Quick Takes

Promises Promises

Agenda disappears from Obama Web site
Stephen Dinan
Washington Times
Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Over the weekend President-elect Barack Obama scrubbed Change.gov, his transition Web site, deleting most of what had been a massive agenda copied directly from his campaign Web site.

Gone are the promises on how an Obama administration would handle 25 different agenda items - everything from Iraq and immigration to taxes and urban policy - all items laid out on his campaign Web site, www.BarackObama.com.

Instead, the official agenda on Change.gov has been boiled down to one vague paragraph proclaiming a plan “to revive the economy, to fix our health care, education, and social security systems, to define a clear path to energy independence, to end the war in Iraq responsibly and finish our mission in Afghanistan, and to work with our allies to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, among many other domestic and foreign policy objectives.”

Oh well, it's not like anyone really thought he was going to deliver on all that junk anyway!

McCain advisers defend Palin
Postelection rumors denied
Ralph Z. Hallow
Washington Times
Monday, November 10, 2008

"I can say on the record that all this is way overblown and some of the stuff I've read in recent days, whether it's about Governor Palin or our Mr. McCain campaign staff, is fictional," Mark Salter said in an e-mail response to questions posed by The Washington Times.

But Mr. Salter, who was Mr. McCain's closest aide, speechwriter and biographer, did not respond to specific questions about accusations made in several press venues by unnamed campaign staffers attacking Mrs. Palin's character and intelligence.

Several Republicans said the intent appeared to try to shift blame for the ticket's performance from aides and advisers to Mrs. Palin and put into question her future on the national political stage.

Steve Schmidt, the campaign's chief strategist, defended Mrs. Palin in an e-mail exchange with The Times concerning, among other articles, a Newsweek report that at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., Mrs. Palin had greeted Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Salter in her hotel room while "wearing nothing but a towel, with another [towel] on her wet hair."

"The towel story categorically is not true," Mr. Schmidt told The Times in the course of telephone and e-mail exchanges over the weekend.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's character and intelligence have been under attack by unnamed campaign staffers, and some Republicans see intent to shift blame of the failed campaign from aides to Mrs. Palin. (Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

Charles L. Black, a close friend and senior adviser to Mr. McCain, said "no" to four of the following five questions posed to him by The Times:

Black goes on to address each specific rumor and debunk it. Now, will these denials get the same media headlines as the rumors? Yeah, sure they will!

George and Laura Bush Gives Obamas a Lesson in Class
Too bad it's probably wasted on them!

President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama meet in the Oval Office of the White House Monday, Nov. 10, 2008. White House photo by Eric Draper

Mrs. Laura Bush and Mrs. Michelle Obama sit in the private residence of the White House Monday, Nov. 10, 2008, after the President-elect and Mrs. Obama arrived for a visit. White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian