Obama gets takeout lunch from New Orleans top chef

During the presidential campaign, Democrat Barack Obama accused George W. Bush of ignoring the pleas for help from the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, leading a government that "sits on its hands while a major American city drowns." Today he made his first trip to the devastated region since becoming president. Before he even stepped down, locals were already accusing him of not doing enough.

Folks in Mississippi were upset that Obama did not visit them. "I'm greatly disappointed he's not coming to Mississippi," said Tommy Longo, mayor of Waveland, Miss., where few structures were undamaged by the hurricane. "There was no city hit harder than Waveland."

Folks in New Orleans were upset that Obama only spent four hours with them. "A town hall event and a mystery stop? That's it?" the Times-Picayune newspaper editorialized last week.

And the fabled restaurateurs of the French Quarter were kind of upset that the president didn't have time for a proper meal. Something about a town hall meeting and a visit to a school.

But, being more enterprising than their political counterparts, the foodies knew just what to do.

Contacting the White House (where presidential aide Desiree Rogers is a New Orleans native -- and two-time Zulu Queen), Leah Chase, the 86-year old chef and owner of the legendary Creole restaurant Dooky Chase, arranged for a takeout meal for the presidential party. Two Secret Service agents showed up Wednesday to talk to the restaurant about "secure" takeout packaging, whatever that means.

Chase wasn't surprised -- Bush had eaten at her restaurant, and so had candidate Obama, seen above.

So, if all goes well, as they wing toward San Francisco for a fundraiser, Obama, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and the others will be munching on gumbo, shrimp creole and fried chicken. 

Leah Chase isn't worried. The gumbo should be kept warm, she advised, but her fried chicken is just fine served cold.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Associated Press.

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Huffington Post merging news with community service

Liberal juggernaut the Huffington Post is launching a new feature called Impact at midnight, which places call-to-action buttons alongside blog posts.

The buttons, which are supplied in a partnership with Causecast, contain relevant links for charities and organizations.

For example, if you're reading news about homosexuals and AIDS, there might be a link to local HIV testing centers and the Trevor Project, a suicide hotline for gays.

Our colleague Dan Fost writes on the Times Technology blog:

You've got to love the left. Even when they're running capitalist enterprises, they want to find some way to help the downtrodden. ...

[Site founder Arianna] Huffington said ads will run on the site, and the Huffington Post and Causecast will split the ad revenue. Any money donated to any cause goes directly to the cause, with nothing coming out of it. 

Her site continues to expand, reinvesting its proceeds in the product. "We’ve had a very, very good advertising year," she said. "We would be in the black if we were not expanding. Whether you are profitable or not depends whether you're standing still or expanding. This is a window we need to take advantage of."

Ever had the urge to donate your time or money after reading a particularly heart-wrenching story? Let us know in the comments.

-- Mark Milian

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Photo: Arianna Huffington. Credit: Associated Press

Is Rielle Hunter forcing John Edwards to claim paternity? [Updated]

Just when it seemed the John Edwards saga couldn't get any more sordid, new revelations come that the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate and former North Carolina senator wants to acknowledge he is the father of a child born to a mistress, but that his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, has "yet to be brought around."

According to the New York Times, Mrs. Edwards, struggling with cancer, has been resisting her husband's instinct that it's time to step up in the case involving Rielle Hunter and her toddler daughter.

Maybe past time, since his once-loyal aide Andrew Young is writing a book and someone leaked the book proposal to the New York Times, with a lot of unsavory details. Among them: The onetime darling of the populist set asked the aide to cover for the senator and claim he was the father of the baby. Oh and the senator promised to marry Hunter as soon as Elizabeth Edwards died -- in a rooftop ceremony, accompanied by the Dave Matthews Band.

If that weren't enough, a federal grand jury is looking into the unique question of whether payments that Hunter got from two Edwards supporters -- Fred Baron, a wealthy Dallas trial lawyer, now deceased, and Bunny Mellon, the 99-year-old heiress to the Mellon fortune -- constitute a crime.

[Updated 2:41 p.m.: The New York Times also reports that Ms. Hunter may soon move to the Wilmington area, where the Edwards family has a secluded island estate.]

Aside from the question of how close this man came to being one heartbeat away from the presidency comes an inquiry about why Edwards' mistress keeps using her 19-month-old daughter like an shield -- even bringing her, as seen above, before a federal grand jury investigating campaign finance laws. We wonder if she is trying to remind the former senator of his affair.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Jim R. Bounds / Associated Press

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In London, Barack Obama gets $1 trillion for IMF -- and a head cold

As British Prime Minister Gordon Brown put it, "The era of secrecy in banking is over."

Unveiling the G-20 leaders' $1.1-trillion rescue plan, an infusion of funds into the International Monetary Fund to create jobs and help lift the global economy, Brown said,

The old Washington consensus is over. This is the day that the world came together to fight back against the global recession. Not with words but with a plan for global recovery and for reform.

But far more startling than the $1-trillion price tag for recovery is today's decision by the G-20 leaders to sanction banks that refuse to share information about tax havens.

Both French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who distanced themselves from President Obama on the spending side, were careful to praise the freshman president for helping break a logjam over banking secrecy.

"President Obama really found the consensus," Sarkozy told reporters after the meeting. "He didn't focus exclusively on stimulus. ... In fact, it was he who managed to help me persuade [Chinese] President Hu Jintao to agree to the reference to the ... publication of a list of tax havens, and I wish to thank him for that."

In her news conference, Merkel noted that "the American president also put his hand into this."

As for Obama, he said at his news conference afterward that the summit  was "historic" and that critics in the media had mischaracterized as "irreconcilable differences" the "honest" debate between world leaders in advance of the meeting.

Agreement will almost never be easy, and results won’t always come quickly. But I am committed to respecting different points of view, and to forging a consensus instead of dictating our terms. That is how we made progress these last few days. And that is how we will advance and uphold our ideals in the months and years to come.

Announcing that the G-20 would meet again in the fall, Obama, hobbled but seemingly undeterred by a head cold, said he was committed to forging compromise "in a world that's more and more interconnected."

It’s hard for 20 heads of state to bridge their differences. We’ve all got our own national policies, our own assumptions, and our own politics. But our citizens are hurting. They need us to come together.

Read the transcript of his opening remarks below.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Getty Images

Obama's inaugural party fundraising passing $27 million

Gee, Barack Obama and huge gobs of money. That's something we hadn't thought about for two or three minutes.

Word just in that with still almost two weeks to go before the historic Jan. 20 inauguration, the private fundraising for the Obamas' mega-party has already passed $27 million, or better than a million bucks an hour for that day.

Nowhere near the $640 ga-million he raised for the recent campaign. But still not bad dough for an ex-community organizer in a few post-election weeks.

Individuals can chip in $50G each. And there's still time if you'd like to join the likes of George Soros, Halle Berry, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Oh, and Barbra Streisand. And some casino-running Indian tribes. Etc. Etc. And a generous donor the creator of "Star Wars" the movies George Lucas is.

Our blogging buddy Mark Silva, who's no doubt worth all that and more, has even more names and numbers over at the Swamp.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credit: LucasFilm (on photo place cursor for caption).

Ticket Replay: Stricken Wall St. traders protest with their own cars

For a few days The Ticket is republishing some favorite items from the past political season. This one originally appeared in this space on Oct. 9, 2008, back during all the economic concerns over Wall Street's turmoil and the bailouts and failures of some firms such as Lehman Bros.:

The Ticket has just received a breaking news photo of suddenly unemployed Wall Street workers taking the financial crisis into their own hands.

It's rather shocking. Are we on the brink of social anarchy near the climax of a national election?

And nowhere else will you get this kind of complete spot coverage of the economic crisis's impact on the presidential race between Barack Obama-Joe Biden and John McCain-Sarah Palin.

Click on the Read more line below to see what we mean.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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St. Louis alderman's idea to fight crime: guns for all

A North St. Louis alderman's solution to rising urban crime and gun deaths is to arm everybody.

Charles Quincy Troupe, a frequent critic of his city's police force, says more "Show Me State" residents should buy guns and get training, and that if criminals knew they're more likely to meet resistance, they might think twice about their illegal activities.

Troupe says everybody packing heat isn't the only answer to rising crime. He wants more city spending on job training and youth activities too. (See video below.)

But a police association spokesman expresses skepticism about the alderman and his idea and what officers might confront on patrol. And Mayor Francis Slay suggests Troupe could do more by urging constituents to cooperate with police.

Here's a thought:

Maybe we should also apply this idea to commercial airliners. Instead of those ridiculously slow lines at airport security checkpoints prohibiting passengers from carrying too much toothpaste and firearms onto the planes, hand everyone a piece as they board. And a sack of ammo.

Or BYOG. Smith & Wesson has a special holiday handgun sale on right now.

Anyone hangs around the cockpit door too long, the first eight rows could open up. Same for rows 18-24 keeping an eye on the rear galley.

Guns for every passenger could also shorten the wait for toilets.

Oh, sure, there might be some violent disagreements between even- and odd-numbered rows if, say, someone put their seatback down too far too quickly.

But that's a relatively small price to pay to help spread Alderman Troupe's idea of urban safety into the nation's skies.

And if everyone knew that everyone had a loaded pistol handy, maybe it wouldn't take quite so long to get those bags out of the overhead bins and hustle off the plane. No one hustles right now.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Photo credits: Smith & Wesson

John Edwards -- yes, that John -- starts his PR rehab tonight

John Edwards -- remember him? -- tiptoes back into the public spotlight tonight.

Well, not actually a spotlight. His appearance and remarks at Indiana University are closed to all cameras and media. We'll see how long it takes someone to Twitter from inside.

This could be the first move in the attempted public relations rehab of the man who was once a senator, was once his Democratic Party's candidate for vice president and, this election season, was given a shot at the top nomination -- until Democrats actually started voting.

After months of dismissing as trash the tabloid reports of an extramarital affair with a campaign videographer named Rielle Hunter while his wife was fighting cancer, Edwards admitted in an ABC interview on an early August Friday night that, well, yes, he did have that fling.

But it was short. He confessed to his wife awhile back. And he wasn't the father of the woman's child.

Edwards went into seclusion. He and his wife, Elizabeth, skipped the Democratic National Convention in Denver as potential distractions. She emerged only in September to continue her work against breast cancer.

Now, according to CNN, Edwards has another speech scheduled in San Francisco tomorrow and an on-stage debate at an upcoming bankers convention with Karl Rove, the Svengali-like political mastermind blamed for many heinous things, including the John Kerry-Edwards ticket's defeat in 2004.

Although sex scandals have doomed the political careers of many politicians such as Gary Hart and Bob Livingston, Americans may be becoming somewhat immune to such personal betrayals.

Although a certain ex-president has not had to run for reelection, Bill Clinton's humanitarian work S.M. (Since Monica) seems to have caused many to move on when thinking of him. A multimillionaire, he now commands a small fortune for every speech and didn't hurt the crowd count while campaigning for his wife, Hillary, in last winter's Democratic primary season, although she did lose the nomination.

What do you think? Can this John pull it off?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

Barack Obama, John McCain take aim at glass houses

Now THIS is what we like to see -- the campaigns focusing on the issues that matter (and yes, we know, sarcasm doesn't translate well in print, but trust us, it's there). If we worked for Comedy Central, we'd be offering up a little logo here: "It's Gaffe-orific!"

John McCain -- who, as they say, married well -- couldn't answer a question Wednesday that most people have no trouble answering: How many houses do you own?

"I think — I'll have my staff get to you," McCain told Politico. "It's condominiums where — I'll have them get to you." The staff response: Four homes. The reality: Seven homes.

Not a good flub for the candidate who the other day defined (in a joke, the campaign said later) being rich as making $5 million a year (what's so bad about $4 million?), and whose economic surrogate thinks most voters concerned about their own deteriorating financial well-being are just a bunch of whiners.

In baseball terms, that's known as hanging a curveball. And this morning you can't find a Democrat who's not holding a baseball bat, swinging away. Barack Obama's campaign may have set a record getting an ad up about it.

Even Obama -- who usually leaves this stuff to the surrogates and staffers -- got into it, weaving a jab into a comment earlier today in Chester, Va. (Transcript is from the campaign; video is below):

I guess if you think that being rich means you’ve got to make $5 million and if you don’t know how many houses you have, then it’s not surprising that you might think the economy was fundamentally strong. But if you’re like me, and you’ve got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don’t lose their home, you might have a different perspective. ... So there’s just a fundamental gap of understanding between John McCain’s world and what people are going through every single day here in America."

Of course, McCain's people couldn't leave Obama's reference to his own house dangling out there. That's the house, you'll recall, next to the lot Obama got a deal on through his friendship with now-convicted Chicago wheeler-dealer Antoin "Tony" Rezko. McCain's spokesman Brian Rogers:

Does a guy who made more than $4 million last year, just got back from vacation on a private beach in Hawaii and bought his own million-dollar mansion with the help of a convicted felon really want to get into a debate about houses? Does a guy who worries about the price of arugula and thinks regular people 'cling' to guns and religion in the face of economic hardship really want to have a debate about who’s in touch with regular Americans? The reality is that Barack Obama’s plans to raise taxes, and opposition to producing more energy here at home as gas prices skyrocket show he’s completely out of touch with the concerns of average Americans.

Ah, democracy!

-- Scott Martelle

School seals records on Obama's service with radical Ayers

These annoying journalists are at it again, trying to poke around into papers in the background of candidates' lives. This time it involves freshman Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, his friend and former radical activist William Ayers and the University of Illinois.

The university has refused to release records related to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's past service for a nonprofit educational project that put him in contact with activist Ayers, a 1960s-era radical who helped found an organization advocating violence for political change.

Ayers is now an education professor at the school.

The university's Chicago campus maintains that the donor of the records that document the work of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge has not officially handed over ownership rights and, therefore, the school cannot open the documents to public inspection.

The university says it is "aggressively pursuing" an agreement with the donor, and as soon as an agreement is reached, the collection will be made public.

The university has not identified the donor and not indicated if the opening would occur before the Nov. 4 presidential election.

The Obama campaign says the senator does not have control over these records or the ability to release them, adding that it has made many documents related to Obama's life available to the public and that "we are pleased the university is pursuing an agreement that would make these records publicly available."

The conservative National Review this week posted an article online saying the institution had initially deemed the records open to inspection, but the university subsequently reversed its position. Tuesday, the university said that there had been a misunderstanding.

Ayers is an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In his youth, he co-founded the Weatherman organization, later known as the Weather Underground organization, which espoused violence in the pursuit of political change.

Obama has acknowledged knowing Ayers but says he can't be held responsible for everything every friend did in his or her life. Our colleague Mark Silva has more on this unfolding story over at the Swamp.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Photo: ChicagoMag.com