Weekly Review

By Christopher R. Beha

Barack Obama was elected the 44th president, and first African-American president, of the United States, receiving 365 electoral votes in an election that saw perhaps the highest turnout among registered voters in a century. “If there's anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible,” Obama told supporters, “tonight is your answer.” “The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly,” said John McCain in a teary-eyed concession speech. “What an awesome night for you,” President Bush said to Obama. “His choice, basically, is whether he is going to be Uncle Sam... or Uncle Tom,” said Ralph Nader, who received roughly 1 percent of the popular vote.^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8} Democrats added to their majorities in both houses of Congress, while Senate races in Minnesota, Georgia, and Alaska remained undecided.⁹ California, Florida, and Arizona passed propositions banning same-sex marriage,¹⁰ Arkansas passed a measure preventing unmarried couples from adopting children,¹¹ and San Francisco voters rejected Measure R, which called for the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to be renamed the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.¹² The Treasury Department announced plans to buy $40 billion worth of AIG stock, bringing to $150 billion the amount the government has lent to or invested in the insurance company;¹³ General Motors warned that it would run out of cash early next year without a merger or a government bail-out;¹⁴ unemployment rates reached their highest level in 14 years;¹⁵ and sales at major retailers declined sharply, increasing expectations of the worst holiday shopping season in decades.¹⁶ Former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta was named the head of Obama's transition team, former Clinton political director and House Democratic caucus chairman Rahm Emanuel accepted an offer to become Obama's chief of staff, and it was reported that top Obama aide Robert Gibbs would be named White House Press Secretary.^{17 18 19} “It’s important that everybody understands that this is not going to happen overnight,” said Gibbs about reversing the damage done by the Bush Administration. “There has to be a realistic expectation of what can happen and how quickly.” “We're in deep trouble,” said Georgia Representative John Lewis.^{20 21}

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev warned Obama against continuing Bush's plans for missile-defense systems in Eastern Europe and threatened to move short-range missiles into the Baltic near Poland and “to neutralize, when necessary” American installations there, but Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi insisted, “I don't see problems for Medvedev to establish good relations with Obama who is also handsome, young, and suntanned.”^{22 23} South African singer and longtime anti-apartheid activist Miriam Makeba, known as “Mama Africa,” died at 76.²⁴ China announced a $585 billion economic-stimulus plan,²⁵ American officials revealed that since 2004 the U.S. military has conducted around a dozen previously undisclosed attacks in Syria, Pakistan, and other countries on the authority of a classified order signed by Donald Rumsfeld,. ²⁶ and a series of blasts in northern Baghdad killed 28 people.²⁷ U.S. missiles fired into a village in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan killed at least ten people,²⁸ the Iraqi government continued to press for a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops before signing a status-of-forces agreement,²⁹ and Iran's parliament voted to impeach Interior Minister Ali Kordan after it was discovered that he had lied about receiving a Ph.D. from Oxford University. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared the impeachment illegal, adding, “I do not care for a torn-up piece of paper.”³⁰

The Secret Service revealed that a spike in death threats against the Obama family coincided with Sarah Palin's attacks against Obama's patriotism in the final weeks of the campaign, and McCain campaign insiders suggested that Palin lacked rudimentary understanding of civics and geography. “Those guys,” Palin said, “are jerks.”³¹ A study found that men who read “lad magazines” like Maxim and FHM are more likely than their peers to have body-image problems,³² Democratic New Jersey councilman Steven Lipski was charged with assault after urinating off a balcony onto a crowd at a Grateful Dead tribute show in Washington, D.C.,³³ and the United States attorney in Manhattan declined to press criminal charges against former New York governor Eliot Spitzer despite finding that “on multiple occasions, Mr. Spitzer arranged for women to travel from one state to another state to engage in prostitution.” ³⁴ British researchers found that obesity may be socially contagious,³⁵ a council in London banned the placing of foster children in households with smokers,³⁶ and 700 couples were married in a mass wedding in the Eurasian separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.³⁷ Scientists in Japan produced clones of dead mice, a feat they say brings them closer to resurrecting extinct species,³⁸ and author Michael Crichton died.³⁹ Spanish authorities deported one of Osama bin Laden's sons after denying his asylum application,⁴⁰ monks brawled at Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where Christ was crucified and buried,⁴¹ and Israel's Supreme Court ruled in favor of the destruction of parts of an ancient Muslim cemetery, where some of Saladin's warriors are buried, to make way for a new Frank Gehry-designed $250 million Museum of Tolerance.⁴²