Morning Bulletin – Monday, April 27, 2009
A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:
"We are closely monitoring the emerging cases of swine flu in the United States. This is obviously a cause for concern and requires a heightened state of alert. But it is not a cause for alarm," he said.
"With the U.S. announcement, civilian and military stockpiles of antiviral drugs were being readied for rapid distribution in the event that transmission of swine flu virus accelerates. The declaration also called for greater vigilance at border crossings and in airports for travelers who are coughing or appear ill," reports the Washington Post's David Brown.
"Those steps fell far short of those that could be invoked in a confirmed pandemic, which could include restricting travel, actively screening travelers for fever or illness, quarantining the sick, closing schools and banning public gatherings. ...
"At a White House briefing [Sunday], Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said the emergency declaration was in large part a procedural step. 'That sounds more severe than really it is,' she said. 'This is standard operating procedure and allows us to free up federal, state and local agencies and their resources.' She noted that the government had made the same declaration for recent flooding in North Dakota and Minnesota and for the inauguration of President Obama. Among the steps being taken: readying drug supplies sufficient to treat 3 million people for flu from the Department of Health and Human Services' 'strategic stockpile,' which can treat up to 50 million. The Defense Department was readying supplies sufficient for another 7 million people for use by military personnel."
CIA INTERROGATIONS: "The Obama administration and senior national-security officials are reviewing whether to release additional Central Intelligence Agency memos on interrogation methods, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said," writes the Wall Street Journal's Kara Scannell.
"Former Vice President Dick Cheney has requested that the administration declassify additional CIA memos that he said would show the tactics worked. Mr. Gibbs said on NBC's 'Meet the Press' on Sunday that the review process would take about three weeks."
"White House spokesman Robert Gibbs reiterated Sunday that the Obama administration is not interested in an independent commission to investigate Bush-era interrogation policies," adds The Hill's Eric Zimmerman.
"Gibbs said a new panel would fall victim to the same political debate currently consuming Washington, and added that an investigation underway by the Senate Intelligence Committee was sufficient."
"In appearances on Sunday morning talk shows, Obama advisers sought to portray the president as constitutionally removed from the question of whether anyone should be prosecuted for breaking the law. 'What he has said is that anyone who followed the advice of the Justice Department and did any kind of acts that were within the confines of that advice, he doesn't think we should prosecute,' adviser Valerie Jarrett said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'
"'The rest of it,' she added, 'he leaves up to the U.S. attorney general. That is who is supposed to make decisions about prosecution. So I think the president has been very clear, and what he said is, we need to be a nation of laws, we need to be consistent, and he leaves it to the attorney general to figure out who should be prosecuted for what.'
"The administration's defense came as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Obama's adversary in the 2008 presidential contest and a victim of torture during the Vietnam War, urged the White House not to pursue prosecutions. 'Maybe there's an element of settling old political scores here,' McCain said on CBS's 'Face the Nation' program.
"'We need to put this behind us, we need to move forward.' And other Republicans continued to vent their anger over the release of the memos, saying that Obama has made the country less safe and made it more difficult for U.S. troops. Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said on 'Fox News Sunday' that any prosecution would be a 'stab in the back' to the CIA. 'And what's worse, now the terrorists know that nothing can be done to them that wasn't done to our voluntary military enlistees in the Marines, the SEALs and pilots who went through these same techniques, and that is -- has absolutely destroyed our ability to get further information from terrorists,' Bond said."
Sen. McCain on CBS' "Face the Nation"
4876687Meantime, Politico's Glenn Thrush writes that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is "playing defense" on this issue. "Nancy Pelosi didn't cry foul when the Bush administration briefed her on 'enhanced interrogation' of terror suspects in 2002, but her team was locked and loaded to counter hypocrisy charges when the 'torture' memos were released last week," Thrush writes.
"Many Republicans obliged, led by former CIA chief Porter Goss, who is accusing Democrats like Pelosi of 'amnesia' for demanding investigations in 2009 after failing to raise objections seven years ago when she first learned of the legal basis for the program. 'As soon as the president made the decision to release [the memos], I was telling people that the Republicans were going to come after us, saying she knew about it and did nothing,' said an adviser to Pelosi (D-Calif.), speaking on condition of anonymity. 'And I'm sure we're going to get hammered again when they release all those new torture photos,' the person said.
"But Pelosi's allies were less prepared to confront the fallout from her convoluted answers during three sessions with reporters last week — answers that raised new questions and handed Republicans a fresh line of attack on a speaker at the height of her power."
OBAMA: "I HAVE A GIFT": "Everyone knows President Barack Obama can deliver a great speech, including the president himself, according to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid," reports the Associated Press' Kevin Freking.
In the epilogue, Reid also touches on Sen. Joe Lieberman's threat to jump to the GOP following November's elections. "Two days after the elections last November, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Sen. Joseph Lieberman he would be stripped of his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship, punishment for trashing Barack Obama at the Republican National Convention Facing down livid calls from activists for the independent Connecticut senator to be expelled from the Democratic caucus altogether for supporting Republican presidential nominee John McCain, Reid had decided to 'cut Lieberman some slack' with a lesser sentence," writes the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Steve Tetreault.
"Our dilemma was that we needed to hold Lieberman accountable," Reid wrote, "but as badly as he had behaved during the campaign it was a simple fact that apart from the war, Joe had a very solid progressive, Democratic record. ...
"Reid said he decided before the election to 'cut Lieberman some slack,' letting him stay in the caucus but taking away his high-profile chairmanship and giving him a lesser post. But Reid continued to think it over after Lieberman said he could not accept the penalty. While Democrats now controlled close to 60 Senate seats and probably could afford to ditch a renegade, 'this way of thinking bothered me,' Reid wrote.
"He remembered in 1994 that Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado 'quit the party in a rage' following persistent disagreements with environmentalists. 'I took the weekend after the election to think this over, and was coming to the conclusion that as angry and disappointed as I was, and as offensive as his behavior had been, I simply could not do to Joe Lieberman what had been done to Ben Nighthorse Campbell,' Reid wrote.
"The verdict was not totally altruistic. 'This decision had not so much to do with forgiveness as it did with simply math,' Reid wrote. 'Years of counting votes in the Senate had taught me that you never take a vote for granted.' The outcome was cemented a few days later when Obama let it be known he did not want Lieberman punished. When Senate Democrats voted, it was 42-13 to retain him as Homeland Security chairman and impose another penalty. 'For his misbehavior, he was stripped of his seat on his favorite committee, Environment and Public Works, and that was punishment enough,' Reid wrote."
ALSO TODAY: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address the Major Economies Forum on Energies and Climate this morning; later, President Obama will meet with the foreign finance ministers attending the forum. "The Obama administration takes a crack at forging consensus on how to fight climate change, when the State Department hosts the 'Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate' this week in Washington," reports the Wall Street Journal's Stephen Power.
"The meeting, called for by President Barack Obama last month, seeks to reinvigorate a process that began under George W. Bush but that was seen by much of the world as lacking credibility because of Mr. Bush's refusal to support economy-wide curbs on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. The clock is ticking on Mr. Obama to show he can produce results. In December, governments from around the world meet in Denmark to forge a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 agreement that established legally binding commitments by participating nations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. ...
"Meanwhile, Mr. Obama's aides are trying to manage the world's expectations of what he can deliver. In an interview last week, Todd Stern, the top U.S. negotiator of international climate-change agreements, pointed to the recent economic-stimulus package, which contained tens of billions of dollars for low-carbon energy, and moves by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from automobiles, as evidence that the new administration is moving swiftly to combat climate change."
Vice President Joe Biden is in Chicago where he's visiting a window factory that hired laid off workers thanks to stimulus funds. He'll also deliver a speech on economic recovery and cities at the Richard J. Daley Urban Forum.
Also, the NCAA champion University of Connecticut women's basketball team takes a victory lap with President Obama at the White House this afternoon.
And former President Bill Clinton campaigns with his former fund-raiser and his wife's former presidential campaign manager Terry McAuliffe, who's running in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia. President Clinton will campaign in Richmond and Roanoke today in advance of the June 9 primary.
THIS WEEK: The Senate confirmation vote for Kathleen Sebelius to be Health and Human Services Secretary is scheduled for tomorrow.
On Wednesday, day 100 of his presidency, Mr. Obama will hold a town meeting-style event in St. Louis before heading back to the White House for his third prime-time press conference.
OBAMA'S FIRST 100 DAYS
USA Today's David Jackson, "Obama's first 100 days take sharp turn from Bush era"
McClatchy Newspapers' Margaret Talev, "Obama's first 100 days in office haven't been quiet"
New York Daily News, "100 events that helped shape President Obama's first 100 days"
JOE BIDEN ON "60 MINUTES"
CBSNews.com, "Biden on Governing, Gaffes, And His Boss"
FOREIGN POLICY
Washington Post's Mary Beth Sheridan, "Clinton Visits Lebanon as Key Elections Loom"
NY Times' Rid Nordland, "Exceptions to Iraq Deadline Are Proposed"
Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon, "U.S. Seeks to Assure Arabs on Iran"
Politico's David S. Cloud, "More Dems call for tough Iran sanctions"
U.S.-CUBA RELATIONS
NY Times' Ginger Thompson, "U.S. Plans Informal Meetings With Cuba"
Washington Post's Nick Miroff, "Hard Lines on Havana Soften in Miami"
ECONOMY / STIMULUS / BAILOUTS
LA Times' Ralph Vartabedian and Tom Hamburger, "U.S. toxic-asset plan stirs fears"
Washington Times' Sean Lengell, "Summers sees end to free fall"
NY Times' Jeff Zeleny, "An Indiana Town Appreciates Obama, and That Stimulus Cash, Too"
Washington Post's Lori Montgomery and V. Dion Hayes, "Small Businesses Brace for Tax Battle"
HEALTH CARE
Former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H., on the Senate Democrats' plans to use the reconciliation process during the health care debate: "National Health Care With 51 Votes"
NY Times' Robert Pear, "Shortage of Doctors Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals"
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION
NY Times' Jo Becker and Gretchen Morgenson, "Geithner, as Member and Overseer, Forged Ties to Finance Club"
MINNESOTA SENATE RECOUNT
Minneapolis Star Tribune's Kevin Duchschere, "Minnesota Poll: Most want Coleman to call it quits"
NY-20 SPECIAL ELECTION
Albany Times-Union's Leigh Hornbeck, "Lack of unity fatal to Tedisco"
FUTURE RACES
2010 MO Races: Springfield News-Leader's Chad Livengood, "Democrats look ahead to 2010 at Jackson Day event"
2010 NM Races: Wall Street Journal's Stephanie Simon, "GOP Seeks New Mexico Comeback"
2010 IL Senate: Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet, "Schakowsky for Senate?"
2010 KY Senate: Cincinnati Enquirer's Patrick Crowley, "Report energizes Bunning-bashers"
2010 ND Senate: Politico's Manu Raju, "Dorgan emerges as Obama's Dem foe"
2010 PA Senate: The Bulletin's Bradley Vasoli, "Poll Finds Toomey Well Ahead Of Specter In Race"
ETC.
Politico's Alexander Burns and Daniel Libit, "Celebs line up to visit Obama"
NY Times' Bill Carter, "With Rivals Ahead, CNN's Even Course Is Questioned"