My buddy Dave's final piece for his Columbia Journalism Masters pretty much explains it all.

Christmas party went off good. Gift exchange. Talent show. Funtime. My performance/pep-talk went over well; I'll post the text for the archive in a bit.

Number one quote of the night: "Motherfuckers try to front, but the Greatful Dead were hard as fuck."

In the meantime, here's something sure to make you smile:

Imagine a Department of Energy run by... A SCIENTIST! Chu is his name, and Nobel Prizes (and the Berkeley Livermore Lab) are his game. This is the first appointment by Obama I think qualifies as "kick ass."

Applause broke out when he described how companies, after claiming efficiency gains and lowered costs were impossible, “miraculously” achieved them once they “had to assign the jobs from the lobbyists to the engineers.”

Background courtesy Brad, everyone's favorite revolutionary plant in the DC establishment:

Shucks:

A seven-page questionnaire being sent by the office of President-elect Barack Obama to those seeking cabinet and other high-ranking posts may be the most extensive — some say invasive — application ever.

The questionnaire includes 63 requests for personal and professional records, some covering applicants’ spouses and grown children as well, that are forcing job-seekers to rummage from basements to attics, in shoe boxes, diaries and computer archives to document both their achievements and missteps.

Only the smallest details are excluded; traffic tickets carrying fines of less than $50 need not be reported, the application says. Applicants are asked whether they or anyone in their family owns a gun. They must include any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages.

I had no illusions that Team Obama would really strike a blow for keepin' it real in politics -- they've been as controlling and square as any campaign, and it helped them win, so why change? But really, this mentality is totally crippling to our ability to govern. It's partly borne of the fear of "gotcha" politics, but it's also a matter of institutional culture. It's why the CIA can't get good talent, because the odds are here in the 21st Century if you're smart enough to be good at any job they need you for, you're at least a little bent one way or another and they don't like that. So they take a lot of B and C-level people who fit their mold, and gradually suck more and more wind over time.

Sheer awesomeness.

So far it's the best Monday evar, and not just because I had a fantastic dinner last night (butternut squash + garlic + house-made pasta + grappa = WIN). I'm hanging at The Change You Want To See and the good news is rolling like thunder:

• Obama will close Guantanimo. An excellent and important first step.
• Obama has a 75% favoribility rating, which won't last, but bodes well for getting a good Big Push done early.
• Mike Lux is on the transition team, which I like because he's connected to people I know and trust at Open Left. Bodes well for coalition building around the new administration.
• Sy Hersh will blow the lid off the warrentless wiretapping as soon as his sources no longer have Bush retrebuition to fear.

It's looking like there will be some results. Elections have consequences.

Of course, the big thing we'll all be waiting on is what we do for the economy. That's a huge thing, but I'm feeling mildly optimistic about it all.

Pretty soon this will kind of be creepy, I'll bet. But for now, let's enjoy that #1 summer jam...

Hell of a catchy chorus.

I've been working hard all day w/some on-site meetings, which has kept me from obsessively checking the news. We should start to see some results in the next half hour.

The past two weeks I've felt very confident, but today with the event upon us the irrational emotional fear has crept in. I've never participated in a winning presidential election, and the past two contests have been awful enough that there's a bit of post-traumatic stress associated with the whole thing.

Anyway, we'll know soon. Pins and needles!

Srsly

http://govote.org/

In case of shenanigans:

http://noneck.org/twitter-votereport-howto

Obama beating McCain by 44% among 18 - 29 year olds.