a free concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial (reminder for British readers: this dude):
“The afternoon welcome event, to be held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the west end of the National Mall, will be free and open to the public. Dedicated to the memory of America’s 16th President, the Lincoln Memorial has been the site of many Presidential Inauguration activities in recent years.
President Clinton held a free concert on the grounds in 1993 that included performances by Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, and Bob Dylan. In 2001, President-elect Bush kicked off his inaugural festivities at the site with performances by Ricky Martin, Charlotte Church, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.”
Yes, the past eight years started off that badly.
…because a) it’s being covered everywhere else; b) it has nothing directly to do with Barack Obama; and c) George Bush’s response (specifically: “I don’t know what his beef is”) makes me so mad that I can barely breathe.
So, anyway. I’m posting this because it’s bloody brilliant.
Keith Olbermann made a good point last night: if, as Barack Obama says, there’s only one President at a time, how come he isn’t the one sorting out the economic mess right now?
But he knows how to play with grown-ups now. As proved by his pick of Joe Biden - and as Paul Krugman notes in the New York Times:
“Seriously, isn’t it amazing just how impressive the people being named to key positions in the Obama administration seem? Bye-bye hacks and cronies, hello people who actually know what they’re doing. For a bunch of people who were written off as a permanent minority four years ago, the Democrats look remarkably like the natural governing party these days, with a deep bench of talent.
That doesn’t mean they’ll succeed — this might be a good time to reread The Best and the Brightest. But what an improvement!”
An improvement, indeed. The Republican party seems to wear ignorance and anti-intellectualism as a badge of honour; and the Bush administration rife was with cronyism. In fact, as the son of a former President, you could say he himself was the ultimate crony. Surrounded by cronies. Being all crony-like.
(Hmm… ‘crony’ is definitely one of those words which, the more you say it, the weirder it sounds.)
Hat-tip: Bob Cesca.
Not only is Barack Obama getting all 21st-century new-fangled on our ass by appointing the first Chief Technology Officer in American history* - he’s getting so 21st-century new-fangled on our ass that we, the American people - sorry, you, the American people - can suggest, and vote online for, the policies that said Chief Technology Officer should implement.
The screenshot below is taken from obamacto.org, where voting on the new CTO’s priorities, as you can see, has already commenced:
See: not just new-fangled, but transparent and a presidency of the people, too. As promised. Although it could be argued that, by definition, the site appeals to the already technologically savvy. Meaning that either a) those voting really know what they’re talking about - hurrah! or b) those voting aren’t exactly the right target audience for a new CTO - boo! *Cut to a child somewhere, handwriting and posting a letter which reads ‘I’d like a computer please’.*
These voting sites seems to be all the rage, in fact - as I also recently stumbled across an identical one set up for Republicans, whereby they can suggest and vote on what they need to do to turn their party around (*insert gag here*).
Speaking of Republicans and technology - Monday night’s Daily Show included footage of George Bush at the G20 summit, giving a speech about the free market and its great technological advances. Like, y’know, the aeroplane… and the CAT scan… and, well, watch for yourself (from around 3:05):
Equating the iPod with the steam boat? I mean, I’m a big fan of the Shuffle function, but really…
*Can you just do that? Invent any post you like? Apparently so.
Steps In The Right Direction, No.12: This.
*Update* I just read this by Glenn Greenwald (via Andrew Sullivan):
“It’s just a fact that there are all sorts of people close to Obama who have enabled those Bush policies and who are mobilizing now and attempting to ensure that nothing meaningful occurs in these areas. It simply is noteworthy of comment and cause for concern — though far from conclusive about what Obama will do — that Obama’s transition chief for intelligence policy, John Brennan, was an ardent supporter of torture and one of the most emphatic advocates of FISA expansions and telecom immunity. It would be foolish in the extreme to ignore that and to just adopt the attitude that we should all wait quietly with our hands politely folded for the new President to unveil his decisions before deciding that we should speak up or do anything.”
As Greenwald points out in his article, rather worryingly - although not altogether unsurprisingly - Obama is surrounding himself with an awful lot of Democrats who let George Bush get away with murder (and torture and wiretapping and…) over the past eight years. This is probably pragmatic, sensible and to be expected - some of these Steps In The Right Direction may turn out to be baby steps, after all. But it’s also all the more reason why we lefties need to hold him accountable.
This segment from last night’s Daily Show shows how Jon Stewart and his writers may be dealing with a Barack Obama presidency. See, there’s still stuff to find funny! Only now, it’s no longer tragic, also:
Great point about OJ, btw. Indeed, I wonder whether the MSM (that’s ‘mainstream media’, kids!) will be The Daily Show’s main target from now on:
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