Obama, Afghanistan commander meet

by Mark Silva

Some of the criticism leveled at President Barack Obama for his quick trip to Copenhagen to lobby the International Olympic Committee for the 2016 summer games iin Chicago has noted the other pressing challenges that the president faces.

"Wrong priorities,'' the Republican National Committee called it today.

Perhaps in response, perhaps not, the president has bracketed his overnight journey to Copenhagen with work on two other critical fronts:

As Obama was preparing to depart from Denmark this morning, he held a personal meeting with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of military forces in Afghanistan, aboard Air Force One. The general had taken part in a videoconference with the president and his top governmental security team and military command earlier this week, as the White House weighs McChrystal's bid for a significant boost in the U.S. deployment in Afghanistan.

After the president boarded the plane, he held a meeting with McChrystal to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs ttold the traveling press, as the Washington Bureau's Peter Nicholas relayed in a pool report from the trip:.

The general had been in London, and flew to Copenhagen specifically to meet one-on-one with the president. They met in the president's forward cabin aboard the plane.

McChrystal left the plane after the 25 minute meeting and is not flying on to Washington with us. ""The president wanted to take the opportunity to get together with Gen. McChyrstal '' Gibbs said.

Earlier, after midnight, the White House had released a statement that Obama was making about the Senate Finance Committee's work on health-care legislation.

"Thanks to the unyielding commitment of Senator Baucus and members of the Senate Finance Committee, we have reached another milestone in our effort to pass health insurance reform,'' the president said in his pre-dawn statement.

"Over the past two weeks, the Committee has engaged in long hours of thoughtful deliberation and vigorous debate. They have considered hundreds of amendments, and incorporated many of the best ideas from both parties. And they have shown a spirit of civility, a seriousness of purpose, and a willingness to compromise that embodies our democratic process at its very best.

""The Finance Committee's work is the culmination of tireless efforts over the better part of this year by the five committees and many members of Congress involved in health reform - holding numerous hearings and bi-partisan meetings; reaching out to stakeholders across the spectrum; and striving to find common ground.

"As a result of this work, we are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don't. We have a long way to go, but I am confident that as we move forward, we will continue to engage with each other as productively as the members of the Finance Committee, and will get reform passed this year."

If the McChrystal meeting and health-care statement during the Copenhagen trip were not in response to criticism, the White House certainly made a point of letting the public know about both today.