Office of the President-elect?

First there was the web site:


Then there was the podium placard:



Does the "Office of the President-elect" really exist anywhere besides the gargantuan ego of Barack Obama? Is there really such a thing? No, I'm serious...help me out here. I've been through a lot of presidential elections, and can't ever remember anything like this. Did I just miss it?

I checked the index at www.usa.gov, and here's what we've got:


Office of this, that and the other thing, but no "Office of the President-elect". So I did a site search, and turned up a link to Obama's creepy change.gov web site, which as has been pointed out by many others already, looks more like a fund-raising web site for Obama's 2012 re-election bid.

Soooo...when do they knock down the Washington Monument to make room for the Temple of Obama?

Update: Holy crap, even a Kos Kid agrees.

Update: Michelle Malkin has a post on this topic, with an update from a reader that says:

“The Office of the President-elect comes from the Presidential Transition Act of 1963. Stephanopoulos signed letters back in 1992 from the ‘Office of the President-elect.’ That said, I agree that ‘change.gov’ and all of that is ostentatious. Let Obama have his fun now. Come January, the buck stops with him, and no amount of ‘branding’ or voting ‘present’ will save him.”

At the end of the post is the text of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963, which authorizes the provision of personnel, funding, equipment, etc. to aid the President and Vice-President elect in the transition. But there's absolutely nothing there that establishes an "Office of the President Elect", and the phrase appears nowhere within the text of the act.