The Note: Road Marks: White House plays hardball — but soft spots reveal themselves

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

While we try to find some order in the Obama agenda — and try to sort out when a tax isn’t a tax, and when advice from your generals on the ground isn’t necessarily welcome — let’s pause for some politics.

We can let the president do the honors — as he shows decisiveness in determining who should run for office, in the manner he isn’t quite displaying in his push for health care reform.

We can let him handle it on the late-night circuit — as he seeks to defuse some tension with a laugh: “It’s important to realize that I was actually black before the election,” the president told David Letterman.

We can let a former president weigh in on the same subject: “Some of the extreme right who oppose him on health care also are racially prejudiced. And if you listen to some of the — look at some of the signs, or listen to some of the rhetoric, there’s no question that that’s true,” former President Bill Clinton told ABC’s Robin Roberts, on “Good Morning America” Tuesday. “But I believe, if he were not an African-American, all the people who are against him on health care would still be against him — because they were all against me, too.”

Or we can let the vice president chart the political roads — with some prognosticating suggesting that Charlie Cook and Stu Rothenberg have job security.

“Vice President Joe Biden said [Monday] that if Democrats were to lose 35 House seats they currently hold in traditionally Republican districts, it would mean doomsday for President Obama’s agenda,” ABC’s Karen Travers reports.

Said Biden: “If they take them back, this the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do,” the vice president said at a fundraiser for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., in Delaware. But if Democrats can hold on to those seats, “it will break the dam and you will see bipartisanship,” Biden said. (How long has the vice president been in Washington again?)

While we figure out that math — this civics lesson is easier to understand for a Democratic establishment that did, after all, envy the party discipline displayed in the GOP’s salad years of George W. Bush.

This is an uneasy fit with post-partisanship. But with matters foreign and domestic chipping away at Democratic unity, it may not hurt the White House to leave the impression that discipline matters.

The era of bipartisanship starts right after we get past some partisanship: “The White House’s intervention in the race for New York governor is the latest evidence of how President Obama and his top advisers are taking an increasingly direct role in contests across the country, but their assertiveness has bruised some Democrats who suggest it could undercut Mr. Obama’s appeal with voters tired of partisan politics,” Jeff Zeleny and Adam Nagourney write in The New York Times.

“The overt involvement of Mr. Obama’s team in New York, where they have tried to ease Gov. David A. Paterson out of the race, has made clear that this is a White House willing to use its clout to help clear the field for favored Democratic candidates and to direct money and other resources in the way it thinks will most benefit the administration and help preserve the Democrats’ majority in Congress,” they report.

Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., still running for Senate against Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.: “The Democratic Party under Barack Obama did not come into office because of political calculation; it got there because of audacity.”

“This was particularly ham-handed,” Karl Rove says. “They shouldn’t have tried this unless they can make it happen. Even then, they should have acted in a way that was subtle, not messy and ugly.”

The message: “Call the purging of Paterson post-racial politics or just plain politics, but in either case the lesson is clear: When you become a problem for Obama, don’t get too close to a window,” Richard Cohen writes in his Washington Post column.

SEIU President Andy Stern tells The Note: “Many of us applauded George Bush’s and Karl Rove’s ability to clear races.”

The AP’s Liz Sidoti: “A full year before the 2010 elections, the president clearly has embraced his other job, party standard-bearer. To varying degrees, every White House puts its hands in political races. But presidents before Obama didn’t face a 24/7 news culture that seemingly has the spotlight shining much brighter on the White House — and presidential maneuvering in electoral politics.”

“An administration that came to Washington promising to rise above politics has quickly immersed itself in trying to influence an array of state-level elections,” The Washington Post’s Anne E. Kornblut and Rosalind S. Helderman report. “A senior Democratic Party official close to [Gov. David] Paterson said that while the White House pressure on Paterson amounted to a serious blow, the governor is likely to continue weighing his options until he can determine whether he still has support among Harlem’s black political elite.”

In New York Monday: “The usually affable Paterson appeared glum, as if he wanted to be anywhere else but with the President,” per the New York Daily News’ Glenn Blain and Kenneth Lovett. “By contrast, state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the man many Democrats want to run instead of Paterson, was ebullient.”

“At the event in Troy, Obama praised Paterson’s heart — calling him a ‘wonderful man’ — but he beamed at Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and effusively praised the work of the man whom many Democrats would like to see pursue the governor’s mansion next year instead of Paterson,” ABC’s Jake Tapper, Karen Travers, and Stephanie Z. Smith report.

“A knowledgeable source says the president expressed his regret at how the story leaked and became such a media spectacle,” Tapper reports. “(Not that said regret changes the governor’s 76% disapproval ratings, or the president’s view that Paterson can’t win and should cede the floor to someone who can for the good of the state and the party.)”

In Massachusetts, one push that will pays off soon: “Leaders of the state Senate expect to begin debate this morning on a bill that would let Governor Deval Patrick appoint an interim successor to Edward M. Kennedy, potentially paving the way for appointment of a new US senator later this week,” The Boston Globe’s Matt Viser reports. “If the state Senate approves the bill today, the governor would probably be able to sign it tomorrow.”

Where’s the party discipline here?

“Liberals in the House are prepared to buck President Obama and House Democratic leaders if they’re presented a healthcare bill without a public option,” The Hill’s Michael O’Brien reports.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., in an online chat: “The public option is still very much alive only because the progressives have stood together and held our ground and said that, regardless of what the President or Leadership says, we won’t vote for any bill [without] a public option.”

Ralph Nader, on ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” Monday, rallying the left: Obama has “never invited progressive leaders to the White House, and they represent a huge constituency that elected him. But he invites CEOs to the White House, of health insurance companies and drug companies. You don’t win that way.”

And how’s this sounding for unity and cohesiveness?

“The leak of a secret assessment by the top military commander in Afghanistan laying out the need for more troops there has raised the question of whether President Obama is at odds with the Pentagon over the direction of the war,” ABC’s Luis Martinez reports.

Gotta figure this out first: “The Pentagon has told its top commander in Afghanistan to delay submitting his request for additional troops, defense officials say, amid signs that the Obama administration is rethinking its strategy for combating a resurgent Taliban,” Yochi Dreazen and Peter Spiegel report in The Wall Street Journal. “A senior Pentagon official says the administration has asked for the reprieve so it can complete a review of the U.S.-led war effort. . . . Gen. McChrystal’s call for quick action appears to be increasingly at odds with comments from President Barack Obama, who has insisted in recent days that he won’t be rushed into approving more U.S. troops for the war.”

Who’s making policy, and who’s carrying it out? “Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s grim assessment of the Afghanistan war has opened a divide between the military, which is pushing for an early decision to send more troops, and civilian policymakers who are increasingly doubtful of an escalating nation-building effort,” Karen DeYoung reports in The Washington Post.

“Obama’s public remarks on Afghanistan indicate that he has begun to rethink the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago, even as his generals have embraced it. The equation on the ground has changed markedly since his March announcement, with attacks by Taliban fighters showing greater sophistication, U.S. casualties rising, and the chances increasing that Afghanistan will be left with an illegitimate government after widespread fraud in recent presidential elections.”

“I’m lost on President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan policy — along with most of Congress and the U.S. military,” Leslie Gelb writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

“This is not the time for Hamlet in the White House,” former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., said Monday, per ABC’s Teddy Davis. “How in the world can he be saying at this stage the things that he is saying?”

Former President Bill Clinton, on “GMA”: “I think he’ll make a good decision. But what you want from your generals is to make an honest recommendation, based on what they believe the mission is, and then the president has to decide. That’s what they pay you the big bucks for.”

Can McChrystal be long for this job? Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin: “A senior Pentagon official said today that the leaked assessment of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, which says that ‘mission failure’ is a serious risk unless more U.S. troops are sent to Afghanistan, is just ‘one input’ into the administration’s thinking, as another senior administration source directly blamed McChrystal’s shop for the surprising leak and suggested that the general, who was installed by President Obama’s team in June, is out ahead of the White House over the resourcing of the Afghan war.”

The politics: “He can escalate an unpopular and open-ended war and risk a backlash from his liberal base or refuse his commanders and risk being blamed for a military loss that could tar him and his party as weak on national security,” McClatchy’s Steven Thomma, Jonathan S. Landay and David Lightman report.

“Regardless of what motivation the DOD may have had, a senior Democratic Senate aide said Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden will need to personally engage to persuade Democrats to back any increase,” Roll Call’s Steven T. Dennis and John Stanton report.

Politico’s David Rogers: “Just when President Barack Obama has got Congress focused on health care again, Afghanistan keeps pulling him back in.”

President Obama is at the United Nations for much of the day. He speaks on climate change at 9:15 am ET.

Then it’s meetings with world leaders — Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel and President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, and President Hu of China — before appearing alongside former President Bill Clinton on the Clinton Global Initiative Tuesday evening.

“Also of interest — world leaders whom aides will try to keep away from the president, such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reported on “GMA” Tuesday.

Back in Washington — it’s mark-up day in the Senate Finance Committee.

“On public display will be all of the ideological and philosophical fault lines that have for decades stymied every President and every Congress that have tried to do something about this issue,” Time’s Karen Tumulty writes.

“Seeking to lock down votes before Tuesday’s meeting of the Senate Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus began reworking his health-care overhaul to ease the financial burden on middle-class Americans who would be required for the first time to have health insurance,” The Washington Post’s Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery write. “All of his changes, though, would add billions to the cost of a bill whose chief accomplishment was its relative austerity.”

Baucus “will expand subsidies for people trying to obtain coverage through an online exchange, said Senator Kent Conrad, a finance panel member. He’s also likely to cut back an excise tax on so-called Cadillac plans so fewer people would be affected, an issue important to labor unions,” Bloomberg’s Laura Litvan reports.

Pet project alert: “The Nevada Cancer Institute, in Las Vegas, may not have a national reputation as a clinic or a research facility. But it does have the ear of its state’s senior senator, Harry Reid, the Democratic leader. And that is why the four-year-old institute could reap a big gain in federal reimbursements as part of the health care overhaul,” The New York Times’ David D. Kirkpatrick reports.

For the budget hawks: “The cost estimates in Baucus’ bill, like those attached to many of the 500-plus amendments lined up for Finance Committee consideration, are shot through with magical math and budgetary sleight-of-hand — designed primarily to serve political ends,” the Chicago Tribune’s James Oliphant and Kim Geiger report.

Coming Tuesday from the health care wars: “Health Care for America Now (HCAN) partners will hold a ‘Big Insurance: Sick Of It’ day of action nationwide to highlight private health insurance industry abuses and call for reform that guarantees good, affordable health care and includes the choice of a strong national public health insurance option. . . . Three flagship events will be taking place outside major insurance company headquarters in Minneapolis (United HealthCare), Indianapolis (WellPoint), and Philadelphia (Cigna).”

ACORN wars: “Glenn Fine, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice today wrote to the Chairman and Ranking Republican of the House Judiciary Committee – Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., and Lamar Smith, R-Texas — informing them that his office is planning on opening a review into whether ACORN applied for or received any Justice Department grants or funds and whether or not the Justice Department ever carried out any audits or reviews of those funds,” per ABC’s Jake Tapper.

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis will be a guest on ABCNews.com’s Top Line Tuesday, live at noon ET.

Glenn Beck wars: Writes Peter Wehner, who ran the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives under Karl Rove: “Beck seems to be a roiling mix of fear, resentment, and anger — the antithesis of Ronald Reagan.”

Tom Delay’s “Dancing” debut: Heavy on the butt shakes, and he brought along a small whip for the promo segments — but he needs some work on the lip-synching. He placed third from the bottom on the judges’ scorecards — notwithstanding that online whip operation engineered by some of his former staffers.

“Tom DeLay was elected to the House of Representatives 11 times, but if his performance on Monday’s ‘Dancing With the Stars’ is any indication, he shouldn’t expect that kind of longevity on the hit ABC dancing competition,” per the New York Daily News’ Elliot Olshansky.

The Democratic Governors Association welcomes him to the dance floor, at dancingwithtomdelay.com (worth the click for the California Chicken Dance).

The Kicker:

“You’re crazier than Sarah Palin!” — “Dancing With the Stars” judge Bruno Tonioli, after Tom DeLay’s first dance.

“Wanted to congratulate Dave on the big Emmy win.” — President Obama, offering the No. 1 reason he wanted to appear on Letterman — a day after Jon Stewart won the Emmy in Letterman’s category.

For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/

Grassley on White House Admonitions, Fighting “Obamacare”

ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf reports: Sen. Charles Grassley’s office is firing back at White House adviser David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs for saying the three Republican negotiators still seeking a bipartisan health reform compromise are not coming to the table in good faith.

“If you’re sitting at a table negotiating in good faith, then you probably don’t send out mailers saying, ‘Help me stop Obama-care.’ That’s just common sense,” Axelrod told the Wall Street Journal, adding that a fundraising mailer sent by Grassleyand a speech made over the weekend by Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming “suggested they don’t want to participate” in bipartisan talks. “They’re satisfied with the status quo. We are not,” said Axelrod.

“Attacks by political operatives in the White House undermine bipartisan efforts and drive senators away from the table,” said Grassley’s spokesperson Jill Kozeny in an email today.

She also explained the fundraising letter:

“The Grassley fundraising letter was mailed on August 7. It describes Senator Grassley’s opposition to the government-run plan in the House and HELP committee bills. The President supports a government-run option. Senator Grassley has opposed a government-run plan all year. He’s talked with the President about it directly, starting March 6, at the White House summit on health care, during the televised re-cap session at the end of the day. There’s nothing new in the letter. It says the same thing Senator Grassley has said throughout the debate this year.

In a conference call with Iowa reporters that was posted on his Senate website Tuesday.Grassley, R-Iowa,employed a near-Rumsfeldian definition of “Obamacare” to explain the fundraising letter, which was posted on the Washington Post website Monday.

A reporter asked Grassley about trying to raise funds to help him defeat Obamacare.

“What is Obamacare?” the reporter asked him.

Grassley: “There isn’t really a bill out there but people think there’s a bill out there and people in journalism think there’s a bill out there because they keep referring to Obamacare just like some magic bill came up from the White House that Congress is considering. So if people think everything we’re doing is Obamacare, then it's Obamacare whether it really is or isn’t.”

Reporter: “Aren’t you raising money based on the fact that you’re asking people to give you money to fight against something that in this committee you are…”

Grassley: “Oh no. No, it’s the two bills that are out there. We don’t have a product out there that anybody can look at or anything that I could speak about. You’re talking about the bill of Sen. Dodd’s committee, used to be Sen. Kennedy’s committee, a very partisan bill. And you’re talking about the House bill that Pelosi is going to be putting together that came out of Rep. Waxman’s committee.

“And these are the bills, quite frankly, if you want something that is the essence of Obamacare even though it didn’t come from the White House, it’s the House bill mainly that’s on the Internet, that people are reading and they don’t like.”

With Axelrod and Gibbs turning their aim at Grassley, he is officially getting it from both sides. In a separate interview, posted on the website of the Kaiser Family Foundation, he acknowledged that there is frustration among Republicans that he continues to seek middle ground.

Asked if he had been criticized by Republican leaders for seeking bipartisanship, Grassley said, “Not to my face, but I think to my back, I have.”

ABC News' Jason Ryan reports:

Administration and DOJ officials confirm the establishment of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group which will handle future interrogations of high value Al-Qaeda and terrorism suspects.

The special interrogation unit will be housed under the FBI reporting directly to the FBI director, and overseen by the National Security Council.

One national security official said this new interrogation group will be focused on intelligence gathering and will not be reading Miranda rights to captured terrorism suspects. According to a separate US government official the CIA was more than willing to let FBI take the lead on the group.

“The CIA didn?t want to house the initiative. They?re glad to be out of the long-term detention business,? the official said.

DOJ officials also confirm that the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility has recommended to Attorney General Holder that he reopen detainee abuse cases. No word as of yet if the Attorney General will appoint a special counsel or special prosecutor to investigate detainee abuse and torture.

-Jason Ryan

Palin Hasn’t Spoken to McCain in ‘Weeks’; Says ‘Department of Law’ Would Protect Her in White House

ABC News’ Kate Snow and Rick Klein report:

A few more tidbits from ABC News’ interview with Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, shed light on her thinking surrounding her decision to announce her resignation — and on her relationship with her former running mate.

Palin told Kate Snow that she didn’t give Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a head’s up about her bombshell announcement to leave her seat early.

Asked about the last time she spoke with him, she responded only that she “left him a message a couple of weeks ago” when Exxon announced June 11 that it would work to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska.

Asked about whether she touched base with him in advance of Friday’s resignation announcement, Palin responded:

“Didn’t tell him I was going to do this, but he is very astute, he is very sharp, he knew too that the distractions in the state — he knows me well enough to know that I am wired to not want to waste any time or any kind of resource. I want to get the job done.”

Asked if McCain would have had an inkling about her intentions, she responded, “don’t know if he could sense [that she was going to resign], but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he knows why I did it, and he knows how much I love Alaska. He and probably everybody else gets sick and tired of hearing how much I love Alaska.”

McCain didn’t put out a statement until the day after her Friday announcement. The statement read: “I have the greatest respect and affection for Sarah, Todd, and their family. I was deeply honored to have her as my running mate and believe she will continue to play an important leadership role in the Republican Party and our nation.”

Palin thanked McCain for his support in a Facebook posting over the weekend, and again in yesterday’s interview.

Snow also asked Palin whether, if she runs for president, she could avoid the “political blood sport” she cited as among the reasons she wanted to leave office.

“I don’t think it will be the day after day after day of ethics violation charges that are frivolous, that are ridiculous. I think on a national level your department of law there in the White House would look at this, the things we have been charged with, and automatically throw them out, not make somebody hire their own personal attorney to get out there and fight.”

There is no “department of law” at the White House, though Palin appears to have been referring to the White House counsel’s office.

–Kate Snow and Rick Klein

The Note, 5/28/2009: Supreme Confidence–Rumblings on the left, but White House isn’t shaking

By RICK KLEIN

How about bottling some of that SCOTUS magic?

One thing to remember about the stellar White House rollout of Judge Sonia Sotomayor: It’s easier to define the terms of a debate when no one else can really work up their own version. (And there’s too much invested in having a tussle — from the interest groups to the lawmakers to the media — for there not to be one.)

As has become the norm in this administration, the Obama White House has one of its best messaging weeks when there’s no one else in Washington to offer coherent, consistent messaging of their own. Congressional breaks are more predictable — but those good times don’t last forever.

(There’s always healthcare, energy, the economy, the stimulus — and, Thursday, even some Middle East peace to bring the White House back to the sometimes-scorched earth.)

This confidence comes from somewhere — and has to go somewhere, too: “I would put these four months against the four months of any prior administration since FDR,” President Obama told a star-studded crowd in Beverly Hills Wednesday night, per ABC’s Sunlen Miller. “When you look at the economy right now, I think it’s safe to say that we have stepped back from the brink.”

Stepping over to Sotomayor, a couple of quotes and YouTube clips — even with the help of Newt Gingrich’s Twitter account — won’t change the Senate math. But this will be interesting, distracting, and amusing — and important, for Democrats and Republicans.

“Republicans won’t try to filibuster Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination, a key GOP senator conceded Wednesday, all but admitting there’s little chance of blocking her confirmation as the first Hispanic justice. But senators and advocacy groups are still girding for this summer’s battle — partly with an eye toward raising money and perhaps preparing for Barack Obama’s next nominee,” the AP’s Julie Hirschfeld Davis writes.

And while the right figures it out, the left sweats it out (it is, of course, the Souter seat): “President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has provoked concern from abortion rights advocates, who say they have seen no evidence that she supports upholding Roe vs. Wade,” David G. Savage and Peter Nicholas write in the Los Angeles times. “Unlike most finalists for the high court opening, Sotomayor has never ruled on the issue. And in her only abortion-related decision, she did not come down the way activists would have liked.”

“Some abortion rights advocates are quietly expressing unease that Judge Sotomayor may not be a reliable vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision,” Charlie Savage writes in The New York Times. “In a letter, Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, urged supporters to press senators to demand that Judge Sotomayor reveal her views on privacy rights before any confirmation vote.”

“Some liberal legal groups are raising questions about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, citing her relatively moderate judicial record and her skimpy paper trail on crucial issues like abortion, gay marriage and the death penalty,” Politico’s Lisa Lerer reports.

She is “the most conservative choice that President Obama could have made,” E.J. Dionne Jr. writes in his Washington Post column. “Liberals should not take the bait of the right-wingers by allowing the debate over Sotomayor to be premised on the idea that she is a bold ideological choice. She’s not. But if conservatives succeed in painting this moderate as a radical, they will skew future arguments over the court.”

Follow the money: “For now, supporters appear to be better funded and better organized,” Jonathan Weisman and Naftali Bendavid report in The Wall Street Journal.

“That’s how the public relations campaign began over President Obama’s historic nomination of the Hispanic appellate judge — with liberals able to spend freely on network and cable TV and conservatives limited to the less expensive Internet,” USA Today’s Richard Wolf reports.

Doing their best to keep this boring: “In the months leading up to Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s selection this week, the White House methodically labored to apply lessons from years of nomination battles to control the process and avoid the pitfalls of the past, like appearing to respond to pressure from the party’s base or allowing candidates to be chewed up by friendly fire,” Peter Baker and Adam Nagourney write in The New York Times.

“The White House enlisted lawyers and constitutional experts to say that in Sotomayor’s 17 years on the federal bench, she has been a cautious jurist who respects precedent,” Robert Barnes reports in The Washington Post. “But conservative legal groups countered that her remarks in speeches and symposiums bolster their claims that she is a liberal activist waiting to flower on the high court. . . . More is at stake for conservative activists than Sotomayor’s confirmation. Some say privately that the larger goal is portraying Obama as having abandoned the moderate persona of the campaign for a liberal governing style as president.”

“[Some] conservative activists see lines of attack that would make a filibuster unnecessary: They aim to paint a portrait of Sotomayor to make conservative Democrats squirm, eroding support from within Obama’s party,” the Los Angeles Times’ Janet Hook writes.

Then there’s Newt, on Twitter and his blog: “Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman,’ ” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., blogged Wednesday, per ABC’s Jake Tapper. “Wouldn’t they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism. A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”

(Will this be the marking point for 2012ers?)

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, on the 32 words that have Newt upset: “I think — I — I have confidence in Americans reading not just part of, but the whole statement,” Gibbs said, per The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank.

Karl Rove adds rhetorical fuel: ” ‘Empathy’ is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want,” he writes in his Wall Street Journal column. “There is a certain irony in a president who routinely praises America’s commitment to ‘the rule of law’ but who picks Supreme Court nominees for their readiness to discard the rule of law whenever emotion moves them.” (Irony?)

More Rove: “Democrats will win the vote, but Republicans can win the argument by making a clear case against the judicial activism she represents.”

The president arrives back in Washington in time for a 4 pm ET meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office.

The context: “President Barack Obama has made it clear to Israel he wants no ‘natural growth exceptions’ to his call for a freeze in West Bank settlements, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday,” per AFP’s Lachlan Carmichael. “Her remarks about settlements during a visit by Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit of Egypt, a key mediator in peace talks, were the most explicit yet since Obama came to office in January.”

A new line of attack from former Vice President Dick Cheney: “I think the budgets he submitted are way out of whack,” Cheney told CNBC’s Larry Kudlow in an interview. “I think what it does not only to the short-term deficit but long-term debt situation is very objectionable.”

ABC’s Matt Jaffe points out: “The Bush regime inherited a $127 billion budget surplus, but set five record-high budget deficits in seven years and left office with the national debt over $10 trillion. According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Cheney once told him during a cabinet meeting, ‘Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.’ ”

National Security Adviser Jim Jones fires back at Cheney: “In my view, I firmly believe that the United States is not only safe but it will be more secure and the American people are increasingly safer because of the president’s leadership that he has displayed consistently over the last four months, both at home and abroad,” Jones said in a speech at the Atlantic Council, per ABC’s Luis Martinez.

Time’s Joe Klein interviews Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “The things we’ve cut . . . wouldn’t have been in the budget even if we had $50 billion more to spend,” Gates tells Klein. Klein: “When, in a recent conversation, I noted that he seemed gleefully outspoken these days, Gates offered a twinkly smile and said, ‘What are they going to do, fire me?’ “

Defending the stimulus, now 101 days since it became law:

“Obama’s aides had mocked reporters for making a fuss over his first 100 days in office. But the president was eager to assess the first 100 days of the stimulus package. He gave it high marks,” the AP’s Chuck Babington writes. “The White House job claims are difficult to verify because they are based on estimates of how bad the economy might have been without the stimulus rather than actual employment data. The country has lost 1.3 million jobs since February, a figure the Obama administration says would have been far higher if not for the recovery effort.”

” ‘Only a small part’ of the nation’s $787 billion economic stimulus had been spent through the end of last month, according to congressional analysts, despite the Obama administration’s boasts Wednesday that the plan is a big success,” McClatchy’s David Lightman reports.

“States hit hardest by the recession received only a few of the government’s first stimulus contracts, even though the glut of new federal spending was meant to target places where the economic pain has been particularly severe,” USA Today’s Brad Heath reports. “Nationwide, federal agencies have awarded nearly $4 billion in contracts to help jump-start the economy since President Obama signed the massive stimulus package in February. But, with few exceptions, that money has not reached states where the unemployment rate is highest, according to a USA TODAY review of contracts disclosed through the Federal Procurement Data System.”

Looking through the White House glass: “The fact that the unemployment rate is going up or the fact that we are losing jobs, again, should not be taken as evidence that the plan is ineffective,” Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden’s economic adviser, tells Reuters’ Lisa Lambert.

Rocking the banking world: “Top Obama administration officials are close to recommending that Congress create a single regulator to oversee the entire banking sector, people familiar with the matter said, a departure from the hodgepodge of federal agencies that failed to contain the financial crisis as it ballooned out of control last year,” Damian Paletta reports in The Wall Street Journal. “The new agency is expected to be a major plank in a proposal that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House officials send Capitol Hill in a few weeks with the goal of overhauling supervision of financial markets.”

A cap-and-trade trade-off: “Confronted by Democratic majorities, a Democratic president, and a voting public furious over Wall Street lapses, the business community, which once adamantly opposed almost all forms of government regulation and mandates, has opted to join rather than fight,” Susan Milligan reports in The Boston Globe.

Getting it done on the Hill: “White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel starts many mornings with a workout in the U.S. House of Representatives gym. He also lifts weights,” Bloomberg’s Hans Nicholas writes. “The real exercise is gathering political intelligence from his one-time colleagues about congressional action on health-care and energy legislation.”

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., makes the case on healthcare — in the first person: “Over the last year, I’ve seen our healthcare system up close. I’ve benefitted from the best of medicine, but I’ve also witnessed the frustration and outrage of patients and doctors alike as they face the challenges of a system that shortchanges millions of Americans,” he writes in a Boston Globe op-ed. “We have the greatest doctors and medical innovations in the world, but more and more Americans are on the outside looking in to a world of progress and discovery that is denied to them because they cannot afford quality healthcare. That’s wrong — and it’s about to change.”

Coming Monday: Former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass., speaks to the Heritage Foundation on missile defense and proposed Pentagon cuts. From the release going out Thursday: “In this timely policy speech, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney warns against proposed defense cuts that will increase our vulnerability, imperil our allies and diminish the cause of freedom. In making the case for a stronger military, Romney will review current threats to American leadership and the challenges ahead.”

The slow, not-pretty undoing of Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill.: “Beleaguered U.S. Sen. Roland Burris added another layer Wednesday to the evolving story of his appointment, saying he was only trying to ‘placate’ then- Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s brother to keep his Senate prospects alive knowing no campaign money would ever change hands,” the Chicago Tribune’s Ashley Rueff, Rick Pearson and Jeff Coen report.

“The latest detail came as Burris spent the opening of a two-day Downstate tour offering his explanation of what was on covert recordings made by federal agents investigating Blagojevich in November. Burris said the transcript shows that he was not involved in ‘pay to play’ because he told Robert Blagojevich, the former governor’s brother, that if he donated and got the Senate appointment, ‘that means I bought it.’ “

Chris Matthews with the take-down, per the Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet.

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., got to hang with the big boys in Los Angeles, for the party fundraiser Wednesday night.

And it looks like he’ll need at least some of that party cash for a primary: “Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) is privately telling supporters that he intends to run for Senate, TPMDC has confirmed,” Brian Beutler reports for Talking Points Memo.

“Personally, I do intend to get in, but we make the decision as a family. This is a deployment,” Sestak, a retired Navy rear admiral, tells the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Thomas Fitzgerald. “We have not made a final decision. . . . I intend to try to do this in a thoughtful, deliberate way.”

Some early weekend reading: Peter Baker does The New York Times Magazine profile of Bill Clinton — now, as Clinton himself points out, an ex-president longer than he was president.

A delicious little story about those South Carolina comments: “None of them ever really took seriously the race rap,” Clinton tells the Times. “They knew it was politics,” he says. Clinton tells about a minister who he met in Texas, during the general election. The minister supported Obama. “And he came up, threw his arm around me and said, ‘You’ve got to forgive us for that race deal.’ He said, ‘That was out of line.’ But he said, ‘You know, we wanted to win real bad.’ And I said, ‘I got no problem with that.’ ”

Plus, Baker reports, Clinton is still smarting from the defections of Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., and Ted and Caroline Kennedy. (Surprised?)

The Kicker:

“What am I going to tell the president when I tell him his Teleprompter is broken? What will he do then?” — Vice President Joe Biden, when the Teleprompter blew over at his graduation speech at the Air Force Academy, in a joke that cuts a few different ways.

“The only bad thing about Hillary’s being secretary of state is I can’t always get hold of her.” — Former President Bill Clinton.

Today on “Top Line,” ABCNews.com’s daily political Webcast: Jared Bernstein, chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden; and Politico’s Jonathan Martin. Noon ET.

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For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day:

White House Adviser: Economy ‘Deep in the Woods’ – but Stimulus is Working

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

With the stimulus bill now on the books for more than 100 days, the White House is eager to tout its impact on the economy – even while acknowledging that the nation is still in a recession, with further job losses all but inevitable.

On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” today, Jared Bernstein, the chief economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, told us that the unemployment rate is likely to continue to rise this year, despite the approval of the $787 billion stimulus package.

But the package is still on track to “save or create” 3.5 million jobs, Bernstein said.

“The economy is still in recession. Let’s be very clear about that. When you’re losing hundreds of thousands of jobs per month, and unemployment is rising — and we expect both those things to continue for months to come — that’s a recession,” Bernstein told us.

“We’re not out of the woods. We’re deep in the woods. But there are some signs that suggest the worst is behind us,” he said.

Bernstein comments come as the White House continues its effort to convey optimism about the state of the economy.

“When you look at the economy right now I think it’s safe to say that we have stepped back from the brink, that there is some calm that didn’t exist before,” President Obama said last night at a fundraiser in Los Angeles.

The White House is also eager to talk up the impact of the stimulus package.

Said Bernstein: “The idea here is that, yes, the unemployment rate is rising, but it would be rising more quickly [without the bill]. . . . We’re spending about $1 billion a day — and, by the way, with very careful oversight — and that’s creating, again, economic activity that would not have occurred in the absence of this plan. That’s the essential point.”

Obama’s presidential transition team originally predicted that a massive economic stimulus package would help hold the national unemployment rate below 8 percent.

But such forecasts have had to be revised. The latest government jobs report pegged the rate at 8.9 percent and rising, with many economists expecting it to reach double digits later this year.

The White House expects GDP growth to reach positive territory later this year, Bernstein said — but not in a sharp enough turnaround that it’s likely to bring the unemployment rate up.

“Positive GDP growth doesn’t mean lower unemployment,” he said. “You have to get GDP growth at trend or above trend to get that unemployment rate down. That’s why it’s key that the plan keeps working through next year.”

The president is claiming that the stimulus has already “saved or created” 150,000 jobs, though Bernstein acknowledged that that’s an estimate that isn’t based on reports of actual jobs being saved or created. When that information comes in, he said, it is “going to be part of our estimate.”

Bernstein said there are “3,000 construction projects that are out there in the economy underway,” but he said he couldn’t be sure how many projects have actually begun.

“It’s such a moving target,” he said.

The administration this week said that $116.1 billion in stimulus money has been made available for spending, but that only $31.1 billion had actually been spent.

On Wednesday, Biden submitted a report entitled “100 Days, 100 Projects,” touting the stimulus act’s successes.

But not all of those projects have actually begun, and at least some of the descriptions of projects seem overhyped, as ABC’s Jake Tapper reports.

Click HERE to see our full interview with Jared Bernstein.

We also chatted with Politico’s Jonathan Martin about the Supreme Court battle (or lack thereof), and the continuing controversy surrounding Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill.

Click HERE to see the interview with Jonathan Martin.

White House Report: Stimulus Will Create or Save 1.5M Jobs — We Think

ABC’s Lisa Chinn and Rick Klein reports:

The White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report today predicting that the stimulus package will save or create 1.5 million jobs by the end of this year. That’s in line with previous White House estimates.

But there’s a big caveat: Because there is no uniform, reliable reporting formula for states and agencies to use to calculate real jobs saved and created, there is no way to fact-check the projections.

Rather than measuring actual jobs created, the CEA estimate is based on a formula widely used by economists: that a 1 percent increase in GDP equates to approximately 1 million jobs.

The council also makes the assumption that GDP will grow, due to an increase in government purchases, and tax decreases that have only just taken effect.

It is, the report concedes, “an imperfect” measurement.

“The macroeconomic methodology used to derive the aggregate jobs estimates provides only an imperfect way to try to separate out the different types of jobs created by government spending,” the report states.

Actual reports of jobs created, while required by Congress for entities receiving stimulus funds, will provide “some independent documentation of jobs created or retained by the Act” — but won’t be the way the White House measures progress, according to the report.

“While such independent documentation is immensely valuable, it is important to be aware of the limitations of the reported jobs numbers,” the report states.

The administration continues to defend its initial assessment that the Recovery Act will ultimately create or save 3.5 million jobs. But the new report includes the caveat that the bulk of that increase will be seen at the end of 2010.

President Obama said at a news conference last month that the stimulus bill had already “saved or created over 150,000 jobs.”

The Labor Department, meanwhile, reported last week that the economy shed 539,000 jobs last month — fewer than analysts were predicting.

The CEA must also release a report to Congress in August on its analysis of the economic impacts of the Recovery Act.

White House Reaching Out to Gay-Rights Groups

ABC News? Rick Klein reports: With a series of recent developments in gay rights — two states have legalized gay marriage just in the past week, with the pace quickening in several other states — we chatted with Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, today on ABCNews.com?s ?Top Line.?

Solmonese said he has full confidence in President Obama?s commitment to gay rights — a far cry from December, when he said in a Washington Post op-ed that he and others were ?question[ing] the promises that Barack Obama made in his historic quest to be president.?

Asked if he still wonders whether gay-rights groups were ?misled,? Solmonese emphatically answered, ?No.? He said his group has been having at least weekly conversations with the Obama White House.

?I mean, I think that . . . we and I in particular have a responsibility to call the administration out when they do things that are hurtful to the community, and that certainly was in a very public way,? Solmonese said.

?But, you know, every single week that this President has been in office we have been in conversations with them, not just about our legislative agenda, but about executive orders that the administration has the opportunity to implement — and they are intending to implement a number of them — about the appointments process, about a whole range of issues that are important to our community. And they’ve been not just responsive, but at often times proactive in reaching out to us on issues.?

Solmonese called it a ?coincidence? that Iowa and Vermont moved to legalize gay marriage within days of each other; in Iowa, it happened via court order, while Vermont became the first state where a legislative body made same-sex marriage legal.

But the flurry of activity will embolden other states to act more quickly, he added.

?A bit of coincidence in terms of timing, but you know, what it says to me [is] states like New York where, you know, Christine Quinn and the City Council there clearly is ready to go. New Jersey and New Hampshire, you know, I think this is really gonna inspire states like that who are poised to move marriage legislatively to in fact do it.?

Congress and the White House could wind up having to weigh in on the District of Columbia?s City Council vote this week to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.

?I think what they’re going to do is they’re going to see how Congress reacts,? Solmonese said. ?Now, you know, the sense is that Congress won’t, you know, sort of punish DC for doing this, the Democratically controlled Congress — I certainly hope that’s the case. And then I would suspect that the President would sign whatever bill this becomes a part of. But don’t forget, President Obama has said that he personally does not support marriage, that it is a matter left to the states, but he has no intention of standing in the way of the states’ movement towards marriage.?

Watch our interview with Solmonese HERE.

Also on today?s program, we chatted with Politico?s Jonathan Martin about the president?s foreign trip, the emerging immigration debate, and tonight?s White House Passover Seder — the first such event that a sitting president will participate in.

Watch our interview with Martin HERE.

White House Press Secretary Gets A Radio

ABC News’ Ann Compton reports:

The new White House press secretary was surprised that his casual banter Wednesday at his briefing brought such an immediate windfall.

Robert Gibbs confessed he gets riled up at talking heads on cable TV, lamenting, “Look, are there days in which I just turn my television off? Yes. I wish I had a radio.”

He’s got one now. ABC News Radio Vice President Steve Jones in New York dispatched a sleek desktop model, emblazoned with the ABC logo and tuned to ABC News on its pre-set station.

Robert eagerly donned an ABCNEWS RADIO baseball cap and accepted one for his young son Ethan.

What impressed Gibbs the most was Jones’ note reminding the White House that 235 million people listen to radio every week.

(Take that, Twitter !)

White House: Burris Should Ponder His Future This Weekend

ABC News’ David Chalian Reports: A few hours after Gov. Pat Quinn, D-Ill., publicly called on Sen. Roland Burris to resign his seat, the White House weighed in a bit further on Sen. Burris’ fate.

“It might be important for Sen. Burris to take some time this weekend to either correct what has been said and, certainly, think of what lays in his future,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. He went on to challenge Burris to use the upcoming weekend to “take a look at what has been said and for him to come up with an explanation that satisfies” all of the questions swirling around his evolving story about contacts with people in former Gov. Blagojevich’s sphere as he was seeking the US Senate seat from Illinois.

Earlier this week, Mr. Gibbs indicated that he had not talked to President Obama specifically about the controversy surrounding Sen. Burris and on Friday was still unable to provide the president’s reaction to what has taken place in his home state.

From the White House podium at his press briefing on Friday, Gibbs repeated his statement that President Obama believes the people of Illinois deserve to have this matter thoroughly investigated.