And to watch:

The independent Russian media is certainly not dead. That is the only conclusion one can draw of this editorial comparison of the leadership styles of President-elect Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, from the Russian newspaper, Gazeta.

The Gazeta editorial not only praises the stake that average Americans have in the political life of the U.S., it frontally attacks recent electoral reforms in Russia that are designed to have the completely opposite effect in their country.

Pointing out that the two young leaders gave major speeches on the same day - Obama his electoral victory speech and Medvedev his first ’state of the union’ address, The Gazeta editorial says in part:

“Except that Obama addressed fifty million supporters who voted for him, while Medvedev spoke to a thousand legislators, governors, and bureaucrats.”

“When Obama repeated time and again, ‘we,’ ‘us,’ ‘our climb,’ ‘our goals,’ regardless of how sincere these words were, his listeners believed them: “we” - this is the people, the citizens of the United States. It is the citizens, the regular people that the new leader appeals to. They’re the ones who now have “the chance to make change.” And the words that “it can’t happen without you” seemed quite obvious to them.

“But Dmitriy Medvedev couldn’t have said in the Kremlin ‘It will not happen without you,’ even to his select audience. Because after all, even this narrow circle would have been too wide for such comments. Decisions here are made by a far smaller number of people. … The individual opinion of an ordinary person (unlike his abstract “rights and freedoms”) is definitely not about to be taken into account by those at the ‘top.’”

A truly extraordinary editorial from what many Westerners consider a completely tamed Russian press.

Read the rest of this entry »

FDR had his fireside chats, Obama will have YouTube. His administration plans to bring government into the 21st century in a big way. From the Washington Post:

Today, President-elect Obama will record the weekly Democratic address not just on radio but also on video — a first. The address, typically four minutes long, will be turned into a YouTube video and posted on Obama’s transition site, Change.gov, once the radio address is made public on Saturday morning.

In addition to regularly videotaping the radio address, officials at the transition office say the Obama White House will also conduct online Q&As and video interviews. The goal, officials say, is to put a face on government. In the following weeks, for example, senior members of the transition team, various policy experts and choices for the Cabinet, among others, will record videos for Change.gov.

This is, in part, a communications strategy. Obama won an election by tapping into new technologies and social networks, and he’ll probably attempt to control his administration’s image in much the same way.

But Obama’s tech savvy has the potential to improve government transparency. Obama has pledged to use the Internet to shine light on the workings of Washington, and he has previously pushed “Google Government” legislation that would make all government contracts and grants publicly searchable.

I was excited by Obama’s focus on transparency and technology early on, and hopefully the financial mess won’t overshadow those issues once he is sworn in.

Racism ends forever:

The tidal wave of global reaction to the election of President-elect Barack Obama is enough to make a foreign desk editor cry over what to do next. Coming later today will be articles from Russia and Iraq. Here are just a few of the many stories posted on WORLDMEETS.US in the past 24 hours:

24 Heures, Switzerland
A Man, a Destiny, a World: The Best of America

EXCERPT:

“The arrival today of the first man of color to the apex of power in the only global superpower testifies to the logic of this country and its evolution. Once again, America was ready. … Freedom is that which has allowed both slavery and its eradication; the assertion of civil rights and the existence of the Ku Klux Klan; the many ’success stories’ of ’self-made men,’ and the absence of the social state. Whoever is in power in America, this will remain at the heart of the country’s psyche.”

Nachrichten, Switzerland
Obama Embodies the Spirit of a New Age

EXCERPT:

“Economically, culturally and militarily, the notion that the strongest must stand alone has been shown to be absurd. Cooperation rather than confrontation and negotiation rather than dictation are the new and astounding ideas embodied by Obama. … Obama in no magician - and McCain would have been less so - but he has one great advantage: He can, since he isn’t committed to a rigid doctrine and doesn’t believe himself to be on a divine mission (like Bush has), act according to rational and pragmatic reasoning. He can finally reestablish a government based on reality - no matter how bleak that may be once initiated.”

Rue 89, France
Will Obama Deliver a New ‘Post-American’ World?

EXCERPT:

“”Let us not be stingy with our pleasure; good news is pretty rare these days. And when we use the word “us,” we mean the near-totality of the rest of the world, who were worried that we would not be seconded in our passion for Barack Obama by the American voters on Election Day.”

Excelsior, Mexico
Obama: The President the ‘Planet Requires’

EXCERPT:

“Obama is the President of the United States that the planet requires. Yet paradoxically, this doesn’t necessarily imply that an Obama presidency is the best thing for United States society. … one must wonder whether the society of that country, and above all, the United States Congress, will agree. Why? Because what Obama wants to do is make the United States somewhat similar to a European welfare state, and it’s likely, sooner or later, that United Statesiens [people of the United States] will turn their back on such a project. In fact, even though the country is one of the most advanced, it has the greatest inequality in terms of wealth distribution and has never had a viable and durable social-democratic party.”

The Tehran Times, Islamic Republic of Iran
The World’s Candidate Wins: A Man One ‘Can Talk To’

Is Barack Obama the antidote to eight years of George W. Bush? Anyone reading this editorial from Iran’s state-controlled Tehran Times would certainly get that impression. Unquestionably, Tehran is even more pleased than most Obama fans about the President-elect’s success. The editorial asks and answers: ‘And why was Obama the world’s candidate? Quite simply, because they feel they can talk to him.’ The winds of dialogue are surely blowing. Now to see what comes of it …

MTV’s new video site is bleeping out the names of file sharing sites in Weird Al Yankovic’s 2006 song “Don’t Download This Song”:

In an e-mail message on Sunday, Mr. Yankovic wrote that he had bleeped out the names to the file-sharing sites in his song two years ago, after MTV “told me that they would refuse to air my video” otherwise. “Instead of subtly removing or obscuring the words in the track,” he wrote, “I made the creative decision to bleep them out as obnoxiously as possible, so that there would be no mistake I was being censored.”

He complied, “because I was proud of the song and the accompanying Bill Plympton video, and I wanted to do everything I could to maximize exposure for it.”

Here is the original unbleeped version of the lyrics Read the rest of this entry »

Remember:

The kids from the Ron Clark Academy were the ABC News Person of the Week this week. (Typical of our dinosaur broadcast networks, the story isn’t embeddable and you must sit through an irrelevant commercial to watch it!)

Via the AJC’s Political Insider, Jim Galloway, “[a] video that’s everything ‘High School Musical 3′ is not. Intelligent, for instance.”

In the eyes of much of the world, Americans - and particularly White males - have come a long way since the election of 2004.

For French newspaper Liberation, author Annette Levy-Willard describes how and why the Joe the Plumbers and Joe Sixpacks of the world have abandoned McCain-Palin.

Willard starts out this way:

“The American is not always a cretin, it must be said. Having covered Bush’s reelection campaign four years ago, I saw how that debilitating cocktail of ‘gay marriage-abortion-family-religion-terrorism,’ mixed into the cauldron labeled ‘moral values broth,’ moved entire states into W’s column.

“The ‘true’ American, according to conservative mythology, is White, with family, patriotic, extremely religious, hates socialism, communism, foreigners and paying taxes. He is so naive that he believes he can save America by attacking Iraq and, at any rate, he has invested himself in a mission: to export his model to other people (without asking their opinion). This American, if he ever existed, no longer exists. This is the terrible discovery that McCain and the Republicans have just made. And it’s super-good news for America and the rest of the world. ”

And why has this breed of American male abandoned the right? Willard writes in part:

“The White American - whom McCain calls Joe the Plumber or Palin calls Joe Sixpack - is no longer blinded by lies. He has seen the war in Iraq and is suffering through a crisis, while Republicans spouting about abortion, taxes or an American victory in Iraq no longer move him. The latest poll shows that half of White men are going to vote Democrat. For the first time in thirty years!

They want someone who speaks concretely, calmly, moderately: in the center. They refuse to scorn the intellectual, the notorious “elite” that the McCain camp denounces - Obama graduated from Harvard. They refuse to be afraid (of bin Laden, of the enemies of America, etc.) The White American male has closed himself off from old-fashioned ideology and has entered the rational era.”

Is Willard right? We’ll soon see …

Read the rest of this entry »

Here are my predictions for Election Day 2008 and for the next four years.

Two weeks ago, I wrote the following prediction for Election Day:

“Three weeks is not a lot of time in politics and this was McCain’s last best chance in salvaging a close outcome on November 4th. Prediction: Obama will win by a landslide - 57% to 43%; Electoral College outcome - 315 to 223 (give or take 5 votes).” With five days left, I have to revise my earlier prediction. I don’t see the Electoral Vote count being this close; my revised prediction is Obama 348 to 190 for McCain. McCain, in latest polling numbers, leads Obama by only 4 points in Arizona and may even lose his home state. The only nominee to lose their home state in the last 50 years is Al Gore in 2000 and that cost Mr. Gore the White House.

Other predictions during the Obama Administration:

Hillary Rodham Clinton is nominated and confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The G.O.P., divided by the Sarah Palin 2012 issue, will split and cause the formation of a third party that will field a moderate candidate for President in 2012.

On a lighter note, President Obama will know the difference between “The Jeffersons” and “Sanford and Son.”

Tomorrow is supposed to be a beautiful day for most of the country. I plan to get away from my keyboard and go outside to enjoy one of the last 60 plus degree days of 2008. Take a few minutes and do the same for yourself. Politics will still be here on Sunday.