Obama: Afghan decision 'weeks' away

by Mark Silva

Democracy was on the march, the way that former President George W. Bush saw it, praising the democratic advances of nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan after the U.S. military forced the ruling regimes out.

But serious questions have been raised about the brand of democracy that's playing out in Afghanistan, where the White House is weighing the recommendations of miltiary commanders for another escalation in force -- a high-level summit was conducted at the White House today, a discussion among the president and his top advisers, the defense secretary, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, CentComm chief Gen. David Petraeus and the Afghanistan war commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, recommeding a new surge.

Peter Galbraith, the highest-ranking American in Afghanistan working for the United Nations Mission there -- recalled today by U.N.Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over disagreements wwith the head of the mission there, special envoy Kai Eide -- says the Afghan elections recently carried out are the worst the U.N. has overseen.

"When the question of fraud came up, I simply could not ignore it, I could not be complicit in a cover-up, I could not down-play it,'' Galbraith said in an interview aired this evening on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

"This was a serious, long-running disagreement about how to handle fraud in the Afghan elections,'' Galbraith said. "I tried to get the Afghan government to reduce the number of polling centers and to remove from the list those in these insecure areas.

:"But the Afghan government, naturally, complained. They were the beneficiaries of the fraud. And Kai Eide, the head of the mission, decided that we would say nothing more about polling centers,'' he said. "We had the same argument when it came to whether we would share the very extensive data that we gathered on fraud in the election with the Afghan electoral institutions.

"He was opposed to us providing that data even though we had collected hundreds of cases of fraud and a lot of evidence on turn out, that showed a very low turn out in the southern provinces, from which, however, a large number of votes were reported to have been tallied."

See the interview on Afghan election fraud at NPR and here in the Swamp:

by Jim Tankersley

The Environmental Protection Agency announced plans today to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and oil refineries - a warning shot to Congress that if it does not move to curb global warming, the Obama administration will act on its own.

The proposed regulation would apply to large-scale industrial sources of the heat-trapping gases which scientists blame for climate change but not to smaller sources, such as new schools, as some critics of EPA action had feared. It will force new - or substantially modified - industrial emitters to "demonstrate the use of best available control technologies and energy efficiency measures" to minimize greenhouse gas emissions, according to the EPA.

That approach mimics how EPA forces power plants and factories to install "scrubbers" and other means of limiting many types of air pollutants.

But it's unclear how, exactly, it would apply in the case of greenhouse gases. Researchers are still studying and have yet to deploy a commercial-scale method to capture and store carbon emissions from coal plants, for example.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will detail the plans in a speech this afternoon at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles.

"By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation's largest greenhouse gas emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy," Jackson said in a statement released by the agency. "This is a common sense rule that is carefully tailored to apply to only the largest sources - those from sectors responsible for nearly 70 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions sources."

The move follows an EPA proposal to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks, which initially was announced in May by President Obama and automotive executives. It stems from a 2007 Supreme Court decision, in a case filed by environmentalists, which held that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act.

The proposal would regulate only emitters who produce more than 25,000 tons of greenhouse gases, a departure from the text of the Clean Air Act, which requires regulation of any source that produces more than 250 tons of a pollutant covered under the Act.

Industry lobbyists questioned how the EPA would justify the change.

"The real question is whether this would stand up in court," said Jeff Holmstead, who headed the EPA air office under former President George W. Bush and now is a partner for the lobbying firm of Bracewell and Giuliani in Washington.

by Mark Silva and updated

Air Force One will take off for Copenhagen tomorrow night, but the White House says it already has "deployed our best weapon'' in Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games:

The first lady.

Asked how the president, who will have only a few hours on the ground in Copenhagen on Friday as the International Olympic Committee weighs the bids of Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo for the '16 games, will lobby a committee as large as the IOC, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs today said:

"The president will approach this in selling the American bid as he approached selling America around the world.

"It's some time on the phone, some time on meetings,'' Gibbs told reporters at the White House, "and obviously we probably already have deployed our best weapon in Michelle Obama.''

The president at first had said that his wife would be the best representative of the. Obama administration, when it appeared that he would not be traveling to Copenhagen.. The first lady arrived ahead of her husband, as he might say, "all fired up, ready to go.'' .

by Mark Silva

Glenn Beck, with a few words for his cable news rivals over at "the church of Obama,'' laments that schoolchildren have been taught to replace some of his favorite lyrics:

"In the beauty of the lilies. Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.''

With these words:

"Hooray, Mr. President, we're really proud of you!
We stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!
So continue, Mr. President, we know you'll do the trick
So here's a hearty hip-hooray.''

Schoolchildren cannot sing Silent Night, Holy Night, Beck complains, but they can chant: "Yes, yes we can.''

The message, FOX News Channel's Beck warns, is clear: "Put your faith in government, not God.''

We'll be looking for MSNBC's response..

by David G. Savage

The Supreme Court plunged back today into the legal fight over firefighters, test scores and accusations of racial discrimination, this time to decide when the disappointed candidates must file a lawsuit.

At issue is whether the civil-rights plaintiffs must file a discrimination suit shortly after the test was given, or whether they can wait until later, after it was used for hiring new firefighters.

Four years ago, a federal judge in Chicago ruled the city had discriminated against black candidates because its test given in the mid-1990s had an unfair and "disparate impact" on minorities. White test takers were five times more likely than blacks to qualify for a fire-fighting job, the judge found.

But last year, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this ruling and threw out the suit brought on behalf of 6,000 black applicants because they had waited more than a year to challenge the test results.

"That was a fatal mistake," wrote Judge Richard Posner, because the federal civil rights law says suits must be filed within 300 days of an unlawful employment practice.

This is similar to the issue that arose in the case of Lily Ledbetter, the Alabama woman who was paid less than her male co-workers, but lost in the Supreme Court because she had waited too long to sue. Congress changed the law earlier this year, but the new law affects only suits over unfair pay.

The Supreme Court said today it will hear an appeal brought on behalf of the black candidates for the firefighting job in Chicago. Those firefighters say the clock on discrimination suits should begin ticking only when an employer uses a disputed test to make hiring decisions.

by Mark Silva

Gore Vidal, the writer, put his chips on Barack Obama last year.

He wants them back.

In an interview with the Times of London, the 83-year-old lion of literature calls the American "inexperienced'' in military matters and complains that he has "f----d up'' health care.

At least he's honest, though, Vidal says of Obama.

" I was hopeful,'' Vidal tells the Times. "He was the most intelligent person we've had in that position for a long time. But he's inexperienced. He has a total inability to understand military matters. He's acting as if Afghanistan is the magic talisman: solve that and you solve terrorism."

The United States should withdraw from Afghanistan, Vidal says.

""We've failed in every other aspect of our effort of conquering the Middle East or whatever you want to call it,'' he says, calling the war on terror "made up... The whole thing was PR, just like 'weapons of mass destruction'. It has wrecked the airline business, which my father founded in the 1930s. (His father founded TWA). He'd be cutting his wrists. Now when you fly you're both scared to death and bored to death, a most disagreeable combination....

"One thing I have hated all my life are liars, and I live in a nation of them,'' he says, retaining some optimism about Obama "because he doesn't lie.''

by Mark Silva

Osama bin Laden may still be at large, eight years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but his organization "is under more pressure'' and "more vulnerable'' than at any time since those al Qaeda-launched attacks, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center testified on Capitol Hill today.

"For eight years, the United States and its allies have mounted a robust and multi-front offensive against al Qaeda, as well as sustained an effective defensive program,making it more difficult-- although still quite possible -- for terrorists to attack the U.S. homeland S Homeland,'' Mike Leiter, director of the center, told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today.

"Most importantly, al Qaeda's safehaven -- where they are hosted by Taliban and Pakistani militants -- in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is shrinking and becom less secure, complicating the group's ability to plan, train, and move within Pakistan's tribal areas,'' he reported.

"Al Qaeda has suffered significant leadership losses during the past 18 months, interrupting training and plotting, potentially disrupting plots that are under way, and leaving leadership vacuums that are increasingly difficult to fill.''

Despite any progress in containing the terrorist threat, he said, "al Qaeda and its affiliates and allies remain resilient and adaptive enemies intent on attacking U.S. and Western interests -- with al Qaeda's core in Pakistan representing the most dangerous component of the larger al Qadea network,'' he said, reporting that "this core is actively engaged in operational plotting and continues recruiting, training, and transporting operatives, to include individuals from Western Europe and North America.''

See the details of the testimony here:

by David G. Savage

The Supreme Court set the stage for a historic ruling on gun rights and the 2nd Amendment by agreeing today to hear a challenge to Chicago's ban on handguns.

At issue is whether state and local gun-control ordinances can be struck down as violating the "right to keep and bear arms" in the 2nd Amendment.

A ruling on the issue, due by next summer, could open the door to legal challenges to various gun control measures in cities and states across the nation.

The case also will decide whether the 2nd Amendment protects a broad constitutional right, similar to the 1st Amendment's right to free speech or the 4th Amendment's right against unreasonable searches and seizures.

In the past, the Supreme Court had given short shrift to the 2nd Amendment by saying it applied only to national laws and that its aim was to preserve "well-regulated militias."

This quite narrow view of the amendment conflicted with the views of most Americans, according to opinion polls.

Last year, the court in a 5-4 decision breathed new life into the amendment by ruling that it protected an individual's right to have a handgun at home for self-defense. The decision in District of Columbia v. Heller struck down a local ban on handguns.

But since the nation's capital is a federal enclave, the court did not reconsider its 19th Century rulings that said 2nd Amendment applied only to federal laws and restrictions.

Since then, several gun owners have filed new constitutional challenges in several cities, including Chicago and the nearby Village of Oak Park. They lost when judges there said they were bound by the high court's earlier rulings.

But the Supreme Court today said it had voted to hear the appeals from gun owners in Chicago and Oak Park and to decide whether the 2nd Amendment restricts local and state laws as well as national measures.

by Mark Silva

TWD.

There oughta be a law, says Ray LaHood, secretary of transportation, sponsoring a two-day conference in Washington starting today on: Texting While Driving.

It should be illegal, nationwide, the DOT chief, a Republican former congressman from Peoria, says.

""This is a very, very serious problem in America, not dissimilar to the problems that America faced with drunken driving that was ignored'' until the federal government prevailed on the states to enact tougher DUI law, LaHood tells Bloomberg News.

About 16 percent of all fatal crashes last year involving a driver whose attention was interrupted in some way, up from 11 percent in 2005, according to data to be presented today.

The Obama administration's effort on TWD has some support among lawmakers who have introduced measures to bar texting or e-mailing while driving in all states.

At the same time, while prompting motorists to keep their hands on the wheel, some, such as Ford Motor Co., are attempting to ensure that voice-activated communications are not banned in the process.

Last year, 5,870 people died and about 515,000 people were hurt in crashes involving at least one form of driver distraction, according to Transportation Department data being released today.

While some states have enacted bans on handheld cell-phone use by drivers, none have a complete ban on all mobile phone use while driving, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Seven states and Washington, D.C. forbid use of hand-held phones while driving. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia prohibit all drivers from texting while driving.

by Mark Silva

Michelle Obama is on the ground.

And President Barack Obama will land Friday morning.

The first lady landed this morning in Copenhagen, where the International Olympic Committee will decide on Friday who gets the 2016 summer games -- Chicago, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid or Tokyo. She plans to lobby members of the committee in the runup to Friday's meeting, where the president will join her before the committee.

She landed a little before 11:30 a.m. local time, and was greeted by a Chicago-promoting contingency that included Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, his wife, Maggie, Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Chicago 2016 president Lori Healey.

In her bid for her hometown, her husband will join her Friday morning -- leaving Thursday night, Washington time, and spending about four hours on the ground there. "I will sleep on the plane,'' the president says.

Republicans, Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri and RNC Chairman Michael Steele among them, are suggesting that there is something rotten about the president going to Denmark with all that's going on at home, in Afghanistan and Iran.

The White House, as the Washington Bureau's Peter Nicholas writes this morning, has a question for the critics:

"You don't think America should host the Olympics?''

A White House aide trotted out that argument against Bond: "What does Sen. Bond have against the Olympics coming to America?" spokesman Tommy Vietor asked. And White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had harsh words for Steele: "Who's [Steele] rooting for? Is he hoping to hop a plane to Brazil and catch the Olympics in Rio? Maybe it's Madrid."

(First Lady Michelle Obama is pictured above arriving in Copenhagen today, Chicago Tribune photo by Michael Tercha). See the Copenhagen story in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:.

by Mark Silva

From San Diego comes some interesting insight into the woman behind the woman, the professional collaborator helping Alaska's Sarah Palin write Going Rogue.

The 400-page memoir is on such as fast-track that the publisher plans to release it before Thanksgiving -- Nov. 17 -- all 1.5 million copies of Palin's promised book.

Palin spent much of the summer in San Diego with her collaborator, Lynn Vincent, whose most recent collaborative success has become a best-seller with movie rights.

For the past 10 years, the San Diego Union's Diane Bell notes, Vincent has been working for Christian-based World Magazine. She took a leave to write full-time wtih Palin.

Vincent, who settled in San Diego after a Navy career, was stationed at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station as an air traffic controller and later at North Island Naval Air Station before retiring in 1991. Her husband still works in air traffic control.

"When Vincent, 47, was chosen as ghostwriter, the liberal online Huffington Post focused on an earlier book of hers that was critical of the Democratic Party,'' columnist Bell writes. "Vincent is clearly uncomfortable with political pigeonholing and points to her books involving Christian pop singer Michael English, former terrorist Kamal Saleem and Delta Force leader Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin.

"The best-known of her collaborations, however, is about a millionaire art dealer whose life changed after he befriended a homeless drifter. "Same Kind of Different as Me" has sold more than 560,000 copies. It has spent 75 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list, raised millions of dollars for homeless shelters and grabbed Hollywood's attention. Movie rights were picked up by Mark Clayman, executive producer of "The Pursuit of Happyness." He is working with Ralph Winter (of "X-Men" fame).''

Could Going Rogue: An American Life be destined for the movies?

Tina Fey, as the president likes to say, is all fired up, ready to go.

(Sarah Palin, pictured arriving at the check-in counter at Hong Kong airport last week, during a speaking tour, has completed her memoir just four months after the book deal was announced. (Photo by Kin Cheung / AP) And Actress Tina Fey is pictured with her Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series last month in Los Angeles for her turn as Palin on Saturday Night Live (Photo by Chris Pizzello / AP)

By Andrew Zajac

A group of insurance consumer advocates has asked Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus to back off plans to put rule-writing authority for drafting health care coverage standards in the hands of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, a private organization long regarded by critics as cozy with the insurance industry.

The request, by current and former consumer representatives linked to the NAIC, argues that the association lacks the transparency and independence necessary to even-handedly craft rules, which could affect the flow of billions of premium dollars from currently uninsured Americans who would be required to obtain medical coverage under Baucus' health care overhaul legislation.

by Jim Tankersley

The Senate's environment committee is set to take up an energy and climate-change bill demanding a 20 percent cut in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a stricter target than one approved by the House during the summer, according to an 801-page draft of the bill obtained by the Washington Bureau.

The bill, to be unveiled Wednesday and co-sponsored by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will serve as the starting point for what promises to be a long and complicated series of negotiations that may not produce a final bill until next year at the earliest.

It includes several departures from the House bill. It includes new protections designed to minimize the cost of emissions permits for utilities and other major greenhouse gas sources. It preserves the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate emissions unilaterally.

And it offers new incentives for nuclear power plant construction - a provision that many Republicans have sought aggressively, and which could be crucial to attracting bipartisan support.

The legislation also delays several key decisions - such as how to allocate emissions permits under the bill's centerpiece cap-and-trade system - for future discussion.

The details of the bill send an important signal to international delegates preparing to negotiate a new global warming treaty in December: Essentially, they show the maximum range of how far the United States could go to curb its emissions over the next decade.

The blank spaces indicate just how much Boxer, Kerry and the Obama administration are willing to deal in order to pass a climate bill, which Democrats are pitching as a tool to spur "clean energy" job creation and curb global warming, but which many Republicans and industry critics warn could cripple the domestic economy.

by Mark Silva

The Senate Finance Committee, working through amendments to a sweeping health-care overhaul, today flatly rejected the concept of a "public option,'' a government-run insurance plan for people who cannot find coverage privately.

The committee's 15-8 vote against the option today underscores the depth of division among Democratic leaders pressing for health-care legislation as well as solid Republican opposition to an option that President Barack Obama has promoted while conceding he is open to negotiation.

The public-option, however, remains an essential element to any legislation ultimately adopted, in the eyes of some of the Senate's Democratic leaders as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has said the House cannot pass a health-care bill without the government-run choice.

In the short run, however, the vote today represents a victory for Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), as he pushes the legislation through his committee. He hopes to get a committee vote on his package by the end of the week.

"My job is to put together a bill that gets to 60 votes" in the full Senate, the Montana Democrat said before joining the majority on the committee in opposing the public option.

"No one shows me how to get to 60 votes with a public option," Baucus said.

In the Democratic-run Senate, it still takes 60 votes to bypass a Republican attempt to stall a floor vote on a bill.

The committee is in the second week of debate on Baucus' bill.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, who is weighing military recommendations to boost the U.S. deployment in Afghanistan again, consulted with the NATO secretary general today and is meeting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates later in the day.

After a meeting in the Oval Office today with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Obama said: "We both agree that it is absolutely critical that we are successful in dismantling, disrupting, destroying the al Qaeda network, and that we are effectively working with the Afghan government to provide the security necessary for that country.

"This is not a American battle,'' the president said. "This is a NATO mission as well. And we are working actively and diligently to consult with NATO at every step of the way.''

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, maintains that the war effort will not succeed without additional forces -- the administration already has authorized 21,000 more, raising the deployment to nearly 70,000. But Obama maintains that the overall strategy requires new analysis before any more troops are added.

"I agree with President Obama in his approach: strategy first, then resources,'' Rasmussen said in the Oval Office, with the two leaders offering a few remarks after their meeting but fielding no questions.

"The first thing is not numbers,'' he said. "It is to find and fine-tune the right approach to implement the strategy already laid down, and all NATO allies are right now looking at McChrystal's review.

"I'm convinced that success in Afghanistan is achievable and will be achieved,'' Rasmussen said. "And don't make any mistake -- the normal discussion on the right approach should not be misinterpreted as lack of resolve. This alliance will stand united and we will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job.''

by Paul West of the Baltimore Sun and updated

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said today that President Barack Obama's upcoming trip to Copenhagen is "nice" and "a noble idea," but not essential business for the president.

Steele began a brief telephone news conference by criticizing Obama's lack of focus on the biggest problem facing the country: weakness in the economy, which Steele said is still in recession. The former Maryland lieutenant governor said he had watched Obama push an economic stimulus plan, then "lurch into cap-and-trade, and then into health care," and now he's "pitching the Olympics in Copenhagen."

In answer to a reporter's question, Steele said it was "a noble idea for the president to pitch his home city, Chi-town" (at the International Olympic Committee's meeting on Friday in Copenhagen to choose a site for the 2106 Summer Games) and that America "would be more than honored to host the Olympics." But Steele went on to say that "at a time of war" and recession, "this trip, while nice, is not necessary for the president."

The overnight trip is seen as a risky political gamble for a president currently enmeshed in a number of difficult issues, from pushing an embattled Democratic health care plan through Congress to combatting Iran's nuclear ambitions and choosing a future course for the war in Afghanistan.

Steele said the president should be focusing on creating jobs now, not "job opportunities seven years from now" in Chicago. He said that First Lady Michelle Obama should have been the leading salesperson for the U.S. Olympic bid.

But when pressed on whether he regarded the president's trip as a mistake, Steele demurred. "Mistake is in the eye of the holder," he said, adding that he didn't know the judgment behind Obama's decision to go. Asked again, if, in his eyes at least, Obama was making a mistake, Steele responded, "I gave you my answer."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, told later about Steele's remarks, asked if the RNC chairman is traveling to Rio de Janeiro or Madrid -- a couple of the other cities competing for the '16 summer games. "Who is he rooting for?" Gibbs asked of Steele.

by Mark Silva and updated at 2:05 pm EDT

President Barack Obama has been called a number of things.

Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina called him a liar, then apologized.

FOX News Channel's Glenn Beck called him "racist,'' and never apologized.

Now Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican, has called Obama "an enemy of humanity.''

We haven't heard an apology yet. But we have heard a clarification from the congressman's office: Franks was speaking of Obama's policies on abortion, and if he could have phrased his complaint differently it would be to suggest that Obama is an enemy of "unborn humanity.''

""Obama's first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers' money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries," Franks said at a weekend conference in St. Louis.

"There's almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn't be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can't do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.''

Bethany Haley, press secretary for the congressman, told the Tribune Washington Bureau today that Franks was specifically challenging Obama on his abortion policies.

"He regrets not stating it more clearly,'' she said, "that he was referring to unborn humanity. It was in the context of talking about abortion.''

And Franks was alluding to Obama's early executive order to overturn a Bush administration policy banning the use of federal funds by non-govermental organizations that discuss or provide abortions outside of the United States, known in government parlance as "the Mexico City policy,'' the congressman's spokeswoman said. The Bush policy required NGOs receiving federal funding to agree to "neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations." Obama signed a repealing order at the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.

The congressman "would have emphasized the fact that this is the most radically pro-choice administration in history. He was talking specifically about abortion,'' Haley said today of Franks. "I suspect we'll issue some sort of clarification.''

People for the American Way's "Right Wing Watch" says the "How to Take Back America'' conference in St. Louis demonstrated a willingness by Republicans to embrace the most extreme voices in their party.

It featured former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn), Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif), and Franks (R-Ariz.).

Franks is a fourth-term Republican from Glendale, Ariz., who served as director of the Arizona Family Research Institute, associated with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, and a radio commentator and is in the oil-and-gas drilling business.

by Mark Silva

We know the media have a certain limit when it comes to attention spans, but a columnist today has spotlighted that in a fairly poignant way:

When President Barack Obama lifted a ban against media coverage of returning war dead imposed by the first President Bush during the Gulf War, dozens turned out for the arrival of the first casket at which photography was permitted. Now, it's down to one lone photographer from the AP who lives near the Delaware base where the dead return.

"It's really fallen off," Lt. Joe Winter, spokesman for the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations Center at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where all war dead are received, tells Byron York of the Washington Examiner. "The flurry of interest has subsided."

"When the casket bearing Air Force Tech. Sgt. Phillip Myers, of Hopewell, Va., arrived at Dover the night of April 5 -- the first arrival in which press coverage was allowed -- there were representatives of 35 media outlets on hand to cover the story,'' York notes. "Two days later, when the body of Army Spc. Israel Candelaria Mejias, of San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico, arrived, 17 media outlets were there.... On subsequent days in April, there were nearly a dozen press organizations on hand to cover arrivals.''

"Fast forward to today. On Sept. 2, when the casket bearing the body of Marine Lance Cpl. David Hall, of Elyria, Ohio, arrived at Dover, there was just one news outlet -- the Associated Press -- there to record it. The situation was pretty much the same when caskets arrived on Sept. 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 22, 23 and 26. There has been no television coverage at all in September.''

Coverage is permitted only when the family of the fallen consent to it, but 60 percent do, York reports. York suggests there is something about George W. Bush's war in Iraq and Obama's wars that accounts for a clamor for media access that the second Bush denied, following his father's policy, and a tapering off of media interest in recent arrivals.

But it is the documentation and recognition of each soldier's passing that really is at issue here, and after a flurry of coverage at Dover with the advent of a new policy the AP has settled into a role of record-keeper that it performs on many fronts.

"The Associated Press, which supplies photos to 1,500 U.S. newspapers and 4,000 Web sites, has had a photographer at every arrival for which permission was granted. "It's our belief that this is important, that surely somewhere there is a paper, an audience, a readership, a family and a community for whom this homecoming is indeed news," says Paul Colford, director of media relations for AP. "It's been agreed internally that this is a responsibility for the AP to be there each and every time it is welcome."

Good for the AP.

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama has addressed a joint session of Congress on prime-time television.

Obama has appeared on five Sunday news shows - "everything but the Food Channel,'' complains Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri. Obama has done the Late Show with David Letterman.

And now, in the pursuit of health-care reform, Obama appears in a cable television ad sponsored by the American Medical Association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and others.

The ad is based on a direct, face-to-face appeal from the president.

"If you don't have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options,'' Obama says of the plan he is promoting, in the ad aired by "Americans for Stable Quality Care.''

The group says, "We represent doctors, nurses, technicians, manufacturers and health care consumers. Our organization is supported by the American Medical Association (AMA), FamiliesUSA, the Federation of American Hospitals and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).''

The group started with another ad promoting reform in August.

The coalition then said it was spending $12 million to run the ad in 12 states: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia. See that earlier ad here:

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin is a speed-writer, it appears, or perhaps the hired evangelical collaborator on her forthcoming memoirs is a task-master.

But without question, her publisher is a markerting whiz:

Going Roque is the announced title of the book that the former governor of Alaska and 2008 GOP candidate for vice president is delivering to a ready public.

And it will be hitting the bookstores much sooner than expected: By Thanksgiving, in time for the holiday book-buying season. It had been targeted for a spring release.

The way NBC News' Norah O'Donnell tells the tale, as she did this morning, Palin was holed up in San Diego with her collaborator, an evangelical publisher, all of August - her whole family was there.

"Going rogue" was the complaint that a faction of the McCain campaign had for a running mate who wasn't too interested in the professional advice of the paid campaign staff. Going rogue also is what Palin did in resigning from the governor's office in July.

"Going rogue'' is what Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey said she was doing when she made a famous aside in a pre-election SNL skit with the real McCain displaying a set of McCain pork knives and other wares for a faux QVC ad -- "Palin in 2012,'' read the T-shirt that Fey held up.

"I'm certainly not going back to Alaska,'' Fey-Palin said then, with prophetic words from the comic.

HarperCollins plans a press run of 1.5 million copies of Going Rogue: An American Life, ready for release on Nov. 17, says the publisher, a unit of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. That's the size of the printing of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's memoir, True Compass.

With more than 900,000 followers signed up for a growing Facebook audience that Palin has amassed since leaving office, she is certain to have a ready audience for a lot of stocking stuffers.

Quitting public office midway through her term has given a focused Palin a lot of time to pen a personal memoir, and she has used that time well, it seems - though the full read on that question remains for the expedited release of Going Rogue.

by Mark Silva

Is it possible that the public is warming to the idea of health-care reform? Researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation say they have measured a shift in attitudes in a new Health Tracking Poll.

Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said that tackling health-care reform is more important than ever, in a mid-September survey. That is up from 53 percent who said so in August.

The share of people who think their families would be better off with passage of health-care legislation has climbed to 42 percent - still no groundswell of optimism there, but higher than the 36 percent who voiced confidence in August. The share who say the country would be better off, however, has broken the surface: 53 percent, up from 45.

Despite this, 47 percent still say they favor taking more time to hammer out a bipartisan approach to health reform, compared to 42 percent who would prefer to see the Democrats in Congress move more swiftly on their own.

Yet a strong majority - 68 percent - say they are "hopeful'' about reform, while 50 percent allow they are "anxious.'' Just 31 percent are "angry'' about reform - and we've heard from them over the summer.

"Opinion in the coming months is hard to predict, but as the focus shifted from the town halls and hot button issues to the president, the Congress and the core issues in the legislation that affect people the most, the summer downturn in support was largely erased," Kaiser President and CEO Drew Altman said in a statement.

The uptick in opinion has come largely among Republicans and independents, the foundation's researchers found.

by Mark Silva

The author of a children's book, I Am Barack Obama, says she wasn't responsible for the Obama song sung by young children in Burlington Township, N.J.

Charisse Carney-Nunes says she was invited to Bernice Young Elementary School by the Burlington Township School District "because of her status as an award-winning children's book author,'' a spokeswoman says today.

"Charisse presented all of her books, including her recent book I Am Barack Obama, a book capturing the example of President Obama to highlight children's personal power to change the world.

"Charisse did not write, create, teach or lead the song about President Obama in the video,'' the spokeswoman says. "The song was presented to her by a teacher and students as a demonstration of a project that the children had previously put together.''

When a video of the kids singing last winter hit the Internet recently (see it above), the superintendent of schools in Burlington Township issued a swift apology.

"Barack Hussein Obama,'' the schoolchildren sang. "Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm....Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you,'' they chimed. "He said that all must lend a hand, to make this country strong again.''

"The activity took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country,'' superintendent Christopher Manno wrote. "Our curriculum studies, honors and recognizes those who serve our country. The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized.''

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin has reported that the video was posted by Carney-Nunes, senior vice president of The Jamestown Project and "a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she was a schoolmate of President Obama."

Carney-Nunes has previously said that she is not answering questions about the video. The writer's spokeswoman, Kharma Finley-Wallace, of HoverFly Media, did say today: "Charisse feels it is unfortunate that an event put together with sincere intentions to encourage literacy while celebrating the contributions of African Americans to our great nation has been become political fodder, and hopes cooler heads will prevail.''

by Sgt. Pepper

Today's musical notation:

Lucy Vodden, who was the inspiration for the Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with "Diamonds," has succumbed to lupus. She was 46.

Vodden, born O'Donnell, became a fixture of pop culture when John Lennon's son, Julian drew a picture of her in nursery school in 1966. He told his dad, "That's Lucy in the sky with diamonds," and so a song-title was inspired.

"I remember Julian and I both doing pictures on a double-sided easel, throwing paint at each other, much to the horror of the classroom attendant,'' she had told the BBC a couple of years ago. "Julian had painted a picture and on that particular day his father turned up with the chauffeur to pick him up from school."

by Mark Silva

Pat Buchanan wrote speeches for President Richard Nixon.

Buchanan ran for president, as a Republican.

And when he fell short of the GOP's nomination in 2000, Buchanan ran with the Reform Party.

And when Palm Beach County, Florida, printed its 2000 ballots in a "butterfly'' configuration, thousands of elderly, Democratic leaning voters cast their ballots for Buchanan - clearly confused balloting: A Miami Herald analysis found that voters in Palm Beach County were "100 times more likely than those elsewhere in South Florida'' in picking both Democrat Al Gore and the Reform Party's Buchanan.

And Florida, by a disputed 537 votes, gave the White House to George W. Bush.

So where is Buchanan today?

Not only on Morning Joe, at MSNBC.

But also, as he said today, on air, in President Barack Obama's corner: The president is making all the right moves on Iran and has had a pretty good week, he said, which caught Mika Brezinski's attention.

"I'm an Obama man,'' Buchanan said with a laugh.

by Mark Silva

Keeping track of all that $787-billion in federal economic stimulus spending is a full-time job, and reading the government's new Recovery.gov Web-site unveiled today may be a full-time job too.

The mapping tool alone will keep you going until dinner-time.

Among the information readily displayed there:

Which agencies have paid out the most money?

1. Department of Health and Human Services $31,717,383,350
2. Department of Labor $24,665,638,574
3. Department of Education $18,377,432,458
4. Social Security Administration $13,194,617,576
5. Department of Agriculture $4,709,569,570
6. Department of Transportation $3,144,716,111
7. Department of Housing and Urban Development $1,485,973,848
8. Department of Justice $1,125,214,712
9. Department of Energy $697,249,598
10. Department of the Treasury $646,849,459

Where has the money gone by state?

1. California $25,393,978,619
2. New York $17,316,315,109
3. Texas $13,150,869,871
4. Florida $10,865,422,857
5. Illinois $8,899,757,277
6. Pennsylvania $7,352,135,305
7. Michigan $7,246,526,952
8. Ohio $7,184,658,187
9. New Jersey $6,226,060,281
10. Georgia $5,937,726,447

"Recovery.gov,'' as they say at Recovery.gov, "is the U.S. government's official website providing easy access to data related to Recovery Act spending and allows for the reporting of potential fraud, waste, and abuse.''

It also cost $9.5 million in stimulus-funding to get this thing up and running: An Internet-ready project.

by Mark Silva

We hadn't had time until now to contemplate the loan that the U.S. government is giving a California-based company backed by former Vice President Al Gore that is building a hybrid sports car in Finland that will fetch about $89,000 a model.

The car is called Karma.

Gore, Nobel Prize-winning producer of An Inconvenient Truth, champion of the campaign against climate change and the candidate who collected the majority of the popular vote in the 2000 election for president, was among the first to put a down payment on one of the company's "green" - actually gun-metal gray in the promotional model -- cars, as the tale is told by the Wall Street Journal.

Fisker Automotive will draw a $529 million loan from the government, part of a $25 billion fund that Congress approved to spur development of fuel-efficient vehicles.

"Fisker's top investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a veteran Silicon Valley venture-capital firm of which Gore is a partner,'' the Journal reports. "Employees of KPCB have donated more than $2.2 million to political campaigns, mostly for Democrats, including President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks campaign contributions.''

The Department of Energy tells the Journal that Gore's involvement in the company had nothing to do with the loan - it was awarded on the merits of the design. And most of the loan will be used to finance U.S. production of a $40,000 family sedan that has yet to be designed, according to the agency, as the Journal tells the tale.

Another California startup that concentrates on all-electric vehicles, Tesla Motors, has secured a $465 million government loan to manufacture a $109,000 British-build roadster.

"This is not for average Americans," Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, an anti-tax group in Washington, tells the Journal of the loans. "This is for people to put something in their driveway that is a conversation piece. It's status symbol thing."

by Mark Silva and updated again at 4:10 pm EDT

Let the games begin:

President Barack Obama, who initially planned to let First Lady Michelle Obama represent the United States in Copenhagen this week, when the International Olympic Committee chooses a site for the 2016 summer games, plans to travel there too. The first couple will appear together at the venue-choosing summit, where Chicago will compete with three other cities for the '16 games.

"The gloves are off,'' Michelle Obama said today.

The White House, which earlier had announced that an advance team was headed to Copenhagen to prepare for a possible presidential trip to Copenhagen, confirmed this morning that Obama will travel Thursday night. The IOC meets Friday.

"He hopes that he can make a strong case for Chicago and America's bid for the Olympics in 2016,'' White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said this afternoon. " Obviously any Olympics showcases the country that those Olympics are in and there's a tangible economic benefit to those Games being here. And the president wants to help out America's bid.''

Was the president's late-breaking decision to travel prompted by any hint that his appearance in Copenhagen will help? "Well, I certainly hope that an appearance wouldn't hurt it,'' Gibbs said. "But we have gotten no intelligence on it.''

A senior administration official first told the Tribune Washington Bureau this morning that Obama will travel to Copenhagen Thursday night, and return following the Friday meeting. The first lady plans to travel Tuesday, and meet with individual members of the IOC on Wednesday and Thursday to make Chicago's case for the games. The president will join her at the full committee meeting on Friday.

"President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will both make presentations to the IOC during Friday's session,'' the White House said later this morning, in formally announcing the overnight trip. "They will discuss why Chicago is best to host the 2016 Summer games, and how the United States is eager to bring the world together to celebrate the ideals of the Olympic movement.''

Gibbs voiced confidence in Chicago's bid for the games this afternoon.

"Obviously the president has mentioned this at meetings when we were at the U.N. and G-20,'' Gibbs said, asked about Obama's own "behind the scenes'' lobbying for the games. "He's going to continue to talk to people, in an effort to bring the 2016 games...

"Having spent some time in Chicago, it is a perfect place to hold the Olympics,'' Gibbs said. "It offers a great place for the world to see... I think, far and away, it's the strongest bid of the four that are out there.''

What if the U.S. is not chosen? Call his assistant on Saturday, the press secretary suggested.

And as for that perennial "tomato-tomahto" question, Gibbs was asked about his own pronunciation of Obama's destination: "I say Copen-HAYGEN, but I'm not sure I should be the arbiter.''

Chicago is competing with Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo for the 2016 summer games.

Obama isn't the only head of state going to Copenhagen

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, confident in Rio's bid, will travel to the Danish capital ahead of the IOC's vote.

"This is a fight," Lula said on his weekly radio program today. "And if we don't win, we'll have to prepare for another one. But I think we're going to return from Copenhagen with a victory." Brazil deserves the Olympics, Lula says, because South America has never hosted the games. "For the other nations, it would just be one more Olympics.''

Michelle Obama sat next to the Brazilian first lady last week at the G-20 in Pittsburgh. Obama's wife said today that she told her counterpart that she was happy to hug last week, but this week they are doing battle.

"I said, 'I'm going to hug you now and then I'm going after you.'" Michelle Obama recalled of the conversation in a meeting with reporters today. "She said, 'You, too.' So, the gloves are off."

When in Denmark...

The American president and first lady also plan to meet with Queen Margrethe II and His Royal Highness, the Prince Consort. The president also plans a meeting with Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

The Danish media are chasing suggestions that Obama might get out for a walk-around as well, though the time-frame of the president's planned overnight trip for meetings and return Friday afternoon don't leave a lot of room for tourism. They're hearing that the president's whole presence there may be limited to five hours.

It's big news in Denmark: Obamas besøg er skåret ned til fem timer

Promoters of Chicago's bid for the 2016 games have pressed the president to take the United States' case to Copenhagen personally. And prromoters today praised the president's decision to join the first lady at the IOC meeting.

(Copen-HAYGEN, says Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, pictured above, today, at press briefing. Photo by Gerald Herbert / AP.) And President Barack Obama toyed with a light saber and Olympic fencer Tim Morehouse, who won a silver medal in Men's Saber Fencing at the Beijing Olympics, during a recent event at the White House to promote Chicago's bid for the '16 games. (Photo by Charles Dharapak / AP)

by Andrew Zajac.

Healthcare overhaul legislation moving through the Senate Finance Committee would put crucial rule-making authority in the hands of a private association of state insurance commissioners that consumer advocates fear is too closely tied to the industry.

The National Assn. of Insurance Commissioners currently writes model laws and regulations that individual states are free to accept or discard. Under the bill by Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), it would craft a model rule governing "health insurance rating, issuance and marketing requirements" that would become "the new federal minimum standard without any further congressional action." States would be permitted to deviate from the standards only by appealing to the Department of Health and Human Services.

In effect, the bill would allow the group to write many of the new rules on issuing and marketing insurance to millions of uninsured Americans who would be required to purchase policies.

"The NAIC is clearly an organization that is dominated by the insurance industry," said California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a former state insurance commissioner.

"I think the NAIC has an important role to play. They have a lot of knowledge, but I would be concerned about giving them authority to set the rules."

The group's 56 members are public officials -- the elected or appointed chief insurance regulators of the states, the District of Columbia and five U.S. territories -- responsible for enforcing laws that vary widely in rigor depending on jurisdiction.

But the association itself is a private organization not subject to open meetings and public records law, noted J. Robert Hunter, insurance director of the Consumer Federation of America and a former Texas insurance commissioner.

"They have no transparency," he said.

See the full report on health-care reform and the insurance regulators who stand to set the rules in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

by Mark Silva

What do American families do when they go to Washington?

See the monuments.

What does the first family do in Washington?

Tonight, they saw the monuments.

They didn't take a sightseeing bus. They motorcaded.

It was cool and mild this evening in Washington, where President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and some of their extended family took a brisk tour of the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial, both of which are visible from the White House, but neither of which look quite the way they do, well, close up.

The tourists tonight included Maya Soetoro-Ng, the president's half-sister, her husband, Konrad Ng, and their daughters Suhaila and Savita. Michelle Obama's mother, Marian Robinson.

First stop, the Jefferson Memorial. This reportedly was Obama's own first personal outing to the memorial (and an uncomfirmed report from a National Park Service official suggested that it was the first non-event visit by a president since Franklin Roosevelt, who has his own monument on another side of the Tidal Basin. The president was inside for less than 10 minutes, emerging to cheers from fellow tourists.

Next stop, the Washington Monument, with a crisp, steady wind whipping American Flags encircling the lighted obelisk as the family headed inside. A few dozen tourists stood nearby, enjoying an unexpected addition to their evening tour.

A half moon and clear night sky completed the picture.

They motorcaded home to the White House -- which is someplace else a lot of families like to see when they're in Washington.

The family was home by 8:05 pm EDT.

It's a school night.

by Mark Silva

Is that "right wing conspiracy'' that the Clintons complained about still alive and well, and is President Barack Obama feeling some of that heat today?

"Oh you bet,'' former President Bill Clinton said in an appearance this morning on NBC News' Meet the Press. "Sure it is... It's not as strong as it was, because America has changed, demographically.. But it's as virulent as it was. They're saying things about him, like when they accused me of murder....

"They can take his numbers down, they can run his opposition up,'' Clinton said of the president's critics. "But fundamentally, he and his team have a positive agenda for America... Their (opponents') agenda seems to be of one for him to fail. And that's not a good prescription for America.''

A good debate is needed about economic stimulus and restoring a budgetary balance, suggested the former president, who presided over four annual budget surpluses during his second term as president, handing the budget off to President George W. Bush and eight years of budget deficits, which have reached a new record high on Obama's watch. Obama has pledged to cut the annual deficit in half by the end of his term.

Does Clinton worry about a repeat of 1994, when Republicans took control of Congress midway through his first term?

"There's no way they can make it that bad,'' Clinton said. The country has changed, he said, viewing it as "more ... They've seen this movie before, because they had eight years under George Bush when the Republicans finally had the whole government, and they know the results were bad....

"Whatever happens, it will be manageable,'' Clinton predicted of the midterm.

by Mark Silva

With the Obama administration confronting a decision over escalating U.S. military forces in Afghanistan -- something which the general in command there views as essential to averting failure -- the Defense secretary says some time is necessary to reassess the strategy there before deploying any additional troops.

General Stanly McChrystal has assesed the situation, neary eight years into the U.S. war there. "He has found the situation on the ground in Afghanistan worse than he had... anticipated,'' Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in an an appearance on ABC News' This Week With George Stephanopoulos aired this morning.

"And so I think what the president is now saying is in light of the (flawed Afghan) election, in light of McChrystal's more concerning assessment of the situation on the ground, have we got the strategy right, were the decisions in -- that he made at the end of March, the right ones?'' Gates said. "Do we need to some adjustments in light of what we've found? And once we've decided whether or not to make adjustments in the strategy, then we will consider the additional resources...

"It's a matter of a few weeks,'' Gates said of the time needed to sort it all out, denying a suggesting that the military command is divided over the issue. "People should remember that the debate within the Bush administration on the surge (in Iraq) lasted three months, from October to December, 2006.'' Even if they decided to deploy more forces to Afghanistan today, Gates said, they would not arrive in January.

Gates also addressed the disclosure of a once-secret uranium enrichment plant in Iran, as well as Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's demand for an apology from the West for accusing Iran of deception in its development: "Not a chance.''

As multilateral talks with Tehran get underway this week, Gates also addressed that military option which the U.S. will not remove from the table, in a talk with CNN's John King on State of the Union aired this morning.

"We obviously don't take any options off the table,'' Gates told King. " My view has been that there has been an opportunity through the use of diplomacy and economic sanctions to persuade the Iranians to change their approach to -- to nuclear weapons.

"The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The estimates are one to three years or so. And the only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened.''

Gates also said this about meeting the president's deadline of closing the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the Jan. 22 deadline:

"It's going to be tough.''

Here, courtesy of ABC, and CNN are transcripts of the interviews:

by Mark Silva

Mark this as the week in which one of the potential players for 2012 set out to brand herself: Sarah Palin, the "common-sense conservative.''

Three years from now -- think about that phrase a moment -- we'll know if the brand stuck. We'll also have a clearer picture of what's up with this resignation of hers.

Palin, who delivered a closed-door speech to a conference of investors in Hong Kong last week, also posted a long "excerpt'' of her remarks -- some excerpt -- on that Facebook page that she has been building since resigning as governor of Alaska over the summer -- her Facebook followers have passed the 900,000 mark.

Palin is talking about "real change.'' And, she says, "you don't need a title to do it.'' Judging from her remarks in Hong Kong, one wonders if she feels she needs a party to do it -- or one of the big-two parties.

This talk has the feel of a Ross Perot 2.0 -- while we remain mindful of the fact that, while Perot captured one fifth of the vote his first time out, he also helped get Bill Clinton elected president.

"There is suddenly a growing sentiment to just "throw the bums out" of Washington, D.C. - and by bums they mean the Republicans and the Democrats,'' Palin suggested in her address to the CLSA investors conference.

"Americans are suffering from pay cuts and job losses, and they want to know why their elected leaders are not tightening their belts,'' she said. "There is a growing sense of frustration on Main Street. But even in the midst of crisis and despair, we see signs of hope.

"In fact, it's a sea change in America, I believe,'' she said. "Recently, there have been protests by ordinary Americans who marched on Washington to demand their government stop spending away their future. Large numbers of ordinary, middle-class Democrats, Republicans, and Independents from all over the country marching on Washington?! You know something's up!

"These are the same people who flocked to the town halls this summer to face their elected officials who were home on hiatus from that distant capital and were now confronted with the people they represent. Big town hall meetings - video clips circulating coverage - people watching, feeling not so alone anymore.

"The town halls and the Tea Party movement are both part of a growing grassroots consciousness among ordinary Americans who've decided that if they want real change, they must take the lead and not wait to be led. Real change - and, you know, you don't need a title to do it.

The "Tea Party Movement" is aptly named to remind people of the American Revolution - of colonial patriots who shook off the yoke of a distant government and declared their freedom from indifferent - elitist - rulers who limited their progress and showed them no respect. Today, Main Street Americans see Washington in similar terms.''

by Mark Silva

The word from the president's keynote address to the Congressional Black Caucus last night is that he spoke at length about advances in civil rights through the decades, but made only passing references to the "choices'' that people should have under the health-care reform he is seeking.

Promoting his health-care reforms, President Barack Obama said there comes a time when "the cup of endurance runs over."

But the public option was not on the president's lips, according to the pool report from the evening at the Washington Convention Center, where Barack Obama addressed the CBC Foundation's Annual Phoenix Awards Dinner

A cavernous hall was filled for the black tie event, the first lady in a sleeveless black dress, the president in tux and bow tie.

The president approached a podium on stage right before being directed to another stage left. "They don't want me to be on the right," Obama joked. "This is the CBC."

The address of the first African American president was heavy on advances in civil rights, starting with George Henry White, a congressman from North Carolina who served from 1897-1901. The president spoke of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

And he spoke of the economic turmoil he faced when he entered the White House. "Some people seem to have forgotten how bad things where when I took office,'' Obama said.

Turning to "health insurance reform,'' the president touched on much of what he had said in his recent speech to Congress, but his talk of "choices'' for people who currently lack insurance was notable for its omission: He emphasized the need to provide people with "affordable choices" but did not mention the so-called public option. "We are talking about expanding choices," he said.

Transcript, as they say, to follow.

With thanks to the pool reporting of Salon's Mark Benjamin

by Mark Silva

Out on the grass mall where protesters have camped, marched and clashed, thousands of poetry- prose- and history-lovers huddled under tents shielding them from a steady, cold drizzle, reminded by a best-selling Iranian writer and freshly minted American citizen that it wasn't poets who had bankrupted this great nation.

Out on the landscape of a Capitol where South Carolina, the concept, has captured the news lately, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer from Tennessee allowed that back home: "We think of South Carolina as Tennessee without the hardcover books." Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek and author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, quickly added that he was joking.

This was only some the stew brewing today at the National Book Festival, where writers drew the sort of crowds that politicians might envy, where Meacham had to advise autograph-seekers that he is not John Grisham, and where Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, made the case for the absurdity of speaking of "the Muslim world" and offered a fine description of the "idiot" running her homeland - "with a smile that looks like he broke a neighbor's window and got away with it."

Between the lines of the readings and the commentaries, there were lessons in democracy to be learned under rain-pelted tents.

"The thing about Jackson's presidency that drew me to it is how modern it feels," Meacham said. "It really is the beginning of the presidency as we recognize it now."

Jackson, like Barack Obama, was raised without a father. Obama, as a senator, once told Meacham that he spent a lot of time trying to live up to his father's expectations and learn from his father's mistakes. It is self-made men, Meacham was suggesting, who have loomed large in the office of the president.

Jackson, "the creator of populism as we have come to understand it," looked out for what Harry Truman would later know as the little man, the first self-made man elected president, a republican, with a little R, and the first to see himself as a democrat, with a lower case D.

He also was "arguably the cruellest president," a slaveholder who vehemently opposed abolition and cut a trail of tears for the American Indian.

The best one can do with the "sins and omissions and crimes of people like Jackson," Meacham said, is to look around at our own times. "Before throwing rocks at the past," the editor and writer suggested, "we have to look at the moral failings of our own era."

by Mark Silva

Debt and taxes.

That's what Americans stand to get from the health-care reform that Democrars are pressing, Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson says in his party's weekly address.

"Americans have been calling us and e-mailing us,'' the senator says..

"They've packed our town hall meetings.

"They've even marched on the National Mall in Washington.

"Their message has been loud, and it has been clear: They don't like the direction this healthcare debate is headed inm,'' Isakson says. "They get anxious when they see the word billions and trillions to describe the cost because they know Washington doesn't have that kind of extra cash lying around.

They know that can only mean one thing - more debt and higher taxes.

See the Republican address above and read the text below:

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, joining other world leaders in calling on Iran to comply with international nuclear regulations -- after the exposure of a once-secret uranium enrichment plant -- maintains that the U.S. and allies are more united on this than ever before.

" This is a serious challenge to the global nonproliferation regime, and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion,'' Obama says in his weekly radio and Internet address, taped on his way home from the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.

"My offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open,'' the president says. "But Iran must now cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and take action to demonstrate its peaceful intentions.

:On this, the international community is more united than ever before. Yesterday, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with our European allies in condemning Iran's program. In our meetings and public statements, President Medvedev of Russia and I agreed that Iran must pursue a new course or face consequences. All of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany, have made it clear that Iran must fulfill its responsibilities.''

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown put it a little differently in Pittsburgh. He said "a line in the sand'' had been drawn.

See the president's address above and read it below

by Mark Silva

What would John McCain do?

Certaiinly not what he joked about on the campaign trail more than two years ago: "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.''

But the revelation, corroborated by European allies, that Iran has secretly built a uranium-enriching facility underground which, according to Western estimates, goes far beyond any requirements for developing the fuel for civil nuclear power generation, raises, once again, a long-ago asked question that was posed to the Republican who ultimately carried his party's nomination for the White House : When will the U.S. send some "air mail'' to Iran explaining how serious it is about nuclear proliferation?

"That old, eh, that old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran," McCain said in jest on the early campaign trail in South Carolina, softly singing, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, anyway, ah ..."

The quip was prompted by a man in the audience who asked: "How many times do we have to prove that these people are blowing up people now, nevermind if they get a nuclear weapon, when do we send 'em an airmail message to Tehran?"

When the joking was done, the Arizona Republican went on to explain that he agreed with then-President Bush that the United States must protect Israel from Iran and work to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. McCain had long said the military option should not be taken off the table, but that it should be used only as a last resort. That's what Bush said, at a European Union summit in Brussels, in 2005.

And that, in fact, is what President Barack Obama said today, after a long day in which U.S. allies underscored the severity of the situation in the now-disclosed, though apparently long-known intelligence about Iran's enrichment facility. The military option, that "air-mail'' from the Pentagon, is the last resort in a long-running international camapign to stop Tehran from building a bomb.

Today, what John McCain would do, had he been elected president of the United States, probably is not much different from what Obama did about the newest publicly revealed threat of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Gordnn Brown, the Briitsh prime minister, said standing alongside Obama today, that "a line in the sand" has been drawn. Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said that Iran must comply with its obligations to report its developments and permit inspection by the United Nations' nuclear enegy agency by December, or face new sanctions..

None of them are saying what McCain only joked about in 2007, and all of them, including McCain, are probably glad about that today..

by Christi Parsons

President Obama said today he wants to give upcoming talks with Iran a chance to resolve international conflict over that country's rogue nuclear program.

But in the wake of today's public disclosures about an underderground nuclear facility in Iran, the president also said he isn't taking military options off the table if diplomacy doesn't work.

The president said Iran should take seriously what seems to be a growing resolve among world leaders to contain its nuclear capability. The leaders of France and Britain joined Obama for a morning announcement about the underground Iranian nuclear plant, and China and Russia also joined in an international call for an investigation.

"That kind of solidarity is not typical," Obama said. "Anybody who has been following the responses to Iran would have been doubtful just a few months ago that that kind of rapid response was possible. So I think Iran is on notice that, when we meet . . . they are going to have to come clean and make a choice."

The president made the remarks during a press conference in Pittsburgh this afternoon, where a meeting of the heads of state from the G20 nations is winding down.

by Mark Silva

The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the general in command of military forces in Afghanistan met half way today, flying to Ramstein Air Base in Germany to talk about Gen. Stanley McChrystal's reported desire for tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Back home, however, there is little apparent public support for the boost in forces that commanders on the ground apparently believe will be necessary to sustain the mission there.

Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman, already has told Congress that McChrystal's assessment of the challenge there, stepping up an anti-insurgency campaign against the Taliban and al Qaeda, will require more troops, while the president maintains that he has not put the troop "cart'' before the "horse'' of a successful strategy yet.

Fewer than one in three Americans believe the U.S. troop deployment in Afghanistan should be increased, according to the findings of a new CBS News/New York Times poll. The Gallup Poll also finds that "Americans more likely to say they would oppose - 50 percent -- than favor - 41 percent - a possible decision by Obama to boost the force.

In the CBS/Times survey, only 29 percent said troop levels should be increased, with 32 percent saying they should be cut, and 27 percent saying hold them as they are.

Obama, who already has ordered an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan by the end of the year, raising the U.S. total to 68,000, has maintained that a full assessment of the strategy is necessary before any additional forces are deployed.

Americans are divided over "whether the United States is doing the right thing'' fighting the war in Afghanistan, the CBS/Times poll found 47 percent yes, 42 percent no.

Nearly eight years after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and ousted the Taliban from power, public support for the war launched in retaliation of the Sept. 11 attacks against the U.S. appears to be running out of steam.

This will put Obama, who already has pledged to withdraw U.S. combat forces from Iraq by next year and all forces by 2011, in a precarious position: Potentially ramping up an increasingly unpopular war, while he rolls up the ramps of another unpopular war which he pledged to end during his campaign for the White House..

by Mark Silva and updated

Payback is fundraising.

The Republicans have tapped a potentially powerful fundraising tool in Rep. Joe Wilson, the South Carolinian who accused the president of lying about his health-care plans. Wilson apologized to the White House, but not to the House, which in turn admonished him for his behavior.

The GOP has not only President Barack Obama and his health-care plans, but also House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in its cross-hairs with a fundraising appeal in Wilson's name.

Democrat Paul Begala takes note in his own fundraising appeal for his party: "'You Lie!' That was one Republican Congressclown's response to President Obama's call for action on health insurance reform. Classy. But now the very liars who heckled President Obama for calling them out are raising millions of dollars off of their rude, dishonest attack.''

"There has been a lot of debate on what is true in the debate over government-run healthcare,'' Wilson writes in a fundraising email circulated by the National Republican Congressional Committee. "But Democrats continue to spin and mislead the public in an attempt to stifle honest and open debate about what this bill will do, what it will cost and how it will change your healthcare.

"To remedy this, my Republican colleagues have introduced legislation requiring Nancy Pelosi to post all major legislation online for a minimum of 72 hours before it can be brought to a vote,'' he writes. "While this seems like common sense, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have continually rushed major legislation to a vote to ensure little to no public scrutiny. This means, you as a taxpaying citizen, cannot read the legislation before your representatives vote on it. ''

And this is what taxpayers can do about it, Wilson suggests: Follow the link in his email to the GOP "to support the NRCC and return the people's House to you.''

Consider this Wilson's own resolution of disapproval.

by Mark Silva and updated

President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy today presented a united front in a stern demand for Iran to start complying with international nuclear regulation, with the French leader voicing a December deadline for compliance and a threat of new sanctions.

The three governments this week reported to the United Nations something which they apparently have long known - that Iran is building a previously undisclosed underground facility for the enrichment of uranium. Iran only this week reported this to the United Nations' nuclear energy monitoring agency.

"Iran's nuclear program is the most urgent proliferation challenge that the world faces today,'' Brown said at a news conference this morning in Pittsburgh, where leaders of the Group of 20 nations are meeting."The level of deception by the Iranian government... will shock and anger the whole international community and it will harden our resolve.

"The international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand,'' said Brown, joining Obama and Sarkozy in statements about Iran and delivering the sternest warning.

The U.S., France and Britain have presented evidence to the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran has been building a new enrichment facility, Obama announced at the news conference.

"The existence of this facility underscores Iran's continuing unwillingness to meet its obligations'' under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Obama said. "Iran's decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge... to the nuclear regime...''

"We were already in a very severe confidence crisis,'' Sarkozy said, through an interpreter. "We are now involved in a challenge'' to the international community.

"Everything must be put on the table now,'' Sarkozy said. "We cannot allow the Iranian leaders to gain time while the motor is running,'' he said, giving Iran until December to comply with IAEA rules. If not, he said, "sanctions will have to be taken.''

Russia weighed in with its own statement today, from the Kremlin: "Iran's construction of a uranium enrichment plant violates decisions of the United Nations Security Council.

"The International Atomic Energy Agency must investigate this site immediately, and Iran must cooperate with this investigation,'' the statement from Moscow read. "Russia will assist in this investigation by any available means. Russia remains committed to a dialogue with Iran on the nuclear issue, and urges Iran to provide proof of its commitment to a peaceful nuclear program by the October 1 meeting of the P5-plus-1.''

by Mark Silva

The newest, but only temporary, member of the U.S. Senate will be sworn in this afternoon. Vice President Joe Biden, a longtime friend of the late Sen. Edward M. Kenmedy and former colleague, will preside over the swearing-in of Sen. Paul G. Kirk Jr., another longtime, close friend and former aide to the late senator prepared to carry on his mission.

For the Obama administration, pressing Congress to enact a sweeping overhaul of health care, Kirk's temporary appointment by the Democratic governor of Massachusetts offers a critical and reliable 60th vote for the Democratic congressional agenda during the next four months.

Republican leaders have decried the interim appointment as a Democratic "power-play'' to "ram'' a health-care bill through Congress.

In January, the voters of Massachusetts will elect a longer-term successor for Kennedy, who served for nearly 47 years and succumbed to brain cancer last month. In the meantime, observers say, Kirk will not only retain the Kennedy staff, but also maintain an agenda which he long has supported. Kirk served Kennedy as a Senate aide for nearly a decade and informally advised him for many more years.

"He was there fighting for health care when Kennedy was there fighting for it,'' said Bob Shrum, a longtime Democratic consultant who served the presidential campaigns of Kennedy and more recently Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. "He won't vote for health care because he is a proxy (for Kennedy), but because he cares about it.''

Kirk, 71, a Harvard-bred attorney and business consultant whose father was an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, is a senior fixture of the Democratic Party. He served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1985 to 1989, culminating with the failed presidential campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. He was treasurer of the party before that.

He campaigned for the late Robert F. Kennedy in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1968, and was convinced by the younger brother, Ted Kennedy, to carry on in public service. Kirk worked as a special assistant to Kennedy from 1969 to 1977.

"This is a caretaker appointment, a gentle transition, a kind of stewardship,'' Kerry said Thursday, joining Kirk at Gov. Deval Patrick's announcement of his appointment at the state capitol in Boston. "And Paul Kirk will be a superb steward of this seat.''

(Paul Kirk, above left, with Sen. John Kerry, is to be sworn in today. (Photo by Elise Amendola / Associated Press)

See the full story on Paul Kirk in Tribune newspapers and here in the Swamp:

by Mark Silva

Pittsburgh just got interesting.

Iran, which has maintained that it is enriching uranium for civilain power, not for any weaponry, has informed the United Nations that it is building a secret enrichment plant.

"The disclosure is expected to intensify Western diplomatic pressure for a new round of economic sanctions against the Islamic republic,'' our correspondent in Cairo reports. "The news comes after Russia -- one of Iran's allies on the U.N. Security Council -- announced that it would reconsider imposing sanctions following a meeting this week between President Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

"I can confirm that on 21 September Iran informed the IAEA in a letter that a new pilot fuel enrichment plant is under construction in the country," IAEA spokesman Marc Vidricaire said today. "The IAEA has requested Iran to provide specific information and access to the facility as soon as possible."

It is reported elsewhere that President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will use the opening of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh to accuse Iran of hiding the secret underground plant from U.N. inspectors for years. The New York Times says the three leaders will demand an immediate inspection of the facility about 100 miles southwest of Tehran.

See the account of Iran's admission of a secret nuclear enrichment plant in the Los Angeles Times, and keep an eye on Pittsburgh today.

by Mark Silva

Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, says he likes one of the President Barack Obamas whom he sees.

"We have an Obama that talked about peace,'' Chavez said, in an interview aired tonight on CNN's Larry King Live conducted at Venezuela's mission to the United Nations in New York. Speaking of the American president's call for peace at the U.N. General Assembly this week, Chavez said: "We accept that.''

"However, there is another Obama,'' Chavez said, "the Obama sponsoring war, using the presence of military officers and'' and bases in South America.

So why buy tanks and rockets from Russia, as Venezuela is doing?

"All countries have a defense system,'' Chavez said, suggesting that, for a long time, Venezuela purchased F-16s from the United States, but then the U.S. would not sell Venezuela parts. "Now we have (gone) to other options.''

What is the threat?

Seven U.S. bases in Colombia, Chavez said.

"Venezuela has the largest oil reserve, and Venezuela has to defend itself,'' Chavez told King. Asked about Venezuela triggering a regional arms race, as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned, Chavez said: "I think she is totally lost.''

"I think the United States and the secretary of state should be concerned about the poverty in this country, the people without health insurance,'' Chavez said. "In Venezuela, our defense budget is one of the lowest of the whole hemisphere.. Colombia has ten times more expenditures in military defenses as Venezuela. Venezuela is half that amount.''

"The secretary of state is totally lost in her analysis,'' he said.

What does he like about the U.S., he was asked.

"Baseball,'' he said -- the music, and the movies. "I love the movies... I love the movies of this guy Charles Bronson, an excellent actor... Baseball, the Yankee Stadium, Walt Whitman, I love them.''

by Mark Silva

"The media is asking the question, 'Did Glenn Beck kill a frog?'' the FOX News Channel commentator announced this evening on his show.

"I have to address the Frog-gate,'' he said. "Isn't it like 9/11 Truthers and everyting else? Birthers? Deathers? Frogger. I'm a frogger.''

He replayed the tape of the point that he was trying to prove about reaching the boiling point with President Barack Obama's heavy agenda.

But no one replayed the end of the tape in the YouTube accounts of Beck's frog-play:

"Forget about the frog... It was fake.''

He even had former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton on hand for verification -- "very rubber,'' the ambassador said of the frog.

Beck spent considerable time today explaining how they staged the frog boil that wasn't. Great moments in political television.

No frog-killer, this Beck.

"I have two dogs, and I absolutely love them,'' Beck said tonight. "Look at me. I'm half dog.''

"I either believe what I say, or I'm a fraud,'' Beck said, which helps explain the whole frog thing. "If I'm acting, then I'm the best damn actor on television.''

by Mark Silva

"Barack Hussein Obama,'' the New Jersey schoolchildren sang with glee. "Mmmm... mmmm... mmmm.''

"Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you,'' they chimed. "He said that all must lend a hand, to make this country strong again.''

As if the president hadn't generated enough controversy with his back-to-school television address to schoolchildren earlier this month - it was the Department of Education's later-retracted suggestions for lesson plans asking kids how they could help the president that rubbed people the wrong way - a videotape is making the rounds of the Internet, and uh, FOX News, picturing the coaching of schoolkids singing the president's praises.

The tape was made earlier this year.

But now the superintendent of schools in Burlington Township, N.J., has circulated a letter to families about the tape made at B. Bernice Young School: "Today we became aware of a video that was placed on the Internet which has been reported in the media. The video is of a class of students singing a song about President Obama.

" he activity took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country,'' superintendent Christopher Manno writes. "Our curriculum studies, honors and recognizes those who serve our country. The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized.''

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin has reported that the video was posted by Charisse Carney-Nunes, a Washington D.C. author who wrote a children's book titled I Am Barack Obama. Carney-Nunes is senior vice president of The Jamestown Project and "a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she was a schoolmate of President Obama."

The school district's homepage has posted an explanation, too, but it was a little difficult to retrieve today.

In case the kids are looking for some new songs, here they are:

by Mark Silva

The governor of Massachusetts today named Paul Kirk Jr., a former Democratic National Committee chairman and close friend and former aide of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, to serve as a temporary replacement for the deceased senator until a special election for the seat is held in January.

Kirk's appointment will restore a crucial 60th vote for the Senate's Democratic leadership as the party presses for the health-care legislation that the White House is demanding.

Kennedy, who succumbed to brain cancer last month, had asked state officials to appoint a successor swiftly, arguing that the state cannot afford the vacancy at a critical time.

His passing also had denied the Senate's Democrats a filibuster-proof 60-vote bloc, which the party had only recently obtained with the long-disputed election of Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota. Two other senators, independents Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, meet with the majority party's caucus.

State law calls for a special election to fill a Senate vacancy, and that will be held in January. But the state Legislature this week passed a bill permitting the governor, Democrat Deval Patrick, to appoint an interim successor until the election is held.

"This appointment is a profound honor, and I accept it with sincere humility,'' Kirk said, thanking the state's legislature for fulfilling the former senator's dying wish in enabling the governor to appoint an interim senator, adding: "I shall not be a candidate in the special election for the United States Senate.''

President Barack Obama, pressing Congress for action on a sweeping health-care overhaul, praised Kirk's appointment.

"I am pleased that Massachusetts will have its full representation in the United States Senate in the coming months, as important issues such as health care, financial reform and energy will be debated,'' Obama said in a statement issued by the Whtie House. "Paul Kirk is a distinguished leader, whose long collaboration with Senator Kennedy makes him an excellent, interim choice to carry on his work until the voters make their choice in January.''

Republicans quickly denounced the move as a Democratic "power play'' to ram the president's health-care bill through Congress.

"The Democrats' power play in Massachusetts has nothing to do with principle, and everything to do with politics,'' said Rob Jesmer, executive eirector of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "With their unpopular government-run health care bill on the brink of failure, Democrats in Washington desperately need another vote in the U.S. Senate, and it is clear that this administration will stop at nothIng to ram through the Congress.''

Kirk, 71, is a Boston attorney and was a close friend of the former senator. He and his wife, Gail, live on Cape Cod, and Kirk was among the few who visited Kennedy often at his Hyannis Port home before his death after nearly 47 years in the Senate.

by Christi Parsons

NEW YORK - The United Nations Security Council approved a nuclear nonproliferation resolution this morning, granting President Obama an early, first step toward his ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons.

The vote was the result of weeks and months of negotiations, and arrived with Obama presiding over the meeting as the first American president to do so.

Obama urged world leaders to make sure that international law is more than "an empty promise," and said he "harbors no illusions about the difficulty" of the task ahead.

"We know there are plenty of cynics, and that there will be setbacks to prove their point," Obama told the council. "But there will also be days like today that push us forward, days that tell a different story. It is the story of a world that understands that no difference or division is worth destroying all that we have built and all that we love."

Although the position of security council chair rotates monthly among its 15 members, Obama's decision to press for passage on his historic debut in the position underscored his personal commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

Over the past few days, administration officials had been looking forward to the unanimous vote as a tangible takeaway for the president from the week's session of the United Nations General Assembly.

by Mark Silva

The governor of Massachusetts this morning plans to appoint Paul Kirk, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and close friend and former aide of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, to serve as a temporary replacement for Kennedy.

The Democratic governor has scheduled an 11 am EDT news conference at the state Capitol in Boston.

Kirk's appointment will restore a crucial 60th vote for the Senate's Democratic leadership as they attempt to pass health-care legislation that the White House is demanding.

Kennedy, who succumbed to brain cancer last month, had asked state officials to appoint a successor swiftly, arguing that the state cannot afford the vacancy at a critical time.

His passing also had denied the Senate's Democrats a filibuster-proof 60-vote bloc, which the party had only recently obtained with the election of Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota. Two senators, independents Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, meet with the majority party's caucus.

State law calls for a special election to fill a Senate vacancy, and that will be held in January. But the state Legislature this week passed a bill permitting the governor, Democrat Deval Patrick, to appoint an interim successor until the election is held.

Kirk, 71, is a Boston attorney and was a close friend of the former senator. He and his wife, Gail, live on Cape Cod, and Kirk was among the few who visited Kennedy often at his Hyannis Port home before his death after nearly 47 years in the Senate.

Kirk, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, served on Kennedy's Senate staff from 1969-77. He ran the DNC in the run-up to former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis' unsuccessful campaign for president in 1988.

Kirk also co-founded the Commission on Presidential Debates, which sponsors the presidential and vice presidential debates. He serves as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.

(Paul Kirk Jr., chairman of the John Kennedy Library Foundation Board of Directors, is pictured above left, alongside the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy at the annual Profile in Courage Award ceremonies at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. (Photo by Lisa Poole / ,AP)

by Mark Silva

To toss a frog into boiling water on national television, or not to toss a frog into boiling water on national television.

That is the question, if the questioner happens to be Glenn Beck, who has outdone himself - though that may be an oxymoron.

Reaching into a cage of frogs, with boiling water on a hot-pad, the FOX commentator reminds us of the difference between tossing frogs into boiling water and tossing them into warm water. They're supposed to jump out of a boiling pot, but succumb to the rising temperature of a heating pot.

"Barack Obama has galvanized the country... with the sheer size of the bills he has proposed... and the number,'' he explains.

"He has forced us to think and get involved,'' Beck says. "We have not, like John McCain, been boiled slowly. We have been tossed quickly into boiling water... and what happens when you throw them in, when you throw them in, frogs into boiling water?'' he asks, releasing his clasped hands over the pot.

No frog.

"OK, forget the frog,'' he says. "I swear I thought they'd jump right out.''

Seems pretty clear to us, his hands were empty, but we can't wait to see how he handles the tom cat in the lawn mower.

by Mark Silva

Obama, president for life.

As if the idea weren't un-democratic enough, it was raised by the voice of a leader today whom no American diplomats were heeding:

Libyan ruler Moammar Kadafi suggested in a rambling debut before the General Assembly of the United Nations today that the United States take a cue from his own governing style and make Barack Obama president for life, as our correspondent Tina Susman puts it, "delivering surprisingly lavish praise for the American'' during the Libyan's first-ever address to the U.N.

"Kadafi, clad in a long, coffee-colored robe, gave a long, rambling address that was mainly critical and touched on everything from jet-lag -- something he blamed on having to travel to New York -- to the invasion of Iraq, which he called "the mother of all evils,'' Susman reports. "He blasted the U.N. Security Council as an elitist organization that favors superpowers over small nations and said no country should have veto power over resolutions.''

"We Africans are happy, proud that a son of Africa governs the United States of America," said Kadafi, whose own welcome-mat wasn't so wide today -- his plans to stay in a lavish Bedouin tent erected in New Jersey were scuttled by protesters.

Obama, Kadafi suggested, offers hope for the next eight years. After that, he said through an interpreter: "I'm afraid we may go back to square one. We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president of the United States."

Obama, for his part, had left the hall before the speaker following him at the dais. So had Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and UN Ambassador Susan Rice.

Kadafi, who railed against the U.N. throughout much of his talk, also offered another suggestion: Moving the headquarters to another country. "This place is a target," said Kadafi, who recently welcomed home the man imprisoned for bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, freed because of a terminal illness. "Perhaps America will be targeted by a rocket. We want to relieve America of this worry."

With friends like these...

by Mark Silva

Six weeks from now, the way the White House sees it, there will be a health-care bill. Six weeks from now, the way Republicans see it, they'll be back to square one on reform.

Peter Orszag, the Office of Management and Budget director, confidently told Bloomberg News this week that he believes it will take about six weeks to get that health-care bill that the White House wants passed.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) tells FOX Business Network's Neil Cavuto, in an interview that will air at 6 pm EDT this evening, "At some point, it's going to become clear that this can't pass. I don't know whether that's three weeks from now, four weeks from now, six weeks from now, but at some point it's going to become clear."

Asked about Democrats reining in the scope of what they hope to pass, Boehner says, "There's been no indication that Democrat leaders and the House or Senate or the White House are moving in that direction. They're still moving in the direction of those big government plan, high taxes and big deficits....

"They going to have to make a decision,'' Boehner suggests, "Do they accept the defeat or do they hit the reset button and scrap all these big government ideas and work with Republicans to make our current system work better."

by Mark Silva

Ted Kennedy is gone, but one of his dying wishes is coming true:

The governor of Massachusetts will get to appoint a temporary replacement for the late, longtime Democratic "lion'' of the Senate who passed away this summer.

The appointee will serve only temporarily, until the voters of the Bay State settle on a longer-term replacement with a special election in January.

But the appointee will provide the Democratic-run Senate something else: Another vote in the bloc needed to enact a health-care reform bill, one of Kennedy's dearest causes.

Kennedy had written to state officials asking that they move swiftly to replace him, rather than waiting for a special election. The law in Massachusetts for filling a vacancy had been changed from appointment to special election when the state faced the possibility of an opening as Democratic Sen. John Kerry sought the presidency in 2004 and then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney stood to make an appointment.

The law stays in place, a special election coming in January. But the Massachusetts Legislature this afternoon has sent a bill to the governor enabling him to appoint an interim senator. Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick has said he will sign it.

Glenn Johnson of the AP reports that a family confidant says that Kennedy's two sons, Edward Kennedy Jr. and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, want former Democratic National Committee Chairman Paul Kirk to get the appointment.

by Mark Silva

In the aftermath of the summer town-hall meetings that ate the heatlh-care debate, one New Hampshire congresswoman is worried about "birthers, deathers, Glenn Beck's 91/2ers'' and more on her trail.

Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, a two-term Democrat from the Granite State, is attempting to rally supporters with a fund-raising appeal warning about the angry mobs - this is a congresswoman who confronted a town-hall questioner asking why she was allotting only an hour for questions but had plenty of time for a fundraiser.

"Help me fight the Fox News attack!" Shea-Porter has written in an email fundraising appeal, as the New Hampshire Union-Leader's John DiStasis reports.

""I have Fox News, the National Republican Congressional Committee, the NH GOP, the Tea Party protesters, the Birthers, the Deathers, Glenn Beck's 9/12ers, the Tenthers and the Susan B. Anthony anti-choice group attacking me to name just a few,'' she writes. "They have shouted at town halls and on radio interviews, and are writing ugly untrue letters,'' she complains, asking for money "to fight back."

This is in New Hampshire, home of the real town hall -- where police officers had to escort a man out of the hall asking if all the protests in the place were from New Hampshire.

When all is said and done, when a health-care bill is either signed, sealed and delivered or dead on the doorstop of the Capitol, the summer of 2009 that slipped away quietly this week may be remembered as the season of the town-halls, birthers and deathers or the Summer of Tough Love.

by Mark Silva

We were saving this one for a slow afternoon:

New, in time for Christmas stockings:

Joe Wilson, the action figure.

The talking doll delivers an infamous line: "You lie.''

The action figure molded in the likeness of the South Carolina congressman who called out the president in an address to a joint session of Congress does not, however, say it's sorry - at least not to the House.

The newest entry in the line of action figures at Herobuilders joins a growing lineup that includes the Sarah Palin action figure, the Jon and Kate dolls, "Beach Blanket Obama," Mrs. Obama and Nancy Pelosi -- which comes with a surf-board sized water-board -- Joe the Plumber, Joe the Vice President and, well, from the Bush years, a sidekick with a T-shirt reading: "You Don't Know Dick.''

There's a Bernie Madoff action figure, and Rod Blagojevich too.

The talking Larry Craig says: "I am not gay."

Emile Vicale, owner of Herobuilders, has a price for all of this actionable offensive material, of course, but this is no product endorsement. In fact, the more one looks at each of the dolls, the more they look alike..

by Mark Silva

Sarah Palin had told the sponsors of her speech to investors in Hong Kong today that she'd have to give a different sort of speech if the media, which is always "making things up,'' were allowed into the room.

So the doors were closed to the press when Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Ala., (and governor before quitting midway through her term), addressed the CLSA Asia Pacific Markets Conference, a forum which Bill Clinton and Al Gore before her had addressed.

But someone taped the talk, and the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire reports that it has reviewed a recording of Palin's talk, and the online edition is sharing some highlights of Palin's remarks:

"You can call me a common-sense conservative. ... Common sense conservatism deals with the reality of the world as it is. Complicated and beautiful, tragic and hopeful, we believe in the rights and the responsibilities and the inherent dignity of the individual.
"We don't believe that human nature is perfectible.

"We're suspicious of government efforts to fix problems because often what it's trying to fix is human nature, and that is impossible. It is what it is. But that doesn't mean that we're resigned to, well, any negative destiny. Not at all. I believe in striving for the ideal, but in realistic confines of human nature...''

In the pursuit of self-definition, the label that Palin is adopting sounds like one that could get a road-test someday similar to that "compassionate conservative'' who won the White House in 2000, the former two-term governor of Texas.

"The opposite of a common-sense conservative is a liberalism that holds that there is no human problem that government can't fix if only the right people are put in charge. Unfortunately, history and common sense are not on its side. We don't trust utopian promises. We deal with human nature as it is.''

(Sarah Palin is pictured above at the 16th annual CLSA Investors' Forum in Hong Kong Photo by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, Jeff Topping, via AP.)

by Mark Silva

Here's some fodder for critics who worry that illegal immigrants stand to benefit from the health-care overhaul that President Obama is attempting to push through Congress: One in three Mexicans say they would come to the United States if they had the opportunity.

And here's a sign of the economic times: Four in 10 Mexicans surveyed say they know someone who left for the U.S. but returned because they couldn't find work here. Not to mention health care.

These are among the findings of a Pew Global Attitudes survey of Mexicans, which also finds a high degree of dissatisfaction with the way things are going in the U.S. neighbor to the South.

Nearly six in ten of those surveyed say Mexicans who do leave their country for the U.S. enjoy a better life here, and among the one-in-three who say they would move to the U.S. if they had the chance, most of them say they would do so without authorization.

For the record, the president and congressional allies say undocumented immigrants will not find health care coverage under the legislation they are proposing, though critics complain the verification of legal residency will not be stringent enough to ensure that that doesn't happen.

The Census Bureau reported this week that immigration from Mexico to the U.S. is on the decline.

The Pew survey finding that nearly 40 percent of the Mexicans surveyed say they know someone who returned for failure to find work in the U.S. could have something to do with that - suggesting that the recession may have more to do with the Census Bureau's findings than any stepped up enforcement of the border.

The survey found that:

by Christi Parsons

NEW YORK -- In a sweeping call for international cooperation, President Obama this morning challenged world leaders to set aside "an almost reflexive anti-Americanism" and work together with him and other nations on common goals such as nuclear disarmament, climate change and Middle East peace.

An anti-American sentiment has served as an "excuse for our collective inaction," Obama told members of the United Nations General Assembly, at a time when collaboration is more important than at any time in history.

"Like all of you, my responsibility is to act in the interest of my nation and my people, and I will never apologize for defending those interests," Obama said. "But it is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 - more than at any point in human history - the interests of nations and peoples are shared."

A message of mutual interest and mutual respect formed the heart of Obama's address, his first to the international body.

But the president did take to task the leaders of Iran and North Korea for ignoring international standards on nuclear weapons.

In fact, nuclear disarmament should be a primary goal of the world community, Obama argued, putting it on a par with global peace and security, a healthy planet and an improved economy as a goal.

A day after convening a meeting among Palestinian and Israeli leaders, Obama reiterated his view that "America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements" -- a commitment which Palestinian leaders have questioned in the wake of the Tuesday meeting.

"I am not naïve. I know this will be difficult," Obama said of his efforts to get Middle East peace negotiations back on track. But "even though there will be setbacks, and false starts, and tough days, I will not waiver in my pursuit of peace. "

by Mark Silva

Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have sort of danced around one another since that election in which, you know...

But they joined this week at something which has become a personal matter for the former president, who has become something of a one-man NGO: The annual Clinton Global Initiative, meeting in New York.

The two shared lunch at an Italian restaurant in New York recently, and the two shared a stage yesterday at the opening session of Clinton's donor-conference, his fifth, with an agenda of addressing "the world's most pressing problems,'' and, judging from the announced guest list representing 84 nations, something of a private shadow of the United Nations General Assembly meeting today.

"Some of you are aware that last week President Clinton and I were here in New York together, we were having lunch in a small Italian restaurant,'' Obama told the audience for a gathering said to include more than 60 current and former heads of state, 500 business leaders and 400 leaders from nongovernmental and philanthropic organizations attending the meeting this week

"We talked about the economy, we talked about health care, we talked about pressing global challenges,'' Obama said. "And then he said to me, 'Would you pass the Parmesan?' (laughter in the hall) "And then he said to me, 'Would you speak to our annual meeting?'

"Now, I think everyone knows what it's like when Bill Clinton asks you to make a commitment,'' Obama said. "He looks you in the eye; he feels your pain... He makes you feel like you're the only person in the room. What could I say? I was vulnerable just as all of you have been vulnerable to his charms.''

Water.org and Coca Cola are among the enterprises ponying up at Clinton's Global Initiative this week, which started in 2005 as a means of committing corporations and organizations to action on a broad array of problems. Water.org has committed to delivering safe drinking water and sanitation to a minimum of 50,000 people in Haiti over the next three years, Coca Cola committed to increasing opportunities for women in the company's distribution network in Africa, in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development and with help from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

For his part, Clinton says he has happily settled into the role he holds now, with his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, logging 110,000 miles of world diplomacy in the last several months and he prodding the private sector and governments to take action on some of the world's most vexing problems (though it was Bll Clinton who went to North Korea to secure the freedom ot two jailed American journalists.) And it was Hillary Clinton who had to explain somewhat testily in Africa recently that Bill Clinton is not the secretary of state.)

"For most of our married life,'' the former president says of himself and the former first lady during his appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman last night, "I was in politics and she was a non-governmental person, like what I'm doing now. So we've now reversed roles, and I've gotten pretty good at what she used to do, and she's gotten real good at what I used to do.''

"In his eight years in office,'' Obama said of Bill Clinton yesterday, "he helped swing open the doors of opportunity and prosperity to millions of Americans. And as the first U.S. president to face the full force of globalization, he worked to share that prosperity with people around the world -- from promoting trade to expanding education to forging a historic global compact on debt relief.

"After a lifetime of service, he would have been forgiven had he settled for a life of quiet, a life of ease, a life of improved golf scores -- my understanding is they have not improved that much since he was in office,'' Obama, the new first golfer, said to more laughter at the opening session of the CGI. "But he chose a different path. He asked, 'What can I do to keep making a difference?...'

By Christi Parsons

NEW YORK -- President Obama will ask world leaders today to join him in confronting a range of vexing issues, including nuclear arms proliferation and climate change, and will appeal for the international cooperation he thinks will advance interests around the globe, aides said.

In a morning address to the United