That said, as I note, there's a full percentage point difference between 2008 job losses and 1982. Even with allowance for fudging, I don't think you can say problems now are significantly worse than they were then.

News of Warren's involvement in the inauguration came out of the congressional committee working on the inauguration instead of from Obama's own inaugural committee, a wholly separate entity.

At least initially, aides for Obama's inaugural committee said the decision had come from Congress, not Obama. In fact, that wasn't the case at all.

"That was solely the choice of the president-elect," said Gil Duran, a spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who chairs the congressional committee. Obama'' staff sent explicit orders for whom to include in the inaugural ceremony up to Capitol Hill, since Congress is, technically, in charge of that part of the day.

"Sen. Feinstein obviously disagrees with the views of Rev. Warren on issues that affect the gay and lesbian community," Duran said.

Warren's spokesman, A. Larry Ross, told Salon Obama had contacted Warren to invite him, not the other way around.

In a statement, Warren said, "I commend President-elect Obama for his courage to willingly take enormous heat from his base by inviting someone like me, with whom he doesn't agree on every issue, to offer the invocation at his historic inaugural ceremony."

Malik Rahim is the founder of Common Ground Collective Under Malik's leadership, the Common Ground Collective opened the first free health clinic in the city of New Orleans, helped reopen schools, gutted over 3,000 homes that needed repair in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and provided direct services to nearly 200,000 returning residents.