Archive for December, 2008

The term “burying the lede” refers to news reports which put the most important news deep into a story, rather than the first paragraph.

The Obama team has essentially done the same thing, only through timing. They released the “independent” audit of the transition teams’ contact with Blagojevich related to Obama’s Senate seat yesterday, so it hit newspapers today, Christmas Eve. I would venture to guess that Christmas Eve is in the top three of days with lowest newspaper readership.

One of the better stories today, which very few people will read, is here in the WSJ.

The Washington Post reports today that officials are cutting in half their initial projections of the size of the crowd at Obama’s inauguration.

I suspect this will be the first in a series of adjustments made to expectations as the Obama administration gets started. It doesn’t help that Obama promised to “change” Washington by cleaning it up, and you have his incoming Chief of Staff dodging the media to avoid talking about the Blago disaster.

Sure, Obama has near rock-star appeal, but hyper-inflating the estimates on how many people will show up on a cold January morning in D.C. ends up making the incoming Administration look weak when the crowds don’t materialize. Hence, the revised estimates.

It’s true that Congressional offices have had a record number of requests for tickets to the inauguration. Demand in most offices is twice or three times the number of available tickets. Of course, anyone can lob a request into a Congressional office, it is another thing to book a plane ticket, reserve a hotel room and otherwise spend a few thousand bucks to stand in the cold for a few hours.

Needless-to-say, it will be interesting to watch, which I will do from the comfort of my family room and at night since I’m going to tivo it.

Gov. Blagojevich made a statement yesterday that he was innocent and he was going to fight on. He has lost all credibility, and you can give him credit for standing his ground, but he’s going to hurt Democrats badly. Two reasons he is standing firm: more negotiating power when dealing with prosecutors (“If you resign, we won’t seek jail time”) and he’s really unhappy to be in this predicament and he’s going to take down as many people as he can as he falls.

I do a lot of thinking.  Probably because I have a fair amount of time alone – mostly in my car, driving to various meetings or appointments.  I might have the radio on, but I’m always thinking about something.

So, I’ll continue to do some thinking, but I’ll open some of my thinking to the world… Noble Thinking… it kinda has a ring to it…