In a story first broken by ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Obama transition sources are saying their internal probe of any contact between transition officials and disgraced Gov. Rod Glabojevich will absolve Rahm Emanuel of any impropriety. Stephanopoulos said on ABC's This Week, "The sources I talk to say that what it will show there were actually far less contacts than we had heard." Emanuel "only had one phone call with...Blagojevich. It wasn't even about the Senate seat." Elaborating on the story in his George's Bottom Line blog, Stephanopoulos concludes Obama officials "were not open to any kind of deal for the Obama Senate seat."
The story was later covered by ABC World News, where Stephanopoulos said, "There was no talk of any kind of deals. ... That's the big question here: no talk of anything in exchange." The CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News Chicago local TV stations also picked up the story. WLS-TV replayed parts of ABC's "This Week," and said the Stephanopoulos' account of his conversation with Harris "would support Blagojevich's alleged complaint in one phone call that 'they're not willing to give me anything except appreciation." WGN-TV Chicago reported the "internal investigation [is] expected to clear incoming...Emanuel," and WFLD-TV Chicago said the report will explain "any contact...Emanuel may have had with Blagojevich or the governor's office." The Politico, the AP, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post also report the story.
Obama Exempt From Blagojevich Disclosure? The Politico reports President-elect Obama "stopped short of pledging to release e-mails or other records that could be key to understanding" the contacts between his office and Blagojevich's. That is so because of "a gap in government records disclosure laws that allows presidential transition teams to keep their documents -- even those prepared using taxpayer dollars -- out of the public record."
Key Figure In Plot Seeking Immunity The Chicago Tribune reports a "key figure in Gov. Rod Blagojevich's alleged scheme to sell a US Senate seat has sought immunity from federal authorities in return for his cooperation in their ongoing probe, the Tribune has learned." Raghuveer P. Nayak is "an Oak Brook businessman and political fundraiser." He "is the unnamed 'Individual D' who prosecutors say was being squeezed by the governor for campaign cash in return for appointing US Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to the Senate seat."
Vice President-elect Joe Biden yesterday said he would lead the Obama Administration's efforts to boost the middle class. NBC Nightly News reported Biden "laid down a bold political yardstick for economic policy." Biden was shown saying, "The middle class no longer being left behind. We will look at everything from college affordability to afterschool programs, the things that affect people's daily lives."
The Washington Post /AP reports "the task force will include four Cabinet members as well as other presidential advisers, the Obama transition team announced yesterday. The goal is to recommend proposals to ensure the middle class is 'no longer being left behind,'" according to Biden.
The Wall Street Journal says "Obama tapped Mr. Biden as his running mate partly for his potential appeal to middle-class voters." The New York Times reports, "As Mr. Obama opened the first full day of his holiday vacation in his native Hawaii, the effort was announced by transition officials in Washington."
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Asked on ABC's This Week to describe his role during the transition, Vice President-elect Joe Biden said, "Every single solitary appointment" President-elect Barack Obama "has made thus far I have been in the room," and "the recommendations I have made in most cases coincidentally have been the recommendations that he's picked. Not because I made them but because we think a lot alike."
Also in the ABC's This Week interview, Biden explained his role: "When Sen. Barack Obama then talked to me about being his vice president... I said I don't want to be picked unless you're picking me for my judgment. ... I said I want a commitment from you that in every important decision you'll make, every critical decision, economic and political as well as foreign policy, I'll get to be in the room."
The Politico, under the headline "Muzzle Off, Biden Breaks His Record Silence," says "Biden's Sunday interview, as well as a one-on-one Monday with CNN's Larry King, signal a new phase in the transition, one where Biden will take a more visible role, including working Capitol Hill to drum up support for an economic stimulus package before the inauguration."
The New York Times reports, "With the president-elect on vacation, Mr. Biden took a leading role for the coming administration, making his first appearance since the election on a Sunday morning news program."
In separate interviews in yesterday morning's TV political shows, Vice President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President Dick Cheney had strong words for one another on their views of the vice presidency and the constitutional underpinnings of the post. Regarding Cheney, Biden said on ABC's This Week, "I think the recommendations, the advice that he has given to President Bush...has been not healthy for our foreign policy, not healthy for our national security, and it has not been consistent with our Constitution, in my view. His notion of a unitary executive, meaning that, in time of war, essentially all power, you know, goes to the executive, I think is dead wrong."
The Chicago Sun-Times reports Biden "said he has been getting daily intelligence briefings for weeks now and he thinks Obama is right about changing the Bush's administration's policies on fighting terrorism, interrogating enemy suspects, bringing American troops home from Iraq and closing the US military prison base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba." The New York Times also notes Biden "remained critical of the Bush administration's surveillance and detention programs."
In response, on Fox News Sunday, Cheney said, "I just fundamentally disagree with him. He also said that all the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are laid out in Article 1 of the Constitution. Well, they're not. Article 1 of the Constitution is the one on the legislative branch. Joe's been chairman of the Judiciary Committee, a member of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate, for 36 years, teaches constitutional law back in Delaware, and can't keep straight which article of the Constitution provides for the legislature and which provides for the executive. So I write that off as campaign rhetoric. I don't take it seriously. And if he wants to diminish the office of vice president, that's obviously his call." The Financial Times also reports Cheney "expressed doubt over how much clout his successor would have."
In an interview with Time's managing editor Richard Stengel, editor-at-large David Von Drehle and editor-in-chief John Huey, President-elect Obama discussed his foreign policy plans. Obama said that although he "won a decisive victory. Forty-seven percent of the American people still voted for John McCain. And so I don't think that Americans want hubris from their next President." Obama said "managing the transition in Iraq is going to be a top priority," as is "managing a more effective strategy in Afghanistan." In addition, "sorting through our policy with respect to Iran effectively - that will be a priority. Dealing with our transatlantic alliance in a more constructive way and trying to build a more effective relationship with the newly assertive and, I believe, inappropriately aggressive Russia, when it comes to the invasion of Georgia -- that is going to be a priority. And seeing if we can build on some of the progress, at least in conversation, that's been made around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be a priority."
Obama Foreign Policy Relying On Clintons? As part of it's ranking of the 50 most powerful people in the world, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, says of the Clintons, "At No. 13 and 14, the most powerful couple in politics may find the times suited to their skills. ... Preoccupied with economic woes at home, Obama simply won't have time to spend a big chunk of his first year in office on the road. In many ways the crucial restoration of America's prestige in the world will fall instead to the Clintons."
U.S. News and World Report says Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton "are likely to unveil an initiative on Middle East peacemaking, and perhaps on other issues, in 2009."
Time names President-elect Obama its "Person of the Year," saying Obama "hit the American scene like a thunderclap, upended our politics, shattered decades of conventional wisdom and overcame centuries of the social pecking order." As Obama "has moved with unprecedented speed to build an Administration that would bolster the confidence of a shaken world, his flash and dazzle have faded into the background. In the waning days of his extraordinary year and on the cusp of his presidency, what now seems most salient about Obama is the opposite of flashy, the antithesis of rhetoric: he gets things done."
Newsweek's John Meacham, in a cover story introducing the magazine's list of the fifty most powerful people in the world, Obama "comes to the White House in grim times but with high expectations." Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria writes, "For Obama to be remembered as a great president, he has to do nothing less than rescue capitalism."
In his column for Newsweek George Will contends that "if 2008 were not divisible by four, this would have been The Year of Gen. David Petraeus." Newsweek actually places Petraeus at #16, saying, "As of now, the United States doesn't have a coherent strategy toward the Arab and Muslim worlds. Petraeus, more than anyone else in the U.S. government, will be responsible for forging one." Newsweek also includes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (#24), and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (#27), of whom Howard Fineman says, "Known primarily, but incompletely, as the Democratic Party's foulmouthed enforcer, Emanuel as a member of Congress also was a nonideological, convivial centrist, eager to trade backroom intelligence with like-minded Republicans." Oprah Winfrey is #47.
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ABC World News reported that on Friday, President Bush "agreed to use $17 billion of financial recovery money to make loans to Detroit's ailing car companies. This weekend, Vice President Dick Cheney said the President did what he could with so little time left." The Obama Administration, added ABC, "will now inherit not only the economic toll of the auto crisis, but its devastating human toll, as well. Thousands of workers have lost their jobs, and more cuts are coming."
USA Today reports Bush's "'bridge loan' plan, crafted after Congress failed to pass a bailout, provides enough help to plunk the problem on...Obama's doorstep." The Wall Street Journal says Obama, "whose administration will pass judgment on GM and Chrysler LLC's restructuring plans, shot a warning at Detroit's management on Friday." Said Obama, "I do want to emphasize to the Big Three auto makers and their executives that the American people's patience is running out, and that they should seize on this opportunity over the next several weeks and months to come up with a plan that is sustainable."
Meanwhile, USA Today notes Bush's plan "includes targets for United Auto Workers' wages to be brought in line with what foreign companies pay their non-unionized workers in their US plants and to have similar, more flexible work rules." UAW President Ron Gettelfinger "is calling on the Obama administration to remove these 'unfair conditions' when it takes office." On ABC's This Week, Vice President-elect Joe Biden said, "Labor, in order to save their own jobs, in order to save the prospect of an industry, is going to have to make some more sacrifices."
The Detroit Free Press reported that "the most alarming moment of Detroit's nerve-jangling week in White House limbo came around 10:30 a.m. Thursday." Dana Perino, "the White House press secretary, told reporters that 'managed bankruptcy' was an option for preventing the collapse of Detroit's troubled automobile companies." In the "jittery hours of Thursday afternoon," amid "angst" caused by Perino's comment, auto execs and "Michigan congressional leaders" reached out to the White House and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. GM "and Michigan congressional leaders were told by the White House and Paulson that matters would be clarified soon, and that bankruptcy filings would not be required."
Vice President Cheney, on Fox News Sunday, confirmed that he disagreed with President Bush's decision to "fire Donald Rumsfeld." Cheney added, "It wasn't my decision to make. The President doesn't always take my advice. I will say that I think Bob Gates has done a good job as secretary of defense. ... But I was a Rumsfeld man. I'd helped recruit him and I thought he did a good job for us."
The Politico reports "the White House on Sunday issued a blistering 500-word response to a scathing 5,000-word article on the front page of Sunday's New York Times that says President Bush and his style and philosophy of governing played a direct role in the mortgage meltdown that's crippling the nation's economy." Spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view."
The Hill reports Perino "especially criticizes that the reporters were unfamiliar with...Bush's primetime address on the causes of the financial crisis. 'That the NYT ignored such an important economic speech to the American people and the complex causes of the crises is gross negligence,' Perino stated."
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ABC World News reported on some of the criticism Caroline Kennedy is facing over her effort to win appointment to New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D), saying that as she "began her own listening tour across upstate New York [last week], there were plenty of others who were talking." The CBS Evening News reported has said she wants the job, "some Republicans and Democrats said not so fast." CBS adds, "Some warn that membership in America's so-called 'Royal Family,' the darling daughter of the now iconic President Kennedy, should not make her an automatic shoo-in."
New York Rep. Gary Ackerman (D), on CBS's Face the Nation, said, "I don't know if it's a good idea because I'm not sure I know who she is. ... Eventually she has to get into the ring, face the public." Ackerman added that her "handlers" have "basically Sarah Palinized her, if I can coin a phrase. They're answering questions that you have to submit in writing. She's not talking to reporters as she makes this grand tour."
Rep. Peter King (R), who is expected to run for the seat in 2010, said of Caroline Kennedy on CBS's Face the Nation, "New York, as you know, is the number one Islamic terrorist target in the world. We're going to face unprecedented hardship because of the financial crisis affecting New York. And the last thing we need is a People magazine celebrity as our United States senator, especially someone who has no experience, who as far as I know has never held a real job, and now we've found that she hasn't even voted half the time." The New York Daily News adds King is "spoiling for a fight against Kennedy's celebrity."
The New York Daily News reports, "Kennedy's spokesman did not return calls, but others jumped to her defense. 'Caroline Kennedy has written books on the Constitution,' said NY28 Rep. Louise Slaughter (D), adding, "Sarah Palin, bless her heart, could not even name the newspapers she read every day."
Other names continue to surface. The AP says Tom Suozzi, the two-term executive of Nassau County, is a "dark horse" for the seat, while the New York Post reports that New York Gov. David Paterson (D) "will hold direct talks with" NY2 Rep. Steve Israel (D) "about picking him, and not Caroline Kennedy, to replace" Clinton.
The Los Angeles Times reports California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) "hasn't said whether he would pursue another job in politics after his final term ends in two years. But there's at least one position he might be interested in, if he were eligible for it: president." In an interview with 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley, Schwarzenegger says he "absolutely" would like to be president, adding, "I think that I am always a person that looks for the next big goal. And I love challenges. I always set goals that are so high, that are almost impossible to achieve."
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Jay Leno: "The White House announced a $13.4 billion rescue package for the troubled Detroit automakers. It allows them to avoid bankruptcy. But Bush had one major condition for the bailout. He had one stipulation. He said he wanted one of those cool Trans-ams with the eagle on the hood.'"
Jay Leno: In "an interview," President Bush "said he didn't strive to be popular. That's what he said. He didn't strive to be popular. So, to use his own words 'mission accomplished.' Hell of a job."
Jay Leno: "New York Governor David Paterson has unveiled a huge number of new taxes for New Yorkers. It is 88 new taxes if you live in New York. Taxes on soda, movie theater tickets, sporting events, taxis, buses, limos, cable TV. Is that the right thing to do, tax working people? You know what they need to do? How about a nice big Lehman Brothers or AIG incompetence tax? You know, one big tax, cover everything."
Conan O'Brien: "This week, President Bush hosted the annual White House Hanukkah party and the opening prayer was delivered by a rabbi. Or as Bush kept calling him, Jewish Santa.."
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