12/4 Roundup: Mission Transition, Deficits be Damned, The President Who Looked Most Like a Bird

Leader: Mission Transition

- Ceci Connolly has a piece in the WaPo on the way the Obama team is transitioning its wildly successful hi-tech campaign tools into hi-tech health care policy reform tools. Simon is quoted:  "This is the beginning of the reinvention of what the presidency in the 21st century could be. This will reinvent the relationship of the president to the American people in a way we probably haven't seen since FDR's use of radio in the 1930s."

- A lobbying frenzy has broken out over the Secretaryship of the Interior.

- Karen Tumulty and Mark Thompson at Time comment on the strong personalities Obama has assembled in his national security team. Will he be able to get them to agree on much?

- An anonymous blogger mysteriously gains access to Steve Clemons's blog, and writes about the grinding angst as he waits by his phone, hoping for a call from Barack Obama. You're not alone, anonymous.

Economy

- Mega-Union United Auto Workers (UAW) made serious and surprising concessions yesterday, agreeing to accept reductions in job security guarantees and certain retiree health care provisions if it will help GM and Chrysler obtain much-needed federal aid.

- The Treasury is considering forcing down mortgage interest rates to historic lows. Mortgage qualifications would remain the same, leading some to be skeptical that lower rates would have much of an effect in stimulating new home buying.

Politics

- Bill Gates arrived in Washington with a clear message: Deficits be damned! Increase spending! 

- Al Franken says that Al Franken is now ahead in the Minnesota recount! Charles Seife writes on the NY Times Op-Ed page that, regardless of the outcome of the recount, the margin of error will be way bigger than the difference in votes. If we're going to do this fairly, the only thing to do is flip a coin... 

- Illinois Governor Blagojevich has begun to share his thoughts on who might succeed Barack Obama in the Senate. He's not giving much away, just  yet. 

International

- Just when you thought everything that could go wrong in Zimbabwe had already gone wrong, the nation declared a national health emergency over a major cholera epidemic.

- Secretary Rice is in India, trying to cool the waters. 

One More Thing

- Thought you'd seen the last of Eliot Spitzer? Yeah, me too.  Well, turns out he'll be Slate's newest columnist.  Perhaps writing for an online magazine is ideal, as it won't require the disgraced Governor ever to show his face outside his upstate New York home.

- Barack Obama was totally pissed that Bill Richardson shaved his beard.  That makes two of us, Mr. President-elect, that makes two of us.

- Last, somebody made this great video of the 44 presidents' (ok, 43, with Grover Cleveland twice) faces morphing one into the next.  Apropos of this, I'd like to give out a few awards:

• President who looked most like a bird: John Tyler
• President with the widest head: Martin van Buren
• Best facial hair: Chester A. Arthur
• President who looks most like he wants to eat you: Jimmy Carter