Change we can believe in: Gates to stay on at Defense. At least Sam's happy.

Sorry about the slow blogging yesterday—the end of the semester can catch up on you. A few transition links:

* Change! Obama likely to keep Gates at Secretary of Defense, at least for a while, and unlikely to radically overhaul controversial Bush administration intelligence policies.

* Change! What we need is a liberal shock doctrine, says Rick Perlstein.

* Good has a visual accounting of the first 100 days of various presidents.

* How to get tickets to the inauguration.

* 59% of Americans look forward to one-party rule.

* And marriage equality destroys marriage in Connecticut today.

Starting my "things President Obama has done to piss me off" list early:

Already the capital is buzzing with discussion about who would fill top positions. Obama advisers mention Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader, as a possible White House chief of staff, and Timothy F. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as Treasury secretary. To demonstrate bipartisanship, advisers said Mr. Obama might ask two members of President Bush’s cabinet to stay, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

Daschle's okay, I guess, except for being one of the more incompetent Democratic Congressional leaders in decades—but asking Gates to stay? Why ask any of Bush's people to stay, much less SecDef, which along other things only plays into the stereotype that Democrats are weak on national defense?

Hopefully this is just a random trial balloon and not actually being considered...