President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are out on the town Saturday, making an unscheduled and unannounced trip to New York for dinner and a Broadway show.

The First Couple flew up to New York Saturday afternoon – using a small Gulfstream 500 and wisely forgoing the big 747 that set off such a brouhaha in Manhattan when it flew low over the island a few weeks ago with a fighter jet on its tail, all for an Air Force One publicity photo.

"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.

They headed first toward the Blue Hill restaurant on Washington Place, then were planning to catch “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at the Belasco Theater.

As they did, the Republican National Committee went on the attack, ripping them for going to a play while crises loom.

“As President Obama prepares to wing into Manhattan’s theater district on Air Force One to take in a Broadway show, GM is preparing to file bankruptcy and families across America continue to struggle to pay their bills,” RNC spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said.

Another release noted the nation’s unemployment rate is expected to hit 9.2 percent when new figures are released next week.

The RNC went on to compare the Obama’s trip to New York to the tale about former President Bill Clinton allegedly tying up air traffic in Los Angeles while getting a haircut on Air Force One. “Americans Have Seen This Show Before,” the RNC headlined.

Finally, the Republican Party noted that Obama made a joke at the recent White House Correspondents Association dinner about the Manhattan flyover of the 747 often used as Air Force One. “Obama May Joke About Air Force One Joyrides,” the RNC said.

(It did not mention former President George W. Bush’s joke at the Radio and Television  Correspondents Association dinner several years ago about the fact that there weren’t weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as he had said when he invaded the country.)

The RNC attack came just weeks after RNC Chairman Michael Steele vowed not to get personal in party criticisms of Obama.

“This is not about personalities,” he said in a speech on May 19 in suburban Washington.

“We're going to challenge those policies that we believe are wrong, and we're going to do so without apology and without a second thought.

“But there's a very important distinction I want to make here. We are going to take this president on with class. We're going to take this president on with dignity. This will be a very sharp and, I think, marked contrast to the shabby and classes way that the Democrats on the far left spoke of and treated President Bush over the last eight years.”

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor chose her words poorly when she said in 2001 that a Latino woman would make a better decision than a white man in discrimination cases.

“I think she’d say her word choice was poor,” Gibbs said, his first admission after days of questioning about the remarks that they did not look good..

“If she had the speech to do all over again,” he added, she would use other words.
He said he based that conclusion on talks with people who have talked to her in recent days.

President Obama made a burger run Friday, to the well regarded Five Guys. This is the dispatch from White House “pool “ reporter David Jackson of USA Today, who tells us he did NOT get a burger himself. Not enough time…:

Another Obama burger run, this time to a Five Guys in Southeast Washington.
President Obama ordered cheeseburgers for himself and members of his staff, and paid at least $80 in cash. The entourage included a NBC News crew that has been trailing the president for a "day-in-the-life" documentary to air next week.
NOTE: Obama visited Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington, Va., a few weeks ago. And First Lady Michelle Obama took her staff to another Five Guys in Washington earlier this year.
Play-by-play
Motorcade left the White House at 12:42 p.m. The NBC crew caught Obama's walk out with two crews, one stationed just outside the Oval Office and another on the other side of the presidential limo. The latter crew had a camera attached to a long crane that arched over the driveway.
At 12:51 p.m., we arrived at the Five Guys at 1100 New Jersey Ave. SE, a few blocks from Nationals Stadium. As the pool scurried up to the restaurant, we could shrieks of delight and squeals of "O, my God! O, My God!"
“Obama, sans jacket, walked up the counter, scanned the menu posted above, and began ordering. Aides Reggie Love and Marvin Nicholson slipped him various requests from the crew. At one point, he brought up NBC's Brian Williams, who ordered a cheeseburger with ketchup and fries. The pool believes it spotted the president peeling off at least four $20 bills for payments.
A little presidential dialogue: "Reggie, you got you orders? Where's Reggie? Whaddya got?"
To his order taker: "I need one cheeseburger and one fries for me. Jalapeno, tomato, mustard. That's it for me … Plus lettuce on mine too."
Obama then read out other orders, cheeseburgers and at least one grilled cheese sandwich, with various toppings. Unlike last time, Obama did not offer to buy food for the pool.
Obama received order slip number 41, then proceeded to walk around the restaurant to greet the patrons and pose for pictures.
He tended to ask people their and names and occupations. Hard to hear over the media and customer scrum in the small restaurant, but the pool picked up some snippets.
How long you been doing that?" he asked one person. To one man who appeared to cite his military background, Obama said: "Appreciate your service." At another point, Obama could be heard saying that someone "didn't know the economy was going to collapse."
A couple of women requested and got a group picture. "It’s such an honor," one of the women told the president.
He asked a woman with a distinct accent where she was from, and she said, "Ireland."
“Obama: "What part of Ireland?"
"Dublin"
Obama: "Dublin? Outstanding. I've got to visit Ireland."
 After his number was called, Obama went to claim his burgers and such. He summoned White House photographer Pete Souza for a group picture with the Five Guys staff.
Obama then walked out, carrying two very large brown paper bags. Motorcade left the site at 1:05 p.m., and was back at the White House at 1:15 p.m. Obama, jacket over his shoulder, walked to the Oval as the cameras rolled.

            ad enough traffic?

            Check out MyCommuteSucks.com.

            It gives aggravated commuters a place to vent, as well as a forum for finding alternatives.

This could be the year to do something about

America

            A group called Transportation for

America

            The group is funded by private philanthropic grants, with the largest from the Rockefeller Foundation.

            “We are calling for a safer, cleaner, more efficient and more complete transportation system. We can get there, first, by maintaining and managing what we have already built so that we can make the most use of itm” said David Goldberg, the group’s communications director.

“We have built the interstate highway system for which the current program was designed in the 1950s. Today the challenge is not so much moving between cities, but getting around within them.”

Among the ideas are encouraging public transportation that serves more than the core downtown areas so that there are more safe streets for walking and biking and “retrofitting” suburbs so that they are more walkable and have transit options.

And then there’s this tongue in check video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61GacCz_OPM&feature=channel_page

The White House insisted Thursday that it’s had nothing to do with picking which auto dealerships are being shot down by Chrysler, denying blogged reports that it’s using the shutdowns to punish Republican dealers and reward Democratic ones.

“That’s not the job of the president's auto task force,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said when asked about the reports. “That's the job of the individual car company. They've got to figure out in their newly restructured world, based on the market, what their essential supply chain is. And I think those are the decisions that they made.”

He later added, “Let me reiterate that we don't make those decisions. OK? Chrysler makes those decisions.”

Several blogs have reported that many of the dealerships being closed by Chrysler are contributors to Republican campaign, and that few of those examined are contributors to Democratic campaigns.

Fox News contributor and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin called it “dealergate” Thursday. “As I’ve stated from the beginning, there is still much to be researched on this issue. Given Obama’s Chicago gangland propensities, anything corrupt is possible,” she wrote on her blog.

Feel like debating a Democrat about the federal budget? Republicans are making it easy, with their "Memorial Day Recess Packet."

The package, compiled by Senate Budget Committee Republican staff, begins with a letter from Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., warning that Democrats' fiscal policies are "putting us on a dangerous and unsustainable path."

He describes how he sees the Democrats' fiscal 2010 budget as including "the largest tax increase in history,' which Democrats dispute, and spending that drives the debt to historic levels, a poiint on most independent budget analysts agree.

Then comes a note about Medicare and Social Security. Medicare, say its trustees, is projected to run out of money in 2017, while Social Security is expected to pay out more than it collects starting in 2016.

"The Democratic majority's continuing inaction on this issue is inexcusable," the GOP report says, "especially given the reckless spending that they have in the works."

President Barack Obama has repeatedly said he wants to tackle those issues, and held a "fiscal responsibility summit" at the White House Feb. 23. Some 130 people attended, including 53 members of Congress.

To see the Recess Kit:http://budget.senate.gov/republican/pressarchive/MemorialDayRecessPacket.pdf

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The Obama administration will launch a campaign-style tour of the industrial Midwest next week, dispatching much of the cabinet to key states to assures voters that the government is working to help people hurt by the decline of the U.S. auto industry.

The campaign will feature eight cabinet secretaries, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, the administrator of the Small Business Administrator, the White House director Auto Recovery and Workers and an associate attorney general.
 
“At each event, they will discuss immediate ways the federal government is cutting through red tape to bring relief to auto communities and achieve long-term economic revitalization for our communities that depend on the auto and manufacturing industry,” the White House said.

The team will fan out to four states: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin. Each is home to auto parts suppliers and this worried about the fates of Chrysler and General Motors.

Each also happens to be a key electoral college battleground in presidential elections. They all went for Obama in 2008, giving him their combined 58 electoral votes.
 

President Obama will visit wounded GIs and their families at Landstuhl Regional Medical Facility in Germany next week, the White House announced.

The stop could be a makeup for Obama’s decision last year as a candidate not to visit Landstuhl when he went to Germany as a candidate.

The stop on June 5 will come during an already scheduled trip next week to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany and France.

Landstuhl, the White House notes, “supports our service men and women stationed in Europe, and serves a leading and vital role in the care and recovery of personnel medically evacuated from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other forward-deployed posts within the U.S. European Command, Central Command and Africa Command areas of responsibility.”

The Senate voted on Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in October, 1998, when she was nominated as a federal appellate judge. And eight Republicans still in the Senate voted for her.

One, Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, is now a Democrat. The others were Richard Lugar of Indiana, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett of Utah.

Sotomayor was confirmed by a 67 to 29 vote; all the no votes were Republicans. Among the "no"s still serving: Alabama's Jeff Sessions, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will consider the nomination; and fellow committee members Charles Grassley of Iowa, and Jon Kyl of Arizona. Current Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was also opposed.

The roll call:, http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=2&vote=00295

President Obama will visit Saudi Arabia en route to Egypt, Germany and France, the White House announced.

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama would have dinner with the king in Riyadh, then spend the night before flying to Cairo as originally scheduled. He plans to give a major speech in Cairo June 4 reaching out to the Muslim world.