All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

The White House lashed out against Israel today after the country's municipal planning committee announced that it would move forward with a plan to build hundreds of new housing units in eastern Jerusalem, an area that Palestinians hope will be part of their future state.

Under the proposed Israeli plan, called "Gilo's Western Slopes," 900 more housing units would be built, mostly in the form of four and five bedroom apartments, in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports. This plan to advance has attracted harsh criticism from international powers, which see the expansion proposal as an infringement on a previous Israeli-Palestinian agreement and as an impediment to peace negotiations.

"We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee's decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a statement. "At a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations."

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President Obama was in no mood to talk about the election results as he walked from the Oval Office this morning to Marine One idling on the South Lawn.

He ignored pleas from reporters to offer some comment on yesterday's vote that included Republican victories in the only two states with gubernatorial elections: New Jersey and Virginia.

He had campaigned and raised money in both of those states. On three visits to New Jersey, he did five rallies and/or fund-raisers for incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine. And he went twice to Virginia on behalf of candidate Creigh Deeds. Both lost.

The Democratic defeats in the gubernatorial races are a blow to the White House. Press secretary Robert Gibbs admitted Mr. Obama was disappointed "his friend Jon Corzine" didn't win re-election and telephoned him and Deeds to offer words of consolation after their defeats last night.

But the White House challenges any suggestions that the election results reflect voter rejection of Mr. Obama or his agenda.

"People didn't do to the polls to register support for or opposition to the president," Gibbs told reporters this morning at an off-camera briefing in his office.

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White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs denied today that terrorism suspects in the prison at Guantanamo Bay are receiving vaccinations for the H1N1 flu.

"There is no vaccine in Guantanamo, and there's no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo," Gibbs said during his daily press briefing.

Amid a shortage of the vaccine, the Miami Herald first reported last week that the Pentagon would offer the vaccine to the Guantanamo prisoners.

A military spokesman confirmed the report. Army Maj. James Crabtree said the vaccine would arrive at the prison this month and first go to guards. It would then be offered to inmates "entirely on a voluntary basis."

"I don't know what the Pentagon said," Gibbs said today. "I know, in asking yesterday, whether or not there was any vaccine there or whether there was any vaccine that was on its way, the answer to both those questions was no."

CBSNews.com Special Report: H1N1

Gibbs added that the White House did not stop the Pentagon from shipping the vaccine to the prison -- "there wasn't any there, and there wasn't any on the way," he said.

Only 28 million doses of vaccine were available by the end of the October, rather than the expected 40 million doses, presidential adviser David Axelrod said on CBS Nrews' Face the Nation.

"We will have all the vaccine we need in very order," Axelrod said.

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After the latest 3 hour strategy session on Afghanistan, President Obama is still not ready to make a decision on how many more troops, if any, to deploy. He has now taken part in 15 hours of policy review and has another meeting with his war council next week.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs says the president has yet to hear the "magic sentence" or "magic phrase" that will enable to him finish his strategy review and make the pending decision on troops.

Gibbs was adamant in shooting down a BBC report that Mr. Obama has settled on sending another 45,000 American forces to Afghanistan. Gibbs said Mr. Obama had not yet made a decision, much less conveyed word to the British.

The spokesman again ruled out the option of a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan saying "the president has been clear to say, we're not leaving Afghanistan."

Today's session focused on efforts by the U.S. and its allies to strengthen the "civilian mission within Afghanistan." Gibbs said the president also received an updated report on programs to train the Afghan National Army and Police.

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With more than eight months under his belt as White House Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs admits he longs for "a boring day."

By that, he means a day on which press aren't clamoring for his comments on new crises, economic collapses or political attacks from members of Congress.

"I told the President last week I hoped to wake up (to) a boring day in his administration," Gibbs confessed at his daily press briefing. "It just hasn't happened yet," he lamented.

He made the comment just as it was my turn to question him.

"You're not really waiting for a boring day, are you?" I asked.

"I am," he responded, as reporters laughed. But as Gibbs looks to the news horizon and beyond, he said "the truth is I don't see one in the future; I haven't seen one in the past."

A boring day? At the White House? In 2009?

"They don't exist," I told him. "There's always something (going on)."

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White House Press Secretary said the public option for health insurance remains on the table, saying President Obama plans to talk about it along with the "need for choice and competition" during Wednesday night's address to Congress.

"We have insurance markets that are dominated by just one insurance company. And for those that are in the private insurance market or seeking small business insurance through the private insurance market, there's nobody to compete with one health care insurance company that dominates that market. There's no choice, there's no competition," Gibbs said on CBS' "The Early Show" Wednesday.

Gibbs said the president's goal was to speak "clearly and directly to the American people about what is in this bill for them" – an important task since a CBS News poll finds that most people still don't know what his plan would mean for them.

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A White House spokesman on Monday said former Vice President Dick Cheney had his facts wrong when he criticized the Obama administration's decision to investigate allegedly abusive CIA interrogation techniques.

Cheney on Sunday called the Justice Department investigation an "outrageous political act" that will do significant long term damage to the nation. (Watch more about Cheney's comments here.)

At his regular press briefing Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs brushed aside the criticism as "the same song and dance we've heard since literally the first day of our administration."

"I'm not entirely sure that Dick Cheney's predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years in a way that have been either positive or, to the best of my recollection, very correct," Gibbs said.

Cheney said on Sunday that the harsh interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects were "directly responsible" for the fact that there have been no further mass casualty attacks against the United States since Sept. 11, 2001.

"I think the (former) vice president, if you watched some of his interview, clearly had his facts on a number of things wrong," Gibbs said Monday.

Gibbs contrasted Cheney's statements with Republican Sen. John McCain's comments on CBS's "Face the Nation." Though McCain said it was a "serious mistake" to investigate the interrogations, he said the interrogation techniques of the CIA under the Bush administration were harmful to the U.S.

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The attached photo is hanging outside Press Secretary Robert Gibbs' office in the West Wing.

He thought it's hanging upside down and asked that it be righted.

Gibbs was told it is rightside up - it's a reflection in a table top of members of the press in the Oval Office

He still says it makes him dizzy every time he walks by it.

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Mark Knoller is a CBS News White House correspondent. You can read more of his posts in Hotsheet here. You can also follow him on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/markknoller.

The White House is pushing back against reports that the Obama administration has lost hope for winning over some Republican support for health care reform.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday that President Obama has "absolutely not" given up on bipartisanship, according to CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller.

"I think the president would orbit the moon if he thought it would help," Gibbs said. said. "We'll get in a rocket and fly around the moon if that's what it takes to get people together."

Gibbs was disputing a New York Times article that says, "Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks."

Even though Republicans have ratcheted up their rhetoric against Mr. Obama's health care plans, "We continue to be hopeful we can get bipartisan support," Gibbs reportedly said.

The president, Gibbs said, "work with anybody in any party" on a health care plan.

The New York Times article suggests the White House believes that Republicans are not interested in working with the president, however.

"The Republican leadership," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel reportedly said to the Times, "has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama's health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day."

While Gibbs today acknowledged that some Republicans "don't plan on participating," he said some members of the Senate Finance Committee are at least "working in a constructive way to get reform."

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The White House is raising no objections to the $7-million-a-year pay package being given to the new CEO of American International Group – the insurance giant that received a U.S. government bailout package worth $182.5 billion.

"We're not micromanaging these companies," says White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. He says the government "is not making these decisions."

Federal pay czar Kenneth Feinberg is said by the company to have approved in principle of the compensation plan for CEO Robert Benmosche.

Asked why taxpayers "shouldn't feel like suckers if they see the CEO of a government-owned company getting $7 million a year," Gibbs acknowledged that AIG is "a royal mess." But he said the company's board wants "good, competent leadership that can lead the company back toward profitability."

The government now owns about 80 percent of AIG, and Gibbs said it hoped new management can help taxpayers recoup some of the investment they put in to prevent an economic calamity.

At $7 million a year, CEO Benmosche will be earning 17.5 times as much as President Obama, whose salary is set by Congress at $400,000 per annum.

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