The Huffington Post makes a pretty awesome point about President-Elect Obama’s National Security team. They noticed that 4 out of 6 of the folks Obama named to his National Security team could barely reach the microphone. Being that I’m a towering 5′1 it’s a point that I appreciate. Short people power!  It’s somehow great to think that the folks who are hopefully going to help give us a better standing in the world are all about my height.  Someohow it makes me feel powerful too!

Check out the slideshow at the Huffington Post for more evidence and takepart to learn more about the team - other than their height

President-elect Barack Obama announced yesterday he was restoring the post of UN Ambassador to a cabinet level position in his administration. The move is yet another sign of the new era in international relations coming to United States foreign policy following the disastrous Bush Administration.

Obama also announced his appointment of Susan Rice, a longtime advisor on foreign policy and fierce opponent of the Iraq War, to be his Ambassador to the United Nations. Rice’s appointment sends a strong signal to diplomats throughout both the UN and around the world that America is back on track in terms of a deliberative, multilateral approach regarding foreign affairs.

Obama was quoted as saying about the appointment and new approach to the UN, “Susan knows the global challenges we face demand global institutions that work. She shares my belief that the U.N. is an indispensable and imperfect forum.” In order to gain a little perspective on how far that thinking is from that of the Bush Administration, get a load of this quote from one of Bush’s, non-Cabinet level, UN Ambassadors, John Bolton, “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.”

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Give a watch to Obama’s press conference and takepart with Change.gov to keep up to date on Obama’s team.

I’ve been thinking about Michelle Obama’s butt lately.

Well, sort of.

Last week I blogged about the recent Salon.com article by Erin Aubrey Kaplan about Michelle Obama’s booty.  Focusing on this Princeton-and-Harvard grad’s rear attributes offended me, and so I wrote:

Objectifying the female half of the soon-to-be-most-prominent black couple in American culture so uncomfortable in a lot of ways.  I point you towards Amanda Fortini’s wonderfully thorough piece in New York magazine about female stereotypes this past election, specifically “Bitch” Clinton and “Ditz” Palin. She touches on how Michelle struggled with the “angry black woman” stereotype earlier in the campaign, before becoming an easier-to-swallow “mom-in-chief” — cute daughters and puppy in tow.  What will happen if we turn our attention to her bootylicious ass?

Other writers agreed with me.  Dodai from Jezebel asked “Are we really having a conversation about the future First Lady’s bottom?”  Even Salon.com’s feminist blog, Broadsheet, questioned whether the article was a good idea. (Disclosure: I’ve blogged for Broadsheet before.)  But then an interesting thing happened.  But as we chattered away, a chorus of voices came to Erin Aubrey Kaplan’s defense.

Actually, I sense they had more appreciation for Michelle Obama than they did for Kaplan, but nevertheless, these women thought we should *not* not have discussions about the First Lady’s booty.  I honestly been oblivious to Michelle’s body type, but some women see the President elect’s wife — with her height and curves — as a breath of fresh air from the Mamie Eisenhower mold.  Finally a woman with curves!  Who isn’t a size 2!  Who looks like she’s been told to diet in her life!  Michelle Obama, it seems, is being imbued with the power to change the tone of body image discussion in America away from Eurocentric thinness.

Thank God someone’s talking about her normal-sized butt, these women said.  How empowering for us real women. Where I saw rudeness, they say a new, high visability role model.  And where I saw racial stereotyping, they saw racial pride.

I’m from a rather buttoned-up, WASPy part of Connecticut, where it’s “impolite” to talk about a person’s body, let alone a public figure’s body, this way.  I would freak out of someone talked about MY booty, for example.  Which is not to say that other people in other parts of the country are impolite, but to point out that different people have ingrained perspectives. My knee-jerk reaction to the Michelle Obama story was to think it was tasteless, because that’s how I’d feel if it happened to me.

I still mostly feel the same way about Kaplan’s article as I did when it first came out.  But my eyes have been opened a bit more and I know realize that talking about Michelle Obama’s butt…well, it might just be liberating.

In today’s New York Times, there’s another one of those “hey, the economy’s getting pretty bad” articles, but this time, we’re adding in the fact that industry is taking this chance to say, “Oh, by the way, we totally can’t reduce emissions and make money at the same time…and we’re not making any money anyway, SO…”

This comes at a time when western nations are generally trying to stick to their pledges to reduce emissions.

President-elect Barack Obama and the European Union have vowed to stick to commitments to cap emissions of carbon dioxide and invest in new green technologies, arguing that government action could stimulate the economy and create new jobs in producing sustainable energy.

It should also be noted that no country has officially repudiated any goals that have been set to reduce climate change, but at least a few are heading in that direction.  The article points to China as one country that may have trouble matching growth with environmentalism, but there are some others in that list we might not expect.

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Hillary Rodham Clinton will accept the post of Secretary of State in the incoming Obama Administration, reports the New York Times. The Junior Senator from New York will give up her seat in the United States Senate in order to take the position. A confidant of Mrs. Clinton told the New York TImes she had decided to head the State Department after ongoing discussions with President-elect Obama regarding her role within the administration and his foreign policy objectives over the next fours years.

I had my doubts about this appointment, but now that it seems all but set in stone - unless The Times has it all wrong and is forced to eat humble pie, which is always fun too - it’s time to wish Senator Clinton congratulations on her new job. She’s no doubt worked incredibly hard to get where she is today and put up with a lot of crap, so it’s nice to see all that effort pay off.

I shook hands with Hillary Clinton during a campaign stop on her husband’s 1992 Presidential campaign in York, Pennsylvania. I’ve met other politicians before and since, but none with the energy and enthusiasm of Hillary Clinton. The woman grabbed at my hand as though it had food in it and she was starving, and she did the same thing all the way up a line of hundreds of people. Let’s hope she brings that same kind of gusto to the State Department.

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The Washington DC Metro will be issuing commemorative Barack Obama SmarTrip farecards this coming January. The cards will celebrate the upcoming Inauguration of President-Elect Obama as the 44th President of the United States.

This is a match made in heaven of a promotion. DC is one of the most Democratic cities in the United States and is positively abuzz right now over the incoming Obama administration, with signs hanging on buildings all around the city as Unions, Non-Profit Organizations, Businesses and Private Citizens express their rejoice at the arrival of a new approach in American politics. DC also has one of the highest percentages of African-American residents among American cities, who, needless to say, are more than a little excited over the prospect of America’s first African-American President. Plus with Obama himself being a huge proponent of public transportation, putting his image on the farecards fittingly adds the face of a friend and soon to be champion of mass transit to the DC Metro experience.

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The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was instituted in 1993, stopping the military from asking potential members if they are gay. However the policy requires openly gay service members to be discharged from service. Now, according to the lead sponsor of a bill that would repeal the law, the “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy could be overturned when Barack Obama’s administration takes over the White House.

Obama told Philadelphia Gay News “Although I have consistently said I would repeal ‘don’t ask-don’t tell,’ I believe that the way to do it is to make sure that we are working through processes, getting the Joint Chiefs of Staff clear in terms of what our priorities are going to be.”-CNN.com

A Washington Post/ABC News poll this summer found 75 percent of Americans support allowing gays to serve openly, compared to only 45 percent in 1993.

So basically what we’re saying is-it’s cool for gays to fight and possibly die for America’s freedom BUT it’s not cool for gays in America to have the freedom to marry. Oh okay. gothca.
takepart and visit the Human Rights Campaign at http://www.hrc.org/ to join the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality.

by Mark Newberg

I’m not old enough to remember Reagan’s “Morning in America” campaign ad, but I’m not immune to its romanticized American-bred optimism. I am old enough to remember the man from “a place called Hope” restoring that optimism to the Nation for as long as bipartisanship lasted. Granted, that wasn’t much past transition time, but it was a rosy time for our American ideals. Now, with President-Elect Obama, we’ve launched, once again (and 75%-heartedly) into an era of national unity, cheer, and good tidings.

I like this stuff. I like it a lot. In fact, I’m of the belief that the best Democratic Presidents tend to tap into the same vein of our collective consciousness: the desire for hope. Don’t believe me? Ok. Name the best Democratic Presidents of the television age (and yes, FDR counts). FDR. Kennedy. Clinton. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” ”Eight years of peace and prosperity.“ Seeing a theme yet? Even Reagan, in his search for the Center, harnessed our desire to feel good about the future, especially in times of great national pain. Remember, “They slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God?” How about, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

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Just yesterday, I told you that the current administration is doing this thing where they turn political appointments into civil employees, in a process called “burrowing,” in order to make sure these people keep their jobs and can continue making policy.  Well, today, Senate Democrats are saying, “Hey.  Knock that off.”  In fact, Senators Schumer and Feinstein wrote a strongly-worded letter to the President, in which they said,

Today’s report reveals that senior members of your administration are undermining your public commitment to ease the transition by reorganizing agencies at the eleventh hour and installing political appointees in key positions for which they may not be qualified.  We respectfully urge you to stand by your public commitment to a smooth transition by directing executive agencies immediately to halt any conversions of political appointees to career positions.

The Washington Post reports that though “Democrats in the Senate called on President Bush to halt any effort by his administration to place political appointees in career jobs just weeks before his team leaves office,” the administration isn’t playing games with the Senate.  White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino, in responding to questions, said that, hey, we don’t know what you’re talking about.

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