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Obama Speech: The Best is Yet to Come
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2009 Comment (31)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
We just got a briefing on what President Obama plans to say in his first address to Congress tonight. "Tonight, he wants to be like the doctor helping to diagnose and then heal a sick patient," said a congressional official who joined others in a briefing from White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "They want to tie together everything they've laid out over the past few weeks and make the case to America that, 'We're on the ball,'" said the official.
Including applause, Obama plans to talk for 50-60 minutes, the typical length for a State of the Union address, although it's not called that because Obama hasn't been in office long enough to size up the state of the union. As of 4:28 p.m., Obama was still working on his address with his speechwriters, but it generally has four sections.
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Obama's Internet Buzz Slumps With Economy
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2009 Comment (5)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
A month on the job, and President Obama's poll ratings continue to be good. But our friends at Zeta Interactive, who mine blogs with their Zeta Buzz technology, find that the buzz is gone, though the prez is still big news. "President Obama is clinging to cloud nine for his dear life," says Zeta spokesperson Sean Carney. Here's what he tells us after conducting an exhaustive online search of postings about the president on some 100 million blogs and online communities:
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Morning Joe Tours Robert Gibbs's Closet, Tries to Sneak Into Oval Office
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2009 Comment (3)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
It can now be revealed: White House spokesman Robert Gibbs not only has the best collection of pastel neckties, but he keeps a set in his White House office in case his mood changes. We know thanks to the stars of MSNBC's Morning Joe , who got a quickie tour of the White House press office and Gibbs's haunt. In this video provided by MSNBC, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski take a live tour with Gibbs through the lower press office and upper press office, even trying to sneak into the Oval Office. Along the way, they pick up bits of history and color. For one: President Obama gave Gibbs's 5-year-old son models of Air Force One and Marine One. We learn that several former spokesmen gave Gibbs hours of advice, a key tip being: Don't take questions personally. We also see his closet and his ties, and he reveals the grueling schedule that starts at 6 a.m. every day.
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For Obama's Presidential Library Early Bets Are On University of Chicago
Tweet Share on Facebook February 24, 2009 Comment (3)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Here's something else for President Obama's crowded inbox: picking a school to host his post-presidential library and museum. "John F. Kennedy started thinking about his during his first year," says Benjamin Hufbauer, author of Presidential Temples : How Memorials and Libraries Shape Public Memory. Early betting is that Obama will favor the University of Chicago, where he taught law.
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Dana Perino: E-mail Changed the Way News is Gathered
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2009 Comment (6)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
The Internet hasn't just changed how the news is delivered. It has also changed how it's collected. Former White House press secretary Dana Perino says that when she got into the business, some 97 percent of all queries came in a phone call. "Now, that's flipped," she says. And while that has cut down on misquotes, it's put a damper on personal relationships between reporters and sources. "There's something about interaction," she says. Consider the numbers. After cleaning out her E-mail inbox one weekend in her last month, she found 2,071 new E-mails waiting for her the following Monday, mostly from reporters. "E-mails are a blessing and a curse."
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Why Chris Matthews Won't Run for Senate
Tweet Share on Facebook February 22, 2009 Comment (72)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd has a theory on why MSNBC's Hardball host Chris Matthews begged off from running for the Pennsylvania Senate seat held by Republican Arlen Specter. "Because [Chris] had a really good friend of his say to him, 'What are you going to do when you get there?' and he couldn't answer the question and he realized that, and that's why he didn't run," says Todd. "It was a childhood dream to be a senator, but he didn't know what he was going to do if he got there." It was the same for 2008 presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain, says the coauthor of How Barack Obama Won. "They never knew why they wanted to be president."
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Democrats: We Should Get Obama Jobs, Not Republicans and Reporters
Tweet Share on Facebook February 21, 2009 Comment (19)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
There's grumbling in some wings of the Democratic Party about the Obama administration's appointment of Republicans and reporters to key jobs. It began with Obama's pick of GOP lawmakers as cabinet secretaries, a trend that appears to have ended with the surprise of Republican Sen. Judd Gregg's withdrawal as nominee for commerce secretary. But now lower-level aides are voicing anger at the naming of journalists to top agency communications jobs that Democratic spokespeople thought they'd have first dibs on. "It's strange that being a reporter or a Republican seems to be the best qualifications to get a job," says one irked Democratic job-seeker.
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Sarah Palin and the Miss America Scholarship Fund
Tweet Share on Facebook February 21, 2009 Comment (18)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
She has touched the upper rung of American politics, but Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hasn't forgotten what got her there. Even the more embarrassing moments. Case in point: Taking second place in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant, where she strutted the stage in a cherry-red, one-piece bathing suit and heels. While a bit bashful about her beauty queen past, her runner-up status made her Alaska's backup for the Miss America Pageant, qualifying her for the group's scholarship fund. The former GOP vice presidential nominee gushed about how the money gave her the start she needed.
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Zogby Says Obama Stimulus Strategy Was Wrong
Tweet Share on Facebook February 20, 2009 Comment (29)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
National pollster John Zogby, who is out with a new poll, says President Obama should have written his own stimulus bill, with GOP input, in order to win a package that the public would fully endorse. "Clearly the president made a mistake," he said in a telephone interview. "He should have come in with his own legislation." As a result, he said, the public saw partisanship rule in Washington over the stimulus debate and they are now as divided on the overall package. "The public is not in love with the stimulus," says Zogby, who added that Congress continues to suffer from a bad public perception despite a small bump in their approval rating. "The public has made it clear that they wanted to do something without the bickering but what they got was hyperpartisanship. And now they are hyper-partisan in how they look at it and talk about it." His comments come as Republican leadership aides tell Whispers that they still believe that Obama is serious in forging bipartisan relations. Their advice on the next piece of major legislation: Instead of letting Democrats write the bill, form a bipartisan panel where both sides can cut a deal that the president can agree to.
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For Obama's Surgeon General, Elders Looks Past Masturbation to National Healthcare
Tweet Share on Facebook February 19, 2009 Comment (13)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Sanjay Gupta, CNN's on-air doctor now bidding to become President Obama's U.S. surgeon general, has won the endorsement of the most controversial doctor to hold that position: Jocelyn Elders. The former surgeon general who supported teen masturbation and condom use calls the TV doctor an excellent communicator. "This country needs a surgeon general," she told our Suzi Parker. "It needs someone to be able to stand up and be an advocate for the people of this country. You aren't the Congress's surgeon general. You aren't the president's surgeon general. You're the people's surgeon general."
