Hillary Clinton, after weeks on sidelines, retakes center stage with warning to Iran

 

She's back.

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.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press.

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What did the CIA lie to Congress about, and where was Cheney?

Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee set off a political bombshell this week. In a leaked letter, they disclosed that CIA Director Leon Panetta -- four months after taking office -- learned that his agency had misled Congress about a special project. He canceled the program and scheduled closed-door meetings with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees the next day to brief them.

Ever since, observers of the national security scene have been puzzling over the story. Aside from the disturbing -- but not particularly surprising news -- that someone at the CIA sat on this news for four months after getting a new boss, the question is: what classified program did Panetta close down?

Early speculation rested on waterboarding, a technique the Bush administration used in interrogating terrorists. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had earlier accused the CIA of misleading her on use of the controversial practice. But President Obama has already banned waterboarding, so it's not something Panetta would need to shut down.

Now, some are quoting the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, who in March alleged that a secret army of CIA operatives reported to former Vice President Dick Cheney. In remarks he has not substantiated in print, Hersh talked about "a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office.... It's an executive assassination ring essentially, and it's been going on and on and on."

Cheney makes a convenient target. He's already enraged Democrats for suggesting that Obama's policies are making the United States more vulnerable to terrorist attacks. In fact, Panetta accused Cheney of hoping America would be attacked again, just to prove his point. As a result, some Republicans argue that the Democrats are just floating the Cheney rumor to deflect attention away from Pelosi's credibility on the issue.

Others argue that there is less there than meets the eye. As one unnamed former intelligence official told the Washington Post, "This characterization of something that began in 2001 and continued uninterrupted for eight years is just wrong. Honest men would question that characterization. It was more off and on." If the nature of the program could be revealed, said the source, it would be seen as "no big deal."

Either way, look for the guessing game to continue.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo Credit: Getty Images

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Obama prepares to hold Gitmo guys indefinitely, just as Bush did

In yet another sign of political perfidy, the White House of President George W. Bush has drafted a presidential executive order that would allow that double-dealing Republican chief executive to hold suspected terrorist detainees indefinitely.

According to the president's intentions, such suspects could be detained for long periods of time, virtually indefinitely. Is this really what the nation voted for last November?

Oh, wait. No. According to an exclusive Washington Post/Pro Publica report this afternoon, it's the refreshing new Democratic administration of Barack Obama that's now preparing this new executive order to hold certain terrorist suspects indefinitely.

This is an obviously inspiring sign of the new style of leadership the Democrat promised and is finally bringing to the White House. As one blogger put it, George W. Obama. And it shows the kind of powerful political pragmatism with which the ex-senator from Illinois approaches this job at such a crucial and globally turbulent time.Strangely, it was leaked to the Post on a slow summer Friday afternoon when it wouldn't gain much attention.

According to the Post report, the 44th president is now starting to think that closure of the internationally-reviled Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which Obama announced with so much fanfare on his first day in office last winter, may be impossible to actually accomplish before the one-year deadline he set for himself before actually planning where else to put these prisoners.

In other words, fanfare aside, status quo ante. Democrat or Republican, same deal. Ex-Vice President Dick Cheney will be so pleased that the Obama-Biden folks finally accepted his advice to protect national security.

Another sign, finally, of real change after eight long years of the very same thing.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

New Obama polls: Nice guy but -- Wow! -- what a spender!

Almost five months -- or 10% -- of the way through his first term, Americans still pretty much like the new guy. Though a little bit less than in April.

But a fresh batch of new polls is delivering some warning signs to the White House that has so ambitiously taken on so many challenges, all of them allegedly by necessity and inherited from eight years of you-know-what by you-know-who.

Not that any presidential administration would ever allow polls to shape what it does or says.

But look for President Obama (and VP Joe Biden, when he's not in private meetings) to start talking a whole lot more about the dangers of the exploding federal deficit and their professed efforts to tame it, as long as that doesn't involve scaling back their expansive favored spending plans.

According to the new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 56% of Americans still approve of the president, though that's down from 61%.

But 58% say they think the Democratic president and Democrat-controlled Congress should really focus on holding the deficit down, even if that means economic recovery will take a little longer. Alarmed at the scale of spending was one description.

That ain't gonna happen on Capitol Hill after Democrats endured two Republican presidential terms in the political wilderness. So watch the trend in this key question in future polls.

The latest deficit projections have more digits than most non-federal calculators can display -- $1,800,000,000,000.

A minority -- 37% -- think the Great Change Agent is taking on too much. But fully 70% have concerns over federal intervention in the economy, especially the automobile industry. A CBS / New York Times poll found Obama's approval still at 63%, but less than half approved of his handling of healthcare reform and the automotive financial situation.

The CBS poll found that since March those who want the federal government to do more about the economy has dropped from 41% to 34%, while those fearing the feds were now doing too much jumped from 51% to 56%.

Nearly half (48%) professed to see no impact yet from the administration's economic recovery steps, which would help explain Biden's three-state, two-day trip last week to break ground on road projects for the cameras.

And as the months roll by, the results, added together, indicate the clock is running out on Obama's ability to blame the last administration for all ills; the sense of his ownership of the nation's problems appears to be growing in the American mind.

While the leaderless Republican Party remains a political non-factor at this point (barely a quarter in either poll approve of the GOP), frequent recent Obama critic and former VP Dick Cheney saw a bump in his approval from 18% to 26% since his speech on national security. 

But Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California came off horribly; after her very vocal, very public argument with the Central Intelligence Agency over what she knew and when about surfboarding or something.

Her unfavorable rating now stands at 46%, her worst ever, with only 24% thinking positively about the Bay Area Democratic House leader. This means we're less likely to see her front-and-center in future presidential photo ops or driveway media avails.

It also means -- are you sitting down? -- departed Republican scold Dick Cheney is now more popular among Americans than Nancy Pelosi. Do ya think Rush Limbaugh might mention that?

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press (Obama Cabinet); The White House (Cheney); Susan Walsh / Associated Press (Pelosi).

Was terrorism to blame in Air France Flight 447 crash?

Investigators are looking into lots of causes that would explain why Air France Flight 447 exploded over the Atlantic, killing all 228 passengers and crew members aboard.

One possibility is that a lightning strike disabled the plane’s computers, which caused the pilots to fly directly into a massive turbulence. Another is that a faulty air speed indicator on the Airbus could have misled the pilots into flying faster than the aircraft could withstand, or faster than it should into turbulence.

Then earlier this week came word from French security officials that two of the passengers on the doomed flight were on a list of Islamic radicals posing a threat to France, prompting a spate of stories that terrorism was involved.

The Weekly Standard chided the New York Times and the Washington Post for minimizing the prospect of terrorism, saying "Either scenario -- massive instrument failure or midair terrorism -- is a nightmare to contemplate, but one might be forgiven for wondering why our 'newspaper of record' and its rival in Washington would choose to dismiss one of them out of hand."

Now, according to Britain's IBTimes, the French have cleared the two men, saying they shared the same name as that of known Islamic radicals, though French Defense Minister Herve Morin has not ruled out terrorism as a possibility in the crash.

"We launched an urgent inquiry into the men's backgrounds as soon as they were pinpointed as having possible terrorist links," the French Interior Ministry said in a statement. "This deep and wide-ranging investigation has allowed us to clear them."

-- Johanna Neuman

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Photo: Brazilian Air Force personnel carry a body recovered from the crash of Air France Flight 447. Credit: Eraldo Peres / Associated Press

Shootings at U.S. Holocaust Museum, 1 dead (updated)

One week after President Obama was at Buchenwald Concentration Camp in Germany denouncing intolerance, a gunman walked into the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington with a long gun and opened fire, according to witnesses.

Sgt. David Schlosser, a public information officer of the U.S. Park Police, said the suspect exchanged fire with one security guard and two other guards returned fire against the gunman.

(UPDATE: The suspect and one of the security guards have died. And President Obama issued a statement published in its entirety below.))

The Los Angeles Times is covering the unfolding story -- check updates here.

I just wanted to add this piece of information.

A friend of mine volunteers at the museum on Wednesdays. I called her just after I heard the news to find out how a gunman could penetrate the building, which requires all visitors to go through a metal detector.

I reached my friend on her cellphone as she and other staffers were heading toward the subway. Although she did not want her name to be used, she said me the gunman came into the building firing, even before he got to the metal detectors.

-- Johanna Neuman

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Statement by President Obama on today's shooting

“I am shocked and saddened by today’s shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms. No American institution is more important to this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish our determination to honor those who were lost by building a more peaceful and tolerant world.

“Today, we have lost a courageous security guard who stood watch at this place of solemn remembrance. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends in this painful time.”

Can Al Gore rescue two U.S. journalists sentenced to hard labor in North Korea?

For two families campaigning for the release of U.S. journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, today's news that they were found guilty of unspecified "hostilities against the Korean nation" and sentenced to 12 years in a North Korean labor camp was a blow, to say the least.

Now, U.S. efforts to win their release are escalating, both inside the Obama administration and outside the Beltway.

The two women were arrested in March while working on a story about the trafficking of women along the North Korean border with China for Current TV, the cable television network launched by former Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt. The station features three- to seven-minute "pods," or short programs, some created by viewers, in an interactive format targeted to 18- to 34-year-olds.

So the White House is considering sending Al Gore to Pyongyang as a personal envoy to intercede on the journalists' behalf. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly did not rule out the possibility. "This is such a sensitive issue," he said, "I'm just not going to go into those kinds of discussions that we may or may not have had."

Another possibility is sending New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has had success in the past in freeing Americans held by North Korea. In 1996, a 26-year-old American whose mother was Korean, Evan C. Hunziker, was accused of spying after he swam across the Yalu River from the Chinese border. Richardson, then a congressman, negotiated his release. (Hunziker later committed suicide.)

But would Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appoint Richardson as a special envoy after the political tussles of the 2008 presidential campaign? After dropping out of the race, Richardson stunned....

Obama's admission, Sonia's 35 minutes, Specter's specter, Arnold's hogs

Notes for a summer Friday:

Or Try a Cold Shower

If you experience an election lasting more than four hours -- or even four months -- seek medical attention immediately. Ask your physician if you are healthy enough for legal activity.

If so, just go to court, the way they did up in Minnesota, where they are still in court over the battle between Republican Norm "I Used to Be Mayor of St. Paul, You Know" Coleman and Democrat Al "I'm Not a Big Fat Idiot" Franken.

Minnesota's Supreme Court is now mulling (a favorite word) the case fully seven months and an additional $13 million in legal fees and salaries after the $37-million campaigns ended Nov. 3.

Coleman, who's losing by 312 votes at the moment, wants about 4,400 rejected absentee ballots counted too. And depending on the state outcome, Coleman could always appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which isn't required to take the case.

A lot of Democrats, who'd like 60 party members in the Senate, think Coleman should just give up already and accept defeat graciously the way, for instance, Al Gore did after the close 2000 presidential election night. Oh, wait. Not.

Again, Obama Agrees with Bush

One of the little-noticed tidbits out of President B. Hussein Obama's speech from the presidential minaret in Egypt this week was his brief, brushing acknowledgment that Saddam Hussein's absence from Iraq is a good thing. It was clearly yet another bold, bipartisan bid by the new chief executive to agree with George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney.

Obama famously opposed the war in Iraq, though he's keeping...

Team Obama may have to defend warrantless wiretaps approved by Bush

Remember the public uproar over the decision by George W. Bush to require phone companies to help the U.S. government's hunt for domestic terrorists by conducting warrantless wiretapping of customers?

Dozens of lawsuits followed, by consumer groups and by customers, seeking to hold AT&T and other  carriers liable for invasion of privacy. Congress gave the companies retroactive immunity.

Now a federal judge in San Francisco has thrown out the lawsuits, saying that Congress was clear about its "unequivocal intention" when it passed a bill last year giving immunity to phone carriers in the wiretapping program.

But Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker of the U.S. District Court in Northern California also gave the green light to another lawsuit challenging the very legality of Bush's electronic surveillance program (separate from the phone companies' liability) and scheduled a hearing for Sept. 1. This puts the Obama administration in the awkward position of having to go to court to defend the Bush surveillance program.

"The Obama administration is now going to have to defend the Bush program of electronic surveillance," said Jon Eisenberg, who represents two lawyers who claim they were wiretapped without warrants when they worked for a now-defunct Islamic charity, Al-Haramain.

In 2005, after media leaks, President Bush acknowledged that he had ordered the National Security Council to intercept phone calls and e-mail between Americans "with known links" to suspected foreign terrorists without first seeking approval from a special intelligence court, as required by a 1978 law. Democrats called for an investigation into the program's legality.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. last year declared that "the American people deserve a reckoning" for the abuses of the Bush administration. But at his confirmation, Holder softened his tone. Does Holder think the warrantless wiretapping that Bush authorized after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks constitutes an abuse of power? The answer could make this an interesting case.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: ACLU of Southern California

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What Barack Hussein Obama told Muslims in speech from Egypt (text)

 

President Barack Hussein Obama, born to a Muslim father and educated in a Muslim country, won a rousing response in Cairo today with an outreach to a Muslim world that reviled his Republican predecessor George W. Bush.

The Democrat won a gasping cheer at the start, greeting a packed audience at Cairo University with words of Arabic: "I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu aleikum." (Note: An earlier version of this post said Obama greeted a packed audience at Al Azhar University.)

And toward the end of the speech, when someone shouted, "We love you!" Obama replied, "Thank you."

He thrilled them with a recitation of Muslim countries' contributions to world civilization -- algebra, the compass, pens and printing, medical treatment of disease, architecture, poetry, calligraphy, music.

He used the speech to teach as well, reminding the Egyptian audience that the first nation to recognize the United States was an Islamic country, Morocco, and that recently, when Keith Ellison became the first Arab American elected to Congress, he took the oath of office on a Koran that had been in the personal library of founder Thomas Jefferson.

Turning to the thorniest problems in his foreign policy portfolio, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the audience, Obama promised that American troops sought no territorial gains in Afghanistan but were there only to protect U.S. interests.

"Make no mistake: We do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict.

We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that....