WASHINGTON — The White House said more than 64,000 people watched President Obama answer questions on Thursday in the first live Internet video chat by an American president. But in declaring itself “Open for Questions,” on the economy, the White House learned it must be careful what it wishes for.

More than 100,000 questions were submitted, with the idea that Mr. Obama would answer those that were most popular. But after 3.6 million votes were cast, one of the top questions turned out to be a query on whether legalizing marijuana might stimulate the economy by allowing the government to regulate and tax the drug.

“I don’t know what this says about the online audience,” Mr. Obama said, drawing a laugh from an audience gathered in the East Room, which included teachers, nurses and small-business people. “The answer is no, I don’t think that is a good strategy to grow the economy.”

The marijuana question later took up a good chunk of the daily White House press briefing, where Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, suggested that advocates for legalizing marijuana had mounted a drive to rack up votes for the question.

Those advocates included Norml, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, which urged supporters to “let the president know that millions of American voters believe that the time has come to tax and regulate marijuana.”

But however the marijuana query rose to the top of the White House list, it provided one of the livelier moments in the mostly staid 70-minute event.

Mr. Obama did make a sliver of news, disclosing that he intended to announce in the next couple of days what kind of help his administration would give the auto industry. A senior White House official said no decision had yet been made; Mr. Gibbs hinted that the announcement would most likely occur on Monday.

“We will provide them some help,” Mr. Obama said, as he has in the past, while also talking tough, as he has done previously, by insisting that the auto makers would have to make “drastic changes” to restructure the way they do business.

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Obama Makes History in Live Internet Video Chat – NYTimes.com.

WASHINGTON: Not quite seven weeks into Barack Obama’s presidency, the capital’s leading thinkers seem to agree that the era of postpartisanship is over.

Obama’s team made little secret of their intention to win broad support for his stimulus plan – an effort that yielded three Republican votes in the Senate and none in the House of Representatives. The president’s pick for the Commerce Department, Senator Judd Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire, turned down the job, citing his personal opposition to the bill.

According to E.J. Dionne Jr. of The Washington Post, Obama himself, speaking to a group of columnists aboard Air Force One, suggested that, in the future, he would approach Republicans with more wariness. “You know, I am an eternal optimist,” the president said. “That doesn’t mean I’m a sap.”

Such talk acted like a shot of adrenaline to the stilled hearts of liberal bloggers and columnists who had feared that Obama might squander a chance to stomp on his bewildered opposition. So much energy has been spent berating the idea of bipartisanship, in fact, that no one has stopped to ask what Obama means by it.

As the political scientist James Morone recently pointed out on The New York Times’s Op-Ed page, legislative bipartisanship, in the sense of two-party unity behind a single agenda, has never really existed.

The presidents we tend to immortalize hardly managed to transcend party politics; their greatness grew from their willingness to articulate arguments that were calibrated to be divisive. Franklin Roosevelt infuriated generations of conservatives who reviled his concept of expansive government. Ronald Reagan’s passionate counterargument made him an enduring enemy to the left.

This doesn’t mean, however, that our politics have not fundamentally changed over the last few decades. Roosevelt and his Republican critics had profound disagreements, but both sides understood that their dispute was ideological rather than personal, the clash of opposing theories in a common pursuit.

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Wary of Republicans, but not walking away – International Herald Tribune.

Charles Ommanney / Getty Images for Newsweek

Therapist-in-Chief: The President explains the details of his $778 billion stimulus package to a crowd in Mesa, Arizona

If Ralph Waldo emerson had a 19th-century Facebook page, his “Favorite Quotation” (or maybe I should say my favorite Emerson quote) would likely be: “Events are in the saddle and tend to ride mankind.”

For the last six months, events have been in the saddle of the world economy and they might ride us for quite a while. Every day seems to bring bad news, with more on the way. Will commercial real estate crash next? Is General Motors toast? Dow 5,000, anyone?

When President Obama was sworn in, the stock market dropped. When he signed the largest economic recovery package in American history last week, the Dow plunged nearly 300 points. His widely panned bank rescue plan and even his better-received housing rescue plan both laid eggs on the Street.

Obama says he doesn’t worry too much about short-term market swoons, and he’s right not to. Who elected greedy gamblers to represent us? But the market is now based less on assessments of specific companies than on reaction to the federal government. And that reaction, cascading down to Main Street, is a fair reflection of the nation’s pessimistic mood. The new president is popular and refreshing, but still well short of transformative. For all of the legislative achievements of his first month in office, Americans have not yet had their faith in the future restored.

What’s a president to do? If he starts in with the happy talk, he sounds like John McCain saying “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” which is what sealed the election for Obama in the first place. But if he gets too gloomy, he’ll scare the bejesus out of the entire world. The balance Obama strikes is to say that things will get worse before they get better, but that they will get better. Now he must convince us that’s true.

Conservatives smell blood. The Republican National Committee issued a press release saying Obama’s first month was all about “wasteful spending, failed bipartisanship and questionable ethics.” Columnist Charles Krauthammer called the $787 billion stimulus package “a legislative abomination,” and Karl Rove wrote that “the more Americans learn about the bill, the less they like it.”

Polls say otherwise. The public likes the signs of action, respects that the new president is willing to admit error and appreciates his constant reminders that there are no easy cures to what ails us.

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Alter: Barack Obama, Bringer of Confidence | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com.

At 100, NAACP fights to keep struggle alive – Race & ethnicity- msnbc.com.

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama paid tribute to his hero, Abraham Lincoln, at a celebration for the reopening of the theater where he was slain.

“Despite all that divided us — North and South, black and white — he had an unyielding belief that we were, at heart, one nation, and one people,” Obama said last night at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. “And because of Abraham Lincoln, and all who carried on his work in the generations since, that is what we remain today.”

Obama, the nation’s first black commander-in-chief, often invokes the name and symbols of the assassinated president who ended slavery and brought the U.S. through the Civil War. Both men rose from the Illinois state legislature to the highest office in the land and both built reputations as skilled political orators.

The reopening of Ford’s Theatre after an 18-month refurbishment coincides with a celebration of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. Obama, 47, who took the oath of office on Lincoln’s bible, will travel to Springfield, Illinois, today to mark the bicentennial.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, joined politicians and Ford’s Theatre donors to watch a series of songs, readings and speeches performed by celebrities such as Ben Vereen and Kelsey Grammer.

The theater also unveiled a videotape, to be shown at its museum, in which the four living past-presidents — George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter — recited Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, accompanied by Matthew Brady’s Civil War images.

Empty Presidential Box

The Obamas watched from the front row alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. None of the nation’s leaders have sat in the presidential box since John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln there during a performance of “Our American Cousin” on the evening of April 14, 1865.

The event was a retrospective of Lincoln’s life, from his humble beginnings described by James Earl Jones’s baritone to Vereen’s impassioned reading of the Emancipation Proclamation without the prompter, which broke mid-show.

The highlight for the audience of about 650 was classical violinist Joshua Bell’s “Variations on Yankee Doodle,” which was by turns playful and mournful.

Broadway singer Cheryl Freeman gave an electrifying rendition of a song from the play “The Civil War,” followed by Audra McDonald, Jessye Norman and Joshua Bell for “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which earned a standing ovation.

Host and actor Richard Thomas called the facility the most-famous theater in America, which had morphed from a scene of tragedy into a symbol of Lincoln’s legacy.

Lincoln Medal

The gala event included the presentation of the Lincoln Medal given each year to someone whose work, accomplishments and attributes “exemplify the lasting legacy and mettle of character embodied by the most beloved president in our nation’s history,” Ford’s Theatre said. This year, the recipients were filmmaker George Lucas and actor Sidney Poitier.

In the aftermath of the assassination, the government bought the theater, which dates to 1861, from Ford for $100,000 and gave it to the War Department for use as storage space and an Army Medical Museum.

At one point, the interior collapsed, so now only the exterior walls are original. In the 1960s, the theater was rededicated as a memorial to Lincoln, and the National Park Service used historic photographs and contemporary accounts to reconstruct the box and the theater as it looked that night. Almost a million visitors pass through every year.

Red Upholstery

The theater has just 658 seats, done up in red upholstery. Lincoln’s box sits just above stage left. On the balustrade is one of the few surviving artifacts from that time, an engraving of George Washington.

The renovation was part of a larger $50 million fundraising effort known as the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Campaign that’s also supporting the building of a new education center. The campaign benefited from a $5 million donation from Exxon Mobil Corp. and $2.5 million from the State of Qatar, the theater said.

Other donors included AT&T Inc., BP America Inc., General Dynamics Corp., Toyota Motor Corp., AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and Lockheed Martin Corp., according to Ford’s Theatre.

Bloomberg.com: Arts and Culture.

Doors reopened: Michelle Obama greets audience members at Ford’s Theatre, which celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial.

The Ford’s Theatre Society held a star-studded reopening to celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and award film greats George Lucas and Sidney Poitier with Lincoln Medals. The invitation-only ceremony was held at Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric and actors Kelsey Grammer, James Earl Jones, Ben Vereen, Jeffrey Wright and Audra McDonald gave a presentation of Birth and Rebirth, a tribute to Lincoln. David Selby (Falcon Crest‘s Richard Channing) portrayed Lincoln. Jessye Norman performed the Battle Hymn of the Republic with McDonald and violinist Joshua Bell. Richard Thomas (The Waltons‘ John Boy) was the evening’s host.

“There’s a lot of history in this building,” said director Lucas, 64. Lincoln “was a great man, and he served our country in a very difficult time.” As for Obama’s first weeks, “it’s nice that he started off on the right foot. Things are actually happening.”

Poitier, 81, was still moved by the election of a black president. “I never thought I would live long enough (to see one), which is an example of how far we’ve come,” the Oscar-winning Lilies of the Field actor said.

Grammer, a Republican, expressed support for Obama. “I support all presidents,” he said. “They have a very difficult job.” And, he said, “it brings a tear to my eye every time I see him on camera.” As for Lincoln, “he gave his life so that a president like Obama could come along.”

Jones, the Great White Hope star and voice of Darth Vader, talked about missing Obama’s inauguration, but added, “I figured I’d meet up with him somewhere along the way.”

Jones was right. At the end of the tribute, Obama spoke to the audience about Lincoln. “He had an unyielding belief that at heart we are one nation and one people. … That is what we remain.”

Ford’s Theatre packs in stars, and Obamas, for reopening

US Vice President Joe Biden is the star guest at the Munich Security Conference this weekend. His speech on Saturday is supposed to form the basis of the new trans-Atlantic partnership. Instead of concrete pledges, experts await a bid to mend ties between Europe and the US.

It’s been little over three weeks since Joe Biden became deputy to the most powerful man in the world and he still hasn’t grown into his new role. The former senator can be seen at the State Department discussing foreign policy or dining with President Barack Obama in the White House. Sometimes he presents himself as a champion of the middle classes, at other times he appears in shirtsleeves at on a railway platform pleading for investment in infrastructure. “It is hard now,” he admitted in a recent TV interview. “What I have to think now is, everything I say, I am the vice president. I am not the president. So everything I say reflects directly on the administration.”

REUTERS

US President Barack Obama (L) and Vice President Joe Biden.

This Saturday Biden will be speaking explicitly on behalf of the United States. His speech at the Munich Security Conference will be the vice president’s first major international appearance — and the Bavarian capital is rolling out the red carpet for him. The conference organizers promise that his speech will provide the impetus for a new start in trans-Atlantic relations.

What are the expectations for the speech? “The tone is the message,” Laurie Dundon, who previously worked with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and is now at the Bertelsmann Foundation in Washington, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “The right words would define the parameters for future cooperation, just as preparations are being made for Obama’s Europe trip at the beginning of April to the G-20 summit in London and the NATO summit in Kehl and Strasbourg.”

COMPLETE ARTICLE HERE…

Biden at the Munich Security Conference: Obama Sends Vice President to Build Bridges – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International.

“Barack Obama is opening our hearts and minds to the true meaning of Black History Month,” Barron said. “African Americans won’t be viewed as just a minority but as people who make a difference.”

Obama’s election, and this year’s 100th anniversary of the NAACP, means there has probably never been more reason to celebrate the annual February observance, black leaders and historians say.

“We celebrate whenever a glass ceiling is broken and the presidency may be the highest glass ceiling,” said Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, which is celebrating its 1909 founding this year.

But those leaders also agree those milestones don’t mean that racial inequalities no longer exist. While Obama’s breaking of the color barrier in the White House may make the NAACP’s job easier, Jealous said they will pressure Obama just as they have past presidents.

Gerald Early, a professor of African American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis, said that Obama’s election should not be viewed as the end of racism, but “should be taught as an event that signaled a new era in American race relations.”

“With Obama as president, I think people are more optimistic about race relations than they’ve been in a long time,” he said.

This optimism is seen in Black History Month celebrations planned throughout this month in the 1,700 local NAACP units and hundreds of primary, secondary and university campuses nationwide.

This year’s Black History Month theme is “The Quest for Citizenship in the Americas,” determined by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, said Daryl Scott, vice president for programs.

Stephanie Smith Budhai, 23, head of the University of Maryland’s Black History Month Committee, said the theme correlates well with Obama’s presidency.

“Barack Obama shows that (African Americans’) citizenship is just as important as the citizenship of any other ethnicity or race,” she said.

Black History Month has added meaning in 2009 – USATODAY.com.

Nearly 4 1/2 years ago, Barack Obama introduced himself to America by painting a picture of a country that was united, somehow, in spite of itself. The pundits, he said in the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, like to “slice and dice” the country: red states for Republicans, blue states for Democrats. “But I’ve got news for them too: We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states. We coach Little League in the blue states, and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.” His task that night in Boston was to ready the crowd for the presidential nominee, John F. Kerry, but in the end his words were most memorable for an argument that challenged the partisan divide and was built on the foundation of his own unique story.

His father was from Kenya and his mother from Kansas. But it’s more complicated than that.

Abandoned by his father, separated for long periods from his mother, Obama searched for many years to find his identity. He eventually learned to navigate between black and white worlds. He earned a reputation as a pragmatist and a consensus builder, and along the way raised the bridges that would sustain his ambition.

Race has been the steady undertow of his political career — and of his life.

As he paraphrased William Faulkner in March in a landmark speech on race: “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.”

Early years

Interracial relationships in Hawaii are an accepted fact of life. Nevertheless, the parents of Stanley Ann Dunham and Barack Hussein Obama didn’t like the idea of their children getting married. She was studying anthropology at the University of Hawaii. He was a graduate student from Kenya, the first African enrolled at the university.

They married in late 1960, and on Aug. 4, 1961, Barack Jr. was born. Two years after that, his father left to study economics at Harvard.

The separation led to divorce. Ann married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian student at the university. In 1967, she and her 6-year-old son, whom she called Barry, followed Soetoro to Jakarta, a strange and wonderful place of kite-flying and crocodiles, exotic foods and strange religions.

But the adventure had a darker side. The poverty was inescapable. Ann and Lolo drifted apart. She took a job teaching English at the U.S. Embassy, and it was here in the library, Obama said, that he read about a black man who had tried to peel off his skin.

Although his mother tried to affirm his black heritage — bringing home books about the civil rights movement, speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. — Barry was learning the price people pay for being different.

When he was 10, his mother sent him back to Hawaii to live with her parents and attend the prestigious Punahou School. On an island where there were few blacks, he watched “I Spy” on television, tried to sing like Marvin Gaye and cursed like Richard Pryor. He stayed out late, shooting hoops, and started to drink and smoke weed, he said, just to “push questions of who I was out of my mind.”

On the mainland, the reality of race was more stark.

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Barack Obama: In search of identity – Los Angeles Times.