Not to put too fine a point on it, but Obama, along with bailing out the American middle class, winning two wars, fixing health care, and solving global warming, is also expected to "save capitalism."

That's the word from Newsweek:

"While there has been much elation over Obama's election, there remains a deep pessimism across the country that is having adverse effects on the economy. People and corporations are still not doing much by way of buying, borrowing or lending —the heartbeats of modern capitalism. The political system has moved on to the automobile bailouts and the fiscal stimulus, but the original problem of trust in the financial system has still not been fixed. "Credit markets are still fundamentally broken," says David Swensen, chief investment officer of Yale University.

How to restore confidence? It's not as easy as it sounds..."


Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

Here's a little gossip from the Swarthmore student newspaper web site. The liberal arts school rejected the president-elect:

The admissions office may have to keep mum, but senior Joel Mittleman ’09 actually had the chance to personally confirm the rumor when Obama held an open town hall at Strath Haven High School during the Pennsylvania primaries. “I did ask Obama [whether it was true],” he says, “not during the actual question and answer, but as he was walking the line shaking hands afterwards.” Mittleman recalls the Senator laughing in response, asking him where he heard the information, and then saying “Yes, it’s true. It really broke my heart, actually.”

Alum Anne Kolker ’08, a former intern in the Senate office and Mittleman’s original source of the rumor, further confirmed the story: “Yes, the first thing President-elect Obama said to me was “Ah, Swarthmore, great school. They rejected me.” Thankfully, Kolker reports Obama held no grudge against her. Here’s hoping admissions doesn’t write off any other presidential hopefuls


Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

Since Obama's deft handling of the MSM played a big role in his rise, the New York Time's put together a lengthy, lengthy piece on it for their Sunday magazine. Of course, given the web, Sunday can be everyday, so the NYT posted it today.

Here's an excerpt:

The campaign bragged that Obama never even visited with the editorial board of The Washington Post — a decision that would have been unheard of for any serious candidate in a previous presidential cycle. “You could go to Cedar Rapids and Waterloo and understand that people aren’t reading The Washington Post,” Gibbs told me last month in Chicago.

It was a source of great amusement to Obama’s staff that people thought they could use conventional schmoozing practices to win favor with them. “In part because we were in Chicago and in part because of our approach, we did not do ‘cocktail party’ interviews,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the campaign’s communications director, who will be the deputy communications director at the White House. “These are interviews that you agree to because you were always bumping into the reporter at cocktail parties, and they keep asking for the candidate’s time. We could laugh every time our opponents would do them."

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

A key Obama constituency - Ivy League historians - is threatening rebellion over the tendency, in and out of the Obama organization, to compare the president-elect to Lincoln:

 "Some scholars think the comparisons have gone a bit over the top hat.

Sean Wilentz, a scholar in American history at Princeton, said many presidents have sought to frame themselves in the historical legacies of illustrious predecessors, but he couldn't find any examples quite so brazen."

Setting the bar high is no doubt a good thing - who should Obama emulate, James Buchanan? - but then you have to make the jump.

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

President-elect Barack Obama was unveiling his health care team and approach this morning at a news conference, but the stink of the scandal over Illiniois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D.) permeated the thing, taking up three of the four questions.

The governor's arrest, and the release of wiretap transcripts in which Blago appears to be auctioning an appointment to Obama's soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat, were rare embarassments for a charmed politician, who has been acting almost as de facto president (without the nuclear codes and constitutional power, to be sure) during the transition.

Obama was slow to react to Blago and he moved to correct that yesterday. In a sense, the newser was a do-over, a chance to distance himself from the unfolding view on national television of a dirty Chicago political system. That's not me, was his message.

"I was appalled and disappointed," Obama said, adding that the governor should resign. He said he ran for the Senate, and later for president, to "reclaim" politics from those who, like Blago, view politics as "a business, wheelin' and dealin', what's in it for me?"

He did not talk to Blago or the governor's office at all about the issue of  his successor, Obama said, and he said that "certainly" none of his staff discussed a deal on the appointment with the governor or his minions. He said he could not provide details on contacts between advisers and Blago, however, saying he needed to "gather information" first.

So how did Blago learn that Obama would not be open to a deal - an appointment or cushy job for the governor in exchange for the appointment of confidant Valerie Jarrett, as the federal complaint alleges?

"I can't presume to know what was in the mind of the governor in this process," Obama said. "All I can do is read the transcripts and...shake my head."

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) went on the Senate floor and said he would apply the brakes to the confirmation process for President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general. As an official in the Clinton administration, Eric Holder had a role in the pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich, who also was a huge Democratic fundraiser. Specter wants that episode examined closely. Politico has the story here.

Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

Economist James K. Galbraith makes the argument that traditional stimulus programs won't fix the economy. It's the economic equivalent of a candy bar versus a three-course meal, he contends.

He proposes to the Obama administration-elect a massive plan to re-finance millions of mortgages, a temporary (tho years long) cut in Social Security taxes to put more money in the pockets of workers and business. Extreme? Maybe. But are we approaching the next Great Depression. Wish we knew. Here's an excerpt:

What began as a housing collapse will not go away soon. Empty houses wreck home values for their neighbors. The ratings agencies are discredited, the investment banks are gone, and high finance is in debt deflation. Foreign investors won't soon trust the market for US private debt, even for blue chip corporations, so long as they remain saddled with toxic health care costs...

The historical role of a stimulus is to kick things off, to grease the wheels of credit, to get things "moving again." But the effect ends when the stimulus does, when the sugar shock wears off. Compulsive budget balancers who prescribe a "targeted and temporary" policy followed by long-term cuts to entitlements don't understand the patient. This is a chronic illness. Swift action is definitely needed. But we also need recovery policies that will continue for years.

First, we must fix housing. We need, as in the 1930s, a Home Owners' Loan Corporation to restructure failed mortgages on sustainable terms...The FDR-era HOLC operated for almost two decades and at its peak employed 20,000 people...

...Let's declare a payroll tax holiday, funding Social Security and Medicare directly from the treasury, until the economy gets back on track. Workers would get an immediate 8.3 percent raise to help meet their mortgages; employers would have the same amount to spend on wages, job creation, or investment."
Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

So the governor of Illinois knows he has been under federal investigation for three years, and then lets himself get taped - allegedly - discussing selling Obama's Senate seat. Some would say he deserves a Darwin award. Read it here.
In any case, Gov. Rod Blagojevich got himself arrested today.


Click here for Philly.com's politics page.

The liberal left in the Democratic Party is worried that Obama isn't liberal enough. While the far, far GOP right is still contending Obama isn't an American citizen, hence he can't really be president. (Do they really want to go through another presidential election!) Here's the latest, courtesy of Politico.

Just Monday the Supreme Court rejected one legal challenge to Obama's citizenship:

"The Supreme Court Monday rejected one case contending that Obama is not a "natural born citizen," as the president is required to be under Article II, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The case, referred to the court by Justice Clarence Thomas after Justice David Souter had rejected it, argued that because Obama's father was a citizen of Kenya, at the time a British colony, the president-elect was born with dual citizenship.

Another case, filed by Attorney Phillip J. Berg, effectively contends that Obama has outright lied about having been born on American soil. The high court has yet to rule on that argument."

Meanwhile, the Democratic near-left is worried that Obama is reneging on his pledges to eliminate the Bush tax cuts and tax the oil companies "windfall" profits.

 "Obama has reversed pledges to immediately repeal tax cuts for the wealthy and take on Big Oil. He’s hedged his call for a quick drawdown in Iraq. And he’s stocking his White House with anything but stalwarts of the left.

Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss."


Click here for Philly.com's politics page.