memeorandum: On His First Day, Obama Quickly Sets a New Tone (Sheryl Gay Stolberg/New York Times)

12:30 AM ET, January 22, 2009

Top Items:

Kennedy Is Said to Withdraw Senate Bid — In a dramatic and confusing turn of events, Caroline Kennedy informed Gov. David A. Paterson on Wednesday that she would withdraw from consideration for the vacant Senate seat in New York, only to hours later signal that she may be interested in the seat after all.

New York Post:

CAROLINE KENNEDY ENDS SENATE SEAT BID — By FREDRIC U. DICKER IN ALBANY and MAGGIE HABERMAN IN N.Y. — Caroline Kennedy has told Gov. David Paterson that she is withdrawing her name from consideration to replace outgoing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the U.S. Senate, The Post has learned.

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blogs, Associated Press, NY Daily News, Hot Air, The Daily Politics, Michelle Malkin, CBS News, JustOneMinute, Townhall.com, Alan Colmes' Liberaland, Gothamist, Political Machine, The Hill's Blog Briefing Room, Runnin' Scared, Spin Cycle, Wonkette and Daily Kos

MSNBC:

Reports conflict on Kennedy Senate bid — Source tells NBC News that she plans to withdraw her name — msnbc.com staff and news service reports — ALBANY, New York - Caroline Kennedy has decided to withdraw her name from consideration for the Senate seat being vacated by Hillary Clinton, according to NBC News' Mark Murray.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

CNN:
Caroline Kennedy withdraws name for Senate seat

Discussion: TalkLeft

Associated Press:

Obama takes presidential oath again after stumble — Featured Topics: - Barack Obama - Presidential Transition — WASHINGTON - After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama …

Discussion: Media Matters for America, Jack & Jill Politics, Hot Air, Reuters, Patterico's Pontifications, The Corner, GINA COBB, Outside The Beltway and The Reaction

Marc Ambinder:

Obama Will Get His Blackberry — President Barack Obama is going to get his blackberry. — On Monday, a government agency that the Obama administration — but that is probably the National Security Agency — added to a standard blackberry a super-encryption package. …

Discussion: Guardian, Silicon Alley Insider, RedState and The Daily Dish

Julian Borger / Guardian:
President Barack Obama willing to negotiate with Iran ‘without preconditions’

Discussion: Newshoggers.com, Jules Crittenden and Atlas Shrugs

CNN:
Obama retakes oath ‘out of abundance of caution’

Discussion: The Huffington Post

New York Times:

Obama to Close Foreign Prisons and Guantánamo — WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected to sign executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.

Chad Pergram / Fox News:

Murtha Says He'd Take Guantanamo Prisoners in His District — Rep. Jack Murtha volunteers to house prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in his Pennsylvania district, as President Obama prepares to order the shut-down of the facility. — FOXNews.com — Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa. …

Discussion: Sister Toldjah

Sara A. Carter / Washington Times:
EXCLUSIVE: Obama to close terrorist ‘black sites’

Discussion: Patterico's Pontifications

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Mohammed Jawad and Obama's efforts to suspend military commissions

Discussion: Washington Post, CBC News, Emptywheel, Harper's, Buck Naked Politics, Unqualified Offerings, TalkLeft, Daily Kos, Alas, a blog and Associated Press

Associated Press:
Sources: Obama to order Guantanamo closed

Discussion: Macsmind and Reuters

David Stout / New York Times:

Clinton Is Approved, but Vote on Holder Is Delayed — WASHINGTON — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate as President Obama's secretary of state on Wednesday, but the new president will have to wait at least a week for a vote on his choice to lead the Justice Department.

Discussion: Glenn Thrush's Blogs, The Hill, Washington Monthly, Buck Naked Politics, Gothamist and The Swamp

Washington Wire:

McCain Lends Hillary Clinton a Helping Hand — Patrick Yoest reports on Congress. — Sen. John McCain unexpectedly lent a hand to Sen. Hillary Clinton on the Senate floor today, calling for her quick confirmation as secretary of State without a lengthy roll-call vote.

Discussion: Fox News, The Fix, DownWithTyranny!, Spin Cycle, Taylor Marsh and Salon

John Bresnahan / The Politico:
Holder confirmation delayed

Discussion: TPMDC, CNN, National Review, The Swamp, Salon, Commentary, TPMMuckraker, The Washington Independent and Runnin' Scared

CNN: Senate confirms Clinton at State by 94-2 vote

Washington Wire:
Clinton Confirmed for Secretary of State

Discussion: The Democratic Daily and Alan Colmes' Liberaland

Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: Clinton Confirmed — The U.S. Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton …

Jonn Lilyea / This ain't Hell …:

Obama blows off Medal of Honor recipients — According to TSO who was at the “Salute to Heroes Inaugural Ball”, this newly sworn-in President for the first time in 56 years blew off the ball (that's 14 Inaugurations). — Some background on the ball;

Discussion: novinite.com, BLACKFIVE and MsUnderestimated

CNN:

A major Bush rule gets scrapped by Obama — (CNN) — It's the same Oval Office. The same desk. Even the same curtains. But President Obama has already made one major change: Go through eight years of White House photos, and you won't find one of former President Bush in the Oval Office without his jacket on.

Discussion: The Impolitic, Outside The Beltway, AMERICAblog News, The Democratic Daily, The Moderate Voice, TBogg and No More Mister Nice Blog

James D. Besser / The Jewish Week:

Mitchell As Envoy Could Split Center … The expected appointment of a special envoy to breathe new life into Israeli-Palestinian negotiations could split the pro-Israel center while pleasing the Jewish left and outraging the right. The schism could be particularly deep if …

Discussion: Matthew Yglesias and Talking Points Memo

Faiz Shakir / Think Progress:
Foxman: George Mitchell is too ‘fair’ …

Discussion: American Thinker, Guardian, MyDD, Blogs and Stories, D-Day, Israpundit, KansasCity.com Prime Buzz, Liberty Street and Washington Monthly

Myglesias / Matthew Yglesias:
Settlement Freeze — In the very early days of the Bush …

Discussion: Megan McArdle

Ian Sparks / Daily Mail:

Former French President Chirac hospitalised after mauling by his clinically depressed poodle … Former French president Jacques Chirac was rushed to hospital after being mauled by his own ‘clinically depressed’ pet dog. — The 76-year-old statesman was savaged by his white Maltese dog …

The Campaign Spot:

TurboTax Doesn't Prompt Users to Pay Self-Employment Taxes? Or Just Geithner's Copy of the Software? — In today's confirmation hearing, Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner said he used TurboTax to prepare his returns for the years in question where he failed to pay self-employment taxes …

Discussion: The Corner, Chicago Boyz, NewsBusters.org, Commentary, DealBook and Hot Air

Tom Gralish / Scene on the Road:

Found - AGAIN - the Poster Source Photo — The photographer is MANNIE GARCIA, a Washington DC freelancer for the Associated Press. — Driving home from Washington after the inauguration, cruising on adrenalin from covering the historic event and then stopping two or three times for coffee …

Discussion: Swampland and Sister Toldjah

Sean Meade / Thomas P.M. Barnett:

Deleted scenes: Chapter 1 — A grand strategy grading sheet — On articulation, President Bush gets a “T” for “trying”—as in, too hard. As Jacob Weisberg argues in his 2008 book, The Bush Tragedy, George W. Bush was determined to succeed where his father had failed in articulating …

Discussion: The Daily Dish and ATTACKERMAN

Nathan Gardels / The Huffington Post:
Obama Should Quit War on Terror, Talk to Hamas and Taliban

Discussion: DownWithTyranny!

Jill Serjeant / Reuters:

Obama inauguration got unprecedented news coverage — LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's inauguration generated an unprecedented 35,000 stories in the world's major newspapers, television and radio broadcasts over the past day — about 35 times more than the last presidential swearing-in …

Discussion: Power Line

USA Today:

On the new whitehouse.gov: ‘Pool’ reports to be public? — But a quick tour around its features indicates it will have some interesting features, along with the usual pages about the president's agenda, the White House and the federal government: — • Pool reports.

Discussion: The Opinionator and CNN

Farhad Manjoo / Slate:
Touring the new Whitehouse.gov.

Discussion: Facing South, ReadWriteWeb, CBS4 and BuzzMachine

David Remnick / New Yorker:

GOING, GOING, GONE — The mood at the Inauguration was so joyful, so filled with unalloyed expectation and—there's that word again—hope, that it seems almost peevish (and historically repetitive) to sound a sour note, but here it unavoidably is: the hostility among some in the vast crowd toward …

Discussion: The Fix

David A Nakamura / Inauguration Watch:

Inaugural Committee Apologizes for Ticket Fiasco — The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, which was responsible for planning and executing Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony yesterday, apologized today for keeping thousands of ticket-holders outside the security gates, causing them to miss the ceremony.

Discussion: Open Left, Washington Post, Political Machine, Jules Crittenden, DCist and Alex Spillius's blog listings

MsUnderestimated:

Daily Show - What Differences Between Bush & Obama? (VIDEO) — Tonight Jon Stewart rightly pointed out that there really are no differences when it comes to philosophy about national security, and he demonstrates it with sequential video clips, comparing Barack's speech with past Bush speeches.

Discussion: Lean Left

Mark Preston / CNN:

Coleman packs, vows to continue Senate seat fight — WASHINGTON (CNN) — Sen. Norm Coleman began packing his Capitol Hill office Wednesday, but said he has no intention of giving up his legal fight to serve another term in Congress. — Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota, trails Democrat Al Franken by 225 votes.