White House Memo: Obama vs. Boehner: Tee-Off Time

Representatives for both men say that they will find plenty of time to talk deficit reductions and spending cuts when they tee off.

Oh, please. This game is not about debt ceiling negotiations. It is a chance for Mr. Boehner, an accomplished golfer, to take on the most powerful man in the world; for the competitive Mr. Obama, who has been working hard to improve his game, to measure himself against his political nemesis.

Mr. Obama is not taking any more chances than necessary. He is bringing along a partner: Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who, at least by the reckoning of Golf Digest, is a better golfer than his boss and Mr. Boehner.

Golf Digest estimates Mr. Obama’s handicap — perhaps generously, in the view of some golfers — at 17, meaning, theoretically, that the president would typically play 18 holes in the high 80s to low 90s. The magazine put Mr. Biden’s handicap at 6.3 and Mr. Boehner’s at 7.9.

Golf has long been considered a window into character, or at least personality. Both President Bushes would speed-golf through 18 holes as if they had to beat the clock, not the course, leaving little time for introspection. President Bill Clinton had a reputation for being somewhat loose with the rules.

Mr. Obama’s golf game is characterized by long, slow rounds, with a lot of time hunting for balls in the woods. The president, say people who have golfed with him, is meticulous, studied and determined to improve his game through practice, practice and more practice. He has lodged more than 70 rounds of golf since taking office, most of them at the golf course at Andrews Air Force Base.

“It’s a way for him to relax, where he can barely see the Secret Service agents who are around him all the time,” one administration official said.

The president is private about a lot of things he does during the day; he is fiercely private about his golf game, and rarely allows reporters anywhere near him when he’s on a course.

People who have played with Mr. Obama say that he is very good at getting out of sand traps. But of course, that might be construed as a very backhanded compliment; the only way you get good at getting out of sand traps is if you get into a lot of sand traps to begin with.

Mr. Boehner is a different story.

“He likes the game,” said Arthur Mason, a vice president of the lobbying firm Cassidy and Associates who has played with Mr. Boehner. “He’s competitive, but in a cordial way.”

Mr. Boehner typically shoots in the low to mid-80s (Mr. Obama is in the low to mid-90s), but recently posted a round of 75, one source familiar with his game said. He swings right-handed, but putts left-handed.

Mr. Boehner has not been sounding like someone who plans to cut the president much slack. “I was watching one of these cable programs — it must have been Saturday morning, when somebody said, ‘Well, you know, if the president wants strokes from Boehner, Boehner ought to say to the president: ‘Mr. President, you can have all the strokes you want. It’ll just cost you a trillion dollars per stroke,’?” Mr. Boehner told a Rotary Club audience last week in Middletown, Ohio. “I thought it was a brilliant idea.”

Mr. Boehner is friends with the golf legend Jack Nicklaus. He has also played with Tiger Woods in a pro-am tournament two years ago at the Congressional Country Club outside Washington.

Scared yet, Mr. President?

Don’t be. You’ve got Biden.

Mr. Biden, 68, did not take up golf until he was 49, recovering from two operations for an aneurism, and his doctor told him that one of the few things he could do for exercise would be to hit golf balls. A friend of his would drive him to a restaurant in Oxford, Pa., that sat on a golf course. It was there that Mr. Biden began developing his game.

Mr. Biden now has such a low handicap — his idea of stress release is to hit buckets of golf balls at a driving range — that he and his aides have been a little worried that it could put him at a disadvantage on Saturday.

So twice this week, Mr. Biden has made nighttime visits to the public course at Hains Point, on the Potomac River in southwest Washington, to practice.

And then, there is the last — and most mysterious — member of Saturday’s foursome: Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, a Republican.

“Kasich is the wild card,” Mr. Mason said. A solid afternoon’s worth of efforts to elicit tidbits about his golf game elicited nothing.

The one thing that is known: Mr. Kasich did build his house, in Delaware County, Ohio, next to a golf course.

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Obama Retools 2008 Machine for Tough Run

Under the cover of an intensifying Republican nominating contest, the Obama campaign’s top fund-raisers gathered for their first meeting here last week. To galvanize them, they were shown a presentation of potential rivals, including Sarah Palin, and given access to senior advisers to the president, including the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley.

They pledged to reach a fund-raising goal of $60 million for the campaign and party before June 30 as a first installment to create a state-by-state organization. Their goals include reactivating the network of faithful supporters, registering young and Latino voters and fighting restrictive new election laws in battleground states now led by Republicans.

While Mr. Obama will not fully engage in campaign activity until next year, aides said, he is embarking on weekly economic-focused trips throughout the summer. Doing so will allow him to use his bully pulpit to show that he is focused on addressing joblessness, the issue that more than any other could shape his electoral prospects and that Republicans are using to assert that his policies have failed.

He will also continue to be the main draw in a fund-raising campaign that has a goal of taking in at least $750 million by Election Day, which would match his 2008 figure even though he does not face the long primary battle that he did four years ago.

“I’m confident that the things that we can control, we will do a good job on,” said David Axelrod, the president’s senior political strategist, who returned to Chicago to help with the re-election effort.

The campaign is shaping up as a test of whether the much-vaunted organizing abilities of Mr. Obama and his team can offset the headwinds he faces. In battleground states, volunteers are fanning out by the thousands to reach out to neighbors who helped Mr. Obama in his first presidential campaign and persuade them to re-up.

Campaign officials said they know that in some cases, 2008 supporters will have to be coached to overcome what they see as disappointment that Mr. Obama has not achieved as much as they hoped. Several thousand times a week, still-committed volunteers knock on the doors of potential new recruits and neighbors involved four years ago to see if they will join in. The idea is to get face-to-face, neighbor-to-neighbor commitments that will have more staying power than those collected by strangers over the phone.

And in the re-election nerve center here, where a handmade calendar counts down the more than 520 days that remain before the election, campaign officials are sorting through census and polling data as they work to chart a variety of routes to the 270 electoral votes Mr. Obama will need to clinch a second term.

The early focus is on the same collection of states that Mr. Obama carried in 2008, with the exception of Indiana, which advisers believe is out of reach. But among these, strategists are digging deeper into Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia — where census figures show surging populations of Hispanics and blacks, groups that supported Mr. Obama in 2008 by wide margins. The campaign sees possibilities for gains, for example, around Charlotte, N.C., which is where Mr. Obama chose to hold his party’s nominating convention next year, a decision that aides said signaled how serious they are about competing in North Carolina.

So far, the regrouping of the campaign is a methodical, nuts-and-bolts operation. It is oriented toward rekindling a grass-roots movement that had been the envy of Republicans in 2008 but has shown severe signs of strain over two years of partisan rancor in Washington and economic struggle across the country.

But for all of the planning, the biggest challenges of the election remain largely out of the organizers’ control, as the bleak jobs report on Friday showed.

So uncertain are the economic indicators that Mr. Obama’s aides say they have not fully settled on an overarching campaign theme for next year.

For now, the president faces a delicate task in arguing that things have improved under his watch when they remain so grim for so many — and that the programs he has put in place are working but need time to show their benefits. With their hopes dashed of substantial improvement in unemployment anytime soon, aides indicated that the theme was likely to be less “morning in America” and more “don’t change horses in midstream.”

Mr. Axelrod said: “We’re not going to be putting up a ‘Mission Accomplished’ sign. Part of the message is going to be we have to see these things through.”

In an interview at his Chicago consulting offices, Mr. Axelrod repeatedly said “stability” for the middle class would be central.

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Op-Ed Columnist: Obama Draws the Line

 

The president got 78 percent of the Jewish vote in 2008. Perhaps those words will cost him some of those votes — although sentiment toward Israel among American Jews is slowly shifting. But true friends are critical friends. And the American and Israeli national interest do not lie in the poisonous Israeli-Palestinian status quo.

Netanyahu, who will address the U.S. Congress next week, will certainly attempt in response to go over the president’s head to those restive donors and fund-raisers. He’s Israel’s leader, but knows that a core constituency lies in the United States. He will try to outlast Obama, noting that Republican hopefuls like Mitt Romney are already talking of the president throwing “Israel under the bus.” He will try to kick the can down the road. Process without end favors Israel.

Therein lurks the political fight of the next several months. The best Obama and Netanyahu will ever be able to do is position a fig-leaf of decorum over their differences. The worst poison is distrust. These two men have it aplenty for each other.

Obama, in a first for an American president, has now said the border between Israel and Palestine should be “based on the 1967 lines.” Yes, it should. Netanyahu still talks of “Judea and Samaria,” a lexicon that, true to his Likud party’s platform, does not acknowledge those lines but sees one land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Each leader believes Israel’s long-term security depends on his view prevailing.

A Republican-dominated Congress awaits Netanyahu with open arms. So does the powerful pro-Israel lobby, Aipac. Netanyahu is no less susceptible to adulation than the average man. These are not backdrops that encourage tough choices. But he must make them or watch Israel’s isolation and instability grow.

Does Netanyahu, with democratic change and movement coursing through the region, have it in him to move beyond short-term tactics to a strategy for his nation that ushers it from its siege mentality? I doubt it. I do know he will be judged a failure if he refuses, now, to make a good-faith effort to see if Israel’s security can be squared with Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. That involves revealing Israel’s hand on borders with the same frankness the president has just shown.

As Obama noted, occupation is “humiliation.” It was humiliation as experienced by a young Tunisian fruit vendor that sparked the unfurling of the Arab Spring. There is no reason to believe this quest for dignity and self-governance will stop at Palestine’s door or that Israel’s quest for security can be sustained by walls alone.

Arabs by the tens of millions have been overcoming the paralysis of fear. It is past time for Israel to do the same. A specter — Iran, Hamas, delegitimization campaigns — can always be summoned to dismiss peace. These threats exist. But I believe the most corrosive is Israeli dominion over another people. That’s the low road.

Obama got it right. The essential trade-off is Israeli security for Palestinian sovereignty. Each side must convince the other that peace will provide it.

Israeli security begins with a reconciled Fatah and Hamas committing irrevocably to nonviolence, with Palestinian acquiescence to a nonmilitarized state, and with Palestinian acceptance that a two-state peace ends all territorial claims. Palestinian sovereignty begins with what Obama called “the full and phased withdrawal of Israeli security forces” — including from the Jordan River border area — and with the removal of all settlements not on land covered by “mutually agreed swaps.”

This is difficult but doable. The 1967 lines are not “indefensible,” as Netanyahu declared in his immediate response to Obama’s speech. What is “indefensible” over time for Israel is colonizing another people. That process has continued with settlements expanding in defiance of Obama’s urging. The president was therefore right to pull back from President George W. Bush’s acceptance of “already existing major Israeli population centers” beyond the 1967 lines.

Palestinians have been making ominous wrong moves. The unilateralist temptation embodied in the quest for recognition of statehood at the United Nations in September must be resisted: It represents a return to useless symbolism and the narrative of victimhood. Such recognition — and of course the United States would not give it — would not change a single fact on the ground or improve the lot of Palestinians.

What has improved their lot is the patient institution-building of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on the West Bank, his embrace of nonviolence, and his refusal to allow the grievances of the past to halt the building of a future. To all of this Netanyahu has offered only the old refrain: Israel has no partner with which to build peace.

It does — if it would only see and reinforce that partner. Beyond siege lies someone.

You can follow Roger Cohen on Twitter at twitter.com/nytimescohen .

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The Lede: Israel 'Cannot Go Back to the 1967 Lines,' Netanyahu Tells Obama

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As my colleague Steven Lee Myers reports from Washington, “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told President Obama on Friday that he shared his vision for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians and then promptly listed a series of nonnegotiable conditions that have kept the two sides at an impasse for years.”

Here is Associated Press video of the two men recounting some of their conversation for the White House press corps:

Before the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu’s aides told reporters that Mr. Obama failed to understand “the reality” of Israel’s situation and suggested that the American president was harboring some “delusions.” Speaking to the press as Mr. Obama sat by his side, Mr. Netanyahu echoed those sentiments, saying “a peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality.”

The Israeli prime minister then reiterated his strong objection to Mr. Obama’s statement, in his speech on Thursday, that “the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps.”

In his remarks on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu said: “While Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to the 1967 lines, because these lines are indefensible; because they don’t take into account certain changes that have taken place on the ground, demographic changes that have taken place over the past 44 years.”

Israeli settlements, built on West Bank land Israel seized during the the 1967 war, are often referred to in Israel as “facts on the ground.”

Here is a look at the issue of settlements from Americans for Peace Now, a group that sees their existence as a stumbling block to a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

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Obama calls for migrant overhaul

 10 May 2011 Last updated at 18:21 ET Barack Obama: "We have strengthened border security beyond what many people believed was possible"

US President Barack Obama has called for broad reform of the US immigration system, while touting measures he has taken to strengthen border security.

In Texas, Mr Obama backed a path to legal status for illegal immigrants, as well as crackdowns on employers who hire illegal workers.

He called on the fractured Congress to reject "the usual Washington games" and enact a comprehensive overhaul.

An estimated 11m illegal immigrants, most of them Hispanic, live in the US.

In El Paso, a Texas border city, Mr Obama said he had satisfied calls from conservatives to tighten security at the border and to increase deportations of illegal immigrants.

He called on Congress to reform the immigration system in a manner that would encourage skilled and motivated immigrants to participate in American society while ending what he called an underground economy that preys on low-wage illegal immigrants.

Continue reading the main story Paul Adams BBC News, Washington

Once again, the president is making the case for reform of a system he calls broken. At a time when everyone is focussed on the economy, Mr Obama said immigration reform was an economic imperative.

When it came to reform might look like, Mr Obama didn't appear to have anything new to say, but he said there was a growing coalition of politicians, police chiefs, businessmen and religious leaders across the country who now agree on the need for change.

It's very unlikely to result in new legislation this side of next year's presidential election - there just isn't the political appetite - but Mr Obama wants to reassure disillusioned Hispanic voters, who want reform, that they shouldn't abandon him

"We need to come together around reform that reflects our values as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants, that demands everyone take responsibility," he said.

Immigration reform is of particular importance to the growing Hispanic electorate, which is Democratic-leaning and whose continued support Mr Obama will need in his 2012 re-election bid.

Ahead of Mr Obama's speech, White House aides stressed Mr Obama remained committed to reform, even though Republicans derailed overhaul efforts in 2006, 2007 and 2010.

In Texas, Mr Obama mocked Republican opponents on the issue.

"We have gone above and beyond what was requested by the very Republicans who said they supported broader reform as long as we got serious about enforcement," Mr Obama said.

"But even though we've answered these concerns, I suspect there will be those who will try to move the goal posts one more time... Maybe they'll say we need a moat. Or alligators in the moat."

Opponents, mostly conservatives, have criticised proposals as an unacceptable "amnesty" for people who have broken the law - even though one major proposal backed by Democrats would have applied only to those who came to the US as children.

State crackdowns Continue reading the main story 11m in the US in 2010, down from a peak of 12m in 2007393,000 deported in 2009, up from 183,000 a decade earlierAbout 76% are HispanicTop places of origin are Mexico (59%), Asia (11%) Central America (11%) and South America (7%)73% of children of illegal immigrants are US citizens

Source: Pew Hispanic Center estimates, Department of Homeland Security

While Washington DC has been unable to achieve federal immigration reform, three states have sought to take action themselves.

Arizona, Georgia and Utah have passed measures giving police the power to demand documentation from people they suspect of being illegal immigrants who have been detained on other charges.

Arizona's law has been put on hold by the federal courts.

Meanwhile, a judge in Utah blocked the state's new immigration law on Friday, just hours after it went into effect.

District Judge Clark Waddoups issued his ruling in Salt Lake City, citing its similarity to Arizona's law.

The American Civil Liberties Union and National Immigration Law Center had sued to stop the law in Utah, saying it was modelled after the Arizona and that its implementation could lead to racial profiling.

In 2008, 67% of Hispanics voted for Mr Obama, compared with 31% for Republican John McCain, exit polls showed.

The Hispanic vote pushed Mr Obama over the margin of victory in four states won by President George Bush in 2004, some analysts calculate.

The Republican Party lost significant support among Hispanic voters following the 2004 election, in which Mr Bush won 40% of the Hispanic vote, in part because of the party's hard line on illegal immigration, analysts say.

Obama Honors Victims of Bin Laden at Ground Zero

The hushed ceremony, on a sunny, breezy day, was a somber coda to a triumphal week that began with Mr. Obama’s announcement Sunday night that American commandos had killed Bin Laden in his fortified compound in Pakistan.

Unlike so many other memorials held in this place, Thursday’s was not just to mourn those who died but to celebrate that, at last, a measure of justice had been done.

In a four-hour visit that included stops across Manhattan, the president held one-to-one meetings with people whose lives had been wrenched apart by Bin Laden: relatives of the victims, as well as firefighters, police officers, and other rescue workers who lost comrades that morning nearly a decade ago.

“Obviously, you can’t bring back your friends that were lost,” Mr. Obama said to the crew at a firehouse in Midtown that lost 15 men, an entire shift, at the World Trade Center.

“What happened Sunday, because of the courage of our military and the outstanding work of our intelligence, sent a message,” he declared. “When we say we will never forget, we mean what we say.”

The visit was Mr. Obama’s first as president to the patch of lower Manhattan that the attacks turned into hallowed ground. And the president was clearly eager throughout the day to remind the American public of the deeply personal reasons he ordered a risky, violent military operation half a world away.

“A lot of you have probably comforted loved ones of those who were lost; a lot of you have probably looked after kids who grew up without a parent,” Mr. Obama said to police officers at the First Precinct station house. “What we did on Sunday was directly connected to what you do every single day.”

Administration officials played down Mr. Obama’s absence from ground zero since he entered the White House. He visited in 2008 as a presidential candidate and plans to return this September for the 10th anniversary of the attacks, they said.

In 2009 and 2010, he went to the memorial for those killed at the Pentagon.

Nobody at ground zero seemed to begrudge the president his decision to visit now, even the construction workers who had been expelled from the site so security teams could sweep it before his appearance.

“Bin Laden’s death, that’s a long time coming,” said one of the workers, Eric Bellaby, 31, of Rockland County. “It’s something we all wanted for a long time. So it’s a feeling of relief now that he’s gone.”

Two hours before Mr. Obama’s arrival, hundreds of onlookers had already gathered south of the site, at the intersection of Greenwich and Liberty Streets. As the crowds waited to pass through tight security, a woman peddled $2 American flags and buttons that said “Mission Accomplished.”

Mr. Obama placed the wreath at the foot of a tree, known as the Survivor Tree, that had been wrested from the rubble, nursed back to health, and replanted as a memorial.

Then he stood silently, his head bowed and his hands clasped before him. Behind him loomed one of the cranes that are rebuilding the site, briefly stilled.

Uniformed rescue workers stood in an honor guard, alongside relatives of the victims.

Mr. Obama sought out a 14-year-old girl at the memorial, Payton Wall, who had recently written him a letter about the loss of her father, Glen James Wall, in the attack. He also met privately with 60 other relatives of the victims.

“It means, like, the world to me,” Christopher Cannizzaro said of meeting the president after the ceremony. The boy, who was 10 months old when his father, Brian Cannizzaro, a firefighter from Brooklyn, was killed, gave Mr. Obama a fist-bump and a prayer card with his father’s picture.

His mother, Jackie Cannizzaro-Harkins, said, “It gave us a sense of closure.”

Manny Fernandez contributed reporting.

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Politicus: For Obama, a Victory but Little Clarity

PARIS — In proclaiming the elimination of Osama bin Laden a victory for “the greatness” of America (and by obvious extension that of his own leadership), Barack Obama hopes to create an image of forcefulness for his foreign policy — and at the same time assure his re-election next year.

Consider this language: Killing Bin Laden “is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.” And, “As a nation, there is nothing we can’t do.”

Add to that, “We will never tolerate our security being threatened.” Plus, “We will be true to the values that make us who we are” and “relentless in the defense of our citizens and our friends and allies.”

Call it a presidential volley of star-spangled rhetoric, including 10 I’s, a me and a my in Sunday night’s 11-minute got-him announcement, followed up by a trip Thursday to New York and the ground zero of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America.

While that sounds a lot like flag-wrapped, and probably effective, pre-campaign politicking, the raid leading to Bin Laden’s death takes a stone off the country’s heart. Mr. Obama, with seemingly justified pride and moral legitimacy, could well say (and did) — although the International Federation for Human Rights in Paris finds the operation’s legality open to question — “Justice has been done.”

But this is also a long way from the diction of a candidate who ran for the White House in 2008 with the phrase “we’re no longer about bluster and unilateralism and ideology,” and the suggestion that the United States’ potential for worldwide reach and military commitment has ever-increasing limits.

Now, Mr. Obama is pitching We’re No. 1 to a country that, as Bill Clinton said, “hires you to win” — its Iraq intervention being regarded mostly as a fiasco, but one where the 2007-8 U.S. military surge avoided a dishonorable departure.

Yet this America has no other victories in sight that would rid North Africa of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, or Afghanistan of the Taliban, and everyone else of the departed terrorist-in-chief’s globally dispersed followers.

That’s a contradiction likely to become more evident without changes in American caveats on the extent of U.S. intervention in Libya — a rebel military spokesman said on Monday, “We want America to do the same to Qaddafi” that it did to Bin Laden — or a modification of the Obama administration plan for a troop drawdown this year in Afghanistan.

Just how does the administration and the president’s America of Victory handle the realities of an “Arab Spring” including a Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, likely to share power in a new government, agreeing with Iran this week that Bin Laden’s death means the United States of America has no more excuses for the presence of its troops in the Middle East?

Or the implications of a future Palestinian state, based on the recent reconciliation between the Palestine Liberation Organization government and Hamas, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, reacting to the American raid on Bin Laden’s hide-out, said: “We condemn the assassination of an Arab holy warrior. We regard this as a continuation of the American policy based on oppression and the shedding of Muslim and Arab blood.”

Could the administration argue, while trumpeting an American triumph under Mr. Obama’s command, that it expects, through patience and great understanding, to win sudden moderation from interlocutors whose identity (and appeal) continues to be based on contempt for America’s goals and its support of Israel?

In terms of political tactics, Mr. Obama seems to be trying to replicate a successful element of his 2008 election campaign. Back then, after basing his message early in the year on calls for withdrawal from Iraq, he moved increasingly from left to center on foreign policy as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy gained strength. After his nomination, the tougher line was maintained through November.

In a final television debate, looking at a flabbergasted John McCain, Mr. Obama described the military surge in Iraq of 20,000 additional troops — which he had opposed — as “succeeding beyond our wildest dreams.” During the same period, he called the specter of Iran achieving nuclear weapons capability “unacceptable,” and said he would do “everything, everything” (get it, get it?) to stop it as president.

Once in the Oval Office, Mr. Obama instead extended America’s open hand to Iran without any palpable success. He made a major speech in Cairo, read by some as an apology by the United States to Muslims for Bush administration policy rather than a call for the Arab world’s democratization. It was followed by a second major address in Moscow, seen by critics as portraying the Cold War as a neutral event and ignoring America and its European friends’ victory over the Soviet Union.

Late last year, readers of Bob Woodward’s “Obama’s Wars” were struck by a response from the president to the author’s question, concerning Afghanistan, if he could tolerate losing a war. Mr. Obama’s answer was, “I think about it not so much in the classic [manner], do you lose a war on my watch?”

Getting the president’s slant on how America can or should come out a winner in relation to the Arab world’s turmoil has not been easy.

According to the Woodward book, after the president’s Muslim outreach speech in Cairo, Gen. James L. Jones, who has since resigned as Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, set the writer straight — while totally contradicting his boss — on the reality of the fight against international terrorism. General Jones said: “It’s certainly a clash of civilizations. It’s a clash of religions. It’s a clash of almost how to live.”

Now, although not in relation to the price of gas in the United States, or to the country’s wobbling economic recovery, Mr. Obama has found an event he wants to make his presidency’s hallmark of American resolve.

But that’s hard. Considering the possibility of new terrorist atrocities, Mr. Obama’s choice to make a tough-minded American success his own key to re-election might not have more than a few weeks or months of shelf life.

If a victory’s proclamation brings vast satisfaction, America’s feat in taking down Osama bin Laden comes with little clarity about how the Obama administration plans to achieve new strategic triumphs.

 

To Lead Afghan War, Obama Chooses Marine Known for Swaying Sunnis in Iraq

General Allen is not well known beyond the Marine Corps and national security circles. But he was President Obama’s first choice to succeed Gen. David H. Petraeus, easily the most recognizable officer in the American military, in no small part for his work enticing Sunni tribal elders in the restive Anbar Province of Iraq to turn their backs on the insurgency and foreign fighters and to join the American cause during 2007 and 2008.

Mr. Obama described General Allen as “the right commander for this vital mission” in Afghanistan. “As a battle-tested combat leader, in Iraq he helped turn the tide in Anbar Province,” the president added.

To be sure, Afghanistan is not Iraq. The regimented tribal structure that allowed the United States to build an indigenous counterinsurgency force by winning over the sheiks in western Iraq cannot be perfectly replicated in Afghanistan, a society whose social structures have been destroyed by decades of war. And the enemy in Afghanistan is far more entrenched and experienced.

But military officers who work with General Allen, 57, say he understands the complex challenges presented by commanding a campaign in Afghanistan that is as much diplomatic and economic as military in a nation with a historic, and understandable, distrust of foreigners.

He told Mr. Obama as much himself on Thursday, turning from the lectern to look straight in the president’s face and say, “I understand well the demands of this mission.”

General Allen has a reputation as a strategic thinker, and he holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and the National War College. He was the first Marine officer inducted as a term member into the Council on Foreign Relations, and he served as a Marine Corps fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He also will be the first Marine to be the top commander in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Marine Corps colleagues cite his abilities to understand the consequences of military and political actions on all parties in a conflict — enemies, allies and civilians. They say those insights played a significant role in the successes of the Anbar Awakening, as the Sunni counterinsurgency in Iraq was known.

During his deployment as the second in command in Anbar Province, General Allen spoke of how the Marines operated as a “shock absorber” between the local officials and the central government in Baghdad.

Their role was especially relevant because Sunni tribal elders deeply distrusted the Shiite-dominated national government, even as they were turning away from supporting an insurgency that was seeking to bring down that government and throw out its American backers.

“The challenge for us is to connect the province to the central government,” General Allen said at the time, in words that apply just as well across Afghanistan today.

He spoke of the dynamic tensions between military force and economic development that prompted Anbar sheiks to turn on the insurgents and foreign terrorists. “Out here it’s been ‘Who can defend his people?’?” General Allen said in describing a typical conversation with a Sunni tribal elder. “After the war it’s ‘Who was able to reconstruct?’?”

If the Senate confirms him as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, the allied coalition in Afghanistan, General Allen will move to Kabul in September. In the interim, he will be assigned as a special assistant to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to prepare for command.

He has served in the Pentagon as a senior officer developing policy for Asia and the Pacific region. From his current post as the No. 2 officer at the Central Command, overseeing American military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, he has been involved in planning for the Afghanistan mission.

 

To Lead Afghan War, Obama Chooses Marine Known for Swaying Sunnis in Iraq

General Allen is not well known beyond the Marine Corps and national security circles. But he was President Obama’s first choice to succeed Gen. David H. Petraeus, easily the most recognizable officer in the American military, in no small part for his work enticing Sunni tribal elders in the restive Anbar Province of Iraq to turn their backs on the insurgency and foreign fighters and to join the American cause during 2007 and 2008.

Mr. Obama described General Allen as “the right commander for this vital mission” in Afghanistan. “As a battle-tested combat leader, in Iraq he helped turn the tide in Anbar Province,” the president added.

To be sure, Afghanistan is not Iraq. The regimented tribal structure that allowed the United States to build an indigenous counterinsurgency force by winning over the sheiks in western Iraq cannot be perfectly replicated in Afghanistan, a society whose social structures have been destroyed by decades of war. And the enemy in Afghanistan is far more entrenched and experienced.

But military officers who work with General Allen, 57, say he understands the complex challenges presented by commanding a campaign in Afghanistan that is as much diplomatic and economic as military in a nation with a historic, and understandable, distrust of foreigners.

He told Mr. Obama as much himself on Thursday, turning from the lectern to look straight in the president’s face and say, “I understand well the demands of this mission.”

General Allen has a reputation as a strategic thinker, and he holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and the National War College. He was the first Marine officer inducted as a term member into the Council on Foreign Relations, and he served as a Marine Corps fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He also will be the first Marine to be the top commander in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Marine Corps colleagues cite his abilities to understand the consequences of military and political actions on all parties in a conflict — enemies, allies and civilians. They say those insights played a significant role in the successes of the Anbar Awakening, as the Sunni counterinsurgency in Iraq was known.

During his deployment as the second in command in Anbar Province, General Allen spoke of how the Marines operated as a “shock absorber” between the local officials and the central government in Baghdad.

Their role was especially relevant because Sunni tribal elders deeply distrusted the Shiite-dominated national government, even as they were turning away from supporting an insurgency that was seeking to bring down that government and throw out its American backers.

“The challenge for us is to connect the province to the central government,” General Allen said at the time, in words that apply just as well across Afghanistan today.

He spoke of the dynamic tensions between military force and economic development that prompted Anbar sheiks to turn on the insurgents and foreign terrorists. “Out here it’s been ‘Who can defend his people?’?” General Allen said in describing a typical conversation with a Sunni tribal elder. “After the war it’s ‘Who was able to reconstruct?’?”

If the Senate confirms him as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, the allied coalition in Afghanistan, General Allen will move to Kabul in September. In the interim, he will be assigned as a special assistant to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to prepare for command.

He has served in the Pentagon as a senior officer developing policy for Asia and the Pacific region. From his current post as the No. 2 officer at the Central Command, overseeing American military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, he has been involved in planning for the Afghanistan mission.

 

To Lead Afghan War, Obama Chooses Marine Known for Swaying Sunnis in Iraq

General Allen is not well known beyond the Marine Corps and national security circles. But he was President Obama’s first choice to succeed Gen. David H. Petraeus, easily the most recognizable officer in the American military, in no small part for his work enticing Sunni tribal elders in the restive Anbar Province of Iraq to turn their backs on the insurgency and foreign fighters and to join the American cause during 2007 and 2008.

Mr. Obama described General Allen as “the right commander for this vital mission” in Afghanistan. “As a battle-tested combat leader, in Iraq he helped turn the tide in Anbar Province,” the president added.

To be sure, Afghanistan is not Iraq. The regimented tribal structure that allowed the United States to build an indigenous counterinsurgency force by winning over the sheiks in western Iraq cannot be perfectly replicated in Afghanistan, a society whose social structures have been destroyed by decades of war. And the enemy in Afghanistan is far more entrenched and experienced.

But military officers who work with General Allen, 57, say he understands the complex challenges presented by commanding a campaign in Afghanistan that is as much diplomatic and economic as military in a nation with a historic, and understandable, distrust of foreigners.

He told Mr. Obama as much himself on Thursday, turning from the lectern to look straight in the president’s face and say, “I understand well the demands of this mission.”

General Allen has a reputation as a strategic thinker, and he holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and the National War College. He was the first Marine officer inducted as a term member into the Council on Foreign Relations, and he served as a Marine Corps fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He also will be the first Marine to be the top commander in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

Marine Corps colleagues cite his abilities to understand the consequences of military and political actions on all parties in a conflict — enemies, allies and civilians. They say those insights played a significant role in the successes of the Anbar Awakening, as the Sunni counterinsurgency in Iraq was known.

During his deployment as the second in command in Anbar Province, General Allen spoke of how the Marines operated as a “shock absorber” between the local officials and the central government in Baghdad.

Their role was especially relevant because Sunni tribal elders deeply distrusted the Shiite-dominated national government, even as they were turning away from supporting an insurgency that was seeking to bring down that government and throw out its American backers.

“The challenge for us is to connect the province to the central government,” General Allen said at the time, in words that apply just as well across Afghanistan today.

He spoke of the dynamic tensions between military force and economic development that prompted Anbar sheiks to turn on the insurgents and foreign terrorists. “Out here it’s been ‘Who can defend his people?’?” General Allen said in describing a typical conversation with a Sunni tribal elder. “After the war it’s ‘Who was able to reconstruct?’?”

If the Senate confirms him as commander of the International Security Assistance Force, the allied coalition in Afghanistan, General Allen will move to Kabul in September. In the interim, he will be assigned as a special assistant to Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to prepare for command.

He has served in the Pentagon as a senior officer developing policy for Asia and the Pacific region. From his current post as the No. 2 officer at the Central Command, overseeing American military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, he has been involved in planning for the Afghanistan mission.

 

Obama Makes His Case in Mostly Friendly Territory

 

From three fund-raisers on Wednesday and Thursday morning in San Francisco to three more later Thursday here among the Hollywood set, Mr. Obama made the case for his achievements, acknowledged the setbacks, faced a few hecklers and raked in millions of dollars for the Democratic Party. Contributions ranged from $25 to the legal maximum of $35,800.

Especially in Hollywood, interest in Mr. Obama has waned little, people here say, despite pockets of frustration over matters including the war in Afghanistan, the failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and his resistance to endorsing same-sex marriage.

“What’s the alternative? There is none. Hollywood wants Obama re-elected, it’s as simple as that,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic consultant in California. “East Coast reporters keep suggesting to me that Hollywood is unhappy with the president. Based on what? I see no evidence of that.”

Mr. Obama’s three events in Los Angeles included a fund-raising dinner and another event at Sony Pictures Studios and a dinner afterward at the restaurant Tavern. The two dinners were expected to draw a combined 100 people paying $35,800 each, while about 2,500 people paid at least $100 to attend the larger rally at the Sony back lot featuring the Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx, according to Democratic officials.

All money goes to the Obama Victory Fund; of the $35,800, $5,000 goes to Mr. Obama’s own campaign and the rest to the national party.?

A Sony representative said the company had rented the space to the Democratic National Committee. Organizers of the dinner included Jamie Lynton, wife of Michael Lynton, the chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, and attendees included Amy Pascal, Sony’s co-chairwoman, and the philanthropist Eli Broad. The co-chairmen included Ken Solomon, chief executive of the Tennis Channel; John Emerson of Capital Group; and Andy Spahn, a political consultant and former DreamWorks executive.

Much as in the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton was a favorite of the entertainment crowd, the rivalry among its competitive players for proximity to the president remains intense. And Mr. Obama has come far less frequently than Mr. Clinton, making dinners with him all the hotter a commodity.

Two people familiar with the planning for the Sony events said it caused some consternation among those who had already been organizing the dinner at the Tavern, including two of the founders of DreamWorks, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who were prominent in the 2008 Obama election effort.

Yet the high-priced 60-person dinner sold out quickly. Among other attendees were Steven Spielberg, another DreamWorks founder, and actors George Clooney Tom Hanks, wife Rita Wilson and Will Ferrell.

At a fund-raising dinner for about 200 in San Francisco on Wednesday, the luxury cars outside the home of Marc Benioff, chief executive of Salesforce.com, included a Jaguar with the license plate “MR44FAN.” Mr. Obama is the 44th president.

As he would do again at a breakfast fund-raiser the next morning in San Francisco at the St. Regis Hotel, Mr. Obama acknowledged that for many the high hopes he had excited in 2008 had not been fulfilled, or he had frustrated them by his compromises with Republicans.

But he made a case for his achievements — some of the largest spending “investments” ever in education, transportation, infrastructure and clean-energy industries; a health care law, even if it is not the single-payer, government-run system many liberals wanted; repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law; and the naming of two women to the Supreme Court, including the first Hispanic-American.

Later, at a larger and lower-priced fund-raiser at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, Mr. Obama recalled that he had warned supporters on election night in Chicago: “I said we may not get there in one year.? We may not even get there in one term.”

But when he continued by saying, “Our work is not finished,” an audience member yelled out “Gay marriage!”?When he said, “We didn’t get everything exactly the way we had planned,” someone yelled “Health care!” and another, “Single-payer!”

Mr. Obama took it in stride: “See there? Case in point, right? All right — see, I knew I’d open up this can of worms.”

But the more bizarre protest came at the St. Regis breakfast. Soon after Mr. Obama began speaking to about 150 people who had paid up to $35,800, a woman stood and led her table of 10 in a song. The chorus: “We paid our dues, where’s our change?”

They complained mainly of the detention of Pvt. Bradley Manning on suspicion of having leaked classified material to the WikiLeaks Web site. But they also sang, “We’ll vote for you in 2012. Yes, that’s true. Look at the Republicans — what else can we do?”

“That was a nice song,” Mr. Obama said. The lead singer and two others left and Mr. Obama continued speaking, once again conceding his setbacks but recounting his achievements. And the seven who remained stood with everyone else for an ovation when he finished.

 

Bits: Obama and Facebook in Warm Embrace

PALO ALTO, Calif. — He introduced himself as “the guy who got Mark Zuckerberg to wear a jacket and tie.”

“I’m very proud of that,” President Obama quipped as he walked onto a stage at Facebook headquarters on Wednesday, and sat next to Mr. Zuckerberg. Both men then proceeded to take off their jackets. About an hour later, Mr. Obama, whose visit here forced Silicon Valley types to button down a bit, left, taking with him a far more casual item of clothing that has become de rigueur in some tech circles: a hoodie given to him by Mr. Zuckerberg. Of course, the Facebook logo was printed on it.

In the interim, Mr. Obama conducted a town hall meeting at Facebook and on Facebook in front of a largely friendly audience. He took questions from company employees in a cavernous room turned into auditorium and from Facebook users over the social networking service, with Mr. Zuckerberg acting as moderator.

Mr. Obama delivered sharp attacks against Paul Ryan, the Wyoming Republican congressman who drafted a budget proposal heavy on spending cuts and tax cuts, and talked about the economy, health care, education and immigration reform.

Throughout the largely staged event, Mr. Obama and Mr. Zuckerberg appeared almost chummy with each other.

At one point, Mr. Zuckerberg praised Mr. Obama for his work on education. “I think the Race to the Top stuff that you guys have done is one of the most under-appreciated and most important things that your administration has done,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.

Mr. Obama returned the favor a few minutes later, praising Mr. Zuckerberg for his $100 million philanthropic gift to public schools in Newark, New Jersey. “Mark, the work you’re doing in Newark, for example, the work that the Gates Foundation are doing in philanthropic investments, in best practices and education — especially around math and science training — are going to be so important,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama hit on some of Silicon Valley’s favorite policy items, like the importance of math and science education and the need to make it possible for highly skilled immigrants to stay in the United States. ” If we’ve got smart people who want to come here and start businesses and are PhDs in math and science and computer science, why don’t we want them to say?” Mr. Obama asked. The crowd answered with an ovation.

“I think about somebody like an Andy Grove of Intel,” Mr. Obama continued. Mr. Grove, an immigrant from Hungary, is the former chief executive of Intel. “We want more Andy Groves here in the United States. We don’t want them starting companies — we don’t want them starting Intel in China or starting it in France. We want them starting it here.”

The audience was mostly Facebook employees with guests from the Valley’s technology and political establishment, including Democratic Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Mike Honda and John Garamendi, the investors Ron Conway and Mitch Kapor, and the entrepreneurs Tim O’Reilly and Kim Polese, among others.

After the event, Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to President Obama, and Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and former Clinton administration official, conducted a panel on women in technology.

The increasingly close relationship between Facebook and Washington worries some privacy advocates who fear it will allow the social networking company to escape government scrutiny. But Facebook, like Google before it, appears to have become irresistible to politicians who see it as a way to connect with young, tech-savvy audiences.

For all the chumminess between the two men, Mr. Obama’s influence on Mr. Zuckerberg appears limited, at least when it comes to sartorial matters. Sure, Mr. Zuckerberg donned a jacket (briefly) and wore a tie. But he left his shirt collar open, and wore jeans and running shoes.

A full transcript of the town hall is available here.

 

Bits: Obama and Facebook in Warm Embrace

PALO ALTO, Calif. — He introduced himself as “the guy who got Mark Zuckerberg to wear a jacket and tie.”

“I’m very proud of that,” President Obama quipped as he walked onto a stage at Facebook headquarters on Wednesday, and sat next to Mr. Zuckerberg. Both men then proceeded to take off their jackets. About an hour later, Mr. Obama, whose visit here forced Silicon Valley types to button down a bit, left, taking with him a far more casual item of clothing that has become de rigueur in some tech circles: a hoodie given to him by Mr. Zuckerberg. Of course, the Facebook logo was printed on it.

In the interim, Mr. Obama conducted a town hall meeting at Facebook and on Facebook in front of a largely friendly audience. He took questions from company employees in a cavernous room turned into auditorium and from Facebook users over the social networking service, with Mr. Zuckerberg acting as moderator.

Mr. Obama delivered sharp attacks against Paul Ryan, the Wyoming Republican congressman who drafted a budget proposal heavy on spending cuts and tax cuts, and talked about the economy, health care, education and immigration reform.

Throughout the largely staged event, Mr. Obama and Mr. Zuckerberg appeared almost chummy with each other.

At one point, Mr. Zuckerberg praised Mr. Obama for his work on education. “I think the Race to the Top stuff that you guys have done is one of the most under-appreciated and most important things that your administration has done,” Mr. Zuckerberg said.

Mr. Obama returned the favor a few minutes later, praising Mr. Zuckerberg for his $100 million philanthropic gift to public schools in Newark, New Jersey. “Mark, the work you’re doing in Newark, for example, the work that the Gates Foundation are doing in philanthropic investments, in best practices and education — especially around math and science training — are going to be so important,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Obama hit on some of Silicon Valley’s favorite policy items, like the importance of math and science education and the need to make it possible for highly skilled immigrants to stay in the United States. ” If we’ve got smart people who want to come here and start businesses and are PhDs in math and science and computer science, why don’t we want them to say?” Mr. Obama asked. The crowd answered with an ovation.

“I think about somebody like an Andy Grove of Intel,” Mr. Obama continued. Mr. Grove, an immigrant from Hungary, is the former chief executive of Intel. “We want more Andy Groves here in the United States. We don’t want them starting companies — we don’t want them starting Intel in China or starting it in France. We want them starting it here.”

The audience was mostly Facebook employees with guests from the Valley’s technology and political establishment, including Democratic Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Mike Honda and John Garamendi, the investors Ron Conway and Mitch Kapor, and the entrepreneurs Tim O’Reilly and Kim Polese, among others.

After the event, Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor to President Obama, and Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook and former Clinton administration official, conducted a panel on women in technology.

The increasingly close relationship between Facebook and Washington worries some privacy advocates who fear it will allow the social networking company to escape government scrutiny. But Facebook, like Google before it, appears to have become irresistible to politicians who see it as a way to connect with young, tech-savvy audiences.

For all the chumminess between the two men, Mr. Obama’s influence on Mr. Zuckerberg appears limited, at least when it comes to sartorial matters. Sure, Mr. Zuckerberg donned a jacket (briefly) and wore a tie. But he left his shirt collar open, and wore jeans and running shoes.

A full transcript of the town hall is available here.

 

Obama Panel to Curb Medicare Finds Foes in Both Parties

。

Mr. Obama wants to expand the power of the 15-member panel, which was created by the new health care law, to rein in Medicare costs.

But not only do Republicans and some Democrats oppose increasing the power of the board, they also want to eliminate it altogether. Opponents fear that the panel, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, would usurp Congressional spending power over one of the government’s most important and expensive social programs.

Under the law, spending cuts recommended by the presidentially appointed panel would take effect automatically unless Congress voted to block or change them. In general, federal courts could not review actions to carry out the board’s recommendations. The impact of the board’s decisions could be magnified because private insurers often use Medicare rates as a guide or a benchmark in paying doctors, hospitals and other providers.

Last week, in his speech on deficit reduction, Mr. Obama said he wanted to beef up the board’s cost-cutting powers in unspecified ways should the growth of Medicare spending exceed certain goals. Supporters say the board will be able to make tough decisions because it will be largely insulated from legislative politics.

Lawmakers do not agree. Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee, called it “a rationing board” and said Congress should not “delegate Medicare decision-making to 15 people appointed by the president.” He said Mr. Obama’s proposal would allow the board to “impose more price controls and more limitations on providers, which will end up cutting services to seniors.”

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who introduced a bill last month to repeal the Medicare board, said the president’s proposal “punts difficult decisions on health spending to an unelected, unaccountable board of bureaucrats.”

Representative Allyson Y. Schwartz, a Pennsylvania Democrat prominent on health care issues, said: “It’s our constitutional duty, as members of Congress, to take responsibility for Medicare and not turn decisions over to a board. Abdicating this responsibility, whether to insurance companies or to an unelected commission, undermines our ability to represent our constituents, including seniors and the disabled.”

Ms. Schwartz signed up on Friday as co-sponsor of a bill to repeal the board.

The purpose of the panel, according to the health care law, is to reduce the rate of growth in Medicare spending per beneficiary. The law sets annual goals — “target growth rates” — for Medicare spending below the average of the last 15 years.

Board members will be subject to Senate confirmation — no easy feat in the current political climate. Terms are six years. Members can serve no more than two full consecutive terms. The White House has yet to submit any nominations for the board.

“Why have legislators?” asked Representative Pete Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health.

In some ways, Mr. Stark said, expanding the power of the board could be as bad as giving vouchers to Medicare beneficiaries to buy private insurance. “In theory at least, you could set the vouchers at an adequate level,” he said. “But, in its effort to limit the growth of Medicare spending, the board is likely to set inadequate payment rates for health care providers, which could endanger patient care.”

Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat of Nevada, said she wanted to repeal the Medicare board. “I have great faith that this administration can put together a strong, independent and knowledgeable board,” Ms. Berkley said, but she said she had less confidence in future administrations.

Mark Parkinson, president of the American Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, said his members disliked the board because it would allow Congress and the president to “subcontract out difficult decisions.”

Still, the idea of a more potent Medicare board could be a live option if the White House insisted on it in budget negotiations with Congress.

Mr. Obama said last week that he would “reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments,” cut spending on prescription drugs and take other steps to save $500 billion in Medicare and Medicaid by 2023. “But if we’re wrong and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect,” he said, the Medicare board would have “the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.”

The president’s proposal would set stricter goals for Medicare spending and establish some type of automatic cost-cutting device as an “enforcement mechanism,” but Mr. Obama did not say exactly how it would work.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, described the board as a backstop to “ensure that health costs are reduced.” The board might not have to take action if the president’s other proposals slow the growth of Medicare spending, she said.

The board grew out of proposals by Mr. Obama and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia.

“Medicare payment policy should be determined by experts, using evidence, not by the undue influence of special interests,” Mr. Rockefeller said.

AARP, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association voiced concern about the president’s latest proposal.

“Relying on arbitrary spending targets is not a good way to make health policy, especially when decisions may be left to the unelected and unaccountable,” said A. Barry Rand, chief executive of AARP, the lobby for older Americans.

Under the law, the board cannot make recommendations to “ration health care,” raise revenues or increase beneficiaries’ premiums, deductibles or co-payments. This increases the likelihood that the board will try to save money by trimming Medicare payments to health care providers.

 

Plane With Michelle Obama Aborts Landing

The plane carrying the first lady, a military version of a Boeing 737, was three miles behind the C-17 but was supposed to be five miles behind, because of the possibility of encountering turbulence from the cargo plane’s wake. The planes were too close because of an error by a civilian air traffic controller at a low-altitude control center in Virginia, according to a government official involved in following up the incident. But the official described the event as “routine.”

The controller in Virginia, handing the approaching plane off to the control of controllers in the tower at Andrews, at first misstated the distance separating the two planes, saying that they were four miles apart when in fact the gap had closed to three miles, the official said.

To try to spread the planes apart, controllers ordered the plane carrying Mrs. Obama to maneuver in broad turns like the letter S, as one skier would do to avoid coming up on another too quickly from behind.

But that was not enough, and the controllers in the tower at Andrews ultimately ordered the Boeing to “go around” because they were concerned that the cargo jet would not have time to touch down, decelerate and exit the runway on a taxiway before the passenger plane crossed the runway threshold. That problem occurs dozens of times a day with airliners at civilian airports around the country, according to aviation experts.

The incident occurred just after 5 p.m. on Monday, the F.A.A. said in a statement, adding that “the aircraft were never in any danger.” The agency did not say in its statement that the problem was controller error.

The incident was first reported on the Web site of The Washington Post.

Airliners sometimes execute “go-arounds” because a pilot in the cockpit judges that the plane in front will not clear the runway soon enough; in this case, it was controllers in the tower at Andrews who ordered the plane carrying Mrs. Obama to go around. Although Andrews is a military field, all the controllers involved in this incident were F.A.A. employees.

“Go arounds” follow pre-established procedures that give the direction to turn and the altitude to which the plane should climb.

Following a big aircraft like a C-17 too closely is considered particularly risky at low altitude, when an upset would be more likely to lead to a crash. In this case, the altitude of the 737 was not immediately clear, but it was more than three miles from the runway threshold, because it was more than three miles behind the cargo jet and the cargo plane had not yet reached the runway, according to the government official.

While the aerial choreography in this case was not unusual, it comes after several weeks of high-profile problems in the air traffic system, which began in the Washington area.

On March 23, the sole controller on duty in the tower at Ronald Reagan National Airport, in Virginia across the Potomac River from Andrews, fell asleep at his post, and two arriving planes were unable to contact him. Both landed anyway. The controller on duty at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport in Nevada also failed to respond to calls from an incoming aircraft last week. And on Thursday, the official in charge of air traffic control, Henry P. Krakowski, the chief operating officer of the agency’s Air Traffic Organization, resigned.

At the time, the administrator of the F.A.A., J. Randolph Babbitt, said in a statement: “Over the last few weeks we have seen examples of unprofessional conduct on the part of a few individuals that have rightly caused the traveling public to question our ability to ensure their safety. This conduct must stop immediately.”

 

Obama Panel to Curb Medicare Finds Foes in Both Parties

 

Mr. Obama wants to expand the power of the 15-member panel, which was created by the new health care law, to rein in Medicare costs.

But not only do Republicans and some Democrats oppose increasing the power of the board, they also want to eliminate it altogether. Opponents fear that the panel, known as the Independent Payment Advisory Board, would usurp Congressional spending power over one of the government’s most important and expensive social programs.

Under the law, spending cuts recommended by the presidentially appointed panel would take effect automatically unless Congress voted to block or change them. In general, federal courts could not review actions to carry out the board’s recommendations. The impact of the board’s decisions could be magnified because private insurers often use Medicare rates as a guide or a benchmark in paying doctors, hospitals and other providers.

Last week, in his speech on deficit reduction, Mr. Obama said he wanted to beef up the board’s cost-cutting powers in unspecified ways should the growth of Medicare spending exceed certain goals. Supporters say the board will be able to make tough decisions because it will be largely insulated from legislative politics.

Lawmakers do not agree. Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the House Budget Committee, called it “a rationing board” and said Congress should not “delegate Medicare decision-making to 15 people appointed by the president.” He said Mr. Obama’s proposal would allow the board to “impose more price controls and more limitations on providers, which will end up cutting services to seniors.”

Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican who introduced a bill last month to repeal the Medicare board, said the president’s proposal “punts difficult decisions on health spending to an unelected, unaccountable board of bureaucrats.”

Representative Allyson Y. Schwartz, a Pennsylvania Democrat prominent on health care issues, said: “It’s our constitutional duty, as members of Congress, to take responsibility for Medicare and not turn decisions over to a board. Abdicating this responsibility, whether to insurance companies or to an unelected commission, undermines our ability to represent our constituents, including seniors and the disabled.”

Ms. Schwartz signed up on Friday as co-sponsor of a bill to repeal the board.

The purpose of the panel, according to the health care law, is to reduce the rate of growth in Medicare spending per beneficiary. The law sets annual goals — “target growth rates” — for Medicare spending below the average of the last 15 years.

Board members will be subject to Senate confirmation — no easy feat in the current political climate. Terms are six years. Members can serve no more than two full consecutive terms. The White House has yet to submit any nominations for the board.

“Why have legislators?” asked Representative Pete Stark of California, the senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health.

In some ways, Mr. Stark said, expanding the power of the board could be as bad as giving vouchers to Medicare beneficiaries to buy private insurance. “In theory at least, you could set the vouchers at an adequate level,” he said. “But, in its effort to limit the growth of Medicare spending, the board is likely to set inadequate payment rates for health care providers, which could endanger patient care.”

Representative Shelley Berkley, Democrat of Nevada, said she wanted to repeal the Medicare board. “I have great faith that this administration can put together a strong, independent and knowledgeable board,” Ms. Berkley said, but she said she had less confidence in future administrations.

Mark Parkinson, president of the American Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes, said his members disliked the board because it would allow Congress and the president to “subcontract out difficult decisions.”

Still, the idea of a more potent Medicare board could be a live option if the White House insisted on it in budget negotiations with Congress.

Mr. Obama said last week that he would “reduce wasteful subsidies and erroneous payments,” cut spending on prescription drugs and take other steps to save $500 billion in Medicare and Medicaid by 2023. “But if we’re wrong and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect,” he said, the Medicare board would have “the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.”

The president’s proposal would set stricter goals for Medicare spending and establish some type of automatic cost-cutting device as an “enforcement mechanism,” but Mr. Obama did not say exactly how it would work.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, described the board as a backstop to “ensure that health costs are reduced.” The board might not have to take action if the president’s other proposals slow the growth of Medicare spending, she said.

The board grew out of proposals by Mr. Obama and Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia.

“Medicare payment policy should be determined by experts, using evidence, not by the undue influence of special interests,” Mr. Rockefeller said.

AARP, the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association voiced concern about the president’s latest proposal.

“Relying on arbitrary spending targets is not a good way to make health policy, especially when decisions may be left to the unelected and unaccountable,” said A. Barry Rand, chief executive of AARP, the lobby for older Americans.

Under the law, the board cannot make recommendations to “ration health care,” raise revenues or increase beneficiaries’ premiums, deductibles or co-payments. This increases the likelihood that the board will try to save money by trimming Medicare payments to health care providers.

 

Wyoming’s Boom Poses Challenges For Obama

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“Things are picking up,” said Cody Chase, 24, who had just finished an overtime shift at a coal mine north of here and was having a 7 a.m. burrito and beer at a downtown breakfast joint. Hours at the mine are up, said Mr. Chase, who makes $26 an hour after less than a year on the job, and new workers have started coming on.

It is the sort of talk that should warm the hearts of political leaders, including President Obama, as he prepares his re-election campaign. He might even expect to get a little boost from it.

But that does not appear to be in the cards in Wyoming, where he received only 32.5 percent of the vote in 2008, his weakest performance in the nation.

Republicans, who dominate Wyoming politics and culture, are loath to give Mr. Obama credit for good economic news. And environmentalists, who filed a lawsuit this month challenging the entire coal-leasing system, say they think he has failed to live up to his promises on carbon and climate change.

The bottom-line message is that the climb out from this recession, if Wyoming is any measure, could be as politically turbulent as the descent.

Economists say administration policies to reduce imported energy, along with higher commodity prices, are bolstering what Wyoming has to offer — natural gas and oil, coal so near the surface it can be harvested without underground mines and endless wind for electricity turbines.

Just last month, Mr. Obama’s interior secretary, Ken Salazar, came to Wyoming to announce the timetable for billions of dollars in new coal leases near Gillette, in the state’s northeast corner. Some coal industry boosters saw that as a strong signal of support — coming less than two weeks after the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis — for traditional energy as the backbone of the national supply.

But many other residents here say they still see Mr. Obama as the enemy of Wyoming’s mineral bounty.

“He’s perceived as the energy killer,” said Barrett K. Norris, co-owner of Thunder Basin Homes, a manufactured housing company in Gillette.

Mr. Norris said that by his company’s measure, Wyoming had a very mild eight-month economic slowdown. And in the last few months, the demand for housing — a proxy for energy markets since the local economy swings by those rhythms — is back at full throttle. Even cattle ranching, tough in the best of times, is showing strength.

“But I don’t know anybody who voted for him or likes him,” Mr. Norris said of the president.

L. J. Turner, a rancher south of Gillette, also sees the energy sector accelerating into a gallop. But he fears that prospect, especially the impact on air and water from the mines, and the loss of public grazing lands, all of which, he said, affects the 10,000-acre spread homesteaded by his father and grandparents. He voted for Mr. Obama but feels let down.

“I thought he’d be more of an environmentalist,” Mr. Turner said.

Whether Washington has a coherent energy policy in the West — and whether it could ravage Wyoming as a resource provider or send its economy to the stratosphere — is also up for debate.

The administrator of the State Economic Analysis Division, Buck McVeigh, said he thought Mr. Salazar’s visit, talking about coal so soon after the Japan quake, was a subtle but powerful message that Wyoming’s role as the nation’s biggest coal provider was not going away.

The Wyoming Mining Association, a lobby group that represents both coal and drilling interests, read things much the same way.

“He’s recognized reality,” the group’s executive director, Marion Loomis, said of Mr. Obama.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Salazar, Kendra Barkoff, said that the timing of the announcement was coincidental.

But she said there was no doubt that Wyoming’s broad portfolio of energy sources, from coal, oil and gas to wind and geothermal, made the state crucial in Mr. Obama’s plan to reduce the nation’s reliance on imported fuels.

Wyoming, with all minerals combined, is a bigger source of thermal energy for the rest of the nation than Canada or Saudi Arabia, let alone any other American state, according to a study several years ago by the Wyoming State Geological Survey.

And a comfortable home for fat state budgets. As many other states look at cuts and layoffs to make ends meet, Wyoming’s mineral severance tax collections last year were the third-highest ever, trailing only the boom years of 2006 and 2008.

But there is also perhaps an older, deeper theme at work. A long constant of the culture in this vast state has been the view that powerful forces — from the railroads in the late 1800s through Wall Street and Washington in the modern era — are out there pulling the strings, and usually they are not to be trusted too much.

That perspective flows through the state’s politics, too, whether the subject is big coal or big politicians.

“If only they could do it in a way that didn’t step over all the little people,” said Karla Oksanen, a Gillette resident who has battled the mines over air quality issues.

Some residents agreed that national energy policies might just be benefiting the West just now.

But Travis Norberg, a 34-year-old coal miner, said economics formed only part of his critique. He said he was proud of his job and happy with the paycheck. But the federal health care overhaul, Mr. Norberg said, is a huge stumbling block to ever thinking favorably about Democrats.

“I just don’t agree with it,” he said.

But in a state where hard-fisted industry and Republican values are so intertwined, even some of those who like Mr. Obama are not eager to speak up.

“I don’t need the trouble,” said a railroad engineer who defended the president, then declined to give his name.

 

Wyoming’s Boom Poses Challenges For Obama

“Things are picking up,” said Cody Chase, 24, who had just finished an overtime shift at a coal mine north of here and was having a 7 a.m. burrito and beer at a downtown breakfast joint. Hours at the mine are up, said Mr. Chase, who makes $26 an hour after less than a year on the job, and new workers have started coming on.

It is the sort of talk that should warm the hearts of political leaders, including President Obama, as he prepares his re-election campaign. He might even expect to get a little boost from it.

But that does not appear to be in the cards in Wyoming, where he received only 32.5 percent of the vote in 2008, his weakest performance in the nation.

Republicans, who dominate Wyoming politics and culture, are loath to give Mr. Obama credit for good economic news. And environmentalists, who filed a lawsuit this month challenging the entire coal-leasing system, say they think he has failed to live up to his promises on carbon and climate change.

The bottom-line message is that the climb out from this recession, if Wyoming is any measure, could be as politically turbulent as the descent.

Economists say administration policies to reduce imported energy, along with higher commodity prices, are bolstering what Wyoming has to offer — natural gas and oil, coal so near the surface it can be harvested without underground mines and endless wind for electricity turbines.

Just last month, Mr. Obama’s interior secretary, Ken Salazar, came to Wyoming to announce the timetable for billions of dollars in new coal leases near Gillette, in the state’s northeast corner. Some coal industry boosters saw that as a strong signal of support — coming less than two weeks after the Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis — for traditional energy as the backbone of the national supply.

But many other residents here say they still see Mr. Obama as the enemy of Wyoming’s mineral bounty.

“He’s perceived as the energy killer,” said Barrett K. Norris, co-owner of Thunder Basin Homes, a manufactured housing company in Gillette.

Mr. Norris said that by his company’s measure, Wyoming had a very mild eight-month economic slowdown. And in the last few months, the demand for housing — a proxy for energy markets since the local economy swings by those rhythms — is back at full throttle. Even cattle ranching, tough in the best of times, is showing strength.

“But I don’t know anybody who voted for him or likes him,” Mr. Norris said of the president.

L. J. Turner, a rancher south of Gillette, also sees the energy sector accelerating into a gallop. But he fears that prospect, especially the impact on air and water from the mines, and the loss of public grazing lands, all of which, he said, affects the 10,000-acre spread homesteaded by his father and grandparents. He voted for Mr. Obama but feels let down.

“I thought he’d be more of an environmentalist,” Mr. Turner said.

Whether Washington has a coherent energy policy in the West — and whether it could ravage Wyoming as a resource provider or send its economy to the stratosphere — is also up for debate.

The administrator of the State Economic Analysis Division, Buck McVeigh, said he thought Mr. Salazar’s visit, talking about coal so soon after the Japan quake, was a subtle but powerful message that Wyoming’s role as the nation’s biggest coal provider was not going away.

The Wyoming Mining Association, a lobby group that represents both coal and drilling interests, read things much the same way.

“He’s recognized reality,” the group’s executive director, Marion Loomis, said of Mr. Obama.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Salazar, Kendra Barkoff, said that the timing of the announcement was coincidental.

But she said there was no doubt that Wyoming’s broad portfolio of energy sources, from coal, oil and gas to wind and geothermal, made the state crucial in Mr. Obama’s plan to reduce the nation’s reliance on imported fuels.

Wyoming, with all minerals combined, is a bigger source of thermal energy for the rest of the nation than Canada or Saudi Arabia, let alone any other American state, according to a study several years ago by the Wyoming State Geological Survey.

And a comfortable home for fat state budgets. As many other states look at cuts and layoffs to make ends meet, Wyoming’s mineral severance tax collections last year were the third-highest ever, trailing only the boom years of 2006 and 2008.

But there is also perhaps an older, deeper theme at work. A long constant of the culture in this vast state has been the view that powerful forces — from the railroads in the late 1800s through Wall Street and Washington in the modern era — are out there pulling the strings, and usually they are not to be trusted too much.

That perspective flows through the state’s politics, too, whether the subject is big coal or big politicians.

“If only they could do it in a way that didn’t step over all the little people,” said Karla Oksanen, a Gillette resident who has battled the mines over air quality issues.

Some residents agreed that national energy policies might just be benefiting the West just now.

But Travis Norberg, a 34-year-old coal miner, said economics formed only part of his critique. He said he was proud of his job and happy with the paycheck. But the federal health care overhaul, Mr. Norberg said, is a huge stumbling block to ever thinking favorably about Democrats.

“I just don’t agree with it,” he said.

But in a state where hard-fisted industry and Republican values are so intertwined, even some of those who like Mr. Obama are not eager to speak up.

“I don’t need the trouble,” said a railroad engineer who defended the president, then declined to give his name.

 

Obama: Restoring Fiscal Responsibility a Shared Sacrifice

 VOA News ?April 16, 2011

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden meet with the co-chairmen of the president's deficit reduction commission, including Alan Simpson, right, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, April 14, 2011

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has approved a budget plan that imposes dramatic spending cuts on several domestic programs, including those that provide health coverage for the elderly.

Republicans won passage of the non-binding plan Friday in a 235 to 193 vote, with all Democrats in the chamber voting against it.

The Republican plan proposes cutting the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years.

President Barack Obama condemned the Republican plan a few days ago, and presented his own plan aimed at cutting $4 trillion from the deficit over 12 years.

In his weekly address Saturday, Obama said cutting education and entitlements for seniors while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans does not represent a shared sacrifice.

The president's proposal includes cutting spending and raising taxes on wealthy Americans.

The Republican plan is based on tax cuts and sharp cuts in non-defense spending.

Mr. Obama says defense spending is an area where more savings can be realized.? The president also says health care spending could be reduced through reform instead of deep cuts in Medicaid and Medicare, health care programs for the poor and the elderly.

In the weekly Republican address, Senator Tom Coburn says President Obama's plan rations health care, giving too much control to those who manage Medicaid and Medicare.

Coburn says the Republican plan would save Medicare by giving patients currently under 55 years of age access to health care equal to what members of Congress receive.

He said the plan would also provide states with grants to help the poorest patients.

The debate between plans is expected to be intensive as the issue moves to the Senate.

[All VOA blogs...]

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Obama: Free Trade Agreement a 'Win-Win' for US, Colombia

 Kent Klein | White House ?April 07, 2011

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, Thursday, April 7, 2011, in the White House

President Barack Obama says a free trade agreement reached between the United States and Colombia will benefit both countries’ economies.? Obama met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Thursday.? ?

After the meeting President Obama said the new trade deal will help protect workers’ rights in Colombia and boost the U.S. economy. ?

"This represents a potential $1 billion of exports and it could mean thousands of jobs for workers here in the United States.? And so I believe that we can structure a trade agreement that is a 'win-win' for both our countries," Obama said.

White House officials announced the agreement on Wednesday, after Colombia agreed to do more to ensure workers’ rights and protect union organizers from violence.

President Santos said the breakthrough on the free trade pact will help boost Colombia’s economy and strengthen its democracy.

"We have been working on getting a green light for this to go to Congress for five years, and we got that green light today.? This is a very important event for Colombia," Santos said.

The U.S. Congress must approve the agreement before it can take effect. ?

Democratic and Republican lawmakers have expressed support for the agreement, as have major U.S. business leaders.? The top Republican in the U.S. Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Thursday that his party has been urging Mr. Obama to advance this and other free trade agreements for more than two years.

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea could provide up to 380,000 U.S. jobs.? And we know that this deal alone would create tens of thousands of new jobs here in this country," McConnell said.

The U.S. signed free trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea in 2007.? But lawmakers have not voted on them, and the Obama administration renegotiated some parts of the agreements.

Officials in Washington were especially concerned that Colombia was not protecting workers’ rights or the safety of union leaders.

President Obama said Thursday that those concerns are being addressed.

"We are going to continue to engage with President Santos and his administration in an active process to ensure good working conditions, to make sure that trade unionists are protected, to make sure that we are creating a level playing field for business and workers, here and around the world," he said.

Obama also said he looks forward to visiting Colombia for next year’s Summit of the Americas.

[All VOA blogs...]

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Watch Todd Grosshan's report - "What is Radioactivity?"