Obama news conference: President to touch on economy and budget

President Obama, who seems to be just about everywhere these days, will hold a news conference at the White House in about half an hour. That’s 5 p.m. for all of you reading on the West Coast.

Based on excerpts of his prepared remarks, he’ll talk about the economy (no surprise there) and the budget (again, no surprise). But he’ll also offer some words of encouragement and hope. Remember hope?

No doubt many questions from the White House press corps will touch on the economy and efforts to pull the country out of recession. But White House news conferences do have a way of heading in directions no one can predict. Will Iraq come up? The Supreme Court? The Special Olympics?

And what names will arise? Hillary Rodham Clinton? Perhaps, though a safe bet is that someone will ask something about Timothy F. Geithner.

Stay tuned. We’ll be live-blogging once the news conference begins.

-- Steve Padilla