From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post (I've fixed a coupla typos):

Picture this scenario. The Senate holds a high-profile vote on a proposal focused directly on implementing the Buffett Rule, one that would bring the current tax rate for millionaires paying lower rates on investments up to 30 percent. This, at at exactly the moment when the GOP is picking a nominee who is worth $250 million and is personally benefitting to an enormous degree from the current rate — one that’s lower than many middle class taxpayers pay.

The Obama Administration dealt environmentalists a major blow last week when it announced it was blocking an important new air pollution rule that had come under fire from Republicans and business interests.

The administration said the nation couldn't afford the rule, which would lead to significant new costs for business, in tough economic times.

The Gridiron Club, that stuffy old Washington press club of which the Providence Journal is a founding member, had its annual roast of politicians and media types recently. Pretty good gag from President Obama, who spoke at the end:

By tradition, the president of the United States gets the last word at any Gridiron dinner.

Education Commisioner Deborah Gist has ushered in a brand of education reform - centered on charter schools and rigorous teacher evaluation - that comports with an intriguing development on the national front: President Obama's neoliberal embrace of the standards movement that came into full flower under President Bush.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy spent decades fighting for health reform. And yesterday, at the signing ceremony for the health overhaul bill, Representative Patrick Kennedy gave President Obama a copy of the health reform bill that his late father filed in 1970. That was widely reported. But what did the Congressman scrawl on that memento? Politico has the details:

A piece splashed across cnn.com's home page focuses on Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo and opens with her finding a Barack Obama doll hanging in effigy in the high school - a slap at the president for voicing public support for Gallo's high-profile move to fire the school's entire staff. From the story:

Gallo knew Obama's endorsement would create further uproar.

A year into the age of Obama, has the president lived up to his potential? No, says an editorial in our sister paper, the Boston Phoenix:

In response to a question from Oprah Winfrey about how he would grade his time in office, President Barack Obama gave himself a "solid B-plus." Grade inflation? An example of Obama's notoriously high self-regard? No doubt a bit of both.

Senator Jack Reed is getting some play for his comments on former Vice President Dick Cheney's latest pronouncements on Afghanistan. From The Hill:

Republicans have developed a pattern of criticizing President Barack Obama for trying to fix problems the GOP caused, one Democratic senator said Thursday.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.

US Senator Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama during the Democratic primary last year was, of course, an important bit of symbolism for the candidate - Camelot passes the torch to a new generation.

But it was also noteworthy in that it signaled a split between the nation's two most storied Democratic families - the Kennedys and the Clintons.

With Obama pressing his case, Politico details a counter-argument:

The language used to make the case for stimulus is stark and gloomy — and, by all measures, pretty accurate. But there is also a caveat attached to every solution proposed: that it simply might not work. Economists on the right and left say there is a chance, perhaps a decent one, that $1 trillion injected into a $14 trillion economy might be too little, too late to turn things around anytime soon.

Social-networking and other forms of new media played an important role in the Obama campaign. The NYT today looks at what might be ahead for the "Obama movement," or what it calls a YouTube presidency:

His aides — including his campaign manager — have created a group, Organizing for America, to redirect the campaign machinery in the service of broad changes in health care and environmental and fiscal policy.

Steven Stark has a good read on how the Obama administration has the biggest collection of brainpower since the long-gone days of JFK -- and how that carries its own risks.

[I]t's worth remembering how radical a change this is in our political life. "The best and the brightest" and "the wise men" had absolutely no use for George W.

Some social observers have long complained that too many Americans function more as consumers than citizens. There's plenty of blame for this to go around, including our excessive shopping culture, a news media that focus more on fluff than real issues (like the lingering problems in the banking industry), and government's failure to offer the kind of oversight that might have precluded the current fiscal crisis.

Although the inauguration day spread at the Scituate home of longtime liberal political activist Kate Coyne-McCoy included an array of frittatas, grilled sausages, roast potatoes, and Champagne, the main sustenance for a like-minded group of about dozen guests was the political manna represented by the swearing-in of Barack Obama.