Vice President Joe Biden says he won’t second guess the decision by his former political rival Sarah Palin to resign as Alaska governor, because in politics sometimes it is just about the personal.

Palin, who famously greeted Biden with “Nice to meet you. Can I call you Joe?” at last year’s vice presidential showdown debate, has seen her political fortunes rollercoaster after John McCain plucked her from relative obscurity to be his Republican running mate.

 She once again surprised everyone on Friday at a news conference in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, by announcing she would resign this month. The unexpected move raised speculation that perhaps she has her eye on running for higher office.

Biden said he took her decision at face-value,  saying in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” that people deeply involved in politics “know at the end of the day it is really and truly a personal deal.”

“So I’m not going to second guess her,” he added.

But when it came to Palin casting herself as a victim of ”political blood sport,” Biden disagreed.

“I don’t know what prompted her decision … And I take her at her word that had a personal ingredient in it. And you have to respect that,” he said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Rubenstein (Palin and Biden at October 2008 vice presidential debate)

Read the Web much and you might think first lady Michelle Obama’s vegetable garden has turned into a lead-laden nightmare that threatens to poison the first family and any stray child gardner who happens onto the White House grounds.
 
Not so says the first lady’s office.
 
The White House had the soil tested for safety purposes, and the results showed lead at 93 parts per million — higher than typical background levels in urban areas, but low enough not to be considered a health risk.
 
Penn State’s College of Agriculture Sciences, for example, says anything under 150 parts per million is either not contaminated or has very low lead contamination. It does not recommend any action for gardening in soils with those lead levels.
 
“The garden recently underwent extensive soil testing that proved it is completely safe,” said Katie McCormick Lelyveld, the first lady’s press secretary.
 
“A lead level of 93 parts per million is significantly better than the government standard for a garden like this. The White House Kitchen Garden Team is committed to producing fresh, safe and healthy food as a learning opportunity about healthy eating, and they’ll continue to do so.”
 
While the garden is often referred to as being organic, the White House says it his never made that claim. It takes three years to certify an organic garden, with different standards applying.
 
Children from Bancroft Elementary School helped Michelle Obama break ground on the garden back in March and returned in April to plant seedlings.
 
They were back again in mid-June for harvesting. The garden produced lettuce, snap peas, beans, kale, collards and chard, White House associate chef Sam Kass said at the time. It also has produced broccoli, green beans, an eggplant, a cucumber and herbs.
 
No chemicals, fertilizer or herbicides were used on the garden, though lime, greens and compost and crab shell meal were added to the earth.
 
Most food crops do well in slightly acidic soil. Adding lime reduces the soil’s acidity and also lowers the impact of lead. Greensand adds iron and potassium and other elements. Crab meal is rich in calcium, nitrogen and potassium, making it a good organic fertilizer.
 
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Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Top: Obama harvesting garden with school kids in mid-June; Bottom: Obama planting herbs in early April)

Must be playing all that hardball by President Barack Obama’s administration.

Attorney General Eric Holder becomes the second Cabinet official to miss travel after breaking something.

Holder, the country’s top law enforcement official, cracked a tooth last night and missed a trip to Aspen, Colorado, where he had been scheduled to attend the “Aspen Ideas Festival” on the eve of a long weekend for the Fourth of July holiday.

His injury follows Secretary of State Hillary Clinton breaking her right elbow two weeks ago and she is missing a trip to Moscow with Obama next week.

After cracking the tooth last night, Holder went to the dentist this morning and was ordered to have emergency oral surgery to immediately remove the offender from his pearly whites.

A Justice Department spokesman said because of the surgery, Holder was prohibited from flying for four or five days. No word yet on which tooth or how he cracked it — only that it hurt.

UPDATE JUST IN: Attorney General’s molar was removed in a 75-minute procedure (OUCH!) ”He’s resting comfortably and I don’t think he’s outside doing yardwork,” a Justice Department spokesman said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas (Holder at a congressional hearing in April)

As sometimes happens in Washington, much of the news reverberating around town this morning started someplace else.

From the other side of the world, reports that North Korea has test-fired short-range missiles, including two surface-to-ship missiles, from its east coast. From Afghanistan, the Pentagon confirmed a U.S. soldier has been captured, and Taliban insurgents have claimed responsibility. What is not known now is why and how.

There is some domestic news on this getaway morning — the official U.S. Independence Day holiday starts tomorrow, one day ahead of July Fourth celebrations — and it brings some gloom to the picture: U.S. employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, more than analysts expected. That brings the U.S. unemployment rate to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983.

Jobs are on the agenda at the White House, where President Barack Obama will meet with business leaders to talk about innovation and job creation, and then discuss the same subject at a Rose Garden event this afternoon.

The Michael Jackson saga continues on morning television, with heretofore unseen home videos of the Gloved One and his kids, a look behind the gates at Neverland and parsing of a 2002 will that gives custody of the children to Jackson’s mother, and if she is no longer living, to Motown icon Diana Ross.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (General Motors Flint auto worker Donald Kemp joins other demonstrators in Detroit, Michigan June 16, 2009).

President Barack Obama signed a bill on Wednesday paving the way for the first women to fly American military aircraft to be awarded a Congressional Gold Medal for their service in World War Two.

 Three former WASP  – Elaine Danforth Harmon, Lorraine H. Rodgers and Bernice Falk Haydu — joined Obama at the signing ceremony along with five female active duty U.S. Air Force pilots and female lawmakers who sponsored the bill. 

 ”The Women Airforce Service Pilots courageously answered their country’s call in a time of need while blazing a trail for the brave women who have given and continue to give so much in service to this nation since,” Obama said in a statement.

“Every American should be grateful for their service, and I am honored to sign this bill to finally give them some of the hard-earned recognition they deserve,” Obama said. 

The WASP was established during World War Two with the primary purpose of flying non-combat military missions in the United States. Their service freed up male pilots to fight in combat overseas. 

More than 1,000 women joined the program from 1942 to 1943, including 38 who died serving their country. For years, their contribution went unrecognized,  not even being acknowledged with veteran status until 1977, the White House said.

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Plenty of current and former U.S. senators had memorable professions before they got to Washington: country fiddler (Robert Byrd of West Virginia), astronaut (John Glenn of Ohio), jewelry-maker (Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado). But none were dogged by a satirical persona, as is already happening to newly-confirmed Democratic Senator-elect Al Franken of Minnesota.

Franken, formerly a comedian and writer for “Saturday Night Live,” created the character Stuart Smalley, a cardigan-wearing self-help guru, often pictured gazing lovingly into a mirror and intoning, “I’m going to do a terrific show today! And I’m gonna help people! Because I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and, doggonit, people like me!”

Stuart showed up in many Web headlines noting Franken’s victory in the Minnesota senate race over Republican Norm Coleman, especially those with a conservative bent.

“No Joke! Stuart Smalley Headed to Senate” — www.thefoxnation.com

“Stuart Smalley Goes To Washington! Al Franken Gives Dems Super-Majority” — www.werushdaily.com

“Covering Al Franken: Stuart Smalley Saves The Senate!
Commentary: Can Journalists Look Past The Goofy Persona Of The Politician?” — www.cbsnews.com

So we ask you: Is there any way Franken can shed the ghost of Smalley? Does he need to?

Franken is lucky in at least one respect. The decision that cleared the way for him to take his Senate seat came during a quiet week in Washington. President Barack Obama holds a town hall meeting on health care in the Virginia suburbs. The morning television shows focused — again, still — on Michael Jackson and preparations for a memorial service at his California estate, Neverland. The Mark Sanford saga continues, with sympathy running high for the South Carolina governor’s wife Jenny after Sanford described his Argentine inamorata as his soulmate.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Eric Miller (Franken and his wife Franni in Minneapolis on June 30, 2009)

A coalition of progressive U.S. faith groups and pastors has launched a push for affordable health care reform, an effort they say is rooted in a "scriptural call to act."

Radio ads will appear from today until July 4th in five states: Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska and North Carolina. The ads urge those states' Senators, whose votes could ultimately decide the fate of President Barack Obama's drive to transform America's health care system, to back legislation "that makes quality coverage truly affordable for every American family." You can see the ad script and audio here.

Organizers also say that more than 600 clergy from 41 states and 39 denominations have said they will deliver sermons in coming weeks on the issue and urge their flocks to act. A pastors' guide to health care will also be distributed to 4,250 religious leaders along with a shorter version to wider church members.

PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good are the main religious advocacy groups behind the campaign.

If this all sounds familiar, it should. The tactics being adopted by these liberal and centrist groups and activists are a carbon copy of the successful ones employed in the past by the U.S. religious right. The distribution of pastors' guides, the call for public policy to be guided by scripture (in this case compassion for the poor and the ill), the preaching of sermons on looming legislation -- it's all taken from the loose network of conservative Christians which has delivered many a vote for the Republican Party.

Conservative Christians remain a key base for the Republicans and they have also been decrying "Obama-care" on talk radio, the blogosphere and other outlets.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing.  Members of the audience shake hands with U.S. President Barack Obama after his speech about reforming America's health care system in Green Bay, Wisconsin, June 11, 2009.

Washington is a town of euphemisms, where “mistakes were made” but nobody takes responsibility, where lawmakers routinely refer to each other as “my good friend” before questioning their buddies’ sanity or moral character.

The Washingtonian art of the euphemism apparently has been learned in Baghdad, where to mark today’s departure of U.S. forces from Iraqi cities, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declared National Sovereignty Day and celebrated with a military parade.

As U.S. combat units get out of Iraq’s urban areas and move into rural bases, Pentagon leaders will be speaking, though not in Washington. Defense Secretary Robert Gates addresses a NATO change-of-command ceremony in Stuttgart while Army General Ray Odierno, the U.S. commander in Iraq, briefs reporters via video link.

At the White House, President Barack Obama talks about nonprofit programs, then meets with Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

With Congress gone and the U.S. capital already on the glide-path to the Independence Day holiday weekend, morning television was dominated by ongoing questions about the late Michael Jackson’s legacy – fiscal, familial and cultural — and the aftermath of the sentencing of investment swindler Bernard Madoff. To many of Madoff’s victims, a 150-year prison term is not enough.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Nikola Solic (U.S. Army soldier of 1st Cavalry division’s 2nd Battalion and U.S. flag during dawn ceremony in Baghdad on June 29, 2009)

If Barack Obama and the gay community have strained relations, an elegant reception in the White House East Room to celebrate LGBT Pride Month was a good way to start mending fences — at least for now.

“Welcome to your White House,” Obama told an enthusiastic crowd of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people on Monday before launching into a summary of his administration’s accomplishments on their causes.

Notable exception: Obama’s pledge to repeal the military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy has not been met.

Gay activists have lamented the slow speed at which Obama, who had wide support from the community for his presidential campaign, and his administration have moved to address the military policy and other issues.

That’s not news to Obama, who addressed the dissatisfaction in his remarks.

“I know that many in this room don’t believe that progress has come fast enough, and I understand that,” he said.

“It’s not for me to tell you to be patient, any more than it was for others to counsel patience to African Americans who were petitioning for equal rights a half century ago.”

But Obama said progress had been made and promised the group that once he left office, they would have reason to be happy with his accomplishments.

“I want you to know that I expect and hope to be judged not by words, not by promises I’ve made, but by the promises that my administration keeps,” he said.

“We’ve been in office six months now.  I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration.”

The audience clapped loudly. Patience, at least for the time being, seemed to have won the day.

“President Obama’s remarks today were welcomed and appreciated,” Joe Solmonese, president of the LGBT group Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement, with a nod to the the upcoming anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in U.S. gay history.

“On the eve of this weekend’s 40th anniversary of Stonewall, the president has yet again reiterated his support for most of the critical federal issues facing millions of LGBT Americans. We must continue the hard work of turning that support into the passage of actual laws.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama greets guests at reception for LGBT Pride Month; Obama delivers remarks as first lady Michelle Obama looks on)

There’s a real school’s-out feeling around Washington today. Congress left town last week after the House voted for bill to curb climate change, and most lawmakers won’t be back until after the July 4 holiday weekend. The Supreme Court issues its last rulings of the term, with a full sheaf of decisions expected — but then the justices will be gone for the summer.

President Barack Obama’s hosting Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at the White House, with a joint appearance in the afternoon. In addition to a full plate of U.S.-Colombian issues, the two leaders could address last weekend’s military coup in Honduras. Obama has already called for peaceful resolution of “tensions and disputes” but he may have more to say.

Later in the day, Obama celebrates the accomplishments of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans at a White House reception. This community has criticized the president for what they see as foot-dragging on repealing the Defense of Marriage Act — which defines marriage as between one man and one woman and says states need not recognize gay marriages performed in another state — and the U.S. military’s Don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy.

On Capitol Hill, even though most members of Congress are back home, there’s one decision most will be interested in — a possible ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court on just who has won a hotly contested Senate seat: Republican Norm Coleman or Democrat Al Franken. If Franken is declared the winner, it would give Democrats a 60-vote majority, which means Republicans can’t delay legislation with a jaw-fest called a filibuster.

Outside Washington, questions still swirl around the death of Michael Jackson, with lawyers, doctors, relatives and others opining on morning television about the circumstances of the pop star’s demise, and the fate of his three children.

There was plenty of attention focused on an expected day of reckoning set for a New York City courtroom, too: the sentencing of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Legal experts suggest he’ll get a virtual life term.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young. A cyclist rides past magnolias in bloom on Capitol Hill, March 3, 2009