…don’t believe anyone who says Obama’s health care legislation marks a swing of the pendulum back toward the Great Society and the New Deal. Obama’s health bill is a very conservative piece of legislation, building on a Republican rather than a New Deal foundation. The New Deal foundation would have offered Medicare to all Americans or, at the very least, featured a public insurance option.

- Robert Reich, The Final Health Care Vote and What it Really Means

iPods, First Sale, President Obama, and the Queen of England

The EFF’s Fred von Lohmann notes that the president’s gift of an iPod filled with showtunes to the Queen of England may have violated copyright laws.

But what I will always remember is as I was leaving that party in 2003, I was approached by another guest, an established author. He asked about the man I had been talking to. Sheepishly he told me he didn’t know that Obama was a guest at the party, and had asked him to fetch him a drink. In less than six years, Obama has gone from being mistaken for a waiter among the New York media elite, to the president-elect.

WSJ.com: Before He Was President, Mistaken for a Waiter: a 2003 Obama Meeting