Morning Must Reads: Prague

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President Barack Obama is greeted by a large crowd following his Prague speech April 5, 2009, in Hradcany Square in Prague, Czech Republic. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

–President Obama heads to the Czech Republic on Wednesday night. He’s returning to the site of his April, 2009 speech on  nonproliferation to sign a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia and generally talk up American nuclear policy ahead of next week’s summit in Washington.

–Bibi will return to D.C. for the nuclear summit.

Joshua Green thinks Larry Summers will depart the White House sooner rather than later.

Felix Salmon smartly points out the administration will need to be very careful handling his exit if he moves on to a high-paying Wall Street job.

–The Republican National Committee reports raising $11.4 million in March, a strong showing for this point in the cycle and Steele’s most successful month to date. But between the DNC out-raising them, every story mentioning recent controversy and headlines like this, there’s not much good press in it for the chairman.

–The Daily Caller has another potential scoop to give Steele a headache.

–As Steele is marginalized, it will be interesting to see if/how Haley Barbour’s clout grows. The Mississippi governor and Republican Governors Association chair is thought of as one of the sharpest political minds in the party, and more cash will be flowing around the RNC to the already flush RGA. If this year’s 37 governor’s races go well for the GOP, Barbour could emerge as somewhat of a kingmaker.

–A new Quinnipiac poll shows Arlen Specter with a big lead over Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania Senate primary. Never underestimate the power of name recognition and establishment support.

–The Boston Globe sees a resurgent Deval Patrick.

Paul Volcker says a value added tax may be necessary to address the long term deficit. A VAT is not a novel idea, but it’s the first I’ve heard about it from an administration figure. It’s fairly toxic politically (if you think you heard loud screams of European socialism over health care, just wait until someone brings this up), but I’d be interested to see what Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles have to say.

–The White House is pressuring China on multiple fronts. Geithner is headed over to try to convince them to loosen their grip on the yuan’s value and they’re still desperately trying to win Chinese cooperation for U.N. sanctions against Iran. Obama is scheduled to meet with Hu Jintao at next week’s nuclear summit in Washington.

And Daid Leonhardt looks at the lingering problem of over-treatment and the difficult task of saying no.

What did I miss?