Shortly before the Nov. 4 presidential election, talk-show diva and noted Obama-backer Oprah Winfrey announced that she'd already picked out her inaugurual ball gown, a sign of overconfidence that she did not have to pay for in the end.

Now that Barack Obama's inauguration is virtually certain (unless the Supreme Court's ponderings lead it to get involved), Oprah has announced she's taking her Chicago talk-show to Washington, which is also famous for lotsa talk. (And that'll allow her to write off the gown cost as a business expense.)

She's rented the 2,300-seat Kennedy Center to do two shows there right around Jan. 20.

You may remember Oprah came out early for her fellow Chicagoan. She held a huge celebrity fundraiser for him at her Montecito house.

And she emceed giant primary rallies for him in Iowa and North Carolina, which he won, and New Hampshire, which they lost to Hillary Clinton, the first serious female presidential candidate that many former Oprah fans thought she should support. Winfrey's ratings took a hit.

We don't want to let anything out of the bag and spoil the screaming.

But wouldn't it just be a perfect television moment if, while Oprah is talking to the excited Kennedy Center audience in January, a certain someone who's about to become president and maybe his wife too walked out on the stage behind the show host?

Everyone would cry, except those execs watching the ratings.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Oprah.com

A North St. Louis alderman's solution to rising urban crime and gun deaths is to arm everybody.

Charles Quincy Troupe, a frequent critic of his city's police force, says more "Show Me" state residents should buy guns and get training, and if criminals knew they're more likely to meet resistance, they might think twice about their illegal activities.

Troupe says everybody packing heat isn't the only answer to rising crime. He wants more city spending on job training and youth activities too. (See video below.)

But a police association spokesman expresses skepticism about the alderman and his idea and what officers might confront on patrol. And Mayor Francis Slay suggests Troupe could do more by urging constituents to cooperate with police.

Here's a thought:

Maybe we should also apply this idea to commercial airliners. Instead of those ridiculously slow lines at airport security checkpoints prohibiting passengers from carrying too much toothpaste and firearms onto the planes, hand everyone a piece as they board. And a sack of ammo.

Or BYOG. Smith & Wesson has a special holiday handgun sale on right now.

Anyone hangs around the cockpit door too long, the first eight rows could open up. Same for Rows 18-24 keeping an eye on the rear galley.

Guns for every passenger could also shorten the wait for toilets.

Oh, sure, there might be some violent disagreements between even- and odd-numbered rows if, say, someone put their seatback down too far too quickly.

But that's a relatively small price to pay to help spread Alderman Troupe's idea of urban safety into the nation's skies.

And if everyone knew that everyone had a loaded pistol handy, maybe it wouldn't take quite so long to get those bags out of the overhead bins and hustle off the plane. No one hustles right now.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Smith & Wesson

Gee, here's a really great video below about an amazing blog item, which may look quite familiar to loyal Ticket readers, from one of television's greatest cable channels and truly creative programs, "The Daily Show."

It's about Planned Parenthood of Indiana now offering special festive gift certificates good for its services. Nothing says the year-end holiday celebrations of life like a real professional abortion.

That Jon Stewart is a funny guy too, who can spot a good story when he sees one. And tell it with tongue in cheek excellently.

Obviously, he's also got excellent blog-reading taste. Thanks, Jon! (Now, why won't this video go in the middle where it's supposed to?)

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: Lindsay Barnett

Seems like our former LATimes.com blog "Countdown to Crawford" on the closing days of the Bush administration should have been named "Countdown to Preston Hollow."

George W. and Laura W. Bush have bought an 8,000-square-foot home on a quiet (what other kinds are there?) cul-de-sac in the swanky north Dallas neighborhood of Preston Hollow, named for a leafy local hollow and someone named Preston whose moniker went on a local road a long time ago.

Anyway, Preston Hollow, which voted to join Dallas in 1945, has some rundown shanties that go for $800,000, but most are in the seven-figure range, some well up in the eight-figures. Some of the wealthiest people in Texas live there and after Jan. 20 with a permanent Secret Service presence, probably in an adjacent house, annoying break-ins are even less likely.

Word of the purchase was confirmed today by a White House spokesman after everyone poo-poohed a September Cindy Adams gossip report on the impending purchase in the N.Y. Post.

Without mentioning the neighborhood, Mrs. Bush confirmed in a recent TV interview that the about-to-be-former First Couple would split their time between the 1,500-acre ranch near Crawford and Dallas, where the Bushes lived from 1988 to 1995, while George W. ran the Texas Rangers and for governor. (We have a news video on this down below.)

Dallas is a longtime favorite city especially for Mrs. Bush, who taught there after graduating from Southern Methodist University there and where the current Pres. Bush's future presidential library will be built.

While the senior Bushes always preferred Houston and their quarters at his presidential library at Texas A&M in College Station, George W. and Laura have many friends, favorite shops and restaurants in Dallas.

In 1995, the Bushes with their two daughters Jenna and Barbara, moved to the Governor's Mansion in Austin, which is more of an old museum with a cramped gubernatorial apartment upstairs. The twin girls attended public high school there before heading off to college as their parents headed off for the White House.

During those years the Bushes had a lake home in east Texas. Laura Bush was initially hesitant about her husband's Crawford ranch idea, which was hatched during his nascent presidential campaign in 1999. They would discuss the idea during their frequent cellphone conversations as they campaigned across separate parts of the country.

Until one day Mrs. Bush made her husband's primary campaign day by starting off a call with the simple greeting, "All right, let's do it."

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: L.M. Otero / Associated Press (house); Associated Press

So far, Washington has pledged $8.5 trillion to the bailout of the financial sector.

Now, we're hearing about the Big Three automakers asking for $34 billion, seemingly on the platform of "you're giving out free money? Cool!"

But let's hold it a second. Seriously, $8.5 trillion sounds like a lot of money, right? That's, like, trillions of dollars. With a T. As in 1,000 billions times 8.5.

How often do you, in your daily life, deal with trillions of anything? Not counting the popcorn and candy prices at movie theaters.

Keep thinking. we'll wait.

"When you talk about trillions of dollars, people's brains just shut off," said Barry Ritholtz, writer for the Big Picture, a top-ranked financial blog.

"They don't know what you're talking about. In fact, when you talk about hundreds of billions of dollars, people just can't grasp how much money that is."

The economic numbers and fears played a major role in deciding the presidential campaign. And they're going to dominate the early months, perhaps years, of the Obama administration.

For his upcoming book, "Bailout Nation," Ritholtz has tried to put the amount in more easily understood terms. He compared the costs of other historically significant government programs with the current bailout.

James Bianco, president of Arbor Research and Trading Inc., crunched the inflation numbers for nine key government expenditures.

So, we can compare which costs more: the bank bailout, the invasion of Iraq, the Vietnam War, the Louisiana Purchase or ...

Well, it looks like we got the video-thingy problem solved from our original Obama announcement post here.

So here, a day late but still free of charge, are the two videos involving the appointment of New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to become president-elect Barack Obama's secretary of Commerce.

The first video here is a brief description of the news event in Chicago on Dec. 3. Click on the "Read more" line below to see WGN-TV's full 17-minute coverage of the announcement, including the beardless Richardson's remarks and a few questions from the media to Obama.

--Andrew Malcolm

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(UPDATE: We got the two Obama-Richardson video challenges unchallenged. They're over here.)

A beardless Bill Richardson took one more step Wednesday toward capturing a new entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for Most U.S. Cabinet Posts Held Without Actually Becoming President.

President-elect Barack Obama named his former rival for the Democratic presidential nomination to be secretary of Commerce. (We have Obama's full statement on the jump; click the "Read more" line below.)

Richardson has already been secretary of Energy for the husband of another former rival, Hillary Clinton. But she's the new secretary of State.

Joe Biden, another senator and another rival of Obama's, is the vice president-elect, if anyone can find him before Jan. 20.

Richardson, you may recall, is currently the governor of New Mexico, a job he said he liked a whole lot, in the sun and mountains with the horses and stuff, until this new opportunity to leave Santa Fe emerged. The gov already claims a Guinness record for 13,392 glad hands shaken in eight campaign hours, in case you're keeping track like he is.

Before Santa Fe, Richardson was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, also for Bill Clinton, who may not be talking to the Gov. Bill because a goateed Bill Richardson rejected the ex-president's plea to endorse his wife and jumped for a perfectly-timed Obama endorsement during ...

The Public Policy Institute of California has a new poll out confirming a lot of what was known -- or might have been suspected--about the Nov. 4 election.

For instance, Proposition 8, the state ballot measure banning same-sex marriage, drew its strongest support from evangelical Christians and Republicans, while Democrats were overwhelmingly opposed.

Backers of GOP presidential nominee John McCain were much more likely to support the measure, approved by 52% of Californians, than were supporters of Democrat Barack Obama.

Perhaps the most interesting finding was a stand-alone question dealing with the issue of same-sex marriage. Of those polled, 47% were in favor, 48% were opposed and 5% were unsure. Which suggests -- happily for political consultants, political reporters and other members of the political-media-industrial complex -- that campaigns matter.

"The events in court, people getting married between court decisions and those kinds of events didn't seem to matter as much as the campaign in terms of persuading enough people who were undecided or ambivalent to vote 'yes,' " said Mark Baldassare, the survey director and head of the policy institute. ("Yes" amounted to a "no" vote on same-sex marriage, in the circuitous way the question was worded.)

Among other findings of the nonpartisan survey:

-- More than 6 in 10 Latino voters backed Proposition 4, the measure requiring parental notification before a minor can have an abortion. The finding will surely be cited as further proof by those who maintain that Latinos are cultural conservatives who therefore should vote Republican.

-- Nearly 8 in 10 Latinos voted for Obama, despite widespread speculation about black-brown tensions that, theoretically, were going to dampen support for the nation’s first African American presidential nominee.

-- In a further sign of Californians' affection for do-it-yourself democracy, two-thirds of respondents were generally satisfied with the initiative process and expressed more trust in their fellow citizens than in elected officials to make public policy.

Click this link to see the full survey.

-- Mark Z. Barabak

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Photo: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Xavier Becerra might become Barack Obama’s U.S. trade representative.

Then again, he might not.

Aides to the president-elect and the Los Angeles congressman won’t say.

But numerous California politicos assume he will get the post, and the race is on for the coveted Becera House seat -- especially since likely candidates are looking at their political mortality in the form of term limits.

Names include Supervisor Gloria Molina, state Sen. Gil Cedillo and Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti, each of whom represents parts of Becerra’s district, which includes the heart of Los Angeles.

Update: Candidates would vie in a special election to fill Becerra's seat, should it become vacant. Molina spokeswoman Roxane Marquez said the supervisor has no plans to run for Congress. “She was flattered, but she’s content where she is, and feels she still has a lot of work to do,’’ Marquez said.

Molina could run for another four-year board term. Others, particularly those serving in Sacramento, face more immediate fates.

“I am definitely considering it,” Cedillo said. “I am beginning the process of consulting people who have supported me over the years, including my family.”

The 54-year-old Cedillo has represented the area for the last decade as an assemblyman and senator. He has two years left in his current and final state Senate term, and could run for another two-year Assembly term.

Cedillo, who has deep labor ties, has become most identified....

You should know that Bill Clinton, the ex-president, is so happy about his wife Hillary becoming the new secretary of State and traveling all over the world all the time for the country that he feels like celebrating.

And he wants you to help celebrate too ...

Wait for it.

By giving her some more money.

You may not remember, which explains the spate of Bill e-mails in recent days, that the New York senator ran up quite a bit of debt bashing her new boss, the president-elect, during her unsuccessful presidential campaign that ended exactly six months ago Thursday. Gee, it seems like only twice that long ago.

Bill got in on the Barack-bashing too, to be honest, though he gradually came around in the fall. (And, btw, he's sent word he's not interested in taking over her Senate seat.)

Not counting the $13 million of her own money that she poured in and had to write off, Hillary's campaign debt is down now to about $7 million and change, which is the way rich people talk when the numbers fall into the mere hundreds of thousands.

Hillary owes most of the debt to Mark Penn, the campaign strategist whose campaign strategy didn't work too well, judging by the final Democratic Party ticket.

Technically, Bill's celebratory e-mail is seeking, just between the two of you, a whole batch of congratulatory e-mails to give to his wife.

"This is great news for our country." he says. "She understands the challenges we face, and her experience and judgment will help President Obama restore America's reputation in the world and make our nation more secure."

And there's a place to click and leave an e-mail congratulations and your own e-mail address in case you'd like to receive more of these messages in the future.

There is also a large red button. See photo below.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Hard to believe maybe, but ex-President Richard Nixon is still pretty @&^?:%\%# angry.

This guy's mom may have been a Quaker, but he perfected grudges beyond Sicilian-style. Every few months, it seems, we get new evidence that Nixon's even angrier than the last time we heard from him.

Another 90,000 pages of documents and 198 hours of Nixon tapes were released Tuesday by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda. Phewee! If we could somehow tap into this thermal anger, bang, national energy independence the next day.

Google swears that Richard Milhous Nixon died on April 22, 1994. But thanks to these tapes, Nixon's voice lives on as a reminder of something. You can listen to many of them here and we've added a couple of video recordings below. (Just click on the "Read more" line to view them and listen.)

This latest tape collection, chronicled elsewhere on this site today, has Nixon plotting with aide H.R. Haldeman to get the income taxes of Clark Clifford, a Vietnam War critic and former Secretary of Defense, audited.

They were also plotting to get "TK" in a compromising situation for unexplained reasons. Some people think "TK" is Ted Kennedy.

The 37th president of the United States was also very concerned about checking "across-the-board loyalty" of all White House staff. Naturally, like any presidential paranoid, Nixon was especially concerned about photographs of other presidents hanging in the presidential residence.

Who wouldn't be?

On Nixon's orders to aide Alexander Butterfield (the same aide who would later reveal to Congress the secret tapes' existence), photos of all other presidents were safely removed from the White House's 35 offices -- except for two that remained hanging in the workspace of a very suspicious woman named Edna Rosenberg.

Her FBI, CIA and Secret Service files were thoroughly checked but had obviously been cleansed of any evidence of Communist influence over the woman who'd worked in that building longer than anyone else, 41 years.

Especially incriminating about Rosenberg was the fact that Nixon noticed one photo on her office wall showing President John F. Kennedy, who some people named Richard Nixon remembered had narrowly defeated Richard Nixon for president in 1960.

Worse, that photo had been personally signed to Edna by Kennedy.

"On January 14th," a Butterfield memo later reported to the president, "the project was completed and all 35 offices displayed only your photograph."

--Andrew Malcolm

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