It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood…

“It’s such a cynical business, and most of the people in the business are full of shit and phonies, but I was real, man — and am real. This guy, he was catapulted in on hope and change, what we hope the guy is. What the fuck? Everything he’s saying’s on the teleprompter. I’m blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up.”

That hit the Interwebs at 12:02 a.m. By 12:59 p.m., Blago was taking it back:

“What I said was stupid, stupid, stupid,” Blagojevich said to reporters outside his Ravenswood Manor home.

For the record, Barack Obama is half-blacker than Rod Blagojevich, but only half as black as Bill Clinton.

The Notorious Blago [Esquire]

Blagojevich apologizes for remark: ‘I’m blacker than Barack Obama’ [WGN, via Political Wire]

1/11/10: Never forget the day when everyone in the blogosphere wet their pants with anticipation.

Sarah Palin to Contribute to Fox News [NYT]

The best description we’ve read about Game Change, the new 2008 campaign book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, comes from the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder: “chock full of revelations that are bound to stir the folks who live within ten miles of the Beltway.”

We live about three thousand miles away. Calculate accordingly.

The book, or at least the snippets we’ve seen so far — official publication is Tuesday — is not without value to political caricaturists. Moments like these might come in handy:

• Bill Clinton, lobbying Ted Kennedy to endorse Hillary, said of Obama, “a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.” (This was politely called the “experience” issue at the time.)
• Hillary initially planned to turn down the offer of Secretary of State, for fear of Bubba Eruptions: “You know I can’t control him, and at some point he’ll be a problem.” (That was on everybody’s mind.)
• Harry Reid noticed early that Obama could fare better than Jesse, thanks to being “light-skinned” and not speaking with a “Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.” (You’ll recall African-Americans fearing Obama wasn’t black enough, as well as his ability to channel MLK cadences when needed.)

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This happens every time she shows up on one of the Sunday handjobs in her role as Living Facebook Page for her Dick of a dad. Here Liz points out that the presidential response to a failed underpants bombing is much more distressing than reading a children’s book while three thousand people die.

Liz Cheney Airs Hypocritical Attack Ad On Obama For Waiting ‘100 Hours’ To Respond To Terror Plot [Think Progress]

One of the “revelations” from the new book Game Change — we’ll have a doorstop on the subject in the morning — is that Harry Reid was early to spot Barack Obama’s qualifications for President:

1. Obama is “light-skinned”.

2. Obama didn’t speak with a “Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

Which is an unpleasant way of pointing out that Barry isn’t Jesse, and something Harry shouldn’t have said in so many words, or words that could be accurately paraphrased as such. (Harry has apologized to Barry; Barry has accepted.)

The disturbing truth is that, if you wanna get realpolitik about it, Harry was right — Obama’s election didn’t transcend American racism, but moved it further to the shadows. A welcome development, to be sure, but let’s not declare victory over history just yet. If you want to see a real burial of bigotry, look at attitudes toward Irish-Americans instead. We’re not bothered by smelly Papists the way we used to be.

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Title: “Right Now: A 12-Step Program For Defeating The Obama Agenda”

Author: Michael Steele; foreword by Newt Gingrich

Rank: 403

Blurb: “Setting aside appeals for caution in taking on a popular president, Steele throws down the gauntlet, insisting Republicans must expose and refute the policies lying at the heart of this administration’s attempts to resurrect a discredited brand of extreme liberalism.”

Review: “Steele’s book not only changed the way I look at politics, it changed that way I look at facts.”

Customers Also Bought: “Courage and Consequence,” by Karl Rove

Footnote: A week of headline publicity (never mind the previous year), and he can’t even crack the Amazon Top 400? Although we’ll give him this: We were expecting four digits, not three.

Right Now [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]

4:27 p.m. PT, 26 miles off Eureka.

Let’s get you started with the USGS Earthquake Map, which every Californian should have bookmarked.

LA Times, 5 p.m.:

Sandra Hall, owner of Antiques and Goodies in Eureka, said the quake moved her shop in all directions.

Her store is now littered with broken lamps, dishes, and wardrobe items. She said there were at least four people in her store when the quake struck. A couple managed to run out of the store’s main entrance, while two women took cover under a table.

“We’ve been through a lot of earthquakes but I can’t recall there ever being any this bad,” Hall said.

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