While I, of course agree, all of this obsession with the Constitution and what it does and does not permit, might well have been pointed out to George W. Bush, you know, sometime during the past 8 years.

I find it funny it's now, suddenly, being resurrected to protect Bush's valued status. If President Bush cared about it, he should have spent time PROTECTING IT as he swore to do. (The President takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the CONSTITUTION not the safety of its citizens. Something Bush pretty much forgot 2 minutes after he took office.)

Anyway I'm sorry but I find this pro-Bush protection whining in the name of the Constitution just a little too much to take. No one's stopping Georgie from stepping up and taking control. He IS after all still president. It's his choice to play Nero and fiddle while the whole economic structure burns.

As such, Obama has no choice BUT to do what he can to save what's left before it's all gone. January 20th may well be too late.

Dear Max, if you're going to be a pedant, you should at least do the research before posting. Obama becomes President-elect when the electors vote, and President at noon on January 20.

I've been on the Internet for twenty years, and the one constant over all that time is this bizarre alpha intellect thing, like dogs pissing on trees. Someone should do a study.

(Not that I'm immune - http://xkcd.com/386)

pardoning that white house turkey. (adding to the ironies of the bush presidency)

Be careful what you wish for -- Mr. Obama has zero record of meaningful accomplishment we can reference, other than the Nov 4 milestone in his "personal journey". Frankly, no one has a clue what we're getting in the way of the next leader.

...Constitution or no, I'll hold the door for him and even give him a kiss goodbye. Whatever it takes.

So I guess my question is: what then did YOU wish for?

I gotta say, after the last 8 years, anyone who's trying to tell me "Watch out for scary unknown Obama" makes me laugh and laugh. For the past 8 years, the one and only thing that was needed was a president willing to at least try to respond to crises. The only one Bush addressed in anything resembling an attentive way was his Iraq war and protecting his right to carry it on with as little care and foresight as possible(which is what the surveillance and like that was always about: to keep America off his back, which implies that if we'd tried we could have gotten on it earlier). And he blew even that. Bush's presidency was always about nothing but Iraq, and anything else was simply protecting that. This includes sops to the base like stem cell research bans and Terri Schiavo--to keep the RR voting so the war could not stop. Our country hasn't really had a president in 8 years. Has it felt like we have? I feel what we were was hijacked. Bush never, in the least, felt like a president even minimally, the first time in my lifetime(my first president was Nixon, who was a fucker but was definitely SOME kind of president). Nor that he was very interested in much about being that, apart from the prestige.

So try to scare me about Obama. At least we have a professional who will at least TRY now.

Be careful what you wish for -- Mr. Obama has zero record of meaningful accomplishment we can reference, other than the Nov 4 milestone in his "personal journey". Frankly, no one has a clue what we're getting in the way of the next leader.

Well, let's see.

Credible cabinet appointments. We're seeing that, already. Like someone's actually thinking through the composition of the administrative body with something besides the campaign donor list at the desk.

Geepers, what's next? Real resumes and qualifications? (However will we get used to the change?)

True. But then a sub-idiotic moron with experience in managing Texas didn't manage to do well for EIGHT long years. Did he?

He had a kickass team which was EXTREMELY loyal to him until death: Ascroft, Gonzales, Cheney, Rice, the list goes on.

Since, for 8 fuckin' long years, this single-digit-IQ gun-wielding texan idiot did NOTHING for the common citizen, and cratered the economy, and our jobs and shitted on the constitution, and imprisoned fellow citizens without due process of law, it seems his accomplishments equal a negative value.

In Mathematics, zero is greater than a negative number.

while you are pointing fingers and assigning blame not to forget Barney Frank and Chris Dodd who did more to set off the current economic crisis than anyone in the White House. The adminstration's attempts to rein in the GSEs all along the way were thwarted by these two idiots. Lets keep the blame where it belongs. The administration is responsible for a myriad of other disasters but you can thank Frank and Dodd for the housing and mortgage crisis.

There is a yin and yang to everything. Obama has been making good decisions based on the current crisis. We should applaud him for that. Bush has become the former POTUS. We will regret that.

We do have a Constitution that must be kept intact. We have one POTUS at a time. Popularity within the press should not negate that fact.

The American public is not stupid , it is aware of the problems we are facing, but if we loss the the concept that "we are a nation of laws", we can open the door to much more ominous things than allowing Bush to finish out his term.

The mere fact that the transition teams are working closely together to avoid a gap in leadership is heartening and must be respected.

I like Obama and all, but the truth of the matter is that he isn't the president yet. Everything he says or does should not be of such grave importance, yet.

If people find that calming, fine, but there's nothing he can do about anything at this point.