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From Hardball Dec. 1, 2008 when asking if the left should feel betrayed by Obama's appointments Chris Bowers from OpenLeft responds to Matthews by saying:

I don't think he's betraying it. I think, I mean first of all he hasn't become President so it's difficult to see how he's failed to deliver on any campaign promises so far but he, he didn't say he was going to govern from the left during his campaign. He had some progressive rhetoric, but he said he was going to govern in a bi-partisan fashion. He repeatedly said that throughout 2007 and 2008, so I don't feel betrayed.

Matthews moves on and changes the subject. It's always nice to see someone knock him off of his talking points if only for a moment. Matthews is desperate for a fight where there is none yet and Chris Bowers is right, it is difficult to see how Obama has failed to deliver on any promises since he's not President yet. Can we at least wait until he's sworn in and see how he governs before having this conversation Chris Matthews? The Villagers are just chomping at the bit to skewer bloggers and the progressive wing of the Democratic party at every opportunity.

Today Barack Obama held his fifth news conference since winning the presidency, and for the fifth time, he refused to call on a reporter from FOX. Fishbowl DC has been keeping track.

As we've been documenting, Fox News hasn't gotten a question in during President-elect Barack Obama's five press conferences since the election.

Today was another. Questions instead went to such outlets as ABC, New York Times, CBS, Reuters and the Associated Press.

Despite his one appearance on The Factor, Barack Obama has made clear his disdain for everything FOX News. It's pretty refreshing to see a Democrat realize that he doesn't need to grovel to FOX, no?

Sen Hillary Clinton gives her prepared remarks after being named by President-elect Barack Obama to become the Secretary of State.

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Damn it, it's a center-right nation, and don't you forget it!

I swear to you that is the editorial slant taken by pretty much all the bobbleheads, but none so nakedly as This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Note the make up of the panel is basically four Republicans to one Democrat (with all their concern trolling, I generously figure that Brazile and Stephanopoulos together equal just one Democrat). What's with that ratio? The American public has soundly and decisively voted against the GOP policies and the Bush doctrine, so what are frightened little Villagers to do but put on some former Bushies, Matthew Dowd and Torie Clarke, along with conservative stalwart George Will.

George Will, the sagest one of all, metaphorically pats Donna Brazile on the head and suggests that perhaps all the doom and gloom on the economy is unnecessary, as if Donna Brazile is the one to blame for the bearish outlook. He suggests that the foreclosure rate isn't as bad as everyone seems to think, that the unemployment rolls aren't that bad (WTF? 94% of the people who want to work are working? WANT to work?) and that this is strictly a financial sector problem, ignoring the fact that if the financial sector cannot lend money, it becomes a disaster to the consumer and small business owner as well. Typical Republican missing the forest for the trees.

Meanwhile, former Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clarke rings the warning bell that all these bailouts (not questioned when AIG and BearStearns came a-calling, mind you) are going to cause us to "out-France France"! Quel horreur! And Matthew Dowd insists that if Obama really wants to represent change from how things are done in Washington, he's going to have to reject a Democratic party-led program.

Um, huh? The logic of this escapes me. The American public has rejected GOP policies and rule and so therefore, Obama must reject a Democratic program? I have an idea for you, Matt (along with all of the ABC news bookers): how about we give a Democratic program (and a Democratic panel) a try for once? THAT would be a change.

In a preview of his weekly address, President-elect Barack Obama addressed the nation on the occasion of Thanksgiving, nearly one hundred and fifty years after President Lincoln called for the last Thursday in November to be set aside to acknowledge our blessings. For more information, visit http://change.gov.

Good morning.

Nearly 150 years ago, in one of the darkest years of our nation’s history, President Abraham Lincoln set aside the last Thursday in November as a day of Thanksgiving. America was split by Civil War. But Lincoln said in his first Thanksgiving decree that difficult times made it even more appropriate for our blessings to be – and I quote – "gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people."

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Watch this for yourself and decide: Is Walters, like, checking out Obama during this interview? There's something odd about this ...

From CBS2 in Chicago:

CHICAGO (CBS) ― President-elect Barack Obama and the soon-to-be first family handed out food to the needy at a South Side church on the day before Thanksgiving.

Obama, his wife Michelle and their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, shook hands and gave holiday wishes as they handed wrapped chickens to people who had been lined up for hours at the food bank at St. Columbanus Parish, 331 E. 71st St.
...
Afterward, Obama and his family addressed an assembly of children screaming with delight at St. Columbanus Elementary School, asking them what would be eating at Thanksgiving as they applauded and cheered. One held a sign reading, "We love our Prez."

"I'm not president yet, I've been elected president," Obama said. "But I'm going to be sworn in as president on January 20th."

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From Morning Joe, Nov. 24, 2008.

You guys [Team Obama] own the economy at 12 o'clock eastern time today, correct? When Senator Obama announces his Treasury Secretary, announces the Larry Summers position. It is now Barack Obama's responsibility on the economy, is that not correct?

h/t Bob Cesca, who has more here.

I'm not sure what everyone has been thinking. Obama said he'd be bipartisan, weed us off dependence on foreign oil, negotiate with the world at large instead of attacking them and never, ever torture people. He also promised to cut taxes for that plumber guy and implement a sweeping change in our health care system and also inject a much-needed stimulus package into the economy. One would hope it would be called universal health care. Bush has left Obama with a complete disaster and I'm going to at least wait until he takes office and begins trying to dig us out of the ditch before I get too upset over his picks.

If you remember, during the general election Howie and I wrote a post called:

Anatomy of a Right Wing Myth: Obama is the most liberal Democratic Senator

If only! Actually there are 39 Democrats with more liberal voting records, although Obama does at least beat perennial Bush rubber stamps Holy Joe Lieberman (CT), Ben Nelson (NE) and Mary Landrieu (LA). His voting record-- however you slice it, however you dice it-- points to a solidly mainstream centrist...read on

Obama has never said anything different in his campaign. There's been some rumblings in the blogosphere about Obama's choices to fill out his Cabinet so far. I like Christopher Hayes a lot, but I think he's wrong here. When did he promise a Cabinet full of Progressives? And Chris Bowers writes:

I really don't want to be pessimistic about the new Obama administration. Rather, I much preferred my optimistic mood from last night, discussing how the House seems to be moving in a more progressive direction, and how cutting military spending was a real possibility over the next couple of years. That felt good, and I want to keep feeling that way.

However, the apparent leading contenders for several top Obama administration positions continue to worry me.

Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, Bob Gates possibly retained at Defense, Tom Daschle at Health and Human Services and Eric Holder at Justice. With the market dropping because of more economic bad news, Obama named Timothy Geithner as the nation's next Treasury Secretary. What do you know? With a little leadership displayed, Wall Street rallied.

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Republicans seem to be viewing the nascent Obama administration with some dread, half expecting Democrats to do to them what they've been receiving for the past eight years and more. So unsurprisingly, Karl Rove seemed to be on Chris Wallace's mind Sunday when he interviewed David Axelrod of the Obama team on Fox:

Chris Wallace: Finally, you are going to be the new senior adviser to the president -- I don't know if you're going to like this comparison, but are you going to be the Karl Rove of the administration, in the sense of the intersection of policy and politics?

David Axelrod: I've never accepted that comparison. Look, my role with Barack Obama for the past six years has been to help the communications operation impart his message, his values and his vision to the American people, and I expect to continue to do that. My role is circumscribed to those responsibilities.

I'm not trying to build the Democratic Party or any of these other -- I think Mr. Rove had quite an expansive portfolio. I think mine is very focused.

ABC News' Matt Jaffe Reports:

A New York elementary school has been re-named in honor of President-elect Barack Obama. Ludlum Elementary School in Long Island's Hempstead Union Free School District was re-named at a board meeting Thursday, at the request of numerous school students.

"Just to watch these kids after the board voted on what they asked them to do, they were so elated," school district superintendent Dr. Joseph Laria told ABC News. "You want to talk about "Yes we can!"? That was a lesson in democracy."

Effective immediately, Ludlum will now be known as Barack Obama Elementary School, following a decision by the board to adopt the resolution drafted by students and staff.

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This is truly a sad statement on the state of journalism in the US today. That the question "How is Obama different from Bush?" even needs to be posed -- much less discussed -- is truly insulting to the intelligence of the waning viewers that these guys get.

Hmmm....let me count the ways: One's a divisive ideologue who has risen to undeserved levels of status given his personal mediocrity and intellectual laziness due to his connections versus one who believes in a post-partisan government that gets things done who has had to overcome many personal obstacles to achieve great levels based on intelligence, charisma and hard work. I can totally see why the public would need this clarified.

The thing that continues to be so frustrating is the continued post facto admissions by the Villagers as to the deficits that we've had over the last eight years with Bush. Sure, now that he is two months away from walking out of the White House for the last time, we can admit that the world hates us and doesn't want to work with Bush, as Katty Kay does, or that he is stupid (to put a more honest term to Woodward and Borger's "intellectually incurious) and finds the whole "understanding other people's points of view" boring.

But where were they for the last four years? Where was their outrage and coverage of this then? How many soldiers' lives could we have saved if the media had been more honest about Bush? How many poor Iraqi civilian lives? Time and time again, the media abdicates their role in presenting context and in this case, their acceptance of the catapulted propaganda has led the country to the brink of ruin. And yet they feel no culpability. Instead, they treat us to these faux-hard hitting dialogues comparing and contrasting Obama to Bush. Brilliant.

We knew even before the election that the right was going to be trying to delegitimize Barack Obama's and the Democrats' electoral victory, since it would be their only hope of hanging on to their own few rapidly vanishing strands of legitimacy, not to mention relevance.

Well the whole "ACORN used fraud to win" meme that was originally favored in this role didn't pan out so well, given the size and breadth of the victory.

So now they're going for the tried and true: The Librul Media Made Us Do It. That, after all, was the underlying meme in that phony Zogby poll intended to make Obama supporters look stoopid. It's looking like a desperate grasp at the strawman.

Mark Halperin, the onetime ABC News honcho now writing for Time, was out there yesterday doing his best to help. He told a crowd that the media bias in Obama's favor this election was overwhelming:

"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."

Yeah, all that media silence about Jeremiah Wright, while they couldn't seem to stop talking about Pastor Hagee -- that was so biased! ... What's that? That's not what happened? I guess Halperin has me confused.

Now, it's probably true that the media coverage tended to make Obama look like a principled, thoughtful leader, and McCain look like a gimmick-driven hack willing to say or do anything to get elected. But then, that might be because McCain's campaign itself -- from taking on an unqualified dimwit like Sarah Palin as a running mate to dragging out Joe the Plumber at every stop -- made him look that way. As Colbert says, reality does tend to have a liberal bias.

But I have to say, Halperin's line that this was "the most disgusting failure in our business since the Iraq war" is a real piece of chutzpah.

Because when there was a chance for the media to do something about properly informing the public about the Iraq war, Halperin -- who had the reins of one of the three major network's news operations at the time -- did nothing. The media's coverage of the war, particularly during the critical runup period, was in fact a historic case of misfeasance that has had disastrous consequences for the nation. And Mark Halperin was a major player in that failure.

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Cross-posted from MyLeftNutmeg.com.

Lieberman lies and lies again. And when the local Fox Reporter calls him on the lying, Lieberman just lies some more. But it doesn't matter to him, simply because he's never had to pay any real price for the years of lies and the backstabbing. That's just politics to Joe Lieberman. And not surprising in the slightest is the ass-kissing of Barack Obama. Expect his lips to be firmly planted there for the foreseeable future.

*A horrible, horrible person.

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Shorter McLaughlin Group:

Pat Buchanan - Obama needs to take over the economy before Inauguration Day or disaster will strike!

Monica Crowley - Government spending bad!

Mort Zuckerman - I'm the token liberal on this show? Bwa ha ha! I sold short? Double bwa ha ha!

Eleanor Clift - As the real token liberal on this show, poor people suffer more than you, McLaughlin!

John McLaughlin - Do NOT!