Politics Today: An Olympic Decision
Politics Today is CBSNews.com's inside look at the key stories driving the day in politics, written by CBS News Political Director Steve Chaggaris:
** Will the president's trip to Copenhagen pay off?...
** Obama meets face to face with McChrystal...
** The Senate Finance Committee finishes amending its health care bill...
"President Obama described himself as a 'passionate supporter' of the Games and as 'a proud Chicagoan,'" reports Chicagobreakingnews.com.
"He said he looked forward to welcoming the world to the shores of Lake Michigan and America in 2016. 'America is ready and eager,' he said.
"He described his own association with and love for the city. ... He also referenced the Great Chicago Fire and how Chicago rose from its ashes and is a place 'where visionaries who make no small plans rebuilt ... and taught the world to reach new heights.'
"'It's not just the American dream that is the Olympic spirit; it's the essence of the Olympic spirit, and that's why we see so much of ourselves in these Games,' he said. 'That's why we want them in Chicago, that's why we want them in America.' He concluded by saying Chicago would make the IOC proud."
"[T]he trip is not without risk," writes Politico's Kenneth P. Vogel.
"If another city gets the games, it would be something of an embarrassment on the international stage for Obama and would open him further to Republican attacks about his allocating time and taxpayer money for the trip while his administration is struggling to overhaul the nation's health insurance system, refine its military strategy in Afghanistan and deal with sky-high unemployment.
"And if Obama brings home the games, it could arm opponents with fodder for more than six years, particularly if preparations for the Chicago Games are beset by the delays, cost-over-runs and controversies that have plagued Olympics past."
McClatchy Newspapers' Steven Thomma, "Now even an Olympics bid becomes fodder to knock Obama"
McChrystal was in London to deliver a speech Thursday where he rejected "calls for the war effort to be scaled down from defeating the Taliban insurgency to a narrower focus on hunting down Al Qaeda, an option suggested by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. as part of the current White House strategy review," writes the New York Times' John Burns.
"After his first 100 days in command in Kabul, General McChrystal chose an audience of military specialists at London's Institute for Strategic Studies as a platform for a public airing of the confidential assessment of the war he delivered to the Pentagon in late August, parts of which were leaked to news organizations. General McChrystal, 55, did not mention Mr. Biden or his advocacy of a scaled-down war effort during his London speech, and referred only obliquely to the debate within the Obama administration on whether to escalate the American commitment in Afghanistan by accepting his request for up to 40,000 more American troops on top of the 68,000 already deployed there or en route.
"But he used the London session for a rebuttal of the idea of a more narrowly focused war. When a questioner asked him whether he would support scaling back the American military presence over the next 18 months by relinquishing the battle with the Taliban and focusing on tracking down Al Qaeda, sparing ground troops by hunting Qaeda extremists and their leaders with missiles from remotely piloted aircraft, he replied: 'The short answer is: no.'"
Despite McChrystal's remarks, "Senior White House officials have begun to make the case for a policy shift in Afghanistan that would send few, if any, new combat troops to the country and instead focus on faster military training of Afghan forces, continued assassinations of al-Qaeda leaders and support for the government of neighboring Pakistan in its fight against the Taliban," report the Washington Post's Scott Wilson and Anne E. Kornblut.
"In a three-hour meeting Wednesday at the White House, senior advisers challenged some of the key assumptions in Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's blunt assessment of the nearly eight-year-old war, which President Obama has said is being fought to destroy al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and the ungoverned border areas of Pakistan…
"White House officials are resisting McChrystal's call for urgency, which he underscored Thursday during a speech in London, and questioning important elements of his assessment, which calls for a vast expansion of an increasingly unpopular war. One senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the meeting, said, 'A lot of assumptions -- and I don't want to say myths, but a lot of assumptions -- were exposed to the light of day.'"
5353646HEALTH CARE: "Health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama all but cleared a major hurdle in the Senate early Friday as Democratic liberals and moderates on a key committee closed ranks behind the most sweeping set of changes in a half-century," reports the Associated Press' David Espo.
"Obama hailed the developments in the Senate Finance Committee as a milestone, and said in a written statement, 'we are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don't.' ...
"The legislation was built on the wreckage of failed bipartisan negotiations among six members of the committee, and tilted at several points to appeal to Democratic moderates more than liberals. Baucus said that was the only strategy that could succeed in gaining 60 votes in the Senate, needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster."
The Finance Committee "will not hold a vote on the legislation until next week -- and key senators are still noncommittal about where they stand -- lawmakers adopted a number of key amendments throughout the seventh and final day of its consideration of the long-awaited bill," adds the Hill's Jeffrey Young.
"The committee's final vote on the bill will not take place until next week because Baucus promised senators they could review the final package and an official Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate of its cost before being asked to vote. Baucus predicted that score would be completed Tuesday or Wednesday.
"The bill would establish state and regional health insurance exchanges for individuals and small-business employees. People with incomes from 133 percent of the federal poverty level and 300 percent of poverty would receive tax credits to help pay for insurance and people below 133 percent would receive Medicaid benefits. The bill would require a total of about $900 billion in new federal spending that would be offset with Medicare and Medicaid spending cuts and new tax revenue."
Meantime, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was certain Thursday that any final bill out of Congress will include a "public option" provision.
"We are going to have a public option before this bill goes to the president's desk," Reid said in a conference call with constituents, referring to some kind of government plan," reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Benjamin Spillman. "'I believe the public option is so vitally important to create a level playing field and prevent the insurance companies from taking advantage of us,' he said."
5339106New York Times' Adam Nagourney and David M. Herszenhorn,"RepublicansCall Health Legislation a Tax Increase": "In recent days, Republican leaders hoping to derail Mr. Obama's health care effort have seized on a new line of attack: that the proposed overhaul is a vehicle for a barrage of hidden and not-so-hidden tax increases, and a violation of Mr. Obama's pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year.
"'If we can't do health care reform without taxing people in the middle class and the lower income categories, then we have got the wrong plan in front of us,' Senator Michael D. Crapo, Republican of Idaho, said Thursday.
"The new message seeks to move the health care debate to ground that Republicans know well and have long exploited to their advantage. It has the benefit for them of relative simplicity amid the torrent of complex and often confusing elements of the health care legislation. And it could have a particular political resonance among the group likely to determine the fate — or at least the shape — of the health bill: those Democrats in the House and the Senate who come from relatively conservative districts and states.
"The president and Democrats flatly reject the assertions, and say the bill will provide tax credits to help millions of moderate-income Americans buy insurance, amounting to what they say is actually a tax cut."
Wall Street Journal's Greg Hitt and Janet Adamy, "Insurance Executive Pay Curbed in Health Bill"
"The agreement was announced after seven and a half hours of talks in Geneva that included the highest-level official U.S.-Iranian encounter in three decades.
"Iran also pledged that within weeks it would allow the inspection of a previously covert uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom, and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, announced that he'd head to Tehran to work out the details.
"In Washington, President Barack Obama said the talks marked 'a constructive beginning' and showed the promise of renewed engagement with Iran, but added that 'going forward, we expect to see swift action. We're not interested in talking for the sake of talking.'"
"The sudden show of cooperation by Tehran reduces for now the threat of additional sanctions, which has been made repeatedly by the United States and others over the past week after the revelation of a secret Iranian nuclear facility. The United States will need to keep the pressure on Iran to avoid being dragged into a process without end," adds the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler.
"Under the tentative deal, Iran would give up most of its enriched uranium to Russia in order for it to be converted into desperately needed material for a medical research reactor in Tehran. Iran also agreed to let international inspectors visit the newly disclosed uranium-enrichment facility in Qom within two weeks, and then to attend another meeting with negotiators from the major powers by the end of the month. The series of agreements struck at the meeting was in itself unusual because, in the past, the Iranian negotiators have said they would get back with an answer -- and then fail to do so.
"U.S. and other diplomats present at the talks said the tone of the Iranian delegation privately was not different from the public posture, with much of the morning devoted to lengthy exchanges of official talking points. But they said the mood shifted subtly after the participants broke for lunch. The chief U.S. negotiator, Undersecretary of State William J. Burns, spent 45 minutes in a small sitting room with Jalili while the other diplomats gathered in the back yard of the Villa Le Saugy, admiring the views of the Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva as they mingled in small groups and ate from a cold buffet of fish and salads.
The negotiators -- including diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union -- never returned to the conference table but continued huddling in a rotating series of groups to structure the agreements."
"[T]he senator arranged for Mr. Hampton to join a political consulting firm and lined up several donors as his lobbying clients, according to interviews, e-mail messages and other records," the Times writes. "Mr. Ensign and his staff then repeatedly intervened on the companies' behalf with federal agencies in Washington, often after urging from Mr. Hampton. ...
"Mr. Hampton said he and Mr. Ensign were aware of the lobbying restriction but chose to ignore it. He recounted how the senator helped him find clients and ticked off several steps Mr. Ensign took to assist them with their agendas in Washington, activities confirmed by federal officials and executives with the businesses.
"'The only way the clients could get what John was essentially promising them — which was access — was if I still had a way to work with his office,' Mr. Hampton said. 'And John knew that.'"
"But it was the little-known independent, Christopher Daggett, a former Environmental Protection Agency official, who all but stole the show, promoting a plan to cut the state's skyrocketing property taxes by up to 25 percent and haranguing Mr. Christie in particular for lacking a specific plan of his own.
"Over 90 tense minutes, Mr. Daggett, 59, seemed to metamorphose from a halting speaker in the early going into a sure-footed vaudevillian, puncturing the arguments of his opponents even as they both seemed to go out of their way to agree with him as often as possible. 'It sounds like both these two guys might vote for me,' he said.
Newark Star-Ledger's Claire Heininger, "Candidates confront Jersey issues in debate"
Politico's Michael Falcone, "Christie and Corzine trade shots"
ALSO:
Richmond Times-Dispatch's Tyler Whitley, "Deeds, McDonnell each claim endorsements"
Washington Post's Michael A. Fletcher, "Obama Officials to Address Slaying of Chicago Honor Student"
Associated Press, "FBI Ordered to Release Cheney Interview"
Hartford Courant's Daniela Altimari, "Obama to come to Connecticut for Dodd"
Politico's Alex Isenstadt, "John McCain's mission: A GOP makeover"