All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

Updated 5:17 p.m. ET, with additional information

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates attended one of the Fort Hood funerals today in Mountain City, Tenn., for Fort Hood victim Specialist Frederick Greene (seen at left).

He'd been invited by Specialist Greene's father. Gates met the family at the Fort Hood memorial last week.

This was Gates' first time attending a military funeral outside the Washington area.

His spokesman Geoff Morrell says he's wanted to do this before -- "to be part of a sendoff for one of our fallen heroes, where the whole town turns out to honor him." But he hadn't wanted to be a distraction. This funeral -- where he had been personally invited, and the geography meant he could attend without alerting large numbers of press, made it possible.

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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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By tomorrow, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, will have the honor of being the longest-serving member of Congress ever, breaking the record set by former senator Carl Hayden.

Politico reports that Byrd, who is 91, has now officially served 20,774 days -- or 56 years, ten and a half months -- in Congress. Byrd was elected to the Senate in 1959 after serving three two-year terms in the House of Representatives, and has since been reelected eight times. He accomplished a unique feat by earning a law degree while in Congress, graduating in 1963; and he is President pro tempore of the Senate, making him third in the line of presidential succession behind Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"On Nov. 18, a West Virginian breaks all records and makes history," West Virginia governor Joe Manchin said in a recent news release. "Sen. Byrd sets the gold standard for what it means to be an outstanding public official, and next week he will reach a historic national milestone for length of service."

Byrd has attracted significant attention throughout his time in Washington for his controversial background, his efforts to further West Virginia's economic development and his record-setting career longevity. Between 1995 and 2006, Byrd sent more than $1 billion West Virginia's way, and most of the $215 million in federal funds given to the state during fiscal 2008 was a result of his work, according to the Charleston Gazette. The Gazette also reports that he was the first candidate to win all 55 counties in one West Virginia election- an accomplishment that he has since repeated twice.

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Angered over a number of leaks about President Obama's deliberations over the war in Afghanistan and the investigation into the Fort Hood shootings, the administration is reportedly planning to find those responsible for the leaked information and punish them.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday called leaks pertaining to the Fort Hood massacre "unconscionable" and said, "Everybody ought to just shut up," the New York Times reports.

With respect to the Afghanistan deliberations, Gates reportedly said, "I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on in this process."

He added that he believes "a lot of different places are leaking," saying he is "confident that the Department of Defense is one of them."

"And frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who was leaking in the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career ender," Gates said.

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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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Rep. Robert Wexler, the staunch liberal of Boca Raton, Fla., is leaving Congress to become the president of the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation.

The congressman represented Palm Beach and Broward Counties for 19 years. He will leave Congress in January 2010.

"I have truly cherished the opportunity to serve my constituents – many of whom make up the generation that sacrificed in World War II and Korea and rebuilt our nation after the Great Depression," he said in a statement.

After the 2000 presidential election, Wexler pushed for a voter-verified paper trail for votes cast in Florida. In the 2008 election, he was an early supporter of President Obama. He served as a Middle East adviser for Mr. Obama during the campaign, and he has advocated for stronger U.S.-Israel relations as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

"Taking over as president of the Center for Middle East Peace offers me an unparalleled opportunity to work on behalf of Middle East peace for an important and influential non-profit institute," Wexler said. "We are at a unique and critically tense moment in the history of the Middle East with both significant opportunities to succeed in the Arab-Israeli conflict as well as major challenges involving Iran, Hamas, and al Qaeda."

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist will have to call a special election to replace Wexler. Democratic State Sen. Jeremy Ring will run for the seat, the Miami Herald reports, while other potential candidates reportedly include state Sen. Ted Deutch, West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, Broward County Mayor Stacy Ritter and former Broward County Commissioner Ben Graber.

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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West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd has been released from the hospital, the Associated Press is reporting. The 91-year-old Democrat had been hospitalized after a fall that resulted from standing up too quickly.

Byrd was in the hospital for two days after doctors discovered that he had an elevated white-blood cell count and worried about a possible infection. The Democrat, who holds the record for longest Senate tenure, was hospitalized over the summer with a staph infection and has been absent from the Senate for most of the year.

First elected in 1958, Byrd is the president pro tempore of the Senate, which puts him third in line in presidential succession. His office said he will take antibiotics and recuperate at home before returning to the chamber.