Osler's Razor

1. Try to figure out how to get out of the war somehow or finish it or fix it or SOMETHING.

2. Fix the housing/mortgage/economy thing

3. Create jobs that will have unemployed people start to work at doing stuff to either help the environment OR help find alternative sources of energy besides oil.

4. Force the auto companies to build more fuel efficient cars and figure out that battery thing so that we can all buy electric cars. Or Hybrids, or corn fuel cars, or just whatever its gonna be. And make them cheaper.

5. Make the First Dog a PUG because they are SOOOO cute.

6. Give his old Senate seat to Mr. CL, so that he can become The Distinguished Senator from Illinois Who Is Actually From Texas. And then both Mr. & Mrs. CL can move to DC and be glamorous and hang out with the Iplaws and throw fabulous parties with lots of ACTUAL Celebs...or whatever the DC Equivalent of a Celeb is there...

7. Outlaw digging, utility companies, and other guys in orange vests.

8. Have FUN elections in the off season like "National Favorite Dessert," "Ugliest State Flower," or "Dear Abby v Ann Landers," "Ellen or Oprah."

9. Save The Music.
 

1. Establish a culture of competency - the worst part of the Bush legacy isn't the war (which Obama is going to have to continue in some form or another for some time yet). It's the erosion of what little confidence the nation and world had left in our chief executive. Backfilled legal justifications for the war and for how it's been prosecuted, "cowboy" diplomacy, ridiculous spending, and the WH's death grip on information that should have been public--all have damaged confidence that the President can do anything effective, much less helpful. Obama's done a lot in this regard already, namely in his cabinet picks and "change" rhetoric. Even an R like me can appreciate a departure from cronyism. But he can lose it in an instant if he starts playing the DC games with Congress.

2. Don’t Over-manage the Economy - Obama wants to get his hands all over it because it's the only thing that really matters right now, and it controls all other issues he'll want to address. But he’s got to resist the temptation, or we’ll be stuck in the same policies that stretched the Great Depression from five years to ten. First and foremost, stop the bailouts. We’ve already set a horrible precedent, and it needs to be reversed immediately. The American auto industry is not “too big to fail,” it’s a sacred cow and a political football. Maybe help them limp along until Toyota opens enough plants to employ the laid off workers, but don’t perpetuate the problem—bad management over a losing business. Second, Obama's got to stop this "we're going to fix everything, and give everybody a job" BS. It's just not realistic, and is a horrible way to control expectations. He's already won the election, so he can lay off the pie-in-the-sky. Yes, we need to repair the highways and bridges, etc. But no, the people who have lost their jobs this year are NOT going to benefit from the job creation that entails. Don't try to tell me a guy who gets laid off from GM is going to turn around and jump on a road crew. And how’s he paying for this if 95% of us aren’t going to pay more in taxes? Debt that people my age are going to bear far into the future.

3. I also like tyd's #8
 

I feel like the obviously necessary things (transitioning out of Iraq quickly, Economic stimulus) will happen anyway, so why waste this opportunity on the obvious. Why not push for some more radical ideas that can only happen in times like these? I don't necessarily mean "left-wing" agenda, but rather things that important (.)

1. Be really, really radical on the environment. This means certainly reducing emissions, getting rid of the global extraction-based economy, tydw's #4, using his heavy hand to get some global movement on these issues, etc., but also raising awareness of questions of environmental justice, in the US and internationally.

2. Get rid of Larry Summers, or, since he's got him, make Summers the public face of a shift in international development/aid that radically alters the World Bank, gets rid of the broken IMF, inserts a moral and ethical code to the WTO/GATT, and more generally recognizes that free market capitalism urges corruption, oppression, and exacerbates existing fracture lines in the developing world.
 

1. Economy. Understand that the party is over. Work out a sustainable plan for the USA going forward. Basic problem: we cannot be all things to all people. We can no longer believe that the key to economic success is spending every dime available and then some. The Keynesian Interlude is finally over. This will be an incredibly hard transition--and, providentially, Barack Obama is uniquely qualified to bear this bad news. Only Nixon could go to China. Only Barack can explain our new reality to a nation in need of tough love.

2. Foreign Policy. Barack inherits one war he does not like that is going well and one war he has promised to win that is unwinnable. He must find a way out of this personal quaqmire (and we must help him--support him--as he backs off his campaign promises). Accepting our hard-won victory in Iraq, we must set a new sustainable foreign policy. Learn from our mistakes. Again, we cannot be all things to all people. We must reconcile ourselves to the limits of American power. Pick our spots wisely.
 

I think Waco Farmer nailed it. Those are the priorities. Obama has pivoted well so far and he needs to continue to do so. The Nixon example is good. Others include JFK, whose campaign arguments about a missile gap were junked quickly and FDR who promised to balance the budget. They discarded those themes quickly and never looked back.

Jesse's first priority doesn't strike me as a priority but more of a way of doing business. He's absolutely right. Losing the Bush governing style of arrogance and disregard for others will work wonders.
 

Septimus:

"I don't necessarily mean "left-wing" agenda, but rather things that important"

"1. Be really, really radical on the environment."

"recognizes that free market capitalism urges corruption, oppression, and exacerbates existing fracture lines in the developing world."

You're right, those things aren't "left-wing" at all. That was hilarious. Excellent Thursday morning chuckle.

The priorities should be:

1. Winning the war in Iraq/Afghanistan; and

2. Stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Obama should focus on the one thing a president can do well, foreign policy. The Nixon example is an excellent one. Obama should start out by using all of the apparent political capital he has in Europe and Asia right now to aggressively push a foreign policy agenda that deals with the wars we are currently involved in and tries to prevent a future crisis in Iran.

The bonus of this is that it will take his focus away from tinkering with, and thereby continuing to screw up, our economy. It is a win-win!!
 

Priority number one needs to be mustache reform. Too many American men have been enduring bad mustaches for too long. President Obama should appoint a mustache czar from among the following candidates:

1. Keith Olberman
2. Geraldo Rivera
3. A Law School Dean (I have no one in particular in mind)
 

Give meaningful relief to help the foreclosure crisis--i.e. provide safeguards that help people keep their homes and home values instead of giving banks billions of dollars to purchase other banks or investments.
 

RRL:

I'm glad I could give you a laugh, but the received irony was every bit intended.

When recognition that environmental degradation and poverty go hand-in-hand, and when more broadly the recognition that protecting clean air, water, and soils -- i.e. the basic essentials of our life -- is a "liberal" agenda, or a political issue, there is something wrong. This is not, historically, true: Most of the landmark environmental acts were passed under Nixon. There is no "special interest group" that would benefit from environmental protection, and -- taken in an appropriately elongated temporal scale -- no one loses from environmental protection: This, for me, defines it as a "non-political" issue.

On the second point, while I admit that I phrased it to betray my bias, let me phrase it differently: when the recognition that increasing poverty on a massive scale in exchange for massive wealth on a miniscule scale, and the source reason for the current global economic crisis (massive, unchecked deregulation). is a "liberal" issue, then something is wrong. This is a moral issue, not a political one.

Fortunately, my agenda here is not all that radical on the global scale. Perhaps I could reduce my post to one point: Join the global community on environmental and economic management.
 

An important part of the Global Community, the EU nations, are meeting (should that be "is"? "part" is singular...) in Poland right now. Germany, the Greenest of the European states wants to back away from emission standards set previously.

China and India laugh at our desire to limit environmental degradation.

So although I agree, the environment needs to be addressed, I think its silly to say the U.S. is somehow a renegade on the issue.
 

RRL -- you've got to be kidding this time. No, really. You've really, really got to be kidding. No, seriously -- 'fess up. You absolutely have to be kidding.
Robert
 

My first 2 priorities for Pres-elect Obama:

1. QUIT SMOKING ~ we need you healthy to deal with and lead us out of this economic nightmare.

2. Buy your girls a Labradoddle (allergy dog). Petting a dog will help keep your blood pressure under control and allow you to deal more effectively with this economic nightmare.

On a more serious note (not that quitting smoking isn't serious).

1. Create jobs !!!
Personally, I would be happy to work in road construction, but remember most of us have more educational skills and if I am driving the road grader what are the less educated going to do. Here is the problem, when you have an education and apply for these jobs you are OVER QUALIFIED. The recruiter will not look at your resume or even consider you for the position.

2. If we are going green - fix the grid to accept wind energy and other non-traditional energy sources. Companies want to build these new power technologies but they can't get these energy sources onto the grid. Perhaps the grid needs to be nationalized in some way if exsiting power companies aren't willing to share the lines.

Other comments:
Until people have jobs the mortgage restructuring is moot no matter what the level. If you don't have a job, you can't pay your mortgage.

* Restore our civil liberties
* Close Guantanamo Bay
* Iran - has a history of wacko leaders and Imams, but THE PEOPLE are educated and the country has not had a history of being the aggressor.
 

Well said, Septimus. I think you're right about joining the global economic and environmental community.

And RRL, we have been renegade: the US never signed onto the Kyoto Agreement, which seems like a travesty even if you only view it from a public-relations standpoint.

RRL, I know you will disagree, but I'm not sure the situation in Afghanistan is winnable, as you say. I'm not even sure it's a war . . . others more knowledgeable than I am can decide that, but I think the situation is that we destroyed--or finished destroying--their country, after the Russians and the Taliban--and now we need to somehow get them stable, including doing something about the re-emerging Taliban. Whether that means fighting or whether it means economic or development done well, I don't know. But it's really bad.

I wonder, too, if the goodwill generated by something like Septimus' global economic and environmental engagement would go a long way towards curbing the fundamentalism that is at the root of the terrorist problems. If people have jobs, if they're not hungry because their crops can't grow anymore, maybe they will be less inclined to turn toward radical fundamentalism.

We have fundamentalists of various sorts in this country, as well, but usually they have jobs.

My last point: I have trouble pinpointing ONE first priority for the Obama administration, and I think when you're president, the unique--and difficult--thing about the job is that you have to deal with multiple, equally serious, issues at the same time.

As to the notion of
 

Disregard that half-written sentence at the end of my post! Oops.