The Saturday radio addresses are built in a tradition that started with the "fireside chats" over radio by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression, and then during World War II. Roosevelt had huge listening audiences during his pre-television tenure. Nowadays, far fewer Americans tune in during the weekend, but the Saturday radio addresses have become a tradition.

Did Barack Obama break the audience for Saturday college football? Probably not, but he started to carry on this tradition, even though he still is President-elect rather than President until the inauguration on January 20.

Barack Obama made that point during the first Obama press conference on Friday. He stated that "we only have one president at a time" and that he would place his full support behind George W. Bush during the interim. Barack and Michelle Obama are scheduled to meet George and Laura Bush for a White House walk-through on Monday, but as Obama stated, he and George also will have some time to discuss substantive policy issues.

When Obama and Bush talk, the first task may be to put hard feelings aside. After all, the entire base of the Obama campaign was to negatively tie George W. Bush to John McCain's campaign in a negative portrayal of failure. McCain was a maverick indeed, bolting around like a colt in his quest to break any ties to Bush. But there behind McCain, presided President George W. Bush, all the time overlooking from the White House, but disabled from pressing the Republican cause because his popular rating numbers are so low.

Bush will retain the Saturday radio microphone for 10 Saturdays after today, with a Democratic response allowed. It's hard to believe that Barack Obama in person will deliver the 10 Saturday responses. Obama will probably will place members of his new administration into the Saturday chair. For this particular first Saturday, Obama took it upon himself to emphasize that midde-class tax cuts are at the core of his program.

Dialogue on the Saturday radio addresses will tell us whether Obama, in cooperation with Bush, is accomplishing a bipartisan approach for dealing with the immediate economic crisis.

SOURCE

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/08/obama.radio/