Non-Paper Daily, 1.14.2009

*W, at 34%, is leaving the presidency with the second lowest job approval rating of all time... ahead of Nixon... who resigned because he was going to be impeached. It's hard to even include Nixon due to that major caveat, but even if you do, second from the bottom of the barrel isn't so hot. Interestingly, since the election, Bush's approval rating has climbed 9%. My guess is that people feel both sorry for the guy and happy that he's leaving. Whatever the cause, it's worth remember that only 25% of the populace approved of the job Bush did as of November 4th, 2008.

*Last night Barack Obama had dinner with a group of lead conservative commentators. The list: George Will, Rich Lowry, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Larry Kudlow, David Brooks, Peggy Noonan, Michael Barone, and Paul Gigot. This morning for breakfast he was joined by a left leaning crowd: E.J. Dionne, Eugene Robinson, Gerry Seib, Ron Brownstein, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, Andrew Sullivan, and Rachel Maddow. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at these conversations.

*Apparently Obama is putting together an unprecedented-in-size grassroots network whose job it will be to push Obama's legislative agenda. He has millions of dollars and millions of people. This should be interesting.