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Among journalism’s favorite phrases lately is the oft-repeated suggestion that Barack Obama’s administration needs to “hit the ground running.” Enter Calexico, a politically savvy, socially aware, musically adventurous band I rank among my current favorites. As soon as they arrive at an anthemic “London Calling”, we’ll be good to go.

From a New York Times article about the rumored selection of Timothy Geithner as Secretary of Treasury:

In choosing Mr. Geithner, Mr. Obama would signal both a change at Treasury as well as continuity in its economic rescue efforts that could reassure financial markets. With current Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Mr. Bernanke, Mr. Geithner, as chief of the Federal Reserve Bank in the city that is headquarters to the financial industry, has been part of a troika that has struggled this year to contain the credit crisis.

“You can’t bring in a guy who needs on-the-job training,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a professor of economics at Harvard who once worked with Mr. Geithner at the International Monetary Fund. “You have to have someone who can hit the ground running.” [Emphasis mine.]

From the first moment the United States set foot in Iraq, I’ve been playing out this scenario in my head over and over again. It keeps me awake at night. It should. I’m glad Cenk Uygur finally said aloud what I should have more clearly spoken years ago. For all my opposition to George W. Bush’s War on the people of Iraq (and now the bombing of Afghanistan), this is really what it all comes down to:

Earlier I mentioned a kitchen table. We’re used to our own kitchen tables. We know how they look and it feels like home to us. It almost seems strange to think of a family sitting around a kitchen table in North Waziristan. But they do. The husband comes home from probably a back-breaking day of work. They have aspirations for their kids. They’re worried about the violent jihadists that are rumored to be in the area (like we’re worried about crime in our neighborhoods). The wife is making soup. The son has just come in from playing soccer. The dad is at least glad to see his only son come home. And then boom. Lights out. We just dropped a bomb on the wrong house. They’re all dead.

By the way, in case you aren’t a fan of the Young Turks, Cenk’s been on fire lately.

Andrew Sullivan explains why the next CIA chief must be absolutely committed to ending torture and why John Brennan is not that person:

The simple answer to the question - what length do we want to go? - is to abide by the rule of law. Why is that so hard to understand? And yet Brennan and Tenet didn’t. They authorized clear torture sessions. Why is such a man even considered for the post under Obama? This man cannot end the taint of Bush-Cheney. He was Bush-Cheney. In fact, if Obama picks him, it will be a vindication of the kind of ambivalence and institutional moral cowardice that made America a torturing nation. It would be an unforgivable betrayal of his supporters and his ideals. It would be an acknowledgment that Tenet himself is not a war criminal, while the facts indisputably prove that he was.

John Brennan is a litmus test for those of us who voted for Barack Obama believing he would bring a rational end to George W. Bush’s War on the people of Iraq and he would reverse the lawless torture and rendition policies of the Bush administration. Obama cannot turn his back on this issue, not in the open and certainly not in what Dick Cheney characterized as “the dark side.” There is no dark side in government operating by rule of law.

As Sullivan further says:

The least we know is that Brennan is ambivalent about this. Ambivalence on this matter is unacceptable. We haven’t fought for decency and reform and a return to American values for so long to be turned back now. We didn’t work our butts off to elect Obama only to get Bush another four years at CIA. If Brennan emerges as the pick, those of us against the continuation of war crimes and the prosecution of war criminals will have to oppose him strenuously in the nomination process. We will, in fact, have to go to war with Obama before he even takes office.

And if Obama doubts our seriousness, I have three words for him. Yes we can.

UPDATE   I want to add a quick personal note here and say it will feel like a tremendous betrayal if Obama pushes through this nomination. I’m prepared to go to war with the Obama administration over Brennan. He isn’t the change Americans need.

For me, the key figure in a Gallup poll released yesterday isn’t the favorable rating of 34 percent for the Republican Party, nor the unfavorable rating of 61 percent. A single crisis can send those numbers careening in a flash. What concerns me is this: “Most Republicans — 59 percent — want the party to become more conservative, according to the poll.” It makes me wonder whether the respondents were thinking about social conservatism or economic conservatism. It pains me to imagine a GOP with Sarah Palin at its head, because it’s one thing to have a movement led by rational individuals with whom I might disagree yet still reason, entirely another to oppose a one commanded by a deliberately ignorant leadership. (Frankly, it’s terrifying to imagine one of Palin’s whipped-up crowds leaning further right.)

Katie Couric and Dave Letterman discuss the plight of Wolfboy. (Hey, how could I resist a Wolfboy video?) Oh. And John McCain is mentioned somewhere in there too.

Ezra Klein gets straight to the heart of the $70 per hour figure:

Jon Cohn does a good job debunking the common claim that they [General Motors] pay their workers $70 an hour. The $70 an hour came from dividing total compensation costs by the current workforce. But of course, lots of those compensation costs are attached — or were attached, before last year’s UAW concessions — to retirees. The truth is that current workers make about $24 an hour, plus another $10 in compensation. That’s about $60,000 a year, with good benefits. It’s a solid, middle class life. A helluva lot less than Joe the Plumber pulled in. But the $70 number isn’t tossed around because it’s accurate. It’s deployed because it’s useful. It recasts the story of the American auto industry as a morality tale in which greedy unions sit as the villain.

Yikes! Citigroup has lost half its value in four days. Brad DeLong believes the time has come to nationalize. And not just any old nationalization either: “Swedish model. No more of this ‘preferred stock capital injection’ business. Common stock. And with commitment comes control.” Um. That really is socialism we can believe in.

Glenn Greenwald believes progressives will have to make a lot of compromises when the Obama administration begins to govern. But John Brennan shouldn’t be one of them:

John Brennan is a different matter.  To appoint someone as CIA Director or Director of National Intelligence who was one of George Tenet’s closest aides when The Dark Side of the last eight years was conceived and implemented, and who, to this day, continues to defend and support policies such as “enhanced interrogation techniques” and rendition (to say nothing of telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping), is to cross multiple lines that no Obama supporter should sanction.  Truly turning a page on the grotesque abuses of the last eight years requires both symbolism (closing Guantanamo) and substantive policy changes (compelling adherence to the Army Field Manual, ensuring due process rights for all detainees, ending rendition, restoring safeguards on surveillance powers).  Appointing John Brennan to a position of high authority would be to affirm and embrace, not repudiate, the darkest aspects of the last eight years.

Rendition, torture, suspension of civil liberties and domestic spying are not change in which I believe.

Every time I hear someone say General Motors workers earn more than $70 per hour, I want to spit. Felix Salmon helps dispel the myth:

The average GM assembly-line worker makes about $28 per hour in wages, and I can assure you that GM is not paying $42 an hour in health insurance and pension plan contributions. Rather, the $70 per hour figure (or $73 an hour, or whatever) is a ridiculous number obtained by adding up GM’s total labor, health, and pension costs, and then dividing by the total number of hours worked. In other words, it includes all the healthcare and retirement costs of retired workers.

Salmon later hints that those bandying about the figure are probably “trying to be deceptive.”

As if to underscore the complaint made by the Young Turks in the previous entry, The Wall Street Journal has published a list of executives and the fortunes they earned by driving the economy straight into the ground. AIG may be owned by taxpayers today, but Maurice Greenberg walked away with more than $132 million.

Note to “Joe the Plumber”: How’s this for a little “spreading the wealth around”?

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