Ruth Marcus has a good suggestion here.
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A blog about politics.
If the weekend is any guide, the Senate health reform bill is not likely to undergo much tweaking. Between Friday and Sunday, despite hours of debate on the Senate floor, the only amendments that passed were those from Democrats simply reiterating things the bill already calls for. One sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse was a “sense of the Senate” amendment to reiterate that funds collected by a new long-term care insurance program would be used only for that program. It passed 98-0. Sen. Debbie Stabenow's amendment reiterating that Medicare Advantage plans will continue to include standard Medicare benefits as defined by law passed 97-1. And an amendment from Sen. John Kerry that passed 96-0 reiterated the Democratic position that home health benefits will not be cut by the Senate bill.
Amendments that would have altered the bill were all voted down, including proposals to scrap huge sections entirely and provisions to limit the tax deduction for insurance company executive employees and cap plaintiffs' lawyers' fees in malpractice cases. Nope, the real health reform action over the weekend was elsewhere – off the Senate floor and far away from the C-SPAN cameras catching the all-too-familiar debate points.
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President Barack Obama journeyed to Capitol Hill for a rare Sunday visit as the Senate pushed through the weekend on health care reform. The president spent more than 40 minutes rallying the Senate Democratic caucus, underlining to them the importance of passing a bill not only to the economy, but to the 2010 elections and “the election after that and ten years down the road, 20 years, 30 years,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus told reporters after the meeting.
While Obama was in the meeting, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senator John McCain held a press conference just a few feet away from the Democrats' caucus room. “I don't like to refer back to the last campaign – for obvious reasons – all the time, but, are the CSPAN cameras here? Why aren't you in the room?” McCain said, referring to Obama's campaign promise that health care negotiations would take place in front of C-SPAN cameras.
When asked, as he emerged from the meeting, Obama refuted the point. “That wasn't a negotiation, that was a pep talk,” he said with a smile, before adding, “They're doing a great job. They're going to get it done.” The President was accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden (who stayed behind to hang with his former colleagues in the Senate cloak room for nearly an hour after Obama lefT), top political adviser David Axelrod and deputy White House Chief of Staff Jim Messina (who met earlier in the day with Senators Max Baucus and Chris Dodd, the chairmen whose drafts Reid married to produce a final bill). Obama didn't mention specific issues such as the public plan or abortion, but did pledge to work with the Senate “in any meaningful way he can” to get health care done, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
We are past, for the moment, the White House "war" on Fox, such as it was. (Obama did an interview with Fox News' Major Garrett a few weeks back, and General Petraeus is on Fox News Sunday today, with close Obama ally Dick Durbin.) Summer is gone too, and with it the "wee weed up" "silly season" of political coverage that Obama and his aides regularly decried. But President Obama's disdain for certain features of the national media remains alive and well. In a little noticed aside at the end of Thursday's jobs summit, Obama effectively painted the press as an obstacle to not just the much-needed economic recovery, but to America recovering its 20th Century position as an economic powerhouse.
Obama was responding to a comment from Farooq Kathwari, the CEO of furniture maker Ethan Allen. Kathwari had observed that the layoffs at his company that followed the economic collapse have actually provided an opportunity for the company to reinvent itself as something better. Obama agreed with Kathwari's point:
If we can recapture that sense that we're in this thing together and that we are willing to work hard, that America is not great because it's owed to us, but we've been great because previous generations have put in the hard work to get us there, then I'm confident that we're going to get through this tough time and the 21st century is going to be as good for us as the 20th was.
But then Obama made a turn, and went after the press, specifically the group of network correspondents who had interviewed Obama on his trip to Beijing. The full passage follows after the jump.
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Sarah Palin and Barney Frank were the featured speakers at last night's winter dinner of the Gridiron Club. The event also marked what could be the beginning of a new era for the 124-year-old club, which is an institution where traditions die hard. (It was only five years ago that they decided to open up membership to journalists from magazines and new-fangled broadcast outlets, which is how I happened to be invited to join. John Dickerson of Slate was recently inducted as the club's first internet journalist. )
Last night, the club moved a step further into the 21st century:
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Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus found himself the center of a scrum of reporters Saturday as the Senate worked through the weekend on health care reform, though not for the usual reasons. The topics did not include the public option, abortion, health care affordability or his hearings on global warming legislation but, rather, his live-in girlfriend and former Montana state director Melodee Hanes. Reports surfaced yesterday that the twice-married Baucus – who, staff say, first got together with Hanes last summer when they were both still married but separated from their respective spouses – had nominated her to be U.S. Attorney from Montana.
Baucus's staff pushed back hard on the idea that his nomination was a conflict of interest. Baucus and Hanes began dating in the summer of 2008. In December, Hanes's divorce was finalized and in February of 2009 hers was one of three names he submitted to President Obama after being vetted by a private lawyer, as Baucus has always done with all his nominations to Democratic administrations. But a month later, Baucus told reporters Saturday, they had grown so close that in March Hanes withdrew her name from consideration in order to “avoid the appearance of impropriety” and, Baucus said, because they were ready to take their relationship to the next level. Baucus spends most of his time in Washington and the U.S. Attorney job would've kept Hanes in Montana. “That was frankly part of it, we didn't want to live apart,” Baucus said. “Two thousand miles: that was a big factor, frankly, a big factor.”
This piece by David Sanger reminds me of several points that have gone unmentioned in the discussions of the President's new Afghan policy:
1. The policy and troop surge is not intended to "defeat" the Taliban; indeed, there's a recognition that the Tals will always be a part of the picture in Afghanistan. The intent of the policy is to push them back, weaken them, try to convince some to reconcile--especially those Taliban who are mostly interested in local, not national or religious, issues (like controlling their home valleys). The goal is stability, not "victory" since victory is not attainable.
2. Obama followed most of the policy recommendations laid out by Stanley McChrystal in his famed Initial Assessment of last August, but there was one notable omission: the training targets for the Afghan National Army and police--250,000 and 140,000 respectively--were absent. In fact, the President refused to indulge in a training numbers game, which reflect the general pessimism about our ability to create plausible national forces. (There is some mild hope that we will enable the Afghans to build security from the bottom up, via tribal militias).
Russell Wiseman, the mayor of Arlington, Tenn., (pop. 2,569 in 2000), was infuriated by President Obama's address on Afghanistan Tuesday night. This is what Wiseman posted on his Facebook page, according to the Commercial Appeal in Memphis.
Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'....you obama people need to move to a muslim country...oh wait, that's America....pitiful.
Indeed! Later in the same post, Wiseman dug himself even deeper. (Yes, this is possible.)
A correction published today by the Washington Post:
A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.
Here is the story, as corrected. More importantly the video for "911 Is A Joke"--released in 1990 on the album Fear of a Black Planet--is posted after the jump.
In Singapore last month, the President Obama's Senior Director for Russia, Mike McFaul, announced that the U.S. and Russia would not be able to conclude an agreement on the a follow-on to the START nuclear warhead treaty before Saturday, Dec. 5, when it is set to expire. "We have a bridging agreement that we also are working with the Russians," McFaul said. "I fully suspect we'll be able to get that in place by December 5th."
So on Friday morning, with just hours to go before the treaty expired, President Obama spoke by phone with President Dimitri Medvedev. In a morning gaggle, Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that negotiators would continue to work for another 24 hours, but that the continuation agreement--"outlining that what is in place now will continue"--would be put in place if those negotiations failed.
As it happened, as Gibbs spoke, the Russian press was already reporting a "joint statement" from Obama and Medvedev describing the continuation agreement. "I guess they are a little ahead of the curve," Gibbs joked, when told about the statement.
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