All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

It is difficult to understate how angry liberals are today at Sen. Joe Lieberman (I–CT), whose surprising statement that he does not support a compromise health care bill that includes a Medicare buy-in on "Face The Nation" Sunday forced Senate Democrats back to the drawing board in their quest to craft a bill that can garner the necessary 60 votes.

At the New Republic, there are suggestions that Lieberman "isn't actually all that smart." In the Washington Post, meanwhile, it's being floated that he "he seems willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order to settle an old electoral score." And these are the nice ones.

Now those angry at Lieberman have been pointing each other to a video obtained by Greg Sargent that has even the normally restrained Associated Press writing that Lieberman "was for a Medicare expansion before he was against it."

The Medicare buy-in would allow uninsured Americans who are 55-64 years old to purchase Medicare coverage. In the video, of a Connecticut Post interview in September, the senator referenced a proposal he offered in 2006, which he said was to "basically expand the existing successful public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid."

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Roughly one in two unemployed Americans say the recession has brought hardship to their family, a new CBS News/New York Times survey finds.

That's more than double the percentage of Americans overall who say the recession has brought hardship.

Among those who have been unemployed more than six months, the percentage who say their families are facing hardship rises to 58 percent.

Only 5 percent of unemployed Americans say the recession has not had much effect on their families. In addition to the 49 percent who say it has caused hardship, another 44 percent say it has made their lives more difficult.

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With government officials signaling that the recession may be over despite lagging employment rates, there is a glimmer of optimism among Americans seeking work.

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President Obama's meeting with prominent members of the financial services industry will be missing three key members: Goldman Sachs Chairman Lloyd Blankfein (left), Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack and Citigroup Chairman Dick Parsons.

All three had been expected to attend the meeting but will miss it "due to inclement weather," according to the White House.

The three planned to participate instead via conference call.

A White House spokesperson told CBS News the cancellations were due to bad weather in New York City – saying the business leaders were stuck on the runway as a result of fog.

The CEOs, interestingly, didn't book private jet flights to meet with the president. But had they flown to D.C. the night before rather than the morning of (flight delays are common this time of year), they likely would have been able to attend in person.

The meeting between the White House and Wall Street leaders comes just one day after an interview aired on "60 Minutes" in which the president railed against Wall Street "fat cats."

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With world leaders debating how to address climate change in Copenhagen and the U.S. Senate poised to take up a climate bill in the coming months, a new CBS News/New York Times poll finds that just 37 percent of Americans believe the issue should be a priority for government leaders.

That's a significant drop from April of 2007, when 52 percent of those surveyed said the issue should be a high priority.

A majority of Americans (70 percent) do consider global warming to be a "serious problem." But nearly two in three either see it as "not serious" (23 percent overall) or a serious problem but not a high priority (33 percent).

In April of 2007, just 8 percent of Americans said global warming was not serious.

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At the end of his interview with President Obama that aired Sunday, "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft asked about Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the so-called "White House gatecrashers" whose unauthorized entry into the Obama administration's first state dinner prompted a Congressional investigation and media frenzy.

"It's really a shame that I had to go through a whole 60 Minutes interview without talking about the gate crashers," the president quipped, laughing, when Kroft raised the issue as the interview wrapped up. "Good catch."

The president said the Salahis "should not have gotten through the gate."

"A mistake was made at the checkpoint to let them through," he said. "That mistake was not corrected through the process. I think the Secret Service has already taken responsibility for it. I think there's been an acknowledgement on the part of the White House that there should've been better coordination between Secret Service and the Social Secretary's office. And it won't happen again."

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President Obama has ratcheted up his rhetoric against Wall Street just as some of the nation's top bankers head to the White House for what looks increasingly likely to be a tense and combative meeting.

In an interview with "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft, the president went after what he called the "fat cat bankers on Wall Street." He said bankers have not shown "a lot of shame" about their behavior and outsized compensation despite the bank bailouts and economic downturn.

After stating that the financial crisis was "caused in part by completely irresponsible actions on Wall Street," Mr. Obama suggested that some banks paid TARP bailout money back to the government specifically to free themselves from government-mandated constraints on executive compensation.

"I think in some cases that was a motivation," said Mr. Obama. "Which I think tells me that the people on Wall Street still don't get it. They don't get it. They're still puzzled, why is it that people are mad at the banks?"

"Well, let's see," continued the president. "You guys are drawing down $10, $20 million bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it's gone through in decades, and you guys caused the problem. And we've got ten percent unemployment. Why do you think people might be a little frustrated?"

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UPDATED

At the White House, as the Obama administration is learning all too well, a party is never a simple affair. (Just ask the Salahi-stricken Secret Service.)

The latest kerfuffle, the New York Times reports, involves the Obama administration's first Hanukkah party, to be held Wednesday.

One bone of contention has been the guest list: Administration officials told the Times they are inviting 550 people, just 50 less than President Bush invited to his White House Hanukkah parties. But the Israeli press reported that the Obama White House was only inviting 400 people (they may have expanded the guest list since those reports) – and Bush White House officials told reporters they had actually invited twice that number.

It was, some suggested, a snub – and one that critics said should not come as a surprise.

The rumors appear to have been touched off in part by an opinion piece by Tevi Troy, who was a liaison to Jewish groups in the Bush administration. As the Times reports, Troy suggested the Obama administration was taking Jewish votes for granted, citing as evidence the administration's call for a freeze on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The guest list issue, Troy said, created "a nagging sense that there may be a studied callousness at work here."

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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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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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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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