Cheat Sheet

The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza has a terrific piece decoding the strategy of the Obama campaign, which for the team boiled down to one word: Bush. The winner would be “anyone who could credibly define himself as ‘not Bush,’” Lizza writes. “The appeal of the strategy was that, with only minor alterations, it could work in the primaries as well as in the general election.” Other vital nuggets: sections about Obama’s ego—he “regarded himself as just as gifted as his top strategists in the art and practice of politics”—and his drama-free, un-Clinton-like campaign staff.

Bill Ayers, the “terrorist” Obama was accused of “pallin’ around with,” was just going about his business, teaching, writing, participating “in the never-ending effort to build a powerful and irresistible movement for peace and social justice,” he writes in his first post-election article. Then came the election season, and with it attempts by Clinton and then McCain to bring down Obama by playing up his acquaintance with the former Weatherman. “I became a prop, a cartoon character created to be pummeled,” he writes. Priceless tidbit: Ayers quotes the late, great Studs Terkel as calling Palin “Joe McCarthy in drag.”

A correspondent for the Canadian Broadcasting Company was freed after a month of imprisonment in Afghanistan. Melissa Fung says she was not mistreated by her captors, but according to CNN, they bound her and ignored her for her final week in captivity. Fung's disappearance was not reported by press outlets for fear that she would be harmed. Once safe, Fung had few details of her attackers: she said she was held in some sort of cave, and her attacker went by a name like "Khaled."

During the campaign, Barack Obama used the Internet to set a new standard for campaign fundraising. He's not done yet. According to Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel, Obama is still soliciting donations for his transition. The feds have already given Obama more than $6 million for his transition, but Obama thinks that's not enough to pay salaries for his close advisers (or advisers-to-be).

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has a message for America's allies who are raving about having "America back" now that Obama won: "Don't just show us the love, show us the money. Show us the troops. Show us the diplomatic effort. Show us the economic partnership. Show us something more than a fresh smile." Friedman also asks, "How long of a honeymoon will Obama give the world?"

The Times of London provides an important service this morning: A plan to travel the world like the James Bond of the new film, Quantum of Solace. Start in Bolivia at the Explora Atacama resort, where you can hike under beautiful night skies in a spot valued by astronomers. Next, fly to Panama City, where the historic Casco Viejo neighborhood was used for many scenes. You'll be on firmer footing in Italy, at the medieval tower Torre di Talamonaccio. Don't forget to save the receipts, 007. As The Times reports: "The tower, which sleeps eight, is all yours for £5,500 a week in high season."

Twenty Russian sailors were killed in a deadly nuclear submarine incident, Russian officials reported Sunday. As Reuters notes, "Prosecutors investigating the latest incident said they suspected the victims died after inhaling a toxic gas used as a fire suppressant when the vessel's fire extinguishing systems went off unexpectedly. It was not clear why the portable breathing gear usually issued to Russian submarine crews did not save them." The last major Russian submarine disaster came aboard the Kursk, in 2000, when more than 100 sailors died.

Beyonce isn't content being a singer-actress: she has her sights set on reviving an iconic super-hero franchise. "I want to do a superhero movie and what would be better than Wonder Woman?" she told the Los Angeles Times. "It would be a very bold choice. A black Wonder Woman would be a powerful thing. It's time for that, right?" The 27-year-old credits her emotional performances in Dreamgirls and Cadillac Records with leading her to think, "OK, I need to be a superhero."

In addition to a terrific map of what a nation governed by the youth vote would look like, FutureMajority.com reports some intriguing statistics about the election. Among them: 23 million young voters cast a ballot, a 3.4 million increase over 2004; youth turnout will probably end up near 53 percent, just short of the all-time record, 55.4 percent, set in 1972; Obama won 66 percent of the youth vote; and turnout was higher in states that were particular targets of the campaigns. The information was compiled by CIRCLE, a nonpartisan research center run out of Tufts University.

Don’t tell Kate Winslet that actors are supposed to adopt a dispassionate attitude toward awards statuettes. Winslet, who has been nominated for five Oscars but never won, tells Vanity Fair: "Do I want it? You bet your [bleep] I do! I think that people assume that I don't care or don't want it or don't need it or something. It's hard to be there five times, and I'm only human, you know?" Winslet has increased her odds this year by starring in two films that qualify as Oscar bait: The Reader and Revolutionary Road. The latter is directed by her husband, Sam Mendes.

News from Indonesia: Three men complicit in the 2002 bombing attacks in Bali were executed Saturday night. Imam Samudra, Amrozi Nurhasyim, and Ali Ghufro helped carry out the operation, which followed the September 11 attacks. The three were members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah. Eight Americans died in the attacks.

Britney Spears’ comeback album isn’t out until December 2, the popster’s 27th birthday, but The Sun already has a review, and it’s a rave. The record “takes her bravado to startling new heights” and “sees Brit morphing ever closer to Madonna,” the paper reports, particularly the track If You Seek Amy. An ode to Amy Winehouse, perhaps? “All the boys and all the girls want to if you seek Amy,” Britney sings cryptically—but those are only the written lyrics. What the audience hears, the paper reports, is “quite shocking”: “All the boys and all the girls want to f-u-c-k me.” Still, the paper concludes, it’s “a great track.”

While European leaders have hailed Obama’s presidential victory, Klaus Emmerich, described by Der Spiegel as “the Wolf Blitzer of Austria,” has gone the other way. The Austrian journalist, retired after a six-decade career, told a talk show this week: “I wouldn’t want the Western world to be directed by a black man. When you say that is a racist remark: right, without a doubt.” After his remarks were universally condemned, Emmerich decided to dig his hole a little deeper, calling Obama’s victory an “extremely disconcerting development” because “blacks aren’t as politically civilized.” To cement the point further, he added yesterday that Obama has “a devil-like talent to present his rhetoric so effectively.”