Obama Kicks Up White House Entertaining

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE | Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The White House is the place to be on Wednesdays.

Since the presidency changed hands less than six weeks ago, a burst of entertaining has taken hold of the iconic, white-columned home of America’s head of state. Much of it comes on Wednesdays.

The stately East Room, where portraits of George and Martha Washington adorn the walls, was transformed into a concert hall as President Barack Obama presented Stevie Wonder with the nation’s highest award for pop music on Wednesday.

A week before that, the foot-stomping sounds of Sweet Honey in the Rock, a female a cappella group, filled the East Room for a Black History Month program first lady Michelle Obama held for nearly 200 sixth- and seventh-graders from around the city.

Cocktails were sipped during at least three such receptions to date, all held on Wednesdays …

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Amid Obama’s Change, There’s also More of the Same

By NANCY BENAC | Associated Press

WASHINGTON – For all the sweeping changes that President Barack Obama has delivered, there also has been an ample helping of more-of-the-same.

The Bush policy of imprisoning enemy combatants in Afghanistan without trial? The Obama White House is OK with that.

The Bush tax cuts for the rich that candidate Obama promised to wipe out early? President Obama will let them run their course.

The Bush team’s claim of a “state secrets” privilege to avoid releasing information? The Obama White House has agreed thrice over, even as it reviews the policy.

Across the landscape of government, there are plenty of other instances in which Obama is staying his Republican predecessor’s course — at least for now …

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Meghan McCain: GOP Not Tech Savvy

By ANDY BARR | Politico

Arizona Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan criticized the Republican Party on Thursday for lagging behind Democrats on the Web.

“The Republican Party isn’t exactly Internet savvy. That’s no secret,” McCain wrote in a post on The Daily Beast.

McCain said that while blogging on her father’s presidential campaign, she “got the sense that people on the campaign thought I was wasting my time.”

“Unless the GOP evolves as the party that can successfully utilize the Web, we’ll continue to lose influence. I think nothing confirms this fact to be more true than this recent election,” she wrote. “When I first suggested launching a blog chronicling my experience on my father’s campaign for president, I was met with confusion and resistance. A few people even asked me, ‘What’s a blog?’” …

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Campaign 2010 Begins

Democrats launch radio ads attacking 28 House Republicans, taking some facts out of context.

FactCheck.org

Here we go again.

The first round of attack ads in the 2010 midterm elections was announced this week by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Its new radio spots accuse 28 Republican House members variously of voting against tax breaks for working people, voting against money for schools, voting against creating jobs and voting against health insurance coverage for millions of children.

The ads aren’t exactly false, but they don’t tell the whole story. Popular programs that the GOP members opposed actually were small parts of a huge package of spending and tax-cut measures that Republicans criticized as poorly designed and wasteful. And some of the ads attack Republicans for supporting measures, such as last year’s financial rescue package, that Democrats also supported in even greater numbers …

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