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.

War Advice for Obama Pouring In

Everyone is getting their last words in before Obama's address to the nation on Tuesday. Amid the chatter about Afghanistan, Jack Reed is one of the saner voices:

I'm for the war tax, discussed on This Week by Bernie Sanders and Lindsay Graham. If we're going to have a war, we, the taxpayer, ought to directly pay for it. That way, in the future, we might think twice about allowing our government to invade countries on false premises. If we're paying for wars through a surtax, it might shift our spending habits (perception of war). Ultimately, we pay for it anyway.
This week:

OBEY: If we have to pay for the health care bill, we should pay for the war as well.

JON KARL, ABC NEWS: How?

OBEY: By having a new war surtax. The problem in this country with this issue is that the only people who have been asked to sacrifice are military families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Does he have a point there, Senator Graham? If we're going to fight a war, shouldn't the American people pay for it?

GRAHAM: Well, I'd like to see an endeavor to see if we can cut current spending and find some dollars that we're spending today to pay for the war, and prioritize American spending. Where does our national security rate in terms of spending? Are there things that we can do in the stimulus package? Can we trim up the health care bill and other big-ticket items to pay for a war that we can't afford to lose?

So I welcome a debate about how to control government spending and pay for the war. I do want to let Bernie and anyone else listening know that from my point of view, the president is correct in assessing that Afghanistan is a war that must be won because the national security implications of what happens in Afghanistan will follow this country for decades, so I intend to support the president.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to -- I want to ask Senator Sanders to comment on this, but first, let me press you on that. You're against -- let me first get Senator Graham on one point there. So you are against the tax, but you are for cutting spending to pay for this, not increasing the deficit? Senator Graham?

GRAHAM: I think it would be a good exercise for the Congress to look at ways to trim up the spending, which has been out of control since the administration came into power, and prior towards this war, the way it should be. Our national security future depends on getting it right in Afghanistan, and there is no better use of taxpayer dollars than to defend America, in my view.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Sanders?

SANDERS: Well, let's see. We spent perhaps $2 or $3 trillion in the war in Iraq that Bush got us into that we never should have been in, which we didn't pay. We sent that bill to our kids and our grandchildren. And what Senator Graham is now saying is, as I understand it, is hey, we can cut back on education so middle-class families can't afford to send their kids to college. We don't have to rebuild our infrastructure. We don't have to invest in sustainable energy, so we stop importing $350 billion a year of foreign oil. We don't have to do all that stuff. Let's just spend more money in Afghanistan, while Europe and the people of China and the people of Russia watch us do that work. I think that is a very poor set of national priorities.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, Senator Sanders, if I hear you correctly, if you're against -- if you have a big problem with sending more troops, does that also mean that you're against this surtax that Congressman Obey is talking about in order to pay for the troops?

SANDERS: Look, we have a presence in Afghanistan now. No one is talking about bringing the troops home tomorrow. What we need is more international cooperation. We need an Afghan government that resonates with its people, that is not corrupt. But if you're going to have a presence there, you just can't pass the bill on, as we did in Iraq, to our kids and our grandchildren. I think that's wrong. I think that's immoral. Read the whole transcript.

At the roundtable, Matthew Dowd suggests that it took Obama this long to make a decision, whereas it woul've taken Bush 2 days to make the same decision. I love how these people try to blame Obama.
That's a foolish thing to assert because Obama isn't just making a decision, he's getting buy-in and accountability from all parties. Strategizing on the front end--as opposed to just escalating troops--will pay off.
If Dowd were correct in his theory that Bush's gut is better, then war in Iraq would've been a good decision. But it was not, which is why we still have to consider war in Afghanistan. Dowd, who was a strategist for Bush-Cheney, has a nice pair of blinders on.

Lugar: One of Obama's Republican Pals

Republicans spend so much time smearing Obama for people who have nothing to do with his campaign. Here's an example of someone who Obama really palls around with.

MSNBC: Dick Lugar may not be a household name, but he's well known within international security circles. And he's famous to world leaders who are trying to protect their countries from nuclear attack.

In 1991, Lugar teamed up with Sam Nunn, then a Democratic senator, to create a program aimed at securing and dismantling the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons inside the former Soviet Union.

And it was a success. The Nunn-Lugar Act facilitated the destruction of more than 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles and the deactivation of some 7,000 nuclear warheads.

Obama would later find a way to link his name to this legislation — connecting himself to its authors’ global security efforts.

Fighting loose nukes together
As a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2004, Obama frequently spoke of the need to keep “loose nukes” out the hands of terrorists and rogue nations. He often cited the accomplishments of the Nunn-Lugar Act. And that caught the Indiana senator’s attention.

The day after Obama was elected to the Senate, Lugar wrote him a letter. At the time, he was the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and advised Obama to ask the Democratic leadership for a spot on panel.

Obama's other pals: Austan Goolsbee. Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed. Here's a whole slew of Obama's advisers. Here are Obama's top economic advisers.
Meanwhile, McCain's advisers are peeps like this.

Biden on Tax Facts in Missouri

As only Joe could say it:

More Obama Vice President Clues

The announcement could come as late as the weekend, says his peeps, which doesn't really say anything at all. That's just a tease. I'm rolling with Joe Biden for today.

Politico: “I just get the sense with Obama that he has a clear set of priorities in his own mind that have nothing to do with ups-and-downs of the campaign,” said Democratic consultant Dan Gerstein, who thinks Obama’s focus on generational change doesn’t preclude his picking an older, more seasoned running mate.

“It won’t be dictated by age,” Gerstein speculated. “He doesn’t need someone who is young, but it’s got to be someone who is not part of the baby boom, partisan culture wars" of the past two decades.

At the same time, though, Obama has a more immediate concern: reassuring voters who might cast ballots for him — such as older working-class white Democrats, independents and some Republicans — but who have thus far remained skeptical of his candidacy, that he is a safe, acceptable choice.

“The vice presidential pick is always more about telling voters what kind of a potential president the nominee will be, and it’s even more important for Obama than it has been for past nominees,” said Chris Lehane, a Democratic consultant. “Obama's central challenge in this election is to make a certain group of voters comfortable with him in terms of who he is as it relates to being able to do the job. And the vice presidential pick — along with the convention and debates — stands as one of the three tent-foundation events in the general [election] to connect with voters about who he is.”

All the people on the shortlist, aren't necessarily on Obama's shortlist. The only person known to be vetted is Chris Dodd. Hagel's most certainly out. He said he wasn't attending either convention. Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder have done a great job at keeping the process under wraps:

Despite a steady drone of speculation, little is actually known about Obama’s considerations. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd is the only aspirant to confirm he’s being vetted by Obama’s search team, led by Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holder. Kaine has told associates he’s being vetted but has not publicly confirmed it. Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius at first denied it, then ceased denying it — which was seized on as evidence that she is being considered. Biden and Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh have declined to comment on whether they’re being vetted, but both are widely thought to be under consideration.

Two Republicans who are close to Obama, Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar and Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, have also been mentioned, and Lugar — whom Obama cited along with Nunn at the nationally televised candidates forum on Saturday as someone whose counsel he would value if elected president — drew attention on CNN on Sunday by defending Obama against attacks from Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman. Read more.