Sunday Shows: McCain, Sebelius, Kyl, Geithner, Sessions and Leahy

ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos": Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and a round table with ABC's Donna Brazile, Sam Donaldson, Cokie Roberts, George Will and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post.

Bloomberg's "Political Capital with Al Hunt": Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Bloomberg's Hans Nichols, Mike Tackett, Heidi Przybyla and former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber.

CBS' "Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer": Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) and a round table with Kevin Merida and Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post.

CNN's "GPS with Fareed Zakaria": Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, at left.

CNN's "State of the Union with John King": Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), Judd Gregg (R-N.H.),  Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Penn.) and CNN's Mary Matalin.

"Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace": Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and a round table with Fox News' contributors Laura Ingraham, NPR's Mara Liasson and Juan Williams and the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol.

NBC's "Meet the Press with David Gregory": Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a round table with NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Democratic strategist Bob Shrum and Politico's Roger Simon.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Charles Dharapak / Associated Press  

Weekly remarks: Obama still clearing wreckage; Cantor asks, where are the jobs?

This week's weekly remarks open with President Obama in Africa opening on foreign affairs. But by the second paragraph out of 20, he gets to what he really wants -- needs -- to talk about: domestic business in general and the economy specifically.

His polls numbers have slipped, especially among seniors and even independents. People still like him a lot (though they now like his wife better).

But they're increasingly worried about some of his programs and these numbers with more digits than civilian calculators can display -- all the spending and unemployment still growing, reform of healthcare that some 70% of Americans are satisfied with now.

You can tell what White House polling has told them by the subjects ticked off in Obama's remarks: We inherited this mess, the economic stimulus bill so urgently pushed in February wasn't really designed to fix the economy, and the switching of terms about jobs. It used to be about creating and/or preserving jobs. Now, preserving jobs comes first, which, like murders not committed, is difficult to prove or disprove without numbers. Which is the point.

Be patient, Obama urges, more spending will kick in this summer. I promise healthcare reforms won't add to the deficit. We're cutting waste. We need clean energy. Etc.

The Republican remarks, provided this week by Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, are in many ways the mirror image.

They see their own poll numbers. It's been six months; the economy belongs to Obama now. Where are the promised jobs? Unemployment at 9.5% is already higher than the 8.5% the administration promised as max. The stimulus bill was larded with pork. We can't afford all this spending and borrowing. The federal government this year alone has borrowed $10Gs for economic stimulus from every American family. Do you feel better knowing that?

This is an argument we will all hear in varying forms from now until next year's midterm elections, when the White House party historically takes a hit in Congress.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Weekly remarks of President Obama, July 11, 2009

This week, we’ve made important progress toward the goal of bringing about change abroad and change at home. During my visit to Russia, we began the process of resetting relations so that we can address key national priorities like the threat of nuclear weapons and extremism. At the G-8 summit, leaders from nearly 30 nations met to discuss how we will collectively confront the urgent challenges of our time, from managing the global recession to fighting global warming to addressing global hunger and poverty. And in Ghana [see arrival photo below], I laid out my agenda for supporting democracy and development in Africa and around the world.

But even as we make progress on these challenges abroad, my thoughts are on the state of our economy at home. And that’s what I want to talk to you about today. 

We came into office facing the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. At the time, we were losing, on average, 700,000 jobs a month. And many feared that our financial system was on the verge of collapse. 

As a result of the swift and aggressive action we took in the first few months of this year, we’ve been able to pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink. We took steps to restart . . .

Nah-nah! Obama gives California more flu-fighting bucks than anyone

Kathleen Sebelius -- the Obama administration's secretary of Health and Human Services nominee who did not have big back-tax problems -- announced this afternoon that she's sending $30,516,050 to California immediately to fight flu.

That's nothing to sneeze at. In fact, it's nearly 10% of all the flu money that HHS is distributing nationwide to those other puny states. See, there is a reason for having Nancy Pelosi. And Oprah, though she's only a California part-timer. Payback for those 55 juicy electoral votes last Nov. 4? And keep those Golden Staters healthy and alive.

(Or as loyal Ticket reader Kenneth tweets: "That leaves only 90% for the other 56 states.")

We weren't going to bother writing about such piddling chump change as millions, given the trillions we've moved up to discussing since January.

But that extra 50 bucks at the end pushed it over the top and clearly showed the transparent commitment to public health of both the Democratic president and Sebelius (shown above demonstrating how to spread a flu virus as quickly as possible).

In an additional multimedia sign of Obama's commitment to public health, Sebelius notes she's launched a contest for ordinary germy citizens to make their own anti-flu public service videos. After all these public health grants, however, there's only $2,500 left for a prize; talk about chump change. (And no prize for pro-flu videos.)

We were just enjoying the middle of summer when Sebelius warns, "With flu season around the corner, we must remain vigilant and do all we can to prepare our nation and protect public health. These grants will give states valuable resources to step up their flu-preparedness efforts.”

All right, it is chump change for the most populous state, given California's gabillions of dollars in red budget ink. But you'd think 30 mil would pretty much guarantee good health around California for everyone as long as we seal the border with Oregon. And maybe Arizona.

Perhaps some other less-important states would be willing to forfeit some or all of their federal flu-fighting funds so that Californians could avoid sneezing and continue to enjoy the sunshine that makes its way through the smog.

There's way too many numbers in the announcement to really bother with. Suffice to say, there are grants for public health -- L.A. alone is getting $8,510,041.

But, disturbingly, there are also immense grants for hospital preparedness. This would seem to indicate that the feds are not really counting on total prevention of the various flus that, according to media reports only a couple of months ago, threatened the human race with extinction.

Never mind washing your hands frequently. The only answer is obviously more money.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

Guys! Quick! Hubby Obama needs some help 'splaining that photo

(UPDATE: Oops. Now another peekaboo pic has shown up. Different woman. Same angle. Same two guys. Over here.)

OK, let's help the poor guy out here. It's a bipartisan gender solidarity thing.

Yes, yes, he's president of the United States of America. The most powerful male in the free world, perhaps le monde entier. Pretty wife. Great abs. Loving father. And a real good talker.

He better be 'cause, as they fly down to Africa right now, Mrs. Obama with the buff bare arms may be asking her hubby one or two questions about this photo that's been flying all over the world ahead of them for a day now. Just as Desi Arnaz would ask his wife in the old "Lucy" show.

On the surface it might possibly appear to some jealous people that the 47-year-old ex-senator from Illinois is eyeing the working backside of Mayara Rodriguez Tavares, a 17-year-old youth delegate from Buenos Aires, no, wait, Brazil at the G-8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy. (And President Nicolas Sarkozy is checking it out too. But he's French.)

Such a suspicion about the nation's male chief executive is absolutely ridiculous, of course, and relies on the tired, old -- and patently erroneous -- sexist cliche about men having a roving eye for the opposite sex, even when they may already be in the company of a member of same said opposite gender.

There have, over the eons, been billions of misunderstandings like this between women and their men when the female followed the man's eyes and perceived them to be glued on some portion of another female's anatomy, back or front. It even happened in cave days when folks wore skimpy animal pelts. That's an Internet fact.

Those patently mistaken female impressions of visual infidelity have led to some verbal outbursts, punched arms, swung purses and long silences in the car followed by a night on the living room couch.

If the offended women would only wait one sec, they could learn the real honest-to-God object of their male's admiration. Most often, the male doesn't even know what other woman his lady is talking about. He was simply admiring a really attractive red sports car that was passing in the same spot but is now unfortunately out of sight.

The car one won't work this time. But there are other obfuscating explanations. Maybe the president had a speck in his eye -- it can happen to presidents anytime even with the Secret Service around -- and was looking down to try and get it out. Could be.

Also, as Ticket reader Tom points out, she does have great shoes.

The most innocent excuse or explanation is that the president was in the process of turning his head to thoughtfully take the hand of his life partner and help her safely down the last large step there so she wouldn't trip and embarrass herself with all the cameras around. What a guy! Chivalry lives!

And those European cameramen -- you know them -- cleverly snapped the photo to make it appear like he was looking at the long curly, brown hair and the female derriere in shiny red material that he hadn't even actually noticed was there. In fact, was there a woman there?

It's all perfectly innocent. So help him out, guys -- or gals. What other explanation can we helpfully offer the first man?

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photos of other male presidential encounters with derrieres below.

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From Italy, Obama tries to feel the love (transcript here)

Public opinion polls are showing a dip in the president's approval. Critics in Congress are piling on his healthcare plan. And lots of Americans are questioning why the mega-billion stimulus plan has not sparked a new era of job creation.

So the White House must have been less than thrilled at the timing of the Group of 8 meetings in Rome this week. Just at a time when he might have been needed politically on the home front, President Obama found himself in meetings with Russian officials in gilded halls in the Kremlin -- where those officials made sure the streets were empty of the usual Obamamania -- talking about climate control to a few European nations but without China, a critical player on the issue, and getting a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI in the august halls of the Vatican.

Even Obama, at a press conference from Rome, wondered about the wisdom of so many G-whatever meetings in so many forums to so little effect.

The one thing I will be looking forward to is fewer summit meetings, because, as you said, I've only been in office six months now and there have been a lot of these.  And I think that there's a possibility of streamlining them and making them more effective.  The United States obviously is a absolutely committed partner to concerted international action, but we need to, I think, make sure that they're as productive as possible.

The president also had a lot to say about healthcare, Iranian nuclear weapons and food security. You can read the full transcript below.

Then it was off with First Lady Michelle Obama and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, to meet with the Pope, followed by a trip to Ghana, a country Obama praised as "a functioning democracy [with] a president who's serious about reducing corruption, and ... significant economic growth."

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Activists perform in masks of President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Rome this week where the G-8 failed to get developing nations on board for climate control. Credit: Reuters

What did the CIA lie to Congress about, and where was Cheney?

Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee set off a political bombshell this week. In a leaked letter, they disclosed that CIA Director Leon Panetta -- four months after taking office -- learned that his agency had misled Congress about a special project. He canceled the program and scheduled closed-door meetings with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees the next day to brief them.

Ever since, observers of the national security scene have been puzzling over the story. Aside from the disturbing -- but not particularly surprising news -- that someone at the CIA sat on this news for four months after getting a new boss, the question is: what classified program did Panetta close down?

Early speculation rested on waterboarding, a technique the Bush administration used in interrogating terrorists. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had earlier accused the CIA of misleading her on use of the controversial practice. But President Obama has already banned waterboarding, so it's not something Panetta would need to shut down.

Now, some are quoting the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, who in March alleged that a secret army of CIA operatives reported to former Vice President Dick Cheney. In remarks he has not substantiated in print, Hersh talked about "a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office.... It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on."

Cheney makes a convenient target. He's already enraged Democrats for suggesting that Obama's policies are making the United States more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. In fact, Panetta accused Cheney of hoping America would be attacked again, just to prove his point. As a result, some Republicans argue that the Democrats are just floating the Cheney rumor to deflect attention away from Pelosi's credibility on the issue.

Others argue that there is less there than meets the eye. As one unnamed former intelligence official told the Washington Post, "This characterization of something that began in 2001 and continued uninterrupted for eight years is just wrong. Honest men would question that characterization. It was more off and on." If the nature of the program could be revealed, said the source, it would be seen as "no big deal."

Either way, look for the guessing game to continue.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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Joe Biden update: No 'private meetings,' just meetings closed to the press

Possibly a very important policy change quietly emerged in the daily schedule of Vice President Joe Biden today.

Loyal Ticket readers know that, as a patriotic duty, we monitor the longtime senator's schedule with a close eye for detail because, after all, this man is only a heartbeat away from having to give a toast at a G-8 summit. We've especially noted Biden's innumerable  "private meetings" that are closed to the press because, well, they're private.

And we've wondered aloud how this Democratic VP's private meetings with unnamed people on unnamed subjects differs from the private meetings with unnamed people that his evil predecessor had that got so many Democratic senators and representatives worried about nefarious secrets.

On one recent long weekend, the man who became a Delaware senator when his future boss, Barack Obama, was an inexperienced fundraiser of only 11, devoted an entire Monday to "private meetings" that are closed press in his Delaware home.

If that isn't dedication for the $208,000 salary.

Well, today's schedule, unlike many at the end of Biden's work weeks, contains no "private meetings." Not one.

Having spent Thursday traveling and successfully selling the nation on the so far hard-to-detect effects of the $787-billion Obama administration economic stimulus spending plan that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave them, Biden will show up for work around 11 today.

He'll join Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in a roundtable to discuss only the rising costs of healthcare for people who own or work for small businesses. One suspects the absent president's ambitious plan to spend billions more to impose his healthcare reforms might also be mentioned.

OK, so figure an hour for the roundtable, maybe 75 minutes max. You can only talk about that stuff so long before requiring healthcare yourself. Fifteen minutes for handshaking, cellphone photos and congratulations on the excellent roundtable. The VP should be outta there by 12:30.

That leaves -- what? -- five, maybe six hours to make it a seven-hour workday.

According to the White House schedule, Biden will not spend the remainder of the workday in private meetings that are closed press.

Instead: "The Vice President will spend the remainder of the day in meetings that are closed press."

You get the difference, right?

(Friday UPDATE 7 p.m.: According to the VP's weekend schedule, if you need to reach him about the stimulus plan or something, both days he will be in Delaware where "There are no public events scheduled." No public mention of private meetings.)

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Getty Images

Bye-bye Burris: Obama's tainted Senate replacement won't run in 2010

(UPDATE: As predicted Burris did announce Friday that he will not seek election in 2010.)

If you were thinking of running for Barack Obama's old U.S. Senate seat from Illinois but were holding off because of incumbent Roland Burris' intention to run next year, change of plans.

Looks like on Friday afternoon in Chicago, a time designed to minimize public attention, the 71-year-old Democratic veteran of Illinois' bare-knuckles brand of politics will announce he's decided not to run in 2010. Purely his own choice, of course. And all for the better of his state.

The first clue actually came when Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, now indicted for trying to auction off his nomination to fill the new president's vacant Senate chair, chose Burris as one of his final official acts before impeachment.

That tainted nomination, initially resisted by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his No. 2, Dick Durbin, also of Illinois (see smiley photo above), eventually went through after a face-saving song-and-dance ...

Speaker Pelosi throws cold water on resolution to honor Michael Jackson

Even in death, Michael Jackson has the power to create controversy.

During the Monday memorial service in Los Angeles, Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee told the thousands of mourners in Staples Center (and the hundreds of millions of fans around the world, eagerly watching on television) that she would introduce a resolution in the hope of honoring the King of Pop for his humanitarian efforts around the world.

The Democratic congresswoman displayed a framed copy of the resolution she was proposing and insisted it would come to the floor.

On the face this would seem to be a no-brainer: iconic singer and long-time donor to charities gets a last recognition. Besides, anyone whose death can so monopolize the public arena should be a slam-dunk for a congressional resolution.

Not so fast, as The Ticket warned Wednesday in this item.

Some Republicans, including Long Island Rep. Peter King, said they had problems with the adulation pouring over Jackson. King, in a video posted on YouTube, called the....

Sonia Sotomayor cramming in practice sessions near the West Wing

These days, federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not in her New York chambers. She's not weighing cases or interrogating counsel or even writing opinions.

Instead, with hearings to start Monday in the historic, much-anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation process, Sotomayor is holed up in a small office in the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building next to the White House.

A group of young aides and lawyers assigned by Team Obama poses mock questions based on research about each committee member's records. But mostly, reports CNN, Sotomayor is sitting quietly by herself, reading her back opinions, boning up on anything that might provoke a senator to raise a fuss.

"She's got to hit the books," said Thomas Goldstein, a D.C. appellate attorney. "They can ask you about any part of the law. And she's got to be ready for that."

In an earlier round of get-acquainted-sessions, Sotomayor met with 70 of the Senate's 100....

Wonder where all those stimulus $$$ are going? Maybe Joe Biden knows

Vice President Biden traveled to Ohio today, trying to salvage public support for President Obama's $787-billion stimulus package. (Details from the vice president's office below.)

With the president in Italy for the G8 summit meetings, it falls to his vice president to try to staunch the fall in public opinion. And with more and more Americans questioning the effectiveness of the massive government bailout, a new Quinnipiac Poll shows that Obama's approval rating has dropped 13 points in the last two months in Ohio, a bellwether state for presidential elections for more than a century. The plunge: from 62% approval in May to 49% now.

"The economy in Ohio is as bad as anywhere in America," said Peter Brown, who runs the Quinnipiac Poll. "These numbers indicate that for the first time, voters have decided that President Barack Obama bears some responsibility for their problems."

Adding to the administration's woes is news that state legislatures are -- imagine! -- playing politics with decisions on where to spend the stimulus dollars. Tracing the first monies dispersed by the....

Creating jobs, once the goal, dropped as criteria for $3.4-billion Energy Department project

Remember all that talk last winter about the historic awfulness of the inherited economy and how urgently the new Obama administration needed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's economic stimulus bill to get through Congress and the president flew all the way out to Denver to sign the $787-billion bill because, well, because they didn't have an Air Force One photo shoot for New York that day?

And how it was absolutely, really, essentially important to start spending all that money ASAP so that it would create good, solid, strong, patriotic American jobs right here in America? And keep the jobless rate maybe somewhere around 8-8.5%?

Which seems really pretty good today now that it's already at 9.5% and predicted to exceed 10% for much of the next year, which takes us right up close to -- oh, oh, look out! -- the 2010 midterm elections.

In fact, back in April at one $3.4-billion spending ceremony for the media, Vice President Joe Biden, who's got a lot of private meetings to attend but was still assigned to drive the stimulus spending hard, said: "This is jobs -- jobs!" Creating or saving a gazillion-point-five jobs used to be the main goal.

Not anymore.

More change. That was April. This is July. And the spending sujet du jour has moved on to....