"Finishing Our Work", Thomas Friedman, New York Times: talks about the "Buffet Effect," in which old white guys claimed to be voting for John McCain in the country club locker room, but actually voted for Obama.

Why? Some did it because they sensed how inspired and hopeful their kids were about an Obama presidency, and they not only didn’t want to dash those hopes, they secretly wanted to share them. Others intuitively embraced Warren Buffett’s view that if you are rich and successful today, it is first and foremost because you were lucky enough to be born in America at this time — and never forget that. So, we need to get back to fixing our country — we need a president who can unify us for nation-building at home.

"Transformational Presidency", Katrina Vanden Huevel, The Nation: tells Democrats they should not fear their mandate; they should exploit it for change.

Already we hear calls that the new Democratic majority must not "overreach." That is code for "do not use your mandate." Ignore those calls—- this election was a referendum on conservatism that has guided American politics since 1980.
After years of playing defense, it is time to unshackle our imaginations, build coalitions and craft creative strategies that will move, persuade and push President Obama and a new Congress to seize the mandate they have been offered.

"Brilliant", Rolling Stone:

"Race, Post Race", Michael Eric Dyson, Los Angeles Times: Quotes Langston Hughes and Tupac, credits an Obama victory with reviving our nation's image, but cautions that we should not think racism no longer exists.

Obama, something of a re-founding father, now joins the pantheon of white men who have cast a bright light or negative shadow over the nation's political landscape. His interpretation of America's ideals and destiny will enliven the creeds that have shaped the nation's self-image.

"President Obama", Washington Post: Obama has the chance to repair America's fractured image in the rest of the world.

Mr. Obama cannot erase Mr. Bush's legacy, but he has a chance to improve America's standing in the world, ending such noxious practices as torture and indefinite detention with minimal review that have diminished this country in the eyes of its allies. He has the opportunity finally to set the country on a path to help reduce global warming. He has far-reaching plans on energy, health care and education, but also a realistic understanding that the state of the economy will delimit his ambitions.

"Living History", Anna Quindlen, Newsweek: America is simultaneously concept and country, and it has historically fallen short of its conceptual image. Obama's victory helps forge the gap between concept and reality.

He made the political spiritual. "In the end, then," he said, "what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us." He asked the American people to be fair and just, to be kind and generous, to put prejudice behind them and be one people because that is, not a legal or social imperative, but a moral one.

"The Next President", New York Times: Obama's victory was such a landslide because America under Bush has failed to protect its citizens.

His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world.

"Conservatism Isn't Finished", Thomas Frank, Wall Street Journal: Doesn't trust Obama's healing rhetoric, thinks the country is still bitterly divided, but conservatives have also been deeply irresponsible.

Turning our eyes from the presidential campaign to conservative Washington generally, we can see the same overripeness, the same flamboyant contradictions that have long since become too great to paper over. The conservative movement, after all, came to Washington under a banner of "reform" but promptly turned Congress over to lobbyists and opened countless regulatory agencies to the industries they regulated. The movement clamored for fiscal responsibility and proceeded to outsource, at vast expense, every government operation it could.

"The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace", Jeffery Scott Shapiro, WSJ: People have shown the great Dubya "classless disrespect" despite the fact that Bush literally drove the country into the ground. Apparently we should feel bad for Bush because he tried very hard to reach across the aisle and was rebuffed by dem mean old Democrats.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

"Obama's Victory Ushers in a New America", Joe Klein, Time: Focuses on the story of Obama organizer Nate Hundt, who campaigned for Barack in Algona, Iowa and really became part of the community. Hundt and his fellow Obama staffers are the future of American politics.

Indeed, there are — an army of them, untold thousands of young organizers operating out of more than 700 offices nationwide. And they have delivered a message to Rudy Giuliani, who sneered during the Republican National Convention that he didn't even know "what a community organizer is." This is who they are: they are the people who won this election. They were the heart and soul and backbone of Barack Obama's victory. They are destined to emerge as the next significant generation of American political operatives — similar to the antiwar and antisegregation baby boomers who dominated the Democratic Party after cutting their teeth on the Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy campaigns of 1968, similar to the pro-life, antitax Reaganauts who dominated the Republican Party and American politics from the election of 1980 ... until now. They are a preview of the style and substance of the Obama Administration.

"Hail To The Chief", Michael Gerson, Washington Post: Gerson was one of Sarah Palin's earliest and most vocal supporters so it's no surprise that he's acting like someone peed in his cornflakes. He sees no healing, only increasing polarization.

His victory is likely to unleash an ideological and vengeful Democratic Congress. In the testing of a long campaign, Barack Obama has seemed thoughtful but sometimes hesitant and unsure of his bearings. He promises outreach and healing but holds to a liberalism that sees no need for innovation…After a deserved honeymoon, the new president is likely to find that the intensity of this bitterness has only gathered. Because of the ideological polarization of cable television news, talk radio and the Internet, Americans can now get their information from entirely partisan sources.

"Obama and America", Chicago Tribune: Obama's hometown paper disagrees with Gerson. They believe Obama's unwillingness to participate in negative campaigning has already helped raise the level of political discourse, but they warn that America will need time to recoup.

By winning, he raises the hope of a more civil polity. His moderate tone may also ease the pain felt by John McCain's supporters, who will be waiting to see whether his administration is as inclusive as his rhetoric…[But] America's political rancor won't instantly disappear. Pollster Peter Hart recently found that one-third of each candidate's supporters have come to "detest" McCain or Obama so thoroughly that they couldn't accept him as president. Hart asked a Wall Street Journal reporter, "How do you knit a nation back together with this kind of animosity?"

"Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress", The Onion: 'Nuff said.

But that's not the only coded language these Conservative queen-makers use in relation to Palin. Kristol referred to her as "my heartthrob" on Fox News in July; Barnes noted that she is “exceptionally pretty"; Jay Nordlinger, a senior editor at the National Review , wrote in a column that Palin is “a former beauty-pageant contestant, and a real honey, too. Am I allowed to say that? Probably not, but too bad.”

As many of her most ardent fans have noticed, Palin is a very attractive woman. And noticing this wouldn't be bad — it would just be human — if it didn't seem that this is her main qualification in the eyes of even her most serious-minded supporters. Kristol, Barnes and Gerson, in discussing why they were so initially enamored with the Governor of Alaska, mentioned her star power, her hockey mom biography, her charisma, and almost as an afterthought, her record as a "reformer," which at this point has been pretty thoroughly debunked (see her troopergate abuse of power and her bridge to nowhere fibs).

It is undeniable that conventional attractiveness, regardless of gender, is a large part of political success; to deny this would be naive. Do you think Barack Obama would have had his meteoric rise to power had he been fifty pounds overweight? Why do you think Mike Huckabee got his lap band, or Biden his hair plugs or Hillary Clinton or McCain their alleged Botox? However, while Obama's looks, oratorial skills and biography, while certainly part of his packaging, are not the sole basis of his rise to prominence.

I spent the better part of yesterday thinking about Sarah Palin and what she means to women. After my initial rage over the choice of a severely anti-choice, anti-intellectual, theocratic woman subsided, I have tried to think about the ways the choice of Palin could be construed as a positive. She is a self-proclaimed feminist, and even though many people may think she doesn't qualify as one, the mere fact that she embraces a term that so many young women shun is important. I also decided that Palin's prominence could be a boon for little girls. Perhaps the next generation will be more inclined to join the political fray after seeing a woman so easily glide onto the Presidential ticket.

Then, last night, I read that John McCain announced on Fox News that he picked Palin, in part, as a counter to the "liberal feminist agenda," and I found my first claim deflating. McCain is trying to take a place of common ground that women might have with Palin — that we all call ourselves feminists — and make the word into something even more divisive than it already is. I suppose in the Republican party there is only one proper way to be a feminist, and that's to be pretty and pro-life.

This morning, I watched a few videos on Newsweek from the magazine's Women In Leadership conference, and was struck by the comments of former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers. "As long as human beings are sexual, and as long as attraction remains one of the dynamics that define life, you're never going to totally eliminate that. What you can do, is, one, women have to be conscious of it, because if you don't take it off the table, it becomes a distraction." Myers went on to talk about how Hillary Clinton purposely looked almost exactly the same every day — the same hairdo and pantsuits — so that people would not comment on her looks, they'd talk about what she had to say. When Palin winks and flirts with the audience during a debate and wears black, high-heeled patent leather boots to political rallies, it's impossible not to notice these things, and it's also impossible to argue that these actions don't become part of the conversation.

And this is what worries me about Palin's legacy to young girls. I don't think we should ever require female politicians to be asexual or unfeminine. The point of feminism is that you should be able to present yourself in whatever way you please along the spectrum. However, if a male politician were winking and mugging at the camera the way that Palin does, I would find it equally unprofessional. And I worry that when young women see Sarah Palin, they think, "I too can have a meteoric rise to power... as long as I'm also a beauty queen."

"Women are judged more harshly if they're not pretty," Myers says in her Newsweek video. "That's something we've all had to live with since junior high." Which is not to say that Palin does not possess other gifts. I think she is incredibly ambitious and savvy, though these things are not part of her public persona. She has always masked her ambition, something often seen as unfeminine, behind folksy talk and faux humility, like when she said, "I never really set out to be in public affairs, much less to run for this office."

But Myers also notes that people are given genetic gifts unequally, and while Palin's looks are an advantage for her, so were Bill Clinton's charisma and Barack Obama's intellect. Again, this would not be a problem if Palin had the political knowledge to back up her very carefully constructed and gilded image. Myers did say something heartening, though. "One woman can't change a culture, but if there are more women there can be a critical mass. If there's only one woman, the culture changes the woman." I think Palin alone will not be able to personally change a generation of women. But hopefully the combined impact of Clinton, Palin, Pelosi will inspire a critical mass.

The Insiders [The New Yorker]
Among Rock-Ribbed Fans of Palin, Dudes Rule [NYT]
McCain: Palin Is A Counter To The "Liberal Feminist Agenda" [Feministing]
"Palin's Looks Do Help Her" [Newsweek]

Earlier: Palin Dudes: "Proud To Be Voting For The Hot Chick"

MOE: I guess we need to start this now. Peggy Noonan

And they were on the right side, connected to the one making the breakthrough, shattering the glass. They were going to be part of breaking it into a million little pieces that could rain down softly during the balloon drop at the historic convention, each of them catching the glow of the lights. Some network reporter was going to say, "They look like pieces of the glass ceiling that has finally been shattered."
I know: Barf. But also: Fine. Politics should be fun.

MOE: This could sorta be an R. Kelly song:

You want to say "Girl, butch up, you are playing in the leagues, they get bruised in the leagues, they break each other's bones, they like to hit you low and hear the crack, it's like that for the boys and for the girls."

MEGAN: My dad's nickname is Butch. Also, wtf is with the overwrought imagery today, Peggy? And why is there a crazy loud motorcycle idling outside my window?

MOE: I'm sure at this point, Peggy Noonan has a programmable robot supplying her with the day's overwrought imagery but that glass ceiling line seems like it might have come old school from her own pen…and I suppose we could talk about Hagee although if it's not newsworthy enough to occupy a minute on the fair and balanced network…
MEGAN: I love, by the way, that calling the Catholic Church the "great whore" and suggesting that Katrina was punishment for not being assholes to gay people was totally acceptable to the campaign, but suggesting that Hitler was sent by God to drive the Jews to Palestine which is needed to bring about the rapture is the thing that gets Hagee the boot. Jews in Florida that don't like Obama? This one's for you.

MOE: One thing I wondered reading fucking Michael Gerson (why did I do that?) this morning is whether the Republicans, when they are skewering Obama's ability to win over these guys:

Tough hill-country men voted for her, men so backward they'd give the lady a chair in the union hall. Tough Catholic men in the outer suburbs voted for her, men so backward they'd call a woman a lady. And all of them so naturally courteous that they'd realize, in offering the chair or addressing the lady, that they might have given offense, and awkwardly joke at themselves to take away the sting. These are great men. And Hillary got her share, more than her share, of their votes.

…ever stop mid-sentence and say to themselves, "Oh yeah…Reagan Democrats…we sure rendered those guys economically extinct!"
'
MEGAN: Oh, wait, and while he's making his point he gets to make an offhand slap at all us snotty little feminists, too, who think that men that give up seats for us are terrible human beings. Actually, Mikey, I wouldn't take the seat because that guy's probably been on his feet all day (and I worked in a factory, so I know how much that sucks even when you're 19) and he's probably as old as my dad and I would think it rude of me to accept even though it would be nice of him to offer. And I'll bet my dad, a union member who occasionally attends Catholic church with my mom and lives in a rural area, voted for Obama.
MOE: Eugene Robinson quotes the Talking Heads today.
MEGAN: Is it sad that I saw that headline and my reptile brain started singing "What a Girl Wants"?
MOE: Oh sorry that quote was from Noonan, who was actually writing about sexism.

Where to begin? One wants to be sympathetic to Mrs. Clinton at this point, if for no other reason than to show one's range. But her last weeks have been, and her next weeks will likely be, one long exercise in summoning further denunciations. It is something new in politics, the How Else Can I Offend You Tour.

MEGAN: Um, ok, well, I take it back about Mikey.
MEGAN: But if she was actually saying that, I'm saying it to Peggy now. Also, the How Else Can I Offend You tour made me snicker a little.

MOE: "If only to show one's range" was pretty good.
MEGAN: So, is that what Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh have been doing? Showing their range?
MEGAN: Oooh, ooh, Parsley's got videos in which he's all spitting angry mad and bringing The Crazy, and they showed them just now on MSNBC, but I'm sure we'll never see them again
MOE: Oooh ooh tell me more about Parsley I'm too lazy to Google.
9:40 AM
MEGAN: He endorsed McCain like ages ago.
MOE: Also dude I think Coulter showed some range with the Hillary thing. Conservatives really do fucking hate McCain. Limbaugh was just being himself. Also a reader wants us to discuss Hillary as VP. Um…what's to discuss: maybe a "dream"…but not a pleasant one
MEGAN: He's totally crazy, and McCain just rejected him and his endorsement.
MEGAN: Oh, for Chrissakes, why would she give up a Senate seat? I get that Bill wants to be the VP's husband or something because he'll be more prominent and he lurves him some Executive Branch (having never served in the legislative one), but that would be stupid, to give up a lifetime Senate seat for VP. Al Gore showed it's no guarantee to the Presidency

MOE: It sounds horrible and bad to live through, like a piano fallen through a roof or something, but then there's also the part of me that perceives the election through some internal amiable-but-reflexively-anti-"Liberal" angry white man Obama Needs To Win and he just hates it on basic "What the shit, a black guy running with a woman now? What are we trying to prove here?" terms. It's illogical, because she's actually just about the most qualified candidate and on some level not picking her to be VP might be sexist, but it's also not why she would be a nightmare running mate.
MEGAN: She would be a nightmare running mate because she wouldn't be a running mate, she'd garner as much if not more media attention. It would be a co-ticket, or certainly perceived that way, and I can't imagine her wanting to be second banana so I can't think that she'd allow herself to play that role (and good for her).
MEGAN: And, by that role, I mean, she wouldn't allow herself to recede into the background even a little bit.
MEGAN: And she shouldn't, and she shouldn't be asked to. She'll be far more powerful in the Senate than she'll ever be as VP.
MOE: Hahaha McCain just promoted Obama to "young man" from his previous status of "boy."
MEGAN: Oh, good, someone finally explained to him that other people get the racist implications of that. Congrats, McCain staffers.

MOE: Well some "old hand" named Jim Johnson is apparently running Obama's veepstakes but you didn't hear that from me:

Democratic officials on Thursday discussed Mr. Johnson’s role on condition of anonymity because Mr. Obama had demanded that the process be kept secret and they did not want him to know they were talking about it. Advisers to Mr. Obama declined to discuss the search or any elements of the process.

Disciplined campaigns are totes boring.
MEGAN: Hahaha, I love how they're like, don't tell him we're talking about him, press!! I wonder if those "Democratic officials" are the same ones that inspired the story about Bill wanting Hillary to get it...

MOE: I meant to bring it back to the Jews again but now I've gotta post this fucking thing:

If Jews do flock to John McCain this fall, Obama would be in some trouble (assuming, of course, that Hillary Clinton doesn't win the nomination through a miracle more impressive than the one commemorated every year at Hanukkah); a strong majority of Jewish voters has gone Democratic in presidential elections since 1924. Jews have favored the Democrat in 21 straight presidential elections, and by an average margin of 3-to-1.

MEGAN: Well, but we've never had a Muslim running before.
MOE: WHAT I WAS GONNA SAY! Ooooh guess what percentage of Florida is Jewish?
MEGAN: Well, since my grandparents moved back to upstate New York, can I say 100?

MOE: Five.

But a Gallup poll last month — in the midst of the Wright drama — found Obama beating McCain 61-32 among Jewish voters, a far wider margin than among the population as a whole. While that's lower than John Kerry's 76 percent margin among Jews (and 5 points lower than the 66 percent Hillary Clinton got in the same poll), Obama's campaign isn't worried about making up the difference by November. "If we're beating McCain 2-1 after 'Obama is a Muslim' scares and a month of Rev. Wright, then we're doing pretty well," one aide said.

MEGAN: So he needs to get 75% of 5% of the population to win the state or something? Jesus Christ, people, this is what happens when nobody votes, stupid shit like this matters.

• The Obama kiddies love Beyonce but think Paris and Britney are "yuck." Because their mother taught them to hate America? [AP]
  
• It's 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep.There's a world crisis and the White House phone is ringing. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it's someone who already knows the world's leaders, knows the military — someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world... The latest Clinton campaign spot, reaching out to "security moms." [YouTube]
  
• Just in time for Texas, Obama nabs the coveted Jessica Alba endorsement! And also Jay Rockefeller, John Lewis. [Wash Post] [WSJ] [AP]
  
• Finnish students get top scores on international science tests because their educational system is set up sort of like a small liberal arts college and everyone is white and liberal and pierced and shit. [WSJ]

• A top White House aide admits plagiarism; a former Bush speechwriter touts the importance of eloquence. Lolz. [Wash Post] [Wash Post]
• For the past 35 years, median household incomes have risen at a third the rate of worker productivity. Huh. Where you think all that excess cash went? [Washington Post]
• Celebrities are making bigger profits off their endorsements yay! [WSJ]
• Michelle Obama gave her stump speech about not going into corporate America to a poor town in Ohio and the conservatives are sharpening their knives. [National Review]