What You Need to Know: 12.17.08

Time Magazine's Person of the Year 2008: Barack Obama
"It is here that we find Barack Obama one soul-freezingly cold December day, mentally unpacking the crate of crushing problems — some old, some new, all ugly — that he is about to inherit as the 44th President of the United States. Most of his hours inside the presidential-transition office are spent in this bland and bare-bones room. You would think the President-elect — a guy who draws 100,000 people to a speech in St. Louis, Mo., who raises three-quarters of a billion dollars, who is facing the toughest first year since Franklin Roosevelt's — might merit a leather chair. Maybe a credenza? A hutch?"

Obama picks Vilsack, Salazar for Cabinet
"Barack Obama is on a pre-holiday roll to fill his Cabinet, with two more nominations in former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack for agriculture secretary and Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to lead the Interior Department."

Bush Prepares Crisis Briefings to Aid Obama
"The White House has prepared more than a dozen contingency plans to help guide President-elect Barack Obama if an international crisis erupts in the opening days of his administration, part of an elaborate operation devised to smooth the first transition of power since Sept. 11, 2001.

The memorandums envision a variety of volatile possibilities, like a North Korean nuclear explosion, a cyberattack on American computer systems, a terrorist strike on United States facilities overseas or a fresh outbreak of instability in the Middle East, according to people briefed on them. Each then outlines options for Mr. Obama to consider."