Let me just start this off by saying I do think the new Spider-Man comic book in which he prevents a villain from interrupting Barack Obama's inauguration looks generally corny and all-around awful. (Though the joke about Spider-Man having previously mistaken Joe Biden for the Vulture, one of his enemies, isn't half bad.)

That said, though, it's also true that right-wing blogger Debbie Schlussel may have gone just a wee bit overboard in attacking the comic in a post published on Andrew Breitbart's new site Big Hollywood. Some of the choicer bits:

Once, comic books were against Nazis and Hitler and were very up front in supporting America’s fight against them. But those days are over. Both DC and Marvel Comics long ago embraced left-wing politics, and when it came to the war on terror, they were for the most part silent ...

Now, though, comic books are back to supporting the President, since he embodies their far-left ideology. Yup, Spider-Man is in the tank for Obama and lets us know, telling us he’s left Washington “in capable hands ..."

I’m just wondering: When Obama goes to share some baklava with his new friend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his buds in HAMAS [sic], will we see Spidey cheering that on, too, and, again, tell America’s comic book readers we’re in “capable hands”?

Boy, I long for the days of Superman, Sgt. Fury, and other comic book superheroes fighting the Nazis ... not sitting down to talk and eat wienerschnitzel with them or praising Presidents who want to do just that ... So sad that these days, the superheroes’ objective is girlie-man foreign policy.

The irony, a friend who knows about these things pointed out, is that Marvel has done pro-war comics. In fact, back in 2004 they hired a guy named Karl Zinsmeister to write a whole series about the war in Iraq. You may recognize Zinsmeister's name, actually -- he went on to become President Bush's chief domestic policy advisor.

Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was just officially introduced as Barack Obama's choice to head the Democratic National Committee, but on the other side of the aisle there's still a spirited battle for the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. The problem for the GOP? Out of the six candidates vying for the job, not one seems like the kind of person who can bring the party out of the wilderness.

Whoever wins will lead a dispirited GOP that's taken major losses in the past two elections, and will face monumental obstacles standing in the way of a quick turnaround. The nation's changing demographics favor Democrats, while the Republican Party has gradually become isolated in its power base in the South, at the expense of its support in the rest of the country.

Given the seriousness of the situation, the weak field of candidates is shocking. Love Kaine or hate him, he at least seems to have the right combination of qualifications for the job: He's from Virginia, which is newly important to the Democrats, and while he's been governor, the state has become bluer by the year. Obama won its Electoral College votes, and both Senate seats flipped, as did three of 11 House districts.

None of the potential leaders of the RNC would come in with the same kind of pedigree. True, one's from a swing state and two are from blue states, but the remainder come from red areas of the South. None hail from New England or the Mountain West, two areas where Republicans have been losing ground and badly need a comeback. Not one is Hispanic, even though that demographic group will be key to future races. (The party did once have a Hispanic chair, Florida Sen. Mel Martinez. It didn't go well -- he lasted less than a year in the job.) And only two of them have a record of significant wins. Most, in fact, have a history of losing big races.

What follows is Salon's breakdown of the field.

»Continued

John Brennan may not get to head the CIA -- he withdrew from consideration after an outcry over his support for controversial Bush administration policies -- but he'll reportedly still play a key role in shaping the Obama administration's counterterror policy.

Multiple outlets are reporting that Brennan will be President-elect Barack Obama's top counterterrorism advisor, leading an apparatus that will be restructured and folded into the National Security Council. His appointment is expected to be announced Friday; the position does not require confirmation by the Senate.

WASHINGTON -- The problem, for Barack Obama? How to announce that Tim Kaine is his choice to be the new Democratic National Committee chairman without stepping on the other big news of the day, Obama's speech on his economic stimulus plan earlier this morning.

The solution? Keep the Kaine thing as news-free as possible. Aides billed it as a press conference, but Obama's event with Kaine at the DNC was, really, more of a lecture -- Obama and Kaine strolled into the room, spoke for a combined total of 10 minutes, and walked right back out, without taking any questions. (Not even the strange one a reporter shouted out as they left: "What's the symbolism of your tie?")

Obama made clear that he expected Kaine to help the White House keep the grassroots involved in policy next year. "At a time when the challenges we face in this country are so vast, we cannot afford to abandon the movement we've built," he said. "We have to strengthen it. We must build a movement for change that can endure beyond a single election, and that will require redoubling our efforts to reach out to Americans throughout our 50 states, north and south, east and west."

He thanked Howard Dean, the outgoing chairman, though Dean wasn't at the event, for reasons that aren't entirely clear. And then he praised Kaine's record as Virginia governor, a job he'll be juggling with the DNC post for the next year. (There was a certain irony in the fact that the governor of Virginia was being named the DNC chairman only a few days after another former DNC chairman formally announced he'd be running for Virginia governor.)

Kaine was an early supporter of Obama's who helped him carry the state in the primary and the general election, and he made the final cut for vice presidential candidates before Obama picked Joe Biden. It took some work to persuade him to take the job. But today, it certainly didn't seem like Kaine thought running the DNC was a step down; he had a wide grin as Obama spoke.

"I want to promote this president's agenda," Kaine said. "I want to carry the proud banner of a proud party. And I want to work to creatively engage citizens in new ways through this party to be active in civic life."

That probably covers just about all of his duties. Since the election, there had been a steady debate over whether Obama's massive organization should be housed out of the DNC or in some new, more independent group. But with Kaine -- a close loyalist -- as chairman, and Jen O'Malley Dillon -- a key organizer for Obama -- as the party's executive director it's clear the DNC will basically absorb Obama's campaign infrastructure. With, of course, an eye on the 2010 elections and -- it's never too early -- Obama's 2012 reelection bid. Being party chairman when your party controls the White House basically means you're a high-profile fundraiser; the strategic decisions about political questions will probably be answered across town by Obama's advisors.

Update: Politico's Ben Smith reports that Dean's absence was due to a scheduling conflict, which is "being taken by some close to Dean as a snub." Smith also notes that when Obama applauded the outgoing chair for winning back control of the House of Representatives, he referred to him "working with my chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel." Since the two men had actually clashed over strategy in 2006, and Dean's ideas proved successful, at least one "prominent Dean loyalist" was angry about the remark, e-mailing Smith, "This is really insulting."

Shocking news of the week -- Sarah Palin thinks she was treated unfairly by the liberal media during the election, and she's not yet over it.

Palin was interviewed earlier this week by former conservative radio host John Ziegler for a documentary he's working on about how media bias got Obama elected. Excerpts from their conversation have now been posted to YouTube; they can be seen below.

The interview seems to reflect pretty clearly what The New Republic's Noam Scheiber wrote about Palin in "Barracuda," an article about her that was published this past October: "A trip through Palin's past reveals that almost every step of her career can be understood as a reaction to elitist condescension -- much of it in her own mind."

Some of the claims she makes about media coverage of her are just patently untrue. She seems to believe, for instance, that reporters for mainstream publications were spreading the rumor that her son Trig was in fact the child of her daughter Bristol, but that's just not true. She also refers to "this report that Bristol and Levi [Johnston, Bristol's fiancé], they're high school dropouts and they're just going to look for government handouts to raise their child." If it wasn't obvious, no one has reported that last part -- plus, though Palin has been publicly fighting back against what she says are media descriptions of Bristol as a dropout, it's not clear what media outlet, if any, actually said that.

Palin also struck out at noted antagonists Katie Couric and Tina Fey, and slipped in an unsubtle jab at former McCain aide Nicolle Wallace, a frequent target for the ire of the governor's supporters, implicitly blaming her -- without naming names -- for sending Palin back for multiple interviews with Couric.

And she addressed the potential appointment of Caroline Kennedy to fill Hillary Clinton's seat in the Senate, saying, "I’ve been interested to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled and if she will be handled with kid gloves or if she will be under such a microscope also. It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be.”

That's an argument where she may have more of a case, but that's still at least debatable. On the one hand, it seems true that Kennedy's class has helped her win support from people like Maureen Dowd, who wouldn't know her personally if it weren't for that. At the same time, though, Palin had plenty of people in the media who met her at some point, like Bill Kristol, out defending her. And people who don't know Kennedy haven't been treating her with kid gloves; the interview she did with two New York Times reporters was brutal, on the level of the Couric-Palin confrontations.

WASHINGTON -- As far as gripping drama went, Thursday's counting and certification of the Electoral College votes didn't deliver much. A handful of lawmakers took turns reading out states in alphabetical order, and listing who won how many votes in each -- Barack Obama or John McCain for president, and Joe Biden and Sarah Palin for vice president. (In case you hadn't heard the news, Obama won.)

But what the moment lacked suspense, it carried in historic importance; the certification by the Congress is the last procedural step before Obama can take the oath of office in 12 days and become the 44th president. (Unless, that is, some crackpot legal theories pan out.) The House chamber was packed for the joint session of Congress, though there were some notable absences (like McCain, and Obama's rival-turned-Cabinet-member, Hillary Clinton). Lawmakers applauded nearly every state that Obama won, with some half-hearted attempts to start ovations for McCain states, too; Democrats have a pretty wide majority in the new Congress, and their members appeared to be much more eager to show up for the formal certification than Republicans did.

And, of course, there was that familiar-looking guy presiding over the whole thing.

"Barack Obama of the state of Illinois has received, for president of the United States, 365 votes," intoned Dick Cheney, in one of his last official acts as vice president. He went on to say the certification "shall be deemed a sufficient declaration of the election," before the loudest, most sustained ovation of the afternoon session. Cheney stuck to the script, closing the session down as soon as Obama was certified the victor, and he appeared to sneak out of the chamber by the back entrance without greeting any lawmakers.

There was none of the bitter irony of eight years ago, when Al Gore had to gavel down protests from Democrats trying to block the certification of his own defeat. Some Republicans looked a little less than thrilled to be there -- Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl, in the front row, sat glumly through most of the proceeding, while their Democratic counterparts, Harry Reid and Dick Durbin, smiled and chatted. After the news that Obama had 365 electoral votes got a big standing ovation, so did the announcement that Biden received the same number of votes for vice president. And for that matter, so did the 173 votes McCain got, and, slightly less enthusiastically from all parts of the room, the votes for Palin.

Up next, the inauguration. Which, presumably, will involve a bit more pomp and circumstance than the ceremony Thursday.

Rest easy, Pennsylvanians -- Chris Matthews won't be your next senator after all.

The MSNBC host had explored the idea of running as a Democrat against incumbent Republican Sen. Arlen Specter in 2010, and had even met with state party leaders and attended politically important events, but ultimately decided against a campaign. Matthews told his staff of his decision on Wednesday night, the New York Times reports.

Some people within the network had previously speculated that his public flirtation with the idea was really just a ploy in contract negotiations. And, in fact, his position is now better than it was -- but he'll still ultimately make less than in-house rival Keith Olbermann, which probably smarts a bit.

Republicans hoping to put a dent in Democrats' Senate majority in 2010 got some disheartening news Thursday in the form of Missouri Sen. Kit Bond's announcement that he won't seek reelection.

This is not the kind of open seat the GOP wants to have to defend, as Democrats have been gaining ground in Missouri recently. Claire McCaskill defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Jim Talent there in 2006, Jay Nixon turned the state house blue last year and John McCain was just barely able to eke out a victory over Barack Obama there, winning by about 4,000 votes, compared to the 200,000 vote margin George W. Bush had over John Kerry in the state.

Nor does it help that the year's slate of Senate seats overall puts the GOP at a disadvantage. They already have to deal with the retirement of Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, and while most of the Democrats running for re-election are fairly safe, Republicans Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Richard Burr of North Carolina, George Voinovich of Ohio and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania could all face tough fights. The only bright spot for the party so far is the number of Democratic vacancies caused by the election of Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the White House, as well as by appointments to Obama's administration.

If you're reading this and you happen to be a fish living in the general area of Wyoming, you might want to get to migrating. Like right now. Because Dick Cheney is coming.

Wednesday, the outgoing vice president told CBS radio that he's done with public life. "I think it's time for somebody like me to step aside and make room for others. And I've got things I want to do and ways I can spend my time," Cheney said. "I've got a lot of rivers to fish. So I don't think anybody will feel sorry for me. They shouldn't."

Cheney, who talked about the possibility of writing a book, also defended his time in the Bush administration and said his role has been exaggerated. "The notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions. I was not," he said. "There was never any question about who was in charge. It was George Bush... This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here, was usurping his authority, is simply not true. It's an urban legend, never happened."

It's a good thing there are no really important problems the country has to deal with. That frees up Congress to worry about things like the possible return of the Fairness Doctrine, even though there's almost no chance it actually will return anytime soon.

The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation that required broadcasters to provide equal time for opposing viewpoints. It was killed during the Reagan adminstration -- over the objections of the left, actually -- but over the past couple years, the right has been continuously sounding the alarm, saying its return might be imminent. They worry that it would cripple conservative talk radio.

So on Wednesday, several Republican members of Congress introduced a bill that would prevent the FCC from reimposing the rule without an act of Congress. Of course, the legislation is almost certainly unnecessary -- President-elect Barack Obama opposes the return of the doctrine, and somehow the Clinton administration managed to go eight years during Rush Limbaugh's prime without ever moving to bring it back.