This is it! January 5, 2009: the beginning of the Obama presidency. He is on TV fixing the economy, making tough decisions, being presidential, and the inauguration is just a formality now.

Even though we only have "one president at a time," according to Obama (last month), today that President unofficially becomes him. Why today? Well it's the first Monday of new year, after Christmas Vacation, and Obama went to DC and put his kids in school, and he's having this important meeting about tax cuts with his economic advisors. But most importantly, the whole newsmedia is back to work today, and so news can once again begin happening. (Also the new congress starts work this week, minus a couple not-too-important senators from places like Minnesota and Illinois, so shit will start getting done in Washington again!) All we need is a new commerce secretary, but that's not even a very high priority because there is no more commerce in America.

While Obama is happy to talk about his economic recovery plan, he will still not talk about Gaza, because we only get one president at a time, and neither of them really want to wade into that mess.