by Mark Silva

A day of celebrating all that is Irish-American about America ended at the White House this evening with President Barack Obama publicly reaffirming his commitment to immigration reform.

"I am pleased that there is bipartisan progress being made,'' Obama told guests filling the East Room of the White House. "My own commitment to comprehensive immigration reform remains unwavering."

Obama was alluding to other recent guests at the White House: Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who showed the president their idea of a "blueprint'' for immigration reform that includes not only tougher border protection but also a path to citizenship for those already here.

Tonight, Obama played host to the leader of a nation whose emigrants have been central to the development of the United States, the prime minister of Ireland, Brian Cowen, at the annual St. Patrick's Day Reception in the East Room, and the two saluted the Irish-American who was elected president 50 years ago, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Obama, noting that it was a half century ago that President Kennedy was elected, also honored his brother, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who had been instrumental in the development of bipartisan immigration reforms. Among the invited guests: Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

At an event featuring Keltic Dreams, an after-school Irish dancing troupe from Public School 59 in the Bronx, and the City of Washington Pipe Band, the Taoiseach, speakng of the late Sen. Kennedy, said: "At times like this, we miss his enthusiastic presence."

Obama ended his own remarks with a quote from George Washington, whose portrait hangs in the East Room, which begins: "When our friendless standards were first unfurled, who were the strangers who first mustered around our staff, and when it reeled in the fight, who more brilliantly sustained it than Erin's generous sons."

. And the Taoiseach presented the president with shamrock.

(With thanks for the pool reporting of the Washington Bureau's Kim Geiger.)

by Mark Silva and updated with excerpts at 6 pm EDT

President Barack Obama, fighting to assemble the votes needed for passage of healthcare legislation after more than a year of pressing Congress for action, says that a vote for the bill will be a vote for reform -- and a vote against it, against reform.

"I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what the procedural rules are in the House or Senate,'' Obama says in an interview with FOX News Channel' that will air this evening on Special Report with Bret Baier .

"What I can tell you is that the vote that's taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform.,'' Obama tells Baier. "And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform.

"And I don't think we should pretend otherwise,'' the president says, pointing to the motivation behind critics attempting to block the bill. "If they don't, if they vote against it, then they're going to be voting against health care reform and they're going to be voting in favor of the status quo.''

The public will know the difference, the president asserts.

"Washington gets very concerned with these procedures in congress, whether Republicans are in charge or democrats are in charge."

House Republican leaders -- with Rep. John Boehner vowing to do everything possible to prevent the bill from becoming law -- insist that it is the Democrats who will pay the price for a healthcare vote in the midterm elections this fall.

The White House, which had complained that FOX News is "an arm of the Republican Party,'' has broken a certain ice by taking its case to the evening news of the No. 1-rated cable news channel this evening. The president also gave an interview to ABC News earlier this week.

On a day in which a liberal Democrat who was demanding more of the bill conceded that he will support it to help keep the president's agenda on track, the president says in the interview airing on the 6 pm EDT FOX News show: "I'm confident it will pass. And the reason I'm confident that it's going to pass is because it's the right thing to do."

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama has got some game on the court, but he's playing it safe, the way conventional wisdom goes, in his NCAA final four picks.

The president, as he has before, today announced his Final Four prediction for the cable sports network, ESPN: Two top-seeded teams bound for the semifinals on April 3, Kansas and Kentucky, and Kansas prevailing in the tournament.

Obama likes the University of Kansas over Kansas State University in one semifinal game and the University of Kentucky over Villanova University in the other. And he likes the University of Kansas over all. All four are first- or second-seeded teams.

Obama, calling Kansas "a balanced team," praises senior guard Sherron Collins. "I always like teams who have experience in the backcourt," he said on ESPN.

The president, a high school basketball player in Hawaii who still plays weekend hoops with friends and aides in Washington, correctly picked North Carolina last year.

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard law school, Obama stuck with the Ivy's Cornell University, a No. 12 seed, over Temple, a No. 5, in the first round of play.

"I like Cornell, which gave Kansas a run for its money," he said, referring to a narrow Cornell loss earlier in the season. "I think they have a terrific team."

But he is going with the University of Wisconsin over Cornell in the second round, picks No. 14 Murray State over No. 4 Vanderbilt, and No. 13 Sienna over No. 4 Purdue. Indiana's going red again anyway.

See the first fan's entire bracket at ESPN.

Wire services contributed.

by Mark Silva at 10:10 am and updated at 12:15 pm EDT

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat who has been critical of the president's healthcare plans for not going far enough, announced today that he will vote for the House's final bill -- offering House leaders their first flip from a no-vote to yes as a close vote nears this week.

The Ohio congressman, who voted against the healthcare bill that the House passed in November, complained that it contained no "public option'' as an alternative to private health insurance coverage. He is among a handful of Democrats whom House leaders are attempting to win on the imminent second, and perhaps final, vote on healthcare.

"Some have speculated that I may be, this time, in the position of casting a deciding vote,'' he said at a Capitol Hill news conference this morning. "The vote on the final healthcare bill will be close... I take this vote with the utmost seriousness.... I know that I have to make a decision, not on the bill as I would like to see it, but as it is...

"I have doubts about the bill,'' he said. "This is not the bill I wanted to support.... However, after careful discussions with President Obama, (House) Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi'' and his family, he said, "I have decided to cast a vote in favor of the legislation....''

Kucinich traveled with Obama aboard Air Force One this week to the president's appearance at a campaign-styled pitch in Ohio for the healthcare legislation which the House is near approving, if leaders can hold a razor-thin vote.

The president, asked about the congressman's announcement today, called it "a good sign.'' Asked during brief questions in the Oval Office what he had said to Kucinich, Obama said: "I told him thank you."

"I believe healthcare is a civil right,'' Kucinich said today. "I've spent my life struggling for the rights of working-class people and for healthcare.''

Kucinich, who lived in 21 places by the time he was 17 -- "including a couple of cars'' -- cited his own struggle with Crohn's Disease and how he had learned the benefits of taking charge of his own health. He also has benefitted from the best healthcare lately.

"There are those who believe that healthcare is a privilege, based on the ability of those who can pay,'' he said -- calling this "the model'' which President Barack Obama is presenting with his plan to insure 30 million more Americans. And there are those who believe, as he does, he said, that it is a basic right.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) will need 216 votes to win passage of the healthcare bill - and if all sitting members who voted yes on the first measure vote yes again this week she will have that vote.

However, among 15 Democrats who voted yes on the first vote, leaders are concerned about losing a handful on the second vote, nine of those abortion-related,

And among the 37 currently seated Democrats who voted no on the first round, there is a targeted of 16 who are publicly undecided and whom Pelosi hopes to flip to yes votes. Kucinich was among them.

by Mark Silva

In the home-stretch, the glossary is growing:

President Barack Obama's healthcare plan -- "Obamacare,'' as critics put it -- is not only "radical,'' but also "socialist.'' It's a failed attempt at "Utopia.''

So says Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, with a fundraising e-pitch to fellow Republicans near the eve of the House's expected razor-thin decision on healthcare legislation this week.

"After over a year of pushing his radical socialist health care 'reform' experiment, Barack Obama has just a few more days to wait to see his number one priority succeed,'' Steele writes in an email today, calling on all party members to "Stop Obamacare.''

"All of the media misdirection, co-opting of insurers and pharmaceutical companies, sweetheart deals for Big Labor, kowtowing to ambulance chasing trial lawyers, "Cornhusker Kickbacks" and "Louisiana Purchases," Medicare slashing and misleading budget gimmicks, campaign-style rallies, dog-and-pony "summits," and flat-out arrogant dismissal of the American peoples' disapproval can be wrapped up by this weekend,'' Steele warns of the expected imminent House passage of the plan.

"If Nancy Pelosi can successfully cajole, intimidate, and coerce her Democrat majority into approving a bill the American people are against by a 3:1 margin, Obama and the rest of the radical Democrats in Washington will see their dream of government-run, government-rationed health care come true,'' he says.

There are but "a few days to let House Democrats know that we will not stand for the Obama-Pelosi-Reid hijacking of our freedom and democracy so they can impose their socialist "utopia" of higher taxes, restricted access, inferior quality, and deadly inefficiency on the best health care system in the world.''

by James Oliphant

The Senate today passed by a 68-29 margin a $17.6 billion measure intended to spur hiring nationwide, sending the bill to the White House for the president's expected signature.

Once the bill becomes law, it would mark the first significant piece of job-creation legislation to pass since President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress earlier this year declared that they would "pivot" and focus on reversing widespread unemployment.

The bill would grant employers an exemption from their 6.2 percent Social Security payroll contribution for every new employee hired through the rest of the year, as long as that employee had been out of work for at least 60 days. There would also be an additional $1,000 income tax credit for every new employee kept on the payroll for 52 weeks.

Experts are split as to whether the payroll tax holiday will boost hiring.

The measure would also make it easier for businesses to write off equipment purchases and would pump billions into federal highway and mass-transit funding programs, which Democrats hope will jump-start construction projects. The bill's cost is offset by tax code modifications.

"The bill we passed today is a targeted approach designed to get Americans back to work right away by creating jobs to rebuild our country's infrastructure and providing tax cuts for businesses to hire new workers," said Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The bill, Baucus said, "represents a critical victory in our job-creation agenda and we will continue working to get Americans back to work this year."

The bill had passed the Senate last month, but was modified by the House, which required a second Senate vote.

The House is currently considering a $140 billion package passed by the Senate last week that contains a series of industry-friendly tax breaks such as a credit for research and development as well as extensions of unemployment benefits and COBRA insurance subsidies for the unemployed through the rest of the year.

The Senate is expected to turn its attention to legislation that would provide struggling small businesses with increased access to credit.

by Mark Silva and updated

It's that time of year again.

(Please note the color of The Swamp's trademark logo.)

They are breaking out a bowl of shamrocks this morning in the Oval Office for the Taoiseach of Ireland, as they do each year on this date. It's noteable, however, that a Roosevelt Room event on St. Paddy's Days past has been upgraded to the Oval Office for PM Brian Cowen's arrival this morning.

The president headed to Capitol Hill at lunchtime for an address to House Speaker Nancy Pel-O'si's "Friends of Ireland Luncheon.''

Rep. Dennis Kucinich may well be the guest of honor at that table today -- and the president has plenty of other business on the Hill this week, with a House vote on his healthcare legislation near.

Finally, the president and First Lady Michelle Obama will host a St. Patrick's Day reception in the East Room of the White House this evening.

At lunch today, a tradition that dates back to Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, the president mentioned his own Irish roots:

"Today is a day we speak with pride of being Irish-American -- whether we actually are or not,'' Obama said. "I am pleased to say that I can actually get away with it, and I've got the Taoiseach here to vouch for me. Prime Minister Cowen was born in County Offaly, and I can trace my ancestry on my mother's side there as well. I believe it was my great-great-great-great-great grandfather... This is true... He was a boot maker, if I'm not mistaken.

"Someone actually discovered my Irish lineage when I was running for president, and my first thought was why didn't anyone discover this when I was running for office in Chicago?'' the president said. "I would have gotten here sooner... I used to put the apostrophe after the "O," but that did not work.''

by Mark Silva

So there was Samuel Alito, an appointee of George W. Bush on the U.S. Supreme Court, challenging the legality of a leader who invaded a sovereign nation killing his prisoners.

Except, if it was Iraq and "the war on terrorism'' which really was under debate, this was not explicit. The veils of theatre are sometimes thin.

What was literally under debate were the acts of Henry V, in a mock trial of the actions of a monarch immortalized by William Shakespeare testing the legality of Henry's treatment of prisoners captured in France -- in this case, not simply torturing them, but killing them.

And Alito was making the case against the king.

(It was Alito, you'll recall, who in real-life political theater, could be seen mouthing his objection when President Barack Obama voiced his objections during his State of the Union address to the contrroverisal 5-4 Supreme Court ruling that eliminated a long-held ban against corporate spending in election camapigns).

Both Alito and fellow justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg starred on a multi-judge panel in last night's sold-out presentation of Judgment at Agincourt at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington. Scene-setter: "Following the District Court of Agincourt's ruling that Henry V was justified in his slaughter of the French POWs, the Supreme Court of the Amalgamated Kingdom of England and France has granted certiorari to the POW estates.''

As the theatre explained the history: "During the Hundred Years war, despite being outmatched five to one, the underdog English army decisively prevailed over the French forces at the battle of Agincourt, securing by force Henry V's challenged claim to the French crown. Although the victory caused much rejoicing in England, misery unfolded across France, as the Duke of Burgundy eloquently expresses in the final scene of Shakespeare's Henry V. Ill will towards Henry welled up among the French, particularly in response to Henry's order to execute all of the French prisoners of war. The order - which was given in an act of rage - was reiterated and carried out after Henry learned that the French had slaughtered a group of unarmed English baggage boys during the battle.''

Justice Ginsburg was presiding, along with Alito and a cast of federal appellate judges: Paul Michel, Janice Rogers Brown, Merrick Garland, Brett Kavanaugh and David Tatel.

Some heavyweight Washington lawyers were arguing before them: Viet Dinh of Bancrof & Associates and Gregory Garre of Latham & Watkins for the petitioners, and Miguel Estrada -- a name which congressional and court-watchers will recognize -- of Gibson Dunn and Kannon Shanmugam of Williams & Connolly for the respondents.

Alito, in his role on the bench, was arguing that the war was illegal, because the line of succession to the French crown did not justify usurpation by the English line of kings. In addition, the killing of noncombatants was illegal for a variety of reasons.

The lower court was reversed, a jolly good time was had by all and the audience spilled out onto the streets of Washington on a splendid early-Spring evening.

Alito, one of Bush's conservative appointees, and Ginsburg, a Clinton appointee on the high court, are back at work today. The Obama administration has banned torture of detainees. Though the former Bush administration, as it has asserted so often, did not condone torture -- that's their story, and they're sticking to it.

(Photo of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and President Barack Obama, above, by Alex Wong / Getty Images. Portrait of Henry V courtesy of Cornell University.)

by Mark Silva

Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio will have something to say for himself in the morning -- the liberal Democrat, who voted against the House's healthcare legislation last fall, has not said how he will vote on the final package.

Kucinich, who campaigned for his party's presidential nomination in 2008 and traveled with President Barack Obama aboard Air Force One to Ohio this week on the president's trip to pitch his healthcare plan, has scheduled a 10 am EDT news conference in Washington on Wednesday.

Should he switch, he would become the first no vote on the first round to declare that he will vote yes on the second, and final round.

At ABC News, they have run the math on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's precarious caculus for passage of healthcare. If every sitting House Democrat who voted for the health care bill in November votes for it again this weekend, she will have the 216 votes she needs. But with resistance to the Senate-passed bill that the House must embrace before getting to a reconciliation of the two chambers, and with several Democrats who are holding out for anti-abortion language, it's uncertain that every yea will stay a yea.

"There is no margin for error,'' ABC's David Chalian notes.

Among roughly 15 Democrats who voted yes on the first vote, leaders are concerned about losing a handful on the second vote, nine of those abortion-related, two "nervous vulnerable'' Democrats, two on immigration or the public option and two others. Pelosi probably cannot afford to lose more than seven of them.

These six "are of most concern to the Democratic leadership and most likely to bolt:''. Reps. Stupak (leader of the anti-abortion bloc), Carney, Rahall, Berry, Driehausm and Arcuri. The others are Reps. Dahlkemper, Pomeroy, Ellsworth, Hill, Grijalva, Gutierrez, Owens, Cardoza and Costa.

Among the 37 currently seated Democrats who voted no on the first round, there is a "highly targeted group'' of 16 who are publicly undecided and whom Pelosi hopes to flip to yes votes:

These nine are aong the "top-tier'' targets for the speaker's office: Reps. Baird, Gordon, Altmire, Boccieri, Kosmas, Murphy, Markey, Teague and Kucinich.
,
The others: Reps. Tanner, Boyd, Matheson, Nye, Barrow, Childers and Davis of Tennesee.

Pelosi needs 216 ayes.

So a lot of eyes will be on Kucinich in the morning.

by Clement Tan

The director of the White House Office of Urban Affairs today exhorted Latino Americans to participate fully in the 2010 Census data collection, as Census forms begin to trickle into American homes this week.

At an event at NDN, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, Adolfo Carrión Jr. said it was especially important for Latino Americans to participate fully because the findings of the Census affect the allocation of federal resources involving the largest and fastest growing minority group in the United States.

"Latino kids now constitute a quarter of all children under five in the country," he said. "What we do now will affect their futures."

Carrión said it was important that city councils in the major urban areas, where the majority of Latino Americans live, get the resources they need for them to "retool" their grassroots efforts to better provide for their communities.

He was appointed to this position created by President Barack Obama last March to focus federal investment in cities for the first time in several decades.

Carrion, who spent six and a half years as Borough President of the Bronx in New York City, had been a public school teacher. He also served one four-year term on the New York City Council representing the 14th District, which includes the West Bronx neighborhoods of University Heights, Morris Heights, Kingsbridge and Fordham.

by Mark Silva

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has let a few hornets out of the nest with talk of the House passing the Senate-passed healthcare bill without actually voting on it -- an option, the speaker maintains, as did the House majority whip today.

The idea is to shield Democrats from a vote on the Senate-passed bill, which cleared the Senate by 60 votes, by calling on a parliamentary procedure known as "deem and pass.'' The House, in casting a vote on its own new reconciliation bill that "fixes'' the differences between the Senate-passed bill and one that cleared the House by 220-215 last year, would "deem'' the Senate bill as having passed. (The Senate, in turn, needs only 51 votes for the reconciliation.))

"The plan that Speaker Pelosi has hatched for getting this bill through is to try to pull the wool over the eyes of the public," Senate Minority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) complained today on the Senate floor.

"There's been a year and a half nearly of debate over this and still more questions than answers,'' Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said on the House floor. "That's why we are hearing reports that the majority will try and ram this through without a direct vote on the Senate bill, Madam Speaker, We should take an up-or-down vote on the Senate bill.''

It remains to be seen whether this maneuver will be employed -- depending in part on the Congressional Budget Office's estimate of the cost of the package and the language of the final bill. "When we have the substance, then we will decide on the process," Pelosi (D-Calif.) said. "But that would be one option; there are others."

The tactic is known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass.'' As the Washington Post explains it, It has been used many times before, but never on something as mammoth as the healthcare bill.

"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable talk with bloggers on Monday. "But I like it," the speaker told the bloggers, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

"There are two or three different ways to do this,'' House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), said in an appearance on FOX News. "That is one of the ways that's being discussed, and that's been used at least 100 times since I've been congressman, I've only been here 18 years. This is nothing unusual.''

FOX's Jon Scott asked: "But given the controversial nature of this bill, and you just admitted it's controversial, wouldn't it be fair to the American people to let their elected representatives put it to a vote? ''

"Well, that's exactly what we're going to do,'' Clyburn said.

"Not if it's deemed,'' Scott said. "Not if she, not if Speaker Pelosi deems that the bill has passed, there wouldn't be a vote, would there?''

"There's been a vote in the Senate,'' Clyburn said. "It got 60 votes for this. What we will be deeming is that those 60 votes that the people got, we will say on the House side we deem that as having been passed. We got 220 votes for our bill in the House. The only thing we're voting on now are the things we call the fixes, the reconciliation. So if that's the part that we'll be voting on, what we'll be deeming already got 60 votes.''

by Mark Silva

The full-court press-press is on.

President Barack Obama will sit down with FOX News Channel tomorrow for an interview that Special Report with Bret Baier will air at 6pm EDT.

It's a first for Obama and the FOX anchor.

The president appeared on ABC News' World News on Monday, where he predicted that he will find the votes to win passage of healthcare legislation.

FOX says the president's appearance near the eve of expected House action on healthcare will provide a window on "what to expect in Washington in the weeks ahead.''

Watch for the president to predict passage of healthcare.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama isn't the only one making an end run around the Capital Beltway bubble of pundits and power with his "Main Street'' campaigns for his economic stimulus and healthcare reforms -- stumping in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri all during the past two weeks.

Republicans too are making direct appeals to the voting public.

"People know better'' than to accept the healthcare plans that the president is pushing through Congress, Republican Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) said in a talk on WDBO radio in Orlando, Fla., today. "They didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday.''

He was on the air in Chicago as well, making a radio appearance on WLS, which hosted the Senate's Republican leader just last week making an appeal to not only the Chicago crowd, but also listeners in Indiana.

"They understand that this bill is not good for my state certainly, but then more importantly, they know that it's not good for Florida,'' Brown, the Bay State star of the Senate's emboldened GOP, said today on the air in the Sunshine State. "Because right now, I know Florida has done a fair amount on health care and when you cut Medicare a half trillion - so if you have seniors in your state, which I know you have a fair amount of them because of the gorgeous weather you have there - they should be very concerned. The backroom deals, the carve outs, the raising of taxes, and the cost of over $2 trillion-plus dollars. We can do better...

"You need to have all of your listeners call their congressmen and women and say 'enough already, do better, don't use political chicanery and parliamentary maneuvers to try to ram something through that's inappropriate and that's going to hurt our state''' Brown told the station's listeneers. "And they need to get involved, the people need to get involved. When I got here they sent a message - a lot of your listeners supported me - and it's time to make a difference down in Florida." (

Brown also was on the radio today Don Wade and Roma on WLS in Chicago. Last week, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) made his own appearance there.

"Their interviews are a part of a coordinated effort by Senate Republicans to circumvent the traditional Beltway media filter and take their message straight to key constituencies around the country,'' a spokesman for McConnell says today.

by Mark Silva

Sen. John McCain maintains that the evolving Democratic strategy for passing healthcare legislation will produce a public "reaction... unlike anything... we've ever seen.''

"The majority of the American people want us to start over,'' the Arizona Republican said in an appearance on the FOX Business Network this morning. "People are more angry than I've ever seen them before in my time. I think if they pass it, no matter what, you will see an election like we have not seen in a long time."

McCain told FOX's Don Imus this about the fight he is facing for nomination within his own party for a fifth term in the Senate: "I'm confident. I'm working hard. I know I've got to earn every vote. I think we are in a very good position. The reality is there is a great deal of anti-incumbency out there and a great deal of dissatisfaction."

The senator's Republican rival, former congressman J.D. Hayworth, went toe to toe with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow last night -- credit the conservative candidate for appearing on the liberal host's show, or credit Maddow for inviting Hayworth, however that works their conversation got fairly lively, particularly when it came to the question of gay marriage. Hayworth is campaigning as a family-values candidate.

McCain, a Naval Academy graduate, also offered this thought on the Naval career of academy graduate Eric Massa, the New York Democrat who resigned from Congress amid allegations of sexual advances toward congressional aides -- Massa has spoken of tickling, all in good fun, all in the tradition of his 20 years in the Navy.

"I'm astounded,'' said McCain, son and grandson of admirals. "It's a far different Navy than one I've ever served in."

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

by Mark Silva

Clarence Thomas is an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Virginia Thomas runs LibertyCentral.org, a new organization committed to becoming the "big tent'' for conservatives and promoting the values of the "TEA Party'' movement.

The Washington Bureau's Kathleen Hennessey wrote about this the other day:

"As Virginia Thomas tells it in her soft-spoken, Midwestern cadence, the story of her involvement in the "tea party" movement is the tale of an average citizen in action.

"I am an ordinary citizen from Omaha, Neb., who just may have the chance to preserve liberty along with you and other people like you," she said at a recent panel discussion with tea party leaders in Washington. Thomas went on to count herself among those energized into action by President Obama's "hard-left agenda."

Legal experts are saying there is no conflict for a sitting judge and a wife actively involved in politics - until such point in time when the court starts ruling on cases involving corporations or interests financing the spouse's political organization. So reports Nina Totenberg of National Public Radio in her dispatch today on the Thomas duo.

"Ginni" Thomas, long active in Republican politics, maintains that the "mainstream media'' has mischaracterized conservative activists in America. She has aligned her group with "TEA Party Patriots'' to commission a poll that portrays those patriots as "ordinary citizens... up against biased elitists.''

"New citizen activists have been cast as ignorant, intolerant or a radical fringe by many in the media. The facts are now demonstrating that the mainstream media is wrong and ordinary citizens are up against biased elitists who are not seemingly interested in the truth." Thomas, president and CEO of Liberty Central, said at the recent CPAC. "The heart of America is our everyday citizens whose voices and inspiring stories will help preserve our precious liberty, and this poll shows why new citizen activists are mad, who they are and what they want."

She has served Republican Dick Armey in the past, as well as the Heritage Foundation recruiting aides during the formation of the new Bush administration on the heels of the Supreme Court battle over the 2000 election. Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is among the voices of "endorsement'' on her Website.

Clarence Thomas, who has been far less outspoken in public -- The New York Times recently celebrated the fourth anniversary of the last question that Thomas asked from the bench, on Feb. 22 - was among the justices who ruled that corporations cannot be fettered in their financial contributions to political causes, causes such as his wife's.

Liberty Central is a new 501c4 committed to "informing, motivating and activating everyday citizens around core founding principles of the US Constitution.'' Tea Party Patriots is a 501c4 with over 1,500 chapters nationwide, "a grassroots organization made up of ordinary citizens reclaiming America's founding principles.''

(Photo of Justice Clarence Thomas and wife Virginia Thomas by Charles Dharapak / AP)

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, who has pressed Congress for over a year to overhaul a health insurance system that leaves tens of millions of Americans uninsured and many millions poorly covered, said today: "I believe we are going to get the votes, we're going to make this happen.''

He said so in an interview with ABC News' Jake Tapper after an appearance in Ohio today, another in a series of campaign-styled pitches for his healthcare plan. ABC plans to air the interview on World News with Diane Sawyer at 6:30 pm EDT.

The president was asked about what he is telling members of Congress, and other Americans, who are worried about the healthcare bill. Obama maintained that much of the "misinformation'' surrounding the bill, such as warnings of government "death panels'' and a government takeover of healthcare, have "turned out not to be true."

""For most people who already have health insurance, they're not going to see much of a change except they'll have more protection in the insurance they already have,"Obama said. "But for millions of Americans, they'll be in a more secure position and the federal government and state governments are going to be in a position where they are not running these huge, outside multi-billion-dollar deficits over and over again each year that add up to an unsustainable debt we'll be imposing on future generations."

The nation's shortage of healthcare coverage is currently "affecting every aspect of American life,'' the president said. "If we don't tackle it now in a serious way, not only are you going to see (individuals) get in a tougher and tougher spot. But what you're also going to find is a federal government that can't pay its bills on Medicare and Medicaid."

Even with what is enacted, he said, it will take time to fix the system.

""These insurance reforms would start right away," the president said of provisions such as guarantees that insurers don't drop sick policy-holders or deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions. "But getting in place a system that works over time, including making sure we get more primary care physicians, more nurses into the system, working with hospitals and doctors to reduce medical error rates that drive up cost -- all those things are going to be changes that happen year after year over a period of time, but we've got to start now.

"If we don't start now it's going to be too late," Obama said. "If we don't start now, then it won't be in place three, four, five years from now and then we'll be waiting another decade or another fifteen years or another twenty years to actually take on this problem."

by Mark Silva

Republican leaders are warning Democrats that there will be a price to pay at the polls if they vote for the president's healthcare bill.

But one leading Democratic strategist suggests that it is Democrats who vote against President Barack Obama on the bill who should pay the price: Primary opposition.

"If a handful of Democrats decide to defeat this bill, they deserve to get a primary challenge to defend the status quo & insurance industry,'' Brazile wrote -- or, actually, Tweeted -- after broachng the subject with her friends at the Huffington Post today.

Brazile, who managed former Vice President Al Gore's campaign for president in 2000, still carries some weight at the Democratic National Committee, where she is vice chair of Voter Registration and Participation, and she is a ranking strategist within the party She told the HuffPost that, while at home in Louisiana, she had "decided to stop pretending that I will go back to support anyone not backing health reform." She took it a little further than that on her Twitter account.

DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan put some distance between the party and Brazile on this one -- supporting primary candidates for Democrats who vote against healthcare is was not committee policy.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama's planned, and slightly delayed, trip to Indonesia marks an important step in relations with the Islamic world, says an expert on U.S.-Asian relations who served the Bush administration on this front.

" It is a critical and pivotal strategic country, not only in Asia but in the Islamic world and in the developing world,'' said Michael Green, a senior adviser and chairman of the Japan program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He served as an adviser to Bush's National Security Council.

"While the Clinton and Bush administrations invested in the Indonesia relationship, I think for U.S. foreign policy, it is a relationship that could do much more,'' Green said at a CSIS forum today on the president's upcoming trip to Guam, Australia and Indonesia - delayed until March 21 by the impending expected vote on healthcare in the House this week.

"Indonesia is a pivot in the Islamic world,'' Green said. "It is a successful example to both Asia that democratization can be successful and to the Islamic world that democratization can be successful. Indonesia has had direct presidential elections. Civil society in Indonesia, including NU and major Islamic organizations, have embraced democracy as a way to advance their agenda and to do it peacefully and within the constitutional provisions of the nation. So it's a success story for democracy - a lesson for the Islamic world, a lesson for countries like China in Asia.''

It's also a nation where Obama spent some time as a boy, schooled there for four years after his divorced mother remarried an Indonesian. Obama, born in Hawaii, returned there. And Obama's "biography'' will play a big role n this trip, Green suggested.

"For an American strategy aimed at keeping the U.S. fully engaged in Asia, Indonesia is a really important partner,'' Green said. "In many ways, I've heard people in the administration say that Indonesia will be for Obama what India was for Bush. It will be the big strategic relationship that they transform...

" They'll announce a... U.S.-Indonesia comprehensive partnership,'' he said. "The highlights are pretty thin, to be honest. And I think one of the deep concerns in the administration is that they're going on this trip and they don't have a lot of deliverables.... When you're in the summitry business... you want deliverables.... For a variety of reasons, this trip is... is going to be a bit thin on quote, unquote, "deliverables.'"

The two will agree on educational exchanges, including a "modest'' expansion of the U.S.-funded Fullbright scholars program. They will agree on military-to-military cooperation.

"They'd like to do more on economics, but unfortunately, I think the economic - bilateral economic agenda is going to be rather thin,'' Green said.

The big speeches, of course, call out for attention. How might the president's address in Indonesia be different from his address to the Muslim world from Cairo last year?

Obama will address a joint session of the parliament in Jakarta and perhaps another at an undisclosed location, said Victor Cha, another senior adviser at CSIS and chair of the Korea program who, like Green, advised the Bush admnistration's National Security Council.

"I get the sense - while we talk a lot about sort of the whole Muslim democracy thing -- I get the sense they're not trying to play that up on this trip,'' Cha said. "They're going to let the pictures speak for themselves. When you talk to folks who have been organizing this, they just don't seem to be playing - to be playing this up. I think they prefer to not, sort of, try to put that as the banner headline because you just never know how that's going to play.''

"This Cairo speech he gave was originally supposed to be given in Indonesia in March, I think, last year,'' Green said. "How much will they continue to talk about that theme? My sense is the intellectual case is going to be less compelling than the images of an African-American president who grew up in Indonesia and just the effect of that canceling out the anti-American message that others will try to convey.''

by Michael Muskal

President Barack Obama today flew to the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville, Ohio, to make his last big campaign-style pitch for healthcare overhaul before an anticipated House vote this week. He brought with him the local congressman, Dennis Kucinich.

Helping transport a local official isn't unusual for a president, especially Obama, who starts every speech with a string of shout-outs to local officials. But this trip gave Obama some face- - read arm-twisting -- time with a onetime rival who voted against the House's first version of the bill because it wasn't liberal enough.

Kucinich, once known as Dennis the Menace when he was elected Cleveland's mayor, becoming one of the nation's youngest municipal executives, only smiled at reporters when asked if he had spoken to the president about healthcare on Air Force One.

"I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say," Kucinich coyly said.

Needing every vote, the White House is hoping to woo liberals such as Kucinich using the ultimate argument that any victory is better than any defeat.

Democrats need 216 votes to pass the Senate's version of healthcare and then pass a series of amendments to make the package more palatable to the House. The Senate would then need to pass the amendments using reconciliation, a procedure that requires only a simple majority instead of the 60 votes that Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) wrung through his chamber at Christmas.

Kucinich, who campaigned for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination which Obama won, favors a single-payer form of healthcare reform, and voted against the House bill because he deemed it too conservative.

"By incurring only a new requirement to cover preexisting conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal," Kucinich said in explaining his "no" vote in December.

(President Obama is pictured above, followed by Reps. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) walking down the stairs from Air Force One at Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport en route to Strongsville, Ohio, to campaign for healthcare reform today. (Photo by David Richard / AP)