Political Bulletin

WASHINGTON NEWS

Obama Shares A Beer With Gates, Crowley

The meeting at the White House of the President, Vice President, Sergeant Crowley, and Professor Gates was the lead story on each of the three major newscasts, which devoted a combined total coverage of 13 minutes and 35 seconds to the story. Both TV and print coverage tended to cast s skeptical eye on the White House's motivation for holding the event, presenting it as an effort by the President to undo political damage from his own earlier remarks. The AP, for example, reports the meeting "was less about reaching for racial enlightenment than about helping Obama change the topic and get Americans to focus on what he wants to do in office." The CBS Evening News said that "the President said he hoped to turn this controversy into 'a teachable moment' for the nation," but for him "it's...about political damage control."

NBC Nightly News reported that White House "aides...as well as the President acknowledge that he kind of fanned the flames when he stepped into this, remarking on it at a news conference last week." The Los Angeles Times says President Obama "helped to escalate the debate by saying during a news conference that the Cambridge police had 'acted stupidly' in arresting the black professor on disorderly conduct charges at his own home."

The Politico says "the portion of the event aired on TV had an anti-climatic feel, and in many ways was exactly what Obama had said it would be earlier -- the men sitting around having a drink." ABC World News said that the President "and the Vice President stuck to the snacks and beers in front of them: It did not look like a particularly friendly meeting." McClatchy notes that Crowley, "speaking afterward with reporters at the AFL-CIO nearby, called the meeting 'cordial and productive' but said no one offered apologies and that he and Gates 'agreed to disagree.'"

Public Disapproves Of Obama's Handling Of Issue The Washington Times reports that "despite the president's attempt to play peacemaker, a plurality of the public disapproves of the way Mr. Obama has handled the incident, according to a new poll Thursday that also suggested that the flap has contributed to Mr. Obama's slumping overall approval rating." The poll "found that 41 percent disapproved of the president's statements about the Gates incident, with 29 percent approving and 30 percent having no opinion, according to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press."

Focus Group Finds Warning Signs, Reservoir Of Support For Obama USA Today reports President Obama "has seen his approval ratings slide, but a dozen independent voters who gathered" in Towson, Maryland "for a roundtable discussion about politics were still inclined to give him a break." Residents "expressed deep worry about the country's direction and a sobering view of the problems ahead. There was also a reservoir of good feeling for a president several referred to familiarly as 'Barack.'"

Senate Finance Healthcare Talks Said To Have Stalled

The Politico reports that "after being 'on the edge of a deal' earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee has stalled in its health care negotiations, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is no longer promising that the committee will finish its work before the August recess." The Hill, meanwhile, says that Sen. Chuck Grassley, the "senior Republican on the Finance Committee, has assured his GOP colleagues that he will not sell them out and strike a private deal with Democrats on healthcare reform, according to Republican senators."

The Washington Post headlines its story "GOP Senators Try To Slow Health Talks," and reports that "after a short meeting Thursday evening, three Democratic and three Republican negotiators on the Senate Finance Committee continued to insist that they were making significant progress in crafting a $900 billion bill that would provide coverage to 95 percent of Americans."

CNN's The Situation Room reported, "What the President and Democratic leaders really want is a bipartisan deal now, before the August recess, to help build much-needed momentum on health care. Yet, two of the three Republican Senate negotiators with the power to make or break that deadline are saying no."

Reid Says Reporters "Created" August Deadline The Hill reports, "Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday blamed Capitol Hill media for setting an August deadline for health reform and Republicans for blocking the bill's progress." Reid "said reporters created a fictitious deadline of a successful vote by the August recess, and downplayed the fact that the chamber won't meet that mark."

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57 House Liberals Oppose Blue Dog Healthcare Plan

The Hill reports, "Liberal lawmakers who oppose a deal House leaders cut with centrist Blue Dog Democrats have gathered signatures from 57 lawmakers who say they won't vote for the plan." If Republicans "oppose the healthcare bill on the floor en masse, 57 Democrats voting 'no' would defeat the bill."

Fox News' Special Report reported that committee Chairman Henry Waxman "faces trouble from fellow liberals who charge the chairman has compromised too much on a public health care option." Rep. Eliot Engel was shown saying, "Many of us on the committee were essentially given a take it or leave it. I don't think that's the way things should be." The Los Angeles Times reports that this "rising tide of liberal anger sent the White House scrambling, with Obama calling at least one left-leaning lawmaker to offer reassurance before Congress leaves town for its August break." The New York Times similarly says that Democrats were "forced to contend with rising discontent in the left wing of their party."

Blue Dogs' PAC Has Set Record Fundraising Pace This Year The Washington Post says the healthcare reform debate "has been a boon to the political fortunes" of the 52 House Blue Dogs, "who have become key brokers in shaping legislation." The group "has set a record pace for fundraising this year through its political-action committee, surpassing other congressional leadership PACs in collecting more than $1.1 million through June. More than half the money came from the health-care, insurance and financial services industries."

Obama's Anti-Insurance Company Rhetoric Called Poll-Driven

The Washington Post reports that "President Obama has framed the health-care debate in Washington as a campaign against insurance companies," and "the message is no accident, as the president's chief pollster made clear in a rare public speech last month." Joel Benenson "told the Economic Club of Canada that extensive polling revealed to the White House what many there had guessed: People hate insurance companies." The Post adds that "health-care debate illustrates ways in which" Obama "and his team carefully calibrate his language with intensive polling, surveys and focus group data."

Pelosi: Insurers "Immoral," "Villains" In a blog entry, Glenn Thrush reports in The Politico that Speaker Nancy Pelosi "is trying to unite her divided caucus around a common enemy -- the health insurance industry -- previewing an August recess line of attack by Democrats trying to maintain momentum on health care reform." Said Pelosi, "The public option -- that's where the insurance companies are making their attacks -- it's almost immoral what they are doing. ... Of course, they've been immoral all along. ... They are the villains in this." The Hill describes Pelosi's words as laying "the groundwork" for Democrats' "defense. She blamed the health insurance industry and urged her members to do the same during their four-week break."

The Christian Science Monitor says Speaker Pelosi "is facing a revolt on both ends of her caucus this week." She "is dealing with the consequences of success. Democrats have expanded their majority by winning districts that traditionally tilt conservative. Now, Pelosi is charged with holding the caucus together."

Kondracke: Democrats Conducting "Jihad" Against Insurance Companies On Fox News' Special Report, Morton Kondracke of Roll Call said, "The problem is that the Democrats, especially, you know, both Obama and the liberals who run the committees in Congress, all except the Senate Finance Committee, want this government-heavy program that is going to cost a lot of money. People are scared to death of what they are hearing. And now they have decided to conduct a jihad against the insurance companies, as though everything is their fault."

Defying Veto Threat, House Passes Defense Spending Bill

The AP reports, "The Democratic-controlled House went along with Defense Secretary Robert Gates' plans to kill the over-budget F-22 fighter jet, but has rejected his efforts to cut off several other big ticket items." Despite "objections and veto threats from the White House," the"$636 billion Pentagon spending bill...contains money for a much-criticized new presidential helicopter fleet, cargo jets that Gates says aren't needed, and an alternative engine for the next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that the Pentagon says is a waste of money." The Hill reports that despite "President Barack Obama's veto threats," the bill "passed on a 400-30 vote."

The Washington Post reports that "the Senate has not moved its version of the defense spending measure through committee yet, and a final bill will not emerge from conference negotiations until this fall at the earliest." The New York Times reports, "Obama and other political leaders had hailed last week's vote in the Senate to cancel the F-22 as a sign of their progress in changing military spending practices." However, "in sometimes tense exchanges on the House floor on Thursday, two Republicans, Representatives Jeff Flake of Arizona and John Campbell of California, sought to embarrass some other representatives and to suggest that little had changed in how Congress pushes pet military projects."

Ethics Committee Earmarks Face Vote On Murtha's Panel The Washington Post reports members of the House ethics committee, "who are investigating a pattern of lawmakers steering federal funds to generous defense contractors, are all set to have their pet military projects funded by the same committee whose activities they are probing." The 10 committee members "together would get 29 earmarks -- or $59 million in federal funding for projects they requested in their districts or states -- under a proposed House military spending bill up for a vote today or tomorrow. The details were approved last week by the House defense appropriations subcommittee, whose practice of steering earmarks to a well-connected lobby firm close to the chairman, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), is the subject of the ethics committee's investigation."

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CAMPAIGN NEWS

Pawlenty Coy About 2012 Plans

The Hill reports that in an interview, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) "says he will spend the next several years using his public platform to speak out against the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress," but wouldn't comment on a 2012 bid in an interview with CNN's Situation Room yesterday. On CNN, Pawlenty was asked if he was "seriously" thinking of running and said, "I got a year and a half left to be a governor in the state of Minnesota and that's going to be the focus of my attention. But I am in Minnesota and elsewhere going to try to speak to how my party can do a better job. ... But that's really going to be focused on how we can do better in 2010. I'm not thinking beyond that."

Poll Shows McDonnell Up Big In VA Gov Race

A SurveyUSA automated poll of 526 likely voters taken July 27-28 shows Bob McDonnell (R) leading state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) 55%-40% in the Virginia gubernatorial race. In a posting on the website of The Politico, Ben Smith writes, "A smart Democrat points out the most alarming number, to his party, in the poll of Virginia voters Survey USA released today," to wit, that the respondents in the poll are 52% McCain voters and 43% Obama supporters. Noting that "Obama carried Virginia with 51% of the vote," Smith concludes that this means that "the electorate that Obama activated -- young and African-American voters primarily -- will sink back into passivity in the off years."

Clinton Looking To Future Campaign?

The Los Angeles Times reports that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who "officially left politics on being sworn into the Obama administration," has retired her campaign debt, and now has a campaign surplus of over $3 million. However, though Clinton "says future political office 'is not anything that is at all on my radar screen,' she's still got eight campaign workers on staff."

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POLITICAL HUMOR

The Latest From Late Night Comedians

Conan O'Brien: "They had the big beer summit earlier tonight at the White House. President Obama had a beer with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and the policeman who arrested him. ... The meeting got off to a rough start when a neighbor called the police to say Gates was breaking into the White House."

David Letterman: "Things really went nuts at the kegger and about 8:00, everybody was a little tipsy, and they drunk dialed Ben Bernanke."

Jimmy Fallon: "President Obama held his first beer summit at the White House today. Obama wanted Bud Light, Crowley wanted Blue Moon, Gates wanted a Red Stripe, and Joe Biden wanted whatever fits in his beer helmet."

Jimmy Kimmel: "Tomorrow morning will heretofore be known as Racial Harmony Hangover Day."

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