The children of embassy staff greet President Obama at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, China, Nov. 17, 2009 (Pete Souza)
USA Today: It’s largely a ceremonial day for President Obama, as he welcomes a wounded veterans bicycle ride to the White House (live here at 3:15). After that, Obama meets in the Oval Office with Prince Charles of Britain. Behind the scenes, Obama will be trying to make a tough decision: Whether to release gruesome photos of the deceased Osama bin Laden.
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CBS: A new CBS News/New York Times poll shows President Obama’s overall approval rating has jumped by an impressive 11 percentage points in the wake of the U.S. military mission which killed Osama bin Laden, and there is overwhelming support for how Mr. Obama handled the situation….
…The poll found that 57 percent of Americans generally approve of Mr. Obama in the wake of the raid in Pakistan. Two weeks ago, when bin Laden was still America’s most-wanted terrorist, the president’s overall approval rating was at 46 percent. A whopping 85 percent of those polled gave Mr. Obama high marks for his handling of the operation to find bin Laden.
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NYT: Support for President Obama has risen sharply following the killing of Osama bin Laden by American military forces in Pakistan, with a majority now approving of his overall job performance, as well as his handling of foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and the threat of terrorism, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.
…..The increase in Mr. Obama’s ratings came largely from Republicans and independents. Among independents, his approval rating increased 11 points from last month, to 52 percent, while among Republicans it rose 15 points, to 24 percent. Among Democrats, 86 percent supported his job performance, compared with 79 percent in April.
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Steve Benen: President Obama will travel to Lower Manhattan, visiting Ground Zero and meeting with families of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Some on the right, including Fox News personalities, have argued that the president should bring George W. Bush along as a “nice gesture.”
As it turns out, Obama extended an invitation to his predecessor. Bush declined. …”President Bush will not be in attendance on Thursday,” said his spokesman, David Sherzer. “He appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight. He continues to celebrate with Americans this important victory in the war on terror.”
….given that Obama was gracious enough to extend the invitation in the first place, maybe the political establishment can get past the whole “Obama’s a big meanie towards Bush” theme?
The Obama Diary 
GOOD MORNIN’ CHIPS!!!! THANKS FOR THE PIC…THE CHILDREN ARE BEAUTIFUL…OBVIOUSLY LOOKING UP AT A GREAT PRESIDENT WITH AWE AND WONDER. AS FOR THOSE POLL NUMBERS…PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS ALWAYS BEEN ‘NUMERO UNO’ IN MY BOOK AND THERE IS NO WAY YOU CAN PLACE A PERCENTILE ON ‘EXCEPTIONAL.’
I DO HOPE THE MEDIA GETS OFF THE BIN LADEN PHOTO DISCUSSION. WE ARE NOT THE TYPE OF COUNTRY THAT NEEDS TO PEDAL THE FACE OF A DEAD MAN. WE NEED TO MOVE FORWARD…HUG THE SURVIVING FAMILIES OF 9/11 AND GET ON WITH THE MAJOR ISSUES IN THIS COUNTRY! GOD BLESS OUR AWESOME PRESIDENT!
testing
Testing, 1, 2,3……Hello, how are you? 😉
Lisa, are you malfunctioning today? 😆
In tip-top shape Ms. Chips, tip-top 😉
Although this Is good news, It’s just far too early to get a more true rating. I’m sure It will be up and down, between now and November 2012. However, It does put a smile on our faces for now 🙂 Great job President Obama 🙂
Good morning Obamacrats. Have a great day. It’s rainy here in D.C.
no going out for me today.
Good morning, CK! Since you’re not going out, please hold the fort for me as I have a worshop I signed up for previously. Lovely picture, Chipsticks! As always I love to see the way children and the President interact with each other. Steve B – the political establishment won’t get past their meme. They’ll just shift it to ‘The President should have insisted on GB’s presence’, ‘Prez O didn’t word the invitation correctly’, ‘Yada, yada.’ We know they will NEVER be satisfied. In truth, IMO, they, along with their positions, are too WEAK to be able to confront opposition in a dignified way, so they have to use red herrings. They have no constructive arguments, period.
Oops! I’ve got to run or I’ll be late! Later!
I will trade you. We are expecting it to hit 99 today and 100 tomorrow here in Phoenix.
Is it just me or can anyone else NOT WAIT for the election debates to start and for PBO to DECIMATE whichever idiot who runs against him?
Ps- Santorum and Huntsman filed and they are waiting to see if Daniels will too. I can honestly say the only Repug I am concerned about is Rubio, because of self- evident reasons that have nothing to do with politics- which by the way is why I’m worried. Even though Rubio has said he won’t run, I won’t believe it till the election is over in 2012.
So Huntsman has declared??? Backstabbing turncoat doesn’t stand a chance. Hmph! *spits*
—-PJ (still boycotting the news media…except for Lawrence O’Donnell…for now :-))
So said Chuck on The Rundown. Who knows. I thought last week Santorum said he wouldn’t but according to Chuck this morning, he’s filing. What the hell….at this point, I don’t believe anything till I see it.
Rubio does not have a chance, 33:1
He is a thief, self loathing minority who thinks he is WHITE. He is Cuban-American.
LATINOS will not vote for him. Cubans , some yes, but not all.
Also a common mistake is to group all Latinos into one classification, big mistake by MSM.
The largest group Mexican – Americans are more Democratic. Cubans more Republican (confused and only a small bloc of Latino category) and Creole, well DEMOCRATIC. And they all do not get along especially Mexicans and Cubanos.
My point is Rubio is CUBANO and that is a very very small group of Latinos stateside. Outside of that he really has NO LATINO supporters.
DITTO! He is a Hispanic Clarence Thomas, a Cuban Uncle Tom. They should call him Tio Tom. He said he has no higher political aspirations and that’s probably because he knows he will have ZERO Hispanic support outside of the Cuban community. He will most likely vote AGAINST the Dream Act and Senator Bill Nelson should tattoo it to his forehead.
Don’t worry yourself about Rubio. He said he wouldn’t accept any offers of VP and even if he did, I still wouldn’t worry. The GOP’s constant attacks on the Hispanic population in this country will not be erased by nominating another to a VP spot.
‘DITTO’…MY BET IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN…THEY ARE PREPPING RUBIO! THANKS AGAIN FOR THE PIC…OH MY…WHAT A DAY!
Good morning and thanks Chips for the hilarious laugh that second photo brings!!!!
What if you held a debate and nobody came? Fox News intends to find out this Thursday when they hold the first Republican presidential primary debate in South Carolina. As of yesterday:
Pawlenty has confirmed he will be there.
Santorum, Paul, Cain and Johnson have not confirmed.
Roemer did not meet the minimum of 1% in national polling cut-off.
Romney, Daniels, Gingrich, Huntsman, Huckabee, Bachmann and Palin have all said no.
Not exactly what I’d call a whole lot of leadership going on with that group.
Gorgeous children in that photo. You can see that there has been quite a bit of east-west…fraternization…if you will, when you look at their faces. Beautiful! Have a great day, everyone.
—-PJ (still boycotting the news media…except for Lawrence O’Donnell…for now :-))
I find it soooo cute to see the little ones sitting on the floor, looking up at our very tall, handsome President 🙂
Chipsticks its raining here in the tri-state area (Philly)…and it truly is a blah day. Thanks, for the laugh of the second Photo. Your sense of humor is side splitting it really made me smile. Aaaah, THIS President will be just fine. Keep him in your prayers people!
Morning TOD family
“Obama extended an invitation to his predecessor. Bush declined. …”President Bush will not be in attendance on Thursday,” said his spokesman, David Sherzer. “He appreciated the invite, but has chosen in his post-presidency to remain largely out of the spotlight. He continues to celebrate with Americans this important victory in the war on terror.””
I love my president Obama. Only Pres Obama would be so classy and extend that invite. That said, I must say former president Bush is being very classy, unlike some in the GOP. I am a proud America today, tomorrow,and always. Some of our former potus’s were not up for the job of potus, obviously Mr. Bush was one of those, he failed miserably. But for the last several years, he has a been a good FORMER potus.
Oh good to know Kelly. I am glad the invitation was extended. If Bush had not been invited that would have been another yelling/complaining point from Bush supporters. Still come to think of it, they will still probably find something to complain about anyway….good grief!
Chips,
I love these photos, especially the second one which made me LOL.
Thanks for all of your efforts. Sometimes I think these newscasters are reading you and BWD’s blogs.
Mae, I sometimes wonder if the White House reads these 2 blogs too. I do hope so!
That image of the President in a cowboy hat plus the caption made me laugh out loud. I love this site!
The image with the kids is the best! Won’t it be wonderful when the PBO Presidential library is built and opened in the future? I read somewhere that all the images from a presidency are archived there afterwards. I am guessing all of us from TOD will be frequent visitors!
ONLY 85% approve???!?!
Who are the 15%? Idiots, I presume.
Good morning (west coast time). I love how excited and happy the children look. They are so young, yet their faces show such joy at looking at this great man. How do they know he’s great? By his kindness. Children know. Plus these children hear good things about this man from their parents – which goes a long way in how a child interacts with someone. Now on to the next photo – LAUGH OUT LOUD FUNNY! I don’t give polls any weight. The results will be in the voting. OBAMA2012