Speeches

The cable TV channels fired their screeching engines hours in advance. A "Health Care Make or Break Moment" screamed a CNN headline. Countdown clocks at Fox and MSNBC ticked inexorably toward 00:00, the moment when President Obama would face down a joint session of Congress. This had to be really, really big, I learned all day Wednesday from the excitable people on cable TV -- a speech that likely would determine the fate of healthcare reform and, perhaps, the Obama presidency.

A day after President Obama went to Capitol Hill to renew his call for a sweeping healthcare overhaul, Democrats on Thursday rallied behind him, giving important momentum to the push for legislation this year. Especially important for the White House was the reaction of several conservative Democrats, who will be crucial to passing a bill that can clear the House and Senate. They cheered the president's pledge to ensure that an overhaul would not add to the government's debt. "If the details live up to the quality of the speech, then it's a good plan," said Tennessee Rep. Jim Cooper, a conservative Democrat who has been critical of the healthcare bill developed by House leaders.

President Obama on Sunday dismissed the uproar over Rep. Joe Wilson's heckling during the president's Wednesday speech to a joint session of Congress, suggesting it was only a distraction -- even as some members of Obama's party threatened to punish the South Carolina Republican. "This is part of what happens. I mean, it becomes a big circus instead of us focusing on healthcare," Obama said in an interview on the CBS news program "60 Minutes." Obama noted that Wilson later apologized, which "I appreciated."

Like every other award show on Earth, the Emmys, whose 61st edition became history Sunday night, is a staged event masquerading as news, or rather a staged event that contains nuggets of something that might be called news. It poses two intertwined but separate questions: Who will win? And will the show that delivers the answers be any good? Because it is unpredictable, the first question belongs to the real world; the second concerns something scripted, choreographed and scored, a show about show business.

President Obama will ask world leaders today to join him in confronting a range of vexing issues, including nuclear arms proliferation and climate change, and will appeal for the international cooperation he thinks will advance interests around the globe, aides said. In a morning address to the United Nations General Assembly, Obama will call for several specific commitments, including support for the major elements of a nonproliferation resolution he plans to introduce before the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad heralded his disputed reelection as "a glorious and fully democratic" event Wednesday in a speech to the General Assembly and avoided mention of Tehran's nuclear program, even as he faces possible sanctions from U.N. nations. Ahmadinejad devoted most of his comments to accusing Israel of "racist ambitions" and to portraying himself as a defender of the poor against unbridled capitalism. Speaking of voters in Iran's June presidential election, which led to violent street protests and widespread allegations of fraud, Ahmadinejad said, "They entrusted me once more, by a large majority, with this heavy responsibility."

In a glowing tribute to a Republican predecessor, President Obama on Friday praised President George H.W. Bush as an example of someone who eschewed "a life of comfort and privilege" and instead devoted himself to public service -- inside government and out. During an evening speech to honor the public service institute that Bush founded two decades ago, Obama called for cooperation between Republicans and Democrats. The former president, he said, proved that "the R or D next to your name is irrelevant" in challenging times.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday urged Congress to take dramatic action to stop climate change, but the political difficulties were evident as Republicans boycotted a Senate committee meeting on a global warming bill. "We cannot afford missing the objectives in climate protection," Merkel said at a joint session of Congress. "The world will look to us, to the Europeans and to the Americans." Just before Merkel's speech, Republicans shunned the meeting of the Environment and Public Works Committee to protest the refusal of Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.

Change has come to America, and if you don't believe it, you weren't watching the last five days' worth of inauguration coverage. Oh, some things remain the same: Tom Hanks is still our favorite Everyman, soulfully quoting Lincoln during Sunday's "We Are One" inaugural concert on HBO, and Miley Cyrus can still make little girls scream, as she did Monday night on Disney's kid-friendly version. Tuesday certainly had more than a few hallmarks of a standard American media fest -- CNN's irritating fast facts, the Spielberg sightings, the repeated use of the term "historic event."

INVOCATION For 'a new birth of clarity' The following transcript of the Rev. Rick Warren's invocation is from CQ Transcriptions. Let us pray. Almighty God, our father, everything we see and everything we can't see exists because of you alone. It all comes from you, it all belongs to you. It all exists for your glory. History is your story. The Scripture tells us, "Hear, oh Israel, the Lord is our God; the Lord is one." And you are the compassionate and merciful one. And you are loving to everyone you have made.