Even for the most cynical among us, yesterday’s celebration cannot help but fill you with optimism and joy. While it is true that President Obama (god, it feels wonderful to type that) will undoubtedly disappoint us with some of his policies, things will get markedly better. Of course, Republicans like Rush Limbaugh can only feed on the negative but I digress…

In the past few hours, the reviews from inauguration day have slowly been pouring in- the speech was ok, Aretha Franklin’s hat was ridiculous, the Obama kids are adorable but obviously, the most important news has got to be Michelle Obama’s outfits. While it is disconcerting to note the amount of attention heaped on the First Lady’s appearance, she definitely lived up to the hype. Both the gold shift dress and matching coat as well as the one-shoulder white gown were stunning.

But, my favorite part of today’s inauguration was earlier in the day, during the benediction by beloved Rev. Joseph Lowery.

We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.

A civil rights icon rapping at the inauguration of the country’s first black president? Doesn’t get any better than this.

Federally-indicted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojavich was impeached by his state’s House of Representatives today.  Though the vote against him was 114-1 (and not a single member of the House defended the Governor – who is accused of conspiring to sell Obama’s vacated senate seat), he called a press conference soon after his impeachment in which he

denounced the state legislature, quoted inspirational poetry and recited a litany of accomplishments.

Apparently attempting to portray himself as a populist, Mr. Blagojavich also

he brought to stand beside him a dozen Illinois residents who he said had benefited from his policies. They included a man in a wheelchair wearing a neck brace and two young children who played on the floor throughout his remarks.

“Is that an impeachable offense?” he asked repeatedly, after describing ways he had helped individuals.

It seems the governor’s understanding of the proceedings are as fantastically disconected from reality as his apparent belief that he – an Elvis acolyte – can be the incarnation of his hero by copying his hair and quoting him frequently.

Despite his offensive stunt, Blagojavich would do well to remember that breaking the law to enrich himself is a serious crime in no way mitigated by claiming to have helped the elderly and disabled. Someone so lacking in either competence or shame deserves to be ousted from office and quickly.

On that note, the Illinois Senate will meet Jan. 26 to decide whether or not Blagojavich is guilty.  If the Senate does determine the evidence against the Gov. to be so compelling, he would be removed from office at that time.

He was for the loser dropping out before he was against it.

After opposing Democratic candidate Al Franken was shown to be losing the race against incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman (MN), Coleman declared that he would step down if he were Mr. Franken.

Apparently he only meant he would step down if he literally were Mr. Franken.  Because now that he’s officially been declared the loser by the state Canvassing Board – by a margin of just 225 votes – Mr. Coleman has decided to file a lawsuit designed to deprive the people of Minnesota of constitutional representation.

According to the StarTribune of Minneapolis

Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak said their case will pivot in part on constitutional issues, such as the equal protection clause, that typically are decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Thanks for drawing out the battle Mr. Coleman.  Good thing for your neck that a deepening recession and the threat of a trillion dollar deficit make the stakes less urgent.

The Economist has released its predictions for the coming year.  They’re interesting, but I personally found it more intriguing to reevaluate their predictions for 2008 now that they year’s come to a close.

While the Economist propoerly declared 2008 “The Democrats’ Year,” it misidentified which Democrat would capture the stage.  All bets were on Senator Clinton becoming the next Commander-in-Chief.  Like many political junkies, I too believed that Hillary’s superior fundraising and party support would lead her to the White House.

Still, The Economist is almost vindicated for predicting that the winner of Iowa – Mr. Obama, in the end – would stand a good chance at wrapping up the party nomination and winning the presidency:

“This is not to say that she will be a shoo-in. Mr Obama or John Edwards could make a breakthrough in Iowa (where they are running neck and neck with Mrs Clinton).”

Too bad their prediction for Billary in the White House won’t come true:

“She will be the first president married to a former president (who will in turn be America’s first male “first lady”).”

A first lady Bill would have been amusing.

Ted Stevens, as the ballots were finally tallied on his 85th birthday, failed to become the first convicted felon elected to the United States Senate.  Happy Birthday, (ex-)Senator!

And now that Stevens is headed back to Alaska (or the big house?) a la Sarah Palin, Democrats are only two seats away from gaining the 60 they would need to break Republican filibusters.   Whether or not this would constitute a healthy distribution of power is unclear, but certainly would be a dramatic change in Washington.

As for the other races, Georgia will conduct a December 2nd runoff.  In Minnesota, current Republican Senator Norm Coleman is currently leading Democrat Al Franken by a mere 206 votes.  That’s good news for Democrats on the Hill – as well as Franken – since a Dartmouth study shows recounts are likely to favor Democrats.

While I personally think Al Franken would make a great Senator, the idea of unlimited Democratic power certainly leads us to wonder whether or not his election (as well as the Georgia senator’s) would be the best thing for the nation.  Actually having to run the government for two years could be the fastest ticket out of power for Democrats.  Just look what happened to Republicans in 2006 and 2008.

Still, I don’t think we can buy into Norm Coleman’s assertion that his seat is “too important” for a recount.

Refusing to count votes in the interest of the American people is even scarier than giving Democrats a get-out-of jail free pass.  History teaches us that the implications of democracy may be a scary one-party reign, but that’s certainly preferable to the no-party reign Coleman has been touting.

On this week’s Face the Nation, David Brooks made a rather startling admission- the Republican Party is in complete shambles. Shocking, right?

The public mud-slinging between the McCain and Palin camps has been an embarrassment and all the revelations about Palin’s umm, intellect, are only making things worse. Much of the internal disarray has been attributed to complacency. Conservatives like Bush strayed away from Republican principles like limited government while the less important figures in the party got drunk with power. Such arguments usually end in some general reminiscing about Ronald Reagan. Two things come to mind here. First, this notion that Reagan would have disagreed with Bush’s Presidency is rather strange. To be sure, there are some differences between the two- communication skills being the obvious one. But on the fundamental issues, like the scope of governmental action, military power and the economy, the two are very similar. The Republican attempts to mythologize Reagan and portray Bush as some sort of radical is just rewriting history. Just take a look at the number of books calling Bush a real conservative hero, a great leader and what not. You can’t run away from that. Bush is no more a liberal than Ted Kennedy a conservative. What we’re witnessing right now isn’t a perversion of Republican principles but the very embodiment of it.

The second thing to note here is that all the discussion about Reagan highlights the fundamental problem facing the Party- cohesion around a person, rather than values and set of beliefs. Obviously, Democrats have a tendency to lionize certain figures like FDR but such cases are few and far between. In essence, while liberals are mobilized by certain coherent principles, Republicans rally around charismatic leaders. The problem here is that while our value system is constant, leaders come and go. People like Bobby Jindal and Tim Pawlenty can do little to restore the Party until there is a recognition of this. Moreover, as Brooks claims, the GOP has been more than happy to assume the role of gatekeeper of the past and looking forward, this won’t do.

With George Bush on his way out, I can’t find enough opportunities to celebrate the end of an eight year mistake.

With a pouring forth of Andrew Jackson biographies on the market, Slate provided this thoughtful review of the man who historians recognize as our 10th most significant president. The piece alludes briefly to the fact that George Bush has been compared – by Karl Rove, no less – to President Jackson. That he could go from being one of our least popular presidents to standing right up there with number ten is insulting.  Still, I suppose you could make the case that Guantanamo and forced removal of the Cherokee on the patronizing premise that they were not real citizens or real foreigners – see Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall’s ruling that sanctioned Jackson’s crimes – are pretty much the same same.

Which leads us to wonder: why do Americans anoint war criminals so gleefully?  Are we preparing to write Bush’s hagiography?  Why is it that we lust for – as seminal Jackson biographer James Parton put it, an urbane savage?

I hope not.  As cowboyishly appealing as Bush’s actions may seem – Jackson too was known for being a man of the people – the first president born in a log cabin – we cannot forget that presidents are not just the image they project.  A much more lasting measure of their significance to us should be the body of policy and ideological positions they put forward during their term. That Jackson had a bullet embedded next to his heart from a reckless feud may have done him much to win over voters, but no one can argue that depriving people of legal status and marching them across the country to their deaths or Oklahoma was not the greater legacy.

To all those worried about the hope and good feeling Obama may move in to the White House: remember to apply the same standard to Bush.  It’s his legacy we have to reconcile now.

…Joe Lieberman needs to go. The Connecticut Senator is an embarrassment to the Democratic Party and everything they stand for. Admittedly, the party’s relationship with Lieberman was a marriage of convenience- they needed him to balance the fragile majority in the Senate. But now, Lieberman needs to go.

What I find objectionable about him is not so much that he endorsed John McCain for President. I don’t doubt that Lieberman sincerely believed in McCain’s ability to unite this country or deal with the Iraqi invasion better. What I find offensive is the smear attack on Obama, including questioning his patriotism, and the general fear mongering about a Democratic victory. Party loyalty isn’t the issue here- it’s the fear and baseless attacks that hurt.

Now, there is a small section of the Democratic Party that is calling for reconciliation, including our very own Sen. Evan Bayh-

I don’t think there should be retribution. We have an opportunity to make a fresh start in this country. And I think reconciliation is in order, not revenge or retribution…He said some things that perhaps crossed the line in terms of questioning Senator Obama’s, you know, patriotism or things like that… I think we had to just let bygones be bygones. We’re going to need him on healthcare and energy independence and education and a whole lot of other things.

Again, this is not about Lieberman’s support for McCain. However, there are many ways to support a candidate without belittling the other side- Colin Powell’s endorsement is a good example. You can’t relentlessly attack the Democratic Party and then pretend that it was all in good fun. No, that’s now how politics works. There are consequences for actions and Lieberman needs to learn that- even if it’s the hard way.

For the first time after a major election, I walked away from the television Tuesday night without the bitter taste of disappointment in my mouth. America overcame 200+ years of white-exclusive politics and elected the better – and black – man president.

It was a big day for our country. Within the last 50 years, blacks marching behind the banner of civil rights were fire-hosed and beaten. America has come a long way since that time, but we haven’t yet reached the promised land Martin Luther King, Jr. described in his historic speech. Little white boys and girls and little black boys and girls may join hands at school today – as long as their parents aren’t gay. Now in Arkansas, even loving, qualified parents of the same sex can’t adopt children.

One response would be to hold those who passed this discriminatory legislation accountable. After all, when African-Americans turned out to vote for the first major-party African American candidate in history (in numbers projected to be larger than ever before), they voted 70-30 to overturn gays equal rights to marriage. Their vote highlights how far we have to go as a nation before we understand what equality means. That increased votes by African Americans happy to see the realization of a life long march to equality for themselves are substantially responsible for taking away others’ rights is perhaps the most painful election result I’ve ever, ever seen.

But any sort of revenge against ethnic groups who voted for repression in the 21st Century is hardly the enlightened path to follow. To take a page from the MLK’s book, we should be looking for opportunities to better understand those who vote for hate and to reach out to them.  Someday marriage equality will happen.

That’s why I feel Jon Stewart’s response is so much more productive. The first fight we have to pick is with those who spout positions like the parenthetical woman who appears in the video. It’s also great because it points out who financed the campaign. $23 million dollars came from Mormon activist groups.

As Jon Steward notes, they’ve clearly come along way from the day when they protested that marriage was not between one man and one woman. Of course, unlike gays, Mormons do have it convenient. As Christopher Hitchens wrote “in god is not Great,” when the feds threatened to overrun god’s own good polygamous land of Utah, they conveniently had a Revelation from the almighty with news that – what’d-ya know? – it’d be OK to marry one woman after all! (They did the same in the civil rights movement, Hitchens points out as well, conveniently getting a line from god that blacks weren’t evil after all just in time for the passage of the civil rights movement.) In this sense, the Mormons who financed this are a real non-threat. When marriage is quality is passed across this great land, I’m sure they’ll be offering free ceremonies for all homosexuals.

My other favorite piece of media from the fight for Prop8 is a lovely yellow t-shirt declaring God’s Law to be one man plus one woman. Come on activists, with this sort of media already thought of, how hard can it be to dissuade Christian Evangelicals from anti-gay voting?

My plan is to have these printed up with a nice big “SHARI’A” in Arabic and English replacing the “God’s Law” lettering. Lead a few protesters behind that equally anti-gay-marriage banner, and we’ll soon have every crazy evangelical who believes terrorists are everywhere voting against this now “un-Christian” proposition.

Remember, this won’t be forever. We WILL overcome.

It’s interesting to note that one person conveniently absent from all the election platitudes is Sen. Hillary Clinton. While it’s true that Sen. Obama’s campaign was very well-organized and disciplined, some of the credit for his win should be attributed to Clinton. Thanks to the extended primary, Obama was forced to consider states like Pennsylvania and Indiana, states he might have otherwise discounted. He was forced to confront the inadequacies of many of his policy positions (like mandates for health care) and this only made him a stronger candidate-

Hillary ought to get a bit of the acclaim now that Obama has won. She was a tough competitor – and Obama emerged from his primary ready for a challenge, while McCain emerged from his as the hapless default victor of a dismal field of candidates, not the strongest contender, just the only dude left standing when the rest fell away…More democracy was good for Obama, good for the Democrats, good for everyone who voted for him in the general election. Let us never suggest again that better candidates are forged in less democracy.

Hillary’s presence in the campaign also ensured that women’s issues, particularly reproductive rights, got a fair deal of attention. For too long, Democrats have pandered on abortion but this election, candidates were actually arguing over who was more pro-choice and pro-woman. And it was all because of Hillary. Now, Obama must repay the favor and ensure that Larry Summers gets nowhere near the Treasury.