
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/18/intv.hoekstra.art.jpg caption="Rep. Peter Hoekstra adds to the criticism of Nancy Pelosi and whether she knew waterboarding was being used."]
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might be fighting for her political future this week. Republicans say if the CIA misled Congress on the use of torture on terror suspects as Pelosi has claimed they want to see proof.
Pelosi wants the full transcript of classified notes of a 2002 briefing on waterboarding made public. She says that will prove she was not told the technique was being used. A top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee insists that he read those notes from that briefing and that Pelosi is wrong.
Congressman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. He says Pelosi needs to be held accountable for what she has said. He spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Monday.
Kiran Chetry: As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, how much information were you or your colleagues given regarding interrogation tactics?
Peter Hoekstra: I expect that what happened is very much like the briefings I received in 2004 when I became chairman of the committee. You get a very, very detailed briefing as to exactly what's going on in the program that the CIA may be laying out for you. When the briefing is complete, there's really a couple of questions that either they ask or that you ask. It's kind of like... is there any other additional information that you feel you need, congressman? And then really the implied question is... do you agree or do you not agree with the program and the tactics that we’ve put in place?
Chetry: So realistically speaking, if Nancy Pelosi at the time was informed about the waterboarding as a potential technique or even currently being used, would it be the proper or the de rigueur thing to do to write a memo expressing your opposition to that?
Hoekstra: Well, actually, the first thing you would do in the briefing, you would express your anger or your disagreement with the policy that you may be briefed on. If you don't get satisfaction from the briefers, because they're not the ones that are really making the decisions, what you would then do is go back to the leadership in your political party, in this case, she would have gone back to the minority leader and said... hey, there's a practice being contemplated or being acted on in the intelligence community that I disagree with and I think that we need to stop it. And then you would go to the president. There's lots of options that you can use.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/15/intv.toates.art.jpg caption="CNN's Kiran Chetry speaks to a Notre Dame senior who is boycotting graduation over President Obama's speech."]
(CNN) - President Obama this weekend will become the ninth sitting U.S. president to deliver the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, but none of the others has touched off the firestorm of Obama's appearance.
At issue is the president's pro-choice abortion belief, which runs counter to the Catholic Church's official pro-life stance, and his support for federal funding of stem-cell research.
One person who was supposed to be going to commencement but is not is Notre Dame senior Emily Toates. She feels so strongly about the university's decision to invite the president in spite of his views on abortion, she's organized a group to boycott her own graduation. Toates spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Friday.
Kiran Chetry: The president will deliver the commencement address. He got an honorary degree from the school. You feel so strongly about that situation that you're not going to attend your graduation? Tell us more about why?
Emily Toates: Well, I was really sad to hear that the university invited President Obama to speak. While it's an honor to have the president come, Obama's stance on certain life issues go against the Catholic teachings. I do not feel comfortable going and celebrating him as the university hands him an honorary degree, in a sense honoring his policies. I didn’t feel comfortable going and standing there and standing beside that – clapping while we did that.
Chetry: How is it shaking down at your school? How many students are supporting this move and how many are against it?
Toates: Well it's a difficult situation. This has caused a bit of division on the campus. But it also has created a lot of... discussion on these issues. I think there's a few camps - there's those strongly against it, those strongly for it, but there’s a lot of people in the middle that really aren't sure how they feel about this. Maybe they disagree with Obama on certain issues but don't really understand how this impacts him giving a speech on campus. So this has created a lot of opportunity for discussion, education. I'm working with "ND Response" and we’ve used this as an opportunity to discus these issues, brought some great speakers to campus, to really talk about this and why this matters.
John P. Avlon is the author of Independent Nation: How Centrists Can Change American Politics and writes a weekly column for The Daily Beast. Previously, he served as Chief Speechwriter for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and was a columnist and associate editor for The New York Sun.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/04/29/avlon.john.art.jpg caption= "John Avlon says President Obama is cultivating a broader coalition than past presidents to tackle healthcare reform."]
By John Avlon
Special to CNN
Something’s happening on healthcare reform – and it isn’t just déjà vu all over again.
Democratic presidents since Truman have wrestled with healthcare reform. Jimmy Carter 's attempts died at the hands of congressional liberals who wanted a Canadian-style single-payer system. These advocates of all-or-nothing got nothing. Bill Clinton’s ambitions fell under criticism of its secretive top-down policy approach and a successful industry effort to stigmatize it as “socializing one-seventh of the economy.”
You’ve got to give this to President Obama – the man is a student of history and he’s determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. Yesterday, he brought health care industry executives and union leaders to the White House in an example of his patented ability to bring diverse interests to the same table. They emerged with a voluntary agreement to cut costs by $2 trillion over the next 10 years, which could eventually translate to a savings of $2500 per family. As impressive as the promised savings, the odd coupling was arguably more impressive: some of the same folks who were fighting healthcare reform a decade and a half ago are today eager participants.
They seem to have bought into President Obama’s reframing of healthcare reform beyond individual heartstring stories and toward a more hard-headed argument based on fiscal responsibility and international competitiveness. It is an argument that business understands.
Healthcare reform legislation is still in development, but President Obama is already cultivating a much broader coalition that presidents have in the past. In his prime time press conference marking his first 100 days in office, he even indicated one substantive area of bipartisan cooperation he had discussed with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – putting medical malpractice reform in any healthcare package to reduce costs.
The devil will, of course, be in the details – but some kind of a public-private partnership to address the 47 million uninsured Americans seems in the cards for Obama’s ambitious opening year.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/05/12/intv.frum.gop.art.jpg caption= "David Frum says the GOP's strength lies with actual governance and achievement at the state level."]
Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh is now standing up for former Vice President Dick Cheney after Cheney took aim at the White House, Democrats and even Colin Powell. Powell suggested that Republicans need to move toward the political center to survive and Cheney took a shot questioning whether Powell was even a Republican anymore.
Limbaugh commented on the matter, saying “What motivates Dick Cheney? Love of country. National interest. He doesn't need this abuse. He's the lone voice. But if we're going to moderate and try to make ourselves look like we're on the same page as Obama, well, he is going to get all the credit for all the good and we’re going to all the blame for all the bad and there is going to be no reason to ever vote for Republicans.”
David Frum is a conservative columnist and editor of newmajority.com and was a speechwriter for former President George W. Bush. He spoke to Kiran Chetry on CNN’s “American Morning” Tuesday.
Kiran Chetry: How troubling is it when you have two very polarizing figures like Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney taking up a lot of air time for the Republican Party? As a Republican, does that concern you?
David Frum: Look, Dick Cheney is a great man and one of the most effective and knowledgeable people in the Bush administration and all of Washington. The country owes him a great deal. But this kind of dispute reminds me of those t-shirts you sometimes see at boot camps and things like that... the beatings will continue until morale improves. The firings from the Republican Party will continue until the party gets bigger. I don't think what we need is a fight between Dick Cheney and Colin Powell.
A Republican Party that’s not big enough to include Colin Powell – well that’s not a very big party… Many people inside Washington think of Colin Powell as a figure who’s about domestic politics. But in the eyes of America he is the general who won the only unequivocal victory this country has seen in any war since World War II. So if you want to say we don't have room for him, well we have room for all the generals for the losing wars we don’t have room for the generals from the winning wars and I don't think that's a very appealing message.

