Try as I might to keep my string going, I could find no photos of Richard Nixon celebrating the New Year. Except for this one, which really doesn’t count, because it’s Chinese New Year.
But we do have this one of how the shamans of Peru are marking the occasion. (For more of an explanation, go to our White House Photo Blog.)
President Obama is now calling what happened on Christmas Day a “systemic failure.” In the cover story of the new issue of dead-tree TIME, Michael Duffy and Mark Thompson tell us what we can learn from Flight 253. And Amanda Ripley explores how regular people turn into heroes at times like this.
UPDATE: A number of Swampland …
Over at TIME.com, fellow Swampers Kate Pickert, Amy Sullivan and I look forward to some of the issues that will be important as the House and Senate attempt to reconcile their two versions of the bill.
This is way more than 1,000 words. In this photo essay for LIFE, Brooks Kraft gives us an inside view of the lives of the Secret Service agents who protect the President. It’s worth a clickthrough, though this one is my favorite.
NOTE: On Sunday, CBO changed its long-term estimates of cost savings, which it said were based on a misunderstanding of this bill. Please see this update.)
Given the drama and suspense of the past few weeks, it’s understandable that the first round of commentary about the new Senate health bill would focus on the deals that Majority …
From the President’s trip to an Alexandria, Va., Home Depot the other day. (H/T @delrayser, who called this one to my attention):
In the Person of the Year issue that was unveiled this morning, I have this profile of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi came in at #4 in the estimation of our editors. She is not only the highest ranking woman in the history of this country, standing second in line of succession to the presidency, but congressional scholars …
If the changes in the health care bill are indeed enough to bring Joe Lieberman aboard, it looks as though we are back to the point where all eyes are on Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson as potentially the 60th vote to bring the bill over the finish line in the Senate. As you might imagine, Nelson is getting pressure from all sides. One of …
The well-sourced Carrie Budoff Brown is reporting this at Politico:
The White House is encouraging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to cut a deal with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), which would mean eliminating the proposed Medicare expansion in the health reform bill, according to an official close to the
…
As recently as October, the conservative view of Barack Obama’s foreign policy had little nuance: The president was seen as weak, apologetic, and deferential, someone who was voluntarily abandoning America’s preeminent role as a world power. Charles Krauthammer stated the case in an address, called Decline Is A Choice, at the Manhattan …
The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber has a piece up this morning describing the bipolar economic pressures that the White House is now struggling with: the need for more stimulus spending vs. the need for less deficit spending. (I also have a piece in the next issue of the magazine–subscribe here $1.99 for six weeks–on the same topic.) …
Congressman Peter King had an awkward moment at the White House Monday night. Climbing the stairs in the East Wing to attend the President’s Holiday reception for Congress, the New York Republican bumped into White House Social Secretary Desiree Rogers. The two exchanged pleasantries, never mentioning that King, the top Republican on …
