All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

It's one of those terms that might seem to belong to an earlier era: political correctness. But in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings, critics are seeing exactly that in both the treatment of alleged gunman Nidal Malik Hasan by the military before the shootings and in the comments of politicians and members of the media afterward.

"Who’d think the U.S. Army could be seized with a sudden case of political correctness?" columnist Margaret Carlson wrote Thursday, dubbing the army "oversensitive."

"If they hadn’t been so cautious, authorities could have pieced together the links between Hasan and radical Islam and possibly prevented Fort Hood," she argued. Authorities, Carlson notes, knew Hassan had visited radical jihadist Web sites; some officials at Walter Reed, where he had worked, thought he might have been psychotic. "It wouldn’t have been an act of bigotry, just an act of sanity."

"Jihadist rhetoric espoused by Hasan was categorically dismissed out of submissiveness to the concepts of tolerance and diversity," complained Major Shawn Keller. "The Army as an institution has been neutered by decades of political correctness and the leaders in Hasan's chain-of-command failed to act accordingly out of fear of being labeled anti-Muslim and receiving a negative evaluation report."

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Sarah Palin did not believe her 2008 interview with CBS News Anchor Katie Couric would be a defining moment in the presidential election, she tells Oprah Winfrey in an upcoming interview -- but she knew it was bad.

The McCain campaign, however, thought the interview went well, Palin tells Winfrey in an interview that will broadcast Monday.

"The campaign said, right on. Good. You're showing your independence," Palin said, according to an excerpt from the interview. "And of course I'm thinking, if you thought that was a good interview, I don't know what a bad interview is because I knew it was a bad interview."

Palin was lampooned by Saturday Night Live for the interview, which some called a "turning point" in the campaign.

Palin Says Oprah "Gracious"; Book Details Leak

The former Alaska governor also told Winfrey she'd like to tamp down the feud she has with Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson. Winfrey asked if Johnston would be attending Thanksgiving dinner with the Palins.

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On her Facebook page last night, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin said that Oprah Winfrey had been "very hospitable and gracious" during Winfrey's interview of Palin, which is scheduled to air on Monday.

"Willow, Piper, and I are in Chicago and just wanted to let you know that I had a great conversation with Oprah today," Palin wrote. We taped the show for Monday, November 16th, and enjoyed it so much that we went way over on time. The rest will air on Oprah.com. Oprah was very hospitable and gracious, and her audience was full of warm, energized and (no doubt) curious viewers."

Audience members told NBC Los Angeles that Palin's response to a question from Winfrey about whether she would be interested in a talk show "suggested she was considering the move," though Palin did not offer a yes or no.

One member of the audience suggested there was tension between the two women, though Palin's Facebook comments suggest otherwise. Winfrey supported Barack Obama during the presidential campaign.

"We talked about inside the campaign, about what it felt like when she was first asked to be Vice-President, the candidate," Winfrey said in a video posted after the interview, which you can see at left. "We talked about Bristol, the pregnancy. We talked about Trig, her baby. We talked about Levi Johnston. We talked about her marriage. We talked about everything. There's nothing that we didn't talk about."

Palin sat down with Winfrey to promote her book "Going Rogue," which comes out the day after the interview airs. Time Magazine's Mark Halperin spoke to associates of Palin's who have read the book in advance, and he says the book includes "a hearty bashing of the national media" as well as "some score settling with McCain aides she believes ill-served her (names will be named)."

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Calling the nation's high jobless rates "a challenge my administration is absolutely determined to meet," President Obama announced Thursday he will hold a jobs summit at the White House in December.

"We all know that there are limits to what government can and should do," Mr. Obama said. "But we have an obligation to consider every additional responsible step that we can to encourage and accelerate job creation in this country."

The president announced the summit, to be called the Forum on Jobs and Economic Growth, moments before departing for a trip to Asia. Mr. Obama said he will work on a global economic strategy while abroad and will continue to make the nation's economic recovery the focus of his administration.

The U.S. unemployment rate for October surpassed 10 percent, hitting the double digits for the first time since 1983. Claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, but economists still predict a "jobless recovery" from the recession.

Acknowledging the hardship Americans are undergoing, the president said "even though we've slowed the loss of jobs... the economic growth that we've seen has not yet led to the job growth that we desperately need."

To address that, Mr. Obama said, the December forum will bring together CEOs, small business owners, economists, labor unions and nonprofit organizations to discuss job creation.

"It's important we don't make any ill-considered decisions... particularly at a time when our resources are so limited," he said. "But it's just as important that we are open to any demonstrably good idea to supplement the steps we've already taken to put America back to work."

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On Thursday morning, President Obama will make a brief statement to the press on the economy in the Diplomatic Reception Room. The president will then depart Washington and travel to Elmendorf Air Force Base near Anchorage, Alaska, where he will meet with service members and deliver remarks.

The president will then depart Elmendorf Air Force Base and travel to Tokyo, Japan. He will arrive at Haneda Airport in Tokyo on Friday afternoon. In the evening, the president and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will hold a bilateral meeting and an expanded bilateral meeting at the Kantei, the principal workplace of the Prime Minister of Japan. The president and the prime minister will then hold a joint press conference before having dinner.

Mr. Obama will spend the night in Tokyo.

Here's the full schedule from the White House (all times Eastern):

9:15AM: President Obama makes a brief statement to the press on the economy

9:30AM: President Obama departs The White House en route Andrews Air Force Base

9:50AM: President Obama departs Andrews Air Force Base en route Anchorage, Alaska


4:50PM: President Obama arrives in Anchorage, Alaska

5:10PM: President Obama meets with service members

5:30PM: President Obama delivers remarks at event with service members

6:55PM: President Obama departs Anchorage, Alaska en route Tokyo, Japan

Friday, November 13, 2009

2:15AM: President Obama arrives in Tokyo, Japan

4:50AM: President Obama and Prime Minister Hatoyama of Japan hold bilateral meeting

5:10AM: President Obama and Prime Minister Hatoyama hold expanded bilateral meeting

6:20AM: President Obama and Prime Minister Hatoyama hold joint press conference

6:45AM: President Obama and Prime Minister Hatoyama have dinner

Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

** Scrapping current options in Afghanistan...

** Obama could face a cool reception from Japan...

** Sarah Palin dishes to Oprah...

AFGHANISTAN: "President Barack Obama won't accept any of the Afghanistan war options before him without changes, a senior administration official said, as concerns soar over the ability of the Afghan government to secure its own country one day," report the Associated Press' Ben Feller and Anne Gearan.

A senior administration official tells CBS News' Mark Knoller Mr. Obama is pushing for "revisions in troop options to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government."

The official added that in the war council meeting Wednesday, the president raised questions that could "alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone."

The key sticking points appear to be "the timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government," the official continued, reiterating that Mr. Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended.

The AP’s Feller and Gearan add, "Obama's stance comes as his own ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, is voicing strong dissent about a U.S. troop increase, according to a second administration official.

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President Obama met Wednesday with his national security team, the latest in his series of meetings on the best way forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This is the eighth in the series of meetings Mr. Obama has had on drafting a new strategy in the turbulent region – a decision that includes how many additional U.S. troops to send to Afghanistan.

Those taking part in today’s meeting include the usual members of the war council: Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen, National Security advisor James Jones, and the top U.S. officials in Afghanistan – Gen. Stanley McChrystal and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, who take part in the meeting by way of a secure video teleconference.

Also taking part was Gen. David Petraeus, who, as head of U.S. Central Command, oversees military operations in Afghanistan.

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The American Association for Justice, a group representing trial lawyers, has released a series of web videos designed to make the argument that malpractice litigation is important because medial error is real and can be devastating.

The group, Ben Smith reports, is alarmed that tort reform, long a Republican priority, "may re-emerge as grounds for compromise in the health care negotiations."

The videos feature Americans discussing tragedies that have befallen them because of medical error. The one above tells the story of Blake Fought, a 19-year-old who asphyxiated and died because a nurse improperly removed an IV line.

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Even before President Obama sets foot on Air Force One tomorrow to begin a 9-day trip to Asia, he has traveled to more countries in his first year in office than any of his predecessors.

Since taking office, he has made 7 foreign trips and visited 16 countries, 3 of them twice.

The Asia trip – which takes him to Japan, Singapore, China and South Korea – will bring his total to 8 foreign trips and 20 countries.

The only other president to come close to Mr. Obama's first-year-in-office globe-trotting numbers is President George H. W. Bush, who took 7 foreign trips to 14 countries.

His son traveled abroad five times to 11 countries during his first year. President Clinton only did 2 foreign trips to 3 nations in 1993.

Foreign travel by American presidents is a relatively new practice. No sitting U.S. president left the country until Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. He made a single foreign outing: a 3-day visit to Panama in November of that year to inspect construction of the Panama Canal.

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With unemployment now above 10 percent, Senate Democrats are planning to craft a new jobs bill next year, according to a report in The Hill.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said at the Senate Democrats' weekly lunch Tuesday that he is now exploring a job-creation initiative, Sen. Ben Cardin told the newspaper. Cardin said "our caucus will take it up."

What will be in the bill – or when it might be introduced – is not yet known. Sen. Patty Murray , D-Wash., told the Hill that no final decision about legislation has yet been made.

Reid, whose approval rating at home stands at just 32 percent, is among the vulnerable Democrats going into the 2010 midterm election season. The weak economy is working against him, as is the fact that the president's party traditionally loses Congressional seats in midterms. In Nevada, the unemployment rate is 13.5 percent.

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