He probably won’t run for New York governor but might for the U.S. Senate … or will he?
     
That’s the speculation swirling around Rudy Giuliani, the Republican former New York City mayor who walked tall after the Sept. 11 attacks and ran for U.S. president in 2008.
    
A spokeswoman says the 65-year-old former federal prosecutor has made no decisions.
    
But the New York Daily News, the New York Times  and the New York Post  all report that Giuliani has decided not to run for New York governor in 2010.
    
Analysts think he could defeat Democratic incumbent Governor David Paterson without much fuss. But overcoming a possible challenge from New York’s Democratic attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, could be have been difficult. Cuomo has not announced his candidacy.
    
The Daily News reports that Giuliani is strongly considering a Senate run against Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary Clinton’s term. Clinton, who lost in last year’s Democratic presidential nomination to Barack Obama, is now U.S. secretary of state.

The Daily News cites poll numbers showing Giuliani losing to Cuomo 53 percent to 43 percent in a race for governor,  but beating Gillibrand 54 percent to 40 percent for the Senate.

But the Senate speculation may not last long.

The New York Post quotes people close to Giuliani as saying a run for the Senate is unlikely.

And even the Daily News  seems to be hedging its bets with a story saying Giuliani doesn’t need to run for the Senate because he already has plenty of money and influence and a private life that’s working out just fine.
    
Giuliani ran for the Senate in a 2000 campaign that pitted him against Clinton. But events and declining poll numbers were against him and he withdrew after a quick succession of revelations: he had prostate cancer, he had a girlfriend, and he was separating from his second wife.
    
Giuliani has since beaten cancer, divorced his second wife, Donna Hanover, and married his former girlfriend, Judith Nathan.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder (Giuliani)

Like one of those grizzly bears way up yonder in Alaska, Sarah Palin was in hibernation for months while she wrote her book. And now that the book is out, she’s become unplugged.

The conservative firebrand, who says she was all “bottled up” by the John McCain staff on the campaign trail last year, is chock full of opinions and letting lose on all manner of subjects.

Let’s go over several of them.

The shootings at Fort Hood were “an act of terrorism” and authorities missed “massive warning flags” about the alleged shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, she said.

“And I think it was quite unfortunate that, to me, it was a fear of being politically incorrect, to not — I’m going to use the word — profile this guy, profile in the sense of finding out what his radical beliefs were,” she told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity.

Over at ABC News’ “Good Morning America,” Barbara Walters asked Palin what she would do about 10.2 percent unemployment if she were president.

“I’d start cutting taxes and allowing our small businesses to keep more of what they’re earning, more of what they’re producing, more of what they own and earn so that they can start reinvesting in their businesses and expand and hire more people,” Palin said.

President Barack Obama’s healthcare and energy plans are “back-assward ways of trying to fix the economy,” she said.

Turning to foreign policy, Palin disagreed with Obama’s pressure on Israel to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements.

“I disagree with the Obama administration on that. I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon,” she told Barbara Walters.

“Because that population of Israel is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead and I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand,” she said.

What about Obama’s lengthy quest for an Afghanistan strategy? Go ahead and send more troops, she said.

“It frustrates me and frightens me, and many Americans, that President Obama is dithering around with the decision in Afghanistan,” she said.

Hannity, on his radio show, asked Palin about the 2010 congressional elections, in which Republicans hope to rebound from 2006 and 2008 losses and cut into Democratic majorities in the U.S. Congress.

“There’s going to be a huge shift,” she said. “2010 is going to be an earthquake politically across our country because people are just as you are suggesting not putting a lot of hope in this Congress,” she said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Rebecca Cook (Palin autographs copies of her book “Going Rogue: An American Life” in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Nov. 18; Palin’s book tour bus)

A new poll by the Pew Research Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life suggests that concern about federal funding for abortion is very low on the list of factors driving opposition to President Barack Obama’s effort to overhaul America’s healthcare system.

The results of the poll, released on Thursday, show that just 3 percent of healthcare opponents cited abortion funding as their main reason for opposing congressional healthcare proposals.

The biggest reasons, cited by 27 percent of respondents to an open-ended question about their opposition, were that the overhaul would be too expensive and lead to higher deficits and taxes. Another 27 percent said they did not want government involvement in healthcare.

The nationwide poll of more than 1,000 Americans was conducted from Nov. 12 to 15.

The poll’s publication comes as the U.S. Senate prepares to begin debate on its version of a healthcare bill that does not include language approved earlier this month by the House that would strengthen the existing prohibition on using federal funds for abortion.

Many analysts say the abortion issue — which has been fanned by conservative evangelicals associated with the Republican Party and Catholic clergy whose flock lean to the Democratic Party — threatens to unravel Obama’s top domestic priority.

But the Pew poll highlights its apparently minor role in stirring opposition to the healthcare push which aims, among other things, to expand coverage to tens of millions of Americans who lack health insurance.

Has this hornet’s nest been opened by a vocal but very small minority of the U.S. public, which would appear to have more pressing concerns when it comes to healthcare?

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (Anti-abortion activist wears mirrored sunglasses and a piece of tape over his mouth in Washington, June 1, 2009)

She represented President George W. Bush before the world’s media and now is a commentator for Fox News. And she’s been quite a vocal critic of the current White House.

But he nominated her anyway.

President Barack Obama nominated his predecessor’s press secretary, Dana Perino, to the bipartisan Broadcasting Board of Governors.

We asked Perino about it, and she told us that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell put her name forward for the position.

“I was honored that Senator McConnell recommended me, and humbled when I found out it was accepted. I look forward to meeting the senators and to hopefully earning their support for confirmation.”

Yup, she still has to get the Senate’s stamp of approval.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Perino at White House daily press briefing in 2007)

President Barack Obama admits he has crossed the grey line.

In the well-worn tradition of those who entered the White House before him, the president’s hair has greyed. And it’s only his first year in office.

Perhaps not exactly the change he was hoping for.

“My hair has gotten a lot greyer because I was at the age where my hair was going to start getting grey. Having said all that, you know this has been an extraordinary year,” Obama said in an interview with NBC.

The economy, healthcare, Afghanistan war are all on his mind — “I would be lying if I said that those aren’t weighted questions that I carry around on my shoulders every day.”

As for questions about whether he is losing weight under the stress of the office, Obama says his weight is about the same.

“My weight fluctuates about five pounds - it has for the last 30 years, it’s unchanging, I still wear the same stuff when I got married 17 years ago,” the president told NBC.

(Perhaps it may be time to update the wardrobe?)

But after the initial splash of Obama’s round of TV interviews, the president still couldn’t command the obvious excitement on some of the morning TV shows that Sarah Palin’s book tour was about to begin.

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell was out near Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she talked about how some people had camped OVERNIGHT so they could get a wrist band so they could meet Palin.

ABC showed more of Barbara Walters interview with Palin.

And Hillary Clinton has landed in Afghanistan. It’s her first visit to the country as Secretary of State.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama in Shanghai this week), Reuters/Mike Segar (Obama when presidential candidate with former President Bill Clinton in September 2008)

President Obama has bowed his way into controversy yet again.

Pictures of the U.S. president bowing deeply to Japanese Emperor Akihito during a state visit to Japan have incensed some commentators, who say the U.S. head of state should not lower his head before foreign crowned heads.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, hit with questions about the bow at a regular news briefing, appeared stumped.

“I saw I’m sure for what it was intended, which is a sign of respect to the emperor. But I don’t have anything from the State Department on it,” Kelly told a news briefing.

Kelly dismissed reports that some critics have gone so far as to call the bow a sign of treason as “a bit extreme,” but said he would check into exactly what sort of protocol briefing the president gets before meeting foreign leaders overseas.

Obama has sparked critical comment with a bow before — there was some harrumphing after Obama lowered his head before Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah at a G20 meeting in April.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama greeted by Japan’s Emperor Akihito at Imperial Palace)

The depth or angle of U.S. President Barack Obama's bow -- and handshake -- with Japan's Emperor Akihito has become a heated on-line topic, with sides arching into political camps on whether the greeting went too far -- literally -- or was appropriate based on customs and culture.

I don't pretend to be an expert on bowing in Japan, but a few basic rules of thumb, or backbone, are: the more important a person you are greeting, the deeper and longer you bow, with hands generally at one's sides; and multiple purposes can be served by this act including greeting as well as displays of respect, recognition, apology or gratitude.

While no one called the president's bow an expression of apology or thanks, a number of blogs examined his and other U.S. leaders' historical bent in stooping to diplomatically conquer, with a few labelling the U.S. commander-in-chief "O-Bow-Ma".

The Fox network and the Los Angeles Times blog offered details of Obama's and other official U.S. greetings with the imperial family, including a photo of Vice President Dick Cheney shaking Akihito's hand, and one posted a comment that bowing and handshaking should not be done simultaneously.

A blog from ABC news Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper, citing an academic friend, says both sides have it wrong, as the bow was not over -- or under -- the top in precedence, although it did not display the cultural understanding intended, rather weakness in Japanese terms.

The Huffington Post, meanwhile, seeming to anticipate a "bow row" ahead, noted criticism Obama had already received for a greeting of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in April, with Republican Senators blasting him and the White House calling the president "bent over" to shake hands but not in a bow.

Rounding out coverage, Japan's Sankei Shimbun/MSN on-line carried news of the Fox report that Obama's bow was too low for a head of state as well as the comparison to Cheney's 2007 Akihito handshake, adding a slate of imperial photos with slightly different angles and framing.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Jim Young

Today seems a day of numbers: 8, 11, 5, 3000, 13. Put another way, more than 8 years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the brutally violated City of New York learns that 5 men accused in the deaths of the nearly 3,000 people will face an actual criminal trial — in New York.

Oh, yeah, and the news comes on Friday the 13th.

The lead defendant, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, initially confessed to masterminding the 2001 attacks that set the United States on the road to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he later told a Pentagon war crimes court that the interrogators “were putting many words in my mouth.” He also said he wants to be put to death and become a martyr.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will formally announce later today that KSM and four other defendants will be sent to New York City to stand trial for the attacks.

It’s part of President Barack Obama’s plan to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has long been a target of human rights allegations against the United States.

The proceedings in New York will be an important test of how a U.S. civilian court might handle cases involving detainees who were subjected to U.S. interrogation techniques that some describe as torture.

“I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it. My administration will insist on it,” Obama said in Tokyo where he was on a weeklong trip through Asia.

Survivors of those who died aboard the USS Cole in 2000 have waited longer for their day in court. But they also learned on Friday the 13th that the accused mastermind in that attack will be tried in military tribunals along with other suspects in the case.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo Credits: Reuters/Brad Rickerby (Twin Towers); Reuters/Janet Hamlin (KSM and Waleed bin Attash); Reuters/Aladin Abdel Naby (USS Cole)

The shooting rampage that killed 13 people at Fort Hood in which a Muslim Army psychiatrist is the suspected gunman has set off a chain of inquiries into who knew what when.

In the post-9/11 era, government officials want to show that they are doing everything they can to protect the public and, when something happens, that they will get to the bottom of it.

The FBI says there is no information that Major Nidal Malik Hasan was involved in a “broader terrorist plot.”

But that hasn’t stopped questions about whether authorities missed signs that could have somehow prevented the shooting.

U.S. officials say intelligence agencies learned that Hasan contacted an anti-American cleric in Yemen who was sympathetic to al Qaeda and relayed the information to law enforcement authorities, but it’s unclear whether any action was taken.

President Barack Obama has ordered an inventory of all intelligence in U.S. government files related to Hasan, and a review of how any intelligence was handled by government agencies.

Members of Congress are talking about launching congressional investigations.

It has only just begun.

Congressional inquiries are notorious for dragging out. The White House review will likely be done first.

But the bottom line in the usual Washington blame game is going to be finding who messed up.

After the Sept. 11 attacks and the large-scale revamping of U.S. intelligence operations in which a whole new entity was created — the  Director of National Intelligence — that is no small question.

“There is still a reluctance among different (intelligence and law enforcement) actors to share across what they consider to be their own turfs. It seems difficult to understand,” counterterrorism expert Evan Kohlmann said.

What do you think?

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Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (soldiers at Fort Hood memorial service), Reuters/Jessica Rinaldi (Obama at Fort Hood memorial ceremony)

A Republican-controlled Congress could be a real possibility for the second half of President Barack Obama’s four-year term, according to the latest Gallup poll.

The poll of 894 registered voters suggests Republicans would win the U.S. House of Representatives by 48 percent to 44 percent if the 2010 congressional election were held today.

The Republican lead is well within the poll’s 4 percentage point margin of error. But the results indicate that Republicans might have some momentum after gaining steadily on Democrats since July.

People who participated in the survey were asked only about their local House districts, so the results mean little for that other congressional chamber, the U.S. Senate.

It’s way too early to gauge the outcome of a congressional election that won’t be held until November 2010. The primaries that choose the parties’ respective candidates don’t even begin until early next year. And as Gallup points out, the poll measures only voter preference, not likely voter turnout. 

But a revival of Republican popularity could spell trouble for Obama, given that the GOP appeared to gain ground as the president’s main domestic priorities — healthcare and climate change reforms — gained public attention.  Meanwhile, Democrats slipped 6 percentage points overall and plunged 12 points among independent voters. 

Republicans would be in a very strong position to shut down much of Obama’s agenda if they won control of the House for 2011 and 2012. A Republican House would also pose a greater challenge for a 2012 Obama reelection campaign.

Tangible risks for Obama’s agenda could also lie closer at hand, if the whiff of electoral defeat encouraged enough Democrats today to avoid White House initiatives that might have political consequences tomorrow.

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Photo Credits: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (U.S. Capitol); Reuters/Jason Reed (House Republican leader John Boehner); Reuters/Jim Young (Obama)