Inside Politics

By Greg Pierce (Contact) | Wednesday, January 7, 2009

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Sounds familiar

Some in the news media have been comparing the daunting challenges Barack Obama faces in his presidency to those of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression, a comparison that the president-elect's critics consider far-fetched.

But Touchstone Books has just republished a compilation of FDR's speeches and articles titled "Looking Forward," which originally appeared in 1933, and the publishers say "the echoes of FDR's own words can be detected in many of President-elect Obama's recent speeches and actions."

You might say, almost word for word.

Roosevelt stated in his first inaugural address, "This nation asks for action, and action now."

Last month, in an address on YouTube, Mr. Obama said, "We need action -- and action now."

Politics of scandal

"The Rod Blagojevich pay-to-play scandal has only not eliminated any chance that Bill Richardson can ride out his own home-state scandal to win Senate approval as commerce secretary, but also made the selection of a replacement more difficult, because Republicans will seek to capitalize on even minor vulnerabilities of the next nominee, according to sources close to the Obama team," Thomas Edsall writes at www.huffingtonpost.com.

"Transition officials have been aware from the start of the problems Richardson faces stemming from a federal investigation into a California financial services company, CDR Financial Products LLC. The investigation was first publicly reported over four months ago. Only recently, however, has the Obama team decided that Richardson's problems are fatal, as the Blagojevich affair has created incendiary conditions," Mr. Edsall said.

"The controversies involving Blagojevich and Richardson demonstrate the continuing potential of 'the politics of scandal' to undermine the ability of those in power to make policy and to govern on the basis of victory at the polls."