Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Obama Meets With Bayh and Graham Dec. 2

Today, Obama lunched with political writers and tomorrow, Obama has a series of meetings. He'll meet with Robert Gates and senior advisors. He'll meet with Nobel Laureates and he also has Sens. Evan Bayh and Lindsey Graham slated for meetings. Healthcare? Afghanistan? Obama will also lunch with Joe, who's meeting with Dick Lugar, Gary Locke and Tom Vilsack. On today's lunch:
On the day of his major Afghanistan speech, President Obama had lunch with a group of top political writers at the White House, according to a source familiar with the lunch.

There were some attendees today who write extensively on foreign policy, such as Joe Klein (Time), Fareed Zakaria (Newsweek/ CNN), and Tom Friedman (NY Times).

But it wasn't the only time that the White House reached out to leading opinion-makers before Obama outlined the administration's strategy at West Point. As I reported earlier, senior administration officials held a background briefing with nearly a dozen top writers and pundits, including Ron Brownstein, Eugene Robinson, Al Hunt and Judy Woodruff. Politico
Office of Budget and Management director Peter Orszag will speak at 8:30 am tomorrow (Dec. 2) on healthcare at the National Press Club.