To hear spokesman Robert Gibbs describe it, President Barack Obama’s White House is a mighty civil place to work.

Even when formulating Afghan war strategy, for instance, the president, his generals and his advisers do not argue. Or apparently even forcefully state their views.

This despite their known differences in position, with Afghan war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal seeking up to 40,000 more troops and Vice President Joe Biden wanting to maintain current troop levels while intensifying attacks on al Qaeda.

The president held one of a series of war strategy sessions Wednesday at the White House.

Asked beforehand whether the different advisers were likely to argue their specific points of view, spokesman Robert Gibbs expressed surprise at the suggestion.

“You know, this may not be good TV, but there really weren’t any arguments in the last three-hour meeting,” he told a briefing. “There was a larger discussion of where we are and what we need to do going forward. So I — I can’t predict who’s going to yell at who…”

“I’m not talking about yelling,” the questioner said, but “forcefully stating.” For example, they way McChrystal did when he spoke publicly in London in favor of troop increases.

Gibbs said he expected “firm analysis” rather than any forceful stating.

And what was Obama’s role at these sessions? Did he sit quietly acting as a sort of judge and jury while the advisers presented their arguments?

“I think you’re thinking of that great movie version of Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Gibbs responded. “But … I don’t quite see the movie setting that you’ve described.”

During the last strategy session, he said, “nobody raised their voice … there was just a sort of calm discussion about where we are.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Obama at a White House event Wednesday)

Republican Mike Castle ended months of speculation on Tuesday by saying he will run to fill U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s unexpired Senate term from Delaware.

The announcement raised again the questions: Will Biden’s son, Beau, run for it, too? And if so, when will Beau announce?

Beau Biden recently returned from a nearly year-long deployment in Iraq as a member of the Delaware National Guard. He is back at his job as Delaware’s elected attorney general.

The younger Biden has been widely expected to seek the Senate seat ever since his dad vacated it to become vice president. The seat is now held by Ted Kaufman, a former Joe Biden staffer, who has said he will not run to finish the term that expires in 2014.

A campaign between Beau Biden and Castle — a nine-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives and a former Delaware governor — would likely set up one of the most hotly contested and expensive Senate races in the nation.

Stakes are high.

The contest will help determine if Democrats retain their 60-vote majority in the 100-member Senate — one big enough to clear Republican procedural hurdles.

Thirty-eight Senate seats are up for re-election next year, 19 now held by Republicans, the other 19 by Democrats.

In announcing his intention to run, Castle said: “It has never been more important for Delaware to have the strongest and most experienced leadership to represent us in Washington.”

The non-partisan Cook Political Report lists the Senate race as a “tossup.”

But the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, following Castle’s announcement, moved its classification of the contest from “safe for Democrats” to “lean takeover” by Republicans.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Biden at hearing when he was chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2007)

Matt Latimer, who used to make a living writing speeches for former President George W. Bush, has decided to let loose in a book under his own name that describes the White House as more like the TV show “The Office” and less like “The West Wing.”

In excerpts of his book “Speech-Less” appearing in the October issue of GQ magazine, out on newsstands Sept. 22, Latimer says Bush had something unflattering to say about the leaders of the pack running to win the White House in last year’s election.

(We obtained, and more importantly, read all the excerpts to be published in GQ. There is some discussion about the plan to boost the economy which we leave you to read in the magazine or book).

According to Latimer, Bush believed Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee in the 2008 presidential election and quotes the former president as saying “Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk,” although the speechwriter-turned-book-writer says Bush didn’t say “keister” (guess he’s urging us to use our imagination).

“He didn’t think much of Barack Obama,” Latimer writes. He recalls an occasion when Bush was fuming that it was a dangerous world, and quotes the president as saying, “and this cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.”

On Joe Biden, according to Latimer, Bush had a one-liner he liked to tell: “If bull—- was currency (pause), Joe Biden would be a billionaire.”

Of the Republicans running for president, Latimer opines that Bush liked Mitt Romney best and was uneasy about John McCain.

The writer recounts an incident in which Bush was to attend a McCain campaign event that suddenly was closed to the press.

“If he doesn’t want me to go, fine,” Bush is quoted as saying. “I’ve got better things to do.”

(McCain kept the unpopular Bush at arms-length during last year’s campaign).

When McCain surprised everyone with his vice presidential pick of then-Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Latimer says Bush called the choice “interesting” and then quotes the president as saying with eyes twinkling that he was trying to remember if he’d met her before, “What is she, the governor of Guam?”

Bush’s current spokesman had no comment on Latimer’s book.

But Bush’s former spokeswoman, Dana Perino, told Reuters that while she hadn’t read the book, “I think that most people who worked in the White House would be hard pressed to pick this guy out of a line-up.”

She adds: “He wasn’t around the president much, and some of what he says the president said doesn’t ring true to me. For example, I was there outside the Oval when Sarah Palin was announced as the VP candidate and the president said to me, ’so, the Governor of Alaska was the pick? I just saw her a few weeks ago when we were on our way to China’.”

Perino also said she doesn’t recall Bush saying anything about anyone’s keister. “I’m not sure how people who write these books really feel about themselves. Oh well,” she says.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Pool (Obama and Bush at the Capitol on inauguration day), Reuters/Brian Snyder (Bush and McCain at Kennedy’s funeral)

President Barack Obama courts autoworkers in Ohio and union leaders in Pennsylvania on Tuesday.

Obama meets workers at a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, and later addresses a convention of the AFL-CIO labor federation in Pittsburgh.

Vice President Joe Biden is in Iraq for visits with U.S. troops and Iraqi leaders.

Back in Washington, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefs lawmakers on the war in Afghanistan.

And Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus is still pushing to finalize his panel’s proposal for reforming the U.S. healthcare system this week.

A USA Today poll published on Tuesday showed Americans split over healthcare reform, even after Obama’s pitch to a joint session of Congress last week. The poll said 50 percent favored reform and 47 percent opposed it.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Tuesday Obama is committed to getting the U.S. fiscal house in order once the economy is on a solid footing.

He said Obama could do that without breaking his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on people earning less than $250,000 per year.

“We can get our fiscal house in order, we can go back as a country to a point where we’re living within our means, without violating that fiscal commitment,” Geithner told ABC’s “Good Morning America” program.

Geithner said the U.S. economy was not yet in a real recovery.

“We define recovery, and the president will define a recovery, as people back to work, people able to get a job again, business investing again,” he said. “And we are not at the point where we can say that yet.”

He said the administration was eager to unwind the huge investments it made in U.S. banks, automakers and other businesses as it struggled to prevent economic collapse.

“The government had to do some deeply offensive things to help contain the damage,” he said. “And we will get out of that as quickly as we can.”

“We’re not going to keep a penny in the financial system or in the U.S. economy longer than we think is absolutely necessary,” Geithner said, but he acknowledged it would take more than a year.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer told CNN that Geithner was to blame for the problem because he did not act as an effective regulator of New York’s financial institutions while he was head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

“The New York Fed is what got us to where we are because they permitted this leverage,” Spitzer said. “Tim Geithner, when he was up for secretary of the Treasury, said, ‘I have never been a regulator.’ He didn’t understand what his job was as president of the New York Fed.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (Presidential candidate Obama addresses autoworkers Feb. 13, 2008, in Wisconsin); Reuters/Hyungwon Kang (Protesters pester Geithner at a congressional hearing Sept. 10, 2009)

Vice President Joe Biden is offering some encouraging words for those who would like to know how much it costs the government to build, for instance, a toilet at Yellowstone National Park, home of the “Old Faithful” geyser and lots of critters such as grizzly bears.

(Remember those stories back when about $800 hammers…)

Biden gave a really long speech about the economic stimulus bill at the Brookings Institution and then, yay, took some questions from the audience.

During the Q and A, Biden said he has asked for a handbook to be developed to determine the efficiency of every government program that is administered from Washington in order to increase accountability and transparency.

Which brings us to the Yellowstone example.

“If you were to try to determine whether or not the toilet in Yellowstone Park in a rest area had actually been built and how much it cost and how many people it employed and you went to the Interior Department, you couldn’t find that answer. You can now. You can now. We’ve never done this before. We’ve never followed the dollars like we’re following now.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Kai Pfaffenbach (picture of toilet roll made of paper money)

Tributes to Senator Edward Kennedy are pouring in after the 77-year-old pillar of the Democratic Party lost his battle with brain cancer. A schedule of events to remember the “Lion” of the Senate will be posted on www.tedkennedy.org as arrangements are finalized.

Here are some of the tributes and lessons learned from Kennedy’s statesmanship.

Crossing party lines: “The Kennedy name is synonymous with the Democratic Party.  And at times, Ted was the target of partisan campaign attacks.  But in the United States Senate, I can think of no one who engendered greater respect or affection from members of both sides of the aisle,” President Barack Obama said. “He could passionately battle others and do so peerlessly on the Senate floor for the cause that he held dear, and yet still maintain warm friendships across party lines.”

Staying idealistic: “He and I were talking after his diagnosis.  And I said, I think you’re the only other person I’ve met, who like me, is more optimistic, more enthusiastic, more idealistic, sees greater possibilities after 36 years than when we were elected.  He was 30 years-old when he was elected; I was 29 years-old,” Vice President Joe Biden said of his former Senate colleague.

Inspiring others: “Every day I look at the portrait of his brother Robert that hangs in my office and I am reminded that the Kennedy family has shown to America, through its actions, the importance of fighting for what is right even in the face of difficult odds,” Attorney General Eric Holder said. “I would not be in the office I now hold were it not for their contributions and commitment to our nation.”

Keeping promises: “Many will recall his convivial nature, his humor, his thoughtfulness. We will praise as his greatest strength the integrity of his word. When he made a promise to you, he kept it, no matter what,” Republican Senator John McCain said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (flag over U.S. Capitol flies at half staff for Kennedy)

If you thought the Obama administration’s $787 billion economic stimulus program was meant to provide one big jolt to the economy, you’ve got it all wrong, Vice President Joe Biden says.

“The act was intended to provide steady support for our economy over an extended period — not a jolt that would last only a few months,” he wrote in an op-ed piece in Sunday’s New York Times.

More than a third of it is tax cuts for 95 percent of working Americans, he says. Another chunk of it goes for extended unemployment insurance and healthcare for those hardest hit by the recession.

“The bottom line is that two-thirds of the Recovery Act doesn’t finance ‘programs,’ but goes directly to tax cuts, state governments and families in need, without red tape or delays,” Biden says.

The final third of the funds goes for infrastructure projects, including what the vice president calls the “largest investment in roads since the creation of the Interstate highway system.”

So no big economic jolt — more of a big long-run infusion.

But hang on, says Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. That’s not how the Obama administration sold the package to the public.

President-elect Obama said in November there was consensus among conservative and liberal economists that “we need a big stimulus package that will jolt the economy back into shape.”

At the end of March, Biden told a gathering in Chile the recently passed Recovery Act “provides a necessary jolt to our economy to implement what we refer as ’shovel-ready projects.”

And as late as June, he was telling business leaders in New York the stimulus package was “an initial big jolt to give the economy a real head start.”

Stewart suggests the vice president’s op-ed is aimed at resetting “the purpose of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill, I guess to help explain why unemployment continues to go up.”

But Biden isn’t the first to say the stimulus was a longer-term program. The White House back in May referred to the Recovery Act as a two-year program.

And Obama said in his weekly radio address a couple of weeks ago it “was not designed to work in four months — it was designed to work over two years.”

So what do you think? Is the administration changing its tune on how fast the stimulus was expected to work?

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Photo credit: Reuters/David Mdzinarishvili (Biden speaking to the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi July 23)

Did President Barack Obama step on his own healthcare message last night?

Morning TV shows led with his comments about  black Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates who was arrested after trying to get into his own home.

Obama said police acted “stupidly,” a comment likely to lose him some friends in law enforcement, and that the incident was a reminder the race issue “still haunts us.”

It was a brand new comment from the president on a hot-button issue: race relations in America.

So how could the healthcare comments, which dominated the nearly hour-long news conference, compete? They ended up playing second fiddle because it was the same pitch heard over and over recently.

Next week will be crunchtime to see if Congress will give the new president a feather for his cap by voting on healthcare legislation before the August recess.

No foreign policy questions at the news conference. Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Tbilisi, Georgia, was not overlooked by Russia which is doing some saber-rattling over it today.

Closer to home, Obama keeps pressing on healthcare today with a trip to Cleveland. His popularity has taken a bit of a drubbing in Ohio, so watch for the reception.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama gestures at news conference)

With President Barack Obama off in Italy during a weeklong diplomatic foray, Vice President Joseph Biden has the stage on Wednesday for an announcement of the administration’s agreement with the hospital industry for $155 billion in savings over a decade to help pay for a planned healthcare overhaul.

For Biden, it is a rare chance to gain the administration spotlight by design, rather than because of his famously loose lips and periodic departures from the Team Obama script.

He strayed again over the weekend when he told ABC News the administration misread the economy upon entering office. Obama, in a round of interviews with U.S. television networks on Tuesday, was forced to backtrack and explain those comments.

Biden’s expertise is in foreign policy, not domestic issues such as healthcare, and Obama has acknowledged as much by giving him the lead in dealing with Iraq and a prominent role on issues like Russian relations. Biden kicked off his role in Iraq with a surprise visit there over the July 4th holiday weekend.

The announcement on the hospital deal, which follows a deal with drug makers, comes as the administration hunts for ways to cover the cost of a healthcare overhaul with an expected price tage of at least $1 trillion.

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)