Obama’s first big day as president-elect

president-elect ObamaToday Obama held a presser (transcript here) on the economic crisis and discussed some of the plans he’ll try to implement to bring the economy out of the funk it’s in right now. Frankly, he looked like a deer in headlights. In the process, he made a ‘joke’ of sorts about seances and Nancy Reagan (and he said it after a remark he made about consulting with presidents who were “still living“) that didn’t go over well, for which he has apologized to her personally. I’ll cut him a break on it because he looked like a bundle of nerves. I would too if I had that thin of a resume and I’d just been elected president. Time for responsibility. No more “present” votes. No more skipping out on important votes due to “campaign responsibilities.”

During the press conference, Obama took questions from every network except …

Fox News.

On the same day he tried to ease the concerns the American public has about our struggling economy, two Iraqi insurgent groups called on Obama to pull US troops out of Iraq. See, Senator? When you repeatedly talked about how the war was a “mistake” and about how troop deaths were “wasted” on that “mistake” – and furthermore pushed for withdrawal, first by March 2008 and now a completed combat bridgade withdrawal 16 months from the time you take office, the American people weren’t the only ones paying attention.

In addition to Hamas, Hugo Chavez, and Fidel Castro, among others who praised Obama in the weeks leading up to the election, Iran’s prez made it clear earlier this week how excited he is by the fact Barack Obama was elected:

Iran’s Bush-bashing leader congratulated Barack Obama yesterday – the first time the fanatical regime has offered kind wishes to a US president-elect since radical Muslim clerics seized control in 1979.

“The great Iranian nation welcomes real, fundamental and fair changes in America’s behavior and policies,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, according to his state news agency.

Another senior leader – Prosecutor-General Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dori-Najafabadi – said Obama can earn “the great Iranian nation’s forgiveness” by ending economic sanctions against Tehran, which has yet to apologize for taking more than 50 Americans hostage in 1979.

He arrogantly demanded “remorse for the past US government’s deeds.”

During the hostage crisis, from 1979-1981, the US severed diplomatic relations with Iran. They have never been re-established.

The Bush administration yesterday moved to clamp down on Tehran by barring financial institutions from routing certain money transfers through the United States for Iranian banks, its government and others there.

The move “will close the last general entry point for Iran to the US financial system,” the Treasury Department said.

At the United Nations, Iran’s mission released an unofficial translation of Ahmadinejad’s letter to Obama.

The world expects the president-elect to act so “unjust practices of the past six decades in the sensitive Middle East region are reversed in order to achieve the full restoration of the legitimate rights of nations, especially the aggrieved nations of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan,” the letter said.

Ahmadinejad also said he expects Obama will replace the US policy of “bullying” with “an approach based on justice and respect.”

The letters ends with blessings and warm wishes to “leaders of societies with the courage to learn from the mistakes of predecessors, and the ability to use every opportunity to serve the people.”

The article goes on to note how Israeli officials are urging Obama to continue the Bush policy of international diplomacy as it relates to Iran rather than the one on one heads of state unconditional meetings he has repeatedly pledged he would hold with some of the world’s most notorious despots, including Ahmadinejad .

Speaking of, a little further down in the article was an indication that another rogue “leader” was peerhaps ready to have direct talks with Obama: Kim Jong Il.

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