by Mark Slva

President Barack Obama voiced confidence today that the Senate will ratify the "New START'' agreement to curtail U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

"When they have had the opportunity to fully evaluate this treaty, they will come to the conclusion that this is in the best interest of the United States," Obama told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview in Prague following the presidenti's signature of the treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. It is "absolutely vital,'' Obama said.

It will take a two-thirds vote of the Senate -- 67 votes -- in a chamber where winning 60 votes for the president's party's agenda lately has proven to be a challenge.

Portions of the interview aired on World News with Diane Sawyer tonight and will be shown on Nightline this evening. The full interview will air on Good Morning America.

"I will also say to those in the Senate who have questions is that this is absolutely vital for us to deal with the broader issues of nuclear proliferation, that are probably the number one threat that we face in the future," the president said.

Obama spoke with Stephanopoulos at Prague Castle, where Obama and Medvedev had signed a treaty pledging to reduce their nation's nuclear stockpiles by nearly a third, from 2,200 deployed warheads for each nation to 1,550 over seven years.

"I am actually quite confident that Democrats and Republicans in the United States Senate having reviewed this will see that the United States has preserved its core national security interests," Obama said. "That it is maintaining a safe and secure and effective nuclear deterrent but that we are beginning to once again move forward leaving Cold War behind to address new challenges in new ways."

The president stopped short, however, of predicting how the ratifiication vote will play out. "I've now been in Washington for long enough that for me to say I have no doubt how the Senate operates would be foolish," Obama said.

As critics question the impact of the treaty on the ability of the U.S. to build a sufficient missile defense shield, the president said he is "absolutely confident" that the new nuclear treaty will in no way impede that. "It is going to be contingent and developing based on our threat assessments," the president said.

"If for example, we are able to create a situation where Iran is no longer posing us a threat in terms of intercontinental ballistic missiles, then it may be that our missile defense configuration is able to be scaled back in a way that doesn't threaten Russia," Obama told Stephanopoulos.

The president called the treaty "only a start."

"We're looking at a timetable over a five, 10, 15, 20 year time horizon," he said. "We're going to have to continually build and evolve a whole approach that is designed for the 21st Century as opposed to the 20th Century."

. "

by Mark Silva

Suddenly, pretty much everything we know about is history.

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, with a landslide victory for the first African-American to hold the highest office of a nation once riven by slavery, a leader once again promising "a more perfect union.'' That was last year.

The precipitous slide of a stock market - off 35 percent - echoing the collapse of an economy propped up by over-inflated housing costs and meaningless securities, marking the worst failure of the American economy since the Great Depression. That was last year.

Everything of any significance at all that happened last year, well, that's when it happened.

Which is what makes this day precisely what it is: A day of endless possibilities, the start of a time in which anyone who has any significant role to play in any part of our lives now has a chance to get it right. It's quite a challenge.

If the polls are any indication, an overwhelming number of Americans believe that things are not going well - country's on the wrong track, they say. At the same time, a great majority of those surveyed say they have optimism in the next leader of the United States to perform his job well. Which largely has to do with making everything that went wrong last year go right this year, or at least better.

Pessimism? A thing of the past.

by Mark Silva

Just when you thought you couldn't stand another minute of this long campaign year, already extended by the added day of a leap year, get ready to ring out the old with an added second.

The "leap second'' will be added at the end of the final hour of 2008 this evening by the keepers of the atomic clocks who last bestowed an extra second on our lives in 2005. Adjustments like this every few years not only keep us all in synch, but also add a precious few seconds to life over the long haul -- or make us younger when we pass?

So this evening, as you're counting down the New Year, be prepared to round it out with a jolly, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...... 1..... Happy New Year!

by Frank James

It was with profound sadness that we learned today of the death of Robin Toner of the New York Times, one of Washington's most respected political reporters, following a lengthy battle with cancer.

Toner was one of those solid reporters best described as authoritative. When you read her stories, which was often if you read the NYT front and national pages, you came away believing you had learned something important from someone who truly understood what had happened.

Todd Purdum writes this of Robin who was the first woman to become the national political reporter for the Times:

In a career of nearly 25 years at The Times, and in an age of increasing specialization, Ms. Toner reported authoritatively on almost every domestic issue, whether it was taxes, welfare, Social Security, immigration or health-care policy.

In 1992, Ms. Toner was The Times's lead reporter on the election of Bill Clinton, a rollicking campaign in which her tough-minded coverage helped set the pace for other reporters. A few years later, after marriage and motherhood made long months on the campaign trail less practical for her, she became chief of correspondents on the paper's national desk in New York, coaching reporters in bureaus around the country in their coverage of state legislatures, budget deficits (or surpluses) and assorted scandals, crises and crimes.

A Montgomery County, Ala. sheriff's booking photo of Rosa Parks after she was arrested during the 1956 bus boycott. (AP Photo.)

Today's the 52nd anniversary of Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Ala. bus. The soft-spoken black woman's rejection of the ridiculous, racist social mores of her time was without doubt the no-heard-round -the-world.

Her act and arrest led to the mobilizing of Montgomery's black community and a bus boycott which thrust a new, and at first reluctant, leader onto the national and world stage -- Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. It marked the start of the Civil Rights movement which, by various twist and turns, led to the election of the nation's first African-American president last month, President-elect Barack Obama.

Parks was the ideal person to launch the movement. A seamstress, she was also secretary of the local NAACP who had attended what was then known as Highlander Folk School in Tennessee whose goal was to create leaders and activists for labor and racial justice. So when the white bus driver told her to move to the back of the bus, she was ready. And history changed.

So extraordinary was her role in American history that when she died at age 93 three years ago, she was given the rare honor of having her remains lay in state in the U.S. Capitol. She has inspired songs, including "Sister Rosa" by the Neville Brothers whose chorus is appropriate for the day.

Thank you Miss Rosa, you were the spark
You started our freedom movement
Thank you Sister Rosa Parks

by Mark Silva

ROCK HALL, Md. -- Out on the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay, up the windswept Maryland coast where Revolutionary War sea captains are memorialized -- "Lost at sea," reads the remote stone of one -- a Bald eagle rested on the branch of a barren tree today snacking on a silvery fish snatched from the mouth of the Chester River.

There are no elections out this way, no transition, no Cabinet seats to fill, only the insatiable appetites of water birds, both the locals and the migratory, feeding in the clear shallows where river meets bay.

The eagles -- regulars up and down this bay stressed by an overpopulation of the SUV-driving species, and even along the urban runoff known as the Potomac River -- were joined today where the Chester meets the Chesapeake by hundreds of Tundra swans, down from the Arctic chill, feeding here on the Eastern Shore, where it got above 40 degrees for a while this afternoon, cloudless and still. (Photos by Silva.)

"O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again."
--- Thomas Wolfe, "Look Homeward, Angel"

President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy less than an hour before the president was killed November 22, 1963. Photo by White House photographer Cecil Stoughton REUTERS/JFK Library/The White House/Cecil Stoughton/Handout

by Frank James

We who remember this day 45 years ago, who recall where we were and what we were doing when we learned that President Kennedy was shot dead, no matter if we were little children, are haunted.

We are haunted not because of any loss of innocence. While it's been said Nov. 22, 1963 was the day America lost her innocence, that isn't true.

Americans had seen too much to be innocent. Kennedy's generation saw World War II. They saw segregation. They saw the Depression. They were intimately acquainted with evil. So it was not innocence that was lost.

What died that day with Kennedy was something more like the image we had of ourselves as a nation. We must be a remarkable people, indeed, to produce a president so charming, graceful and witty. From what we knew at the time about JFK, he reflected our best selves as we saw it -- courageous, dashing, vigorous, smart, curious.

But Lee Harvey Oswald, the presidential assassin, reminded us our conceit was incomplete, that we had a sick and cruel side too. He brought us down from our high. He killed our national buzz. That's what died that day in Dallas. And we haven't been the same since which we're reminded of every year when this date arrives.

(A documentary, perhaps a school project, by Ian Rapoport who nicely captures TR's presidency.)

by Frank James

It's the 150th anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt's birth, the energetic president who re-invented the American presidency, modernizing the institution in ways that still linger. It's accurate to say that he's the president most of his successors in the office have most wanted to emulate.

It was Roosevelt, the 26th president, who confronted the business interests of his day -- the railroad, oil and financial trusts -- placing government regulation on them through use of the antitrust laws, leading to his being called the Trust Buster..

He signed the laws that paved the way for the Food and Drug Administration and meat inspection by the Agriculture Department.

A force of nature, he was a force on nature as well, creating the Panama Canal.

by Mark Silva

This two-stage, $350-billion-plus-$350-billion "bailout'' of the financial markets that Congress debates this week is not really a bailout - that's what members are telling each other.

It's more of "a work-out of the problem, rather than a bailout,'' says Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), attempting to sell it to his reluctant party.

They could call it a "cook-out.''

That might make it more appealing.

But then, that would be a "cop-out'' if they attempted to change the subject.

Now that Democratic leaders are on the "look-out'' for Republican votes to cover them against any public outcry over the "bail-out,'' it will be telling to see which members "drop-out'' of the coalition that inevitably passes this economic rescue. If they don't "iron-out'' their objections, a few may "tune-out'' to the leaders' spin and "skip-out'' on that vote. They don't want to "sell-out'' voters and taxpayers. The vote will not be a "shut-out."

The political 'fall-out'' of the vote is another thing - particularly if the economy still "bottoms-out'' after the Treasury "buys-out'' all the bad "washed-out'' mortgage-related debt clogging the nation's credit markets. The credit crunch they are trying to "shake-out'' could become a "knock-out'' punch for the econmy.

If the Treasury "strikes-out'' with this attempt to avert a crisis, all of us will "lose-out.''

Now, the public's obligation to the new debt it incurs will "phase-out'' after Treasury "shells-out'' billions and then "clears-out'' the bad assets. in the end, the White House budget office says, it should be a 'wash-out.''

Yet, congressional leaders may be "tripped-out'' if they believe that everyone will accept that this plan is not really a "bail-out,'' but only a "work-out'' of the problem. The cost of the plan is enough to make the average American, "strung-out'' with economic problems of his own, "pass-out" right in the "check-out'' lane.

As they "rough-out'' and "flesh-out'' the plan for resistant "hold-out" members of Congress, some may "laugh-out'' loud, but leaders of both parties are certain to "stand-out'' and explain why it is necessary and "crowd-out'' the criticism. The urgency of the cause should "drown-out'' nay-sayers, who ultimately will be "left-out.''.

The 'turn-out'' of voters on Nov. 4 may ultimately explain what Americans think about the ability of either party's leaders to "ride-out'' the recession that appears inevitable. Here in the Swamp, though, we're starting to "burn-out'' on this thread.

So, what do you think? Give us a "shout-out.''

by Mark Silva

DENVER -- Update here on the apple-free zone:

No longer.

For all who read with great sympathy about the inability of your health-minded Swamp correspondent to carry an innocent, shiny red apple into the grounds of the Democratic National Convention over the weekend -- warned by the security sentinel at the gate that the forbidden fruit could be used as a projectile -- we are here to tell you that this was a Golden Delicious morning.

With le pomme secured soundly in ze vest pocket of ze tattered old blazer, your correspondent submitted to a thorough check of ze computer bag at ze gate and a full-body experience with a magnemometer. (If you're asking why we're toying with French here, it was the inspiration of the Trojancondoms bus, its side painted in silhouettes of man learning to walk upright, so to speak, blaring rock and roll music in a lot by the fence.)

If apples are unwelcome at the Pepsi Center where much of the convention is being staged, certainly there will be no place for them inside Invesco Field at Mile High, where the Democrat from Illiinois, Sen. Barack Obama, will accept his party's nomination.

Having breached the perimeter of the Pepsi compound with the apple, your correpondent assures you that he has no intention of hurling it at anyone.

If fact, we're about to take a first bite.

Mmmm. Juicy.

Apple? What apple?

by Aamer Madhani

Back in 1968 in the aftermath of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the strip along U Street--what was once known as the "Black Broadway" of Washington, D.C.-- was devastated by the riots that ravaged the nation's Capitol and black neighborhoods in several cities throughout the country.

In the midst of the fires and looting, Stokely Carmichael, who was leading the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, was able to finagle a special police permit that allowed Ben's Chili Bowl--a greasy spoon on the strip that was opened 10 years earlier by an immigrant from Trinidad named Ben Ali and his wife-- to stay open after curfew to provide shelter for activists and others who were trying to restore order to the area.

Ben's would end up being be one of the few businesses along U Street--once home to clubs where Duke Ellington and Miles Davis played-- that would survive.

In the 30 years following the riots, the neighborhood became a wasteland-- violent crime soared, prostitution was rampant and drug dealers freely pedaled their product.

But through it all, Ben Ali and his family managed to keep their doors open and sell their chili, burgers and half smokes--a slightly larger and spicier hot dog.

On Friday, Ben's turned 50.

Mayor Adrian Fenty presented the Ali family with a key to the city Friday morning--honoring the diner for its unique place in the city's history.

"Ben's Chili Bowl epitomizes what this great city is all about," Fenty said.

In the latter half of the 1990s, the neighborhood went through a resurgence. Black business owners and developers decided to take a gamble on the depressed area.

Now, U Street is dotted with boutique furniture stores, trendy bars and pricey condos.

This city remains hyper-segregated, but Ben's is one of the few places that transcends the divides of race, wealth and politics.

There are more than a few iconic landmarks in this town. But the survival and endurance of this greasy spoon in its own small way provides a poignant reminder of our not-so-pleasant past.

by Sara K. Clarke

Samuel Snow fought for more than six decades for justice, and an honorable discharge from the Army.

He got it Saturday -- just hours before his death.

The 83-year-old Leesburg, Fla. veteran died early Sunday after receiving the long-awaited commendation. Snow was one of 28 black soldiers falsely convicted of starting a World War II riot that led to the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war at an Army base in Seattle.

"It meant giving him back his pride and dignity," said his son Ray Snow, 55. "It brought closure to a very sad part of his life."

Samuel Snow traveled to Seattle last week to receive his coveted discharge, but he was admitted to the hospital late Friday with heart trouble. He missed Saturday's ceremony, where relatives of the soldiers joined elected and military officials to hear the Army apologize before hundreds of people. But before he died, Snow heard an account of the event and was thrilled, his son said.

"I cannot describe the joy that radiated on his face," Ray Snow said.

Samuel Snow entered the Army as a teenager, dreaming of a military career that would pull him from poverty. Within a year, he was swept up in the largest and longest Army court-martial of the war.

Clarke writes for the Orlando Sentinel. Read the full story about the long-awaited honorable discharge at OrlandoSentinel.com.

(Photo at left of Snow his 1944 booking photograph: courtesy of the National Archives, NYT. Photo at right of Snow in 2007: courtesy of Tom Benitez/Orlando Sentinel.)

by Mark Silva

You know, when the "local cultural icon'' of Whiting, Indiana, struts his stuff, that a Polka Parade cannot be far behind.

And "Mr. Pierogi'' performed his duties, as usual, at the annual Pierogi Festival, where one 92-pound medley of potato, flour, butter, eggs, onions and water took the prize this weekend for the "World's Largest Pierogi.''

The big favorites -- and our correspondent tells us big was the operative word in Whiting this weekend -- are the Pierogi Festival anthem, sung to the tune of "Matilda," the "Whiting, Indiana" song and the modified Broadway hit, "Guys and Pierogis.''

The attached photographs are Swamp exclusives, courtesy of a correspondent in Chicago who knows how to get out of town when the getting is good.

(Pierogigraphs by Dylan Silva)

by Mark Silva

Tony Snow was much bigger than the post he held.

When he spoke from the West Wing podium of the White House, he was not only speaking for the president of the United States, but also speaking for himself. Some called the president's press secretary argumentative. He didn't lose many arguments. And he reveled in the intellectual combat of his assignment.

When Snow left that post in September to confront a recurring cancer that he had battled before joining President Bush's staff 17 months before, he departed with an unbowed optimism about his life ahead, his writing, his hopes of helping others confront their cancers. He returned, albeit briefly, to the television commentary in which he had made his name.

Snow called that stint as press secretary "the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I'm ever going to have."

And today, Tony Snow, father of three and a friend to all crossed his path, passed away. He was 53.

It's the president who is doing the talking today, for not only himself, but also his father, whom Snow also served.

"America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character,'' Bush said in a statement released this morning from Camp David.

"Tony was one of our nation's finest writers and commentators,'' the president said. "He earned a loyal following with incisive radio and television broadcasts.

"He was a gifted speechwriter who served in my father's administration. And I was thrilled when he agreed to return to the White House to serve as my press secretary. It was a joy to watch Tony at the podium each day. He brought wit, grace, and a great love of country to his work. His colleagues will cherish memories of his energetic personality and relentless good humor.''

by Frank James

On this Independence Day, as we pay annual homage to the Declaration of Independence for which Thomas Jefferson gets most of the credit for authoring, let's not forget the signal contribution made by Benjamin Franklin -- entrepreneur, scientist, diplomat, statesman and, apparently, wordsmith.

If not for Franklin, one of the most famous parts of the Declaration would likely read, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable."

Franklin, a member of the Continental Congress committee charged with creating the document, had a better idea. He crossed out the words "sacred and undeniable" and substituted "self-evident."

You can see the actual draft declaration, with Franklin's edit, here

Walter Isaacson, in his Franklin biography, explains how the amply padded founding father and Renaissance man arrived at "self-evident."

The idea of "self-evident" truths was one that drew less on John Locke, who was Jefferson's favored philosopher, than on the scientific determinism espoused by Isaac Newton and on the analytic empiricism of Franklin's close friend David Hume. In what became known as "Hume's fork," the great Scottish philosopher, along with Leibniz and others, had developed a theory that distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact (such as "London is bigger than Philadephia") and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition ("The angles of a triangle equal 180 degrees"; "All bachelors are unmarried"). By using the word "sacred," Jefferson had asserted, intentionally or not, that the principle in question--the equality of men and their endowment by their creator with inalienable rights--was an assertion of religion. Franklin's edit turned it instead into an assertion of rationality."

This may be one of the few times in history that a committee actually improved on the final product.

by Jim Tankersley

France celebrates its independence day on the anniversary of a citizen uprising at a prison; Canada's comes on the anniversary of a legislative act recognizing its self-governance. In the United States, we celebrate a "Dear John" letter to the King of England.

The Declaration of Independence did not secure America's sovereignty - that took a war. It did not provide the framework for the nation's democratic government - that took the Constitution. But it remains arguably the most-read, most-quoted, most-endearing document in the United States.

One way to read the nation's history is as a continuing struggle to make good on the ideals the Declaration holds to be self-evident: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

The Declaration begins with a paragraph schoolchildren across the country can recite: "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

It goes on to ruminate on human rights, to detail the states' grievances with King George, to label him a tyrant and to, in an extraordinary act of defiance, declare those states free from that tyranny - seceding from the world's great imperial power.

The words are just as important today. Between the hot dogs and the fireworks, they're worth a read. Here's the full text:

James Frances Jr. leads the Emancipation Trail Ride in 2002 in Galveston, Texas. Riders traveled a mile for each of the 137 years since the Emancipation Proclamation was read in Galveston. (AP Photo/The Galveston County Daily News, Kevin Bartram)

by Mark Silva

July Fourth may be on its way, but "Juneteenth'' is here today.

This is the day, in 1865, that Union soldiers sailed into Galveston, Tex., and announced the end of the Civil War with the reading of a general order freeing one quarter of a million slaves living in Texas.

The Emancipation Proclamation may already have gone into effect on January 1863, but slavery persisted. Just as legally sanctioned racial discrimination persisted well into the 20th Century.

June 19th has become a day of celebration in its own right - "a time of celebration, but also a time of reflection, healing, and hopefully a time for the country to come together and deal with its slave legacy,'' says the Rev. Ronald Meyers, chairman of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.

He has worked for years to get the day recognized by state Legislatures - with more than half the states now acknowledging it in some fashion or another, some with holidays the third Saturday of June.

Only one state celebrates it as a legal holiday: Texas.

by Frank James

Forty years ago today, some of us thought the world must be about to end. Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Coming as it did only a few months after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, surely, it must be the end of days. At least that's the way it felt to a forlorn kid walking the streets of the Bronx.

There have been many calamities since then and the world obviously is still with us.

But even with all the tragedies over all the decades, the heart hasn't hardened so much that I can look at the footage from that Los Angeles night in 1968 and not be deeply saddened by what Sirhan Sirhan did in that Ambassador Hotel pantry.

Historian and Kennedy-family friend Arthur Schlesinger Jr. tells us that after President John Kennedy was killed, RFK sought to make sense of what happened through reading.

A passage from Aeschylus made a profound impression on him, so much so, RFK quoted it during a speech to a crowd in Indianapolis in the hours following King's murder:

"In our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

RFK's death, for millions of us still, is the pain that cannot forget. Maybe it made us wiser, though most days it doesn't feel like it.

by Mark Silva

Okay, so maybe Chicago has a reputation for doing politics its own way.

In this reputation, the after-life comes with full voting rights.

But the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley serving as a superdelegate for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid?

Daley, who served as mayor for 21 years and passed away in 1976, may have played big roles in the presidential campaigns of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and Hubert Humphrey in 1968. But this is taking power-broking beyond the beyond.

At least, that's what the typo at PBS.org would have a reader believe.
Its comprehensive list of superdelegates supporting the candidacies of either Obama or Sen. Hillary Clinton includes this one: "Former Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.''

Of course, it's the current mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, who backs Obama. He is no former mayor - having first won election in 1989, his reelection last year sets him up to surpass his father's record of 21 years in the office.

With empathy for all good typos everywhere - PBS can explain this one on Jon Stewart's The Daley Show (insert smile here).

by Mark Silva

Hillary Clinton carried Ohio in March.

Barack Obama hopes to carry it in November. He'll have to, if he is his party's nominee, and hopes to beat John McCain -- unless Obama can turn a few other states his way. So McCain hopes to carry it, too.

But Robbie Knievel owns Ohio at the moment.

"Kaptain" Knievel successfully jumped over 24 delivery trucks Saturday night at the site of one of his father's most famous stunts. Knievel had calculated that he would be traveling at 95 miles per hour during the jump, which he completed to "wild cheers at Kings Island amusement park near Cincinnati,'' the AP tells us.

Evel Knievel jumped 14 buses there in 1975. He died last year after suffering from failing health for many years. He was 69.

John McCain will be 72 at election, if he carries Ohio and a few more.

Evel Knievel: RIP.

Ohio: Bring it on..

by Mark Silva, notes and photos

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt -- The Red Sea is really aquamarine.

And salty as can be.

Electric-blue and yellow tropical fish shimmer across the live coral reef that lines the beach at Sharm el Sheikh.

And don't worry about me -- I'm on the case.

by Mark Silva

Well, we didn't have what you might call a groundswell of response to the call for readers' picks for Hillary Clinton's Top 10.

But, in the spirit of the contest offered, we did find one worthy of crowning the winner.

So this morning's Swampy goes to.... With Clinton headed for the David Letterman show on Monday to unveil her own Top 10 list -- an equal-time response to Barack Obama's Top 10 last week -- we are posting the entry of Swamp reader and respondent Robert Hewson, who cited the "political psychology'' blog, Head of State, in answering the call from The Swamp.

We're still trying to figure out No. 1, but here it is:

Top 10 Inducements From the Clinton Camp To Vote for Hillary

10. All future Hoosiers teams can draft players from the NBA

9. Superdelegates will get actual Spandex costumes along with Super Power of choice

8. Permanent liquor tax holiday

7. Will limit husband to "low traffic" zones of White House

6. Promises to use only one personality throughout first 100 days of Presidency

5. Will hold Inaugural Ball in Smiley's Pub, Allentown, PA.

4. Free rides on Mark Penn

3. Will provide personal armed one-woman security detail through any combat zone

2. New shampoo: No More Tears

And the No. 1 inducement to vote for Hillary Clinton:

1: New National Bird: Barbeque.

by Mark Silva

"Please excuse me if I'm a little sleepy,'' President Bush said last night. "It's that 3 a.m. phone.... It's a damn weighty thing.''

And so began the president's nostalgic swan song at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents Association -- Listen to Stars and Stripes.ram for the appropriate musical accompaniment to this posting -- a black tie soiree attended by the likes of Martha Stewart, Perez Hilton, Pamela Anderson and Mitt Romney. Anderson and Romney in the same room, Bush noted: "Isn't that the definition of the Apocalypse?''

Maybe not the Apocalypse, but certainly the end of an eight-year run for a comedian-in-chief who always has approached these dinners with a certain careless abandon. At the rostrum for his act of the evening, the retiring president noted that neither of the Democratic candidates for president had joined the star-studded crowd.

"Sen. Clinton couldn't get in the building because of sniper fire,'' Bush said, "and Sen. Obama is in church.''

The president who arrived here with his own contested election noted that his opponent had won the Nobel Prize. What'll Bush get? The Publisher's Clearinghouse.

President Bush today introduced "Frank Buckles, 107-years-young... the last living Doughboy from World War I.'' White House photo by Eric Draper

by Aamer Madhani

He fought the Kaiser with the U.S. Army during World War I. As a civilian working in the Philippines shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was taken prisoner of war and ate out of the same tin cup for his more than three-year-long imprisonment.

Today, the 107-year-old Frank Buckles—the last known U.S. military veteran to serve during World War I— was honored with a White House visit and was made the guest of honor at a ceremony at the Pentagon where portraits of Buckles and eight other World War I veterans were unveiled.

“Mr. Buckles' mind is sharp, his memory is crisp, and he's been sharing with me some interesting anecdotes,” President Bush said during Buckles' Oval Office visit. “I asked him where he lived, and he said, that reminds me of what General Pershing asked me. And he told the General that he was raised on a farm in Missouri. And the General said, ‘Well, you know, as the crow flies, it's 40 miles from where I was raised.’”

The dog's life: Chewbacca celebrates Leap Day

by Mark Silva

It's Leap Day.

For all who wait four years for a proper birthday party, Happy Birthday!

This is the first Leap Day here in the Swamp, born on Jan. 3, 2006.

One more day in what promises to be a runaway new record month of traffic here in these pages. Without the Leap Year, we already were on target for more than 2 million page-views this month (Thank You!).

One more day for that presidential campaign to unfold in Ohio and Texas -- is that added day of particular benefit to Barack Obama? He has gained momentum in both states heading into the March 4 primaries and an added day on the calendar can only offer more room.

One more day for a record campaign fundraising month -- with word of a $50 million month coming from the Obama campaign, $35 million over at camp Clinton (think they've held back $5 million of that to repay the candidate's loan? Or have they put it all on the table?)

One more day for the Bush administration, with the president heading to Texas today for a weekend respite and visit by the Danish prime minister, Rasmussen. It's a reciprocal visit -- Bush visited Rasmussen at his summer home outside of Copenhagen a couple of years back.

One more day for a war in Iraq approaching its fifth anniversary.

One more day for Mike Huckabee's "miracle'' to arrive.

One more day for that debate over Barack Obama's middle name, and one more day for speculation about the "passive-aggressive'' campaign that Bill waged for Hillary Clinton.

One more day to wait for Tuesday, to see if it is all over in Ohio and Texas.

Or, just another Friday.

The Potomac, just below Great Falls. Photo by Mark Silva

by Mark Silva

They say a Potomac primary will play out here Tuesday. Well, you should have seen the Potomac today.

Up on the eastern end of the Billy Goat trail west of Washington, the section not too rocky for a dog, the wind was whipping the river into a fine, sunlit mist swirling up the rock cliffs on the Virginia side, and the wind was snapping great branches from the tops of leaflees trees atop the bluffs here on the Maryland side. The trees groaned and threw trunk-thick debris crashing to the ground.

A sole kayaker paddled up the rapids, and the leading engine of the Arctic Express blew frigid air down the rock canyon of the river that descends toward Washington through several rapids and falls, mainly the Great Falls upriver from us, at the start of the goat-grade stretch of the Billy Goat trail.

The river is high today, swamping the low rocks which afford the closest eye-level views of the rapids, and, as I sit on the sand of the path half-sunken my dog Bree has settled in behind me, guarded from the sharp wind and warming my back.

Barack 0bama was stirring up his own storm at a rally at an Alexandria high school, Hillary Clinton was whipping up some cheers at a rally out in Manassas and Mike Huckabee was stumping down in Lynchburg at the pulpit of the home church of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, the one whom John McCain once denounced as an agent of intolerance. They are all here now, bidding for the voters of the Potomac and Chesapeake watersheds, the Tidewater crowd and the southwest mountain folks.

And out here on the wind-swept Potomac, a lone kayaker struggled against the glare of the sun-splashed rapids.

by Mark Silva

PANACEA, Fla. -- At this time of year, the sun rises at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River and casts a long reflection out where the wide river meets the Gulf of Mexico. At dawn, thousands of black and white Scaup fly downstream, coasting about a foot above the glassine river surface, and out to Ochlockonee Bay. Dolphins swim along with them.

This is the Florida which the rest of the world has overlooked, the Florida beyond the Interstates. And we are thankful for that.

This is where we've come to rest for a spell.

And here, with a few snapshots from the real swamp, we'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a peaceful celebration of every other holiday at this tumultuous year's end.

This is either May or Flower, we're not sure which, but it's one of the two turkeys that Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to name Lunch or Dinner but President Bush pardoned this week at the White House -- see the reassuring first hand on the bird -- meaning that neither will serve as the oven roasted turkey on today's menu at Camp David. Photo by Mark Silva.

by Mark Silva

It's been a quiet week at Camp David.

That's because the president didn't get there until Tuesday.

And today, President Bush is celebrating Thanksgiving with his family in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, where the presidential retreat of Camp David is perched atop a low range, some 1,600-feet high and somewhat cooler than its surroundings. The peak of autumn colors hit these parts about one week ago today, so you know the faded leaves are falling.

And today, all the president's menus are on the table and all the president's chefs are serving: Oven roasted turkey. Surprise.

Plus cast iron skillet cornbread dressing, jellied cranberry molds, sautéed green beans, zucchini gratin, whipped sweet potato soufflé, buttered mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, Morelia style gazpacho, fresh clover rolls with honey butter, pumpkin pie with whipped topping, apple pie, apple crisp and pumpkin mousse trifle.

So, it's a happy Thanksgiving.

At Camp David. And from the Swamp, to you.

by Gabrielle Russon

Presidential candidate Bill Richardson has watched as he’s lagged in the polls behind the other Democratic contenders. And last month, he saw Al Gore walk away with the heralded Nobel Peace Prize.

Now, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) is making a third attempt at supporting Richardson for the award. He has nominated the New Mexico governor for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work in Sudan and South Korea.

On Wednesday, Gordon sent his letter along with four other letters of support to the Nobel Committee in Norway. Eleven other congressmen co-signed Gordon’s nominating letter.

"We live in a volatile world, but people like Bill Richardson are reaching out through diplomatic efforts to reduce those tensions," Gordon said in a statement.

by Mark Silva

Retired Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom today. It is the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Hyde, who is 82 and served for 32 years in Congress, is recuperating from heart bypass surgery at a rehabilitation center and expected home soon. In the mean time, his son Bob has arrived at the White House for the presidential ceremony in the East Room at 10 am EDT.

“I wish he was here,’’ son Bob Hyde said this morning, speaking of the meaning of this award for his father, one of the stalwarts of the Republican Party, experienced in the Judiciary and International Relations Committees but perhaps best known for his advocacy of restrictions on abortion. “It’s gratification,’’ his son says of the award. “I think it affirms the importance and the value of his stance on many things, like right to life.’’

Henry Hyde, who retired when his final term ended in 2006, has undergone a quadruple heart bypass. “He is 82 with a million miles on his chassis,’’ says son Bob, the second of four Hyde children. He and his wife Mindy have come to the White House ceremony with Tom Mooney, who was chief of staff for the senior Hyde on the Judiciary and International Relations Committees and who runs a restaurant in Alexandria, Va., now.

Thirty-two years in Congress is a long time, the congressman’s son say, recalling his father’s start there – Rep. Hyde had served on the Iran Contra committee. “It was a much different place than it is now.’’

That's Honeyboy, a year ago last night, second from right. Photo by Silva

by Mark Silva

It was a year ago today, a Sunday on the past year's calendar, that a certain Swampster logged in here to record his night with a legendary bluesman, David "Honeyboy'' Edwards, born June 28, 1915, in Mississippi.

Honeyboy had played the night before for only a handful of afficionadoes of the blues on the autumn-cool campus of the University of Chicago.

That makes Honeyboy 92 today.

And it makes "Sweet Home Chicago," the posting in his honor, one year old.

And for those who are counting, the comments logged in at Sweet Home Chicago passed 1,200 over the weekend. That is far and away more than any other number logged on any other posting. And that is somewhat more than one in 100 of the nearly 110,000 comments that have been posted on the Swamp in its nearly two years of existence.

As for the title of today's posting, it belongs to Robert Johnson, and it was immortalized on the guitar by Elmore James. It was a hit in 1952. It still is, in this old boy's book.

Now, it's a relatively small community that has found a home at Sweet Home Chicago. But that's OK. Folks, you're basically one in a million in this guy's eyes. It's been a great year. Rock on.

by Naftali Bendavid

The recent death of Lady Bird Johnson raises compelling questions about how reputations change.

In her days as first lady, Johnson was an object of ridicule among many educated liberals--she was seen as a classic mousy 1950s wife, caught up in a trivial beautification campaign and dominated by a husband who was hated in many quarters for his prosecution of the Vietnam war. To some, she represented everything feminism was rebelling against.

A joke from the period, unfortunately not unusual, went something like this: "The best thing Lady Bird Johnson can do for highway beautification is to prevent her daughters from driving with the top down." That scornful gibe provides a flavor of some of the attitudes toward her.

But in Robert Caro's majestic biography of President Lyndon Johnson, Lady Bird comes off as almost heroic. In Caro's depiction, Lady Bird was abused by her husband, to be sure--but she bore it with a stoicism and dignity that was impressive and graceful, and created a noble contrast to the president's own bullying and sulking. Biographers are often drawn to revisionism for its own sake, but nonetheless Caro's portrait of the former first lady is persuasive.

(Credit: LBJ Library photo byYoichi Okamato)

Posted by Aamer Madhani at 8:05 am CDT

Frank Buckles knew many of the soldiers who fell at war.

World War I.

Buckles, 106, is one of the few last known living American veterans of The Great War. In Charles Town, West Virginia, Buckles keeps a china cabinet of military patches and mementoes from his deployments in England, France and Germany.

And, of course, Buckles has a few stories to tell. Read about his story, and his stories, on this Memorial Day, in today's Tribune:

Frank Buckles, 106, is one of three known living American veterans of World War I. Tribune staff photo by Pete Souza.

Posted by Mark Silva at 11:40 am CST

The first lady will pay honors for Chicago’s John G. Shedd Aquarium Monday at a White House awards ceremony for six institutions receiving the 2006 National Awards for Museum and Library Service.

The awards by the Institute of Museum and Library Services recognize “long-term commitment to public service through innovative programs and community partnerships’’ and carry $10,000 in prize money.

Posted by Frank James at 7:36 am CST

President Ford makes a point during a May 1975 National Security Council meeting. Credit: White House Photograph Courtesy Gerald R. Ford Library. Photographer: David Hume Kennerly

The death of former President Gerald Ford certainly brings sadness but it is not a tragedy, for the death of anyone who lives to be 93 can't typically said to be tragic.

We'll no doubt have more throughout the day on Ford's death and the meaning of his presidency. I'm hoping I can get my colleague Bill Neikirk, who knew Ford as president and interviewed him (he has the picture to prove it) to blog on him.

Bill has a lengthy news obituary in today's Chicago Tribune which I recommend. With famous people, it's the practice of newspapers to have an obit "in the can," so to speak, ready to be published when the person dies. Needless to say, Ford's obit had been in the can for a very long time.

(By the way, I highly recommend the web site of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum. It has great photos from the Ford presidency as well as a statement from former first lady Betty Ford and a link to funeral arrangements. Also recommended: the New York Times' multimedia Ford retrospective narrated by Adam Clymer, a former Times staffer.)

(Ed Bradley. AP Photo/John P. Filo,CBS)

Posted by William Neikirk at 3 p.m. CST

I met Ed Bradley during the Carter administration when he and I were covering the White House together, and I was immediately impressed with his intelligence and knowledge of world affairs.

He had a curious and penetrating mind that sought to understand complex topics. Since he knew that I had covered economics, he would on occasion ask me to explain some economic development. He would cut to the chase quickly, starting with the basics in order to get a clear picture. He was a good companion on the road, and he knew about fine things, such as French China.

Posted by Mark Silva at 9:15 am CST

Every bluesman and wannabe-a-bluesman who picks up a guitar takes a crack at Sweet Home Chicago, but David "Honeyboy'' Edwards has earned the right to play it. In his time, he has played with Robert Johnson, author of the homage to this great northern city, terminus of an epochal migration from Mississippi that carried the music of the Delta with it.

Honeyboy is 91. So you know we weren't the only ones happy to hear the song at the close of his set on the south side of Chicago last night. Every time he rolls it out - "Baby, don't you wanna go?'' - the old bluesman born on June 28, 1915, in Shaw, Miss., has made it through another night.

"Honeyboy'' Edwards, second from right, at the University of Chicago last night. Photo by Mark Silva

Posted by Frank James at 9:41 am CDT

Ann Richards, the former Texas governor who died of cancer yesterday, will long be known as the woman with the updated, frosted beehive hairdo who landed one of the most devastating rhetorical punches in modern American political history.

“Poor George Bush. He can’t help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth,” she said at the 1988 Democratic National Convention of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush who was prone to mangle the English language.

Posted by Mark Silva at 8:25 am CDT

Imagine my surprise when I awoke this morning to learn that the "Group Finance Director'' of Lloyds Bank in London, a certain Ms. Wood, had written me by email to inform me that she had discovered a dormant account in her office, and that it would be in her interest to transfer this fund of some $20 million (USD) into an account offshore.

And she said she had chosen me as a collaborator for an arrangement so secret that even her husband is unaware of it. On Labor Day no less. Who said there's no free $20 million? Well, "Ms. Wood,'' I wasn't born yesterday. You won't be getting my checking account number. But I will give you this:

Posted by Mark Silva at 9:15 am CDT

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia – From the many waterways that weave through St. Petersburg, the views of this grand city are soaring.

Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender,'' was playing on the small open motor-launch that we boarded this morning, followed by Beatles classics – though it then occurred to me that the 1960s probably were not prime time for this city laid out by a czar. Occasional signs of Soviet architecture – the unmistakable box and windows – appear among the countless ornamental structures of old along the canals.

Posted by William Neikirk at 4:29 p.m. CST

She married Superman but saw him shrivel away and die from terrible injuries he suffered in 1995 when he was thrown from a horse. She never smoked but she contracted lung cancer, amid speculation it might have been caused by the second-hand smoke she inhaled during her singing and dancer career.

And so Dana Reeve died on Tuesday at age 44, only a year and a half after her husband, Christopher Reeve, passed away. She had been an activist in supporting his causes at the Christopher Reeve Foundation, and that included research into treatments for paralysis, including stem-cell research opposed by the Bush administration.