Emanuel's answer (as everyone else's) should have started with "energy"...

our focus on the car industry, jobs, the economy restart, ...everything

has to find a crowbar...and that crowbar is ingenuity in coming up with a new energy building block.

Obama said the race to the moon was going to be energy independence and alternative sources.

that is major...and he is right.

It makes me nervous when Emanuel leads with the idea of "healthcare " (as much as we need reformm there) in every statement he makes

and that an issue that has such partisan bickering is the first issue they are tackling.

when the issue of energy alternatives and it's effects on our economy and our future weigh on everyone and everything and the future of the world.

energy independence
energy independence
energy independence

and it's subsequent "green jobs", security, environmental impacts and socio-political effects

should be first ...in every statement coming out of this new administration

period.

somebody tell the partisans.

Things are set up pretty badly for Obama or anyone else who might have won this year's election.

We're probably looking at a failed presidency before it even begins, with guilt for that shared by both parties and us voters for decades of mismanagement and living beyond our public and private means.

I am one of those democrats that worry about the deficit and spending. However, the GOP made sure to run all that into the ground a long time ago. It renders the conservative idea of balanced budgets and little spending mute.
Any president will have to spend to save the economy now.
And with health care so out of reach for basic services, it is more of a luxury item now for many people rather than a service that is needed.
I think Obama will have to go somewhat big just to give a major shot in the arm to the economy and family budgets and then, go about bringing spending back under control later.

dl - I'm with you on energy as top priority.

vwcat - I could see me posting the exact same message as you just did.

Obama needs to do what he thinks is right for this country and not listen to those who "helped" him get into office. We have to give him a chance to put in place the policies needed to help improve things in the long run. President elect Obama needs our support.

Jamie S. Gorelick would bring corporate experience to an Obama administration — in the same way Rahm Emanuel did. Gorelick was vice chairman at Fannie Mae in the years when the GSE FRAUDULENTLY reported its income. She got a Friends of Angelo sweetheart mortgage for almost a million dollars in 2003, and is currently UNDER INVESTIGATION by the department she would run if nominated for AG.

But even without that taint of corruption, Gorelick would signal a return to incompetence and infighting. Gorelick played a major role in keeping counterterrorist and law-enforcement agents from sharing information and “connecting the dots” before 9/11. In a series of judgments at the DoD and at Justice during her tenure in the Clinton administration, Gorelick hamstrung our efforts to find and disarm terrorist infiltrators by discouraging any cooperation between intelligence and enforcement efforts by making “THE WALL” much more significant than Congress ever intended.

Gorelick wound up serving as a panelist on the 9/11 Commission, but she should have been served a SUBPOENA instead. Two memos from Clinton-appointed US Attorney Mary Jo White made this point crystal clear, as did an explanation from someone involved for years in the counterterrorist effort. Gorelick imposed an unrealistic standard on intelligence gathering that LED DIRECTLY to the 9/11 attacks. As AG, she would have even more power to reimpose those same limitations, and leave us just as blind as we were before those attacks.

Obama ran on “hope and change”, but if Gorelick is what he had in mind, then he sold the US a bill of goods. It would make the second former GSE board member nominated to a high position in his administration, one who already has connections to Countrywide’s corruption and a federal probe into her actions. Gorelick also has failed in developing policies and strategies to keep the nation secure. She would be a disaster as AG, and if she really is on the short list, it shows how clueless Barack Obama is about the threats to this nation.

obama your speech was amazing and historical i am glad you are president,and i know you will fight for the middle class.

"Obama said the race to the moon was going to be energy independence and alternative sources.

that is major...and he is right."

I agree energy independance is critical to this countries secure economic future. But Obama's instance to make comparisonns to the space program of the 60's shows he does not grasp the enormity of what the rheotric means.

The space program's purpose & goal had ZERO to do with creating products or changing the way our everyday lives operated. In time, over MANY YEARS, products and industries evolved from the research & discoveries of NASA's first 15 yrs. Billions of daollars were poured into the idea of creating a mechanism to get a man to the moon & back safely. After all the Mercury & Gemini missions, the end product of NASA's efforts was the Saturn V rocket.
A 360 foot beast that in the end only returned the 11 foot high capsule. The rest of the vehicle was expendable. It took a completely seperate effort and billions of more dollars to create the shuttle "fleet".

The effort to create vehicles that millions of people would purchase is a readically different one than creating a few space ships.

Right now, the auto inductry has "Hybrid" vechicles, that cost 4 to 6 times as much as a used car that actualy gets better MPG! In order for Obama's idea of an Amercia operating on alternative/renewable fuels to happen, the auto industry must research & prototype first, then transform that protoype vehicle into a manufacturable,
affordable and safe vehicle. Affordable meaning a car at the 20K mark that gets 50 MPG if its some kind of "Hybrid" or able to run for days without having to be recharged for 12 hours if its "Electric".

It's going to take a great deal of time to get to the point where these low coast viable cars exist at your local dealers.

Oh, by the way, that does not even take into account what we need to replace busses and 18-wheeler truck for moving people & goods across the country.

Until these problems are conquered, the masses in the US are going to be driving the same kind of vehicles we are now. Hence it is time to stop the politically correct BS and get serious about having the US produce & refine the oil that exists under our own feet.

If everyone thinks the answers are to populate this country with solar & wind farms, certainly more oil wells & refineries should not be a big issue either. Unless of course your ok with gas heading back up towards 5 to 10 dollars a gallon.

Mike C: "I agree energy independance is critical to this countries secure economic future. But Obama's instance to make comparisonns to the space program of the 60's shows he does not grasp the enormity of what the rheotric means."

I don't see what you mean. From where exactly are you drawing the impression that Obama doesn't grasp the enormity of his rhetoric?

Are you saying there are differences between the Apollo effort and energy independence? I'm guessing Obama gets that part.

Analogies can be valid while retaining distinctions. In fact, they must retain distinctions, or else they wouldn't be analogous; they'd be identical.

Mike C: "If everyone thinks the answers are to populate this country with solar & wind farms, certainly more oil wells & refineries should not be a big issue either. Unless of course your ok with gas heading back up towards 5 to 10 dollars a gallon."

I think we can leverage solar to degrees you aren't even imagining yet.

A solar panel gives you something like 9 percent efficiency, because unless its layered (a much more costly design than the $20k outlay a couple panels would cost most homeowners) they only capture energy from a small slice of the light spectrum. We do have multi-spectral panels, but they cost more by a factor of 10 plus.

Swansea University in England and another group in Japan is working with electricity conducting fibers in paint. I saw on TV there's also a guy in this country doing the same - it works, he's painted his shed with it, and now is waiting to see how it weathers.

This paint right now seems to be about 20 percent efficient in energy transference - more than twice the efficiency of most panels.

To make a home electric neutral, most homeowners need 2 to 3 panels, which covers a minority of the roof area. Imagine a painted roof that is more than twice as efficient over a larger area. The house is suddenly producing... what? Four times the electricity it uses? Eight times? Twelve times? Imagine the siding of the home painted with the same stuff.

What to do with all that excess electricity...

Hmmm. Oh, here's an idea. You can recharge the fuel cells in the car.

By the way, the Swansea effort is directly looking at a paint that adheres to the metal of bridges. Imagine every bridge becoming a solar collector.

In all honesty, I'm thinking we could harness enough power from the sun to basically make electricity free at some point in the future, and that electricity also powers much of our ground transportation.

Sure there are regional obstacles - the Pacific Northwest might be hardpressed to power itself to the degree that, oh, South Carolina could.

But there is a lot of potential to do much more than we are with solar.

Every student of political science is presented, sometime during his freshman year, with the question, "do the times make the man or does the man make the times?"

In the context of American political history we have to wonder whether our great presidents... Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, Reagan, to name a few...would have achieved greatness had they not been confronted with great difficulties? Probably not.

But they were and they each had the experience, vision and judgement to make sound decisions, the courage to take action and the charisma to attract a loyal following.

Certainly the times we find ourselves in demand such a leader and I believe we have just elected him. I am sure I will sometimes disagree with President Obama but until I am sure that my own experience, vision and judgement would make me better qualified to confront and overcome the difficulties he faces I will remain a loyal follower and pray for his success and the greatness it will bring.

I hope we will all do the same. We need another great president right now. The times demand it.

Why wait until Obama as actually accomplished something? Let's celebrate The Messiah right now with a new federal holiday.

---Plans are being made to promote a national holiday for Barack Obama, who will become the nation’s 44th president when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20.

“Yes We Can” planning rallies will be at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the downtown McDonald’s restaurant, 1100 Kansas Ave., until Jan. 13. The goals are to secure a national holiday in Obama’s honor, to organize celebrations around his inauguration and to celebrate the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12 1809.---

"Certainly the times we find ourselves in demand such a leader and I believe we have just elected him."

He had better get to leading then and make the speaker of the house realize that HE is the leader and not her! She is already discussing a 100 Billion dollar bail out for the US auto makers.
I guaranteee yo that money is NOT going toword alernative fuel based cars!

"A solar panel gives you something like 9 percent efficiency, because unless its layered (a much more costly design than the $20k outlay a couple panels would cost most homeowners) they only capture energy from a small slice of the light spectrum. We do have multi-spectral panels, but they cost more by a factor of 10 plus."

Your making my point for me! There are a ton of wonderful ideas out there, but thaey are ALL a very very long way from making it to the everyday family in an affordable & safe way!

The solar power promises have been going on since the 70's! Obama's new chief of staff has already stated they want to pull back the idea of drilling in Utah and will use an executive order to stop it. "Prestine" terriroty I beleive was the term. In order for solar & wind to really yield significant result, we are going to have to go out into some of those "prestine" area and build solar & wind farms.

Mike C: "He had better get to leading then and make the speaker of the house realize that HE is the leader and not her"

Mike, we kind of have a checks and balances thing working here. The president is in charge of the executive branch and not the whole government.

Mike C: "Your making my point for me! There are a ton of wonderful ideas out there, but thaey are ALL a very very long way from making it to the everyday family in an affordable & safe way!"

Not necessarily.

Germany a few years back set goals everyone laughed at. I don't recall the exact numbers, but it was something like 33 percent of all energy used coming from solar by 2018. A lot of folks scoffed at the notion.

But with just a couple tweaks to tax incentives, the Germans are now on track to meet that goal in the next year or two.

Now we're in a situation where there is an obvious future market for alternative technology, that is ready to implement now and is being implemented, but to even get into that global market we're already chasing the Japanese and Germans, and to a lesser extent the Brits.

When we do implement alternative energies on a massive scale, we'll be buying the equipment from other countries, unless we move quickly.

And, yes, it is affordable and safe now. Will the technology be better in the future? Sure. But its ready now, in the case of solar. Most homes in the U.S. now could operate from solar panels. There is upfront cost, but in about 15-20 years these homes would hit a break-even point.

Many homeowners could do this. Not all, of course, but many could get the loan for $20k to install a system. Why don't they? Because its something you have to do now in order to break even years later. Most won't and aren't choosing that deal.

But if the government provided even modest tax incentives, then more would be inclined to take the plunge.

Electric cars are here now. There are models that can get you a couple hundred miles between recharging. The idea of plugging in a car at night is foreign to Americans right now. But again its a change that could happen quickly if some simple incentives were provided.

Remember we didn't always have unleaded gasoline, either. People adapted to it. We didn't have safety inspections for vehicles. People adapted to it.

Paul:

I'm a Republican, but I agree with Mike C that President-elect Obama needs to be the leader. He operates within the confines of the constitutional check/balance system to which you allude. The American public, correct or not, elected him to lead the country -- not Speaker Pelosi [or Sen. Reid]. She was sent to Washington by a district in San Francisco and elected Speaker by her fellow Democratic representatives. His job is to be commander-in-chief, set policy and send legislation to Congress. So, that being said, let's see what he can do. I vehemently opposed him, but he's now our President-elect.