Granted, holiday weekends are always slow news days, but is it really so bad that you need to create a controversy? The headline:

Bidentity Crisis: Where's Joe?

Yes, Vice President-elect Joe Biden is MIA. He's been cut out of the loop, apparently holed up in some undisclosed location, and probably angry that Hillary Clinton might be the next Secretary of State, while Obama, his Chicago crew, and a yet-to-be-named first puppy, grab all of the headlines (except this one).

According to the article, the questions on Biden's role are "swirling," although the only evidence of this is a quote from a David Ignatius column. And when it goes from speculation to actual reporting?

Like their recent predecessors, Obama and Biden have met for weekly one-on-one lunches since the election. Biden has also been at every key transition meeting and has had private discussions with Obama on the phone when the vice president-elect has regularly returned from the transition base in Chicago to his home in Delaware.

"He's been very closely involved in the key decisions," said former U.S. Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who is working with the Obama transition on intelligence. "He and the president-elect have a very good personal chemistry."

Oh. Well, that kind of undermines the entire premise of the story, doesn't it?

This week on NOW on PBS, economist Robert Kuttner states what should be (but unfortunately isn't) conventional wisdom: that it's more important to get this economy going again than it is to manage the federal budget deficit downwards.

As Kuttner points out, our national debt is currently around 40% of GDP, less than a third of 125% of GDP after World War II -- and the economy did pretty well after WWII. To address today's economic crisis, Kuttner recommends a huge stimulus plan to rebuild our antiquated infrastructure and to jumpstart our new energy economy, even if that means increasing our national debt to 60% or more of GDP.

The full video of David Broncaccio's interview of Robert Kuttner is available on NOW's website.

Nothing can stop the pundits, not even the holidays.  

DHinMI is scheduled for CSPAN's Washington Journal at 8 am EST if you're up. We'll do it live. Watch it on your computer here (or if you missed it, here).

Charles Blow: Don't like the Prop 8 results? Time spent focusing more on black women is time well spent.

Bob Herbert:

If we were interested in making the best possible decisions with regard to the U.S. auto industry, someone like [Teamsters union member] Rich Breen would be seen as the face of the industry, not the chief executives of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

Thomas Walkom: What FDR did wrong is as important as what FDR did right. Canadians take note.

Rhodes Cook: As goes the suburbs, so went Obama's electoral triumph.

Anne Applebaum: The Mumbai terrorist attacks were sophisticated, and it's unclear as to who is behind it. Let's not jump to hasty assumptions and hasty conclusions like we did after 9/11.

Deborah Howell: How to save newspapers (and my job.) Shorter stories and more engagement... and we need to send people online. But because the Post is wonderful, no changes in, say, how we covered Iraq are needed.

DemFromCT joins writers, thinkers and bloviators in debating whether Mark Halperin

"It's the most disgusting failure of people in our business since the Iraq war," Halperin said at a panel of media analysts. "It was extreme bias, extreme pro-Obama coverage."

is fair and balanced, or unhealthily addicted to Drudge.

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are ybruti, taylormattd, a synthetic cubist, YatPundit, HansScholl, and sunspark says, with vcmvo2 as editor.

The diaries up for rescue are:

• JohnnyRook reminds us of a crisis that no bailout is going to help in Climaticide Update: Final Wilkins Ice-Sheet Breakup Looms. (sunspark says)
• In P2P: Prosper.com Lending Shut Down By SEC, bink reminds us that most things that seem to good to be true, are. (a synthetic cubist)
• JDWolverton says that one thing we need not be thankful for is the morass of health care woes we're stuck with in BushCo's Left Over's (sunspark says)
• In What I'm Thankful For: Harvey Milk, theantidesi101 presents the San Francisco leader assassinated 30 years ago on Thanksgiving. (ybruti)
• Mother Mags attacks the American consumerist mentality in Buy Baby Buy! (sunspark says)
• Hardhat Democrat shares some childhood memories while discussing shopping on the day after Thanksgiving in Local First This Holiday Season. (taylormattd)
• Mike McL asks an interesting question, Why not bailout borrowers? (YatPundit)
• John Minehan offers A Few Thoughts and Questions on Education Reform. (YatPundit)
• For Lady Goodman, the music she loves helps center her when a visit to the cemetery stirs pain and loss in ROSES IN THE SNOW: JD Souther, Graves without Markers + My Return to the Scene of the Crime. (HansScholl)

jotter has High Impact Diaries: November 27, 2008.

asimbagirl brings Top Comments - Whatcha doin' January 19th?

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this Open Thread.

She's not so good at the math thing. Andrew Sullivan:

From her current column:

This initiative protecting traditional marriage won by the same margin as Barack Obama did in that state — getting the support of some Obama voters, in fact.

It won 52 - 48. Obama won California by 61 - 37.

Obama's team wasn't obsessed with Drudge.

By the end of the campaign, I was seeing the Drudge siren in my sleep. As people in politics know all too well, Matt Drudge, the Internet provocateur who runs the Drudge Report Web site, posts a flashing siren whenever he wants to alert readers to major campaign news or rumors. The siren haunted my dreams and was always in the corner of my eye — except when it was in plain sight, on my computer screen, signifying success or, more often, terrible failure and impending doom. As soon as that siren started flashing, instant messages would pop up, just below the siren, one after another — each one beginning with "Seen Drudge?" until my entire computer screen was filled with instant-message boxes illuminated by the light of Drudge’s siren. It might have been beautiful if it hadn’t been so frightening.

HOWARD WOLFSON

Dumbasses.

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Unfinished business

[Urp.]  'Scuse me.

I trust you had a nice Thanksgiving, and that you won all the political arguments you either started or got pulled into. The closest I got was a debate on Keynesian economics with the sushi roller at an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. He won, but only because he had graphs. I'll be back with a full Power Point presentation next year, Han Lee!

But enough about this year. There's still an item of business I need to take care of from last year. Namely, did my 2007 wishbone-pull wish come true? Yes. I'm happy to report that the Republicans did, indeed, get thumped and Barack Obama did, in fact, win the election. Which means that my 44-year wishbone-wishing record remains perfect with the exception of 1972 when I wished to be pardoned for writing cuss words on the side of our neighbor's Plymouth in chalk I stole from my fourth-grade classroom. My butt still stings from the spanking I got. Mainly because my mom just got around to doing it yesterday.

Anyway. This is an abbreviated C&J, with something fun below the fold. To remind us again why we're grateful Obama won the election, I'm posting my recap of the Republican 'You Tube Debate' that happened one year ago tonight.

Remember that one? They spent the first 30 minutes talking about the #1 issue facing America: immigration. The word "economy" got a whopping five mentions (three of them in one of Romney's responses), and "subprime," "mortgage," and "foreclosure" got zero. Ah, the good old days, when the GOP kept our real problems neatly swept under the carpet.

And then, if you have any specific questions about Obama's plans, or the economy, or current events in general, I'll stick around and provide answers that I promise you the other front-pagers would never dream of giving. My facts will come from old copies of Jack & Jill and a World War I Gonorrhea pamphlet.

Oh, and this is the last November weekend of the Bush administration. I don’t know who's happier...us or them.

Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Crashing the Gate was, in large part, an ode to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, which had been so effective at crafting the Republican message, delivering it to the American people, and getting its messengers elected to office. At a time other progressives were expending energy trying to discredit it, we saw it as a model to emulate.

Now it's conservatives' turn to plead for their side to emulate our machine. Yet here's the funny thing -- their machine is still bigger and better funded than ours. If I could trade Daily Kos for Fox News and the entire AM radio dial, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd make some major changes at those media outlets, of course (beyond a change of ideology), most of them dealing with how they interact with their audiences online, but really, their problem isn't that they don't have an equivalent to Daily Kos or MoveOn, their problem is that their ideas suck, and now progressives have enough of a machine to counteract their lies and smears.

Remember, a party predicated on the notion that government sucks and can't do anything right can't possibly run an administration that doesn't suck and can do anything right. Competent conservative governance would instantly invalidate conservatism's core tenets. That's why Bush named horse lawyers to FEMA, and why fourth-tier law school grads have infested every corner of the Justice Department. George W. Bush wasn't an anomaly, he delivered the most effectively conservative administration in history.

So given that they couldn't promise effective governance, Republicans needed their machine -- lying about their own record, and slinging copious amounts of mud at our guys. "Liberal" thus became a dirty word. Even Obama has admitted that Fox News single-handedly cost him milions of votes.

I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls," Obama told me. "If I were watching Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me, right? Because the way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latte-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?"

That's some powerful shit. Not long ago, elected Democrats and candidates knew that if they stuck their neck out and did what was right, they'd get slammed by the partisan conservative machine, with little from the progressive side to counteract those attacks. So it became easier to capitulate to the Right -- an instinct that still pervades many of the dead-weight Democrats sitting in Congress today. (Notice how shocked they still act when they get whacked from the Left. They're used to only getting grief from the Right, so they get deeply offended when hit by "their" side.)

But that battle is no longer one-sided. Their machine may be bigger, but we have something. And that's all we ever needed -- a hint of a partisan progressive media machine, fed by research and investigative reporting from the likes of ThinkProgress and Talking Points Memo, to begin delivering our message in the face of their vast media machine, as well as ineffective CW-meisters like Maureen Dowd, Mark Halperin, and David Broder.

So what does the Right have to build if they already have institutions crafting their message, and a vast media machine to deliver it to the people? They've got the infrastructure in place. Sure, it can be tweaked here and there, but we're not talking the challenge facing us progressives six years ago, when we had nothing promoting the partisan progressive agenda (no matter how much conservatives whine about the "liberal media"). We had to build our machine from scratch; theirs still reaches vastly more people than ours.

So now the Patrick Ruffinis on the Right argue that they need their own machine to replace their powerful existing one, as if shiny new websites will suddenly fix what ails them. In reality, their problem is that their ideology has failed. Conservatism has failed, in a very public way, and people now recoil from its siren song. That's not a marketing problem. It's as if people suddenly realized that what they were drinking wasn't Coke, but New Coke. And hundreds of millions of dollars wasn't going to fix that problem.

One last point:

I believe there's something of a cottage industry speculating on when the conservatives will develop an internet presence to rival the left's.  Today, it's Jose Antonio Vargas publishing a piece on the rightroots, but it's been in Newsweek, in the Politico many times, and their whole drilling Twitter fiasco captured a bunch of publicity.  It's rather amusing to see the same establishment news outlets rail against liberal impotence while sending journalists to find out when the right will build a fearsome presence to rival those impotent liberals, but consistency is not a strong suit of modern politics.

Yup. Hilarious.

It's a tough race, no doubt, but if it wasn't for small dollar donors, the Georgia Senate would've been been over by now.

* Chambliss raised $1.6 million in large contributions — amounts of $1,000 or more — from Nov. 13 through Nov. 21 compared with $462,000 for Martin.

* Independent groups such as the National Rifle Association's political action committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee spent $2.5 million from Nov. 8 through Nov. 26 in support of Chambliss — more than twice what outside groups have spent for Martin.

* Conservative and pro-business organizations, such as Americans for Job Security, have spent $1.8 million on issue ads this month that stake out positions aligned with Chambliss.

So why is Jim Martin keeping up?

Martin spokesman Matt Canter said many of the Democratic campaign's contributions fall under the $1,000 reporting threshold set by the FEC for last-minute contributions. He said Martin has raised about $2.5 million since the general election when those smaller donations are included, although that information won't be available until the post-election campaign reports are filed.

"We are raising the resources we need to compete," Canter said. "Jim Martin's message is not getting drowned out."

That means that over $2 million of the money Martin has raised since the runoff has come from contributions under $200. Chambliss is depending on the usual big money interests to fuel his effort. We won't know if that's enough to win until election day, of course, but there are advantages to having your supporters financially vested that will hopefully pay off in a race in which the bad guys hold a small but real lead in the race.

On the web:
Jim Martin for U.S. Senate
Orange to Blue ActBlue Page
MyBO Phonebanking

Turkey sandwiches. Burp.

• In the Boston Globe, Randy Abelda argues that Barack Obama's stimulus plan is macho, and that rebuilding of the physical infrastructure should be accompanied by investments in social infrastructure. (MissLaura)

Via the Los Angeles Times:

9:13 AM PST, November 28, 2008

MUMBAI, India — Commandos who stormed the Mumbai headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group found the bodies of five hostages inside, Indian and Israeli rescue officials said, as a fresh battle raged at the luxury Taj Mahal hotel and other Indian forces ended a siege at another five-star hotel.

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement has confirmed that a New York rabbi and his wife are among the dead in the India terrorist attack.

A spokesman, Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, says Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, have been killed in Mumbai. They ran the movement's local headquarters, which was attacked.

More than 150 people have been killed since gunmen attacked 10 sites across India's financial capital starting Wednesday night, including 22 foreigners, officials said.

The Washington Post has a story on the atmosphere in Mumbai as the city reels in grief; the New York Times discusses the "extraordinary" visit to India proposed by the head of Pakistan's intelligence agency at they same time the Times analyzes how the attacks complicate the already tense relationship between Pakistan and India, a relationship the U.S. has been attempting to mediate.

Barcepundit has been liveblogging the situation. nataraj's diary has a wealth of links on hand to keep on top of the situation.

Use the comments here to share information or news sources.

The firestorm of opposition, including that of the incoming Obama administration, has caused the BLM to back down in Utah, in part.

Drilling leases on the road to Dinosaur National Monument and on lands visible from Utah's iconic Delicate Arch and near Canyonlands National Park are off the block.

In the face of intense opposition from the National Park Service, members of Congress and a top official from President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management backed down Tuesday from its plan to sell oil and gas leases near national parks and wilderness-quality areas in Utah on Dec. 19.

The BLM also promised to consult with the Park Service on any future changes to environmental protections built into long-range plans for lands near the parks, said Mike Snyder, director of NPS' Intermountain region.

"We're pretty pleased," Snyder said Tuesday afternoon. "We needed time to really analyze these to determine what potential park impacts might be."

In a joint announcement, BLM's Utah state director Selma Sierra said working with the Park Service on this dispute was constructive.

"Ongoing discussions with the National Park Service will continue to strengthen our collaboration and coordination," she said. "This is important for two sister agencies with environmental stewardship missions."

Yet where Snyder saw victory, conservationists saw unnecessary compromise.

"It's still a disaster in the making," said Steve Bloch, an attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. "Parcels [that Park Service officials] said were important are still on [the sale list]. That seems a pretty clear indication the Park Service was rolled by someone higher up in the administration."

Snyder denied Bloch's claim. "We got no pressure from the administration. None," he said. "I got support to do what was best for the parks."

Before anybody gets too excited, the majority of the leases in the auction are on the block. Just 22 of more than 90 leases have been pulled, and 130,000 acres are still at risk.

One leading contender for the Secretary of Interior position in the Obama administration is on the case.

Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., sent a letter to Kempthorne saying, "this ill-advised fire sale of leases, which could irreparably harm the air, water and wildlife of three beloved national parks, should be halted."

Grijalva, chairman of the House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands, has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Interior secretary in the Obama administration.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., also sent a letter Tuesday to Kempthorne to urge Interior to postpone the oil- and gas-lease sale the BLM has scheduled for the Friday before Christmas. Seven other senators signed the letter.

Hopefully Grijalva's initiative and proactive watchdogging on the issue will push his name further up that list of potential contenders for the Interior position.

Here's a fitting parting shot.

Congress in August passed a landmark consumer safety law that raises standards for toys and virtually bans several hormone-like chemicals called phthalates in products for children under 12.

Lawmakers wanted toys with the controversial chemicals to be off the market when the law takes effect Feb. 10, according to a statement from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., co-author of the ban.

Last week, however, a staff attorney at the agency responsible for carrying out the new regulations — the Consumer Product Safety Commission — released a legal opinion stating that stores may continue to sell toys with phthalates, as long as those items were made before Feb. 10. That could allow toys with phthalates to remain on the shelves for years, with no way for parents to know which toys contain the chemicals, Feinstein says.

Merry Christmas everyone! Don't touch that toy!

Friday, and the turkey hasn't worn off yet.

Daniel Schultz:

The point is it's rough out there.

All of this affects the little church that I pastor. Retirees see the value of their pensions collapse, and a little less turns up in the collection basket. The economy sours, and we worry about neighbors who might not have enough for food or clothes or heat.

Yet at our annual Thanksgiving Eve service tonight, we will thank God for our good fortune with full and grateful hearts.

Paul Krugman:

A few months ago I found myself at a meeting of economists and finance officials, discussing — what else? — the crisis. There was a lot of soul-searching going on. One senior policy maker asked, "Why didn’t we see this coming?"

There was, of course, only one thing to say in reply, so I said it: "What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?

David Brooks: Don't just think short term, think long term. if you're going to dump this mouch money into the system, do more than dig holes that you can fill up.

Kathleen Parker: Obama means change. Don't sweat who he appoints to do it.

EJ Dionne:

What's most striking about Obama's approach to foreign policy is that he is less an idealist than a realist who would advance American interests by diplomacy, by working to improve the country's image abroad, and by using military force prudently and cautiously.

Charles Krauthammer: The entire market has gone it hell in a handbasket, and it's all the liberals' fault. How much does this remind you of Iraq, where we drop eggs on the floor and then blame everyone else for their inability to reassemble the egg? Here's what I give thanks for: being Charles Krauthammer means never having to admit how stupid and irresponsible you are. It's always someone else's fault, preferably a DFH.

And it's a teachable skill.

LA Times cartoon: The annual presidential turkey pardon ... Obama edition

Tonight's rescue team is grog, HansScholl, jlms qkw, joyful, sunspark says, and vcmvo2, and with srkp23 editing.

On Thanksgiving, a cornucopia of diaries and an extra big helping of gratitude for our wonderful community.

• On the anniversary of his assassination, eugene tells the story of Harvey Milk and the events that occurred 30 Years Ago Today. (sunspark says)
• DancinMan shares this touching story of A Taxi Driver's Thanksgiving. (jlms qkw)
• In Thankgiving Day Thoughts and Perspective, mole333 poses the question of who should be grateful and who should be mournful among the Europeans, Native Americans, and African Americans whose histories were twisted onto a new path when the Old World stumbled onto the Western Hemisphere. (HansScholl)
• jman077 praises Harvey Milk in What I'm Thankful For. (jlms qkw)
• DrDivo is, on this Thanksgiving day, Warm, dry, full, despite a personal economic collapse and descent into one form of homelessness. (grog)
• JDsg discusses and compares the various "official" unemployment rates and what they mean to the economy in U.S. Unemployment Rates: Where Do We Stand? (vcmvo2)
• JDWolverton diagnoses the problems with the Big 3 Automakers in We Get Mediocrity. Now Search For Excellence! (jlms qkw)
• First-time diarist Clear Thinker rants about so-called "scientists" evincing skepticism about climate change in The media's role in the destruction of our planet. (vcmvo2)
• UnaSpenser writes a brief but informative diary to let everyone know about Our First Thanksgiving at the Kossack Social Network. (sunspark says)
• Eddie C made me hungry with Outstanding on the Roof: A Pre-Holiday Slow Food Feast in NYC. (jlms qkw)
• In The Statue of Liberty Wears Shackles?!!, Wattree's shows that this icon was a monument to the abolition of slavery, but wonders how she would view the descendants of the immigrants she welcomed. (HansScholl)

jotter brings High Impact Diaries: November 26, 2008.

MissLaura serves up Top Comments: Thanksgiving.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.