Washington awoke to a cool and rainy 9/11 today, so different from the brilliant sunshine that many recall from the day of the 2001 attacks at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and in an open field in Pennsylvania.

To mark the anniversary, President Barack Obama, the first lady and White House staff observed a moment of silence on the South Lawn at 8:46 a.m., the time when the first hijacked plane hit the first tower in New York City. Next is a presidential wreath-laying and remarks at the Pentagon Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery.

The Obamas are slated to participate in a “service event” later in the day, part of a move to make the 9/11 anniversary a day of public service. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a commemoration ceremony in lower Manhattan. Secretary of State speaks at the first Annual 9/11 National Day of Service and Remembrance in New York. The National Museum of the Marine Corps marks the anniversary with a new exhibit “dedicated to the historic day and the global war on terrorism.”

This year, 9/11 feels like an appropriate moment to pause, a break from the sturm and drang of politics and policy-making. Fights over healthcare reform, how to fix the economy and curb climate change can wait for at least a moment.

Somehow, it brings to mind the words of Carl Sandburg, writing about memory and healing in a poem about how battlefields recover. Sandburg wrote of the battles at Gettysburg and Waterloo, and how time and grass cover up the raw pain of these places. The sites of 9/11, grass-covered or not, could easily apply.

“Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.”

See the whole poem here.

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Photo credits: REUTERS/Molly Riley (A rose is laid at the Pentagon memorial, December 9, 2008)
REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (Freedom Tower section of World Trade Center construction site, Sept 9, 2009)

First lady Michelle Obama should be able to strong-arm just about anyone with those sculpted biceps that have been the talk of the town.

Women’s Health magazine has let the cat out of the bag about how Obama achieved those upper arms that she confidently bares and are the envy of the scared-sleeveless set.

Cornell McClellan, Obama’s personal trainer, tells the magazine it took 1,872 workouts since 1997, most of them at 5:30 a.m. (hmm let’s weigh the options — sleep or muscles, sleep or muscles, sleep…)

And the workout might include lunges, bench presses, hip raises, rope-jumping, kickboxing, and calisthenics (we’re exhausted at the thought, time for a latte).

Perhaps President Barack Obama could use his wife’s well-toned arms in the weeks ahead to turn the tide his way — think headlocks on naysayers to healthcare reform.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Michelle Obama flexes arms in response to joke about her habit of wearing sleeveless dresses)

For those who may have missed it — and don’t laugh, there could be quite a few who did — there’s a new Supreme Court justice in town. After months of speculation, debate, a Capitol Hill grilling and finally a vote to confirm her, Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the first Latina and only the third woman to serve on the U.S. high court.

The problem, for public-awareness purposes, is that it happened on Saturday in an eye-blink ceremony in a conference room at the Supreme Court building. That was a departure from decades of tradition that has dictated a White House oath-taking for new justices, reportedly on President Barack Obama’s say-so.

That doesn’t mean Sotomayor won’t get her time at the White House. That happens this morning in an East Room reception hosted by the president and first lady Michelle Obama.

It’s a busy day for official honors at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. This afternoon, there will be a ceremony to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Senator Ted Kennedy, human rights leader Bishop Desmond Tutu, tennis great Billie Jean King and actor and activist Sidney Poitier, among others. See the complete list here.

The most controversial recipient is probably Mary Robinson, the former U.N. high commissioner for human rights and an organizer of an anti-racism conference in South Africa in 2001. The U.S. delegation walked out of that conference and pro-Israel groups and others have criticised its concluding document as anti-Semitic and equating Zionism with racism. John Bolton, Washington’s U.N. representative during the Bush administration, said flatly in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that Robinson should not receive the award.

Could there be protests in this most decorous of locations, at what is normally — forgive our jaded sensibilities — a heart-warming but often dull ceremony? Stay tuned.

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Photo credits: REUTERS/Jim Young (Sonia Sotomayor is sworn in as associate Supreme Court justice, August 8, 2009); REUTERS/Fahad Shadeed (Mary Robinson speaks at the 3rd Global Competitiveness Forum, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 25, 2009)

President Barack Obama may run the country, but when it comes to the Obama household, he seems to suspect somebody else is in charge. 
 
Answering healthcare questions Tuesday at a forum sponsored by the retirees group AARP, the president suggested the first lady did the talking in his house.
 
Moderator: We go next to North Carolina for a question we had all week last week. I think every town hall had this one. It’s from Colin. And, Colin, go ahead and ask this question.  Go ahead, Colin.
 
Mary: This is his wife, Mary.
 
Obama: Hi, Mary.
 
Mary: Hi.

Obama: What happened to Colin?
 
Mary: Well, I’m the one they talked to.
 
Obama: I got you. That’s how it is in my house, too. 
 
The president traveled to a Kroger grocery store in Bristol, Virginia, on Wednesday to stand next to strawberries and raspberries in the fruit section and talk about healthcare reform to 180 gathered employees and guests.
 
“They don’t let me do my own shopping, but I miss it,” he said. “So I may pick up some fruit on the way out.”
 
“I don’t want to … talk too long,” Obama added, “because I do have to take some questions from you, and also Michelle’s probably e-mailing me about grabbing some milk on the way home.”
 
In the end he did buy a piece of fruit — something that looked like a peach but may have been a nectarine. 

No word on the gallon of milk.
 
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Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (Obama talking healthcare in the fruit section at Kroger’s; Obama taking a bite of fruit)

Within minutes of President Barack Obama’s arrival in Saudi Arabia today, a recording by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was played on Al Jazeera television. U.S. television networks showed Air Force One landing in Riyadh and the first images of Obama greeting Saudi King Abdullah, the audio recording from bin Laden took aim. The militant leader accused the Obama administration of “planting seeds for hatred and revenge.”

It was a rough beginning to what could be a challenging visit to the Middle East and Europe by Obama. He spends tonight at the Saudi monarch’s farm, then flies to Cairo tomorrow for a much-previewed address to the Muslim world. He then travels to Germany and finally to France to commemorate D-Day, returning to Washington on Saturday.

There’s a full cast of characters testifying today on Capitol Hill. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke appears before the House Budget Committee on challenges facing the economy. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu talks to a panel of the House Appropriations Committee. And executives from GM and Chrysler testify before the Senate Commerce Committee on protecting auto dealers and consumers after the closure of hundreds of car dealerships at both companies.

At the White House, Michelle Obama has invited Nancy Reagan to lunch. The former first lady is in town for the unveiling of a statue of her late husband, Ronald Reagan, at the U.S. Capitol.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Larry Downing (Arrival in Riyadh)

Campaigning for the White House last year, Barack Obama promised his wife, Michelle, he would take her to a Broadway show when he won. Four months after becoming president, Obama did just that on Saturday. 

The Obamas flew to New York for dinner in Greenwich Village and a Broadway play. 

“I am taking my wife to New York City because I promised her during the campaign that I would take her to a Broadway show after it was all finished,” Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

The Obamas did not travel to New York in the Boeing 747 Jumbo jet used as Air Force One. They flew in a smaller Gulfstream 500 plane to JFK airport, before hopping into Manhattan on the Marine One helicopter.

A casual Obama wore a dark business suit with no tie, Michelle a black cocktail dress dress, her famous arms bared, and black high-heel shoes.

They dined at the Blue Hill restaurant in Washington Square and later saw the play “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” by August Wilson at the Belasco Theater.

Their motorcade’s path to the theater was lined with people waving, shouting greetings and taking photographs.

Photo by REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (The Obamas board a small jet at Andrews Air Force Base)

U.S. first lady Michelle Obama told an audience at the U.S. mission to the United Nations that she was “thrilled” to be back in New York for the first time since her husband Barack Obama became the 44th U.S. president in January. But she said some things are even more exciting than addressing an audience of 150 U.S. diplomats, military advisers and other government officials.

“I’m thrilled to be here but I was just at ‘Sesame Street’, I’m sorry,” she said, referring to the long-running U.S. children’s television program. “I never thought I’d be on ‘Sesame Street’ with Elmo and Big Bird and I was thrilled. I’m still thrilled. I’m on a high. I think it’s probably the best thing I’ve done so far in the White House.”

One of the biggest rounds of applause during the first lady’s 20-minute appearance at the U.S. mission in midtown Manhattan came when she read a letter the son of one of the mission staffers, Scott Turner, recently sent to the president.  According to Michelle Obama, Turner’s son Jack, a first grader,  wrote to the president:

“Dear Mr. Obama - Can you move to New York? Because people like you in New York. I will help you come to New York and people are doing bad stuff in New York. I will help you get the bad people and when I catch the bad people I will put them in jail. That’s why I want you to move to  New York. From Jack.”

The first lady said she had already found a job for Jack: “Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have identified the new future New York Police Commissioner. Jack is on the case.”

Michelle Obama also thanked a group of 40 employees of the U.S. mission in the audience who have been working for the U.S. government for more than 20 years. One of them, Ivan Ferber, has been with the U.S. mission for 47 years, which she said is “longer than I’ve been alive.”

In sharp contrast to the administration of former President George W. Bush, whose officials were often dismissive and critical of the United Nations and other multilateral organizations, Michelle Obama emphasized that the new administration felt it was vitally important to work with allies.

“As the president has said, the United States is pursuing a new era of engagement when it comes to advancing America’s interests around the world,” she said. “This new policy recognizes that the fact that America’s future is intricately linked to the rest of the world, that the threats facing the global community know no borders and no single country can tackle them alone. We’ve learned this again with the recent
outbreak of the H1N1 virus.”

The first lady also spoke about the important tasks facing U.S. diplomats working with the United Nations to bring aid to the developing world. “Your work links the world to America and American ideals that are beacons of hope for millions of people,” she said.

“The young boy who’s forced to carry a rifle and become a child soldier — he’s counting on you,” she said. “The girl locked out of the schoolhouse or attacked because she had the audacity to want to learn to read or write — she’s counting on you. The mother walking hours each day to find clean water for her children — she’s counting on you. And the father who leaves his family for months or years on end in search of work — he’s counting on you as well.”

The first lady suggested that she, too, might want to get involved in working with poorer countries around the world, but she did not provide any specifics.

It was unlikely that President Barack Obama, a big basketball fan, was going to miss the seventh and final game of a hard fought NBA playoff series between his hometown Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics on Saturday night.  
 
But it happened to fall on one of the regular “date nights” that the U.S. leader had promised First Lady Michelle Obama upon their arrival in Washington in January. 
 
Solution: an early dinner at French restaurant Michel Richard Citronelle in Georgetown. A 14-vehicle Presidential motorcade pulled up outside the swanky restaurant, drawing hundreds of onlookers and blocking traffic as the upscale area’s Saturday night party scene got underway.  
 
The restaurant is one of Washington’s most exclusive eateries. A table was not available on its online booking system until May 29, and that was before the Obamas appearence made headlines and was widely Twittered. After the U.S. leader dined with Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty at Ben’s Chili Bowl in January, the landmark DC institution had queues outside for weeks. 
 
Although Citronelle’s website boasts that Conde Nast Traveler magazine called it “one of the world’s most exciting restaurants,” Washington Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsema was not so flattering in an October 2008 review. 
 
“Throughout a recent dinner at what used to be a four-star experience, an unmistakable joylessness courses through the fading underground dining room that bears the name of one of the country’s most esteemed chefs,” Sietsema wrote http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/restaurants/michel-richard-citronelle,795996.html#editorial-review 
 
Nonetheless, Sietsema added in his review that Richard and his staff still put on an impressive show. “I adore Citronelle’s tomato tart, which springs from a pastry base (and cucumber gelee) like a colorful bouquet. And sablefish marinated with sake, miso and mirin before hitting the broiler is about as good as that creature gets.” 
 
Like clockwork, two hours after departing the White House, the Obamas’ 14-vehicle motorcade departed cheering crowds in Georgetown and arrived home apparently in time for the Bulls-Celtics 8 p.m. tip-off. 
 
The President then took the First Lady for a brief stroll across the White House grounds, waving to photographers. Game Night could now begin. 
 
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It was unlikely that President Barack Obama, a big basketball fan, was going to miss the seventh and final game of a hard fought NBA playoff series between his hometown Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics on Saturday night. 
 
But it happened to fall on one of the regular “date nights” that the U.S. leader had promised to First Lady Michelle Obama upon their arrival in Washington in January. 
 
Solution: an early dinner at French restaurant Michel Richard Citronelle in Georgetown. A 14-vehicle Presidential motorcade pulled up outside the swanky restaurant, drawing hundreds of onlookers and blocking traffic as the upscale area’s Saturday night party scene got underway. 
 
The restaurant is one of Washington’s mostexclusive eateries. A table was not available on its online booking system until May 29, and that was before the Obamas’ appearence made headlines and was widely Twittered. After the U.S. leader dined with Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty at Ben’s Chili Bowl in January, the landmark DC institution had queues outside for weeks.
 
Although Citronelle’s website boasts that Conde Nast Traveler magazine called it “one of the world’s most exciting restaurants,” Washington Post restaurant critic Tom Sietsema was not so flattering in an October 2008 review.
 
“Throughout a recent dinner at what used to be a four-star experience, an unmistakable joylessness courses through the fading underground dining room that bears the name of one of the country’s most esteemed chefs,” Sietsema wrote http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/restaurants/michel-richard-citronelle,795996.html#editorial-review
 
Nonetheless, Sietsema added in his review that Richard and his staff still put on an impressive show. “I adore Citronelle’s tomato tart, which springs from a pastry base (and cucumber gelee) like a colorful bouquet. And sablefish marinated with sake, miso and mirin before hitting the broiler is about as good as that creature gets.”
 
Like clockwork, two hours after departing the White House, the Obamas’ 14-vehicle motorcade departed cheering crowds in Georgetown and arrived home apparently in time for the Bulls-Celtics 8 p.m. tip-off. 
 
The President then took the First Lady for a brief stroll across the White House grounds, waving to photographers. Game Night could now begin.

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Just as the cherry tree blossoms pass their peak and not long after the Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn, there’s another hallowed Washington spring tradition: Take Your Child To Work Day. That’s when Type A parents with Type A jobs bring their kids to the office to give them some idea of what Mom and Dad do for a living — and that includes people who work at the White House, the State Department and on Capitol Hill.

First Lady Michelle Obama hosts the under-age crowd at the White House, with an event in the East Room at mid-morning. Her husband, President Barack Obama, is expected to be otherwise engaged then, and later is set to meet with credit card company executives, and it might not be suitable for children: presidential aides have labeled some of the companies’ practices “abusive.”

At the State Department, Secretary Hillary Clinton welcomes the kids at an event that, in keeping with discreet diplomacy, is closed to the press. Children and their working parents are also expected to visit Capitol Hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is an enthusiastic supporter of the event.

Another sign of spring in the U.S. capital is the blossoming of flamboyant real estate on the market. The Washington Post reports that a grand mansion called Evermay, in the city’s tony Georgetown section, is going for a bargain price. Listed last year at $49 million, the estate can now be had for $39.5 million.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/Jim Bourg, American Express and MasterCard credit cards, June 25, 2008