Now, Democrats join Dick Cheney's critique of Obama

President Obama is set to grant a blanket pardon shortly to this year's White House turkey (No, not him, the genuine fowl). 

But while Obama advised his cabinet Monday to take a little time off this week, presumably to give thanks and watch Detroit lose to Green Bay again, there's a real challenge for the 44th president to discern today: exactly what he should be thankful for. Never mind his slow, steady fade in the polls, matching the slow, steady rise in unemployment.

Although he's not in any election for nearly three more years, Obama's reputation, congressional clout and ability to accomplish pretty much anything is in serious jeopardy come next November's midterms, if not before. Former VP Dick Cheney, who single-handedly reinvented the wonderful Wyoming word "dithering" in recent weeks, is at Obama again (see video below) in no uncertain terms.

Which some might find predictable. But would they expect Arianna Huffington to be openly worrying that the Obama administration just doesn't get it about the economy and jobs? Or how about Leslie Gelb, former New York Times columnist, State and Defense Department official and now president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations?

He's calling Obama's recent Asia trip an unproductive waste of precious presidential time under the headline: "Amateur Hour at the White House."

What's going on here for The One chosen barely a year ago with such widespread hope and....

Top Democrat warns Afghanistan will bankrupt domestic programs, threatens war surtax if Obama sends more troops

David Obey came to Congress in 1969, a young Democratic congressman from Wisconsin, opposed to the Vietnam War and mindful of the funding it was draining from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs.

Thirty years later, he is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and adamant that Afghanistan is a similar quagmire that could bankrupt President Obama's domestic agenda.

"There ain't going to be no money for nothing if we pour it all into Afghanistan," House Appropriations Chairman David Obey told ABC News. "If they ask for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan, I am going to ask them to pay for it."

Comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam, Obey said that both were long-standing civil wars and that, in each case, the United States found itself with an unreliable partner on the ground.

"On the merits, I think it is a mistake to deepen our involvement," Obey said. "But if we are going to do that, then at least we ought to pay for it. Because if we don't, if we don't pay for it, the cost of the Afghan war will wipe out every initiative we have to rebuild our own economy."

"If we have to pay for the healthcare bill, we should pay for the war as well," Obey said, "by having a war surtax."

Obey's comments come just as Washington is starting to acknowledge the huge debt laid at its doorstep by recent programs -- including the massive drug-prescription bill and Iraq war costs enacted under the Bush administration as well as the healthcare overhaul and stimulus plans ginned up under Obama.

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The current national debt is $12 trillion, and the White House estimates that, by 2019, interest from the debt will top $700 billion a year. As one analyst, Pimco's William Gross, told the New York Times, “What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter. The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the ones left over from the last winter.”

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: David Obey. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Should Treasury Secretary Geithner be fired?

President Obama is just back from an eight-day trip to Asia. Perhaps he hoped to sleep in a bit today.

But amid growing discontent over the administration's handling of the economy -- and new revelations about misspent or at least misreported stimulus funds -- anger on Capitol Hill is sending a dramatic wake-up to the White House.

The target of much of the anger is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a former New York Federal Reserve banker who bailed out AIG and let Lehmann Bros. fall and who has watched the dollar sink to all-time lows.

At a session of the Joint Economic Committee on Thursday, Republicans let him have it.

 "Conservatives agree that as point person, you failed. Liberals are growing in that consensus as well," said Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas). "For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?"

Geithner shot back at Republicans with this line: "You gave this president an economy falling off the cliff."

But Democrats are growing critical too, with progressives arguing that the administration is tilting toward Wall Street and away from Main Street. Here's Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) calling for Geithner's resignation.

Even members of the Congressional Black Caucus apparently think the first black president in history has been slow on the uptake. They are threatening to hold up a financial regulatory reform package unless the White House takes action on jobs. "The recession has created a unique systemic risk that threatens all parts of the African American community, including the poor and the middle class," explained Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles).

Not everyone agrees. Columnist David Brooks hailed Geithner's policies the other day, saying that he was mostly right and his critics were mostly wrong. The financial sector is in much better shape than it was then. TARP money is being repaid, and the debate now is what to do with the billions that were never needed. It now seems clear that nationalization would have been an unnecessary mistake — potentially expensive and dangerously disruptive."

So far the administration is defending Geithner, with a spokeswoman saying that he has helped "steer the American economy back from the brink and is now leading the effort on financial reform."

What do you think?

-- Johanna Neuman

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Should Santa move to head of line for H1N1 shot?

Should the U.S. government move Santa Claus to the front of the line for H1N1 shots?

As the Christmas season approaches, malls are already setting up thrones for Santa, welcoming kids to jump in Santa's lap and whisper all their secret hopes in his ear. 

As for Santas, they're pressing Washington to let them join pregnant women and toddlers at the front of the line.

The kids are "little Petri dishes that are sitting on our laps and you have to protect them as well as yourself,"  said Robert Flemming, a Santa's helper at a mall in Fresno.

Some health officials think swine flu is so threatening that the mall visits to see Santa should be canceled altogether. "If we take this really seriously, and I think we should because people are dying, it wouldn't be inappropriate to say this is a year maybe we shouldn't do these mass gatherings," said Dr. Jack Turco, director of Dartmouth University's health services.

As they tend to be overweight, Santas are at increased risk for the disease, but one county health official in Ohio doubts the government will revisit the priority list. "I don't think the priority list is going to change," said Dr. Vicki Whitacre, of the Zanesville-Muskingum County Health Department.  Once the government has reached all of the high-risk groups, she added, it will make the vaccine available for everyone.

In the meantime, several Santa organizations already have held seminars on hand washing. And some Santas are even eschewing white gloves this year so they can continually wash their hands. Many malls are now putting hand-sanitizing dispensers at the gates of the North Pole.

And you thought it was as easy as donning a beard and a red velvet costume.

-- Johanna Neuman

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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

What's real price tag on war in Afghanistan?

The casualties are sobering --  nearly 1,500 deaths to date among U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

So are the stakes -- the prospect of a Taliban resurgence that likely would reverse recent gains for women and girls and the destabilization of neighboring Pakistan, with its nuclear weapons and Al Qaeda cells.

But as President Obama weighs a decision on whether to deploy more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, a new front in the debate is emerging in Washington -- the financial costs.

The White House Budget Office estimates that it will cost about $1 million for each additional soldier sent to Afghanistan. So, a surge of 30,000 to 40,000 troops -- which is what Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal is recommending -- would add $30 billion to $40 billion a year to the deficit.

At the Pentagon, the comptroller disagrees, estimating the cost of deploying and maintaining one soldier in Afghanistan for a full year  at $500,000. So, bottom line would be $15 billion to $20 billion.

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Obama recently made reference to the costs as one of the factors in his decision. In Japan on Friday, on the first stop of his eight-day visit to Asia, Obama said he was taking his time to deliberate because he wanted to make sure that "when I send young men and women into war, and I devote billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money, that it's making us safer." With costs and security in mind, he added, "our goal here ultimately has to be for the Afghan people to be able to be in a position to provide their own security. ...The United States cannot be engaged in an open-ended commitment."

An escalation in military spending could put Obama in the awkward position of winning Republican votes for the budget while losing Democratic ones for the policy. And a drain on the nation's bottom line also could imperil domestic programs favored by the White House.

A new surge, said Wisconsin Democrat David Obey, would "drain the spirit of the country ... as well as drain the U.S. Treasury, it would devour virtually any other priorities that the president or anyone in Congress had."

The added red ink is unlikely to make the decision any easier -- either for Obama or the public.

"It reflects the political climate," Georgetown University military analyst Christine Fair told Reuters. "The leadership is confused, we're broke, and most Americans don't know why we're there."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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Think you can fix the Obama economy? Try the Federal Budget Challenge

It's no mystery that the U.S. economy is a mess. Why is there a budget crisis? Well, spending a lot of money is a large part of it. But fixing that is more complicated.

The Federal Budget Challenge is a Web application that aims to help Americans get an idea of the complexities facing the Obama administration.

It's a game of sorts that lets players choose which programs to cut or add in hopes of balancing the federal budget. The system breaks down the financial effects of each choice.

We caught up with the development team in Palo Alto for a demo on Wednesday. Sarah Henry, program officer for developer Next Ten, said the product is primarily an educational tool.

The nonprofit organization is collecting plenty of data from the thousands of people who have taken the test so far. Players are asked for demographic info, including age and ZIP Code, which make for some interesting statistics when combined with feedback about programs like the proposed "public option" in healthcare legislation.

"It's not scientific," Henry said. So the team isn't paying too much attention to the responses. "It's not so much about feedback as it is learning new things," she said.

Initial responses have been mostly positive, Henry said.

The few complainers were a mixed bag. Some said the choices were too simple, and they'd like more think-outside-the-box options. Others said it was too long and overly complicated. Can't please 'em all, Henry said.

Next Ten is licensing its platform to cities, including Los Angeles, which plans to release its own version. The Times built a similar app earlier this year called State Budget Deficit.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo: Henry, Next Ten program officer. Credit: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times

George W. Bush warns about too much government without naming gee-who-could-it-possibly-be?

Speaking of politicians' books, it looks like we'll have to wait for next fall to discover what exactly former President George W. Bush meant Thursday when he spoke, seemingly regretfully, about the $700-billion Wall Street bailout decision he made near the end of his term. He said:

I went against my free-market instincts and approved a temporary government intervention to unfreeze the credit markets so that we could avoid a major global depression.

Bush was speaking in Dallas at the formal unveiling of plans for a $300-million presidential library and think tank at Southern Methodist University, his wife's alma mater. Sources said fundraisers have already assembled more than $200 million in donations to begin construction next year.

Besides housing his presidential archives and memorabilia such as the bullhorn the 43rd president used atop the World Trade Center rubble after 9/11, the presidential center will focus, he said, on four policy areas: education, global health, political freedoms and economic growth.

Appearing refreshed and energized before a friendly crowd of about 1,000, the 63-year-old said he was retired, not tired. He covered a broad array of subjects in his remarks.

But Bush kept to his promise from earlier this year not to comment on specific policies or decisions of his successor, something his former vice president, Dick Cheney, has not felt obliged to do. Oh, and he's writing a book too. Who isn't these days?

In fact, Bush did not mention Barack Obama's name, nor the Democrat's policy moves into the banking, financial, automobile, healthcare and insurance industries.

But some might interpret an oblique warning when Bush said:

The role of government is not to create wealth but to create the conditions that allow entrepreneurs and innovators to thrive.

As the world recovers, we will face a temptation to replace the risk-and-reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control. History shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement, but too much.

Whomever could he possibly be talking about?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: ABC News

Obama, heading for Asia and wrestling with Afghanistan, orders up jobs summit (text)

When they talk about presidents aging dramatically in office, this could be why.

Today, President Obama heads out on an nine-day trip to Asia -- a series of appointments in Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea that will put him out of the country as the Senate starts debate on his healthcare reform package next week and as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin grabs the spotlight for her "Going Rogue" book tour.

Burdened by a decision on Afghanistan, Obama has apparently sent military planners back to the drawing boards to redesign a strategy in the wake of concerns about the ability of Hamid Karzai's government to serve as a viable partner. He's also worried about a jobless economic recovery

So before leaving, the president announced a jobs summit at the White House in December, at which CEOs, union leaders, nonprofits and government officials can figure out how to jump-start the lagging business indicator.

Take a look.

You can read the president's remarks below, as provided by the White House.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Bill Clinton to do lunch with Senate Democrats, look at 2010 elections without healthcare reform

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put out the word last night -- this is a must-attend event.

Former President Clinton, whose presidency and arguably his marriage were clouded by his failure in 1994 to enact healthcare reform, is doing lunch today with Senate Democrats.

His expected topic: what the 2010 elections might look like for Democrats if the Senate fails again to pass healthcare reform.

The weekly lunch is of course closed to reporters, but already speculation is rife that Clinton -- on a mission for the Obama White House -- will focus his attention on the moderates whose votes could prove pivotal.

And he has personal ties to most of them. Clinton knew Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson when they both were governors. There's the Arkansas connection to the state's two Democratic senators -- Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor. And he and Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman were once close personally. Of course that was before Clinton was impeached for lying about his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which Lieberman decried as immoral.

Here's a younger Clinton, addressing Congress on healthcare in 1993.

Then as now, as MSNBC's First Read noted, "Clinton's at his best when he's giving others political advice, and he excels at framing an argument better than just about anyone on the political stage today."

Aside from politics, no word yet on what they are having for lunch.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: President Obama and former President Clinton at the Boston funeral for Sen. Ted Kennedy. Credit: Getty Images

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