Who Obama invited to his first White House state dinner instead of you

It took nearly 11 months, but tonight finally the not-so-new Obama administration had its first state dinner at the White House.

Well, actually it was outside the White House on the lawn in a tent.

A very exciting time. You can see in the official guest list below that the president invited some Chicago friends, a lot of celebrities, as we reported earlier today, some Congress people (even a couple of Republicans), a bunch of Guptas, a whole lot of people called Honorable and Katie Couric.

In case you might want to steal some of the lines for your own Thanksgiving toasts Thursday, here are the official words spoken by the two countries' leaders and the crowd of official diners, both as provided by the White House.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Toasts by President Obama and Prime Minister Singh

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening, everyone. On behalf of Michelle and myself, welcome to the White House. Aapka Swagat Hai. (You are all welcome in Hindi) (Applause.)

Many of you were here when I was honored to become the first president to help celebrate Diwali -- the Festival of Lights.  (Applause.)  Some of you were here for the first White House celebration of the birth of the founder of Sikhism -- Guru Nanak. (Applause.)  Tonight, we gather again, for the first state dinner of my presidency -- with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Mrs. Gursharan Kaur, as we celebrate the great and growing partnership between the United States and India.

As we all know, in India some of life's most treasured moments are often celebrated under the cover of a beautiful tent. It's a little like tonight.  We have incredible food and music and are surrounded by great friends.  For it's been said that "the most beautiful things in the universe are the starry heavens above us and the feeling of duty within us." 

Mr. Prime Minister, today we worked to fulfill our duty -- bring our countries ...

Good news: Obama creates 30 new jobs in one congressional district. Bad news: No such district

Chicago politics, where voting is such a revered civic duty that people do it even after they're dead, cold, stiff, stuffed, boxed and buried beneath the permafrost for years, has now come to D.C. with the Obama administration.

This afternoon comes the most encouraging economic news, courtesy of our keen-eyed buddy Rick Klein over at ABC, that the Obama administration's $787-billion economic stimulus has, for example, thankfully created 30 new jobs in a little-known rural corner of Arizona at a cost to American taxpayers of only $761,420.

That works out to only $25,380.67 spent to create each individual job.

Seems like a lot per slot, but those 30 folks must be happy to be employed again and paying taxes.

This will be a real feather in the cap of Vice President Joe Biden, who's been left behind and assigned by the ever-campaigning president to monitor the stimulus plan, its spending and effectiveness moving into the crucial midterm elections of 2010. Might the Democrats snatch that House seat?

So the people of that 15th Congressional District in staunchly Republican Arizona should be pretty happy about this.

Trouble is, there is no 15th Congressional District in Arizona. None. Nada. Zip. Zero. Doesn't exist. Not in Arizona. Not even on paper at the Democratic National Committee. There are only eight. Period.

But the administration's much-vaunted recovery.gov website reported these jobs as being created there.

Could well be a computer glitch. Lord knows humans would never make such a dumb, misleading mistake, even in politics.

But then the trouble is that just months after grandly unveiling the recovery.gov website to showcase its economic prowess and tech-savvy, the Obama administration just spent 18 million additional taxpayer dollars to redesign the still new website.

And that site proudly also reported nonexistent new stimulus spending not just in Arizona but other states across the country.

So that looks to have worked pretty well, at least if you're counting computer designer jobs created.

Anyway, how do you think the 15th will vote next year?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Josua Roberts / Bloomberg News

Sarah Palin back on the trail: What to watch for

 

Well, it looks like these ladies got the memo about Blue Monday.

This is Barbara Walters of ABC, shown here on the right, posing with the latest celebrity she's interviewed in her very long, diligent career of interviewing famous people about things we didn't know we wanted to know about them. Like their favorite tree, for example.

Walters is very good at it. Such conversations powered by public curiosity have proved addictive to Americans in a long tradition of popular American journalism since Dolley Madison captured the public's fascination as first lady for not one, but two, presidents -- her actual husband, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson, a widower who in those days couldn't really bring his black mistress in as White House hostess.

Anyway, about the latest, biggest political celebrity ever, Walters might happen to mention some of her favorite moments with Palin every few minutes on "The View" this week, which also happens to be on ABC.

It's a match made in PR heaven: A politician whose supporters can't wait to see....

Oprah talks about what Sarah Palin talks about

As we pointed out here last week when the manager of Barack Obama's never-ending presidential campaign agreed to go on the dreaded Fox News Channel to sell his book, book tours have a way of making superficial friends out of past opponents.

Thus, we will be treated Nov. 16 to the sight of Oprah Winfrey, arguably Obama's biggest celebrity booster, chatting up Sarah Palin, arguably America's most argued- over celebrity politician in recent years.

The subject, of course, is Palin's new book -- "Going Rogue: An American Life" -- which goes on sale the next day, with 1.5 million copies in print so far.

Palin took Piper and Willow with her to Chicago for the interview, which was taped at Oprah's studio Wednesday.

As The Ticket reported Wednesday night, Palin wrote on her Facebook page that the unlikely pair had such a great conversation that they ran overtime.

Which, goldarnit, means that Oprah will have extra exclusive minutes of video she'll simply have to post on Oprah.com for folks to click on. One thing exiting audience members said was that when asked if she wanted her own TV show, Palin did not say no.

And then, of course, Barbara Walters gets second crack at Palin, which will be broken into five parts on various ABC platforms midweek. What's-her-name and what's-his-name over at CBS don't seem to be on the Palin schedule just yet.

Right after Palin left the studio, Oprah (who looks shorter without makeup) made a short video here to....

...describe the O-P encounter and what all they talked about: inside the campaign, The Pregnancy, both babies and, well, pretty much everything.

Related items:

What's actually in Sarah Palin's book

Palin's roguish book tour schedule details

The secret Sarah Palin speeches we never heard

Sarah Palin breaks with GOP to endorse Conservative Party candidate

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Joe Burbank / campaign pool.

Bipartisanship erupts between George W. Bush and Bill Clinton; they cancel joint LA, NY appearances

George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who some may remember as previous presidents who disagree on many things, today agreed and abruptly pulled out of a joint public appearance scheduled for this winter in Los Angeles.

The money was no doubt good but it seems the 42nd and 43rd presidents grew unhappy with the confrontational way the event was being promoted.

The politically dissimilar pair have also dropped out of a similar, later appearance in New York City.

"We canceled the event because of a violation of contract and a promoter who insisted on billing it as something it wasn't," said Matt McKenna, a spokesman for Democrat Clinton. David Sherzer, a spokesman for Bush, also confirmed the event was off.

McKenna said the forum was never intended to be a clash between the men -- "the hottest ticket in political history," a news release called it. It was instead supposed to be a moderated panel discussion. Unlike, say, what usually goes on in Washington.

"It's unfortunate that an overeager promoter ruined the opportunity to hear a serious discussion of the issues between two former presidents who have a great deal of respect for each other," McKenna said.

Officials of the promotion company, hired by New York's Madison Square Garden, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Clinton, who defeated Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, in 1992 to win the presidency, and Republican Bush, who defeated Clinton's VP, Al Gore, in 2000, appeared together at an hourlong forum in Toronto last May. No riots ensued, but that was in Canada.

The two were set to appear Feb. 22 at University City's Gibson Amphitheatre as part of the American Jewish University's public lecture series. The appearance was announced back in August, with tickets set to go on sale this week at prices ranging from $75 to $125.

A second appearance was scheduled for Feb. 25 at Radio City Music Hall in New York, with tickets ranging from $60 to $160.

McKenna would not discuss the fees forfeited by the two former presidents, who aren't exactly on welfare anyway. But they reportedly received $150,000 apiece for their Toronto evening together. McKenna said money was not a consideration in their decision in to cancel the events.

-- Mark Z. Barabak

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Photo: Associated Press (Bush at Clinton library dedication 2004).

So much Obama damage control that David Axelrod even talks to Fox News

Here's how desperate Obama administration spokesmen were Wednesday to fill the info void they'd created by hiding away during the previous night's bad news election returns:

David Axelrod, an ex-newspaper reporter but one of the lead Obama attackers against the Fox News Channel in recent weeks, actually granted an interview to the Fox News Channel. To Major Garrett.

Obama aides knew full well in advance that election night was not going to go well for them and the commentators would connect the dots back to Obama and VP Joe Biden because, well, that pair has been so actively campaigning and money-raising all over.  

So no administration spokesmen appeared during the evening news storm. They passed word ...

Inside Tuesday's election results: The lessons and warnings for Obama and Republicans

A few things to take away from Tuesday's election results:

Barack Obama's got no political coattails if Barack Obama's not on the ballot:

The Democratic president invested himself and his prestige (and his vice president) in gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, where close ally Tim Kaine is the departing governor and has a second full-time job as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Didn't help. (Will this hurt Kaine's chances of being Obama's VP pick in 2012?)

Both Democrats still lost, especially Virginia Democrat Creigh Deeds. Virginians returned to the GOP column in a big way, electing Bob McDonnell as governor plus a Republican lieutenant governor and a Republican attorney general for only the second time. And the first GOP governor in 12 years.

New Jersey voters love their Democrats until they don't. As they did in the past when embracing Christie Todd Whitman and Tom Kean, Garden State voters threw out an incumbent Democrat (multimillionaire marathoner Jon Corzine, who became so desperate late that he put out an ad mocking his Republican opponent's corpulence).

New Jerseyans chose instead a former federal prosecutor, Republican Chris Christie (see photo above), proving in the process that it's not over till the fat guy sings. 

Interesting historical anecdote that sounds strangely familiar for some reason: The last time....

Last-minute NY 23rd poll: Conservative Doug Hoffman surges, but ...

A last-minute poll of New York's suddenly significant 23rd District interim House race shows that with less than 12 hours before voting begins, the Conservative/Republican candidate Doug Hoffman has built a 5-point lead over Democrat Bill Owens.

But the newfound allies of Hoffman and the Republican National Committee had best hold off on the champagne purchases. The undecided voters there have doubled to nearly 1 in 5, making the final hours volatile.

With so much symbolism at stake in the minor race, Vice President Joe Biden parachuted into the district today, as The Ticket reported here earlier, to fire off several thousand words in support of Owens.

And the RNC made a quick ad buy to push the Conservative Party's Hoffman, who inherited the GOP's support when Dede Scozzafava, the official GOP candidate, saw the handwriting on the wall and quit Saturday under accusations that her pro-union, pro-abortion-rights views were not really Republican. Sunday she seemed to prove it by endorsing the Democrat.

New York's 23rd Congressional District was the scene of significant military....

Gun lobby unleashes 'Sopranos'-like on Virginia governor's race -- 'if you know what's good for ya'

It is surely one of the most unusual pitches in this year's gubernatorial elections -- a Tony Soprano-like figure defending  New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's recent efforts to close the gun show loophole and warning Virginians not to get too attached to their Second Amendment freedoms "if ya know what's good for ya."

Bloomberg underwrote a commercial in April that attacked former Virginia Atty. Gen. Bob McDonnell for his pro-gun positions and pushed for the closure of the state's "gun show loophole."

Now Bloomberg is running for re-election, McDonnell is running for governor and the nation's larger gun lobby -- the powerful National Rifle Assn. -- is weighing in.

Will this tongue-in-cheek mafia threat work in Virginia?

Politico reports that the ad kicks off the NRA's half-million-dollar ad campaign in the Virginia governor's race, where McDonnell, a Republican, is leading Democrat Creigh Deeds. And it's not the only one they're running. Listen to this one, the "chipping away" ad.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Forget the rush on that H1N1 swine flu vaccine; 62% of Americans have no intention of getting it anyway

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services, who recently taught Americans the federally-approved way to sneeze this season, was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

She was trying to explain widespread delays in the delivery of the H1N1 vaccine across the country.

Basically, of course, she said it wasn't the Obama administration's fault, that as soon as the vaccines come in, they're being shipped out immediately by the many thousands of doses.

You know how everyone talks about Americans not making things anymore, that so many manufacturing jobs, for instance, have been shipped overseas?

Well, Sebelius was essentially saying the same goes for flu-vaccine-making.

Four of the world's five makers are foreign. And we all think we know what that means.

Members of Congress could have been exploring this subject last winter when their latest automatic pay raises took effect.

Instead, Wednesday they expressed shock and dismay at the situation now that it's October and thousands are already falling ill with the H1N1 virus (see photo above, shown somewhat larger than life).

Also, Purdue University researchers reported the late deliveries may not matter because by the end of this year 63% of Americans will be infected anyway. So, too many doses, too late.

But wait!  There's more.

This morning comes word from a new ABC News/Washington Post poll that almost four parents out of 10 do not believe the vaccine is safe and have no intention of allowing their children to receive it.

More than 60% of adults say they have no intention of getting the vaccine either.

Using an open-ended question, the poll also found the overwhelming reason for rejecting the vaccine this year despite federal warnings and mounting concern about the illness' seriousness was concern about side effects and disbelief in its safety, especially suspicions that it has been inadequately tested. Other reasons included general ignorance and a belief the illness was probably less serious than the danger of the vaccine.

So much for the persuasive powers of the U.S. federal government. Think about that for a minute: A whopping majority of Americans (62%) would rather risk illness than believe in their government's urgings of necessity and safety.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press (Sebelius demonstrates a federally-approved sneeze.)