All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

It's 4 a.m. in Arizona, dawn has yet to break and even though this week's Face The Nation is still a few hours away the CBS crew traveling with President Obama are hard at work preparing for the morning interview with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

Check out CBS News White House Producer Rob Hendin's "behind the scenes" look.

Read full post…

Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama said today that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's judicial philosophy, as articulated in her speeches, marks "a blow, I think, at the very ideal of American justice."

"In a number of her speeches, for example, she has advocated a view that suggests that your personal experiences, even prejudices — she uses that word — it's expected that they would influence a decision you make," he told "Face The Nation" host Bob Schieffer.

Sessions is the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sotomayor's confirmation hearings begin Monday.

"Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies, influence the nature of their decision-making process," Sessions said. "When you show empathy for one party, Bob, you necessarily show a bias against another group."

Read full post…

Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy told CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer Sunday that nobody in America, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, is "above the law."

Leahy was responding to a report in the New York Times that Cheney ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to withhold information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress.

"If, as the New York Times says, we have the vice president of the United States telling people to break the law, now that's a pretty serious matter," Leahy said on CBS' "Face The Nation." "Either he did, or he didn't. If he did, that's something we ought to know."

He said finding out what happened is important because "usually if something is done wrong by one [administration] and it's exposed, the next one tends to behave themselves."

Read full post…

Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions said Sunday that he believes it is not necessary to appoint a special criminal prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's interrogation policies.

Though President Obama has spoken against such an investigation, Attorney General Eric Holder is reportedly seriously considering making the appointment.

"We've had probably in my committees, Judiciary and Armed Services, thirty or more hearings on this," Sessions told CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation". "The Intelligence Committee has had great numbers of hearings and written reports on it. The military has done a series of independent reports. And I believe that that's sufficient. I don't believe a special commission is necessary.

"We were facing some real challenges, and our people tried to do the best they could," explained Sessions. "And I don't think I see the evidence yet to justify any prosecutions."

Vermont's Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy told Schieffer that while he prefers a commission of inquiry, he is "not going to interfere with a special prosecutor."

Read full post…

Two leading senators on the Senate Finance Committee, which is expected to begin marking up health care legislation next week, said a bipartisan agreement is possible by the Congress' summer recess, though neither seemed to be letting up their arguments on "Face the Nation" Sunday.

As ranking Republican on the committee, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa (left) has been an opponent of a government-funded health care option.

"I am going to make sure we are not going to nationalize health insurance, and a public plan is the first step to doing that," Grassley told guest moderator John Dickerson Sunday.

Read full post…

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a U.S. strike on Iran would be "very destabilizing," as would a nuclear Iran, during an assessment of American foreign policy in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Russia on "Face the Nation" Sunday.

The top military commander said America has "a very narrow window" of appropriate actions in the defiant country.

On the U.S.'s counterinsurgency strike in southern Afghanistan last week, Mullen said, "I'm comfortable with the strategy." He said the mission, which is largely focused on security for Afghanis, will include some of the "toughest fighting" the country has seen.

Read full post…

Sen. John McCain said that although the harsh treatment of detainees has ended at Guantanamo Bay, the American military prison has become a symbol regardless of how detainees are currently treated. "The harsh treatment stopped a long time ago, but it is still a symbol," he said on Face the Nation.

McCain said that, having set a target date during his earliest days in office to close the prison, President Obama has failed to formulate a comprehensive policy for dealing with those held there.

"Because of the damage that's been done by 'We didn't have a comprehensive package,' you have quite a selling job," he said. "Right now without a policy, I would not support sending them to the United States, either."

Read full post…

The United Nations Security Council's condemnation of North Korea's nuclear program is "a half-measure, it's inadequate," Senator John McCain said on Face the Nation Sunday.

When asked what the U.S.S John McCain should do if not given permission to board and inspect a North Korean ship carrying suspicious — potentially nuclear — cargo, the Arizona Republican said, "That's the $64 question."

Read full post…

Senator John McCain said today that the United States needs to be on the "right side of history" in responding to the disputed Iranian elections and ensuing protests.

Appearing on CBS' Face The Nation, the Arizona Republican said the U.S. has had a long history of defending disenfranchised citizens across the world, and that the violence apparently inflicted by a government upon its citizens makes this a "human rights issue."

"America's position in the world is one of moral leadership," the senator said. "It's not about what takes place in the streets of Iran. It is about what takes place in America's conscience."

McCain said he "appreciates" President Barack Obama's statement warning Iranian authorities that the world is watching its crackdown on protestors, but said that the comments by other world leaders, such as France's Nicholas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel, have been stronger than President Obama's.

Read full post…

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he agrees with Vice President Joe Biden that taxing employer-based health insurance is not a good remedy for the health care crisis.

"Max Baucus has a tough assignment," Durbin said of the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who is proposing such a option.

As for voting for a plan which includes a tax on existing benefits, Durbin said, "It would not be easy for me to do."

When asked by Face The Nation host Bob Schieffer about the perils of proposing taxes, Durbin said, "Keep in mind that everyone today faces a hidden tax" in health insurance premiums which Americans absorb to cover the uninsured.

Read full post…