The Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously ruled Al Franken the winner of the hotly contested Minnesota Senate race this afternoon. Incumbent Norm Coleman had appealed a lower court's decision, primarily arguing that absentee ballots had been improperly handled by electoral officials. Coleman now has the option of appealing to federal courts. He has yet to indicate whether he plans to rest his campaign for the seat. ***UPDATE Coleman has conceded the race to Franken. He won't be lodging a federal appeal.*** On Sunday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty told CNN he was prepared to certify Franken as soon as the ruling was handed down, but he added he would of course follow the direction of the Supreme Court should Coleman take his appeal further. 

Depending on Coleman's actions, Franken may be seated as early as next week, when Congress returns from Fourth of July recess. This would nominally give the Democrats a 60-seat, filibuster-proof Senate majority. But will Franken's presence in the caucus really change things for Senate Democrats? I'm inclined to think no. Why? Because the real 60th vote remains newly minted Democrat Arlen Specter, and it's still unclear to me the degree to which he will actually be a faithful caucus member. So far, he appears to be playing well with his new friends, but his loyalty hasn't really been tested yet. The most telling indicator of his intentions to date was his decision last week to support the inclusion of a public plan in health-reform legislation. This came after weeks of strategically applied grassroots pressure mobilized by pro-public-plan groups. Predictably, Specter is less concerned with the ideological or policy ramifications of his supporting a public plan than with his electoral viability if he doesn't. Specter is increasingly likely to face a serious challenger in the Democratic primary, so he needs to prove to Democratic primary voters that he can be trusted to remain true to his new party label. Franken will indeed add a (undeniably entertaining) 60th voice to the caucus room, but the real 60th vote is still in the hands of Pennsylvania primary voters.

As I noted earlier, the first couple hosted a celebration honoring LGBT Pride Month in the East Room this afternoon. The event comes amid rising tensions between the Obama administration and the gay community, who are disappointed at the lack of attention given to their issues so far this year. For the most part, Obama didn't mince words. He described the gay rights "struggle" as "difficult," "painful," and "heartbreaking." He likened the movement to prior civil-rights battles, drawing parallels with "all those in our history who've been denied the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, who've been told that the full blessings and opportunities of this country were closed to them." He told the by-invitation-only group that he understood their frustrations, and it wasn't for him to advise patience, "any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African-Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago."

After listing the steps his administration has taken to further gay rights—signing the memo about extending partner benefits to federal employees, calling on Congress to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, meeting with Matthew Shephard's mother as part of a strategy to address hate crimes, and repealing the HIV travelers ban—Obama turned to Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And this is where his words went from unambiguous to murky. Although he acknowledged that "preventing patriotic Americans from serving their country weakens our national security," his plan for ending DADT was unclear. He's apparently working with the Pentagon and Joint Chiefs to develop some sort of strategy, but he didn't give a deadline or outline a process. The upshot? This doesn't really advance the repeal much beyond a campaign promise. There is a bright side for gay-rights activists, though. If you read between the lines, DADT will likely be repealed before the next election (or 2016, depending how bullish you are on Obama's chances). Here's Obama:

I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I've made, but by the promises that my administration keeps...We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.

I'm thinking those words will be ringing in the gay community for weeks.

Over the past couple of weeks, we at the Gaggle have been discussing Obama's fraught relationship with the gay community, a group that provided his campaign with both staunch support and cash. (Read Holly's summary post here.) Today there are two symbolically important developments in this relationship. First, the president is hosting a reception in the East Room this afternoon to honor LGBT Pride Month and commemorate the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Second, Politico's J-Mart (filling in for Ben Smith) reports that the administration is planning to repeal a ban that restricts HIV-positive travelers from entering the country. It has filed notice with the Federal Register, so there will be a 45-day window for public discussion before the Department of Health and Human Services enacts the change. While the HIV-travelers ban is not strictly a gay issue, it's certainly one that advocacy groups like the Human Rights Campaign feel strongly about.

Will these two moves be enough to sate gay activists? Probably not, but it's unclear whether gay leaders are prepared to escalate the fight at this time. As political guru Adam Nagourney writes, despite growing public support for gay rights, some Democrats are wary about pushing for them (and providing ammo for conservatives) at a time when tricky issues like heath reform and energy are on the table. Democrats don't need the distraction of a fight for gay marriage, for example, right now. Gay leaders have no doubt heard this message, and might be momentarily satisfied with these overtures if they view them as an indication that the administration will back its promises on "don't ask, don't tell" and gay marriage when it has some breathing room. The problem is that the "right" time to tackle gay-rights issues may never materialize. Your Gaggler's suspicion is that today's moves will defuse criticism for the time being, but if gay-rights groups don't see some movement by early next year (i.e., when health and energy are taken care of), they'll turn the heat up again. They'll want something more concrete for their troubles before the 2012 cycle, and they're smart enough to want it done well before the GOP starts gearing up.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani appeared on CNN's American Morning today and admitted, in a roundabout fashion, that he's considering running for governor of New York in 2010. Giuliani said, "I don’t know if I am or if I’m not" entering the gubernatorial race, but disclosed that he's been thinking about it. Incumbent Gov. David Paterson has been polling poorly for some time and would likely lose to Giuliani in a general election. But if Paterson doesn't run, other Democratic contenders, such as Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, whose political heritage would serve him well, would be tougher competitors.

Your Gaggler would be interested to see what impact Rudy's spectacularly bad campaign for president would have in a New York state race, if any. I happen to think his aborted stab at the GOP nomination is one of the most underreported stories of the 2008 campaign, overshadowed by all things Obama. Back in 2006, Giuliani was widely considered a shoo-in for the nomination. He had national positive name recognition, a seemingly efficient fundraising machine, and an easily spun record of reform and achievement. His questionable personal choices seemed the only flaw in the plan (not that they'd ever seriously harmed his chances in New York City contests). But it never even got to that. His disastrous Florida strategy caused his campaign to flame out before his divorces, affair, and blasé approach to cross-dressing had a chance to be nationally litigated. In a matter of weeks, Giuliani went from being one of the most popular and recognizable figures in American politics to being in the company of the least successful presidential contenders in history. Will this embarrassment, and the poor political judgment it illustrates, matter to New Yorkers? Probably not. New Yorkers have never cared much for how the rest of the country judged their politicians. Maybe Rudy's lack of regard for the retail, handshake politics of small states like New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Iowa will even win him a few fans in the Empire State.

After six and a half hours of debate Friday afternoon, the house passed the American Clean Energy & Security Act, the broadest piece of climate legislation ever considered by congress. The measure, in short, would set up a cap and trade system to regulate carbon, aiming to cut emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 and 80 percent by the end of the century. Republicans broadly opposed the measure for the inevitable rise in taxes and energy prices that providers would pass along to consumers. But Democrats argued it would create new industry and jobs, allowing American energy innovation to lead the rest of the world. (Under the bill, electric companies would have to pull at least six percent of energy from renewable sources within three years).

Nearing the end of the afternoon's debate, minority leader John Boehner took to the floor for his allotted two and a half minutes to speak. He extended his remarks over an hour in the style of a filibuster, usually a senate procedure. Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman, one of the bill's sponsors, accused Boehner of just that -- stalling the vote in hopes that some Democrats would leave the chamber for the Independence Day holiday next week before the vote was called. Democrats cheered. The substitute speaker informed Waxman that Boehner, being a member of the leadership, could speak as long as he wanted. Republicans cheered louder. The final vote was as thin as votes usually get in the house: 219 to 212.

The bill in it's current form faces an uphill battle in the senate, where it heads next. A majority of the senate is expected to rally behind the effort to combat climate change, but this bill might not be what a majority can agree on. "There are concerns in the senate over the complexity of the house bill and of the overall cost," says Paul Bledsoe, lead spokesman for the National Commission on Energy Policy. The basic cap and trade architecture will be similar in whatever the senate devises, but energy analysts familiar with senate negotiations say that the senate's rigid numbers (Democrats can't afford to lose any of their 60 votes without some Republican support) will require certain changes. Specifics, like an precise estimate of what an emissions cap would cost, will be needed to firm up the bill. One Hill staffer reports that senate leaders have already begun working -- even before the house passed its version -- to more specifically answer the question implicit in the framework of the legislation: how exactly will an energy regulation system make the U.S. safer and more competitive internationally?

Since the tragic news about the passing of pop icon Michael Jackson broke, your Gaggler has been wondering if and when the president would make a statement. It's not unusual for the White House to release such statements after the death of major cultural figures, and Jackson was arguably the biggest pop superstar of the past 30 years or more. And he was black, so it seemed reasonable to expect the first black president to have a few heartfelt words. But of course, dealing with Michael Jackson and his often baffling (and sometimes dark) private life is not that simple. So rather than issuing a formal statement, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs made a few remarks at today's briefing. Here's Gibbs:

“I talked to [Obama] about it this morning. Look, he said to me that obviously Michael Jackson was a spectacular performer and a music icon. I think everybody remembers hearing his songs, watching him moonwalk on television during Motown's 25th anniversary. But the president also said, look, he had aspects of his life that were sad and tragic. And his condolences went out to the Jackson family and to the fans that mourned his loss."

When asked why the White House didn't release a formal statement, Gibbs replied, "Because I just said it." Obama has yet to speak to any members of the Jackson family, and it is unclear if he will. Gibbs also joked that reporters had been to shy to ask the president about it directly during his press availability with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He added a dig at those pundits who were annoyed by the staged Huffington Post question on Tuesday saying, "I could have arranged it through a third party."

You can read the whole interview here. But a couple excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: In devising a new strategy for the party, where do you go from here?
SANFORD: There is an eternal tug of war within the party on where we go from here and how we find a way out. One camp says the key is to appeal to Hispanics and women and use technology more. The way out of the wilderness is to grow the tent. The other camp—and the one I fall in—says that you can build a big tent, but you have to make sure the poles can hold it up and that you're working from a good foundation. In many ways, a political party is nothing more than a brand. The great brands of time have succeeded in as much is that they've done what they say they're going to do. People buy a John Deere tractor because it does what it says they're going to do.

Who's responsible for crafting that image of what the party is supposed to do and turning around and selling it to people?
From a tactical standpoint, it's got to be Republican governors. The minority in Congress can try to impede policy, but that's very difficult. In these economic times, people want changes that will make a difference in their lives. I think that the way out of the wilderness will be getting back to the core and getting policies implemented that will be instrumental in people's lives. And I think for that, Republican governors will be particularly important.

Toward the end of the interview, I asked Sanford about the "rising star" label -- how it felt to know his party expected big things of him. "That's very flattering and kind," he said, awkwardly unsure of what else he could say. "But I can't be focused on that." Apparently, we now know, he wasn't.

The Gaggle is usually a blog focused on politics, but we’d be remiss not to mention some of the moments when Washington intersects with pop culture. To mark Michael Jackson’s sudden death this afternoon, your Gaggler thought it might be appropriate to remember the King of Pop’s visit to the White House back in 1984 as a guest of Ronald Reagan. "Well, isn't this a Thriller," Reagan joked. Jackson, who was 25 at the time, was given a plaque for allowing his song “Beat It” to be used in the administration’s anti-drunk driving ads aimed at teenagers. There was no moonwalking, but Jackson was wearing his signature look of the early 1980s, including sequined socks and that one glittered glove. "I'm very very honored," Jackson said shyly, as he was interrupted by the shreiks of fans on the South Lawn. "Thank you very much, Mr. President and Mrs. Reagan."

Your Gaggler wondered yesterday if Mark Sanford would have to own up to using any state funds to either facilitate or cover up his infidelity. Now comes word via his press office that the South Carolina governor will reimburse the state for a junket to Argentina he took a year ago, which is when the affair apparently started. Here’s Sanford's statement:

As noted by the Department of Commerce, I attended a trade mission with the Department of Commerce last June. As the agenda notes, the mission was spent meeting with government and private business officials in both Brazil and Argentina. This trip was handled very professionally by the Department of Commerce, and I'm proud of their work there. However, while the purpose of this trip was an entirely professional and appropriate business development trip, I made a mistake while I was there in meeting with the woman who I was unfaithful to my wife with. That has raised some very legitimate concerns and questions, and as such I am going to reimburse the state for the full cost of the Argentina leg of this trip.

Mark Sanford's unexpected and emotional revelation of an affair yesterday has caused much hand-wringing about the future of a seemingly scandal-plagued GOP. Critics are quick to point out that the party espousing "family" values seems to be having some difficulty getting it's representatives to live accordingly. But here at the Gaggle, our memories are a little longer. We recall the days, not so long ago, when it seemed as though Democrats were the ones having trouble keeping their pants on. So we tasked our wonderful intern Aku Ammah-Tagoe to tally up who's been doing what to whom since the Wayne Hays scandal of 1976. My penchant for powerpoint graphs once again proved irresistable, so I turned the results into graphic form. (Please note, this is not an entirely scientific analysis. Politicians are grouped by year, according to when the affair/scandal was exposed.)

The first thing to note is that, according to our research, Democrats and Republicans are pretty even in terms of sex scandals since 1976. Democrats have edged ahead in recent years, but not by much (16-14 since 2000). Republicans led the way in the '80s and '90s. The other striking feature of this graph is the jump in the number of scandals this decade. We only found nine notable scandals in the '80s, compared with 30 since the turn of the century. Interestingly, the majority of these political affairs happened during the reign of arguably the most socially conservative president during the period we examined.

It's impossible to say whether affairs are more common now, or the media has gotten better at reporting on them, or the news cycle and new mediums allow for less privacy. There are potentially other factors at play too, like the fact that few Congressmen bring their families to live with them in DC these days as was common in the past. Now the pressures of fundraising drive members back to their districts whenever Congress is not in session. Perhaps these split-city lives place more strain on relationships than before. Or perhaps, as conservatives and even some feminists would argue, the overt sexualization of popular culture has altered our societal expectations of sex, its availability, and when and where it is appropriate. But I don't think there is an academically sound way to prove any of these hypotheses. Pick the one you like, and argue amongst yourselves.

One last thing to note is that just one female politician made the list: Helen Chenoweth, who admitted in 1998 to having an eight-year affair with a rancher in her home state of Idaho during the 1980s. Ironically (or maybe hypocritcally), Chenoweth was a vocal critic of President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. So that is one out of 53, or 1.9%. Yes there are fewer women in politics overall, but this figure is a significantly smaller proportion than that. Maybe the solution to the political distraction and damage of sex scandals is simply to elect more women.

Aku's full list is after the jump. If we've missed anyone, please let us know in the comments and we'll update the graph.

The State newspaper publishes more of those Mark Sanford emails today, and now we’re getting more of the back story on how those messages were obtained and why the paper chose to not print them until now. As your Gaggler mentioned yesterday, the State reports that it had the Sanford emails since December. According to the New York Times, which has a nice write-up on the press’s handling of the affair, someone forwarded the emails to the paper anonymously. A State reporter then contacted “Maria” via her e-mail address in an attempt to confirm their authenticity, but never heard back. They apparently did not approach Sanford’s office. “What it was, was a puzzle piece that was hardly discernible,” the paper’s political editor tells the Times. But the paper didn’t really pursue it further, in part because reporters were so skeptical that Sanford might be a cheater. By their own account, Sanford was a weirdo, but an adulterer? No way. The paper still doesn’t know who sent the emails—a mystery that is indeed pretty interesting. Here’s your Gaggler’s question: Did Maria tell Sanford that reporters had contacted her? That was in December, and by Sanford’s own admission, his wife found out about the affair five months ago, in February.

BTW, today’s round of electronic pillow talk includes a mention of John McCain (Sanford talks about how he had been invited to spend some time in Aspen with the 2008 nom and how it had stirred up VP talk again); talk of their apparent first liaison at an open air dance in Uruguay (They’ll always have Punta del Este); and book recommendations (Maria gives a thumbs up to “The Age of Turbulence” by Alan Greenspan). Oh, and there’s Sanford’s odd movie recommendation: “The Holiday,” that Cameron Diaz/Jude Law/Kate Winslet chick flick about couples who fall in love on a holiday but live thousands of miles apart. “It’s music was pleasant and made me think of you—its mood and the notion of a holiday (wrapped up in our case over two days) certainly fit as well,” Sanford writes.

Speaking of other shoes to drop, the State newspaper down in South Carolina has published a series of emails between Gov. Mark Sanford and the woman in Argentina with whom he had an affair. The woman, identified only as “Maria,” refused to talk one of the paper’s reporters today when approached at her home in Buenos Aires, but the governor’s office doesn’t dispute the content of the emails, which date back to roughly one year ago. In the story, the State discloses that it's been in posession of the emails since December. (Oh really? What's the backstory there?) Warning: These emails are super cheesy, even for your Gaggler who will own up to watching the occasional episode of Days of Our Lives. (The guy who played Chris Kositchek now playing Roman? What is that about?) Here’s an excerpt of one Sanford love email to his beloved. Don’t say we didn’t warn you:

Two, mutual feelings .... You have a particular grace and calm that I adore. You have a level of sophistication that so fitting with your beauty. I could digress and say that you have the ability to give magnificent gentle kisses, or that I love your tan lines or that I love the curve of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of the night’s light - but hey, that would be going into sexual details...

Three and finally, while all the things above are all too true - at the same time we are in a hopelessly - or as you put it impossible - or how about combine and simply say hopelessly impossible situation of love. How in the world this lightening strike snuck up on us I am still not quite sure. As I have said to you before I certainly had a special feeling about you from the first time we met, but these feelings were contained and I genuinely enjoyed our special friendship and the comparing of all too many personal notes...

Lastly I also suspect I feel a little vulnerable because this is ground I have never certainly never covered before - so if you have pearls of wisdom on how we figure all this out please let me know... In the meantime please sleep soundly knowing that despite the best efforts of my head my heart cries out for you, your voice, your body, the touch of your lips, the touch of your finger tips and an even deeper connection to your soul.

Ew! Unsubscribe!

February 2009: Gov. Mark Sanford and his wife Jenny arrive at the White House to attend a dinner hosted by President Obama in Washington (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP)

Mark Sanford's wife Jenny has just released a statement announcing that she asked her husband to leave for a trial separation two weeks ago. (Your Gaggler, was actually quite pleased to not see her at the press conference today. It's always distressing to watch a humiliated wife cower by her husband's side while he announces infidelity and grasps his remaining strands of dignity.) Mrs. Sanford says her biggest worry about the affair is the "potential damage" it will do to her children. In a classy statement, she writes that she "reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect, and my basic sense of right and wrong." Mrs. Sanford is willing to forgive her husband and welcome him home, if he is prepared to work on their marriage with "with a true spirit of humility and repentance."

The full text of the statement is after the jump.

It's official: If DC pundits consider you a contender for the GOP nomination in 2012, then it's just a matter of time before you are publicly humiliated (or sent to China.) Seriously. In light of Sanford's stunning admission of an affair today, let's take stock:

• Governor Kenneth the Page, um I mean Bobby Jindal: The Louisiana Governor was a bright spot in a gloomy Republican landscape early this year. But it didn't last. Jindal delivered the Republican response to Obama's speech to a Joint Session of Congress in February, and it was, well, a bit weird. Your Gaggler has seen Jindal speak several times. He's usually engaging, serious and forceful. But that night, he was just plain goofy - all smiles and vocal inflections. The response, which prompted comparisons to (and a very funny video by) 30 Rock's Kenneth the Page was pilloried by comics and critics alike. We haven't seen much from him since.
• Governor Sarah Palin: Palin made her national debut last year amid uncomfortable stories about her then 17 year old daughter's unplanned pregnancy. (No doubt a humiliating experience for Bristol.) This year the Alaska Governor has been making all sorts of unflattering headlines. There was the money she had to pay back to Alaska for trips she had taken with her children and her odd "will she-won't she" tango over her appearance at a Republican fundraiser. Then there's her spat with Levi Johnston, the father of her grandson. To top it all off, her most extensive time in the spotlight recently has been due to some crude comments made about her and her family by David Letterman. That list hardly screams "presidential."
  
• Senator John Ensign: Can you believe that just one week ago we were discussing the affair of a different GOP presidential contender? Ensign's six month long dalliance with a campaign staffer, who was married to one of his Senate staffers sounded bad enough. But add to that sordid details like that he was essentially blackmailed into admitting the affair, and the sound you will hear is the death knell for his fledgling presidential aspirations.
  
• Former Speaker Newt Gingrinch: We're not sure this one qualifies as humiliating per se, but it was pretty darn awkward. Gingrinch made headlines recently when he accused Obama's Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor of being a racist. He soon had to recant his words.
• Utah Governor John Huntsman: Now this guy seems to have been entirely above board. No debauchery to report about Huntsman, but that may have been his problem. Obama sent the appealing, squeaky clean, Mandarin speaking Huntsman as far away from the Iowa caucuses as he could: China. Huntsman is now U.S. Ambassador there, where he's working for the man he may have rivaled, and is conveniently out of the political headlines.

In an emotional press conference this afternoon, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted that he had been cheating on his wife with a woman in Argentina, where he had been secretly vacationing the past six days. Sanford, who announced he was resigning his post as chairman of the Republican Governors Association, repeatedly apologized to his wife and kids and to his staff, whom he admitted misleading about his whereabouts. The governor’s aides told reporters yesterday that Sanford was hiking the Appalachian Trail, when in fact he was in Buenos Aires. “I’ve been unfaithful to my wife, and I developed a relationship with what started as a dear dear friend from Argentina,” Sanford said, tearfully.

Sanford insisted the affair began “innocently” with casual emails and phone calls—the woman had apparently sought Sanford’s advice on her own marital troubles. But their relationship developed into something more about a year ago, the governor said. He said he had seen the woman three times since then and that he had spent the last five days in Argentina “crying.” The governor told reporters that his wife and family had been aware of his affair for about five months and that he had spoken to his father-in-law about it before he left for Buenos Aires last week. Asked if he and his wife are separated, Sanford seemed to struggle for an answer. “I guess in the formal sense we’re not,” he finally said. Sanford, who had been repeatedly mentioned as a 2012 GOP presidential contender, was asked if he would resign from the governor’s office. He didn’t answer. “I’ve let down a lot of people,” he said. “And that’s the bottom line.”

Did the White House plant questions at President Obama’s news conference yesterday? The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has a good write-up explaining the whole dust-up about Obama’s decision to call on a blogger from the Huffington Post who had apparently been asked to attend the presser Tuesday by administration officials. Nico Pitney, who has been blogging about the election in Iran, was escorted to a front line position by an Obama press aide just moments before the president himself came to the podium. To the surprise of many reporters in the room, Pitney got to ask the second question. (The first went to the Associated Press, which is WH tradition.)

“Nico, I know that you, and all across the internet, we’ve been seeing reports coming directly out of Iran,” Obama said. “I know there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. Do you have a question?” Indeed, Pitney did—as White House officials already knew. While Pitney says there was "no guarantee" he'd get a question, Obama aides told him "they thought the president might be interested in getting a question from an Iranian." What happened yesterday was perhaps the most obvious attempt at stagecraft we’ve seen from the Obama White House, but it was by no means a new development.
 
As your Gaggler has written before, the White House plots out in advance who Obama will call on in hopes of getting out certain talking points

At one of the lighter moments of today's Presidential Press Conference, McClatchy Reporter Margaret Talev asked Obama something we've all been wondering: Is he still smoking? Obama seemed a little testy at first, replying that the tobacco bill he signed into law yesterday wasn't about his own episodic addiction. But he soon simmered down. Here's his response, via the White House transcript:

"As a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it.  Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes?  Yes.  Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker?  No.  I don't do it in front of my kids, I don't do it in front of my family, and I would say that I am 95 percent cured, but there are times where -- (laughter) -- there are times where I mess up.  And, I mean, I've said this before.  I get this question about once every month or so, and I don't know what to tell you, other than the fact that, like folks who go to AA, once you've gone down this path, then it's something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don't want is kids going down that path in the first place.  Okay?"

So it seems possible that we'll be discovering the odd cigarette butt in the woods at Camp David. Does it matter? I'm normally anti-smoking, but in this case, I'm inclined to be lenient. After all, Obama arguably has the most stressful job in the universe. What happens if he doesn't have an outlet for his anxiety? We've seen what transpires in the White House when Presidents have more salacious appetities. If, during this time of large scale uncertainty, cigarettes are the President's worst vice, then I'm prepared to give him a break. Et vous, dear Gaggle readers? 

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

Bills online: Campaign promise broken?
During the campaign, Candidate Obama vowed to allow public comment on every bill before he signed it. Now acknowledging that the pledge was easier to make than to fulfill, the White House is adjusting when a bill will be posted online for review. (NY Times)

Island people, fear not
The fact that North Korea plans to launch a missile toward Hawaii next month seems to hit oddly close to home for Obama, who was raised on the islands. Speaking in an CBS interview this morning, Obama gave assurances that the military is ready to intercept if necessary and that all "t's are crossed and the i's are dotted." (AP)

Get to work, California
Usually around budget crunch time in California, legislators point fingers and feign melodramatic anger. Not this year. The state is too low on cash with too few options for the usual partisan dance. (LA Times)

Belusconi's feet to the fire
First it was one, then it turned into several. The growing number of women escorts claiming physical relationships with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi paints the Italian leader in a hue of sleeze -- and one that threatens to bring him down. (Times online)

Gallup just announced that the President's job approval has slipped to 58%, an all time low for him in Gallup's daily tracking poll. Obama's approval rating has averaged at 63% since he took office, peaking at 69% early in his presidency. He's only dipped below 60% on three other occasions this year. The drop seems to be attributable to respondents identifying as Republican or Independent. Around 92% of Democrats approve of how Obama is doing the job. 

Although this latest number is slightly lower than Obama's average, it is still high by historical standards.

The White House today released an official portrait of First dog Bo Obama. It's a cute picture of Bo, who is quite a fine specimen. But it strikes your Gagglers as a little odd because, as Holly pointed out to me, the girls don't have official portraits yet, nor is there an official first family portrait.

Remember that internal discord over how President Obama is handling Iran? Forget it! Everything is swell! On the record, at least. Here's White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs at the briefing this afternoon:

QUESTION: Robert, on Iran, is there an internal debate in the White House now between those who clearly support what the president is doing in terms of the hands-off approach and those who think that the president needs to have some stronger language? Is that ongoing in the White House?

GIBBS: There's no debate in the White House.

QUESTION: Is there division at all? Is everyone on the same page on this or are there those who think that the president -- internally -- that the president...

GIBBS: Everybody's on the same page. There's no difference of opinion.

And later:

QUESTION: You said there's no difference of opinion. But we've been led to believe this president seeks out different opinions from his advisers. You've got these incredibly knowledgeable people sitting around the room. He can't find a single person who does anything other than nod "yes," Mr. President, "you're absolutely right on this"? How can there not be some difference of opinion on this?

GIBBS: Well, there is a belief by all here that -- that this is a debate, as I've said, I think, everyday for the last five days -- four days, plus my statement, that the American people and this government are not going to pick the next leader of Iran. That's something that the Iranians have to do. We have to ensure that we express our views. As I've said about ensuring that people can demonstrate; have their causes and concerns heard, and that's what people here believe.

QUESTION: Is there nobody who believes you ought be a little more open in supporting the demonstrators? Nobody's expressed that opinion to him?

GIBBS: Everybody's on the same page.

QUESTION: Just absolutely verbatim? Nobody...

GIBBS: We walk around like robots.

John Edwards gives a lengthy interview to the Washington Post today, his first since he admitted last summer that he’d had an affair with a campaign videographer after lying about it for months and months. It’s not that we haven’t seen him around. Your Gaggler thinks Edwards doesn’t deserve much sympathy for cheating on his wife, but it was hard not to cringe when Oprah confronted him about it during her interview in May with Elizabeth Edwards, who recently published a memoir based in part on the whole icky situation.  (In fact, for the record, we’re pretty disgusted with everybody involved in that shoot: Bringing the Edwards kids out to hug Oprah when she pulled up in front of the house in the SUV? Just plain awful.)

But John Edwards can’t seem to let it go. The Post’s story today is about how Edwards is trying to lay low and be humble but he still aches to think of what could have been and how he wishes there was someone (someone like him?) speaking out for the poor people. "What happens now? If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me," Edwards tells the Post. "There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue. . . . The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him, but there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

Fair enough, but as the Post’s Alec McGillis reports in the story, Edwards has stopped helping a lot of the people he trotted out when he was running for president. That program he set up to pay for the first year of college tuition for students at a high school in North Carolina? Over. Edwards also pledged to help several families in New Orleans whose homes were in foreclosure but that assistance has dried up. Edwards says the problems in New Orleans are so “deep and widespread” that it couldn’t be fixed by an “individual presidential candidate.” Granted, Edwards is doing a lot of volunteering overseas these days. “He jokes about how it's obvious that the American people don't want him to be president,” one volunteer tells the Post.

So why is Edwards talking now? He insists he’s not trying rehab himself ala Eliot Spitzer. "The only relevance of it at all is my ability to help people. That's the only reason it matters. I'm not engaged in, or interested in, being in a PR campaign,” he insists. Yeah, right. But Edwards did own up to the fact that he thinks "every day" about his future, and he notably did not rule out a return to politics. “Sometimes you just keep your head down and work hard and see what happens," he tells the Post.

Washington is a funny place. It wasn’t so long ago that people were learning to ride mountain bikes, in hopes of being one of the chosen few to join George W. Bush on one of his rides here in Washington or at his Texas ranch. Now, ESPN’s Wright Thompson has a pretty great piece on how the powerful in Washington are picking up the game of basketball, all in hopes of shooting hoops with the most famous baller in town, President Obama. There’s Rep. Baron Hill, a former high school basketball star, working on his jump shots. "I stayed away from the game," the five-term Democrat tells ESPN, "and here I am shooting hoops again. And it's because of him. If I ever have an opportunity to play with him, I want to be able to halfway get around that court well enough." And then there’s all the Cabinet secretaries in training, including Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Lobbyists, members of Congress and reps at trade industry groups are all taking lessons. Even the junior staffers at the White House have their own pickup game. But as Thompson notes, the actual invites to play with Obama are still pretty hard to come by and mostly come through his body guy, former Duke basketball star Reggie Love. Here’s Thompson:

The invites to play with the Baller-in-Chief have been scarce. Mostly friends and staff -- the old Chicago crew. "The only thing that's changed is we're playing at Camp David," cracks (Arne) Duncan, who has known the president for years.The secretary and some staff at Interior got a run, as did some old buddies of Love's. Arizona Cardinals QB Kurt Warner got an invitation, as did at least one member of the U.S. House of Representatives. The mayor of Washington got a run. Everyone else is angling. Love apparently keeps a list of names in case he needs extras. If you don't have Love's extension, there's another, more circuitous road. Play with an Obama confidant -- and play really well.

Fascinating.

Your Gaggler is starting to sense a pattern at the White House. For two straight days, on two very different subjects, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs has defended a move that seems counter to what President Obama said during the campaign by seeming to punt the blame on the folks who made the rules before them. On Tuesday, it was the Obama administration’s decision to reject a request to make visitor logs to the White House public. According to Gibbs, the “previous policy” is under review but until then the White House will stick with the status quo, i.e., no visitor logs released, no way. Today, Gibbs was asked about Obama’s position on the Defense of Marriage Act, which Obama has said repeatedly he wants to repeal. As we’ve noted several times, the Obama Justice Department entered a controversial legal brief last week defending DOMA—which included language and implications that irked many of Obama’s top gay supporters. At today’s briefing, ABC’s Jake Tapper asked Gibbs if Obama stands by his Justice Department’s legal brief in the case. Here’s the exchange:

Q Does the President stand by the legal brief that the Justice Department filed last week that argued in favor of the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act?

MR. GIBBS: Well, Jake, as you know, the Justice Department is charged with upholding the law of the land, even though the President believes that that law should be repealed.

Q I understand that. But a lot of legal experts say that the brief didn't have to be as comprehensive and make all the arguments that it made, such as comparing same-sex unions to incestuous ones in one controversial paragraph that's upset a lot of the President's supporters. Does the President stand by the content, the arguments made in that brief?

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, it's the President's Justice Department. And again, we have the role of upholding the law of the land while the President has stated and will work with Congress to change that law.

To sum up, this isn’t Obama. It’s his Justice Department, and they are following the law. That’s an interesting argument. We get the point about enforcing the law, but is Gibbs implying the president has zero influence over his own Justice Department and what they pursue or emphasize in their legal briefs? Asked later if Obama had actually seen the DOMA brief before it was filed, Gibbs said he didn’t know and would check. Ditto on a follow-up on whether Obama would “endorse” the actual "language" in the brief.

Newsweek's Dina Fine Maron has the scoop on another big no-show at DNC's upcoming gay and lesbian fundraiser: 

Gay rights activist David Mixner and HRC National Field Director Marty Rouse aren't the only high profile names to register dismay over the Justice Department’s pro-DOMA legal brief by pulling out of a DNC fundraiser scheduled for next week. We’ve learned that Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, who shepherded the first marriage equality bill through the VT legislature and spent time stumping for Obama during the campaign’s fledgling days, also plans to boycott the event. Shumlin, who is not gay, had been scheduled to be one of the fundraiser’s honored guests but decided to drop out after last week's DOJ memo, which he described as "hurtful" and "discriminatory." "I have no horse in this race," Shumlin told Newsweek. "I've got a wife and two daughters and no gay relatives that I know of...(but) marriage equality is a basic civil right... I have to be able to live with my conscience." Shumlin emailed DNC Treasurer Andrew Tobias, one of the fundraiser’s organizers, this afternoon to withdraw his support and explain why he wouldn’t be attending. His office provided Newsweek a copy of that email dated earlier today. Here's an excerpt:

As an early and strong supporter of Barack Obama I am shocked and disappointed at the level of insensitivity that the Department of Justice has shown towards gay and lesbian couples and their families. By defending DOMA and making reference to horribly inaccurate and deeply hurtful stereotypes about gay and lesbian Americans, the Administration has chosen discriminate against a minority group that we all have a responsibility to be more courageous in defending. This action will only serve to sow the seeds for further hatred and division against the only minority group left in America that politicians can publicly discriminate against and see their approval ratings rise.[sic]  My disappointment in this has led me to the regrettable decision not to be a participant in the DNC event.
 
I am proud Vermont made history in how we enacted marriage equality - not through a court order but through legislative action.  The tides of history, love and justice came together in Vermont and I look forward to witnessing this movement swell across the nation as all of America's citizens are granted equal rights.  It is my hope that the Obama Administration will actively support what we did in Vermont - grant marriage equality to all under the law - nothing more and nothing less.

While Obama plans to sign a “memo” this evening to extend some benefits to same sex partners of federal employees, Shumlin tells Newsweek he still plans to skip the fundraiser. "My position is that that is a small and helpful step, but as Democrats we need to stand up for civil rights of all Americans,” he says.

Your Gaggler is still laughing about President Obama’s run-in with that fly at the White House yesterday. “That’s the most persistent fly I’ve ever seen,” commented CNBC’s John Harwood, who was the closest witness to the attack. What was that fly thinking, trying to interrupt the freaking president of the United States during a very important television interview? Well, this could be a larger conspiracy than we thought. Courtesy New York Magazine, here’s video of a fly going after Obama during an interview on the campaign trail last year. This one buzzed Obama not just once but several times, but the future prez didn’t swat to kill as he did yesterday. He just ended the interview. Was he worried about denting his likability numbers in the polls? Did he lack the bold fortitude that comes with being the Commander in Chief? Answers escape us. But the clear lesson here: You can’t back down from a fight. Not even with a fly. They always come back.

In what initially looked like a big deal for the gay community, the White House put out word last night that President Obama will sign a “memo” today to extend benefits to same sex partners of federal workers. Early reports suggested those benefits would include the right to health insurance, which, if true, would have gone far in soothing some of the tension between the White House and gay rights activists, who have accused Obama of breaking campaign promises to promote equality for gays and lesbians. But the president's move today likely won't be as far reaching as some had hoped.

While we still don’t know exactly what Obama will sign—he’s scheduled to sign the memo and talk to reporters at 5:45 this afternoon—it appears that whatever he does won’t go as far as providing health benefits. That’s because under the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the federal government cannot provide health insurance to same sex partners. And that’s where it gets very touchy. During the campaign, Obama vowed to repeal DOMA, calling it “abhorrent” and “unfair.” But last week the Obama Justice Department filed a legal brief in federal court defending DOMA against a lawsuit that claims the act is unconstitutional. In fact, in legal terms, the Obama aides equated same sex marriage to incest, a move that horrified gay rights groups including the Human Rights Campaign. Coupled with Obama’s silence on another campaign promise—his pledge to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the military—several high-profile gay activists announced they would boycott a DNC fundraiser scheduled for next week featuring Vice President Joe Biden and several gay and lesbian members of Congress, including Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin. All the bad publicity prompted the White House to schedule Obama’s announcement today, though an administration official insisted to Newsweek that the “memo” had been in the works all along.

Indeed, privately, White House aides have been giving the wink and nudge treatment to the gay community for weeks, saying that Obama still believes everything he said in the campaign but he’s had to deal with other pressing issues. (Btw, that sounds a lot like what Obama has said about abortion.) But is that enough to keep the LGBT community on board with Obama? It’s unclear. The reaction to Obama’s “memo” has been pretty lukewarm so far. HRC, in a statement, described it merely as a “first brick.” But everybody is watching very closely to see what Obama will actually say. Will he repeat his vow to repeal DOMA in spite of last week's legal brief? That's one rumor going around today, though White House aides won't comment. Meanwhile, David Mixner, a prominent gay rights activist who campaigned for Obama, says he's still boycotting the fundraiser next week—unless he hears Obama say something amazing today. “I feel betrayed,” he told Newsweek in an interview this morning. “People are really angry.” He said it’s not enough for Obama and his aides to hint that they’ll do more for the gay community in the future. “We heard that during the Clinton years,” Mixner said. “Too many pressing issues? That’s code for never.”

Dina Fine Maron contributed reporting.

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

Don't slam the door, just close it slightly
Louisiana Gov Bobby Jindal pleaded with supporters yesterday to stop trying to get him to run for president. That's not to say he's not planning to run, he just wants people to stop talking about it. (WashTimes)

Victory for Chinese web surfing
Until now, the Chinese government required computer users to install internet filtering software to limit access to pornography, homosexuality and other banned topics. Caving into public pressure, Chinese officials lifted the requirement, freeing up access to unfettered web surfing. (DPWire)

For Iranians, is he really better?
As protesters rage against the election of President Ahmadinejad, the Wall Street Journal profiles head challenger Hossein Mousavi and his record. A former prime minister who governed as a social conservative, Mousavi was one of the earliest supporters of the country's nuclear program (WSJ)

Sad but hilarious snafu for Calif. students
Two sourthern California elementary schools made an error accounting for time early in the year, adding up to 34 days left of instruction time students missed throughout the year. A realization school leaders had the week summer vacation was to start. (NPR)

H/T to our pal Michael Scherer over at Brand X, this video makes your Gaggler's day. John Harwood's commentary is priceless, though did President Obama really smash that thing with his hand? No offense, Mr. President, but yuck.

The revolution won't be televised - it will be twittered, apparently. NBC's Libby Leist is reporting that the State Department has asked Twitter not to shut down for regular maintenance because tweets have proved useful in monitoring the situation in Iran. From Leist:

The official said that Web sites and cell phones had been shut down and journalists were being kicked out, so the U.S. wanted "to highlight to [Twitter] that this was an important means of communication -- not with us -- but horizontally in Iran." It was a lower-level official who called Twitter -- not the Secretary of State, the official stressed. "I don't want to convey the impression that the State Department picked up the hotline, told them not to do it and it’s because of our intervention that it didn't happen," he added.

I've previously noted my disdain for Twitter and refusal to Tweet, but the idea that it is helping information circulate during this turbulent time in Iran is actually making me rethink my stance. Despite many conversations with fervent Twitter converts (I'm looking at you, psuedo-arch-enemy Michael Scherer), this the first time I've seen a genuinely useful and politically meaningful role for the service. Bravo, I say.

I just read a White House pool report that I found quite poignant, so I wanted to share it with you, dear Gaggle Readers. The report is from Mike Riley who covers the Washington for Denver Post. Here it is in full:

With most of the president’s afternoon schedule closed to the press, it was former Reagan press secretary and gunshot victim James Brady who stole the show when, along with his wife Sarah, he dropped by the revamped James S. Brady press briefing room. Dressed in a dark blue pinstripe suit, Brady was in a wheelchair, holding a cane in his left hand, his injuries the result of a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by John Hinckley Jr. during a botched assassination attempt against Brady’s boss in 1981. Brady was at the White House to pay his respects to Robert Gibbs, the man who now holds his former job. Brady’s speech is sometimes slurred, but he took a few minutes for an exchange of quips with the reporters who now work in briefing room dedicated to Brady in February, 2000. Telling a story about Helen Thomas, Brady recounted how she used knock on the glass of his office early in morning, before he had had his tea. “I would say, ‘Woman, have you no shame?  The answer was, ‘No, do you think I would have gotten so far in a male-dominated world if I had any shame,’” Brady recounted.

Ann Compton, the veteran White House correspondent for ABC News, ask Brady how he would rate the current crop of correspondents. “I would give you a high grade,” Brady said, then quipped, “Was that the right answer?”

His wife Sarah stood at his side as Brady answered questions, sometimes helping to amplify or clarify his speech. She said this was the first visit to the briefing room after it had been rededicated in her husband’s honor, and wondered aloud over the size of the White House press corps’ digs even now. “They’re still tiny,” she said of the renovated press room. “I can’t imagine how anyone gets any work done.” She noted that she and her husband no longer live in Washington and now get news from the capital like most everyone else at a distance. “To think that so much of it is coming from this tiny little area,” she said.

After just over ten minutes, Brady was wheeled out towards the West wing driveway.

Bowing to pressure from President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a major speech over the weekend that he’d accept a Palestinian state, as long as it was demilitarized and recognized Israel as a Jewish state. Now Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is on a 10-day tour to gauge the international reaction. Yesterday, he met with the European Union and is expected to land tonight in Washington, where he’ll meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and various members of Congress. (No meeting with Obama--not yet, anyway.) NEWSWEEK’s Rebecca Shabad spoke with Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, former U.S. - Middle East negotiator and author of The Much Too Promised Land to preview the foreign minister’s visit. Excerpts:

The Jerusalem Post reported a diplomatic source called this visit to the U.S. Lieberman’s “most diplomatic challenge yet.” Why?
[Lieberman is] a tough-minded Israeli leader representing a very tough-minded party. He has proposed a plan by which part of the areas in the Galilee, the Israeli north, that contains Israeli Arabs, where citizens of the state be transferred to a Palestinian state as part of some sort of land swap. This of course has been an incredibly controversial proposal and the foreign minister has been accused by the Israeli Arabs, as well as by many Israelis, as having a super nationalistic even racist agenda with respect to this particular point. He’s way out there on the right. But the reality is he’s still the foreign minister of the state of Israel. He isn’t going to be the principle shaper, although he will be an influence on the prime minister’s policies. I’m expecting an Avigdor Lieberman who’ll seek to charm, rather than confront. He’ll be honest for sure. He seems to me the little likelihood or prospect of any sort of blowup.

Will the Obama White House make its visitor logs public? Administration officials have launched a formal review in the wake of a lawsuit filed Tuesday by a Washington ethics group that has been trying to gain access under the Freedom of Information Act to a list of those who have come to see administration officials in recent months. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, who previously sued the Bush administration for similar records, had requested names of any coal executives who have visited Obama officials during the first few months of the administration. The request was denied, as was a similar request to the administration from MSNBC, which asked for the names of everybody who had visited the White House since Inauguration Day. Asked about the logs during the press briefing today, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the policy is under review by the White House Counsel's office, though he declined to say how long the review could last. Asked if the administration still seeks to be more transparent than previous White Houses—a key Obama campaign promise--Gibbs replied, “I think we ran on that.”

The logs are maintained by the Secret Service, but the Obama administration has argued, as the Bushies did, that the visitor logs have historically fallen under the Presidential Records Act. That means they would be exempt from FOIA requests and would not made public until years after a president has left office. But that argument was twice rejected by a federal judge during the Bush years. Still no White House has ever released its complete visitors list, though there have been excerpts made public. Three years ago, the Bush White House, after some pressure from Congress and federal investigators, released information about when disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his associates visited the White House. Meanwhile, both the Clinton and Bush administrations gave reporters details on who slept overnight in the executive mansion and at Camp David. CREW has accused the Obama White House of basically adopting Bush administration policy. (Gee, where have we heard that one before?) At the briefing today, Gibbs seemed to go out of his way to suggest that this isn’t the Obama folks’s problem, that these records have been disputed for years and that they are reviewing “previous policy.” Your Gaggler’s translation: We’re not the bad guys here. But that’s a hard argument to make when your candidate campaigned for letting the sun shine in.

Speaking to reporters at the White House this morning, President Obama went a teeeeensy bit further on Iran than he did in his remarks yesterday, saying that he had “deep concerns” about the election. (On Monday, he said he was “deeply troubled” by the violence.) Here’s what Obama said, courtesy the White House:

It was only -- let's see -- I think seven hours ago or eight hours ago when I -- I have said before that I have deep concerns about the election.  And I think that the world has deep concerns about the election.  You've seen in Iran some initial reaction from the Supreme Leader that indicates he understands the Iranian people have deep concerns about the election.
 
Now, it's not productive, given the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, to be seen as meddling -- the U.S. President meddling in Iranian elections.  What I will repeat and what I said yesterday is that when I see violence directed at peaceful protestors, when I see peaceful dissent being suppressed, wherever that takes place, it is of concern to me and it's of concern to the American people.  That is not how governments should interact with their people. 
 
And my hope is, is that the Iranian people will make the right steps in order for them to be able to express their voices, to express their aspirations.  I do believe that something has happened in Iran where there is a questioning of the kinds of antagonistic postures towards the international community that have taken place in the past, and that there are people who want to see greater openness and greater debate and want to see greater democracy.  How that plays out over the next several days and several weeks is something ultimately for the Iranian people to decide. But I stand strongly with the universal principle that people's voices should be heard and not suppressed.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the White House has been very careful about how it responds to what is happening in Iran right now. Speaking out for the first time since Friday’s disputed election results, President Obama said late yesterday that Iranians have a right to have their votes counted, but didn’t go further—and quickly noted why. “It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who Iran's leaders will be, that we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran, which sometimes the United States can be a handy political football,” Obama told reporters. “Having said all that, I am deeply troubled by the violence that I've been seeing on television.  I think that the democratic process -- free speech, the ability of people to peacefully dissent -- all those are universal values and need to be respected.  And whenever I see violence perpetrated on people who are peacefully dissenting, and whenever the American people see that, I think they're, rightfully, troubled.

The last thing the White House wants to see is Mahmoud Ajmadinejad accusing the United States of trying to intervene in the election, as he did with Israel in the days before the vote last week. But not everybody agrees. Speaking on the Today Show this morning, Sen. John McCain, Obama’s former GOP rival, said the president should be speaking out more forcefully about what’s happening in Iran. “He should speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights,” McCain said. “They should not be subjected to four more years of Ahmadinejad and the radical Muslim clerics.”

But as NBC’s First Read notes, Obama’s response isn’t much different than how George H.W. Bush responded to the violence in China’s Tiananmen Square 20 years ago. Should Obama get tougher? Will he? We’ll see the president several times on camera today, beginning with an Oval Office press avail with the president of South Korea. Later today, he’s doing a round of TV interviews to talk about his plan for stepped up regulation of the financial services industry. He’ll no doubt be asked about Iran. Will his language change?

After a week of outraged chatter on both sides on the debate, David Letterman has issued a full apology to Governor Palin for his unsavory joke about her daughter last week. Although he maintains that his intent was not to make inappropriate comments about a 14 year old girl, he took responsibility for the misconceptions about his motives. “I told a bad joke I told a joke that was beyond flawed, and my intent is completely meaningless compared to the perception. And since it was a joke I told, I feel that I need to do the right thing here and apologize for having told that joke,"Letterman told viewers last night. "So I would like to apologize, especially to the two daughters involved, Bristol and Willow, and also to the Governor and her family and everybody else who was outraged by the joke. I'm sorry about it and I'll try to do better in the future.”  The Associated Press is reporting that Palin has accepted the apology.

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

A horticultural influence?
We're not really sure if Michelle Obama influenced the Queen to install a vegetable garden at Buckingham Palace. We just think the time line is suggestive: Her majesty never had a vegetable garden, she formed a budding friendship with America's first lady who has championed vegetable gardens, and now she has a vegetable garden. (The Telegraph)

Iranian president turns a page, travels to Russia
Completely ignoring the political unrest in his country, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attends a summit of regional leaders in Russia to declare an end to empire governments. He made no mention of the protests in Iran challenging his type of government. (AFP)

In the driver's seat? A new job hunt that makes for great puns
In the last year, truck driving schools nationwide have seen a 20 percent increase in people looking to take to the open road. A signal, NPR punnily points out, that some job seekers really need to shift gears when pursuing their new job path. (NPR)

Be back in 10. Gone waste-watching.
Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, a self-proclaimed waste watcher, says he can already point to $5.5 billion wasted on bad or inefficient projects among the economic-stimulus expenditures on tap. Among the holes: $3.5 million for bike-path constructed for Milford, Mass. even though the state has the money to do it itself and $2.1 million for the city of Miami to relocate an aging bus terminal. (WashTimes)

OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP/Getty Images

The Boston Globe has assembled some of the best photos of the protests today and over the weekend in Iran, the biggest street demonstrations in the country since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The AP reported earlier that at least one protester was shot and killed by police. Some reports put the number as high as seven.

Just a warning: these photos show some violent confrontations. Some, especially toward the bottom, are pretty graphic.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg had an interesting piece on Morning Edition this morning looking at the main rap against Sonia Sotomayor. Long story short, people have said she’s pushy, going so far as to describe her as “bully” on the bench. The labels have been circulating for months, long before Sotomayor was actually named as Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee. Since then, the White House has gone to great lengths to push back against the claims, producing clerks and lawyers who have worked with Sotomayor who insist she’s just fine. But the rumors just won’t go away. More recently, Sen. Lindsay Graham has cited reviews mentioned in The Almanac of the Federal Judiciary, which included anonymous comments describing her as a “terror on the bench” and “overly aggressive.” But is the criticism legitimate or is it, as some Sotomayor allies suggest, a case of her being picked on for being a strong woman? For the piece, Totenberg listened to audio recordings of two oral arguments made before Sotomayor—portions of which aired in the story this morning and are well worth a listen. One of the oral arguments is from the much-debated New Haven firefighters case, which is still pending before the Supreme Court. Here's Totenberg:

In another case, currently on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Sotomayor was one of three judges considering whether the city of New Haven, Conn., could discard the results of a fire department promotion exam because no African-American ranked high enough to be promoted. Under federal law, an employer can be held liable even for unintentional discrimination if the employer uses a test that disproportionately excludes minorities. At oral argument, Judge Sotomayor was the dominant questioner, and she gave both sides a hard time.

She pressed the lawyer representing the white firefighters this way: "We're not asking that unqualified people be hired — the city's not suggesting that. But if your test is going to always put a certain group at the bottom of the pass rate so they're never, ever going to be promoted, and there is a fair test that can be devised, then why shouldn't the city have an opportunity to try to look and see if it can develop that?" Conversely, in questioning the city's lawyer, Sotomayor repeatedly asked what was wrong with the test that was given and whether any valid alternatives exist. "What they're saying is … you shouldn't permit race to be the driving force," Sotomayor said. "You have to look at the test and determine if the test was fair or not. And if you're going to say it's unfair, point to specifics of ways it wasn't and make sure there really are alternatives." 

In the audio, Sotomayor is no doubt aggressive in her questioning but does not appear to be any more so than most judges--though, of course, these are just two cases. But Totenberg, who is much smarter than your Gaggler when it comes to history on the court, says Sotomayor's tone seems "routine" compared to what happens at the Supreme Court--and includes audio of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia to prove it.

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

Democracy in action
The crowds of angry protesters clashing with police might disagree, but one Slate writer finds virtue in the Iranian election last week and its aftermath. Having an election, and having people protest it, is an unmistakable signal of the existence of democracy. (Slate)

An intellect for intelligence
As head of the CIA, Leon Panetta is tasked, loosely speaking, with keeping the country safe. In a long profile, the New Yorker takes a look at the person who now leads Langely -- a man who "can be principled to the point of rigidity." (New Yorker)

New York's loneliest woman
Ruth Madoff, the wife of the disgraced ponzi schemer, has not been charged or even questioned by prosecutors. But in her social circle and in the New York community in which she used to belong, she's been blacklisted. Or as the New York Times puts it, she's been "taking it on the chin." (NY Times)

Think you know everything about the Civil War?
CNN (in partnership with Mental Floss magazine) divulges seven new stories from Lincoln's grand moment. Like what? Women fought in the war and Mark Twain was at one point a soldier. (CNN)

At the White House briefing today, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about news reports that the British government was not exactly thrilled to be in the dark about the decision to transfer four Chinese Muslim prisoners, known as Uighurs, from Guantanamo Bay to Bermuda this week. The Brits have told Bermuda, one of its territories, that they should have been consulted first, and the issue looks to also be causing drama between the U.S. and folks at 10 Downing Street. “They’re pissed,” an unnamed State Department official told ABC News yesterday. At the briefing, Gibbs was asked about the quote, which turned into a lot of talk about who was "pissed" at who:

Q: How do you respond to the charge that in the hurry to make the president's deadline of closing Guantanamo within a year some decisions are being made without proper consultation? A senior State Department official yesterday said that the British government was, quote-unquote, "pissed" that they had not been consulted about Uighurs going to Bermuda.

GIBBS: I think they were -- if I'm not mistaken, and I don't want to parse the word "pissed," but I think they...

(LAUGHTER)

Q:  It was your administration's word, not mine.

GIBBS: All right. But I -- I think if I read most of those stories correctly, they were not pleased with the government of Bermuda.

Q: They were pissed at the Obama administration is what we have been told by the State Department.

(CROSSTALK)

GIBBS: Well, maybe I misread many of the stories, but...

Q: Maybe they were pissed at both of them.

Long story short, Gibbs defended the administration's handling of the Uighurs, insisting that no "hasty decisions" are being made about GITMO.

So Denzel Washington was on Letterman last night, where the subject of Barack Obama, the movie, came up. As you can see in the video above, Washington put his thumbs behind his ears and pushed them forward, mimicking Obama’s more prominent ears. Denzel! “Now I’m in trouble with the president,” he joked. We doubt it. As New York Magazine notes, Obama has led the way in making fun of his big ears, thus making it cool for everybody else to do so. They’ve put together a helpful video and photo slideshow titled, you guessed it, “Barack Obama’s Ears: A History.” Until now, your Gaggler didn't realize that Obama sort of has a complex about his ears. There's video of Obama talking about how his wife, Michelle, keeps him in check: She makes fun of his ears. There's also the interview, which Washington references to Letterman, where Obama talks about how he'd prefer Denzel to play him in a movie, but how it will likely be Will Smith. You see, the Fresh Prince, like Obama, also has big ears. The president even thinks his big ears could keep him off Mount Rushmore. "There's only so much rock up there," he told reporters last summer. And just last week, Obama, in an appearance on The Colbert Report, jokingly compared his big ears to massive spy satellites. Oh come on, Mr. President, they aren't that big.

The Washington Post has a story out today about the Administration's decision to stop pushing Congress to allow freed Guantanamo detainees to settle in the United States. Although they've found homes in Bermuda and Palau for the Chinese Uighurs who were released without charge, abandoning efforts to settle detainees here complicates the Administration's requests for countries like Germany, France and Australia to accept prisoners. Like U.S. representatives, foreign politicians will have a tough time explaining to their constituents that detainees that the U.S. Congress refused to release on American soil should be settled in their communities. The Administration's best hope now is to find other small nations, like Palau, who are willing to take detainees in the hope of receiving increased aid.

It's unlikely though that this move signals that Obama will put the brakes on his plans to close Guantanamo by the end of his first year in office. Administration aides told me recently that although they were somewhat surprised by the Congressional resistance they've met so far, they have no intention of letting the GOP win this fight. One aide noted that the public had been engaged in a debate of national security for the better part of the last two years, and resounding triumph for Democrats at the polls meant their views won out. Adminstration officials are likely reminding Democrats on the Hill, in no uncertain terms, not to forget that they were the winners here. Don't be surprised either if the President ultimately decides to take a similar course of action on Gitmo as he did with the stimulus package and now with healthcare: Making his case to the people himself. He is after all, his own best messanger, and populist undertones of this debate will require the President to employ his most persuasive oratory in order to win this one. He began this process with his recent national security address at the National Archives, but we'll likely be hearing that message more, particularly once healthcare reform exits the headlines.

It’s not unusual for a president to phone up a member of Congress in the middle of the night to lobby for legislation, but this may be a first: the Commander in Chief talking to an impromptu meeting of lawmakers via a cell phone speaker? According to the Politico’s David Rogers, that’s what happened Thursday night when Obama intervened in stalled negotiations over the war supplemental bill. Senators, including John McCain, were looking for assurances from Obama that the administration will do what it takes to prevent the disclosure of controversial photos that allegedly show detainees being mistreated by members of the U.S. military. According to Rogers, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who was up on the Hill pushing for the bill, dialed up Obama on his cell phone and promptly put the president on speakerphone. “Good evening Angels!” Obama said. Well, ok, he likely didn’t say that, but your Gaggler is amused by the idea of Obama pulling a Charlie from Charlie's Angels to get the bill through Congress. (We openly admit flaws with this analogy: Rahm is not a very good Bosley.) While we don’t know exactly what the president said, it’s likely not far off the mark from a letter Obama sent to lawmakers yesterday, promising to use every “legal and administrative remedy” available to prevent the pictures from going public. The pledge was enough to get the bill out of conference committee and on to a full Congressional vote next week, though it puts Obama at odds with the ACLU, which has sued to get the photos released.

Jones, middle left, Gates and McDonough in the Oval. Photo by Pete Souza/White House

Over at Foreign Policy magazine, the very well-connected Tom Ricks, formerly of the Washington Post, says he’s “picking up the vibe” that some “powerful people” want to see Defense Secretary Robert Gates replace Jim Jones as President Obama’s national security adviser. A Pentagon spokesman shoots down the story, calling it “utterly and completely absurd”—though Ricks, for his part, seems to think he’s protesting a bit too much. Your Gaggler, for the record, hasn’t heard this rumor, but she’s heard the many others that have circulated around Washington in recent months that have suggested that Jones just isn’t quite fitting in at the White House.

Administration officials have been hearing these whispers too—and they always deny them, insisting that things are all right and swell in Obamaland. But Jones’s PR problems haven’t gone away. He’s taken a much lower public profile than his predecessors in the Bush administration. When they had Jones’s job, Condi Rice and Stephen Hadley were incredibly visible to the press and the public. They briefed reporters, gave lots of interviews and went on TV. In the Obama White House, Jones has largely ceded that ground to his deputies, including Denis McDonough and Mark Lippert, who worked for Obama during the campaign.

Perhaps knowing they have a problem, the White House has inched Jones out there a little bit more lately. Just over a month ago, Jones gave interviews to both the New York Times and the Washington Post for profiles that were published the exact same day. (Imagine that!) He gave a somewhat high-profile speech to the Atlantic Council outlining the administration’s national security goals. The White House has released photos showing Jones at key meetings. Still, the rumors haven’t stopped, which is perhaps why Gates, unsolicited, called up Post columnist David Ignatious to defend Jones last weekend, describing him as a the “glue that holds this team together.” He describes the rumors about Jones as “typical Washington” and insists they are coming from “lower levels,” not from anybody who actually is in the room. Is it enough to stop the whispers? In Washington, probably not, but the question is what the White House will do next. So far, the rumors haven't been damaging enough to merit Obama himself to come out and defend his man, as he had to do with Tim Geithner earlier this year. But it's still the relatively early days for the Obama team, and if the tension is truly there now, chances are it will only get worse.

Last night David Letterman tried to clear up his tasteless joke about Sarah Palin's daughter being impregnated by Alex Rodriguez. In a bizarre defense of his comments, Letterman suggests that his jokes were above board because they were in reference to Palin's 18 year old daughter Bristol (who recently had a baby) rather than her 14 year old daughter Willow, the one who actually attended the Yankees game with her mother. "These are not jokes made about her 14-year-old daughter. I would never, never make jokes about raping or having sex of any description with a 14-year-old girl," Letterman told his viewers last night. "I mean, look at my record. It has never happened. I don't think it's funny. I would never think it was funny. I wouldn't put it in a joke....All right, so there, I hope I've cleared part of this up. Am I guilty of poor taste? Yes. Did I suggest that it was OK for her 14-year-old daughter to be having promiscuous sex? No."

So it's OK to make jokes about a girl hooking up with a much older baseball star just because she accidentally got pregnant to her long term high school sweetheart and she's of legal age? Somehow that makes her a valid target for jokes implying unprotected promiscuity (keeping in mind that she's hit the media circuit to preach abstinence)? Letterman is right to admit to poor taste here, but your Gaggler doesn't think that's sufficient. His comments reek of a misogyny that relegates women to roles as either virgins or sluts. Poor taste indeed Mr. Letterman, but perhaps vulgar and unnecessary are better descriptions.

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

Seriously, don't trash San Francisco
After a vote by the San Francisco city council, recycling becomes no longer an option. Throwing orange peels, coffee grounds and grease-stained pizza boxes in the trash will be against the law in the city by the bay, and could even lead to a fine. (SF Chronicle)

Parts of Hawaii to return native control
The Hawaiian islands -- other than playing home to paradise-seeking visitors and tour operators -- could soon be governed, at least in part, by a native Hawaiian government (similar to how Native Americans control designated lands). Former administrations have opposed the prospect but Obama, who was raised on the islands and has vowed to sign the measure, has native Hawaiians exceedingly hopeful. (AP)

Elsewhere in the Pacific...
The island of Palau has graciously offered to take some of America's most dangerous detainees formerly held at Gitmo. Where is Palau? What's it like? Time takes a good look. There's more beyond the perfect weather of paradise. (Time)

Let the American democratic analogies begin
The presidential election in Iran is far from a straight-shot democratic exercise. Foreign Policy produces an excellent digest of the candidates and potential scenarios, including one projecting an almost certain extension of the contest after voting day -- a la Florida in 2000. (Foreign Policy)

The White House just released an official statement from the President regarding today's shooting at DC's Holocaust Museum, which left one security guard dead.

 “I am shocked and saddened by today’s shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. This outrageous act reminds us that we must remain vigilant against anti-Semitism and prejudice in all its forms. No American institution is more important to this effort than the Holocaust Museum, and no act of violence will diminish our determination to honor those who were lost by building a more peaceful and tolerant world.

“Today, we have lost a courageous security guard who stood watch at this place of solemn remembrance. My thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends in this painful time.”

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has responded to an off-color joke about her 14 year old daughter Willow made by Late Show host David Letterman Monday night. During his regular monologue, Letterman joked about Palin's daughter getting knocked up by Alex Rodriguez after the Governor's recent visit to Yankee Stadium. MSNBC has Palin's response:

 "Concerning Letterman's comments about my young daughter (and I doubt he'd ever dare make such comments about anyone else's daughter): 'Laughter incited by sexually-perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity aimed at a 14-year-old girl is not only disgusting, but it reminds us some Hollywood/NY entertainers have a long way to go in understanding what the rest of America understands -- that acceptance of inappropriate sexual comments about an underage girl, who could be anyone's daughter, contributes to the atrociously high rate of sexual exploitation of minors by older men who use and abuse others.'" 

photo by pete souza/white house

Your Gaggler has said it before, and she’ll say it again: This White House is extremely smart about managing President Obama’s image. Yesterday, aides updated the official White House Flickr account with dozens of candid behind the scenes photos of Obama’s trip to the Middle East and Europe last week. It’s pure candy for people who like getting a glimpse behind the curtain. Even if it’s not the most private of moments—Obama clearly knows he’s being photographed—it’s more than we’ve seen in real time from other modern day presidents. In this particular set, there are photos of Obama roaming a Paris art museum with his daughters, a shot of Obama body guy Reggie Love showing the president and his aides pictures on his laptop (a Dell?!), and a photo of Obama wearing an Indiana Jones hat during his tour of the pyramids in Egypt. (Don’t quit your day job, Mr. President.) The White House’s message here: Obama is a real person, just like you and me.  He wears silly hats and mugs for the camera, just like we would do. And just like us, Michelle Obama has to be polite to old guys who are little too touchy feely. (Yes, we’re looking at you, Nicolas Sarkozy. A little handsy, no?)

For months, Creigh Deeds trailed his two better funded, media magnet opponents in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia. Last night he trounced both of them, winning with 50 percent of the vote. Former DNC Chairman and Chair of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign Terry McAuliffe and Virginia House of Delegates member Brian Moran trailed badly, with 26 and 24 percent of the vote respectively. Polls had shown Deeds closing the gap in the final days of the campaign, but few pundits expected such large, wide-ranging success for the moderate state delegate who until recently struggled for name recognition in a field including Moran and press drawcard McAuliffe. McAuliffe's campaign told reporters they thought it would come down to the wire. Instead, Deeds won a stunning statewide victory, winning 10 out of 11 congressional disctricts and even capturing one held by Moran's brother Jim.

Political reporters like to search for broader national meaning in these between cycle races. As newly purple state that fell for Obama's charms in 2008, Virginia is a particularly juicy target for electoral speculation. What does the result mean for the 2010 Congressional cycle? What does it indicate about Obama's coattails? The answers to these questions are both elusive and mercurial. And Virginia's politics, which encompass both liberal beltway types and conservative Southerners, are unique and idiosyncratic, so searching for national meaning can be a process of creative interpretation. But perhaps one lesson to be drawn here is that in the current political climate, once again, presumptive candidates have given voters pause. McAuliffe has been a presence on the national political scene for many years. He was the state equivalent of a fundraising juggernaut, raising $6.9 million to Deeds' $3.8 million. He dominated in terms of advertising and media coverage, his colorful personality and political prominence proving an irresistible lure to reporters. And he had some star power up his sleeve - a pal of both Clintons, McAuliffe benefitted from several swings through the state by the former President.

Is any of this sounding a bit familiar? An establishment candidate in a Democratic primary is presumed to be a shoe in, only to be upstaged by an opponent lacking lacking history and connections? Arguing that the result is a further rejection of the Clintons is a bridge too far, but it's plausible to believe that voters have maintained the same wariness of insider political power that helped propel Obama to victory. Virginia voters demanded compelling arguments for representation, not simply a polished political CV. Perhaps that's one lesson from this race that can be extrapolated nationally.

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

GOP-ing at straws
What's it like to be a college Republican these days? About as little fun as you'd think. Slate visits a regional convention to find a humorously hopeless scene of students who, just like big-kid Republicans, sit around questioning what to do now. (Slate)

Fawning over pawning
French banks, seemingly more than those in any other large country, have drastically cut back on lending in the face of the economic downturn. That has meant a surprising upturn for society's next tier of "lenders:" pawn shops. (NPR)

Bumper to bumper tax
The city of Los Angeles has an idea to raise cash in the midst of the state's perilous slowdown: charge a congestion tax. Genius, yes, in a city known for awful traffic, but one columnist says it'll turn into a social issue that hardly effects the wealthy and discriminates against a sizable number of the city's working poor. (LA Times)

Domestic policy blogger Ezra Klein over at the Washington Post is kind of the blissfully nerdy girl's dream wonk. I've never met the lad, but he seems to adore policy and writes about it in clear, sharp and occasionally self effacing ways. Today, he wrote yet another post I wish I'd written first, where he clarifies the difference between various healthcare terms that get bandied around DC. You can read the full post complete with fun graphs here, but here's the bit that clears up a lot of nonsense about healthcare models:

I've been meaning to write this post for some time. The words "socialized medicine" and "single-payer health care" get thrown around with such gleeful abandon that they've both become a bit unmoored from their actual meanings. In the American health-care debate, they tend to refer to "whatever the Democrats are proposing." But that's not what they mean.

Socialized medicine is a system in which the government owns the means of providing medicine. Britain is an example of socialized system, as, in America, is the Veterans Health Administration. In a socialized system, the government employs the doctors and nurses, builds and owns the hospitals, and bargains for and purchases the technology. I have literally never heard a proposal for converting America to a socialized system of medicine. And I know a lot of liberals.

Single-payer health care is not socialized medicine. It's a system in which one institution purchases all, or in reality, most, of the care. But the payer does not own the doctors or the hospitals or the nurses or the MRI scanners. Medicare is an example of a mostly single-payer system, as is France. Both of these systems have private insurers to choose from, but the government is the dominant purchaser. (As an aside here, unlike in socialized medicine, "single-payer health care" has nothing in particular to do with the government. The state might be the single payer. But if Aetna managed to wrest 100 percent of the health insurance market, then it would be the single payer. The term refers to market share, not federal control.)

Socialized medicine is far outside any discussion we're having. Single-payer medicine has a genuine constituency but is also a vanishingly unlikely outcome. But the promiscuous use of the terms has created a rather confused population. "Socialized medicine" is the thing we don't have. In some cases, it's the thing we don't like.

Just how tough is Sonia Sotomayor? Holly recently noted an episode from her time as a private attorney when she gave chase to some crooks on a motorcycle through the streets of NYC. Yesterday, we learned that she fractured her ankle at La Guardia Airport before boarding her flight. She was traveling to DC for meetings with Senators and White House officials, and wasn't about to let a little thing like a broken ankle get in her way. Sotomayor boarded the plane regardless, went directly to the Old Executive Building (the office building adjacent to the White House where many senior officials work) upon landing and attended meetings. It was only THEN that she decided that her pained ankle needed some treatment. A White House physician soon sent her to a nearby hospital for x-rays which determined that yes, that throbbing pain in her ankle was actually a fracture. Now, in a substantial cast which has reportedly been signed by a couple of Senators, she's still holding meetings. She'll meet with 8 Senators today, after meeting with 6 yesterday. Anyone who's had or known someone with an ankle fracture is aware just what a physical feat that is.

In  other news, the Associated Press has just reported that the Senate has decided Sotomayor's hearings will commence on July 13. That's just over a month away, so Sotomayor might make history not just as the first Latina SCOTUS nominee, but as the first one to attend her own hearings with her ankle in a cast. 

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

More spending on the way
To the dismay of Republicans, Obama will announce later today his plan to ramp up stimulus spending, to the tune of 600,000 new jobs -- the price tag for which isn't yet clear. Much of the new spending will go toward national parks, summer jobs for teens, and medical services for vets. (Politico)

As government all but collapses in England, what is it's role?
Facing one of the country's worst political crises, the Guardian newspaper in England asks an intellectual question applicable to all democratically-elected government leaders. "To put the matter at its simplest, is it enough for them to do the job, or should we demand that they have the right moral qualities, too?" (The Guardian)

Palin cleared, though more quietly than when she was charged
Sarah Palin goes 14 for 14 in fighting off ethics charges that became national news last fall -- charges against her she called "asinine political grandstanding." (WashTimes)

Fly me to...a congressional hearing
At a clearly turbulent-feeling time for air travel, congress looks this week at the safety of regional air carriers, some of which have shown to cut corners on safety. (NPR)

Senator's idea would make him king of the world
Florida Sen. Mel Martinez clings tightly to an idea of how to ensure American security in the face of all of it's problems: build out it's Navy fleet. Expanding America's shipbuilding program should be the country's top priority. (Politico)

The White House last night released some interesting stats from the Cairo speech, gathered from their Embassies around the world. Here's a few things they found:

• 200 million Indians watched the speech in India
• In Sierra Leone, the Embassy organized for 11 cinema centers to screen the speech, allowing around 1000 residents to view the speech who otherwise would not have been able to
• Around 20,000 people signed up for the text message service
• The Consul-General in Sydney Australia organized for 40 Muslim leaders from various communities, including Indonesia, Lebanese and and Turkish, to watch the speech at her official residence, along with a Jewish leader. Sydney's ethnic populations are rife with divisions, so their collective presence at this event is encouraging 
  

Obama's trip to Germany has been shrouded in history. First, he visited Dresden, site of one of the most aggressive and controversial bombings of the Allied campaign in WWII. Historians dispute the actual death toll, but most concur that somewhere in the order of 25,000 lives where claimed. While much of the city is restored, signs of the devastation are still evident in many of the city's most celebrated structures.

This afternoon, Obama visited Buchenwald, a concentration camp that his great uncle was involved in liberating. Obama has spoken of his uncle numerous times, alluding to the emotional struggle he endured upon returning home after witnessing such horrors. It's fitting that he will soon be visiting injured veterans at Landstuhl, many of whom will likely return with unseen scars.

Touring the camp with Chancellor Merkel and two Buchenwald survivors - Bertrand Herz and writer and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel - Obama placed a long-stemmed white rose at two memorial slabs. They visited Little Camp where Wiesel was held for a time, and read the history of the camp from plaques. At Little Camp, bodies lay in the open, there was no sanitation and prisoners were forced to use food bowls as latrines. Obama later visited the crematorium.

Merkel, Obama and Wiesel each gave moving remarks in front of a clocktower which is permanently frozen at 3:15, the hour of liberation. "I will not forget what I have seen here today," Obama said. "This places teaches us that we must be ever vigilant about the spread of evil in our own time, that we must reject the false comfort that others' suffering is not our problem and commit ourselves to resisting those who would subjugate others to serve their own interests." He then spoke of small freedoms thriving amongst the despair of the camp and the unassailable hopefulness of many holocaust survivors who, despite their terrifying ordeals, maintained a belief that humanity could rise above tragedy. "Surrounded by death they willed themselves to hold fast to life. In their hearts they still had faith that evil would not triumph in the end; that while history is unknowable it arches towards progress, and that the world would one day remember them," he said.

Also in his remarks, Obama admonished holocaust deniers. "To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened -- a denial of fact and truth that is baseless and ignorant and hateful. This place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts; a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history," he said. His harsh words likely aimed at Iranian President Ahmadinejad who has called the holocaust a "myth".

 Wiesel spoke stirringly of his father, who died at Buchenwald. Calling it a way of visiting his father's grave, Wiesel recounted his father's suffering and his own fear in his father's dying moments. "Mr. President, we have such high hopes for you because you, with your moral vision of history, will be able and compelled to change this world into a better place, where people will stop waging war," Wiesel said. He spoke of the importance of sites like Buchenwald.  "Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart," he said.

(You can find the full remarks from Merkel, Obama and Wiesel here. They are quite compelling and worth the read.)

Earlier in the day, ABC's Jake Tapper, foreshadowing the afternoon's events, asked the President what the refrain "never again" meant to him, particularly in light of the genocide occuring in Darfur. "I think "never again" means that the international community has a obligation, even when it's inconvenient, to act when genocide is occurring," the President replied. He went on to outline, somewhat vaguely, the actions his administration has taken with regard to Darfur. He rightly noted that Darfur hasn't received much press attention of late, so many of his actions have gone unnoticed. Still, the brevity of his answer on Darfur likely left anti-genocide advocates wanting. 

The President continued his frank rhetoric on Middle East Peace in the historic city of Dresden in eastern Germany this morning. "I think the moment is now for us to act on what we all know to be the truth, which is that each side is going to have to make some difficult compromises; we have to reject violence," he said at a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Dresden Castle, a 700 year old stone palace that was restored in the 1960s. Obama echoed his tough talk from yesterday's Cairo speech, stating that Palestinians must "get serious" about diminishing violence and Israel would have to take "some difficult steps." Merkel said that Obama's speech had "opened up also the door to the Arab world again," and that Obama's young Presidency represented a "unique opportunity" to restart negotiations. Obama reiterated his belief that the United States cannot solve the problems between Israel and Palestine, but that it work hard, in partnership with Middle East leaders, to bring about the conditions that would foster peace. "I'm under no illusions that whatever statements I've put forward somehow are going to supplant the need to do that work," he said.

Asked about prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, neither leader indicated progress. Merkel was a vocal critic of the facility during the Bush administration, but has since been relatively silent, particularly on the question of whether Germany would be willing to take detainees. Obama said that he hasn't sought a "hard commitment " from Germany, nor have they offered one. 

The leaders spoke briefly about climate change. Both were hopeful about the possibility of an agreement in Copenhagen, but neither spoke specifically about what an agreement would contain. Obama, it would appear, has taken comfort from the progress of the Waxman-Markey bill, which he supports but did little to shape. "We are seeing progress in Congress around energy legislation that would set up for the first time in the United States a cap and trade system.  That process is moving forward in ways that I think if you had asked political experts two or three months ago would have seemed impossible," he said. "So I'm actually more optimistic than I was about America being able to take leadership on this issue, joining Europe, which over the last several years has been ahead of us on this issue."

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

Bin Laden running out of physical options
In video form, Osama bin Laden is still alive and vocal. But considering the increase in U.S. troops in the region and the Pakistani push to dissolve al Qaeda's hierarchy, analysts say bin Laden and the ranks of the organization are feeling increasing strain to keep finding places to hide. (NPR)

Cyclone force key enviro factor on Pacific islanders
Rising sea level is a long-term problem for Pacific island states. In the mean time, increased frequency and force of cyclones poses a more immediate threat to agriculture systems around the coast. Not quite the distant future, states like Micronesia and Fiji are scrambling to maintain food supply now. (Reuters)

Beginning to solve the abortion debate
One of the age-old unsolved ideological debates -- abortion -- gains new attention after the murder of an abortion surgeon in Wichita. It's far from an easy debate to solve. Slate offers four tips on Obama to bring the two sides together over common ground. (Slate)

Where to put released Gitmo detainees?
It's a popular idea in the U.S. and around the world to close the Gitmo detention center, as Obama vowed to do by January. But where would detainees go? When the Washington Times asked a sampling of America's governors if they would take them, none said yes. (Washington Times)

The dirty parts about clean coal
Who knows if carbon capture and storage to burn "clean coal" would actually work? Eugene Robinson argues that considering the cost and general arduousness of the process, the focus should be on solving the problem differently, rather than burying it. (WaPo)

I've just spend the last couple of days chasing one Barack Obama around Riyadh and Cairo. It probably goes without saying that I've seen some pretty cool stuff, so I'd like to share what I can with you, faithful Gaggle readers. I must stress that I have no professional photography skills, and I don't own a fancypants camera. What follows is just a few snapshots to give you a sense of what I've seen tailing the leader of the free world. (Photo Diary is after the jump.)

Obama's long awaited speech to the Muslim world delivered on the promises of his advisers. It was neither dramatic nor filled with romantic pledges. He tackled thorny issues, but only to a point. Coming just days after Osama Bin Laden released a new message in which he accused the President of inflaming tensions with the Muslim world, Obama's speech, entitled "A New Beginning", focused on the need for global cooperation in the advancement of peace. "This cycle of suspicion and discord must end," Obama said emphatically. And later, "as the Holy Koran tells us, “Be conscious of God and speak always the truth.” That is what I will try to do – to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart."

 (You can read the full text of the speech here.)

The speech was streamed live over the internet on the White House website and on TV networks worldwide. Capitalizing on their tech savvy operation, the Administration organized for alerts and excerpts to be texted to supporters  in four languages - Persian, Urdu, Arabic and English - and links were sent out via Facebook and MySpace. Supporters could text their reactions back to the White House, and some will be posted on the White House blog.

In the speech, Obama touched on his own biography only briefly before outlining a series of challenges to be overcome. References to Islam were well recieved by the audience. Some of his biggest applause lines came when he mentioned specific tenets of the faith. Twice audience members yelled "I love you" to the President. But there was a palpable silence as the President addressed perhaps the most difficult issue before him - Middle East peace. "Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding," he said. "It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered." 

But tension soon gave way to approval and applause when President called on Israel to end settlements and emphatically acknowledged Palestine's need for security and prosperity. A section of the speech devoted to women's rights was all well received, with women in the audience cheering.

Obama is now meeting with regional journalists and will soon tour the Pyramids of Giza, which means it's time for your Gaggler to run to a van and wait.  More on the speech and trip to come.  

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

Before it becomes a national emergency...
In the midst of such grand global problems, one congressman fires off a few letters on what he thinks is a very pressing matter: lowering the minimum age for teenage basketball players to enter the NBA (it's currently 19, he thinks it should be lower). Although we must admit that he makes a compelling point. (AP)

Hey congress, save your receipts
Taking a cue from embattled politicos in the British House of Commons, Nancy Pelosi thinks that all congressional expense reports should be publicly posted online. We wonder which members of congress will risk unwanted suspicion by raising an objection. (SF Chronicle)

International taunter on the verge of losing his footing
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly goes to bat to protect the image of his country. But many of his constituents think his brazen statements and alienating advocacy has had the opposite effect, dragging his country behind in reputation, not to mention its economy. It's why he may be poised to lose his re-election next week. (Newsweek)

In hearings, Sessions to take a reminiscent stroll
We almost missed this from yesterday. Republicans have a pretty hefty obligation to critically question SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor during her confirmation hearings. But one of them -- Jeff Sessions, the newly-anointed ranking Republican on the judiciary committee -- has sat in the same spot, nominated and rejected for a federal judgeship in 1986. For him, it'll bring an internal debate over how to be tough yet still fair. (WaPo)

President Obama arrived in at the Royal airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia at around 2:20pm local time today. The visit to Saudi Arabia was a last minute addition to the schedule, ahead of his heavily anticipated speech in Cairo. Obama received a formal military welcome. Drums played as he disembarked Air Force One, and a 21 gun salute could be heard in the distance. Saudi King Abdullah greeted Obama with a light embrace and the two leaders touched cheeks on either side. 

After listening to the national anthems and sharing a cup of Arabic coffee in the palatial, marble floored terminal, the two leaders left for what the White House is calling a the King's "farm". That's hardly an apt description of this lush, sprawling estate. A veritable oasis amid a vacant stretch of arid land, the ornate complex is decorated with chandeliers, elaborately carved ceilings, gold plated chairs and plush carpets. The King stables his stallions here, and we saw a dozen or more of them as guards bearing American and Saudi flags lined the entrance drive on horseback.

The two men are currently holding a bilateral meeting. They'll likely discuss several pressing issues: energy, violence in Pakistan, Iran and Middle East peace. The relationship is an important one for both men. President Bush came under fire from the left at times for perhaps being too close the Saudis, but, lacking Bush's commercial background, Obama is unlikely to face the same critique. That said, good relations with King Abdullah are critical to his message of reconfiguring relations between the United States and the Muslim world. Obama made this clear in brief remarks to reporters prior to the meeting, saying he'd come to "seek His Majesty's counsel" and stressing the importance of visiting the birthplace of Islam ahead of the Cairo speech. "This is my first visit to Saudi Arabia, but I've had several conversations with His Majesty.  And I've been struck by his wisdom and his graciousness.  Obviously the United States and Saudi Arabia have a long history of friendship, we have a strategic relationship," Obama said, just after receiving a large gold medallion from the Saudi King. (President Bush received a similar medallion on his last visit here.) Obama appeared pleasantly taken aback by the impressive looking, glittery medallion. "Goodness gracious. That's something there," he said, striking a decidedly Romney-esque tone with that particular expression. 

King Abdullah returned the President's kind words, calling Obama "a distinguished man who deserves to be in this position." He also invoked the historic nature of the relationship, referencing the 1945 between FDR and King Abdul Aziz, founder of the modern Saudi Empire.

** UPDATE ** Reporters were just informed that the medallion given to the president is the King Abdul Aziz Collar, considered the highest honor in the Kingdom.

In a lengthy message posted on his Web site today, Newt Gingrich apologizes for calling Judge Sonia Sotomayor a “racist" over her comment that a "wise Latina woman" could reach a better decision than "a white male who hasn't lived that life." Here’s Gingrich:

My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct.  The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the nation’s highest court have been critical of my word choice. With these critics who want to have an honest conversation, I agree.  The word “racist” should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable (a fact which both President Obama and his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, have since admitted).

That's not to say the former House Speaker is suddenly on the Sotomayor bandwagon. In the message, Gingrich cites the Sotomayor's ruling against the New Haven firefighters as a case where "equal justice for Americans" did not prevail. In other words, Gingrich is not callling her a "racist" but he's suggesting race played a role in her decision-making. He defends his believe that Sotomayor is a "radical" based on her various speeches and writings that she's delivered off the bench in recent years. However, Gingrich concedes, “many of her rulings as a court of appeals judge do not match the radicalism of her speeches and statements.  She has shown more caution and moderation in her rulings than in her words.”

All of this comes days after many Republicans were critical of Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh for using incendiary language about President Obama's Supreme Court nominee. Here's what your Gaggler is wondering: Did someone lean on Gingrich to dial back his words?

Our favorites this morning from around the web:

Hamming it up for the French
During a 10-minute long interview in France (on his way to the Middle East) Obama gushes about America's love for "all things French." As Obama cited "the food...Paris, we got the south of France, Provence, the wine," it's probably safe to assume that America's freedom fries days are a thing of the past. (AP)

Even the SecTreas feels the strain
Tim Geithner may sit in the marble tower of the U.S. Treasury by day, but in his personal time, the man behind Obama's biggest economic policies has trouble selling one of his spare houses, forced to rent instead. (Denver Post Wire)

The view from where Obama will speak
The process of selecting a venue for Obama's speech to the Muslim world has been a delicate and deliberate choice. Shying away from settings too religious and controversial (like the 1,000-year-old al-Azhar mosque) while also avoiding the diluted and secular (American University in Cairo, where Condi has spoken) the White House settled on the secular but Egyptian Cairo University, offering the campus a unique moment in the international sun. (Foreign Policy)

Sacrifice? White House forgoes new choppers
Not long after the new president took office, John McCain chided Obama publicly for plans to spend millions of taxpayer dollars on a new fleet of executive helicopters. As of this week (and perhaps a sign of McCain's sturdy influence) the project to replace Marine One was officially killed. (The Atlantic)

Former FLOTUS apparently really enjoyed fancy White House evenings
Former first lady and exhibitor of class Nancy Reagan made a rare visit to the White House this week, offering the president some unexpected advice. According to an upcoming interview, Reagan urged Obama to host as many state dinners as possible. (WSJ)

The Obama folks are polishing all the weapons in their armory in preparation for the imminent battle over health care reform. Today, they're giving the megaphone to their economists to make the case. Christina Romer, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, has penned an op-ed outlining the economic benefits of reining in costs and expanding coverage. She maps a range of upsides including higher incomes (if people are able to spend less of their salary on health insurance), lower deficits (if government spending on health is reduced), reduced unemployment (if employers can spend less on health care and direct savings towards more employees) and a more flexible labor market (if workers have fewer fears about switching jobs, and people with pre-existing conditions don't have their mobility stanched by a need to cling to their current insurer).

 Romer's arguments sound appealing and sensible on the surface, but the Washington Post's Ezra Klein makes an incisive point about where this reduction in costs is supposed to be coming from:

If I were a deficit hawk, this would be my critique of the Obama administration: Entitlement reform is health care reform. But the health care reform that's been sketched out at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is not entitlement reform. The benefits of comparative effectiveness and health IT are speculative. And the budgetary situation is too dire to put our trust in speculative benefits. The administration -- and more than that, the Congress -- needs to get serious about the budget and cut health spending closer to the bone.

Basically Klein is questioning whether the sources of reduced costs in the Obama plan are as reliable as the Administration's economic estimates need them to be. At this stage the actual cost impact of things like health IT is unclear, and subject to disputing claims by health economists. As such, Klein suggest that this means health reform must include a competitive public plan that has sufficient bargaining power with hospitals and other providers to drive costs down for a significant chunk of Americans. But that's pretty much a dealbreaker for insurers. And so, once again, the fate of health reform will rest on the political will on Capitol Hill to resist significant pressure from insurers. 

Is Dick Cheney more liberal than Barack Obama? Yes, at least on one issue. Speaking at the National Press Club yesterday, Cheney reiterated his support for same-sex marriage, as long as the issue is decided by the states not the federal government. “People ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish, any kind of arrangement they wish,” That officially puts him to the left of President Obama, who has endorsed civil unions rather than marriage, for lesbians and gays. It’s not a new position for Cheney, whose youngest daughter, Mary, is gay. The former Veep has been saying the same thing for years, dating back to the 2000 vice presidential debate with Joe Lieberman. "We ought to do everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kind of relationships people want to enter into," Cheney said back then.

On an unrelated note, Cheney was stopped on the street yesterday by a paparazzi working for TMZ who asked him about Susan Boyle, of all things. “Pretty good,” Cheney says. For the record, this Gaggler was very disappointed not to see Cheney’s talking car.

DNC Chair Tim Kaine emailed supporters today to announce that the committee's fall meeting will be held in the Lone Star State. In the email, Kaine likens Texas to Virginia, arguing that it is poised to shift to the Democrats. He says Dems should have every reason to feel "bullish" about their hopes in Texas. Kaine writes:

It wasn't that long ago -- less than 10 years, in fact -- that Virginia was considered just as strong a lock for the Republicans as Texas has been. In Virginia, we had Republican Governors, Republican U.S. Senators and a strong Republican majority in our Congressional delegation and state legislature. And we didn't merit any attention from Presidential candidates during general elections because no Democratic candidate since Lyndon Johnson had won Virginia's electoral votes.

Today? I'm the second consecutive Democrat to serve as Governor of Virginia, we took back the State Senate and have reached near parity in the House of Delegates. Both of our U.S. Senators are Democrats, and Democrats are the majority of our U.S. House delegation. And of course, in November, Barack Obama became the first Democratic Presidential candidate since 1964 to carry the Old Dominion.

In so many ways, I believe Texas is poised to move towards our column, just as Virginia has.

Maybe Governor Perry will add that to the list of reasons Texans should secede.

Speaking about the bankruptcy of General Motors at the White House this morning, President Obama sought to reassure Americans that he's not interested in being the CEO of a car company. After praising Chrylser for its surprisingly swift moves to restructure through bankruptcy and sale to Fiat, the President spoke carefully and soberly about the "unwelcome position" the government has found itself in as a major shareholder in the struggling auto giant. Part of the restructuring plan GM has formulated involves granting the government a 60% stake in the company in exchange for $30 billion, bringing the total government commitment to GM to nearly $50 billion. Obama called the government "reluctant shareholders" in GM, but said that another alternative - loaning the company more capital - would have been irresponsible as GM is already weighed down by enormous amounts of debt. "What we are not doing -- what I have no interest in doing -- is running GM," Obama said. "The federal government will refrain from exercising its rights as a shareholder in all but the most fundamental corporate decisions.  When a difficult decision has to be made on matters like where to open a new plant or what type of new car to make, the new GM, not the United States government, will make that decision.In short, our goal is to get GM back on its feet, take a hands-off approach, and get out quickly."

The President is engaged in a delicate balancing act here. On the one hand, Americans are suspicious of government interference in the free market. Taxpayers don't want to be de facto shareholders in failing businesses either. But on the other hand, in order for the government to realize any real return on its investments (and therefore for taxpayers to see direct benefits from it), the government needs to retain it share until GM sees profits, or at least a healthy cash flow, again. So the real question for the President is this: How do you define "get out quickly"? And what is the criteria for making that decision? What benefits can taxpayers expect the Government to reap from this massive investment? Is there an expectation for any of the capital to be recouped? Or is simply staving off complete failure enough?

Interestingly, Republicans have been almost silent on the GM plan. Although such deep government investment in a corporation is no doubt an anathema to most free market GOPers, nobody wants to be the guy saying this iconic American company should fail. 

On a day full of sobering news about missing planes and failing auto giants, at least we have some answers to one of the important questions of our time: What's it like to go on a date if you are the President? Via the New York Daily News, we have all sort of details of the Obamas date on Saturday night. They made a low profile escape to New York City, late Saturday afternoon, to continue their long tradition of date nights, and their new traditon of getting out of the White House as often as possible. Earlier the in the day, the President had played the part of soccer dad, traveling to a local field to watch his eldest daughter Malia play, and win.

The First Couple dined at Blue Hill, a small (83 seat) Greenwich Village restaurant with a seasonal menu featuring local produce sourced from the Hudson Valley. Entrees range from $28-$36. Mrs. Obama apparently had 2 martinis. It's unclear whether they were gin or vodka, shaken or stirred, dirty or with a twist. Alas, investigative journalism units are all but a thing of the past... But I digress. The President had wines that were paired with a tasting menu. Their fellow diners were exceedingly polite, according to the NYDN, refraining from ogling the first couple or whipping out their cell phones for twitpics. But they did burst into spontaneous New York applause as the Obamas got up to leave.

The President then took his wife to a Broadway Show, the fulfilment of a promise he'd made to her during the election. They saw "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" by August Wilson at the Belasco Theater. The curtain was held for 45 minutes while the First Couple made their way to the theater. There, they recieved a five minute standing ovation. Some patrons stood on their chairs to catch a glimpse of the Obamas, but seemed indifferent to the presence of Meryl Streep, who was also taking in the show.

The Obamas copped some flak from the RNC, who criticized them for extravagence at a time when American giant GM prepares for bankruptcy. The White House hasn't announced how much the trip cost, but did indicate the Obamas would have been happy to catch the shuttle had Secret Service allowed it.

Our favorites this morning from around the web: