President's Schedule: Friday, March 12

Good morning from WWR...the President turns his attention to foreign affairs today. A long meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan will be held in the Situation Room beginning at 11am, and the entire national security and foreign policy leadership will participate - some via a secure video link. Obama last got major updates on "Af-Pak" on Feb. 17th and Jan. 5.

Expected attendees include:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates
Ambassador Susan Rice, Permanent U.S. Representative to the United Nations
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (via videoconference)
Karl Eikenberry, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan
Anne Patterson, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan (via videoconference)
Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
General David Petraeus, U.S. Central Command
General Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Commander in Afghanistan (via videoconference)
Admiral Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence
CIA Director Leon Panetta
General James Jones, National Security Advisor
Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor
John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, Special Assistant to the President for Afghanistan and Pakistan

In the afternoon, the President will meet with the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the Old Family Dining Room.

The Schedule


EST

9:30AM THE PRESIDENT receives the Presidential Daily Briefing
Oval Office

11:00AM THE PRESIDENT meets with his national security team on
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Situation Room

4:00PM THE PRESIDENT meets with the President’s Council of
Advisors on Science and Technology
Old Family Dining Room


Briefing Schedule

1:30PM Briefing by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs

Speaking of Gibbs, the press secretary will wear the hockey jersey today! This is to make good on that Olympic hockey bet with the spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. "It is in the White House," Gibbs said yesterday. The bet stipulated that if the U.S. lost the gold medal game, Gibbs would wear the jersey at an on camera press briefing within two weeks. Those two weeks are up today. WWR can't wait.


On This Day

...from The History Channel:

1933 - President Roosevelt gave his first "fireside chat." Broadcast directly from the White House just eight days after he took office, FDR began the national radio address by saying: "I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking." He went on to explain his recent decision to close the nation's banks in order to stop a surge in mass withdrawals by panicked investors worried about possible bank failures. The banks would be reopening the next day, Roosevelt said, and he thanked the public for their "fortitude and good temper" during the "banking holiday."

At the time, the U.S. was at the lowest point of the Great Depression, with between 25 and 33 percent of the work force unemployed. The nation was worried, and Roosevelt's address was designed to ease fears and to inspire confidence in his leadership. Roosevelt went on to deliver 30 more of these broadcasts between March 1933 and June 1944. They reached an astonishing number of American households, 90 percent of which owned a radio at the time.

Journalist Robert Trout coined the phrase "fireside chat" to describe Roosevelt's radio addresses, invoking an image of the president sitting by a fire in a living room, speaking earnestly to the American people about his hopes and dreams for the nation. In fact, Roosevelt took great care to make sure each address was accessible and understandable to ordinary Americans, regardless of their level of education. He used simple vocabulary and relied on folksy anecdotes or analogies to explain the often complex issues facing the country.

Over the course of his historic 12-year presidency, Roosevelt used the chats to build popular support for his groundbreaking New Deal policies, in the face of stiff opposition from big business and other groups. After World War II began, he used them to explain his administration's wartime policies to the American people. The success of Roosevelt's chats was evident not only in his three re-elections, but also in the millions of letters that flooded the White House. Farmers, business owners, men, women, rich, poor--most of them expressed the feeling that the president had entered their home and spoken directly to them. In an era when presidents had previously communicated with their citizens almost exclusively through spokespeople and journalists, it was an unprecedented step.

...courtesy of The History Channel.com



Presidential Quote

"If anyone tells you that America's best days are behind her, they're looking the wrong way." George H.W. Bush