“What is this, a ‘West Wing’ episode?”

— David Axelrod to Rahm Emanuel, in this article about Obama and car industry:

A half-hour into the meeting, an aide entered the Oval Office and slipped Mr. Obama a note informing him another meeting was to begin. The president told advisers he needed more time to decide Chrysler’s fate. He then headed off for a day consumed by a new strategy for Afghanistan, a threatened rocket launch by North Korea and the evacuation of a flooded Fargo, N.D. (“What is this, a ‘West Wing’ episode?” Mr. Axelrod recalled asking Mr. Emanuel.)

Obama’s 100 Days: Behind-the-Scenes Photos.

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.

Random, extremely nerdy thought that nobody but me cares about:

It is New York Times style to refer to an elected official by full name upon initial reference in any article, no matter how familiar the official is: “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg,” “Senator Charles E. Schumer,” “Gov. David A. Paterson,” “Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.” (Except that it was “Vice President Al Gore” and “Vice President Dick Cheney.” Apparently the Times calls people what they want to be called.)

The only exception to this rule is an incumbent U.S. president. So in Timespeak, on January 20, “President-elect Barack Obama” magically became “President Obama.”

Ex-presidents don’t count; only a sitting president gets that honor. Therefore, on the day he left office, “President Bush” became “President George W. Bush.”

I get a kick out of seeing him referred to as “President George W. Bush” in the Times now. It reminds me that he’s gone and can no longer hurt us.

Doesn’t it kind of seem like Barack Obama has been President of the United States forever? And yet it’s only been 10 days.

I’m having this weird cognitive dissonance. I keep wondering why he’s never given a State of the Union address or gone on a foreign trip as president or celebrated Christmas in the White House like all of our other presidents. And then I remember, oh yeah, he’s only been there for 10 days. He hasn’t even seen the calendar turn to a new month yet.

I guess it’s because it seems like so much has happened in the last 10 days — he already seems to have worn out the carpet in the East Room with all the speeches he’s given there. And he had a high profile during the transition — he seemed in charge, because nobody else did.

I’m already getting used to seeing photos of him in the Oval Office or the Cabinet Room or, again, the East Room. But every so often I have to stop and pinch myself and appreciate the fact that this is all real.

This paragraph doesn’t make sense to me:

Democrats said Mr. Obama could also support a demand from a senior Senate Republican, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, to add a provision adjusting the alternative minimum tax so that it does not hit millions of middle-class taxpayers this year. That would add costs of nearly $70 billion over 10 years to a package that Republicans already say is too big.

Huh?

Under that logic, Republicans would oppose all tax cuts because they increase the size of the stimulus plan.

That’s clearly not the case. The bolded sentence is just weird.

Obama thinks it’s dumb that D.C. cancelled school today due to snow and ice.

Obama made a bet with his daughter Malia about the Jonas Brothers last summer.

I like this photo because it’s the first one I’ve seen of Michelle Obama in the Oval Office. It must have been taken on January 21 because it’s the same dress she wore at the open house that day — Obama’s first full day as president. (More photos here.)

Here’s Obama’s West Wing floor plan.

Article here, another here.

Here is President Obama’s Mrs. Landingham.

She’s much younger than Mrs. Landingham, though.

Below: Obama orders a burger and fries on his first flight on Air Force One — although technically it wasn’t Air Force One, because he was still president-elect at the time. This is from his flight from Chicago to D.C. a couple of weeks ago.

God, I live for this kind of presidential minutiae.

Here’s one photo I hadn’t caught before: Obama enters the Oval Office.

[Update] Also, here’s a close-up photo of the envelope Bush left for Obama.

Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times is liveblogging Obama’s first full day as president.

And yes, Zeleny is kinda cute (and gay).