EmailBy RICK KLEIN Whatever President Obama gets or doesn’t get out of Europe this week — and whatever we do or (more likely) don’t learn about his coattails in a single congressional district in upstate New York — this is the week that his presidency got bigger. At home, the president made the response to the financial crisis his own — expanding the government’s reach into private enterprise while pushing Congress to let his administration go even further. His budget has set the terms for debate domestically. He won’t get all or even most of what he wants, but we’ll be talking about it for a while. And abroad, he’s arriving not as a celebrity but as a US president, after all — with all the scrutiny and protests and headaches that carries. (That also means that the rooms he’s in will tip in his direction.) The contours and outlines of his vision for the job have taken shape — and the risks have made themselves evident. An early check-mark: “After a bilateral meeting between President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the governments of both countries will make a major announcement relating to US-Russian relations, including arms control, a statement of the future US-Russian agenda, and a US-Russian summit to take place perhaps as early as this summer,” ABC’s Jake Tapper reports. “The announcement will include a set of instructions to arms negotiators on how to conclude a new, ‘post-START’ agreement by the end of 2009, a senior official tells ABC News.” “Nobody’s going to be looking into anybody’s soul,” a US official tells Tapper. Does this look familiar? “For nearly 30 years, American presidents have arrived at economic summit meetings with nearly identical talking points: the solution to most ailments lies in more economic integration, unleashing free markets and using a light touch to tame capitalism,” David Sanger writes in The New York Times. “As President Obama landed here Tuesday night to attend the Group of 20 summit meeting, and met Wednesday over breakfast with the gathering’s host, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, almost every one of those principles appeared up for debate.” Key insight: “All of this suggests a rebuke of American economic leadership. Yet Mr. Obama is still likely to dominate the discussions here. And there is no clear alternative to his strategy for reviving the world economy.” The expectations: “The stakes for this summit are very high,” said Mike Froman, the deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. “Most people agree that the Depression was made ‘Great’ by lack of cooperation.” Said the president, at his news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown: “The separation between the various parties involved has been vastly overstated.” (The trip has been designed to minimize those differences, of course. The administration is inking enough agreements already to get political reporters to focus on their vegetables.) Celebrity, yes — heartthrob, no: “The initial love affair may be cooling somewhat. Obama is still seen as the antithesis of Bush, but he is no longer a fresh-faced candidate. Rather, he is the representative of a country and an economic system that many Europeans blame for leading them into the financial crisis,” the Los Angeles Times’ Christi Parsons and Laurie Goering report. Did we say “celebrity”? “Aides to Obama were fine-tuning his schedule as late as Tuesday, trying to accommodate leaders who want to meet and be photographed with the American president,” they write. Joe Biden, prophet: “In the closing weeks of his presidential campaign, Barack Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, warned that the world would soon test a young, relatively inexperienced president. ‘Soon’ has become ‘now,’ ” Jonathan Weisman and Jay Solomon write in The Wall Street Journal. “Mr. Obama arrived here Tuesday night eager to try his hand at statecraft after the opening months of his administration were dominated by domestic policy. World leaders appear just as eager to test a president with little international experience who’s arriving for his first major overseas trip.” Who’d have thunk it — already: “A political superstar among Europeans, he nonetheless was greeted by protesters throughout the city, some of whom blame American irresponsibility for sparking the financial crisis gripping the globe,” Michael D. Shear and Mary Jordan write in The Washington Post. “Obama’s mission in London — to foster world unity around a common set of economic measures — is made more difficult by discord throughout Europe about how to confront the crisis, anger about America’s role in starting it, and disagreement among many leaders on some of the president’s prescriptions for fixing it.” The meat: “European governments have resisted calls from the U.S. to pump more money into their economies. There also are signs that the consensus on the need for a global regulatory regime are fracturing,” per Bloomberg’s Hans Nichols and Edwin Chen. “French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde told the British Broadcasting Corp. that President Nicolas Sarkozy would walk away from the summit unless it adopts strict international finance regulations.” Sarkozy and Merkel dominate the early chatter: “The two leaders who most threaten to upset Mr Brown’s plans for the G20 are not due at No 10 until this evening when all the G20 heads of state and government meet for dinner,” per The Times of London. “Mr Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, have already scuppered UK attempts to have the summit endorse a massive and coordinated fiscal stimulus and are now pushing for the summit to make clear progress on tighter regulation of financial markets to replace the ‘light-touch’ Anglo-Saxon model blamed for the current crisis.” More stimulus? Not from Sarkozy: “We have managed to hold off the specter of protectionism, and many nations have injected massive support for their economies, undertaking ambitious stimulus programs. Countries that offer their citizens a high level of social protection, such as France, have also significantly increased their levels of crisis-related welfare spending. Overall, the world’s leading economies have made comparably gigantic efforts to combat the crisis,” he writes in a Washington Post op-ed. In London Wednesday, ABC’s Charlie Gibson sits down with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Look for your first taste on “World News.” On ABCNews.com’s “Top Line” Wednesday, at noon ET, we chat with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., about the budget and the G-20 meeting. Plus: Ana Marie Cox. Meanwhile, back home — a new corporate era comes into focus. And you thought George W. Bush was the corporate president? “Barack Obama has become the CEO president in fact, responsible for a swath of American industry and finance,” National Review’s Rich Lowry writes. “It used to be that what was good for GM was good for the country; now, the country is going to decide what’s good for GM. It used to be that presidents could only fire chiefs of staff and Cabinet members; now, Obama can fire any of the corporate officials who effectively work for him.” Change he can believe in: “In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Frederick ‘Fritz’ Henderson said he is prepared to do whatever it takes to reorganize the company, including taking GM through bankruptcy court. The longtime GM executive was anointed CEO after the White House pushed out his former boss, Rick Wagoner, who had resisted bankruptcy even after the auto maker determined it could probably survive a short-lived reorganization with government support.” Glad they agree: “President Barack Obama believes a quick, negotiated bankruptcy is the most likely way for General Motors Corp. to restructure and become a competitive automaker, people familiar with the matter said,” per Bloomberg News. In action: “The early federal stimulus money appears to be hitting its target, paying for new projects and creating jobs, according to a USA TODAY review of some of the first projects funded,” Dennis Cauchon writes. “Most early spending is flowing, as planned, into ‘shovel-ready’ projects — a new bridge over a Louisiana bayou, the widening of a mountain road in Colorado — that wouldn’t have occurred this year without stimulus money. Hiring on those projects has already begun or will occur within the next three months, say officials overseeing the contracts.” A budget you can believe in — if you have strong faith: “President Barack Obama’s Democratic allies in Congress are taking only baby steps with his budget, putting off crucial decisions on his ambitious plans to expand health care, curb global warming and raise taxes on the wealthy,” per the AP’s Andrew Taylor. “Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and both Bushes all got far stronger assists from Congress on their first budgets. Nonetheless, Obama, is counting on votes approving budget outlines this week to give him some semblance of momentum. . . . Both the House and Senate budget writers, for the most part, ignored all of Obama’s big ideas when crafting their fiscal plans.” On Wednesday, Organizing for America Director Mitch Stewart delivers 642,000 Obama budget pledges at DNC headquarters. (They don’t need convincing there — when do they get to the Hill?) Do you think he smiles when he thinks about what might have been? “The president’s budget makes clear that a huge expansion of government is not just about today’s economic downturn. Once the recession is behind us, this budget will continue pushing for more and more government in our everyday lives,” Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., writes in a Washington Post op-ed. “This budget plan is clearly not the right path for America today or for future generations.” The attorney general is in the news — this remind anyone else of the Alberto Gonzales days? “Justice Department lawyers concluded in an unpublished opinion earlier this year that the historic D.C. voting rights bill pending in Congress is unconstitutional, according to sources briefed on the issue. But Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who supports the measure, ordered up a second opinion from other lawyers in his department and determined that the legislation would pass muster,” Carrie Johnson reports in The Washington Post. “Holder’s decision to get involved may expose President Obama’s Justice Department to some of the same concerns raised by Democrats during George W. Bush’s presidency.” NPR’s Nina Totenberg reports that Holder will order Justice to drop charges against former Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska — an extremely rare move, post-conviction. Totenberg: “Holder is said to have made his decision because of Stevens age, he’s 84; because Stevens is no longer in the Senate, having lost his re-election bid a week after his conviction; and perhaps most importantly, according to Justice Department officials, Holder wanted to send a message to prosecutors throughout the department, that actions he regards as misconduct will not be tolerated.”
No winner yet in NY-20. Per the AP: “A race for a New York congressional seat that’s become linked to President Barack Obama’s economic recovery efforts won’t be decided for at least two more weeks. Democrat Scott Murphy leads Republican Jim Tedisco by 65 votes out of 154,000 cast. A lawsuit filed Tuesday night requires all ballots to be impounded — not unusual in close elections. The Albany Times-Union: “With nearly 6,000 absentee ballots that will essentially decide the race as of Monday, the election will not be decided at least until April 13.” The real upshot: “With 100 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday night well after polls had closed, a too-close-to-call non-result left the political world with little to deduce — and could eliminate the chance that anyone will read much into it,” The Atlantic’s Chris Good writes. It’ll still probably be settled sooner than the Minnesota Senate race. But movement there: “Norm Coleman’s lawyers all but conceded defeat Tuesday and promised to appeal after a panel of three judges ordered no more than 400 new absentee ballots opened and counted, far fewer than the Republican had sought to overcome the lead held by DFLer Al Franken,” Pat Doyle and Kevin Duchschere write in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. ABC’s David Chalian: “The United States Senate moved an inch or two closer to getting its 100th senator. But just an inch or two. Former Sen. Coleman’s campaign made clear today that there will be an appeal to the full Minnesota Supreme Court before any definitive resolution comes to the five months old Minnesota senate contest.” Too much even for Leno, at this point: “Here we go again: tax problems for another cabinet nominee. In this case, HHS nominee Kathleen Sebelius has informed the Senate Finance Committee that an audit of her and her husband’s 2005, 2006, 2007 tax returns has revealed some ‘unintentional errors, which we immediately corrected.’ As a result, Sebelius and her husband have filed amended returns and paid $7,040 in back taxes and $878 in interest,” ABC’s Jonathan Karl reports. Moving ahead without her: “Efforts to overhaul the health care system have moved ahead rapidly, with the insurance industry making several major concessions and the chairmen of five Congressional committees reaching a consensus on the main ingredients of legislation,” Robert Pear reports in The New York Times. “The chairmen, all Democrats, agree that everyone must carry insurance and that employers should be required to help pay for it. They also agree that the government should offer a public health insurance plan as an alternative to private insurance. But members of Congress are just now turning to the most explosive issues, which could delay or derail the process.” House Republicans put forward their detailed budget alternative Wednesday. (Yes, the one with lots of numbers in it.) On the maverick watch — a source tells The Note that Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will put forward that alternative budget he promised over the weekend — but not with the support of GOP Senate leadership. Don’t be LBJ on Afghanistan, says McCain. “The second thing I would have done, probably, is went ahead and announced the overall additional 10,000 troops, rather than be accused of a Lyndon-Johnson-style incrementalism,” McCain said Tuesday, per ABC’s Teddy Davis. The ACORN doesn’t fall far: “Opponents of the liberal activist group ACORN have found an unlikely champion in House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., who is clashing with his own party to pursue hearings on accusations that the group has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to a mob-style ‘protection’ racket,” S.A. Miller reports in the Washington Times. Carly for Senate? “In the strongest signal yet of her political ambitions, Carly Fiorina said Tuesday that she is ‘seriously considering’ challenging U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in next year’s California Senate race,” Frank Davies writes in the San Jose Mercury News. Catching George Stephanopoulos’ eye Wednesday . . . The Kicker: “We decided to go in another direction.” — NRCC spokesman Ken Spain, replacing Gov. Sarah Palin with Newt Gingrich as headliner at a fundraising dinner. “We do not seem to be a priority for the Treasury Department.” — Elizabeth Warren, head of TARP’s Congressional Oversight Panel, to the Senate Finance Committee. Don’t miss “Top Line,” ABCNews.com’s new daily political Webcast, hosted by Rick Klein and David Chalian. Wednesday’s guests: Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Ana Marie Cox, of Air America. Follow The Note on Twitter: http://twitter.com/thenote For up-to-the-minute political updates check out The Note’s blog . . . all day every day:
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