P-I Editorial: When the state's budget projects a $5.1 billion shortfall, it's time for Extreme Makeover -- the government edition.

P-I Editorial: The country must break with torture, Guantanamo and the culture of fear that has fostered abuses in Iraq, Afghanistan and still-unknown places of secret-detention horrors. On his first day in office, Barack Obama should begin the process.

P-I Editorial: It's bad enough that the Bush administration wasted most of a decade of time to protect the world's climate. Now, it's putting its operatives into non-political civil service positions where they can impede wiser environmental policies.

Scads of Bush's political appointees throughout the government are moving quickly into top-level Civil Service career positions for their personal job security and maybe to keep their hands on a Cabinet department's conservative policies.

The wounds of U.S. intervention in Latin America are still raw. President-elect Barack Obama has an opportunity to reach out and grab the extended olive branch being offered by Bolivia's President Evo Morales.

D.J. Wilson, guest columnist: The world of health care and that of politics are like oil and water. A new book, "Dear Governor: About That Healthcare Crisis," tries to address the cultural differences that inhibit good policy.

Jendayi Frazer, the outgoing assistant secretary for African affairs, is one of the few people left in D.C. who can praise the Bush administration and not be laughed out of town. The reason is the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Christine Lopez, guest columnist: While suicide is typically the result of a complicated stew of life events and circumstances, the main ingredient is almost always an underlying illness.

The Independent: If Obama is really to make the changes from his predecessor's policies and present a new face to an expectant world, he would be best using Clinton in a different capacity -- just as she would be best keeping her independence.

Dale McFeatters: If 4 million people show up for the inauguration, it may finally answer a long debated question: How many people can the 300-acre National Mall hold? It has never been filled to capacity.

Deroy Murdock, guest columnist: Americans slouch into the 21st century -- a free and confident people blissfully unaware of how we got here or how we shall continue our 232-year-old tradition of limited self-government.

John Young, guest columnist: Without question, the excessive idling issue has more dimensions than the drive-through lane or the driveway on a frigid morning.

With two controversial appointments -- Holder and Clinton -- the new president might just get an early lesson or two about Washington that he missed while spending so much time stumping for the job.

Sooner or later, the Republican Party has to boost its appeal among minorities, the young and the educated. Every sign is that moment will be later rather than sooner.

With Georgians mauled by the bear in the August war, they desperately want to join NATO for protection, and one of the few things Obama and McCain agreed on was to oblige by continuing the process of admitting Georgia into NATO.

If this nation set the goal of rebuilding the railroads and working out something with Detroit automakers that would produce the engines and the passenger and luggage cars, we would be on the way to a new kind of American life.