The House is racing to get outta Dodge this afternoon and despite rampant senioritis on the Hill, Speaker Pelosi kept enough members here long enough to pass H.R. 3435 to provide an additional $2 billion in stimulus funds to the wildly successful cash for clunkers program. The vote was bipartisan, passing 316-109 with six voting present, …
White House
Barack Obama Polls Like Normal Presidents
Early in the 2008 presidential cycle, I followed then ex-Virginia Gov. Mark Warner around a Las Vegas casino. He kept saying phrases like “Transformative change as opposed to incremental change.” It was at about that moment that I decided the adjective “transformative” does not mean anything in politics. It only sounds like it means …
Health Insurance Reform?
My cover story on health care reform in this week’s TIME focuses in part on this famously eloquent President’s frustration at his inability to come up with a message at a time when, as he acknowledges, public opinion is slipping away from him. (Also, be sure you don’t miss Kate Pickert’s excellent click-through guide of what health …
The Beer Heard Around The World
Four men sat at a table drinking beer–the most photographed beer in the world. That is pretty much all there is to say, which is just how President Barack Obama wants it.
Across the Rose Garden lawn, on a small landing outside the Oval Office, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs and Vice Presidential Spokesman Jay Carney stood there …
1,000 Words
From our White House Photo Blog and fellow Swamplander Brooks Kraft:
Re: Not So Fast
Pushback on yet another front: The emerging deal the bipartisan negotiators of the Finance Committee (whom some of their colleagues have begun to refer to as “the Coalition of the Willing“) isn’t going over so well with all the Democrats on the panel.
Senator Jay Rockefeller, who chairs Finance’s health subcommittee (and who hasn’t …
Obama Health Care Interview
Yesterday afternoon, I sat down the President Obama in the Oval Office to discuss the state of his health care reform effort. TIME.com has a few excerpts here. There will be more (much more) online in the coming days, and in the upcoming edition of the print magazine.
1,000 Words
From our White House Photo Blog, this powerful photo by our new Swampland colleague Brooks Kraft, taken at an anniversary event for the Americans with Disabilities Act in the East Room:
Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska
So, Sarah Palin, as planned, is no longer a public official. She went out with a few fireworks yesterday:
And first, some straight talk for some, just some in the media because another right protected for all of us is freedom of the press, and you all have such important jobs reporting facts and informing the electorate, and exerting
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Biden: To Russia, With No Love
Vice President Joe Biden was in Ukraine and Georgia last week to reassure the former U.S.S.R. counties that President Obama’s emphasis on rebuilding relations with Moscow doesn’t mean that U.S. has forgotten about their sovereignty. On the way home, Biden had some colorful comments for the Wall Street Journal:
“Russia has to make
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Health Care: Are the Republicans Negotiating for Real?
That was the question I had for White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, when a group of journalists met with him this afternoon at the White House. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has infuriated his Democratic colleagues in the Senate with his insistence on continuing to try to get a health care deal that a few …
Obama Reviews the Marines
The President seems unsure when to salute at the July 24 Evening parade at the Marine Corps Barracks in Washington.
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Hatch to Vote No on Sotomayor
Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the top Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, today said he would not vote for President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. The decision is a surprising blow to Sotomayor as Hatch not only voted for the last 12 nominees to the bench — Republican or Democrat — but he also …