President-elect: Obama No Longer Jumping the Gun

Congratulation to our former junior Senator-in-Absentia, Barack Obama, who is now the President-elect, a title which he affected long before he was entitled to it. Before you start thinking that the Electoral College is some relic of the past, I would urge you to consider the Franken - Coleman race in Minnesota and the Roland Burris appointment here in Illinois.

I am still scratching my head about Obama's statement that "We cannot be sending a message to the world that there are two different administrations conducting foreign policy. Until I take office, it would be ­imprudent of me to start sending out ­signals that somehow we are running ­foreign policy when I am not legally authorised to do so." But why, then, is Obama meeting with the President of Mexico Monday? As a practical matter, never in my life do I remember a soon-to-be President acting as a junior president between election and inauguration.

Complete with the trappings of office, Barack Obama has been carrying on as if he were President for two months now, except for times when he was on vacation or otherwise engaged. I am hoping that this is a once in a lifetime experience for me, as it certainly sends a bizarre message to the world, much of which doesn't understand our political system. President Bush has done a masterful job of handling this anomaly which could have ended up a major embarrassment for the USA.

Of interest, is there a crack appearing in the left-wing that was so monolithic for Obama? Michael Moore is on a crusade to sink CNN's celebrity doc Sanjay Gupta as choice for Surgeon General.