THIS MODERN WORLD

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This is wonderful on so many levels:

ATLANTA — The replica of George W. Bush’s desk still sits in the Oval Office beneath the Iranian and American flags. The seal of the president of the United States still adorns the floor mats across the hall from the zebra-skin rug. And the porch overlooking the 75-car parking lot is still called the Truman Balcony.

For the last seven years, almost as long as President Bush has been in Washington, Mr. Milani, an Iranian-American home developer, has lived in a scaled-down version of the presidential mansion in Atlanta. A private Xanadu for Mr. Milani, a headache for neighbors and a destination for camera-wielding gawkers, the 16,500-square-foot home has become a kooky symbol of this boom-boom city’s ever-growing residential skyline.

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Inside its wrought-iron gates, the Atlanta White House is a singular pastiche of Middle Eastern décor (wall rugs, a hookah), American political kitsch (Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation painted onto a bedroom wall), religious iconography (a tapestry of “The Last Supper,” a giant crucifix) and self-promotion (an “M” tiled into the pool, a bust of Mr. Milani).

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Mr. Milani works in his own Oval Office. Guests sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom. And all 43 presidents — plus President-elect Barack Obama — stare down from a poster on his kitchen wall.

All from a man who follows politics only loosely.

“Really, I am not very political,” Mr. Milani said. “The architect just asked, ‘How about I build you the White House?’ and I said yes. That is the whole story.”

He voted for President Bush twice, he said, but after the economy deteriorated, he became a “big fan” of Mr. Obama. Most of his support, however, is reserved for God. He converted to Christianity from Islam in 1995, and his house reflects his adoration of his adopted faith. In the front hedges, he spelled “God (heart) You” in topiary. A life-size carving of a biblical scene overlooks the congregation room in his basement, where leaders of his church baptize Muslims into Christianity.

But the Atlanta White House’s signature piece of artwork is a ceiling mural of Jesus ministering to people of various races. A Hispanic man wears a sombrero, an American Indian dons a headdress, and at the feet of Jesus is Mr. Milani himself, his head bowed in submission.

“It’s a very unusual house, so it may be difficult to sell,” Mr. Ghiai said.

Follow the link for pics.

According to Wikipedia, “Burris is married to Berlean M. Burris, Ph.D., and is the father of two adult children, Dr. Rolanda S. Burris, and Roland W. Burris II.”

Assuming this is accurate, it means that he named not one, but both of his children after himself.

Phone calls in that household must have been a constant source of confusion.

Watching Harry Reid pick a fight he couldn’t win with Roland Burris only to sheepishly back down is hilarious and sad to watch. What hasn’t been as funny is watching him pull the same “half-heartedly stand on principle only to be revealed as weak and ineffective” crap over and over again. Harry Reid has been allergic to confrontation (at least when it comes to Republicans) since assuming the caucus leadership in 2005. Even after the Dems gained control of Congress two years ago, Reid’s signature accomplishment has been sitting idly by while Senate Republicans mounted the most filibusters in U.S. history (all without ever having to stay up past their bedtimes).

Call me a cynic, but with Obama heading into office with a sweeping mandate (and the approval ratings to back it up), I can’t help but assume that we have more of Reid’s late night, “sorry guys, we tried” press conferences in front of the capitol building to look forward to :

“It looks like we’re going to have that second Great Depression after all, because a global warming-denier from a tiny state put an anonymous hold on the stimulus bill until we put in provisions thanking Jesus for writing the Constitution and granting zygotes the right to vote and own property.”

Krugman:

I don’t have a problem with Gupta’s qualifications. But I do remember his mugging of Michael Moore over Sicko. You don’t have to like Moore or his film; but Gupta specifically claimed that Moore “fudged his facts”, when the truth was that on every one of the allegedly fudged facts, Moore was actually right and CNN was wrong.

What bothered me about the incident was that it was what Digby would call Village behavior: Moore is an outsider, he’s uncouth, so he gets smeared as unreliable even though he actually got it right. It’s sort of a minor-league version of the way people who pointed out in real time that Bush was misleading us into war are to this day considered less “serious” than people who waited until it was fashionable to reach that conclusion. And appointing Gupta now, although it’s a small thing, is just another example of the lack of accountability that always seems to be the rule when you get things wrong in a socially acceptable way.