by Mark Silva

Somali pirates, Rod Blagojevich, Ron Paul and Susan Boyle.

What a week.

In review, MSNBC's Willie Geist starts with Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's Got Talent and its 20-million-view online video as the least of it all.

Hard to compete with the interview and faux seduction that the new character portrayed by Sasha Baron Cohen, the actor-comedian who brought us Borat, conducted with Ron Paul, erstwhile candidate for president.

Or the indicted former governor of Illinois, reality TV star.

Or that three-shot rescue of Captain Richard Phillips.

Enjoy the weekend. Come see us.

And "Ron Paul revolution:" Listen here:

by Mark Silva and updated

As President Barack Obama landed at Port-of-Spain this afternoon for a summit including all the hemisphere's leaders but Cuba's, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton already had welcomed Cuban President Raul Castro's call for new talks with the United States.

"We welcome his comments, the overture they represent,'' Clinton said of Castro, "and we are taking a very serious look at how we intend to respond."

Castro, allowing that Cuba may have been wrong about some of the stances that it has taken, says Cuba is ready to put "everything on the table'' - this, after Obama this week relaxed restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling to Cuba and sending money to relatives there, suggesting that there could be a relaxing of relations with the neighboring island nation if Cuba shows some progress on recognition of human rights.

The head of the Organization of American States said today that he will ask its members to readmit Cuba 47 years after it ousted the Communist nation. Castro, for his part, says "a serpent will be born from an eagle's egg'' before that happens.

With the leaders of 34 nations converging on Trinidad for the Summit of the Americas today -- an OAS-sponsored gathering that includes every nation in the region but communist Cuba -- speculation about a possible thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations are riding higher than they have since the largely frozen since the Cold War.

OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza announced his intention to back Cuba's readmission "We're going step by step," Insulza said, explaining that he will ask the OAS general assembly in May to annul the 1962 resolution that suspended Cuba.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Mexico to Trinidad today, said: "I think the strongest reaction that we've all had is the admission by Castro that they might well have been wrong.

"The American people have all heard the president talk about this notion of a greater engagement of the Cuban people at a time and place of our choosing if that engagement could further our national interest,'' Gibbs said.

by Mark Silva

Arthur "A.B.'' Culvahouse, a prominent Washington attorney who served as White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan during the president's final two years and led Sen. John McCain's search for a running mate - a search that included a "long list'' of 26 candidates - told the tale today of picking Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

After the vetting of all the candidates, and paring them to a short list, McCain asked Culvahouse for the "bottom line'' on Palin.

""I said, 'John, high risk, high reward,''' Culvahouse said today. "His response - 'You shouldn't have told me that. I've been a risk-taker all of my life.'''

Culvahouse was addressing the Republican National Lawyers Association today at the National Press Club, and C-SPAN was running a camera.

"There were three rules,'' Culvahouse said of himself and McCain. "He was the decider. There was no one between him and me.... There was no one who was going to say, 'This one is on the list, this one is off the list'... Third... he could not pick anyone that I had not vetted.''

Culvahouse, a former counsel to then-Sen. Howard Baker in the 1970s, had delivered Baker's paperwork when he was being considered for Gerald Ford's vice president - there were 19 questions asked.

"The questionnaire I sent out for John McCain had 74,'' Culvahouse said - noting that some had generic titles, such as "the Zoe Baird question... There was no debating about what 'the meaning of is, is'... I wrote that question... 'Have you ever been unfaithful?... 'Is there anyone who could truthfully assert you've been unfaithful?'''

by Mark Silva

Introducing: Bo, the Beanie Baby.

From the makers of "Marvelous Malia'' and "Sweet Sasha,'' those Beanie Babies that looked suspiciously like the first daughters at the White House -- a pair since renamed in the aftermath of objections from the First Lady -- comes a playful rendition of the Portuguese water dog that has taken up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Ty Inc. promises that a portion of the proceeds from the sale of Beanie Bo will go to animal shelters -- which is where the Obama family once considered finding the dog that they promised the girls, until Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), found the perfect pet for the president's family, a litter-mate to one of his own PWDs.

If the now-extinct Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia already have become collectors' items, they still have "Bubbly Britney'' and "Hip Hannah'' for your consideration.

Or, Beanie Bo is, as they say, "available at select stores.''

By Rebecca Cole

Last week, James Carville, veteran advisor to former President Bill Clinton and FOH (Friend of Hillary) showed his eagerness -- and inventiveness -- to help the Secretary of State pay off her $2.3 million campaign debt.

First it was five bucks to win a day with Bill or attend the season finale of American Idol.

Now Carville has upped the ante, telling Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons during the taping of an online radio show this morning that he would "be all for" the former first lady to appear in one of Go Daddy's suggestive commercials.

Go Daddy, which sponsored the radio show, is famous for its racy commercials featuring bootylicious women in suggestive clothing plugging the company's website-hosting and domain-name registration services.

"If Hillary Clinton would be a Go Daddy Girl ... and do a cameo in one of our commercials, I'll give her a million bucks," Parsons said.

According to Politico, the conversation continued like this:

Carville chuckled and said, "Something tells me that they're probably not going to go for it. I think the lawyers in the State Department. You know, they like, they piss on every fire. You know what I mean?"

When Parsons persisted, telling Carville "I like the ring of Secretary of State and Go Daddy Girl, Hillary Clinton," Carville said, "Look, I'd be all for it, but I wouldn't write the check just yet."

Since campaign finance laws limit contributions to $2,300, Hillary won't need to seriously ponder Parsons' "standing offer."

Then again, a million bucks would go a long way to shaving off her debt.

And, how much in campaign contributions did the Clintons rake in for those 851 lucky folks who got to try out the Lincoln bedroom while they were in the White House?

by Mark Silva

Now it's Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's turn.

So many people have had so many things to say about the Republican lately that the Republican was ready to speak for herself last night - addressing an estimated audience of 3,000 abortion-opponents in Evansville, Ind., last night.

She addressed the "right to life,'' a question that she encountered in her fifth pregnancy, with son Trig, born with Down syndrome, as we've gleaned from Kate Snow's account at ABC News: "It was a time when I had to ask myself. was I gonna walk the walk or I was gonna talk the talk?

"There, just for a fleeting moment, I thought, I knew.... Nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy. It could be easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know,'' she said, concluding that: "life is valuable because it is ordained....I had just enough faith to know that trying to change the circumstances wasn't any answer.''

Yet, Palin told the audience at the Vanderburgh County "Freedom for Life'' banquet: "I do understand what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process."

Indiana, that traditionally "red" state, voted for President Barack Obama and running mate Joe Biden over Republicans Sen. John McCain and Palin last fall. Indeed, Vanderburgh County helped hand the state to the Democrat, who won 51 percent of the vote there.

by Jim Tankersley

The Obama administration will declare greenhouse gases a threat to public health today, sources said, marking a major step - both practically and symbolically - toward federal limits on the carbon dioxide emissions scientists blame for global warming.

The move by the Environmental Protection Agency is prompted by a two-year-old Supreme Court decision. It paves the way for the White House to regulate emissions from vehicles and effectively force the U.S. auto fleet to be cleaner and more efficient - a plan the administration is expected to put in place soon.

It also opens the door to broad emissions limits in all other parts of the economy, including power plants and construction sites, which critics say could further chill an already recessionary economy. Administration officials insist they'd prefer to let Congress set those limits, and that they will help spur millions of clean-energy jobs in the years to come.

Environmentalists are celebrating the so-called "endangerment finding" as the biggest statement yet that the federal government, after years of downplaying the dangers of climate change under the Bush administration, is now preparing to act boldly to combat it.

The is a "landmark moment in environmental history," Frank O'Donnell, president of the environmental group Clean Air Watch, said in a press release anticipating the decision.

"Where the Bush administration lagged, the Obama administration is now leading," said David Bookbinder, Sierra Club Chief Climate Counsel. " There is no longer a question of if or even when the U.S. will act on global warming. We are doing so now,"

Critics warn that the policy could cripple small businesses and kill economic growth.

"An endangerment finding would lead to destructive regulatory schemes that Congress never authorized," a group of eight leading conservative and free-market activists - including Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform - warned the EPA in a letter this week, adding later: "the Administration will bear responsibility for any increase in consumer energy costs, unemployment, and GDP losses" that result.

by Mark Silva

Al Gore could have taken some guidance from Susan Boyle, perhaps, before he went to Earth tones: Boyle, the Scottish wonder of Britain's Got Talent, will stand for no makeover.

Then again, Gore won a Nobel Prize.

Boyle's big prize this week - more than the 20 million viewings of the online video of Boyle flooring Simon Cowell and fellow judges with her modest stage appearance and show-stopping performance from Les Miserables - may be what she is teaching others about judging books by their

The 47-year-old unmarried, unemployed cat-lover plans no make-over, according to Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden, who told ITV News: "I won't let Simon Cowell take her to his dentist and I certainly won't let her near his hairdresser.

"She needs to stay exactly as she is because that's the reason we love her. She just looks like anybody who could live on your street. The minute we turn her into a glamour-puss is when it's spoilt. That can perhaps come later when she's signed the album deal and conquered America.

"For now we'll keep her exactly as she is because that's why we've all fallen in love with her,'' the judge says. "I think it's the underdog thing. It's somebody who's looked after her mother all her life. She's had real dreams, real aspirations and obviously she thought she'd had to say goodbye to those things."

So would Gore have won America's heart of he had stayed just the way he was? Naaaaah. But at least the Nobel judges agreed that America's Got Talent, too.

by Mark Silva

Nearing the close of his first quarter in office on Sunday, as he returns home to the White House following his second tour abroad as president, Barack Obama's public job-approval rating has averaged 63 percent during the first three months of his presidency, Gallup has found.

That places the Democrat roughly in the middle of the modern-day presidents - fourth in 10 -- for whom Gallup has first-quarter readings: Democrat John Kennedy started with the highest approval -- at 74 percent during his first quarter. Republican Dwight Eisenhower started strong as well - at 71 percent. And Democrat Jimmy Carter started out not far behind them - at 69 percent.

Basically, Obama's 63 percent approval during his first quarter matches the historical average for the first quarters of the 10 presidents who have served since 1953.

"Obama's job approval rating has not shown much variation to date, generally holding steady in the low 60% range,'' Gallup's Jeffrey Jones notes. "While such presidential "honeymoons" do not last forever, to the extent history is a guide, Obama's healthy ratings can be expected to persist for at least another quarter.

"Six of the last 11 presidents saw essentially no change in their approval ratings from the first to the second quarter in office.''

There have been exceptions:

by Mark Silva

As the president moves today to the Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, he will be meeting with the leaders of 33 other hemispheric nations, all but Cuba's.

He does not have any plans for a one-on-one meeting with one of the region's harshest critics of the United States, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, however.

"There's no one-on-one meeting with Mr. Chavez on the schedule,'' said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary. "I believe he is among several leaders that are in a multilateral meeting. We will get you a list tonight of what meetings we're doing. There are a couple of bilateral meetings, but most of them are multilateral meetings.''

Which doesn't mean that Obama will avoid him if Chavez presses the question - what if Chavez pulled him aside to say, hey, let's have a conversation.

"Every time I pull the president aside to have a conversation we've had that conversation,'' Gibbs said, "so I assume he would do the same.''

However, Gibbs is not the one who has railed against the United States, publicly denouncing the former president as the devil and aligning with all of the interests - from Cuba to Iran and the Sudan - which have caused the U.S. some of the greatest concern.

At the Summit of the Americas, all have come to agree on a common statement, the White House says, though it will not actually be signed - at least two nations, Bolivia and Nicaragua wouldn't sign on because it did not address the lifting of the Cuban trade embargo, Cuba being the one nation that is not represented in these talks..

by Mark Silva

The president may have been traveling in Mexico, but the White House was answering questions about the announcement that none of the CIA operatives who carried out the harshest interrogation of detainees in "the war on terror'' will be prosecuted.

At the same time that President Barack Obama announced that no one will face prosecution, he released the memoranda of the Bush Justice Department which had given the legal green-light for the interrogations, including water-boarding and more.

"You have to bear in mind a bit about these memos, and that is these are legal authorizations for specific actions to be undertaken,'' Robert Gibbs, press secretary for the Obama White House, said in Mexico City. "There are people... hardworking people at the CIA that did what they were told based on the authorization that they'd been given. The president believes it would be unfair to punish those.''

Instead, the White House is asking critics to look at what Obama has ordered since he took office, an end to practices such as water-boarding, which Attorney General Eric Holder has called "torture,'' and adherence to the Army Field Manual in interrogations, in addition to closing the camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within a year.

Gibbs wants to "underscore the actions that the president of the United States took related to this on the second day of the administration by instituting only the guidelines that were in the Army Field Manual and essentially banning all of these activities from the use of -- by the use of this government and this administration...

"The president, as you know, was geared at looking forward and that is why the tough decisions were made to end this practice once and for all by the government.''

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama left the White House again this week, left the country even, but he really didn't leave much behind.

Before he left for his own first personal trip to Latin America, landing in Mexico City yesterday for a meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Obama set in motion a series of polciies and decisions making it clear that he will present a new face of the United States both in the Western Hemisphere and around the world.

None of it, for sure, goes as far as some of the president's allies in the West and East would like, and some it goes too far for many back home:

Before he left, Obama lifted travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans who want to visit their relatives and lifted limits on the money they can give their families.

But for the leaders of the Western Hemisphere meeting today in Trinidad and Tobago for a Summit of the Americas, the United States still comes up short in Cuba for insisting on perpetuating a decades-old U.S. trade embargo with the neighborhing island. And for many of the older Cuban-Americans in South Florida, including some of their representatives in Congress, Obama has gone too far in capitulating with the Castro regime.

As he was arriving in Mexico, the White House back home released an announcement that the new president would not prosecute any of the CIA operatives who exercised some of the harshest interrogation techniques on U.S.-held combatants in :the "war on terror.'' He also released details of what they did, and it was ugly, under the authorization of the former Bush Justice Department, complete with its condoning memos.

For the rest of the world, the president's prohibition of "torture'' on his watch going forward and his attempt to put this "dark'' past behind the U.S. may be welcome, while at home some wondered why the highest-level government officials, including the former president, who condoned all this should not be held accountable for it.

Clearly, both of the announcements this week delivered back home -- the Cuban-policy shift and the interrogation course -- were designed as much for foreign comsumption as for domestic consumption.

Obama was interested in getting the attention of the region, and the world, as he made his second foray into foreign lands -- first Europe and Iraq, and now his own hemisphere -- with a determined strategy of remaking the face of the U.S. around the globe.

The president said that he is intent on reengaging with the hemisphere, after two terms of American foreign policy focused on Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

The U.S., he said, is a "partner'' in the region, and neither the "junior partner'' nor the "senior partner.''

So, as Senor Partner makes his way from Mexico to Trindiad and Tobago today and home to Washington on Sunday, the world watches, the home audience waits, and everyone comes away with one certainty: Things are different on this president's watch. For better or for worse.

Photos from top to borrom: President Obama leaves the White House, top, Tim Sloan, AFP Getty Images; and Gerald Herbert, AP: Obama arrives in Mexico City, Marco Ugarte, AP; Images of leaders in Port-of-Spain, Arianna Cubilla, AP; Shopping for Obama's image in Port-of-Spain, and wearing Obama's image, Thomas Coex, AFP/Getty Images)(

Good morning.

President Obama travels from Mexico to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago today for a two-day Summit of the Americas with hemispheric leaders.

(Vice President Joe Biden speaks to soldiers at Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri today. Photo by Charlie Riedel / AP)

by Rebecca Cole

Vice President Joe Biden today unveiled details for distributing more than $3.3 billion in stimulus funding for grants to drive the rollout of a nationwide smart grid.

Under the plan, the Department of Energy will provide grants up to $20 million for smart grid technology deployments and up to $5 million for the deployment of grid monitoring devices.

The smart grid, a major plank of Biden and President Barack Obama's "rebuilding America" pledge, has been endlessly touted as a way to modernize the nation's aging electricity system and move the country off fossil fuels while creating thousands of jobs.

But although a flurry of activity has occurred in the halls of Congress, with both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in the past month introducing clean energy legislation aimed at upgrading the grid, among other initiatives, no "shovel ready" smart grid projects have appeared on the horizon.

Speaking in Jefferson, Mo., alongside Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Biden announced the money would be funneled toward smart grid technology development grants, with an additional $615 million for energy storage, monitoring and technology viability.

"We need an upgraded electrical grid to take full advantage of the vast renewable resources in this country -- to take the wind from the midwest and the sun from the southwest and power areas across the country," Biden said in a statement. "By investing in updating the grid now, we will lower utility bills for American families and businesses, lessen our dependence on foreign oil and create good jobs that will drive our economic recovery -- a strong return on our investment."

by Mark Silva

President Barack Obama, in releasing Department of Justice memoranda that supported the Bush administration's interrogation of combatants held in the so-called "war on terror,'' assured government officials today that they will not be prosecuted for their interrogation tactics.

"In releasing these memos, it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution,'' the president said in a statement issued by the White House.

"The men and women of our intelligence community serve courageously on the front lines of a dangerous world,'' said Obama, who since taking office has barred the harshest interrogation techniques authorized by the administration of former President George W. Bush. That included "water-boarding,'' a simulation of drowning, used in some interrogations.

Obama's highest-level appointees - from the attorney general to the Central Intelligence Agency director - have made it clear before this that the administration is more interested in moving ahead with practices that adhere to the Geneva Conventions than punishing anyone for past practices.

CIA Director Leon Panetta also sent a message to his own agency's employees today noting that the CIA under the past administration had "repeatedly sought and repeatedly received written assurances from the Department of Justice that its practices were fully consistent with the laws and legal obligations of the United States. Those operations were also approved by the president and the National Security Council principals, and were briefed to the congressional leadership.

" As this information is revealed, it is important to understand the context in which these operations occurred,'' Panetta wrote. " In the wake of September 11th, the president turned to CIA--as presidents have done so often in our history--and entrusted our officers with the most critical of tasks: to disrupt the terrorist network that struck our country and prevent further attacks. CIA responded, as duty requires. ''

by Ben Meyerson

President Barack Obama announced his plan for developing high-speed rail in America this morning, detailing how $13 billion in federal money could act as a "down payment" on bringing the nation's passenger trains up to par with fast, efficient rail travel in Europe and Japan.

"High-speed rail is long-overdue, and this plan lets American travelers know that they are not doomed to a future of long lines at the airports or jammed cars on the highways,'' Obama said. "There's no reason why we can't do this. This is America. There's no reason why the future of travel should lie somewhere else beyond our borders."

The plan includes Chicago as a proposed regional hub for high speed trains going to Detroit, St. Louis, Madison and Indianapolis, among other destinations.

Other networks would expand the nation's only existing high-speed rail corridor, which runs from Washington to Boston, northward and southward, and create new routes in California, Texas, the Pacific Northwest and Florida.

The president touted high-speed rail's stimulative value, as well. Indeed, $8 billion of the money is coming from the stimulus package that he signed into law one month in office. It was slipped into the package in the final hours.

"A major new high-speed rail line will generate many thousands of construction jobs over several years, as well as permanent jobs for rail employees and increased economic activity in the destinations these trains serve," Obama said.

The administration will announce its criteria for high-speed rail applicants this summer, with the goal of releasing money by the end of the summer.

University of Pennsylvania professor of transportation engineering Vukan Vuchic agreed with Obama that high speed rail is long overdue, and praised the administration's use of the money.

"We are, frankly, several decades behind if we compare ourselves with our peer countries," Vuchic said. "The country badly needs high speed rail in all these regions."

by Tracy Wilkinson and Peter Nicholas

MEXICO CITY -- President Obama arrived today in embattled Mexico, where he faces a test of his ability to bring fundamental change to one of Washington's most important relationships.

Obama stepped off of Air Force One and then went to confer with Mexico President Felipe Calderon, with drugs, guns and immigration on the agenda.

Obama will be in Mexico less than 24 hours before continuing Friday to Trinidad and Tobago for the fifth Summit of the Americas, a three-day meeting of the hemisphere's 34 elected heads of state and government. U.S.-Latin American relations are at their lowest point in years.

Like much of the rest of Latin America, the Mexico that receives a visit from Obama today yearns for the kind of new partnership that the president espouses.

"Times have changed," Obama said in an interview with CNN en Espanol, aired today. "There's no senior partner or junior partner."

The United States plans to help Calderon, who Obama said has done "an outstanding and heroic job" in taking on the country's violent drug cartels. "We are going to be dealing not only with drug interdiction coming north, but also working on helping to curb the flow of cash and guns going south.''

Beyond spoken commitments, Mexico is looking for concrete assistance in several areas.

by Mark Silva

John Podesta, the ex-White House chief of staff who helped President Barack Obama staff his White House, has a simple title for Valerie Jarrett, Obama's close friend from Chicago and senior adviser in Washington:

"Consigliere.''

Jarrett, notes Bloomberg News' Julianna Goldman, came to Washington from Chicago "with a portfolio of power as personal as it is political.'' Jarrett calls the president "Mr. President'' in the offices of the West Wing, Goldman reports, and calls Obama "Barack'' in the privacy of other quarters.

"He's got someone who he knows has his back and is operating only in his interests," explains Podesta, who was co-chairman of Obama's presidential transition team with Jarrett and is a former chief of staff to ex-President Bill Clinton.

"If there's a consigliere in the White House, it's Valerie," Podesta told Bloomberg.

Saturday night, when the Obamas dined outside the White House, it was Jarrett's riverfront place in Georgetown where they convened. The Obamas were there past 11 pm, on a night before Easter morning church services, as we noted here in The Swamp on Sunday.

(Valerie Jarrett, pictured above speaking with Mayor Richard Daley in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 20, in a photo by Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune.)

by Mark Silva and updated

It's close quarters in the press cabin of Air Force One.

Often, the press attempt to get some sleep en route to the next stop, and there's a tiny, airline-styled bathroom in the back, with a requisite mirror.

But flying and sleeping can make for some bad hair.

So Jake Tapper of ABC News was reminded today, en route to Mexico City.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came back for the traditional "gaggle'' with reporters aboard the presidential aircraft, and Jake made a valiant protest on behalf of broadcast journalism and the American viewing public:

"First of all, just for the record, I'd like to voice my objection to this being off camera, on behalf of the TV people,'' Jake told Gibbs. "President Obama has said that it's....

"To be on camera, Jake, you'd have to comb your hair,'' Gibbs said. ''For the record...''

"No, I wouldn't,'' the reporter told the press secretary. "The camera would be on you. The camera would be on you.''

As for that hair, someone chimed in: "It's the Air Force One look.''

"Looked like they just woke him up,'' Gibbs told Tribune.

(Photo above -- another day, another gaggle, another comb, en route to England -- by Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images.)