All Blog Posts from Political Hotsheet

On Saturday, the Senate will vote on whether to begin debate on the health care reform bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) earlier this week.

Reid "wants to get that wind under his belt before all these senators leave for Thanksgiving recess and don't see each other for another week or so," CBS News' Capitol Hill Correspondent Nancy Cordes said on "Washington Unplugged" Friday.

She said members of the Senate leadership are increasingly confident that they will get the sixty votes needed to start debate on the health care bill. Right now, Cordes said, Reid has the solid support of fifty-eight senators.

"We are getting smoke signals from just about everybody at this point that in fact they will vote yes to actually start this debate in motion," Cordes told Bob Schieffer. "They are not saying how they will vote in the end but the consensus seems to be, 'why not start debating it then you can bring up amendments to try to change the parts of the bill that you don't like, and then in the end you can always vote no again?'"

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Before Sarah Palin's highly-anticipated book, "Going Rogue," goes on sale this week, it has already generated controversy, skepticism and blowback.

"This is Sarah Palin's turn to get even, as it were," said CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of "Face the Nation" Bob Schieffer.

"She came under this intense criticism all during the campaign and now she's giving her version of why she didn't succeed as a candidate."

But Schieffer, speaking on "The Early Show" Monday, said he does not think her strategy will work. "It's kind of like a baseball player going into a slump and blaming the manager or blaming the bat boy or blaming the fans or something. You know, it makes for provocative reading, I think she'll sell a lot of books, but I don't think it's going to help re-establish her as a political candidate."

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While some analysts may look at today's off-year elections as a measure of President Obama's ability to influence voters and push through his agenda, CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer believes the real significance of the outcomes of today's races will be a measure of divisions within the Republican Party.

He says todays races offer "a snapshot of where the Republican Party is right now. The Republican Party right now is still split. And I think right now it's the conservatives who kind of have the juice."

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Count "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer among those shocked by President Barack Obama's surprise win of the Nobel Peace Prize.


"My first reaction was 'What?' I don't think anybody expected this," Schieffer told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez Friday.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited Mr. Obama's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" as the basis for the award, but Schieffer thinks it might have a lot to do with Mr. Obama's predecessor.

"President Bush was very unpopular in Europe and it is almost as if this is more of a comment on the previous administration than it is on the new one."

Schieffer said the prize may also hurt the president domestically. In the first nine months of Mr. Obama's term, his political foes have criticized the president's conciliatory tone in international forums.

"You have to wonder, is this going to widen the partisan divide rather than bring people together."

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The tactic worked for Tony Blair and Vladimir Putin: a leader making a high-profile bid to host an Olympic Games. Now President Barack Obama is throwing his weight towards Chicago's bid to host the 2016 Summer Games.

But given all that is on the president's plate — health care reform, Iran's nuclear program, the Afghan battle front, climate change legislation, and a struggling economy — is Mr. Obama in danger of spreading himself too thin by spending time on wooing the Olympiad to the shores of Lake Michigan?

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Former Bill Clinton adviser James Lindsay, now of the Council on Foreign Relations, said on "Washington Unplugged" Tuesday that he "wouldn’t expect any stop the presses, game changing outcomes” in foreign policy this week during President Obama’s meetings at the United Nations and then the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh.

The Center for Strategic International Studies’ Heather Conley, who worked for President Bush, said his events this week mark the end of the introductory phase of his foreign policy agenda.

“The rhetoric has come to an end,” Conley said. “Now it’s time for action.”

CBS News’ Bob Schieffer asked the guests whether they expected to see any kind of breakthrough, even a small one, in New York.

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In his prime time address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama offered support for the public option, but not as strongly as some liberal supporters may have hoped for.

In discussing the public option, Mr. Obama began by saying this: "An additional step we can take to keep insurance companies honest is by making a not-for-profit public option available in the insurance exchange."

Mr. Obama also acknowledged opposition to the public option and tried to dispel myths about it. He said it would only be an option for those who don't have insurance, that no one would be forced to choose it and that it would have to be "self-sufficient" via funding from premiums.

"By avoiding some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits and excessive administrative costs and executive salaries, it could provide a good deal for consumers, and would also keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better, the same way public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students without in any way inhibiting a vibrant system of private colleges and universities," he added.

The president also pointed out that polls, such as ones conducted by CBS News, show public support for it.

But then the president started to more directly engage each side of the debate over the public option.

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The coming week may represent a tipping point for the Obama administration's moving forward its health care agenda on its own terms.

As the president prepares for a major address to Congress Wednesday in support of his reform plans, President Obama has faced stiff challenges, from the raucous public debates at town hall meetings to Republican (and some Democratic) legislators critical of government control over health care coverage.

When asked on CBS' "The Early Show" about the president's prospects, CBS News Chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer said that the administration has to reclaim the issue of health care from its opponents.

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President Barack Obama plans to make a televised speech to America's school children next Tuesday about the importance of education and staying in school. But some critics believe the president will use that speech to promote his political agenda and some school officials said today they will not let students watch it. In Fort Worth, Texas, about a third of schools will not show it. Albuquerque, N.M., schools will let students opt out of watching and in Green Bay, Wis., they'll record the speech and let teachers decide later if it's appropriate.

CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor talked with CBS News chief Washington correspondent and host of "Face the Nation" Bob Schieffer about the issue.

Glor: We should mention other presidents, including Ronald Reagan and the first president Bush had delivered similar speeches to students. Why is this speech in particular causing such a controversy?

Schieffer: Well, it is really stirred up a lot of people out there. I think some of it is genuine. I think there are people now who are frustrated, they're worried about the economy, they're worried about their jobs. But in today's world, the world of the Internet, when one person is frustrated, another person who shares that frustration soon finds out about it and they connect up. And then when you have these radio talk show hosts who fan the flames of these things, you have these instant firestorms of protests that blow up, as this one has blown up.

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CBS News' Bob Schieffer has interviewed Washington power players for decades...but today on "Washington Unplugged" he got a special invitation from Sesame Street's furry red puppet Elmo.

Schieffer admitted that because he is a "cynical Washington reporter" he came to the interview with a "secret agenda."

After showing a picture of a young Walter Cronkite with puppet Charlemagne the Lion, Schieffer asked Elmo, "could you come and be my co-anchor? I think it would be great for the ratings."

"Only if Mr. Bob comes to Sesame Street too," Elmo slipped in. It was an offer Schieffer could not resist. "It's a deal," he said.

The Sesame Street celebrity was in Washington this week to join the Department of Health and Human Services in teaching school children how to avoid the H1N1 virus, as well as to promote a PBS program which helps children understand how to sacrifice in tough economic times. (The prime time program, "Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times," airs September 9th on PBS.)

Watch the interview above. And click here to watch for the rest of today's show, which includes interviews with former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge and Politico's Mike Allen. "Washington Unplugged" appears live on CBSNews.com each weekday at 12:30 p.m. ET. Click here to check out previous episodes.