Bin Laden's 'porn' more damning than his terrorism?

In the two weeks since Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden, U.S. officials have waged a curious campaign to belittle him. First they implied that he had used a woman as a human shield. Then they released videos suggesting that he had dyed his beard to look younger. Then they said they'd found pornography in his compound.

The smear campaign seems ridiculous. Bin Laden was a mass murderer. Why bother calling him a sissy and a voyeur?

Bin Laden's "porn stash" are more than a joke. His sympathizers and potential followers are, by several measures, more categorically averse to pornography, adultery, and the mixing of men and women than they are to suicide bombing of civilian targets. If you want to sour these people on Bin Laden and his movement, calling him a terrorist won't cut it. You're better off portraying him as a hypocritical porn hound who lived in a million-dollar mansion, touched himself up for videos, and hid behind women when martyrdom called.

The porn story, like the human shields and the million-dollar mansion, is probably bogus. The 54-year-old zealot with three wives was the least likely guy in the compound to be watching erotic videos. Logically, the story makes no sense. But politically, it's perfect.


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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43065572/ns/slatecom/

Osama bin Laden changed us in ways minute, monumental

Without him, there would probably be no Department of Homeland Security, no Patriot Act, no Qur’an-burning pastors.

Had Osama bin Laden never been born, there would surely be fewer memorials to slain firefighters, less need for prosthetic limbs for young troops, an American public still largely ignorant of the Muslim notion of martyrdom.

Our military probably would still be more interested in tanks and aircraft carriers, less wary of roadside bombs and suicide belts. The development of killer robot planes might not have come so far. The need to deal with asymmetric threats — battling an army not of battalions but of insurgents — would not be so pressing.

And America would certainly be a country with far fewer long-fading yellow ribbons.

The man who came to symbolize a bloody rejection of all things U.S. left a legacy among those he hated, and those he inspired to hate them. Little wonder that his demise brought so little sympathy.

“In the past few years, (bin Laden’s) main military triumphs have been against such targets as Afghan schoolgirls, Shiite Muslim civilians, and defenseless synagogues in Tunisia and Turkey,” wrote pundit Christopher Hitchens on news of bin Laden’s death and dumping at sea. “Has there ever been a more contemptible leader from behind, or a commander who authorized more blanket death sentences on bystanders?”

In ways small and monumental, bin Laden’s two decades on the world stage changed how America operated within its borders and with other nations. It may not have been entirely his doing, but his life had a profound impact on the nation he so loathed.

It was after he mobilized al-Qaida against the United States, after all, that Washington set up the legal purgatory of Guantanamo Bay for foreign fighters. Since then, the country tormented itself over whether waterboarding is torture and whether torture is always a bad idea.

As fate would have it, the first bits of intelligence that ultimately tracked down bin Laden came from secret prisons overseas. That won’t end the torture debate, but it looks to have ended bin Laden’s run.

Current and former U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, provided the pseudonym of a bin Laden courier. The CIA also got tips from Mohammed’s successor, Abu Faraj al-Libi. Both men underwent harsh interrogation at CIA prisons in Poland and Romania.

It was, in a way, the nature of bin Laden’s tactics that prompted America to bend its own ways.

Bin Laden no more invented the suicide bomber than Henry Ford invented the automobile. He just made more of them than anyone had before.

Under his leadership, al-Qaida shifted the rationalization behind suicide bombings. The ultimate attacks of 9/11 weren’t done with bombs, but they fit with a devolved sense of justifications for killing. No longer did a man with an explosive vest need to aim for Israeli soldiers or some other combatants. Now, went the reasoning sold by bin Laden’s organization, truck bombs could target civilians as long as the victims could be painted as somehow sympathetic to Islam’s supposed enemies.

“They built this narrative that Muslims are being besieged and humiliated and targeted by the West in wars and occupation,” said Mohammed M. Hafez, an associate professor at the Naval Post Graduate School who has researched suicide bombers. “They elevated martyrdom in online documents and videos. … They’ve really taken the art of martyrdom veneration to a new level.”

Impact on politics

Bin Laden’s more lethal brand of terrorism changed, too, the dynamics of American politics.

George W. Bush arguably would have had a harder time at re-election in 2004 were he not, as he put it, “a war president.”

Barack Obama’s re-election prospects — had he ever made it to the White House — might look bleaker now had troops on his watch not slain the face of terrorism.

And the hope that bin Laden’s 9/11 terrorist attacks might unite a polarized U.S. turned out to be fleeting at best.


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House Republicans aim to repeal Obama healthcare law

President Barack Obama signs the health insurance reform bill in the East Room at the White House in Washington, March 23, 2010.

Republicans in the House of Representatives plan to pass a bill next week to repeal President Barack Obama's overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, a senior party aide said on Monday, but the effort is widely expected to fail in the Senate.

The new Congress will convene on Wednesday with Republicans in control of the House after November's midterm elections. They are set to move ahead with their campaign promise to try to rescind the new healthcare law, one of Obama's signature legislative victories.

Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for incoming House Republican leader Eric Cantor, said the House plans to vote on legislation to repeal the healthcare law on January 12.

"It will pass the House," Dayspring said.

Although Republicans will control the House, 242-193, Obama's Democrats retain control of the Senate by 53-47 and are likely to block any repeal of the healthcare law.

"Obamacare is a job killer for businesses small and large, and the top priority for House Republicans is going to be to cut spending and grow the economy and jobs," Dayspring said.

Republicans, particularly from the fiscally conservative wing, were emboldened to attack the healthcare reform after a good showing in November's elections.

Senate Democratic leaders warned against repealing a healthcare provision that closes a coverage gap in the Medicare prescription drug program for seniors.

"If House Republicans move forward with a repeal of the healthcare law that threatens consumer benefits like the 'donut hole' fix, we will block it in the Senate," the Democrats wrote in a letter to incoming House Speaker John Boehner.

"Taking this benefit away from seniors would be irresponsible and reckless at a time when it is becoming harder and harder for seniors to afford a healthy retirement," the Senate Democratic leaders wrote.

Among other provisions, the healthcare reform extends healthcare insurance to millions of Americans without coverage, but opinion polls show voters are split over it. The reform has become a favorite target for Republicans who say it is an excessive reach by the federal government.

Even if repeal fails, Republicans will yield considerable sway over the government purse strings and try to use that power to deny the Obama administration's requests on financing to implement the new healthcare law.

Dayspring said the House will hold a procedural vote on Friday in preparation for the January 12 vote.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70113W20110104

US withdraws Venezuela envoy's visa

The US has revoked the visa for Venezuela's ambassador to Washington in what it called a "reciprocal" action for Caracas turning down the US choice for its own representative in the Venezuelan capital.

Mark Toner, a US state department spokesman, confirmed on Wednesday that the visa of ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, who is reportedly not currently in the US, had been revoked.

Toner said: "We said there would be consequences when the Venezuelan government rescinded agreement regarding our nominee, Larry Palmer.

"We have taken appropriate, proportional and reciprocal action".

Speaking on state television on Tuesday, Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan preisdent, had dared the US to cut off diplomatic relations.

"If the [US] government wants to expel our ambassador there, let them! If they cut off diplomatic relations, let them," he said.

Chavez had announced in August that he would not accept Palmer's appointment to be the next US ambassador to Venezuela because of comments Palmer made during his confirmation hearing in the senate.

Palmer said that he believed Venezuela was allowing leftists FARC fighters to find safe haven in the country and that Venezuela's military was under Cuban influence and suffering from low morale.

Relations between Washington and Caracas have been rocky since Chavez came to power in 1999.

Both sides withdrew their ambassadors between September 2008 and June 2009 after a spat over US military bases in Colombia.

Despite their political differences, the US continues to buy around one million barrels of crude oil from Venezuela every day.

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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/12/2010123023228116789.html

Arab Nations to Seek UN Pressure on Israel to Stop Settlement Construction

A Palestinian man is seen through a water pipe as he gestures while removing rubble after an Israeli air strike in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip December 21, 2010. Israel carried out a series of air strikes in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Palestinian officials and witnesses said, after militants from the Hamas-ruled territory fired rockets into southern Israel.

Arab nations and the Palestinian Authority are set to ask the United Nations Security Council to demand that Israel halt settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

A draft resolution demanding that Israel “immediately and completely ceases all settlement activities” was to be given to the Security Council’s 15 member governments late yesterday or today, Egyptian Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz said in an interview.

The Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said that U.S. diplomats told him that the Obama administration opposes having the Security Council take up a resolution on the settlements issue. The U.S. mission to the UN didn’t respond to a request for a public comment on the draft resolution.

“The only road to peace between Israel and the Palestinians is through direct negotiations,” Israel’s Ambassador Meron Reuben said yesterday in an e-mail. “Palestinian attempts to bypass this road only move us further away from returning to the negotiation table. We hope that the international community won’t allow these moves to divert both sides from reaching the real goal: peace and stability in our region.”

The Security Council move stems from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s instructions last month to Mansour to begin talks in New York on a draft resolution.

Mansour said in an interview that the text was being distributed now so that Security Council members could study it over the next 10 days before formal talks are held in January. He said about 35 nations have agreed to co-sponsor the draft, which also condemns the continuation of settlement activity as illegal and a “major obstacle” to peace.

‘No Movement’

“We have to move on this track because there is no movement on any front,” Abdelaziz said. “We have a crisis situation. The Israelis have rejected the American proposal for a settlement freeze and they continue every day with settlement activity.”

The U.S. decided early this month to stop pressuring Israel to renew a moratorium on West Bank settlement construction. Palestinians refused to return to talks without an extension of the freeze, which expired in September.

The Arabs may have up to 14 votes for the draft resolution in the 15-member Security Council, and recognize that the measure would probably be defeated by a U.S. veto, said Ibrahim Dabbashi, Libya’s deputy ambassador to the UN.

“If it gets 14 votes, they will put it to a vote,” Dabbashi said. “We know finally it will not pass.”

Libya introduced a similar draft resolution when it had a seat on the Security Council two years ago, but didn’t put the text to a vote.

“The situation is different now,” Dabbashi said. “Now there is practically no peace process. It is at a standstill. At the time, there was not an overwhelming majority to put it to a vote. It was not only the U.S. This time we feel it should have 14 votes.”

New Members

Abdelaziz said the entry of India and South Africa onto the Security Council as non-permanent members on Jan. 1 will create a body that will be “much in favor of movement” on the draft. The U.S., he said, might abstain rather than veto.

“Are the Americans even a little bit offended that the Israelis are brushing them aside all the time?” Abdelaziz said. “We will ask them to abstain.”

He said the Arabs haven’t received any signal from the Obama administration that abstention was a possibility.

About 500,000 Jews have moved to the West Bank and Jerusalem since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Middle East war. The UN says the settlements are illegal, and the International Committee of the Red Cross says they breach the Fourth Geneva Convention governing actions on occupied territory.

Israel says the settlements don’t fall under the convention because the territory wasn’t recognized as belonging to any country before the 1967 war, in which Israel prevailed, and therefore isn’t occupied.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-22/arabs-to-seek-un-demand-for-end-to-israeli-settlement-building.html

Holbrooke mentioned Afghan war before surgery

As friends and colleagues from four decades of diplomatic life reflected on the intensity of Richard C. Holbrooke's dedication, many were not surprised to learn that concerns about the Afghanistan war were apparently among his final thoughts.

After Holbrooke's death Monday, The Washington Post, citing his family members, reported that the veteran diplomat had told his physician just before surgery Friday to "stop this war."

But Tuesday, a fuller account of the tone and contents of his remarks emerged.

As physician Jehan El-Bayoumi was attending to Holbrooke in the emergency room at George Washington University Hospital, she told him to relax and asked what she could do to comfort him, according to an aide who was present.

Holbrooke, who was in severe pain, said jokingly that it was hard to relax because he had to worry about the difficult situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

El-Bayoumi, an Egyptian American internist who is Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's physician, replied that she would worry for him. Holbrooke responded by telling her to end the war, the aide said.

The aide said he could not be sure of Holbrooke's exact words. He emphasized Tuesday that the comment was made in painful banter, rather than as a serious exhortation about policy.

Holbrooke also spoke extensively about his family and friends as he awaited surgery by Farzad Najam, a thoracic surgeon of Pakistani descent.

Holbrooke's statement was seized upon quickly by critics of the Afghan war debate, some of whom interpreted it as a clarion call to end the conflict. Others viewed his comment as a last-breath disavowal of the Obama administration's war policy, which has involved a troop surge - which Holbrooke publicly supported - to combat the Taliban. But State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley cast Holbrooke's words simply as "humorous repartee."


Crowley said the comment "says two things about Richard Holbrooke in my mind. Number one, he always wanted to make sure he got the last word. And secondly, it just showed how he was singularly focused on pursuing and advancing the process and the policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan to bring them to a successful conclusion."

Holbrooke's deputy, Frank Ruggiero, has been named to fill his post as special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan in an acting capacity, Crowley said, adding that no significant move had been made to select a permanent replacement.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121406760.html?hpid=topnews

Tax Deal Is Key to Avoid Recession, Obama Adviser

One of President Obama’s top economic advisers warned on Wednesday that the nation could slip back into recession if Congress did not pass the administration’s tax cut deal with Republicans, as the White House sought to press Democrats into backing the plan.

But Democrats in the House and Senate were still seething with anger — both about the substance of the deal, which includes keeping the Bush-era rates even on the highest incomes, and the way they were iced out of the negotiations. It was unclear that the ominous economic forecast would help. Senate Democrats said they were still pressing for changes to the plan, but Republicans and the White House showed no signs of flexibility.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who failed on Tuesday to persuade many of his old Senate colleagues to get behind the plan, met with House Democrats for more than an hour on Wednesday. Dozens of lawmakers lined up to voice their displeasure, and to ask if there was any chance of reworking the plan, especially a provision setting a generous tax emption for wealthy estates.

“There is a substantial amount of dissatisfaction with the deal that was cut,” Representative Jim McDermott, Democrat of Washington, said after the meeting. “The Democratic caucus put itself on notice that it would not vote for tax cuts for the wealthy because we can’t afford them and because they are not needed, and that’s the point one Democrat after another is making.”

The continuing anger in Congress raised the likelihood that the tax deal would be approved largely with Republican votes. Enough Senate Democrats were expected to support the plan to surmount any filibuster. And in the House, given Republican support, it seemed possible for the tax plan to be adopted even with two-thirds or more of Democrats voting against it.

The deal would extend for two years the Bush-era tax cuts at all income levels, not just on income up to $250,000 per couple as President Obama had sought. In exchange, Republicans agreed to the administration’s demands for a 13-month continuation of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed, a one-year reduction in the payroll tax for nearly all workers, and other steps aimed at lifting the economy.

The plan also includes an agreement to reduce the estate tax, which lapsed completely this year but is set to return on Jan. 1 with an exemption of $1 million per person and a maximum rate of 55 percent. The deal will set the exemption, or unified credit, at $5 million per estate, and the maximum rate at 35 percent — a higher exemption and lower tax than many Democrats want.

The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, excoriated Democrats for trying to bring up several other issues, including an immigration bill and a Pentagon policy measure that includes authorization to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on open service by gay men and lesbians. Mr. McConnell urged the Democrats to bring the tax plan to the floor.

“Are we here to perform or to legislate?” Mr. McConnell asked, accusing the Democrats of forcing show votes on liberal ideals.

The majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, struggled on Wednesday to chart a path on several major items, including the tax proposal. Votes were tentatively scheduled for Thursday morning on the immigration measure, which would create a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants brought to the United States as young children, and on the military bill.

As attention focused mainly on the tax issue, House Democrats muscled through a stripped-down spending bill that would finance the federal government through Sept. 30 of next year, freezing the budgets of most agencies but including money for the war in Afghanistan.

The bill cuts nearly $46 billion from the president’s requested budget, and includes provisions for a two-year pay freeze for non-military federal employees.

The vote was 212 to 206, with 35 Democrats and all 171 Republicans in opposition.

With the president on the defensive with his own party, the White House marshaled an offensive that included circulating dozens of private-sector economic analyzes and endorsements from public officials.

But the big gun was the economic warning from Lawrence H. Summers, the soon-departing director of the White House National Economic Council.

“Failure to pass this bill in the next couple weeks would materially increase the risk that the economy would stall out and we would have a double-dip” recession, Mr. Summers told reporters at a briefing.

Mr. Obama, in a brief appearance with the president of Poland, rebutted a reporter’s question alluding to Congressional Democrats’ sense of betrayal.

“It is inaccurate to characterize Democrats writ large as feeling ‘betrayed,’ ” Mr. Obama said. “I think Democrats are looking at this bill, and you’ve already had a whole bunch of them who said this makes sense. And I think the more they look at it, the more of them are going to say this makes sense.”

The fight over the Bush-era rates would resume in the coming two years, Mr. Obama said, adding that he would make the case for “tax reform, that we’ve got to simplify the system.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/us/politics/09cong.html

WikiLeaks founder in hiding

For Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder and guiding spirit, it must have been sweet.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was trying to smooth over the embarrassment, while the White House huffed that a criminal investigation was underway. The French government was decrying "the height of irresponsibility," and Pakistan was reckoning with a rebuke from its traditional patron, Saudi Arabia.

Meanwhile, the pasty-faced Assange, a self-appointed knight-errant who has been doing battle with official secrecy since 2006, was in the shadows somewhere - few knew where - undoubtedly savoring the ruckus caused by WikiLeaks' exposure of confidential State Department cables.

In an uncomfortable irony, however, he had to do the savoring in a secret location, because Interpol, the international anti-crime organization, has issued a high-priority "red notice" asking member countries to arrest him.


President Obama's spokesman, Robert Gibbs, has said the U.S. government might want to prosecute Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, for violating U.S. secrecy laws and perhaps even for espionage. But that is not the reason for the notice - at least not yet. Swedish authorities on Nov. 18 asked Interpol to help them take Assange into custody for questioning on accusations of rape and sexual harassment.

The charges were brought by two Swedish women in August after what both described as consensual sexual encounters in Sweden that escalated into something unwanted and illegal. Assange, who has long expressed fear of reprisal from Washington and other governments, denied anything but consensual sex and suggested that the two women were part of a plot to smear his name and undermine his campaign to get government secrets into the open.

Before the women came forward, Assange had sought a Swedish residence visa, hoping to benefit from the country's strong protection of press freedoms. But since then, he has been traveling constantly and staying below the radar, popping up in London, appearing on a videoconference in Amman, Jordan, and answering questions from Time magazine via Skype, reluctant to show himself in flesh and blood.

In the Time Q&A, he said Clinton should resign because of her cable suggesting that U.S. diplomats surreptitiously gather personal data on their counterparts, something Assange said would violate the Vienna Convention on diplomatic activity. Gibbs dismissed that idea as "ridiculous" and said the problem is rather that Assange violated the diplomatic convention.

An underground existence is nothing new for Assange, his associates have pointed out. Driven by his anti-secrecy crusade and convinced that governments are out to get him, he has long avoided fixed residences, borrowing travel funds and sleeping on other people's couches between marathon sessions at the computer.

WikiLeaks announced via Twitter, meanwhile, that it has been the target of repeated hacker attacks since the publication of more than 250,000 leaked State Department communications, a claim in line with Assange's frequent assertions that U.S. intelligence agencies are intruding on his work.

While Assange stayed out of sight, his Stockholm lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, filed an appeal Wednesday against the Swedish government's arrest order. At the same time, his London attorney, Mark Stevens, said the Stockholm prosecutor's tactics show that she is out to get Assange for more than legal reasons.

"Since Sweden is a civilized country, I have to come to the conclusion that this is persecution and not prosecution," Stevens said in an e-mail to the Associated Press.

One news report suggested that Assange is considering asking for asylum in Switzerland. But that country is known for keeping secrets, so that seemed an unlikely solution. Moreover, WikiLeaks has announced that its next big project is to reveal the confidential documents of a major bank, believed to be Bank of America, which could make the land of numbered accounts an awkward haven for Assange.

A surprising possibility seemed to arise Monday, when a deputy foreign minister of Ecuador, Kintto Lucas, said Assange would be welcome in that South American country. "We are going to invite him to come to Ecuador so he can freely present the information he possesses and all the documentation, not just over the Internet but in a variety of public forms," Lucas announced.

By Wednesday, however, that idea had fallen apart. President Rafael Correa said neither he nor his foreign minister had approved the invitation to Assange and gave a strong impression that they never would.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/01/AR2010120105941.html

Obama Rallying Support for Arms Pact With Russia

President Obama appears to be building momentum for Senate approval of a new arms control treaty with Russia by the end of the year, but it may have to come at the expense of other legislative priorities with far greater support among his liberal base.

With more Republicans signaling a willingness to vote for the so-called New Start treaty, Mr. Obama faces the challenge of finessing relationships with supporters who want him to focus more energy in the short lame-duck session on issues like immigration and gay rights while giving enough members of the opposition reason to vote for the pact.

The White House and Senate Democrats have grown increasingly optimistic that they can gather the two-thirds majority, or 67 votes, required for Senate consent despite resistance by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the lead Republican negotiator. Senate Republican officials said that they were hoping to find a way to make it possible for Mr. Kyl to support the treaty and that if he does, a number of his party colleagues are ready to endorse it.

But having the votes will make no difference if there is no time on the Senate calendar to debate the treaty.

The tradeoff could be other Democratic initiatives, like repealing the ban on gay members of the military serving openly and creating a path to legal residency for some illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children. While the White House said all of these matters could still be addressed, some Democratic officials said they realized something might have to be sacrificed.

Senate Republicans said Wednesday that they would block consideration of any other issue until the Senate extended the Bush-era tax cuts that expire at the end of the month and financed continuing government operations. Mr. Kyl, who is also the top Senate Republican negotiator on the tax cuts, said that issue would have to be resolved by Monday to have enough time to also address the treaty.

Mr. Kyl has sought additional assurances of Mr. Obama’s support for modernizing the nuclear weapons complex but has never ruled out a vote this year. Other Republicans have told the White House that if the president shows he is responding to every question posed by Mr. Kyl, it may make it harder for Republicans to oppose the treaty.

In that vein, Senate treaty supporters secured a letter Wednesday from the directors of the three nuclear laboratories declaring themselves “very pleased” with the administration’s plan to spend $85 billion over the next 10 years to upgrade their facilities.

The plan provides “a workable funding level for a balanced program that sustains the science, technology and engineering base,” said the letter, signed by George Miller of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Michael R. Anastasio of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Paul Hommert of the Sandia National Laboratories.

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said the letter was “the nonpartisan gold standard” on the issue and showed that “the administration is making good on every promise that President Obama has made on this critical issue.” Mr. Kerry met with Mr. Kyl and other Republican senators on Tuesday.

Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, Mr. Kerry’s Republican counterpart and his party’s most vocal advocate of the treaty, said the word of the laboratory directors should decide the modernization issue. “I do not believe we should question their judgment,” Mr. Lugar said.

The White House brought another high-profile Republican, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, to the Oval Office on Wednesday to join Mr. Obama in lobbying the Senate. “This treaty is in the best interest of the United States of America, best interest of the world and frankly the best interest of the Russian Federation,” said Mr. Powell, a retired four-star general.

He also signed a Washington Post opinion article, posted on its Web site Wednesday, along with four other former Republican secretaries of state, Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III and Lawrence S. Eagleburger.

The full-bore press demonstrated that Mr. Obama has made the treaty his top legislative priority for the rest of the year, other than a tax-cut deal. By contrast, while he has spoken in favor of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” restrictions in the military and passing the Dream Act on immigration, he has not staged the same sort of sustained public campaign, which some took as a sign that he might sacrifice one or the other to get the treaty approved.

But that represents a complex political calculation. Gay and Hispanic Democrats make up important parts of the president’s base, while there is no domestic constituency for an arms control treaty. Moreover, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, is strongly committed to passing the Dream Act after making promises to Hispanic constituents in his hard-fought re-election battle.

How Mr. Obama will navigate those crosscurrents remains unclear. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, insisted that all these issues could be addressed in the next four weeks. “There is plenty of time to get plenty of work done,” he said.

He expressed confidence that the White House had made progress on the treaty. “Last week, we were ready to pronounce Start — or two weeks ago — ready to pronounce Start dead,” he said. Now, after positive statements from some Republican senators, he said, “there’s an understanding that it’s something that’s tremendously important to do.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/us/politics/02start.html?src=twrhp