Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- hobbled by a fractured elbow that forced her to cancel two overseas trips during the last month, eclipsed by a globe-trotting President Obama who seemed to do just fine without her in Russia and Italy -- reemerged today.
As part of her comeback tour, Clinton is about to deliver a speech today to the Council on Foreign Relations. Tomorrow she heads off on a trip to India and Thailand, the first since she broke her elbow in a fall on her way to the White House. And just in time, according to policy wonks.
"She is seen as glamorous and in many countries as a valuable symbol of the United States, but it is not at all clear that she has an in-depth influence on foreign policy," said Reginald Dale of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in an interview with the Associated Press. "She needs to decide if she wants to be the administration's mascot or have an impact on actual policy."
Mindful that she and Obama had harsh words over how to approach Iran as opponents during the presidential campaign, Clinton has been faithful to the White House script that was enunciated by Obama during his inaugural address: "If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fists, they will find an extended hand from us."
But with Washington increasingly concerned about Tehran's crackdown against protesters in the streets and about the regime's nuclear ambitions, Clinton uses today's speech to deliver a warning.
"Neither the president nor I have any illusions that direct dialogue with the Islamic Republic will guarantee success," Clinton says, according to excerpts released by the State Department. "But we also understand the importance of trying to engage Iran and offering its leaders a clear choice: whether to join the international community as a responsible member or to continue down a path to further isolation."
Then she adds, "We remain ready to engage with Iran, but the time for action is now. The opportunity will not remain open indefinitely."
Watch her upcoming travels for further signs of Clinton's comeback strategy.
He is known in some circles as the First Fan, a devotee of the Chicago Bulls, a president so passionate about sports that he went on ESPN a few months ago to announce his bracket predictions for the NCAA men's basketball tournament.
But tonight, President Obama becomes the nation's baseball guy, throwing out the first pitch at the All-Star game in St. Louis, and doing a half inning of sports commentary in the Fox TV anchor booth.
Lots of people are already giving him advice.
Baseball legend Willie Mays is traveling with the president on Air Force One from Michigan (where POTUS was pitching education) to St. Louis, th esite of the ballgame. Hard to imagine they won't talk technique.
Then there's Cardinals all-star Albert Pujols, who's slated to catch the president's debut first pitch. During pregame interviews Monday, the Cardinals' first baseman offered some advice to Obama.
"Lob it up there. Don't try to be a perfect throw,'" Pujols said. "The worst thing, if you throw any first pitch, you don't want to bounce it. That's the advice that I'm going to give. Make sure that you don't bounce it."
Before leaving Washington, Obama was asked during an Oval Office meeting whether he'd been practicing. "I think it's fair to say I wanted to loosen up my arm," he said during a photo-op with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, adding that he'd been reminiscing about that Chicago White Sox game in 2005 when he threw out the first pitch.
"I just wanted to keep it high," Obama recalled. "Now, there was no clock on it, I don't know how fast it went. If it exceeded 30 miles per hour, I'd be surprised. But it did clear the plate."
Pujols won't be the only Cardinals hero on the field for Obama's debut at a major league game. The six living Cardinals Hall of Famers -- Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Red Schoendienst,Bruce Sutter and Ozzie Smith -- will also be on hand.
And Obama won't be the only president to make an appearance. All four living presidents -- George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter -- appear in a video that honors community service volunteers in a ceremony MLB is calling "All-Stars Among Us."
As for Obama, according to Major League Baseball, he'll be wearing a black glove specifically designed for him by Wilson. The glove includes "Obama #44" written in script and an American flag. After the first pitch, the glove will be authenticated by MLB and sent to the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
And that broadcast booth appearance? Fox's Joe Buck says the president will make his cameo appearance in the bottom of the second inning. Buck promised no wild pitches about politics.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: President Obama holds up a Philadelphia Phillies jersey given to
him by Jimmy Rollins at the White House May 15, 2009, in Washington.
Obama welcomed Major League Baseball's 2008 World Champions to the
White House. Credit: Win McNamee / Getty Images
As The Ticket often does, in addition to our own take on politics and events, we are providing a complete transcript here for those interested in reading the political participants' own words in full.
Here's Part 1 of the transcript of the second day of hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. So Ticket readers can make their own judgments on the back-and-forth between the nominee and the interrogating senators, some setting her up with softballs, others pursuing tougher lines of questioning.
You can see the two sides' strategies developing. For instance, rather than let the GOP go after the judge on some cases, Chairman Patrick Leahy initiated the questioning to give the judge her own time and space to reply
SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY HOLDS A HEARING ON THE NOMINATION OF JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR TO BE AN ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT, JULY 14, 2009
Members: SPEAKERS: SEN. PATRICK J. LEAHY, D-VT. CHAIRMAN SEN. HERB KOHL, D-WIS. SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, D-CALIF. SEN. RUSS FEINGOLD, D-WIS. SEN. CHARLES E. SCHUMER, D-N.Y. SEN. RICHARD J. DURBIN, D-ILL. SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, D-R.I. SEN. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, D-MD. SEN. RON WYDEN, D-ORE. SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, D-MINN. SEN. EDWARD E. "TED" KAUFMAN, D-DEL. SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, D-PA. SEN. AL FRANKEN, D-MINN. SEN. JEFF SESSIONS, R-ALA. RANKING MEMBER SEN. ORRIN G. HATCH, R-UTAH SEN. CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, R-IOWA SEN. JON KYL, R-ARIZ. SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C. SEN. JOHN CORNYN, R-TEXAS SEN. TOM COBURN, R-OKLA. WITNESSES: JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, NOMINATED TO BE AN ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT
LEAHY: Good morning, everybody. Just so we can understand what's going on, I'm not sure whether we have votes or not today. To the extent if we do have votes, to the extent that we can keep the hearing going during votes and have different senators leave between them, we will. If we can't, then I will recess for those votes.
I will also have -- I guess we're one minute early here. With the way the traffic was today, I think some people are still having trouble getting in here. I talked with Senator Sessions about this -- excuse me -- and what we're going to do is have 30-minute rounds. We will go back and forth between -- between sides. And we will -- senators will be recognized based on seniority if they're there. If not, then we'll go to -- we'll go to the next person.
And with that, as I said yesterday when we concluded, and now the American people finally have heard from Judge Sotomayor, and I appreciate your opening statement yesterday. You've had weeks of silence. You have followed the traditional way of nominees. I think you've visited more senators than any nominee I know of for just about any position.
But the -- we get used to the traditional, the press is outside, questions are asked, you give a....
The appointment will hardly still controversy over the 2010 census.
To guarantee the most accurate count of the 300 million or so Americans, federal officials promise confidentiality. But now a group of Latino clergymen is charging that widely published census data is being used to crack down on illegal immigrants. And they're calling on people in the country illegally not to answer the census.
"Law enforcement has been very effective in areas where the data of census 2000 has been used," said Rev. Miguel Rivera, head of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian
Leaders, a Washington-D.C.-based group of 20,000 churches, many of them storefronts serving undocumented workers.
Required by the U.S. Constitution, the census is used to apportion
seats in Congress. With residents leaving amid a fiscal meltdown,
California could lose a congressional seat. With new residents moving
in, Utah or North Carolina could gain. And, beyond the politics of the
thing, the census is also used to apportion more than $300 billion in
federal dollars to states and cities. So, high stakes all around.
Disappointed that President Obama has not pushed harder for immigration reform to help the estimated 12 million undocumented Latinos in the country, Rivera told NPR that he hopes a boycott will put pressure on Congress to do just that. "If they don't want [a loss of] funding for their constituents, maybe losing seats at the congressional level, then what they have to do is roll their sleeves and move forward with comprehensive immigration reform," he said.
Los Angeles activist Nativo Lopez is trying to convince the group he heads, the Mexican American Political Assn., to endorse the boycott. Latinos -- who helped elect Obama -- feel betrayed, he said, believing that despite great campaign rhetoric, the Obama White House is just continuing the Bush crackdown on illegal immigration while ignoring the impact of the recession on undocumented workers.
"There is no incentive for me to cooperate with the federal government to conduct this count unless we get relief from the federal government on the types of issues that are devastating our families socially and economically," he said.
In North Carolina, where a Latino undercount could seriously damage the state's chances of getting another congressional seat, Roy Crisanto, pastor of El Tabernaculo De La Uncion, a Pentecostal church, is telling members to join the boycott.
“The government wants to count people,” Crisanto told the Charlotte Observer, “but not give them the benefits that come with being counted.”
Other Latino groups are gearing up to fight the boycott, fearing that it could undermine the very count that helps the community with needed funds.
Arturo Vargas, head of the National Assn. of Latino Elected Officials, called the boycott "irresponsible," reminding his colleagues that an undercount would affect funding and representation for a decade.
Catholic bishops have also joined the be-counted campaign. "It is important to get the word out because some of the populations we serve tend to normally be undercounted," said San Antonio's Archbishop Jose Gomez, an official in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The U.S. Census is a useful tool for learning about God's people, who and where they are, and many other facts that shed light on their lives, possibilities and struggles."
Census forms are to be mailed out in the spring. Between now and then, look for this debate to rev up.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson speaks to Latino voters during a rally in Denver in October. Credit: Associated Press
Breaking news, literally: After helping both candidate and chief executive deliver weighty words countless times on the campaign trail, on the road to, from and within the White House, the beloved teleprompter of Democratic President Barack Obama died Monday night.
The fragile, overused speech aid was little more than 2 years old. No immediate cause of death and no autopsy were announced.
The passing of the celebrated speech-giving helper happened suddenly and unexpectedly. The president was looking right at the teleprompter, giving remarks in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the White House. He was rigorously defending his economic stimulus package, which has been rigorously criticized recently for being like many political speeches, not very stimulating.
Virtually everywhere he's gone in recent years, the teleprompter has been faithfully at Obama's side, and slightly to the front.
Through a transparent glass plate, it shows the text of even his briefest remarks, enabling the president to appear to make eye contact with eager, attentive audience members without looking down to ...
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.
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.
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 . . .
Kathleen Sebelius -- the Obamaadministration'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.
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. Obamawith 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.
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."
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
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Our Bloggers
Andrew Malcolm's immigrant parents repeatedly stressed the importance of active participation in a democracy. Early lessons included learning the alphabetical list of states by watching televised roll calls of national political conventions. That childhood exposure led to a lifelong fascination with politics, including 40-plus years of covering them and a brief stint practicing them as press secretary to Laura Bush in 1999-2000. A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Malcolm served on the Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.
Johanna Neuman is a veteran Washington correspondent for both The Los Angeles Times and USA Today, having covered presidents and politics as far back as Ronald Reagan. A former president of the White House Correspondents Assn., she authored a book on media and foreign policy, “Lights, Camera, Wars.” Most recently she was co-author of the Countdown to Crawford blog here at The Times.
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