I don't think there was any real malice against her.  Some cattiness, yes.  This seemed particularly among those who either (a) resented her going to the head of the line before doing the work to earn the spot there, (b) harbored suspicions (or worse) about her handlers' intentions or her patrons' intentions, or (c) just thought that appointing a woman with a famous name and lineage was a bad idea.  The gossip about her life, such as it was, had next to no effect on her chances.

But, I think the overarching reaction to her was that she is doubtless a nice, middle-aged woman who really wasn't quite up to the job she was being handed, was not likely to grow into it, and should not have been given it as a result.

What about those of us who knew better, we who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country. What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded -- sooner or later.  The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows! We will go forward. FORWARD is the great password.

however, CK is the one responsible for what has transpired...she obviously was not prepared and not up to as I think her cousin said "she wanted to go straight to Broadway without doing any auditions or any off Broadway"  something like that

the rallying cry will be sounded: "Remember Caroline Kennedy

nice lady, smart, attractive, good family, well educated, etc., but seemed wayyyyyyyy out of her element. a classier (and smarter) version of gov. sarah palin. frankly, i got the impression she put her name in the ring not so much because she really, really wanted the job, but because she felt like she was supposed to want it, being a kennedy and all. just my impression.

i have no dog in this fight, except i do, since ultimately, the entire senate affects the entire country, not just one state.

on a side note: an article in the wp today, opining (by donna brazille, among others) that ms. kennedy was done in by rampant sexism, not by her own inadequacies as a candidate. would someone please take ms. brazille out the back door, and send her away?

According to the Washington Blade Dybul is now, apparently, out because Obama admin 'senior advisors' were concerned about the negative reaction from 'some AIDS activists and reproductive rights groups.'

Bush is out, Obama is in and Warsaw has been left smarting after it emerged that having made personal farewell calls to the leaders of Denmark, Georgia and Greece, not to mention Russia, Germany and France, George W. didn't make one call to anyone in Poland.

That's not good. Poland has been attempting to forge a special relationship with Washington for years, sometimes to the chagrin of its EU neighbours. When negotiating with Bush over F-16 fighter jets, Germany remarked that Poland shouldn't look to the EU for finance while looking to the States for security.

If Warsaw was listening, it didn't show. Poland jumped head first into military allegiance to the superpower which saw Polish troops despatched to long and costly tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet this allegiance has been pretty one-way and any benefits from it have
remained firmly on the State's side of the road. Promises of visa waivers and building contracts never materialised and any sense that this is a `special' relationship pretty much stops short of the Polish border.

Dennis Culloton, a spokesman for Tom Ricketts, confirmed to The Associated Press that the bid is worth about $900 million and will include Wrigley Field and a 25 percent interest in a regional sports network.

Obama flashes irritation in press room and didn't like being asked a question.

Case in point: the Wall Street bailout, otherwise known as TARP. Gillibrand voted against it back in October, then she voted in favor of the auto bailout in December, then voted in favor of Barney Frank's oversight bill on Wednesday, and then voted against the release of the second half of the funds yesterday. This makes Gillibrand one of about only 40-50 House Democrats who would have voted the same way I would have voted across all four of those bills...

For the last eight years, the pattern of the working conservative majority has been for a minority of Democrats to join with unanimous Republicans in passing bad legislation. In that environment, Gillibrand would almost certainly have been a bad choice for Senator, especially from a state as blue as New York. However, that pattern of conservative governance broke down over the Wall Street bailout, and has never recovered. Since that time, there have been two sorts of roll call votes in Congress: unanimous Democrats passing bills with a minority of Republican support, and chaotic alliances between a majority of Republicans, along with a smattering of Blue Dogs and progressives, defeated by a "serious people consensus" alliance of a minority of Republicans, a majority of Democrats and the President (whether Bush or Obama). In this environment, someone like Gillibrand is arguably a more useful vote for progressives than a more traditionally liberal Senator would be, as demonstrated by her voting patterns on bailouts.

A change I would love to see would be some effort put into developing the needed national security protecting precautions for Apple products. I don't expect the government to provide Macs to all the workers if they don't believe the extra productivity would be worth the extra price (but it would be), but I can't even bring my own Mac into work and connect it to the internet because there are not Mac versions of the government required software. Maybe high level attention to this problem will bring about the needed changes.

President Obama has nominated William Lynn, an undersecretary of defense during President Clinton's second term, to be deputy to Secretary Robert Gates.

Lynn was a senior vice president at Raytheon, which has billions of dollars in Defense Department contracts. It is is the maker of the Army's Patriot missile system and the Navy's Tomahawk missile and is developing a global positioning satellite communication system for the Air Force.

As deputy secretary, Lynn would be involved in the process of budgeting and acquisitions, in addition to running the day-to-day operations of the Defense Department.

In a statement released Thursday, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, said the committee -- which must vote to confirm Lynn before a vote of the full Senate -- needs more information in light of the Obama administration's newly announced ethics rules.

"Given the president's new stricter rules requiring his appointees to recuse themselves from matters or issues on which they have lobbied, the Senate Armed Services Committee will need further information before proceeding with the nomination of William J. Lynn III to be deputy secretary of defense," the statement said.

"The committee will await the administration's assessment as to whether the new rules will preclude Mr. Lynn, who was a registered lobbyist for a defense contractor, from participating in key Department of Defense decisions, and if so, whether a waiver will be forthcoming and what the scope of the waiver will be."

In announcing the new ethics laws, Obama said that anyone who works for him who also has worked as a lobbyist would be held to a high standard

The rallying cry remember Caroline Kennedy if anything enourages me to keep blogging, commenting, calling and generally pestering friends family and politicians to DO THE RIGHT THING by the people...

On the other hand if you like me, think you DO need experience to be a Senator, and Obama had some as a state legislator remember, then you surely agree Caroline Kennedy was UNFIT for the office, the charitable school funds she ran turned out to be one hour a week for only 2 yrs not the 6 they said, AND she didnt even VOTE half the time, gimme a break

I hope he surprises me and puts a stop to it, but I don't think he will, after already saying he's planning an Afghanistan "surge" of 30,000 troops and his comments about "a country at war" in the inaugural speech...

And the fake war on terror that creates people retaliating because they don't like being bombed and killed... sorry, I mean terrorists, is going to keep rollin' right along now?

"The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced." "I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy." "The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond." "And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children."

However, the question facing the judge if the case goes to court will largely boil down to whether Prince's use of the images was transformative and therefore permissible under the United States' doctrine of "fair use", which allows for limited reproduction of copyright imagery for the purpose of parody or other creative ends.

I would be POed if Prince used my material without asking too, but there is little question in my mind that Prince's paintings are transformative. Whether or not a judge will see it that way is another story. The very fact that Prince has appropriated the images transforms their intended message. Prince also uses collage and paint, refers to Picasso et al, and obviously renders Cariou's photographs into a truly transformative artworks.

Prince himself, who has said of his work that he's "practising without a license", unapologetically problematises issues of authorship. The essay for the show's catalogue, for instance, was written by James Frey, the controversial author who fabricated whole swathes of his 2003 "memoir", A Million Little Pieces.

The incoming US administration will be inheriting a "basket full of snakes" in the region, but there are things that can be done to help calm them down. First, President Barack Obama must address the disaster in Gaza and its causes. Inevitably, he will condemn Hamas's firing of rockets at Israel.

When he does that, he should also condemn Israel's atrocities against the Palestinians and support a UN resolution to that effect; forcefully condemn the Israeli actions that led to this conflict, from settlement building in the West Bank to the blockade of Gaza and the targeted killings and arbitrary arrests of Palestinians; declare America's intention to work for a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction, with a security umbrella for countries that sign up and sanctions for those that do not; call for an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Shab'ah Farms in Lebanon; encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations for peace; and support a UN resolution guaranteeing Iraq's territorial integrity.

[snip]

Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over "this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children" in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom's primacy from one of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented chaos and bloodshed in the region.

...Obama signed it quietly, without coverage by the media, late on Friday afternoon, a contrast to the midday signings with fanfare of executive orders on other subjects earlier in the week."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hGEFeIsWrfluY5Iqqe_zaKFw9YOgD95T3M0O0