Denis McDonough's Speech at the Adams Center Video

McDonough Answers Foreign Policy Questions

Republicans Feigning Ignorance (or Maybe Not) On Mirandizing

Whether they knew or didn't, either way, republicans look like fools. Counterterrorism Chief John Brennan said on Sunday, he briefed republican congress members on the process for the underwear bomber, but republicans are saying they had no idea that the underwear bomber would be mirandized. (Read Brennan's op-ed today on republican fear mongering in USA Today here). There's just more politics here. Republicans don't have bombs in their underwear but their underwear is in a bunch over Eric Holder. More of those good old fashioned conservative values at play. There's just something about Eric Holder. Hmmmmmm.......

“The fact that these Republicans are airing such criticisms now, after supporting the Bush Administration’s treatment of similar cases in the exact same way, shows how far they will go to politicize national security. Even more troubling is their fear mongering and use of misinformation to make their case,” said Regan Lachapelle, spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Indeed, the so-called shoe bomber seven years ago was tried in a civilian criminal court.

In the letter, McConnell demands written answers from Holder as to why intelligence officials weren’t consulted about whether Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should have been read his Miranda rights and charged in civilian court, whether Justice had developed a protocol for questioning terror suspects apprehended on American soil, and why a new Obama administration interrogation team designed to handle high value suspects isn’t yet operational. Politico

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Obama and Bill Clinton Meet on North Korea

There won't be any media coverage.

It’s only the second time the two presidents, who are not particularly close, have spoken about Clinton’s efforts to bring home two American journalists who were sentenced to hard labor after being discovered in the country.

"This will be the first chance that the two presidents have had the chance to have a long conversation about this issue," Gibbs said, adding that Obama views this as a "crucial opportunity" to speak directly with Clinton about his effort.

There will be no media coverage of the meeting, which is scheduled at 4 p.m. in the Situation Room and is expected to last an hour.

Attending the meeting:

Bill Clinton’s advisers Doug Band and Justin Cooper will be with the former president. Both traveled to North Korea with him.

Also on the guest list from the White House: National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones, Denis McDonough, Tom Donilon, Jeff Bader, Danny Russell and arms proliferation adviser Gary Seymour. Politico

Obama Meets the Pope July 10 and Heads to Ghana

Obama chats with Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan at G8
Obama will meet the Pope tomorrow at 10:15 eastern. I hope we get some video. Michelle Obama also gets some time with the Pope. After meeting the Pope, the Obamas leave for Accra, the capital of Ghana, at noon eastern. There, Obama will deliver a major policy speech:

Barack Obama's meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican on Friday carries more weight than normal for the new US president, the White House said.
"He recognises that this is much more than your typical state visit," Obama aide Denis McDonough said.
Obama, a committed Christian, will have his first audience with the pope since becoming president shortly after the end of a three-day Group of Eight summit in the Italian town of L'Aquila. He will be accompanied by his wife Michelle.
"In many ways the visit is not unlike visits with other heads of state," said McDonough, a deputy National Security Advisor.
"That is to say that there are issues on which they'll agree, issues on which they'll disagree, and issues on which they'll agree to continue to work on going forward. Read more at AFP

Ben Rhodes Working on Obama's Egypt Speech

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy speechwriter, is working on Obama's speech that he will give in Egypt June 4. Here's some insight into that process:

The process for the Cairo address will begin this week in the same way it has for other foreign policy speeches Rhodes has written since the Inauguration: Obama will summon Axelrod; Rhodes; Denis McDonough, a deputy national security adviser; and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to the Oval Office.

The president will talk off the cuff for a half-hour or so about what he wants to say in the speech. Rhodes calls it the “download.”

Obama will go back to the speech, almost always by hand, three or four times before he’s satisfied.

“His criticism is more, ‘No, what I really wanted to say is this, and you didn’t quite capture that here,’” Rhodes said. “Generally, if he’s not happy with it, he knows why he’s not, so he gives you a pretty clear sense the first time he talks to you.”

The one thing that gets Obama annoyed, Rhodes said, is “wishy-washy language.”
.....

“He was making changes up to the last minute, which is not unusual, and so I literally had to do those in the back of the motorcade to this site and then find a zip drive that could plug into the teleprompter,” Rhodes recalled in an interview. “He likes to work on things until the end because he likes to get them just the way he wants them. So sometimes that’s easy, sometimes it’s you in the back of a van with a laptop on your knee hoping your battery doesn’t die.”

Said senior adviser David Axelrod: “Everybody here sort of lives with the reality that the president is the best speechwriter in the group.” Read more at Politico