(AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

by Frank James

What message should we take away from President-elect Barack Obama's choices for his national-security team?

One is that his presidency will be far different than the past eight years. By his choices, he's rebuking the presidential management style of President Bush who didn't really enjoy the to and fro of heated Washington policy disagreements.

Of course, Bush's approach was pretty much a rebuke of his predecessor Bill Clinton's college-seminar style of policy debate which was seen as undisciplined by the Bush people.

Today, Obama sent the message that he can handle disagreement and in fact welcomes it, so long as everyone knows at the end of the day, he's the guy who's running the place, who ultimately sets the direction.

At his press conference today, he said:

... I assembled this team because I'm a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions. I think that's how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in groupthink and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I'm going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.

But understand, I will be setting policy as president. I will be responsible for the vision that this team carries out, and I expect them to implement that vision once decisions are made.

by Mark Silva

We got to know Tina Fey so well this fall, or at least the Fey who played Sarah Palin so well, that we never stopped to think about the trauma behind any facial scar.

But Vanity Fair has gotten behind the scar on the star and creator of 30 Rock, a faint line along the left side of her face.

"It's impossible to talk about it without somehow seemingly exploiting it and glorifying it," Fey, 38, tells Vanity Fair in its January issue, we learn from People magazine, because what better source is there for celebrity scar news.

When she was 5, she was playing in the front yard of her Upper Darby, Penn., home when a stranger approached the young Fey and violently cut her cheek. "She just thought somebody marked her with a pen," says her husband, Jeff Richmond.

"I proceeded unaware of it,'' Fey tells Vanity Fair. "I was a very confident little kid. It's really almost like I'm kind of able to forget about it, until I was on-camera.''

It certainly didn't slow down the ratings this fall for Saturday Night Live, which Fey boosted with her Palinpressions.

The Fair's cover photo is by Annie Leibovitz.

by Frank James

For anyone who suspected for the past year or so that the economy was in a recession, who thought the signs were evident even before Wall Street ran off the rails in the spring and summer, you were right.

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the group that dates economic cycles, says the economy fell into recession last December.

According to the NBER:

The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research met by conference call on Friday, November 28. The committee maintains a chronology of the beginning and ending dates (months and quarters) of U.S. recessions. The committee determined that a peak in economic activity occurred in the U.S. economy in December 2007. The peak marks the end of the expansion that began in November 2001 and the beginning of a recession. The expansion lasted 73 months; the previous expansion of the 1990s lasted 120 months.

by Mark Silva

President Bush, who has occasionally lamented that he regrets some of the tough talk he uttered in the war on terror - terms such as "dead or alive'' or "bring 'em on'' - also allows that the flawed intelligence surrounding Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction was the "biggest regret of all the presidency.''

"I think I was unprepared for war," Bush told ABC News' Charlie Gibson in an interview conducted at Camp David and airing tonight on World News. "In other words, I didn't campaign and say, 'Please vote for me, I'll be able to handle an attack.' In other words, I didn't anticipate war.

"Presidents -- one of the things about the modern presidency is that the unexpected will happen,'' the retiring, 43rd president says in the ABC interview.

On that flawed WMD intel: "A lot of people put their reputations on the line and said the weapons of mass destruction is a reason to remove Saddam Hussein. It wasn't just people in my administration. A lot of members in Congress, prior to my arrival in Washington, D.C., during the debate on Iraq, a lot of leaders of nations around the world were all looking at the same intelligence.

"I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess," Bush added - asked if he still would have gone to war if he knew that Iraq did not possess those weapons. "That is a do-over that I can't do.''

His determination to stay and "do what it takes to win in Iraq'' stems from another voice to which he pays great attention, the president says: "I listened to a lot of voices, but ultimately, I listened to this voice: I'm not going to let your son die in vain....

"One of the things about the presidency is you deal with a lot of tragedy -- whether it be hurricanes, or tornadoes, or fires or death -- and you spend time being the comforter-in-chief," Bush says. "But the idea of being able to serve a nation you love is -- has been joyful. In other words, my spirits have never been down. I have been sad, but the spirits are up."

He maintains that he will return home to Texas proud:

"The thing that's important for me is to get home and look in that mirror and say, 'I did not compromise my principles,'" he says. "And I didn't. I made tough calls. And some presidencies have got a lot of tough decisions to make."

President George W. Bush with First Lady Laura Bush on World AIDS Day at the White House, Monday, December 1, 2008. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

by Frank James

The conventional wisdom is that President Bush doesn't have a lot of unequivocal successes to point to as part of his presidential legacy. And, indeed, lately he hasn't had a lot to crow about.

But his effort in combating AIDS/HIV is viewed as a major achievement. First passed in 2003 and reauthorized In July, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief or Pepfar authorizes up to $48 billion on medicines and other medical care for people with HIV/AIDS in 15 targeted nations. As of today, more than 10 million people have been helped.

As the New York Times reported in January:

With a year left in office, Mr. Bush confronts an America bitterly split over the war in Iraq. His domestic achievements, the tax cuts and education reform, are not fully embraced by Democrats, and his second-term legislative agenda -- revamping Social Security and immigration policy -- lies in ruins.

"It's a good thing that he wanted to spend the money," said Mr. Kerry, an early proponent of legislation similar to the plan Mr. Bush adopted. "I think it represents a tremendous accomplishment for the country."

Bush, joined by First Lady Laura Bush, marked World AIDS Day today with a brief statement he made in front of the White House's North Portico which was bedecked with a large red ribbon to mark the observance of global AIDS efforts:

by Frank James

President-elect Barack Obama is announcing his national security team this morning. There are no surprises, all are people whose names were leaked in recent weeks. They are:

Senator Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, selecting Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain as Secretary of Defense, nominating Eric Holder as Attorney General, nominating Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, nominating Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations and selecting General Jim Jones, USMC (Ret) as National Security Adviser.

Obama said in his opening statement:

"In this uncertain world, the time has come for a new beginning -- a new dawn of American leadership to overcome the challenges of the 21st century, and to seize the opportunities embedded in those challenges. To succeed, we must pursue a new strategy that skillfully uses, balances, and integrates all elements of American power: our military and diplomacy; our intelligence and law enforcement; our economy and the power of our moral example. The team that we have assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that. They share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America's role as a leader in the world," said President-elect Obama.

by Mark Silva and updated

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will head to India this week with hope of defusing tension between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, with Indian officials pointing to culpable groups based within its neighbor's borders.

"President Bush has asked Secretary Rice to travel to India this week in the wake of the terror attacks that killed nearly 200 people, including 6 American citizens,'' White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said last night.

Rice already was leaving last night for a trip to London for a NATO meeting on Tuesday, and now plans to travel on to New Delhi by Wednesday.

"Secretary Rice's visit to India is a further demonstration of the United States' commitment to stand in solidarity with the people of India as we all work together to hold these extremists accountable,'' Perino said.

The Bush administration also has been widely criticized for having a foreign policy toward Pakistan based more on the U.S. relationship with former President Pervez Musharraf and that nation's agreement to cooperate with crackdowns on Al Qaeda forces within its borders.

The president, on the day of the attacks, said in a statement released from Camp David: "My administration has been working with the Indian government and the international community as Indian authorities work to ensure the safety of those still under threat. We will continue to cooperate against these extremists who offer nothing but violence and hopelessness.''

President-elect Barack Obama, at his morning press conference rolling out a national security team this morning, also allowed that he had spoken personally with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the weekend to relay his concern for stability in the region.

A Montgomery County, Ala. sheriff's booking photo of Rosa Parks after she was arrested during the 1956 bus boycott. (AP Photo.)

Today's the 52nd anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala. bus. The soft-spoken black woman's rejection of the ridiculous, racist social mores of her time was without doubt the no-heard-round -the-world.

Her act and arrest led to the mobilizing of Montgomery's black community and a bus boycott which thrust a new, and at first reluctant, leader onto the national and world stage -- Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It marked the start of the Civil Rights movement which, by various twist and turns, led to the election of the nation's first African-American president last month, President-elect Barack Obama.

Parks was the ideal person to launch the movement. A seamstress, she was also secretary of the local NAACP who had attended what was then known as Highlander Folk School in Tennessee whose goal was to create leaders and activists for labor and racial justice. So when the white bus driver told her to move to the back of the bus, she was ready. And history changed.

So extraordinary was her role in American history that when she died at age 93 three years ago, she was given the rare honor of having her remains lay in state in the U.S. Capitol. She has inspired songs, including "Sister Rosa" by the Neville Brothers whose chorus is appropriate for the day.

Thank you Miss Rosa, you were the spark
You started our freedom movement
Thank you Sister Rosa Parks

A surviving shack along road once known as Slave Street on a South Carolina plantation. Michelle Obama's great-great-grandfather, who was born around 1850, lived as a slave, at least until the Civil War, on the sprawling rice plantation. (Tribune photo by Alex Garcia / November 22, 2008)

by Frank James (Updated with comment from genealogical expert who researched Obama family history.)

Michelle Obama's roots can be traced back to slaves on a South Carolina rice plantation which makes her becoming the next first lady deeply poignant since, as my colleague Dahleen Glanton points out in a piece on the future first lady's slave heritage, the White House was built by slaves.

One curious aspect of Dahleen's report was this:

Barack Obama's campaign hired genealogists to research the family's roots at the onset of his presidential bid, but aides have largely kept the findings secret. Genealogists at Lowcountry Africana, a research center at the University of South Florida in Tampa, scoured documents to put together a 120-page report, according to project director Toni Carrier. She said the center signed a confidentiality agreement and is not allowed to disclose the findings publicly.

Obama aides declined to discuss the report or allow Michelle Obama to be interviewed about her ancestry. She has said she knew little about her family tree before the campaign, but census reports, property records and other historical documents show that her paternal ancestors bore witness to one of the most shameful chapters in American history.

Considering how extraordinarily open President-elect Obama has been about his past and family history in his two memoirs, it's striking that Michelle Obama's ancestry is being kept as a closely guarded secret.

by Frank James

Iraq is still a dangerous place, something we tend to forget because of the marked decline in violence there relative to two and three years ago.

Still, Iraqis continue to die as do members of the U.S. military, though in fewer numbers than at the violence's peak.

A fresh reminder that Iraq is far from being what we would recognize as safe came on Sunday with the near bombing of NPR's correspondent in Iraq, Ivan Watson and the group of Iraqis he was traveling with in Baghdad.

As NPR reports:

An NPR correspondent and three members of NPR's Iraqi staff narrowly survived an apparent assassination attempt in Baghdad on Sunday after a hidden "sticky" bomb exploded underneath their parked, armored BMW.

The bombing took place during a brief NPR reporting trip to western Baghdad's battle-scarred Rabiye Street.

by Mark Silva

Count today, roughly, as the start of the 44th presidency.

President-elect Barack Obama already has announced Cabinet appointments earlier than anyone in modern times, save for former President George H.W. Bush.

And he certainly has announced more than his predecessors at this stage in the transition preparing for a new White House. .

We've seen Treasury - Tim Geithner - and today State --- Hillary Clinton. We're seeing the attorney general, Eric Holder, and Homeland Security, Jane Napolitano. And more.

And it's Dec. 1.

Nearly two months from Inauguration Day.

It's a sign, all these appointments, of the pressing nature of the jobs they all we be assuming - with Geithner standing at the front of the line of a mounting federal deficit that will be the inevitable result of all the intervention that the post-Bush, pre-Obama government is taking in an economic crisis of proportions unseen in nearly a century.

With an unrelenting threat of terrorism confronting the new administration, it will not be - as Clinton suggested in her own primary campaign ads attacking Obama - the president who fields the first call at 3 am in the event of a crisis. That will be Marine Gen. James Jones, the apparent selection for National Security Adviser, also in line.

It's a remarkably early start-up for the next team. A remarkable set of crises confronts them all.

by Jill Zuckman

This should be a joyous time for Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), the assistant Senate majority leader.

His close friend was recently elected president. Senate Democrats will return to work in January with their effective ranks swelled to at least 58. And he was re-elected to a third term in a landslide victory.

And yet, the Saturday before election day, Durbin and his wife, Loretta, were at a Washington-area hospital as his eldest daughter, Christine, 40, succumbed to a congenital heart condition after weeks in intensive care.

He missed the jubilant celebration in Chicago's Grant Park for Barack Obama's historic victory, watching it on TV instead. And he missed his own victory celebration as staff in Chicago phoned him in Washington with the voter returns.

"It hurt because it was something that I had dreamed of, and it was just a magical night," Durbin said of the raw elation he saw in Chicago on election night. But, he said, "I was where I needed to be: with my family."

by Jill Zuckman

One member of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team measures meetings by the number of resumes arriving on his BlackBerry.

Another says job-seekers have offered him tickets to Redskins football games, which he has turned down. And yet another has given his mother in Chicago "talking points" to deal with people trying to get to him by going through her.

"People are anxious to figure out every possible avenue in and want to get advice on how to do this," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who has gotten calls asking how to break into the new administration -- even though he backed Hillary Rodham Clinton during the presidential primaries.

For people on the receiving end, it's an unrelenting daily bombardment of resumes and requests to meet for coffee.

"I think it's wonderful that people want to serve. But for those of us who have to deal with the onslaught, it's a little overwhelming," said a senior official with the transition who asked not to be identified for fear it would prompt a further deluge of applicants to his in-box.

by Peter Nicholas

After weeks of speculation, President-elect Barack Obama formally will introduce Sen. Hillary Clinton as his nominee for Secretary of State at a news conference Monday morning in Chicago, according to a Democrat close to the New York senator. Clinton plans to attend the event.

According to a Democrat familiar with the transition team's work, the former First Lady is part of a national security team that also includes: Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security; Eric Holder, for Attorney General; Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will remain in his current position for at least one year; retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones, for National Security Adviser; retired Adm. Dennis Blair, for Director of National Intelligence; and Susan Rice, for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Some of these officials also are expected to appear at the news conference Monday.

To assuage concerns about Clinton's appointment, her husband, former President Bill Clinton, has agreed to a series of steps aimed at avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest. Before the end of the year, he will make public the names of 208,000 donors to his library and charitable foundation - contributions that began in 1997.

Bill Clinton, who has made millions of dollars giving speeches since leaving the White House, also has agreed to tell State Department ethics officials about any speeches he gives in the future, and to alert the White House counsel's office "as appropriate.''

by Mark Silva

Sen. Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana, would have made a fine Secretary of State - and is among those whom President-elect Barack Obama has courted across party lines in his bid for an inclusive government.

But Lugar says he believes that Obama's national security team - reportedly to be led by Sen. Hillary Clinton at State and Marine Gen. James Jones as National Security Adviser - will do a fine job as well.

"I think they're excellent selections,'' Lugar said of Obama's lineup, in an appearance this morning on ABC News' This Week. " I think it will be a strong team. I would just say, as an individual, I look forward to working with each one of them. Bipartisan support of this team really is of the essence right now."

Lugar also downplays any conflict that might exist in former President Bill Clinton's profitable globe-trotting since he left the White House - noting that Clinton has agreed to disclose his foundation's donors and curtail his activities.

"I think it's a big step,'' Lugar said. "I think that the wide-ranging activities of
President Clinton are very substantial on this earth. They will continue to be... But I think the Obama campaign people have done a good job in trying to pin down the most important elements, and at this point hopefully this team of rivals will work".

Lugar was joined by Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat from Rhode Island, on the Sunday news show. See the rest of their remarks in this transcript provided, with thanks, by ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos:

Tribune Correspondent James Oliphant spent last week in Georgia, covering the U.S. Senate runoff between Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin. The race could determine the success of the Democratic legislative agenda. Here is his report:

by James Oliphant

ATLANTA - Here, in a campaign office on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Jim Martin is feeling the spirit.

The Democratic Senate candidate is normally so unassuming, he sometimes seems out of place at his own campaign events. But here at the historically black Morris Brown College, surrounded by former Barack Obama campaign staffers and African-American luminaries such as Reps. John Lewis and Bennie Thompson, the bespectacled, 63-year-old, white lawyer has discovered his inner preacher.

"We're all in this together!" Martin intones.

"Talk to me!" a man in the group shouts in response.

"The Republicans believe if they have 41 votes in the Senate, they can stop this great president!"

"That's right!"

"Now this isn't Landslide Jim, you're talkin' to," Martin says. "I need your help."

Martin was never supposed to be this close to a U.S. Senate seat. A relative unknown in Georgia politics, the former head of the state's Department of Human Resources had to survive two primaries before securing the privilege of receiving what promised to be a whomping at the hands of Republican incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss.

After all, this isn't some swing-state such as Ohio or Florida. This is Georgia, where John McCain topped Obama by 5 points and President George W. Bush won by 17 points four years ago. In 2002, Chambliss was able to unseat a decorated Vietnam War veteran, Max Cleland, in part by questioning his patriotism.

But Martin benefited from the heavy black turnout on election day Nov. 4 and was able to draw close enough to Chambliss to force a run-off election, to be held Tuesday.

For the past three weeks, the Georgia Senate race has given the political world a last campaign fix. Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Sen. John McCain have all stumped here. Monday promises the arrival of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to campaign for Chambliss.

The big-name attention to Georgia is rooted in the Democrats' effort to secure a 60-vote majority in the Senate, which would defeat Republican filibusters and allow easy passage of many pieces of legislation. Right now, they hold 58 seats, with two races, here and in Minnesota, still not settled. Chambliss repeatedly calls himself "the firewall," the man who can single-handedly derail the Democratic agenda.