Sebelius: Back taxes paid, senators know

by Frank James

In yet another rebuke of the Bush era, the Obama Administration is seeking a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The decision is controversial because the HRC is seen by the Israel lobby in the U.S. as anti-Israel which isn't an unreasonable position since the council has taken tough stands against alleged human rights abuses by Israel while largely ignoring problems elsewhere.

But the Obama Administration's position is that joining the HRC is of a piece with its stated goal to make the U.S. once again a leader in multilateral organizations. Also, the administration argues it can do more to change the organization by exerting pressure from within than outside.

An excerpt from an Associated Press story:

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said in a statement that the administration will join the council to help make it more effective as part of President Barack Obama's desire to create a "new era of engagement" with the international community.

The Bush administration had boycotted the council over its repeated criticism of Israel and its refusal to cite flagrant rights abuses in Sudan and elsewhere abroad.

"Human rights are an essential element of American global foreign policy," Clinton said. "With others, we will engage in the work of improving the U.N. human rights system to advance the vision of the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights."

by Mark Silva

Pull that Hummer over to the side of the road, put out the cigar and turn up the radio. Listen up:

Barack Obama will make you drive a Prius.

That's the news flash from Rush Limbaugh today.

Radio's Limbaugh -- ripping and reading a recent headline: "'Hybrid Car Sales Go From 60 To Zero At Breakneck Speed'' - told his listeners today: "Nobody's buying 'em! Nobody wants them!

"The manufacturers are making them in droves to satisfy Obama! Sorry for yelling,'' said the yelling commentator. " Nobody wants them! ''

Some people "have probably given up their individuality for what they think is a larger cause, but nobody wants them,'' he said. "They are going to buy 'em because Obama's going to see to it the price(of gas) gets back up to four bucks, since that is the tipping point. That will happen.

"I'm sure it's part of the agenda, Big Oil is going to get blamed for it. He's already said in public, he didn't care the price was four bucks, he was asked about it during the campaign, he said, (paraphrasing) 'The price doesn't bother me, I'm a little upset about how fast it got there.'

"Ford and Toyota are manufacturing all kinds of new hybrids to keep politicians happy,'' he said. " Politics. You want to know what killed the auto industry? Politics... Politics is why you can't get a car you really, really like or why they don't make as many as you really, really like 'cause they're being forced to keep the Gestapo off their back. They're forced to manufacture cars people aren't buying to keep the Gestapo off their back.''

(The Toyota Prius is pictured above, in the green Napa Valley, California. Photo by Mark Elias/Bloomberg News. Rush Limbaugh, pictured at the White House in a photo by Ron Edmonds, AP, says President Obama will force everyone to drive one.)

by Frank James

Dean Baker was one of the few economists who saw the housing bubble years before other experts noticed it, which was only after it burst.

So he has a right to have a little swagger. And right now you can sense his confidence in a piece originally on the truthout.org website in which he says the same "experts who missed the housing bubble" or "EMHB," his abbreviation for them, are wrong to believe that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's plan to get toxic assets off bank sheets will work.

An excerpt:

These geniuses have devised a plan that for $1 trillion (approximately equal to 300 million kid-years of SCHIP, the State Child Health Insurance Program) can alleviate the stress on the banking system. Note that no one claims that $1 trillion spent on the Geithner plan will actually clean up the banking system - that would be asking too much. The EMHB only assure us that this $1 trillion (more than enough to have energy conserving retrofits for every building in the country) will make things better. Isn't that enough?

Oh, by the way, some people will get very rich off the Geithner plan. Some hedge and equity fund managers could make hundreds of millions or even billions off the Geithner plan. And, under current law, they will pay a lower tax rate on this money than a schoolteacher or firefighter. Are you sold yet?

by Mark Silva

That Buy American provision in the $787-billion economic stimulus act may not be as protectionist as its sponsors thought it might be.

The Obama administration will allow products sold to the government under the stimulus plan's purchasing power to contain components made overseas, rules issued by the General Services Administration today specified, Bloomberg News notes.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act required a made in the U.S.A. standard for products purchased under the stimulus. The GSA could have required that not only the products, but also all of their components, are domestic.

The GSA rules will likely have little impact on contractors familiar with existing product-source rules, David Burgett, a lawyer at Hogan & Hartson LLP in Washington, has told Bloomberg News. "Theoretically, they could have come out with a much more complex rule," says Burgett, who advises companies on how to comply with these rules. "Companies have learned how to deal with these kinds of rules."

For instance: "The definition of domestic construction material under this interim rule does not include a requirement relating to the origin of the components of domestic
manufactured construction material.''

After Senate negotiators agreed to amend the legislation to certify that the Buy American order will be implemented "consistent with international obligations," the main effect of the law wass to exclude Chinese, Indian and Brazilian suppliers from the new contracts. European nations and Canada and Mexico have signed trade deals that guarantee their ability to bid on U.S. government contracts. China, India and many other developing nations haven't.

The rules were published today in the Federal Register.

by Mark Silva

The British press are having no end of fun with the portrayal of their homeland - "slightly smaller than Oregon'' - by the White House of the arriving American president who celebrated the British prime minister's visit to Washington with a boxed set of movie DVDs.

The U.K., the Telegraph's Toby Harnden notes of the press briefing book that the White House press office handed out to the traveling press departing from Andrews Air Force Base, is "generally mild and temperate'' and the "group of islands close to continental Europe'' has been "subject to many invasions and migrations.''

Wondering how all of this will help that "special relationship'' between the United States and Great Britain, Harnden takes special note of the description of Queen Elizabeth, who "enrolled as a girl Guide when she was eleven, and later became a Sea Ranger'' and during the war "put on pantomimes with the children of members of staff for the enjoyment of her family and employees of the Royal Household.''

(The White House hasn't divulged its gift for the queen yet -- the president will visit Buckingham Palace on Wednesday.)

The U.K. is not alone, however, in being likened to an American state. Germany is "about the size of Montana,'' the briefing book notes of other stops along the president's weeklong tour, the Czech Republic is "about the size of Virginia,'' and France, the largest nation in Europe, is "about four-fifths the size of Texas.''

For the record, the author notes:

Oregon: Pop. 3.7 million.

U.K.: More than 60 million.

by Rebecca Cole

The blogosphere is abuzz with stories about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's recent missteps in her efforts to maintain momentum for a presumed 2012 presidential bid.

At the center of the kerfuffle is an unlikely Washington, D.C., power couple: Fox News host Greta Van Susteren and her husband John Coale, a longtime Beltway insider and trial lawyer.

Now the mainstream media appears to be catching on, with Politico reporting: "Staff infection: Allies rip Palin team" on Sunday, and yesterday's piece in the Washington Post's "The Fix" entitled "Palin's Political Problems Persist."

From Politico:

"Interviews with Alaska and Washington-based GOP political professionals who are familiar with the Palin operation describe the governor's team as a gang that couldn't shoot straight, a staff whose failure to execute basic political maneuvers too often entangles the governor in awkward and embarrassing situations that could have easily been avoided."

The article continued:

"Another former Palin ally still in touch with the governor was blunt when asked to explain Plain's missteps since the election: "Taking advice from Greta and her husband," said this source."

In her GretaWire blog yesterday, Van Susteren acknowledged Coale met Palin during the course of one of her many interviews with the governor -- in the past five months, Van Susteren scored two coups in landing the first interview with Palin after her failed vice presidential bid ended in November and snagging an interview with 18-year-old Bristol Palin after the birth of her son Tripp in December.

But the "On the Record" host hotly disputed the claim that she is providing advice to Palin, and called Politico on the carpet for its "hit and run:"

"I am flattered someone would think people take advice from me but this is fanciful. Note that it is from a "source" -- is that code for phoney? In this instance yes. This is why I hate "sources" and where journalism can be grossly unfair -- in the law you have to step up on the witness stand and identify yourself and take an oath to tell the truth. You can't do a 'hit and run!'"

(File photo of Gov. Sarah Palin above by Al Grillo / AP)

by Frank James

Today marks the official certification as ready for use of the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

No, it has nothing to do with the Obama Administration's takeover of GM.

The NIF is actually a $3.5 billion scientific tool featuring a large array of lasers to be used by scientists to several ends -- to "test" nation's nuclear stockpile without actually exploding bombs, to learn if laser-powered nuclear fusion reactions can be used to generate electricity and for pure science.

The NIF will produce crazy amounts of energy using a similar fusion process to that which powers the Sun and other stars.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman recently wrote about the project. An excerpt:

The government-funded N.I.F. consists of 192 giant lasers -- which can deliver 50 times more energy than any previous fusion laser system. They're all housed in a 10-story building the size of three football fields -- the rather dull cover to a vast internal steel forest of laser beams that must be what the engine room of Star Trek's U.S.S. Enterprise space ship looked like.

I began my tour there with the N.I.F. director, Edward Moses. He was holding up a tiny gold can the size of a Tylenol tablet, and inside it was plastic pellet, the size of a single peppercorn, that would be filled with frozen hydrogen.

The way the N.I.F. works is that all 192 lasers pour their energy into a target chamber, which looks like a giant, spherical, steel bathysphere that you would normally use for deep-sea exploration. At the center of this target chamber is that gold can with its frozen hydrogen pellet. Once one of those pellets is heated and compressed by the lasers, it reaches temperatures over 800 million degrees Fahrenheit, "far greater than exists at the center of our sun," said Moses.

More importantly, each crushed pellet gives off a burst of energy that can then be harnessed to heat up liquid salt and produce massive amounts of steam to drive a turbine and create electricity for your home -- just like coal does today. Only this energy would be carbon-free, globally available, safe and secure and could be integrated seamlessly into our current electric grid.

by Mark Silva

Five inspectors general at sensitive agencies are at work on a review of the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance of people suspected of communicating with possible terrorist - their report due in July.

When Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act last year, it required that several inspectors general of agencies that participated in the Bush Administration's disputed, so-called "Terrorist Surveillance Program '' undertake a sweeping review of the eavesdropping of domestic phone and Internet communications with people abroad that was authorized outside of the purview of the special FISA courts that were established to monitor domestic surveillance.

The final report is to address "all of the facts necessary to describe the establishment, implementation, product, and use of the product of the program," among other things. It "will include both unclassified and classified volumes."

An interim report, albeit just three pages, that was completed in November has just been released at the request of Secrecy News. '' The three-page letter report does not present any new findings, but rather lays out the scope of the ongoing review,'' Secrecy News' Steven Aftergood reports.

"The subject matter of the review ranges widely from legal assessments of the Program (Department of Justice) to its technical operation (National Security Agency) to communications with private-sector entities concerning the Program (Office of Director of National Intelligence)) to the involvement of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (DoD) and the threat assessments supporting reauthorization of the program (CIA).''

The auditors note that: "The NSA IG's review will examine the evolution of the presidential authorization as it affected NSA, the technical operation of the program, the preparation and dissemination of the product of the Program, and communications with and representations made to private sector entities.''

The report will contain both classified and unclassified volumes.

It should make for good reading.

by James Oliphant

LAKE PLACID, NY-- On a rain-spitting Sunday in Lake Placid, the faux-Alpine ski town famous for the United States' victory in hockey over the Soviet Union during the 1980 Winter Olympics, Jim Tedisco was fanning the flames.

Tedisco, a Republican, is running for an open congressional seat here--and running on voter outrage. He has appropriated the hot-button talking points of the day--AIG bonuses, the economic stimulus package, Wall Street bailouts--and packaged them into a drum-pounding campaign message.

For a beleaguered party still searching for a voice in an Obama-centric environment, Tedisco's candidacy offers a chance for Republicans to discover whether they can succeed by framing themselves in purely oppositional terms, by branding themselves as the only hope to derail the White House's agenda.

"The last thing we need [in Washington] is a rubber stamp," he said. "It's been kind of a shopping spree, it seems."

And Tedisco, a longtime state legislator who sounds more pugnacious than polished, has become the vehicle for that argument. Because of that, this election, which is being held today, has been transmogrified into a bit of an early national referendum on President Obama and the ruling Democrats in Congress.

It has become a proxy fight: Millions of dollars for campaign ads have poured into the state from outside interest groups. And last Thursday, the president formally endorsed Tedisco's opponent, Scott Murphy, calling on his 60,000 supporters in the district to volunteer to push Murphy across the finish line. If there had been any doubt before that political professionals in Washington and elsewhere were viewing this race as a possible bellwether, Obama's actions erased it.

by Mark Silva

If President Barack Obama is looking for respect at the G-20 summit in London this week - and most Americans say they expect he'll get it -- the French president may help him along with a threatened sideshow of his own.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has threatened a temper tantrum at the summit - vowing to walk out of the talks - if fellow world leaders do not accede to French demands for tough world financial regulation, very tough regulation.

France will not settle for that famously vague G-20 talk that produces a "false success with language that sounds good but contains no commitments,'' his advisers tell The Times of London.

Sarkozy,who blames the "Anglo-Saxons" for causing the global economic crisis drawing leaders to a summit at which British host Gordon Brown is seeking a "global new deal,'' has told his ministers that he will leave the summit "if it does not work out.''

Does that mean a walk-out is in the offing?

Xavier Musca, Mr Sarkozy's deputy chief of staff for economic affairs, tells the paper: "A basic rule with nuclear deterrence is that you do not say at what point you will use the weapon."

The French president may not be the only show-stopper at the summit, as the Times suggests with its photo gallery of G-20 spouses.

The Indian prime minister's wife is a singer (the couple pictured second from top, above) -- Gursharan Kaur a "celebrated traditional Indian singer who would regularly appear on the radio until Manmohan Singh, her husband, moved to the US to work for the World Bank before he was elected Indian prime minister.''

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario (the couple pictured just above), is an Italian B-movie actress - and the two have had some highly public fallings out.

But it is Sarkozy's wife (pictured just below), model and pop star Carla Bruni, who has been known to steal some shows - her previous beaus inclduing Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton.

The wife of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Sarah, by contrast, (pictured at the top, above) gave up her work in public relations when she became pregnant.

And the wife of President Barack Obama, Michelle (pictured below), is a lawyer, and also, as The Times suggests:

A gardener.

by Mark Silva

Here's a hat trick: A gallery in West Hollywood is rolling out a photo exhibit of images of the young Barack Obama.

It seems that Obama had once struck a fellow Occidental College freshman, Lisa Jack, "as a pretty cool dude,'' the Ticket's Andrew Malcolm notes. "So, unwittingly, she had him pose for a bunch of photos as the only person to know he would become president.''

Jack is now an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Augsburg College in Minnesota, Obama president of the United States.

Starting in late May, as the L.A. Times' Culture Monster arts blog notes, Jack's 36-photo collection of Obama images will stand for a two-month show at the M+B Gallery in West Hollywood. The 36 shots were captured on a single roll, which, as we recall from the pre-digital era, would pretty much represent a whole roll of film - unless she rolled her own.

""Barack Obama: The Freshman,'' is the name of the exhibit in the city where, 29 years ago, a 20-year-old aspiring photographer asked her classmate to pose for pictures.

Now Obama can say he once knew Jack.

By Jim Tankersley

House Democratic leaders unveiled a sweeping plan to fight climate change and boost renewable energy this morning, including mandates for renewable electricity nationwide and a market-based system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

It's a starting point in what promises to be a long and winding congressional debate over energy and climate policy this year. And it leaves some critical questions unanswered - most notably, how to allocate emissions permits, and what to do with any revenues that selling those permits could raise.

The plan, posted on the House Energy and Commerce committee website, is a "discussion draft" authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman, and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. Read a summary of it here and the full text here.

Among the bill's provisions:

by Frank James

Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele says he's done reaching out to President Barack Obama who apparently hasn't reciprocated.

Obama is dealing with many matters these days that might understandably cause him some sleepless nights. We don't think Steele being miffed will be among them.

Here's a partial transcript of Steele's CNN interview:

STEELE: Look, I like the president personally, even though I think he has got a little thing about me, that I haven't quite figured out what that is.

CNN: You haven't spoken to him?

STEELE: No.

CNN: You've reach out?

STEELE: Several times, and I'm done.

CNN: So there is no bipartisanship going on there?

STEELE: Not, not that I know of.

CNN: Is there any professional jealousy?

STEELE: Not on my part. What would I be jealous of?

CNN: He's the president of the United States.

STEELE: I'm chairman of the RNC, so, what's your point? We both have leadership responsibilities and roles. I'm not equating the two. My point is: you are on your track. I'm on my track. You do your thing. I do my thing.

by Mark Silva

Expectations for President Barack Obama's premier European tour are riding fairly high - back home in the U.S. of A.

As Obama flies for London today, an overwhelming majority of Americans surveyed say they expect the president to do "a good job''of representing the United States.

His weeklong journey will carry the new president from the G-20 summit in Great Britain to NATO's 60th anniversary summit in Strasbourg to a European Union summit in Prague and to two stops in Turkey, his first appearance in a Muslim nation.

In the Mar. 12-15 survey taken by CNN and Opinion Research, 86 percent said they expect Obama to do a good job, 13 percent a poor job.

Most people also have a perception that the president faces a warm welcome in his travels. Asked if they think "leaders of countries around the world have respect for Barack Obama, or do you think they don't have much respect for him?:''

72 percent said Obama will find respect, and 24 percent said no.

by Noam N. Levey

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, President Obama's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, went to Capitol Hill this morning for her first confirmation hearing as the president worked to finally fill out his healthcare team.

The 60-year-old governor, who is Obama's last unconfirmed Cabinet nominee, is seeking Senate confirmation as the administration accelerates its efforts to build support for a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health system.

Today she underscored a sense of urgency for members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

"We face a health system that burdens families, businesses and government budgets with sky-rocketing costs," she said. "Action is not a choice. It's a necessity. ... Should I be confirmed, health reform will be my mission."

Sebelius, who won four statewide elections in largely Republican Kansas, was introduced by Republican former Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, a fellow Kansan who stressed the importance of Democrats working with Republicans to pass health reform legislation.

"Bipartisanship is a good word," Dole said. "We ought to develop it, nurture it and let it grow."

by Frank James

Politico used President Barack Obama's crackdown on GM and Chrysler to take a look at the kind of cars senior members of the administration drive.

They found a lot of "foreign" cars.

An excerpt:

A survey of West Executive Drive, where White House staffers park, revealed only five American cars out of 23 --a Dodge Grand Caravan, two Ford Escapes, a Jeep Cherokee and a Cadillac.

The lot was sprinkled with BMWs, Mercedes, Hondas, Toyotas, Saabs, Audis, Volkswagens and a Volvo.

What the story fails to note is that BMW, Mercedes, Honda and Toyota all manufacture calls in the U.S. So some of those cars in its informal auto census might have been made in the U.S. by American workers. So maybe they're not so "foreign" after all.

It's hard to be jingoistic about cars since the industry is so global.

by Frank James

Now that President Barack Obama has had his first taste of CEO blood via the sacking of GM's Rick Wagoner, maybe he will go after others, particularly in the financial services sector.

That would be just fine with Simon Johnson, the MIT professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist, who proposes that the administration and Congress take on the oligarchs who run the nation's banks.

Indeed, in a piece in the Atlantic Johnson suggests that breaking up the power of the large banks is the only way the U.S. can avoid a recession that's longer and more painful than it's already experiencing.

Johnson's thesis is that the financial sector benefited greatly from decades of increasingly lax regulations, low interest rates, global surges in available cash and easy credit, the very things that led to the current crisis.

The crisis has only given them more power since they are seen as not only the key path out of the recession but, because of their size, too big to fail. Thus, the banking oligarchs continue to drive federal policy in a direction that benefits them at the expense of the rest of the economy.

An excerpt:

Big banks, it seems, have only gained political strength since the crisis began. And this is not surprising. With the financial system so fragile, the damage that a major bank failure could cause--Lehman was small relative to Citigroup or Bank of America--is much greater than it would be during ordinary times. The banks have been exploiting this fear as they wring favorable deals out of Washington. Bank of America obtained its second bailout package (in January) after warning the government that it might not be able to go through with the acquisition of Merrill Lynch, a prospect that Treasury did not want to consider.

by Mark Silva and updated

Here's a guarantee for you..

It turned our heads, for sure, when Hyundai started advertising a new offer: Buy a Hyundai, and if you lose your job, you can return the car, no questions asked.

Now the heads are spinning: Ford Motor Co. said today that it will offer a "payment protection plan'' to lure car-buyers worried about losing their paychecks.

Ford wll cover payments of up to $700 a month, for up to a year, on any new Ford, Lincoln or Mercury if the buyer loses his or her job.

The offer only runs until June 1.

Not to be outdone, General Motors announced hours later a "GM Total Confidence package'' for new vehicles purchased during April. It includes company coverage of up to nine auto loan payments of up to $500 each if owners of new GM vehicles lose their jobs within the first 24 months of the loan.

We've heard of layover plans. But layoff plans?

Buy now, Ford and GM are telling anxious consumers, in a bid to rev up the stalled automaker. The only hitch is: If the economy turns around, you have to pay for the thing.

This, it appears, is the sort of enterprising thinking that comes from a car company that resisted the lure of federal bailout funds. The White House, which has lent billions of dollars to General Motors and Chrysler and demanded overhauls of the automakers' business models, had nothing to do with this plan. The best GM could come up with until Ford offered its layoff package was ditching the Saturn -- Chrysler, the PT Cruiser -- and GM's CEO lost his job.

Hyundai's layoff-return policy, it appears, has helped curb the decline in the South Korean carmaker's U.S. sales.

"Consumers remain anxious about the economy and their own outlook for the future," Ken Czubay, Ford vice president of sales and marketing, explains in a statement.

Have you driven jobless in a Ford lately?

By Peter Wallsten and Jim Tankersley

President Obama has merged his efforts to save GM and Chrysler with his plan to craft a strict new national standard for fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas, a feat of industrial engineering that marks a major step across the line that traditionally separates government from private industry.

In effect, the president is re-writing the rules of the automobile market -- and conditioning future support for automakers on how well they position themselves to follow them.

The dual focus is evident in the two questions that guided the meetings of Obama's auto task force, according to an administration official who participated in the talks: "One, how do we keep Detroit and the rest of the auto industry afloat and make them ultimately profitable, and two, how do we ensure we're bringing cleaner, more affordable cars to American families?"

The new rules, which are speeding toward adoption, are expected to set a blanket standard for fuel efficiency that will encompass current federal mileage standards, Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases and efforts by California and other states to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles. Bottom line: They favor small fuel-sippers over less-efficient SUVs and pick-up trucks.

Obama believes gasoline prices will inevitably rise once the global recession ends, that the threat of climate change demands action now and that oil dependence jeopardizes national security. Under those assumptions, administration officials and their supporters said Obama was leveraging his office to force Detroit toward its only strategy for success

"You have both standards and incentives being offered to lead the auto industry in the direction it needs to go," said David Doniger, climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This is the only way forward, is to transform its product line."

The strategy has already drawn fire -- and some cries of socialism -- from conservatives. Read more in our analysis piece in today's Los Angeles Times.

by Mark Silva

Let's give him something to talk about, in the memorable words of Bonnie Raitt:

Radio's Rush Limbaugh never seems short of subject matter with his afternoon show, but his friends at the Democratic National Committee - the ones who insist on elevating him to spokesman for the Republican Party -- are giving the commentator fresh fodder for commentary today.

The DNC says it is rolling a billboard into the hometown of the "golden microphone'' broadcaster who has broadcast his wishes for the failure of President Barack Obama's agenda.

"Americans didn't vote for a rush to failure,'' it reads.

The party says the traveling billboard will makes its debut in West Palm today. The message apparently is the winner of a DNC-sponsored contest that called on the party's supporters to submit a slogan answering Limbaugh's calls for Obama's failure. Limbaugh isn't alone among Republicans wishing failure on the Obama agenda.

Lois Frankel, mayor of West Palm Beach and one partisan Democratic trial lawyer who once ran for governor of Florida, will accompany the billboard at its kickoff, the party says.

One billboard, one radio show: Limbaugh only gets about three hours of response time this afternoon with an estimated national audience of 12 million. And Limbaugh's offer to Obama for a debate still stands, last we heard.

by Mark Silva

Most people still worry that things are not going well in America, yet the number of Americans who say the nation is headed in the right direction has "roughly tripled'' since President Barack Obama's election, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll today shows.

"Obama continues to benefit from a broadly held perception that others should bear the bulk of responsibility for the severe economic problems that confront his administration.'' The Post's Dan Balz and Jon Cohen write.

. "Despite the increasing optimism about the future, the nation's overall mood remains gloomy,'' they note, "and doubts are rising about some of the administration's prescriptions for the economic woes.

"Independents are less solidly behind Obama than they have been, fewer Americans now express confidence that his economic programs will work, barely half of the country approves of how the president is dealing with the federal budget deficit, and the political climate is once again highly polarized,'' they add.

Yet the percentage of <strong>Americans surveyed in the new poll who view the country as being on the right track stands at 42 percent - the highest percentage saying so in five years in the Post and ABC surveys and "a sharp turnabout from last fall, when as many as nine in 10 said the country was heading in the wrong direction.''

Fifty-seven percent still consider the nation as moving on the wrong track.

Still, two-thirds of Americans surveyed approve of the way Obama is handling the country's top job, and six in 10 grade him well on the No. 1 issue, the economy.

Obama draws lower grades for dealing with the federal budget deficit, which he promises to cut in half by the end of his term but still has reached new records. Fifty-two percent back the president's approach to the deficit, with the president insisting that aggressive

by Paul Richter

The phrase "war on terror," for seven years a signature expression of the Bush administration, has been shelved, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged Monday.

Clinton said there had been no directive from her office or within the Obama administration, but she said officials had stopped using the term.

"The administration has stopped using the phrase, and that speaks for itself, obviously," Clinton told reporters aboard her plane on the way to a meeting in the Netherlands.

Former President Bush adopted the phrase "war on terror" to define U.S. policy after the Sept. 11 attacks. Soon Pentagon officials turned the term "global war on terror" into an acronym, GWOT.

However, among Bush's opponents and international critics, the phrase came to symbolize his administration's unpopular foreign policy and its detention practices.

The Obama administration has said that it has not officially banned the phrase.

"It's just not being used," Clinton said.

by Rebecca Cole

Michelle Obama departs Tuesday for her inaugural European trip as First Lady, joining husband Barack as he makes the rounds during the G-20 summit in London.

With much ink already spilt over the first lady's style - Those arms! She wears J-Crew! - comparisons to Jackie Kennedy's iconic fashion and her success on the world stage are inevitable.

An article in Politico today has a good overview of the facts, but we decided to take our own informal poll and see how the two stack up.

Obama: Arms
Jackie: Long white gloves
Winner: Tie

We've judged this one a tie. Why? Because Jackie had a set of pretty nice arms as well, and showed them off nearly as much as Obama does, with sleeveless ball gowns and A-line dresses. But she managed to stay within the bounds of early 1960s-era propriety by covering up nearly to her elbows.

Don't believe us? This HuffPost slideshow of Jackie Kennedy should refresh our collective memory:

Obama's arms have certainly garnered a lot of attention, both positive and negative, but we say if you've got 'em, use 'em! (Although maybe not in the White House kitchen -- brr.)

(White House photo of the first lady by Pete Souza)

by Christi Parsons

At the heart of President Obama's approach to foreign policy has been a promise to end the "unilateral" strategies of his predecessor and heal bruised relations with America's allies.

But as Obama makes his presidential debut on the diplomatic stage at the Group of 20 summit in London this week, he faces leaders from both Europe and Asia who have rejected some of his most important proposals for rescuing the global economy, including his call for more stimulus spending.

Despite the diplomatic niceties, that means Obama's vision of himself as a conciliator will face challenges from the start.

In many ways, Obama is the president that world leaders have been saying they wanted. He has reversed some of President George W. Bush's most controversial policies, ordering the shutdown of the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba and ending aggressive interrogation of terrorism suspects.

And Obama has made it clear that he supports a much more multilateral approach to world problems than Bush, breaking with his predecessor's notion of "a coalition of the willing," which in practice often meant a coalition of those who followed the U.S. lead with a minimum of criticism.

"The president and America are going to listen in London, as well as to lead," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "Many of the things that we've done over the past couple of weeks . . . demonstrate that America is leading by example. We've taken key steps to restore economic growth in this country, to save and create jobs and to put money back in people's pockets."

Across Europe, Obama's poll numbers are as high or higher than his substantial approval ratings at home. But neither popularity nor a more conciliatory approach has prevented some foreign leaders from brushing off Obama's proposals for recovery.

(President Barack Obama leaves for Europe tomorrow, for a tour starting in London and carrying him through Strasbourg, Prague and Turkey. Christi Parsons of the Tribune Washington Bureau will travel with him. See her reports on Obama's European tour in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:)

by Mark Silva

Our colleague, Andrew Malcolm, has a fine ear for the well-turned quote. So he was all ears as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was moving through Mexico.

Taking some time out from the war against the Mexican drug wars, the visiting secretary of state made a point in Mexico City of visiting the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe to deliver a bouquet of white flowers on behalf of the American people.

"Catholics believe that almost 500 years ago the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted on the cloak of St. Juan Diego, who became the Catholic church's first saint indigenous to the Americas in 2002,'' Malcolm notes in Top of the Ticket. "The basilica's rector, Msgr. Diego Monroy, had had the image lowered from its altar for a closer look by the visiting dignitary,'' who is a Methodist.

"Who painted it?" Clinton asked.

"God," the rector replied.

Clinton lighted a candle during her 30-minute visit and, on her way out told a crowd of Mexicans, "You have a marvelous virgin."

by Mark Silva

"Mitt Romney doesn't have a job for the first time in his adult life,'' writes our friend Glenn Johnson, a political writer who has followed the wanderings of the former Massachusetts governor for some time. "That hardly means he's not working.

"In ways both subtle and overt,'' Johnson notes, the Republican who sought his party's presidential nomination last year is "building toward a 2012 White House campaign by judiciously engaging and disengaging with the national debate.''

Among the overt ways, the Associated Press' Johnson writes: Romney is writing a book. Based on the 1960s tome The American Challenge by Frenchman Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, it will attempt to shake American economic and political complacency.

Among the overt: Speaking at a Chicago fundraiser on Tuesday for a prospective state treasurer candidate. (State Sen. Dan Rutherford, who was Romney's Illinois camapign chairman, has not officially announced for the 2010 race for state treasurer nomination but is pursuing it, in part because incumbent Democratic Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias has formed an exploratory committee for the 2010 Senate seat of Roland Burris.)

Romney is headlining a fundraiser for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in Washington on Wednesday and keynote-speaking at a fundraising dinner for Republicans in New York City on Thursday.

Among the more subtle ways, as Johnson notes of his interview with Romney on the day that he was packing up his ski house in Utah: Romney is divesting himself of some of the "excess real estate that brought ridicule to John McCain last fall'' - reminding us of the seven, or was it eight, homes that the 2008 GOP nominee owned (he couldn't recall.)

(File photo of Mitt Romney above by Steve Yeater / Associated Press)

by Mark Silva

Move over "Colbert Nation.''

"The FOX Nation'' is here, and the new Website of FOX News promises to fulfill that conservative voice which Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert mocks so much.

"Scary: Obama nominee wants one world order,'' reads a banner headline at FOX Nation, flicking to a New York Post report on Harold Koh, Obama nominee for State Department legal adviser:

"Judges should interpret the Constitution according to other nations' legal "norms." Sharia law could apply to disputes in U.S. courts. The United States constitutes an "axis of disobedience" along with North Korea and Saddam-era Iraq.Those are the views of the man on track to become one of the US government's top lawyers.''

"Chris Dodd's cavalcade of scandal,'' reads another.

"Karl Rove stars in DNC ad'' -- you know, the Bush "architect'' who called President Barack Obama "arrogant.'''

And this: "Stacked: Obama fills town hall with supporters'' - as if we haven't seen a president who has done that before.

Grover Norquist opines - on where else, the FOX Forum - that "Fox Nation has the potential to do to the Internet what FOX News did to cable television. That is, be a disruptive, transformative-but also profoundly constructive-media force.''

by Mark Silva

For all the furor that abortion-opponents are raising about President Barack Obama's planned commencement address at Notre Dame University on May 13, a new survey suggests that there is no discernable difference between Catholics and other Americans on the questions of either abortion or embryonic stem-cell research.

Obama, who supports abortion rights for women who choose to have one and who overturned his predecessor's ban against federal funds for research involving new lines of embryonic stem cells, is slated to send off the graduating class of a Catholic university whose own area bishop will boycott the president's speech because of abortion.

Yet despite the Catholic Church's official stance in opposition to abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, the Gallup Poll has found that Catholics in general hold the same views about both issues as other Americans do: Only 40 percent of the Catholics surveyed, and 41 percent of non-Catholics surveyed called abortion "morally acceptable,'' and significantly more, 63 percent of Catholics and 62 percent of non-Catholics. say the same thing about embryonic stem-cell research.

"The argument of those who protest the extension of the invitation to Obama (at Notre Dame) is that Catholics have a distinctly conservative position on these moral issues,'' Gallup editor in chief Frank Newport writes. " That is certainly the case as far as official church doctrine is concerned, but not when it comes to average American Catholics. ''

The Gallup analysis is based on an aggregation of data from Gallup's 2006-2008 "Values and Beliefs'' surveys -- with surveys of 3,022 adults interviewed in May 2006, May 2007 and May 2008 carring a possible 2 percent margin of error -- indicating that "Catholics in the United States today are actually more liberal than the non-Catholic population on a number of moral issues, and on others, Catholics have generally the same attitudes.''

For instance, 67 percent of Catholics surveyed call sex between an unmarried man and woman morally acceptable, while 57 percent of non-Catholics say so. Sixty one percent of Catholics surveyed view having a baby out of wedlock as morally acceptable, while just 52 percent of non-Catholics are Okay with that.

Fewer Catholics view the death penalty as morally acceptable - 61 percent - than others do, 68 percent.

And Catholics are more tolerant about homosexual relations - 54 percent - than non-Catholics - 45 percent.

Catholics are a lot more tolerant about gambling, too - 72 percent say its morally acceptable - than non-Catholics - 59 percent. Must be the Bingo.

by Frank James

Because President Barack Obama gave British Prime Minister Gordon Brown such a lame gift when the British head of government visited the White House a few weeks back -- a boxed DVD set of classic American movies which, it turns out, Brown couldn't even watch at 10 Downing St. because of the regional codes embedded in such DVDs -- many Americans and Britons are hoping the president will do better during his European visit.

So when White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked during a weekend conference call about the impending G20 meeting about what gift the Obama planned to give the woman who has everything, Queen Elizabeth II, ears on both sides of the Atlantic perked up.

Here's the exchange:

REPORTER: Yes, hi, probably one for Robert. Given the importance in international diplomacy of symbolism, I was just wondering if you could throw any light on the gift that the Obamas are likely to be giving the Queen. As you know, the presentation of the DVD box set raised some eyebrows in Britain. I wondered if there had been a sort of special thought going into this gift process.

MR. GIBBS: We don't want to give away all our good news on the briefing call. So we'll give you a download on that later.

We're still awaiting the "download" but here's an idea in case the White House is stuck.

The queen apparently has a new hobby.

Of course, there may be something more befitting a queen. This may be the perfect chance to get rid of those antique plates currently in the Oval Office which Obama's known not to much like.

(Pete Souza/White House/MCT)

by Mark Silva

We didn't need Newton's third law to predict the reactions today to President Obama's action on the auto industry:

-- The Dow Jones industrial average was down about 250 points this morning, following word that the Obama White House had forced the CEO of General Motors out the door and had given Chrysler Corp. a 30-day ultimatum to marry Fiat if it expects any more federal aid. (Perhaps not so surprising after the 21 percent surge of the past two weeks, and the Dow, Obama suggests, is like a tracking poll.)

-- Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) called Wagoner's "firing" a "sideshow to distract us from the fact that the administration has no progress to announce today.

"The administration is hoping the media and the public will stay focused on Wagoner and fail to notice that negotiations have not progressed since December,'' Corker saidin an issued statement. "The administration is pursuing much of what we pushed for in December, but the delay of several months has increased the severity and sent billions of taxpayer dollars down the drain.

"With sweeping new power, the White House will be deciding which plants will survive and which won't,'' he said, "so in essence, this administration has decided they know better than our courts and our free market process how to deal with these companies... This is a major power grab by the White House on the heels of another power grab from (Treasury) Secretary Geithner who asked last week for the freedom to decide on his own which companies are 'systemically' important to our country and worthy of taxpayer investment and which are not.

"This is a marked departure from the past, truly breathtaking,'' the Tennessee Republican said, "and should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise. I worry that in one fell swoop we've lost our moral high ground throughout the global community as it relates to chastising other countries that use strong arm tactics to invade on private property rights."

-- Rep. John Dingell, Democrat from Michigan, had a decidedly different point of view: "The president has expressed his confidence in and his commitment to a successful restructuring of and long-term viability plan for General Motors and Chrysler.

"The road ahead is going to be very difficult and painful, although as the president said, there is potential for both companies to emerge from restructuring as stronger, more competitive companies,'' Dingell said. "I share the president's confidence in GM and Chrysler and will go even further and state that I steadfastly believe that both companies are on the verge of emerging from this dark period as industry leaders once again in sales, fuel economy, safety and customer satisfaction.

We must admit, we missed that note of confidence in Chrysler in the president's remarks today, but Dingell suggests:

by Frank James

The Detroit News editorial board swings conservative, so it's not surprising that it finds a lot not to like about President Barack Obama's firing of GM CEO Rick Wagoner.

Its take is worth reading regardless of political ideology, however. The way the DN describes General Motors, it sounds something like Fannie Mae, a government sponsored entity with a government overseer. The DN also views Wagoner as playing the undeserved role of Obama's fall guy.

An excerpt:

Well, at least now we know who's running General Motors. The Obama White House, in an extraordinary expansion of the government's reach, Sunday demanded and got the head of Rick Wagoner, the automaker's embattled chief executive. In doing so, the president brushed aside GM's board of directors, selected by shareholders and entrusted with the power to hire and fire executives, and assumed that role for himself.

While GM's board had been often restless with the transformation of GM under Wagoner's leadership, it maintained its confidence in his ability to get done a very tough job.

Shareholders can read the handwriting on the wall -- this isn't their company anymore.

That's the risk you take when you go hat in hand to Washington. It ought to be a red flag for other companies and industries that might be thinking a federal bailout is the answer for surviving the recession

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama has made a certain calculation about the futures of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Corp.

GM can rebuild. Chrysler can not make it on its own.

"President Goodwrench,'' they're calling him at MSNBC.

"We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish,'' the president said this morning, in announcing that he is giving both ailing automakers more time to come up with viable plans for their futures.

Yet Obama is offering GM one thing: 60 more days of unspecified financial assistance from the federal government, while demanding that it get its plans together, while insisting that GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner step aside, as he has agreed to do at the insistence of the Obama administration.

And he is offering the smaller Chrysler another: A shotgun marriage with Fiat. If the American and Italian automakers can forge a path together in the next 30 days, the Obama administration holds out as much as $6 billion in aid to help them along.

In the pursuit of federal aid for American enterprises that "cannot afford to fail" in the midst of the worst recession in decades - mega-insurer AIG and some of the biggest banks, for instance, and GM - the White House has concluded that Chrysler is not among them. But the auto industry is.

" This industry is, like no other, an emblem of the American spirit, a once and future symbol of America's success,'' Obama said today in an address from the White House.

" It is what helped build the middle class and sustained it throughout the 20th Century. It is a source of deep pride for the generations of American workers whose hard work and imagination led to some of the finest cars the world has ever known. It is a pillar of our economy that has held up the dreams of millions of our people. But we also cannot continue to excuse poor decisions...

by Mark Silva

In Washington's world of wondering who pushed whom and who jumped, there is no mincing of words this morning about what happened with General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner.

"On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with administration officials,'' the resigning GM chief executive reported on his company's Website this morning. "In the course of that meeting, they requested that I "step aside" as CEO of GM, and so I have.''

Wagoner, who became president of the automaker in 2000 and has served as chairman and CEO since 2003, calls his replacement, Fritz Henderson "an excellent choice to be the next CEO of GM. Having worked closely with Fritz for many years, I know that he is the ideal person to lead the company through the completion of our restructuring efforts...

"I also want to extend my sincerest thanks to everyone who supported GM and me during my time as CEO,'' the departing Wagoner says. "GM is a great company with a storied history. Ignore the doubters, because I know it is also a company with a great future.''

That future is on the line this morning, as President Barack Obama explains at an 11 am EDT appearance at the White House what he expects of both GM and Chrysler for continuing support from the government.

Wagoner is "a sacrificial lamb,'' according to Michigan's governor.

On Friday, as Wagoner was holding his fateful meeting with "administration officials,'' Obama was meeting with CBS News' Bob Schieffer and voicing his discontent with the progress that automakers have made in reshaping their business since the government started providing $17.4 billion in assistance. "They're not there yet,'' Obama said.

Today, the president will explain how he expects the automakers to get there -- without Wagoner.

by Mark Silva

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm says that, at a time of warranted "sacrifices'' in the struggling automobile industry, the White House forced-out, resigning chairman of General Motors is "a sacrificial lamb.''

"Rick Wagoner has worked for that company for 31 years, and he is a good man,'' the Democratic governor said in an appearance on NBC News' Today show this morning. "He clearly is a sacrificial lamb...

"But I think he would say he is doing what is important for the future of the company and the future of jobs,'' Granholm said.

"What the Obama administration is saying is that there are going to have to be sacrifices all around,'' the governor said.

With Obama today making further federal aid from GM and Chrysler conditional on corporate reform -- after $17.4 billion in aid already offered -- demanding that the ailing automakers complete plans for reorganization along a more effective business model, the governor suggests that the government will still have to step up for the automakers.

"Why isn't it succeeding? They were in the middle of a massive restructuring plan,'' the governor said. "The bottom line, is though, that this country needs a manufacturing industry, and needs an automotive industry... These companies are in the middle of this recession like everybody else. Nobody is buying cars.''

The question, she asked, is "what would be the cost of not helping this industry?... It's three and a half million jobs,'' not only in auto manufacturing, but also in the many industries that support it. "It's the backbone of the manufacturing sector.''

by Mark Silva

Two months into the administration of the first African-American president, Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press takes a look today at some of the "old racial stereotypes and Internet-fueled falsehoods'' about President Barack Obama that have "flourished.''

There was that New York Post cartoon portraying the president as a monkey, that California mayor resigning after circulating a picture of watermelons on the White House lawn, the "magic mulatto'' email making the rounds of the Net. And there are those relentless questions about Obama's own citizenship and religion.

"Disproved and disputed claims about his religion and citizenship, namely untruths that Obama is a Muslim and isn't U.S.-born, zip across chat rooms and dominate the blogosphere,'' Sidoti writes. "Fringe critics largely are responsible for perpetuating the lies, but even elected officials have raised them.''

The achievement of one man in breaking the nation's racial barriers has not "entirely changed the dynamic of a country founded by slave owners,'' she suggests.

""There's certainly no lessening of racially charged barbs aimed at the president," says Anita L. Allen, a University of Pennsylvania law school professor who has studied race relations for years. "In fact there may be more, some vicious and cruel by his enemies and some distasteful and playful by his friends."

Obama, for his part, maintains that all the celebration of the history that he made with his election "lasted about a day,''' with his inauguration, and that crisis-consumed Americans will judge him by an entirely different standard.

""Right now the American people are judging me exactly the way I should be judged, and that is are we taking the steps to improve liquidity in the financial markets, create jobs, get businesses to reopen, keep America safe," Obama said at his second prime-time televised news conference last week.

Even writing about this subject invites commentary which civilized Americans aren't going to like, yet, as Attorney General Eric Holder, the first African American attorney general, Obama's pick, notes, a more forthright conversation may be warranted in "a nation of cowards'' on the subject.of race.

by Frank James

Some observers are noticing what they believe is disparate treatment between the way Rick Wagoner, GM's CEO, is being shown the door by the White House and the Obama Administration's seemingly more tolerant stance towards the financial-service CEOs.

Here's David Sirota, the progressive colmnist and blogger:

The Associated Press reports that "General Motors Corp. Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner will step down immediately at the request of the White House, U.S. administration officials said Sunday." I'm not sure that's a good or bad thing, but I am curious about why the White House would make such a bold demand of a car company the federal government is lending to, but not a similar demand of the banks the federal government partially owns?

What I mean is - how is it that the White House is requesting the resignation of GM's CEO while not doing the same of, say, Bank of America's CEO? In fact, not only is the president not demanding the resignation of bank CEOs, he's actually hosting them for photo ops at the White House. Sure, I know some bank CEOs resigned a few months ago under shareholder pressure, but the Obama administration has never publicly demanded such resignations of the current management that is making the problems worse, nor the resignation of management at the biggest firms (Goldman Sachs, BofA, etc.) that are still in place.

by Mark Silva

General Motors' troubles may or may not have started when it decided that it could make $10,000 a copy putting leather bucket seats and mobile DVD-players on pickup truck chassis and calling them sport utility vehicles, fleet-mileage standards be damned.

But the company's troubles in Washington grew a lot worse when its executives, and their colleagues from the other ailing Big-Three automakers, landed their corporate jets at Washington's airport last fall seeking $25 billion in bailout funding from Congress.

They were sent packing, and only the mercy of the Bush administration's Treasury Department spared two of them - GM and Chrysler - from the threat of bankruptcy.

But, $17.4-billion in federal aid later for the two big automakers, they are returning to town for yet more aid. And the Obama White House, demanding major "concessions'' from not only the companies and their executives, but also their labor unions and private lenders as the president prepares to announce - Monday morning at 11 am EDT at the White House - the next phase of the federal government's assistance for GM and Chrysler, is exacting a big concession from the top brass at GM.

The job of GM chairman Rick Wagoner.

As Obama unveils his administration's plans for the automakers Monday morning, the Associated Press reported tonight, "one condition became clear today: the resignation of General Motors Corp. Chairman and Chief Executive Rick Wagoner. As a condition for additional government aid to GM, the Obama administration asked Wagoner to step aside, which Wagoner agreed to do today, people familiar with the plan said.''

(General Motors Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner is pictured above earlier this year speaking at GM headquarters in Detroit. in a photo by Rashaun Rucker / Detroit Free Press / MCT.)

by Mark Silva

This is one of those inside-the-Beltway games.

The White House draws up a budget. The Republicans slam the president for big spending and deficits - after nearly a decade of big Republican spending and deficits. (Including one Republican who was ready to go to work for the Obama administration.)

The Democrats demand an alternative from the Republicans.

Republicans offer one, albeit lacking much in the way of specifics, and the Democrats slam the Republicans.

Even Peter Orszag, the White House budget director who hailed from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, gets in the game, suggesting that the GOP is evolving from "the party of no'' to "the party of no detail.''

Then, like wolves coming down from the mountains to finish off the sheep, the union-backed Americans United for Change weighs in with a TV ad:

"For weeks the Republicans just said NO to the President's plan and refused to propose one of their own. They finally presented their alternative,'' the ad's narrator says. "How many numbers were in their alternative "budget"? That's right - none. A budget with no numbers?''

The ad unveiled today is tailored for torture: Airing for just a few days on Washington, D.C., cable stations, a poke in the inside-the-Beltway eye, just long enough, perhaps, for Rep. Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican, to come up with a GOP budget that contains a few numbers.

And then the circle will go 'round again.

The question is: How is all this playing outside the Beltway?

The Gallup Poll has found that, for all the sales pitches that the president has been making for his budget on national media stages, the White House has not gained any budget allies among the public - with 39 percent of those who say they know anything about the budget voicing approval for it in recent days, a notch lower than the 44 percent approval voiced in Gallup's survey on the question a month ago.

So alternative or no alternative, ads or no ads, it seems, President Obama still has his work cut out for him with his $3.55-trillion budget, if not inside the Beltway, where fellow Democrats are ready to move it along, but outside the Beltway.

See the full Face the Nation interview with President Obama above.

by Mark Silva

It probably will take another federal jump-start for General Motors and Chrysler to get back on the road, the Obama White House is inclined to say this week, but the president is warning the ailing automakers that radical new designs still are required.

"They're not there yet," Obama said of the automakers, in an interview taped Friday and aired this morning on CBS News Face the Nation.

"We think we can have a successful U.S. auto industry,'' the president said. "But it's got to be one that's realistically designed to weather this storm and to emerge -- at the other end -- much more lean, mean, and competitive than it currently is.''

GM and Chrysler already are riding on $17.4 billion in government loans, and probably will need more help to survive the worst downturn in the auto industry in three decades. GM is seeking $16.6 billion more, Chrysler $5 billion more.

The president's task force on the industry is expected to recommend Monday that more short-term aid is warranted - in return for major concessions to make the companies viable and avert bankruptcy. The announcement that Obama makes Monday is expected to include more money in exchange for concessions from union workers, bondholders and others.

by Andrew Zajac

The greatly expanded U.S. military effort in Afghanistan is necessary to root out al Qaeda, but is not open-ended and will be monitored carefully for signs of progress, President Barack Obama said in a television interview aired this morning.

"We needed to ramp up from the greatly under-resourced level" in the region, Obama said, but that doesn't mean "that if this strategy doesn't work that what's needed is even more troops. There may be a point of diminishing returns in terms of troop levels. We've gotta also make sure that our civilian efforts, our diplomatic efforts and our development efforts, are just as robustly--encouraged."

The White House last week announced substantial increases of troops bound for Afghanistan and plans to increase training and foreign aid both in that country and in neighboring Pakistan.

Obama, in an interview with CBS News' Bob Schieffer aired on Face the Nation today, said they would pursue al Qaeda and its allies aggressively, but that did not mean that ground troops would enter Pakistan.

Obama pointedly declined Schieffer's characterization of the Afghan conflict as " Obama's war now."

"I think it's America's war, the president said.

by Mark Silva

For those who have been wondering when Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona might exact a certain price for the impact that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's candidacy for vice president had on his presidential chances, the answer is here:

"I'd like to see her compete,'' McCain said of the possibllty that Palin might seek the party's presidential nomination in 2012.

"We've got some very good candidates,'' McCain said in an appearance today on NBC News' Meet the Press. "There are so many -- there is a lot of fresh talent out there..''

But would he support Palin, NBC's David Gregory pressed.

"I'd have to see who the candidates are, and what the situation is at the time,'' said McCain, cautioning anyone against doubting his "respect, love and admiration for Sarah.''

While Palin initially proved wildly popular among the Republican Party's base, the nomination of the first-term governor and one-time mayor of tiny Wasilla became, for McCain, an increasing liability with each new national news interview of Palin, who revealed that she may not read very much about national affairs and ddn't know too much about foreign policy -- asking an interviewer, for instance, what he meant by "The Bush Doctrine.''

This was McCain's 54th appearance on Meet the Press, he was reminded -- and he is closing on the record 64 of Bob Dole, who also won the GOP's presidential nomination but failed at election. McCainl probably will have plenty of more opportunities to return, and talk more about how much he loves his erstwhile running mate.

See more of McCain on Meet the Press here:

by Mark Silva

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, warning that it will ""take us a while'' to get out of the economic "mess'' the nation faces, also says banks will need some more federal help.

'it's very important for people to understand that, you know, it took us a long time to get into this mess,'' Geithner said in his debut on the Sunday morning news show circuit today, in an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on This Week. "It's going to take us a while to get out of this. Progress is not going to be even. It's not going to be steady.

"Now banks are going to need -- some banks are going to need -- some large amounts of assistance,'' Geithner said, "and we're going to make sure that that assistance comes with conditions, designed to make sure they restructure, provide accountability on boards of management, that these institutions emerge cleaner, stronger going forward.''

Here, courtesy of ABC News, is a transcript:

by Mark Silva

Robert Gates has served both President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush as secretary of defense. And now that Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan that Bush began, the secretary says some things haven't changed.

""I think that they both see Al Qaeda as a threat to the United States, Al Qaeda and its extremist allies, and I think they both have made clear their determination to go after it,'' Gates said this morning in an appearance on FOX News Sunday.

"I think that's people looking for differences where there are none."

At the same time, Gates said today, the new president has "narrowed'' the focus of the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan as the president authorizes the deployment of an additional 21,000 troops, support and training personnel to the country.

"The near-term objective has been narrowed,'' Gates said. "I think our long-term objective still would be to see a flourishing democracy in Afghanistan, but I think what we need to focus on and focus our efforts is making headway and reversing the Taliban's momentum and strengthening the Afghan army and police, and really going after Al Qaeda as the President said."

(Photo of Robert Gates on FOX News Sunday above from FOX News. And here, courtesy of FOX News Sunday, is a transcript of the Gates interview with Chris Wallace:

by Mark Silva

As if the White House does not already have enough on its plate, President Barack Obama is signaling to the world that he is ready to start talking about climate change.

The Obama White House has invited the leaders of 16 major economies - and major emitters of greenhouse gases, like the United States - to a forum on energy and climate in Washington. The United Nations leader also is invited. And today at U.N. talks in Germany, the U.S. rolled out its climate-change negotiating team.

The April 27-28 forum in Washington is designed to "generate the political leadership necessary" for a successful outcome at U.N. climate change negotiation in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December, the White House said in a statement Saturday.

The conference will "advance the exploration of concrete initiatives and joint ventures that increase the supply of clean energy while cutting greenhouse gas emissions,'' the White House said.

In addition to the U.S., the other parties are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Although the Bush administration ultimately accepted the notion that human enterprise is contributing to global warming and was starting to engage in a global conversation after rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, the United States has been slow to recognize what European leaders in particular have been saying about cliimate change.

Obama says the nation has "known the right choice for a generation... The time has come to make that choice."

"We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc or we can create jobs preventing its worse effects," he said last week. ""We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can create those jobs right here in America."

by Mark Silva

The decades-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba stands.

So says Vice President Joe Biden, attending a summit of progressive leaders from Latin America and Europe in Chile.

Bden, asked by reporters in Vina Del Mar if the Obama administration plans to scrap the trade embargo against its island neighbor, said: "No.''

The "Cuban people should determine their own fate and they should be able to live in freedom," Biden said after taking part in the Progressive Governance Summit.

Biden said a "transition" is needed in the Washington policy toward the communist-ruled island, but that he was in Chile "to talk about the economy, not Cuba."

Several of the leftist governments in Latin America have urged Washington to lift the embargo of Cuba as a means of mending U.S. relations in the region. Chile, for one, proudly sells the products of Cuba in its stores -- among them the world's finest cigars.

But without signs of budging on the embargo, Biden still attempted to drive home the idea that the White House is committed to region.

"President Obama and I are absolutely committed to working closely with our neighbors in the hemisphere," he told reporters at Chile's La Moneda presidential palace after meeting with President Michelle Bachelet.

The Associated Press congtributed.

by Christi Parsons

Here are some key issues, in question-and-answer form, surrounding President Barack Obama's trip to the G-20 summit this week and his meeting with NATO allies and EU nations.

QUESTION: What is the main purpose of President Barack Obama's trip to Europe?

ANSWER: The president will gather with leaders of the world's 20 major economies at the G-20 summit, and with the NATO allies and the European Union at their meetings, before taking a side trip to Turkey to begin his promised outreach to the Muslim world.

Q: What's on the agenda?

A: The agenda items include discussion of what to do about the crashing global economy and how to stem extremist activity in Afghanistan.

But in a broader sense, Obama is setting out on his first overseas trip as a head of state to signal a new day in American foreign policy, and to begin building his one-on-one relationships with world leaders with whom he will work to confront grave economic and security concerns in the future.

Christi Parsons of the Tribune Washington Bureau will travel with the president to Europe. See her overview of the reasons for the president's itinerary today, and follow her reports in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

by Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah and Mike Dorning

In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation's most qualified -- Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted -- has been submitted to the White House.

The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn) was bumped up two weeks ahead of schedule because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association who sifted through more than 300 names.

"It was mostly under the radar," said Williams. "We thought it would put (the president) in a precarious position. We didn't know how closely he wanted to appear to be working with the Muslim American community."

The effort aims to get the administration focused on Muslim Americans, a group that has at times felt like a pariah. During the campaign, Obama's staff prevented Muslim women wearing head scarves from being photographed behind him in one of many incidents that left Muslim Americans feeling slighted by the candidate.

Now, Muslim Americans -- who according to a recent study overwhelmingly backed Obama in the November election -- have been carefully watching the administration's every step.

A fogbound, misty weekend.

On the sunny side: This should be good for the cherries, which reach the peak of their bloom next weekend, with the two-week Cherry Festival already underway.

by Mark Silva

The world doesn't have the United States to kick around anymore - or at least, to us, that's what it would appear that Vice President Joe Biden was saying in Chile today.-- with Biden suggesting that the U.S. is now willng to collaborate with the rest of the world, but will also insist that everyone follow "the rules of the road.''

Biden, addressing the opening of The Progressive Governance Conference in Vina del Mar, Chile, today, spoke of the Obama administration's wide-ranging agenda.

"We are aggressively attacking a full set of challenges that are facing our economy,'' Biden told his international audience. "We expect the recession to end later this year. But .. employment will lag far behind. We're still going to have a very, very difficult circumstance in our country -- and most of our countries -- even when the GDP begins to grow again, as it hasn't in our country. We're technically in -- not technically, in fact, in recession. So unemployment is likely to continue rising.

"At the same time, the most important thing we can do during this whole process -- and it's going to begin at the G-20 (summit of major economic powers next week) -- is to reset the rules of the road, to have common sense oversight that keeps us from getting back into the same spot we're in 10 years from now,'' Biden said.

"President Obama and I sought these offices because we had a fundamental disagreement with the policies of the last administration,'' Biden said. "We don't question the motive of the last administration -- we question seriously their policies. And it's a little bit like that old metaphor -- it takes a while to turn around a super-tanker. We are moving as rapidly as we can to change the direction of our country and our policies, but we're going to have to ask -- and we don't expect to get it, but we have to ask for a little bit of patience as we move forward....

"We genuinely want to be collaborative. We genuinely want to engage in consultation. We genuinely want to know what others think,'' he said. "We do not look to ourselves as the engine to solve the problems; we only look to ourselves in joining you to jointly solve the problems...

"But... we do need rules of the road. We acknowledge that. And we will play by the rules. But one of the things I would say to all of us is when the rules are broken don't just expect us to enforce the rules. Let me say that again -- when the rules are broken, as they repeatedly are, we are reluctant, as an international community, to enforce the rules, whether they be in Iran or whether they be in other countries in the world.

"One the rules are set, we will abide by them as part of the effort to draft them, but when they're broken there's a need for all of us to step up,'' he said.

"And so the good news is there's a change. The bad news is, for you all, there's a change,'' Biden said to laughter among his audience. "Te very good news is that we're willing to, and want to collaborate. The bad news is that you don't have the last administration to use as an excuse.... for non-action.''

by Mark Silva

In a weeklong journey across Europe, his first since election, President Barack Obama will not only seek a global commitment to economic stimulus -- rumored at $2 trillion in the European press -- but also work on his personal relationships with some of the world's most influential leaders, British, French, German, Russian, Chinese and more -- including that strained "special relationship'' with the British.

The president will leave Tuesday morning for London, arriving in the evening there on the eve of the summit of the Group of 20 major industrial nations and emerging economies. He will spend much of Wednesday and Thursday at the G-20 summit with the leaders of nations which, combined, account for about 85 percent of the global economy.

Obama has "two main objectives'' at the summit, according to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

One is "is ensuring that there is concerted action around the globe to jumpstart economic growth, and that we are advancing a regulatory reform agenda to ensure that this crisis never happens again and prevent anything like that in the future,'' Gibbs said in a briefing on the trip today. The president, Gibbs said, "is committed to ensuring that both of those messages are heard throughout the summit.''

The president also will be attending a summit of the European Union in Prague and the 60th anniversary summit of NATO in Strasbourg in travels across Europe ending in Turkey during a weeklong journey across the continent.

"It's an opportunity to... not just confront the inherited challenges that the administration took on, but also to reenergize our alliance to confront the looming threats of the 21st Century,'' said Denis McDonough, deputy national security advisor for strategic communication, joining in the briefing.

Christi Parsons of the Tribune Washington Bureau will travel with the president. Follow her reports in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp. And for now, see more highlights of the White House's briefing on the trip today here:

by Jeannine Stein

First Lady Michelle Obama stands tall and regal in her official portrait, a double strand of creamy pearls around her neck, her figure clad in a fitted Michael Kors dress. But there's one aspect of this seemingly benign photograph that's causing something of a commotion, and it lies in that exposed 10-inch-or-so stretch between her shoulder and elbow. The first lady is buff, and she's not afraid to show it.

Her curvy biceps have become something of a lightning rod for remarks from both sexes in a larger discussion of how much female muscle constitutes too much. While some praise Obama as a role model in a world gone obese, others say she's gone too far in displaying the fruit of her workouts. Read one online forum comment: "There is nothing uglier than manly, muscular arms on a woman. Mrs. Obama should be hiding them instead of showing them off."

Even more vitriolic comments have been aimed at Madonna, whose über-ripped physique is a perennial favorite subject for photographers (the British press reported that her copious hours in the gym factored into the performer's divorce). "Madonna's arms defy logic, actually get grosser," reads one Web headline accompanying a picture of the singer, sleeveless, revealing her sculpted physique.

Why do we care so much? The issue speaks volumes about how men and women view the parameters of femininity and strength.

"In some ways it's kind of an old, tired way of thinking about women and power and boundary policing -- when you can display that power and when you can't, or when it's appropriate," says Sarah Banet-Weiser, an associate professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

AP Photo of Michelle Obama above by Ron Edmonds. See the full story about <strong>Michelle Obama's arms in the Los Angeles Times and here in the Swamp:

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama tackled two of the most difficult fronts his administration faces this week, authorizing a significant increase in the U.S. miliitary deployment to Afghanistan and confronting the leaders of the nation's largest banks behind closed doors at the White House.

The bankers heard his message of the need for "restraint'' on Wall Street, he says in an interview with CBS News airing this weekend, and now "the proof of the pudding is in the eating.''

With the Obama administration ramping up the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Obama insists that the mission must focus on the terrorist target there.

"This is going to be hard,'' Obama says in an interview that will air Sunday morning on CBS News' Face the Nation - an excerpt ran last night on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric..

"I am under no illusions -- if it was easy it would already have been completed,'' the president tells CBS's Bob Schieffer, "and so we're going to have to go with a strategy that is focused, that is narrowly targeted on defeating al Qaeda.''

The president, of course, is asked about the AIG bonuses in the interview, and responds that Wall Street has to start understanding how Americans view all this.

"Show that you get that this is a crisis and everybody has to make sacrifices,'' says Obama, who met with the CEOs of the big banks at the White House on Friday - and what did they say? Schieffer asks. "They agreed and they recognized that.,'' Obama says. "Now the proof of the pudding is in the eating.''

by Mark Silva

Sen. Judd Gregg, the New Hampshire Republican who was ready to serve as President Barack Obama's Commerce Secretary until realizing that he had irreconcilable political differences with the new Democratic president, cites the biggest of those differences today in the Republican Party's weekly address.

The budget.

"What concerns many of us are his proposals in the budget he recently sent to the Congress that dramatically grow the size and cost of government and move it to the left,'' Gregg said of Obama's $3.55-trillion budget for 2010. ""It is our opinion that this plan spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much.''

Add all the national debt accrued from the time of George Washington through George W. Bush, Gregg notes, and Obama plans to double it during five years. (Bush also doubled it on his watch, the Republican omits in this comparison.)

"In the next five years, President Obama's budget will double the national debt; in the next ten years it will triple the national debt,'' Gregg says. "The presidentt, to his credit, is not trying to hide this; in fact he is very forthright in stating that he believes that by greatly expanding the spending, the taxing and the borrowing of our government, this will lead us to prosperity.

"Here of course is where we differ,'' Gregg says. "We believe you create prosperity by having an affordable government that pursues its responsibilities without excessive costs, taxes or debt. That it is the individual American who creates prosperity and good jobs, not the government.''

There is no alternative offered here today, playing to the White House budget director's complaint that the Republican Party is movin from "the party of no detail, as OMB's Peter Orszag told Bloomberg News. But there is a principled argument for why the nation cannot afford what the president is proposing, from a senator who at first thought he could, but later concluded that he could not, serve the president.

See the video above and the text below:

by Mark Silva

The Red River has risen again.

And Dakotans and Minnesotans have risen to the occasion, President Barack Obama said today in a weekly address saluting a spirit of community service that arises at times of crisis such as this, a spirit worthy of all.

It's not only a call to service -- the first big threat of the Red River since it overflowed its dikes in 1997 and caused the last great flood of the century. "Come Hell or High Water,'' the headline of the Grand Forks, (N.D.) Herald declared the day after that flooding overran the city and buildings, including the newspaper's, burned down.

With water rising to to the second floors of homes along the river, the paper kept publishing every day -- operating from the computer classroom of a school up the road and printing its emailed work on the presses of the St. Paul Pioneer-Press in Minnesota. The staff, many whose own homes were lost in the flood, won a Pulitzer Prize.

"At moments like these, we are reminded of the power of nature to disrupt lives and endanger communities,'' Obama said in his weekly Internet and radio address today. "But we are also reminded of the power of individuals to make a difference.

It's also the first big test of the emergency response of the Obama administration to a widesrpread natural disaster, and Obama says FEMA, the National Guard, Coast Guard and others are moving fast -- a disaster declaration already issued for the region.

"In the Fargodome, thousands of people gathered not to watch a football game or a rodeo, but to fill sandbags,'' Obama said today. "Volunteers filled 2.5 million of them in just five days, working against the clock, day and night, with tired arms and aching backs. Others braved freezing temperatures, gusting winds, and falling snow to build levees along the river's banks to help protect against waters that have exceeded record levels...

"It's also a reminder of what we can achieve when Americans come together to serve their communities,'' he said. "All across the nation, there are men, women and young people who have answered that call, and millions of other who would like to.''

See the address above, and the text below:

It's grey today in Washington.

President Barack Obama is bound for Camp David for the weekend, preparing for his first European trip as president -- a weeklong tour of London for the G-20, Strasburg and Turkey.

by Ben Meyerson

Faux-pundit Stephen Colbert's fans are a notoriously active bunch, influencing everything from a Hungarian bridge to Wikipedia at the host's command.

Colbert's latest effort aimed to put the Comedy Central host where no late-night funnyman has gone before - space.

The Colbert Nation's fans overwhelmed NASA's Website in a recent poll to name a room in the international space station, with 230,539 votes for "Colbert" trouncing its closest competitor, "Serenity" by a margin of more than 40,000.

But after the votes were counted, NASA said the poll was nonbinding, and reserved the right to pick any name from the top vote-getters, possibly disregarding the rightful winner. Rumors floated that Colbert's name might be used for a space toilet.

And the plot has just thickened - Congress got involved this week.

Well, maybe just one congressman - Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Pa.), an early participant in The Colbert Report's "Better Know a District" segment, and a member of the House subcommittee that controls NASA's funding.

"NASA decided to hold an election to name its new room at the international space station and the clear winner is Stephen Colbert," Fattah wrote in a statement. "The people have spoken, and Stephen Colbert won it fair and square - even if his campaign was a bit over the top."

(Photo above of Rep. Chaka Fattah, right, watching a woman in his district receive discounted heating oil from Joseph P. Kennedy II, chairman and president of Citizens Energy Corporation, as part of the CITGO-Venezuela heating oil program. (AP photo by Matt Rourke)

by Mark Silva

The Republican Party has gone from the "party of no'' to 'the party of no detail,' says Peter Orszag, the White House budget director.

Fine bipartisan talk from the Obama White House, yes?

Orszag, appearing on Bloomberg Television's Political Capital With Al Hunt today, was talking about the "alternative budget'' that Republican leaders proposed this week - the counterpoint to the $3.55-trillion Obama budget for 2010 that the GOP has criticized so much.

The GOP leadership's alternative budget has been lambasted for a dearth of detail, a conceptual statement more than a blueprint.

However, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, distanced himself from House Minority Leader John Boehner's document during an appearance on the Bloomberg TV program.

"There was some confusion as to what was released on Thursday -- that was not our alternative budget," Ryan said. He termed it "a broader Republican economic agenda" and said he would unveil the party's tax-and-spending plan, complete with specifics, on March 31.

Ryan blasted Obama's budget for its spending and deficits: "We cannot mortgage our children's future like the budget that we're being asked to vote on does."

But Orszag, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, wasn't much kinder about Boehner's "budget.''

"I think it's the first budget that doesn't have any numbers in it,'' Orszag said on Hunt's show. "There is no detail. There is no specifics as to, you know, even where the deficit would be. So perhaps we've moved from the party of 'no' to the party of 'no detail.'"

by Mark Silva

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has tapped an Anchorage lawyer and National Rifle Association director as the state's new attorney general. That is true.

Sarah Palin is not appearing on the cover of Vogue - "the governor issue.'' That is false.

The governor today did name Wayne Anthony Ross, who twice sought the Republican Party's nomination for governor, as attorney general. He is a former NRA vice president and current director.

He succeeds Talis Colberg, who resigned amid what Palin called a "harsh political climate." Colberg was a central figure in "Troopergate," the Alaska Legislature's investigation into whether Palin or aides had pressured her public safety commissioner to fire a state trooper involved in a contentious divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister. Colberg filed a lawsuit on behalf of seven state workers challenging legislative subpoenas. A judge rejected the lawsuit and the employees later testified.

The Palin Vogue cover, which has been making the rounds of the Internet lately, appears to be the work of Kodiak Konfidential, a Website in Alaska which is none too friendly to the governor.

It stems from a time, back in 2007, when Vogue did spend some time at the Wasilla home of the governor, former mayor of tiny Wasilla and former television sports broadcaster - she gave up any thought of a career with ESPN when she learned it was based in Bristol., Conn., but she did name a daughter Bristol, and Bristol did have a baby and then broke up with the father, but....

"At first they had me in a bunch of furs," Palin told the AP of the Vogue photo shoot back in 2007. "Yeah, I have furs on my wall, but I don't wear furs. I had to show them my bunny boots and my North Face clothing."

This stream of news consciousness was brought to you by Swamp Friday.

by Mark Silva

Sen. Harry Reid, suggesting that his party's success in Senate elections is tied to President Barack Obama's success, is eyeing that 60-seat grail next year.

"We are in a position to pick up a number of seats," Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with the Senate majority leader this morning.

"And I think that our success is tied to Obama's success,'' Reid said. "I would love to have 60, I would be happy with 59....I think we focus a little too much on numbers."

Asked about running the Senate and running for reelection himself in 2010, Reid said, "I am not going to change anything. I have always been who I am. People in Nevada know that. Some people like who I am. Others don't.

"I have watched other senators try to change who they are during an election cycle,'' said Reid, reporting $2 million raised during the last quarter for his re-election campaign. "I feel comfortable that I will be competitive.''

by Mark Silva

Add Randall Terry, the radical anti-abortion activist, to the lineup protesting President Barack Obama's appearance at Notre Dame.

"This agent of death,'' Terry is calling the president, in typical Terry fashion.

And he's calling in his "shock troops.''

The Operation Rescue Founder, joining others in protesting Obama's commencement address May 17 at the Catholic university because of the president's support for abortion rights, plans a press conference at the gates of the campus on Saturday and is opening an office in South Bend "to lead ongoing protests aimed at cancelling President Obama's speech.''

The Catholic bishop for the region, Bishop John D'Arcy, already has announced his plans to boycott the president's commencement address - one of tthree graduation speeches that Obama will make this spring, along with commencements at Arizona State University and the U.S. Naval Academy.

"The faithful Catholic world is justly enraged at the treachery of Notre Dame's leadership,'' Terry claims. "But anger, hand wringing, and on-line petitions are not enough. My mission is to funnel that energy into concrete actions on the ground in South Bend.

"Social activism requires shock troops. We intend to provide those shock troops with leadership,'' says Terry, known for the high-drama, some call it shocking, nature of his abortion protests. "Notre Dame will rue the day they invited this Agent of Death to speak."

Terry also has taped a video in front of the White House.and spells out his plans for protest at his Website

by John McCormick

A legend is putting in his final day today at The Des Moines Register, before he becomes the director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.

David Yepsen has been sizing up presidential candidates for more than three decades as the newspaper's political writer and later political columnist. His final column will appear in the Sunday Des Moines Register.

As someone who greatly benefited from his mentoring at the Register, it is hard to image the campaign for the Iowa caucuses without his work appearing routinely on the pages of "The Newspaper Iowa Depends On." In the video below, he reflects on presidential politics and the caucuses.

by Frank James

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs sat down with the Washington Post reporter Lois Romano to talk about the demands of his new job, the different approach the White House is taking to what media organizations get called on at press conferences and his cuff links.

There's some interesting information on how President Barack Obama refines policy ideas with aides. He likes them to push back against him and against each other, to test their arguments since he may wind up having to use them when he eventually explains a policy publicly. Gibbs believes that may have a lot to do with Obama's having taught law school presumably because cogently arguing for one's ideas is generally the rule there. An excerpt:

I think the President, he both enjoys and gets a lot of benefit out of watching somebody defend their position because if that's the position of the President, then he's going to have to defend that position.

Then there's a discussion about the president's new TelePrompter which is a large screen at the back of the room instead of the two clear plastic panels at the side of the presidential podium.

Gibbs says the change, first seen at this week's prime-time news conference, "was a way of talking directly to the American people." In otherwords, the White House figured out that it was weird to have Obama never look directly into the camera at these events. The audience watching at home only got to see the side of his head with the other TelePrompters.

It's amazing that it took a communications team that's usually so good at such details to realize the problem but at least it happened early enough to be chalked up among the 100-day achievements.