A couple of months ago I discovered Google Sketchup, a free 3D modeling program. I found it when I stumbled across some great 3D models of the White House on WhiteHouseMuseum.org. I’d always wanted to try 3D modeling, but I never realized I could do it for free.

So intermittently over the last couple of months I’ve been working on my own model of the second floor of the White House. I started by tracing this floor plan. I’ve primarily been working on the West Sitting Hall [Wikipedia]. It’s the room where Michelle Obama and Laura Bush sat when the Obamas visited the White house shortly after the election. I love that large fan/lunette window; it’s gorgeous.

The floor of my model isn’t accurate yet, and there are other details I still need to add (for instance, the molding doesn’t extend all the way to the lunette window yet) or play around with, but here’s my work on it so far.

Overhead view (click to embiggen):

Close-up of the lunette window:

Alternate angle:

And here it is with a few stock people and couches thrown in. I’m not positive I have the scale right yet.

I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do with this, but it’s fun.

I enjoyed Obama’s speech last night, but boy, Bobby Jindal sure bombed, didn’t he?

Obama’s speech: for the first time in 15 years, there were three Democrats on the podium. That was refreshing. It wasn’t until this morning that I realized that of those three, only one of them was a white male. It’s become unexceptional, that’s how long it took me to notice. (And just imagine if Hillary Clinton had won the nomination, picked Obama as her running mate, and won the election: there would have been two women and a black man up there.)

For me, the address gave Obama an infusion of president-ness that had been lacking lately. He’s seemed very wonkish and intellectual in the last couple of weeks, which, believe me, is a wonderful thing to see in a president after the previous eight years, but I was itching to see him engage in this traditional presidential ritual, speaking from the well of Congress, with tons of pomp and ceremony and applause and a huge American flag behind him. Occasionally over the last month I’ve forgotten that Bush is no longer president — it was a long eight years, after all — but events like last night’s address help me remember that we’ve moved on.

As for Jindal: I turned it off after about 30 seconds, because I got home really late last night and by the time I finished watching Obama I needed to go to bed. But apparently even Fox News thinks he bombed. And, hilariously, tons of people think he sounded exactly like Kenneth the Page. I thought to myself, “Really?” And then I began watching the speech again with that in mind, and I swear to god it was so funny I almost had tears in my eyes. (If you’ve never seen “30 Rock,” one of my favorite current shows, here’s a collection of Kenneth moments that everyone is linking to.)

Honestly, I don’t know why the opposition party bothers with these responses. They rarely turn out well, no matter which party it is. Kathleen Sebelius bombed, Bob Dole bombed, Jindal bombed. It’s a hopeless task — just let it go.

Many times during George W. Bush’s first term in office, I imagined how different things might have been had Al Gore been inaugurated as president. The closeness of the election made this a tempting exercise. Similarly, at times lately I’ve wondered what things would be like if Hillary Clinton had beaten Obama for the Democratic nomination — which she came close to doing — and then, presumably, won the presidency.

The Republicans are winning the message war over the stimulus plan right now — or at least they sure seem to be getting much more coverage than the Democrats. Would this be happening if Hillary were president? She knows how to play hardball politics against the Republicans. There’s no telling if things would be different right now. Maybe they’d be better, maybe they’d be worse. But I’m unhappy with the way things are going, so once again, it’s tempting to hypothesize an alternate universe.

One thing I take heart in is that Obama seems adaptable. He has an op-ed in today’s Washington Post, and although nobody reads newspapers anymore, it’s at least something. I also saw that he’s considering a prime-time Oval Office address.

Maybe he should have taken more control over the bill from the start? It’s not really his bill right now — he let the congressional Democrats draft it, which, as this piece points out, might have seemed like a good idea at the time, since Congress needs to pass the bill in order for it to land on Obama’s desk. But it seems “much more like an omnibus bill than a stimulus bill,” according to Susan Collins, with tons of little things for Republicans to attack. Maybe it should have focused on just a few big things instead of some big things and lots of little things. The way things stand, it’s Congress’s bill, but the media will blame Obama if it tanks.

But it probably won’t tank. Some sort of bill will eventually pass. Legislating is a messy process, and hopefully this will lead to something that can get enough votes to overcome a potential filibuster. (By the way, it would be nice if the spineless Harry Reid would actually make the Republicans filibuster for once instead of just letting them say they will. Make them get up there and read the phone book or the complete works of Charles Dickens! Eventually they’ll have to fold.)

It’s weird — when Bush had 30% approval ratings, he could still get what he wanted. Obama, with 65% approval, is coming off as weak. The common factor? Unyielding Republicans and feckless Democrats.

Hopefully this has been a good lesson for Obama: you can’t win over Republicans. You can only beat them or lose to them. The modern-day Republican Party is not a normal political party. Instead, it’s a religious party: tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts. Could you convince fundamentalist Christians to support gay marriage or believe in evolution by inviting them to a Superbowl party? No. So why would it work on Republicans? They’ll just say, “Thank you so much for inviting us to your party! You’re such a great guy! Now give us our tax cuts.”

Obama is thoughtful and pays attention to criticism. Thoughtfulness can make you weak in politics. But he seems to be good at learning from mistakes — so I still have hope.