All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Updated 5:17 p.m. ET, with additional information

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates attended one of the Fort Hood funerals today in Mountain City, Tenn., for Fort Hood victim Specialist Frederick Greene (seen at left).

He'd been invited by Specialist Greene's father. Gates met the family at the Fort Hood memorial last week.

This was Gates' first time attending a military funeral outside the Washington area.

His spokesman Geoff Morrell says he's wanted to do this before -- "to be part of a sendoff for one of our fallen heroes, where the whole town turns out to honor him." But he hadn't wanted to be a distraction. This funeral -- where he had been personally invited, and the geography meant he could attend without alerting large numbers of press, made it possible.

Read full post…

Updated Nov. 11, 2009 with a photo of the presidential coin.

This trip was planned long before the Ft. Hood shootings. It’s President Obama's first official visit to injured troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as commander-in-chief. But it’s far from his first meeting with injured troops.

And he actually first visited Walter Reed as president-elect the day before his inauguration last January. And he visited troops at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda last June, spending more than an hour there, and presenting Purple Hearts to two of the injured.

He's also met with many wounded warriors and their families, as well as families of the fallen, here at the White House. He also became the first president in years to visit Dover last week to see eighteen of the American fallen arrive back home from Afghanistan.

Read full post…

The White House has hailed today's vote in Afghanistan as an overall success. U.S. officials in Afghanistan report 95 percent of polling stations opened across the country -- including one hundred percent of the polling centers in Helmand and Kandahar, despite a quadrupling of attacks in that region in recent days.

"Lots of people have defied threats of violence and terror to express their thoughts about the next government for the people of Afghanistan," spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters this morning.

How the vote shakes out as ballots are counted over the next two weeks will be key to helping White House officials determine how much more money and manpower they give to their commander on the ground, Gen. Stanley McChrystal when he presents his assessment on Afghan strategy in a few weeks. That's according to a series of discussions with senior White House officials, defense advisors and members of McChrystal's staff.

CBS News has learned that while McChrystal's official assessment will not include troops, that he is already leaning toward a range to recommend to the Pentagon and the White House in mid-to-late fall. The general is leaning toward three major options -- the "high risk strategy" is to add only 15,000 troops to the 68,000 that will be on the ground by the end of this year -- as in, the highest risk of failure. The "medium risk strategy" is to add 25,000 troops, and the "low risk strategy" is 45,000, according to a senior defense adviser helping craft the plan.

The assessment itself is shaping up to be much like a restaurant menu -- with options to choose from, and a list of anticipated costs and hoped--for tactical and strategic effects, according to two officials familiar with the plan.

Read full post…

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- They lined up on both sides of the road to Portsmouth High School -- several hundred opponents, fairly evenly divided, for and against health care reform. The common denominator was volume.

"You're gonna bankrupt this country," shouted Sam Cataldo, of Farmington, NH, at the "pro-side" and to our cameras. "We don't need Obama and his crew telling us how to die."

Another protester held up a sign saying "no death panels for Americans." He was referring to one of the proposals (not yet passed) which would offer senior citizens the option to seek reimbursement for advice on how to fill out a living will.

"They're ignorant," said a stonemason on the opposite side, who was explaining how he couldn't afford $1,000 a month healthcare payments. He'd just been diagnosed with a long-term illness, so he was stuck.'

Read full post…