The Hollywood Liberal

Rangel Probe Will Be Done in Weeks, Pelosi Says
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the far-reaching ethics investigation of Rep. Charles Rangel (D) will conclude by early next year.

Obama Shows His Smarts
WASHINGTON — When I started covering the White House, more than 50 years ago, I believed that the smarter a president was, the better he would be. That was wrong. Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan were certainly not intellectuals, but they grasped the power of the presidency and they knew how to impose their agendas on their political partners and rivals. By contrast, Jimmy Carter was a whiz at policy analysis and Bill Clinton grasped the connections among issues almost intuitively. Yet neither one of them was able to leave the White House with a record of great achievements.

Ye Olde Scribe Presents: His Thanksgiving Culinary Secret
   Still wondering how to best give your family and relatives the bird? Yes!  It REALLY IS TRUE. YOS, the family chef, tried a variation on this a few years back and… YUM! …it works well. Like Junior “worked…” for eight, long, hideous, nightmarish years.  So grab ahold of your personal giblets… WOAH! Not THAT […]

Volcker Will Head Emergency Board
President-elect Obama “will appoint former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker on Wednesday to be the chairman of a new White House advisory board tasked with helping to lift the nation from recession and stabilize financial markets,” according to the Wall Street Journal.

“The panel, called the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is modeled on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board established by then-President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, at the height of the Cold War, when officials worried that that the existing bureaucratic structure was inadequate to help the U.S. keep pace with the Soviet threat. The financial crisis has drawn similar worries that the government isn’t properly organized to monitor and respond to modern financial markets.”

In addition, Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama’s longest-serving policy advisers, “will serve as the board’s staff director, along with his duties as a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.”

Late Late Nite FDL: No Bad News
Patty Griffin – No Bad News.

What’s on your mind tonight?

Patty Griffin – No Bad News.

What’s on your mind tonight?

How Sarah Palin Created a Whole New Generation of Vegetarians
Unlike Alaska’s governor, most Americans don’t want to see the transformations their turkey went through to get to their Thanksgiving dinner table.

You Can’t Handle the Truth
Charles Homans begins his article with a discussion about the excessive secrecy of the Bush administration. He is spot on. I call it the “Jack Nicholson style” of government. You remember it, from the movie A Few Good Men,…

TPMtv: It’s the Surge, Stupid
If you’re desperate to be John McCain’s vice presidential nominee, you better get on TV and start talking up the Surge as the single most important issue in this year’s presidential campaign. And if you’re serious about getting picked it…

Obama Takes Down Media?s ?Conventional Wisdom?: ?The Vision For Change Comes From Me?
During a press conference earlier today, CNN’s Ed Henry challenged President-elect Barack Obama on his naming of some recent appointees who have had experience serving in the government. “What do you say to your supporters looking for change?” Henry wondered. Obama noted that there is a “conventional wisdom floating around Washington that ‘well, there’s a […]

During a press conference earlier today, CNN’s Ed Henry challenged President-elect Barack Obama on his naming of some recent appointees who have had experience serving in the government. “What do you say to your supporters looking for change?” Henry wondered. Obama noted that there is a “conventional wisdom floating around Washington that ‘well, there’s a recycling of people who were in the Clinton administration.’”

Addressing the media criticism directly, Obama explained:

It would be surprising if I selected a Treasury secretary who had had no connection with the last Democratic administration because that would mean the person had no experience in Washington whatsoever. And I suspect you would be troubled and the American people would be troubled if I selected a Treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council…who had no experience whatsoever.

Obama said his personnel selections will “combine experience with fresh thinking.” But he underscored that the buck stops with him:

But understand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost. It comes from me. That’s my job — is to provide a vision in terms of where we are going and to make sure that my team is implementing it.

Watch it:

Obama concluded, “What I don’t want to do is to somehow suggest that because you served in the last Democratic administration that you’re somehow barred from serving again — because we need people are going to be able to hit the ground running.”

Joe and the Democrats
Here’s a heartwarming yarn of forgiving and forgetting, senatorial style.