Signal Visit: Powerful images as president prepares weighty decision

October 29, 2009 8:36 AM

ABC News’ Rick Klein reports:

You could never accuse him of not understanding the optics.

The nation on Thursday woke up to powerful and emotional images -- images the public never saw under President Bush.

President Obama's surprise overnight trip to Dover, Del., greeting returning American caskets that once would have been shielded from view, may tell us more about his mindset on Afghanistan than any of the endless series of meetings he's convened at the White House.

It's a window into how he's processing the most difficult decision-making any president faces. And, coming in the war's deadliest month yet, it may also be a strong signal about how he hopes the public will process that decision -- one that appears very likely to leave this one-time anti-war candidate adding more troops to an increasingly unpopular war.

There are multiple constituencies the president needs to serve -- the military establishment, congressional leaders, the Democratic base. And, of course, there's the biggie: a skeptical public that needs to be convinced all over again that Afghanistan is worth the effort.

ABC's Sunlen Miller and Jake Tapper: "Obama's participation in this sad military tradition comes at a critical time for the President, as he weighs sending as many as 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan. President Obama continues to deliberate with his commanders and advisors and will likely announce his decision after the Afghan elections on November 7 and before he departs for Asia on November 11, though the announcement could come after he returns from the Asia trip."

"The president, sources said, is leaning towards adopting a strategy that would send more troops to Afghanistan, though not 40,000, the number Gen. Stanley McChrystal has requested," they report.

"It was very powerful for the president, aides say," Tapper reported on ABC's "Good Morning America" Thursday. "On the helicopter ride back, the president thanked his military aide. And then no one said a word for the duration of the 45-minute trip back to Washington, DC."

 "Standing in the pre-dawn darkness, President Barack Obama saw the real cost of the war in Afghanistan: The Americans who return in flag-covered cases while much of the nation sleeps in peace," the AP's Ben Feller writes. "The dramatic image of Obama on the tarmac was a portrait not witnessed in years."

"The trip was a symbolic one for Mr. Obama -- intended to convey the gravity of his decision as he moves closer to announcing whether he will send more troops to Afghanistan," Jeff Zeleny writes in The New York Times.

The logistical details, per ABC's Sunlen Miller and Jon Garcia: "The president arrived at Dover AFB at 12:34am after 40-minute chopper ride from the White House. An Air Force C-17 carrying the 18 fallen U.S. personnel had arrived at Dover before the president. Among the dead on board were 7 U.S. Army soldiers and 3 DEA agents killed when their MH-47 Chinook crashed at Darreh-ye-bum, and 8 U.S. soldiers killed when their STRYKER personnel vehicle was struck by IED blast in the Arghandab River Valley."

Latest AP handicapping -- "McChrystal Light": "A narrowed military mission would escalate American forces to accomplish the commander's broadest goals, protecting Afghan cities and key infrastructure. But the option's scaled-down troop numbers likely would cut back on [Gen. Stanley] McChrystal's ambitious objectives, amounting to what one official described as ‘McChrystal Light.' "

Yes, how many: "President Obama has asked senior officials for a province-by-province analysis of Afghanistan to determine which regions are being managed effectively by local leaders and which require international help, information that his advisers say will guide his decision on how many additional U.S. troops to send to the battle," Scott Wilson and Greg Jaffe report in The Washington Post. "[Secretary Robert] Gates and [National Security Adviser James] Jones have pushed McChrystal to justify as specifically as possible his request for 44,000 additional troops, the figure now at the center of White House deliberations."

And it's another health care roll-out day: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is unveiling House leaders' version of health care reform at a 10:30 am ET event on the steps of the Capitol -- the same steps where President Obama took the oath of office nine months ago.

Does this count as robust? "House Democrats preparing to unveil legislation to overhaul the health-care system signaled Wednesday that they would include a more conservative version of a government-run insurance plan that would negotiate payment rates with hospitals and doctors," Martin Vaughan and Naftali Bendavid write for The Wall Street Journal.

"Robust" used to mean payments tied to Medicare rates ... "After a series of discussions over the last couple of days, we've come to realize it's very tough to get to that point," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.

"The government-run insurance company created by her bill would negotiate payment rates with health care providers just like private insurance companies," per ABC's Jonathan Karl. "Pelosi simply could not get the votes to pass the ‘robust' version she prefers."

Remember those liberals who told Pelosi it was robust or bust? "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) just called their bluff -- and they appear ready to fold," Roll Call's Tory Newmyer and Steven T. Dennis report.

Hardly a line in the sand: "We will insist on making it as strong as it can possibly be," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.

"After months of public hand-wringing and strident proclamations in support of the strongest possible government-run health coverage, liberal Democrats are bowing to the reality that party leaders don't have the votes," Politico's Patrick O'Connor reports.

(Will the Netroots take this one in stride? One early answer from Jane Hamsher, at FireDogLake: "Today was a huge defeat for the American taxpayer, serious health care reform, and working class Americans who are going to be denied a robust public option which could have saved them thousands of dollars.")

President Obama is meeting with the House Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus on health reform, at 5:05 pm ET in the Roosevelt Room.

Does it matter that the House is, again, voting first? "Speaker Pelosi is once again -- as on cap and trade -- asking her members to walk the plank, absent any evidence there are the votes in the Senate to pass comparable legislation," Bill Kristol writes for The Weekly Standard. "In fact, the reason Pelosi is pulling the trigger now is that Reid failed in his effort to get the Senate up to the starting gate first (that was the point of last week's attempted ‘doc fix'). So, the question is: Will her caucus follow Nancy off a cliff?"

Floor fights ahead: "Democratic House aides said party leaders had yet to resolve long-standing disputes over provisions to prevent federal funds from being used to subsidize abortions and to block illegal immigrants from receiving benefits," Shailagh Murray reports in The Washington Post.

New report out Thursday, from the Center for American Progress: "Unlocking Competition: The Need to Eliminate the Antitrust Exemption for Health Insurers."

Wait -- did someone say "Clinton"? David Plouffe's book is out Nov. 3 -- with an excerpt in Time that includes some quotes that bring back memories:

Obama on the possibility of choosing Hillary Clinton as his running mate, according to Plouffe: "I think Bill may be too big a complication. If I picked her, my concern is that there would be more than two of us in the relationship."

Adds Plouffe: "Neither Ax nor I were fans of the Hillary option."

ABC's Teddy Davis: "Thanks to The Bill Factor, Hillary, who was on the final list of six possible running mates, did not make the final list of three. The book confirms, as reported at the time, that the three finalists were: Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D), and eventual choice Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del."

And Obama on Sen. John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin: "... when voters step back and analyze how he made this decision, I think he's going to be in big trouble. You just can't wing something like this -- it's too important."

Did someone say Palin? The DNC's latest "call 'em out" campaign takes on a certain former governor of Alaska.

From the new Web page: "A lot of folks use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family. For Sarah Palin, it's a great way to spread lies about health insurance reform. Palin has taken to Facebook to spread the ‘death panels' lie and claim that reform will raise costs for families. ... So Sarah Palin, we're calling you out."

The new video -- saying Palin is "lying on health reform" -- is HERE.

A true must-read, coming in Sunday's New York Times Magazine: Jodi Kantor on the Obama marriage. "The Obamas mix politics and romance in a way that no first couple quite have before. Almost 10 months ago, they swept into Washington with inauguration festivities that struck distinctly wedding-like notes: he strode down an aisle and took a vow, she wore a long white dress, the youthful-looking couple swayed to a love song in a ceremonial first dance and then settled into a new house," Kantor writes.

"The centrality of the Obama marriage to the president's political brand opens a new chapter in the debate that has run through, even helped define, their union. Since he first began running for office in 1995, Barack and Michelle Obama have never really stopped struggling over how to combine politics and marriage: how to navigate the long absences, lack of privacy, ossified gender roles and generally stultifying rules that result when public opinion comes to bear on private relationships."

Said Michelle (in what Kantor calls her "let's-get-real voice": "The bumps happen to everybody all the time, and they are continuous."
 
Following up on a solid scoop: "Republican leaders called for an investigation into perks President Obama handed out to top Democratic donors as campaign-finance groups expressed dismay Wednesday that the administration was not doing more to reform the culture in Washington," Matthew Mosk and S.A. Miller report in the Washington Times. "Internal Democratic National Committee documents obtained by The Times showed that the party had offered up quarterly briefings by senior advisers in exchange for the maximum legal donation of $30,400, or a willingness to raise $300,000 in time for the 2010 midterm elections."

"Contributing doesn't guarantee a visit to the White House," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, "nor does it preclude it."

Furthering the storyline: "More than 40% of President Obama's top-level fundraisers have secured posts in his administration, from key executive branch jobs to diplomatic postings in countries such as France, Spain and the Bahamas, a USA TODAY analysis finds.

Twenty of the 47 fundraisers that Obama's campaign identified as collecting more than $500,000 have been named to government positions, the analysis found," Fredreka Schouten reports for USA Today.

Further furthering the storyline: "Dozens of lobbyists were invited to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser Tuesday night with a Cabinet member even though President Barack Obama has sworn off taking money from lobbyists," The Hill's Sam Youngman reports. "A DNC official said it was a mistake that lobbyists were invited to a small gathering with Lisa Jackson, Obama's administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency."

Stimulus setback: "An early progress report on President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan overstates by thousands the number of jobs created or saved through the stimulus program, a mistake that White House officials promise will be corrected in future reports," the AP's Brett J. Blackledge and Matt Apuzzo report. "The government's first accounting of jobs tied to the $787 billion stimulus program claimed more than 30,000 positions paid for with recovery money. But that figure is overstated by at least 5,000 jobs, according to an Associated Press review of a sample of stimulus contracts."

White House pushback: "AP looked only at the earliest data posted, representing just 2% of Recovery Act spending. ... The data errors cited by AP -- on about 5,000 jobs -- are not significant to the total job count (of hundreds of thousands of jobs) that will be posted on Friday. ... It is not surprising that there were errors in these very first postings ever on Recovery.gov -- made just three business days after data was submitted."

Pushback to the pushback, from a Senate GOP leadership aide: "Why the AP stimulus story matters: The White House has been so desperate to show some success that they rushed the job numbers out to the press even before they'd fully reviewed them. They bragged about those 30,000 jobs from federal contracts, the ones they now acknowledge aren't really all there. The AP report shows that at least one in six of those jobs never happened. Now, the administration is going to release a much larger report tomorrow—and ask Americans to trust them that it's accurate. By rushing the jobs numbers out before they were final (and, according to the White House, while they were still inaccurate), they got a short-term news cycle, but a long-term credibility problem."

A potentially bigger political problem than anything else on this page: "The moment a novel strain of swine flu emerged in Mexico last spring, President Obama instructed his top advisers that his administration would not be caught flat-footed in the event of a deadly pandemic. Now, despite months of planning and preparation, a vaccine shortage is threatening to undermine public confidence in government, creating a very public test of Mr. Obama's competence," Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes in The New York Times.

"Accepting the manufacturers' assurances may have been ‘naïve on our part,' [HHS Secretary Kathleen] Sebelius said in an interview," Stolberg continues. Plus: "For a president whose aides regard him as the best communicator in the administration, Mr. Obama has been relatively low profile during the pandemic. ... His last public reference to H1N1 came on Sept. 23 — one line in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, in which he promised to contribute vaccine to the World Health Organization."

Also on the president's schedule Thursday: An event on small businesses, at 11:50 am ET. ABC's Sunlen Miller: "The President will deliver remarks to members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), and small business owners and organizations from across the country on the Administration's plan to help small businesses, including increased access to capital and health reform that gives small businesses the ability to control health costs."

Ominous, on the economy: "An eight-month, 68 percent rally in global stocks failed to convince investors and analysts that it's time to take on more risk or dispel their concerns about U.S. economic policies and its banking system," Bloomberg News' Rich Miller writes. "Only 31 percent of respondents to a poll of investors and analysts who are Bloomberg subscribers in the U.S., Europe and Asia see investment opportunities, down from 35 percent in the previous survey in July. Almost 40 percent in the latest quarterly survey, the Bloomberg Global Poll, say they are still hunkering down. U.S. investors are even more cautious, with more than 50 percent saying they are in a defensive crouch."

Karl Rove's Election 2009 preview: health care is on the ballot, he says. "Democratic enthusiasm for President Barack Obama's liberal domestic agenda -- particularly for a government-run health insurance program -- could wane after the results of the gubernatorial elections next Tuesday in Virginia and New Jersey. GOP victories in either state will tell Democrats in red states and districts that support for Obama's policies is risky to their political health," Rove writes. ("Either state"?)

Another take on what a split decision would mean: "The issue is really the dysfunctionality of the Republican Party," former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., said on ABCNews.com's "Top Line" Wednesday. "The Conservative candidate in New York doesn't even live in the district and they're bringing him in. I think it's unlikely he wins at this point, but you know, that's the problem: It's the dysfunctionality of the Republican coalition, people not voting with their heads, voting with their hearts, a lot of emotion."

Chaos in NY-23: a Democratic official points out that Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman now has at least six outside groups -- spending nearly $760,000 -- working for him, and not for the Republican nominee: Club for Growth, Common Sense in America, Susan B. Anthony, Life and Liberty, Eagle Forum, and Minute Men PAC.

Not playing: "Mitt Romney is a Republican and he tends to support the Republican candidate in races and when he can't because there are too many differences on the issues, he stays out of the race altogether and that's the course he's following in the New York special election. He doesn't plan to make any endorsement at all," Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom tells ABC.

Iowa ... for a price? "A conservative Iowa group's effort to lure Sarah Palin to its banquet next month has had an unintended effect: Rather than exciting conservatives about the prospect of a visit from the former Alaska governor, the group's plan to raise a six-figure sum to bring her to the state has GOP activists recoiling at the thought of paying to land a politician's speaking appearance," Politico's Jonathan Martin reports. "The Iowa Family Policy Center's effort to cobble together $100,000 for Palin would represent a striking departure from customary practice in the first-in-the-nation state, these Republicans say, noting that a generation of White House hopefuls has paid their own way to boost their party and presidential ambitions."

Rebuilding: "Stung by the ‘party of no' label, House Republicans are beginning to prepare a detailed GOP agenda for next year's congressional elections, focusing broadly on efforts to grow the economy, create jobs, and curb the reach of the federal government," per ABC News. "House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., said House Republicans will eventually roll out ‘something like the contract,' as they seek ways to present their case to an electorate that's shown signs of concern about full Democratic control of Washington."

Time's Jay Newton-Small: "In an effort to counter the criticism that the party doesn't stand for anything but opposing President Obama, Cantor has reconvened the working group that came up with the GOP's alternative to the White House's stimulus plan. That wasn't exactly a big success -- the proposal was widely panned for relying too heavily on tax cuts -- but Cantor is convinced that taking the long view is the path to success: health care and global warming may be the topics du jour, but ‘the narrative next year leading into the election, will be all about the economy. It'll be about jobs, it'll be about people's economic security.' "

New download: "House Republican leaders have introduced a colorful BlackBerry app called WhipCast that lets members and their aides check talking points and bill facts, follow votes, plan floor action and even keep up with rumors, polls and late-night comedy," Politico's Mike Allen reports.

"I think it'll go viral," said Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.,, the GOP's chief deputy whip.


The Kicker:

"For god's sake, I look forward to a time when we have finally done our jobs." -- Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., this time breaking down in tears on the House floor, reading letters from those who lost loved ones who lacked health insurance.

"Consider the source of the most recent attention-getting lies -- those who would sell their body for money reflect a desperate need for attention and are likely to say and do anything for even more attention." -- Sarah Palin, on Levi Johnston.


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