All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Gen. Stanley McChrystal may not get everything he wants when President Obama announces his revised strategy for Afghanistan next week, but he may get more help from NATO.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports Mr. Obama is expected to announce between 20,000 and 30,000 troops will be committed — less than the 40,000 additional troops McChrystal requested.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institute, said that U.S. allies in Europe may actually provide more soldiers than expected on the Afghan front.

"They certainly have been pushed to ultimately put up more troops," he told "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith this morning.

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Senate Democrats managed to pull together a 60-vote majority Saturday evening to pass a key vote keeping health care reform legislation on track, despite efforts by Republicans (and a few contentious Democrats) to stall or kill the bill.

There are many issues in the 2,000+ page legislation being debated in the Senate, from insurer abuse, preconditions and spiraling health costs to abortion funding and Medicare taxes. But the most contentious issue popping up continues to be the so-called "public option" — government-backed health care coverage — similar to Medicare but available to anyone who cannot obtain or afford coverage from private insurance companies.

"You have people on one side saying 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's in it,' and you have other people saying, 'I won't vote for a final bill if it's not in it,'" said CBS News political analyst John Dickerson, "and so as Harry Reid and the president try to mollify one group, they end up making the other group angry."

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Before Sarah Palin's highly-anticipated book, "Going Rogue," goes on sale this week, it has already generated controversy, skepticism and blowback.

"This is Sarah Palin's turn to get even, as it were," said CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of "Face the Nation" Bob Schieffer.

"She came under this intense criticism all during the campaign and now she's giving her version of why she didn't succeed as a candidate."

But Schieffer, speaking on "The Early Show" Monday, said he does not think her strategy will work. "It's kind of like a baseball player going into a slump and blaming the manager or blaming the bat boy or blaming the fans or something. You know, it makes for provocative reading, I think she'll sell a lot of books, but I don't think it's going to help re-establish her as a political candidate."

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While some analysts may look at today's off-year elections as a measure of President Obama's ability to influence voters and push through his agenda, CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer believes the real significance of the outcomes of today's races will be a measure of divisions within the Republican Party.

He says todays races offer "a snapshot of where the Republican Party is right now. The Republican Party right now is still split. And I think right now it's the conservatives who kind of have the juice."

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Likening the president to Shakespeare's immortal Dane, former Mass. Governor Mitt Romney castigated Mr. Obama for not having already made a decision on changes in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. (watch video at left)

Romney also suggested the lack of a "legitimate" power base in Kabul makes it harder for the U.S. to go forward, for which he also seemed to blame Washington for not ensuring that the August presidential vote, which was monitored by international election representatives, was devoid of fraud.

Romney told "Early Show" anchor Harry Smith, "This Hamlet performance that we're seeing out of the White House is very, very disconcerting."

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New government figures show the economy grew 3.5% this summer, the first increase in a year and a sign that the recession is at an end. But there are other signs that this may be a jobless recovery.

The Obama administration is saying its economic stimulus and recovery packages have saved close to a million jobs. But the creation of new jobs has lagged.

"The great American job creation machine simply hasn't been generating enough jobs to absorb or offset what was really the greatest, deepest recession since the Great Depression," said Jared Bernstein, chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

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This weekend President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 outbreak a national emergency, a move that should help hospitals deal with the surge of patients.

Many people across the country spent their weekend standing in line for hours waiting to get vaccinated against H1N1, and many found that they were too late, turned away when available doses were gone.

As of today, about 16 million doses have been made available. CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton says it is doubtful whether the emergency declaration will have any impact on vaccine production.

On Monday Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged the frustration of Americans waiting in lines for vaccinations. "I don't want to minimize the anxiety of a lot of parents who want to get their kids vaccinated, but we do have a vaccine that works.

"It works with everybody over ten years old with one dose, and the immune response hits more quickly than we anticipated, so actually as of today, we'll have about 16.5 million doses available throughout the country."

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During the presidential campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama promised to end "Don't ask, don't tell" - the ban on gays serving openly in the U.S. military - and promised to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 federal law defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.

CBS News senior White House correspondent Bill Plante reports that because the president has yet to deliver on the promises he made to the gay community, gay rights advocates are concerned.

"He says all of the right things, but now it's time for him to put his money where his mouth is," said actress Cynthia Nixon.

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The tactic worked for Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin: a leader making a high-profile bid to host an Olympic Games. Now President Barack Obama is throwing his weight towards Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Games.

But given all that is on the president's plate — health care reform, Iran's nuclear program, the Afghan battle front, climate change legislation, and a struggling economy — is Mr. Obama in danger of spreading himself too thin by spending time on wooing the Olympiad to the shores of Lake Michigan?

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As part of his push for health care reform, President Barack Obama is on "60 Minutes" tomorrow night.

In an interview recorded Friday with CBS News correspondent Steve Kroft, the president said the overhaul is not only important for the country, it is important for his presidency.

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