President Obama and the First Family arrived on Martha’s Vineyard Sunday afternoon for the storm-delayed start of their week-long vacation.

The First Family left Washington several hours late, waiting for storms to pass, then flew to a Cape Cod airport. Then they flew Marine One on to the exclusive Massachusetts island retreat where the Clintons often vacationed while in the White House.

On friendly, Democratic turf, Obama’s motorcade to his rented estate in Chilmark passed dozens of people who waved, took pictures, and waved signs. “Aloha Obama Family,” said one. “Hope, Obama,” said another.

En route, sandal-wearing White House spokesman Bill Burton urged the press to chill out and give the First Family some privacy.

"He wants you to relax," Burton said aboard Air Force One. “Have a good time, take some walks on the beaches. Nobody's looking to make any news."

Burton said Obama asked that the news media respect the privacy of the president’s daughters.

He also dismissed reports that Obama might visit with ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who lives at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport nearby. Burton said there were no plans for a visit, despite the two men’s friendship and shared hopes for a major health care overhaul.

While Obama is likely to play golf on the island, Burton brushed aside talk of a possible round with Tiger Woods. “A bad rumor,” said Burton.

In a quick signal of the relaxed vacation mindset aboard Air Force One – beyond Burton’s footwear – First Dog Bo wandered back into the press cabin before Malia Obama came to retrieve him.

Also on board: the president's sister and her family, and senior adviser and close family friend Valerie Jarrett.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said Friday that Florida has been hurricane free thanks to prayer notes he placed on the Western Wall in Jerusalem. He said every year he's placed them there or has asked someone else to do it.

"Dear God," he said the notes read, "Please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie."

Crist, a candidate for the U.S. Senate seat to replace the soon-to-be-exited Mel Martinez, was speaking before a group of Florida real estate agents, who certainly have an interest in a storm-free state.

President Obama and aides Friday criticized the hero’s welcome given in Libya to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, who was convicted in the 1988 terrorist bombing of a Pan Am flight over Scotland that killed 270.

The United States earlier had objected when Scotland decided to release the terminally ill Al-Megrahi so he could return to Libya to die.

Obama Friday called it “highly objectionable” that he was greeted with cheers when he arrived in Libya.

“The images we saw yesterday were outrageous and disgusting,” said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. “Tremendously offensive.”

A group fighting President Obama's health care proposals plans to air ads on TV during his vacation in Martha's Vineyard criticizing his ideas. The ad urges Obama to drop his press for a government insurance program.

Rick Scott and his group, Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, has bought $150,000 worth of time to air the commercial on TV in Boston and on Martha's Vineyard, where the Obamas will vacation next week. In a deft tactic, their ad also will run on the New England Sports Network during four coming Red Sox-White Sox games, likely to draw the attention of White Sox fan Obama.

Authorities in Indonesia believe militants planned to attack President Barack Obama's convoy during a possible visit in November, according to Reuters. 

The news agency quotes an intelligence analyst close to police in Jakarta as saying that two men are suspected of planning to act as snipers and attack Obama’s convoy near the airport . He said they planned to use MK-IIIs, a “type of Russian-made sniper rifle that he said was used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and also in Muslim conflict areas in the Philippines.”

The two suspects – at large – were among those wanted in the investigation of suicide bombings last month at two Jakarta hotels.

Obama has not announced a visit to Indonesia, but locals hope he’ll visit during a trip to Asia in November. Obama spent part of his childhood in Indonesia.

President Obama didn't get to put former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-SD., in as HHS  Secretary because of Daschle's tax problems, and thus was deprived of having the savvy former Senate Majority Leader in house to lead the health care push.

But with his health care plan on the ropes, Obama's meeting with Daschle Friday at the White House. Perhaps Daschle will advise the president how to improve his prospects. 

President Obama today called King Abdullah of Jordan and together agreed on the need to quickly launch Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Obama said he’d dispatch special envoy George Mitchell would follow up in coming weeks to try to set the stage for jumpstarting the long abandoned talks.

“The president and the king agreed on the need to launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as soon as possible,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday.

“They also agreed that all parties _ Israel, the Palestinians and Arab states should take steps simultaneously to create a context in which these negotiations can succeed.”

Obama’s call to Abdullah and joint plea to resume peace talks comes just two days after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak visited the White House and urged resuming peace talks that would cover the whole breadth of issues in the region, without waiting for interim steps such as the Arab and U.S. demand that Israel stop adding to its settlements in the occupied West Bank.

That came as Israel said this week it would stop new construction, though not existing construction.
Taken together, the actions suggested a simultaneous press for efforts to build confidence and trust _ including Arab concessions _ as well as final status peace talks.

“The president is hopeful that the meetings that he's had here this week and the phone call, the Mubarak meeting and the Abdullah phone call today, that we are continuing to make progress on the path toward Middle East peace,” Gibbs said.

“The optimism continues to rise. We're hopeful and understand that the road ahead will not be easy. It's a complex and emotional set of issues that we look forward to working through.”

While Gibbs refused to characterize Abdullah’s remarks on the phone conversation between the two leaders, he said that Obama lauded Jordan’s efforts to prod Arab states to reach out to Israel.

“The president underscored his strong support for Jordan's efforts to work with other Arab states to reach out to Israel and undertake gestures that would demonstrate the meaning of the Arab Peace Initiative,” Gibbs said.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs released this statement this morning:

“The United States deeply regrets the decision by the Scottish Executive to release Abdel Basset Mohamed al-Megrahi. 

“Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his role in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which blew up over Scotland on December 21, 1988.  As we have expressed repeatedly to officials of the government of the United Kingdom and to Scottish authorities, we continue to believe that Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland. 

“On this day, we extend our deepest sympathies to the families who live every day with the loss of their loved ones.  We recognize the effects of such a loss weigh upon a family forever.”

President Obama participated in a scripted online commercial for his health care overhaul with religious voters and pastors Wednesday that ended with him bemoaning those who bear “false witness” against his plans – and then making a claim of his own that’s been widely shown to be false.

“There’s been a lot of misinformation,” Obama said as he joined the program near its end, complaining about “people who are bearing false witness.”

He said the first thing he wanted to correct was the idea that the proposed overhaul would force some people into different health care plans. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.”

But that’s not true, according to factcheck.org, an independent truth squadding effort run by the University of Pennsylvania.

“He can’t make that promise to everyone,” says factcheck’s analysis, one of several that have pointed out that the health care plan could lead to employers switching plans _ and thus forcing their employees into different plans and perhaps to different doctors.

“Under the House bill,” Factcheck said, “some employers might have to modify plans after a five-year grace period if they don’t meet minimum benefits standards.

“Furthermore, some firms are likely to buy different coverage for their workers than they have now, or simply drop coverage and pay a penalty instead, leaving workers to buy their own private coverage or go on a new federal insurance plan.”

Obama also worked to knock down the false assertions that the overhaul would create “death panels” that would euthanize old people. “That is just an extraordinary lie,” Obama said.

He also noted that the proposed plan would ban financing health care for illegal immigrants, not provide care as some have charged. And he said there would be no federal financing of abortion under the plans, a charge made again Wednesday by the Republican National Committee.

“These are all fabrications,” he said.

He said he’d need help from all of the people on the call to correct the record, and prod Congress to pass a health care plan.

“I’m going to need the help of all of you,” he said. “Knock on doors, speak the truth.”

The 40-minute program, which was aired via the internet on blogtalkradio.com,  featured testimonials about the need for health care changes from pastors and members of various churches, mosques, synagogues and temples around the country, all of them apparently supporters of Obama’s proposals.
      

So remember that proposed legislation sent by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to Congress on Aug. 11 to toughen up regulation of opaque financial instruments called derivatives? Assistant Secretary Michael Barr said the proposed bill went to the "heart of the problems" afflicting the financial sector. Well, one important regulator thinks Treasury's proposed fix falls short.

In an Aug. 17 letter to key lawmakers that was obtained by McClatchy Newspapers, Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, takes Treasury to task. He calls the proposal "a very important step" but suggests several improvements.

"I believe the law must cover the entire marketplace without exception," Gensler wrote, detailing a number of exceptions in the Treasury bill that should be done away with.

One of them was highlighted earlier by McClatchy, a provision that allowed many smaller companies to escape having to settle their complex transactions in transparent fashion at a clearinghouse. Gensler proposes instead that they form client relationships to do so, shutting the door on a potentially huge loophole.

In case you are keeping score at home, Gensler and Geithner, as assistant Treasury secretaries, helped push through deregulation legislation at the end of the Clinton administration that led to many of the abuses that brought today's financial crisis. Now they are both angling to fix the mess from different perches, and their former boss Larry Summers is Barack Obama's chief economic adviser. Only Geithner has not worked on Wall Street. That might explain why Gensler saw dangerous loopholes in the exceptions suggested by the Obama administration.