Spencer Ackerman has, by far, the best response I have seen to George W. Bush’s farewell address:

It’s hard to remember, but in 2000, Bush’s campaign plane was called Accountability One. Nearly nine years later, his speech is about why he shouldn’t be judged by his disastrous results, but instead by what was in his heart.

Not much longer now, folks.

I’ll admit to getting rather indignant when I read the news that Rick Warren will be giving the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. After all, this is the guy who, just this week, equated gay marriage with incest and adults marrying children.

I still don’t like the idea, but having thought about it some more, I think John Cole has a pretty good take on this subject:

But I also understand that I would much rather have Warren given a few minutes to speak about religion at a time and manner appropriate for religious discussion than I would having Obama give a nod to the religious right by appointing the God squad to Justice, to the FDA, to NASA, and so on. When Rick Warren and folks like him are driving policy in an Obama administration, I will then muster the necessary outrage.

So while not my first choice, not a big deal. Let him speak for a few minutes and be done with them. I will spend the time pouring a drink or going to the bathroom.

There is, I suppose, the slippery slope argument—that if we get to the point where Obama is appointing people like Warren to influential policy positions, it will be too late.

However, it seems rather unlikely it’s going to come to that. For now, I’ll save my outrage.

In response to a question about shutting down the Guantanamo prison camp, Vice President Dick Cheney had the following to say to ABC News:

One suggestion is, well, we bring them to the United States. Well, I don’t know very many congressmen, for example, who are eager to have 200 al Qaeda terrorists deposited in their district. It’s a complex and difficult problem. If you bring them onshore into the United States, they automatically acquire a certain legal rights and responsibilities that the government would then have, that they don’t as long as they’re at Guantanamo. And that’s an important consideration.

Yes, but see, the trick is that you’ve already made the assumption that these guys are terrorists. Sure, we’re all supposed to just trust you on that one, but that’s not really a bet I feel like taking at this point.

From yesterday’s Washington Post:

Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, will seek appointment to the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), according a spokesman for her campaign.

Kennedy is actively campaigning for the appointment and made telephone calls to influential Democrats in the state yesterday to seek their support — among them Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, who endorsed her candidacy last night, and New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn.

I’m sure that Caroline Kennedy is a very nice person, and probably very smart and able as well.

Nonetheless, what is it that qualifies her to take over a farily influential position in the Senate? All evidence to the contrary, having “Kennedy” as a last name doesn’t guarantee you a seat in the government.

Or, at least, it shouldn’t.

I realize that we’re all supposed to be piling the U.S. car companies right now. They’re bloated, they’re presumptuous, and their products supposedly suck. Case in point, Kevin Drum having some fun at the expense of GM North America president Troy Clarke, appearing on Greta Van Susteren’s show:

The exchange starts at about 10:45, and Clarke’s answer, basically, is that they figured, hey, the banks got bailed out without a plan, so why shouldn’t they? After all, when it’s raining money, you don’t ask questions, you just get out your bucket.

Points for honesty, I guess, but not much else.

I don’t know, Kevin—it’s not a bad point the guy is making. Would it have been better had these guys showed up in front of Congress the first time around with an actual plan? Probably.

However, having just watched the financial and banking industry get 20 to 30 times the amount of money the auto manufacturers were looking for, with no real strings attached, what motivation did the auto execs have for spending much time on planning? Morever, (and I suspect this is the larger point Clark was trying to get at), why are the car companies now catching a world of shit, while we have almost nothing to show for the hundreds of billions being poured in the banks and investment firms?

According to the Boston Globe, the Mormotron 3000 still has its sights set on the 2012 Presidential race:

The former Massachusetts governor has raised $2.1 million for his Free and Strong America political action committee. But only 12 percent of the money has been spent distributing checks to Romney’s fellow Republicans around the country.

Instead, the largest chunk of the money has gone to support Romney’s political ambitions, paying for salaries and consulting fees to over a half-dozen of Romney’s longtime political aides, according to a Globe review of expenditures.

Over at Washington Monthly, Steve Bennen has some choice words for Romney’s bait-and-switch fundraising.

Personally, I can think of few spectacles more entertaining watching a knock-down/drag-out primary battle between the business huckster and religious whacko wings of the Republican party. The prospect of both of these groups being fronted by blatantly fake candidates like Romney and Sarah Palin just make it all that much better.

About half-way through page two of an article titled “Obama Offers First Look at Massive Plan To Create Jobs”, the Washington Post’s Michael Shear give us this delightful bit:

Republicans in the House oppose Obama’s plan, saying they favor a series of tax cuts that they say would put money in people’s pockets and encourage businesses to expand domestically.

“Anyone who has talked to the American people knows that while they are hurting, they don’t believe that more Washington spending is the answer,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).

Democrats said that even if a recovery act quickly passed the House early next year, it could take longer in the Senate, where fiscally conservative Republicans have expressed concern about adding to the soaring deficit with a massive new round of government spending. Even with at least 58 Democratic votes in the new Senate, Republicans could easily hold up a final vote, they said.

Right, because tax cuts have just worked out great so far.

That grinding you hear is the sound of a thousand Republican Congressional aides scrubbing their boss’s websites clean of any “deserves to come to the floor for an up or down vote” or “minority obstructionism” references that might be left over from before their party was summarily drummed out of the majority.

A lot of people seem to have their knickers in a twist about the fact that GM, Ford, and Chrysler executives are dragging their sorry carcasses before Congress to beg for money.

Sure, these companies spent the better part of the last decade producing gas-guzzling trucks and SUVs, and in the 70′s and 80′s, they churned out largely unreliable pieces of crap. What’s not clear to me, though, is how that has much bearing on the question of whether they should receive government assistance in weathering the current financial and economic crisis.

To the “let them fail” crowd, I’d ask what you’d do with the tens of thousands of unemployed workers such a strategy would generate.

As for those who disagree with these companies’ production choices and business models, I would suggest that a government bailout is just about the perfect time to force the automakers in a new direction. They want government money? Great—clean yourselves up if you want to get it.

The other point to keep in mind is that while we can get plenty outraged at these guys for asking for $25 billion or $34 billion, that’s a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds and hundreds of billions we’ve already shelled out to the financial industry. At least the car manufacturers make a product with some discernible value.

I re-watched Obama’s victory speech yesterday to confirm something that struck me watching it live on Tuesday night.

He never mentioned 9/11.

There’s the whole “Yes we can” litany toward the end of the speech, wherein Obama is going through the various events witnessed by Ann Nixon Cooper during her 106 years: women getting the vote, the Great Depression, World War II, Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.  It’s exactly the sort of speech I’ve come to expect to have the obligatory 9/11 reference, but this one didn’t.

For seven years now, we’ve had a President and his party reminding us every chance they get that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the WORST THING EVER, our version of World War II, the existential threat that must be stopped no matter what the cost, etc.

Given that, the idea of having a President with some perspective is pretty damn cool.

…I can’t be the only one fearing a November 5 announcement of the “Palin/Joe the Plumber 2012″ campaign.

Obviously, that would the second scariest thing we might be looking at for Wednesday.