Politics

Last week, the White House had to deny reports that an adviser sent Bob Woodward, the infamous Watergate journalist, an email saying he would “regret” his recent reporting on the sequester. Woodward had written that, based on his reporting earlier in the budget battle, the president was trying to move the goalposts by trying to replace the sequester with a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts… instead of solely spending cuts.

Woodward claims he was “yelled at” by an Obama aide over his weekend column in the Post, who them sent him a page-long email that said: “I apologize for raising my voice in our conversation today. … You’re focusing on a few specific trees that give a very wrong impression of the forest. But perhaps we will just not see eye to eye here. … I think you will regret staking out that claim.”

“Of course no threat was intended,” wrote a White House aide. “As Mr. Woodward noted, the email from the aide was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation. The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more. And Mr. Woodward responded to this aide’s email in a friendly manner.”

Now, it looks like the White House is going to have to deny threat claims again, this time to Lanny Davis, who served as counsel to former President Bill Clinton. Davis, who now writes a column for The Washington Times, is saying that a “senior Obama White House official” called his editor at the Times and said that if the paper continued to run his columns, “his reporters would lose their credentials.” Davis, being an Obama supporter, says he “couldn’t imagine why this call was made.”

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According to a recent League of Conservation Voters poll, conducted before Tuesday’s State of The Union Address, a wide majority of Americans support President Obama’s call to take action on climate change.

Most Americans see climate change as a tangible threat - 61 percent said climate change is already affecting them or will affect them sometime in their life, and 93 percent of those individuals believe there is a moral obligation to leave an Earth not polluted or damaged to future generations. That’s likely why an astounding sixty-five percent of Americans support “the President taking significant steps to address climate change now,” including 89 percent of Democrats, 62 percent of independents and 38 percent of Republicans.

Despite support for action, a cap-and-trade bill died in the Senate in 2010. Obama withdrew proposed EPA regulations on smog in September 2011 under heavy pressure from Republicans who said that the new rules would cost jobs. But in his second inaugural address, the president stepped up his rhetoric on taking more immediate action on climate change.

“I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago,” said Obama. “But if Congress won’t act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change, and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”

Obama pollster Joel Benenson, who conducted the LCV survey, rejects the currently popular belief that Hurricane Sandy was the sole driver behind public support for action.

“I think it’s picked up some steam, but I wouldn’t call it a major shift. I think you’re seeing a slight uptick in the urgency to act now … I don’t think it’s just Sandy,” he said, listing several other recent extreme weather events.

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This afternoon, the White House provided the NY Times with the full text of President Obama’s State of the Union Address, to be delivered later this evening. In the speech’s final moments, Obama will discuss the Newtown shooting and the popular topic of gun control in America. Here is the text as Obama is intended to read it:

But defending our freedom is not the job of our military alone. We must all do our part to make sure our God-given rights are protected here at home. That includes our most fundamental right as citizens: the right to vote. When any Americans – no matter where they live or what their party – are denied that right simply because they can’t wait for five, six, seven hours just to cast their ballot, we are betraying our ideals. That’s why, tonight, I’m announcing a non-partisan commission to improve the voting experience in America. And I’m asking two long-time experts in the field, who’ve recently served as the top attorneys for my campaign and for Governor Romney’s campaign, to lead it. We can fix this, and we will. The American people demand it. And so does our democracy.

Of course, what I’ve said tonight matters little if we don’t come together to protect our most precious resource – our children.

It has been two months since Newtown. I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence. But this time is different. Overwhelming majorities of Americans – Americans who believe in the 2nd Amendment – have come together around commonsense reform – like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun. Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals. Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because they are tired of being outgunned.

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