Columnists

Could someone tell Gov. Palin the election's over and she lost?

Monday, November 17, 2008 10:30 AM EST

Be careful what you wish for, the media might have said while kicking itself about Sarah Palin.

The governor they couldn't get an interview with leading up to the Nov. 4 election now won't shut up or go away.

CNN, which in one day had her on both Campbell Brown and Larry King, jokes on air about this sudden embarrassment of riches.

After the longest election slog in history, a few hours later and the 2012 campaign has already begun.

In Wasilla, Alaska.

In Gov. Palin's kitchen.

Over a steaming pot of moose chili, no less.

On Nov. 10, the same day Barack Obama got his first look at the Oval Office.

The former vice presidential candidate assured the world she is ready, should she find that door ajar.

They're still counting ballots in convicted felon Ted Stevens' race and she's already being asked if she's considered appointing herself to the Senate.

Then there was the governors conference, where she and her fellow chief executives were arrayed on a stage and the media only wanted to question Sarah Barracuda.

Awkward.

Whatever "it" is, she has it in a way I suspect Mitt Romney never will.

Four years gives her plenty of time to immerse herself in the issues, though I think to be fair she already knew Africa is a continent not a country.

John McCain appeared on the "Tonight Show" to say he "couldn't be happier" with his former running mate, though polls suggest her surprise selection ultimately cost their ticket more votes than she added.

Maybe Louisiana's Bobby Jindal will prove to be the GOP's Obama.

I don't know. I hadn't heard of him until 10 minutes ago.

I'm more familiar with Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

What's left of the Republican Party post Bush credit-card conservatism is up for grabs and I wouldn't rule Palin out.

As David Von Drehle wrote, "The long knives are already out. How's Palin with a knife? Ask the moose."

The Oval Office: One of the topics the media latched onto besides the presidential puppy to sustain interest in the transition between the election and January inauguration is President-elect Barack Obama's future workspace itself.

I didn't know that before the 1930s it was in a different part of the White House or that in 1902 Theodore Roosevelt built the West Wing with a rectangular office, putting on the ground floor what had been on the second floor.

In 1934, Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Oval Office to the southeast corner of the White House.

William Howard Taft introduced the oval in honor of George Washington's Philadelphia residence, which had a room with a bowed end where the first President could stand surrounded by a circle of guests and greet each visitor democratically, from the same distance.

I didn't know each President has a unique rug. President Bush's looks like a sun.

I didn't know Herbert Hoover's Oval Office was destroyed by a Christmas Eve fire in 1929 that started in another room.

The Resolute desk given in 1880 to Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria of England has been used by 21 of the past 24 Presidents.

It was her thank-you for the safe return of the H.M.S. Resolute, which provided its wood.

FDR installed its trapdoor in 1934.

Grant Park: The place in Chicago where liberalism died is now chosen for its resurrection.

In 1968, it's where Vietnam protesters gathered, Chicago police came out in force and bashed some heads and America's silent majority, watching on TV, thought, "Hippies got what they deserved."

Democrats, who had won seven of the previous nine presidential elections, went on to lose seven of the next 10.

I guess this means the culture wars of the '60s are officially over, replaced by economic panic over the flat incomes and loss of job security in the deregulated decades which followed.

Today, Americans look to government again to impose some law and order.

Quips, quotes and qulunkers: "I regret saying some things I shouldn't have said, like 'Dead or alive' or 'Bring 'em on.' "

- President George W. Bush on CNN

"People, if they're interested in news, they'll get the headlines on television and then go to print for depth and perspective."

- CNN founder Ted Turner

"Running the Harvard Law Review often leads to a prestigious career. Last week, for the first time in its 103-year history, the Review welcomed a black president. Says Barack Obama, 28, who directed a community program for Chicago blacks before entering law school: 'I feel like I've walked through a door a whole lot of other people worked hard to open.' Eventually, says Obama, he may run for office."

- Time magazine, 1990

"The overwhelming majority of their campaign ads never carried the remotest hint of what the Republicans would do if elected. Instead, they produced laundry lists of reasons not to vote for the opposition. GOP mouthpieces complain that their candidates don't get positive coverage in the mainstream media. Yet if you have no message, you probably won't get much coverage."

- Dennis Sheehan

of Wisconsin

72: Percent in a poll who voice confidence in President-elect Barack Obama making the changes necessary to restart the economy, including 44 percent of Republicans.

Hispanics, who constitute the nation's biggest and fastest-growing minority, chose Obama over McCain, 67 percent to 31 percent - a sizable loss from 2004, when Bush captured 44 percent of the Hispanic vote.

Obits: Michael Crichton, the 6-foot-9 author, died of cancer in Los Angeles at 66 Nov. 4.

Trained as a doctor at Harvard Medical School, he also directed feature films and created "ER."

He wrote "The Andromeda Strain," "Congo" and "Jurassic Park."

John Leonard, 69, the former editor of the New York Times Book Review.

The first Dogwood visiting author, Kurt Vonnegut, considered Leonard "the smartest man who ever lived."

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