All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Tina Fey reprised a tiny bit of her "Saturday Night Live" Sarah Palin impersonation last night during a presentation at the Ad Council Annual Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

During her 7:40 minute routine, Fey made some jokes about the former McCain vice-presidential candidate's best-selling book, "Going Rogue," and then said (at around 2:40 in the video below), "Mrs. Palin and I continue to have so much in common. They recently made a porn movie... this is true... about Sarah Palin and then this same adult actress, Lisa Ann, played me in a porn parody of '30 Rock' ...Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy."

Fey saved her brief impersonation for the end of her time on stage, starting out in her own voice, "We'll begin with an issue that is," and then in her Palin voice "so critical to the future opportunity."

The audience laughed, and she said, "I'm gonna be doing that 'till I'm dead."





Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com.

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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It was inevitable that people would start comparing President Obama to great statesmen and leaders of the past who have tried bring about peace on Earth, but Newsweek's Evan Thomas has gone over the top. Following Mr. Obama's speech in Cairo, Thomas spoke with Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball," contrasting Mr. Obama with President Reagan and comparing the current commander-in-chief to God:

"Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task. We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He's going to bring all different sides together."

Alas, Barack Hussein Obama is a mere mortal. But as Thomas notes, he has global ambitions. He is not content with just salvaging the U.S. economy, exiting Iraq, closing Gitmo, revolutionizing health care, running auto companies or keeping the nation's physical and digital borders safe from terrorists. He wants to elevate the dialog and break down the profound differences, cultural impasses and centuries-old grudges on a global scale. As part of that quest to form a new global alliance for peace, Mr. Obama has been intent on disavowing Bush administration policies, such as the use of waterboarding and the Iraq war, in hope of restoring a more positive view of America around the world.

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President Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney engaged in a vigorous debate from separate corners over how to protect America from terrorists. In his speech at National Archives in Washington, Mr. Obama laid out his logic for opposing enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding and closing the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

It was a precise and reasoned articulation of his position, somewhat like an answer from Mr. Spock of Star Trek legend, a half-human, half-Vulcan commander of Starfleet who battles with his human side to be perfectly logical and impervious to emotion. (Mr. Obama has been compared to Spock, an outsider of mixed heritage and cool in the face of adversity.)

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Following disclosure by a Senate Armed Services Committee report that she gave verbal approval to CIA Director George Tenet to use waterboarding on detainees, former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended herself in an impromptu interview (see the video below) with Stanford students at a campus reception on April 27.

Rice told the Stanford students that waterboarding is not torture, based on the authorization to use an extreme method that simulates drowning by President Bush and legal counsel. “I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency,” she said.

In other words, as Richard Nixon said in his interview with David Frost in 1977, "When the President does it, that means it is not illegal."

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President Obama's first 100 days have been filled with words.

He has been the salesman in chief, trying to convince Congress, the American people and the world to follow his lead, buy into his plan to save the economy, cut taxes for the middle class, exit one war and engage more in another and transform education, energy and healthcare.

We took some of his recent speeches, such as his inaugural address and speech before Congress (see his recent speeches here) and ran them through a word-cloud generator at http://www.wordle.net/ to see what words surface as the most frequently used.

"People" and "new," "must," "also" and "now" stand out, reflecting his rhetoric of renewal and huge ("also") agenda, as well as "economy," "world," "America" and "crisis."



Credit: Word cloud created at http://www.wordle.net/

Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com.

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This week President Obama and his administration receive their first semester grades from the press, pundits, bloggers, think tanks, politicians and everyday people. When asked on "Meet the Press" yesterday about the import of evaluating the first 100 days in office, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said it was worth "a good 8 to 10 seconds of reflection" by the American people.

"It's a little bit of a Hallmark holiday," he concluded.

For a Hallmark holiday moment, Mr. Obama is doing far more than a greeting card or a box of chocolates to mark the occasion. He is once again taking over the TV broadcast airwaves, holding a prime-time news conference (8 p.m. EDT) on his 100th day in office, which is Wednesday. In addition, prior to his news conference he is making a visit to St. Louis for a town-hall meeting as part of his unending campaign.

The president has clearly been gearing up for this day, and will take the opportunity to list his accomplishments since January 20th. He has rendered more than 100 plans and decisions. He has been buzzing from issue to issue with the instinctual efficiency of a honeybee -- the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, education, healthcare, energy, budget, deficits, pirates, waterboarding, Chavez and, of course, presidential pets.

It's as if every day in his first 100 days he brought something new, or was handed something new such as swine flu or CIA interrogation memos, to the agenda.

So far, Mr. Obama can take credit so far for keeping the economy from totally cratering and establishing some trust as evidenced in his popularity numbers with the American people.

He hasn’t won over many Republicans to his side. It’s clearly too early for the president to declare any sort of victory (remember George W. Bush declaring victory in Iraq on May 2003 perched on the USS Abraham Lincoln), but he will bask in Hallmark moment for the day.

For the following 100 days the president will continue to add items to his agenda. The question is whether he will be able to take any off.

Check out our complete coverage of Mr. Obama’s first 100 days here. On Wednesday night, we will also have a special online-only Webcast following Mr. Obama's press conference. You can ask a question or submit a video for the show here.

Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com.

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When asked on "Meet the Press" about the differences between President Bush and President Obama, both of whom he has served as Defense Secretary, Robert Gates said, "I think probably President Obama is somewhat more analytical, and he makes sure he hears from everybody in the room on an issue, and if they don't speak up he calls on them."

In contrast, President Bush didn't go out of his way to elicit input from those in the room, Gates said.

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The more "transparent" presidency of the Obama administration includes a photo slide show from White House photographer Pete Souza documenting the battle to pass the stimulus package.

"It’s a glimpse of the president and of the White House that you don’t usually get to see," according whoever is writing the White House blog. Of course, the images are carefully culled to tell a story, like a Ken Burns documentary. One would hope that the blog will document the battles lost as well as the battles won.

Here are two of the pictures included (captions are from the White House):


Feb. 11, 2009: As Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel talks on his cell phone, the President closes his eyes just as Congress works to resolve the discrepancies between House and Senate versions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.


Feb. 10, 2009: The President speaks with a Congressional delegation from Florida aboard Air Force One. The group is on its way to Ft. Myers, FL, the site of the week's second town hall. It is among the towns hit hardest by the economic crisis, with one of the nation's highest foreclosure rates.

Daniel Farber is editor-in-chief of CBSNews.com.

Senior Obama advisor David Axelrod landed some verbal blows on Dick Cheney today over the former Vice President's criticisms of the Obama administration on national security, as well as Cheney's own record in that regard. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" today, Axelrod was asked about Cheney's recent comment in a Politico interview in which he criticized the Obama administration's stance on terrorism. Axelrod didn't mince words in responding.

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