President Obama has been failing a crucial test in the past few weeks. In the first (and possibly most important, at least for a while) legislative struggle in Congress, President Obama's stimulus package has had its ups and downs. But what is truly missing is one entire side of this debate. Where are the cheerleaders for the stimulus package?

Where are the point people out there strongly making the case for the bill? I hear a lot of noise from the Republicans who are fighting the stimulus package, but what response there is from the Democratic side has been mostly weak, disorganized, and off-message. John Kerry did a pretty good job this past Sunday, but other than that, the Republicans are the ones all over the airwaves. Which means the Democrats (and Obama) are in danger of letting their opponents frame the issue in the public's mind.

This is not a good way to lead. Democrats have to get out in front of the media narrative, and make their case in such a clear and compelling fashion that ordinary Americans can understand what the fight is all about.

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What is it with shoes this week?

First we had the sale of Sarah Palin's "Double Dare" Naughty Monkey shoes on eBay. And now someone has erected a statue of a shoe, according to the BBC. A very specific shoe. Muntadar al-Zaidi's shoe. You remember him -- he's the Iraqi journalist who hucked both his shoes at President Bush's head a while back. Well, an Iraqi artist has honored him with a huge statue of his shoe. The funniest quote from the article? After describing the statue's dimensions and appearance, the Beeb adds: "There is also a bush sticking out of the shoe."

Heh.

But enough frivolity. Because, according to Paul Krugman (who just won the Nobel Prize for Economics): "There's a populist rage building in this country, as Americans see bankers getting huge bailouts while ordinary citizens suffer."

A populist rage? Really?

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News from Iraq has seemingly slowed to a trickle, due to most of America wanting to turn the page and move on. But an item which appeared today in the Washington Post shows that the Iraqi government is not wasting any time in asserting the prerogatives of true sovereignty which they gained on the first of this year. Even in the midst of an Iraqi election (or perhaps because of the impending vote), Iraq announced that the security company Blackwater Worldwide will not be getting a renewal of their license to operate in Iraq this year.

Meaning they're going to have to get out of Dodge. Not right away, and with a loophole or two, but the end is in sight for the company's ability to provide security in the country of Iraq. That "get out of Dodge" was not random, either, since up until this point Blackwater has operated largely in a Wild West atmosphere where they were not legally under any law -- U.S., military, or Iraqi. The abuses that sprang from this situation finally became so egregious in an incident where Blackwater personnel killed 17 unarmed civilians that the persons responsible are now being charged in U.S. federal court. But I expect their defense is going to heavily rely on "this court has no jurisdiction," which may indeed be the truth, and may win their freedom. Because from the inception of American forces in Iraq up until December 31, 2008 there simply was no law to restrain them.

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Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving. At least for snarky left-wing pundits.

[Ahem. Let's try that again, shall we?]

Sarah Palin is the goose that just keeps laying golden eggs, so to speak, and the Republican National Committee seems astonishingly clueless when it comes to capitalizing on Palin's star power. I mean, this is supposed to be the party of free enterprise, making lots of money, and fatcats in general. And yet, a little girl has to show them how to make money? In an Obama-esque spirit of reaching across the aisle, I would like to rub their noses in it.

Um, wait a minute, that's not quite Obama-esque enough... how about: "I would like to draw their attention to an entrepreneurial spirit in their midst." Yes, that's better.

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Our new president has had a pretty good first week in office. In his "first 168 hours" (for those of you who love arbitrary timelines for the "honeymoon" period), he has made good on quite a few campaign promises, sent an envoy to the Middle East on a "listening tour," and pushed his stimulus package in Congress. All around, an impressive first week by any standard.

The San Francisco Chronicle has a nice list of the executive orders President Obama has been issuing all week. These are the "low hanging fruit" types of issues that Obama can change with nothing but his signature, and almost all of them fulfill promises he made on the campaign trail:

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Everyone rooting for President Obama to enact his agenda into law should get to know the following two names: Senator Olympia Snowe and Senator Susan Collins. These two women are going to be the most important Republicans in Washington for the next two years. Because they're going to be first on the Democrats' speed dial, whenever there is an important bill coming up in the Senate.

Collins and Snowe both hail from Maine, and are the last two of a dying breed -- fiscally-conservative (but non-ideological) moderate New England Republicans. An age ago, they would have been considered middle-of-the-road Moderate Republicans. Since the GOP's lurch to the right, they are now seen as Flaming Liberal Republicans by the party's hardcore base.

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"It was a the best of times, it was the worst of times."

Too trite? How about: "We must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America" (from Obama himself)? Maybe that's pretentious of me. OK, I've got it, let's use one last cowboy metaphor as a final nod to the Bush years: Inauguration Day, 2009 had the good, the bad and the ugly.

Here's a quick photo summary:

The good

The swearing-in ceremony itself, and the opening acts which proceeded it were the best thing, capped by Barack Obama's oath of office.

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[Note: This page is nothing but my photos of the Inauguration and our trip to see it. For those with slow connections or slow browsers, be warned it may take a while to load. Part 5 of the Inauguration story will be posted later today. Thank you for your patience.]

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This column really should have a subtitle to it: "Part 4 of Chris' Adventures At The Inauguration." I have been reporting my experiences of attending the Inauguration in a series of articles this week, and since I am going to devote the talking points to the best, most memorable lines of President Obama's Inaugural speech, this really should be part of this series.

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[Note: Part 1 and Part 2 ran in a separate article earlier.]

It has been pointed out to me by a commenter to Part 2 of this report that I was being unduly critical of the sound guys, as HBO was the one to screw up both the video/sound sync and the dead microphone for the opening lines to our National Anthem. I concede the point. But the sound had other problems throughout the day as well, so you be the judge.

I left off with the opening of the show, at 10:00 A.M. For approximately the next hour, after the kids' choruses did a great job with their part of the show, the U.S. Marine Corps Band played what I would term "processional music" as the VIPs were seated. First came the garden-variety VIPs, such as Hollywood celebrities (for those making bets with Irish bookies, Dustin Hoffman was the first one we saw). Next, the lower echelons of Washington insiders, and then (in increasing importance, in one of those steeped-in-protocol arcane hierarchies) more and more prominent politicians, past and present. This culminated in the real bigwigs, but I'll get to that in a moment.

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