All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

In Norway today, President Obama picked up his Nobel Peace Prize along with something unexpected: kind words from some of his toughest critics.

"I think having a liberal president who goes to Oslo on behalf of a peace prize and reminds the committee that they would not be free, they wouldn't be able to have a peace prize, without having force. . . I thought in some ways it's a very historic speech," said Republican Newt Gingrich in an interview with Public Radio International.

Gingrich was joined by other conservative voices including Washington Post Columnist Michael Gerson, who said that although he remains critical of the award, the president gave an impressive and important speech.

"I think that Barack Obama has done very little to deserve the award, but I thought it was disarming that he essentially said that much at the beginning of the speech. That was the right way to begin these remarks," Gerson said. "It diffused a difficult issue and allowed him to go on and make a very serious set of remarks about America’s role in the world, about a just war, about the role of human rights in the building of a stable peace. These were all very important themes."

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A group called the Tea Party Patriots, which is affiliated with the Dick Armey-backed lobbying group FreedomWorks, is calling on supporters to "storm Senate offices" on December 15th in order to "to flex our muscle and exert that influence to hold the line in our fight against the government takeover of healthcare."

"The intention is to go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities," according to a message on the group's Web site. "As the day goes on some of us will pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor. Many of us plan to stay there until they force us to leave."

"We know it’s a sacrifice to do this right before Christmas," continues the message. "But throughout history American Patriots have made far greater sacrifices than this to protect our liberty. Now the burden (and the honor) falls on us."

The "tea party" movement is energized and making plans for 2010, as the Washington Post reports, and it represents both a challenge and opportunity for Republicans.

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Radio host Laura Ingraham is auctioning off the red jacket Sarah Palin wore on the cover of her memoir, "Going Rogue." Proceeds for the sale will benefit two organizations that serve American military and veterans.

As of 3:15 pm Eastern Standard Time, the bidding on the jacket had reached $7,050.

Palin announced the auction this morning in a note on her Facebook page.

"It's a privilege to participate in the auction Laura Ingraham is organizing to help our men and women in uniform," Palin said. "Laura asked if I would donate the jacket I wore on the cover of my book, "Going Rogue." I can't think of a better cause, and it's especially fitting because the book is dedicated to patriots and in particular to our women and men in uniform."

Palin also called into the Laura Ingraham show this morning to talk with the radio host as bidding began.

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Congressional Republicans are trying to embarrass Democrats into spending less by highlighting what they said are the most wasteful spending projects of 2009, including almost $400,000 in federal money to encourage West Virginians to grow ginseng and shitake mushrooms.

"These items are eye opening and might be amusing, but they are symptomatic of a fatal disease here in Congress that will cripple, cripple the future prosperity of Americans," said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.).

Their list includes almost $16 million worth of special projects from both Democrats and Republicans:

• $1.9 million "Water Taxis to Nowhere" (Pleasure Beach, CT)
• $3.8 million urban art trail in Rochester, N.Y.
• $3.1 million in "mechanical upgrades" to an 88-year-old boat owned by the State Museum in New York
• $3 million for new bicycle racks in Georgetown, one of Washington, D.C.’s most affluent areas
• $1.5 million to streetscape six blocks around a casino in downtown Detroit
• $578,000 to fight homelessness in Union, New York, a town with no reported homeless people
• $550,000 skateboard park in Pawtucket, Rhode Island
• $500,000 in fish food for Missouri fish farmers
• $400,000 to renovate a vacant building in the city of Jal, New Mexico
• $380,350 to encourage West Virginia landowners to grow ginseng and shiitake mushrooms
• $90,000 for a communal kitchen for entrepreneurs in Watsonville, Calif.

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Controversial Democratic Rep. Alan Grayson, whose claim that the Republican health care play is for people to "die quickly" if they get sick helped launch him to national prominence, said on MSNBC that former vice president Dick Cheney should "STFU."

“You know, on the Internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this. It's called ‘STFU,’” he told Chris Matthews. “I don't think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means.”

Matthews asked Grayson to "give me the first part," and Grayson said, "shut." STFU is an acronym for "Shut the F*** Up."

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has strongly supported the proposal to create a government-run health insurance option, but she left the door open on Thursday to accepting a health reform compromise from the Senate that does not include a public option.

"We in the House believe that the public option is the best way to hold insurance companies honest -- to keep them honest and also to increase competition," Pelosi said at a press conference today, reports CBS News Capitol Hill Producer Evelyn Thomas. "If there is a better way, put it on the table. As soon as we see something in writing from the Senate, we will be able to make a judgment about that."

Senate Democrats are currently considering a set of proposals -- including expanding Medicare and creating national, private plans for consumers -- in lieu of a public option. Some of the public option's strongest advocates, like former Democratic leader Howard Dean, have said they like the Senate plan. Liberal grassroots groups, however, are adamantly opposed to it.

Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), the one Republican who may vote for the health care overhaul, told reporters Thursday she could not support the plan to expand Medicare because the government program pays hospitals and doctors lower reimbursement rates than private insurers.

Even though the House bill passed with a public option, Pelosi said today the bills are "probably 75 percent compatible."

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"It sounded like President Obama was making the case that in fact war is very good for many things," CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller said of the president's Nobel Prize speech on "Washington Unplugged" Thursday. "That sometimes in order to get peace, you have to go to war."

It was obvious that the president was "aware of the apparent incongruity" of a war president receiving the peace prize, Knoller continued. "He did not back away from it. He defended it."

Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak, meanwhile, said while it was impressive to see a sitting U.S. President receive the prestigious award, he found the speech to be "unfocused" and "incoherent."

"It was given from a position of defensiveness," Mackowiak said. Watch the full program above.

"Washington Unplugged" appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.

Move over Leo Tolstoy. President Obama has now offered up his own treatise on war and peace - and did in it in far fewer pages than the prolific Russian author.

In his lecture today in Oslo accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the president sought to address the incongruity of an American Commander-in-Chief, at war in two countries, receiving such an honor.

It brought to mind Edwin Starr's 1970 hit song which repeatedly asked and answered the musical question: "War. What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!"

To the contrary, Mr. Obama argued forcefully that war is often inevitable and the only path to peace.

"I understand why war is not popular," said Mr. Obama, "but I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it."

In a 35-minute speech at the end of a grand ceremony in which he was presented with the Nobel Peace Prize medal and diploma, Mr. Obama said the world must acknowledge "the hard truth" that violent conflict will not be eradicated in our lifetimes. But that, he added, is not necessarily a bad thing.

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A new strategy memo from Republican party leader Michael Steele urges Republicans to do everything in their power to block the Democrats' health care bill from moving forward in the Senate.

"I urge everyone to spend every bit of capital and energy you have to stop this health care reform," Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele wrote in the memo, obtained by CBS News. "The Democrats have accused us of trying to delay, stall, slow down and stop this bill. They are right. We do want to delay, stall, slow down and ultimately stop them from experimenting on our nation's health care. And guess what, so do a majority of Americans."

In fact, Steele's last point may be up for debate. A CBS News/ New York Times poll released last night shows that while most Americans are skeptical of the impact the Democrats' overall health care package will have, 60 percent of Americans still support the Democrats' proposal for a government-run health insurance option, or "public option."

One thing is certain, however: There is a segment of the conservative base that thinks the Republican party has not done enough to block health care reform.

"It's clear that the Senate Republican leadership doesn't know how to deal with this in the health care fight," conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh recently said on his show. "I'm not a parliamentary expert. But I know a disaster when I see it. And I know that it's gotta be stopped, and whatever parliamentary steps are available to people who do know what they are should have been taken, every blocking tactic they had at this."

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As President Obama wrapped up his remarks at the acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize Thursday, it's easy to imagine the members of the Nobel Committee saying to themselves, "wait – we gave it to that guy?"

After all, the general consensus among commentators was that Mr. Obama had won the prize because he represented such a change from his predecessor, George W. Bush, whose rhetoric and foreign policy were anathema to most Europeans.

And yet while Mr. Obama offered a nuanced speech laying out what some have already started to call an Obama Doctrine, he also made an unmistakable argument for the legitimacy of war – sometimes using the sort of phrases that called to mind the very words of the man he replaced.

"Evil does exist in the world," Mr. Obama said as part of a long argument in favor of the concept of a "just war."

That line brought to mind Mr. Bush's repeated invocation of evil – including his argument in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that "our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil."

President Obama said there are times when "the use of force [is] not only necessary but morally justified"; he argued that he "cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people."

Cue Mr. Bush on the USS Abraham Lincoln, May 2003: "Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups or seeks to possess weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world and will be confronted."

Mr. Obama also made the case for American exceptionalism, an attitude associated more with his predecessor.

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