Swampland
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  1. Who is Cao?
  2. Iran Amok
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The Afghanistan Guessing Game--One Brigade, Two Brigades, Red Brigade, Blue Brigade

Posted by Michael Scherer
November 9, 2009 at 8:54 pm
2 Comments

Not quite big enough for the Drudge Report siren but he did put it in red text:

REVEALED BY CBSNEWS TONIGHT: OBAMA'S PLAN FOR AFGHANISTAN; send four combat brigades plus thousands more support troops... close to the 40,000 that McChrystal wanted...

Then there was the McClatchy report this weekend:

President Barack Obama is nearing a decision to send more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year. . . As it now stands, the administration's plan calls for sending three Army brigades from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Ky. and the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and a Marine brigade, for a total of as many as 23,000 additional combat and support troops.

Both reports caution that the (reported) decisions are not final. Meanwhile, General Jim Jones, the head of the National Security Council, releases this statement on Monday night, which comes with extra adjectives to make the point (bolding mine):

Reports that President Obama has made a decision about Afghanistan are absolutely false. He has not received final options for his consideration, he has not reviewed those options with his national security team, and he has not made any decisions about resources. Any reports to the contrary are completely untrue and come from uninformed sources.

So what is going on?

As a White House source told me Monday night, "The President hasn't received the four options on Afghanistan yet."

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Related Topics: afghanistan, barack obama, white house

The Friends of Stanley McChrystal

Posted by Joe Klein
November 9, 2009 at 8:47 pm
1 Comment

Spencer Ackerman has been doing some terrific reporting on the military over at the Washington Independent. Here's his latest, about two special ops Admirals--friends of General McChrystal--deeply involved in the Afghan strategy review.

McChrystal has gradually put a personal, special ops stamp on his staff in Kabul--which, given the nature of the war in Afghanistan, is probably a pretty good thing.

          

Abbas Out?

Posted by Joe Klein
November 9, 2009 at 7:16 pm
16 Comments

Maybe he's not bluffing this time. The eminently reliable Ethan Bronner seems to think Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, may well make good on his threat to quit. If he's gone, the Palestinians are going to scuffle to find a new leader. Odds are, in such a fraught circumstance, they choose a tough guy, a hard-liner--to match the Israel's intransigent Netanyahu.

If Abbas is serious, this is horrible news. And, clearly, the Obama Middle East initiative has come a cropper. I'm hearing, from several sources, that there's serious White House displeasure with special envoy George Mitchell. That's probably unfair...but there is a serious need for an Administration rethink of this crucial policy area.

          

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Health Reform and Public Opinion

Posted by Karen Tumulty
November 9, 2009 at 6:55 pm
27 Comments

Few people have studied the effects of public opinion on health policy as extensively as Robert Blendon at the Harvard School of Public Health. In this post at Kaiser Health News, Blendon tells us that public support for health reform leaves little margin at the moment:

When Medicare was enacted in 1965, 62 percent of the public supported its passage. When the ill-fated Clinton health plan did not pass the House in 1994, support was between 39 percent and 43 percent. In recent polls, public ratings of the congressional and Obama health reform proposals are much closer to those for the Clinton plan than for Medicare. Support for enactment in recent polls ranges from 34 percent to 49 percent with the most recent suggesting growing public opposition since the summer. This is the case even though many of the policy elements of the current House legislation are popular with the public, such as requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions, and the presence of a public option offered as a competitor to private health plans.

Blendon suggests what questions to watch, and who is likely to be shaping the public's perception of health reform in the crucial weeks ahead:

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Related Topics: health care, ,

White House Meets With, Tells Off And Then Blogs About Lobbyists

Posted by Michael Scherer
November 9, 2009 at 5:40 pm
12 Comments

There is a gem of a blog post over at the White House website. Norm Eisen, the lawyer charged by President Obama to oversee and enforce ethics rules, has posted a blow-by-blow of his recent meeting with a group of lobbyists (and others) who are upset about the new White House policy that bars them from serving on federal advisory boards and commissions. (The message to other lobbyists: Think twice before you schedule a meeting at the White House; it has a blog.) In essence, Eisen explains why he told the lobbyists to their face that they're participation in appointed government was bad for America:

We explained to the ITAC chairs that this issue is not about the few corrupt lobbyists or specific abuses by the profession, but rather concerns the system as a whole. For too long, lobbyists and those who can afford their services have held disproportionate influence over national policy making. The purpose of the President's agenda to change the way business is done in Washington is to level the playing field to make sure that all Americans and not just those with access to money or power are able to have their voices heard and their concerns addressed by Washington.

In other words, them lobbyists got served--publicly. (I wonder how many meetings happened at the White House today that did not get blogged.) Eisen continues, describing the White House policy process:

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Related Topics: corruptionwhite house,

Dems Go It Alone

Posted by Jay Newton-Small
November 9, 2009 at 3:53 pm
45 Comments

I asked a lot of members over the weekend: why pass the bill now? After the August protests there had been much speculation that the House would wait for the Senate to act. Some members said that Speaker Pelosi didn't want them going home for another recess to face more Tea Party madness (the House, having adjourned very early Sunday morning is now in recess until next week for Veterans Day). But, as Rep. Chris Van Hollen, head of the DCCC, told me they weren't really worried about the protests any more. "They had one here on Thursday and again today and did that sway anybody?" he noted wryly Saturday night. So why push through a bill now, the week after twin gubernatorial losses in New Jersey and Virigina and a day after the country hit 10% unemployment? Most members said, the leadership felt the time for debate had come to an end -- after all Pelosi had originally wanted to pass the bill before August recess but deferred in deference to anxious freshmen. They worried if the process wasn't jump started, the Senate might falter and fail. But, having forced her vulnerables to take a hard vote on climate change, was it rash of Pelosi to rush a vote on health care -- espeically if the Senate ends up not including a public plan in their bill (though as it stands right now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says it will be in)? Many vulnerable Dems headed home this weekend feeling a bit battered and fearing what it means to go it alone, as Dems clearly are these days.

          

Related Topics: congress, democrats, gop, gubernatorial elections, harry reid, health care, nancy pelosi, republicans, , , ,

Iran Amok

Posted by Joe Klein
November 9, 2009 at 3:25 pm
15 Comments

There are several possible responses to the appalling news that Iran seems to have brought espionage charges against three American hikers who wandered across the Kurdish border. Taken together with Iran's apparent decision not to agree to the nuclear treaty it had agreed to, this is yet another signal of the Iranian regime going off the rails. No doubt, assorted neoconservatives in the U.S. will want to use this as an excuse to whack the Khamenei-Whomever government rhetorically, economically and toss in some use of force threats as well.

Which will give the regime exactly what it wants and needs: proof that the Great Satan exists. I've mentioned before my favorite piece of official graffiti painted on the old U.S. Embassy in Tehran: "On the day the Great Satan praises us, we shall mourn." It always seemed a classic bit of ju-jitsu to me: Want to make the Iranian leaders uncomfortable? Praise them. Or, at least, don't play into their need for a satanic enemy.

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1,000 Words: Best Seats in the House Edition

Posted by Karen Tumulty
November 9, 2009 at 2:59 pm
42 Comments

From our White House Photo Blog.

wh_blog_1105

          

Related Topics: 1,000 words, barack obama, michelle obama

The National Health Council Responds

Posted by Michael Scherer
November 9, 2009 at 10:56 am
35 Comments

A few weeks back, Karen Tumulty and I wrote a piece about the health care reform payday that appears to await the producers of biotechnology drugs. We discussed the wide array of third party groups and individuals who support the biotech industry's position on delaying generic competition for costly biologic drugs, and we noted that these same groups and individuals have received money from the biotechnology industry. One of those groups, the National Health Council, has written a letter to TIME defending the integrity of its position on the biologics issue. I have posted the letter in full after the jump.

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Who is Cao?

Posted by Jay Newton-Small
November 8, 2009 at 12:23 pm
110 Comments

Joe Cao (pronounced Gow) is the name on most people's lips Inside the Beltway this morning. So, how did this freshman Republican escape GOP Whip Eric Cantor's hammer to vote with Democrats for health care reform, ruining Cantor's goal of unified opposition?

Cao arrived in Houston at the age of eight with his parents and two siblings as refugees from Vietnam. Cao's father, a lieutenant in the South Vietnamese Army, had spent the better part of the previous seven years in a North Vietnamese “reeducation camp.” Cao originally became a Roman Catholic Priest, serving six years in a Jesuit seminary after getting his bachelors degree in physics at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. After leaving the priesthood he received a master's in philosophy from Fordham University in New York and a law degree from Loyola in New Orleans in 2000, where he also taught undergraduate philosophy. He practiced immigration law before getting involved in politics after Hurricane Katrina.

After upsetting nine-term incumbent William Jefferson – who was under indictment at the time for taking bribes -- in 2008, Cao became the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress. He holds the most Democratic seat – rated D+28 by the Cook Political Report – of any Republican. He's married to Hieu “Kate” Hoang, whom he met at Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church in New Orleans East in 1998. The couple still attends the church with their two daughters.

So how did Cao end up voting for the bill? He was subject to much lobbying from three sides: the White House, embodied by Nancy Ann DeParle, Rahm Emanuel and President Obama; Eric Cantor, the GOP Whip; and, harkening back to his early years as a young priest, the Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Louisiana chapter was the only one to endorse the bill in October, long before the hot button issue of abortion was even raised. Cao had objected, along with more than 60 pro-life Democrats, to the idea that the legislation might help fund abortions. After last minute negotiations, Democratic leaders agreed to allow an amendment authored by Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, that would ensure that no money could go to funding abortions. The amendment passed, gaining the bill the support of the national Conference of Catholic Bishops. “Thanks to the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, taxpayer dollars will not go to supporting elective abortions, and for thousands of my constituents, this was a top priority,” Cao said in a statement. “By incorporating this amendment into the health reform bill, my colleagues and I made this bill better, and that is an achievement of which I will always be proud.”

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Related Topics: barack obama, congress, democrats, gop, health care, republicans, , , ,