Since the September 11 attacks, CIA officials have made it clear that to get the intelligence needed to stop terrorism attacks, U.S. intelligence agencies sometimes have to deal with “bad guys.”

The issue is again in the public eye again after The New York Times reported that the CIA has been regularly paying Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for at least eight years for services that included helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force. The newspaper report says that Ahmed Wali Karzai is a suspected player in the illegal opium trade, which he denies.

Senator John McCain told CBS “Early Show” yesterday: “I’d heard that rumor before. I think it’s wrong. It’s wrong of the CIA to do it and I’m sure our military commanders there would disagree with it.”

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One former intelligence official, who was not commenting specifically on the Karzai brother situation, said in general it would be worrisome if the debate restarts over whether the CIA should or should not do business with “tainted individuals” when trying to prevent harm to U.S. interests.

“I’ve seen that movie too many times before,” the former official said behind a cloak of  anonymity.

People cannot criticize the CIA on the one hand if it fails to get critical information in societies marked by corruption and, on the other, “express shock and dismay that it might deal with less-than-saintly individuals,” the official said.

What do you think? Is it OK for the CIA to deal with unsavory characters if it means U.S. interests are protected? Or is this a slippery slope?

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Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is striking back hard at her daughter’s ex-fiance, Levi Johnston, for what she called “mean-spirited, malicious and untrue attacks.”

Palin, and Johnston, who had a child out of wedlock with Palin’s daughter, Bristol, have been in a war of words since Levi and Bristol broke off plans to marry early this year.

Johnston appeared on CBS’ “Early Show” and repeated a charge he made in a recent Vanity Fair interview that Sarah Palin would often refer to her son with Down Syndrome, Trig Palin, as being “retarded.”

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Johnston also talked about his plans to appear nude in Playgirl magazine, saying it will be done tastefully.

“I’m not gonna just go out there and get naked,” he said.

All this comes as Palin prepares to issue her memoir next month, “Going Rogue, An American Life.” She resigned as Alaska governor last summer and remains popular with conservative voters after running as John McCain’s vice presidential candidate last year.

In a statement issued by her spokeswoman, Palin said she had tried to ignore the “mean spirited, malicious and untrue attacks on our family.”

“We, like many, are appalled at the inflammatory statements being made or implied. Trig is our ‘blessed little angel’ who knows it and is lovingly called that every day of his life. Even the thought that anyone would refer to Trig by any disparaging name is sickening and sad,” she said.

She also criticized CBS for giving Johnston publicity.

“CBS should be ashamed for continually providing a forum to propagate lies. Consider the source of the most recent attention-getting lies — those who would sell their body for money reflect a desperate need for attention and are likely to say and do anything for even more attention,” she said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Matt Sullivan (Sarah Palin waves in front of daughter Bristol and son Trig in August 2008)

The latest violence in Afghanistan may raise the drumbeat in Washington for a decision from President Barack Obama on whether to send more U.S. forces.

He’ll make remarks today at a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony, and could address the matter there. Plenty of other topics are on the front burner, though, including healthcare reform and overhauling financial regulation, to name just two.

Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican presidential rival in 2008, said the decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan should come soon. McCain told CBS television’s “Early Show”: “Overwhelmingly the military establishment and those who have had the experience of our success in Iraq know that the people there don’t want the Taliban back … and they want an environment of security. And we watch this situation continue to deteriorate while this long protracted process of decision-making goes on. We’re not operating in a vacuum. The president of the United States needs to make this decision and soon. Our allies are nervous and our military leadership is becoming frustrated.”

Afghanistan is clearly not the only focus of U.S. foreign policy concern. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Pakistan, pledging a fresh start in U.S.-Pakistani relations. Clinton’s visit came as a car bomb killed over 80 people in a crowded market.

Back in Washington, the struggle continues to get doses of swine flu vaccine to those most at risk. One top U.S. health official says the government may end up throwing away unused doses of the vaccine if people can’t get it fast enough.

And it’s raining. Again. Still.

One bright note: U.S. consumer confidence is on the rise for the first time since 2007.

Click here for more Reuters political coverage.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Ahmad Masood (Security forces around an international guest-house in Kabul after an attack by Taliban militants, October 28, 2009)

The Republican Party is in search of a message to attract voters who are angry with just about everything -- healthcare, the U.S. deficit, Wall Street bonuses, increased unemployment and home foreclosures to mention a few.

"There's a lot of anger out there and there's a lot of frustration," said Republican Senator John McCain, who was defeated by Democrat Barack Obama for president last year.

Thousands of people are turning up at townhall meetings and "tea party" protests against government policies, he noted.

"So there's something going on out there. And I'd love to sit here and tell you that we Republicans are attracting all of those unhappy people but we're not, we're not," McCain said at a Reuters Washington Summit.

"They're out there kind of in the middle and they haven't found a home. And in fact they haven't even channeled their anger yet," he said.

Many have swung into the Independent category -- "They're leaving the Democrats but they're not coming home to Republicans" -- because of the deficit increases during the previous 8 years of a Republican (George W. Bush) White House, McCain said.

"So they are not finding a message from the Republican Party that resonates with them, and so I think we're in one of the most interesting times politically in Amercia," he said.

One possible answer would be a return to a formula that worked when Republicans took control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years -- "Something like the Contract with America that we gave them in 1994, portray a far more positive agenda for America," McCain said.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Senator McCain at Reuters Washington Summit)

It sounded like a pretty sexy story — a clash of the titans between President Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain in the big White House meeting yesterday on Afghanistan.

But the McCain folks are pushing back against this notion that tempers were flaring between Obama and McCain as reported by major media outlets.

McCain has made no secret of what he feels is an urgent need to increase U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and he repeated that appeal in the meeting, saying he hopes the president will make his decision soon and “not in a leisurely fashion,” according to McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan.

News accounts of the exchange behind closed doors have said Obama responded curtly that he was not acting in a leisurely fashion, but McCain, as relayed by Buchanan, said Obama made the comment in his wrapup remarks and that he in no way sounded irritated.

Buchanan told us that McCain is “astonished” that this has been blown up into a big hullabaloo and that the senator appreciated that Obama had the entire congressional leadership over to the White House to discuss Afghanistan.

Our Caren Bohan checked in with a senior administration official who confirmed that Obama’s comment that the decision-making process “won’t be leisurely” was made in the president’s wrapup comments and not immediately after McCain spoke.

Democratic Senator Carl Levin responded more directly to McCain’s comments, according to the official. Levin said that Obama was entitled to take the time he needs to make the decision and he pointed out that President George W. Bush took three months to make a decision about whether to boost troops in Iraq.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (McCain speaking after Afghanistan meeting at White House), Reuters/Asmaa Waguih (U.S. Marines on patrol in Afghanistan)

Politicians have hit pay dirt in the National Football League, with some teams providing far more fertile turf than others.

The San Diego Chargers haven’t been much of a powerhouse on the field during the past 20 years.

But in the game of national politics, the Chargers have been a high-stakes participant, leading the league in campaign contributions during that time frame.

San Diego team owners, officials and players combined to contribute $2.4 million to U.S. congressional and presidential candidates since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions.

According to the center, that’s four times more than the next team, the Houston Texans, $623,456, followed by the Arizona Cardinals, $337,096, and Washington Redskins, $323,000.

With few exceptions, most of the money went to Republicans.

Officials and employees at The National Football League, however, favored Democrats. They gave $244,798 to the members of the party that now controls the White House and Congress, compared to $97,075 to Republicans.

Last year, the NFL, a multibillion-dollar enterprise, created a political action committee — Gridiron PAC.

They also opened an office in Washington, where they are better positioned to lobby members of Congress as well as the White House.

“Like any large business, a presence in Washington is a good thing to have,” said Jerry Miller, the NFL’s vice president for government relations and policy.

Miller made the comment in an interview with Capital Eye, a publication of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Miller was also quoted as saying that the NFL lobbies on a variety of issues that interest the league, including labor law, gambling and communications.

Last year, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was the recipient of contributions from a number of big names from the gridiron.

They included Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez, $4,600, Chicago Bears Coach Lovie Smith, $2,300, and Cincinnati Bengals safety Roy Williams, $2,300.

On the other side of the political field, Chargers coach Norv Turner gave $2,300 to Republican presidential candidate John McCain. Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid contributed the same amount to Mitt Romney, one of McCain’s vanquished challengers for the party’s presidential nomination.

An individual can’t contribute more than $2,300 to a candidate in the primary campaign and $2,300 in the general campaign.

NFL players could donate this year to one of their own.

Retired Buffalo Bill and Pittsburgh Steeler tight end Jay Riemersma is running for Congress as a Republican.

To see the Center’s full report and a listing of all the teams, click here.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell (Tony Gonzalez celebrates score in Sept. 13 football game)

President Barack Obama is abandoning a Bush administration plan to build a big, fixed U.S. missile defense in Eastern Europe.

The president announced the decision Thursday amid reports from Poland and the Czech Republic overnight that officials there had been informed about the final decision.

Instead of a fixed missile shield, the administration plans a more mobile defense aimed at short- and medium-range rockets.

The missile shield plan had angered Moscow and caused a chill in U.S.-Russian relations despite Washington’s insistence the program was aimed at Iran.

The Bush administration, which had been working on the plan for some time, officially signed the deal with Poland last year in a slap at Moscow for its war with Georgia.

Obama’s Republican rival for the White House, Senator John McCain, criticized the decision, saying it called into question the “security and diplomatic commitments the United States has made to Poland and the Czech Republic.”

House Republican Leader John Boehner said the decision “does little more than empower Russia and Iran at the expense of our allies in Europe.”

U.S. officials portrayed the decision as a shift based on new intelligence showing Iran is more focused on short- and medium-term rockets rather than intercontinental ballistic weapons capable of striking at the United States with nuclear warheads.

The decision would abandon the idea for big fixed installations in Poland for interceptor missiles and in the Czech Republic for a radar system, officials said. They would be replaced by systems the officials described as more versatile.

The missile defense announcement may overshadow developments on the healthcare front. Obama is pushing healthcare reform — his top domestic agenda — at a rally in Maryland later.

The push comes a day after Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus unveiled a healthcare overhaul bill after months of negotiations with Democratic and Republican colleagues — the so-called Gang of Six.

The 10-year, $856 billion plan did not include a public insurance alternative favored by Obama and many other Democrats. It was unclear whether it would win much Republican or Democratic support.

But Baucus portrayed it as a measure that could pass the Senate and would meet Obama’s goal of not adding to the the federal deficit.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office put the cost of the bill even lower — at $774 billion — and said it would shave $49 billion from the deficit over 10 years and cut the number of uninsured people by about 29 million.

Baucus meets with the congressional Democratic caucus to pitch his plan Thursday.

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Francois Lenoir (Protesters in Czech Republic demonstrate against U.S. missile defense shield plans in April)

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)

Republican Senator John McCain is clashing with Democratic Senator Carl Levin over Levin’s comments that he does not want to send additional troops to Afghanistan.

McCain, the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Reuters a surge is needed like was done in Iraq and that Levin’s recommendations remind him of how then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tried to fight the Iraq war — “He thought that we could win on the cheap and at one point the entire Iraqi army collapsed,” McCain said.

“So in all due respect to Senator Levin and the others, we have to have a significant troop increase, otherwise we’re going to lose.”

McCain also took a dim view of the Obama administration’s lengthy deliberations on the issue, calling it “slow-rolling the whole issue.”

As for White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’ comment that no decision should be expected for “many, many weeks,” McCain called that “kicking the can down the road.”

“And they’re doing a disservice to the brave men and women who are there now, because right now we’re not winning and therefore we are losing. And we are putting Americans in harm’s way without a strategy for victory,” he said.

What about polls saying Americans have doubts about the Afghanistan war?
“I understand their fatigue and I understood their fatigue before we changed the strategy in Iraq and we can win if we stay the course and we cannot afford to lose,” he said.

Photo credit: Reuters/stringer Afghanistan (McCain at Kabul airport in August)

Ted Kennedy’s polarizing political legacy was on full display on Wednesday as some U.S. conservatives showed little restraint in their hostility for the veteran liberal senator who died late on Tuesday. 

Conservative talk radio hosts blasted away at the policies of Kennedy, a towering figure in the Democratic Party and a standard bearer of liberal causes who died at age 77 after a lengthy battle with brain cancer.

Nationally syndicated talk show host Rush Limbaugh said the political left was “exploiting his death and his legacy” to advance President Barack Obama’s agenda for healthcare reform, which was also one of Kennedy’s signature issues.

“The greatest tribute would be that every American would get the same healthcare option that Ted Kennedy got. Ted Kennedy did not have to face death panels,” Limbaugh told his listeners, referring to persistent but incorrect rumours that, under the reforms now being debated, “death panels” would have a say in whether ailing senior citizens would get life-saving care.

Others took issue with a range of liberal causes linked to Kennedy, saying his policies had sullied his legacy in the conservative heartland.

“The entire Kennedy family was right on civil rights in the 1960s but ever since that it’s been about the perpetuation of the racism that is affirmative action,” said Mark Davis, a conservative talk radio host in Dallas.

“The Democratic Party has even gotten to the point now where they’re even wrong on civil rights so this is a tough legacy to muddle through.”

One woman called into his show asking if it was appropriate for Kennedy to have a “huge, Catholic mass” for his funeral because of his support for abortion rights.

In its article about Kennedy’s death, the Vatican newspaper praised him for his battles in favor of immigrant rights, gun control and higher minimum wages, but regretted his “unfortunate” support of abortion.

Other U.S. conservative responses took a distinctly different tone.

Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008, said: “…by the end of his life he had become irreplaceable in the institution he loved and in the affections of its members. He grew up in the long shadow of his brothers, but found a way to be useful to his country in ways that will outlast their accomplishments.” 

Photo credit: Reuters/Micah Walter (Radio show host Rush Limbaugh)