SUMMARY: President Barack Obama hosted Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at the White House where talk centered on Syria. Margaret Warner talks with Henri Barkey of Lehigh University and Steve Heydemann of the U.S. Institute for Peace about how the international community could collaborate on ending the Syrian civil war and the violence.
SUMMARY: The Obama administration has been hit with a wave of crises and scandals lately. Jeffrey Brown talks with Tom Perriello from Center for American Progress Action Fund and strategist Ron Christie, who worked on Capitol Hill in the George W. Bush administration, about handling drama without losing sight of presidential priorities.
SUMMARY: President Barack Obama used a rainy, Rose Garden news conference to get in front of a series of political storms, tackling questions on the IRS scandal, the AP subpoenas and Benghazi. Judy Woodruff talks to White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri about how the Obama administration is responding to various crises.
SUMMARY: How does the current relationship between the White House and Congress affect major points of business like spending cuts and immigration reform? Judy Woodruff gets analysis from Glenn Thrush of Politico and Dan Balz of The Washington Post.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): We continue coverage our coverage of the president's news conference today with a look at his relationship with Congress.
Joining me now are Dan Balz, chief correspondent with The Washington Post. And Glenn Thrush, he covers the White House for Politico.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): .....to our series about the digital world's cultural impact.
NewsHour political editor Christina Bellantoni is here with the Daily Download team.
CHRISTINA BELLANTONI (Newshour): Ordinary citizens have more opportunities to talk directly to the president these days.
Joining us to discuss how the White House is using the Internet to work around the press are two journalists from the website Daily Download. Lauren Ashburn is the site's editor in chief. Howard Kurtz is Newsweek's Washington bureau chief and host of CNN's "Reliable Sources."
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JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): Now, one of the names in the air, David, is Bill Daley, former commerce secretary -- not only name in the air. He was seeing -- he was at the White House today for a meeting.
What would he bring, if he were to come in as chief of staff?
DAVID CHALIAN (NewsHour political editor): Well, right. He may be the Rahm Emanuel replacement.
And what -- in talking to White House aides, what the president is looking for is -- and the decision is not yet clear. You have Bill Daley or Pete Rouse, who is interim chief of staff right now, who may also be asked by the president to stay on if Bill Daley doesn't get the job offer.
But, as you mentioned, he was at the White House today -- all signs pointing to a Bill Daley coming in as chief of staff. And this is Obama basically saying, as president, these next two years are different than the first two years. The first two years were about getting legislation through the Hill.
Now it's about the implementation of those policies and a better selling and communicating of them to the American people. That's the one area where the president has said he's fallen down a bit on the job.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, are these people who are seen as better communicators, or -- or how is that seen?
DAVID CHALIAN: Well, Bill Daley, as a former commerce secretary in the second term of the Clinton administration -- he was Al Gore's campaign chairman in 2000, and he does have the ability to communicate the message on television.
He also sends a very strong signal to the business community, Judy. As you know, the Obama presidency, the Obama White House has had a tough time, rocky relationship at times with the business community. This is a signal, with his work at J.P. Morgan Chase, that Bill Daley is coming in, and perhaps a new -- a newfound relationship with the business community from the Obama White House.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, all in all, the term Robert Gibbs used today, major retooling.
DAVID CHALIAN: There is no denying that that is exactly what's going on in the White House. And Robert admitted that straight up.
You are going to see a new chief of staff, new senior advisers. We're going to hear on Friday from the president about a new economic chief at the national of -- economic advisers for the president.
So, we're seeing major positions in the White House get all changed around, new blood coming in. This is going to be a big pivot point for the president. And we will hear more about that, I think, in the upcoming State of the Union address.
TO: George W. Bush
FROM: Peter Kurth
SUBJECT: “Your” House
Dear
George:
I’m writing you directly because nothing else seems to work. I mean, we can’t all take Mr. Patterson’s approach by jumping the gates of the White House in an effort to get your attention. I’m not a Republican, not in the military, and not a fundamentalist Christian, so I don’t stand a chance of being invited to one of your pre-screened question-and-answer sessions and talking to you that way. And we know that Cindy Sheehan’s tactic also failed – that is, camping out in Crawford and demanding an audience with the Great Panjandrum. All it did was make Ms. Sheehan famous and give her a platform – a much larger platform than she’d have had, George, if you’d only taken a few minutes off from bike-riding, brush-clearing and barbecues and pretended to listen to what she said.
So, a letter it is. I tried this a month ago with your Homeland Security director, Michael Chertoff, but I never had a reply. Probably Mr. Chertoff is too busy figuring out how to keep Mr. Patterson off your lawn, but I know you have more time on your hands than Chertoff does, what with the bike-riding, brush-clearing, etc., so I’m hoping that you or someone you know (at the NSA maybe?) actually reads your mail.
Of course, this is an “open” letter, George, which means a lot of people will read it even if you don’t. But, as you said so smartly while refusing to provide Congress with documentation of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, "That's just the way it works."
Anyway, George, you’ll have to forgive me for not addressing you as “Mr. President.” I’d like to honor your office, at least, but in your case I’m not allowed. I mean that literally: My mother won’t let me, and there’d be hell to pay if I went against her wishes.
You know how mothers are, George – you’ve got one of your own. Yours is the one who wears pearls and once called you “a dirty dog” on the “Today” show. Mine is the one who lets out a little shriek – OK, a big shriek – whenever she sees you on TV, and especially when anyone refers to you as “the president,” “this president,” or “Mr. President.” My mother’s lived under 14 presidents, George, and I’m afraid she thinks you’re a punk. No amount of arguing is going to change her mind.
“It’s that wave,” she says. “You know – whenever he gets off a plane and struts around, he waves as if he were a five-year-old boy going off to his first day in kindergarten. He waves as if he’s saying, `Wook, Mommy! I’m de Commandew-in-Cheef!’ Somebody needs to give that man waving lessons.”
My mother was especially upset, George – well, we all were – about your response last week to mounting calls from ex-military men that you fire your Secretary of War, Donald Rumsfeld. (Please don’t insult us by calling him your Secretary of “Defense.”) You said that Rumsfeld has your “full support and deepest appreciation,” despite the slaughter and devastation that he, and you, have wrought in your illegal, immoral and fruitless war in Iraq, and despite the fact that Rumsfeld has now been connected directly to your policy of torture, abuse and degradation of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and other “extraordinary rendition spots” around the globe.
"Secretary Rumsfeld's energetic and steady leadership is exactly what is needed at this critical period," you declared on Friday. Then you, or someone, threw a lot of still-serving military honchos onto the Sunday talk shows to say that calls for Rumsfeld’s resignation are “inappropriate in time of war.”
“Inappropriate?” my mother cried. “Inappropriate? Tens of thousands of innocent people dead, no end in sight to this phony war, the Pentagon now planning nuclear strikes on Iran – and we’re told that even talking about tossing these bums out on their ears is `inappropriate’! Point of order!”
I won’t tell you what my mother said after that, George, because it isn’t pretty. But I dare you – I dare you – to haul your sorry ass to Iraq for more than a photo-op and ask any mother there, any one at all, exactly how “inappropriate” it would be to put an end to your incompetent, criminal regime, and, for that matter, to you. I mean your presidency, of course, George, not “you” as a person. But that’s only because, unlike you, I’m not a murderer, and I don’t want to end up at Guantánamo myself.
Meantime, George, I think you need more than just lessons in waving. I think you need lessons in politics, diplomacy, statecraft and human decency. I think you need a crash course in history. I think you need remedial reading and a whole new set of friends. I think your own mother ought to give you a good hiding, Texas-style, and I hope to hell we’ll see the last of you, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney and the rest of your lying cabal before the world goes up in flames. Capisce?
My best to Laura and the twins.
Peter Kurth
