Obama for life? 22nd Amendment eyed

by Mark Silva and updated again at 6:30 pm EDT

Nearly eight months after a Senate election that left Minnesota with an undecided seat, the Minnesota Supreme Court today ordered that Democrat Al Franken be certified as the winner of the state's unsettled Senate race.

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, who waged a months-long legal defense for his seat, conceded defeat today.

"I am so excited to finally be able to get to work for the people of Minnesota," Franken, 58, said at a news conference at his home in Minneapolis. "I can't wait to get started."

Franken said he had received a "very gracious call" from Coleman after the court ruling. "He just said this is going to be the best job you'll ever have," the Democrat said.

The court rebuffed a legal challenge from Coleman, who disputed the counting of thousands of absentee ballots in a contest that Franken won by little more than 300 votes when all the accepted ballots were counted.

"Al Franken was elected to the Senate, and he ought to be able to get to work for the people of Minnesota,'' said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), chairman of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. "We've always said that Norm Coleman deserved his day in court, and he got eight months.''

"Today's decision by the Minnesota Supreme Court is terribly unfortunate for voters in the state, and fails to uphold their constitutional due process and equal protection rights,'' said Michael Thielen, director of the Republican National Lawyers Association. "By refusing to address the voters' concerns, the court has ensured that up to 4,000 voters were disenfranchised. ''

There wa a lot at stake nationally: With the state's highest court ruling that Franken is entitled to the election certificate he needs to assume office, Franken's seating and the support of two independents in the Senate offer the Democratic majority the 60 votes needed to overcome any Republican filibuster.

""I congratulate Al Franken" on his victory, Coleman said at a news conference outside his home in St. Paul. "Sure I wanted to win," the Republican said, while allowing that further litigation would damage the state's unity. "I respect (the court's) decision and, I will abide by its resultt.. We've reached a point where it's now time to come together."

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican who is not seeking reelection, has said he will certify Franken's seating once ordered by the Supreme Court. The new senator's swearing in will likely come next week after the Senate returns from a July Fourth recess.

President Barack Obama, the beneficiary of that filibuster-proof Senate, said today: "I look forward to working with Sen.-elect Franken to build a new foundation for growth and prosperity by lowering healthcare costs and investing in the kind of clean energy jobs and industries that will help America lead in the 21st Century."

Coleman was seeking a second term. Franken is more widely known for his comic work on Saturday Night Live, whose seasons do not run as long as the court contest over Minnesota's Senate election has run.

The AP contributed to this report. Photo of Al Franken outside his home in April by Craig Lassig / Los Angeles Times

by Mark Silva and updated

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina first met his South American mistress on a dance-floor in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and the two lovers had more rendez-vous than the Republican governor first admitted when publicly confessing last week that he had gone missing in Buenos Aires rather than hiking along the Appalachian Trail.

Sanford, attempting to salvage both his office and his marriage, allowed today in an interview with the Associated Press that he had met up with Maria Belen Chapur more times during the past year than he first admitted, and in more places - including New York.

They first met in 2001 at an open-air dance spot in Uruguay and met again for coffee in New York in 2004 during the Republican National Convention - though he has maintained that they hadn't struck up a romantic relationship until last year. The lovers had corresponded by emails, the more recent correspondence finding its way into the public domain.

The two had met in Punta del Este, a sensual seaside resort favored among South Americans, in 2001 after Sanford's final term in Congress and before his first term as governor. He says he counseled her into the night about her own failing marriage. "There was some kind of connection from the very beginning," he told the AP.

During a state economic development trip to South America in 2008, a sexual affair blossomed. "Now I am frightened," he told the AP, describing his state of mind at the time. "It was before safe. But now it's not safe. We gotta put the genie back in the bottle."

The two met in New York two more times in 2008, Sanford says: two nights in Manhattan in September and three nights in the Hamptons in November. He claims he flew coach, paid for the trips himself, paid for the hotels in cash and told his staff he was reachable via cell phone. He has agreed to reimburse the state for the Argentine trade trip.

Sanford said he had "let his guard down'' with other women outside his marriage, but had not taken it all the way. "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair, this was a love story," Sanford said of his Argentine affair. "A forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day."

In early 2009, after wife Jenny Sanford discovered the affair by reading one of her husband's emails, the couple went into counseling. He says he wanted to end the affair in person and, with his wife's permission, went to New York with a "trusted spiritual adviser" serving as chaperone.

But the two met again in Argentina on June 18, with the governor's office explaining that he had gone hiking on the Appalachian Trail over the Father's Day weekend, a ruse that ended with the governor making a public admission of his affair with the Argentine. The State, of Columbia, S.C., the paper that broke the story of Sanford's travel to South America, says he should serve out his term. The South Carolina Democrats have something else to say about the matter -- see their video below:

(South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford today admitted more encounters with his Argentine mistress than he previously had disclosed, in an AP interview in the governor's office today. Photo by Mary Ann Chastain / AP)

by Mark Silva

Some Democrats are accusing some Republicans of "eating their own'' in the attacks that conservatives are waging against the eight Republicans responsible for passing President Barack Obama's energy bill in a narrow House vote.

The cap-and-trade bill, which Republicans are calling "cap and tax,'' passed the House by a vote of 219-212, with the defection of 44 Democrats and the support of eight Republicans -- including Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois.

"No question that there are going to be very dire consequences for those who voted for this bill," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), says in a comment noted in the New York Times.

"It's the Republicans that made the damn thing pass, for crying out loud,'' radio's Rush Limbaugh said Monday. " Eight Republicans -- only four were needed. Eight voted for it, cap and trade. "

Michelle Malkin has posted a wanted poster on her blog featuring "the eight cap-and-tax Republicans'' and their office phone numbers.

The Republicans who saved the energy bill: Reps. Mary Bono Mack of California, Michael Castle of Delaware, Norman Dicks of Washington, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lenoard Lance of New Jersey, Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, David Reichert of Washington and Chris Smith of New Jersey.

The bill, The American Clean Energy and Security Act, faces an even rougher road in the Senate, where it could take months to resolve a bill that President Barack Obama calls "an extraordinary first step'' toward energy independence and a cleaner environment.

(Photoshopped poster of "Cap-and-tax eight'' from MichelleMalkin.com)

by Mark Silva

"This is when it gets hard,'' President Barack Obama says, half way through 2009, with a sweeping accounting of actions taken in little more than five months in office.

"This is when the criticism gets louder, when the pundits grow impatient, when cynicism seeks to reassert itself,'' says a president whose approval ratings - hovering in the high 60's in polls around his inauguration and slipping into the high 50's lately - have started to show the wear and tear of a daunting national political agenda.

"This is when we hear the same voices advocating the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place,'' Obama said last night at a fundraiser with his party's and his own campaign's leaders. "This is where we hear that change just isn't possible.''

Obama, with an assessment of all that he has accomplished in nearly six months - "not bad'' - added: "We can't be satisfied.''

Obama singled out some of his biggest supporters - Chicago hotel heiress and business executive Penny Pritzker, finance chairman of the Obama campaign, and Tim Kaine, outgoing governor of Virginia and sitting chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

"This was the first elected official outside of Illinois to endorse my campaign,'' Obama said of Kaine. "Now, think about this. This is in February of 2007. He is the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He stands beside me in Richmond, the seat of the old Confederacy, and says, 'I'm endorsing Barack Obama (and the audience laughed) for president of the United States...

"He hadn't been in office that long,'' Obama joked. "He didn't know any better... But Tim has just been an extraordinary friend, and he is now just doing an extraordinary job on behalf of the DNC.

"I look at every single table,'' the president said at the party fundraiser at Washington's tony Mandarin Hotel, "and there are people here who took their families, took their grandparents, took their cousins and nephews, and went into Iowa and went to New Hampshire and campaigned and knocked on doors and insisted to skeptics that now was the time for change in America, and lo and behold we're bringing about some change in America.

by Mark Silva

"The storm that is the honorable governor of the great state of Alaska'' gets a full weather report in Todd Purdum's lengthy and luxuriously written look at the past and possible future of the Republican who may have energized her party's base last year, but also may have helped sink its prospects.

It was Michael Steele, the party chairman, who likened Palin to a force of nature at a Right to Life dinner in Indiana. And now it is Purdum, national editor of Vanity Fair, who calls the question of "where that storm may be heading... one of the most intriguing issues in American politics today.

"Palin is at once the sexiest and the riskiest brand in the Republican Party,'' he writes. "Her appeal to people in the party (and in the country) who share her convictions and resentments is profound...

"What does it say about the nature of modern American politics that a public official who often seems proud of what she does not know is not only accepted but applauded? What does her prominence say about the importance of having (or lacking) a record of achievement in public life? ''

Palin, who wouldn't talk to the writer, is writing her own account: With a book contract and a writer, Lynn, Vincent, a senior writer at World magazine, and a publication date next year with not only HarperCollins, but also Zondervan, the Bible-publishing house.

But "the caricature of Sarah Palin that emerged in the presidential campaign, for good and ill, is now ineradicable,'' Purdum writes. "The swift journey from her knockout convention speech to Tina Fey's dead-eyed incarnation of her as Dan Quayle with an updo played out in real time...

by Mark Silva

It's summer, and the quacking of cellphones is in the air.

President Barack Obama was getting into a serious discussion about his administration's commitment to equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans when someone's cell phone went off in the East Room of the White House.

"We know that progress depends not only on changing laws but also changing hearts,'' Obama was saying, "and that real, transformative change never begins in Washington....

Quack, quack, quack, went the phone.

"Whose duck is back there?'' the president asked.

"It's a duck,'' First Lady Michelle Obama said.

"There's a duck quacking in there somewhere,'' said the president, with laughter rippling through a crowd of a few hundred.

"Where do you guys get these ring tones, by the way? '' the president asked. "I'm just curious.''

The phone silenced, the president continued: "Indeed, that's the story of the movement for fairness and equality -- not just for those who are gay, but for all those in our history who've been denied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship; who've been told that the full blessings and opportunities of this country were closed to them.''

by James Oliphant

The Supreme Court's reversal Monday of a discrimination ruling involving a group of white Connecticut firefighters has provided critics of high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor with some fresh ammunition.

Republican senators and conservative groups contend that the justices' 5-4 ruling on Ricci vs. DeStefano represents a rebuke of Sotomayor's handling of the case. She was a member of a three-judge panel on the federal appeals court in New York that heard the action and sided against the white firefighters.

"This case will only raise more questions in the minds of the American people concerning Judge Sotomayor's commitment to treat each individual fairly and not as a member of a group," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Sotomayor's confirmation hearings before the committee are scheduled to begin July 13.

The New Haven, Conn., firefighters sued under federal civil rights laws after the results of a promotion test were thrown out. The city feared it would face a lawsuit from black and Latino firefighters claiming the tests had a discriminatory effect on minorities. The white plaintiffs lost at the trial court and before Sotomayor's appeals court panel, but prevailed Monday in the Supreme Court.

See the full story on Sotomayor and the firefighters in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama said today, at the White House, that he should be judged by the promises he keeps.

He said so to an audience promised much.

The president addressed a few hundred at an East Room reception honoring LGBT Pride Month. The open bar may have been little consolation for a crowd to whom the president has promised to repeal the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy for gays and lesbians serving in the military and action on other matters of gay rights.

"I know that many in this room don't believe that progress has come fast enough,'' the president told his invited audience.

"We have made progress, and we will make more,'' said Obama, who recently signed an order enabling the domestic partners of federal workers to have government health and insurance benefits. The Obama administration also will take a count of gay and lesbian married couples in the 2010 Census.

Obama urged his audience to judge him "by the promises my administration keeps,''

by Mark Silva

Sing along now:

"I like beer,
"It makes me a jolly good fellow...''

Four in ten of those surveyed prefer suds.

That's among the nearly two-thirds of Americans who say they are known to drink on occasion. On average, they've had 4.8 alcoholic drinks during the past week - (right, it was that eight-tenths that did it.)

The annual drinking survey served up by the Gallup Poll, -finally, a poll that makes no mention of any partisan divide, or any Republican or Democratic opinion whatsoever - has found that, among the 64 percent who say they drink some, 40 percent preferred beer, 34 percent wine, 21 percent liquor. (We assume the other 5 like gasoline.)

Now, drinkers have grown more refined through the years.

The recession has taken a certain toll, too.

On the eve of the Clinton administration - oops, we weren't going to talk about politics - beer was the runaway favorite of drinking Americans: 47 percent said so in 1992. Wine had only a 27 percent share of the drinking public's allegiance. But beer does not go well with arugula.

Most men still prefer beer, while half of women choose wine - but we're sorry, the Swamp does not recognize white Zinfandel as a bona fide drink of any category.

Beer is still biggest in the Midwest, a statistic which was borne out by our son's last visit to the Pierogi Festival in Whiting, Ind., and his pictures of the street crowd. You cannot wash down a 92-pound pierogi with a spritzer.

College graduates are more likely to name wine than beer.

We've got a couple of degrees under our own (38-inch) belt, however, and we're here to tell you that, despite an unquenchable taste for a good Cabernet or Barolo....

"This little refrain,
Will help me explain,
As a matter of fact, I like beer.''

by David G. Savage

The Supreme Court ruled today that white firefighters who lost promotions in New Haven, Conn., were victims of illegal racial discrimination, with the court holding that employers should not rely on "raw racial statistics" to set aside a fair test.

The 5-4 decision clarifies the federal job-discrimination laws for employers, both private and public, and it says that the primary goal of the Civil Rights Act is to remove race as a factor in hiring and promotions.

"No individual should face workplace discrimination based on race," said Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, overturning a ruling by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and two other judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York.

The ruling says New Haven officials were wrong to set aside the results of a 2003 test after they learned no black firefighters were among the top scorers, and therefore, would not be eligible for a promotion to lieutenant or captain.

by Mark Silva

This is not Madame Tussauds.

This is not Duane Hanson.

This is the Paris Grevin Wax Museum, we're talking about here.

And this newest wax entry is a lifelike rendition of President Barack Obama, presented today in front of the Eiffel Tower.

The wax Obama goes into the collection today.

The first lady's favorite food is (are?) French fries. So now the French can wax poetic about the Obamas.

(Photo by Michel Euler / AP)

by Peter Nicholas and Mark Silva

The Obamas are in search of a church.

Time magazine said today in an online article that the president and his family had found a new sanctuary: The Evergreen Chapel, at the Camp David presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland.

But apparently Time got it wrong.

"The president and first family continue to look for a church home,'' White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki said today. "They have enjoyed worshipping at Camp David and several other congregations over the months, and will choose a church at the time that is best for their family."

The suggestion behind Time's report about the Camp David sanctuary was that the president was unhappy about the public disruption caused by his limited appearances at the 19th Street Baptist Church in Washington on the weekend before his inauguration and his more recent Sunday visit to St. John's Episcopal Church across a park from the White House. Former President George W. Bush and wife Laura often attended St. John's on Sundays.

The 150-seat Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, a rustic stone-and-glass structure, was built using private money. President George H.W. Bush dedicated it in 1991. Each week, Time notes, regardless of whether the president is there, Evergreen Chapel holds nondenominational Christian services open to the nearly 400 military personnel and staff at Camp David and their families.

If it takes a village to raise a child, and a motorcade to move the president around town, it takes a fleet of helicopters to ferry him to Camp David, and the truth is, the president hasn't spent much time there since his election.

The first family plans to spend the long Fourth of July weekend at the cool mountain retreat, about 1,500 feet above sea level and the heat of Washington, before the president heads to Moscow and a Group of Eight summit in Italy the following week.

When he comes home from the G-8, and also a side trip to Ghana on that international journey, it appears the president and first family still will be looking for a church they can call home.

by Mark Silva

New cover for those embarrassing extramarital escapades in the ranks of the Republican Party's 2012 prospects: A report from New York that campaign videos aren't all that Democrat John Edwards' mistress was making for the party's 2004 vice presidential nominee and would-be contender for the 2008 top nomination.

The New York Daily News reports that "someone who has seen'' the book proposal that former Edwards aide Andrew Young made to St. Martin's Press, which has signed the author, reports that the former senator from North Carolina and videographer Rielle Hunter once made a sex tape.

While he was unpacking, the News notes, Young discovered a videocassette, according to the book pitch. "Hunter had been hired by the Edwards campaign to videotape the candidate's movements,'' note the News' Rush and Molloy, "but this one is said to have shown him taking positions that weren't on his official platform.''

Edwards' wife Elizabeth, who has written her own memoir, is said to hold Young partly to blame for the affair because Young knew about it and sometimes used his cell phone to conference the senator and his girlfriend. "Young has told friends that, in revenge, Elizabeth arranged for the media to learn about a youthful misdeameanor in which Young was arrested for stealing a sign from a biker bar.''

Yikes. Mark Sanford can only wish for more details.

Young's book proposal, which one editor called "impossible to put down," also contends that Edwards frequently clashed with running mate John Kerry during their 2004 race for the White House. "And before Edwards owned up to his affair with Hunter, Young says he told him that Barack Obama had promised he'd make him attorney general if he didn't pick him as his 2008 running mate.''

The News adds some obligatory disclaimers here: "Elizabeth Edwards and Young's agent had no comment. An e-mail to John Edwards' assistant wasn't returned. Hunter couldn't be reached.''

by Mark Silva

"'Cap and trade' is a loser,'' says former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., a Democrat, and he supports the energy bill that the House has passed by the narrowest of margins.

It's the shorthand for the American Clean Energy and Securit Act, he suggests, that will drag down a bill that cleared the House by 219-212 and which, by most accounts, lacks the votes for passage in the Senate as it stands today.

"Cap and tax,'' the Republicans are calling it.

But, by any other name, the concept at the heart of the legislation -- capping the greenhouse gases that American industry produces and allowing companies to trade with one another for the rights to emissions that they need in their power-generation and manufacturing -- is critical to the goal of combatting global warming, advocates insist.

Republicans count on the cost of the bill to kill it. Republicans are denouncing it as "a national energy tax.''

But this is the "tax" they're talking about: The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the average American household could pay an added $175 a year in energy costs by 2020 if this bill becomes law. By 2020. As if the average household won't be paying more for energy by then, with or without the legislation. And what, the supporters may remind a doubting public, will everyone be paying for pollution?

Ford, a former congressman from Tennessee who ran for Senate, maintains that sponsors must start framing the legislation as a matter of energy independence and energy security -- touting the alternative sources of energy, solar and wind, that will be
promoted as polluters are weaned from CO2-producing power. That was his message today in an appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe.

The White House, which pushed the bill through the House -- with the help of eight Republicans who bucked their party's leadership -- will spend the next several days in a sales-campaign for a bill which President Barack Obama himself, making his own pitch to reporters on Sunday, called "an extraordinary first step'' toward energy independence and a cleaner environment. The administration says it will produce millions of new jobs.

That campaign will be made all the more difficult in the face of the "cap and tax'' argument, and the argument of Republicans such as Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa that the only signs manufacturers will be hanging on their doors about jobs will be the ones that read: "Gone to China.''

by Mark Silva

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford allows that he considered quitting as he acknowledged the affair with an Argentinian that carried him away over the Father's Day weekend, but says he is determined to see his term out.

Sanford, 49, spoke with the Associated Press on Sunday as he was leaving his Sullivans Island beach home -- his wife and four boys leaving in a separate car, he acknowledged. And Maria Belen Chapur, 41, the Buenos Aires woman involved with the Republican governor, also acknowledged the affair on Sunday -- the divorced mother of two calling it "very painful to me, my two children, my entire family and close friends."

In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Sanford said he had thought about stepping down to rebuild his life. But spiritual advisers and political associates urged him to instead "fight to restore people's trust" and finish out the 18 months left in his term.

"Resigning would be the easiest thing to do," Sanford said Sunday.

Among those spiritual advisers:Warren ''Cubby'' Culbertson, who joined the governor and his wife Sunday afternoons in May as they hosted five other couples at the executive mansion for a spiritual "boot camp." They spoke of forgiveness and "not loving your wife as Christ loved the church."

Group leader Culbertson did not tell the other four couples what he and his wife, Susan, had known for months: The governor was having an affair with the woman in Argentina. When Jenny Sanford confronted her husband in January after finding a letter to "Maria" among his official papers, the governor turned to Culbertson.

In a weekend interview with The Associated Press in Columbia, Culbertson said he believed his friend when he said that this was his only marital transgression. He thinks Sanford was simply caught off guard by "the power of darkness."

"Part of walking humbly is you've got to listen to your critics out there," Sanford said outside his beach home Sunday. "And all of us will have critics, and the higher you go, I suppose, the more critics you have."

Salvaging his marriage of 20 years is another question. His wife, Jenny, and four sons were headed to his family's farm -- where his 83-year-old mother lives -- in Beaufort.

"I am sorry," Sanford said, repeating a public apology that he has issued to family, friends and his state since acknolwedging last week that he had gone to Argentina, not on a hiking trip on the Appalachian Trail as his office had said, when he disappeared for several days a week ago. "I apologize for letting everyone down."

Sanford, like Nevada Sen. John Ensign, who also recently acknowledged an extramarital affair, had been considered among the Republican Party's prospects for the 2012 campaigns. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, another party star, allowed Sunday that the Republican "brand'' has suffered with Sanford's and Ensign's admissions.

by Peter Nicholas and Mark Silva

The weather held long enough on a foreboding day in Washington, with the rain starting to fall now, for "Renegade,'' a.k.a. the president, to fit in 18 holes of golf.

President Barack Obama's golf outing -- his eighth here since election -- included Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and administration aides Marvin Nicholson and Eugene Kang (wearing a University of Michigan hat).

The press pool that spent four hours cooling its heels at Andrews Air Force Base today initially had been told Obama would play only nine holes at the base course, but Nicholson reported that the weather held up and there was no need to quit at the turn.

"Renegade departed the 10th green,'' the pool could hear on the radio.

Who won?

"You'll have to ask Gibbs,'' Nicholson said after arriving back at the White House.

by Jim Tankersley

President Obama this afternoon called a House-passed energy bill "an extraordinary first step" toward curing global warming and reducing fossil fuels, but he expressed reservations about a controversial provision that would slap tariffs on imports from countries that do not similarly crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.

Meeting with energy reporters in the Oval Office, Obama predicted the energy bill, approved in a narrow vote on Friday, would spark a wave of innovation and job-creation, and that its costs to consumers would ultimately fall well short of critics' warnings. "What seems contentious now is going to seem like common sense in hindsight," he said.

The House bill sets a declining cap on the greenhouse gas emissions scientists blame for global warming. Power plants, factories and other major emitters would need to obtain permits for their emissions or buy "offsets," such as newly planted trees, that reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The bill also includes strict energy efficiency standards and requirements for wind, solar and other renewable electricity use nationwide.

After factoring in that bill, strict new vehicle fuel standards he announced in May and hundreds of billions of dollars in energy-related spending packed into the economic stimulus, Obama boasted, "over the first six months" of his administration, "we've seen more action on shifting ourselves away from our dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels than at any time in several decades."

"If you had asked people six months ago or even six weeks ago for that matter if you could get an energy bill with the scope of the one we saw Friday through the House," he said, "people would have said no way."

by Mark Silva

The Republican "brand'' has suffered with the admissions of extramarital affairs by two of the party's most promising members, another Republican prospect for national office said today.

The confessions of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and Nevada Sen. John Ensign in recent weeks have taken a yet immeasurable toll, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said this morning, in an appearance on CNN's State of the Union.

"It's hard to quantify that,'' Pawlenty told CNN's John King. "But, clearly, there's been damage. Any time you have leading figures who are engaged in behavior that is sad and troubling and hypocritical,other people are going to look at that and say,'Hmm, they don't walk the walk.' And so the words and the actions don't ring true.

"But it's a sad and troubling situation with Jenny and Mark Sanford,'' said Pawlenty, who was considered as a potential GOP running mate last year, will not be seeking another term as governor but could be a national contender in the future.

"I'm proud of Jenny for her strength and her commitment to her family and keeping that family together,'' he said. "And, frankly, I was glad to see her not standing at the press conference like many others have, and, kind of, charting her own path, saying, look, I'm willing to forgive him, but I'm not going to stand there and condone this in any way.

"But it certainly hurts the brand. It's hard to quantify it.''

As for his own plans, and any possibility of seeking that GOP presidential nomination down the road, Pawlenty said: "You know, John, I don't know what the future holds for me, but I do know this. I feel strongly about the values and principles for the Republican Party. I believe I have something to say about that.''

Here, courtesy of CNN, is a transcript of the Pawlenty interview:

by Mark Silva

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, calling the energy bill that cleared the House "a national energy tax,'' accuses the Democrats of driving up spending and taxes with everything from energy initiatives to their healthcare reforms.

"What they really have in mind... is to create a government-run plan after which there won't be any insurance companies,'' McConnell (R-Ky.) said of the Democratic healthcare reform agenda, in an appearance on FOX News Sunday.

"Right now we have a whole lot of private insurance companies and a whole lot of competition. That would eliminate that."

As for the energy bill that cleared the House narrowly -- with the help of eight Republicans in the House: "I don't think putting clamps on our economy when you know the Chinese and the Indians are not going to do it is a good idea.

"Why not develop technology to burn coal cleanly and build new nuclear power plants? The French, for example, produce 85 percent of their power from nuclear plants. They don't have a CO2 emission problem."

McConnell addressed these and other issues today:

by Mark Silva

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court, holds substantial public support, according to one new survey.

With the Senate Judiciary Committee preparing for confirmation hearings in two weeks, a Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that most Americans view Sotomayor as "about right'' ideologicially, with 62 percent supporting her confirmation.

Sotomayor, poised to become the first Hispanic justice and just the third woman on the high court, draws support equally among men and women, the poll finds.

While most Republicans view Sotomayor as "too liberall,'' overall, 55 percent of Americans surveyed see the appellate judge from New York as about right on a liberal-to-conservative scale. About one in four view her as too liberal.

"The majority of Americans who want the court to retain the landmark abortion decision Roe v. Wade has remained remarkably steady over the years, and currently six in 10 Americans would want the new justice to vote to uphold it,'' the Post notes. Sotomayor's stance on this, however, has been difficult for observers to fathom, based on her decade and a half on federal benches.

by Mark Silva and updated with transcript

The White House has drawn no lines in the sand in its push for healthcare reform, a senior adviser to the president says, but congressional Republicans appear intent on using inaction as a political strategy.

David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political adviser, says the president is not issuing any ultimatums in the healthcare debate. That, Axelrod suggested in an appearance on ABC News' This Week With George Stephanopoulos today, is how great ideas die in Washington.

Despite reluctance about the cost of healthcare reforms - with Senate Democratic leaders working to contain the cost of their bill to $1 trillion - Axelrod maintains that the White House has made progress on a plan. Obama has proposed broad guidelines, he suggested, is counting on Congress to fill in the details and wants to see final legislation enacted before Congress leaves for vacation in August.

At the same time, Axelrod suggested, the GOP is using its opposition to the energy and climate bill that squeaked through the House on Friday and awaits action in the Senate as a strategy for next year's midterm congressional elections.

"We're trying to solve a problem that has languished for a decade, the problem of energy that has bedeviled us for a long time.,'' Axelrod said. "And they're talking about how they can use it as an issue, inaction as somehow a strategy. And that's not a strategy."

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) maintains that the energy bill and healthcare proposals are all part of a Democratic "spending binge" for which the party will pay at the polls next year.

While Republicans call the cap and trade energy bill a job- killer and tax increase, Axelrod calls the criticism a "phony issue" with a "negligible" impact on the averrage American. The bill, he says, will create millions of environmentally friendly jobs.

And, as we noted in these e-pages, stirring some discussion this weekend, a handful of the House's Republicans, including Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois, can claim the credit for moving a bill through the House that the GOP leadership tried to block.

Here, courtesy of ABC News, is a transcript of Axelrod's interview:

by Mark Silva

First Lady Michelle Obama,

or British Prime Minister Gordon Brown?

Queen Elizabeth, or Harry Potter?

For Rupert Grint, one of the fellows who plays in the popular Harry Potter films, there really isn't any question of who makes for a more exciting meeting.

And as for Michelle Obama, well, according to the Potter cast member, so take this with a certain grain of self-serving publicity stunt salt, the first lady's recent visit to the Potter film set was "more exciting'' than her Buckingham Palace meeting with Queen Elizabeth - "a lot cooler.''

The gossipy Mail of London, consumed today with the most salacious talk surrounding Michael Jackson's death, also caught up with Grint, who plays Ron Weasley in the films, on the set of Deathly Hallows. The filming near Watford had to pause for a visit by Michelle Obama and her daughters as they passed through Great Britain in April.

"I'm not easily impressed by famous people, but nothing's matched this,' Grint said of the meeting.

"I didn't think I was going to be nervous, then this huge motorcade pulled up at the studio and Michelle stepped out of a black Range Rover and everybody was speechless,'' he said, allowing: "It's hard to imagine Gordon Brown having that kind of effect.

Grint, who also talks about the ultimate challenge of the transition to adult acting and shedding those Potter roles - sort of like Sean Connery's saga of shedding James Bond - nevertheless is part of a fictional world that has lured young and old alike.

"'We sat around, ate cake and chatted. She said that the president is a big fan of the films and loves the books, and that she'd met the Queen the day before - but visiting the Potter set was far more exciting, that we were a lot cooler. It was hard to take it all in. I kept thinking, "Here I am talking to the First Lady."

(Actor Rupert Grint, in a Mail feature photo above, visited the Harry Potter shop at FAO Schwarz in New York in 2007, photo by FAO Schwarz, Diane Bondareff, via AP. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama met Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in April, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife Sarah, greeted Obama and wife Michelle at 10 Downing Street, photos by Matt Dunham / AP.)

by Mark Silva

When a vote is close, any number of reasons can explain it.

But, for all the Republican Party's criticism of the far-reaching Obama administration energy and climate control bill that narrowly cleared the House on Friday - by a vote of 219-212 - Republicans are responsible for passing it.

Eight Republicans - including Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois - bucked their party's leadership to vote for the bill capping greenhouse gas emissions and enabling polluters to trade rights for emissions to one another. President Barack Obama says it will spur development of alternative energy - wind and solar-power - and create millions of new jobs in the bargain. Republicans call it a "national energy tax,'' and a "carbon tax.'

Just as three Republicans in the Senate helped save Obama's economic stimulus spending act when it passed the Senate, a handful of Republicans have saved his energy bill in the House - which leads to the question of which Republicans will help pass the president's healthcare reform act.

With 44 Democrats turning against the energy bill on the House floor, the majority needed all the help it could find from Republicans to save it. And they found that with a cast of eight, including a few from New Jersey, where they know something about pollution.

The Republicans who saved the energy bill: Reps. Mary Bono of California, Michael Castle of Delaware, Norman Dicks of Washington, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Lenoard Lance of New Jersey, Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, David Reichert of Washington and Chris Smith of New Jersey.

While Republican leaders slam the Democratic majority for ramming through a 1,200-page bill that few, if any, have read, Kirk says he made a point of reading the whole thing.

You'll find the names of the 44 Democrats who voted against it at the House clerk's roll call on the American Clean Energy and Security Act.

by Mark Silva

House Republican Leader John Boehner, critical of what he calls a Democratic "spending binge'' on the economy, healthcare and energy, said today that all the president's promises of new jobs are empty.

The nation could lose millions of more jobs under the president's healthcare reform, the Ohio Republican says in the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address.

The Republicans have "a better alternative'' for healthcare, "without new taxes'' and without a "government takeover'' of healthcare, Boehner says.

Boehner also critcicizes "Nancy Pelosi's national energy tax,'' the one that narrowly cleared the House on Friday.

"We should be creating. American jobs, not destroying them,'' says Boehner, suggesting that nuclear energy and "clean coal'' will provide that.

He is calling on Democrats to abandon their "failed, go-it-alone approach,'' and listen to the Republican criticism and "common-sense'' alternatives.

See the address above.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, celebrating the House's passage of an energy bill that will ultimately cap greenhouse gas emissions and enable power companies and other polluters to trade their rights for emissions to one another, hailed the measure today as key to promoting alternative sources of energy and creating many new jobs.

Republican leaders are calling the measure "Nancy Pelosi's national energy tax'' and "a carbon tax.'' Environmentalists are calling it the most important measure ever.

The bill, which cleared the House by 219-212 on Friday -- defections on both sides, 44 Democrats opposing it, eight Republicans supporting it. Senate action comes next.

"The energy bill that passed the House will finally create a set of incentives that will spark a clean energy transformation in our economy,' the president said today, in his weekly radio and Internet address.

"It will spur the development of low carbon sources of energy - everything from wind, solar, and geothermal power to safer nuclear energy and cleaner coal,'' Obama said. "It will spur new energy savings, like the efficient windows and other materials that reduce heating costs in the winter and cooling costs in the summer. And most importantly, it will make possible the creation of millions of new jobs.''

(See the president's address above and read it below:)

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama was 21 years old when singer Michael Jackson moon-walked across the stage of a Motown anniversary celebration, in 1983.

His White House staff remembers that moonwalk.

But the president had no public comment today for the passing of the 50-year-old pop icon. Obama left that to his spokesman.

"I talked to him about it this morning,'' Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said of the president and the pop-star. "He said to me that obviously Michael Jackson was a spectacular performer, a music icon. I think everybody remembers hearing his songs, watching him moonwalk on television during Motown's 25th anniversary.

"But the president also said, you know, look, he had... aspects of his life were sad and tragic. (The president's) condolences went out to the Jackson family and to fans that mourned his loss.'' (Not an actual call, Gibbs said, but rather a public wish.)

Why no written statement, as is sometimes issued in the passing of a famous personality?

"Because I just said it,'' Gibbs said.

Obama, who played host to Stevie Wonder in a recent White House performance honoring a musician who had served as a mentor and producer for Michael Jackson, apparently had never met Jackson himself. Obama has called Wonder's music "the soundtrack of my youth.'' But Gibbs says he doesn't believe Obama and Jackson ever met.

Gibbs was asked why the White House, pressed for a comment and silent last night, was offering one today. "I think we said there wasn't going to be a statement,'' he said. "So... I asked the president what he thought about it today and, as his spokesman, passed that along to you.''

by Mark Silva

The governor of South Carolina, who skipped out for a few days to see his mistress in South America, draws inspiration in his bid for redemption from a certain Biblical figure:

King David.

The Republican governor, apologizing to state agency chiefs today for keeping them in the dark when he left for Buenos Aires for a rendezvous with his lover, told the Palmetto State's Cabinet that King David will offer a guiding path for him.

King David fell mightily, the governor reminded his Cabinet, but picked up the pieces and built from there.

The analogy may end in Argentina, however.

Sanford offered specific apologizes to the agencies that handle his security and economic development trips, saying he put those leaders in awkward spots. Sanford is repaying the state for his travel on a Commerce Department trade mission to South America last year, a diplomatic trip that was bolstering another foreign relationship.

The Associated Press contributed.
.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama said today that expected House passage of an energy bill controlling greenhouse gas emissions will affirm an American "commitment'' to combating global warming, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it "a sea change'' in U.S. policy.

The two leaders, speaking at a joint news conference following a private meeting at the White House, also reaffirmed their commitment to preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and voiced their common outrage over Iran's violent suppression of election protestors.

This was the third time that Obama and Merkel had met since Obama's election - though they had met once during Obama's campaign for president. And the two will meet again soon, at a summit for the leaders of the Group of Eight industrial nations in Italy in early July, and at a Group of 20 summit planned in Pittsburgh in September.

Merkel and other European leaders have been critical of the U.S. spending strategy for stimulus of a recession-bound economy.

And Merkel and others long have pushed the U.S. to take a tougher stance on climate control - the European leaders had urged former President George W. Bush to support caps on greenhouse gas emissions that the Obama administration now is embracing with expected passage of an energy bill by the House today.

"I reiterated America's commitment to stand with Germany and lead in confronting the energy and environmental crisis,'' Obama said, with Merkel at his side in an East Room news conference following their meeting in the Oval Office. "It is my hope that the United States will match that commitment today.''

The energy legislation which House leaders hope to pass today features a "cap-and-trade" system of limiting heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions that scientists blame for global warming.

Under this plan, major emitters of greenhouse gases -- including factories and power plants -- would have to obtain permits for their emissions or buy "offsets" to cover them. The number of permits are to decrease each year, reducing overall emissions by more than 80 percent by 2050. Most emitters would initially get free permits, but in later years would purchase them at auction.

"This is indeed a sea change,'' Merkel said of the bill, speaking through an interpreter at the joint news conference. "This really points to the fact that the United States really is very serious on climate.

"The fact that, with the United States, we stand where we are today is an enormous success, which I would not have thought possible a year ago,'' Merkel said, without naming the former president by name.

by Mark Silva and Richard Simon

The United States House of Representatives marked a moment of silence today for Michael Jackson, the pop music icon who died in Los Angeles at the age of 50.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) told the House: "If there is a God, and I believe there is, and that God distributes grace and mercy and talent to all of his children, on Aug. 29, 1958, he visited Gary, Indiana, and touched a young man with an abundance of his blessings.

"With that gift that young man, Michael Jackson, would touch and change the world,'' Rep. Jackson said. "I come to the floor today on behalf of a generation to thank God for letting all of us live in his generation and his era.''

``A young man has left Earth, but now resides in the stars,'' said Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.) And the House stood silent.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, also issued a written statement later:

"Michael Jackson was an icon who inspired generations around the world through song and dance. His contributions to American music are innumerable and the genius of his talent will endure for years to come. Our thoughts and prayers are with Michael's family as we mourn and remember this incredible human being who touched the lives of millions."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said later today that President Barack Obama saw Jackson as a spectacular performer and music icon whose life nonetheless had sad and tragic aspects. Obama sends his condolences to the late singer's family and fans, Gibbs said when asked, but the White House did not issue any formal statement.

by Mark Silva and updated

For two days, established news Websites and flashy gossip sites alike have posted the slug, Maria Belen Chapur, or Maria Belen Shapur, in a shameless bid for more traffic on the Internet, without any photo to show for the link.

So it seems fitting that the site known as Bitten and Bound should lay claim to finally posting the first photographs of the Argentine lover of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford. Though we really have no idea if they've got this right or not -- so credit this photo and others there to Bitten and Bound:

The site that revels in "the not so pretty side of Hollywood'' has stepped into the not so pretty side of politics, where some are calling for the resignation of South Carolina's governor and father of four because of the affair that lured him to Argentina on Father's Day and others are suggesting that Sanford serve out his term.

If Sanford's in a political mire, the Argentine press advises us that Sanford's mistress lives next door to the Buenos Aires Zoo.

Maria Belen Chapur, identified by the Argentine press as the woman named "Maria'' whom the governor of South Carolina got to know through a long correspondence of email that blossomed into romance, is 43, works for an international agriculture firm and is fluent in several languages.

The Columbia, S.C.-based The State's McClatchy correspondent in South America also reports that she "worked as a journalist and translator of English for about a year for the Argentine television station Canal America, according to Gabriel Bartos, then a producer with Canal America.'' She reported from New York after 9/11.

The Week also has a screen grab of that correspondent named Maria Belen Chapur reporting from New York -- and if that was 2001, could the two be one and the same?

Divorced, she lives with her teenage sons in an upscale 14-story apartment building in Buenos Aires, next to the zoo, Terra Noticias notes.

She is described as "a beautiful brunette with big eyes who plays tennis on a nearby lawn and runs every morning in her neighborhood.''

Terra Noticias reports that Belen speaks English, Portuguese and Chinese, and that the company she works for, Bunge y Born, has 25,000 employees in more than 30 countries, including 1,000 in Argentina.

by Mark Silva

Will the betting line on Ben Bernanke's longevity at the Federal Reserve improve with these words from President Barack Obama's senior adviser?

The president "has a great deal of confidence" in the Federal Reserve chairman, Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett said today on CNBC's Squawk Box. "He oversaw the whole stress test, which was complicated and could have been unpredictable, and we came through that very well.''

Bernanke gets "great marks" because "many of the banks are now in a position where they can return the money the Federal Reserve loaned them,'' says Jarrett, who takes part in the daily economic briefings that the President gets with National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

"The worst kept secret in economic circles in Washington is that Larry Summers, President Barack Obama's chief economic guru, covets Ben Bernanke's job,'' FOX Business Network's Matt Egan suggests. "But concerns over Summers' temperament and how financial markets would react to a new Fed chief, as well as positive feedback about Bernanke's performance during the credit crisis, suggest Summers would be smart to keep his day job.''

Bernanke has confronted tough questioning from Congress about his conduct in Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch. But Jarrett said Bernanke "did very well" in his testimony.

"I'm not going to make news about Ben Bernanke,'' Obama said at his news conference this week, " although I think he has done a fine job under very difficult circumstances.

(Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified on Capitol Hill on Thursday at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the Bank of America acquisition of Merrill Lynch. (Photo by Kevin Wolf / AP)

by Mark Silva

The lieutenant governor of South Carolina, who clearly was miffed when the governor of South Carolina went missing for a few days, says today that Gov. Mark Sanford should not resign because of the Argentine love affair behind his behavior.

And Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has plenty of cause to wish Sanford an early farewell. The fellow Republican, though no ally of the governor, is expected to seek the office next year -- and allows today that he'd be in a better position to run if he stepped in as a replacement now.

Bauer told the Associated Press today that he had spoken with Sanford on Thursday, and the two did not discuss the possibility of a resignation in the aftermath of the governor's admission that he has been carrying on with a woman from Buenos Aires for the past year and had gone to see her when he disappeared from public view over the Father's Day weekend. Sanford's love emails to Maria Belen Shapur have surfaced in the past week, while the father of four has struggled to salvage his marriage.

Earlier this week, before Sanford's whereabouts were revealed -- and during the time that the governor's staff maintained that he had gone hiking on the Appalachian Trail -- the lieutenant governor said: "I cannot take lightly that his staff has not had communication with him for more than four days, and that no one, including his own family, knows his whereabouts.''

Bauer, expected to run for governor in 2010, has not formally announced his plans. Sanford, serving his second term, is precluded from reelection by term limits. He had been considered a potential presidential candidate for 2012,, but probably has forfeited that as well with an extramarital affair that has mushroomed into a political problem -- the governor has agreed to repay the state for his travel on a Commerce Department trade mission to South America last year which involved more than promoting the goods of the Palmetto State.

by Mark Silva

Could there be anything more ghoulish than the image of klieg lights and satellite trucks assembled before dawn today outside the compound of the Los Angeles County Coroner awaiting word of what killed Michael Jackson, who died this week, at 50, after imprinting his music and morphing face on generations.

The macabre circus surrounding the singer's death seems only appropriate, however, for a man whose public behavior and personal conduct tested the limits of the public's tolerance for an extraordinarily talented performer whose music was endlessly irresistible but whose persona had become undeniably repulsive.

In the midst of all the memories surfacing with the sudden death of a pop singer - the Elvis Presley of his times -- it seemed that we saw a collective yearning to revive the image of the youngest and brightest star of The Jackson Five, to wash away that face of the reclusive proprietor of the bizarre Neverland ranch.

Jackson "was and will remain one of the greatest entertainers that ever lived," Motown founder Berry Gordy said today. "He was exceptional, artistic and original. He gave the world his heart and soul through his music."

"He was not called Jacko the Whacko for nothing, with all due respect,'' MSNBC entertainment reporter Courtney Hazlett said today.

And therein lies the contradiction in the indisputable popularity and.alleged prurience of an unrivalled pop star. He was the greatest dancer of all time, according to Fred Astaire, the "Thriller'' of two generations, really, who elevated the art of popular music and motion to a standard that others have only mimicked. He was the perfecter of the Moon Walk, the king of MTV, and the father of a two-year-old baby whom he called a prince while dangling him from a balcony for unquestioning fans.

In his last stand, the publicity stunt promoting a "final'' tour starting in London this year, he insisted that this was it, he would be finished as a performer. The tour was sold out. Once the Los Angeles coroner has explained how the show closed, we will likely spend years reclaiming the memory of the nine-year-old Michael Jackson from Gary, Ind., whom we first met on the public stage, a singer whose songs will not soon be forgotten.

(The young Michael Jackson, at 13, is pictured above, in 1972. The performer Michael Jackson is pictured at a Madison Square Garden "Jackson Five Victory Tour" in 1984, photo by Ebet Roberts/ Redferns. The accused Michael Jackson, later acquitted, arriving at a courthouse in Santa Anna, in 2005, photo by Kimberly White / pool / via AP)

by Mark Silva

That report on the congressional luau on the tiki torch-lined South Lawn of the White House, inhabited by that president who was born in Hawaii:

A crowd of congressmen and women and families in colorful attire -- Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) in a light blue Hawaiian shirt, Rep. Barney Frank ( D-Mass.) in a dark green one and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Me.) in some sort of tropical garb - milled about, talking on and typing on BlackBerries as the president and family stepped out.

The president, wearing a purple lei, walked from the Oval Office holding the hand of daughter Sasha as Ray Charles' "What I Say" played over the public address system. Daughter Mailia, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden followed, all bedecked with leis. Also came Bo, the first dog.

"Aloha!" the president called out to the crowd. "I wish I could have given you a trip to Hawaii. Given our budget crunch, we can't do that, so at least we can bring Hawaii to you."

"In case you didn't know, this is Malia Obama," the president said. "This is Sasha Obama, this is Michelle Obama, and the star of the family, Bo Obama."

The crowd dined on wasabi potato salad, farm green salad, Lomi Lomi salmon, stuffed new potatoes, BBQ baby back ribs, Kalua Pig - cooked in the kitchen, not in any pit dug in the South Lawn -- shrimp and clams. Chefs on site also prepared tilapia tempura rolls, crispy chicken hoagie, grilled lamb chops and spiced short ribs.

For dessert: Strawberry Tiramisu and chocolate bars.

At a thatched-roof bar, Kona Brewing Co.'s Longboard Lager was served. (The pooler notes that it gets a B-minus at BeerAdvocate.com)

The pool was not permitted to linger to see Press Secretary Robert Gibbs or Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel take a turn in the dunk tank. Gibbs, however, appeared to have mostly dried off from his earlier dunk in the tank.

(Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia pictured above in a photo by Mandel Ngan / AP )

by Mark Silva

In the diplomatic trade, the hardship embassies go to career diplomats.

The posh posts often go to the privileged and campaign contributors.

So it goes in Rome, where the American ambassador resides in a gardened villa the envy of anyone in the business.

President Barack Obama today nominated David Thorne, a longtime close friend of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic Party's 2004 presidential nominee, and twin brother of Kerry's first wife, to serve as the American ambassador to the Italian Republic and Republic of San Marino.

Thorne, born of a wealthy Boston family and cofounder of a mutual fund investment firm, was only a modest campaign contributor for the Obama campaign, though a faithful donor to the campaigns of his longtime friend, Kerry. The two played soccer together at Yale, were members of Skull and Bones, traveled to Europe and went off to war in Vietnam together.

The two Navy veterans wrote the book, The New Soldier, in 1971 - about American veterans disaffected with the war in Vietnam.

by Mark Silva

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among the European leaders who have pressed the United States hardest on the question of climate change, is arriving in Washington for a meeting with President Barack Obama as the House prepares to vote on the "Clean Energy and Security Act.''

This will be Merkel's fourth meeting with Obama - with the German leader planning to speak with her American counterpart about climate protection and the global economy. The two plan a joint press availability at the White House on Friday.

"I am very much looking forward to the visit," Merkel said before leaving Berlin today.

The timing may not be quite perfect, however.

"As the House heads toward a vote on landmark global warming legislation, Democratic leaders are still trying to shore up support from pockets of resistance in their own party,'' Congressional Quarterly reports. "House leaders are trying to secure a majority for passage in time for a floor vote on Friday.

But Agriculture Chairman Collin C. Peterson ( D-Minn.). who has been working with bill sponsors on specific details, said the vote could be delayed until Saturday.

(Climate activists of the pressure group Avaaz ("Voice") dressed as super heroes German chancellor Angela Merkel, left, and President Barack Obama, right, in front of Brandenburg gate in Berlin today calling on Merkel to return to her previous status as 'EU climate superhero.' Photo by Maya Hitij / AP)

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

So the president is bringing some island flavor to the White House.

The White House's annual picnic for members of Congress and their families -- which has featured red-and-white checked tablecloths, barbecue and country music in the past regime -- will take on theme of a Hawaiian luau this evening.

Tiki torches line the perimeter of the South Lawn, and potted palms have been imported for the day.

"It's almost like the 'Aloha' spirit lives at the White House," Alan Wong, a famed Hawaiian chef preparing tonight's meal, tells the AP.

Wong, who has been planning the menu with the White House for over a month, would not divulge the exact menu, but said that guests should expect traditional luau dishes such as roast pork and poi.

Traditional picnic fare will have a twist: wasabi potato salad.

Wong met Obama several years ago, when Obama ate at one of his Hawaiin restaurants. And this is a special meal that the president is planning.

"To do a luau in Hawaii is a special occasion," Wong said. "You throw a luau for your child's first birthday, or you throw a luau for a wedding."

Tihati, a performance group featuring members from each of the Hawaiian islands, will entertain tonight. Darlene Morikawa, of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, calls the performance a blend of Polynesian and traditional hula dancing.

The first lady offered a hint of the hula today.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report. Photo of President Barack Obama, above, crossing the South Lawn as the White House prepares it for this evening's luaua, by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP. Photo of Michelle Obama returning to the White House after an outing where she previewed the hula, seen on the South Lawn Social Secretary Desirée Rogers, by Mandel Ngan / AFP / Getty Images))

by Peter Nicholas and Peter Wallsten

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said today that there is not enough support in Congress now to pass a comprehensive immigration bill providing a path to citizenship for the nation's illegal immigrants, though he would not rule out adoption of such a measure by the 2010 elections.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting with Washington-based reporters, Emanuel said one of the reasons the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and proponents of an immigration overhaul asked for a meeting at the White House later today "is because the votes aren't there.''

"If the votes were there, you wouldn't need to have the meeting,'' Emanuel said. "You'd go to a roll call (vote).''

Emanuel's comments at a Christian Science Monitor-sponsored breakfast came just hours before President Barack Obama was scheduled to host a bipartisan gathering of lawmakers involved in the issue.

The White House has described today's meeting at 2 pm EDT as a working session -- beginning a conversation on what type of legislation to pursue. Obama and his aides have studiously avoided making promises on a timeline for passage or on the fine details of what the measure will say.

Immigrant advocates and some leaders from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus want the White House to press this year for a plan that would include a path to citizenship for the approximately 12 million immigrants believed to be living in the country illegally.

As a candidate for president, Obama supported a citizenship plan and said he would make the issue a top priority during his first year in office - prompting some Latino leaders to warn that he risks breaking a promise if there is no revision this year.

by Michael Muskal

The era of mixing politics and matrimony continues today, but don't worry, this won't be about a wandering politician and his peccadilloes.

President Obama, First Lady Michelle and their daughters went to Fort McNair this morning to help assemble what the White House says will be a total of 15,000 backpacks for children of armed service personnel.

Michelle Obama made some brief remarks and also previewed tonight's luau picnic at the White House for members of Congress.

"We've got a great picnic planned -- a luau -- some great hula dancers," she said, and then demonstrated the dance.

"Try that again," said the president, who was born in Hawaii and should know.

(President Barack Obama reacts after First Lady Michelle Obama made a gesture that she was hulu dancing at an event at Fort McNair in Washington today. Photo by Gerald Herbert / AP)

by Mark Silva

Barack Obama is "a successful brand.''

And the man who managed the president's election campaign told fellow marketers at a convention on the French Riviera, in Cannes, today that a combination of digital and grassroots marketing is responsible.

At the DDB Worldwide Audacity of Successful Brands Seminar, part of the 56th Cannes Lyons International Advertising Festival, Plouffe said that the former junior senator from Illinois had overcome "the longest of political long-shots'' to become the 44th president of the United States.

He did so by embracing the ability of the Internet and emails to start a dialog, Plouffe suggested, with a campaign that encouraged voters to talk with one another.

He also raised a lot of money, a runaway record, with that email database.

Some of the other successful brands big at this year's marketing festival:

Google and Twitter.

(Photo of David Plouffe above, in Cannes, by Francois Durand / Getty Images) Poster of President Barack Obama by artist Shepard Fairey and an April 27, 2006, file photo of then-Sen. Barack Obama by Associated Press photographer Mannie Garcia at the National Press Club in Washington.)

by David G. Savage

The strip search of a 13-year old school girl who was suspected of hiding pain relief pills was unreasonable and unconstitutional, the Supreme Court ruled today, setting new legal limits on how far school officials may go to inspect for drugs on campus.

In an 8-1 decision, the high court called a strip search at school "categorically distinct" from other inspections for drugs and so degrading that it usually can not be justified.

The justices said that a search of a student's backpack or outer clothing is reasonable whenever a school employee has a reasonable suspicion that the student is hiding something illegal, such as drugs or a weapon.

But requiring a student to remove her clothes requires a "quantum leap" of suspicion and wrongdoing to be justified, the court said.

Its ruling was a partial victory for Savana Redding and her mother April, who sued the vice principal of her middle school over a strip search in 2003. The vice principal was told by another girl that Savana had brought extra strength Ibuprofen pills to school
and planned to give them to other students.

She was questioned and denied having the pills. Her backpack was searched as well. When no pills were found, the vice principal sent her to a nurse's office where she was ordered to remove her clothes.

No pills were found, but school officials did not apologize to the girl or her mother. They sued the employees and the Safford Unified School District, contending the strip search violated her rights under the 4th Amendment, which forbids "unreasonable searches" by the government.

In today's ruling, the justices agreed the search itself was unconstitutional, but they also rejected the suit against the school employees because the law had not been clear.

by Mark Silva

"With every passing day, Barack Obama is ensuring his own reelection -- but at a bloodcurdling cost for Democrats on the ballot without him in 2010.''

This is not James Carville talking.

This is Alex Castellanos, longtime Republican campaign consultant, most recently the media-artist behind Mitt Romney's presidential campaign TV ads.

"President Obama speaks with power and grace,'' Castellanos writes. " He is gifted with that alchemical political material, Teflon. He exudes even-handed comfort, assuring all sides that this president understands their argument. His smile is an embrace that disarms, displaying the confidence of a young leader certain his intellect will prevail. ''

At the same time, Castellanos argues in an essay at the Huffington Post, the Democratic Party "may have regressed to old, industrial-age collectivism, prescribing the same federal pill for every ill.''

While their "charismatic president'' gives the party "a generational leap forward,'' he maintains, the president's "spending spree'' is starting to ring alarms around the nation.

by Mark Silva

There is little disagreement on this one:

Ninety-two percent of Americans say that married men and women having sexual affairs outside of their marriages is morally wrong -- worse than cloning humans (88 percent), they said in a recent Gallup Poll values survey, worse than suicide (80 percent).

Yet the question of whether admitting, or being caught at, such an affair is political suicide is another question altogether.

In the annals of modern political sex scandals, paying for love has proven to be an instantaneous career-killer (former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Democrat, had to resign after his costly dalliance with the Empire VIP service was discovered, though he has embarked on a media-rehabilitation tour lately.)

Looking for love in an airport men's room has proven at least temporarily survivable (Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, Republican, at first said he would resign after he was caught allegedly soliciting a guy with some fancy footwork in the bathroom stall next to him at the Minneapolis airport, though he is not seeking reelection.)

Looking for love with Capitol pages is a clear no-no (former Rep. Mark Foley of Florida, Republican, resigned after suggestive emails that he had written to male pages were divulged.)

Admitting to a homosexual affair may not be survivable (former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, Democrat, resigned after he acknowledged that he is homosexual and had been having an extramarital affair with a state adviser.)

Stopping short of going all the way may be survivable (former President Bill Clinton, Democrat, who said he "did not have sex with that woman,'' survived a sex-scandal with a White House intern who had served the boss all too intimately. He faced impeachment for something else, obstruction of justice in a federal probe.)

Having sex with another woman when one's wife is battling cancer appears to be a career-killer (former Sen. John Edwards, Democrat, acknowledged an affair with a campaign videographer while his wife was battling breast cancer, making it likely that his bid for his party's 2008 presidential nomination was his last.)

Yet in some cases, having a heterosexual affair with another consenting adult, as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, Republican, has admitted, while immoral in the eyes of the American public, may be survivable in the political arena.

McGreevey, interviewed on NBC's Today show this morning, said he doesn't necessarily believe that Sanford's career is finished: "He can be that much more of a better governor because it's admitting his nature, understanding the wrongs." .

by Peter Nicholas

President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.

In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."

He added: "Maybe you're better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

Obama said he has personal familiarity with such a dilemma. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than nine months to live, he said. She fell and broke her hip, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?"

Obama's grandmother died two days before he was elected president in November. It was unclear whether she underwent the hip-replacement surgery.

The event, hosted by ABC News' Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer, gave Obama a prime-time forum to promote his healthcare overhaul. A total of 164 guests were invited. ABC pre-screened questions, though the White House was not made aware of what they would be.

Republicans described the event as an "infomercial," faulting ABC for giving the president such valuable TV time in the midst of a high-stakes partisan policy discussion.

The audience -- which included doctors, patients, health insurers, students and people with ailing relatives -- clearly was unhappy with the current healthcare system. Gibson asked for a show of hands to see how many wanted to leave the system unchanged. No one raised a hand.

(See the video excerpts above and below, and below the fold, courtesy of ABC News, see a transcript of the healthcare town hall:)

by Mark Silva

The fault lines of a political sex scandal may pale in comparison to the tan lines of an Argentine lover, or at least that's what may be surmised from a now-disclosed email exchange between South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and his mistress, "Maria.''

The State, the Columbia, S.C., newspaper that greeted Sanford upon his return from Argentina this week at the airport in Atlanta, apparently was on to the relationship which the governor acknowledged at a press conference today in Columbia back in December. That's when the newspaper says it obtained the emails which it has excerpted at its Website this evening, undisputed by Sanford's office.

"You have a particular grace and calm that I adore,'' Sanford wrote last July to the woman, whose last name was withheld by the newspaper

. "You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night's light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details ...''

Indeed.

The governor said today that he had struck up an email correspondence with the woman several years ago, but only in the past year did they become romantically involved. Today, he apologized to his wife, his four sons, his friends and the state of South Carolina for an affair which he deemed selfish and sinful.

Sanford, who had been viewed as a potential presidential candidate for the Republican Party in 20102 also said that he is resigning as chairman of the Southern Governors Association. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, said today that he hopes Sanford will continue to serve his term that runs through 2010.

These are the email excerpts in The State:

by Mark Silva

"We have not come off the bottom yet,'' Warren Buffett says.

Buffett, the multibillionaire oracle from Omaha and informal adviser to President Barack Obama, says the actions that the federal government is taking today raise the "probability'' of "very significant inflation down the road,'' but they are necessary and "appropriate.''

"What we're doing raises the probability significantly of very significant inflation down the road --not this year or next year or the year after that.. But we've taken actions and they were appropriate actions,'' Buffett said in an interview with FOX Business Network's Liz Claman.

"It will have consequences, and nobody knows exactly what they will be and how effective we will be at draining a system we've been flooding, but the probability of significant inflation has gone up,'' Buffett said. Asked about the possibility that the U.S. is issuing too much debt to pay for all the bailouts and economic stimulus underway, he said: "Well, it's doing what it has to do. And it was appropriate.''

With unemployment already clocked at 9.4 percent last month and expected to surpass 10 percent in the months ahead, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway - its legendary stock down to the $86,000-per-share range since the recession took hold - said of the jobless rate: "It's going higher -- business has not bounced back. We have not come off the bottom yet...

"It will work out in the end,'' Buffett said. "Since 1776. it's been a mistake to bet against America. America solves its problems. How soon, nobody knows. But we have not come off the bottom yet. And it will work out in the end."

Here, courtesy of FOX Business Network, is a transcript of the talk with Buffett:

by Don Lee

The Federal Reserve, offering a modestly more optimistic assessment of the economy today, reaffirmed its policy of keeping interest rates at near zero and suggested it could continue to spur economic activity without triggering inflation.

The central bank, ending two days of scheduled meetings, said that while the recession was easing, "economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time." Household spending, the Fed said, "remains constrained by ongoing job losses, lower housing wealth and tight credit."

As expected, the Fed issued a statement reiterating its pledge to keep the key federal funds rate, the rate banks charge one another for overnight loans, between zero and 0.25 percent for "an extended period." That rate, in place since December, is aimed at lowering interest rates across the board.

The Fed's posture - broadly expected by analysts -- was essentially unchanged from its last policy-setting session in late April. Still, stocks fell immediately after the release of the statement. Some investors, worried about the possibility of inflation, had hoped the Fed would begin backing away from its current strategy of pumping out money to spur lending and stimulate the economy.

by Mark Silva

In a debate such as the fight over healthcare reform, understatement can be an art form.

"There's no perfect unanimity across the table in terms of every single aspect of reform,'' President Barack Obama said today, after meeting with a group of Republican and Democratic governors who have worked the issue on the state level.

In a day devoted to reform talk - culminating with a taped "town hall'' meeting this evening at the White House that ABC News will air at 10 pm EDT - the president met today with Govs. Jennifer Granholm (D-Mich.), Jim Douglas (R-Vt.), Jim Doyle (D-Wis.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Christine Gregoire (D-Wash.)

The governors, Obama said, already had "planted a mole'' in the administration - former Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, whom Obama appointed secretary of Health and Rehabilitative Services after his first nominee, former Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, turned out to have major tax problems.

by Mark Silva and updated

Gov. Mark Sanford has come clean.

Not only was he not hiking on the Appalachian Trail -- but rather cruising around Argentina -- during his recent disappearing act.

The Republican governor of South Carolina also has been having an affair during the past year, he acknowledged today, just returned from his South American adventure. He said he had wanted something more "exotic'' than an Appalachian hike.

"It began very innocently,'' the governor said of his affair with an Argentine whom he had known for eight years. Their "remarkable friendship,'' during the past year, "sparked'' into something else, he said, and he has seen her three times since "that sparking thing,'' His wife, he said, had known about it.

There goes another potential 2012 contendor

The Republican who had been viewed by some as a prospective candidate for president now is stepping down as head of the Republican Governors Association.

David Johnson, an Atlanta-based Republican pollster and strategist who campaigned for Bob Dole's presidential bid, says scandals such as Sanford's and Sen. John Ensign's recent admission of an affair mean that candidates such as Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, "who were considered by some as boring and shopworn, may get another look for 2012,'' and could also draw more attention to Govs. Haley Barbour and Bobby Jindal, and Sen, John Thune.

Sanford, a married father of four, whose wife could not account for his whereabouts during the Father's Day weekend, emotionally apologized to his wife, staff and others after returning today from Argentina.

"What I have found in this job is that one desperately needs a break from the bubble,'' Sanford said today in a somewhat rambling confessional that started with a fond reminiscence of his hiking trips, explaining the trail ruse.

"I'm a bottom-line kind of guy,'' he said at a news conference. "I'll lay it all out, and we'll let the chips fall where they may.''

Calling his four sons "jewels and blessings'' whom he has let down, the governor said he had let his staff down as well - and he fended off tears as he apologized to longtime friends who have helped him get where he is in politics today, and he apologized to "people of faith'' in his home state and across the country.

"I've let down a lot of people - that's the bottom line,'' the governor said. "If you were to look at God's laws, they are in every instance designed to protect people from themselves... The biggest self of self is indeed self. Sin is indeed grounded in this notion of what is it that I want, as opposed to someone else.''

"The bottom line is this: I have been unfaithful to my wife,'' he said. The relationship started with "casual email back and forth,'' but then "recently over this last year developed into something much more than that... I hurt my wife, I hurt my boys... I hurt a lot of different folks... and all I can say is that I apologize.''

His staff had said the governor was hiking on the Appalachian Trail, decompressing from a rough legislative session.

The former congressman had made news with his unsuccessful fight to reject federal stimulus spending for his state's schools.

Now he has another sort of headline going.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.), a friend of Sanford since his first congressional campaign in 1994, said today that "the Sanford family needs time and space to work through their challenges. I hope they are afforded that opportunity... As for the future, I hope Mark will reconcile with his family and can continue serving as our state's governor."

(South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford and wife Jenny, pictured above, at a White House dinner in February hosted by President Barack Obama. Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP. Sanford, pictured with family below, took the oath of office after reelection in 2006. AP file photo. )

by Mark Silva

The last time Rep. Barney Frank showed up on The O'Reilly Factor, the seismographic measurements of their "conversation'' were off the chart.

This time, who knows where they'll go?

Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, will meet Bill O'Reilly, a FOX News Channel conservative, in a rematch on this evening's Factor -- it's 8 pm EDT, before the big ABC News show from the White House on President Barack Obama's healthcare debate, which the Republicans are billing as an "infomercial.''

So this will be a night for some microwave popcorn, for sure.

by Johanna Neuman reporting in from Top of the Ticket

We have always wondered if Richard Nixon, who designed the Republican Party's infamous Southern Strategy, was motivated by racial distrust or sheer political ambition.

You may recall that it was Nixon's political genius to co-opt the all-Democratic South by appealing to white conservatives to bolt to the Republican Party with not-so-subtle signals -- opposition to school busing and affirmative action -- that it would welcome their support.

Now, from the latest batch of tapes released by the Nixon Library, come fresh evidence that the 37th POTUS -- the only president to resign from office under threat of impeachment -- had at best stereotypical opinions about blacks, Jews and women.

Responding to the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision to legalize abortion, Nixon told aide Chuck Colson that generally abortions were a bad thing, "It breaks the family," he said. But, Nixon added, "There are times when abortions are necessary -- I know that. ... Suppose you have a black and a white," he said, adding, "or a rape."

In one exchange that's received a lot of attention, Nixon rings up George H.W. Bush, then head of the Republican Party, to suggest that he recruit attractive female conservatives to run for office, like those Nixon had seen on a visit to the South Carolina Legislature.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, who will leave town on the July Fourth weekend for a summit of the Group of Eight in Italy and a quick trip to Ghana, will drop in on Pope Benedict XVI, Reuters is reporting from Vatican City.

The White House hasn't announced the stop yet, but it makes sense that the president - who delivered a controversial commencement address at Notre Dame University and confronted the debate over abortion on that stage - would pay his respects at the Holy See while in Rome.

Vatican officials say Obama will get an afternoon audience with the Pope in the Vatican after the conclusion of the July 8-10 G-8 summit in the Italian city of L'Aquila.

"The Pope is ready to meet with U.S. President Barack Obama in the afternoon of July 10," deputy Vatican spokesman Ciro Benedettini told Reuters.

Obama has angered many American Catholics with his support for abortion rights for women and his decision to lift restrictions on embryonic stem cell research - his appearance at Notre Dame was protested over this. The president and the Pope should have plenty to talk about.

by Mark Silva

Republican Mitt Romney has rehabilitated a tattered image following the long campaign in which he sought his party's presidential nomination last year.

Republican Sarah Palin still suffers from a sharply divided opinion of her among the American public, following that same presidential campaign, in which she represented the GOP as the nominee for vice president - though the Alaska governor remains a rock star within her party, more popular among Republicans than the image-reviving former Massachusetts governor.

These are among the findings of a new Pew Research Center study on the favorability ratings for leading Republicans - no word from this survey, however, on where South Carolina's Gov. Mark Sanford might stand, but apparently the party's Southern star is in the United States today.

Romney's ratings have improved among the general public, with 40 percent rating him favorably, 28 percent unfavorably. This marks a reversal from February 2008, in the heat of the GOP campaign in which Romney was challenging Sen. John McCain of Arizona for the party's presidential nomination - then it was 44 percent unfavorable, 30 fave.

"Impressions of Sarah Palin have not changed much since the presidential campaign,'' Pew reports. The Alaskan "continues to be divisive figure among the general public, with about as many saying they have an unfavorable impression (44 percent) as a favorable view (45 percent) of the Alaska governor. That's a little better than Palin looked to the general public in October, when her image and her ticket were taking a beating.

But among Republicans: Palin has a 73 percent favorable rating, with just 17 percent viewing her dimly. Only 10 percent offered no opinion.

By contrast, Romney draws a 57 percent favorable rating within his party and 18 unfavorable - with 24 percent voicing no opinion.

And former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia draws similar ratings, 55 percent favorable, 22 percent unfavorable, with the same number uncommitted.

Interestingly enough, 58 percent of Republicans surveyed were unable to offer any impression at all of the Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele.

(Republican Mitt Romney pictured above in a recent address to the Heritage Foundation,,Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta)

by Mark Silva

Forget the Appalachian Trail.

That's not where South Carolina's governor went missing.

He had gone to Buenos Aires.

Gov. Mark Sanford, who disappeared during the past few days - with neither his wife nor office initially able to say where the chief executive of the Palmetto State was, this father of four who had gone missing on Father's Day, this Republican potential prospect for his party's presidential nomination in 2012 who reportedly needed some time to decompress after a rough state legislative session - has returned to say that he went for a ride in Argentina.

The State, the Columbia, S.C., newspaper, greeted Sanford upon his return to the Atlanta airport.

The State's Gina Smith spins a great tale today:

Contrary to what the governor's office explained in an official statement about the governor's unknown whereabouts this week -- saying he was taking a hike along the Appalachian Trail, "Sanford said he had not been hiking along the Appalachian Trail, as his staff said in a Tuesday statement to the media.

"Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State Media Company, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money....''

South Carolina, South America... Goodbye, Iowa?

by Mark Silva

Maybe it's the three Navy SEALS who took out three Soimali pirates with three bullets from the deck of a ship at sea. Maybe it's the troops that deploy time and again without question.

Whatever it is, public confidence in the U.S. military is near an all-time high - at 82 percent - and up 11 points from a year ago, according to the Gallup Poll.

Confidence in something else is up, too: The presidency.

In the Gallup Poll's annual read of public confidence in institutions, the June 14-17 survey has found 51 percent voicing confidence in the presidency. That's up 25 points in the past year.

Of course, the public still places greater confidence in small business -- 67 percent - and in the police -- 59 percent - and in the church - 52 percent.

The presidency ranks higher than the public schools and the medical and criminal justice systems, and - oops - the newspapers, at 25 percent, and television news at 23 percent.

They didn't ask about The Swamp.

by Mark Silva

Tonight, President Barack Obama will play host for a "town-hall'' meeting on healthcare reform in the nation's premier town hall -- the East Room of the White House - for a program that ABC News will air.

The Republican National Committee, deriding the event as an "infomercial,'' is setting up a live GOP.com online response to the president's forum with ABC.

ABC News, which says it does not do "infomercials,'' will air "ABC News Primetime: Questions for the President - Prescription for America'' at 10 pm EDT.

ABC is teeing up. The network's Diane Sawyer sat down with the president for an interview aired this morning on Good Morning America, in which Obama talked about his vision for healthcare reform. And the network is promoting tonight's show, which will be taped at the White House in the East Room this evening and then shown at 10.

Obama also plans another "town hall'' in the Detroit area on July 14, following a July Fourth trip to the Group of Eight summit in Italy and a trip to Ghana. And he will toss the first pitch at Major League Baseball's All-Star Game.

For now, as he did at a daytime news conference at the White House this week, the president is pitching healthcare reform.

Obama's thinking about healthcare reform has "evolved'' ABC reports of Sawyer's interview with Obama aired this morning on GMA. "Obama says he could support a law mandating that individuals purchase health care coverage, with fines for those who do not, but he stressed that there must be some kind of waiver'' for those who cannot afford it.

by Mark Silva

David Axelrod, making the rounds of news shows tonight to polish the administration's messages coming out of President Barack Obama's news conference today, talked about the talk the administration is having about Iran and North Korea.

The problem, Republicans are complaining, is that it's all talk, and no walk.

But the president himself addressed that question today, when asked about Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham calling his response to Iran timid and weak, and then asked if the words that he used today for Iran's treatment of protestors -- "deplored, appalled'' and "outraged'' - were "influenced at all by McCain's and Graham's accusations.''

"What do you think?'' Obama abruptly asked the reporter, with a bit of "duh'' in the air, followed by nervous laughter in the press room.

"I think John McCain has genuine passion about many of these international issues and, you know, I think that all of us share a belief that we want justice to prevail,'' Obama said. "But only I'm the president of the United States. And I've got responsibilities in making certain that we are continually advancing our national security interests, and that we are not used as a tool to be exploited by other countries.''

Axelrod, the president's chief political advisor, roaming from the Situation Room on CNN to Hardball on MSNBC this evening, allowed that Obama was "cautious'' today in his remarks on Iran, "and has been'' for a reason. He also addressed the North Korean missile standoff.

"He was cautious and has been cautious, because he doesn't want to lend himself or the United States to the propaganda intentions of the -- of the leaders in Iran,'' Axelrod told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "This isn't between us and them. It's between them and their own people. And he wanted to make that clear.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, who has struggled with a cigarette habit sometimes more successfully than others, today likened the plight of "a former smoker'' to that of a recovering alcoholic occasionally falling "off the wagon.''

"Look, I've said before that as a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it,'' Obama said today at a White House news conference. "Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No.

"I don't do it in front of my kids,'' the president and father of two young girls said. "I don't do it in front of my family. And you know, I would say that I am 95 percent cured. But there are times where... there are times where I mess up. And I mean, I've said this before. ''

He was asked it again, at a news conference staged in the West Wing, because this week he signed legislation handing the Food and Drug Administration regulatory power over tobacco and authority to limit how it is marketed.

A fellow "former smoker,'' a member of the White House press corps, voiced empathy for the "the frustration and the fear that comes with quitting,'' and then tossed a tray-load of loaded questions: "How many cigarettes a day do you now smoke? Do you smoke alone or in the presence of other people? And do you believe the new law would help you to quit? If so, why? ''

"First of all, the new law that was put in place is not about me,'' the president said. "It's about the next generation of kids coming up.... You just think it's neat to ask me about my smoking, as opposed to it being relevant to my new law,'' he said to laughter. "But that's fine. I understand. It's an interesting.... human-interest story. ''

Going on to say that he does not smoke regularly, and never in front of the kids, Obama said:

"I get this question about once every month or so. And you know, I don't know what to tell you, other than the fact that, you know, like folks who go to AA, you know, once you've gone down this path, then you know, it's something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don't want is kids going down that path in the first place.''

(Photo of President Obama today by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.)

by Christi Parsons and Peter Nicholas

President Obama today condemned the ongoing government crackdown on Iranian demonstrators, using his strongest language yet, but declined to spell out consequences for the violence, saying there is still time for officials in that country to respect universal "norms and principles" of freedom.

Obama particularly deplored the shooting of a young Iranian woman during a protest, horrific images of which were captured by a cell-phone camera and broadcast around the world in the last 48 hours.

"When a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car," Obama said, the violence clearly has reached an intolerable level. But reports from Iran show his own statements are being "mistranslated" there and spun to suggest that the U.S. is encouraging rioters, Obama said, and he doesn't want to give opponents anything to work with.

The Iranian protests were a recurring theme of a noon-hour news conference, which also gave equal time to Obama's campaign to pass health care reform - which the president declared critical to the long-term recovery of the economy. He challenged a developing narrative among critics that measures now under development in Congress to extend coverage to uninsured people will cost too much and are politically untenable.

Reform will not only expand coverage, the president argued, but also rein in the skyrocketing cost of health care.

"In this debate there has been some notion that, if we just stand pat, then we're okay, and that's not true," Obama said. "Premiums have been doubling . . . the U.S. government is not going to be able to afford Medicare and Medicaid on its current trajectory . . . So the notion that we can somehow just keep going what we're doing, that's just not true."