Midday Open Thread

• President-Elect Barack Obama on his upcoming meeting with President Bush:

  Michelle and I look forward to meeting with President Bush and the First Lady on Monday to begin the process of a smooth, effective transition.  I thank him for reaching out in the spirit of bipartisanship that will be required to meet the many challenges we face as a nation.

• Thank you, Sarah Silverman! Thank you schleppers!

  When the CW is wrong: Remember when we heard from Hillary Clinton supporters at the tail end of the Democratic primary season that Obama would have a difficult time winning Florida and Ohio, and would struggle with Hispanics, Jews, and white working-class voters? Well, he won Florida and Ohio; he beat McCain 2-to-1 among Hispanics; he did better with Jews (winning then 78%-21%) than John Kerry did in 2004
  (74%-25%); and he essentially matched Kerry’s performance among working-class whites. So what did we learn here: that primary results and exit polls aren’t necessarily good predictors about what will happen in the general election. Interestingly, this CW was driven a bit by the McCain campaign. One wonders if they sat back during the end of the Democratic primary and over-analyzed it, forgetting that 90-95% of those voters who voted in the Dem primary contests were DEMOCRATS! And they weren't likely to vote for a Republican under just about any circumstance. Did the McCain campaign chase voters that they never had a shot at? Could be...

  DemFromCT

• A look at the reasons why Proposition 8 failed passed in California. While the article makes some good points, it must be noted that bigotry was not mentioned.
• And Americablog has information on lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8.
• Via Atrios, see if you can find the glaring error in this Time article:

  A report that Emanuel had accepted an Obama offer for White House chief of staff has been retracted, but other reports have said the congressman is "agonizing" over whether to accept the position. He could be in line to replace Nancy Pelosi as House majority leader, which may be what's giving him pause. One thing is for sure: Emanuel will be a powerful force over the next four years no matter where he is.

• Dozens of supporters greeted Sarah Palin's arrival home with chants of, "2012, 2012, 2012." Yes, Sarah, run. Please.
• Glenn Greenwald mocks the false equivalence of the day:

  These things are not equal.  They're not even comparable.  But in her desperation to establish false equivalencies -- the central article of faith in the modern journalist's religion -- Dowd argues that Clinton dirtied the White House by having oral sex and liking hot tubs and, likewise, George Bush also dirtied it by destroying the Constitution, torturing people, invading and destroying another country based on false pretenses and spying on American citizens (and, just by the way, Bush and Cheney weren't "making torture and domestic spying legal"; they were doing those things in violation of the law).

• Who will replace Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate?
• The trees are a little happier today, as another print publication bites the dust:

  U.S. News & World Report is getting out of the newsmagazine business and going all digital.

• File this one under the most bizarre congratulations Barack Obama received.