All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**President Obama is Germany; visits site of former concentration camp...

**World reacts to president's speech to Muslims...

**Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor turns over questionnaire to Senate Judiciary Committee... reveals she used "wise Latina" line in many speeches over the years...

**Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., faces his state's Democratic Party for the first time this weekend...

**Plouffe to help Gov. Deval Patrick, D-Mass.

PRESIDENT'S OVERSEAS TRIP: President Obama is in Germany today where he met earlier with Chancellor Angela Merkel. Later this morning, he'll visit the former concentration camp at Buchenwald; Mr. Obama's great uncle, Charles Payne, helped liberate a nearby camp, Ohrdruf, during World War II. And this afternoon, he'll visit wounded troops at the U.S. military hospital at Landstuhl.

"Obama arrived in Dresden on Thursday night after giving his speech on relations with the Middle East in Cairo, Egypt," reports Der Spiegel.

"Early on Friday morning Obama arrived at the historic Dresden Castle, a pearl of Baroque architecture that houses a number of outstanding museums, to hold talks with Merkel. Obama signed the city's guest book in an ornate room, writing 'Greetings from the people of the United States!' and then departed for an hour of private talks with the chancellor. The two leaders discussed the economic crisis, the ongoing tensions with Iran and North Korea over their nuclear program, policy toward Russia, the carmaker Opel and the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"However, Obama did not ask Merkel to make any firm commitment to take inmates from the US military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. Speaking at a joint press conference after the talks, Obama said that the issue of what to do with the inmates would not be resolved in the next two to three months. 'It will take longer.' …

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A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**President Obama is in Cairo, Egypt; delivered speech aimed at world's Muslims...

**Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor continues meeting with Senators; a new poll shows 55% of Americans approve of her nomination...

**The president outlines health care goals, calls for a bill on his desk by October...

PRESIDENT'S OVERSEAS TRIP: In Cairo today, President Obama delivered his long-promised speech to the world's Muslims, calling for "common ground" and a "new beginning" to the relationship between Americans and the Muslim world, in an effort to change their view of the U.S., a view that has deteriorated since the 9/11 attacks.

"'We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world -- tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate," Mr. Obama said in his 55-minute speech at Cairo University. "I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect. ... America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."

In trying to relate to Muslims, Mr. Obama not only used Muslim phrases ("I ... carry a greeting of peace ... assalaamu alaykum") but also talked of his personal experience with Islam ("As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk," he said).

But the president also wanted to assure Muslims that he didn't expect things to "change overnight" because of his speech.

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A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**President Obama arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia just after 7:30am ET...

**Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor continues meeting with Senators; Newt Gingrich says his labeling of her as "racist" was "too strong and direct"...

**Gov. Pawlenty's retirement announcement raises speculation about his political future...

PRESIDENT'S OVERSEAS TRIP: "President Barack Obama began his latest bid to open a dialogue with the Muslim world by paying a call Wednesday on Saudi King Abdullah, guardian of Islam's sacred sites in Mecca and Medina," reports the Associated Press' Mark S. Smith.

"The monarch of Saudi Arabia greeted Obama at Riyadh's main airport with a ceremony when the new U.S. president arrived after an overnight flight from Washington. ... Perched on ornate chairs behind a flower arrangement, Obama and Abdullah then chatted briefly in public and shook hands, with cameras capturing the scene. Then, they retreated to hold private talks on a range of issues."

Regarding Mr. Obama's speech in Cairo tomorrow, writes the Washington Post's Anthony Shadid, "he will face the legacy of names like Haditha, Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, places that have become more symbol than geography over nearly a decade of perhaps the most traumatic chapter in America's relationship with the Muslim world.

"More than any other president in a generation, Obama enjoys a reservoir of goodwill in the region. His father was Muslim. His outreach in an interview with an Arabic satellite channel, a speech to Turkey's parliament and an address to Iranians on the Persian New Year have inclined many to listen. Just as important, he is not George W. Bush.

"But Obama will still encounter a landscape in which two realities often seem to be at work, shaped by those symbols."

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A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

**President Obama meets with Democratic senators today to talk health care...

**Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is on the Hill to meet with Senators...

**Mr. Obama leaves for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia later today for a five-day trip to the Middle East and Europe...

**The Minnesota Supreme Court is "skeptical" of Republican Norm Coleman's arguments...

HEALTH CARE: Democratic senators head to the White House to meet with Mr. Obama about health care while his Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies before a House Appropriations Subcommittee on the administration's proposals.

Last night, the White House released a report concluding that it'll be impossible to fix the economy without bringing down health care costs.

The Washington Post's Ceci Connolly and Lori Montgomery report, "Slowing the growth in health-care spending from 6 percent a year to 4.5 percent would have enormous benefits for the nation's economy, creating as many as 500,000 jobs a year and increasing annual income for the average family of four by $2,600 over the next decade, the president's chief economic advisers said yesterday. ...

"The report contains few details about how those ambitious goals would be achieved, however, and does not address any increased federal spending needed to implement health reform. And the White House economists acknowledge that shaving 1.5 percentage points off the rate of growth in health spending would be extraordinarily difficult -- 'probably near the upper bound of what is feasible.'"

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A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

Before President Obama heads out on a five-day trip to Europe and the Middle East this week, today at 11:55 a.m. ET he'll deal with some important business on the home front: General Motors' bankruptcy filing and the future of the auto industry.

"President Barack Obama couldn't let General Motors fail, but he won't concede he's taking over the company," reports the Associated Press' Jim Kuhnhenn. "With a 60 percent equity stake in the carmaker and $50 billion in taxpayer money riding on GM's success, the federal government isn't exactly a hands-off investor. As GM enters into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Obama's economic team is stressing that its goals are to maximize the return to taxpayers and to exit from its involvement as quickly as possible. But as one administration official put it Sunday night, there is an inevitable tension between those two objectives."

"Even after nine months of extraordinary government intervention, the scope and complexity of the General Motors Corp. rescue present a thicket of conflicts unlike any seen before in Washington," add the Wall Street Journal's Neil King Jr., Jeffrey McCracken and Mike Spector.

"The federal government is likely within weeks to emerge as the principal owner of a storied U.S. corporation whose factories and products touch the lives of tens of millions of Americans. It will simultaneously serve as the company's regulator, tax collector, customer, pension backstop and lender. The administration put out a set of overarching principles Sunday meant to guide its interactions with GM and other companies in which the U.S. has an equity stake. The points stressed that the administration has no desire to own parts of companies and would do so only under extreme conditions. Once helping a company such as GM restructure, the government would manage its stake "in a hands-off, commercial manner" and not get involved in issuing day-to-day directives to GM, the guidelines said.

"Obama aides have wrestled for weeks over how to portray the government's increasing involvement as an active player in the private sector. But given the size of the $50 billion U.S. investment, it will be hard for President Barack Obama and Congress to say they will remain uninvolved in a company saved only by taxpayer largesse."

Detroit Free Press' Tim Higgins, "GM files for bankruptcy"

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A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

The digging into President Obama's Supreme Court choice, Sonia Sotomayor, has begun and there's no shortage of research, comments and criticism - some of which is extremely harsh.

"Lawyers who have argued cases before Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor call her 'nasty,' 'angry' and a 'terror on the bench,' according to the current Almanac of the Federal Judiciary -- a kind of Zagat's guide to federal judges," reports the Washington Times' Tom LoBianco.

"The withering evaluation of Judge Sotomayor's temperament stands in stark contrast to reviews of her peers on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Of the 21 judges evaluated, the same lawyers gave 18 positive to glowing reviews and two judges received mixed reviews. Judge Sotomayor was the only one to receive decidedly negative comments. Judge Sotomayor's demeanor on the bench will be one of the issues the Senate Judiciary Committee tackles when she appears for her confirmation hearing. A lack of a good temperament has been used as a line of attack against nominees in the past - most notably conservative Judge Robert H. Bork, whose nomination to the Supreme Court was defeated. But several lawyers and legal scholars on a call organized by the White House said the criticism is misplaced and that Judge Sotomayor's legal acumen is overwhelming."

The New York Times' Jo Becker and Adam Liptak add that Sotomayor, "has a blunt and even testy side, and it was on display in December during an argument before the federal appeals court in New York. The case concerned a Canadian man who said American officials had sent him to Syria to be tortured, and Judge Sotomayor peppered a government lawyer with skeptical questions. 'So the minute the executive raises the specter of foreign policy, national security,' Judge Sotomayor asked the lawyer, Jonathan F. Cohn, 'it is the government's position that that is a license to torture anyone?'"

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A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

President Obama returns from his western campaign-style trip which not only included fund-raisers but sales pitches for climate change, his economic recovery plan and - the week's big news - Sonia Sotomayor, his choice for the Supreme Court.

In Washington, however, the right and the left ratcheted up their grumbling over Sotomayor as Senate Republicans stayed their course and honored their leaders' wishes not to "pre-judge" or "pre-confirm" Sotomayor.

Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich raised the volume on conservative opposition with Gingrich going as far as suggesting Sotomayor is "racist" and should withdraw because of this comment she made in 2001: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

On the left, as CBS News Supreme Court correspondent Wyatt Andrews pointed out last night, pro-abortion rights groups are getting nervous about Sotomayor since she's not on the record anywhere regarding Roe v. Wade.

"Pro-abortion rights groups worried aloud ... that the President who promised an abortion rights nominee never asked Sotomayor - who is Catholic - where she stands," Andrews reported on the CBS Evening News last night. "We simply don't know Judge Sotomayor's view on the bedrock constitutional case of Roe vs. Wade," the president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, Nancy Northup, told Andrews.

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A roundup of news, schedules, and key stories from CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:

While President Obama is out west today talking climate change and the economy, his historic nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court is dominating the news. (Click here for full coverage of Sotomayor's nomination.)

Republicans are trying to figure out their opposition to the first Hispanic and third woman to be nominated to the Court. Senate Republicans are being cautious, fully aware of their problems with women and Latino voters in recent elections.

"The GOP's dilemma on Sotomayor is the latest example of the party's internal struggle over how to reinvent itself at a time that its voter base is increasingly dominated by Southern, conservative white men," report the Los Angeles Times' Peter Wallsten and Richard Simon.

"Some moderates have argued that the party must work to recruit more minorities and broaden its ideological foundation. But many leading conservatives have rejected that and see the latest Supreme Court vacancy as a chance to beat the drum on social touchstones such as abortion, gay marriage and affirmative action -- while also revving up their fundraising machineries. ..."

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The anticipation as to who President Obama will choose to replace Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court ends at 10:15 a.m. ET as he makes a "special announcement."

A senior White House official confirms to CBS News that he will name federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor, at left, as the first Hispanic justice to serve on the Supreme Court.

The White House is touting the fact that she was originally appointed to the U.S. District Court by President George H.W. Bush in 1991 and that she has been confirmed by the Senate twice before (in 1991 and 1998). They’re also touting the fact that she has more judicial experience than any of the current justices at the time they were nominated for the Supreme Court.

The president has said repeated that he was looking for a justice who combined empathy and smarts - and Sotomayor fits the bill.

“Sotomayor is a self-described ‘Newyorkrican’ who grew up in a Bronx housing project after her parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico,” writes the Associated Press’ Ben Feller.

“She has dealt with diabetes since age 8 and lost her father at age 9, growing up under the care of her mother in humble surroundings. As a girl, inspired by the Perry Mason television show, she knew she wanted to be a judge. A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School, a former prosecutor and private attorney, Sotomayor became a federal judge for the Southern District of New York in 1992. As a judge, she has a bipartisan pedigree. She was first appointed by a Republican, President George H.W. Bush, then named an appeals judge by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

"At her Senate confirmation hearing more than a decade ago, she said, ‘I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.’ In one of her most memorable rulings as federal district judge, Sotomayor essentially salvaged baseball in 1995, ruling with players over owners in a labor strike that had led to the cancellation of the World Series. As an appellate judge, she sided with the city of New Haven, Conn., in a discrimination case brought by white firefighters after the city threw out results of a promotion exam because two few minorities scored high enough. Ironically, that case is now before the Supreme Court.”

Conservatives, are already using the New Haven case in their arguments against Sotomayor. “Sonia Sotomayor, who didn’t give a fair shake in court to firefighters deprived promotion on account of race. ... On Sotomayor’s court, the content of your character is not as important as the color of your skin,” says a web video produced by the Judicial Confirmation Network.

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President Obama will sign the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act in the Rose Garden this afternoon.

USA Today's Cathy Chu writes, that "in the most sweeping changes to the credit card industry in 40 years, President Obama is expected to sign a bill Friday to restrict practices that consumers say have pushed them deeper into debt."

Newsweek's Michael Hirsch, "Should The Fed Be Wall Street's Watchdog"

"[T]his high-profile, high-priority event clashes with what once was deemed another top presidential priority: Obama’s campaign promise that he would “not sign any nonemergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days," Politico's Carol E. Lee writes.

Earlier in the day, he will deliver the confirmation address at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. John McCain’s son is graduating from the academy today.

CNN, “Lives of McCain, Obama to overlap at Naval commencement”

"President Barack Obama wants to assure graduating midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy that he will invest not just in weapons but also in the people who keep the country safe. Obama was to mark the start of the Memorial Day weekend with his final commencement speech of the season Friday at the naval academy in Annapolis, Md," the AP writes.

***On WASHINGTON UNPLUGGED today, Virginia Congressmen Jim Moran and Frank Wolf on Guantanamo detainees; a roundtable with Bob Orr and the Washington Post's Carrie Johnson and "Seeds of Terror" author Gretchen Peters***

Watch at 2pm today at: www.cbsnews.com/washingtonuplugged.

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