The White House drumbeat is unrelenting: President Obama wants comprehensive healthcare reform -- with a public option -- on his desk before Congress leaves town for its summer recess Aug. 7.
"Don't bet against us. We are going to make this thing happen," Obama said this week during a Rose Garden appearance with his new surgeon general, Dr. Regina Benjamin.
Just back from a weeklong trip to Russia, Italy and Africa, the president said he did not want Congress to think he'd forgotten the issue. "I just want to put everybody on notice, because there was a lot of chatter during the week that I was gone," Obama said. "Inaction is not an option."
Republican critics have been quick to question why the rush, especially on a bill that could end up costing taxpayers $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years. And one of the doubters is Maine Republican Olympia J. Snowe, a moderate invited to the White House today in hopes Obama can sway her to support the plan.
So why is the White House rushing? In part, it's a calculus that Obama's still-high approval ratings are likely to soften as his term lengthens. So, use your political chits while you have them.
But another compelling reason is that the 2010 elections loom. Already, Blue Dog Democrats -- those moderates from Southern and rural parts of the country -- are balking at supporting a bill they say costs too much and saves too little. As Democrats in other swing districts get closer to reelection campaigns, they too could have qualms about backing a bill that will mandate that every American get health insurance and will pay for it with sizable tax increases on the wealthiest of their constituents.
The headline on this item could have been: "Black Republican Party chair jokes with NAACP about his party." Oh, wait that was the headline.
Michael Steele, the first African American head of the party of Lincoln, today went before the NAACP convention in New York City, where GOP leaders have often received a cool, skeptical and generally useless reception.
Steele's message in this first year of his term and the first year of the term of the first African American president was delivered differently. He made fun of himself, of the old party pitches. And he got some laughs and applause. Some silent faces. And likely some more skepticism.
Steele made the pitch that his party and the civil rights organization should become close allies. It's a long road back for Republicans with African Americans, but Steels vows to give it another try. Here's what he told the historic group today.
-- Andrew Malcolm
Remarks by Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, to the NAACP, July 14, 2009:
Thank you for that warm welcome. I would like to thank the NAACP board of directors and Chairman Julian Bond for having me here to speak with you today. Also, President Jealous, Vice Chairman Roslyn M. Brock, and Assistant Treasurer Jesse Turner. Jr.
President Jealous and Vice Chairman Brock, I thank you for your willingness to seek out advocates in all circles. We are all interested in the educational, economic, political and social wealth of our community. I thank the board for their passion and dedication to serving the disadvantaged among us, for breaking down barriers and standing as leaders.
As a proud member of the Prince George's county chapter of the NAACP, I am honored to be here to celebrate 100 years.
The NAACP was born to fight for freedom, liberty, opportunity and fairness. Its founders were a group of brave visionaries from varying backgrounds, including black and white Republican men and....
"She wasn't as outgoing and I just
didn't see the spark in her eyes about being the governor anymore,"
said Johnston, who lived with his then-fiance Bristol Palin and the Palin family at the time. "She became quiet, she would come home and just hang out in a
room, you could tell something was wrong."
Johnston's conclusion: "The fame got to her head."
Admittedly, the 19-year-old Johnston is hardly the kind of character
witness anyone would summon to their cause. An aspiring model who posed bare-chested with his infant son Tripp for GQ magazine, Johnston is routinely derided by Palin spokesmen for exploiting his 15 minutes of fame.
But Johnston may be on to something when he says Palin's sudden
resignation on July 3 was fueled by a desire to
cash in on her fame -- and to end the stress that her sudden catapult to national fame had created, complete with myriad ethics charges she has derided as bogus and a Legislature no longer enchanted.
The same secret weapon that rocketed "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" ahead on June 7 in the Sunday talk show ratings battle struck again last week, producing very similar results.
Yep, more tennis.
The ABC News show took the lead on July 5 when Stephanopoulos interviewed Vice President Joe Biden from Iraq, scoring 2.77 million viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research.
That same day, CBS News' "Face the Nation" had 2.43 million and "Fox News Sunday" trailed with 1.17 million. "Meet the Press with David Gregory" took the week off for NBC's broadcast of the Wimbledon's Men's Finals.
Filling in for "Face the Nation" moderator Bob Schieffer last week was CBS News analyst John Dickerson, who interviewed Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and two senators.
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 . . .
These days, federal appeals court Judge Sonia Sotomayor is not in her New York chambers. She's not weighing cases or interrogating counsel or even writing opinions.
Instead, with hearings to start Monday in the historic, much-anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation process, Sotomayor is holed up in a small office in the Eisenhower Old Executive Office Building next to the White House.
A group of young aides and lawyers assigned by Team Obama poses mock questions based on research about each committee member's records. But mostly, reports CNN, Sotomayor is sitting quietly by herself, reading her back opinions, boning up on anything that might provoke a senator to raise a fuss.
"She's got to hit the books," said Thomas Goldstein, a D.C. appellate attorney. "They can ask you about any part of the law. And she's got to be ready for that."
In an earlier round of get-acquainted-sessions, Sotomayor met with 70 of the Senate's 100....
The governor of Alaska went fishing Monday, wearing those waders with suspenders that fishermen fancy, accompanied by her baby, Trig, daughter Piper and her husband, First Dude for a Few More Weeks Todd Palin. Oh, and she alerted the media.
What a spectacle -- the stars of America's cable news personalities from Fox, NBC, CNN, ABC meeting the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on the shores of Kanakanak Beach in Dillingham, Alaska, while the governor brushed salmon slime off her suspenders and blasted the media, bloggers and anyone who would dare question her politically bizarre decision to quit in the middle of her first term.
To Fox, she expressed bitterness at those who peppered her with ethics accusations, saying that their ridiculous charges had nearly bankrupted her family and brought Alaska's government to a grinding halt. "The critics want to put you on a course of personal bankruptcy so you can't afford to serve," she said, calling the attacks "bull crap."
She was coy about her plans for 2012, musing that it was difficult to know what the political future would hold, let alone the next salmon run. But she was quick to criticize President Obama. As she led reporters in a boat across Bristol Bay, she opined, "Average, hard-working Americans need to be able to get out there, unrestrained, and fight for what is right. Fight for energy independence and national security, fight for a smaller government instead of this big government overgrowth that Obama is ushering in."
As the Ticket noted over the weekend, Palin has a tendency to sound like former President Richard Nixon, who intoned in the middle of the Watergate scandal, "I am not a crook." Three days after resigning as governor of Alaska, effective at month's end, Palin told CNN, "I am not a quitter. I am a fighter."
She told ABC she's pleased with her decision, damn the consequences. “I’m extremely happy," she said. "Politically speaking, if I die, I die. So be it.”
And when NBC's Andrea Mitchell said that some would say she didn't finish the job, Palin's voice rose. "You're not listening to me as to why I wouldn't be able to finish that final year in office without it costing the state millions of dollars and countless hours of wasted time," she snapped.
Noting that "everything changed" last August when Republican presidential candidate John McCain asked her to be his running mate, Palin said she had no regrets about accepting the nomination. "Not in the least," she said. "It was a great honor to stand by a great American hero. I would have done all that again in a heartbeat."
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: A previous Palin fishing trip. Credit: Associated Press
The Democrats have Vice President Joe Biden for gaffe laughs. Now the Republicans in Colorado have a candidate wrestling with an all-too-familiar PR scandal in his scenic home state: not being able to recognize his own state's mountains.
It's the sort of gaffe possibly unique to a state with more than a dozen distinct mountain ranges. First it was former congressman Bob Schaffer, whose initial ad in an unsuccessful U.S. Senate race last year touted his Colorado loyalty by noting that he proposed to his wife atop Pikes Peak.
The problem: The ad flashed an image of Alaska's Mt. McKinley.
Now it's former congressman Scott McInnis, who hopes to become the GOP's gubernatorial nominee next year. His Web page debuted with a striking image of snow-capped peaks. Problem is, the peaks look like none in Colorado. The slip-up was unearthed by the political junkies at ColoradoPols.com (who, like many Coloradans, seem to be a bit mountain-mad as well).
They determined the image is actually of the Canadian Rockies. The McInnis campaign swiftly replaced it with a photo of the Flatirons, iconic peaks that loom over the left-leaning town of Boulder. Blame Google Images, said spokesman Mike Hesse.
Getting a mountain photo wrong isn't really all that hard to do. See more not-Colorado mountains in photo above.
A young McInnis volunteer searched the Web for "Colorado Rockies" and got the Canadian image instead.
Staffers had been warned to make sure all images were 100% Colorado. "We're aware this had happened before and we told them to be very careful of that," Hesse said. "It was a hiccup. Overall I'm delighted with the website and we're moving forward."
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's announcement that she was bowing out of Alaska politics on the eve of the Fourth of July holiday left a lot of viewers scratching their heads. As the Ticket reported Friday, Palin's friends report that she is genuinely sick of the attacks that seem to be part of the fabric of national politics these days.
But Palin's hastily announced press conference also had all the earmarks of Richard Nixon's famous concession speech in 1962, after he lost the campaign for California governor to Democrat Pat Brown. Nixon's rant was also a last-minute affair. Reporters had been told that Nixon -- a former congressman and senator who served as Dwight D. Eisenhower's vice president from 1952 to 1960 and lost the 1960 presidential race to John F. Kennedy -- would not be making a public appearance.
Instead, Nixon surprised even his staff by taking the microphone and, at the end of a long, rambling, 16-minute discourse on national and state politics, he dramatically left the stage.
I leave you gentleman now and you will write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you I want you to know — just think how much you're going to be missing. You won't have Nixon to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference and it will be one in which I have welcomed the opportunity to test wits with you.
Like Nixon, Palin seemed fraught with emotion. Like Nixon, she seemed angry at her critics.
Of course to the surprise of his detractors, Nixon recovered. He spent the next six years stumping the country, piling up chits from grateful politicians who benefited from his endorsements, chits he cashed in during his successful 1968 run for the presidency.
Palin gave no hints of her future, except to say that a person can influence from outside the electoral process as well as inside the governor's office. Maybe Palin, who landed on the national political map in August when Republican John McCain plucked her from Wasilla, Alaska, as his vice presidential running mate, is planning to follow the Nixon playbook on that front too.
-- Johanna Neuman
Photo: Nixon gives his "Checkers" speech on Sept. 23, 1952. Credit: Associated Press
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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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