night everyone

Sorry …. I just can’t watch this enough 😉

See you tomorrow.

“give me a call” …. why?

PoliticalWire: ABC News got interesting video of former President Clinton speaking to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) backstage at a forum on the national debt.

Clinton praised the Democratic victory in NY-26 yesterday but added, “I hope Democrats don’t use this as an excuse to do nothing.”

Ryan responds: “My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving.”

They parted with Clinton telling Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.”

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Thank you Lisa

it was a very, very good day…..

thursday

Update: The AFP article below would appear to be wrong, it looks like Michelle Obama isn’t going to France after all!

April 2009

Thursday: The President will travel from London to Deauville, France for the G-8 meetings … will hold a bilateral meeting with President Medvedev of Russia …. participates in the G-8 working lunch and working sessions … will also hold a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Kan of Japan.

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AFP: France’s First Lady Carla Bruni will host a packed agenda for the wives of the developed world’s most powerful leaders Thursday, in her first G8 summit since her pregnancy was revealed.

…She will appear along with other first ladies, including the US president’s wife Michelle Obama and Britain’s Samantha Cameron, using the summit to promote her latest cause: the battle against adult illiteracy.

After lunch on the first day of the summit on Thursday, 43-year-old Bruni will take her guests to visit food producers from the Normandy region before hosting a working session dubbed “together against illiteracy.”

In the evening, Bruni and her husband President Nicolas Sarkozy will play host to the other leaders and their spouses for a dinner on the seafront terrace of Le Ciro’s restaurant in the elegant Channel seaside resort.

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The First Lady will return to Washington after the French leg of the Obamas’ visit to Europe

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Friday: The President will hold a bilateral meeting with President Sarkozy of France …. will then participate in the G-8 working sessions …. Later, the President will travel from France to Warsaw, Poland. In the evening, the President and President Komorowski of Poland will host a dinner for the heads of state of Central and Eastern Europe.

Saturday: The President will hold a bilateral meeting with President Komorowski of Poland … the President and Prime Minister Tusk of Poland will hold a working lunch …. the President and Prime Minister Tusk will hold a joint press conference …. the President will depart for Washington, DC.

‘vigour, zest and character’

Irish Times: Nothing quite prepares a person for the sight of the President of the United States wandering so close. Or the impish look in his eye as he gladhands his way through the wheelchair enclosure and coolly takes the phone from Jessica Walls to say “Hi” to her mother Glynis, minding her business in her Skerries kitchen, cooking spaghetti Bolognese. No point in pretending to be objective.

Just surrender and swoon. “I was 10 yards from him”, crooned Liz O’Donnell (a former member of the Irish parliament). And? “What a beautiful man. He’s gorgeous, he walks like a Kenyan – they have such elegant body movement….”

Psychologist Maureen Gaffney raised the tone just a tad by quoting Edmund Burke. “Obama is a natural aristocrat. He is emotionally pitch perfect. Burke called it the natural aristocracy – people of unbelievable vigour, zest and character…..”

Suddenly the interminable hours of standing and waiting were a distant memory … “Ah, it’s a bit like childbirth”, sang a middle-aged Clare woman, “you forget all the pain when you get this – God, I don’t know – this MIRACLE put in front of you”.

…This, as a man told his small daughter, is “what you’ll be telling your grandchildren about. . . that you saw Barack Obama with your own big brown eyes”.

And here he was … Gazing out from his bullet-proof glass screens to a 50,000-strong crowd crammed in the reserved area in College Green, the American president had them from the moment he announced he was Barack Obama – “of the Moneygall Obamas. And I’ve come home to find the apostrophe that we lost somewhere along the way”.

From somewhere in the crowd came the roar, “I’ve got it here!”

“Is that where it is?”, asked the president.

“Some wise Irish man or woman once said that broken Irish is better than clever English,” he went on, to loud applause. “So here goes:  Tá áthas orm bheith in Éirinn – I am happy to be in Ireland! I’m happy to be with so many a cháirde”…

“God, the Irish language is going to power ahead after this,” said Maureen Gaffney. Liz O’Donnell marvelled at how he pronounced all the syllables in “orm”. He and Michelle were feeling very much at home, he said “even more at home after that pint that I had. . . Feel even warmer”.

…A man nearby muttered wearily about the “Paddywhackery”. But it was “charming”, argued his wife. “But he’s saying nothing,” insisted the husband. “Oh give us a break – he’s feckin’ beautiful,” retorted the wife. The husband, sadly, had no answer.

…As the crowds broke up, they walked lightly to the rhythm of upbeat American marches, and it wasn’t just the women. “That crowned a perfect week,” said Fine Gael TD Andrew Doyle as he headed home. “I detest hero worship but I don’t mind worshipping such a hero,” said Cathal Grennan….

put ’em up!

Ireland’s World Boxing Champion Katie Taylor meets President Obama and First Lady Michelle in Dublin, May 23 – the photo appeared on the front page of the Irish Independent on Wednesday and was scanned and posted here

london, the speech

(In case you missed it posted below)

Transcript of speech here

dinner hosts (video added)

President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama welcome Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip for a reciprocal dinner at Winfield House

Guest List: The Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, Rt. Honorable David Cameron, Mrs. Samantha Cameron, Viscountess Astor, Admiral James Stavridis, Lady Ashton of Upholland, Mr. Tom Hanks, Mr. Tim Collins, Mr. David Beckham, Mrs. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Mr. Colin Firth, Mrs. Marjorie Susman, Mr. Chris Dercon, Mrs. Ffion Hague, Mr. Joshua Berger, Ms. J.K. Rowling

. President Obama watches as Queen Elizabeth signs a guest book after a reciprocal dinner at Winfield House

change …… :-)

Channel Four (UK): You get a flavour of why David Cameron might be so keen to bask in Barack Obama‘s glory on this trip in various photo ops. We asked YouGov to repeat a poll they did in November 2003 when President George W Bush was in town and see how the numbers changed. It suggests that Brits love Obama as much as they hated Bush.

The 2003 poll suggested that 75 per cent polled had little or no confidence in President Bush. Today 72 per cent have a great deal or fair mount of confidence in President Obama. In today’s poll, 81 per cent think President Obama is highly intelligent, back in 2003 17 per cent thought the US had got itself an highly intelligent president. You get the picture.

‘utterly smitten’

BBC News, May 25