Sunday shows: Singh, Fiorina, Coburn, Nelson, Kyl

ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos: Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), and a round table with ABC's George Will, Liz Cheney, Aspen Institute's Walter Isaacson and Robert Reich.

Bloomberg Political Capital with Al Hunt: Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

CBS Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and CBS medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton.

CNN GPS with Fareed Zakaria: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Newsweek's Maziar Bahari.

CNN State of the Union with John King: Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), CNN's Mary Matalin and James Carville, California Republican Senate candidate and former Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Carly Fiorina.

Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace: Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) with Club for Growth's Chris Chocola and Dr. Bernadine Healy, ex-director of National Institutes of Health; roundtable of Fox News' Brit Hume, Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard and NPR's Mara Liasson.

NBC Meet the Press with David Gregory: Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), Joe Lieberman (I-Ct.),  Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Race for the Cure's Nancy Brinker and NBC's Chief Medical Editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Why wait for each Sunday for politics? Click here to get free Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item? Or follow us @latimestot.   And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: Associated Press

Fort Hood shootings were terrorism, says Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin

Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who heads the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee, which will investigate the deadly Ft. Hood shootings, calls them an act of terrorism.

Although some officials, including fellow Democrat President Obama in the early post-shooting hours, have urged caution in characterizing the shocking shootings that caused the deaths of 13 and wounding of 29 on the Texas Army base, Levin tells C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" program in a taped interview, "It sure looks like that."

Levin has already been briefed by investigators.

The Ticket has obtained video excerpts (see below) of the cable program to be broadcast Sunday at 7 a.m. Pacific time (10 a.m. Eastern).

Today the man accused of the Nov. 5 killings, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, will undergo a pretrial confinement hearing in Killeen, Texas, at his bedside in a heavily guarded hospital room.

The precise schedule for the unusual hearing is unannounced for security reasons, but prosecutors seek a judicial ruling that their existing pretrial confinement is appropriate. They have announced they will seek the death penalty in this case.

Hasan's civilian attorney, John Galligan, says he will argue that proceedings are moving too hastily.

On the C-SPAN video, Levin says the Armed Services Committee is undergoing briefings by military investigators and has two more scheduled. When they are completed, he says, he will schedule full Senate committee hearings on the military aspect of the deadly fusillade that broke out on the military base and shocked the nation with soldiers being killed allegedly by another soldier, a Muslim officer.

Americans themselves apparently have mixed feelings over characterizing the rampage as terrorism. A Fox News poll released Friday found that 49% of those interviewed preferred to describe the incident as "a killing spree" and that 44% thought "act of terrorism" was more accurate.

The older the respondent, the more likely he or she was to call it terrorism.

Forty-five percent believe the outburst involved the shooter mentally snapping, and 38% consider him a Muslim extremist protesting American foreign policies.

Levin said his committee would be careful in its hearing to avoid complicating either the military investigation or the upcoming prosecution. But he said he intends to pursue all leads, including such questions as why e-mails between Hasan and a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen were not taken more seriously by federal anti-terrorism investigators who knew of them before Nov. 5.

But even before those hearings, Levin added, "I'm not uncomfortable with thinking that's [terrorism] the likely outcome here and a likely accurate description."

-- Andrew Malcolm

Click here to get free Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item? Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo credit: U.S. Army

Obama now pleading for money to fight Sarah Palin

Never shy about $eeking money, Democratic President Obama's Organizing for America is now using the threat of Republican Sarah Palin as an opportunity to acquire more.

It has just sent an e-mail out to its millions of supporters today pleading for urgent donations to fight the mother of five, now on her heavily-publicized, cross-country book promotion bus tour. She holds no political office currently; in fact, she's among America's unemployed, though doing quite well financially.

Perhaps you've heard a little something about Palin in recent days.

The former governor of Alaska has written a book called "Going Rogue" that details her experiences in last year's presidential campaign, her values and thoughts on various issues.

Some San Francisco bookstores are declining to sell the book. And no one really cares about her or the book, obviously (see photo above), because she only sold 300,000 copies the first day.

Some people (bipartisan) think (fear) she may become a candidate for the 2012 presidential election.

Since the Republican Party that chose her as its first female presidential ticket member last year has such a glaring national leadership vacuum these days, she's getting tons of publicity in her symbiotic hate-hate relationship with the media, which doesn't mind attracting crowds with her name either (see headline above).

Although the Democratic National Committee dismisses Palin as an ignorant non-factor, it's invested way more time and effort this week attacking Palin than selling Obama, who was on another overseas publicity trip of his own.

Attempting to use Palin as a lucrative opportunity, too, today's e-mail plaintively asks: "Please chip in $5 to help."

The committee says its goal is a half-mill in one week, chump change for the one-time senator's $750-million presidential campaign.

Today's electronic missive calls Palin "dangerous," blames (credits) her for the term "death panels," and says it needs the money to combat her lies (claims), which will be magnified in coming weeks by well-known complicit conservatives in the media.

The donation plea also warns ominously that "the rest of our opponents will likely parrot those attacks."

It says the money will be used for event organizing, advertising and funding calls to Congress in support of Obama's beleaguered healthcare legislation to counter "right-wing attack groups."

Naturally, Palin is also playing off of Palin's publicity. If you give $100 to her SARAHPac here by midday next Wednesday, she'll give you a free signed copy of "Going Rogue."

-- Andrew Malcolm

Won't you please help a beleaguered blog by donating one cursor click here to get free Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item? Or follow us @latimestot.   And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: Indianapolis Star via Associated Press (Long lines of Palin book-buyers stretch around the entire mall parking lot in Noblesville, Ind.); Getty Images.

Huckabee: Republican attacks on Obama 'deplorable'

He could go down as the first Republican to spar with conservative icon Rush Limbaugh and live to talk about it.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told the Hudson Union Society some weeks ago that Republican attacks on President Obama for everything from visiting Dover Air Force Base to opening the White House to local trick-or-treaters on Halloween are hurting the country.

Now, his comments are circulating on the net, posing a direct counter to Limbaugh, who has criticized Obama's Dover visit as a photo op.

Said Huckabee:

When he was at Dover the other day, and went there to pay respect for soldiers, I heard a lot of people on the right say, "Aw, that's just a cheap photo-op." No, I think it was the commander-in-chief of our military paying respect to a dead soldier, and I'm grateful that he did that, and I was proud of him for doing that. And I think we all -- as Americans -- should give him credit for doing that.

Perhaps cognizant of public opinion polls that show Obama personally popular with most Americans, even those who disagree with his policies, Huckabee added: "When he and Michele hosted the trick-or-treaters on Halloween, quit finding something wrong with that. Say. 'Good, I'm glad that he and the first lady are treating children to an experience at the White House.' And I just find it deplorable that some people on my end of the aisle want to find everything wrong and nothing right about the man as a man."

Finally, recalling that liberals regularly reviled George W. Bush no matter what he did, Huckabee, a former pastor, pleaded for comity.

I hated it when people did that to George Bush. They couldn't even laugh at the man's jokes. They found something wrong with everything and if we do that to Barack Obama, then shame on us, shame on us. No wonder our country is so divided when that happens.

Huckabee made the comments while on book tour for "A Simple Christmas." Republican insiders, mindful of all the attention focused on former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue," are calling Huckabee's "the other book tour."

-- Johanna Neuman

 Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

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

 Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

'Obama teleprompter glitch stunts dinner table talk'

Regular Ticket readers know how much we enjoy the Onion.

This video was too good to resist. (It might take a moment to load.)

So in honor of casual Friday, here's that important institution's faux report on an important disaster that reportedly threw the president and his entire family into turmoil.

As it no doubt would any loving and similarly equipped home.

This "report" also brings news about how Vice President Joe Biden manages to remember all those words that he keeps saying.

Back in July, you might remember, there was a real teleprompter glitch for Obama his remarks, as The Ticket described right here.

Obama's Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

-- Andrew Malcolm

Consider this your own prompt to click here for Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot.   And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: Gerald Herbert / Associated Press (Obama's large White House teleprompter prepares to prompt)

New George W. Bush Presidential Center will include -- surprise! -- some Texas style

 
Much like the man who inspires it, the new George W. Bush Presidential Center will be a combination of Texas style and East Coast tradition. That’s the word on the renderings of the 225-square-foot, $250-million center.

The plans for the center, to be built at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, were released Wednesday and, in the words of Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne, “carry no hint of the swagger, bravado or taste for confrontation that Bush was known for as president.” Among the Texas touches will be pecan wood paneling and, outside, wildflowers, bluebonnets and prairie.

On The Times’ Culture Monster blog, Hawthorne writes:

Designed by New York’s Robert A.M. Stern, arguably the country’s leading historicist architect, the library is a handsome, contextual piece of architecture wrapped in Texas limestone (which may sound like a euphemism, like "Texas tea," but isn’t) and red brick. Though on its main facades it uses classical themes in a mostly abstract way, rather than literally, it is very much meant to complement SMU’s predominantly Georgian-style landmarks.

A statement released by the center sums up the blend of styles this way:

The light-filled building is both presidential and welcoming, includes elements that evoke both Texas and Washington, and will house the three components of the George W. Bush Presidential Center: an Archive, a Museum and a policy Institute.

Check out Hawthorne’s full article for more on the center, plus more renderings of the buildings and site.

We can’t help wondering if the center will include an exhibit on weapons of mass destruction. It could even be interactive -- visitors could wander the complex and never find the WMD. Just a thought. 

-- Steve Padilla

Click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

Upper photo: Artist rendering of the Bush Presidential Center. Credit: Robert A.M. Stern

Lower photo: Former First Lady Laura Bush at news conference Wednesday announcing plans for the new center. Credit: Associated Press 

Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue': A powerful testament to a good woman's endurance in a mean world of politics

"Reviewing" Sarah Palin's new book is quite an assignment. There are a lot of pages. And not many pictures. But here goes:

Despite the involvement of a professional ghostwriter, Republican ex-Gov. Palin has penned one of the most powerful pieces of personal or political literature in a generation of American books. It's "Going Rogue: An American Life" (HarperCollins, $28.99).

Her behind-the-scenes memoir -- you may have noticed a photo of the cover above -- is flying off store shelves across the country even as you read this. (Now, see video below.)

It's a 413-page masterwork of personal and political insight that makes Dick Cheney's upcoming memoir look like a Golden Book. Based on the first 48 hours of....

... sales reports, HarperCollins has already ordered additional printings. And Palin is destined to become a millionaire. Again.

With her trademark down-to-earth tone and gee-gollys, Palin takes her readers inside a compelling personal quest from her loving family's upbringing through the....

First, Obama gets a Nobel Peace Prize for nothing; now, a tae kwon do black belt after zero kicks

Even President Obama himself during his just-concluded trip to Asia admitted that he was surprised to receive the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year without actually producing any peace.

In fact, the rookie American president ordered his own troop surge, boosting U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan to 68,000. Now, the Democrat may be preparing to send more. And a Gallup Poll showed 61% of Americans didn't think he deserved the prize either.

Anyway, there he was in Seoul, the last stop of his journey.

And out of the Seoul sky, President Lee Myung-bak hands over to the American leader a tae kwon do outfit. And then Lee, who practices tae kwon do himself, presents Obama with a coveted black belt.

After zero long years of study.

What would Chuck Norris do? Probably bow. But never as low as Obama bowed for Japan's emperor last weekend in Tokyo.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Those who click here get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.

Photo: President Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Credit: EPA

Video shows Sen. Obama thought a military tribunal was fine for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

As The Ticket reported earlier today in this space, Atty. Gen. Eric Holder was on the Senate Judiciary Committee hot seat defending his decision to bring the alleged 9/11 terrorist masterminds onto U.S. soil for civilian trials instead of keeping them far away in Guantanamo Bay for a military tribunal.

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, himself a former federal prosecutor, says he's amazed at Holder's simplicity claim and remains unconvinced that such a move, which could make New York City a target for potential new attack, makes any legal sense whatsoever.

Speaking of military tribunals, we went back into the video archives and found this C-SPAN tape below. Holder might want to watch it.

It contains his boss, Barack Obama, a brief member of that same Senate, in 2006 stating that a military tribunal was a perfectly fine way of handling such dangerous individuals as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Obama said the fight against terrorism was "an extraordinarily difficult war" where terrorists could plot undetected from within our own borders.

The freshman Illinois senator was defending a legislative amendment and pointed out that a military tribunal for Mohammed seemed just fine to him.

"The irony of the underlying bill as it's written is that someone like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is going to get basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He's gonna have counsel. He's gonna be able to present evidence to rebut the government's case.... I think we will convict him. And I think justice will be carried out."

Obama, meanwhile, continued his journeys around Asia and told....

...inquiring reporters that he has never been closer to a strategic decision on what to do next about the deteriorating military situation in Afghanistan.

He also confirmed to Fox News' Major Garrett that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility would not, in fact, be closed by the end of next month as the new president had promised on his first day in office. The latest target is now sometime next year.

In late August the Democratic president received the recommendations of the commanding general in Afghanistan, involving the addition of more U.S. troops to the 68,000 already on the ground from Obama's first troop surge last March.

The general's recommendations reportedly also said that allies had about one year left to save the strategic situation there. Nearly a quarter of that year have passed in deliberations. As The Ticket reported here earlier today, an angry Obama has said that leaks of such contents are firing offenses.

Obama says it might be a few more weeks before he makes his final decision, but that when he did the American people would be clear about it and what his goals were.

As we reported here Tuesday, new polls indicate the American people have moved further along in their decision-making process about the war than the president. And their emerging decision appears to be that the eight-year conflict wasn't and isn't worth the cost.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Fully 100% of those who click here to get Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Or follow us @latimestot. And we're also over here on Facebook.