Your Abbreviated Pundit Round-up

Saturday, but no rest for punditry with the inaugural coming up.

L and R Blogistan via National Journal: Guess who thinks Obama will do well? Guess who doesn't think so?

Gail Collins: if you didn't vote for Obama, your cult deprogramming starts Tuesday.

Maya Angelou: Obama is the real deal.

Mark Blumenthal: A review of a treasure trove of election data. For example, Obama did well everywhere relative to 2004, but whites making less than 25K were not his strongest supporters.

Rich Lowry:

Barack Obama’s lefty admirers are agitating for a new New Deal.

Meanwhile Bush's righty admirers are scrambling for some semblance of credibility, so far without much luck. Their best shot is to discredit FDR -  also, so far, without much headway - lest they remain out of power for a few decades more.

The Economist:

HE LEAVES the White House as one of the least popular and most divisive presidents in American history. At home, his approval rating has been stuck in the 20s for months; abroad, George Bush has presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s reputation since the second world war. The American economy is in deep recession, brought on by a crisis that forced Mr Bush to preside over huge and unpopular bail-outs.

America is embroiled in two wars, one of which Mr Bush launched against the tide of world opinion. The Bush family name, once among the most illustrious in American political life, is now so tainted that Jeb, George’s younger brother, recently decided not to run for the Senate from Florida. A Bush relative describes family gatherings as "funeral wakes".

Shhhh. Don't tell Bush supporters. They still think he's popular.

Vanity Fair:

Lawrence Wilkerson, top aide and later chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell: We had this confluence of characters—and I use that term very carefully—that included people like Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and so forth, which allowed one perception to be "the dream team." It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin–like president—because, let’s face it, that’s what he was—was going to be protected by this national-security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire. What in effect happened was that a very astute, probably the most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur I’ve ever run into in my life became the vice president of the United States.