The New Republic

George W. Bush’s first day of retirement from electoral politics will look just like his days as a politician. Upon leaving Washington on Inauguration Day, the former president’s first stop will be at a rally in his childhood hometown of Midland, Texas. As unnatural as a Bush rally may seem these bleak days, the plan ensures that news coverage of Barack Obama’s triumphal arrival will include at least a few clips of his predecessor addressing a joyous crowd. READ MORE >>

Did you know Chris Matthews was from Philadelphia? I’ll bet you did. READ MORE >>

They don’t have political rallies to bring them together anymore, but it’s no secret that a lot of people out there don’t much like Barack Obama. The president-elect, according to his more fervent campaign-season detractors, has a raft of unforgivable faults: He’s a socialist, a Muslim, an actual love-child of Malcolm X. READ MORE >>

Until this month, I never quite realized I had become a loyal alumnus. In the nearly two decades since I’d graduated from my private high school, I’d thought of the place often, and fondly--though usually with that embarrassed sort of affection that a certain class of liberals feel for those essentially inegalitarian institutions responsible for making us the worldly folks we are today. READ MORE >>

I'm basically a fan of David Brooks' version of comic social portraiture. Sure, you could be persnickety about the empirical accuracy of the occasional assertion, but his quips about kaffiyeh-clad Salvadoran waiters at hip African microbreweries usually get at some broader truth. READ MORE >>

As he gets ready for his first press conference as president-elect, Barack Obama is obviously going to be focusing on the future--as all of us in the press are, with questions about cabinet appointees and looming crises. Even so, I can't help but thinking about one unpleasant aspect of the present that could use some addressing as the Bush administration winds down: The shredding machines that I assume will soon be running full-time in the offices of possibly legally compromised Bushies. READ MORE >>

So a handful of newborns in Kenya have apparently been named in honor of Barack Obama. After an election night of revelry in San Francisco's Misson District, a pal calls with a story assignment for an American analogue--albeit one we'd have to wait nine months to identify: Will the celebrations of Tuesday night lead, like the blizzard of '96, to its own Obama Baby boom? There's nothing like the combination of jubilliation and new faith in the future to prompt a couple to conceive. READ MORE >>

Do you have to live in Alaska to join the Alaska Independence Party? If so, I think it's about time to start a Lower 48 auxiliary. First they gave us Sarah Palin. Then they returned America's two most ghoulish legislators to Washington, despite one of them having just been found guilty of seven felonies. READ MORE >>

Reading John Judis' take on the drift of professionals into the Democratic camp, I’m reminded of Paul Begala’s dismissive description of Barack Obama’s base: "Eggheads and African-Americans." Obama, the logic went, would flounder outside the combined population of one minority ethnic group and the nation's roster of assistant professors of anthropology. READ MORE >>

I'd shortchanged the dog tonight while I was geeking out with election returns. So I set off on a trot with him once Obama's speech was done. A few blocks away from my house in Philadelphia, I found a block of Baltimore Avenue shut down by about 200 people beating drums, pots, and pans and dancing in the street. It occurred to me I'd never actually, literally seen people dancing in the street. READ MORE >>