politixc

Scott Brown: Win Sends "Powerful Message"

2010-01-20T13:20:00.001-08:00

Scott Brown: Win Sends "Powerful Message"
Newly Elected Massachusetts Senator Says Obama Should "Recalibrate How He Wants to Govern"
Obama: Anger management and outrage

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama gets it, both he and the White House are saying todayhe gets the "anger and frustration" exposed by the special election in Massachusetts that cost his party a filibuster-proof Senate.

That said, a reporter asked the White House today: "When does President Obama get angry?"

"I've seen.... uh, look...'" replied a cautious press secretary, who appeared interested in dispelling the "No-drama" myth surrounding a cool and collected president but not in sharing any family secrets.

The press, spokesman Robert Gibbs noted, has pointed out that "the president seemed exercised' when he has spoken of the excesses of Wall Street. That gets the people going, Gibbs said, and it gets the president going, too.

"I can assure the American people that there are things that get him going," Gibbs said of Obama, adding. "You don't see the president pounding on the desk for the sake of political theater."

Does Mass. Result Imperil Democratic Majorities?

What does last night's big upset by the GOP in Massachusetts portend for the 2010 midterm elections? The Democrats have lost their filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate, and could be losing quite a few more seats in both the Senate and the House come November. Amy Walter, editor in chief of Hotline, offers her insight.

Massachusetts: Revolt of the middle

2010-01-20T01:20:00.001-08:00

GOP's Scott Brown Wins Mass. Senate Race
GOP Candidate, a Dark Horse a Month Ago, Represents Crucial 41st Senate Vote for Republicans
Massachusetts: Revolt of the middle

by Mark Silva and updated

A little over a year ago, President Barack Obama carried Massachusetts by about 25 percentage points in an election that signalled a readiness for "change '' -- yet about what one would expect from the only state tthat backed George McGovern in 1972.

Less than one month ago, Martha Coakley, the Democratic attorney general in Massachusetts, held an apparent 15-percentage point advantage in her contest with Republican state Sen. Scott Brown in a special election for the Senate seat of the late and long-serving Sen. Edward M. Kennedy -- about what one would expect in a state that sent Kennedy to Washington for nearly five decades.

Yet tonight, the Bay State went Republican.

This, however, is not a tale of Democrats versus Republicans.

This is a story about the vast middle ground of voters who have no real use for either party. Tonight, they rejected the party in power.

They voted for "change.''

Massachusetts: This is a state where one's political affiliation, like one's religion, or one's ethnicity, might as well have been embossed in one's birth certificate in the old days.

In the new day, more than 2 million of Massachusetts' registered voters are "unenrolled'' in any political party -- more than the roughly 1.5 million registered Democratic, more than the roughly 500,000 registered Republican.

This much is clear: Republicans did not elect Brown, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

The unenrolled did.

The implication for the president's party is less clear.

It will be tempting for the president's party to write off the loss in Massachusetts as a lesson in bad campaigning: Coakley's lackadaisacal, take-it-for-granted approach to the race until, too late, recognzing the trouble she was in and calling on the president to help bail her out. But Brown and his pickup truck didn't come from nowhere.

It will be much easier for voters, particulary all of those middle-ground, unenrolled voters whom national polls have portrayed as moving to the right during the past year, to take the Massachusetts vote as a measure of how unhappy Americans are with an agenda that is notable for one thing: Big spending.

Everything that Obama has promoted during his first year in ofice -- an anniversary arriving the day after the election in Massachusetts -- has relied upon big spending. The $787-billion economic stimulus. The $1-trillion-or-so, depending on whose version prevails, health-care bill. The cap-and-trade energy bill. And now, even education, albeit a mere $1.35-billion price tag on Obama's plan to expand the "Race to the Top."

And then there are the wars.

Brown campaigned, at the end, as "the 41th vote'' for the Republicans in the Senate -- a bloc sufficient to stop the Democratic agenda in its trakcs. But he is not so much the GOP's 41st vote as he is the middle-ground's key vote.

The president, whose party faces midterm congressional elections in November that threaten an even deeper erosion of his party's control over Congress, will have to assess in coming days how seriously he takes the message of the unenrolled in Massachusetts. He can take advantage of a slow certification of the vote in the Bay State to propel his health-care legislation in the waning days of a Democratic super-majority. He can push the Senate's passed bill through the House.

Yet, that too, could carry a toll.

The president telephoned both of the Senate contenders tonight. He told Brown, the newest and Republican member of the Senate that he looks forward to working with him.

The president will not have a lot of time to reframe his agenda in the terms of the benefits that Americans stand to gain from it, as opposed to what it will cost them. But if there is any hope for the president's agenda in the coming months, it will take some recasting.

Around the nation, the unenrolled are waiting to vote this fall.

California Dreaming? Governor To Ask Feds For Funds

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says California residents pay more in federal taxes than they receive. He travels to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to make a long-shot request for $7 billion in new federal money for his state.

2010-01-19T13:20:00.001-08:00

Massachusetts Election Brings High Turnout
Republican Scott Brown, Democrat Martha Coakley in Tight Senate Battle that Could Alter Balance of Power
White House: 'Frustration and anger' real

by Mark Silva

The White House, for now, is avoiding any post-mortem analysis of the special election in Massachusetts.

And mortem could be the operative word, as it applies to the White House's agenda, if the vote goes the way Republicans hope it will in Massachusetts

At the same time, the administration is providing something of a preview of how it is likely to attempt to explain any loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat, the 60-vote hold that the party has in the Senate, and with that much of the president's hopes for a successful domestic agenda this year

"We're going to have plenty of time to get into the back and forth of all this,'' Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said just now, here at the White House press briefing. "I'd prefer to do that when we know what the result is...

"We'll have a chance to discuss the outcome of the election when we know the outcome of the election,'' Gibbs said with a sober tone and insistence on averting any debate at this stage. "I think there is, obviously, and there isn't something that's known simply because there is an election in one state, I think there is a trremendous amount of upset and anger in this country about where we are economically...

"In many ways, we're here because of that upset and anger,'' Gibbs said of the Obama administration. "I think the president, who reads letters from people everyday, will be in Ohio doing a town-hall meeting later this week -- I think there is no doubt that people will express anger and frustration about where we are...'

"The president understands that there is frustration out there, and is frustrated himsef.''

The White House, however, is not ready to concede its health-care agenda to a potential loss in Massachusetts and loss of the 60th Senate vote. The president wants health care passed today, Gibbs said, and he will want it passed tomorrow.

Gibbs alllowed, too, that the president himself has voiced some surprise at how close today's special election appeared to be in a reliably Democratic state. "He was both surprised and frustrated,'' Gibbs said of Obama -- "not pleased.''

7 Things At Stake In Massachusetts Senate Race

The outcome of Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts has turned into a cliffhanger, with Democrats facing the possible loss of a Senate seat held by Kennedys for nearly 60 years. From the Obama agenda to the Tea Party's momentum, here's a look at what's at stake.

2010-01-18T13:20:00.001-08:00

Obama Volunteers on MLK Day
Obama Joins Honors for Slain Civil Rights Leader
Obama's first-year approval: 57 percent

by Mark Silva

Only one president in modern times has ended his first year in office with lower approvalviewed as an average for the yearthan the rating with which President Obama concludes his year.

Bill Clinton.

In the Gallup Poll's measures of job approval since the 1950s, Clinton's average approval during his first year was 49 percent.

With an average first-year approval of 57 percent, Gallup reports today, Obama ties Ronald Reagan for second-lowest first-year average.

It's important to remember in this context that both Clinton and Reagan went on to win second terms.

It' may not be so much Obama's first year, however, as it is his second year that presents a fuller picture of the president's performance..

It starts with Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts, on the eve of the president's anniversary in office. If pre-election polls are rightand special elections, with notoriously low voter-turnout, are difficult to predictthe president's party is in trouble there.

Losing the seat of the late and longtime senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, champion of the health-care reforms which Obama is now attempting to push through Congress, will certainly be taken as a comment on the presidency itself. Obama put his chips on the table with an 11th-hour campaign appearance in Boston.

Throughout the country, independent voters who have a way of deciding contests have grown restless during the past yearand any revolt in Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, will be seen as an ominous precursor of the 2010 midterm elections.

It's not only health-care that's at stake for Obama this week. It's financial regulation, energy legislation, immigration reform and more, an ambitious domestic agenda for which a second-year president heading into volatile midterm elections will need all the help he can get.

Saving that seat, however, won't get the president's party out of the woods. Even if Democrats can hold their 60-vote grip on the Senate, pushing the final agreement that leaders reach on health-care through the Congress could be the highest hurdle Obama has faced yet.

It's not so much popularity as performance that clinches a second term.

Clinton was elected with less than 50 percent of the vote during his first bid for officebenefitting from the vote-splitting presence of the third-party Ross Perot candidacy. Obama was elected with an Electoral College landslide, albeit a modest majority of the popular vote.

George W. Bush was elected without the majority of the popular vote his first time running, yet, thanks largely to the impact that the attacks of 9/11 had on the public's view of him after a year in office, he enjoyed an average approval rating of 68 percent his first year. Public concern for national security carried him to a second term.

First-year measures of popularity may not amount to much in the long run. Performance, however, counts. And the outcome of this week's special election in the Bay State, at the threshold of Obama's second year in office, will have a great bearing on this president's performance the rest of this year.

Opponents Threaten Court Battle On Health Mandate

A major component of the health bills grinding through Congress right now is a new requirement that nearly everyone buy health insurance — a so-called individual mandate. But conservatives who oppose the health care overhaul have threatened to challenge this mandate on constitutional grounds.

2010-01-17T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Obama Remembers Dr. King
President Obama spoke at services at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and how faith has guided him through troubling times.
Obama: Faith keeps him calm

by Mark Silva and updated with service

President Barack Obama, speaking today from the pulpit of a church where the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sometimes spoke, called on the congregation to rally around the spirit which had helped their ancestors pursue a long road to freedom.

"It's that progress that allowed me to be here today,'' said Obama, the first African American president.

The president, who doesn't frequently attend Sunday church services in Washington and has not found a permanent congregation for his family in the capital, joined in the services this morning at the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church. The president arrived with First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha.

The church, founded in 1866 by seven freed slaves, originally was known as the Fifth Baptist Church of Washington, DC.

"It feels like a family,'' Obama told the congregation.

There are at least a couple of occasions which might have prompted today's outing -- the deaths of tens of thousands of Haitians in an earthquake which has shaken all of the Americas, as well as the birthday of the slain civil rights leader, King, whose birthday is celebrated on Monday with a national holiday.

"We gather here on the Sabbath at a time of extreme difficulty for our nation and the world,'' the president said, speaking much like a preacher from the church pulpit. "We are not here just to ask the Lord for his blessing. We're also here to call on the memory of one of his servants, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.''

Obama said he had come to "a church founded by freed slaves... whose congregants set out for marches... from whose sanctuary King himself would sermonize from time to time.''

This was as much of a sermon as it was a speech. King "trusted God,'' the president said. "He had faith that God would make a way out of now way...

"Folks ask me sometimes, 'Why do you look so calm?'' Obama said on a particularly personal note, with his voice rising in a crescendo.

"I have a confession to make here,'' he said. "There are times when I am not so calm... There are times when the words spoken about me hurt. There are times when the barbs hurt... During that time, it is faith that brings me calm.''

With a recitation of the history of the modern civil rights moment, the president spoke today of the "despair about whether the movement they had placed so many of their hopes... could actually deliver on its promise...

"Here we are more than a half century later, once again facing the challenges of a new age... once again marching toward an unknown new future,'' Obama said.

"We've inherited the progress of unjust laws which are now overturned...
We've enjoyed the fruits of prejudice and bigotry being lifted.... From human hearts.''
Noting that this progress had made his own election possible, Obama said: "There were some who said that somehow we had entered into a post-racial Americaall of those problems would be solved... There were some who said we had entered into an era of post-partisanshipthat didn't work out so well...

"We know the promise of that moment has not been fully fulfilled,'' the president told the congregation.

This is a president who hasn't quickly found a new sanctuary for his family in a town far from home, a town where the president's former longtime association with one church -- particularly one pastor -- became a problem for his campaign for the White House.

Since severing his ties with the United Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago where the now-retired Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered sermons which, by the president's own admission, were racially "incendiary,'' Obama has been in search of a new church.

Time magazine once reported that the Obamas had chosen the chapel at Camp David, the Maryland mountain retreat that presidents have used since the 1950s. The White House said Time got the story wrong.

Observers thought the president had signaled his intentions in visiting the little St. John's church across the park across the street from the White House, a sanctuary that his predecessor often used. But Obama hasn't attended services there very much.

"Folks are wondering, where do we go from here?'' Obama said to a larger question about economic hardships today.

"Yes, we're passing through a hard winterit's the hardest in some time,'' Obama said. "But let's always remember that, as a people, the American people, we've weathered some hard winters before.''

Obama cited the slaves who escaped via the Underground Railroad"they weathered a hard winter.''

"What we need to do is to just ask what lessons we can learn from those earlier generations,'' Obama said. "Let us, in this Joshua Generation learn how that Moses Generation overcame.... They did so by remaining firm in their resolve...

"The economy is growing again,'' Obama said. "We are making progress.''

The president also made a pitch for his health-care initiative, to applause from the congregation. "This will be a victory not for Democrats,'' he said. "This will be a victory for decency and dignity.''

It is "tempting,'' Obama said, "to give up on the political process... Progress is possible. Don't give up on voting. Don't give up on advocacy. Don't give up on activism.''

As King had said, Obama said today, "progress must come from within.'' Obama, noting that people are wont to say that he is addressing the black community on occasions such as this, said, "No, no, no -- I'm talking to the American community.''

Video: Trying to Keep Haiti Alive

2010-01-16T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Trying to Keep Haiti Alive
Some reports indicate that the death toll could reach over 100,000 in Haiti. CBS News' Jeff Glor, Kelly Cobiella, and David Martin provide coverage of this historic disaster.
Obama, Bush, Clinton: U.S., Haitian unity

by Mark Silva

Three presidents from opposing parties stood united outside the White House this morning to signal the launch of an aggressive private fundraising drive for the earthquake-stricken nation of Haiti.

"These two leaders send an unmistakable message to the people of Haiti and the world,'' Obama said of the former presidents flanking him in the Rose Garden. "In a moment of need, the United States stands united.''

Obama, in turning to his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, and Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, has borrowed a page from the Bush playbook in the aftermath of a South Asian tsunami that claimed a massive toll in 2004: Bush tapped Clinton and the president's father, former President George H.W. Bush, to spearhead fundraising.

"This is a model that works,'' Obama said.

Bush spoke bluntly of the challenge posed by an earthquake that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and left the Haitian capital in ruinsand he spoke even more bluntly about what Americans can do.

"Our hearts are broken when we see the scenes of little children struggling without a mom or dad, or the bodies on the ground or the physical damage of the earthquake,'' Bush said. "The most effective way for Americans to help the people of Haiti is to contribute money...

"I know a lot of Americans want to send blankets and water,'' Bush said, with a knowing nod, looking at the cameras: "Just send your cash.''

Clinton, who also already is serving as the special United Nations envoy to Haiti, said of the earthquake's survivors: "Right now, all we need to do is get food and medicine and water and a secure place for them to be.'' But in the long-term, he said, the rebuilding of Haiti will require a sustained effort to capitalize on what could be an opportunity.

"I believe that, before this earthquake, Haiti had the best chance in its history to escape their history,'' Clinton said. "I still believe it... But it's going to take a lot of help and a long time.''

Obama, making his fourth public address on the Haitian crisis in four days, also suggested that the intense media attention focused on the island nation now soon will shift to other areas. It will be the job of Bush and Clinton, he said, to keep American generosity focused.

(Photo approaching Rose Garden by Mark Wilson / Getty Images.)

"In times of great challenge in our country and around the world, Americans have always come together,'' Obama said today, standing with Bush and Clinton in an overcast Rose Garden.

"At this moment, we are moving forward with one of the largest relief efforts in history,'' Obama said, and his predecessors will ensure that the U.S. government's own commitment of $100 million and rising will be matched by contributions from "beyond the government.''

The White House has created a Web-site for the fundraising effort that the two presidents will lead: www.clintonbushhaitifund.org.

Obama, citing "destruction and suffering that defies comprehension, said "we also know that our longer term effort will not be measured in days and weeks. It will be measured in months and even years.''

"Here at home, Presidents Bush and Clinton will help Americans do their part,'' the president said. "This time of suffering can and must be a time of caring and compassion.''

When he had spoken this week with each of his predecessors, Obama said today, "They each asked the same simple question: 'How can I help.'' In the days ahead, he said, they will be enlisting the help of many more Americans.

Following a half-hour private meeting in the Oval Office this morning, Bush stood to Obama's left during a brief appearance outside. Clinton stood to Obama's right.

The two former presidents each spoke of their personal involvement with HaitiBush citing his wife's journey there to oversee U.S.-sponsored efforts at AIDS prevention, Clinton complimenting the Bush administration for its work on disease prevention.

"The Haitian people have got a tough journey,'' Bush said, suggesting that catastrophes "bring out the best of the human spirit... President Clinton and I are going to work to help tap that spirit.''

Clinton, in 1975, celebrated his wedding in Haiti, traveling there for a delayed honeymoon with a wife who is now Secretary of State Hillary Clintonmaking her own first journey to the earthquake-stricken nation today.

"I have no words for what I feel,'' Clinton said today. "I was in those hotels that collapsed. I had meals with people who are dead. The cathedral church that Hillary and I sat in 35 years ago.... is rubble. It is still one of the most remarkable places that I have been.''

Obama Pitches Bank Tax To Recover Bailout Costs

President Barack Obama on Saturday pitched his proposed tax on banks to recover the cost of bailing them out during the financial crisis, saying if they can afford billions more in bonuses, they can pay back the taxpayers, too.

2010-01-15T13:20:00.001-08:00

Census Finds More Moms Bringing Home Bacon
Number of Working Mothers as Family's Sole Breadwinners Reaches All-Time High; More Dads Staying at Home
Obama Massachusetts-bound: 60th vote

The president has recorded "robo-calls'' and appeared in a Web-based video for the Democratic candidate, and now will campaign in person in a close Senate race.

by Mark Silva and updated

Earlier this week, the White House said that President Barack Obama had no plans to campaign in Massachusetts for the Democratic Senate candidate, Marha Coakley.

That was before a new poll showed a virtual tie between the Democrat and Republican Scott Brown in the special election for the seat of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a contest that could deprive the Democrats of their 60-vote hold on the Senate at a time when Obama appears on the verge of winning his health-care initiative.

Now Obama is Bay-State bound Sunday.

"The president sees a pretty clear distinction" between the candidates,'' White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said at today's press briefing. "It's an important Senate seat," Gibbs added. "That's why the president's going."

The Hill's Aaron Blake notes: "The trip represents an unprecedented role for Obama in a special election. He didn't appear during the runoff in Georgia's Senate race in December 2008 or in an early 2009 New York special House election.''

Poll: GOP's Brown Leads Massachusetts Senate Race

As momentum shifts in the direction of the Republican candidate in Tuesday's special Senate election in Massachusetts, President Obama will campaign on Sunday for Democrat Martha Coakley.

Geithner's Bailout E-mails Subpoenaed

2010-01-14T13:20:00.001-08:00

Geithner's Bailout E-mails Subpoenaed
House Panel Probing New York Fed Decisions that Funneled Billions of Dollars to Big Banks
White House: Robertson words 'stunning'

by Mark Silva and updated at 3:45 pm EST

A senior advisor to President Barack Obama today said the Rev. Pat Robertson's remark that the earthquake-stricken Haitian people had made "a pact to the Devil'' long ago was "stunning.''

"I'm kind of speechless about that kind of remark," Valerie Jarrett, presidential advisor and friend, said in an appearance on ABC News' Good Morning America. "Our heart goes out to the people of Haiti. ... That's not the attitude that expresses the spirit of the president or the American people, so I thought it was a pretty stunning comment to make."

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said this today, when asked about Robertson's comment: "It never ceases to amaze that in times of amazing human suffering, somebody says something that could be so utterly stupid. But it, like clockwork, happens with some regularity.''

"You know ... something happened a long time ago in Haiti. ... They got together and swore a pact to the Devil," Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club on Wednesday. ""They said, 'We will serve you if you get us free from the French.' True story...And so, the Devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out... You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another."

In a statement on its Web site, the Christian Broadcasting Network said Robertson was speaking objectively about Haiti's history that has led "countless scholars and religious figures over the centuries to believe the country is cursed. "Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God's wrath,'' spokesman Chris Roslan says. "If you watch the entire video segment, Dr. Robertson's compassion for the people of Haiti is clear."

Clear as could be, right?

This isn't the first time Robertson has linked natural disasters and terrorism to the wrath of God. Ever-ready in the hyperbole department, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has suggested that Robertson is the devil.

The president, for his part, made something clear today:

" Few in the world have endured the hardships that you have known,'' Obama said in directing remarks from the White House to the Haitian people from the White House.

"Long before this tragedy, daily life itself was often a bitter struggle,'' Obama said. "And after suffering so much for so long, to face this new horror must cause some to look up and ask, "Have we somehow been forsaken? ' To the people of Haiti, we say clearly, and with conviction, 'You will not be forsaken. You will not be forgotten.'''

And Bill Clinton, the former president and special U.N. envoy to Haiti, says in his own Time magazine essay: "Haiti isn't doomed.''

Obama's Senate Point Man Is In Trouble

Harry Reid's African-American supporters meet Thursday, in the wake of a brouhaha over racial comments he made about President Obama back in 2008. But his troubles may run deeper: Polls show the Democratic Senate majority leader trailing three would-be GOP opponents.

Barack Obama: 'Back on track in 2010'

2010-01-13T13:20:00.001-08:00

SEC Names Heads of New Investigative Units
Financial Commission's Enforcement Division Encourages Companies, Investors to Provide Information More Freely
Barack Obama: 'Back on track in 2010'

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, who famously has given himself a "solid B-plus'' for his first year in office, was asked if he would like to reconsider that in the aftermath of a Christmas Day bombing attempt on a U.S.-bound airliner that exposed a lapse in U.S. intelligence.

"When you look at what we've done this year on national security, we've performed at a very high level in as difficult an environment as you can imagine,'' Obama says in a White House interview with the first couple about the first year that People magazine has conducted. "Sadly, the intelligence, law enforcement and homeland security communities don't get credit when they stop things.... I'm holding myself and my team responsible for fixing that situation.''

His inauguration "was such a time of hope,'' People interviewers Larry Hackett and Sandra Sobieraj Westfall reminded the president -- what does he say "to the people who now are feeling a little deflated?''

"They have every right to feel deflated because the economy was far worse than any of us expected,'' Obama replies. "The economy is now growing. We're on the rebound. Some of the steps we took are now paying off and people should feel great confidence that we are going to be back on track in 2010.''

One must get past the cover story of Heidi Montag's "addiction to plastic surgery,'' and the "torment" of Tiger Woods tp get to the exclusive interview with the Obamas, their first of the new year, in the Jan. 25 issue of People: People interview.pdf

But once there, we find the president's two proudest moments of the past 12 months:

"Having a health-care bill through the House and the Senate is a potentially historic accomplishment. I'll be that much prouder when I actually sign it.'' The other: "Happens every single night when I have dinner with my girls and see how well they've adjusted.''

"We've tried to keep their day-to-day life pretty ordinary,'' First Lady Michelle Obama says in the interview, though meeting the Pope and walking through the Kremlin were hardly ordinary experiences. The president recalls Sasha strolling through the Kremlin on a cold and rainy day with a trenchcoat. "She looked like a little spy,'' the president jokes. "We called her Agent 99.''

Inasmuch as the president had given himself that B-plus in a Christmas special with Oprah Winfrey, how about the first lady's self-assessment? "No way am I grading myself,'' she says in the interview. "I'll give her an A,'' her husband says. "Way to go.''

They talk about their favorite movies -- he liked Avatar and Away We Go. And they talk about their iPods...

(President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are pictured in the Blue Room of the White House before a Presidential Medal of Freedom ceremony in August, in a White House photo by Pete Souza.)

She likes "this young woman Ledisi. She's got that really pretty voice. I always put on oldies. I put on some Motown remix, going back to the roots.''

"My iPod is kind of stuck,'' the president says. "I just haven't had time to sit down at a computer.'' Pressed on that: Isn't there someone who can take care of that for him? Reggie Love, his personal aide, is always there, the president says. "But then all I get is Jay-Z, and I love Jay-Z, but once in a while I might want some Yo-Yo Ma or something.''

So has he found the White House a lonely life?

"I still have not adjusted, and I hope never to adjust entirely, to being in the bubble,'' the president says. "Day-to-day spontaneous interactions are missing from my life. And there's the aspect of loneliness that just has to do with the fact that sending young men and women to war -- ultimately that's your decision. If there's an attempted terrorist attack, you've got to fix it.

"That side of the loneliness of the job is what I signed up for,'' Obama says, "and I actually think I'm pretty good at.''

Standard & Poor's Lowers California's Debt Rating

Standard & Poor's on Wednesday lowered its rating on California's $64 billion general obligation debt from "A" to "A-." That's the lowest rating for any state. The move puts pressure on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and lawmakers to tackle the state's deficit.

Top Bankers Set for Washington Grilling

2010-01-12T13:20:00.001-08:00

Top Bankers Set for Washington Grilling
As Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Prepares to Kick off, Wall Street Honcho Complains of "Constant Vilification"
Obama: Republican address planned

by Mark Silva and Rich Simon

Republicans have been accused of just saying no to the president.

But President Barack Obama is saying yes to an invitation to address the House Republican conference later this month.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Republican Conference, said this today about the president addressing the party conference.

"House Republicans are grateful that the president of the United States has accepted our invitation to meet with the Republican Conference later this month.

"House Republicans look forward to presenting the president with our proposals to protect our nation, create jobs, control federal spending, lower the cost of health care, achieve energy independence and strengthen families."

Study Shows Blacks Optimistic In Obama Era

Optimism among black Americans has surged more in the past two years than at any time in the past quarter century, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center. African-Americans remain upbeat about economic and social progress, despite the deep recession.

Sarah Palin: FOX News contributor

2010-01-11T13:20:00.001-08:00

Protection of Food Supply Faces Problems
Every Year, 25 Percent of Americans Become Sick From Food; FDA Fighting to Increase Power Unchanged Since Great Depression
Sarah Palin: FOX News contributor

by Mark Silva and updated

Sarah Palin has contributed to civic service in Wasilla, Alaska, the ex-mayor has contributed service to the state of Alaska, and now the ex-governor will be contributing something to the nation's No. 1-rated cable news network, FOX.

Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media critic with reliable sources, first reported word from a FOX executive today on Palin's hiring.

Bill Shine, executive vice president of programming for FOX, has announced the news with a note that "Gov. Palin has captivated everyone on both sides of the political spectrum and we are excited to add her dynamic voice to the FOX News lineup."

In addition to commentary across the news network's programming, Palin will host periodic episodes of FNC's "Real American Stories," a series exploring inspirational real-life tales of overcoming adversity throughout the American landscape starting this year.

, "I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at FOX News,'' Palin said in a statement released by the network. "It's wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news."

That will put two erstwhile 2008 candidates for national office on the FOX lineup. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas who sought the GOP nomination for president, has his own weekly show.

Huckabee and Palin both are viewed as potential candidates for 2012.

FOX, Kurtz notes, will provide Palin with a farther-reaching forum than her Facebook page, which has gathered some one-million followers in the aftermath of her resignation as governor. Palin, who studied journalism in her youth, had wanted to be a television sportscaster, but was dismayed that ESPN was based in Bristol, Conn. So instead she named her first daughter Bristol

Palin's recruitnment for Sen. John McCain's presidential ticket in 2008 was part of "God's plan,'' Palin reportedly said at the time -- this tidbit from that new book, Game Change, reporting on intel from Steve Schmidt, McCain's former campaign manager.

Her new TV career, it appears, is part of Rupert Murdoch's plan.

Op-Ed: Reid's Word Choice Reveals Character Flaw

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has apologized for referring to President Obama, while he was running for president, as "light-skinned" with "no Negro dialect." The comments prompted many Republicans to call on Reid to resign. But political analyst Keli Goff says that although she's not ready to label Reid a racist, his poor choice of words reveal a great deal about his character.

Feinstein: Reid Comments a "Closed" Matter

2010-01-10T13:20:00.001-08:00

Feinstein: Reid Comments a "Closed" Matter
Sees No Double-Standard in Senator's Remarks About Obama; GOP's Hoekstra Says Dems Should Decide if Reid Keeps Post
Reid's Obama apology: Post-racial land?

by Mark Silva, on Saturday, updated noon EST Sunday

We suppose it's sadly inevitable, in the land that is not quite post-racial America, that we're learning, in retrospect, about how some of the white powers of the nation viewed the ascendant, some-say meteoric, political career of President Barack Obama.

Sen. Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, apologizing siwftly for freshly reported remarks which he made during the bid of the junior senator from Illinois for the Democratic Party's nomination for president. And the president has swiftly accepted the apology.

Reid's Republican challenger is making some hay today. Noting that Reid once spoke of "vaporizing" her, Republican Sue Lowden suggested on the FOX News Channel today that he "start on my hips.''

Reid, a Nevada Democrat facing political problems back home these days, had once described Obama in a private conversation as "light skinned''and one who spoke "with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.''

"I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words. I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans for my improper comments," Reid said in a statement released after his remarks were reported on the Web site of The Atlantic on Saturday. "I was a proud and enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama during the campaign and have worked as hard as I can to advance President Obama's legislative agenda."

The White House released this statement from the president:

"Harry Reid called me today and apologized for an unfortunate comment reported today. I accepted Harry's apology without question because I've known him for years, I've seen the passionate leadership he's shown on issues of social justice and I know what's in his heart. As far as I am concerned, the book is closed."

The book has barely been opened, however. Reid's regretted remarks come from a book that will be released Monday, Game Change, by political writers Mark Halperin of Time magazine and John Heilemann of New York magazine.

Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was asked if Reid should step down over this flap. "I do not believe he should,'' Kaine said in an appearance on FOX News Sunday. "And I think Sen. Reid did a very big thing yesterday by saying, you know, 'I used language that, looking back on it, wasn't the right language.'

"I don't think this is an issue that's going to affect his leadership at all,'' Kaine said. "In fact, he's doing some very heavy lifting, wonderful lifting right now, to get this health care bill over the goal line, and... I think he will continue."

With Reid fighting for reelection back home, Kaine also confronted a question about how much trouble the Democrats are in during the midterm elections:

"We know we're running up a hill,'' Kaine said. "If you actually go back to 1900, the average president in their first mid-term loses 28 House seats, four Senate seats and governors' races. So we're running up a hill.

"But the great thing about the Obama team is we don't mind running up a hill.,'' Kaine said. "We climbed Everest in 2008 and we're going to climb Pike's Peak this year."

Lowden, a Republican candidate for Senate Candidate and former Nevada Republican Party chairwoman, appeared on FOX's America's News HQ today (photo here courtesy of FOX) and said that Reid faces a difficult, "ugly'' campagn of his own.

"It's not about this comment; it's about the next comment and the comment after that,'' Lowden said. "I don't think that Harry Reid is going to step down, there is no chance of that...I think he is looking forward to a very difficult campaign, it's going to be a very ugly campaign. And, he is in for the long haul....

"It's a pattern with Sen. Reid -- he has very offensive comments throughout the years, this is not the first time this has happened,'' Lowden maintained. "He has said that the TEA Party protestors, especially here in Nevada, were 'evil mongers' because they they want to protest the policies of Washington... He called our former president a 'loser' in a high school class here in Nevada.... He told the public that they smelled when they visited the capital...last summer...and it goes on and on."

Lowden added of Reid: "He said he was going to "vaporize" me...Words are very, very important and I think he is going to try to do that in with a very negative campaign... When I heard that he said he was going to vaporize me, I said, 'Start on my hips.'''

Reid had been neutral during the divisive Democratic primary campaign in 2008. Someone else had been a lot less neutral in that protracted contest between Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New YorkBill Clinton, the former president of the United States known in some circles as "the first black president.''

And Bill Clinton, we're also learnng now, had once irked the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, an early supporter of Obama, with his own reference to the junior senator from Illinois.

Politco, which also has gotten its hands on the forthcoming Game Change, reports that Halperin and Heilemann write:

"Bill's handling of Ted was even worse. The day after Iowa, he phoned Kennedy and pressed for an endorsement, making the case for his wife. But Bill then went on, belittling Obama in a manner that deeply offended Kennedy. Recounting the conversation later to a friend, Teddy fumed that Clinton had said, A few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee.''

In the nation that is not quite post-racial America, there is at least one publication which is proud of what Obama has achieved with election as the first African American president: City News, a weekly publication for the African American community in southern Cook County and Kankakee, Ill., for some time now has been running promotional ads featuring Obama, then a candidate for president, holding a copy of the paper with a broad smile.

At a time when the president's image is gracing billboards in Times Square and the Long Island Expresswaywith an ad that the Weatherproof coat company has promised to take downthis is one ad that the publishers haven't heard a peep about, and say they'll continue to run. (See the photo above, printed with permission.)

"He was visiting here, and I was doing a story,'' publisher James Taylor Sr., told The Swamp this weekend. "I asked him if we could take the picture of him to promote the paper, and he said, 'No problem.'''

The picture promoting the weekly paper with a reported circulation of about 50,000 was taken at Kankakee Community College, the publisher says.

"This is the first black president,'' Taylor explains of his paper's pride in the promotional photograph of the 48-year-old president, "and we've got a 42-year-old black newspaper.''

Sizing Up Obama's Measured Response To Terrorism

The fallout from the failed attack on a Detroit-bound airliner Christmas Day continued throughout the past week. Host Liane Hansen talks with NPR news analyst Juan Williams about the Obama administration's moves on terrorism prevention and national security.

Chokehold Sought on EPA Over Carbon Rules

2010-01-09T13:20:00.001-08:00

Chokehold Sought on EPA Over Carbon Rules
N.D. Rep's Bill Would Reverse Supreme Court Ruling, Remove Authority From EPA to Regulate Greenhouse Gases
Obama: Health care, decade of promise

by Mark Silva

The health-care overhaul which Congress is "on the verge of passing'' will be part of a new decade of economic promise, President Barack Obama maintains.

The Republians are focusing on something else today, the trial of detentention of captives in the war on terror on American soil, with Rep. Pete King, the New York Republican and ranking minority member of the House Homeland Security Committee calling a prison in Illinois where many detainees are to be moved "Gitmo North.''

Acknowledging the newest tally of joblessness -- with more jobs lost last month and unemployment holding at 10 percent -- the president says in his weekly radio and Internet address today that "too many of the folks I've talked with this year, and whose stories I read in letters at night, tell me that they've known their own private recessions since long before economists declared oneand they'll still feel the recession long after economists have declared it over.''

Emerging from the crisis, Obama says, "we will not return to the complacency that helped cause it. Even as we focus on putting America back to work today, we're building a new foundation for our economy to create the good, lasting jobs and shared prosperity of tomorrow.''

This includes fixing a health insurance system "that's crushing families, eating away at workers' take-home pay, and nailing small businesses with double-digit premium increases... The worst practices of the insurance industry will be banned forever. And costs will finally come down for families, businesses, and our government...

"We enter a new decade, now, with new perilsbut we're going to meet them,'' the president says today, as Democratic leaders of the House and Senate are starting to negotiate the differences between their two passed plans. "It's also a time of tremendous promiseand we're going to seize it. We will rebuild the American Dream for our middle class and put the American economy on a stronger footing for the future.''

King is address a more immediate concern today, the lapse in intelligence and security that enabled a known threat to board a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day carrying explosives. The White House has concluded that the several signals missed by intelligence authorities beforehand was a failure of proper analysis.

""This is about whether we've learned our lesson,'' King says in his address. "Terrorists still have innocent people in their sights and the will to murder them. They are always working on the next attack, refining their methods, searching the globe for new recruits. In other words, September 11th is not ancient historyit's all too real.

"So, the people in my community certainly get it. American families get it. And now it's time for the administration in Washington to stop sending mixed messages and get it too.''

For King, that means keeping terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of New York, where the Obama administration plans to try the architect of the 9/11 attacks, and keeping prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, out of a prison in Illinois, where the administration plans to move many detainees as it closes Guantanamo.

"One of the first things we need to do is pass the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, a common-sense bill Republicans have proposed to prevent terrorists from being brought on to our soil.,'' King maintains. "This bill would help stop the misguided plan to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists on trial in downtown Manhattan. It's an enormous, unnecessary risk, as is housing terrorists at the proposed 'Gitmo North' facility near Chicago.''

See the president's address above, the Republican address below, and read them both below the fold, here in the Swamp

Here is the text of the president's address:

"A year ago, when I took office in the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, I promised you two things. The first was that there would be better days ahead. And the second was that the road to recovery would be long, and sometimes bumpy.

"That was brought home again yesterday. We learned that in November, our economy saw its first month of job gains in nearly two yearsbut last month, we lost more than we gained. Now, we know that no single month makes a trend, and job losses for the final quarter of 2009 were one-tenth what they were in the first quarter. But until we see a trend of good, sustainable job creation, we will be relentless in our efforts to put America back to work.

"That task goes even deeper than replacing the seven million jobs that have been lost over the past two years. We need to rebuild our economy in such a way that our families can feel a measure of security again. Too many of the folks I've talked with this year, and whose stories I read in letters at night, tell me that they've known their own private recessions since long before economists declared oneand they'll still feel the recession long after economists have declared it over.

"That's because, for decades, Washington avoided doing what was right in favor of doing what was easy. And the result was an economy where some made out well, but the middle class too often took a beating.

"Over the past decade, the income of the average household actually declined, and we lost as many jobs as we created. Hardworking folks who did everything right suddenly found themselves forced to downscale their dreams because of economic factors beyond their control. We're talking about simple dreams. American dreams. A good job with a good wage. A secure and dignified retirement. Stable health care so you don't go broke just because you get sick. The chance to give our kids a better shot than we got.

"That's why, as we begin to emerge from this crisis, we will not return to the complacency that helped cause it. Even as we focus on putting America back to work today, we're building a new foundation for our economy to create the good, lasting jobs and shared prosperity of tomorrow.

"We're making historic investments in science and in a clean energy economy that will generate and keep the jobs and industries of the future right here in America.

"We're reforming our education system, so that our kids are fully prepared to compete with workers anywhere in the world and win the race for the 21st century.

"We're fixing our broken health insurance system that's crushing families, eating away at workers' take-home pay, and nailing small businesses with double-digit premium increases.

"And that's what I'd like to focus on for a minute. After a long and thorough debate, we are on the verge of passing health insurance reform that will finally offer Americans the security of knowing they'll have quality, affordable health care whether they lose their job, change jobs, move, or get sick. The worst practices of the insurance industry will be banned forever. And costs will finally come down for families, businesses, and our government.

"Now, it'll take a few years to fully implement these reforms in a responsible way. But what every American should know is that once I sign health insurance reform into law, there are dozens of protections and benefits that will take effect this year.

"Uninsured Americans with a pre-existing illness or condition will finally be able to purchase coverage they can afford.

"Children with pre-existing conditions will no longer be refused coverage, and young adults will be able to stay on their parents' policy until they're 26 or 27 years old.

"Small business owners who can't afford to cover their employees will be immediately offered tax credits to purchase coverage.

"Early retirees who receive coverage from their employers will see their coverage protected and their premiums go down.

"Seniors who fall into the coverage gap known as the donut hole will receive discounts of up to 50 percent on their prescriptions as we begin to close that gap altogether.

"And every patient's choice of doctor will be protected, along with access to emergency care.

"Here's what else will happen within the first year. Insurance plans will be required to offer free preventive care to their customersso that we can start catching preventable illnesses and diseases on the front end. They'll no longer be allowed to impose restrictive annual limits on the amount of coverage you receive or lifetime limits on the amount of benefits you receive. They'll be prohibited from dropping your coverage when you get sick and need it most. And there will be a new, independent appeals process for anyone who feels they were unfairly denied a claim by their insurance company.

"In short, once I sign health insurance reform into law, doctors and patients will have more control over their health care decisions, and insurance company bureaucrats will have less. All told, these changes represent the most sweeping reforms and toughest restrictions on insurance companies that this country has ever known. That's how we'll make 2010 a healthier and more secure year for every Americanfor those who have health insurance, and those who don't.

"We enter a new decade, now, with new perilsbut we're going to meet them. It's also a time of tremendous promiseand we're going to seize it. We will rebuild the American Dream for our middle class and put the American economy on a stronger footing for the future. And this year, I am as hopeful and as confident as ever that we're going to rise to this moment the same way that generations of Americans always have: as one nation, and one people. Thanks for listening.'

Here is the text of the Republican address:

"Hi, I'm Republican Congressman Pete King, I serve as the Ranking Member on the House Homeland Security Committee and I'm also a member of the House Intelligence Committee. I have the privilege to represent New York's Third Congressional District, on Long Island in the suburbs of New York City.

"Two weeks ago, the terrorist plot to bring down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in the skies over Detroit was thwarted by a combination of luck and vigilance. But as President Obama has rightly said, it should never have even gotten to that point. Last year, this terrorist's father, a widely respected member of his community, went to our embassy in Nigeria and shared his concerns that his son was becoming a radical jihadist. That should have been more than enough to trigger a red flag that would prevent this terrorist from ever setting foot on a plane bound for the U.S. with explosives.

"Both parties recognize the need for answers, so bureaucratic reviews will take place and congressional hearings will be held. And while that's all well and good, this is about much more than whether the no-fly list gets longer or it takes more time to get through the security line at the airport.

"This is about whether we've learned our lesson. Terrorists still have innocent people in their sights and the will to murder them. They are always working on the next attack, refining their methods, searching the globe for new recruits. In other words, September 11th is not ancient historyit's all too real.

"So, the people in my community certainly get it. American families get it. And now it's time for the Administration in Washington to stop sending mixed messages and get it too.

"One of the first things we need to do is pass the Keep Terrorists Out of America Act, a common-sense bill Republicans have proposed to prevent terrorists from being brought on to our soil. This bill would help stop the misguided plan to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terrorists on trial in downtown Manhattan. It's an enormous, unnecessary risk, as is housing terrorists at the proposed 'Gitmo North' facility near Chicago.

"There's a good reason why the government has had such a hard time transferring these terrorist detainees to other countries. They are the worst of the worst. No one should want them. That's why we put in place a process by which these terrorists should be held and triedas enemy combatants, by military commissions.

"The Keep Terrorists Out of America Act will also help to ensure that we're treating terrorism as what it isa war crime, not a law enforcement issue. We can't gather the intelligence we need to foil future attacks if we are blindly granting terrorists the right to remain silent. But for some reason, we've already done that with the terrorist who tried to bring down Flight 253.

"We are a nation at war, and we should act like it. We need to pull together, remain vigilant, and send a clear signalboth to our friends and our enemiesthat this government will stop at nothing to protect our homeland. That's how America sets an example for the world.

"Thank you for listening."

Sen. Harry Reid Apologizes For Remark About Obama

During the 2008 presidential campaign, he described then-Sen. Obama as 'light skinned' and 'with no Negro dialect.' Obama later said he accepted the Senate majority leader's apology.

2010-01-08T13:20:00.001-08:00

Christmas Terror Suspect Pleads Not Guilty
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab Appears In Court on Charges He Tried to Blow Up Detroit-Bound Airliner
Oh 'Bama: 'Roll Tide'

by Christi Parsons

Hours after the Alabama Crimson Tide national championship win, President Barack Obama was on the phone with Coach Nick Saban this afternoon offering congratulations and inviting the team to the White House for a visit.

The president told Saban he was "proud" of how the team played all year, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says, and the president predicted a strong 2010 season with key players set to return.

Obama may have also agreed to shoot hoops with Saban and/or the team -- which includes Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram -- possibly on the White House court.

The phone call took place as Gibbs, a native of Auburn, Ala., was conducting his daily news conference in the White House briefing room, where he was obliged to acknowledge -- if not celebrate -- the Tide victory.

"I did get a few e-mails from friends wondering if I would mention my excitement at the newly crowned national champions," said Gibbs, who was pulling against the Tide in the championship game. "So consider that having checked that box."

(The scoreboard, above, at the end of the national championship game between the Texas Longhorns and Alabama Crimson Tide at the Rose Bowl: 37-21. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)

Obama Takes Responsibility For 'Systemic Failure'

The Obama administration has released its report detailing security failures that allowed a Nigerian man to board a U.S.-bound plane carrying explosives. The president said that improving the flow of information within the intelligence community will be the way to prevent more attacks. And he said he ultimately bore responsibility for what he's calling a systemic failure leading up to the attempted bombing.

McCain vs. Obama's 'Left-wing crusade'

2010-01-07T13:20:00.001-08:00

Analysis: Dems Face Difficult 2010
Washington Post: After Two Big Elections, Democrats Are Due for a Setback
McCain vs. Obama's 'Left-wing crusade'

by Mark Silva

John McCain has run against Barack Obama before.

He's running against him again.

With campaign radio ads billing the five-term Republican senator as "Arizona's last line of defense,'' the GOP's nominee for president in 2008 is attempting to bolster his 2010 campaign for reelection to the Senate with a slam at the president.

"President Obama is leading an extreme left-wing crusade to bankrupt America,'' McCain says in one of the radio ads his campaign is airing.

"I stand in his way every day,'' McCain says. "If I get a bruise or two knocking some sense into heads in Washington, so be it.''

McCain got his own head-knocking in the 2008 presidential election, and now he could be facing a party primary contest from a former Republican congressman, J.D. Hayworth, who is an outspoken critic of immigration reform -- an issue which McCain has championed in the Senate, and an issue on which McCain, Obama and some of the Senate's leading Democrats happen to agree. They support a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

But on the radio, McCain and Obama could not be further apart.

"He's lived through a battle or two, vanquished many a foe,'' a narrator says of the retired Navy pilot and admiral's son who spent five and a half years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. "But perhaps no battle in our lifetime is more vital than the one John McCain fights now... a battle to save America, save our jobs...

"John McCain leads the charge to slash government spending, bloated bureaucracies and ridiculously unaffordable ideas like government run health care.''

In another ad playing on a battle-tested McCain campaign tactic of invoking his days as a POWreminding voters in Arizona that he could have come home to the U.S. earlier from that prison camp than he did (though Arizona was not home at the time)the narrator says:

"John McCain is leading the fight against President Obama every day.''

It could get interesting when they get to that immigration bill.

(Sen. John McCain is pictured above after a meeting between President Barack Obama and the Democratic Caucus to push the health care reform plan at the Capitol in December, in a photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty Images. And McCain is pictured above with President Barack Obama, meeting with members of Congress to discuss immigration in June at the White House in a photo by Haraz N. Ghanbari / )

Retirements Highlight Perils For Democrats

Democratic activists say the departures of Sens. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) should be a wake-up call for the party as it heads into this year's midterm elections. In the year since Barack Obama was elected president and Democrats took over both houses of Congress, the party has been steadily losing ground with voters.

Obama: Times Square (drafted) pitchman

2010-01-06T13:20:00.001-08:00

W.H. Defensive over Health Care Fast Track
Obama and Congressional Leaders Agreed to Speed Up Progress Toward a Final Bill by Bypassing Formal Conference Committee
Obama: Times Square (drafted) pitchman

by Mark Silva

The president has been known to throw the first pitch at the start of baseball season. But a presidential pitch in Times Square?

The White House has tried to curb the use of Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and the Obama children as tools of advertising. But the president's protests are a no-sale on Madison Avenue. Or Times Square.

The fur-less first lady is featured at the moment in a "Fur-free, Fabulous'' ad that PETA has posted around Washington.

Now the president, appearing atop the Great Wall of China in a Weatherproof overcoat, is pictured by the company on its Times Square billboard.

White House spokesman Bill Burton says the administration has a long-standing policy against the use of Obama's name and likeness for commercial purposes.

The photo of the president touring China's best-known landmark, a rugged pose captured by the Associated Press' Charles Dharapak in the line of journalistic duty, caught the attention of Weatherproof President Freddie Stollmack. The coat looked familiar, so Stollmack got out his magnifying glass -- Yureeka!

The company bought the photo rights from Images, and did not seek permission from the White Housenor does it believe that necessary, because Obama is not endorsing the product.

"He didn't come to us. It's just a great looking jacket on a great looking president," Stollmack explains.

The president's job approval may be off nationally, but he has a ready following in Manhattan, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by about five-to-one. And Stollmack figures Obama should thank them for making him look so good.

"We did this in good faith," Stollmack says. "This is an image that we thought would enhance the president of the United States."

And, oh yes, the coats. (Fur-less).

Republicans Hope For Gains In 2010

Two Democratic Senators, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, have announced they will not seek re-election this fall. Also, the failed attack on Northwest flight 253 continues to have political ramifications.

2010-01-05T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Yemen Focus Of Politics On Terror
The weather in Washington might be cold, but the heat is on for President Obama as he returns from Hawaii and faces a growing crisis with al-Qaeda in Yemen. John Dickerson spoke with CBS News Pentagon Correspondent David Martin and Politico Senior Writer Jonathan Martin.
Florida GOP chief out, twine unwinding?

by Mark Silva

Jim Greer -- and the Swamp will remember him today as the fellow who criticized President Barack Obama's back-to-school speech to students last fall as a platform for the president's "socialist ideology'' -- resigned today as chairman of the Florida GOP.

This alone may not sound very significant.

But when taken as another piece of the unraveling twine which is the career of the long-popular Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (pictured here), it is significant. Greer, chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, was Crist's man. And some complained that Greer was playing favorites in his role as party chairman in the midst of an increasingly heated party primary for an open Senate seat.

Crist, the former state legislator known as "chain-gang Charlie'' for his promotion of hard-time for prison inmates, the former attorney general known for environmental and antitrust-busting activities popular with consumers and the Republican governor perhaps best remembered lately for wrapping his arm around Obama as the president promoted his economic stimulus spending plans in Florida last year, is having some trouble with a GOP Senate primary which, a year ago, would have seemed his for the taking.

Crist is a moderate to progressive Republican, criticized in some circles for bending to whatever the popular wind is. A conservative Republican from Miami, former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, is giving the governor a run for his life in the primary for a seat vacated by former Sen. Mel Martinez -- a Republican who had forfeited his own co-chairmanship of the RNC when his own political fortunes were failling -- a seat that is being held by a Crist-appointed place-holder, Sen. George LeMieux, until November's elections.

The conservative Club for Growth has weighed in against Crist in the primary, in another match pitting the farthest-right wing of the party against its center. And Greer, who steps down on Feb. 20, called himself a victim of that fight today.

"As you know, there is a great debate in our party on the direction, moderates vs. conservatives, whether we should have a big tent or a small tent," Greeer said. "And while I have made it my utmost concern to try and keep those arguments and discontents out of the Republican Party of Florida, over the last six months there has been a very vocal group within our party that has become very active in seeking an effort to oust me as chairman. They have distorted facts, they have talked about misspending of money, when the facts have been shown over and over and over that that's not true. They have talked about my support of Gov. Crist for the U.S. Senate race. They have, as they say, thrown everything up against the wall as they possibly can, to either embarrass me or embarrass the Republican Party of Florida."

Crist himself has conceded in an interview with reporters that he has not been "on my game'' all the time lately.

Greer wasn't always on his game, either. "As the father of four children,'' he said of the president's plans to address school-children nationally last fall, "I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology.''

Early handicapping for Greer's replacement: State Sen. John Thrasher, a former House speaker there (they term-limit their lawmakers to eight years, which sends a lot of House leaders into the Senate, and vice versa) and ex-lobbyist for the Florida Medical Association. He's a gregarious, moderate fellow. And he campaigned against Crist.

(Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, long-popular but now fighting for his party's Senate nomination, is pictured above at a crossroad. Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images)

In Texas House Speaker, GOP Sees A Star

When Republicans go looking for leaders, Texas has long been one of their first stops. One of the newest stars there is Joe Straus, who is just finishing his first year as speaker of the Texas House. But whether he will appeal to a party pushed further to the right remains to be seen.

2010-01-04T13:20:00.001-08:00

Clinton: Yemeni Extremists a Global Threat
Top Diplomat Praises Yemeni Government's Recent Steps to Curb Terrorism, Promises U.S. Backing
State Dinner 'gate-crashers' not alone

by Mark Silva

It turns out that Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the Virginia couple who made their way into the White House's first State Dinner without invitations, weren't alone.

A third attendee arrived without an invitation, and entered with the official delegation of Indian Prime Manmohan Singh, for whom the dinner was held in November.

The Secret Service said today that an investigation into the security breach that enabled the Salahis to waltz into the White House and shake hands with the president and pose for pictures with other White House officials "has revealed that a third individual, who was not on the White House guest list, entered the State Dinner.''

There is no indication, however, that the individual had any contact with President Obama, the agency said.

The publicly unidentified person, who traveled with Indian officials from the hotel where they were staying, "went through all required security measures along with the rest of the official delegation at the hotel, and boarded a bus/van with the delegation guests en route to the White House," the Secret Service said in a statement.

Ed Donovan, Secret Service spokesman, declined to "get into all the particulars" on the discovery of a third gate uninvited guest. The Service already has disciplined some officers involved in the Salahi's now-notorious gate-crashing of the Indian dinner.

Congress is looking into the Salahis' far more public appearance. The couple have maintained that they thought they were entitled to attend the dinner, based on email correspondence with a friend at Defense who was attempting to help them attend an arrival ceremony. They have taken the "Fifth,'' however, in declining to appear before Congress. And the White House has cited executive privilege in declining to let Social Secretary Desiree Rogers appear before a congressional committee.

Wire services contributed.

CBS News' Predictions for 2010

2010-01-03T13:20:00.001-08:00

CBS News' Predictions for 2010
Correspondents Offer Their Forecasts on What to Expect Over the Coming Year
White House: 'No smoking gun'

by Jim Tankersley

President Obama's leading counterterrorism advisor said this morning that human errorbut not turf battles between federal intelligence officialsallowed an al Qaeda-trained operative to carry out an attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airplane on Christmas Day.

Deputy National Security Advisor John O. Brennan, in appearances on several Sunday morning television news programs, also said there was "no smoking gun" of intelligence gathered by American officials that would have directly suggested the Flight 253 attack by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was imminent.

"There was no piece of intelligence that said, 'this guy's a terrorist. He's going to get on a plane'," Brennan said. Later, he added: "It was the failure to integrate and piece together those bits and pieces of information."

Brennan is leading the Obama-ordered review of intelligence-gathering and watchlisting efforts, which failed to block Abdulmutallab from boarding the plane despite several red flags known to U.S. officialsincluding a personal warning from Abdulmutallab's father that the young man was displaying extremist tendencies.

Brennan said the review had so far yielded no evidence that various agencies withheld that intelligence from one another, as was the case with rival agencies in the lead-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"There is no indication whatsoever that any agency or department was not trying to share information" on Abdulmutallab, Brennan said. "There (were) some lapses. There was some human error."

Brennan defended the sophistication of the government's anti-terror system, after one interviewer questioned if it could stack up to Facebook, the popular Internet social networking site.

More broadly, he defended the Obama administration's anti-terror efforts, including its decision to charge Abdulmutallab in criminal court and its plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. He said Obama would still consider returning ex-Guantanamo prisoners to Yemen.

He explained the decision to close the U.S. embassy in Yemen today by saying intelligence officials believe there is threat of another al Qaeda attack there.

And he said there was evidence that al Qaeda is training new operatives in Yemen to send "to the West" for possible attacks.

"We are doing everything possible to scour all the intelligence to see if there is another Abdulmutallab out there," Brennan said.Brennan spoke on "Fox News Sunday," CNN's "State of the Union," ABC's "This Week" and NBC's "Meet the Press."

In several instances, Brennan was followed by congressional Republicans who criticized his comments and the administration's national security policies.

The top Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Sen. Christopher Bond of Missouri, said on Fox that he was "very disturbed" that Obama would consider releasing Guantanamo detainees to any other country, in light of reports that several al Qaeda leaders in Yemen are former Guantanamo prisoners released during the Bush administration.

"If we don't stop the practice of releasing Gitmo detainees, to Yemen or to other countries ... we're asking for even more trouble," Bond said.On CNN.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), said Brennan "seems to have a hard time saying (the bombing attempt) was an act of terror.""This threat is real," DeMint said, "and we need to make some very real changes."

Other Republicans were more measured. On CNN, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, praised Obama's reaction to the Flight 253 attack. But he said it was clear that until Christmas, the administration was "distracted" by health care, the economy, global warming and other issues and not "focused as it should be on terrorism."

In his interviews, Brennan rebutted one Republican charge repeatedly: former Vice President Dick Cheney's accusation last week that Obama is "pretending" that the United States is not at war with terrorists.

Cheney is either "willfully mischaracterizing" Obama's position, Brennan said, or "ignorant of the facts." The administration, he said, is "determined to destroy al Qaeda, whether it's in Pakistan, Afghanistan or in Yemen. We will get there."

Clinton Charity Draws Eclectic Donors

2010-01-02T13:20:00.001-08:00

Clinton Charity Draws Eclectic Donors
Funders of Foundation Include Norway, Bill and Melinda Gates, Conservative Who Bankrolled Anti-Clinton Campaigns
01022010, 12:00:00, 0*, Full moon waning

by Mark Silva

It's high noon, with a leftover blue moon, on the cold day of the new year (and decade, we hold here) noted as 01/02/2010.

There's a certain equilibrium here at the moment.

What's past is passed, what's ahead will unfold.

We're trusting that 01022010 is not a midpoint.

The clock and the calendar do not roll backward.

But for now, all is in balance. The blue moon of New Year's Eve shone brightly overhead here, and we'll see it waning tonight.

iI's freezing in Washington as well:

Zero Celsius.

If you'd like to drop off your favorite palindrome here, we'll take it.

Obama: Al-Qaida Link To Christmas Bomb Suspect

President Barack Obama laid blame Saturday on an al-Qaida affiliate for a Christmas Day terrorist attack that has prompted a top-to-bottom review of how the nation's intelligence agencies failed to prevent the botched bombing aboard a Detroit-bound airliner.

Clinton Charity Draws Eclectic Donors

2010-01-02T12:20:00.001-08:00

Clinton Charity Draws Eclectic Donors
Funders of Foundation Include Norway, Bill and Melinda Gates, Conservative Who Bankrolled Anti-Clinton Campaigns
01022010, 12:00:00, 0*, Full moon waning

by Mark Silva

It's high noon, with a leftover blue moon, on the cold day of the new year (and decade, we hold here) noted as 01/02/2010.

There's a certain equilibrium here at the moment.

What's past is passed, what's ahead will unfold.

We're trusting that 01022010 is not a midpoint.

The clock and the calendar do not roll backward.

But for now, all is in balance. The blue moon of New Year's Eve shone brightly overhead here, and we'll see it waning tonight.

iI's freezing in Washington as well:

Zero Celsius.

If you'd like to drop off your favorite palindrome here, we'll take it.

Obama: Al-Qaida Link To Christmas Bomb Suspect

2010-01-01T13:20:00.001-08:00

Iraq Dismayed by Blackwater Dismissal
Relative of Civilians Among 17 Killed by U.S. Contractors Calls Judge's Decision to Dismiss Charges a "Farce"
TSA: Questions of screening and memory

by Mark Silva

The blocked nominee for chief of the Transportation Security Administration may face more than controversy over the unionization of the nation's airport screenershe now finds himself explaining his own only recently refreshed memory of some screening that he had undertaken on his own:

Background checks on his then-estranged wife's boyfriend some 20 years ago.

Erroll Southers, a former FBI special agent and now assistant chief of the Los Angeles World Airports Police Department, had informed senators reviewing his nomination by President Barack Obama to head the TSA of a regrettable incident long ago for which he had been rebuked.

He also said he'd only done so once.

Until following up with another letter to senators after his committee confirmation hearing acknowledging that there was one other time, too.

The White House is standing by its delayed nominee.

Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina had put a hold on Senate confirmation of Southers, contending that he is more interested in fulfilling an Obama campaign promise to unions than protecting national security. In the aftermath of the near-catastrophic lapse in intelligence and security that enabled a known threat to board a U.S.-bound airliner with explosives on Christmas Day. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to push Southers' confirmation as soon as the Senate returnshe will invoke cloture.

Southers had given senators a letter in Novemberit was revealed just this week on the Washington Post's Web-sitecorrecting what he called a distortion in his record.

"I am distressed by the inconsistencies between my recollection and the contemporaneous documents, but I assure you that the mistake was inadvertent, and that I have at all times taken full responsibility for what I know to have been a grave error in judgment," Southers wrote in a letter to Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Me.) chairman and ranking Republican member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

"This incident was over 20 years ago, I was distraught and concerned about my young son, and never in my career since has there been any recurrence of this sort of conduct."

In an October affidavit for the Senate committee, the nominee initially had said that he asked a San Diego police employee to run a background check on his then-estranged wife's boyfriend and was censured by his FBI superiors. He called it an isolated instance. But a day after the committee approved his nomination and sent it to the full Senate, he wrote that he twice had run checks himself.

He said he had forgotten the incident in 1987 or '88.

The letter was first reported by he Post on Thursday. It was dated Nov. 20.

Lieberman aide Leslie Phillips said the senator supports Southers.

"Twenty years ago, Mr. Southers committed a serious error in judgment," Phillips said. "He admitted that error and was disciplined for it. He went on to develop broad knowledge and build an excellent reputation in the areas of security and law enforcement. Mr. Southers was forthcoming about his past censure during his nomination process and about errors he made in recalling the details."

White House officials also are backing him up.

"Southers has never tried to hide this incident and has expressed that these were errors he made in judgment that he deeply regretted and an error that he made in an account of events that happened over 20 years ago," said Nick Shapiro, a White House spokesman traveling with Obama on vacation in Hawaii. ""Southers' nomination has not been held up over this as he has been entrusted with significant and increasing responsibilities in the area of homeland security over the years since, but he is being held up by Sen. (Jim) DeMint over a political issue."

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also is behind him.

"Erroll brings vast homeland security experience at the federal, state and local levels, along with hands on airport security expertise," Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "California is safer and better prepared because of his hard work and dedication. Erroll is a committed public servant and highly qualified for the role."

To Avoid Raising Taxes, States Try To Rack Up Fees

Many states want to avoid raising taxes on residents during a recession. But with widespread budget deficits, states are trying to increase revenue by turning to special fees — on hunting and fishing licenses, for example — or by increasing taxes paid by visitors on hotel rooms and rental cars.

Iraq Dismayed by Blackwater Dismissal

2010-01-01T12:20:00.001-08:00

Iraq Dismayed by Blackwater Dismissal
Relative of Civilians Among 17 Killed by U.S. Contractors Calls Judge's Decision to Dismiss Charges a "Farce"
TSA: Questions of screening and memory

by Mark Silva

Background checks on his then-estranged wife's boyfriend some 20 years ago.

He also said he'd only done so once.

Until following up with another letter to senators after his committee confirmation hearing acknowledging that there was one other time, too.

The White House is standing by its delayed nominee.

Southers had given senators a letter in Novemberit was revealed just this week on the Washington Post's Web-sitecorrecting what he called a distortion in his record.

"This incident was over 20 years ago, I was distraught and concerned about my young son, and never in my career since has there been any recurrence of this sort of conduct."

He said he had forgotten the incident in 1987 or '88.

The letter was first reported by he Post on Thursday. It was dated Nov. 20.

Lieberman aide Leslie Phillips said the senator supports Southers.

White House officials also are backing him up.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger also is behind him.

Clinton Donor List Doesn't Say Who Gave In '09

The donor list disclosed by the William J. Clinton Foundation did show that conservative Richard Scaife, who bankrolled anti-Clinton investigations in the 1990s, pitched in money. Several other foreign governments, including Kuwait, Norway and Saudi Arabia participated. The biggest donors included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which gave more than $25 million.

Swamp resolution: Staying under the top

2009-12-31T13:20:00.001-08:00

U.S. Doles Out Final Bank Bailout$29.3M
Treasury Department Injects Cash into 10 Banks; Last Such Payment of Federal Aid
Swamp resolution: Staying under the top

by Mark Silva

2010.

The mere mention of it causes pause for anyone who has been around the better part of six decades.

The Swamp is a young one, by comparison -- turning four years old during the first week of the new decade.

Like any four-year-old, The Swamp has learned some lessons the hard way. We have opened the door to literally hundreds of thousands of comments from readers these four years, and we haven't always been thrilled by what has crossed the threshhold.

We think we know obscenity when we see it, and the posting rules say that comments will be screened for it. We certainly know racism and religious prejudice, sexism, too. Obscenities, in their own way.

Sometimes we have been accused of censorship -- but trust us, you're happier for what you haven't had to read behind the delete button. If you want to play dirty, you can always find a soapbox.

There remains this one other tabu: "Over-the-top personal attacks.'' The rules forbid them. It's a lot more difficult, however, to draw a hard line between expression and outrage. We really are interested in a robust debate, and we invite criticism. But we've grown weary, near the end of these four years, of commentary worthy of four-year-olds.

So be it resolved, here in the Swamp, at the dawn of this new year of 2010, that commentary published here will land somewhere under the top of personal assault. We don't excise words -- in other words, we're not going to clean you up. That will be up to you. But when commentary veers into personal assault, we will be pressing the delete button a little more often. We hope you will appreciate the result.

We again wish all who pass through these e-pages a happy and civil New Year.

Obama Charts Subtler Course On Homeland Security

Before the failed Christmas Day airliner attack, President Obama hadn't spent much time talking about homeland security. That's quickly changing, but his reserved approach is based on a philosophy of managing risk and an aversion to what he has called the scare tactics of his predecessor.

U.S. Places New Duties on Steel From China

2009-12-30T13:20:00.001-08:00

U.S. Places New Duties on Steel From China
Action Reflects Growing Tensions Over Trade; Americans Say Chinese Have Been Engaged in "Dumping"
Barack Obama: Graying of a president

by Mark Silva

It could be the light.

There have been flecks of gray in the hair of the president since Inauguration Day, when the new chief executive's public-approval rating stood near 70 percent.

But it's the black hair that appears more scarce lately, as President Barack Obama nears the end of his first year in office with approval ratings hovering around 50 percent.

The year started with Obama promising "a new era of responsibility'' in an inaugural address that challenged Americans to "pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.''

The year ends with Obama acknowledging "human and systemic'' failures in U.S. intelligence that led to a near-"catastrophic" breakdown in security with an attempted bomb-attack on a U.S.-bound airlinerexposing the fact that picking up and dusting off the weaknesses of the government revealed on Sept. 11, 2001, remains a work in progress.

Yet, the year also ends with both the House and Senate having acted on the president's call for health-care reform, albeit with sharply conflicting measures that must still be reconciled before the president can sign a bill into law.

This hasn't come easily. The president himself acknowledged in late September, when he undertook a five-network blitz of the Sunday morning news shows, that "there have been times where I have said, 'I've got to step up my game in terms of talking to the American people about issues like health care.'''

The year started with a massive economic stimulus for an economy in recession which the president won just one month into officea $787-billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act that has brought a modicum of payroll tax relief and pumped federal money into road and bridge work but not produced as many jobs as many believed might flow from all this spending.

The year ends with signs the recession has ended, Gross Domestic Product growing again. Yet the year ends with unemployment at 10 percent -- a "lagging indicator," as millions of Americans out of work can testify.

As the president's overall job-approval ratings have slid from a high of 69 percent in the Gallup Poll in the days following his inauguration to a low of 48 percent in recent weeksand as it hovers just above 50 percent in the most recent daily trackingObama has seen highs and lows on other fronts as well:

Obama came home from Copenhagen without the 2016 summer Olympic Games that his hometown Chicago had fought so hard to secure. But he also came home from Oslo with a Nobel Prize for Peace, something which he hadn't sought at all and indeed accepted with an avowed humility about others being more deserving of such an honor.

The president has begun to draw down troops from Iraq, fulfilling one campaign promise, while ramping up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. And now, with the threat that terrorists based in Yemen have made to U.S. security in the Christmas Day assault on a Detroit-bound airliner, yet a third front of foreign wars is emerging.

Obama has won an energy bill in the House, but not in the Senate, and his hopes of pressing immigration reform have been pushed into his second year.

He offered, at the start, hope of healing the partisan rifts that have rendered Washington inert for so long. Yet the partisanship of Washington appears as poisonous these days as everwith the president's party scoring its big gains without much, if any help from Republicans: The stimulus bill was a largely Democratic initiative, clearing the Senate with just three Republicans on board, the energy bill cleared the House with the help of a handful of Republicans, the health-care bill cleared the House with just one Republican vote and the Senate passed its health-care measure over the objections of the GOP.

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility,'' Obama said at his inauguration on a cold day in January, "a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

"This is the price and the promise of citizenship,'' the newly inaugurated president said under sunny skies, with more than one million people packing the national mall from the White House to the Washington Monument to see a historic event, the swearing in of the first African American president in a nation once saddled with slavery.

"On this day,'' Obama said then, "we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.''

On this cold December day, with the president away for a holiday vacation in his birth state of Hawaii, those gray hairs are shining brighter in the portrait of a commander-in-chief fighting two wars abroad and a president fighting one with the GOP at home.

It's probably not just the light.

(Above: President Barack Obama is pictured at the top on vacation in Hawaii this week after acknowledging intelligence failures in the aftermath of an attempted airliner downing in a photo by by Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images. Obama and wife Michelle Obama are pictured dancing at the President's Home States Ball on the eve of his inauguration as president in a photo by Corey Lowenstein / Raleigh News & Observer / MCT. Obama is pictured greeting his gray-haired predecessor, former President George W. Bush, at the inaugural ceremony on Jan. 20 in a photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are pictured at the inauguration in a photo by Brian Baer / Sacramento Bee / MCT. Obama is pictured delivering his inaugural address at the Capitol in a photo by Harry E. Walker / MCT and taking the oath of office in a photo by Chuck Kennedy / MCT)

Obama's Orders Declassification Of Documents

President Obama has issued an executive order allowing for the declassification of millions of documents going back to the Cold War and World War II. It was the most decisive move made yet by a president who campaigned on promises he would bring a new era of openness and transparency to the White House.

2009-12-29T13:20:00.001-08:00

Iowa Rep. Predicts Palin White House Bid
Rep. Steve King Says Sarah Palin Could Win Iowa Caucus in Presidential Bid
Nancy Pelosi: 'Don't care how popular'

by Mark Silva

Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, says this to the question of her being perceived as a "far-out liberal:''

"I don't choose to spend my time countering mischaracterizations that the other side puts out there. Because we are effective, I continue to be the target.''

She says so in an interview with Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, one of many interviews featured in an end-of-the-year "Interview Issue" of the magazine that attempts to answer a simple question that President John F. Kennedy once posited as the biggest challenge of any journalistic or biographical portrait: "What's he like?''

"We have a big tent in our party,'' Pelosi says to the question of discontent among liberal factions of her party these days, with some disappointed that the president they helped elect is now ramping up another war and the health-care overhaul that emerges may lack the most important element, a "public option.''

Obama, the speaker from San Francisco suggests, is a "president with a nation in crisis''an economic crisis, a budget crisis, climate crisis and two wars.

"People want change,'' Pelosi tells Newsweek, "but they are menaced by it, they are cautious about it.''

With the speaker's own public approval ratings running low lately , Pelosi is reminded that Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state and former first lady who challenged Obama for the party's presidential nomination, has gone through her own cycles of popularity and unpopularityriding high again in opinion polls.

"Well, I don't care how popular I am,'' Pelosi says. "I'm not putting myself out there to run for higher office.''

Maintaining that the Democratic Party "will be fine'' in the 2010 midterm congressional elections, Pelosi notes that she is "constantly raising money... I actually take some level of pride in the opponents I have gathered,'' Pelosi tells Clift. "It helps with my fundraising.''

Now we know a little more about "what she's like.''

(House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pictured above at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen. Photo by Kay Nietfeld / . Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are pictured at a news conferece at the summit below. Photos by Olivier Morina / AFP / Getty Images)

'Franklin Delano Roosevelt' Distilled

In historian Alan Brinkley's biography, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he calls the former president the most important individual of the 20th century. Roosevelt presented national concerns to the public with his Fireside Chats.

2009-12-28T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Obama: Stop Iran Violence
President Obama addresses the public on the recent events that have taken place in Iran. Obama comments that the U.S. strongly condemns violent suppression of innocent Iranian Citizens.
Obama on terror threat: 'We will not rest'

by Alana Semuels

HONOLULU --- President Barack Obama, taking time out from his Hawaiian vacation today to address the attempted terrorist attack on Christmas Day, said he is pressing officials to determine how a man managed to board an airliner with an incendiary device.

"We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable," Obama said.

In his first public comment on the episode, the president spoke from the Kaneohe Marine base just five minutes from his vacation home in Kailua, Hawaii. He said he has asked his advisors to look into how Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab might have gotten an explosive aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 bound for Detroit on Friday.

The president said he also has instructed the government to look into current terrorism watch list policies. Abdulmutallab was on a general counter-terrorism watch list that contains about 550,000 names, which is shared with airlines and foreign security agencies, but not on any sort of no-fly list.

"This was a serious reminder of the dangers we face and of the nature of those who threaten our homeland," Obama said just after 10 am Hawaii time.

Obama said that upon being informed of the attempted terror attack he directed that immediate steps be taken to ensure the safety of the traveling public, enhance airport security and adding federal air marshals to flights leaving and arriving in the country.

He also ordered a review of the government's watch list system and of all technologies and procedures related to air travel. The president also directed his national security team to keep pressuring would-be attackers, he said.

"Those who would slaughter innocent men, women and children must know that the U.S. will do more than to simply strengthen our defenses," he said.

It was Obama's first public statement since arriving in Hawaii on Christmas Eve.

He has spent the first few days of his vacation playing tennis, golfing, working out before dawn, and receiving constant updates on the security situation.

Obama took a few minutes at the end of his short speech to address the situation in Iran, where bloody clashes with government forces have killed at least eight people.

"We call upon the Iranian government to abide by international obligations that it has to respect rights of own people," he said.

1 Year Later: Has America Been Remade?

It's been almost one year since President Obama took office. On his 100th day in office the president said the work of remaking America had begun. How has 2009 treated the administration? What are the turning points, highlights and troubles for the Obama administration?

Expert: Yemen Ties Could Be "Game Changer"

2009-12-27T13:20:00.001-08:00

Expert: Yemen Ties Could Be "Game Changer"
CBS News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate Says Attempted Attack Could Change How the Administration Views Yemen
Christmas terrorism: Presidents at war

by Mark Silva

Nearly eight months into George W. Bush's presidency, with an administration intent on pursuing a decidedly domestic agendaprimarily education, immigration and tax reforma deadly act of terrorism turned the course of not only a new president, but also American history.

A little after 11 months into Barack Obama's presidency, with an administration intent on fulfilling far-reaching domestic promiseshealth-care and immigration reform among them, as well as the revival of a recession-riddled economyanother shocking, apparent attempt at terrorism on Christmas Day has reminded a nation turned inward on its own problems about the threats outside.

It did not take long for the United States to respond to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that claimed nearly 3,000 lives at the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York, at the Pentagon outside Washington and in a random field in Pennsylvania: With a congressional authorization of force, American military forces invaded Afghanistan and toppled a militant Taliban regime that had sponsored the al Qaeda operatives who plotted the attacks of 9/11. The al Qaeda-trained team paid cash for tickets, hijacked four airliners, deployed three as missiles and lost one in a remote field to a passenger revolt.

Eight years later, with an alleged terrorist accused of trying to bomb an airliner bound for Detroit, the elaborate fortress of security-screening that the Bush administration built around the nation's airports has been penetrated by another man who apparently paid cash for his ticket and boarded an airliner in Amsterdam armed with incendiaries, allegedly intent on taking down another plane.

And eight years later, American forces still are engaged in Afghanistanindeed Obama is escalating the U.S. military force to nearly 100,000 troops by next summerwith the president explaining the expanded mission there as a matter of disabling the al Qaeda forces that have taken root in the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan with the help of a resurgent Taliban .

It was the son of a wealthy Saudi family, Osama bin Laden, whose own nation had disowned him, who authorized the attacks of 9/11. Now it is the son of a wealthy Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallabwhose own father reportedly had alerted the American embassy there that his son was taking a worrisome, radicalized pathwho is accused of a botched terrorist attack. He reportedly has claimed connections to al Qaeda.

Bush maintained, as he campaigned for the White House, that he had no interest in "nation-building.'' But the events of 9/11 quickly thrust the United States into a nation-rebuilding mission in Afghanistan, and Bush volunteered the U.S. for a nation-rebuilding mission in Iraq. Obama maintains that the U.S. will withdraw from Afghanistan once it is enabled the nation's own forces to provide its own security, yet the relenting threat of terrorism continually raises new questions about what it will take for the U.S. to ever declare safety.

One president confronted a stunning terrorist threat at the start of the 21st Century, another confronts a similar, perhaps diminished ,threat at the end of the first decadewhile worrying that the enemy is stronger than suspected.

One decade in, the most powerful nation in the world is reminded of the risks which apparently no amount of military force and no amount of domestic security is able to avert. A couple of wealthy men with the enmity of an army have attacked a nation-building power. One tragically succeeded. Another has failed. Others, too, have tried. So, once again, all eyes turn to averting the next assault.

Obama's First Year: Has He Fallen Short?

Is the health care bill a victory for President Obama, or is the bill too watered down for his constituency to consider it a winner? How has the rest of the administration's agenda fared in Obama's first year? Host Scott Simon speaks with NPR news analyst Juan Williams for reaction, as well as an assessment of how President Obama has fared in his first year in office.

Video: Captured U.S. Soldier on Tape

2009-12-26T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Captured U.S. Soldier on Tape
A video recorded by the Taliban has surfaced which features U.S. Army Private First Class Bo Berg, who has been missing since June of 2009 and believed to be held hostage. Kimberly Dozier reports.

Merry Swamp Christmas: Ho, Ho, Ho

2009-12-25T13:20:00.001-08:00

General: Pregnant Troops Won't Be Punished
Top U.S. Commander in Iraq Rescinds Order from Another General Calling for Discipline for Soldiers Who Got Pregnant
Merry Swamp Christmas: Ho, Ho, Ho

The Tour de Jakarta below featured a team of Santas pedalling through the capital of the world's most populous Muslim nation today. ( Photo/Tatan Syuflana):

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Santa Claus was feeding the fish on Christmas Day, the photo below taken by Lai Seing Sin for the at Aquaria, an underwater park:

Obama And Black America

Nearly a year after taking office, the president still enjoys a high approval rating among blacks despite soaring unemployment and a recent mini-revolt by the Congressional Black Caucus. Renee Montagne talks to Juan Williams about the impact of the Obama presidency on African Americans.

2009-12-24T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: The First Family In 2009
History will judge President Obama's first year in office by the problems he faced; massive government bailouts, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and reforming health care. But, as Joel Brown reports, the image of the first family also garnered just as many headlines.
Health care: Republicans just say no

by Mark Silva

So it passes.

After nearly a month of debate in the Senate, an overhaul of health-care in America passed early this morning -- by a vote of 60-39.

That hard-fought bloc of 60 votes -- necessary to overcome persistent Republican attempts to block the bill in the Senate -- was won with tough concessions for sponsors of the bill who wanted more out of it. That includes President Barack Obama, who wanted a "public option," a government-run plan for people who cannot find coverage privately. Senate leaders conceded this and more to conservative Democrats and an independent.

Yet the president says he can sign this bill -- once it is reconciled with one that has cleared the House. That bill includes a public option, essential for support in the House, but impossible in the Senate, if the 60 votes are to hold.

So reconciliation -- crafting a bill that both chambers can accept -- is the remaining, and perhaps toughest challenge for the legislation that the president has made his signature domestic priority.

But in the end, it will be a Democratic conference.

In the House, only one Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of New Orleans, seated in an overwhelmingly Democratic district, has voted for the health-care bill. Many Democrats voted no as well. In the Senate today, 39 Republicans voted no.

In the end, the conference report that clears both chambers -- on an up-or-down vote, without amendment -- will likely be a Democratic product as well. Negotiated by the leaders, approved by the members -- though not necessarily all of them.

In the end, if the bill makes it through conference and a final vote, and with the president's sure signature, the health-reform of 2010 will become known as a Democratic health-care bill.

In the end, the Democrats will rise on its successes, or suffer the consequences of any controversy surrounding the bill -- polls portray the public as wary about it, doubtful that it will help, worried that it will make things worse.

And in the end, the Republicans, for better or worse, will rise with any public resistance to this measure, or suffer the consequences of being the party of no.

Obama: Health Bill Will Make History

In an early Christmas Eve vote, the Senate approved a landmark health care overhaul bill. The Democrats got all the votes they need to pass the measure. Not one Republican voted for the bill. In an NPR interview Wednesday, Obama explained to Julie Rovner why the measure will be historic.

'Happy holidays,' Obama-style

2009-12-23T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Health Care On Hold?
Privately, the White House anticipates health care reform will not be finished in time for President Obama's State of the Union address, scheduled for late January, early February. Bob Orr spoke with Politico's Health Care Editor, Craig Gordon. Plus; Unplugged Under 40.
'Happy holidays,' Obama-style

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama has your Christmas cards ready.

For those who haven't gotten out their greetings in time, the folks at Organizing for America, the permanent campaign of the Obama administration, have prepared a video card.

You can send it to whomever you want, and the card will be customized with the recipient's name.

"Forgot your holiday cards this year? Don't worry, we've got you covered,'' the people at OFA say. "You can personalize our customized holiday video message for all of your friends and family. Each video will have their names in it -- and yours. You can even choose a special holiday greeting to include.''

Of course, your friends and relatives may not recognize all of the faces in the video card. It's a lot of Obama supporters photographed from coast to coast.

But they'll be sure to recognize the fellow at the end.

Here's the link to pass one along. (And for all who are ready to count the quotes from Democrats in the card, we'll remind them that, well, that's the party in power at the moment, so happy holidays to all parties today.)

The Political Junkie's Year In Review

2009 was a busy year in politics, from the inauguration of President Obama to the health care overhaul, from "You lie!" to "hiking on the Appalachian trail." NPR's political editor Ken Rudin picks his favorite political moments from the past year.

Giuliani Chooses Business over Politics

2009-12-22T13:20:00.001-08:00

Giuliani Chooses Business over Politics
Former NYC Mayor, GOP Presidential Hopeful Announces Decision to Forgo Campaign for Governor or Senator in 2010
Earlier Vote Set On Senate Health Care Bill

The Senate has scheduled a vote on final passage of its health care overhaul bill for around 8 a.m. on Thursday — earlier than initially planned. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada worked out details with his Republican counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

2009-12-21T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Victory for Democrats
It's a huge victory for Democrats as the Senate narrowly approved a bill that would overhaul America's health care system. Joel Brown has more information from Washington DC.
Health-care: 'Promise, disappointment'

by Mark Silva

With the Senate's 60-40 vote early this morning to move its health-care legislation to expected passage this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate had taken a "historic step'' toward delivering on the promise of health care for all Americans.

Yet even as Democrats have secured the 60 votes needed to overcome Republican attempts to stall the bill, the Democrats' own leaders acknowledge this bill isn't what they wanted to see emerge from months of debate on Capitol Hill.

"I wish this bill were different," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the No. 2 Senate leader, said on the Senate floor Sunday, voicing the unhappiness of liberals over compromises made with conservatives in the partysuch as the jettisoning of a public option, a government-run health plan.

But, just as President Barack Obama has conceded that some compromises will be necessary before any bill reaches his desk , Democratic leaders are girding for the concessions they will have to make before the Senate is able to reconcile its bill with the House billwhich has that public option.

"My disappointment . . . shouldn't lead me to conclude that this bill is wanting or this bill is bad,'' Durbin told the Senate. "Just the opposite is true. . . . We have to look at the positive side of what this legislation will do."

The bill offers insurance to millions of uninsured Americans, with guarantees of better protection for those who already have coverage.

Republicans, however, maintain that the Democrats will pay for this billparticularly the way they are winning passage of it.

"Very early this morning, as the majority of Americans were asleep, Harry Reid and his liberal allies quietly got one step closer to enacting their 2,700-page government-run health care experiment with absolutely no input from Republicans and absolutely no care for the American people's opposition,'' Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement this morning.

"For months concerned citizens have been telling Democrats that they don't support their plan and with this vote Democrats have shown they aren't listening to their concerns,'' Steele said, calling the bill "a grand deception'' and "a top-down bureaucratic government-run health care system that will cost nearly a trillion dollars is not what the American people want.

"If the liberals in Congress don't understand this by now,'' Steele said, "they will when the voters give them a pink slip in 2010.''

Just as Obama has staked the domestic agenda of his term as president on the delivery of a health-care reform promise with which he campaigned, Republicans hope to stake the mid-term congressional elections on public dissatisfaction with the way things are going in the country.

It is Congress as a whole, though, which the public questions. Public disapproval of the job Congress is doing has reached 68 percent in the latest Battleground Poll, a bipartisan survey sponsored by George Washington University. That's an all-time high.

So it remains to be seen what the public actually thinks of the bill that the House and Senate send to the president for signature in the new yearif they still are able to reconcile the differences that have left some of the bill's own sponsors unhappy with the product.

See what Reid had to say about the bill on the Senate floor before the 60-40 cloture vote on the manager's amendment to The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

"All over America, people are dying too soon. More and more, Americans who come down with the flu, or develop diabetes, or suffer a stroke are dying far earlier than modern science says they should die. More and more, Americans who contract skin cancer or have a heart condition are dying rather than being cured.

"Pull out the medical records of these patients, and the official forms will tell you they've died from complications of a disease or a surgery. But what is really killing more and more Americans every day are complications of our health care system.

"Much of our attention this year has been consumed by this health care debate. And a Harvard study found that 45,000 times this yearnearly 900 times every week, more than 120 times a day, on average every 10 minutes, without endan American died as a direct result of not having health insurance.

"The numbers are numbing. And they don't even include those who did have health insurance, but who died because they couldn't afford a plan that met their most basic needs.

"This countrythe greatest and richest the world has ever seenis the only advanced nation on earth where dying for lack of health insurance is even possible.

"And to make matters worse, we are paying for that privilege. The price of staying healthy in America goes up and up and upand not surprisingly, so does the number of Americans who can't afford it. In fact, medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in America.

"That is why we are here. Just as we have the ability to prevent diseases from killing us too soon, we have before us the ability to provide quality health care to every American. And we have the ability to treat our unhealthy health care system.

"That is what this historic bill does. It protects patients and consumers. It lowers the cost of staying healthy and it greatly reduces our deficit.

"This landmark legislation protects America's youngest citizens by making it illegal for insurance companies to refuse to cover a child because of a pre-existing condition.

"And it protects America's oldest citizens by strengthening Medicare and extending its life by nearly a decade. We're also taking the first steps to close the notorious loophole known as the 'doughnut hole' that costs seniors thousands of dollars for prescription drugs. Those are some of the reasons AARP and its 40 million members are behind this bill.

"This bill also strengthens our future by cutting our towering national deficit by as much as $1.3 trillion dollars over the next 20 yearsthat's trillion, with a 'T.' It cuts the deficit more sharply than anything Congress has done in a long time.

"With this vote, we are rejecting a system in which one class of people can afford to stay healthy while another cannot. It demands for the first time in American history that good health will not depend on great wealth. It acknowledges, finally, that health care is a fundamental righta human rightand not just a privilege for the most fortunate.

"President Johnson, a former Majority Leader of this Senate, signed Medicare into law with the advice that we, 'see beyond the words to the people that they touch.' That is just as true today as it was 44 years ago.

"This isn't about partisanship or procedure. It's not about politics, and it's not about polling.

"It is about people. It's about life and death in America. It's about human suffering. And given the chance to relieve this suffering, we must.

"Citizens in each of our states have written to tell us they are broke because of our broken health system. Some send letters with even worse newsnews of grave illness and preventable death.

"For weeks we have heard opponents complain about the number of pages in this bill. But I prefer to think of this bill in terms of the number of people it will help.

"A woman named Lisa Vocelka lives in Gardnerville, Nevada, with her two daughters, both of whom are in elementary school. The youngest suffers seizures and her teachers think she has a learning disability.
"Because of her family history, Lisa, the girls' mom, is at high risk for cervical cancer. Though she is supposed to get an exam every three months, she goes just once a year to save money.

"When Lisa lost her job, she lost her health coverage. Now both Lisa and her daughter miss out on the tests and preventive medicine that could keep them healthy. Her long letter to me ended with a simple plea. It was, 'We want to go to the doctor.'

"That's why this bill will ensure all Americans can get the preventive tests and screenings they need for free. I am voting 'yes' because I believe Lisa and her daughter deserve to go to the doctor.

"A teenager named Caleb Wolz is a high school student from Sparks, Nevada. Like so many kids, he used to play soccer when he was younger. But now he just sticks to skiing and rock climbing. You can forgive him for giving up soccer, though. You see, Caleb was born with legs that end at his thighs.

"As kids grow, they grow out of their shoes. A lot of kids probably get a new pair every year. But Caleb has needed a new pair of prosthetic legs every year since he was five years old.

"Unfortunately and unbelievably, Caleb's insurance company has decided it knows better than his doctorand has decided Caleb doesn't need legs that fit.

"That's why this bill will make it illegal for insurance companies to use pre-existing conditions as an excuse to take your money but not give you any coverage for it. I am voting 'yes' because I believe Caleb deserves a set of prosthetics that fit.

"Ken Hansen wrote to me from Mesquite, Nevada, on our border with Arizona and Utah. He has chronic heart problems and parts of his feet have been amputated. But Ken can't go to a doctor because he makes too much to qualify for Medicaid and too little to afford private insurance.

"I want to share with the Senate exactly what Ken wrote me:

'I am very frustrated because it seems that my only hope is that I die very soon, because I cannot afford to stay alive.'

"That's why this bill will expand Medicaid to cover people like Ken, who are caught in the middle. I am voting 'yes' because when someone tells me his only hope is to die, I cannot look away. We cannot possibly do nothing.

"Mike Tracy lives in North Las Vegas, Nevada. His 26-year-old son has been an insulin-dependent diabetic since he was an infant. The insurance Mike's son gets through work won't cover his treatments, and the Tracys can't afford to buy more insurance on their own.

"But this family's troubles are about more than just money. Since they couldn't afford to treat their son's diabetes, it developed into Addison's diseasewhich of course they can't afford to treat eitherand which could be fatal.

"This is what Mike wrote me just two weeks agoquote:

'I don't know what to pray for first: that I will die before my son will so I don't have to bear the burden, or that I outlive him so I can provide support to his family when he is gone.'

"This shouldn't be a choice any American should have to makeand when given the chance to help people like Mike, our choice should be easy.

"These are hardworking citizens with heartbreaking stories. They are people who play by the rules and simply want their insurance company to do the same.

"And they are not alone. These tragedies don't happen only to Nevadans. They don't happen only to people who, despite all their pain, find time to write their leaders in Congress.

"They happen to people on the East Coast, the West Coast and everywhere in between. They happen to Americans in small towns and big cities. They happen to citizens on the left and the right of the political spectrum.

"As Mike Tracy wrote in his tragic letter about his son: 'Democrats need health care. Republicans need health care. Independents need health care. All Americans need health care. Get it done.' He's right.

"Every single Senator here comes from a state where these injustices happen every single day. Every single Senator represents hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who have to choose between paying an electricity bill or a medical billbetween filling a doctor's prescription or just hoping for the bestbetween their mother's chemotherapy treatment and their daughter's college tuition.

"As I mentioned earlier, on average, an American dies from lack of health insurance every 10 minutes. That means that in the short time I have been speaking, our broken system has claimed another life. Another American has died a preventable death.

"So as our citizens face heart-rending decisions every day, tonight every Senator has a choice to make as well. That choice: Are you going to do all you can to avert the next preventable death?"

More Kabuki Than Christmas In The Senate

Analysis: It's hard to imagine anything further from the spirit of Christmas than what's going on this holiday week in the U.S. Senate. Reaching out for a shared solution on health care has given way to playing hardball around the clock.

Brown: GOP Protecting Ebenezer Scrooge

2009-12-20T13:20:00.001-08:00

Brown: GOP Protecting Ebenezer Scrooge
Ohio Dem. Says Republicans Obstruct Health Care Reform By Defending Practices of Insurance Companies
GOP Vows Fight As White House Defends Health Bill

Outnumbered Republicans are pledging to delay passage of historic health care legislation as long as possible after jubilant Democrats locked in Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson as the 60th and decisive vote.

2009-12-19T13:20:00.001-08:00

Marathon Negotiations Cap Climate Summit
Delegates Adopt Obama-Brokered Plan Despite its Lack of Sanctions for Countries That Fail to Cut Emissions
Snow shutters D.C., Senate has 60 votes

by Mark Silva

It's snowing so hard on Washington today that they are grounding all buses and surface trains. It's not going to stop anytime soon.

There's already a foot of snow on the ground, and it's falling so thick that the path is covered with a half-inch of snow before the shovel reaches the end of the walk.

This may sound like no big deal in climes such as Chicago or other Northern realms -- and in Nebraska, a state that has a certain relevance in Washington today -- but it hardly ever snows like this in the nation's capital.

It's lovely, the silence.

Yet this hasn't stopped the Senate's Democratic leaders from pressing for passage of a health-care bill before Christmas.

And the word today is that Sen. Ben Nelson, the Nebraska Democrat who has represented one of the toughest-to-get votes for a bill, has agreed to sign on.

The Senate has 60.

President Barack Obama, who has been "optimistically cautious'' about getting a Senate vote before Christmas, is home from Copenhagen and bound for Hawaii with his family soon for a Christmas vacation.

See the wire report on the Senate situation below:

We're going out with our grandchild to play in the snow.

(Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) is pictured outside the Capitol today following his agreement to support the health care legislation that fellow Democrats are pushing in the Senate. ( Photo by Harry Hamburg) The West Wing of the White House is pictured by Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images.

By Laura Litvan and Kristin Jensen

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg News)The U.S. Senate is poised to pass the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's health-care system in four decades after Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska decided to join his fellow Democrats in supporting the measure.

"The lives of millions of Americans will be improved," Nelson said of the legislation during a news conference today. "Lives will be saved and our health-care system will once again reflect the better nature of our country."

A final vote may still be days away as Republicans employ every procedural tactic they have to delay. Senate leaders had described Nelson as the chief holdout among Democrats, who control the chamber, and Nelson told reporters he believes the rest of his party is ready to back the legislation.

Nelson struck a deal last night with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that satisfied his demand to keep federal subsidies from being used for abortion. That was the last sticking point after Reid worked to make last-minute changes to win over Nelson and a range of other Democrats.

Reid's plan would cover 31 million uninsured people and reduce the federal deficit by $130 billion over its first decade, a Democratic aide said. The plan, now being read on the Senate floor, would cut the deficit by about $650 billion during the second decade, the aide said.

House Bill

Like the $1 trillion measure passed Nov. 7 by the House, the Senate plan would require Americans to get health coverage or pay a penalty. It would expand the Medicaid health program for the poor, set up online insurance-purchasing exchanges and provide subsidies for those who need help buying policies.

To pay for the expansion of health insurance, the Senate bill relies on hundreds of billions of dollars in savings from the Medicare program on the elderly. It also contains a new tax on high-end insurance plans.

Reid needed Nelson's support for Democrats' top domestic priority because they have no backing from Republicans. Passage of the bill will require all 60 votes controlled by Democrats to cut off stalling tactics from Republicans who say the measure would raise taxes, hurt insurers and widen the federal deficit.

New York Senator Chuck Schumer said a final Senate vote on the measure could take place by Dec. 24 even if Republicans exhaust all their procedural rights to delay it. It then would have to be reconciled with a version passed by the U.S. House and signed by President Barack Obama.

'Shoulder to Shoulder'

"All Senate Democrats stand shoulder to shoulder with President Obama," Reid said during a news conference at the Capitol today.

Nelson warned that his vote isn't guaranteed if the bill changes much in negotiations with the House.

He said his support is based on an understanding "that there will be a limited conference between the Senate and the House." If there are big changes that affect the agreement he's reached, "I will vote against it," Nelson said.

The legislation would set up an elaborate accounting procedure to prevent the use of any government funds to finance abortions covered by private insurance sold on the new online exchanges. It would segregate premiums paid by the beneficiary from any federal tax credits, cost-sharing reductions, or premium subsidies given to low-income consumers.

Nelson said the new language would allow the 12 states that ban abortion coverage in public plans and the five that ban such coverage in both public and private plans to continue doing so. The proposal would also require health-care exchanges to offer at least one plan that doesn't cover abortions.

Public Option Alternative

The Nebraska lawmaker and other Democrats had also objected to a plan to create a new government-run program, or public option, to compete with private insurers such as Hartford, Connecticut-based Aetna Inc. By eliminating that provision from the bill, Reid was able to win over holdouts including Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

As an alternative, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which oversees benefits for all civilian federal workers and members of Congress, would contract with private insurers to offer multistate plans on the insurance exchange.

Nelson won another prize for his state, with additional Medicaid costs to Nebraska being absorbed by the federal government. Reid said he had been working for weeks on the provision and said it was a "minor part" of the negotiations with Nelson.

All About 'Compromise'

"A number of states are treated differently than other states," Reid told reporters. "That's what legislation is all about. Compromise."

The statesexcept Nebraskawill have to pay 10 percent of the additional costs of Medicaid after 2017. Before that the federal government will pay 100 percent.

Among the other revisions: As soon as the legislation is enacted, children couldn't be denied insurance coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition, the summary said. Patients could also appeal decisions to deny a coverage claim to an independent board.

Reid's proposal would also force insurers to give consumers rebates if they pay less than 85 percent of premiums for medical care to beneficiaries in group plans or less than 80 percent in individual market, according to a text of the legislation.

Expenses such as taxes and fees could be deducted before calculating the percentage and the health secretary could grant exemptions if the law threatened to disrupt a local market, the bill said.

The bill also drops plans for a levy on cosmetic surgery, proposing instead a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning booths.

Plastic surgeons joined forces with companies led by Allergan Inc., maker of the wrinkle smoother Botox as well as silicone breast implants, to fight the proposed fee. The 5 percent "Bo-tax," as it was jokingly dubbed, was projected by Senate Democrats to raise $6 billion over 10 years.

With Reid unveiling the bill, the senators will take three votes separated by 30-hour intervals over the next week, assuming Republicans use their procedural delays.

Holdout Senator Agrees To Support Health Care Bill

Sen. Ben Nelson's support gives Democrats the 60 votes needed to clear the way for Senate passage of sweeping health care legislation.

Gitmo Assassins defeated: Bah humbug!

2009-12-18T13:20:00.001-08:00

"Meaningful Agreement" Reached on Climate
U.S., China, India and South Africa Reach an 11th Hour Accord, Official Says
Gitmo Assassins defeated: Bah humbug!

by Mark Silva

The GTMO (as in Guantanamo Bay Naval Station) Latinos defeated the GTMO Assassins this yearand we're not talking about terrorism or detention here.

We're talking volleyball.

The latest news from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, courtesy of the appropriately named magazine of the Guantanamo Joint Task Force"The Wire''features not the travails of emptying a military-run prison for detainees in the "war on terror,'' but rather the triumph of the GTMO Latinosseason champs in the base men's volleyball league.

"The final match-up in the single elimination tournament took place at G.J.Denich Gym, Nov. 12, between the two teams,'' The Wire reports. "The third-seeded GTMO Assassins won the first game 25-14. The fourth-seeded GTMO Latinos came back in the second game with a 25-17 win. The GTMO Latinos took the championship by taking the third game 16-14.''

In the women's league, the Sparkle Monkeys finished first, MP Battalion second, Lady Pirates third.

The edition, which comes to us courtesy of the good archivists at St. Lous University, also features a rough review of the film, A Christmas Carol, by a Naval petty officer. "For a movie starring Jim Carrey ("Yes Man," "Liar Liar," "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective"), I was expecting more laughs from "A Christmas Carol,'' the reviewer writes "Actually, I was expecting a comedic movie in general, but I was left wondering how this was from Disney/''

The review is headlined: "Bah Hambug.''

Back here in Washington, they're forecasting snow tonight, and no, that doesn't mean the global warming crisis is finished. Down in Cuba,where it surely will not snow, the president may have vowed to close the military prison at Guantanamo, but the Naval Station lives on -- "Safe, humane, legal, transparent,'' as The Wire notes.

Maybe they can start a magazine at the Thomson prison in Illinois when they move some of Guantanamo's detainees there for detention and military commission trials.

So on this festive note, The Swamp, which will be slowing down considerably for a long Christmas week remember, this is the last night of Hanukkah!wishes a happy holiday and no climate change for all.

Senate Slogs Toward Vote Showdown On Health Overhaul

The Senate faces another weekend of work, as Democrats seek to corral 60 votes to pass a health care overhaul bill. The results should be known in wee hours Monday.

2009-12-17T13:20:00.001-08:00

Biden Rolls Out Broadband Stimulus
Vice President Joe Biden Announced Today the First Projects to Benefit from $7.2B in Federal Broadband Investments
Obama's '10 challenge: 'Waking liberals'

by Mark Silva

With President Barack Obama's job approval rating at a term-low near the end of his first year, the Pew Research Center's Andrew Kohut suggests that "what's really exceptional at this stage of Obama's presidency is the extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues.''

This shift has come as much from "the middle of the electorate as from the highly energized conservative right,'' Kohut reports, with a review of recent findings on cultural and political issues that show significant movements of the needle. "Even more notable, however, is the extent to which liberals appear to be dozing as the country has shifted on both economic and social issues.''

The president's challenge in 2010?

"Waking up the liberalscalming down the independents.''

This has been borne out in other surveys as well: A disaffection among many of the independents who helped elect Obama with his stance on some of the issues he has taken on. Combined with a lack of passion among the president's most passionate base, this could spell trouble for his party in the mid-term congressional elections.

The independent Pew Center's research through the year has revealed "a downward slope in support both for an activist government generally and for a strong safety net for the needy, in particular,'' Pew reports. "Chalk up these trends to a backlash against Obama policies that have expanded the role of government.''

This includes waning support for gun control and abortion rights "and a rise in public doubts about global warming.''

"Over the course of the year,'' Pew notes, "strong opposition to health care reform has topped strong support in every survey Pew Research has conducted.

The latest December report put a sharp, partisan focus on that conservative fervor and lack of liberal passion: "While 39 percent of the Republicans said they would be angry if current reform proposals were enacted, just 22 percent of Democrats said they would be very happy if the measures succeeded.''

On the question of abortion, Pew has found for the first time in many years "a close division of opinion'' between those who support abortion rights and those who oppose them.

Public belief in the evidence of global warming, voiced by 70 percent or more of the public in recent years, has slipped to 57 percentwith Republicans and independents particularly more doubtful.

"And for the first time since the Columbine school shooting in 1999, nearly as many people believe it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns (45 percent) than to control gun ownership (49 percent),'' Pew reports.

"More puzzling is why liberals seem asleep on issues like health care and abortion,'' Pew reports. "Are they dozing because they take comfort that one of their own is in the White House? Or are they disillusioned because they think Obama is not liberal enough?''

There are some signs that liberals " may be feeling a bit ignored by the administration,'' Pew suggests..Most Republicans (66 percent) believe that Obama is listening most to his party's liberals. But just 20 percent of liberal Democrats believe. Most think Obama is listening to moderates (54 percent) or say they aren't sure who really has the president's ear (25 percent).

"Whether it is disillusionment, apathy or over confidence, the administration and the Democratic Party will need a lot of help from liberals in 2010, given the public opinion trends on issues and the rising anti-incumbent sentiment abroad in the land,'' Pew reports.

"Many key elements of Obama's base (young voters, minorities) do not have a particularly good record for turnout in off-years, as Republican victories last month in Virginia and New Jersey illustrated,'' Pew notes. "Obama's challenge is to avoid further scares to skittish independents, while lighting a fire under lethargic liberals.''

The bipartisan Battleground Poll came to a similar conclusion this week, suggesting that anger among independents and a lack of motivation to vote among the president's base combine to spell a big problem for the Democrats and major opportunity for the Republicans in 2010.

Oklahoma Abortion Law 'Invasive,' Critics Say

A new Oklahoma law requires any woman seeking an abortion to first answer dozens of personal questions — information that would be posted on a state Web site. Abortion rights advocates, who are challenging the law in court, say it would have a chilling effect on women considering the procedure.

Congress Scrambles As New Year Looms

2009-12-16T13:20:00.001-08:00

Congress Scrambles As New Year Looms
With Days Dwindling Before 2010, Lawmakers Rush to Finish Year-End Legislation on Defense, Unemployment, Debt
Obama: 'New' or 'business as usual?'

by Mark Silva

While President Barack Obama's approval rating has slipped to 49 percent in another poll released today, most Americans surveyed still say that Obama has "a new approach'' to politics in Washington.

That's a slim majority, however, according to the results of a Pew Research Center poll: While 53 percent of those surveyed say the president who campaigned with promises of "change'' has a new approach to politics, the percentage of those saying the president's approach is "business as usual'' near the end of his first year in office has grown from 30 percent in September to 37 percent in the newest poll.

"This shift in opinion has been driven in large part by Republicans and independents,'' the Pew Center reports.

"In September, by nearly two-to-one, more independents said Obama's approach to politics was new (62 percent) than said it was business as usual (34 percent). In the current survey, 48 percent of independents view Obama's as approach new compared with 42 percent who say it is business as usual. And among Republicans, the percentage saying Obama has a new approach to politics has declined from 50 percent in September to 39 percent today.''

That loss of confidence among independent voters also registered in a new Battleground Poll released today, which points to political implications for the president's party in the midterm 2010 congressional elections.

While the president's overall approval rating in the nonpartisan Pew poll is 49 percentthe same approval measured in the bipartisan Battleground PollPew has found that the percentage of people expressing "at least a fair amount of confidence in Obama to do the right thing'' in fixing the economy has slipped from 59 percent in October to 52 now.

" Smaller percentages express confidence in Obama on health care reform (44 percent) and reducing the budget deficit (41 percent,"' Pew notes.

The survey of 1,504 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press was conducted Dec. 9-13. For more, see the full Pew report on Obama at year's end.

2009 Mixed Year For Gay Marriage Supporters

Tuesday, gay rights supporters celebrated when the Washington, DC city council voted to approve same sex marriage. But similar bills have met with defeat in New York and New Jersey. Also, the health care bill debate in the Senate may be nearing an end.

Obama: Health-care 'precipice' near

2009-12-15T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: On The "Precipice" Of Passing Health Care
After meeting with Senate Democrats President Obama said that differences remain but Democrats are on the "precipice" of passing health care reform.
Obama: Health-care 'precipice' near

by Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook

President Barack Obama, acknowledging that he will have to accept serious compromises in the passage of a health-care overhaul, insisted today that he will not let the public down on an issue that he has made the centerpiece of his first-year domestic agenda.

"I am feeling cautiously optimistic that we can get this done,'' said Obama, with a stern public appearance following a closed-door session with fellow Democrats from the Senate struggling to hold the votes needed for passage of a healthcare bill.

Obama, rallying Senate Democrats at the White House today in hope of passing a healthcare bill next week, pressed them not to let disagreements over details of their legislation undercut their drive to realize the party's decades-long dream of expanding coverage.

"From the discussions we had, it's clear that we are on the precipice of an achievement that has eluded Congresses and presidents for decades,'' Obama said after their meeting.

"This was not a roll call,'' the president said, appearing with Senate Democrats in the Roosevelt Room of the West Wing. "This was a broad-based discussion about how we move forward.''

The seriousness of the divisions that have surfaced within the Democratic caucus was clear in the urgency that Obama voiced today.

"This reform has to pass on our watch,'' the president said. "Now let's be clear. The final bill won't include everything that everybody wants. No bill can do that.''

The American public is "waiting for us to act,'' Obama said, "and I don't intend to let them down.''

Obama and Senate Democratic leaders are scrambling to hold together their caucus despite a decision to eliminate the last vestiges of a proposal to create a new government-run insurance plan, the so-called "public option," long cherished by liberals.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected Wednesday to outline a new proposed compromise, which was forced on the party by Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and other conservative Democrats uneasy about a proposal to expand Medicare.

That compromise picked up important support today from several leading consumer groups, including the AARP, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Consumers Union and Families USA.

The groups plan to join the Service Employees International Union, which has been a leading advocate for a new government insurance plan, at the Capitol on Wednesday to urge senators to quash a Republican-led filibuster next week.

In addition, Health Care for America Now, the influential coalition of liberal activist groups, planned to send a letter to Reid today calling for passage of the legislation, according to Richard Kirsch, the group's campaign manage.

"There are major problems with the Senate bill," Kirsch said in an interview today. "But if the Senate doesn't act, there will be no healthcare reform ... The place to fix (the Senate bill) is in a conference committee" with House and Senate leaders at the table.

Without any GOP support, all 60 lawmakers in the Senate Democratic caucusincluding two independentswill have to vote for a procedural motion in order for the bill to advance. It will then have to be reconciled with a version passed by the House last month.

In the House, a stronger bulwark of liberalism than the Senate, Democrats acknowledged a weak bargaining position because they are unwilling to kill the bill because it does not go far enough.

``We progressives are negotiating with a gun to our heads,'' said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.).``Our opponents are saying, 'Go ahead and shoot.' If you're a public-option fan, you haven't had a good week.''

Weiner expressed bitterness that Obama had not provided more aggressive support for a new government plan.

``Other presidents have weighed into big national debates more muscularly than this president has,'' Weiner said.

Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) welcomed any compromise that would get the bill through the Senate, but showed little enthusiasm for the jury-rigged compromise which they are seeing emerge.

``We in the House have made a beautiful soufflÃ©, but the Senate has scrambled an egg,'' said Miller, noting that Reid already has said he expected to accept the House's more-generous prescription drug subsidies. ``Let's hope they will find more they like in the House bill.''

But others fully expected that the path being blazed by the Senate will be hard for the House to stray from on big issues such as the public option.

``We are not going to vote against health care in the final analysis, because what we'll get from the Senate will be better than what we have now,'' said Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel "told us months ago: Everything can be compromised except our ultimate goal of getting something done. Everything else is negotiable.''

Reid and other party leaders still are contending with intense anger on the left, where many activists and some liberal lawmakers feel the president and the majority leader sold out on a key to overhauling the nation's healthcare system, the public option.

"The so-called public option, government-run insurance program is out,'' Lieberman told reporters today in the Capitol, as is a proposed "Medicare buy-in'' for Americans under 65.

"If there is no attempt to bring things like that in, then I'm going to be in a position where I can say... what I've wanted to say all along, that I'm ready to vote for health-care reform,'' Lieberman said.

Earlier today, the White House tried to diffuse the anger sparked by Lieberman's announcement over the weekend that he would vote against a bill that contained a Medicare expansion. Lieberman earlier had expressed support for a similar proposal.

"If we held flip-flops against everybody in the Congress, we'd probably not have many people there," Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program.

"I think Joe's judgment is wrong in this," Biden said, before expressing optimism about the outcome of next week's expected votes. "I'm confident Joe is going to see the light, I'm confident he is going to vote for a final bill, but there is an awful lot of gamesmanship going on right now."

Mark Silva contributed to this report from Washington.

Democrats Dropping Public Option To Save Overhaul—Again

Unable to muster enough votes for health overhaul that includes a substantial government-run insurance alternative, Senate Democrats are willing to jettison a Medicare buy-in to move the rest of the health bill along.

Congress May Regulate Loud TV Commercials

2009-12-14T13:20:00.001-08:00

Congress May Regulate Loud TV Commercials
Bill Would Limit Ads to Be No Louder than the Shows They Sponsor; But Some Question Its Feasibility and Value
Obama, Oprah Winfrey: 'Solid B-plus'

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

by Mark Silva

During the tour of the White House at Christmas that Oprah Winfrey gave viewers last night, she also got the president of the United States to give himself a grade.

After nearly a year in office, Winfrey asked President Barack Obama on her ABC special, what grade would he give himself?

"Good, solid B-plus,'' Obama said.

"We stabilized the economy, prevented the possibilities of a great depression... The economy is growing again, we are on our way out of Iraq, I think we've got the best possible plan for Afghanistan,'' the self-assessing president explained.

"B-plus because of the things that are undone,'' Obama added.

"Health care is not yet signed...

"If I get health care passed, we tip into A-minus.''

Senate Democrats Split On Prescription Drug Imports

Democrats are split on a proposed amendment to the health care overhaul bill that would allow pharmacies and wholesalers to import lower-cost drugs from overseas. Supporters say it will save consumers billions of dollars. Opponents raise safety concerns — and fears that it could blow up the entire bill.

2009-12-13T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: McConnell: Current Health Bill A "Monstrosity"
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) spoke with Bob Schieffer about the problems facing Democrats in passing health reform in the Senate, calling the current legislation a "monstrosity.'
Larry Summers: Job growth by Spring

by Mark Silva

Larry Summers, the president's chief economic adviser, says the shedding of jobs in an economy emerging from recession should end by Spring.

"It will take time,'' Summers said in an appearance on CNN's State of the Union with John King today. "A year ago, the question was would we have a depression?

"Today everyone agrees that the recession is over,'' Summers said. "And the questions are around how fast we'll recover. Experience is that it that these things -- that it takes significant time.

"First, GDP increases. We have seen that start to happen. Then firms ask the workers who are already with them to work more hours. That's starting to happen. Then, net job creation starts to happen,'' Summers said. "We were losing 700,000 jobs a month when President Obama took office. Last month, we lost 11,000. So we are getting there. And most professional forecasters expect job growth by Spring, and I think that's a reasonable judgment in an uncertain world. ''

Summers said the same thing in an appearance on ABC News' This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

"By Spring, employment growth will start turning positive,'' Summers told Stephanopoulos. "Everybody agrees that the recession is over.''

Here, courtesy of CNN, is a transcript of the interview with Summers:

KING: We begin this Sunday with a few numbers and with the issue that dominates our national conversation, the economy. We are 328 days into the Obama presidency, 299 days since the administration's big economic stimulus plan was signed into law. It is often said that consumer spending drives the American economy, and 13 days from Christmas, there are some signs many of you are willing to dig a little deeper this holiday season, but there are plenty of not-so- encouraging numbers as well. Record federal deficits, a national unemployment rate of 10 percent. And while mortgage rates are below 5 percent, many Americans say the banks, even banks that received their taxpayer dollars in bailout funds, are being more than a little Grinch-like when it comes to handing out credit.
The president meets with some of those bankers Monday at the White House, and also wants to dip into some of those Wall Street bailout funds to help create more jobs on Main Street. A perfect moment to touch base with one of the president's top economic advisers on these critical pocketbook issues, the director of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers, joins us from Boston. Good morning, Mr. Summers.
SUMMERS: John, good to be with you.
KING: It's good to see you in the greatest city in America, Boston, Massachusetts. Let's begin with the questions so many people are asking. Sunday morning, they get up, they have breakfast with the kids, they have a cup of coffee, maybe pick up the Sunday paper, and they ask themselves for months now, when are the jobs coming back? We are at 10 percent unemployment. When will we see 8 percent, 7 percent, 6 percent?
SUMMERS: Look, John, it will take time. A year ago, the question was would we have a depression? Today everyone agrees that the recession is over. And the questions are around how fast we'll recover.
Experience is that it that these things -- that it takes significant time. First, GDP increases. We have seen that start to happen. Then firms ask the workers who are already with them to work more hours. That's starting to happen. Then, net job creation starts to happen.
We were losing 700,000 jobs a month when President Obama took office. Last month, we lost 11,000. So we are getting there. And most professional forecasters expect job growth by spring, and I think that's a reasonable judgment in an uncertain world.
And then after employment growth, given that when you start to create jobs, more and more people start looking for work because they are encouraged, it takes further time until you reduce unemployment.
But on the key measure, is the economy creating jobs or are jobs still on net being destroyed, most people now think that we are looking to see that by spring. And some forecasters think it will happen a little sooner, some forecasters think it will happen later. But we are a lot closer than where we were a year ago, and the signs that are the first signs that things are turning, the output starting to grow, hours worked starting to increase, we are now seeing progress.
That's not nearly enough, not nearly enough. We have got to do a lot more. There is no more important issue facing the country than job growth, because if we don't create jobs, we have got no prospect at the kind of budget deficits we want. If unemployment stays high, we are not going to have the strength in the world that we want, if unemployment stays high.
That's why jobs are the president's critical economic priority going forward. That's why he is working so hard to implement the recovery act. And actually, because it takes time to bring projects online, there are going to be twice as many projects going in the next six months as there were in the last six months. That's why we are working to support the private sector by encouraging credit to small business, by doing as much as we possibly can to promote U.S. exports at a time when we should be very competitive in the global economy. And that's why the president announced this week a set of principles to guide us going forward, emphasizing the importance of small business, the importance of infrastructure, and the real need for us to start making investments on a much greater scale, and incentives for investment on a much greater scale in energy investment.
There are opportunities for millions of your viewers out there to make investments in their home where they will get a very high rate of return. They will spend $1,000 today and they will save hundreds of dollars each months going forward. And we have got to get the right kinds of partnerships going between the public and the private sector to encourage those kinds of energy efficiency investments. Just like the cash-for-clunkers program spurred a lot of spending and helped the environment over the summer, we are going to have to do similar kinds of things to support people as they make improvements to their homes to promote energy efficiency.
KING: Let me jump in here, let me jump in here, because you mentioned partnership. One of the reasons we are in this ditch is because of abuses on Wall Street and big mistakes made by financial institutions. The president will meet with a number of big bankers tomorrow at the White House and he says in a "60 Minutes" interview to air tonight that he is worried many of them still don't get it. What don't they get and what must they do?
SUMMERS: Here is what I think they don't get. It was irresponsible risk taking that brought the economy to the brink of collapse. It was their irresponsible risk taking in many cases that brought the economy to collapse. And frankly, after the Asian financial crisis, after the S&L debacle, after the 1987 stock market crash, after other things that happened, it wasn't the first time.
And they don't get in some cases that they wouldn't be where they are today, and they certainly would not be paying the bonuses they are paying today, if their government hadn't taken extraordinary actions. Extraordinary actions not, frankly, with the motivation of helping them, but with the motivation of helping the economy, but of which they were nonetheless the beneficiary. And for them to be complaining about serious regulation directed at making sure this never happens again is wrong. For $300 million to be spent on lobbyists trying to gut serious efforts at financial reform is not how this country should be operating. For firms that have benefited from taxpayer support to be complaining about the government burdening them is, frankly, a bit rich.
The country took necessary steps. It helped, because there was no other way, the financial community. Now the financial community has got to think about its obligations to the country. That goes to issues about the flow of credit, that goes to making sure that we don't see a recurrence of what took place again, which goes to stronger financial regulation. It goes to making sure that we are doing everything we can, everything we can to prevent foreclosures and to enable families to stay in their homes. And it goes, when some institutions are saying they can't lend to small businesses because they don't have enough capital, they would have more capital if they were not paying it out to their workers in the form of very great bonuses.
So the president is going to focus on what the bankers can do for their country, what they -- what obligations they should feel at what, even with the improvement, is still a critical juncture for our economy.
KING: Let me talk to you about a challenge, a critical juncture here in Washington. I want to play out something for our viewers to see. Congress is about to pass an increase in the federal debt celling, the amount that government is allowed to borrow and run up into debt.
Here's where you served in the Clinton administration, back in 1993, and you look at it; it goes from $4.37 trillion up to $12.1 trillion, the government now authorized to borrow. And Congress is going to raise that up a bit even more; $1.4 trillion, record budget deficit last year.
And yet, Larry Summers, even as families around the country have to cut their budgets or make concessions, Congress is going to vote today on a spending bill that will give some Cabinet agencies, a dozen Cabinet agencies, sometimes nine, sometimes 10, and some departments, as much as a 12 percent spending increase.
This administration says next year will be the focus and discipline on debt reduction. Why not draw a line now and say now we need to start, and that's too much spending?
SUMMERS: A couple points, John. First, if people study your graph slowly, carefully, they'll see that the debt was actually going down in the late years of the Clinton administration.
Frankly, when a new administration took place in 2001, all the innovations came off; we spent; we did, for example, a whole new prescription drug program, paying for none of it, and at the same time we launched massive tax cuts.
And that's why the 10-year deficit projection that President Obama inherited was $8 trillion. That's what happened. And President Obama recognizes that we've got an obligation to fix it.
Frankly, for the next year or two, priority number one -- certainly this year, priority number one has to be job creation. That's why we're putting people directly to work.
But then the priority has to be getting the country's finances under control. That's going to be very clear in the rigorous budget that the president proposes. That's clear in how the president, with the very strong support of Secretary Geithner, has administered the -- the TARP program.
Just this week we were able to announce that more than $200 billion improvement in the projection on that program. We're starting to collect the funds back with interest and dividends on a substantial scale.
The Bank of America, for example, paid back some $45 billion that's now available for taxpayers.
We're very focused. The president has said that, on health care, we are not going to put into place -- he is not going to sign any legislation that increases the deficit at all. And in fact, the legislation provides a framework that will enable significant budget cuts.
So, yes, it's a -- it's a challenging agenda. But what we've got to do is make sure the economy starts growing again and growing strongly, because, if we don't do that, it's going to be enormously difficult to make progress on the deficit, and then, once the economy recovers, make sure in every way we can that our situation becomes more sustainable.
And the president's made clear his willingness to be part of any system that will bring the congressional leadership of both parties together around that crucial objective.
KING: When we come back, we'll talk more about that, the tough choices the president and the Congress will face if you do try to get the deficit down, and also, a bit of a score card on the stimulus plan so far. Much more to talk about with the president's top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: We're back with Lawrence Summers, the director of the National Economic Council.
And, Mr. Summers, you were mentioning before the break, the president's willing to sit down with the members of Congress or anyone else to try to work on getting the deficit down.
As you know, one of the leading proposals in Congress is a commission. Kent Conrad, the chairman of the Budget Committee, a Democrat; Judd Gregg, a Republican, the ranking Republican, from the state of New Hampshire -- they say, let's form a commission; the president gets a couple of appointments; most of them come from the Congress; they come up with a plan, and Congress has to vote up or down, yes or no. Tough choices, probably, spending cuts in there; might be tax increases in there, but you have to vote up or down, make the tough choices.
We'll talk about some of the potential choices, but just on the basic premise, would the president say, "Yes, I'll support that plan?"
SUMMERS: President Obama -- the president wants to see the problem solved. He's open to a wide range of approaches. But, of course, it depends on where all the congressional leadership are. And anything that will bring together the House of Representatives and the Senate Democrats...
KING: Let me -- let me jump in. Because a lot of the...
(CROSSTALK)
SUMMERS: ... the president will be very open to.
KING: A lot of people that control the money don't want that commission. They think it takes away their power to appropriate, their power to raise or decrease taxes.
And other people in this town -- and again, you were here; you rightly so said you were paying down the debt when you left the Clinton administration; we had a balanced budget. There are other people who say, if we're going to make those tough choices, that's the way to do it, to take, as much as you can, the politics out of it.
Why won't the White House say yes, or say no, and make them find something else?
SUMMERS: The president will be happy -- the president wants to see the problem solved. He's prepared to accommodate others on the way -- on the way that will work to do it. What's important is that the problem be solved.
Adopting an approach that some people favor and that other people will block, that won't -- that won't work, if they have the capacity -- if they have the capacity to block it.
So the president is consulting widely with the congressional leadership in both parties, in both -- on both houses of the Congress, looking to craft an approach that -- that works. This is an issue that's crucial for the future of our country.
You know, people need to understand that we need to do both and focus both on jobs in the short run, because, if the economy doesn't grow, the deficit situation becomes impossible, and on the deficit situation for the medium run, because, if we don't have confidence that comes from sustainable deficits, it's going to be very hard to grow jobs.
SUMMERS: So we need, really, to be moving very aggressively on both fronts. And the president is very pragmatic. He knows that we need to move on both these fronts. He's determined to do it. He's proposed concrete steps in both areas. And he's prepared to work with others, because this is a democracy, in whatever way will be most effective to bring about these objectives.
KING: He's the president, though, and he's the most powerful member of his party. Our senior White House correspondent, Ed Henry, obtained a document this week that indicates there's a divide among the president's economic team, which you help lead, on this very question, on the question of, if you had such a commission, how broad of a scope would it have? Would it just be Social Security and Medicare or could it across the federal budget?
Should the president -- one of the proposals in that memo was, the president would, sort of, preempt the Congress and announce a commission of his own.
Where does Larry Summers stand on that question? Do we need a commission and how broad should its scope be?
SUMMERS: I stand where I -- where I just said I stood, and where the -- and where the president stands. We need to solve this problem.
KING: But we don't know exactly where he stands.
SUMMERS: We're prepared -- we're prepared to work with others, but we live in a country with an executive branch and with a legislative branch, with two parts of the legislative branch, the House and the Senate, and any approach to be viable has to be an approach that works for both of them, statutory commission, executive commission, direct action through the appropriations process.
That's not really what's fundamentally important. What's fundamentally important is that we find a solution that works. And the president will be open -- is open to any approach that offers the prospect of controlling the budget deficit.
And all of his advisers -- let me just say, all of his advisers are agreed on the importance of deficit reduction in the medium term, justice -- they're all agreed on the importance of spurring job growth over the next year.
KING: Let's quickly take a year-end report card, if you will, on the stimulus plan. Because, as you know, it was very important to the president and has become controversial politically.
He signed it into law 299 days ago. And let's begin by letting the president himself lay out what he called the test for this program.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: My administration has begun implementing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which will create or save 3.5 million jobs, and 90 percent of those will be in the private sector.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And now, Mr. Summers, let's look, using your own numbers. Now, some people dispute these numbers, but these are the administrations numbers, total jobs created or saved.
The prediction was 3,675,000. So far, Recovery.gov says 640,000; 329,000 jobs created.
As you noted earlier, a lot of the spending is still to come into the pipeline next year. Will you make that 3.6 million? Will you create or save 3 million jobs next year or does the administration need to revise that figure?
SUMMERS: You know well that you're comparing apples and oranges. The 3.5 million jobs figure was a two-year figure for the total impact of the program. The 600-and-some-thousand jobs took no account of the tax cuts and the extra spending that resulted from them, took no account of the fact that, when you put people -- put someone to work, they then spend money and there's a multiplier effect that puts other people to work.
The Congressional Budget Office, which isn't our administration, and certainly has been a thorn in the sign of administrations for a very long time, estimated last week that the program had already created up to 1.6 million jobs.
The number of projects under the program, according to the projections, and it's on schedule, is going to be about twice as great over the next six months as it was over the last six months.
So I don't think there's any question that the Recovery Act is serving its intended function. Look, look at the economic debate today. People are talking about how much job creation there will be; they'll be talking about the pace of the recovery from recession.
We're not where we'd like to be as a country, but, gosh, it's different from where it was when the Recovery Act was passed, when the question was whether we'd have another great depression; when the question was whether the financial system would collapse.
We've got a long way to go, but we're starting to see the basic mechanism of recovery. People spend; that creates income for other people; they spend, that creates more income; they spend.
That basic mechanism, that cyclical process of recovery, is starting to engage. And that's really an accomplishment of the Recovery Act.
So we're very satisfied with what the impact of those measures have been, even as we recognize that the rate at which people were laid off in the spring was something that went way beyond what any forecaster last winter was expecting. And so we've got a great deal to do.
KING: Larry Summers is the director of the National Economic at the White House. We thank you for your time this morning.
SUMMERS: Thank you.
KING: Take care.

Senate Passes Omnibus Spending Measure

The package includes increased budgets for health, education, law enforcement and veterans' programs.

GOP Bid to Block Spending Bill Dies

2009-12-12T13:20:00.001-08:00

GOP Bid to Block Spending Bill Dies
Senate Dems Turn Back Filibuster Attempt on $1.1T Budget for Federal Agencies, Mandatory Payments for Benefit Programs
Climate change: 'Mastery of Washington'

by Mark Silva

Both President Barack Obama and Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee are bound for Copenhagen next week, among the many U.S. representatives at an international conference that will conclude with an attempt at a framework for an agreement on controlling climate change.

If opponents of action on climate change have their way, the White House contends, the world will only continue to emit unchecked greenhouse gases that are destroying the environment.

Getting one's way in Washington isn't all that easyObama, commenting on the pace of the health-care debate, has noted that Lyndon Johnson didn't have the Congressional Budget Office to contend with when he was pressing Medicare. But if Americans cannot comprehend the need to get control of energy, Obama said during his campaign for the White House, even a Lyndon Johnson-like "master of Washington'' will not be able to do what's needed.

The energy bill which narrowly passed the House earlier this yearwith the help of eight Republican memberssets targets for curtailing the emissions of gases blamed for contributing to global warming. The Senate is debating a bill with tougher targets. Action on these is essential, the White House maintains. They are watching, in Copenhagen, what the U.S. is attempting to do.

Blackburn argues that the bills will only produce an "energy tax'' that will cause home utility bills to rise"skyrocket,'' she even quotes Obama as saying.

There is a problem with Blackburn's allusion to Obama's 'skyrocket' quote, howeverit came from an interview that candidate Obama gave to the San Francisco Chronicle in January 2008 talking about the necessary costs of the "cap and trade'' energy plan that he was proposingit was not a commentary on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 which the House passed in June or the plans the Senate is weighing.

All agree that energy costs will rise over time with these measuresbut far more modestly than any "skyrocketing''and they also argue that costs will increase in any event. They argue, additionally, that the cost of inaction is far worse.

This is what Obama said back in January of 2008:

"The problem is not technical, and the problem is not sufficient mastery of the legislative intricacies of Washington. The problem is, uh, can you get the American people to say, 'This is really important,' and force their representatives to do the right thing? That requires mobilizing a citizenry. That requires them understanding what is at stake. Uh, and climate change is a great example...

"Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I'm capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it -- whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers...

"You can already see what the arguments will be during the general election. People will say, "Ah, Obama and Al Gore, these folks, they're going to destroy the economy, this is going to cost us eight trillion dollars," or whatever their number is. Um, if you can't persuade the American people that yes, there is going to be some increase in electricity rates on the front end, but that over the long term, because of combinations of more efficient energy usage, changing light bulbs and more efficient appliance, but also technology improving how we can produce clean energy, the economy would benefit.

"If we can't make that argument persuasively enough, you -- you can be Lyndon Johnson, you can be the master of Washington. You're not going to get that done.''

Hear that early 2008 interview here:

Boosting employment after the worst recession since the Great Depression is another question, the president says, contending that his administration already has taken steps that are creating new jobs and offered new ideas last week that can help as well. In addition, Obama argues, new regulation of the financial markets is essential to avert a repeat of the abuses that contributed to a credit crisis

The House voted for that regulation this weekwith Republicans voting no.

"Even as we dig our way out of this deep hole, it's important that we address the irresponsibility and recklessness that got us into this mess in the first place,'' Obama says in his weekly address today.

"Some of it was the result of an era of easy credit, when millions of Americans borrowed beyond their means, bought homes they couldn't afford, and assumed that housing prices would always rise and the day of reckoning would never come.

"But much of it was due to the irresponsibility of large financial institutions on Wall Street that gambled on risky loans and complex financial products, seeking short-term profits and big bonuses with little regard for long-term consequences,'' the president says today. "It was, as some have put it, risk management without the management. And their actions, in the absence of strong oversight, intensified the cycle of bubble-and-bust and led to a financial crisis that threatened to bring down the entire economy. ''

See the president's address above, the Republican address below, and read both of them below the fold here in the Swamp.

This is the text of the president's weekly address:

Over the past two years, more than seven million Americans have lost their jobs, and factories and businesses across our country have been shuttered. In one way or another, we've all been touched by the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

The difficult steps we've taken since January have helped to break our fall, and begin to get us back on our feet. Our economy is growing again. The flood of job loss we saw at the beginning of this year slowed to a relative trickle last month. These are good signs for the future, but little comfort to all of our neighbors who remain out of a job. And my solemn commitment is to work every day, in every way I can, to push this recovery forward and build a new foundation for our lasting growth and prosperity.

That's why I announced some additional steps this week to spur private sector hiring. We'll give an added boost to small businesses across our nation through additional tax cuts and access to lending they desperately need to grow. We'll rebuild more of our vital infrastructure and promote advanced manufacturing in clean energy to put Americans to work doing the work we need done. And I have called for the extension of unemployment insurance and health benefits to help those who have lost their jobs weather these storms until we reach that brighter day.

But even as we dig our way out of this deep hole, it's important that we address the irresponsibility and recklessness that got us into this mess in the first place.

Some of it was the result of an era of easy credit, when millions of Americans borrowed beyond their means, bought homes they couldn't afford, and assumed that housing prices would always rise and the day of reckoning would never come.

But much of it was due to the irresponsibility of large financial institutions on Wall Street that gambled on risky loans and complex financial products, seeking short-term profits and big bonuses with little regard for long-term consequences. It was, as some have put it, risk management without the management. And their actions, in the absence of strong oversight, intensified the cycle of bubble-and-bust and led to a financial crisis that threatened to bring down the entire economy.

It was a disaster that could have been avoided if we'd had clearer rules of the road for Wall Street and actually enforced them.

We can't change that history. But we have an absolute responsibility to learn from it, and take steps to prevent a repeat of the crisis from which we are still recovering.

That's why I've proposed a series of financial reforms that would target the abuses we have seen and leave us less exposed to the kind of breakdown we just experienced.

They would bring new transparency and accountability to the financial markets, so that the kind of risky dealings that sparked the crisis would be fully disclosed and properly regulated.

They would give us the tools to ensure that the failure of one large bank or financial institution won't spread like a virus through the entire financial system. Because we should never again find ourselves in the position in which our only choices are bailing out banks or letting our economy collapse.

And they would consolidate the consumer protection functions currently spread across half a dozen agencies and vest them in a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. This agency would have the authority to put an end to misleading and dishonest practices of banks and institutions that market financial products like credit and debit cards; mortgage, auto and payday loans.

These are commonsense reforms that respond to the obvious problems exposed by the financial crisis.

But, as we've learned so many times before, common sense doesn't always prevail in Washington.

Just last week, Republican leaders in the House summoned more than 100 key lobbyists for the financial industry to a "pep rally," and urged them to redouble their efforts to block meaningful financial reform. Not that they needed the encouragement. These industry lobbyists have already spent more than $300 million on lobbying the debate this year.

The special interests and their agents in Congress claim that reforms like the Consumer Financial Protection Agency will stifle consumer choice and that updated rules and oversight will frustrate innovation in the financial markets. But Americans don't choose to be victimized by mysterious fees, changing terms, and pages and pages of fine print. And while innovation should be encouraged, risky schemes that threaten our entire economy should not.

We can't afford to let the same phony arguments and bad habits of Washington kill financial reform and leave American consumers and our economy vulnerable to another meltdown.

Yesterday, the House passed comprehensive reform legislation that incorporates some of the essential changes we need, and the Senate Banking Committee is working on its own package of reforms. I urge both houses to act as quickly as possible to pass real reform that restores free and fair markets in which recklessness and greed are thwarted; and hard work, responsibility, and competition are rewardedreform that works for businesses, investors, and consumers alike.

That's how we'll keep our economy and our institutions strong. That's how we'll restore a sense of responsibility and accountability to both Wall Street and Washington. And that's how we'll safeguard everything the American people are working so hard to builda broad-based recovery; lasting prosperity; and a renewed American Dream. Thank you.

This is the text of Rep. Marsha Blackburn's address for the GOP:

"Hi, I'm Congressman Marsha Blackburn, and I have the great honor of representing Tennessee's Seventh District.

"Next week, I and a number of my Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives will head to CopenhagenDenmark's capital citywhere diplomats and politicians from around the world have gathered in an attempt to try to reach an international, UN-brokered agreement on climate change.

"If President Obama has his way, the Copenhagen conference will produce mandatory emissions limits that would destroy millions of American jobs and damage our economic competitiveness for decades to come.

"To comply with this UN-brokered agreement, Washington Democrats want to impose a 'cap-and-trade' national energy tax, a bureaucratic nightmare that would make households, small businesses and family farms pay higher prices for electricity, gasoline, food and virtually every product made in America. This legislation is currently making its way through the Senate after passing the House of Representatives in June.

"President Obama himself has said that as a result of this national energy tax, electricity prices would, and I quote, 'necessarily skyrocket.' His own Department of Energy has determined that millions of jobs would be lost.

"Since Democrats in Congress have failed to get a cap and trade bill to the President's desk ahead of the Copenhagen Summit, President Obama took unilateral action this week to pile more regulation on the backs of families and small businesses in the name of combating global warming. On Monday the President's EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, took the first step toward imposing costly new regulations on businesses for emitting carbon. My bill, H.R. 391 would stop the EPA.

"Just think of what will happen to small businesses and manufacturers hit with these skyrocketing energy bills, especially when nations like India and China don't agree to these mandatory emissions limits. With Americans already facing double-digit unemployment, there could not be a worse time to unilaterally disarm our engines of job creation and economic growth.

"In fact, small businesses are already feeling anxiety and holding off on hiring due to the prospect of this national energy tax, a government takeover of health care, and other costly policies Democrats have in the works. These aren't issues President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Democrats in Congress will talk about when they are in Copenhagen, but Republicans will.

"Also absent from the discussion in Copenhagen is the Climategate scandal. Recently leaked e-mails reveal climate scientists have a long track record of manipulating data to hide scientific evidence that contradicts the global warming establishment. And why? To bully citizens and lawmakers into supporting job-killing energy tax schemes. This scandal raises serious questions about Democrats' climate control plans, questions that deserve a transparent investigationnot a rush to judgmentby the bureaucrats in Copenhagen.

"Republicans are all for clean water, clean air, and clean energy. We just don't think we have to tax people out of house and home to get there. That's why we have proposed an 'all of the above' energy strategy that says, let's put every clean, responsible energy option on the table so we can create jobs, ease the strain on family budgets, and clean up our environment.

"This is one of a series of common-sense solutions Republicans have proposed to empower families and small businesses while Democrats have continued to rely on more spending, more regulation, and more government to try and solve every problem.

"Nothing sums this up more than the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' of borrowing and spending that has failed to create jobs 'immediately' and keeps unemployment below eight percent as promised. Instead, more than three million Americans have lost their jobs and unemployment has risen to double-digits.

"Given the opportunity to try a new approach, President Obama has instead proposed more of the same 'stimulus' spending paid for by borrowing from our children and grandchildren.

"It's time for Washington to learn the hard lesson that families already know: growing debt only cripples freedom and spending more money than you have is no plan for prosperity. Only Republicans have provided a fiscally responsible blueprint for helping families and small businesses weather this economic crisis and get back up on their feet.

"Thank you for listening."

Senate GOP Denied On Spending Filibuster Attempt

The Democratic-controlled Senate on Saturday cleared away a Republican filibuster of a huge end-of-year spending bill that rewards most federal agencies with generous budget boosts.

Baucus Girlfriend Involved in Divorce Case

2009-12-11T13:20:00.001-08:00

Baucus Girlfriend Involved in Divorce Case
Sen. Max Baucus' Girlfriend, Whom he Nominated for a Federal Position, Met with Baucus' Divorce Lawyer before his Wife
Joe Biden's bathroom mirror messages

by Mark Silva

When Jill Biden wants to get the vice president's attention on an important political issue she tapes a message to the bathroom mirror at the Naval Observatory mansion.

" If I want him to get my position on something, I Scotch Tape it to the bathroom mirror,'' Jill Biden, the second lady, says in an interview airing on CBS News' Sunday Morning.

"Not a joke,'' the vice president says in the interview. " You go into my bathroom at home... or in the vice president's residence...and it'll be up -- literally she'll Scotch Tape an article. She'll Scotch Tape something. ''

Jill Biden, who sits with CBS correspondent Rita Braver for an interview airing Sunday, speaks of life with Joe Biden and balancing her roles as an English teacher in Virginia and wife of the vice president. There's more to the official role than playing "nice.''

"Nice is blah, it's just too bland,'' she says. "So I never want to be nice.''

(See the former first lady's take on "nice,'' in the photo with the current second lady at the State Dinner, above, by Charles Dharapak / )

At the community college where she teaches English to speakers of other languages, she has a cubicle"because I think it's important that they see me as their English teacher...

"One day, I was teaching my class and then I had to go to the White House right after, so literally, I took my dress to school. After my classes I went into the ladies room, changed into my outfit, got into the car... went to the White House ... So there are real, you know, Superman moments.''

Biden also recalls meeting her husband, who had lost his first wife and young daughter in an automobile accident. And the vice president, who served in the Senate for more than 30 years and rode the train home each night to Delaware to be with his children, recalls meeting his second wife in the CBS interview.

His brother Frank said, " know this beautiful girl... you'll love her.. She was in my English class and she hates politics, you'll love her.''

Jill Biden says of the then-senator: "I found him interesting, and charming...as he is. And he shook my hand good night...and that was so different from...

"He didn't try to grab you...'' Braver asks, bravely.

" No, no. And at one o'clock in the morning, I called my mother and I said, 'Mom, I finally met a gentleman'.... And that's what hooked me. That's what hooked me.'''

The senator's sons suggested the marriage, he says.

"Swear to God, swear to God... true story,'' the vice president says. " didn't have the heart to tell them I'd already asked her and she said no.... I had to ask her five times.''

Why no?

" Because here were these little boys who had lost their mom and their sister, and I had to make sure that this marriage was gonna work,'' Jill Biden tells Braver, "and because...I just couldn't have their hearts broken again.''

House Passes Wall Street Regulatory Overhaul

The legislation is designed to address the shortfalls that led to last year's calamitous financial meltdown, with new powers giving the government the right to break up big, risky companies.

Mark Sanford Wants to Reconcile With Wife

2009-12-10T13:20:00.001-08:00

Mark Sanford Wants to Reconcile With Wife
South Carolina Governor's Wife Speaks Out About Affair, Calls Hurdles "Significant"
Ten dumbest lines of the year: 2009

by Mark Silva

There was no poll here.

Just a selective recall from random memories of a year run amok with certifiiably dumb ideas, which leads to our offering this afternoon of the 10 dumbest lines of the year:

No. 10: "President Barack Obama is nothing without a TelePrompTer.''

The fact that the president relied on a TelePrompTer to help him deliver his acceptance speech for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize today obscures the story that one of his speechwriters in Oslo was telling today: Obama wrote the speech. Read Dreams From My Father. He wrote that, too (with assertions to the contrary a runner up for No. 10 on this list.)

No. 9: "The government wants to outlaw breathing.''

The fact that the Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that the man-made greenhouse gases blamed for contributing to global warming are a public health threat does not mean that everyone will have to stop emitting carbon dioxide.

No. 8: "There's no global warming because it's cold outside.''

Winter has arrived once again, as it has many times, but the fact that the thermometer has registered below zero in early December -- no more than a bunch of hacked emails from England -- does not negate the threat of climate change.

No. 7: "There's no health-care crisis.''

Tell that to the more than 40 million Americans who lack insurance for health care. Tell Rep. Joe Wilson, who yelled during a presidential address to a joint session of Congress: "You lie.'' (Runner up for No. 7 in this commentary.)

No. 6: "Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party.''

No one is. Not until the fall of 2012.

No. 5: "Sarah Palin is a victim of the media.''

It may be the other way around: The former governor of Alaska, 2008 GOP nominee for vice president and author of the popular Going Rogue memoir has won more free media exposure with the mere posting of Facebook Notes and one-liners -- ''We eat, therefore we hunt'' -- than anyone who holds no public office.

No. 4: "FOX is not a news network.''

Say what you will about the points of view which cable commentators air, the merits of that undercover ACORN sting or the occasional video clip of the wrong tax-protest rally aired by the control room, but the nation's No. 1-rated cable news network did not rack up 95 weeks as No. 1 without an audience looking for news that it doesn't believe it is finding elsewhere, and the White House plays with fire when it fights FOX.

No. 3: "Glenn Beck tells it like it is.''

In the rush for audiences with a thirst for points of view, the escalation of the war between cable commentators has produced the rhetorical equivalent of nuclear winter, a complete decimation of reason and civility which has made a star of one commentator whose idea of making a point is butchering a congresswoman's ethnic name.

No. 2: "Barack Obama (sub Nancy Pelosi) is a fascist." (or "socialist,'' or "Nazi")

Say what you will about health care reform, "cap and trade'' energy legislation, economic stimulus spending, deficits, taxes and "the race to the top'' in education, but the protesters toting placards picturing a modern-day American president wearing a clipped mustache have done a grave injustice to the memories of the millions of victims of the modern world's worst tyrants.

No 1: "The president of the United States is not a citizen of the U.S.''

Global warming may not have felled as many trees as were lost in the printing of the debunking of a seemingly endless story-line which insists that Obama was not born where his Hawaiian-state-certified birth certificate says he was born, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

With high hopes for 2010, an early Happy New Year to all.

(The photo, above, of President Barack Obama delivering the Nobel Lecture in Oslo today was taken by John McConnico / AFP / Getty Images)

Speech Writers Grade Obama's Oslo Address

President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday, in Oslo, Norway. He delivered a 36-minute speech and spoke about "the notions of a just war and the imperatives of a just peace." Two former White House speech writers assess the president's address.

2009-12-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

House Votes to Extend $31B in Tax Breaks
Set to Expire at Year's End, Tax Breaks Will be Funded by Taxes on Investment Managers and International Tax Cheats
Peace: Pursuit of the persistently elusive

by Mark Silva

On his way to Oslo tonight to collect the Nobel Prize for Peace, President Barack Obama certainly has considered these words as he prepares to deliver his own:

"We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary.''

-- Theodore Roosevelt, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1906

"If there were but one such prize, or if this were to be the last, I could not of course accept it. For mankind has not yet been rid of the unspeakable horror of war. I am convinced that our generation has, despite its wounds, made notable progress. But it is the better part of wisdom to consider our work as one1 begun. It will be a continuing labor. In the indefinite course of [the] years before us there will be abundant opportunity for others to distinguish themselves in the crusade against hate and fear and war.''

-- Woodrow Wilson, telegram accepting Nobel Peace Prize, 1919

"Let us dare to face the situation. Man has become superman. He is a superman because he not only has at his disposal innate physical forces, but also commands, thanks to scientific and technological advances, the latent forces of nature which he can now put to his own use.....

"However, the superman suffers from a fatal flaw. He has failed to rise to the level of superhuman reason which should match that of his superhuman strength. He requires such reason to put this vast power to solely reasonable and useful ends and not to destructive and murderous ones. Because he lacks it, the conquests of science and technology become a mortal danger to him rather than a blessing.''

-- Albert Schweitzer , Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1954

"The word that symbolizes the spirit and the outward form of our encounter is nonviolence, and it is doubtless that factor which made it seem appropriate to award a peace prize to one identified with struggle. Broadly speaking, nonviolence in the civil rights struggle has meant not relying on arms and weapons of struggle. It has meant noncooperation with customs and laws which are institutional aspects of a regime of discrimination and enslavement. It has meant direct participation of masses in protest, rather than reliance on indirect methods which frequently do not involve masses in action at all...

"Nonviolence has also meant that my people in the agonizing struggles of recent years have taken suffering upon themselves instead of inflicting it on others. It has meant, as I said, that we are no longer afraid and cowed.''

-- Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1964

" If someone had told us in 1945 that in our lifetime religious wars would rage on virtually every continent, that thousands of children would once again be dying of starvation, we would not have believed it. Or that racism and fanaticism would flourish once again, we would not have believed it. Nor would we have believed that there would be governments that would deprive a man like Lech Walesa of his freedom to travel merely because he dares to dissent. And he is not alone. Governments of the Right and of the Left go much further, subjecting those who dissent, writers, scientists, intellectuals, to torture and persecution. How to explain this defeat of memory?''

-- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1986

"Today, peace means the ascent from simple coexistence to cooperation and common creativity among countries and nations. Peace is movement towards globality and universality of civilization. Never before has the idea that peace is indivisible been so true as it is now. Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences. And, ideally, peace means the absence of violence. It is an ethical value.''

-- Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 1990

Senate Democrats Near Deal On Health Care

Senate Democrats may have reached a compromise among some of its liberal and conservative members that could pave the way for passage of a sweeping health care overhaul before Christmas. The package reportedly contemplates redefining the public option to allow nonprofit insurers to sell policies regulated by the government, and may include allowing baby boomers to buy into Medicare early.

McChrystal Defends Afghan Plan to Congress

2009-12-08T13:20:00.001-08:00

McChrystal Defends Afghan Plan to Congress
General Predicts Victory Despite "Undeniably Difficult" Challenge; Also Says Capturing Bin Laden Key to Defeating al Qaeda
Cheney: Obama 'more radical' than seen

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, bowing to other leaders of the world, fails to understand the concept of "American exceptionalism,'' former Vice President Dick Cheney contends.

"There's never been a nation like the United States of America in world history, and yet when you have a president who goes around and bows to his hosts and then proceeds to apologize profusely for the United States, I find that deeply disturbing,'' Cheney says in an interview that FOX News will air tonight. "That says to me this is a guy who doesn't fully understand or share that view of American exceptionalism that I think most of us believe in."

The Republican also contends that Obama is a "more radical'' Democrat than he first appeared to be yet stops short of calling Obama, as some critics have, a socialist: "I don't want to use that kind of a label."

"I saw him when he got elected as a liberal Democrat, but conventional in the sense of sort of falling within the parameters of the national Democratic Party,'' Cheney says in the interview with FOX's Sean Hannity airing tonight at 9 pm EST and again tomorrow, same time. "I think he's demonstrated pretty conclusively now during his first year in office that he's more radical than that, that he's farther outside the parameters if you will of what we've traditionally had in Democratic presidents in years past."

Cheney, a former congressman who has served four presidents in his party, says this of the coming midterm elections: "Prospects for the Republicans in 2010 are very good... I think we'll pick up a lot of seats.

"Right after Obama was elected, there was the view that he was invincible,'' Cheney tells hannity. "He could raise more money than anybody else. He had this machine that smashed the Clinton campaign and then won the national election, and that he'd be around for eight years and now I think that has changed fairly dramatically."

At the same time, Cheney is reluctant to suggest party names for 2012: "At this point I'd be reluctant to pinpoint anybody. It might hurt them more than it would help them coming from me."

Cheney maintains that Obama has shown the world a dangerous lack of understanding about the war on terror. He maintains that the Obama Justice Department's planned trial of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and al-Qaida accomplices in a federal courtroom in New York will make him "a hero in certain circles.''

The former vice president calls the trial of the terrorist known as KSM and others in criminal court "a huge mistake...

"He'll be able to go in whenever he's up on the stand and proselytize, if you will, millions of people out there around the world including some of his radical Muslim friends and generate a whole new generation of terrorists,'' Cheney says. "I think it will make Khalid Sheikh Mohammed something of a hero in certain circles, especially in the radical regions of Islam around the world.

" It will put him on the map. He'll be as important or more important than Osama Bin Laden, and we will have made it possible."

The former vice president, who has accused the president of "dithering'' with the decision about a new U.S. troop deployment in Afghanistan, says in the interview with Hannity:

"Everybody is watching. The Taliban are watching, the al-Qaida are watching, the Afghans who are on our side are watching, and when they see hesitation, uncertainty, lack of clarity from an American president, they begin to think the Americans aren't going to be here very long.... Then you see governments in that part of the world start to shift their alliances and their friendships. For example, just in the last two weeks the prime minister of Kuwait has gone to Iran on an official visit, the first time in 30 years. Why did he do that? Well, he wants to make sure he's got a foot in all camps."

Cheney says this, however, about the president's plan to start drawing down troops from Afghanistan in July 2011:

"It's better than withdrawal now."

"This notion of uncertainty, the difficult time he has putting it together, all of this feeds into the basic al-Qaeda strategy,'' Cheney contends. "Remember the way al-Qaida operates and what their underlying plan is'if you kill enough Americans, you can change American policy.'

"When they see (the president) announce in advance that there's going to be a withdrawal 18 months down the road, they come to the point where they feel like their strategy, their worldview has been validated and in the meantime, your task of trying to control the situation, trying to put down the Taliban and so forth, has simply gotten harder because you're weak and indecisive when you made the decision to do it,'' Cheney says.

"The Obama administration is now going back to that pre-9/11 concept that this is all about individual crimes and a problem for law enforcement,'' Cheney contends. "It's not a war to be fought and prosecuted as we ordinarily would prosecute it."

Obama Says New Spending Necessary For Recovery

In an address, the president says staggering job losses mean the country must continue to "spend our way out of this recession" with a round of new incentives for hiring.

Obama: 47 pct approval, new Gallup low

2009-12-07T13:20:00.001-08:00

EPA: Greenhouse Gases Endanger Public
Agency Announces Gases Must be Regulated Because They Pose Threat to Public Health
Obama: 47 pct approval, new Gallup low

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama's job approval in the Gallup Poll's daily tracking survey today -- 47 percent -- marks a new low for the president's job ratings.

Obama's approval has fallen below 50 percent in recent Gallup tracking, and had reached a low of 48 percentage points before today's report, the average of surveys taken over the past three days.

"Any slight bump in support Obama received coincident with his new Afghanistan policy proved to be very short-lived, as his approval rating returned to below the majority level by the weekend, and slipped further to 47 percent in Dec. 4-6 polling,'' Gallup's Jeffrey Jones reports.

"Afghanistan is just one of many high-profile issues with which the president is dealing, Jones notes. "Immediate public reaction to his new Afghanistan policy showed 51 [percemt in favor and 40 perccent opposed, according to a Dec. 2 USA Today/Gallup poll....

" Additionally, in recent days Obama has been ramping up his focus on finding ways to create jobs for out-of-work Americans, and is planning a major speech on Tuesday outlining his ideas for spurring job creation. In late November, Gallup found slight majorities of Americans disapproving of the way Obama was handling job creation and the economy more generally.''

So far in December, Obama has averaged 50 percent job approval in the Gallup tracking, which found his approval rating at 69 percent days after inauguration.

Gallup reports: "That is similar to the December averages for Ronald Reagan (49 percent) and Bill Clinton (53 percent), who also took office when the economy was struggling."

Obama To Deliver Speech On Economy

Sandwiched between his speech on the Afghanistan troop build-up last week and two international speeches later this week, President Obama will deliver an economic policy address Tuesday. Patience with the pace of government action is running short on Capitol Hill, and many Democrats fear the public is starting to question whether Obama feels their pain.

2009-12-06T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Protesting N.Y. Terror Trials
Hundreds rallied in NYC to protest the government's plans to hold major terrorism trials in a Manhattan federal courthouse. As Randall Pinkston reports, the courthouse is just blocks from ground zero.
Durbin questions Afghanistan strategy

by Mark Silva

Count Sen. Dick Durbin among those doubtful about the new deployment of troops in Afghanistan that President Barack Obama has ordered.

"I'm skeptical as to whether 30,000 more troops will make a difference,'' Durbin, the senior senator from Illinois, No. 2 Democratic leader in the Senate and mentor and friend to Obama, said on FOX News Sunday. " We have over 200,000 now when you count NATO forces, American forces and Afghan military forces."

The U.S. military presence will grow to 98,000 by next summer, under the surge that Obama has ordered for Afghanistan, followed by a planned withdrawal of troops starting in July 2011, with the pace and endpoint of that draw down to be determined by "conditions on the ground,'' under the "new way forward'' that the president announced in a nationally televised speech last week.

"I understand the president took the time to reach this decision after more than seven years'' of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan,'' Durbin allowed. "We were at a point where we had to really reassess our strategy.''

Among the questions remaining: that announced intention for withdrawal starting in 2011 which the White House acknowledged would likely be "misinterpreted'' even as the president was announcing his plans.

"I'm going to meet with the president, I'm sure, and have conversations about that deadline which appears to be interpreted different ways by different people,'' Durbin said. "But I would like to believe by July of 2011 that we will be in a... a position... where we're going to see our troops really coming home."

Durbin said: "The pace of our troops coming home, I understand, depends on conditions...Are we going to let American soldiers stay there indefinitely while they dither, in Vice President Cheney's words? I don't think we should. American lives are at stake. And so I want to know, at least from my point of view, what the president's meaning is when he talks about this deadline."

Obama Rallies Democrats On Health Overhaul

President Obama appealed directly to senators' desire for history-making change and their short-term political fears Sunday in urging them to stand together and overhaul the nation's health care system.

'Climategate:' What a joke

2009-12-05T13:20:00.001-08:00

Senate Holds Weekend Debate on Health Bill
Lawmakers Bicker Over Reform Package; Obama to Attend Democratic Caucus Meeting Sunday
'Climategate:' What a joke

by Mark Silva

"Climategate,'' they call it.

What a joke.

As if the hacking of some email in England exposing some overzealous scientists with a political agenda undermines the world's collection of scientific data on climate change.

Suddenly, it's time for Al Gore to surrender his Nobel Prize.

"Poor Al Gore, global warming completely debunkedvia the very Internet you invented,'' chimes Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show. "Oh, the irony.''

Just like snow in Houston:

Proof, the Luddites insist, that global warming is nothing more than a modern interlude between the great Ice Ages and the human spewing of megatonnage of carbon into the atmosphere has nothing to do with it. All that shrinking Arctic ice cap stuff? Mere Photo-shopping.

The closing argument against climate change, critics contend, comes with more than 1,000 emails hacked in England involving climate research since 1996 that includes talk of combating the arguments of climate-change skeptics, harsh words for those skeptics, exclusion of scientists with contrarian views on the matter and destruction of data that might undermine evidence of global warming.

As if this is the only work in the world that has gone into the investigation of global warming and man's hand in it.

The United Nations has relied on the work of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in Great Britain for its "alarmist'' action on climate change, FOX News Channel's Brit Hume notes. The believers in climate change and man's hand in it say the hacked emails from the CRU are being "taken out of context,'' Hume reports.

"There's a one-word answer to all of that: Please.''

As a U.N. conference on climate change in Copenhagen assembles next week, with President Barack Obama and other world leaders headed there for the conclusion of the conference on Dec. 18and Obama making his own journey to Oslo on Dec. 10 to pick up a Nobel Prize for Peacepurveyors of the 'Climategate scandal' would have it that some hacked email is cause for calling off the whole thing.

"The momentum for that was already declining, because global warming, climate change, has been dropping lower and lower in peoples' lists of priorities for a long time now,'' Hume has concluded "and doubts about whether man is causing it and the whole theory of it have been rising. This can only further that that.... Perhaps it may all even be a fraud.''

One word, indeed:

Please.

Years After Death, Obama's Mom Gets Her Wish

A few years before her death, Barack Obama's mother completed her doctoral dissertation. Nearly two decades later, S. Ann Dunham's fieldwork has been published — a fulfillment of her dream, courtesy of her daughter.

2009-12-04T13:20:00.001-08:00

Sarah Palin Fans Push for Presidential Run
Thousands Show up for Sarah Palin Book Signings, Hoping the Former Gov. Will be a Presidential Candidate in 2012
Sarah Palin: Birther? Not me, but 'issue'

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin says she is no birther.

The author of Going Rogue insists that she has never suggested that President Barack Obama, a native of Hawaii, was not born in the United States.

Yet, in a radio interview this week, the Republican candidate for vice president last year suggested that the veracity of Obama's birth certificate is a worthy question. (She also spoke of "the snake-oil'' science behind climate-change theories -- ''the fact is, the Caribou population is increasing,'' Palin noted.)

Paln made an appearance Thursday on Rusty Humphries' radio showsee the full talk above. Humphries asked his guest, seen by some as a potential candidate for president in 2012, this question:

"Would make the birth certificate an issue if you ran?''

"Um, I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue,'' Palin replied. "I don't have a problem with that. Um, I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think enough members of the electorate still want answers.''

"Do you think it's a fair question to be looking at?'' the host asked.

"I think it's a fair question, just like I think past associations and past voting records, all of that is fair game,'' Palin told Humphries.

"You know, I gotta tell you, too, I think our campaign, the McCain-Palin campaign, didn't do a good enough job in that area. We didn't call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were, and perhaps what their future plans were, and I don't think that that was fair to voters, to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of things that now we're seeing made manifest in the administration.''

Humphries added: "I mean, truly, if your past is fair game and your kids are fair game, certainly Obama's past should be. I mean, we want to treat men and women equally, right?

"Hey, you know, that's a great point,'' Palin said. "In that weird conspiracy theory freaky thing that people talk about, that Trig isn't my real son, a lot of people that, 'Well, you need to produce his birth certificate, you need to prove that he's your kid,' which we have done, but yeah, so maybe we should reverse that and use the same type of thinking on the other one.''

After Salon.com pointed out Palin's words on the Obama birth certificate question, the governor made this early morning entry on her famous Facebook page, now nearing 1.1 million in followers.

"Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I've pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask... which they have repeatedly.

"But at no pointnot during the campaign, and not during recent interviewshave I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.

- Sarah Palin

"I'm so thankful for Facebook,'' Palin told the radio host also. "I don't have to go through the mainstream media... spinning my words.''

"We love you,'' Humphries told Palin.

Georgia House Speaker Quits Amid Personal Turmoil

Glenn Richardson, the first Republican to become speaker since Reconstruction, resigned Thursday after a suicide attempt and allegations by his ex-wife that he carried on an affair with a lobbyist.

2009-12-03T13:20:00.001-08:00

Officers Suspended in Wake of WH Crashing
The Secret Service Takes the Blame for Allowing Unauthorized Guests into the White House State Dinner
'Obama brand:' Rogers, social CEO

by Mark Silva

Desiree Rogers came to Washington touting "the Obama brand.''

Now it's Rogers' brand of social management that some are questioning, with the White House Social Secretary at the center of congressional subpoena talk that in past times has been reserved for the likes of political architects such as Karl Rove.

Rogers always has been known for getting things just right, our friends at Bloomberg News note: "Her condominium in Chicago's upscale Gold Coast neighborhood was filled with Valerie Jarrett's favorite foods and flowers when she threw a birthday party for the incoming senior presidential adviser 10 days after Barack Obama's election,'' John McCormick and Kate Andersen Brower write.

So it's little wonder that Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president and close friend of Rogers, was standing up for her outside the White House today.

Yet, McCormick and colleague note, "in the first state dinner Rogers hosted as a White House social secretary, it is two Virginia residents accused of party crashing most remembered, instead of the arugula salad with onionseed vinaigrette or the pumpkin pie tart.

"This is not the story they hoped would endure after the state dinner," Dee Dee Myers, who served as press secretary to President Bill Clinton says. {It's not the kind of thing you expect to happen, "But in some ways you should anticipate potential problems like this."

The failure of Rogers's office to prevent the security breach of Tareq and Michaele Salahi making their way into the State Dinner held for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh became a focus of questioning at the Homeland Security Committee today. The Secret Service Director, Mark Sullivan, accepted full blame for the breach.

Now leading members of the committee want to subpoena Rogers and aren't impressed with the White House's resistance: "I could accept their argument if this was any policy, but this is involves an administrative act by an appointee of the president,'' Rep. Peter King of New York, ranking Republican on the committee, said today.

"There's a pretty long history of ensuring White House staff can provide advice to the president and do so confidentially," Robert Gibbs, W.H. press secretary, said of the privilege that the White House is citing. -- a privilege, he noted, that has been forfeited for matters as grave as Watergate, Whitewater and 9/11, but not for a social receiving line. "I don't think even Peter King would have the audacity'' to put this case in that "trifecta.''

So it hasn't taken long for the Obama White House to be fending off congressional subpoena talk -- the stuff that the investigation of the Bush White House's firing of U.S. attorneys was made of -- over a not-so-simple dinner.

The Washington Post already has raised the Rogers question most pointedly, in a piece penned by the very reporter who was asking Rogers about the gown that she was wearing at the dinner. "Are you wearing Comme Des Garcons?" the Post asked.

"Of course," Rogers replied.

More attention to stitches than guests?

"Back when the president's polling numbers were higher, Rogers, who is known for her love of designer dresses and jazz, told the Wall Street Journal's magazine that the White House was filled with marketing possibilities,'' the Bloomberg team writes. She bragged: "We have the best brand on Earth: the Obama brand.''

Now it's the Rogers brand of management that's in question. Rogers declined to comment through a spokeswoman for First Lady Michelle Obama. But a longtime friend in Chicago, Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments, suggested that the criticism "isn't fair.. I have never seen her be sloppy, ever."

Kathleen Hennessey and Christi Parsons contributed.

(Just right: Rogers is pictured above at a luau held for members of Congress and their families on the South Lawn of the White House June 25, in a celebration of the president's home state, The South Lawn was decorated with tiki torches and palm huts and the meal prepared by Hawaiian chef Alan Wong. Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.)

With Eye On Second Term, Bernanke Defends Record

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke got tough questioning from the Senate Banking Committee on the failures of the Fed leading up to the financial crisis and on the role in played in the bailout of Wall Street firms. While Bernanke is ultimately expected to be reconfirmed, the hearing may influence the Fed's future role in an overhauled financial system.

2009-12-02T13:20:00.001-08:00

Obama Aides Sell Afghan Plan to Congress
Pentagon Chief Robert Gates Warns of "Severe Consequences" of Failure; Clinton Says Plan is "Best Way to Protect Our Nation"
Gibbs: 'War with the Def-Sec you have'

by Mark Silva

It was Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense, who once told soldiers asking for more equipment: "You go to war with the Army you have.''

And it is Rumsfeld, who oversaw the Bush administration's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, who now is chafing at President Barack Obama's contention that the Bush administration rebuffed commanders' repeated requests for more troops in Afghanistan.

"Such a bald misstatement, at least as it pertains to the period I served as secretary of defense, deserves a response," Rumsfeld said in a written statement today. "I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006."

The Obama White House, for its part, is content to let Rumsfeld answer the question about whether the Bush administration adequately supported a war that now has exceeded eight years -- with Obama now ordering an additonal 30,000 troops, raising the deployment in Afghanistan to 98,000 by next summer.

The Bush administration had deployed about 32,000 to Afghanistan before Obama arrived at the White House.

"When I took office, we had just over 32,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan, compared to 160,000 in Iraq at the peak of the war,'' Obama said last night, in his nationally televised address from West Point announcing a troop surge -- and a date for the start of troop withdrawals, in July 2011. "Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive. ''

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, was not biting on Rumsfeld's objections today in the daily press briefing.

"You go to war with the Secretary of Defense that you have,'' Gibbs said.

(The Obama White House also has the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, whom the Bush White House had at the end of its run -- and there was talk of boosting troops, after Rumsfeld left the Pentagon. Read on:)

(Former President George W. Bush, is pictured with outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in November 2006, above, after the GOP's "thumping'' in the midterm elections. Bush's first secretary was replaced by former CIA Director Robert Gates, who stayed on with the Obama administration. Photo by Gerald Herbert / )

I In April 2008, two months before assuming command, Gen. David McKiernan traveled to Afghanistan and concluded that there were not enough troops to counter the Taliban.

"There was a saying when I got there: If you're in Iraq and you need something, you ask for it," McKiernan said in an interview after being fired. "If you're in Afghanistan and you need it, you figure out how to do without it."

By late last summer, he decided to tell Bush's White House what he knew it did not want to hear: He needed 30,000 more troops.

The Bush administration did not act on McKiernan's request, instead attempting to convince NATO allies to contribute more troops.

New York Lawmakers Reject Gay Marriage Bill

The Senate decision Wednesday comes after months of delays and arm twisting of lawmakers sympathetic to the bill but representing conservative districts. It follows a referendum in Maine earlier this month that struck down a gay marriage law before it took effect.

Obama: Afghan surge, then draw-down

2009-12-01T13:20:00.001-08:00

Gay Marriage in D.C. Passes First Test
City Council Passes Bill 11-2 in First of Two Votes this Month
Families of Immigrants Send Money to U.S. to Help During Financial Crisis
ABCâs Marc Frank reports from Havana: Hundreds of Cubans still line up at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana each week in hopes of obtaining a visa to visit relatives, or to do the paperwork after receiving one of the...
Obama: Afghan surge, then draw-down

by Christi Parsons and Julian E. Barnes, updated 4 pm EST

WEST POINT, N.Y. -- President Obama has ordered the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, officials said today, yet the president also will announce tonight that the U.S. will start withdrawing forces from the country in July of 2011.

The reinforcements will be sent to Afghanistan by next summer, senior administration officials said todaywith 30,000 new troops boosting an existing U.S. deployment of 68,000 troops in the country.

The president will announce his decision in a nationally televised speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The speech, officials said, will focus not only on the new troops entering the country, but also on the administration's plan to withdraw those forces.

The administration will begin to withdraw the reinforcements by July 2011, senior administration officials said. The pace of that draw-down and the ending point of it will be determined by "conditions on the ground" that cannot be currently predicted, one official said.

"This is not an open-ended commitment ... all of us have to have a sense of urgency," said one senior administration official said.

"Starting in July 2011, we will begin to transfer authority to Afghan forces," an administration official said, "but the rate at which we draw down the troops has not been prescribed." That rate will be "conditions-based," the official said, "with an eye towards full transfer as quickly as possible."

The administration was emphasizing that it is not sending combat forces to the war zone indefinitely, but wants to show a long-term commitment of broader support to Afghanistan.

The goal of the troop build-up is to "degrade" Taliban forces in Afghanistan, prevent the Taliban from taking over the nation and also prevent al Qaeda from returning to Afghanistan, allowing time for the Afghan security forces to become more competent, officials said.

During a prolonged strategy review, the military proposed sending in additional forces over the course of a year. But officials said that the course which the president has chosen will deliver more troops to Afghanistan more swiftly.

"The force option that the president has chosen gets more troops into Afghanistan faster than any other option that was presented to him,'' one senior administration official said.

The decision came at the end of a three-month review of the new strategy for an 8-year-old war.

Although conducted behind closed doors in the White House's Situation Room, parts of the debate played out in an unusually public manner, with officials briefing reporters on the outlines of the debate.

Vice President Joe Biden and Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, were skeptical about the troop buildup. During the debate, Biden made the case that the focus should be on Pakistan and advocated sending fewer troops to Afghanistan and instead using unmanned drones and other air strikes to disrupt Taliban operations in more rural areas.

But senior military leaders, including Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, pushed for a higher number of troops.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates helped work out a compromise that brought McChrystal's request for 40,000 troops down by 10,000.

Today, an administration official said that all of the officials involved in the discussions had signed on to the final compromise. There were no "winners and losers in this debate," the official said.
Gates is due to sign deployment orders for the troops going into Afghanistan later this week. The troops will be sent to Khost in eastern Afghanistan as well as to Kandahar and Helmand provinces in southern Afghanistan.
The forces pouring into eastern and southern Afghanistan will seek to undermine the Taliban in part by luring low-level fighters and foot soldiers to abandon extremist movements.

The administration plan envisions trying to shift the loyalty of low-level fighters to tribal leaders by offering them jobs in security forces. That strategy borrows from the military strategy in Iraq, where insurgents were given paid jobs in neighborhood defense forces.

A military official that the focus on flipping low-level fighters was an important "component of where we are headed."

In meetings during the strategy review, senior military officials insisted that, because improved security was a precondition for "flipping" foot soldiers and fence sitters, adding forces was necessary for such initiatives to work.
"What you are talking about are the fence sitters, the ones who support the Taliban not by choice but by fear," said the military official. "You want to supplant that fear with security."

The senior officials said the new deployment will include two or three combat brigades. In addition a "brigade-sized element"--about 3,500 forces--will be sent as trainers. But the senior administration official emphasized that all of the forces would be partnered with Afghan security forces to assist with training.

Although Obama's speech will focus mostly on Afghanistan, officials said the review also looked at Pakistan and emphasized the importance of assisting Pakistan with security and economic issues.

"We need to help the Pakistanis stabilize their state," said one senior administration official.

Military experts have cautioned that setting a concrete timetable to leave Afghanistan could enable the Taliban to outlast the U.S. combat forces. But the military officials said the Taliban would minimize the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan at "its own risk."

Peter Nicholas and Mark Silva contributed from Washington.

Obama To Outline Afghan Strategy

President Obama announces Tuesday that he is sending 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan over the next six months, administration sources say. At a speech from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., Obama is expected to also discuss how long he thinks the U.S. mission will last.

Sheryl Crow, Michelle Obama and more

2009-11-30T13:20:00.001-08:00

Poll: Rush Most Influential Conservative
Poll: Americans Rate Limbaugh Most Influential Conservative, Choose JFK For Mount Rushmore
Why Was Suspected Cop Shooter NOT in Jail?
Here is how the Seattle Times put it: âThe 37 year old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing this morning of four Lakewood police officers has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns...
Sheryl Crow, Michelle Obama and more

by Mark Silva

All they want to do is light a tree.

But the Obamas will have plenty of help on Thursday for their first lighting of the National Christmas Tree erected between the White House and Washington Monument.

Singer Sheryl Crow is booked to perform at the tree lighting.

So are Common, Jordin Sparks, Ray LaMontagne and Celtic Woman, as well as jazz musicians Brad Mehldau and Joshua Redman.

Oh, and the president and first lady will be there, too.

Until the sun goes down on the National Mall's boulevards.

(The Associated Press contributed. Sheryl Crow is pictured performing at the MLB All-Star Charity Concert under the Gateway Arch in July. (Photo by Erik Lunsford / St. Louis Post-Dispatch/MCT)

Examining Obama's Afghan Speech

President Obama outlines his strategy for Afghanistan at a speech at West Point. Obama will likely face a skeptical audience; support for the war is in decline. Ambassador Wendy Sherman, special adviser to President Clinton, and Michael Gerson, chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush, offer their insight.

2009-11-29T13:20:00.001-08:00

RNC Big Ten: A Litmus Test for the GOP?
Fmr. House Leader Says Candidate's Adherence to List of Principles Would "Demonstrate That You're Someone Like Us"
Week In Review With Daniel Schorr

This week, the president prepared to announce his decision about the U.S. presence in Afghanistan; the IAEA rebuked Iran and the Senate got ready to debate the health care bill. Host Scott Simon reviews the week in the news with NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr.

2009-11-28T13:20:00.001-08:00

Nader Noncommittal on Conn. Senate Run
Activist Being Courted by Green Party to Challenge Democrat Chris Dodd in 2010
Fact, fiction and foolishness: 2009 ebbs

by Mark Silva

In this tumultuous final year of the first decade of the 21st Century, we've found ourselves sorting through an extraordinary helping of fact, fiction and foolishness.

Fact: Unemployment in the United States surpassed 10 percent by the government's measure, the highest level of joblessness in a quarter century.

Fiction: The president of the United States is an alien.

Foolishness: Moose makes the best chili.

Sometimes, the convergence of fact and fiction makes for foolishness.

Fact is, the White House is one secure mansion -- anyone who has worked in or around 1600 Pennsylvania Avene knows the hurdles involved in getting inside the place. Fiction: It's impenetrable. This was made painfully clear this week by the foolishness of a Virginia couple dressing up for the evening and inviting themselves to a State Dinner.

The White House has released a photo, but what we'd give for a transcript of the conversation between President Barack Obama and his uninvited guests, Mchaele and Tareq Salahi, at the dinner, the first State Dinner of the Obama White House, held for Manmohan Singh, prime minister of India. Or their chat with Vice President Joe Biden.

The fact is, some jobs were created or saved as a result of the $787-billion stimulus that Obama signed into law after his first month in office, the administration's first attack at a recession understood to be the worst since the Great Depression. The fiction here involves the actual number of jobs, apparently.

The foolishness was supreme: A White House accounting of the jobs created or saved that listed them by congressional districts that don't exist.

The fact is, Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. The fiction has it that he came from Kenya. The foolishness involves how much time has been spent in all sorts of public forums -- including this one -- debating the contention of the "birthers'' that Obama is an alien.

In the clash of fact, fiction and foolishness this year, one longtime and esteemed anchor of the nation's news lost his job: Lou Dobbs left CNN after a long tirade against illegal immigration, which is a fact in this country, and dabbling wih the fiction and fantasies of the birthers, which was sheer foolishness.

Fact is, Obama is one hard-working president. A fiction which we've seen offered in these pages has it that he has taken 100 days of vacation already -- think about it, 300 days into office, 100 days of vacation. Let's see, there was that week at Martha's Vineyard, an occasional long weekend at Camp David. Uh. no.

Another fact is that Obama's predecessor spent more than a year at his ranch in Texas, counting the days, during his eight years as president. Fiction suggests that this was all time off. Presidents don't have much of it. Foolishness is debating any of this.

Facts: The surface temperatures of the world's oceans have increased. The Arctic ice cap has shrunk. Glaciers are melting into the sea. It's fiction to suggest that all of the carbon that human industry and trasnportation is pumping into the Earth's atmosphere has had nothing to do with climate change. A renowned oceanographer whom we know says that, in his decades of scientific research, he has never seen anything more real. It's foolishness to doubt the seriousness of global warming.

It's a fact that Sarah Palin is one popular Republican -- popular among a certain base of supporters, that is. It's fiction to suggest that most Americans view her as ready to step in as the next president of the United States -- some 70 percent view her as unqualified. It's foolishnessness to spend much time talking about the relative merits of moose versus cow as the main ingredient of chili -- yet Palin has taken us there, too.

It's also fun, some of this foolishness, when we get right down to it. There's a certain entertainment value to the assertion: "We eat, therefore we hunt.''

We readily admit to a certain appetite for playful banter, and we've fostered our share of it here during this tumultuous year, in The Swamp.

We also have a high and abiding regard for fact, and little patience for fiction outside the binding of a good Hemingway novel. Some call it censorship when we attempt to sort the fiction from the fact in the publication of comments here -- yet baseless fiction has a seemingly endless half-life on the Internet, and, with so many launching pads for mischief already out there in the ether we are loath to contribute to the global melting of common sense for which e-rumors deserve much credit.

Think of it as reality change.

We humans can do something about it.

Hawaii Opting Out Of Health Care Overhaul

Hawaii wants out of the national health care overhaul because it already has one of the lowest uninsured rates in the country, thanks to its 35-year-old employer mandate system. Hawaii's congressional delegation inserted language into both House and Senate health care bills that provides explicit protection for the landmark Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act of 1974. It's apparently the only state looking for such an exemption from major health care overhaul.

Lobbyists Pushed Off U.S. Advisory Panels

2009-11-27T13:20:00.001-08:00

Lobbyists Pushed Off U.S. Advisory Panels
Washington Post: New White House Initiative to Curb Influence Could Affect Thousands
Going Rogue, Selling High
ABC's Bradley Blackburn from New York: Sales figures are out for Sarah Palinâs memoir, Going Rogue. In its first week on store shelves, the book sold 700,000 copies, according to publisher HarperCollins. Thatâs enough to put it high atop the...
Draft Dick Cheney: A committee is born

by Mark Silva

Here's a conversation starter: "Draft Dick Cheney.''

An admirer of the former vice president filed papers today in Washington for a committee with a goal of getting Cheney to run for president in 2012.

"The 2012 race for the Republican nomination for president will be about much more then who will be the party's standard bearer against Barack Obama,'' says organizer Christopher Barron. "The race is about the heart and soul of the GOP.''

Barron calls Cheney, the former congressman and Defense Secretary in the first Bush administratiion who arguably was the most powerful vice president of all, who played a central role in the war strategies and national security initiatives of the second Bush admnistraton, who served two terms as vice president and served three other presidents in his time, the only member of the GOP "with the experience, political courage and unwavering commitment to the values that made our party strong.''

Barron, a Washington-based campaign consultant and lawyer, has toiled for a part of that party that hasn't easily won recognition from its leaders. Founder of CapSouth Consulting, he served as the national political director for the Log Cabin Republicans, "where he directed the organization's federal lobbying efforts and media relations.'' He is a frequent columnist and commentator.

There would seem to be support in some quarters for a Cheney bid, notes Barron, quoting Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard as saying: "Of course, everyone's first choice for president in 2012 is Dick Cheney.''

Cheney has been outspoken in his criticism of the Obama administration, most recently accusing the president of "dithering'' in his decision about deployment of new forces in Afghanistana decision which the president plans to announce next week.

But then Cheney's own daughter Liz, who has been doing a lot of public speaking in her father's defense during this post-v.p. season of his discontent, allows that a candidacy at this stage in her father's lifehe has suffered repeated heart attacksis a tough sell. She told FOX's Neil Cavuto: "I have to tell you, he's my candidate. But I have yet to get him on board with the concept.''

"The Obama administration is playing a dangerous game of Russian Roulette with the safety of Americans at home and abroad," Barron maintains. "He has refused to stand up to the tyrannical Iranian regime of Ahmadinejad, refused to listen to our military leaders on the ground in Afghanistan, and is bringing the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to New York for a dangerous show trial."

Barron's group says it will work on building "grassroots support'' for a Cheney campaign in 2012. They've already got a Cheney T-shirt.

They've been going at this Draft Cheney idea on Facebook, too.

Maybe Cheney will start Twittering soon.

Couple Slipped Past Security, Crashed State Dinner

2009-11-26T13:20:00.001-08:00

Obama, GOP Clash over cure for Economy
Holiday Messages from President and Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., Offer Different Solutions to Crisis
Going Rouge, Selling High
ABC's Bradley Blackburn from New York: Sales figures are out for Sarah Palinâs memoir, Going Rouge. In its first week on store shelves, the book sold 700,000 copies, according to publisher HarperCollins. Thatâs enough to put it high atop the...
Obama: Recession's tide hasn't turned

by Mark Silva

Today, on this day of a "distinctly American tradition,'' the president's tradtional weekly address arrives early.

"As much as we all have to be thankful for,'' President Barack Obama says in his address today, "we also know that this year millions of Americans are facing very difficult economic times. Many have lost jobs in this recessionthe worst in generations...

"They are our family, our friends, and our neighbors,'' he says. "Their struggles must be our concern...

"The investments we have made and tough steps we have taken have helped break the back of the recession, and now our economy is finally growing again,'' the president says. But, while "the job losses we were experiencing earlier this year have slowed dramatically, we're still not creating enough new jobs each month to make up for the ones we're losing. And no matter what the economists say, for families and communities across the country, this recession will not end until we completely turn that tide.''

See the address above and read it below.

And then let's all step away from the computer and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

This is the text of the president's weekly address:

"For centuries, in peace and in war, in prosperity and in adversity, Americans have paused at this time of year to gather with loved ones and give thanks for life's blessings. This week, we carry on this distinctly American tradition. All across our country, folks are coming together to spend time with family, to catch up with old friends, to cook and enjoy a big dinnerand maybe to watch a little football in between.

"As always, we give thanks for the kindness of loved ones, for the joys of the previous year, and for the pride we feel in our communities and country. We keep in our thoughts and prayers the many families marking this Thanksgiving with an empty seatsaved for a son or daughter, or husband or wife, stationed in harm's way. And we say a special thanks for the sacrifices those men and women in uniform are making for our safety and freedom, and for all those Americans who enrich the lives of our communities through acts of kindness, generosity and service.

"But as much as we all have to be thankful for, we also know that this year millions of Americans are facing very difficult economic times. Many have lost jobs in this recessionthe worst in generations. Many more are struggling to afford health care premiums and house payments, let alone to save for an education or retirement. Too many are wondering if the dream of a middle class lifethat American Dreamis slipping away. It's the worry I hear from folks across the country; good, hard-working people doing the best they can for their familiesbut fearing that their best just isn't good enough. These are not strangers. They are our family, our friends, and our neighbors. Their struggles must be our concern.

"That's why we passed the Recovery Act that cut taxes for 95 percent of working people and for small businessesand that extended unemployment benefits and health coverage for millions of Americans who lost their jobs in this turmoil. That's why we are reforming the health care system so that middle-class families have affordable insurance that cannot be denied because of a pre-existing condition or taken away because you happen to get sick. We've worked to stem the tide of foreclosures and to stop the decline in home values. We're making it easier to save for retirement and more affordable to send a son or daughter to college.

"The investments we have made and tough steps we have taken have helped break the back of the recession, and now our economy is finally growing again. But as I said when I took office, job recovery from this crisis would not come easily or quickly. Though the job losses we were experiencing earlier this year have slowed dramatically, we're still not creating enough new jobs each month to make up for the ones we're losing. And no matter what the economists say, for families and communities across the country, this recession will not end until we completely turn that tide.

"So we've made progress. But we cannot restand my administration will not restuntil we have revived this economy and rebuilt it stronger than before; until we are creating jobs and opportunities for middle class families; until we have moved beyond the cycles of boom and bustof reckless risk and speculationthat led us to so much crisis and pain these past few years.

"Next week, I'll be meeting with owners of large and small businesses, labor leaders, and non-for-profits from across the country, to talk about the additional steps we can take to help spur job creation. I will work with the Congress to enact them quickly. And it is my fervent hopeand my heartfelt expectationthat next Thanksgiving we will be able to celebrate the fact that many of those who have lost their jobs are back at work, and that as a nation we will have come through these difficult storms stronger and wiser and grateful to have reached a brighter day.

"Thank you, God bless you, and from my family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.''

Couple Slipped Past Security, Crashed State Dinner

The Secret Service is looking into its own security procedures after determining that a Virginia couple managed to slip into Tuesday night's state dinner at the White House even though they were not on the guest list, an agency spokesman said. The Secret Service learned about the breach after the couple posted photos on Facebook.

Video: Obama's First State Dinner

2009-11-25T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Obama's First State Dinner
President Obama's first state dinner was the largest social event in Washington DC, with a guest list of 350 of the biggest names from the United States and India. Nancy Cordes reports.
Quotes of the Day: 'It is my intention to finish the job'
"It is my intention to finish the job." -- President Obama, on his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan âLet me say that there is serious unrest in our caucus about, can we afford this war?â -- House Speaker...
Obama's turkey pardon: Traditional fest

by Mark Silva and updated with the pardons

President Barack Obama hasn't pardoned any people yet -- demonstrating a definitely deliberative tendency in the exercise of his constitutional clemency power -- but today he let a couple of turkeys go.

The White House pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey, a high tradition that dates to President Harry Truman's time, played out on the North Portico today, where two turkeys -- one a stand-in for good measure -- were spared the holiday butcher's knives with a presidential sendoff to the ceremenonial task of riding in Disney's Thanksgiving Day parade.

The president pardoned a 48-pound bird named Courage, but not without noting that he'd just as soon eat "this sucker.''

The last president, who already was a lame duck when he pardoned his last birds, may have seemed a more natural fit for this fowl-excuse of an event, Bush of the brush-clearing Texas ranch persuasion. (See the photo of Bush below, by the 's Gerald Herbert.) The citified Chicagoan who has moved into the White House may seem less suited for a hands-on experience with a wary turkey. But wait, Obama was a constitutional law professor, and there is an emerging legal field of animal rights.

Obama had daughters Malia and Sasha by his side, the two girls smiling wide as the president saluted the National Turkey Federation for donating this year's turkey, named Courage, from Goldsboro, N.C., and the alternate, named Carolina.

"Gobble, gobble,'' said Courage, interrupting Obama, who noted that Presidents Eisenhower and Johnson ate their turkeys.

"Thanks to the interventions of Malia and Sashabecause I was planning to eat this suckerCourage also will be spared this terrible and delicious fate,'' Obama said.

"There are certain days that remind me of why I ran for this office,'' Obama said, "and then there are moments like this, when I pardon a turkey and send it to Disneyland.''

He went on to pardon Courage, before the first dog, Bo, got involved and "screwed up'' the pardon. -- "Is there an official gesture?''asked Obama, holding a hand up like a Star Wars warrior. "Courage, you are hereby pardoned, you will live in Disneyland.'' .

"He's like a large chicken,'' a daughter noted.

"He is like a large chicken,'' the father said. "I don't know about the haircut, though.''

(The ordinarily Rose Garden-picture-perfect ceremonywas moved to the cover of the portico on a mistiy morning on the eve of Thanksgiving, and is viewable, at White House's live-streaming Web-site.)

"I am humbled by the privilege that it is to serve, and I want to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to every service member at home or in harm's way,'' the president said, on a more serious note today. Tomorrow, he said, he and his family will "remember... this is a time when so many members of our American families are hurting... There is a long way to go and a lot of work to do.

"In more tranquil times, it's easierr to notice our many blessing... In times like this, they resonate more powerful,'' he said. "This is an era of new hardships and perils.. We are Americans, and for all this, we give our humble thanks... On this quintessential American holiday.''
.
In the actual constitutional pardon department, during two and a quarter centuries, only three presidents have proven slower than Obama in exercising their authority of executive clemencygranting either pardons or commutations of sentences to the convicted -- with thousands of applications pending at the Justice Department.

Our expert on this is P.S. Ruckman Jr, associate professor of political science at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Ill., who has noted that Obama recently passed Nixon with his reluctance to initial the first pardon -- Nixon, of course, got a pardon of his own later. The other four pardon ponderers were George Washington, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who created quite a stir with his final day's pardons.

White House Defends Health Overhaul's Cost-Cutting

The administration cites a letter from economists as evidence that Democrats' plans for remaking the nation's health system will tackle costs.

Health Care Overhaul: 'One More Night It Didn't Die'

2009-11-24T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Obama To Announce Decision In Afghanistan
At a news conference, President Obama announced that he will announce his decision on a troop surge in Afghanistan after Thanksgiving.
Are We Becoming A Nation of Know-Nothings?
A headline in todayâs Huffington Post reads âPalin Supporters Struggle To Explain Why They Support Palinâ. Two interviewers from âNew Left Mediaâ recently camped out at a Borders in Ohio as people arrived for a Sarah Palin book signing. They...
Palin: 'A lot of us... smell like salmon'

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin is a celebrity.

And people are standing in lines to sign her book.

Only dead fish go with the flow, the Alaskan has said, explaining her surprise resignation as governor -- and some Trump perfume can go a long way in masking the odor.

Palin, too, has stood in line for celebs in her time.

"Twice,'' the former GOP vice presidential nominee tells Greta Van Susteren, in an interview airing in two parts on FOX's On the Record -- Monday night and tonight.

"Once with Herschel Walker,'' Palin says. "He came up to Alaska years ago to sign posters in a sporting goods stores. I drove through a snow storm to go see him."

"The other one was Ivana Trump,'' she explains. "She was at J.C. Penney in Anchorage, Alaska years ago selling a perfume.

"I happened to be in the store, stood in line, had her sign whatever she was signing and then turned around and there was a reporter asking me, why are you standing in line to see her? And I said, 'Because up here in Alaska, well, one, we -- a lot of us, you know, we smell like salmon' -- we'd just got off the salmon season -- salmon year round.

"Having someone like this in our presence, oh, gosh, we're just so honored, we're so flattered. And she (was) selling good perfume."

Of the three-week book-signing tour upon which she has embarked, Palin says she is "not tired yet. Nope. Having a ball...

"I haven't even asked the guys yet how many we've signed,'' says the author of Going Rogue, wth 1.5 million copies in the first printing. "We're just -- we're going. It's like running a marathon. You know, you're -- you're taking one step at a time and really enjoying every minute of it and knowing that at the end of the day, we'll have accomplished something good."

Palin also reflects on her brief experience in public service:

"The public service, the administrative tasks, I love it,'' says Palin, who resigned midway through her first term as governor last summer. "That's why I loved my job as governor. I loved my job as a city manager, a strong mayor. I loved those -- those positions of -- of affecting change, of helping people...

"And I love that.... Some of the crap that goes on on the periphery, it has a lot to do with the media making things rough and -- and trying to create a caricature. That's just not that much fun."

Health Care Overhaul: 'One More Night It Didn't Die'

The bill remains a patient in precarious condition, beset by all manner of ailments and infections. But it also remains alive, and at this point you could argue that whatever doesn't kill it outright makes it stronger.

You Buying Less This Holiday?

2009-11-23T13:20:00.001-08:00

Health Care Progress Report: November 23
The Senate Prepares for an Epic Health Care Debate over the Public Option and Other Issues
You Buying Less This Holiday?
America has gone from a nation of credit card charging spenders to savers. And the Grinch appears to be poised to steel this Christmas too. The savings rate has jumped way up in the past year. Americans are nervous about...
Glenn Beck's Cabinet: Radicals, experts

'"I have been assembling a team,'' says Glenn Beck, the television commentator. "I've begun to assemble a team of advisers... to talk to me about finance, and foreign policy and education and defense, social issues, energy and health care.''

And the crowd at The Villages, a vast community near Orlando, Fla., that is a favorite campaign ground for Republicansand one of the stops along the route of Republican Sarah Palin's book-signing tour l-- oves it, cheering for the FOX News Channel celebrity at a rally held over the weekend.

Beck's Ark is lining up experts two by two on the issues, and teaming them with good, Jeffersonian "radicals:"

"I've found two really smart people in each category... and then I've coupled them with one rebelone radical. I hear it's popular to be a radical now,'' he tells his audience. "But these radicals are not the kind of radicals that are wearing the Che T-shirts. These radicals are the ones wearing the Jefferson T-shiirts.

"I have those three people n each category meet with me, and we're devising a plan,'' Beck explains, allowing that it's going to take him "about a year to complete.''

Which means, he and his team will be ready for what?

Study: Political Bent Affects How We View Skin Tone

These three photos of President Obama were among images shown to college students as part of a study that suggests political attitudes can affect the way people view skin tone. Self-described liberals were most likely to rate lightened photos as the most representative of Obama. Conservative students tended to pick darkened photos.

Video: Face The Nation, 11.22.09

2009-11-22T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Face The Nation, 11.22.09
Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) debate health care reform; Dr. Jennifer Ashton and Bob Schieffer discuss mammography screening and health care reform. Plus; Bob Schieffer on the cost of security.
Health care: 2010 elections start here

by Mark Silva

With the Senate's 60-39 vote to proceed to debate, after Thanksgiving, on a health-care bill that the president is seeking by year's end, the debate of the 2010 midterm elections has been joined:

For the Democrats, in control of the White House and Congress, the congressional elections will be presented to the public as a question of fulfilling an agenda of progress and change and keeping "the party of no,'' the intransigent GOP, in check.

For the Republicans, the midterms will be presented as a chance to retake at least part of Congress from a government trying to take over more than health care, but also every aspect of life, with big-government, big-spending and taxation"socialization,'' a leading Republican senator calls it.

If President Barack Obama is unable to sign a health-care overhaul into law by the mid-term vote, the GOP will be painting a picture of a president unable to work his will with his own party in control. If there is health-care reform and more to present at the polls in 2010, the GOP will be cast by the people in power as an obstructionist, no-solution party.

We could hear it in the words of the Florida Democratic Party, where one of the signal Senate campaigns is playing out: A 2010 contest featuring a popular Republican governor, Charlie Crist, whose own party is challenging him for siding with President Barack Obama on the first of the White House's spending sprees, the economic stimulus, and where the Democratic Party has weighed in with this volley for the Crist-appointee, the interim Sen. George LeMieux, who was among the 39 Republicans voting to block the health care bill from debate last night.

"Instead of standing with his constituents, Sen. LeMieux has decided to stand with the Republican 'Party of NO," which is offering no real alternatives and no real solutions,'' the Democrats wrote in an overnight email to their forces in Florida. "Sen. LeMieux's unwillingness to even discuss the issue of health insurance in our country--which has been on the minds of Floridians for many years--shows that neither he nor Gov. Charlie Crist are interested in fixing our broken health insurance system and are only interested in seeing Democrats and President Obama fail.''

We could hear it in Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's response to the Senate vote, in which all the Republicans but the absent Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio voted against taking the health-care bill to debatejust as all the House's Republicans, except for Rep. Joseph Cao of New Orleans, voted against the House health bill.

"Make no mistake: this was not a free vote,'' Steele said. "A vote in favor of this procedural motion paves the way for the bill's final adoption, which would impose a government-run health care experiment on America that increases premiums, increases taxes, cuts Medicare and allows for taxpayer-funded abortions.

" President Obama, (Senate Majoirty Leader) Harry Reid and their liberal Senate allies will surely gloat and pat themselves on the back for winning tonight's vote in the dark of night during a rare Saturday session, while Americans were home with their families,'' Steele said. "But as they do, those moderate Democrats who voted for Harry Reid's bill will have to answer to their constituents."

That means November, 2010.

In Reid's own words to the Senate, we could hear the election tape rolling:

"It's clear by now that my Republican colleagues have no problem talking about health care in press conferences or television interviews or town halls,'' said Reid (D-Nev.) "Yet now that we have actual legislation to debate, to amend and to build onnow that we have words on paper and not just wild rumorswill they refuse to debate?

"After all, if we are not debatingif we refuse to let the Senate do its jobwhat are we doing here? If senators refuse to debate about a profound crisis affecting every single citizen, the nation must ask: in whose interest do you vote?...

"My Republican friends, there is nothing to fear in debate,'' Reid said. "Be not afraid of debate. It is our job, and it is exactly what the legislative process is all about: discussing, amending, improving. We Democrats stand ready to do what needs to be done. We welcome debate. We encourage it.''

And, in the words of Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who pushed this email out to his party's supporters overnight:

"No matter what the Democrats may try to tell you this is a bill that will increase taxes, cut Medicare and use fancy accounting tricks to hide its true cost. The American people deserve better and Senate Republicans and our supporters continue to be the only thing standing between Democrats and the socialization of the American health care system.

"We cannot allow Washington bureaucrats to take control of our health care system. ''

Or -- as he is really saying -- the mid-term elections.

Democrats At Odds Over Health Bill

Some moderates have threatened to scuttle legislation if their demands aren't met, while the more liberal members have warned their party leaders not to bend.

Senate Health Bill Faces Crucial Vote

2009-11-21T13:20:00.001-08:00

Senate Health Bill Faces Crucial Vote
Landrieu, Lincoln Join Other Dems Supporting Debate of Bill Expanding Health Coverage for Americans; GOP Seeks to Kill Plan
Documenting the Planet's Demise -- One Striking Photograph at a Time
In just about two weeks, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen for a summit to tackle the consequences of climate change. And some of the most compelling evidence they'll consider comes from one man -- and his camera. Daniel Beltra...
Obama's approval: 49 pct, new Gallup low

President Barack Obama's public approval stood at 69 percent in the days after his inauguration in January, shown above, and reached a new low of 49 percent this week in the Gallup Poll's daily tracking surveys.

by Mark Silva

Public approval of the job that President Barack Obama is performing has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in the Gallup Poll's daily tracking of opinion.

The 49-percent approval for Obama's performance, measured this week over a three-day average of surveys between Tuesday and Thursday, marks a 20-point decline from the 69-percentage point approval that Obama enjoyed in the days after his inauguration in January.

This also marks the fourth-swifted slide of a president's approval below 50 since Gallup started tracking President Harry Truman's performance. Other surveys have put the president's approval rating below 50 and others have shown his approval hovering in the low to mid-50s, but for consistency and comparison's sake, we've always favored the Gallup findings as a number that comes with benchmarks.

"Although the current decline below 50 percent has symbolic significance, most of the recent decline in support for Obama occurred in July and August,'' Gallup's Jeffrey Jones notes. "He began July at 60 percent approval.

"The ongoing, contentious debate over national healthcare reform has likely served as a drag on his public support, as have continuing economic problems. Americans are also concerned about the Obama administration's reliance on government spending to solve the nation's problems and the growing federal budget deficit.

"Of the post-World War II presidents, Obama now is the fourth fastest to drop below the majority approval level, doing so in his 10th month on the job. Gerald Ford dropped below 50 percent approval during his third month in office, and Bill Clinton did so in his fourth month,'' Jones notes. "Ronald Reagan, like Obama, also dropped below 50 percent in his 10th month in office, though Reagan's drop occurred a few days sooner in that month (Nov. 13-16, 1981) than did Obama's (Nov. 17-19, 2009).

He also notes this, which is another reason that Gallup's numbers are worth watching: "All presidents except John Kennedy dropped below the majority approval level at some point in their presidencies, and all recovered after the first time below this mark to go back above 50 percent approval.''

For more, see the full Gallup report,.

And forgive us, please, if the pace of postings in the Swamp slows this week for a much needed Thanksgiving week break.

The Swamp wishes a Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Holdout Senators Declare They'll Vote With Party

Democrats likely have hit the magic number of 60 to move ahead on historic health care legislation.

Barack Obama: Home for the holidays

2009-11-20T13:20:00.001-08:00

Rules Differ for Palin at Military Bases
At Fort Hood, Few Limits on Access to Conservative Star Pushing Book; Fort Bragg Bars Interviews of Palin or her Supporters
10 Reasons the Belgians Hate the British
ABC's Stu Schutzman reports from New York: âThey are self centered (Literally: they think they are the belly button of the world).â Not sure what Iâd think if I were called the âbelly button of the worldâ -- just one...
Barack Obama: Home for the holidays

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama is home.

Home, where the hard work is.

With stops in 20 nations behind him, said to be the most ambitious international itinerary of any first-year president, Obama faces the closing innings of a domestic policy year in which he insisted upon a sweeping health-care reformby year's end, the president insisted.

Talk on Capitol Hill already has turned to a new deadline for passage of the legislation: The president's first State of the Union address in January, a fitting stage upon which to hail the health-care initiatives which he made the singular most important demand of his first year.

This isn't the only moving goal post: Obama, during his first days in office, vowed to close the U.S. military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in one year. This week, he allowed that Guantanamo will take a little longer -- the closing promised sometime next year.

The sheer breadth of Obama's first-year agendahealth-care, alternative energy development, recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression and the charting of a new course in Afghanistan while withdrawing American forces from Iraqmay defie the setting of hard deadlines. The depth of the partisan divide on Capitol Hill is another factor as evidenced by an economic stimulus that passed without a single Republican vote in the House, a health-care bill that passed the House by 220-215, with but one Republican vote, an energy bill with "cap and trade'' limits on greenhouse gas emissions that cleared the House only with the help of a handful of Republicans, eight.

Of all this, only the economic stimulus has found its way into law so far, and the White House was having trouble this week accounting for where the money is going.

And as the sun rose in Washington today, with the president just returned from an eight-day trek across Asia at a time in which the international goals which the president has set appear no closer to achievement than they were at the start of this year, the American public's approval of the job that the president is performing stood at just 50 percent in the daily tracking of the Gallup Poll -- a floor which the president has seen several times since August.

Obama is home for the holidays -- no real political break, though.

He's getting grey, he acknowledged this week.

Near the end of 2009, the president maintains that he isn't even thinking of 2012 at this pointand says that he is content to let the chips fall where they may. He said this, in an interview with CNN:

"If I feel like I've made the very best decisions for the American people and three years from now I look at it, and my, you know, poll numbers are in the tank because we've gone through these wrenching changes, you know, politically I'm in a tough spot, I'll feel all right about myself,'' he said. "I'd feel a lot worse, if at a time of such urgency for the American people I was spending a lot of time thinking about how I could position myself to ensure reelection.

"Because if I were doing that right now, I wouldn't have taken on health care, I wouldn't be taking on things that are unpopular,'' the president said. "I wouldn't be closing Guantanamo. There are a whole series of choices that I'm making that I know are going to create some political turbulence. But I think they're the right thing to do, and history will bear out my theories or not.''

Week In Politics Examined

Senate Democrats hoped to have enough votes this week to pass a health care bill, Obama Cabinet officials faced hostile lawmakers on Capitol Hill and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's much-awaited book hit bookstores. Political analysts E.J. Dionne, of The Washington Post, and David Brooks, of The New York Times, offer their insight.

FOX rolls wrong video, heads may roll

2009-11-19T13:20:00.001-08:00

Can the Postal Service be Saved?
With Losses Mounting, Postal Service Seeks Autonomy, Pushes to Cut Saturday Service; Rep. Danny Davis Calls for a Bailout
Heated Exchange: Republicans Call for Geithner to Step Down
Two House Republicans, Rep. Kevin Brady and Rep. Peter DeFazio, grilled Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today -- they pressed him on unemployment, the stimulus and called for him to resign. Geithner pushed back stating: "I think that almost nothing in...
FOX rolls wrong video, heads may roll

by Mark Silva and updated with FOX apology

FOX has done it again, and this time, once again, FOX says its misplay of the wrong crowd video was another regrettable mistake.

Today, FOX News host Gregg Jarrett was talking about Republican Sarah Palin's book tour and the crowd she is drawing at the start of itno small turnout, with some 1,500 people lining up early this morning for a chance to get into this evening's premier book-signing for Going Rogue in Grand Rapids.

"Sarah Palin continuing to draw huge crowds while she's promoting her brand new book,'' FOX's Jarrett told his viewers. "Take a look at -- these are some of the pictures just coming into us... The lines earlier had formed this morning.''

But it turns out that Happening Now had pulled some video of something that happened last year: Displaying video today from Palin's campaign for the vice presidency, on the ticket with the GOP's Sen. John McCainwhich also drew considerable crowds, as shown today in video of a smiling Palin before an adoring campaign crowd.

"This was a production error in which the copy editor changed a script and didn't alert the control room to update the video,'' Michael Clemente, senior vice president of news at FOX, sad this evening. "There will be an on-air explanation during Happening Now on Thursday."

The unwelcome mishap follows soon on the heels of another FOX Paswhen the network's Sean Hannity ran video of a hugely attended TEA Party protest rally in Washington in September as Hannity was talking about a less-attended Nov. 4 rally outside the Capitol.

Comedy Central's Jon Stewart called out Hannity on that video, and Hannity apologized, on air, for what he called an "inadvertent'' error. Hannity has a book-tour interview of Palin on his show tonight, and we're betting Stewart's Daily Show crew will be watching.

So, as you might suspect, the No. 1-rated cable news network is taking today's mixing of videos quite seriously;

How seriously?

The Swamp hears tonight that it's highly like that serious disciplinary action will be taken for those responsible behind the scenes in the control room. News executives there consider this to have been a sloppy and unnecessary error.

New Thursday note: FOX made good on its promise to acknowledge the mistake and apologized for the mixup today: "We didn't mean to mislead anybody. It was a mistake, and for that we apologize.'' See it here:

Watch the latest business video at FOXBusiness.com

Army To Bar Media From Palin Event At N.C. Base

A Fort Bragg spokesman said officials feared the book-signing event would spark political grandstanding against President Obama if the media were allowed to cover it. He said Army regulations prohibited military reservations from becoming "political platforms by politicians."

Clinton Makes Surprise Trip to Afghanistan

2009-11-18T13:20:00.001-08:00

Clinton Makes Surprise Trip to Afghanistan
Secretary of State Will Attend Karzai's Inauguration, Says This Is a "Critical Moment"
Secretary Clinton Singles Out 'Heroism' in Afghanistan
ABC's Chief Foreign Correspondent Martha Raddatz reports from Kabul, Afghanistan: It takes a lot longer to get to this war than the other one. The layovers and the plane changes add up to about twenty-four hours of travel. I had...
Palin: Fort Hood 'profile' shooter ignored

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin, author of Going Rogue, says the Army psychiatrist, a Muslim, accused of killing 13 and wounding 29 at Fort Hood, Texas, should have been "profiled'' before the shootings.

" I certainly do,'' Palin says in an interview that will air on FOX News' Hannity this evening, "and I think that there were massive warning flags that were missed all over the place, and I think that it was quite unfortunate that, to me, it was a fear of being politically incorrect to not -- I am going to use the word -- profile this guy, profile in the sense of finding out what his radical beliefs were.''

Palin, who is promoting her new memoir with a national book tour beginning in Grand Rapids this evening, tells FOX's Sean Hannity that her views about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, held in the shooting spree that shocked Fort Hood, the Army and a nation are likely to get liberal "heads.. spinning.''

"Now, because I used the word profile, I am going to get clobbered tomorrow morning,'' Palin says in the interview, her first with a cable TV news network, the leading one in this case. "The liberals, their heads are just going to be spinning. They're going to say she is radical, she is extreme.

""But I say profiling in the context of doing whatever we can to save innocent American lives, I'm all for it, then."

(Pictured above, a man waiting in line for the signing of Sarah Palin's new book at a bookstore in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Photo by Bill Pugliano / Getty Images)

The Republican former governor of Alaska and 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee says in the interviewand she isn't giving a lot of these talks at the start of the book tour, only speaking with Oprah Winfrey, ABC's Barbara Walters, Hannity and Christian Broadcastingthat she hopes to play a significant role in the future.

"I want to help those worthy causes like special needs, making sure that our world is a more welcoming world for the most special ones,'' says the mother of five, whose youngest was born with Down syndrome. "Don't know if necessarily that means running for higher office, but you know, my life is in God's hands, and I'm seeking that path that he would have me on...

"You're going to hear a lot from me,'' Palin says. "So, you know, the haters are going to have a whole lot of material. Tina Fey, she may have a whole lot of material coming up."

She cannot offer any prediction about her plans for 2012"I wish that I could predict andand prepare for what's going to happen in four years,'' she tells Hannity.

She says this about the campaign pastthe worst moment was having her personal emails hacked "and then being broadcast around the world.. '' And her return to public life has had its choice moments as well, such as the Newsweek magazine cover picturing her in tights, a photo taken for Runner's World magazine"It was just -- just another little shot,'' Palin says.

"But in the grand scheme of things, of course, things like that really don't amount to a hill of beans, when there are many things that are going wrong, something's going right, but something's going wrong in our country that people want to hear about and talk about...

"I think that the American people, they're tiring of the tabloidization of some people, like me. And they want to get to the issues,'' says Palin, who suggested in an interview with ABC that the Israelis should be allowed to continue expansion of settlements in Palestinian territories and that President Barack Obama should listen to what his generals are telling him to do in Afghanistan and that the president, as far as his economic policies are concerned, has things "backassward.''

"As a person, I think he's very charismatic, quite articulate,'' Palin says of Obama in her talk with Hannity. "Very, very talented as a politician.'' (Obama says he wishes her well, too, but "probably won't'' be reading that book of hers.) "I'd like to see him put all of those God-given talents that he's so full of to better use for America."

Asked if she believes, as FOX's own Glenn Beck has argued, that Obama is a radical, Palin says, "I will not hesitate to say that his associates have been extremely radical and we see that then in some of the appointments he has made."

Also, she finally has an answer for Katie Couric's famous campaign question of the vice presidential candidate about what sources of news she reads for information.

"I read Newsmax and the Frontiersman (the local newspaper in Wasilla, Ala., where Palin was mayor, which notes today that Palin's book tour has folks wondering if this is the start of a campaign) and Wall Street Journal and everything online,'' Palin says. "I absorb the news via many, many sources."

Holder: No Failure In 9/11 Prosecution

Attorney General Eric Holder told senators Wednesday "failure is not an option" in the prosecution of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Holder explained his rationale to bring Mohammed and four other terrorism suspects to the U.S. for a civilian trial.

Lego Madness: Iconic Toy Company Thrives Despite Recession

2009-11-17T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Unplugged: Dissecting Contradictions In "Going Rogue'
With the release of "Going Rogue," coinciding with a week-long media blitz, Washington Unplugged dissects contradictions in her new book? Nancy Cordes spoke with CBS' Scott Conroy, GOP strategist Matt Mackowiac and Huffington Post's Sam Stein.
Lego Madness: Iconic Toy Company Thrives Despite Recession
The recession's taken a toll on the toy industry, but one brand has been busy bucking the trend and building its business. We're referring to the Lego company -- so Nick Watt went to its headquarters in Denmark to learn...
Senate blocks Guantanamo-saving bid

by Richard Simon

The Democratic-controlled Senate today thwarted an effort to block spending for upgrading facilities in the United States for housing prisoners transferred from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a move that Illinois officials feared could have complicated efforts to place detainees at a prison in their state.

The measure was defeated on a mostly party-line vote of 57-43.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) proposed the restriction as an amendment to a spending bill for military construction and veterans programs, telling his colleagues, ``If you want terrorists here, then vote against this amendment.''

Opponents assailed it as an attempt to block the closing of Guantanamo Bay, a priority of President Obama.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who has touted the jobs and other economic benefits that would be created by housing prisoners at a near-empty prison about 150 miles west of Chicago, read a letter on the Senate floor from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. calling the closing of Guantanamo Bay ``in the national security interests of the United States.

"Al Qaeda has repeatedly used the existence of the facility as a recruitment tool,'' the Obama Cabinet members said of Guantanamo in their letter.'

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, contended the amendment would ``actually make us less secure by restricting our ability to improve security at facilities'' that house detainees transferred to the United States from Guantanamo Bay for trial.''

Durbin argued that the amendment would not prevent detainees from being transferred to the United States but would bar spending federal funds to tighten security in places such as New York City where several accused terrorists, including the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, are expected to go on trial.

``How much sense does that make?'' Durbin asked. ``If there is the need to upgrade security so they can be tried in a safe environment with no danger to the people of New York City, we want to spend that money.''

Environment Or Economy? Obama's Balancing Act

To sell Congress and others on the idea of taking bold steps to curb global warming, President Obama casts his arguments in terms of job creation. Many environmental activists say they wish he'd do more to push the "green" agenda.

Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton: Presidential?

2009-11-16T13:20:00.001-08:00

Health Bill Foes Solicit Funds for Study
Washington Post: U.S. Chamber of Commerce Assumes Study will Find Health Care Bill Would "Kill Jobs"
Will The Jobs Be Coming Back Anytime Soon?
ABC's Stu Schutzman reports from New York: Some employment experts say yes. Even as the numbers get bleaker by the month and the phrase âjobless recoveryâ resounds more and more in the media, some analysts believe the bottom is near...
Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton: Presidential?

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin has a book, Going Rogue.

Hillary Clinton has a book, It Takes a Village.

But on the eve of the release of Palin's memoirs, a day in which Palin is appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Clinton is traveling through China as secretary of state, Palin does not have what it takes to be president, most surveyed say.

But Clinton does.

Just 28 percent of those surveyed by the post-Lou Dobbs CNN and Opinion Research Corp. say Palin, the former governor of Alaska, is qualified to serve as president -- and 70 percent say she is not.

Speculation about Palin's potential interest in the 2012 Republican nomination, following her run at the White House with John McCain in 2008, has been spurred by the publication of a memoir filled with regrets about the conduct of McCain-Palin.

At the same time, only 50 percent of those surveyed see Vice President Joe Biden -- "can I call you Joe?'' Palin asked of him during their 2008 running mates' debate -- as qualified to serve as president. And 48 percent say he is not. Which could help explain that 71-vehicle motorcade that President Barack Obama rode into Beijing today.

(Obama seriously considered Clinton as a running mate, his campaign manager has told us -- see the book mentioned below -- but Obama worried about Bill Clinton.)

Yet Clinton, who was favored to win the Democratic nomination for president last year until someone from Chicago had the "audacity'' to hope -- and "The Audacity to Win,'' as campaign manager David Plouffe has entitled his own book -- is viewed by two-thirds of those surveyed as qualified to be president. The former first lady has the confidence of 67 percent of those surveyed, with 32 percent saying no.

Yet Clinton says she has no interest in running again.

As for the rest of the potential 2012 GOP pack, Palin may have some catching up to do with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the GOP's Iowa caucuses last year -- and who, it turns out, will also be making his own appearance in Grand Rapids this week as Palin launches her book-tour there. Forty-three percent of those surveyed say Huckabee is qualified to serve as president.

And 47 percent say Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts who also sought his party's nomination in 2008, is qualified.

The Nov. 13-15 survey of 1,014 adults, including 928 registered voters, carries a possible margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Abortion Ban In Federal Workers' Insurance May Foreshadow Overhaul Outcome

A 41-year-old federal worker explains how her insurer denied coverage of a medically necessary abortion under a decade-old rule that resembles a current proposal for health overhaul.

Obama Walks Tightrope in 1st Trip to China

2009-11-15T13:20:00.001-08:00

Obama Walks Tightrope in 1st Trip to China
President's Talks With Beijing Must Balance Talks on Trade, Climate Change with Human Rights, Iran Sanctions
Sarah Palin 'bottled up' no more: Lid off

by Mark Silva and updated

It is billed by early readers as a blend of redemption and revenge, with a certain measure of pay-back for those campaign strategists who insisted that Sarah Palin stick with the script in John McCain's campaign for president, accusing her, with a complaint that became the inspiration for her memoir's title, of Going Rogue.

Yet, days before the official release of Palin's book on Tuesday, the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president already is getting some push-back for the pay-back she is dishing out, with a book tour starting in Grand Rapids this week that is sure to look like push-back to the push-back for the pay-back.

And, for Palin, it will amount to one great pay-off.

Welcome to the Bulldog edition of The Swamp, the one that comes out the day before it says it's coming out. We've always had a certain love for the Bulldogthere is something urgent about a paper that arrives the day before it arrives, something that focuses the mind on deadline. In the interest of delivering an early look at the book that everyone's already looking at, and which a few readers have read and reported on, and in hopes of taking the better part of Sunday off, Sunday's Swamp is here already:

And in true Bulldog followup tradition we have an update this morning: Palin says the media are still "making things up.'' At her Facebook headquarters today, Palin writes: "They're now erroneously reporting on the book's contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards.''

Taking note of all the news people said to be "fact-checking'' her book, she scoffs at "dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to 'fact check' what's going on with (9/11 plotter Khalid) Sheikh Mohammed's trial, (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi's health care takeover costs, (Fort Hood suspect Nidal Malik) Hasan's associations, etc. Amazing.... We'll keep setting the record straight, and we'll keep reminding some in the media that Americans are very tired of their non-objective reporting.''

The former governor of Alaska, who abrubtly resigned last summer in the midst of persistent complaints about her ethics, gets personal in the 413-page book that will make its real media debut on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Monday. She delves into the pain of teenage daughter Bristol's pregnancy which the world learned of with the Republican Party's nomination of a vice presidential candidate little known beyond Wasilla before that. But she steers clear in this book of her grandbaby Tripp's father, the estranged Levi Johnston, who has aired the Palin family's dirty laundry on television and shed his own underwear for Playgirl.

Her own high-priced, party-leased wardrobe, which had become a lightning rod for the Republican during the few months in which she campaigned with McCain, had been one of the points of contention between Palin and the campaign's strategists, she writes. Even her diet was a problem for strategists pushing Atkins Diet bars on her -- no Mooseburgers on the road ("We eat, therefore we hunt.")

If she spares the rod for Johnston, Palin lets loose on McCain's men. She writes bitterly of being barred from delivering her own concession speech on election night, how she'd been kept "bottled up" during the campaign and kept from being herself. She says she was prepped to give non-answers to Joe Biden in debate

Palin drew at least a $1.25 million advance for this book, ready months ahead of schedule with the help of a professional writer, Lynn Vincent, with a first printing of 1.5 million copies from HarperCollins and top billing on the prepublication sales lists at Amazon and other deals. The conservative NewsMax has gathered some copies, peddling them at deep discount and giving them away for free to subscribers.

"As you probably have heard, the snagged a copy of my memoir, Going Rogue, before its Tuesday release," Palin wrote in her Facebook Notes. "And as is expected, the and a number of subsequent media outlets are erroneously reporting the contents of the book,'' she wrote. "Keep your powder dry, read the book, and enjoy it! Lots of great stories about my family, Alaska, and the incredible honor it was to run alongside Senator John McCain."

All of which seems supremely fashioned to spur sales even more, with the 's director of media relations maintaining that it has made a fair and careful pre-release account of the book. That following on Facebook is now near one million, close to double what it was when she resigned midway through her first term.

And Palin is engaging full-bore in current events, calling the Obama Justice Department's decision to try the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in criminal court in New York "atrocious.''

"Horrible decision, absolutely horrible,'' Palin writes on Facebook near the eve of her book tour. "It is devastating for so many of us to hear that the Obama Administration decided that the 9/11 terrorist mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will be given a criminal trial in New York. This is an atrocious decision..... The trial will afford Mohammed the opportunity to grandstand and make use of his time in front of the world media to rally his disgusting terrorist cohorts. It will also be an insult to the victims of 9/11, as Mohammed will no doubt use the opportunity to spew his hateful rhetoric in the same neighborhood in which he ruthlessly cut down the lives of so many Americans....

" If we are stuck with this terrible Obama Administration decision,'' Palin writes, "I, like most Americans, hope that Mohammed and his co-conspirators are convicted. Hang 'em high.''

Palin, for her part, will be steering clear of New York on a three-week book tour starting in Grand Rapids and ranging from Bloomington, Minn., to Fort Bragg, N.C., before heading out West after Thanksgiving.

The memoir, the reports, starts with Palin's birth in Sandpoint, Ohio, and alludes to the unknown about her future from here. But it is the accounting of her confrontations with her own campaign's strategists and the national media that stand out.

Her encounter with CBS News' Katie Couric, which exposed more about what Palin didn't know, or read, than what she did, she recalls as condescending, biased and full of "badgering.'' She maintains that the CBS anchor went to town with the "gotcha'' momentssuch as Palin's inability to name the newspapers she reads regularlyand left more substantive material on the network's editing table.

The isn't the only party that found an early copy of the book. So did the Huffington Post.

"Going Rogue is, at its heart, one giant complaint about the conduct of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign,'' the HuffPost's Sam Stein and Lila Shapiro write. "At the nexus of Palin's grievances lies Schmidt, a character cast as out of touch, overly cautious, and vindictive.''

Palin claims she and the campaign's strategists were "very comfortable with each other right off the bat," and she calls Schmidt "business to the bone." During her vetting Schmidt plays it cool.

Palin complains of being "told to sit down and shut up" when she "spoke on the trail about (then Democratic presidential candidate Barack) Obama's associations with questionable characters." She complains that the campaign feared to take on Obama's former, longtime pastor of twenty years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

"I will forever question the campaign for prohibiting discussion of such association," Palin writes. "All the more since these tell-tale signs of Obama's views, carefully concealed with centrist campaign-speak have now been brought into the light by his appointments and actions in office."

Her disdain for Schmidt and others of the "professional political caste''' jumps off the pages.

The HuffPost has served up an excerpt about the animosity growing peronsal when Schmidt wanted to put Palin on the Atkins Diet.

"I had to do a mental double take.

"The Atkins bars -- that must be it. They were everywhere, in every hotel room and on every snack table along the trail. They were great, when I didn't have time to slow down and eat, but I didn't know why they were all over the place.
"I'm not on the Atkins Diet, Steve."

"Don't you know what a high-protein diet does?" he asked, ignoring what I had just said.
He then launched into a discussion of nutrition physiology, holding forth on the importance of carbohydrates to cognitive connections and blah-blah-blah. As he lectured, I took in his rotund physique and noted that he used nicotine to keep his own cognitive connections humming along.

"I interrupted his lecture. "Steve, you know what I really need? Half an hour to go for a run in these beautiful cities we're visiting. Also, seeing my kids does wonders for my soul."

"He barreled on as if I hadn't spoken. "Headquarters is flying in a nutritionist, and for three days you're going to be on a diet balanced in carbohydrates and nitrates and --"
I'm a forty-four year old, healthy, athletic woman raising five kids and governing a large state, I thought as his words faded into a background buzz. Sir, I really don't know you yet. But you've told me how to dress, what to say, who to talk to, a lot of people not to talk to, who my heroes are supposed to be and we're still losing. Now you're going to tell me what to eat?''

Palin laments over her indecisiveness in dealing with Saturday Night Live's parodies of her, Stein and colleague write, insisting that she should have gone on the show earlier to counterbalance the searing portrayals of her by comic Tina Fey.

"Just stick with the script," Schmidt would say. "Ultimately," Palin writes, "this hurt the campaign to a degree the 'experts' could never grasp."

" Now I was in the hands of 'campaign professionals' Palin writes, " and it was my first encounter with the unique way of thinking that characterizes this elite and highly specialized guild. In Alaska, we don't really have these kinds of people -- they are a feature of national politics. Naturally enough, as the experts, they are used to being in charge. But no matter how "expert" any of them was, nothing had apparently prepared them for the unprecedented onslaught of rumors, lies, and innuendo that "packaging" would have on my candidacy. ''

The decision to purchase designer clothes for Palin is ascribed to communications adviser Nicolle Wallace.

"I had a humbling experience while we were back in Wasilla for the Charlie Gibson interview in September," Palin writes. "While the crews turned my kitchen into a television studio, I took Nicolle into my bedroom and showed her what I thought I should pack for the trail. She flipped through my wardrobe with a raised eyebrow."

Palin recoils at the memory of the prank call of the media from Canada posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and suggests the campaign pros who thought they were such pros should never have let her get on the phone with the caller.

"By that time I'd received calls from presidents of other countries and our own, and had met elder statesmen and other dignitaries, so it didn't surprise us too much that we'd be speaking with the French leader,'' Palin writes.

"He's got to be drunk, I thought.

"I didn't want to offend the president of France, but this was getting stupid. I kept thinking, surely, someone will pop up and say something like, "Okay, the five minutes are up," but the call just went on and on and on. By now, I was thinking exit strategy. And I kept trying to laugh, even though it was increasingly unfunny.

"Right away, the phones started ringing. One of the first calls was Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. "How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president of France call a vice presidential candidate a few days out?!"

"Good question, I thought,'' Palin writes. "Weren't you the ones who set this up?"

"Somehow,'' the author of Going Rogue writes, "the Palins were responsible for all of the campaign's problems."

Obama Tests The Air In China

President Obama is in Shanghai Sunday on his first visit to China. The formal agenda includes trade relations, security issues, human rights and climate change. He's hoping to win China's help in efforts to stop nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran. The huge trade imbalance between the two countries is also likely to be a topic. Host Liane Hansen talks with NPR's Louisa Lim.

Obama: No "Political Theater" Over Hasan

2009-11-14T13:20:00.001-08:00

Obama: No "Political Theater" Over Hasan
Orders Full Investigation Into Ft. Hood Shootings, Asks That Congressional Hearings Not Compromise Probe
Clem's Chronicles: Gitmo Detainees heading to NY/Water on the Moon/Obama in Asia
Have a good weekend everyone. Here's our Friday night note...... TERROR TRIALS/KSM TO NY-Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self proclaimed âarchitectâ of the 9/11 attacks and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be brought...
Obama bows to emperor, world reels?

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama has bowed to royalty, with a greeting for the Japanese emperor that erases any doubts about what the president's posture was -- remember that bow to the Saudi king that was not really a bow?

And some people are falling over backwards today.

Our colleague, Andrew Malcolm, at Top of the Ticket, muses on the president's meeting with Japanese Emperor Akihito today, and suffice it to say that the article will light a brush fire of commentary stoked by the hot winds of the Drudge Report's headline.

See the Ticket's report there or read it here:

(And stick around for some comments below.)

The photo above is by Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty, Reuters All of this brought to mind our snapshots from our trip to Japan with then-Vice President Dick Cheney, and his meeting with the emperor, in February 2007. Our own photos suffer from a certain lack of light in the ceremonial arrival room at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and distance from subjects, but the closest we recall Cheney coming to a bow was that certain lean of his. These photos by Mark Silva:

by Andrew Malcolm
Top of the Ticket, Los Angeles Times

How low will the new American president go for the world's royalty?

This photo will get Democrat President Obama a lot of approving nods in Japan this weekend, especially among the older generation of Japanese who still pay attention to the royal family living in its downtown castle. Very low bows like this are a sign of great respect and deference to a superior.

To some in the United States, however, an upright handshake might have looked better. Remember Michelle Obama casually patting Britain's Queen Elizabeth on the back during their Buckingham Palace visit? America's royalty tends to make movies and get bad reviews and lots of money as a sign of respect.

Obama could receive some frowns back home as he did for his not-quite-this-low-or-maybe-about-the-same-bow to the Saudi king not so long ago. (See photo here)

Akihito, who turns 76 next month, is the eldest son and fifth child of Emperor Showa, the name given to an emperor and his reign after his death.

Emperor Showa is better known abroad by the life name of Hirohito. He became emperor in 1925 and died in 1989, the longest historically-known rule of the nation's 125 emperors.

Hirohito presided over his nation's growth from an undeveloped agrarian economy into the expansionist military power and ally of Nazi Germany of the 1930's.

And, later, Japan became a global economic giant. Hirohito, along with Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who authorized the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, were much reviled abroad during World War II.

Historically, debate has simmered over how much of a political puppet Hirohito was to the country's military before and during the war.

Even after Democrat President Harry Truman ordered the two atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 1945, there were strong forces within Japan that wanted to continue to fight the Americans in the spirit of kamikaze suicide pilots.

But Akihito's father went on national radio, the first time his subjects had ever heard Hirohito's voice, and without using the inflammatory word "surrender," pronounced that the country must "accept the unacceptable." It did.

As the conquering Allied general and then presiding officer of the U.S. occupation, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, decided to allow Japan to keep its emperor as a ceremonial unifying institution within a nascent democracy.

Tojo, on the other hand, was hanged.

MacArthur treated Emperor Hirohito respectfully but, as his body language in this black and white postwar photo demonstrates, was not particularly deferential.

(But then MacArthur was not known as a particularly deferential person, as Truman discovered just before firing him later. But that's another war.)

Akihito was born during Japan's conquering of China and was evacuated during the devastating American fire-bombing of Tokyo, which was built largely of wood in those days.

The future emperor learned English during the U.S. occupation, but, inexplicably, his father ordered that his oldest boy not receive an Army commission as previous imperial heirs always had.

Akihito assumed the throne on Jan. 7, 1989. Within weeks he began a series of formal expressions of remorse to Asian countries for Japan's actions during his father's reign. In 2003, he underwent surgery for prostate surgery.

In 1959, Akihito married Michiko Shoda, the first commoner allowed to enter the Japanese royal family. That was two years before the birth of Akihito's future presidential guest, Barack Obama.

President Obama Brings Personal Ties To Asia Tour

President Obama is vowing to strengthen U.S. ties to Asia in an effort to address global challenges such as climate change and the spread of nuclear weapons. Speaking in Tokyo Saturday, Obama also tried to sell renewed relations with Asia as a key to job growth here at home.

Obama Eyes Budget Freezes to Fight Deficit

2009-11-13T13:20:00.001-08:00

Obama Eyes Budget Freezes to Fight Deficit
White House Directs Agencies To Plan for Spending Halts and Possible Cuts Ahead of Midterm Elections
Quotes of the Day: 'There is precisely one superstar in the Republican Party'
âIâm absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it. My administration will insist on it.â -- President Obama, on the news that the 9-11 mastermind and...
Anita Dunn: 'Going rogue' not her way

by Mark Silva

Was Anita Dunn, the outgoing communications director of the White House, speaking for herself when she called FOX News "an arm of the Republican Party'' on a rival cable news network's program, or was this something that Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and political adviser David Axelrod had planned ahead of time?

"I am not exactly one known for 'going rogue,''' Dunn said today, with an allusion to the well-known Republican, Sarah Palin, whose campaign had accused her of going off-script.

"The reality is that the media environment has changed so dramatically over the last decade, that what we think of as traditionally news sources, has changed,'' Dunn said, pointing to Comedy Central this week calling out FOX's Sean Hannity for mixing video of one well-attended protest rally with video of another less-attended rally ("We screwed up,'' Hannity acknowledged on his own program this week.)

"The people who did the fact checking on this, the people who exposed this, Jon Stewart on Comedy Central... well, that's where you're getting fact checking and investigative journalism these days, folks'' Dunn told an audience at Bloomberg's Washington Summit this afternoon, and so the White House too is watching when news is skewed. "For mainstream journalists, it is important for them to know that we are following those stories... that really don't live up to the scrutiny that you would bring to them.''

Okay then, was the president aware that Dunn was going to say what she said of FOX in that appearance on CNN, where she also suggested that FOX is not a news network in the traditional sense?

"I am not a person who is known for going rogue,'' Dunn said carefully, "but we also don't discuss personal decisions.''

This drew a knowing laugh from an audience here at the Newseum, where interviewer Al Hunt of Bloomberg News also asked Dunn what she thinks of MSNBC. The morning host, she noted, is a Republican from the "Gingrich Revolution'' (that's former Rep. Joe Scarborough of Pensacola), and they have a lot of commentary. "I do regard them differently as a network,'' she said.

Dunn herself also has come under the scrutiny of FOX's Glenn Beck, who had some fun playing the video of a speech she gave in which she cited her two favorite political philosophers, Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa. Dunn, who campaigned for Barack Obama for president, and fomer Sen. Bill Bradley before that, stepped in as White House communications director on an interim basis earlier this year, and is leaving on Dec. 1though says she will continue to serve as a consultant. Her husband, Bob Bauer, will become White House Counsel by year's end.

Is Obama disappointed on not having changed 'the tone'' in Washington that he hoped to change, Hunt asked? "I think he would have loved to be able to change more of the tone,'' Dunn said. "At the end of the day there is only so much he can do.''

Is there one big communication success she can cite?

"I think that the successful communications triumph is probably, it always starts with the president, and his speech to a joint session of Congress,'' Dunn said. "Which really did redefine the issue, which really did give momentum to what you're seeing today.... We have a president who writes most of his best speeches and really delivers them well.''

One big communications disappointment?

"I wish that we had earlier put more attention and resources into building our online community in the White House, which is something we did successfully during the campaign,'' Dunn said. "I think, in keeping with the president's real commitment to transparency, but also in bringing more people into the process, there is more we can do..''

Asked about Republican strategist Karl Rove's comment that the Obama White House is uncompromising and running roughshod over critics with a Chicago-brand of politics:

"Well, gee, Karl... At times like this, as the mother of a boy who only recently hit his teen years, I am always inclined to fall back on something like, 'I'm rubber, you're glue.'... .You see a president who has really gone to extraordinary lengths to reach out with people who don't agree with him.

"The reality is that, for the first time in history -- and this is a bell that can't be un0rung after we leave -- every visitor to the White House is going to be made public,'' she said of the Obama administration's decision to publish quarterly the list of everyone who visits the White Housea visitors log that the Bush White House fought to keep secret. "We are running this transparent and accountable administration that basically reaches out to people who agree and disagree with us... That was not the case when Karl Rove was calling the shots in the last eight years,''

Are the public opinion polls "heading South'' a measure of a problem of policy or communication, Hunt asked Dunn.

"This is my third go-'round with this,'' she said, having worked with Sen. Bradley on the issue and then during the New Jersey Democrat's bid for his party's 2000 presidential nomination. "There is a reason that people have not been able to do this. It is complex.... It is the communications challenge of all time... but when it passes, and when it becomes law, people will feel that real change has come to Washington.''

On Afghanistan, would it have been better for the administration to have moved more swiftly on a new deployment?

"I think the American feel we want to put a process in place, to ask questions before we put troops in,'' she said. "This is the toughest and most serious decision that any president faces, committing American troops... and taking the time to do it properly, to make sure you have asked all the questions and challenged all the assumptions... that is something the American people appreciate.

Dunn, one of the higher-level women to work in the Obama White House, also was asked here about those all-male basketball games that the president plays.

"I don't want to play basketball with the president,'' Dunn told Hunt. "We work really long hours. We want to go home.''

Obama's Half-Brother Recasts Story Of Their Father

One person who plans to meet with President Obama during his trip to China is his half-brother, Mark Obama Ndesandjo, who lives in China. Ndesandjo has recently released a semi-autobiographical novel, revealing the abusive nature of their father.

Our Cancer Story -- Shrinking Tumors At Mass General

2009-11-12T13:20:00.001-08:00

Video: Sarah Palin's Campaign Interviews
During an appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" Sarah Palin discussed the various interviews during her V.P. campaign. "The Oprah Winfrey Show" Monday, November 16.
Our Cancer Story -- Shrinking Tumors At Mass General
Bill Schuette was a lung cancer patient in Versailles, Ohio who had tried seven different kinds of chemotherapy without much success and he was losing hope. That is until he saw one of our broadcasts this past June and a...
Blackburn: TEA Parties rallying women

by Mark Silva

Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee and the first woman elected to Congress in her district, also serves as chairwoman of the songwriter's caucus. There is a growing choir of discontent with Washington among the public, she says.

Blackburn was among the Republican congressional leaders at the TEA Party tax protest outside the Capitol recently. She was asked today, at a conference in the shadow of the Capitol, if she is concerned about "the tone'' of the proteststhe suggestion, for instance, that House Republican Leader John Boehner has made that the health-care legislation is the greatest threat to American freedom that Americans have seen for some time.

"You know what is so interesting about the TEA Party movement?'' Blackburn asked. "The amazing thing to me about the TEA Parties is, when you look out across the crowd, the crowd is predominantly female... It's amazing, the number of women attending these events, and women are speaking out as never before... They are looking at what is happening with the cost of health care, they are truly concerned about the strong arm of government reaching into their lives and into their pocketbooks.''

But is the health-care bill, as some have called it, tyranny?

"Let me tell you why it is a clearly defined threat, because this is a bill that will change the way health care in this country works,'' she said at the Bloomberg Washington Summit at the Newseum this afternoon. "There's a lot of worry....''

Readers of the Swamp might recall Blackburn as the Republican who warmed up the crowd for the acceptance speech of Republican presidential candidate John McCain at the 2008 GOP convention in St. Paul (pictured there, above, in a photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images.)

"We are the gun totin', God fearin,' flag wavin' Americans who are excited to see two crack shots on the ticket with the status quo in their sights,'' Blackburn told the crowd in Minnesota. ""We don't need to elect someone to install an ATM machine on Pennsylvania Avenue that debits your liberty to fund wasteful programs.''

"I think many would appreciate seeing a much more civil tone here in Washington,'' she said today, at a far less emotional forum than the convention or TEA Parties.

"People are very concerned that we are compromising our freedom because we are accruing so much debt... and we don't have the desire, or the political will, to stop this spending,'' Blackburn said today. "Most Americans are just tired of the rhetoric that seems to swirl around itself,'' Blackburn said today. "The expectations of the American public have not been managed or fulfilled.''

Asked about a potential restoration of Republican control of the House, the Republican from Tennessee said:

"It is going to be important that we lay out an orderly process... The American people want to see jobs-growth. What they want is for leaders to define how they're going to do this... ''

What happens if Republicans take back the House? How much of the agenda becomes a question of dismantling what's been donesuch as health care, or the economic stimulus?

"What the American people want to see is, No. 1, not so many penalties and punishments being put in place,'' she said.

One of the keys to jobs-growth is examining the tax code, and making sure that the tax cuts of 2001 and '03 don't expire, she said. "Looking at taxes and regulation, that is one thing that unites all Republicans.''

Advocates Press Congress To Pass Food Safety

Advocates for food safety legislation are pushing hard for Senate action on a food safety bill, releasing reports on the danger of foodborne illness in children and the long-term effects on health.