White House Watch: February 22, 2009 - February 28, 2009
Obama's Iraq Problem
Obama speaks about Iraq during a visit to Camp Lejeune, N.C., today. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome) By President Obama's reckoning, we never should have gone into Iraq in the first place, but today -- even as he announced a timeline...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 27, 2009; 1:45 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (28)
Categories:
Iraq
Save & Share:
Bush Legacy Watch
Mark Mazzetti writes in the New York Times: "The Senate Intelligence Committee is completing plans to begin a review of the C.I.A.'s detention and interrogation program, another sign that lawmakers are determined to have a public accounting of controversial Bush...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 27, 2009; 1:09 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Categories:
Looking Backward
Save & Share:
Quick Takes
Lymari Morales writes for Gallup: President Barack Obama's address to Congress Tuesday night appears to have bolstered confidence among many Americans. Four in 10 (41%) say they are now more confident in his plans to improve the economy, including 57%...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 27, 2009; 1:03 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Save & Share:
Obama's Big Gamble
Copies of Obama's budget at the General Printing Offieice. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) President Obama and his top aides looked at the profound economic challenges facing the nation and concluded that the biggest risk was in doing too little...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 27, 2009; 11:28 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (6)
Categories:
Financial Crisis
,
Obama v. D.C.
Save & Share:
Cartoon Watch
Pat Oliphant, Jim Morin and Charlie Daniel on Obama and the GOP, Walt Handelsman, Nate Beeler, Adam Zyglis and Bob Englehart on the debt and the deficit, Nick Anderson and Rob Rogers on conflicting directions, John Cole on the stress...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 27, 2009; 9:35 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (1)
Categories:
Cartoon Watch
Save & Share:
The Robin Hood Budget
President Obama today unveiled a fiscal year 2010 budget proposal that is dazzling both in the scale of its ambitions and its deficits. It is also the most detailed blueprint yet for the profound course-change that Obama promised in his...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 26, 2009; 1:55 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (210)
Categories:
Obama v. D.C.
Save & Share:
Iraq Watch
Ann Scott Tyson and Anne E. Kornblut wrote in yesterday's Washington Post: "President Obama is expected to announce as early as Friday that he will remove all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, three months later than promised...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 26, 2009; 1:20 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (7)
Categories:
Iraq
Save & Share:
Bush Watch
Thomas M. Defrank and David Saltonstall write in the New York Daily News: "President George W. Bush may have left office with a historically bad 22% approval rating, but he's still eager to impart his wisdom - for $150,000 a...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 26, 2009; 1:18 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (14)
Save & Share:
Rove Watch
Karl Rove writes in his Wall Street Journal opinion column that President Obama is guilty of using "the lazy rhetorical device of 'straw men.'" Obama "routinely ascribes to others views they don't espouse and says opposition to his policies is...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 26, 2009; 1:16 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (13)
Save & Share:
Quick Takes
Joby Warrick writes in The Washington Post: "The daily White House intelligence report that catalogs the top security threats to the nation has a grim new addition, reflecting the realities of the age: a daily update on the global financial...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 26, 2009; 1:15 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (1)
Categories:
Bush Rollback
,
Financial Crisis
Save & Share:
Late Night Humor
Jon Stewart thinks President Obama may have been a bit too optimistic. Obama says: "This is America. We don't do what's easy. We do what's necessary." Stewart says: "Have you met America? Have you been to America?....In your little plan...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 26, 2009; 10:54 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Categories:
Late Night Humor
Save & Share:
Cartoon Watch
Tom Toles, Steve Sack, John Sherffius, Chip Bok, Jimmy Margulies, Lisa Benson, Nate Beeler, Rob Rogers , David Fitzsimmons and Chan Lowe on Obama's speech. Lee Judge, Signe Wilkinson, Tony Auth, Stuart Carlson and Dwane Powell on the GOP. Dan...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 26, 2009; 10:20 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (0)
Categories:
Cartoon Watch
Save & Share:
Exorcising Bush's Ghost
Obama addresses Congress last night. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Simply by being there, President Obama and Vice President Biden created powerful imagery of change at last night's joint session of Congress. There was no Dick Cheney skulking over the president's...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 25, 2009; 12:08 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (50)
Categories:
Financial Crisis
Save & Share:
The Coverage and the Analysis
Much of this morning's coverage of President Obama's address last night dwelled on his new balance between pessimism and optimism. Michael D. Shear and Anne E. Kornblut write in The Washington Post: "President Obama offered a grim portrait of America's...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 25, 2009; 11:50 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (7)
Categories:
Financial Crisis
Save & Share:
A Hit in the Instapolls
President Obama's address to Congress was a hit in the instapolls. Brian Montopoli writes for CBS News about theirs: "Eighty percent of speech watchers approve of President Obama's plans for dealing with the economic crisis. Before the speech, 63 percent...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 25, 2009; 11:10 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Save & Share:
Obama's Lunch With the Anchors
In what's become a White House tradition, the president had lunch with television anchors on the day of his annual address to Congress. Steve Krakauer reports for TV Newser that the guest list "consisted of ABC's Charlie Gibson and George...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 25, 2009; 11:05 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (3)
Categories:
Bubble Watch
Save & Share:
Live Online
I'm hosting my White House Watch live chat today at 1 p.m. ET. Let's talk about President Obama's big speech last night and his first month in the White House....
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 25, 2009; 9:58 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (0)
Save & Share:
Cartoon Watch
Ed Stein on the state of the union, Walt Handelsman on confidence, RJ Matson on Republican tweets, Mike Luckovich on the Republican dilemma, Clay Bennett on the missing piece, and Rex Babin on bipartisanship....
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 25, 2009; 9:55 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (0)
Categories:
Cartoon Watch
Save & Share:
Top of the Heap
Obama at the fiscal responsibility summit yesterday. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) President Obama goes into tonight's big event in a commanding position, despite the enormous challenges he and the country face. He is vastly more popular than the members of...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 24, 2009; 1:40 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (21)
Categories:
Financial Crisis
Save & Share:
Quick Takes
Here's actor George Clooney talking to CNN's Larry King last night about his meetings yesterday with President Obama and Vice President Biden to discuss his recent trip to the Darfur border: "[W]e were talking about there's a moment coming up...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 24, 2009; 1:11 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (1)
Save & Share:
Live Online
I'll be Live Online tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET. Let's talk about President Obama's first month, his big speech -- and my new blog format....
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 24, 2009; 1:03 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Save & Share:
Obama's Radical New Discourse
President Obama yesterday modeled a dramatic new form of discourse for the White House -- a possible antidote to the sound-bite culture of modern politics -- in which people with different views come together to engage in a respectful dialogue....
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 24, 2009; 11:39 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (11)
Categories:
Financial Crisis
Save & Share:
Cartoon Watch
Roy Peterson on Obama's prize, Tom Toles on Obama's signposts, Pat Oliphant and Dave Granlund on the Great Obama, Steve Kelley, RJ Matson and John Trever on the binge, Jim Morin on the new populism, Tony Auth on nationalization, and...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 24, 2009; 9:44 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (0)
Categories:
Cartoon Watch
Save & Share:
The Fate of the Union
Obama and Biden meeting with the governors this morning. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak) President Obama must achieve a number of outwardly contradictory goals in tomorrow night's address to a joint session of Congress -- essentially his first State of the...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 23, 2009; 2:04 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (25)
Categories:
Financial Crisis
Save & Share:
Obama's Budget Plans
President Obama kicked off this afternoon's "Fiscal Responsibility Summit" at the White House by announcing what his aides had leaked over the weekend: That he intends to halve the country's budget deficit by the end of his first term. By...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 23, 2009; 1:51 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (5)
Save & Share:
Detainee Watch
I don't think many people figure prisoners of war deserve access to the domestic courts of their enemies, or that civilian judges should interfere on the battlefield. But how many of the 600 "enemy combatants" being held in Afghanistan (and...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 23, 2009; 1:22 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (20)
Categories:
Looking Backward
Save & Share:
White House vs. Santelli
The White House pushback against cable TV chatter continues. (See my post from last week, Washington vs. the Rest of America.) As Michael D. Shear wrote in Saturday's Washington Post, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday "unleashed a barrage of...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 23, 2009; 1:07 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Categories:
Press Watch
Save & Share:
Key Players Watch
Ryan Lizza profiles White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in the New Yorker: "He is a political John McEnroe, known for both his mercurial temperament and his tactical brilliance. In the same conversation, he can be wonkish and thoughtful,...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 23, 2009; 12:54 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (1)
Categories:
Brain Trust
Save & Share:
Quick Takes
Robert Burns writes for the Associated Press: "President Barack Obama faces split opinions within the military on whether to make the speedy withdrawal from Iraq he championed as a candidate. Obama's top generals in Baghdad are pressing for an elongated...
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 23, 2009; 12:50 PM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (2)
Save & Share:
Cartoon Watch
Milt Priggee, Adam Zyglis, John Darkow, Jeff Danziger and Joel Pett on the GOP and the stimulus, Tom Toles on nationalization, Glenn McCoy on Obama as a socialist and Bob Gorrell on Obama's faux bipartisanship....
By
Dan Froomkin
|
February 23, 2009; 9:58 AM ET |
Permalink |
Comments (0)
Categories:
Cartoon Watch
Save & Share:
