Cheat Sheet

President-elect Barack Obama told Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press that as far as the economy is concerned, “things are going to get worse before they get better.” Obama said he’s “disappointed” the Bush administration hasn’t moved “quicker” to offer mortgage assistance, called on the Big Three carmakers to “restructure,” and explained that his ambitious plan for road construction and school repairs will be merit-based. “You know, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, those days are over,” he said. Obama seemed to distance himself from campaign promises to undo Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq in 16 months. He also declined to endorse the appointment of Caroline Kennedy to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat.

Retired Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, once the Army chief of staff, has been selected by President-elect Barack Obama to be Veterans Affairs secretary. Shinseki, the first Japanese-American four-star general in the Army, was so despised by the Bush administration that the Associated Press calls him a "Rumsfeld nemesis." Shinseki "was marginalized and later retired" in 2003 after his estimate of troops needed in Iraq was far higher than that professed by Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the intelligence failures that led to the war in Iraq are "high on my list" of regrets, but refused to say that the war would have been waged without the threat of WMD. "You don't have that luxury," she told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's This Week. "You don't. It’s fine to sit and try to play mind games and to try to recreate what we might have done here or there, but that's not the world we were living in in 2003. We were living in a post-9/11 world in which it was very clear that you shouldn't let threats multiple and collect without acting against them." She added, “If you're in a position of authority on Sept. 11 then every day since has been Sept. 12.”

Now, she’s just waiting on Hillary. According to The New York Post, Ted Kennedy has reached out to Gov. David Paterson and encouraged him to send his niece, Caroline Kennedy, to the U.S. Senate. Ted Kennedy has reportedly argued that Caroline “has contacts and family connections that would mean legislation affecting New York would receive prompt attention.” Interestingly, The Post notes that Caroline’s first choice of jobs in the Obama administration was U.N. ambassador, a post which went to Susan Rice last week.

Martha (Sunny) von Bülow, who the New York Times described succinctly as "the American heiress who was first married to an Austrian playboy prince and then to a Danish-born man-about-society who was twice tried on charges of attempting to murder her," died on Saturday at the age of 76. She had been in a coma for nearly three decades. Bülow was a tabloid fixture in the '80s, when, as the Times wrote, "news media from around the world were irresistibly drawn to the drama of the beautiful heiress who lay in a twilight zone." She is survived by three children.

Barack Obama announced yesterday his plans to launch the biggest public work programs since Eisenhower built the federal interstate highways. It will include, says The Washington Post, "a renewed effort to make public buildings energy-efficient, rebuild the nation's highways, renovate aging schools and install computers in classrooms, extend high-speed Internet to underserved areas, and modernize hospitals by giving them access to electronic medical records." Obama did not offer many details or a cost estimate. "It's going to be big," said Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell. "I have no doubt that it's going to be substantial. [Obama] didn't blink an eye when we talked about $136 billion." Obama is hoping that Congress will have the legislation on his desk when he takes over on January 20, but even with new Democratic majorities, Congress may struggle to move it along that quickly after resuming on January 6.

A scorcher of a review worth savoring today: Troy Patterson, writing for The Times, gets his hands on a new book from John Grogan, the mega-selling author of Marley and Me. Those who had the pleasure of reading the first book know it as an extended dirge for a dead pet. The Longest Trip Home turns to the death of the Grogan’s father, and the author’s reluctant journey back to the Catholic church. William Buckley he ain’t; Patterson zings Grogan for doling out globs of “fuzzy spirituality,” and a climactic moment of “moist devotion” which will have the reader holding The Longest Trip Home to his “joyful bosom.”

One of the most hotly disputed investigations into police brutality in New York City is moving forward. The New York Post reports that a grand jury has recommended indicting Robert Kern, a 25-year-old police officer, for assault. Kern is alleged to have sodomized Michael Mineo, 24, with a police baton. Two of Kern’s fellow officers face what the paper calls “lesser charges.” On October 15, Mineo led officers on a chase into a Brooklyn subway station. When the officers caught him inside the station, Mineo says he was assaulted. Mineo’s testimony was backed up by a New York transit cop. "This man . . . doesn't deserve to be on the street," Mineo told The Post when informed of the pending indictment against Kern. "I want him to go to jail."

Among all the signs of terrible holiday sales, Daniel Gross at Slate flags a colorful one: a voicemail, left on his home telephone, from Bergdorf Goodman inviting him to shop there. For those unfamiliar with the store, Gross writes, "Bergdorf Goodman cold-calling suburban shoppers? It's like college kids canvassing for Obama votes at a National Review conference." But, as they collapse, investment banks and hedge funds have been dragging down their employees' favorite stores. Luxury retail sales have been particularly hard hit, declining 10.5 percent in November (overall sales went down 7.7 pecent). This may seem occasion for schadenfreude but, Gross notes, "the top 20 percent of households account for about 40 percent of discretionary spending … As go the rich and wannabe rich, so goes the nation."