Needlenose

Dubya checks what time it is.

From the Associated Press (via MSNBC):

President George W. Bush’s two terms in office have been marked by wars, a global financial crisis, and a steady stream of political opposition. But his official portrait, unveiled Friday at the National Portrait Gallery, shows him at ease and smiling, seemingly unfazed by eight years of tumult.

. . . Bush wanted painter Robert Anderson, a Yale classmate of the president’s, to give him a more informal look for his likeness at the National Portrait Gallery. Anderson painted the portrait to engage viewers with the president in a “personal and conversational manner,” according to an event program.

Isn’t it kind of curious that a president who was obsessed with presenting himself as a figure of unquestionable authority (a “war president,” the “decider,” endless self-references to being “commander-in-chief,” etc.) would suddenly decide to go casual for his official portrait?

Seems to me that the only times I’ve seen the Shrubster in shirtsleeves came when he was posing as engaged and working hard while touring the site of a natural disaster.  I guess maybe envisioning his legacy counts.

Watertiger, meanwhile, notes the special obstacle that the presidential artist had to overcome.

(Image via Suitably Flip.)

One of the tidbits of news that seeped out in the wake of the roundly criticized weekend bailout of Citigroup was this report from Justin Rood of ABC News:

AIG, Citibank and a number of other federally bailed-out financial institutions have no plans to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in sports team sponsorships, even as they take billions in taxpayer support, ABC News has found.

In boom times, the sponsorships were seen as a way to advertise the firms’ “brands” and appeal to potential customers.

I’d like to join the call from skippy the bush kangaroo and a pair of righty blogs that U.S. taxpayers deserve a share of the action here.  But rather than replacing the existing names, I think this should be treated as a co-branding opportunity — “Citi Taxpayers Field,” “Wachovia Taxpayers Center,” etc. — just to make sure everybody knows who owes us some payback.

As an alternative, I’d be willing to support simply naming every arena or stadium involved after Barack Obama, if only to see if it would make Grover Norquist’s head explode.

Here’s the lead sentence in the final paragraph of a press release by the presidential transition today:

Jim Messina currently Director of Personnel for the transition team of President-Elect Barak Obama.

I’d been meaning to needle Green Boy about his persistent misspelling of our new president’s name, but if the guy’s own staff can’t get it straight, maybe I shouldn’t bother.  (The missing verb is in the sentence is just a bonus.)

Hot off the wires from the Associated Press:

President-elect Barack Obama says he’s resigning from the Senate, effective Sunday.

. . . The move was expected. Obama won the presidency last week over Republican John McCain.

I like the understatement in that last paragraph.  Did he have a choice?  Does the Constitution have explicit procedures for this, or could Obama technically have kept his day job, so to speak?

(Just as a guess without looking, I’d imagine that he’d automatically surrender his Senate seat upon taking the oath of office, and this is just to give his replacement a head start.  But the alternative possibilities are amusing.)

Shortpacked! today:

(Tip of the ‘Nose to Eli at Multi-Medium)

A new site lets you submit your written or pictorial farewell to our President.

I think this one is my favorite so far.

Fast work from Xerotopia.

From Yahoo News yesterday:

Sad, but probably true.