Poll: Obama Approval Rating Reaches 79%
A new CNN poll shows Barack Obama's honeymoon approval reaching new heights, with 79% of Americans approving of him and only 18% disapproving. "That's the sort of rating you see when the public rallies around a leader after a national disaster," said CNN's Bill Schneider. "To many Americans, the Bush Administration was a national disaster."

Obama And Biden Meeting With Gore
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are meeting today in Chicago with none other than Al Gore, to discuss energy issues and climate change. The meeting is scheduled for 1 p.m. ET.

White House Internal Memo: Bush Maintained "The Honor And The Dignity Of His Office"
The Los Angeles Times reports that Bush Administraton officials have been given an internal memo containing talking points to use in their public appearances, praising President Bush's record as he left office. Among other things they are to discuss how he "kept the American people safe," helped the economy through his 2001 tax cuts, fought AIDS in Africa, and "maintained "the honor and the dignity of his office."

Big Business Likes Obama's Infrastructure Plans
Barack Obama's policies are now receiving some support from big business, with U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of the Manufacturers asking members of Congress to support Obama's big infrastructure plan. Essentially, the more roads and building that are made, the more opportunity there is for business to receive government contracts.

NRA Gearing UP To Fight Obama
The Hill reports that the National Rifle Association's is preparing to do battle with Barack Obama, saying he can't be trusted on his statements about respecting the Second Amendment. "We have no doubt that he's going to break his promise to the American people that he made during the campaign, and we're prepared to fight him every step of the way," said Chris W. Cox, executive director of the NRA's political arm.

Inauguration Could See 10,000 Buses -- Or More
The transportation business expects an astonishing 10,000 chartered buses to bring tourists to the big event, while D.C. officials think the number could go even higher. "It's best in planning for this event to try to plan for bigger than anything we've planned for before," said city administrator Dan Tangherlini.

Fran "The Nanny" Drescher Declares Interest In Hillary's Senate Seat
Forget about Caroline Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo. A spokesperson for actress Fran Drescher -- best known for starring on the sitcom The Nanny -- has told CNN that she is putting her name into contention for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat, putting forward as her credentials her experience as a women's health advocate.

The challenge for Al Gore is that criticizing the Bush years inevitably becomes a discussion of the 2000 election and a condemnation of the decision not to elect Gore (or not to grant him a big enough electoral victory so it couldn't be stolen from him).

But Gore directly embraces this aspect of the discussion, saying directly that we made the wrong choice in 2000. He evokes people's regret about choosing Bush over him as a way to infuse the current choice with even more emotional urgency:

Eight years ago, some said there was not much difference between the nominees of the two major parties and it didn't really matter who became president. Our nation was enjoying peace and prosperity. Some assumed we would continue both, no matter the outcome. But here we all are in 2008, and I doubt anyone would argue now that election didn't matter.

Take it from me, if it had ended differently, we would not be bogged down in Iraq, we would have pursued bin Laden until we captured him. We would not be facing a self-inflicted economic crisis; we would be fighting for middle-income families. We would not be showing contempt for the Constitution; we'd be protecting the rights of every American regardless of race, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation. And we would not be denying the climate crisis; we'd be solving it.

Today, we face essentially the same choice we faced in 2000, though it may be even more obvious now, because John McCain, a man who has earned our respect on many levels, is now openly endorsing the policies of the Bush-Cheney White House and promising to actually continue them. The same policies all over again?

Gore's full speech after the jump.

Late Update: Here's video of Gore discussing 2000...

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Just in case anybody was hoping for a dream ticket of Barack Obama and Al Gore, you can put that hope to rest: In an interview set to air tomorrow on ABC's Good Morning America, Gore said definitively that he is not interested in the role.

"I've decided to impose a personal term limit of two terms as vice president," Gore said.

The Obama campaign turns down Hillary's invitation to join her at a Maine town hall meeting this weekend, issuing this statement:

“Senator Clinton and Senator Obama have debated 18 times already, and they will debate again. But that schedule will not be dictated by the Clinton campaign. There are a lot of people looking forward to seeing Senator Obama in Bangor on Saturday, and we’ll be keeping that commitment.”

Which gives the Hillary campaign the sort of headline they want in the local Maine press. As Ben Smith notes, the Hillary campaign is pressing this local-press-friendly strategy in multiple states.

Former Vice President Al Gore told the Politico's John Harris that Democratic Party activists should give the Congressional Democratic leadership the "benefit of the doubt" on its efforts to end the Iraq war, which have been loudly criticized by some for their tepidness:

"I would urge Democrats who want our troops out yesterday to show some understanding of the difficult hand the Democratic leaders have to play and give them the benefit of the doubt in expecting that they are going to continue to push the mandate they received from the voters last fall to change the course of this war."

Gore also told ABC News on Tuesday, the same night of his interview with Harris, that he himself would have voted "no" on the bill that the Democrats negotiated with President Bush for funding the war, despite the fact that it included no timeline for withdrawal and gave the president most of what he had asked of Congress.

Gore insists he isn't running for president in 2008 but continues to encourage speculation and egg on would-be drafters. Harris writes that Gore implied he might be tempted to run an unconventional campaign using the Internet as a way to get past the problems of contemporary politics, which he said "rewards a tolerance for artifice, repetition, triviality that I don't have in as great supply as I might have had when I was younger.":

"The solutions to what ails American democracy will take some time and will have to come from a broad engagement by people who do use the new opportunities and tools that are becoming available," he said. "And I think that out of that evolutionary process there may emerge opportunities for new kinds of candidates in both parties."