Obama’s fleshing out his plan to whip terrorism. But I’m not sure about his new policy in Afghanistan. It comes down to this: We’re going to shower them with money – so by the time we finish pouring cash on them and building roads and schools and bridges and supermarkets they’ll love us and turn over a whole new leaf.

It sounds rational – but that may be the problem. Because a lot of folks who’ve done good works expecting them to result in harmony and even gratitude have been disappointed by an irrational response.

First, the logic of charity can work in reverse. We say, ‘We’ll give you good things so much you’ll stop being naughty’ – and they go on being naughty to get more good things.

Or, on the other hand, there may be people (a lot of people) in Afghanistan who like following Talibans and Al-Qaedas – so they take our roads and schools and don’t change a bit.

The bottom line seems oddly familiar: Because Obama’s new policy has much the same goal as Bush’s old one. Bush set out to spread Democracy at the point of a gun – because he had the idea it would turn hostile nations into friendly ones. Obama’s idea is to convert hostile nations into friends by showering them with money – which sounds logical except the people he’s trying to convert, say, in the mountains of Afghanistan, may not be logical.

Anybody got a third option – if neither works?

Final impressions can count as much as first impressions. And Governor Easley is leaving a bad one.

The N&O asks today: “Where’s Mike?” This comes after “Where’s Libba Evans?”

There’s the mental-health mess. The DOT-Fayetteville flap. Next, apparently, an N&O series on the state probation system.

For dessert, the titillating stories about food, drink and luxury hotels in Russia. And the First Lady’s job and salary.

This is bad. This is not how a governor – and his team – want to go out. Not the legacy to leave.

Throughout his political career, Governor Easley has been charmed – and charming. He made his unorthodox style work politically. He has been a progressive governor on education and its importance in the new economy.

But the damage he has taken was evident in the campaign. Some people ask why Easley was not more prominent campaigning for Obama and Perdue. The answer: the Obama and Perdue campaigns did not want him.

Obama wanted him on national TV – a Southern Governor.

But not in his home state.

The Easley story didn’t have to end this way. In time, he’ll be recognized for the good he did. But his exit from the public stage is not what it should be.

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Presidents fight two wars. One to get elected. And one that starts the morning after the election. Only they may not know about the second war.

Naturally, Barack Obama may think his authority (in the legal sense) as president gives him power to run his own government. But authority is a long way from control. President Obama will never hear a whisper of 99% of the plots and decisions that go on in his government. But Washington is full of congressmen, lobbyists and insiders who will and are determined to get control of their piece of his administration – to pick, say, the assistant secretary in charge of procurement in the Pentagon.

After Reagan was elected in 1980, contented after working to elect a president who would change government, I sat back and contemplated all the good works about to be undertaken. Two months later I learned there was a thing in Washington called ‘The Transition Team’ hard at work hiring people to run Reagan’s government.

So I went to take a look and found, except for a cohort of conservative policy wonks, a legion of Washington insiders who did not share (beyond offering lip service) Reagan’s vision.

Reagan won the revolution in November. By Christmas a good bit of it was already over. We had lost the second war (to control the government) before we even knew it was being fought.

Which brings me to this ‘Team of Rivals’ idea. Ask yourself a simple question: Who benefits? The answer: Obama’s rivals. The people who opposed him. What a brilliant stratagem for the Clintonistas: They convince the world it is noble of Obama to appoint his opponents. It is, they say, Lincoln-esque. (Except it didn’t really work for Lincoln.) Then they start filling the jobs.

Hillary lost the first war but, by all appearances, she’s winning the second.

Obama’s chief of staff worked for Bill Clinton.

So did his treasury secretary.

His attorney general.

His U.N. ambassador.

The list goes on and on – ending, now, with Hillary herself.

Barack Obama may be learning an old lesson. Revolutions are won in voting booths. But pass away in the halls of government.

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From the N&O's Under the Dome:

Karl Rove thinks U.S. Sen. Richard Burr could help save the GOP.

In a proposed road map out of the political wilderness published last week in Newsweek, the former political strategist for President Bush said that Burr could be a fresh face for the Republican Party.

He contended that the "party's face" is now its congressional leadership.

"Senate and House Republicans will be seen more than any party chair or 2012 aspirant," Rove wrote. "Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. John Boehner must put on center stage their most persuasive, compelling members: Richard Burr and Jon Kyl in the Senate, and Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, Cathy McMorris, Peter Roskam and Kevin McCarthy in the House, for example."

This is encouraging! I will sleep better now.

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Governor-elect Bev Perdue has sought to separate herself from Governor Easley – sometimes indirectly and sometimes directly.

During the campaign, she said she would be more open and transparent. She promised a more ethical administration.

Election night, she said “there’s a new sheriff in town.”

The media focus has been on her staff and Cabinet appointments and, of course, her relationship with the media.

But signs point to another significant departure from Easley: the Governor’s office exercising more control over Cabinet departments.

Key transition advisers are said to be pushing for a more centralized policy-making and management apparatus within Perdue’s office – more on the Jim Hunt model than Easley’s style of letting Cabinet secretaries manage their departments with little day-to-day guidance (or interference, as some may call it) from him.

After eight years getting used to Easley, Raleigh could see a jarring – and perhaps welcome – change in how state government is run. Don’t underestimate the difference.

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Mark Johnson of the Charlotte Observer is one of the best political reporters I know, but I don’t think his story about Zach Ambrose was quite fair about the campaign that Perdue’s transition chief ran.

Johnson wrote:

Ambrose comes into the job with some obvious challenges….(S)ome observers will be watching to see if he's got better game than the campaign he ran for Perdue this year, which was widely criticized among Democrats as careening from one message to another. Former Gov. Jim Hunt, a Perdue mentor, tried to reassure supporters in mid-October.

“She will be a better governor,” Hunt said, “than people have seen in this campaign.”

Mark quoted me on the campaign:

“An awful lot of folks predicted she was going to lose,” said longtime Democratic consultant Gary Pearce. “There was a lot of criticism of the messaging in the campaign. When you're not inside a campaign, you can't see their polls and their research, so you don't know.”

There’s another point to be made: Ambrose ran a campaign that won. A campaign that, in some ways, was stronger than the candidate, who struggled in debates and some of her public appearances.

Most of all, at the end of both the primary and general-election campaigns, Ambrose made big decisions that turned out right.

In the primary, Perdue and Ambrose decided to go totally positive. It was low-risk: the negatives weren’t working and she was far ahead. But the move put the game out of reach for Richard Moore.

Late in the fall, with many Democrats openly worrying, the campaign ran tough negative ads against Pat McCrory – on “Yankee garbage” and illegal immigration. The ads targeted conservative Democrats in the east, and they gave Perdue just enough push to win.

The kind of clear vision and steely decision-making is invaluable in a campaign – and the governor’s office.

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Once upon a time not so long ago Wachovia Bank, a hundred-year-old bank, was as solid as the rock of Gibraltar. What went wrong? It’s a tale of miscalculations and mistakes – by its own managers.

As a result investors have seen their shares plummet and the bank put on the auction block not once, but twice and, last Monday, the newspaper reported the most amazing news of all. When the merger with Wells Fargo is complete ten of Wachovia’s top executives are going to walk away with $98 million in bonuses.

That even beats the presidents of GM and Chrysler telling the government it should bail them out with $25 billion and let them keep their $15 and $20 million salaries – both.

Looked at one way the affliction rocking American capitalism looks like incompetence. But I’ve begun to suspect it may go deeper. Wachovia’s executives waltzing away with a pot of gold while shareholders are left holding the bag looks like an example of greed run amuck.

No doubt Obama and the Democrats are ready to apply the antidote with a stack of new federal regulations. And there’s surely a risk in the long run the cure may prove as harmful as the disease. But, on the other hand, who can argue that the Wall Street Masters of the Universe don’t deserve whatever the Democrats do to them?

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The fight over the future of the Republican Party has spilled over into the state chairman’s race.

Linda Daves has the job. Fred Smith, apparently, wants it. And there’s a third, lesser known, candidate.

Daves’ critics say the last two elections prove she knows little about politics.

Smith’s critics say he spent $2.5 million of his own money to get himself elected governor and only carried four counties (I think) in the primary.

And the third candidate is calling for Republicans to run on a written ‘contract with North Carolina’ next election – an idea first tried fourteen years ago.

What’s wrong with this picture?

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Barack Obama is being hailed as a combination of Lincoln and FDR. The economic crisis is likened to secession and Depression.

There seems to be a consensus on what he should do – among Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Washington and Wall Street: Spend money!

Spend billions of dollars! Trillions, even! Damn the deficit! Full stimulus ahead!

Obama says his priority will be a stimulus package so big it stuns the economy to life and creates 2.5 million jobs. That means lots of zeroes. The eventual number is going to sound like Ric Flair: W00000000000000!!

Much of that money, Obama promises, will be spent on “infrastructure.” Like roads.

Which leads us to North Carolina.

Unlike Obama, Bev Perdue has to balance the budget. But she may get a gift from Washington: a number with lots of zeroes behind it to spend on roads.

Wherein lies her dilemma: Who will decide how to spend that money?

Will it be like the $270 million Lyndo Tippett and Tony Rand steered to Fayetteville? It may be, as Tippett said, “it’s our turn.” Or it may be that Fort Bragg and the nation’s defense depend on the roads. But politics is about perception. And the perception ain’t good.

Perdue will get hammered if she appears to make a “political” choice for DOT. Marc Basnight has jinxed Lanny Wilson.

In Washington, Senator Chris Dodd is talking about an independent, bipartisan board to run an “infrastructure bank” to decide how to spend the stimulus money.

Coming up with a creative and confidence-boosting approach in North Carolina will jump-start not only the economy, but also Perdue’s term as Governor.

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When the heads of the Big Three went to Washington to ask Congress for $25 billion to save their companies, one congressman asked, What will you do, personally, to make a bailout a success?

The president of Chrysler said he would work for a dollar a year.

The congressman looked at the presidents of GM and Ford; one made $15 million and the other $20 million last year. He asked if they would work for $1 a year too.

No way on earth, they said.

The president of Chrysler needs help and offered to sacrifice to get it. The presidents of GM and Ford want us to give them $25 billion – and pay their salaries while they spend it.

The other big bailout in the news this morning is Citigroup; earlier this month they got $25 billion and now they need more – so they want the government to agree to pay their losses.

And the government is willing – but there’s one problem. The government wants preferred stock in exchange while, instead, Citigroup wants to give it warrants.

Why? Stock dilutes the value of other investors’ (which includes Citigroup’s managers and directors) shares. Warrants don’t.

What more do we need to know? Actions speak louder than words.

We ought to 1) Help Chrysler; 2) Let the presidents of GM and Ford go on to earning their salaries on their own (without one cent of taxpayers’ money); and 3) Tell Citigroup’s managers they can protect the price of their shares on their own too.

Looked at in this light economics is simple.

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