Today's political rumor is that Hillary Clinton is on the Obama team's short list for Secretary of State, along with Bill Richardson, John Kerry, and Tom Daschle. Some are wondering why rumors are flowing out of the formerly leak-proof Obama organization. Here's a space to talk about the Hillary Clinton rumor, the leakage, or anything else.

I'll be working the rest of the day. Here's an open thread for you. Please try to focus on news and policy.

A timely new ACS Issue Brief urges the federal government to ensure that records from the Bush administration and future administrations, including e-mails, are preserved for public examination, an issue that was in the news this week as a federal court ruled that a lawsuit on that issue could go forward.

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I am out for the rest of the day. So this will be an Open Thread.

Just for kicks, a trip down memory lane when the new Obama Bots attacked me in years past - on the New McCarthyism in 2005 and on Alito later that year. Ancient history of course. Maybe John Brennan can be discussed sometime soon.

One last thing, Greenwald on John Brennan: [More...]

Many thanks to Newsweek and the Media Bloggers' Association for including me and TalkLeft in its campaign blog, "The Ruckus." For months, every post we wrote on the election also appeared at The Ruckus. Now that the election is behind us, the Ruckus is disbanding. [More...]

I believe the key theme today on the Sunday Talk shows will be that, stop me if you have heard this, despite the fact that a "Socialist" won the election, and despite the fact that the "Socialist" party will hold massive majorities in the House and the Senate, America is a Center Right nation. Smell the contempt for democracy from America's Media elites.

This is an Open Thread.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

I am going to be off line for the rest of the day. Some parting shots. Atrios writes:

Tom Friedman was much an Iraq war critic as I have been a Barack Obama critic . . .

This is true and was true of the entire Left blogs for the past year. They should not all be surprised now when they discover Obama actually agrees with me, not them, on issues like free trade, Clintonomics, the war on terror, etc. Obama was never with them. They chose to ignore that for the past year. I must admit I find their discomfiture funny as all hell. Relatedly, Kevin Drum writes:

To a large (though not complete) extent, the blogosphere doesn't really oppose the MSM anymore, it is the MSM — and vice versa. This was probably inevitable, but it's still kind of a shame. Surely this means that there's now a market for yet another new medium, this time dedicated to criticizing the blogosphere?

I am trying to find out Kevin. Gators travel to Nashville tonight to face Vandy in their drive for the SEC and college football national chanpionships. Go Gators!

This is an Open Thread.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Democratic senators will be playing musical committee chairs as they prepare to begin the next legislative term. The venerable Robert Byrd, 91 and in less than perfect health, announced today that he's stepping down as chair of the Appropriations Committee. Next in line for that position is the venerable Daniel Inouye, 84. Inouye recently showed that he is no judge of character by testifying to Ted Stevens' good character during Stevens' trial, and by later predicting that Stevens' conviction will be overturned on appeal and that Stevens will win reelection. Let's hope Inouye is a better judge of government spending than he is of character.

Inouye will give up his Commerce Committee chair, which will go to John Rockefeller IV unless Rockefeller continues to chair Intelligence, when it would instead go to John Kerry unless Kerry takes Joe Biden's place as chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. Harry Ried would like to stick Joe Lieberman with the Small Business Committee chair that Kerry now holds, but Lieberman, the current chair of Homeland Security and Government Affairs, apparently thinks he still has enough clout to reject that offer.

Tracey Chapman told us what to do in this 1995 song: start all over and make a new beginning. On November 4, 2008, we did. This is an open thread.

Several readers have written me or posted comments wondering what I'll be writing about now that the Democrats have won back the White House.

I was asked the same question a year ago during this interview.

Rob La Gatta: So far, TalkLeft – liberal leaning in nature – has lived its entire life under the presidency of Republican George W. Bush. What do you plan to do if, come January 2009, a Democratic president is sworn into office? Do you expect that under such circumstances, the content, mission or direction of the blog would change?

My answer is pretty much the same today as it was then, reprinted and expanded on below: [More...]

Barack Obama ran a masterful campaign and is clearly one of the finest politicians we will ever see. That said, Obama's win is also a function of the emerged Democratic majority. to wit, demography is political destiny. Matt Yglesias consistently made an important point - a vote is a vote - whether it is from a white man or an African American woman or a Latino. After 2004, the DLC types harped on the need to do better among white voters, particularly "values voters." This election really shattered the myth that Democrats needed Bubbas to win. The Media of course still does not fully get it:

Obama won men, which no Democrat had managed since Bill Clinton. . . . He won 54% of Catholics, 66% of Latinos, 68% of new voters — a multicultural, multigenerational movement that shatters the old political ice pack. . . . The Republican caucus is smaller, more male and whiter at a time when the electorate is heading the other way.

But the electorate has been "heading the other way" since 1992. The electorate has reached the point that Democrats can win the Presidency and the Congress with just 40% of the white vote. And that number will keep dropping. More . . .

The Day After History.

Later I will be providing a detailed analysis of the now Emerged Democratic Majority and what it can mean in terms of actual policy. But for now, some gloating. . . .

1. Tom DeLay on MSNBC peddled fear that Nancy Pelosi will become an unstoppable force of evil in the House.

2. Chris Wallace and Karl Rove agree that Barack Obama didn't run as a liberal and therefore has no mandate to pursue liberal policies. But I'm pretty sure I've heard that Barack Obama is a socialist. Why is Rove assuming that voters didn't prefer socialism to McCainism?

3. Bill Bennett predicts newly emboldened Democrats in the House and Senate will make a mad rush to the left. Since the country has moved from right to centrist-right, he views it as Obama's obligation to govern from a centrist philosophy and to block the wild-eyed liberals.

Bennett's premise is flawed. [more ...]