All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is expected to hear some harsh criticism this week when members of a congressional panel consider whether to support President Obama's nomination of Bernanke for a second term. To defend himself, the Fed chief can at least point to a new list from Foreign Policy magazine naming Bernanke the top "global thinker" of 2009.

In its first annual list of 100 thinkers who formed "the big ideas that shaped our world in 2009," Foreign Policy honors Bernanke with the top spot "for staving off a new Great Depression."

"The Zen-like chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve might not have topped the list solely for turning his superb academic career into a blueprint for action, for single-handedly reinventing the role of a central bank, or for preventing the collapse of the U.S. economy," according to the special report. "But to have done all of these within the span of a few months is certainly one of the greatest intellectual feats of recent years."

The magazine lists President Obama as the no. 2 "global thinker," "for reimagining America's role in the world."

"He is an unapologetic wonk with a professorial bearing, a 'radical incrementalist' (in the useful term of his detractors) who assesses, seeks advice, considers, seeks counsel again, and then tinkers. He is also a president with big ideas, particularly in his foreign policy," according to Foreign Policy.

The third "thinker" listed behind Bernanke and Mr. Obama is Iranian political scientist and reformer Zahra Rahnavard, "for being the brains behind Iran's Green Revolution and the campaign of her husband, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi." The rest of the top 25 on the list include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton, U.S. Central Command commander Army General David Petraeus, former Vice President Dick Cheney, journalist Malcolm Gladwell and Pope Benedict XVI.

The White House has announced that President Obama will hold another meeting with his so-called "war council" tonight to discuss the administration's long-awaited decision on strategy and U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan. According to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller, this will be the president's ninth such meeting to review Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.

The meeting with the national security team will take place at 8 p.m. ET in the Situation Room of the White House. Below is the list of expected attendees in addition to President Obama, according to the White House:

Vice President Joe Biden
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Ambassador Susan Rice, Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan
Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy
Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
General David Petraeus, U.S. Central Command
General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Commander in Afghanistan (via videoconference)
Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan (via videoconference)
Anne Patterson, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan (via videoconference)
General James Jones, National Security Advisory
Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor
John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, Special Assistant to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

The White House lashed out against Israel today after the country's municipal planning committee announced that it would move forward with a plan to build hundreds of new housing units in eastern Jerusalem, an area that Palestinians hope will be part of their future state.

Under the proposed Israeli plan, called "Gilo's Western Slopes," 900 more housing units would be built, mostly in the form of four and five bedroom apartments, in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports. This plan to advance has attracted harsh criticism from international powers, which see the expansion proposal as an infringement on a previous Israeli-Palestinian agreement and as an impediment to peace negotiations.

"We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "At a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations."

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BEIJING -- When he's not been pressing the Chinese on human rights, or asking them to change their economic policy, or seeking their help on stopping North Korea and Iran's nuclear weapons programs, President Obama is taking in the sights of Beijing.

Between high level meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao and a formal and lavish state dinner last night, the president toured the Forbidden City, once the home of the emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

While the president didn't see all of the 9,999 buildings in the 178 acre complex, he did see the Hall of Central Harmony, the Hall of Preserving Harmony, the Central Garden and the Imperial Garden, where the ruling families spent leisure time.

Mr. Obama signed a guest book at the bowed to his tour guides. "Thank you, it was a wonderful tour," he said.

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(SHANGHAI, China) As President Obama makes his first trip to China as president, he faces some tough negotiations with the rising economic power of Asia.

The U.S. relationship with China is crucial to White House goals on some of its top priorities: de-nuclearizing Iran and North Korea, global climate change and reviving the economy. But, it is the economy that may be the hardest issue for Mr. Obama to deal with because China and the U.S. fuel each other's bad habits.

Of all the arcane terms for the issue -- currency manipulation, hard pegs, non-convertible currency or rebalancing -- what it really comes down to is a "mutually reinforcing drug addiction," said Mike Green of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Green explains how it works: "We get cheap goods, they get great exports and economy growth, they get stuck with a lot of dollars, they don't want their currency to be convertible because that would mean they lose control of domestic, social and economic and political tools, so they recycle it back to the U.S., we get to keep borrowing more money, and so the cycle goes on," he said.

In other words, the U.S. buys Chinese goods. We pay them in U.S. dollars. They don't put the U.S. dollars back into their economy through their currency, the Yuan, because it is not convertible. Instead, they use those dollars to buy U.S. treasuries, our debt -- more than one trillion dollars worth, more than any other country. By financing our debt, the U.S. can spend more money on stimulus, wars, health care, and the debt rises, and China buys more and more of it.

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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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Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., will defy President Obama by meeting with de facto Honduran president Roberto Micheletti.

"No U.S. Senator has yet been to Honduras to assess facts of crisis. @JohnKerry & Obama admin using bullying tactics to hide truth," DeMint wrote on his Twitter.

The meeting goes against the administration's policy of isolating Micheletti's government, which seized control from elected president Manuel Zelaya on June 28th.

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Sen. John McCain continued his lobby for a troop surge in Afghanistan as President Obama reconsiders his overall strategy for the region.

"It's not as tough as when the surge started in Iraq," McCain said today during an interview with NBC's David Gregory at The First Draft of History, a conference in Washington, D.C., produced by The Atlantic, the Newseum and The Aspen Institute.

"I am confident we can succeed if there are sufficient resources to do so. If we don't get sufficient manpower--men and women in uniform--then I think we could fail," he said.

McCain said that the strategy used in Iraq to clear and hold areas, and create an environment so that allowed citizens to return to normal life, could be applied to Afghanistan. "We could see signs of success in 18 months. If not we'll make a decision at that time," he said.

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The White House today stopped short of embracing the new NATO chief's assertion that the troops of the 28-nation alliance will "stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job."

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made the assertion of a possible war without end, at the conclusion of an Oval Office meeting with President Obama, who didn't take issue with it. (Read more on the meeting here)

Asked later if Rasmussen was speaking for Mr. Obama when he said U.S. and NATO forces will stay in Afghanistan "as long as it takes," spokesman Robert Gibbs was evasive.

At first he said he didn't want to parse the words of the NATO chief even though the statement was straightforward and needed no parsing. Then Gibbs said he doesn't speak for Rasmussen.

Asked point blank if the president agrees with what Rasmussen said, Gibbs said the U.S. objective in Afghanistan is to "disrupt, dismantle and destroy al Qaeda" and prevent it from having the kind of safe haven from which it launched the 9/11 attacks eight years ago.

But would U.S. troops remain engaged "as long as it takes" to accomplish that goal, Gibbs would not repeat Rasmussen's words. Instead

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Just eight months into his presidency, Barack Obama makes no effort to conceal his impatience and frustration over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

His predecessors, each of whom spent 4 or 8 years in pursuit of a Mideast peace agreement, would tell him: welcome to the club.

"Simply put, it is past time to talk about starting negotiations -- it is time to move forward," said Mr. Obama sternly at the start of three-way talks today with Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

He said his message to the two leaders was clear: "Despite all the obstacles, despite all the history, despite all the mistrust, we have to find a way forward."

Above all else, Mr. Obama wants Israel and the Palestinians to re-launch direct negotiations. Today was the first time the two leaders sat face-to-face in nearly a year.

Sounding exasperated, Mr. Obama said "permanent status negotiations must begin and begin soon."

Special Envoy George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader now serving as administration point-man on the Mideast peace process, said today's talks were at all times cordial, but also blunt. Cordially blunt?

Mr. Obama spent about 40 minutes in separate sessions with Netanyahu and Abbas -- and a similar amount of time in their tri-lateral meeting.

He lectured each of the two Mideast leaders on what they need to do to move the process forward. He said:

• Israel has spoken of restraining its settlement activity, but needs to "translate these discussions into real action."

•Palestinians "need to do more to stop incitement and to move forward with negotiations."

Mr. Obama feels some progress has been made in the Mideast peace process since he took office, "but we still have much further to go."

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