LIGHTNING ROUND: WE'RE ALL GEORGIANS NOW.

• Grist suggests a method by which Barack Obama could fast-track cap-and-trade legislation: "under the Clean Air Act, the EPA can also administer a national cap-and-trade program by writing federal rules to unify independent regional carbon markets. Already, 23 states and four Canadian provinces are forming such markets, with 10 additional states being brought into the process as observers. Experts believe the EPA can promulgate an additional set of regulations that would control transportation emissions -- everything from cars and trucks to boats and airplanes." Marc Ambinder notes that "Phil Schiliro, appointed to be Obama's legislative director and a long-time former chief of staff to Rep. Henry Waxman, fought for a full decade to put the Clean Air Act into law" but also reports that transition officials are divided as to whether utilizing the EPA to tackle climate change is actually under consideration.
  
• The New York Times reports that Barack Obama is looking for a capital city in the Muslim world to give a major foreign policy speech and concludes -- through process of elimination -- that Cairo is the best choice: "Still, Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian ambassador, e-mailed me a statement. 'Needless to say, the President of the United States is always welcome in Egypt,' it said. 'Delivering such a speech from Cairo would no doubt reinforce the intended message. Cairo has long been a center of Islamic learning and scholarship, in line with Egypt’s central role in the Middle East.'"
• Current RNC Chair Mike Duncan believes Saxby Chambliss' victory in the Georgia runoff election not only refutes the "liberal mandate" of Barack Obama, but that "Georgians -- and all Americans -- will be watching Washington closely and expecting policies that make government work for them and not against small businesses and entrepreneurs." I never thought the phrase "we're all Georgians now" would have such a healthy -- and multipurpose -- shelf life.
• Grover Norquist sees opportunity in the great GOP shellacking of '08: "This is a tremendous opportunity to separate the sheep from the goats. The guys who turn around and say 'I can't rein in spending, I must raise taxes'...are going to have a hard time." Meanwhile, noted political mastermind Karl Rove suggests that Obama's win was mostly due to his formidable fundraising advantage: "Rather than showing the success of a new style of post-partisan politics, Mr. Obama's victory may show the enduring truth of the old Chicago Golden Rule: He who has the gold rules." Yeah, maybe. Or could it be that presidential elections are actually, you know, quite predictable?
• The Bushes are moving to Dallas after the president's term ends, to which Atrios gives the appropriate response: "Nobody could have predicted that the Crawford 'ranch' was just a campaign prop."
• The Linux geeks won't be happy about this: Bill Gates is open to playing a role in the Obama administration, although he is primarily committed to running his foundation. For what it's worth, I think Gates the philanthropist has largely compensated for the sins of Gates the software monopolist, but I'll let the comments thread have the final say on that one.
• The Chris Matthews Senate campaign story won't die, with Michael Calderone musing that Matthews' contract negotiations with MSNBC could mean he is prepping for a shift from political pundit to political candidate. A new Rasmussen poll puts Matthews just three points behind incumbent Arlen Specter in a theoretical head-to-head matchup.
• Steve Benen looks at the thawing of attitudes over the United States' decades-long -backward approach to Cuban foreign policy and concludes that the Obama administration could be in a unique position to lift the pointless embargoes that have done nothing to pressure Castro into changing the regime.

--Mori Dinauer