That's a little creepy.

If McCain had won, would there be a "countryfirst.gov" website? Or maybe just a telegraph line?

What's up with the fancy design in "offers"?
http://www.change.gov/learn/presidentelect/

Nobody ever accused Obama of thinking small, did they?

i love him, i love him, i love him. it's the simple acknowledgement that there is a WHOLE COUNTRY OF PEOPLE and many of them LIKE TO OFFER THEIR OPINIONS ON SHIT.

Jon May, I'm confused- what's creepy? the url?

the url for one (we can look forward to well.gov for healthcare and invest.gov for finance issues) but also it's, well, just a little too slick, almost. I've always thought Obama was a good brand, but I'm not sure I feel comfortable having that brand completely take over. Like I don't want to see the big O on air force one.

But I just keep swooning over him all the same. Check out the anecdote at the end of the first paragraph here . He's such a nerd!

You'd prefer the government to resemble something like a 1960's mainframe that takes up an entire room?

I love the idea of something like invest.gov -- or how about a site like mortgage.gov about the risks of subprime loans? This is exactly what the government is for. Just as long as it stays transparent and accurate.

re: the anecdote- yeah, well I hate to do this, but it's pretty obvious which candidate I'd most like to have a beer with.

I guess branding is usually just pure propaganda, but you do need to make some kind of aesthetic decision. Change.gov is certainly not creepier than boringoldwhiteguysstillrunshitandareruiningeverything.gov, but I guess that goes without saying.

a) he is the most jed bartlett-like president we've ever had. he's more jed bartlett than the 3 real guys jed bartlett was based on.

b) nice anecdote. i'm so glad it again proved to me why elderly florida voters (and AIPAC) are some of my least favorite things in america. go have a beer, barack, you fucking earned it. the bubbes can shut their obnoxious racist yaps and those AIPAC assholes can go back to trying to get 7-figure salaries with manhattan law firms.

I'm not sure why, but yes, I do like my government to be slightly stodgy. When I register my car I want bland tan cubicles and half-functioning flourescent lights, I don't want to be checking in for a Virgin America flight. Maybe I'm just having a hard time getting used to a system that might actually work.

At any rate, for some reason websites like this are more comforting to me. Just a little stodgy. You know, like the government.

To change the subject slightly, did anybody apply via the web site for the completely non-specific "jobs in the Obama administration"? I have to say, even though I'm not really looking to switch gears or move to Washington, it was tempting.

Jesse: Not just a beer, but a beer in Quark's bar!

"Jobs in the Obama admin" brings to mind our beloved Mr. Wallace and sorting mail for LBJ. A tempting notion, but I suspect that Obama administration mail is sorted by a robot named Julius who knows all the staffers by name.

To go back a second, JBG, wasn't one poll result from this election that 78% of Jews voted for Obama after all, and wasn't that significantly higher than Kerry and a squeak above Gore too? I mean, I'm with you on AIPAC, I'm just saying...

Anecdotally, when I was back in CT and went to synagogue with my parents I found the support of Obama tepid at best. Lots of Hillary supporters in those shuls. And some seemed to be going with McCain.

Jesse: I bet there's room for something a little more glamorous than sorting mail for some of the people on this blog. For instance, those nice shiny web pages don't design themselves, and they're gonna need more staff to expand from just barackobama.com and change.gov. And what about some fiery government lawyers to wage war on the Bush policies? Or maybe someone with national parks experience and a love of the pristine to join the Interior and keep those snowmobiles out of Yellowstone. Let's not forget the large teams needed to ensure good inner-city schooling and access to bilingual and multicultural education. Oh, and, um, I guess somebody's going to have to edit the Obama reality show too.

As for me, all I want to do is encourage redistricting via k-means clustering but the executive has no control over that, so I have to sign up for California's citizen map-drawers board instead.

"when I was back in CT and went to synagogue with my parents I found the support of Obama tepid at best"

Not anymore now that Rahm is in, I bet.

Having Brzezinski in the inner circle doesn't exactly endear Obama to these guys.

Maybe Rahm helps with the minyans, but he kind of hurts with me. Everything I've read or seen about that guy is distasteful to me. His whole family, really. They strike me as self-important shiny black BMW drivers who run red lights, clipping your bike and throwing you to the pavement, then get out and start yelling at you for scratching their paint jobs.

Jon May, I had myself in mind for mail sorting- you'll notice that I'm duly unaccounted for in your list of those who might seek more qualification-heavy jobs in the new admin.

"The numbers suggest that some of the analysis that there was skepticism [about Obama] didn't materialize on Election Day. Jews voted strongly Democratic and even more strongly than 2004," said John Green, the Pew Center's senior fellow in religion and American politics. "These numbers look like 2000, when Joe Lieberman was on the ticket" as Gore's vice presidential running mate.

-I'm not saying your anecdotal evidence is wrong, Jon. I am willing to bet that Sarah Palin was a huge factor in the outcome. Plus I don't know how many people would've really been swayed by Edgar Bronfman's very enthusiastic late-stage endorsement, but I found that to be an interesting development. And anyway, there is the 21% who voted for McCain. But whether the support is tepid or gushing, in the end the overwhelming majority of Jews voted Democratic, as they often do. I can't with a quick search find an age-basis breakdown, but it seems very safe to assume that young Jews gave Obama more than 78%.

Right, the people I'm talking about were old Jews. Old people across the board weren't into Obama much. Nor were they into gay marriage.

Pardon this cut-and-paste but I think it's especially relevant:

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

Except obviously the voice is insanely autotuned, T-Pain style.

Jon, I did. We'll see. I was moved by the "Obama-Biden Transition Project" Non-Discrimination Policy, which includes gender, age, disability (all uncovered by federal law), as well as sexual orientation and gender fucking identity.

All of that plus shelter-dog adoption aspirations makes me start to believe Obama really might be the impossibly well-organized and brilliantly canny crypto-radical that the right is so scared shitless of. God I hope that turns out to be the case.

Yes, it would be very nice to find out that he is Dennis Kucinich without the UFO beliefs.