Mr President, your priority should be...

Seasurfer1

I feel Obamas top priority will be a security event, as and when some Nutter tests him! I reckon another major conflict within the year!!

TGF UKIP

James, I think you and others who hold the view that Obama will be a moderate (eg Christopher Caldwell in the FT yesterday) are indulging in some desperately wishful thinking.

Obama got the Democrat nomination by being the radical black activist he demonstrably proved himself to be by his associations and conduct in Chicago. By igniting the Democrat base, which is now far to the left of where it has traditionally been, with his rhetoric and promises of radical change Obama will disappoint it at his risk.

Morover, the prime mover of much of the leftist legislation which is about to hit the US will come from Congress. Here again the make up of the Democrats both in Senate and House is far to the left of where it has been in past decades. Here again Obama will be in no position to resist this wave of leftist legislation even if he were the "moderate" you believe him to be. As most of the legislation will be no more than he promised during the campaign particularly in the primaries he will, once again, be unable to do much other than give it Presidential assent and use his rhetoric to sell it.

He may, or may not be, a tough nut but Reid and Pelosi and the mobs behind them sure look to me as though they mean business with their agenda.

For a far more realistic view of the Obama Presidency I commend Irwin Stelzer's column in today's Sunday Times Business Section. Well worth a look.

The one bright spot in all this, of course, is that the further to the left The Triumvirate take the Democratic Party and (temporarily) the US, the more room they will leave for a GOP recovery.

mitch

All those has beens and failures trying to "help" pitiful really especially when GB does it.
No time for a novice I think was the phrase.

Herbert Thornton

No doubt Obama will set priorities, but what they are we don't yet know.

As seasurfer1 says, it may turn out that instead of Obama pursuing his own priorities, he will have a priority thrust upon him.

But leaving that aside, I would hope that his first priority will be the state of the economy. That, to my mind, ought to include putting a really effective tourniquet on the lethal haemorrhage of dollars to pay for oil imported from outside North America. That, in turn, will require that a stop be put to the manufacture of gas guzzling vehicles, and that there be massive investment in nuclear power stations to enable the nation to switch to the generation and use of electricity both for powering vehicles and for heating buildings.

There was, I thought, a good sign a day or two ago when Obama spoke of any bailout for the car manufacturers being conditional on their building fuel-efficient vehicles.

Seasurfer1

re: TGF UKIP, Obama managed the President Elect because of his Big Gob and fancy and fantasy footwork. The lack of Dollars will put him in a state of reality. The African Americans will be disappointed.

Frank P

btw

The fine print above the picture defeats my old minces; is that Boston Massachusetts, or Boston Messrs-Two-Shits?

Chris

Al Gore wants action on climate change, and Ted Kennedy wants action on health care. Gosh! Any reports of bears shitting in the woods at all? Re health care, if Hillary Clinton has any sense (which she does, I fear), she'll keep very quiet so as not to awaken unhappy memories of the last time single-payer care was floated; and as far as I’m concerned, the sooner they withdraw all medical treatment (particularly including painkillers) from Ted Kennedy, the better.

Verity

TGFUKIP is correct in his assessment.

Also, Obama doesn't get called Mr President until he's the President. Right now, he's Senator Obama.

Ganpat Ram

So great is the intelligence of Obama that I am concerned that the USA may not recognise this as fully as it deserves.

He should be crowned Emperor Obama the Great in a ceremony modelled on the coronation of that other hugely gifted man, Emperor Bokassa of the Central African Republic.

Emperor Bokassa's coronation ceremony, complete with carriages drawn by white horses in all the healthful, steaming heat of Bangui, is an event still cherished in the capacious memory of Africa.

Who among us will forget how the grateful citizenry of Bangui did rend the welkin with lusty cheers as, lined up under the sagging palm trees amid their elegantly rotting huts, the golden carriage swept by them, their Imperial Majesties waving graciously. Particular note was taken of the scarcely-earthly poise of the svelte Empress (weight: a mere 3 tons).

So overwhelming was the grandeur of this ceremony, that the very hippopotamuses in the decorously muddy Ubangui-Shari river on which Bangui's noble, gently deliquescing hutments stand, could not but unloose their most magnificent, spectacular yawns.

Here is an event, set in that very ancient land of his roots - Africa! - that Obama will be thrilled to replicate in Washington. We are convinced that Her Imperial Majesty Michelle Obama will show to no less advantage than did the Empress Bokassa.

This coronation of Emperor Obama, certain to glisten with a particularly grateful sheen at the top of the world's social register of glittering occasions, will serve to inaugurate an extremely desirable trend: America's shaking off of its woeful provincialism and its adoption of an only too needful willingness to learn from that first instructor of all mankind: Africa !

"Africa, Land of the Sun,
The King of Continents,
The Ancient One !

And now - o what unendurable Drama !
Thou - Land that Spewed forth Obama! "

dilys

I wonder if he is feeling the weight of all the being black thing yet.
Look how many people were disappointed by our first women Prime Minister.

Herbert Thornton

When we have been reading Ganpat Ram's opus in its completeness, how can we be responding?

The firstmost thing that is springing to my mind is - "Oh dear me, goodness gracious, isn't it?"

Frank P

Just in case anyone might be puzzled about the 'btw' prefix to my comment at 8.51pm, it was a postscript to a previous comment I submitted about the two gentlemen depicted above, which was less than complimentary, or even 'ad hominem' as the moderator would probably decribe it.

Cleaning it up a little, I suggested that they were the issue of Old Nick and their pictures should not be displayed on a respectable blog on Sunday, particularly on Remembrance Sunday. The coarse army joke that I added as an example of offence it might cause was, upon reflection, in even worse taste than printing the above picture. My apologies to the invigilator, who should have met the drill pig in question who would probably prepared him for the rough old world which exists just a few streets away from Old Queen Street.

Dilys

"I wonder if he is feeling the weight of all the being black thing yet."

Stop fantasising about his 'black thing'; you don't know - it could be white; or more likely coffee coloured.

Stop going on

Verity

I assume this was a joke? There is no bigger ego on Planet Earth than Obama's. If you recall, he mentioned, in his victory speech, "This is the moment the oceans ceased to rise ...". Why he didn't move on to part the Red Sea is a tease.

Obama will have an angry time dealing with big egos, especially as he knows he got bounced into the position with absolutely no qualifications. All heads of state and the people surrounding them at the top level have big egos.

Ganpat Ram

Obama is looking more and more like a front-man for powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party rather than the decisive reformer he poses as.

That's probably all this "genius" ever was: a slick brown front-man for clever operators like David Axelrod and Rahm Emmanuel.

Susan Hill

'Why he didn't move on to part the Red Sea is a tease..'
Verity, it`s because he was too busy practising walking on water prior to turning it into wine.

Anna

You really have to laugh, don't you. A couple of old has-beens, out of touch with reality, seek to take over the Second Coming.

Made for a chuckle on a dull Monday morning!

RMH

So good to see the lsoers being gracious in defeat.

Lets hope for a Democratic surge in policy, across all areas, a Tsunami of liberalism in the Supreme Court and the 2012 nomination of Palin, where the Dems will go a nalin Palin with an even bigger win than now.

Biggest issue for 2012 is who Obama has on the ticket with him. Ad Biden may step down.

Frank P

mitch

'All those has beens and failures trying to "help"'

More like Presidents manque, bitter as hell that such a neophyte succeeded where they failed, attempting to act like the statesmen they never will be and giving 'sage' advice in a last desperate attempt to muscle in on the act. Pathetic!

Ganpat Ram

If appointing black rulers is all it takes, Africa should be the happiest continent of all.

Look at Idi Amin and Mugabe.

Ganpat Ram

Everybody hugely overestimates this poor fellow.

It's like Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Everyone then also spoke about the Us redeeming itself, a new era, a president of awesome abilities, etc. He did have real abilities. He even wrote novels, like Obama.

After a while they just yawned and he became poor old Jimmy.