All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

President Obama spoke to reporters Sunday afternoon in the White House Rose Garden about the House's passage of its health care reform bill late Saturday night and about the Iraqi parliament's approval of election legislation.

"Given the heated and often misleading rhetoric surrounding this legislation, I know that this was with a courageous vote for many members of Congress," Mr. Obama said about the House health care vote. "I'm grateful to them and for the rest of their colleagues for taking us this far."

"Now it falls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people," Mr Obama said. "I'm absolutely confident that they will."

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First Lady Michelle Obama and students from Bancroft Elementary School came together Tuesday afternoon to harvest the White House's vegetable garden.

"Today is the culmination of a lot of hard work," Obama said in a speech to the students.

The students not only picked vegetables from the garden, but joined the first lady and White House chefs in the kitchen to prepare a meal from the produce. Obama is seen splitting peas with some students.

Planted back in March, the South Lawn garden provides organic vegetables for the first family, as well as formal dinners. According to Obama, the garden is also a "fun and interesting way" to teach children about nutrition and eating healthy.

"The planting of this garden was one of the first things I wanted to do as first lady at the White House,” she told the students, adding: “You helped make this dream a reality.”

In her comments, Obama discussed the importance of regulating diet in order to eat healthy. She said that nearly one third of all children are obese and that roughly the same percentage will eventually have diabetes. She said "those numbers are unacceptable."

The first lady also said that medical experts predict that the current generation of children will live shorter lives than their parents due to dietary factors. Talking about her own life growing up, Obama said that eating habits have changed "substantially since I was a little girl."

"When I was growing up, fast food was a rarity," she said. "It was a special treat and we had to beg for it. Eating out was a luxury."

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First lady Michelle Obama and students from a public elementary school in Washington planted the first fruits and vegetables in the new White House garden Thursday afternoon.

They helped break ground for the plot on the South Lawn last month.

Spinach, salad greens, herbs and berries were among the crops being planted.

CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller reports the first lady gave a motherly pitch about nutrition and eating fruits and vegetables during her remarks to the kids.

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Alice Waters, the culinary impresario from Berkeley, California's Chez Panisse, must be a very happy woman. She's done what few chefs before her have managed: influenced the president of the United States.

Waters, a cheerleader for the organic food movement, has been pushing the Obamas for months to embrace locally grown fruits and vegetables. In fact, she urged the first family to think very locally.

In an open letter, Waters wrote, "I cannot forget the vision I have had since 1993 of a beautiful vegetable garden on the White House lawn. It would demonstrate to the nation and to the world our priority of stewardship of the land—a true victory garden!"

Today, Waters' vision becomes a reality. White House grounds crew and kitchen staff will clear a 1,100-square-foot patch of land on the South Lawn to grow goodies like Thai basil, hot peppers, collard greens, spinach, and berries, The New York Times reports. There will even be space for two bee hives, which will be used to make honey.

White House staff will have help breaking ground for the garden: Fifth graders from Mount Pleasant's Bancroft Elementary School have been enlisted to lend a hand with the digging. And the first family will do gardening stints. Michelle Obama promised the Times that being "leader of the free world" won't excuse her husband from weeding.

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On the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth earlier this month, the Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and his staff at the department’s Washington headquarters broke out its shovels and “broke pavement” on a garden.

Dubbed The People’s Garden, the project seems slated to simply replace a lot of unnecessary pavement with grass. But it is nonetheless a symbolic nod to the eat-local movement, which encourages community gardens in urban areas.

Will the Obamas be following suit? Vilsack adviser Neil Hamilton, the chair and director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University Law School in Iowa, says yes.

“I believe that by this summer there will be a garden – another garden, a vegetable garden – on the White House lawn,” Hamilton said at a weekend legal seminar at Yale University.

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