PRIORITIES.

One thing you hear fairly often these days is that Barack obama hasn't been clear enough on his priorities. I'd take the opposite view: I think he's been surprisingly clear on his priorities, and where he'll put his energy. Last week, he sat down with Wolf Blitzer, and their exchange is worth a straight quote:

BLITZER: Priorities are going to be critical. I'm going to give you five issues. You tell me which one of these five would be your top priority after you're inaugurated on January 20th -- if you're inaugurated. Health care reform, energy independence, a new tax code, including tax cuts for the middle class, education spending or comprehensive immigration reform. Top priority?OBAMA: The top priorities may not be any of those five. It may be continuing to stabilize the financial system. We don't know yet what's going to happen in January. And none of this can be accomplished if we continue to see a potential meltdown in the banking system or the financial system. So that's priority one, making sure that the plumbing works in our capitalist system.Priority number two of the list that you have listed -- have put forward, I think has to be energy independence. We have to seize this moment, because it's not just an energy independence issue, it's also a national security issue and it's a jobs issue. And we can create five million new green energy jobs with a serious program.Priority number three would be health care reform. I think the time is right to do it.Priority number four is making sure that we have tax cuts for the middle class and it's part of a broader tax reform effort.Priority number five, I think would be -- would be making sure that we have an education system that works for all children.One thing I want to make a point of, though. The tax cut that I talked about may be part of my priority number one, because I think that's going to be part of stabilizing the economy as a whole. I think we are going to need a second stimulus. One of my commitments is to make sure that that stimulus includes a tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans. That may be the first bill that I introduce.

Immigration, as I think one might expect, gets dropped from the priority list entirely. Tax cuts are third, but first if they qualify as stimulus. Energy independence is atop the list. Then health care. He really hasn't been opaque on any of this.