links for 2009-01-20

Hillary Clinton and John Cornyn, who's delaying her floor confirmation vote have been having a fairly heated discussion just out of earshot under the Washington statue in the rotunda. Lots of hand gestures, back and forth and her squeezing his forearm.
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A day for Dissing the Clintons

Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter appeared to greet former Republican President George H.W. Bush and his wife warmly, kissing Barbara Bush on the cheek. But as Carter passed fellow Democrats Bill and Hillary Clinton, the two men did not appear to acknowledge each others presence at all. A total snub.

"There's a slightly manic feel to it all, welcoming in a new era with such hope," says Brown, whose brunch helped promote her new Web site, the Daily Beast. "There's such relief that this eight years is gone and everyone wants to celebrate. There's hope that Obama is going to be the man who leads everyone to the promised land. Everyone kind of wants this young president to succeed."

Bump into John McCain in a Capitol hallway these days, and you’re lucky if you get anything beyond a polite hello. Ask him a question on any policy or political issue, and he will almost always decline comment, and keep moving.

But the former Republican presidential nominee is not planning to keep a low profile for long.

CNN has learned that McCain may get seats on an unusually high number of key Senate committees, so that he can engage on a wide range of high-profile issues before Congress, and his formal rival in the White House.

“He wants to be a player,” McCain’s good friend, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, told CNN in a phone conversation.
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McCain dealing with health care? Fail

President-elect Barack Obama is out for dinner tonight – a bipartisan dinner tour aimed at making good on a promise of working across the aisle.

Obama's motorcade carried him from Blair House, the guest house across the street from the White House, to the Washington Hilton for a black tie dinner sponsored by the Presidential Inaugural Committee honoring Sen. John McCain, his Republican rival for the presidency.

Obama took the stage at 6:48 pm EST, to "say a few words about an American hero."

He joked that McCain, under the rules of the evening, would get a rebuttal. "We are glad that the days of rebuttals and campaigning are for now behind us," he said, adding the two had been "fierce competitors.''

But, Obama said, "Each of us has the responsibility to usher in a new season of cooperation.''

With a nod to McCain's accomplishments on campaign finance reform, immigration, and the Patients' Bill of Rights, Obama said the senior senator from Arizona and onetime

It was just one step in a post-election courtship that historians say has few modern parallels, beginning with a private meeting in Mr. Obama’s transition office in Chicago just two weeks after the vote. On Monday night, Mr. McCain will be the guest of honor at a black-tie dinner celebrating Mr. Obama’s inauguration.

Over the last three months, Mr. Obama has quietly consulted Mr. McCain about many of the new administration’s potential nominees to top national security jobs and about other issues — in one case relaying back a contender’s answers to questions Mr. McCain had suggested.

Mr. McCain, meanwhile, has told colleagues “that many of these appointments he would have made himself,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and a close McCain friend.
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Primary challenge for McCain in 2010?

President-elect Barack Obama billed his inauguration an event "for all Americans." But in the nation's capital this long weekend, wealthy visitors are finding themselves a bit more equal — and warmer — than others.
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Not shocking now is it?

While we were on the campaign trail, a lot was said about my mom, Cindy McCain. The media called her a Stepford wife and a Barbie doll. But because my dad was the Republican presidential nominee, she had to be careful about responding to the things being written about her. Today, all that has changed. I blogged during my dad’s campaign (sometimes to the consternation of his staff), and witnessed my mom’s interactions with the public and press firsthand. Now, as she heads to Washington for the inauguration, she opens up to me about that infamous New York Times profile (and the other media battles), being portrayed as a Stepford wife, and how her skin has thickened since the run in 2000.
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Now, is John McCain whining about press coverage through his wife?
Pathetic…….

Cindy McCain attacked media coverage of her husband’s presidential campaign Monday, saying there is now “very little difference now between journalism and gossip.”

“Without sounding bitter—and I’m not bitter—I do believe there was a media bias. I do believe that the media had a specific agenda and with that said, the American people cast their vote,” McCain said in an interview she gave to her daughter Meghan, a blogger who posted the transcript on The Daily Beast.

“I truly feel that unless the media goes back to unbiased reporting they are going to do a disservice to the youth of this country. The future of this country lies in the youth and we have to be good stewards of information and truth,” she added. “There is so much more to it than just one article and people telling lies, it affects much more than that.”
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Well, DUH……

White House officials have just told me that there will be no more pardons coming out of the Bush White House. "We're done," I was told. That means there will no pardon of Lewis Libby.
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Bush has shown a reluctance to pardon folks and rightly so. Libby will have to have his verdict overturned on appeal – which is possible but not likely.