gnarlmaze: the gnarling

Joe's a turncoat bastard and etc whose influence on the election was precisely zero despite his assholist best, but why would you, if you're Obama, make Joe Fucking Lieberman the first partisan fight (and it would be a partisan fight) of your pre-presidency?  UPDATE: Leahy!

Think about this:

"President-elect Barack Obama is pushing Congress this year to approve as much as $50 billion to save cash-starved U.S. automakers and appoint a czar or board to oversee the companies, a move that would require President George W. Bush's support, people familiar with the matter said."

That's the partisan fight you pick in your pre-presidency.

I keep confusing my disappointment in Obama, who's absolutely shitty as The Guy Who Does Exactly What Pleases Me, with my admiration for Obama, the best goddamn game-player I've ever seen. UPDATE: Best goddamn game-player I've ever seen.

If there was a better game, he'd be better at that too.

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• There isn't a better game, just a shit-sandwich.
• Babs to run again in 2010. When Van Hollen signed on for another gig with DCCC, it was clear, and this isn't official, but....
• Opostasy: endorsed by Blair.
• Told you: "The gravity of Fomalhaut b is the key reason that the vast dust belt surrounding Fomalhaut is cleanly sculpted into a ring and offset from the star," Kalas said.
• Sfunny, she don't sound Alaskan. Sullivan hyperventilates, but really, after eight years with Monkey Boy after 911 convinced him he was destined and smart, the Republicans would surely surround a March 2009 President Palin with honest puppeteers, bwa, ha, and ha.
• I've always liked Robert Reich.
• GOP blind spot.
• No, fuck you. Deeply.
• What you can buy me for Presentmas. I mean, I own them already, and so? UPDATE: More.
• 2666? If all goes as planned (it won't) I'll start Sunday evening. For the record, I really liked By Night in Chile and really liked Distant Star and really disliked (and abandoned, having given myself the moral licentiousness to quit novels I don't dig) Savage Detectives. Hope for 2666 though:  every novel, before starting, I open randomly and read one page so I can give myself a cheap feeling of deja vu when I come across it in sequence, and the page I randomly turned to, page 403, nabbed me. UPDATE: More.

UPDATES

• Two more responses to Zadie Smith's NYRB article, one from Richard, the other from Wyatt Mason.
• I don't get Auster (or haven't since Moon Palace), but then I don't think Dirda particularly perceptive either.
• I'm 3/4ths through Hemon's latest, and wow. Subscription required, but you subscribe to NYRB anyway so there's no problem. Review itself is interesting beyond the review.

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Why this is in my head I've no idea, but pull it out of your memory chambers.