ABC This Week With George Stephanopoulos -- Illinois Senate appointment: Democratic Sen.-designate Roland Burris; Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Panel: Katrina vanden Heuvel, the Nation; Jonathan Karl; Cokie Roberts; George Will.
CBS Face the Nation -- Vice President Dick Cheney.
CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer -- Israel-Gaza conflict: Saeb Erakat, chief Palestinian negotiator. The economy, the transition, inauguration countdown: Gov. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.). The economy, auto industry bailout: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The transition, the inauguration, Blagojevich scandal: Ed Rollins, Republican strategist; James Carville. CNN Panel: Amy Walter, Gloria Borger, Ed Henry.
Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace -- President George H.W. Bush talks about his tenure in office, current issues facing the president-elect, the political future of his son Jeb and the legacy of his son George W.
NBC Meet the Press -- the Democratic agenda: Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Panel: Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic; Katty Kay; Hisham Melhem, Al-Arabiya; Richard Engel; Andrea Mitchell. Moderator: David Gregory.
The ceremony will commence at 7 a.m. Pacific on the west front of the U.S. Capitol and will include:
• Musical selections: U.S. Marine Band, followed by the San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus.
• Call to order and welcoming remarks: Sen. Dianne Feinsteinof California.
• Invocation: Dr. Rick Warren.
• Musical selection: Aretha Franklin.
• Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will be sworn into office by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court John Paul Stevens.
• Musical selection: John Williams, composer-arranger, with Itzhak Perlman (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello), Gabriela Montero (piano) and Anthony McGill (clarinet).
• President-elect Obama will take the oath of office using President Lincoln's inaugural Bible, administered by the chief justice of the United States, John G. Roberts Jr. (For an amazing historical view of that inauguration day when that Abraham Lincoln Bible was first used, click on the "Read more" line below.)
• Inaugural address.
• Poem: Elizabeth Alexander.
• Benediction: the Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.
• The National Anthem: U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters
After President Obama gives his inaugural address, he will escort outgoing President George W. Bush to a departure ceremony before attending a luncheon in the Capitol's Statuary Hall. The 56th inaugural parade will then make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House with groups traveling from all over the country to participate.
Later that day, the Presidential Inaugural Committee will host 10 official inaugural balls.
The Ticket's past items on the upcoming inauguration are available here. Check back regularly as we will be updating whenever appropriate and, of course, covering the events as they unfold, including providing a full speech text asap. You don't need an inaugural ticket to read The Ticket.
For a few days now The Ticket is republishing some favorite items from the past political season. This one originally appeared here on Oct. 20, 2008, and accompanies another Ticket Replay we re-published here a few hours ago. (Look just below this item for that one):
Jeffrey. Jeffrey. Jeffrey.
A couple of weeks ago, The Ticket celebrated the sharp-eyed folks over at Gizmodo.com, who spotted CNN political analyst Jeffrey Toobin, on camera to discuss the ongoing vice presidential debate, actually spending his time watching the baseball playoffs on a laptop there.
Worthy of chuckles.
Not that anyone would ever think media "analysts" talk about things they don't know about. Not for those salaries.
But how do you know what Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin and Delaware Democratic Sen. Joe Biden are saying if you're actually doing something else on your laptop? (You can see those Gizmodo photos by clicking on the Read more line below.)
But you'll never guess what happened during last week's last presidential debate between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama?
What happened was another website, Valleywag, caught the very same Jeffrey Toobin during the presidential debate checking out a Facebook page on his laptop instead of watching the rhetorical jousting going on to decide the White House race he was there to discuss.
Maybe he was Friending both candidates. Or writing on their Wall.
Anyway, good thing there are no more debates. Someone could catch someone else watching "Sara Does Sarasota" on the Playboy channel.
— Andrew Malcol
Speaking of complete coverage, you can still get free instant alerts on all Ticket items like this flashed direct to your cellphone by registering here at Twitter. RSS feeds are also available here. And Amazon has Ticket Kindle feeds as well.m
This week The Ticket is republishing some of our favorite items from this past political season. This humorous item (or, humourous if you're reading this in Canada) originally appeared in this pace on Oct. 6, 2008. Check back here in a couple of hours for a follow-up item that makes this one even worse:
And then afterward the networks switch to what seems to be a palpably proliferating panoply of pundits who tell us all instantly and precisely who won, who scored and lost points and what it all means for America's future? And they keep consulting open laptops for their perceptive notes and quotes?
And sometimes you wonder who appointed them and what makes them think they know more than you?
Well, maybe they don't. The brilliantly observant folks over at Gizmodo.com were watching CNN's political palaverers, including here on the nearest end the big legal expert Jeffrey Toobin. Here's a photo of the panel during coverage of last Thursday night's vice presidential debate:
But the clever Gizmodo.com folks didn't leave it there. They examined the photo more closely.
To see what shocking image they actually found, click on the "Read more" line below.
This week The Ticket is republishing some of our favorite items from the past political season. This one was originally published here on Dec. 7, 2008:
While you were watching football this morning and afternoon President-elect Barack Obama had a busy day, though part of it was pre-recorded on Saturday.
First, the political news: He appointed retired Gen. Eric Shinseki as head of the Veterans Administration. He was the officer who told Congress that hundreds of thousands more U.S. troops would be needed for victory in Iraq before the Bush administration decided it needed more troops in Iraq, though not hundreds of thousands.
Obama talked about his No. 1 job being the economy, and about the Bush tax cuts, the proposed automotive bailouts, terrorism and much more, as you'll see in two videos and the program's full transcript by clicking on the "Read more" line below.
But the shocking news concerned the new president's health. The man who's become a workout fanatic admitted on "Meet the Press" that he has not quit smoking. An amazing reality given his widely-regarded intelligence and demonstrated concern for his personal health or physique.
At first he said he did quit, then when Brokaw pressed him, the president-elect confessed he'd fallen off the wagon.
Tom Brokaw, on his last program as 'Meet's' moderator (as predicted in The Ticket six days ago, David Gregory will take over next Sunday), pointed out the White House is a smoke-free zone. (See the exchange near the end of the transcript; the link is below.)
The 47-year-old father of two who will start living there Jan. 20 as the 44th president said the building would stay smoke-free.
The White House, after all, has several balconies. (The program's full transcript is available here.)
For a few days The Ticket is republishing some favorite items from the past political season. This one originally appeared in this space on Oct. 9, 2008, back during all the economic concerns over Wall Street's turmoil and the bailouts and failures of some firms such as Lehman Bros.:
The Ticket has just received a breaking news photo of suddenly unemployed Wall Street workers taking the financial crisis into their own hands.
It's rather shocking. Are we on the brink of social anarchy near the climax of a national election?
And nowhere else will you get this kind of complete spot coverage of the economic crisis's impact on the presidential race between Barack Obama-Joe Biden and John McCain-Sarah Palin.
Click on the Read more line below to see what we mean.
-- Andrew Malcolm
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In some ways, this year has seemed unusually long. And we weren't even running for any office.
Fact is, that's exactly right. As with every presidential election year, 2008 was a leap year. So we got an extra entire day on Feb. 29.
But additionally because of the Earth's rotation and minor adjustments needed for precise timekeeping equipment every few years, 2008 will be one entire extra second longer. A little bit longer for Barack Obama to remain president-elect before his Jan. 20 inauguration.
You might not feel it until Thursday morning. When it'll hit your head hard. But surely we'll all notice the countdown tonight just before midnight:
It might seem a tad early here in the predawn darkness of the Pacific time zone on New Years Eve day. But it's already time for us to start wishing loyal Ticket readers around the world a Happy New Year.
To our absolute delight, the Ticket's audience has mushroomed internationally in recent months, as folks way, way beyond the lower 48, the distant islands where the new president hangs out and Sarah Palin country up north tune into the American political scene.
We're delighted you chose our online window to peek through.
6....5....4....
These have been momentous months for American history with thousands of Ticket items telling the stories of the 2007-08 presidential campaign. Now, we start a brand-new year. And the political stories of a brand-new Congress and administration. And, believe it or not, the start of the next election season.
It's only 36 months until the 2012 Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire voting; 22 months to the 2010 midterm elections, including the California governor and Senate votes; 20 days until a historic inauguration; and 144 hours until the new Congressional session starts.
There will be much, much more to write about in coming hours, days, weeks and months. And we're so happy that so many millions of you have tuned in.
3....2....1....
So, without further ado, in one minute, we wish happy 2009 to our loyal Ticket readers in New Zealand, and 120 minutes later to those in Australia. And in 60 minutes the same wish goes to Japan. And then onward around the globe through our readership in India and Iran, and then to U.S. troops in Iraq, to our friends in Italy, France and the U.K. And to one of our latest subscribers in the Canary Islands. And to both of you Newfies out there.
Plus, happy New Year to all of the U.S.-Canadian time zones from Halifax to Nome and Waikiki.
This is going to be a fascinating political year. We look forward to making the journey together.
There's something weirdly fascinating about professional wrestling. Not that we've ever watched it ourselves, mind you. But a, uh, friend tells us that you know someone is gonna get thrown out of the ring onto the fragile tables sitting over there and you know that guy's gonna struggle to get up and then grab a folding chair to swing back into the ring.
Neither contestant apparently watched last week's match because one of them still walks into the other's elbow. And when the elbow guy starts arguing with the referee, he doesn't think to look behind for the folding chair coming down to bloody his head.
It's a lot like watching Illinois politics. We too should have seen this latest move coming. Gov. Rod Blagojevich's brazen, bold blitz of naming Roland Burris to fill the vacant Barack Obama Senate seat is at once a brilliant and cunning and cynical political move.
In the last hour before the announcement, Senate Democrats, including Illinois' Dick Durbin, realized they'd been outfoxed, hastily conferred by phone and tried to duck by desperately announcing they weren't gonna seat Blagojevich's pick anyway.
A vacationing Obama, who's got nothing to do with it anymore and once vowed to stay out of picking his successor, sent word anyway from Hawaii that he sides with Durbin against Blagojevich, whom he helped elect in 2002.
Too late.
The governor said the other day he was going to fight, fight, fight his case to his last dying breath.
So Sunday night he calls up the wily, old, not always successful Burris who's always dreamed of an office higher than state comptroller or attorney general, both of which he held. The son of a railway worker, Burris is a Howard University Law School graduate who as a teenager helped integrate a local swimming pool.
Never lacking in confidence, Burris even hopelessly challenged current Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley back in the 1990s. Burris has state political experience going back to the '60s. He was the first black person elected to statewide office in Illinois and did it as a native of southern Illinois, parts of which culturally and geographically are farther south than Richmond, the one-time Confederate capitol.
Burris has been party loyal. He's been beaten often, though not bowed, by other Democrats -- Paul Simon in 1984 to win Chuck Percy's Senate seat -- including Blagojevich in 2002. The 2002 race was the third straight Democratic gubernatorial primary that Burris lost. (See Burris and Blagojevich speak for themselves in the videos below.)
But he came around to support good old Rod in that general election and the 2006 reelection, as did both Obama and his new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel. Unlike, say, Caroline Kennedy,....
(UPDATE: After a two-month tour of Virginia, Terry was so excited about 10 more months of touring Virginia that he couldn't wait until Jan. 7 to announce his prefabricated decision to run for governor of the commonwealth. So he did it on Jan. 3 instead.)
Here's the bad news for Virginia Republicans, who once ruled the commonwealth politically: There are no limits whatsoever on how much a person or union, say, can give to any one candidate.
Here's the good news for Virginia Republicans: Terry McAuliffe, the ex-chair of the Democratic National Committee, the political powerhouse, is probably running for governor there.
Now, if Terry the Tiger's candidacy is good news for the GOP, that tells you how bad things are. The Washington Post had a fascinating examination of McAuliffe's cannonball into the political pond of Virginia.
Now that he's done raising gazillions of millions for both Bill and Hillary Clinton, who lost anyway, McAuliffe is doing a fair bit of money-vacuuming now on his own. Without hardly trying, he's already cornered the support of the state's billionaire Randal J. Kirk, who's given, oh, say, about $660,000 to Gov. Tim Kaine just in the last 36 months.
In the last 18 years, McAuliffe has raised nearly $940 million between the Clintons and the DNC. That's even more than the magic new guy. But, of course, he did it in a much shorter time and is busy changing the way things are done next door in Washington as soon as he's inaugurated Jan. 20.
Speaking of time, McAuliffe says he'll announce on Jan. 7 what his plans are. Gee, whaddya think?
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Our Bloggers
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the Countdown to Crawford blog here at The Times.
l: Katrina vanden Heuvel, the Nation; Jonathan Karl; Cokie Roberts; George Will.
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