AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

In the swirl from rumor to hardening assumption that President-elect Barack Obama is about to name Sen. Hillary Clinton as his secretary of State, one person with a unique vantage point on the decision is Los Angeles' own Warren Christopher, who served as secretary of State in the first Bill Clinton administration.

Friday, he was peppered with questions about the possibility of a Clinton occupying his old office. Here is Secretary Christopher's response:

Senator Clinton is a naturally gifted diplomat and would be an inspired choice, if she is chosen by President-elect Obama as secretary of State.

She took many foreign trips during my time as secretary, leading delegations to China, Pakistan, India, the Balkans, and Latin America.  She always prepared carefully before she left, and effectively handled official sessions with leaders as well as large public events.  Reports on her travels were uniformly positive, often coming from hard-to-please foreign service officers.  Particularly impressive was her leadership of our delegation to the 1995 U.N. conference on women in Beijing, where her memorable speech on human rights evoked a standing ovation.

Scott Lilly, who has served in numerous posts for members of Congress and the Democratic Party and participated in last week's Dust-Up on Barack Obama's transition to power, e-mailed me his thoughts on the president-elect's Cabinet picks so far. Lilly is more pleased than David Weigel (Lilly's Dust-Up partner who sent in his thoughts yesterday) with Obama's decision-making, arguing that choosing Cabinet members with a wealth of experience in government is the best way for the president-elect to fulfill his promise of change.

Lilly begins:

News reports indicate that President-elect Obama has chosen strong, experienced, independent-minded nominees to run four departments of the executive branch. Since these are not just important positions in an of themselves but probably represent a pattern for the remaining appointments, they raise important questions.  Do Obama’s picks represent change? Will his Cabinet officials pursue Obama’s view of change? These are questions that we won’t fully know the answer to for some months, but I think the signs are largely positive. 

Read the rest of Lilly's reaction after the jump.

In Friday's Letters to the editor, readers sound off on the new -- er, make that old -- faces in the Democratic party as it prepares to take the reins in Washington.

Kim Gullo, of Corona Del Mar, thinks letting Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman keep his committee chairmanship was the right move for the party:

Lieberman had the courage to stand up to groupthink and support the candidacy of a tested colleague he believed in...

Men like Lieberman keep our democracy healthy and vital, and we marginalize them at our peril.  Barack Obama seems to realize this -- why don't others in the Democratic party?

Carole Harder, of Rancho Mirage, begs to differ:

Keeping [Lieberman] in the Democratic caucus is to knowingly allow a Republican spy to attend Democratic strategy meetings.  Letting Lieberman retain committee chairmanships allows him to influence key program agendas of the administration.

Thoughts on likely Obama attorney general pick Eric Holder, and possible secretary of State pick Hillary Clinton round out change-of-the-guard coverage.

California's fires, the Vatican's policy on gay priests, and the ballot initiative process, too.

* Photo of Joe Lieberman by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

All right, so this could just as well be called "In tonight's pages". But stick with us here. There's lots of meaty opining worth lingering over for an intellectual evening meal. The editorial board weighs in on the California Supreme Court's decision to take the case challenging the validity of Prop 8: The board regrets that the Supremes didn't allow the case to "percolate up through the lower courts," but hopes they strike down the gay marriage ban. Then the board veers south to Latin America and urges Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega to work with the opposition movement and designate independent observers to oversee the contested results in the Managua municipal elections.

Over in Op-Ed, it's mostly a presidential program. Historian Joseph Ellis imagines how Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson would react to Barack Obama's election. Lincoln, he suggests, is smiling somewhere. Jefferson, however, is a tougher call. After all, he believed that should blacks ever be freed, it would be best to transport them back to Africa or the Caribbean. Ellis writes:

In the end, I would like to cut Jefferson some slack, assume that his racial prejudices would fall victim to his lifelong urge to be at the cutting edge of liberal reform and that he could embrace Obama as a palpable refutation of his earlier and now anachronistic convictions about color.

Lionel Beehner and Vikram J. Singh also dive into the presidential waters, urging Obama to avoid the pitfalls of basing foreign policy on leaders' personalities. And Columnist Rosa Brooks runs through some of the Bush administration's more noxious executive orders and rules changes. They'll require a "rapid bureaucratic de-mining operation," she says, one best carried out by Clinton veterans. And Patt Morrison wishes mazel tov to Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, writing that the her status as an unwed mother would have been shocking 20 years ago, but times have changed.

AP Photo/Kevin P. Casey

David Weigel and Scott Lilly were gracious enough last week to participate in our Dust-Up on Barack Obama's transition to power. Much of the discussion involved speculation over the president-elect's Cabinet picks. Now that some names have emerged from Team Obama, I asked Weigel and Lilly to e-mail me their thoughts on Obama's choices. Below is the reaction from Weigel, an associate editor at Reason magazine, who writes that Obama "is disappointing all sorts of people. Including me."

Weigel begins:

Well, it was fun while it lasted. Now that Barack Obama is ignoring the fantasy Cabinet picks of people like us and selecting the people he actually wants to work with, he’s disappointing all sorts of people. Including me.

Read the rest of Weigel's reaction after the jump.

The Times' editorial board gets right to it, blasting President-elect Barack Obama's first choice for his cabinet. According to the board, Eric H. Holder Jr. has the resume to be Attorney General, but not the perceived independence:

[I]n the aftermath of the reckless politicization of the Justice Department under George W. Bush, the wisest course for Barack Obama would be to choose an eminent lawyer who shares the administration's legal philosophy but can't be caricatured as a presidential insider.

For all of his impressive qualities, former Deputy Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. doesn't fit that description.

Wow, a two-fer -- going after Obama and Bush in the same piece! Now that's editorial gold. Elsewhere in the stack, the board urges Congress and the incoming administration to start thinking now about how to eliminate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are due to emerge from federal conservatorship in a little more than a year. And with Somali pirates now attacking oil tankers, the board says it's time for the rest of the world to tackle the problems in the buccaneers' home country.

Over on the op-ed page, columnist Tim Rutten writes about a new federal report that confirmed the existence of a chillingly widespread ailment long denied by Republican and Democratic administrations: Gulf War syndrome. Science writer Margaret Wertheim observes World Toilet Day -- oddly enough, it doesn't coincide with World Newspaper Day -- by noting some the benefits that flushable chamber pots have produced for society (while also lamenting that many communities have yet to obtain them). And author Dave Zinn writes about the increasing politicization of U.S. athletes brought about by Obama's campaign against John McCain:

Howard Cosell called it "rule No. 1 of the Jockocracy": the idea that sports and politics must never mix. This last election season though, that iron wall separating the two worlds wasn't merely breached, it was flattened.

2001 file photo of Eric Holder is by Mark Wilson/Newsmakers.

The Federal Communications Commission needs a makeover--an updated look, or at least attitude, for our time, the editorial board writes. That's especially true of the time and attention it gives to enforcing decency rules:

The FCC also showed an alarming willingness to use government power to impose ineffective and discriminatory decency rules on broadcasters in the name of shielding children from profane or violent programming. More relevant to a bygone era's media environment, such rules reflect how poorly the commissioners seem to understand today's technological realities.

The Obama family hasn't even had time to pick a puppy yet, and already President-elect Barack Obama is confronted with missile threats from Russia. Missile defense threats are rattling their own sabres, but Obama "should not react to the rhetoric from either quarter, but he should reconsider missile defense on its merits -- or lack thereof. The president-elect rightly is skeptical of the defense shield, given that it doesn't yet work and it's intended to defend against nuclear-tipped Iranian missiles that don't yet exist," the board advises.  It also calls on federal immigration authorities to be open about their rules for deportation of detained illegal immigrants and to inform potential deportess of their rights.

On the other side of the fold, Los Angele Unified school board member Tamar Galatzan wants a more consistent system for approving and assessing charter schools:

Charters should not be rewarded for simply out- performing their underachieving LAUSD counterparts. The philosophy of charter schools is based on accountability, and the district must hold them to their promises. Lack of accountability is not uncommon in the school district, but we cannot let it seep into the charter movement as well.

Arguments about the genocide in Rwanda are at the heart of a court case in which the African nation seeks to shake itself free of French influence. And Joel Stein calls for a "No Gays for a Day" day, in which the gay and lesbian community would display its financial clout by staying home from work and shopping.

Illustration by Signe Wilkinson/Philadelphia Daily News

The Opinion Manufacturing Division cranks out two Latino-flavored analyses today of exit-polling data from the Nov. 4 election. Columnist Tim Rutten slices and dices the numbers to reveal that even socially conservative Latino voters in L.A. strongly backed Barack Obama. The bad news for the GOP, Rutten writes, is that the results portend a long-term political realignment in the West. And in the editorial stack, the Times' board -- long a supporter of a comprehensive reform of U.S. immigration policy -- urges the President-elect to show his Latino constituency that he's taking a new direction on the issue:

He could put a stop to the factory raids the Department of Homeland Security has launched in Iowa, Mississippi and other states, including California, rounding up hundreds of undocumented workers. He might also forge bipartisan support for the so-called Dream Act, which would allow high-achieving, undocumented high school students to seek permanent residency if they go to college or enter the armed forces.

The editorial board also urges Congress again to stop playing political football with the Colombian free trade agreement, which is "good for Colombia and good for the United States." And it mocks the City Council for dropping a plan to let voters settle a dispute over whether the City Controller (currently, Laura Chick) can audit programs run by local elected officials:

When council members discovered that they too might come under controller scrutiny, they suddenly found the issue too important to put to the voters. Jose Huizar worried about a program he controls using a special fund from his district. Richard Alarcon demanded that someone audit the controller. Tom LaBonge pointed out, apropos of nothing, that Chick once gave a briefing to mayoral candidates challenging James K. Hahn (Alarcon neglected to mention that he was one of them).

Elsewhere on the Op-Ed page, medical researcher and author P. Michael Conn draws a parallel between two trends in the law: as more communities adopt ordinances to redefine pets as "animal companions," Congress is redefining the extreme tactics of some animal-rights activists as "terrorism." And Douglas Olin, a deputy assistant secretary of Commerce in the Clinton administration, urges Congress to demand more fuel-efficient cars and a better approach to labor relations from the Big Three automakers in return for a bailout:

With millions of jobs at stake and the potential repercussions of seeing an entire section of the industrial base collapse so soon after the fallout on Wall Street, it is a political, economic and social imperative for the government to do something. But why not do it in a way that challenges this key industry to also help address society's need to reduce consumption of foreign oil, curb greenhouse gas emissions and increase safety on our highways?

AP Photo/Ivan Moreno

Proposition 8 rules the roost -- again -- in Wednesday's Letters to the editor.

This time, the focus is last week's protests against the Mormon Church. Some letter writers, like the Prop. 8 supporters interviewed in this Times story from Tuesday, aren't impressed. Robert D. Holmes, of Arcadia, writes:

The demonstrations against Proposition 8 make me question my vote against it.  The behavior of many supporters of gay marriage is disgraceful and, in my estimation, is likely to work against the progress that has been made in gay rights.

Stephen Newcomer, of West Hollywood, disagrees:

When tax-exempt churches use their pulpits and money to demean and destroy gay relationships and families they should not be surprised when protesters appear on their doorsteps.

The acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services apologizes for delays in Medicare reimbursements; a reader muses that we're all mutts, really; and another reader criticizes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's frequent absences from L.A.

*Photo of Proposition 8 protest by George Frey/Getty Images.

Today's editorial page is an extravaganza of topicality, hitting on three top-of-the-news issues: The proposed federal bailout for U.S. automakers, the taxing problems facing California lawmakers as the state budget melts down, and the ongoing protests by gay-rights activists following last week's passage of Proposition 8.

On the bailout, The Times urges Congress to look before it leaps into a $50-billion aid package for the Big Three automakers. These companies aren't failing for the reasons they like to claim -- high health care and pension obligations, unfavorable exchange rates and government fuel-economy standards -- but because they aren't building competitive vehicles. A bailout alone won't change that, nor would it replace the Big Three's failed managers or change their troublesome union contracts.

On the state budget, The Times urges Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to reinstate the car tax that he rashly slashed after bumping former Gov. Gray Davis out of office. Though it's a regressive tax, it's not nearly as bad as the 1.5% sales tax Schwarzenegger is proposing. And it's tax-deductible! (From your federal taxes, that is.) Finally, The Times points out the many mistakes made by opponents of Proposition 8; while it's nice to see them marching in the streets now, where were they before the election? Where were the gay leaders before Nov. 4? Opponents ran a disorganized campaign, failed to target the African Americans who proved crucial to the measure's success, and waited until the last minute to get serious about fundraising.

Wresting equal rights from a society reluctant to grant them isn't easy. It can take years of nonviolent resistance, passionate speeches and even in-your-face radicalism. If people who voted yes on Proposition 8 say they didn't see it as a civil-rights matter, that's because until now there has been nothing resembling a civil rights crusade by the gay community.

Over on the op-ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg ponders George W. Bush's legacy for the  conservative movement. Bush's brand of conservatism has always been troubling to many on the right, even if they rallied to his side in the face of "shrill partisan attacks from Democrats who seem more interested in tearing down the commander in chief than winning a war." As the movement looks to reinvent itself, the question is whether it will choose "a debugged compassionate conservatism 2.0 or a Reaganesque revival of conservative problem solving?"

New York Judge Joseph Fahey, meanwhile, takes time out on Veterans Day to ponder the U.S. government's shameful treatment of Vietnam vets and their families whose lives have been torn apart by exposure to Agent Orange. With the courts failing to adequately compensate these victims, the government needs to fashion another remedy, such as a compensation fund. And author Norah Vincent, a libertarian conservative, regrets her decision not to cast a vote in last week's historic election. Turned off by John McCain's "doctrinaire sensiblity" and his choice of running mate, and disturbed by Barack Obama's tax proposals, he ended up supporting neither. But now she's a little caught up in Obamania:

But after watching the video of Obama's acceptance speech (I went to bed early Nov. 4), I have, to my great surprise, found myself moved to tears by the president-elect, by his poise and graciousness, not to mention what seems to be his almost Hegelian historical significance. I now wonder if I missed out on the moment. Am I going to feel a little caught out one day when I have to say that I did not vote for him? Or will I feel vindicated by what will surely be the many and great disappointments of the Obama administration?

* Illustration by Anthony Russo / For the Times

Like everyone else, Times opinionaters are slowly recovering from election delirium and are now surveying the landscape. What we find, among other things, is Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doing something about the mortgage crisis in California.

Is it enough? The editorial page says his proposed 90-day moratorium on foreclosures is a start, but we've got some advice for him: follow up with the Legislature, and get a little more aggressive with lenders and borrowers who otherwise might not act in their own best interests.

On the plus side, the plan would provide immediate relief to borrowers while still requiring them (and lenders) to endure some pain in the long run, lessening the unfairness to borrowers who haven't fallen behind on their payments. The governor's bill has at least three notable shortcomings, however. There's no enforcement mechanism to make lenders keep their pledges to modify loans. Second-mortgage holders and investors, who have resisted some efforts to modify loans, wouldn't be pressured to accept reduced returns. And there's no effort to pull recalcitrant borrowers into negotiations over the new terms.

Let's come back to the editorial page in a moment, but first let's see what Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez has to say about the audacity – and Americanness – of hope.

We fetishize hope because it helps us as we grasp at a favorable future. We wrap ourselves in it like no other people in the world because we tell ourselves failure isn't an option. We have no choice but to cheer when a president-elect tells us we can put our hands "on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

Law professor Goodwin Liu explains the amendment-versus-revision argument behind the latest legal challenges to Proposition 8. And Bob Stern and Tracy Westen of the Institute for Governmental Studies walk us through suggestions for changing California's increasingly burdensome initiative process. They note that the record for voter-petition ballot measures was set in November 1990 with 18 initiatives. (Quick – what is California's all-time record for ballot measures, including ones put on by the Legislature? Correct! 48 in 1914.)

Initiatives should not impose supermajority requirements on future legislative or voter actions unless they pass by the same supermajority. In other words, a measure passing by 51% could not require a 67% vote in the future, say, to raise or lower taxes. Simple majorities should not be permitted to disenfranchise larger future majorities.

Now let's go back to the editorial page and consider this: Did Google blow the dream of making the contents of the world's libraries available for free to anyone with internet access? Its settlement with book publishers may be a significant backward step on the road toward a virtual, and free, uber-library.

It's unfortunate that Google and the publishers didn't take advantage of the emerging standards in the electronic book field to enable libraries to acquire and circulate digital versions of out-of-print titles. Companies such as Overdrive are providing a model for e-book lending that preserves the spirit of free public libraries. Google and the publishers should look for ways to apply that model to their new effort, helping libraries keep pace with a reading public that's increasingly eager and equipped for a world with less paper.

The editorial page also weighs in on the thorny case – U.S. Supreme Court case, that is - of a guitarist who lost an arm after using a drug that should have carried a clearer warning. The case has little to do with guitars, but an awful lot to do with the relationship between federal and state laws, and the standards courts should use when grappling with preemption questions dealing with Congress and the Food and Drug Administration.

(Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Barack Obama isn't even president yet, and he's already committed his first "gaffe."  At his proto-presidential news conference on Friday, Obama was asked which former presidents he had consulted about how to discharge his new duties. The puckish president-elect replied: "I have spoken to all of them who are living. I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any séances." Later, Obama apologized to Nancy Reagan for the allusion to her practice of consulting astrologers (not mediums) in planning her husband's schedule.

The apology may have been a political imperative, but I loved Obama's original comment. It showed that he has a smartass streak, which high office tends to suppress. Only rarely do figures of the magnitude of Obama let their inner wisguy escape.

It happened a couple of times at the Senate confirmation of hearings of John G. Roberts as chief justice.  Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah (in the self-referential habit of senators) told Roberts: "I read an interesting book over the weekend, Cass Sunstein's recent book published by Basic Books. Now, he discussed various philosophies with regard to judging. And I just would like to ask you this question: Some of the philosophies he discussed were whether a judge should be an originalist, a strict constructionist, a fundamentalist, perfectionist, a majoritarian or minimalist -- which of those categories do you fit in?" Roberts replied: "I didn't have a chance to read Professor Sunstein's book. He writes a different one every week; it's hard to keep up with him."

Speaking of the Supreme Court, when I was covering the court, schoolkids on pilgrimage to the nation's capital were often dragooned into watching oral arguments before the justices. At the end of one particulary soporific session, a group of junior high schoolers was taking a shortcut out of the courtoom through the press gallery. I asked their teacher if her students had enjoyed the argument. One boy piped up: "Yeah, I was riveted to my seat." Ah, I thought, a kindred spirit! At his age I also was a smartass. (It runs in the family.)

Life is tough for little smartasses -- or mavericks, as John McCain and Sarah Palin might describe them. McCain, by the way, fought smartassery with smartassery while campaigning in New Hampshire. When a high school student asked McCain if at 71 he was too old to be president, the candidate shot back: "Thanks for the question, you little jerk.  You're drafted.'' That moment was the closest I came to supporting McCain.

Barack who? Apparently the presidential election is old news. The editorial board has already moved on to the next political race facing Angelenos and asks Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to declare his intentions. Is he running for governor? A second term as mayor? The board writes:

"The mayor may be genuinely be undecided. But now is the time to make up his mind--and to tell voters just what they will be getting if they elect him to a second term." 

Also in the stack, the board senses a trumped-up urgency to install city-owned solar panels on Los Angeles rooftops, and in world events, frets that the Czech Republic's assumption of the European Union presidency is going to be a headache for President Barack Obama.

Across the way on Op-Ed, David Milne, a lecturer in American politics at the University of East Anglia,  dissects the tendency of American presidents to turn to academics and political scientists for counsel and columnist Joel Stein tries to determine if the country should loan General Motors, Ford and Chrysler another $25 billion by test driving their cars. His rides in a Challenger, a Town & Country minivan and a Bentley-esque 300C were pretty sweet, but Stein concludes that taxpayers should keep their money:

“No matter how much I liked these cars, I don’t think the government should use taxpayer money to give life support to dying, poorly managed, market ignorant, technologically outdated industries other than newspapers.”

Photo: Yoichi R. Okamoto/LBJ Library.

Dang. Looks like we'll have to wait for word on who will replace Hank Paulson at Treasury -- President-elect Barack Obama had nothing at all to say on that issue during his first post-election news conference. On the other hand, that's former Fed chairman (and well-known inflation hawk) Paul Volcker standing just behind him to his left in the photo, and it seems unlikely that Volcker got there by accident. (The woman on Obama's right is Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm; we'll get to her symbolism in a moment.) Anyway, Obama offered little by way of specifics, hewing closely to the disciplined vacuousness of his campaign. The only nuggets of solid information I gleaned, excluding some unusually detailed intelligence about the future First Dog, were as follows:

• The top priority on the economy is passing a stimulus package, which Obama said shouldn't wait for his inauguration. And the most important piece of that is extending unemployment benefits. That's a good move, one that has a track record of actually stimulating the economy. The money quote: "We are going to have to focus on jobs, because the hemorraging of jobs has an impact on consumer confidence" as well as depressing spending on goods and services. He added, "I want to see a stimulus package sooner rather than later."
• Priority No. 2 appears to be pouring money into state and local governments to reduce the layoffs and spending cuts they're facing.
• The auto industry is likely to get some love, but not necessarily the kind it's looking for. Calling automakers "the backbone of American manufacturing" and a "critical part" of the effort to reduce dependency on foreign oil, Obama said he wanted to see the administration speed up the delivery of the $25 billion in loans Congress has already approved. But he stopped short of endorsing the additional $25 billion the Big Three are begging for, saying instead that he plans to "work on additional policy options" to help the industry "weather the financial crisis" and produce more fuel-efficient vehicles. Maybe I'm projecting here, but that didn't sound like an endorsement of a bridge loan to help GM buy Chrysler.
• Obama sounded a populist note about the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, a.k.a. the Trouble Asset Recovery Program, saying he wanted to review the Treasury Department's implementation to make sure it was offering enough help to homeowners but not too much to Wall Street executives. Look for more efforts to aid homeowners avoid foreclosure.
• Off the topic of the economy, Obama said he was in no hurry to dash off a response "in simply a knee-jerk fashion" to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's congratulatory letter. He called Iran's attempt to develop nuclear weapons unacceptable and said the country's "support of terror organization ... has to cease." But he also said, "We have only one president at a time.... I am not president. I will not be until January 2009."

For whatever it's worth, the Dow Jones Industry Average gave up about half of its gains today during the course of Obama's remarks.

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

Who can possibly stop talking election yet? Not the Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division. Both the editorial board and Wayne State University professor John Corvino predict that, as society gains a deeper understanding of and appreciation for gay rights, there's a good chance voters will repeal the newly passed Proposition 8 in coming years. The board calls on the African American community, which voted heavily in favor of the gay-marriage ban, to remember the shared struggle of civil rights and how once society viewed interracial marriage as ungodly -- a few decades before the child of an interracial couple would be elected president.

The editorial board also applauds both presidential candidates' speeches on election night. After a long absence, the board says, the John McCain who reaches across the aisle to make things work, and who puts service to his country, showed himself. And Barack Obama reminded Americans of something they also haven't heard in a long time -- that success depends on people giving to their country as well as taking from it.

On the other side of the fold, Patt Morrison wonders whether party labels of outlived their usefulness:

How meaningful and relevant are candidates' political parties anymore? When a New England Republican can be more progressive than a Texas Democrat, when millions regard themselves as independents and occupy the takeout-menu middle on political issues, why do we need to belong to parties? Why red, why blue, why even purple, when there's the big deluxe Crayola box to choose from?

In a burst of free advice for Obama, former Secretary of State Warren Christopher offers trandition guidance to the president-elect and Rosa Brooks has ideas for how he can mend the country's global relations.

AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

It's a good thing there won't be time for small talk when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stands up on Jan. 20 to administer the oath of office to President Barack Obama. Ordinarily one might think that the two alumni of the Harvard Law Review -- Obama was president, Roberts managing editor -- would glide easily into a reminiscent groove, cheerily comparing notes about professors and pizza parlors in Cambridge. But any conversation might be awkward, because Obama, unlike 22 other Democrats, voted against Roberts' confirmation.

Worse, if The Washington Post is to be believed, Obama stiffed his fellow Ivy Leaguer by flip-flopping from support to opposition.

The Post reported:

"It was the fall of 2005, and the celebrated young senator -- still new to Capitol Hill but aware of his prospects for higher office -- was thinking about voting to confirm John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice. Talking with his aides, the Illinois Democrat expressed admiration for Roberts's intellect. Besides, Obama said, if he were president he wouldn't want his judicial nominees opposed simply on ideological grounds.

"And then [Pete] Rouse, his chief of staff, spoke up. This was no Harvard moot-court exercise, he said. If Obama voted for Roberts, Rouse told him, people would remind him of that every time the Supreme Court issued another conservative ruling, something that could cripple a future presidential run. Obama took it in. And when the roll was called, he voted no."  (Ironically, political calculations may have inclined Obama to condemn a recent decision in which Roberts was in the minority -- the court's ruling that child rapists can't be sentenced to death.)

It's well known that Roberts was surprised when senators he thought were going to support him switched sides. That he was confirmed anyway, with votes from half the Senate's Democrats, may have softened the blow. And Roberts has the comfort that he is likely to hold on to high office a lot longer than Obama will. Still, it's just as well that the two men won't have to chit-chat before Roberts exercises a privilege Obama didn't want him to have in the first place.

... and Barack Obama makes three.

When Obama takes office, that will make three U.S. presidents who've received undergraduate education in California.

The first was Herbert Hoover, a member of Stanford University's first class. (That was long before the mascot wars, before the ''Stanford Indians'' and now the ''Cardinal,'' but not -- as some students suggested -- the ''Robber Barons.'')

The second was Richard Nixon, a Whittier College grad -- whooo, Poets!

And now the third is Barack Obama, who spent his first two years of higher education at Occidental College before succumbing to the siren call of the East Coast and Columbia. Go Tigers!

The image, courtesy of Occidental College, is of the photo Barack Obama submitted when he applied for admission to the college in 1979.

UPDATE: This post has been updated to correct an error in previously reported numbers.

When Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley lost the governor's race back in 1982 after polling way, way ahead of his Republican rival, the ''Bradley Effect'' was born -- the conclusion that voters were simply lying to pollsters about voting for Bradley when they had no intention of voting for a black gubernatorial candidate.

The Bradley Effect was complicated by the fact that Democrats had put a gun-control measure on the same ballot, and after the Election Day dust settled and Bradley had lost, some political observers thought that the gun-control initiative had unexpectedly brought out conservative voters who might otherwise have sat out the election and who, as long as they were in the voting booth, also voted against that big-city mayor who probably wanted to take away their guns anyway.

Now we come to 2008. No one was lying to pollsters, but the candidacy of Democrat Barack Obama generated a huge turnout of African-American voters in California -- about 10% of the electorate -- and as long as they were in the voting booth, 80% of them voted in favor of Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban. [Update: the correct figure is about 70%]

Now, 80% of 10% may not sound like much, but when those votes are added into a high number of ''yes' votes from the rest of the electorate -- and a high percentage of Latinos and Asian-American voters, some of whom may also have turned out to vote for Barack Obama -- it could all have made the difference. Proposition 8 won by about a half-million votes.

That one should keep social scientists busy for years.

The photo of the Tom Bradley bust at LAX is from a Times photographer.

In Thursday's Letters to the editor, readers react to the historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States.  Writes Brian Thompson of Signal Hill:

I am a 38-year-old black male.  For all my life, I have considered myself an American.  On Tuesday, Nov. 4th, 2008, for the first time, I am finally convinced that America agrees with me.

Edward Hieshetter, Sr., of San Diego expressed admiration for Republican John McCain, too:

Last night John McCain showed true statesmanship in his concession speech.

Last night Obama brought true hope for the future of our country.  At long last we have a president who will unite us in one union!

Over the past eight years I lost faith, trust, and pride in my country.  Last night it was restored by both Barack Obama and John McCain.

Meanwhile, Charlotte Sale of Placentia updated a controversy-sparking comment by Michelle Obama to express her doubts:

Today, for the first time in my adult life, I am afraid to be an American.

Coming in Friday's letters: reactions to the approval of Proposition 8.

*Photo of president-elect Barack Obama from AP Photo/Alex Brandon.

In his speech in Grant Park in Chicago last night, Barack Obama reminded listeners around the world that ''while we breathe, we hope.''

It's an old line, rendered in centuries past in Latin as ''dum spiro spero,'' because it probably came from that grand ol' phrasemaker, Cicero.

Since then it's been embraced by the doomed Mary, Queen of Scots, by the Scottish town of St. Andrews, the sacred seat of All Things Golf, even before the phrase became the secret mantra of every golfer -- and by the state of South Carolina, which adopted it in 1776, not, as some people might suspect, in 1861.

The Opinion Manufacturing Division devoted all its real estate today to the election, with a particular focus on Barack Obama and free donuts. Two African-American scholars, Shelby Steele of Stanford's Hoover Institution and Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown's sociology department, offer provocative views about what, if anything, Obama's victory tells us about American society. Steele argues that Obama took advantage of whites' desire to be seen as indifferent to race, effectively making his race more of an issue, not less:

The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer's ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.

It's probably not worth mentioning, but Steele wasn't exactly rooting for an Obama victory. For his part, Dyson agrees with Steele that America isn't a post-racial society, but he contends that Obama's election could herald its post-racist future:

A post-racial outlook seeks to delete crucial strands of our identity; a post-racist outlook seeks to delete oppression that rests on hate and fear, that exploits cultural and political vulnerability. Obama need not cease being a black man to effectively govern, but America must overcome its brutal racist past to permit his gifts, and those of other blacks, to shine.

Rounding out the Op-Ed triumverate, columnist Tim Rutten also mused about race and American history, drawing parallels between Obama's speech on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy and Abraham Lincoln's "House Divided" speech about slavery in 1858.

Over in the editorial stack, the Times editorial board calls on Obama to bridge partisan divides, repair international relations, and bring about a host of other changes in America's approach to governing. It also reminds readers why they should be glad California wouldn't permit Starbucks to give free coffee to voters. And that's not a commentary on Starbucks' coffee.

Illustration: Scott Laumann For The Times

Barack Obama's victory speech in Chicago carried historic echoes of speeches past. He quoted from Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural, and referenced as well John F. Kennedy's inauguration address. But his most resonant words tied this moment in history directly to a third martyred leader, Martin Luther King Jr., and the fight for civil rights for African Americans that reached its full flowering at about the same time Obama was born.

He did not mention King's name, but those familiar with the words as well as he deeds of the era knew that Obama was making direct correspondences to King's legacy and promise. He appeared to be suggesting, further, that in his election the promise has been fulfilled.

For anyone who doubted that in America all things are possible, the president-elect said at Grant Park, "tonight is your answer."

"It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long, by so many, to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve ... to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day."

"The arc of history." It is a direct reference to one of King's most riveting lines, spoken in Montgomery, Alabama after the long and dangerous march from Selma in March, 1965. King said he knew people were asking how long it would take to achieve justice. "How long?" he asked, over and over, making listeners desperate for an answer -- and then he supplied the answer.

"How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." It was a refrain King came to use often, sometimes referring to the "arc of history," sometimes to the "arc of the moral universe."

Again, Obama: "It's been a long time coming. But tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this moment, change has come to America," putting stress on the word "this," and reminding Americans who were at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, as well as those who have grown up listening to recordings of King's "I have a dream speech" from the March on Washington, of the closing rhythmic exhortation that faith in justice would help African Americans win equality.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

Obama: "The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term. But America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you. We as a people will get there."

The climb will be steep -- it is a direct, almost chilling, reference to King's final speech, the night before his murder. Like Moses climbing the mountain to glimpse the promised land, King preached that he might not get there with his people.

"But I want you to know tonight," King said, "that we as a people will get to the promised land."

It was the most emotional part of Obama's speech - the reference to the promise that "we as a people" will get there. Obama was not speaking, as King had, just to African Americans, but was able to speak to all Americans, in part because King's dream that black and white would join together had, at least for the moment, been realized. The president-elect was interrupted at that point by chants of the campaign phrase that has nothing to do with Lincoln, Kennedy or King, but is his own:

"Yes we can, yes we can, yes we can."

Photo: Emmanuel Dumond AFP/Getty

The first tally is in, and it's Barack Obama by a landslide: 59% to John McCain's 41%. No, we're not talking newspaper endorsements (that foreordained result would have been even more lopsided) or absentee ballots cast by PLO sympathizers. (Here's a link to the tape!) (Psych!!!) Ahh, juvenile humor. And how appropriate, given that the votes in question were cast Monday by elementary-school students all across the country. Utah-based Studies Weekly, which publishes newspapers and magazines for children, was the main sponsor, and its website was the venue where the vast majority of student voters registered their support for Obama or McCain. (There were no third parties on the ballot -- sorry, that's reserved for kids who've taken algebra.) Children's Way of Castro Valley, Calif., which operates the Woogi World website for kids, also participated.

Unfortunately, with the results also comes our first controversy over electronic voting machines: it appears that more than 80% of the votes cast at the Studies Weekly site weren't counted.

Last month's post about the hyperbolic assertion that Barack Obama is a socialist drew some thoughtful comments about the gray area between pure free-market capitalism (which no country practices) and a centrally planned collectivist economy (which has some lingering adherents). If there's a slippery slope toward central planning, though, we're already on it. The Bush administration is using tax dollars to steer the housing, credit and insurance markets, all in the name of averting bigger problems in the economy.

I'm not arguing against the Bear Stearns bailout, the takeover of American International Group, or the $700-billion rescue of the financial industry. Nor am I criticizing the FDIC's efforts to reduce foreclosures by reworking some troubled mortgages, even though it could prevent housing prices from falling as far as they otherwise might go. Each move made sense at the time, given the growing problems in the credit markets that threatened to send the entire economy into seizure. Yet the government now finds itself in a market-shaping position that's the antithesis of Adam Smith's vision for how capital should get allocated.

Each week, your letters maven receives thousands of e-mails, dozens of letters through the good old U.S. postal service, and even a few faxes here and there.

After she cuts out spam, obscene mail, letters addressed to more than one recipient, letters that seem to be the fruit of letter-writing campaigns--more on that later--and letters with attachments (which gum up our computer systems,) she is usually left with several hundred eligible items, from which she selects the somewhere around 100 that get published in the newspaper.

Last week The Times received 592 usable letters, 441 of which were in our Top Five Topics:

• The Presidential election, 199 letters;
• Other election, including letters about ballot propositions and potential election day glitches, 108 letters;
• The Economy, 65 letters;
• The Times' new format (PDF file) 54 letters; and
• California's budget crisis and its effect on the public schools, 15 letters.

At least, that's one way to tally last week's mailbag.  If we suspended our rule about ignoring writing campaigns--and considered the 7,247-letter tsunami that crashed in after the McCain campaign complained that The Times was withholding a videotape of Barack Obama--the Top Five would look quite different (see chart, below.)

In some ways the Tapegate edition is less edifying than the official Top Five tally--in other ways, much more. 

Why don't we allow letter-writing campaigns on the Letters page or in the Letters Top Five count?  First, they often don't respond directly to Times coverage.  Second, they usually spawn dozens of identical form letters, or semi-original letters drafted from prepared talking points.  We receive mail riddled with notes such as "[INSERT YOUR NAME HERE]" or "DON'T FORGET TO INCLUDE YOUR PHONE NUMBER, MANY NEWSPAPERS REQUIRE ONE!"   It doesn't make for edifying reading.

Much of our Tapegate mail, too, was boilerplate material.  What wasn't, all too often, was clumsy in different and admittedly original, but unprintable, ways. 

Many readers hoped we'd all get laid off; one said he wished we'd all get cancer.  A few threatened violence. This offering was fairly typical:

subject: Release tape of anit semetic comments by Obama

comment: Hey you Dummies

Release the tape of Obama spoutin anti-semetic coments - there's nothin like the real thing.

Are you a NEWS organisation?? or are you in the obama tank??

At least he didn't resort to cussin.  We got a lot of that, too.

Wow. Conservative panic has shifted into overdrive. Over at RedState.com, which is usually a well-written blog with sound arguments for Republican principles and philosophies, Managing Editor Erick Erickson is throwing all that high-toned stuff out the window. Instead, RedState is encouraging its right-wing denizens to get out there tomorrow and vote for McCain but tell pollsters they voted for Barack Obama. This, Erickson seems to believe, will cause all sorts of chaos.

As you know, the media relies on exit polling to formulate their news coverage of Election Day. Likewise, the campaigns make estimations as the day wears on via exit polls. Lastly, in preparing for the next election's polling, some pollsters will use exit polling to help them. We know how well that's gone this year.

I have a hearty suggestion for all of us: seek out exit pollsters. Find them. Be willing to engage in the exit polling. And lie.

Erickson -- whose personal blog, by the way, says he is graduate of Mercer University (an institution "affirming religious and moral values that arise from the Judeo-Christian understanding of the world") and a deacon at Vineville Presbyterian Church in Georgia -- doesn't say how this widespread dissembling, even were it to happen, would help the Republican ticket. In fact, couldn't it hurt the McCain/Palin cause?

If early exit polls show Obama with a big lead, wouldn't that information work to demoralize McCain supporters? Wouldn't tidings of an Obama landslide -- even an erroneous one -- actually discourage conservatives from voting? States like Nevada and New Mexico are in play, and their polls close well into the evening (Eastern Standard Time), so wouldn't telling the truth and boosting the numbers for McCain actually be a better strategy (not to mention more in keeping with a Judeo-Christian understanding of the world)?

But maybe RedState is more interested in making the mainstream media look foolish than keeping Barack Obama out of the White House. Well heck, if that's the case, maybe Erickson is making sense. He might as well aim for a goal that's achievable.

Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News

We get a lot of press releases here at the Opinion Manufacturing Division that pass without comment, but today's missive from the Western Business Roundtable is such a masterpiece of obfuscation that it cries out to be posted here, especially because it repeats similar baseless accusations against Barack Obama that were raised today by vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Here are the first two paragraphs of the release:

A bipartisan coalition of business leaders is calling on governors, state legislators and members of Congress to publicly express their opposition before tomorrow's election to proposals to "bankrupt" the U.S. coal industry and threaten to put out of work several hundred thousand Americans who work in coal-related industries.

The call was issued by the Western Business Roundtable following news reports that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama intends to make it so costly to build advanced clean coal power plants with carbon capture and sequestration that it will "bankrupt" any company that tries to do so.

Well, no. The "news reports" refer to tapes that appeared Sunday on YouTube, which were excerpted from a discussion held by Obama with the San Francisco Chronicle editorial board in January. Here's what Obama said that has raised the ire of both Palin and the Western Business Roundtable:

What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases emitted would be charged to the polluter.... So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted. That will also generate billions of dollars that we can invest in solar, wind, biodiesel and other alternative energy approaches. The only thing I've said with respect to coal, I haven't been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as an ideological matter, as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

Note carefully what Obama is saying here: He wants a cap-and-trade program that would set a price for greenhouse-gas emissions. That would make it prohibitively expensive to build new conventional coal plants, because they emit vast amounts of carbon. Yet that's not the way the Business Roundtable, a marketing organization for a coalition of Western CEOs, puts it. Its release says Obama's proposal would make it impossible to build "advanced clean coal power plants with carbon capture and sequestration." Actually, if the technology to capture and bury carbon emissions from coal plants existed (it's still under study, and may never be commercially viable), such a plant would emit only trace amounts of carbon, and thus be perfectly viable under Obama's cap-and-trade scheme.

This is why business groups get a bad name for trying to "greenwash" environmentally destructive projects: The roundtable clearly objects to Obama's stance on dirty, conventional coal, but in order to look as if it cares about the environment, it's pretending that Obama actually opposes carbon-capture technology, which he has repeatedly backed (that's what Obama meant when he said "if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it").

The Business Roundtable still could take a few pointers on Doublespeak, though, from the master: Palin. In a campaign appearance in Ohio, Palin brought up the same YouTube tape to blast Obama's stance on coal.

He said that, sure, if the industry wants to build new coal-fired plants, then they can go ahead and try. . . but they can do it only in a way that will bankrupt the coal industry, and he's comfortable letting that happen.

What Palin neglected to mention is that the guy she's running with, John McCain, favors a cap-and-trade program very similar to Obama's, which would have the exact same impact on conventional coal plants. No matter who wins, the coal industry is going to be in trouble. Maybe after the election we can all stop pretending otherwise.

* Photo by Charlie Riedel / AP

What is a crucial part of a nation’s culture, makes you fearful on your first encounter, hits you with an unexpectedly strong flavor, stays with you for days, compels you to repeatedly shower and brush your teeth just to wash away the scent, makes you swear off trying it ever again, yet leaves you pining for more?

The election, of course. The editorial pages show you no mercy. Deal with it.

First, you don’t get out of voting just because you heard some cable network declare the winner based on exit polls in West Virginia. The editorial board reminds you that you’ve got ballot measures to vote on here, and besides, the polls may be wrong. They’ve been wrong before. And if you don’t vote, we’ll find you.

Civics-bookish as it may sound, voting is a duty as well as a right. Even when the stakes aren't as high as they are in California this year, exercising the franchise only when you think your vote will 'count' is an act of selfishness, not citizenship.

So you better do your duty. Of course, even if you do, everything will probably go wrong. States have to check names against registration databases, but there are no standards, so the double-check may bounce qualified voters in some states while failing to catch fraudulent ones in others. States have differing rules for provisional ballots. And they might not come up with enough poll workers, especially in poor and minority precincts. Congress should do something. But it probably won't.

And in case you haven’t yet gotten the message about who and what to vote for, we'll give it to you one last -- OK, second-to-last -- time.

Now, let Larry M. Bartels of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs explain to you why, whatever your rationale for choosing your candidate, you're wrong. And don't be so sure that things will come out right in the end, just because millions of people are voting.

Unfortunately, "rational" rewarding and punishing of incumbents turns out to be much harder than it seems, as my colleague Christopher Achen and I have found. Voters often misperceive what life has been like during the incumbent's administration. They are inordinately focused on the here and now, mostly ignoring how things have gone earlier in the incumbent's term. And they have great difficulty judging which aspects of their own and the country's well-being are the responsibility of elected leaders and which are not.

So after all that election news, it's time to cheer up. H. Gilbert Welch says all that testing for breast cancer may not be the best thing for most women, at least not the way it's done now.

"Look harder, find more" has been the prevailing paradigm in breast cancer screening from the outset. News reports focus on which approach finds more cancer. Conventional versus digital mammograms? Digital is better because it finds more cancer. Mammograms versus MRI? MRI is better because it finds more cancer. But the problem of over-diagnosis means that finding more cancer is not better — it’s the wrong way to measure progress. Real progress would be to find only the cancers that matter.

And now to the kimchi. We certainly couldn't find anything in that to make you worry. Or could we? Gregory Rodriguez points out that South Korea has a deficit of the pungent, fermented national appetizer/condiment. Koreans are eating Kimchi imported from China, and that could lead disaffected citizens to question their cultural hold on something dear to them. Could they be facing confusion, a sense of displacement, anxiety? And who knows where that could lead?

If you think these are silly questions, just remember that it was a feeling of cultural displacement that helped fuel the fundamentalism of Egyptian student Mohamed Atta in Germany.

Happy Monday!

Kimchi photo: Rhee Dong-Min, Reuters

Rescuing homeowners who ventured into their own unwise and unaffordable mortgages isn't a popular  idea, the Times editorial board acknowledges, but it holds real value for all of us:

Such aid also is consistent with the principle of intervening when the market can't help itself. Despite the banking industry's voluntary efforts to help borrowers, statistics compiled by the industry show that the number of loan modifications only recently has caught up to the number of borrowers starting the foreclosure process.

The board also advises the state drop its hasty decision requiring all eighth graders to take algebra by 2011, and begins a series of handy endorsement recaps to help you figure out all those names and issues on the Tuesday ballot.

On the other side of the fold, op-ed writer Jenny Price tells the story of her brother's murder and why this is no reason to approve the "victim's rights" promised by the Proposition 9 campaign.

Punishment for murder should not depend on how angry and bereft survivors are, or how beloved the victim was. It should not be proportional to the size of the victim's family, or to how many family members are willing to go to court or a parole hearing, or to how long they are willing to keep going to hearings.

A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute is pleased that no one seems to be talking any more about paying reparations to the descendants of slaves in this country, and Joel Stein asserts that he's an erudite kinda guy even if he doesn't know at what temperature water boils, what language they speak in Iraq or--well, a bunch of other things.

Photo by Damian Dovarganes/AP

Having spent a total of about one hour with Barack Obama, I'm no expert on his personality. But from what I've seen and read about him, he doesn't seem like a knee-slapping kind of guy. John McCain, on the other hand, is a pretty humorous fellow, especially when mocking himself and the people around him (my ilk included). Or at least he was back when I was in Washington in the 80s and 90s; like most folks on the campaign trail, his scripted humor isn't Improv-grade.

Anyway, according to the AP, tomorrow the GOP standard-bearer is due to appear again on "Saturday Night Live," where perhaps he can teach Darrell Hammond a thing or two about verisimilitude. (NBC declined to confirm the story, and said it had "an open door to all candidates.") Assuming the report is true, my guess is that McCain will do as Sarah Palin did earlier this month, making one or two brief appearances in skits but not reprising his medley of Streisand songs from 2002. The appearances may not offset Obama's multi-million-dollar purchase of prime-time airwaves Wednesday, but at least any laughs they produce will be intentional.

I'm no expert on campaigning, either, but I think this is a smart use of McCain's time. Candidates who are trailing in the polls often struggle to strike the positive tone that voters crave, particularly in tough times like the ones we're in now. McCain's main focus for the past month or so has been on Obama's flaws, rather than the promise of his own candidacy. SNL gives him the opportunity to put a different image in front of people, both on TV and through clips that get passed around the Net.

Here's my hope: I'd like to see SNL put McCain in a skit with actors playing William Ayers, Tony Rezko and Charles Keating -- sort of a Ghost of Associations Past thing. But I don't have an Improv-grade sense of humor, either. What about you? Tell us your ideas for McCain on SNL, and remember -- if only Republicans would laugh (or Democrats), then it's not really funny.

AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall