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Harry Reid Likes Obama's No-Macho Afghanistan Plan
Tweet Share on Facebook March 27, 2009 Comment (7)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
President Barack Obama's methodical approach to addressing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is winning him strong support among Democrats in Congress. "There's no chest thumping, there's no 'Bring it on,' there's no 'Mission accomplished,' " Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a media breakfast roundtable. Instead, he said, Obama is "stressing things that should have been stressed" before. Specifically, Reid welcomed Obama's announcement today of the deployment of some 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan. Reid said that the Afghan Army is better than the Iraqi Army and that the trainers should have a big impact on improving the military conditions there. He also said that Obama's approach is more comprehensive than that taken by former President Bush. He noted that Obama is beefing up U.S. agricultural aid, and not just in programs to eradicate poppy farming for drugs. The senator said that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has been involved in developing an agriculture plan for Afghanistan. "I am satisfied with what's going on in Afghanistan," Reid said.
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Justice Souter: Students Don't Know the Basic Structure of Government
Tweet Share on Facebook March 27, 2009 Comment (5)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
For many students, civics class stinks. Even U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter thinks so. "It was dull as ditch water, but by the time it was over, one knew something about the three branches and so on, and it was at least a structure upon which, as one grew, knowledge could be hung," he says. But "that is no longer true." He knows because he, Justice Stephen Breyer, and former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who now heads an online civics education site, spoke at a Georgetown University Law School conference a while back. "What we came away knowing from that conference was the problem that we have to face and deal with was not one of the ignorance of the judiciary," Souter reveals, "but the ignorance of governmental structures as a whole."
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Secret Service Concedes Inauguration Crowd Slip-Ups
Tweet Share on Facebook March 26, 2009 Comment (4)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
Disappointed inauguration purple-ticket holders are finally getting answers as to why they were left shivering for hours in the "Purple Tunnel of Doom" instead of witnessing Barack Obama's historic speech January 20. Apparently law enforcement had looked for the swarming crowds in the wrong tunnel, says U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan. At a House hearing this week, he said that pedestrians were supposed to use the southbound Third Street Tunnel to get to the inaugural festivities, while the northbound tunnel was to be closed to the public and reserved for emergency vehicle use only. But that didn't happen because the truck carrying crowd barriers was vandalized and didn't show up in time. The result: Purple-ticket holders began using the north tunnel. "I believe what happened is that people who got queued up in that line felt that that line was going to lead to the purple gate," Sullivan said. That's not all. When those stuck in the tunnel tried calling police to alert them to the problem, law enforcement, under the impression that the north tunnel had been closed, simply checked the south tunnel. "Believe it or not, nobody took a look at the north tunnel," Sullivan admitted. To which Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz exclaimed, "That's a big ball to drop."
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Did Obama Diss Fox's Major Garrett at His News Conference?
Tweet Share on Facebook March 26, 2009 Comment (14)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
He got called on at Tuesday's prime-time press conference, so President Obama probably doesn't hate Fox News Channel's Major Garrett. But the president does have a major—lowercase—tic when it comes to Garrett's name. When reading from a cheat sheet Tuesday, he called out "Major Garrett," but that was shortened to Garrett when Obama looked at the newsman for a follow-up. Then yesterday, Obama referred to the reporter in a face-to-face event as "Garrett." After Major told him his first name, the prez said choosing Garrett was "a sign of affection." And Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs tells Garrett he was a first with a presidential nickname. Says Major: "I told Gibbs I would take 'Garrett' happily because [White House Chief of Staff] Rahm Emanuel probably has a less friendly one for me."
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Americans United for Change Pushes Obama's Budget in TV Ads
Tweet Share on Facebook March 25, 2009 Comment (9)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
In its largest national ad buy ever, the progressive pro-Obama group Americans United for Change says that it plans to spend some $700,000 in a TV campaign starting today to promote President Obama's budget campaign. "The work that begins this week on President Obama's budget is by far the most significant in shaping the president's transformational commitments to healthcare reform, education, and clean energy," says Tom McMahon, the group's acting executive director. In a statement to Whispers, he added, "This ad is designed to engage the American people in the process of bringing about the transformational change they voted for in November by contacting their elected representatives and asking for their help in putting our country on the road to prosperity. It is our hope that Congress gets the boost it needs to stand up to the special interests that will do anything to maintain the failed policies of the last eight years that were entirely stacked in their favor and that turned our economy into a house of cards."
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Act Your Age! Barney Frank Barks at CodePink Ladies
Tweet Share on Facebook March 25, 2009 Comment (11)By Amanda Ruggeri, Washington Whispers
Missing in all the coverage yesterday dominated by President Obama's press conference and his economic team seeking expanded bank-seizing authority was the craziness at the AIG hearings before Rep. Barney Frank's Financial Services Committee. The setting: Before the committee were Fed chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner talking about the economy and their bank plan. Behind them in the audience were the always outspoken CodePink women, an antiwar grass-roots organization that has expanded its attentions from Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to dogging Democrats on economic policies.
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CIA Director Leon Panetta: Hollywood's Got the CIA Wrong
Tweet Share on Facebook March 24, 2009 Comment (6)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
He's been on the job only a month, but new CIA Director Leon Panetta is fast becoming familiar with life as the nation's top spy. Returning home from his first trip to countries that included India and Pakistan, he issued a note to his troops that captured both the odd nature of the job and his pride in the CIA's workforce. "For all of you who have ever been on a [foreign assignment] and called home to say, 'Honey, I can't tell you where I am, who I'm with, or what I'm doing, but I'm fine,' I now have a better sense of what you go through," Panetta said in the memo dispatched while flying home. "I came away incredibly impressed by the professionalism and dedication of our Agency personnel, many serving in dangerous locations away from their families," he added.
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Maria Shriver Falls Back Into Reporter's Role
Tweet Share on Facebook March 24, 2009 Comment (1)By Nikki Schwab, Washington Whispers
She said she was done and would not return to the media. But that didn't stop California's first lady and former NBC journo Maria Shriver from dipping her toes back in recently when it involved a topic she cared intimately about. Shriver produced a new HBO documentary series, The Alzheimer's Project, which includes four longer films and 15 short ones detailing different aspects of the disease. She also appears in one, Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am? based on a book she wrote several years ago. For Shriver, Alzheimer's is personal. Her dad, Sargent Shriver, is suffering from the disease.
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Watergate-era Infighting at the Washington Post
Tweet Share on Facebook March 24, 2009 Comment (4)By Amanda Ruggeri, Washington Whispers
There are still Watergate tales to be told, it seems. The latest comes from Leonard Downie, the just retired Washington Post editor who was the metro desk boss of Watergate scoop-men Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. While the duo sometimes tangled for control of the daily lead, Downie reveals that the national and metro news desks also fought over the story that ended Richard Nixon's presidency. When the story got big, the Post's national desk editor tried to take it. "I nearly decked him," Downie says. Of course, top editor Ben Bradlee let "Woodstein" keep the story. "And that's where some of the egos were bruised on the national staff," says Downie.
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Democrats Gear Up to Sell Obama Agenda
Tweet Share on Facebook March 24, 2009 Comment (2)By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
The Democratic National Committee is about to crank up the speakers. As part of its campaign to sell President Obama's agenda, DNC HQ will double the size of its communications and research operation to make sure that even tiny, local pro-Obama efforts, like the weekend nationwide neighborhood canvassing for the president's budget, get a voice and some press. "It's going to be like a general election for president," says Brad Woodhouse, the new DNC communications and research boss. That means rapid response, regional media help, and party bloggers. One reason for the expansion is to take advantage of the Obama campaign's E-mail list of 13 million. The Obama campaign arm, Organizing for America, is also being folded into the DNC. The party, says Woodhouse, "has never before been used to pass a president's agenda."
