President Obama will team up with former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, along with President Kikwete of Tanzania and U2's Bono to mark World AIDS Day.

Bono's group ONE and (RED) will host a panel discussion Thursday on reaching "the beginning of the end of AIDS." The groups say major progress has been made in the last 10 years in the fight against AIDS "thanks in large part to US leadership" and that new scientific discoveries hold great promise for reducing infection rates. 

The event will be streamed live on ONE’s official YouTube channel. The panelists will respond to questions from a moderator, as well as to a selection of questions submitted by citizens on YouTube.

The guest list for tonight's State Dinner at the White House:

THE PRESIDENT and MRS. OBAMA

HIS EXCELLENCY HU JINTAO

The Honorable Madeleine Albright, Washington, D.C.
    Ms. Alice Albright

Ms. Christiane Amanpour, ABC News, New York, NY
    Mr. James Rubin

The Honorable David Axelrod, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor
    Mrs. Susan Axelrod

Mr. Jeffrey Bader, National Security Council
    Ms. Rohini Talalla

The Honorable Elizabeth Bagley, Washington, D.C.
    Mr. Kevin Frawley

Mr. Steven Ballmer, Microsoft, Redmond, WA
    Mrs. Connie Ballmer

Ms. Bette Bao Lord, New York, NY
       The Honorable Winston Lord

Mrs. Denise Bauer, Belvedere Tiburon, CA

The Honorable Howard Berman, Representative from California
      Mrs. Janis Berman
           
Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
       Dr. Jill Biden

The Honorable Joseph Beau Biden, III, Attorney General of Delaware, Wilmington, DE
       Mrs. Hallie Biden

His Excellency Zheng Bijian, Chairman, CIIDS

His Excellency Dai Bingguo, State Councilor

Mr. Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman Sachs, New York, NY
       Mrs. Laura Blankfein

The Honorable Antony Blinken, Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor, Office of the Vice President

The Honorable Stephen Breyer, United States Supreme Court
       Dr. Johanna Breyer

Mr. Greg Brown, Motorola, Schaumburg, IL
       Mrs. Anna-Louise Brown

The Honorable Dr. Zbigniew Brezezinski, McLean, VA
       Mrs. Emilie A. Brzezinski

The Honorable Kurt M. Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs
The Honorable Lael Brainard, Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs

The Honorable James E. Carter, former President of the United States
       Mrs. Rosalynn Carter

Mr. Jackie Chan, Beverly Hills, CA
       Mr. Phillip Button

The Honorable Elaine Chao, Washington, D.C.
       Dr. James Chao

His Excellency Wang Chao, Vice Minister for Commerce

His Excellency Tung Chee Hwa, Vice Chairman, CPPCC, former Hong Kong Chief Executive

Mr. John A. Chen, Chairman, Committee of 100, New York, NY
       Mrs. Sherrie Chen

The Honorable Chris Christie, Governor of New Jersey, Trenton, NJ
       Mrs. Mary Pat Christie

The Honorable Judy Chu, Representative from California
       Ms. Chiling Tong

The Honorable Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy
       Mrs. Jean Chu

The Honorable Hillary R. Clinton, Secretary of State

The Honorable William J. Clinton, former President of the United States

The Honorable James E. Clyburn, Representative from South Carolina
       Mr. John Clyburn

The Honorable Richard Daley, Mayor of Chicago, Chicago, IL
       Mrs. Maggie Daley

The Honorable William Daley, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff
       Ms. Bernadette Keller

His Excellency Chen Deming, Minister of Commerce

Mr. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase & Co., New York, NY
       Mrs. Judith Dimon

The Honorable Thomas Donilon, Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor
       Ms. Cathy Russell, Chief of Staff to Dr. Jill Biden

The Honorable Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education
       Mrs. Karen Duncan

Mr. James Fallows, The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.
       Mrs. Deborah Fallows

Mr. Xie Feng, Director General, MFA

Mr. Thomas Friedman, The New York Times, Washington, D.C.
       Mrs. Ann Friedman

The Honorable Michael B. Froman, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs
       Ms. Nancy Goodman

His Excellency Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology

The Honorable Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense
       Mrs. Becky Gates

The Honorable Timothy F. Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury
       Mrs. Carole Geithner

Mr. Mark Gilbert, Boca Raton, FL
       Mrs. Nancy Gilbert

The Honorable Chris Gregoire, Governor of Washington, Olympia, WA
       Ms. Courtney Gregoire

His Excellency Zhu Guangyao, Vice Minister for Finance

His Excellency Zhang Guobao, Vice Minister for NDRC

Mr. Herbie Hancock, Los Angeles, CA
      Mrs. GiGi Hancock

The Honorable Dr. John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology

The Honorable Robert Hormats, Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business, and Agricultural Affairs

The Honorable Steny Hoyer, Representative from Maryland, Democratic WHIP

His Excellency Wang Huning, Director of the Policy Research Office of CCCPC

The Honorable Jon Huntsman, U.S. Ambassador to China
       Mrs. Mary Kaye Huntsman

Mr. Robert Iger, The Walt Disney Company, Burbank, CA
       Ms. Willow Bay

Mr. David Ignatius, The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.
Dr. Eve Ignatius

Mr. Jeff Immelt, General Electric, Fairfield, CT
       Mrs. Andrea Immelt

The Honorable Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement

His Excellency Li Jiaxiang, Vice Minister for Transportation

His Excellency Yang Jiechi, Minister of Foreign Affairs

His Excellency Ling Jihua, Director of the General Office of CCCPC

Mr. Robert Kagan, McLean, VA
       Ms. Victoria Nuland

Mr. Michael Kempner, East Rutherford, NJ
       Mrs. Jacqueline Kempner

Mr. Muhtar Kent, Coca-Cola, Atlanta, GA

The Honorable John F. Kerry, Senator from Massachusetts
       Mrs. Teresa Heinz Kerry

Mr. Robert King, UAW, Detroit, MI
       Ms. Julie Kushner

The Honorable Ron Kirk, United States Trade Representative
       Mrs. Matrice Ellis-Kirk

The Honorable Henry Kissinger, New York, NY
    Mrs. Nancy Kissinger

Mr. Nicholas Kristof, The New York Times, Scarsdale, NY
       Ms. Sheryl WuDunn

Ms. Ellen Kullman, DuPont, Wilmington, DE
       Mr. Michael Kullman

Dr. Zhang Kunsheng, Director-General, Protocol Department

Ms. Michelle Kwan, Torrance, CA

Mr. Lang Lang, New York, NY
      Mrs. Zhou Xiulan

The Honorable Jacob Lew, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources

Ms. Maya Lin, New York, NY
       Mr. Daniel Wolf

Ms. Limin Liu, Reno, NV
       Dr. Hugh Shapiro

Mr. Andrew N. Liveris, The Dow Chemical Company, Midland, MI
       Mrs. Paula Liveris

The Honorable Gary Locke, Secretary of Commerce
       Mrs. Mona Locke

The Honorable Christopher Lu, Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary
       Ms. Kathryn Thomson

The Honorable Richard Lugar, Senator from Indiana
       Mrs. Charlene Lugar

Mr. Yo Yo Ma, Burbank, CA
       Ms. Jill Hornor

The Honorable Capricia Marshall, Chief of Protocol, Department of State

Mr. W. James McNerney, The Boeing Company, Chicago, IL
       Mrs. Haity McNerney

Mr. Evan Medeiros, Director for Asian Affairs, NSS

His Excellency Jiang Mianheng, Vice Chairman, CAS

Mr. Mel Monzack, Wilmington, DE
       Mrs. Ann Monzack

Admiral Michael G. Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Mrs. Wendi Deng Murdoch, New York, NY

Mr. James Murren, Las Vegas, NV
      Mrs. Heather Murren

The Honorable Thomas Nides, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources
       Ms. Virginia Moseley

Mr. Paul Otellini, Intel, Santa Clara, CA
       Mrs. Sandy Otellini

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Representative from California, Democratic Leader
       Mr. Paul Pelosi

His Excellency Zhang Ping, Minister of NDRC

The Honorable David Plouffe, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor
       Ms. Olivia Morgan

Mr. Tom Pritzker, Pritzker Organization, Chicago, IL
       Mrs. Margot Pritzker

His Excellency Wang Qishan, Vice Premier of the State Council

Ms. Jean Quan, Mayor of Oakland, CA
       The Honorable Edwin M. Lee, Mayor of San Francisco, CA

Ms. Azita Raji, JP Morgan Securities, Inc., Belvedere, CA
       Mr. Gary Syman

The Honorable Ben Rhodes, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting
       Ms. Ann Norris

The Honorable Susan Rice, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, New York, NY
       Mr. Ian Cameron

Mr. Robert Roche, Shanghai, CN

Mr. Kenneth Roth, The Human Rights Watch, Washington, D.C.
       Ms. Annie Sparrow

The Honorable Pete Rouse, Counselor to the President
       Ms. Courtney Chapin

Mr. David M. Rubenstein, The Carlyle Group, Washington, D.C.
       Mrs. Alice Rubenstein

Mr. Kirk Rudy, Austin, TX
       Mrs. Amy Rudy

The Honorable Brent Scowcroft, The Forum for International Policy, Washington, D.C.

The Honorable Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services
       The Honorable Gary Sebelius

The Honorable Susan Sher, Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the First Lady
       The Honorable Neil Cohen

Mr. Robert Sherman, Boston, MA
       Ms. Kim S. Sawyer

His Excellency Chen Shiju, Chief of the President’s Office

The Honorable George Shultz, Stanford, CA
       Mrs. Charlotte Shultz

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, Culver City, CA
       The Honorable Phil Gordon, Mayor of Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ

The Honorable Gene Sperling, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy & Director of the National Economic Council
       Ms. Allison Abner

The Honorable Jim Steinberg, Deputy Secretary of State
    Ms. Sherburne B. Abbott

Ms. Barbra Streisand, Malibu, CA
Mr. James Brolin

The Honorable Tina Tchen, Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Public Engagement

Mr. John Thornton, The Brookings Institution, HSBC North America, Palm Beach, FL
       Mrs. Margaret Thornton

His Excellency Cui Tiankai, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs

Dr. Stanley Toy, Jr., Pasadena, CA
       Ms. Lana Toy

Mr. Luis Ubinas, The Ford Foundation, New York, NY
       Dr. Deborah Tolman

Mr. Jose Villarreal, Commissioner General, Shanghai Expo, San Antonio, TX
       Ms. Sara Villarreal

Ms. Vera Wang, New York, NY
       Mr. Arthur Becker

Mr. Steve Westly, Menlo Park, CA
       Ms. Anita Yu

Ms. Anna Wintour, Vogue Magazine, New York, NY
       Mr. Shelby Bryan

Ms. Patricia A. Woertz, Archer Daniels Midland, Decatur, IL
       Mr. Kelvin R. Westbrook

Mr. B.D. Wong, New York, NY
       Mrs. Roberta Wong

Mr. Charles Woo, Mega Toys, Los Angeles, CA
       Mrs. Ying Woo

The Honorable David Wu, Representative from Oregon
       Ms. Anna Kopperud

His Excellency Xie Xuren, Minister of Finance

His Excellency Zhang Yesui, Chinese Ambassador to the United States
    Madam Chen Naiqing

His Excellency Sun Yibiao, Vice Minister for Customs

Viacom networks MTV, BET and CMT will carry this live at 4 p.m. EDT and on the Web. An audience of 250 was engineered for diversity of ethnicity and interests; the White House maintains it also will represent a cross-section of political views. The forum also will involve questions via Twitter. This morning, the Viacom folks were still inviting questions:

RT @BET: President Obama is teaming up with @BET, @MTV, @CMT today for a town hall. Find out how to submit questions: http://ht.ly/2TulZ

For better or worse, MTV's youth forums are still probably most identified with President Bill Clinton getting - and answering! - the boxers-or-briefs question from a teenage girl in 1994. There is ZERO chance Obama would do the same, if posed such a query. In 2008, he told Us Magazine he doesn't answer those sorts of "humiliating" questions.

President Obama Tuesday nominated Deputy Secretary of State Jacob J. Lew as his new Director of the Office of Management and Budget. Lew, who held the budget job under former President Bill Clinton,  would replace Peter Orszag, who is resigning.

 “The experience and good judgment Jack has acquired throughout his impressive career in the public and private sector will be an extraordinary asset to this administration’s efforts to cut down the deficit and put our nation back on a fiscally responsible path," Obama said.

"As the budget director who left the next administration a $237 billion surplus when he worked for President Clinton, I have no doubt that Jack has proven himself equal to this extraordinary task. I am grateful he has agreed to serve in this critical role, and I look forward to working with him in the weeks and months ahead.”

From the White House:

"Mr. Jack Lew is Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, serving as Chief Operating Officer of the Department. Appointed by President Obama, he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on January 28, 2009, and sworn in by Secretary Clinton the next day.

"Mr. Lew was managing director and chief operating officer of Citi Alternative Investments (CAI) until January 2009. At CAI, he was responsible for operations, technology, finance, human resources, legal and regional coordination. Prior to joining CAI in January 2008, he was managing director and chief operating officer of Citi Global Wealth Management.

"From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Lew was executive vice president and chief operating officer of New York University, where he was responsible for budget, finance, and operations. He was also a professor of public administration.

"Mr. Lew served in President Clinton’s cabinet as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). From 1998 to 2001, he led the Administration budget team and served as a member of the National Security Council. During his tenure at OMB, the U.S. budget operated at a surplus for three consecutive years. Earlier, Mr. Lew served as OMB’s Deputy Director and was a member of the negotiating team that reached a bi-partisan agreement to balance the budget. As Special Assistant to President Clinton from 1993 to 1994, Mr. Lew helped design Americorps, the national service program.

"From 1988 to 1993, Mr. Lew was a partner at the Washington law firm Van Ness, Feldman, specializing in issues related to power plant development.

"Mr. Lew began his career in Washington in 1973 as a legislative aide. From 1979 to 1987, he was a principal domestic policy advisor to House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr, where he served at the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee as Assistant Director and then Executive Director. There he was responsible for domestic and economic issues including Social Security, Medicare, budget, tax, trade, appropriations, and energy issues

"From 2004 through 2008, Mr. Lew served on the Corporation for National and Community Service Board and chaired its Management, Administration, and Governance Committee. Prior to assuming his current position, he co-chaired the Advisory Board for City Year New York and was on the boards of the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Brookings Institution Hamilton Project and the Tobin Project. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Academy of Social Insurance and of the bar in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

"Mr. Lew received his A.B. degree magna cum laude from Harvard and his J.D. degree from Georgetown University."

Former White House adviser William Galston says President Obama’s speech was ‘workmanlike,” failed to acknowledge complaints about the federal government response, missed an opportunity to seize command.

“President Obama delivered a workmanlike but ultimately disappointing account of what his administration has done thus far to cope with the oil spill and what it plans to do in the months ahead,” Galston wrote in an analysis for the Brookings Institution, where he is a scholar.

“While Obama enumerated the steps his administration has taken to clean up the oil and prevent it from fouling the Gulf coast, he was virtually silent about the complaints state and local officials have consistently voiced—that the cleanup effort is slow, inefficient, and confused by multiple agencies whose activities are inadequately coordinated. He failed to acknowledge these difficulties and to offer specific remedies for them. Indeed, the speech was marked—and marred—by its paucity of compelling specifics,” said Galston, a former adviser in the Clinton White House.

“Although he delivered the speech in the Oval Office, he did not fill the room, and his text seemed too skimpy and schematic. If the oil spill is in fact an event of sufficient gravity to warrant a speech from the most elevated venue a president possesses, the occasion called for a larger, more ample accounting than the president chose to offer,” he said.

“I have no idea what the public opinion polls will say, but my guess is that this speech will come to be seen as a missed opportunity.”

Former President Bill Clinton was reported to be in good spirits Thursday evening after suffering chest pains and having two stents in one of his arteries.

“Today, President Bill Clinton was admitted to the Columbia Campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital after feeling discomfort in his chest,” Clinton aide Douglas Band said in a statement.

“Following a visit to his cardiologist, he underwent a procedure to place two stents in one of his coronary arteries.”

Stents are wire mesh tubes that expand and prop up an artery to relieve blockage. Clinton, now 63, had a quadruple bypass operation in 2004 that successfully freed four blocked arteries. 

 Band signaled that Clinton was not in grave danger Thursday. “President Clinton is in good spirits,” he said, “and will continue to focus on the work of his Foundation and Haiti's relief and long-term recovery efforts.” Clinton has been active in Haiti relief efforts

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was finishing a regular weekly meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House Thursday afternoon about the time he husband was taken to the hospital. She left for New York soon after that.

It was unclear whether she would postpone a scheduled trip on Friday to Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“If we have anything to add beyond that, we will, including any changes to her schedule in the coming days," said a statement from the State Department.
  

Maybe it's just a busy week. Maybe it's the fact that former President Bill Clinton dropped by to chat on Thursday.

Either way, the habitual lateness of the former president, called "Clinton time" when he always ran late seemed to creep into the Obama White House as the current president was running late on appointment after appointment.

On Tuesday, he was more than 45 minutes late to make a statement on the attempted Christmas day airplane bombing.

On Thursday, he twice delayed scheduled remarks on the same subject. Aides said a report on the attempted bombing was still be "scrubbed" to make sure it didn't reveal intelligence methods or sources.

And on Friday, he delayed remarks on jobs.

Ok, it's not quite Clinton time, which was worse all the time. But it's also not George W. Bush time, who was always on time. Perhaps like his approach to policy, Obama just likes to split the difference.

Several Turkish diplomats were physically restrained by U.S. Secret Service agents when they tried to enter a tent holding President Obama’s limo and could not understand yelled orders to stop.

The fracas Tuesday night happened just outside the New York hotel where Obama was speaking at former President Bill Clinton’s Clinton Global Initiative meeting.

As Clinton was walking Obama out to his limo, a small horde of agents and police got into a shouting match with some people at one corner of the tent where the presidential limo was waiting.

“A foreign delegation got confused and were trying to enter the president's departure tent and didn't understand the verbal instructions being given,” Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said.
“They had to be physically restrained."

Donovan said he did not think the diplomats, identified as Turkish by White House pool reporter Jon Ward of the Washington Times, made it into the tent. They were not detained.

"Our feeling is the incident was exacerbated by a language barrier,” Donovan added.

Despite President Obama's determination to avoid every mistake made in Bill Clinton's pitch for a health care overhaul, he's getting almost exactly the same results in the polls.

A new survey by respected Republican pollster Bill McInturff released today finds remarkably similar results from an identical poll taken in June 1994, with both finding that the more people learned about the president's proposal, the less they liked it.

The key questions:

Familiar with the plan: 67 percent in 1994, 64 percent in 2009.

Favor the plan: 23 percent in 1994, 25 percent in 2009.

Oppose the plan: 35 percent in 1994, 37 percent in 2009.

No Opinion: 42 percent in 1994, 37 percent in 2009.

"The more I hear about the plan, the less I like it:" 52 percent in 1994, 49 percent in 2009

"The more I hear about the plan, the more I like it:" 34 percent in 1994, 38 percent in 2009.

"This data is hauntingly familiar to what we saw in 1994," McInturff said Thursday morning over breakfast with reporters. 

Before you write that McInturff is a Republican and somehow suspect, we find him to be a fair-minded pollster and find the wording of his questions straight and objective.

The poll of 800 registered voters was conducted Aug. 11-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

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.