Here is the latest video from the fine folks at JibJab Media, whose online political satires were among the first viral ones on the Web.

Titled “He’s Barack Obama,” it premiered tonight in front of the President at the 65th Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C.

The two-minute Obama video–which you can see below (with a little JibJab promo at the end)–is being launched in conjunction with JibJab’s Facebook Connect integration, so all comments on the video will run through the social-networking site’s platform.

Here’s the video:

And here’s JibJab’s press release on the video:

JIBJAB ROCKS OBAMA

JibJab assembles all-star rock band and premiers latest video with President in attendance at the 65th Annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner.

WASHINGTON, DC–June 19, 2009–JibJab, a leader in digital greetings and online entertainment, premiered its first satire of the Obama administration this evening at the 65th Annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner with the President himself in attendance.

The 2-minute musical video, entitled “He’s Barack Obama,” features the 44th US President in a super hero suit battling the challenges of our times to a heavy metal rendition of the American Civil War song, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”

He’ll use his super powers to win in Iraq,
Then kung-fu chop the Taliban! Ka-chow! Ka-cha!
Our image in the world he’ll mend,
Then make the Jews and Arabs friends!
He’s Barack Obama,
He’s come to save the day!

In a departure from their banjo-centric musicals of the Bush era, JibJab assembled an all-star rock band to perform “He’s Barack Obama.” Foo Fighters’ Chris Shiflet and Taylor Hawkins were joined by Chris Chaney, Jane’s Addiction, Roger Joseph Manning Jr., Jellyfish and Beck, and Jess Harnell, renowned television and film voice actor, under the direction of composer, John Frizzell, whose film scoring credits include “Office Space” and “Beavis & Butthead Do America.”

The video’s animation style also represents a radical departure from past JibJab productions, replacing simple collage animation with a combination of frame-by-frame character animation and live action video.

“With a new President came the opportunity to push into new creative territory,” said JibJab co-founder and Head Art Guy, Evan Spiridellis. “Our goal was to push the quality of made-for-the-web entertainment farther than anyone has ever pushed it before and we hope our audience enjoys it.”

The video can be seen for free at http://JibJab.com.

This is the second time JibJab has premiered a video for a sitting U.S. President. In 2007, the company released a satire of the news media entitled “What We Call the News” for George W. Bush at the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner.

“We live in an incredible time when creators can get their work out to a mass audience without gatekeepers,” said JibJab co-founder and CEO Guy, Gregg Spiridellis. “When we started the company 10 years ago, we couldn’t have dreamed that we’d have the incredible honor of entertaining two sitting U.S. Presidents. God bless the Interweb.”

Today, for interested lawyers, the American Bar Association is hosting a “brown bag” lunch and discussion in Washington, D.C. on the now-scuttled Google/Yahoo deal.

Ominously titled: THE GOOGLE/YAHOO! AGREEMENT AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE ANTITRUST ENFORCEMENT IN ONLINE ADVERTISING, the event will be held at noon until 1:30 pm EST at the law offices of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft at 1201 F Street NW. (Cadwalader worked for Microsoft on its failed Yahoo bid, by the way.)

Still, the gathering could not come at a more perfect time, given that comScore’s 2008 Digital Year In Review report, released yesterday, showed the power of Google (GOOG) at an all-time high, no matter how much Yahoo-chasing, lawyer-rattling and lobbying Microsoft (MSFT) has done.

According to Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski:

“Google began the year claiming 58.5 percent of all search queries and ended it with 63.5 percent. Moreover, of the 137 billion search queries conducted in the states last year, 85 billion were handled by Google. That means Google claimed nearly 90 percent of the total growth in search query volume for the year.”

In addition, Google was ranked as the top U.S. Internet property for 2008 and its influence even outpaced Internet growth. The U.S. Internet population grew four percent in 2008, while Google sites, such as the flagship Google, YouTube and Blogger, grew 12 percent.

Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft have both lagged far behind in the search market.

BoomTown’s translation of those scary-Google stats: The Justice Department Lawyer–Antitrust Division–Employment Act of, say, 2015.

Here’s the description of the event, so those lawyers can be ready when that particular rapture–for Microsoft, at least–takes place:

When Google and Yahoo! abandoned their proposed agreement last November, the Justice Department issued a statement identifying relevant antitrust markets and addressing the likelihood of anticompetitive effects.

Recordings of this Brown Bag Program will be posted on the Section’s website Members Only area and are downloadable in an MP3 format, free of charge, at http://www.abanet.org/antitrust/at-bb/bb-audio.shtml.

Live Earth–famous for its huge global entertainment concerts in 2007–will open its 2009 Green Inaugural Ball to the online community by taking video submissions, some of which will be shown at the event taking place in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 19.

Partnering with Magnify.net as part of a larger deal with the online video company, Live Earth is creating a global video channel for the inauguration.

Anyone can submit a new or existing short film or video to the Live Earth video site, which launches this morning, “expressing ideas as to how President Barack Obama and his administration can use clean energy and green technology to change the country, save the economy, and solve the climate crisis.”

That’s right, my friends, welcome to the Internet-astic, BlackBerry-loving, You-Tubing, Twittering Obama administration. Luddites need not apply.

Finally, someone who might actually understand the Internet will be taking charge of the thus-far lackadaisical government body that plays the largest role in spurring its growth.

The Washington Post is reporting that Julius Genachowski (pictured here) will be tapped to take on the always controversial job of chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Sources with knowledge of the situation also confirmed the appointment, which will be announced in the next few days, to BoomTown.

Genachowski has previously worked for the FCC as its chief counsel under former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt. But he is better known to Silicon Valley as a longtime Internet exec at Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI).

He is now a founder of a Washington, D.C.-based venture firm called LaunchBox Digital, which has invested in a plethora of unusually trendy Web 2.0 companies.

One of its investments, the social news aggregation service Socialmedian, was recently acquired by the German-based business networking site Xing for $7.5 million.

And Genachowski is also a co-founder and managing director of Rock Creek Ventures, another venture firm, and a special adviser at General Atlantic.

Perhaps most notably, he went to law school with President-Elect Barack Obama.

Thus, Genachowski worked the tech sector tirelessly for Obama’s election, along with organizing the campaign’s successful social-networking and online fund-raising campaign.

He was also clearly on the short list to be America’s first chief technology officer, which might be too light on policy-making and too heavy on pontificating for Genachowski’s tastes.

As top telecom and, really, Internet regulator, Genachowski will have a lot more power and even more on his plate, including the rocky shift from analog to digital television, now set to take place next month, as well as dealing with net neutrality and a range of other key Web issues.

But top of the agenda will likely be how to make real Obama’s promise to drastically improve broadband access across this nation and lowering prices.

The slow speeds and high costs are an appalling legacy of Washington regulators and politicians, who have lived too long and too deep in the pockets of big telecom companies.

That has made the U.S. exactly what Softbank founder Masa Son once called in an interview I did with him at a D: All Things Digital conference: the “Third World of broadband.”

Hey, Julius, you’ll fix that, right?

President-Elect Barack Obama arrived in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, which was the first step in what is likely to be one of the most historic inaugural events in American history.

The official inauguration takes place Tuesday, January 20, the exact date stipulated by the Twentieth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Obamas arrived Saturday and took up residence at the Hay-Adams Hotel, right across Lafayette Park from the White House, which was caught better than any news footage I saw by a tourist with a video camera and posted quickly online.

So begins the YouTube Presidency.

Well, one thing is certain from looking at it: Yes, President-Elect Obama can do massive motorcades!

Here is that video, along with the popular celeb-packed video “Yes We Can,” which was done early in 2008 by will.i.am.

Curiously, it feels a bit out-of-touch now that what needs to be tackled by the new administration is quite a bit more serious than we all thought back then.

Are Google and Yahoo thinking of walking of away from their controversial search advertising deal, as reported in an amusingly hedged report in The Wall Street Journal last night?

How’s this for covering your bases in a story: “Following a meeting Thursday with the Justice Department, the companies could announce a decision to back away from the partnership–or a last-minute resolution, if one is reached–by the middle of next week, according to these sources.”

So they will back away unless, of course, they don’t and soon?

I would bet my Barry Manilow record collection, based on rumblings on Wednesday among those close to the case, that Google (GOOG) is a key whispery source here, sending a very public signal to the Justice Department that it would walk if pushed too far and leave regulators with egg on their faces for not letting the search giant help the struggling Yahoo.

But, let me be even more concrete, since The Journal report is dead wrong on at least one count. I can tell you for sure, based on many sources close to Yahoo (YHOO) that walking away is its last option, outside of a lawsuit, and it still hopes to make the partnership work.

That was underlined last night in a statement by Washington D.C.-based Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler:

“We have been working with the Department of Justice regarding our agreement with Google and those discussions are ongoing. As we have said, we believe strongly that this agreement will strengthen Yahoo!’s competitive position in online advertising and will help to drive a more robust, higher quality Yahoo! marketplace for our advertisers, publishers and users.”

And I do not believe she is spinning here, even though that is her job.

Indeed, Yahoo can ill afford to pull out so easily, because it needs the revenue the deal might provide and simply cannot take the hit to its stock the collapse of the partnership would entail.

Such a series of one-two punches after its already tumultuous year would be devastating. It would also put Yahoo in the direct crosshairs of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer as its only partnering alternative in search.

Going it alone, of course, while preferable, is no longer an easy option for Yahoo, since keeping its No. 2 position in search would be expensive and brutal, especially sandwiched by No. 1 Google and No. 3 Microsoft (MSFT).

And, even more vexing, several sources at Time Warner (TWX) told me they are waiting until the resolution of the Yahoogle situation before consummating the ongoing merger discussions with Yahoo, because of the uncertainty of the impact on the Internet giant.

“It is linked to and just overhangs everything,” said one Yahoo exec about the long-pending Google partnership. “We want and need this deal, and would not be the ones to walk away first.”

As I have written, that would be Google, which benefits a lot from the will-they-or-won’t-they speculation here and cannot mind letting its intentions get some play (along with state attorneys general, who were also present at the Thursday meeting, and for whom leaking for simple self-aggrandizement is a basic character trait).

In fact, there was already much chatter that reached me on Wednesday that Google was sprinkling crumbs here and there to the media pigeons, all centered around the fact that it might balk at any onerous Justice Department demands, such as caps on search it could serve, or a consent decree that would require monitoring.

The Journal story mentioned the consent decree, which would be welcomed at Googleplex in Mountain view, Calif., like nonorganic mango nectar and bleached flour. The idea of regulators ferreting around its servers is simply not an option for the secretive company.

As I wrote early yesterday about the possibility of Google walking, in a predictive laundry list of options for Yahoogle earlier yesterday:

It seems far more likely that Google would do this than Yahoo, given its corporate culture is impatient with moving forward illogically (think Spock and you have the right picture of Google’s mindset).

I would imagine Google execs do not want to accept any caps or changes to the deal at all, and might conclude such restrictions make it not as worthwhile…

Plus, the joy of government regulators breathing down your neck 24/7 is, well, priceless, especially after Google CEO Eric Schmidt told regulators he would move forward with or without them.

While Google has now perhaps permanently put the government on notice that is must be more scrutinized than ever going forward with that unfortunate statement, I would be surprised if Google accepted any substantial changes to the deal.”

And, while it might be testing the Justice Department in hopes of salvaging the deal, I suspect Google–as much as its founders want to help out Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and block Microsoft at the same time–is just now figuring out that walking might actually be the best move.

First off, even though it moved forward with the partnership, many top execs at the company were dead set against it, mostly due to the undue scrutiny it would bring to Google.

In fact, early on, some of its own operatives in D.C. expressed worry–largely ignored at HQ, where execs really do see themselves as not evil–about Google’s growing image as a scary behemoth.

Second, while Google seldom runs from a good fight–in fact, it often runs directly towards them–tangling with the federal government might be like crossing the 38th Parallel in Korea for the company. And you know how that went for General Douglas MacArthur!

It would certainly put the full attention of regulators on every move Google might make in the future, which is not good.

Third, the Yahoogle controversy, while being stoked by Microsoft’s relentless lobbying, has also brought into the light exactly how scared of Google’s power advertisers truly are.

And that would be terrified.

The company cannot simply blame Microsoft for manufacturing this fuss–even though it has surely pulled out all the stops in its bag of tricks.

In truth, whether Google chooses to accept this stark reality or not, many advertisers, publishers and public interest groups have been raising some real concerns about its dominance, which it ignores at its peril.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, times have changed drastically as the economy has tanked.

Thus, Google–like a lot of other tech firms–has been engaged in a very serious company-wide appraisal of its business in the downturn.

One of Google’s internal mantras, I have been told by many inside and outside the company, is a variation of this phrase: Feed the winners, starve the losers.

It would come as no surprise, given the initial internal doubt about the partnership, that the Yahoogle deal might have suddenly become perceived at the company as a loser, and access to Google’s fabulous cafeteria might be about to be cut off.

Whatever Google’s true intentions, in playing chicken, it is courting danger.

According to Wikipedia, “the principle of the game is that while each player prefers not to yield to the other, the outcome where neither player yields is the worst possible one for both players.”

As in, if everyone is trying to win, it always ends in a fatal crash.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

But–as many readers have requested–they will all be available in their entirety in this column.

Here’s an interview Walt Mossberg and I did with Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin and Verizon Wireless (VZ) CEO Lowell McAdam jointly. We paired the two together to talk about big issues facing the wireless industry, including low broadband speeds and high prices.

The video of the interview is in three parts, all of which I will post this week.

In this first part, Martin talks about why broadband speed is so slow and prices are so high (the U.S. apparently has density issues!), the difficulty of getting consensus in Washington, D.C. and more open wireless networks, while McAdams discusses the challenges with local governments.