With no election to win, President-elect Obama remains opaque as ever when quizzed on his knotty policy positions. Does he just hate to part with widespread praise (which inevitably dissipates when some voters learn you aren’t doing what they want) or doesn’t he know what he wants to do? Once he’s sworn in we’ll find out whether ambiguity is a tactic or a malady. But note: relying on “what my advisors recommend” only works when they all agree.

If Tom Brokaw believed in asking hard follow-up questions he would have asked the President-elect whether, given his admission that General Eric Shinseki was “right” to ask for more troops in Iraq, candidate Barack Obama was wrong to oppose more troops. Nevertheless, I think the surge argument has been won, if not conceded by the other side. (Like the Norm Coleman Senate race!)

“Maybe they should go out of business,” says Juan Williams (!) about the Big Three auto companies. He wants to know that what $15 billion will do for them — other than string them and the taxpayers along for more of the same next year.

The headline reads “Georgia Win Dims Franken’s Prospects,” but the story itself gives no indication that Democrats are giving up despite Sen. Saxby Chambliss’s win (which put a filibuster-proof total of 60 seats out of reach). Perhaps they will eventually get it, but for now losing the election and the recount are merely bumps in the road as far as Democrats are concerned.

David Gregory has a way to go in the gravitas department. He can start by kicking the habit of repeatedly looking down, as if searching for notes.

The Tribune company gets ready to file for bankruptcy. Now before you get excited, it doesn’t mean the Los Angeles Times will shut down. Not unless the judge is a media critic.

Pennsylvania women have a message for Chris Matthews about a potential Senate run: don’t.

One report on the car bailout: “General Motors Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner is coming under increasing pressure from outside the company to resign as part of any broad bailout of the auto maker by the federal government.” That would seem to be a necessary but hardly sufficient step on the way to improving GM’s chances of survival.

Jane Hamsher and I agree on virtually nothing except on the prospects for Caroline Kennedy as New York’s next Senator: “But simply being well-known and a member of the ‘American nobility’ in a celebrity-driven society shouldn’t be enough to axiomatically entitle her to be a member of the US Senate.”(h/t Glenn Reynolds).

And I don’t often agree with Paul Krugman, but here again I find commonality: “Nobel economics prize winner Paul Krugman said Sunday that the beleaguered U.S. auto industry will likely disappear.” Well, unless the Big Three can refashion themselves to compete with competitors producing cars in the U.S. (e.g. Honda).

Karl Rove is going list the names of the “Bush haters” in his book. How long is this tome going to be?