… Commerce Secretary is a great launching pad.  Gets you mighty famous.  Just ask Herbert Hoover.

Item:

The race to replace Barack Obama as Illinois’ junior senator heated up Tuesday as Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., called on Gov. Rod Blagojevich to name a black man or woman to the seat.

By invoking race, Rush, who is black, drove a potential wedge between the prospective white and black contenders for the seat. Rush said it would be a “national disgrace” if Obama’s seat were not filled by an African American.

Fair enough.  Might we suggest a potential name — someone who’s experienced with Illinois politics and fulfills the mandate for a new bipartisan era?

Joe Biden at the National Governors Association meeting:

“And Governor Palin, I want to thank you particularly. I might point out, as I told you, we walked in. Since the race is over, no one pays attention to me at all. So I’m — maybe you will walk outside with me or something later and say hello to me.”

(hat tip: Wonkette, Huffington Post)

Proving once again that it deserves victory in the 2009 James Beard Foundation Awards for outstanding food and beverage reporting, Famous DC informs us about this:

Move over Nora, you’re no longer the most popular “Last Call” in DC - at least for today.

Because so many important and intellectual political conversations happen between 2-5 am, the DC City Council has announced that “last call” during Inauguration week will likely be lifted - allowing party goers the opportunity to drink until five a.m. for five consecutive days.  [just like the conventions!]

The D.C. Council is considering Jim Graham’s legislation today to allow restaurants, bars and other establishments that sell alcohol to be open around the clock for a five-day period during the Inauguration.
…

“This is absolutely a unique opportunity, and we want our night life to participate in all of the activities and events during the Inauguration,” said Graham (D-Ward 1), after the council breakfast this morning.
…

The council is holding its legislative meeting today, and Graham said he is optimistic the bill will pass, though he said some details still need to be worked out.

And to think we used to make fun of Marion Barry for doing the exact same thing — and without the need for pesky adult legislation.

From Monday’s Barack Obama press conference with his new national security team:

• Obama: “Together, we will meet the challenges of the 21st century.”
• Hillary Clinton: “I am proud to join you on what will be a difficult and exciting adventure in this new century.”
• Eric Holder: “There is much that needs to be done in this new century.”
• Susan Rice: “Now we must fulfill that promise by joining with others to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of the 21st century.”
• Jim Jones: “… national security in the 21st century…”
• Joe Biden: “Each has a clear understanding of the forces that are shaping this new century. … congratulations on assembling what I believe will be a first-class team to lead us into this century.”

Joe Biden at today’s National Security Team press conference:

Congratulations Mr. President-elect for establishing a first class team for leading us into this century.

Leading us into this century?  2000, 2008 — eh, who’s counting…

We learn that Harvard professor and former Obama campaign foreign policy adviser Samantha Power is now advising president-elect Obama on transition matters relating to the State Department — which Hillary Clinton might head.

Why is this significant?

Here’s why …

Back in March, the New York Times examined Barack Obama, the author.

The story contained this intriguing nugget:

When his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention sent his memoir soaring out of obscurity and straight onto the best-seller list, he untethered himself from his longtime literary agent in favor of Robert B. Barnett, the Washington lawyer who had gotten Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton an $8 million book advance and then landed Mr. Obama a $1.9 million, three-book deal.

Who was that longtime literary agent Obama abandoned, er, untethered?  Jane Dystel .. and the Times story had more:

Two weeks before Mr. Obama’s swearing in, Crown announced that it had signed a contract with him for three more books. The first would offer “a window into the political and spiritual convictions that propelled Obama’s recent U.S. Senate victory.” The second will be a children’s book about his life, and the third is yet to be defined. The deal had been initiated by Ms. Dystel, the announcement said, but “negotiated and concluded by Robert B. Barnett of Williams & Connolly LLP.”

What happened between Mr. Obama and Ms. Dystel is not clear. Ms. Dystel declined to be interviewed for this article. Mr. Obama said, “It really had more to do with the fact that by the time ‘The Audacity of Hope’ was written, I was going to be in Washington and was obviously now very high profile.”

Talk about a glowing self-evaluation.

That episode in Obama’s life is revisted in the December 2008 issue of The Washingtonian magazine, in a profile of super-lawyer Barnett:

In 2004, Barnett receieved a call from a new young US senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.  Years earlier, an enterprising New York agent, Jane Dystel, had discovered Obama and persuaded him to write Dreams From My Father, the story of how the son of a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother became the first black president of the Harvard Law Review.  She had gotten the idea for the book after seeing a news clip about the law student in the New York Times.

Now that Obama was a senator, Dystel wanted him to reissue his book and write another one.  But Obama ditched the agent who had discovered him and turned to Barnett to negotiate the reissue of Dreams From My Father and sell The Audacity of Hope.

OK, this time, instead of untethered, we get ditched.  Either way, sounds like when it came to Obama’s career and book ambitions, change really was the operative word.

Not necessarily for the good old days of Carter-era stagflation with high interest rates and high inflation.  But for the good old days of when you good provide Congressional testimony while chomping on a lit cigar.

Barack Obama is getting mostly plaudits for his developing economic team — from folks on the right as well as the left.

But this exchange at his press conference today seemed a bit, well, lacking in substance.

QUESTION:  Do you have any shopping advice for nervous consumers? And are you planning to hit the malls yourself on Friday?

PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA: Well, we are going to do some Christmas shopping and Malia and Sasha have already put their lists together. It’s mostly for Santa. They send their letter every year. But we may do some extra shopping as well.

I — look, I think families understandably are nervous and concerned about their economic situation. We’ve seen job loss. We’ve seen flat-lining wages and incomes. The economic statistics have been bad and people are watching television and understandably are nervous about their future.

There is no doubt that during tough economic times, family budgets are going to be pinched. I think it is important for the American people, though, to have confidence that we’ve gone through recessions before, we’ve gone through difficult times before; that my administration intends to get this economy back on track; that we are going to create 2.5 million jobs over the next two years; that our future is bright if we make good decisions.

And what we don’t want to do is get caught up in a spiral where people pull back from the economy, businesses then pull back, jobs are reduced, and we get into a downward spiral.

What we want to do is to be sober, to be clear, to recognize that we’ve got some real adjustments that have to be made. That’s true with — in individual businesses. It’s true in terms of individual family budgets. It’s also true for the economy as a whole.

But we continue to have the best workers in the world. We continue to have the most innovation in the world. We continue to be in possession of extraordinary resources that, if we harness properly, will get this economy moving over the next couple of years but also over the next two decades or three decades.

So people should — should understand that help is on the way. And as they think about this Thanksgiving shopping weekend, and as they think about the Christmas season that is coming up, I hope that everybody understands that — that we are going to be able to get through these difficult times, but we’re just going to have make some good choices.

That’s a lot of verbage to get to the punchline, that “help is on the way.”  Then again, at least it’s more specific than, say, “hope is on the way.”

Assuming that Obama can’t spend too much time at the shopping mall this season personally rescuing the retail economy, here’s one specific thing he can do to help out the economic situation for everyday Americans — click on Google Ads.  Lots and lots of clicking, lots and lots of Google Ads.  We recommend he start with the ads on top of this page.