Post by jgaffney on Nov 7, 2011 15:06:23 GMT -5
This is from Reuters:
Obama embarks on a nine-day trip to Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia on Friday that he will use to highlight U.S.-Asian economic ties and the long-standing U.S. role in the region's security.
His absence from Washington will coincide with a deadline for Congress to avoid a government shutdown and a pivotal stretch of deficit-cutting negotiations that investors and credit rating agencies will be watching closely.
White House officials said Obama has diplomatic goals he hopes to advance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that he will host in Honolulu on November 12-13 and during his visits to Canberra, Darwin and Bali.
But there is speculation he could face pressure to cut the trip short to rush back to Washington for the budget crunch-time and to avoid criticism that he failed to step up if the negotiations start to go off track.
Is he taking his golf clubs?
That's some real leadership, boy howdy! A major deadline is looming and the President, the leader of the Democrat Party, gets on a plane. Doesn't this recall when Joe Biden went on vacation right at the start of the previous budget negotiations? Maybe that's exactly what Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer want: when it gets down and dirty, get those two bozos off the stage.
Obama embarks on a nine-day trip to Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia on Friday that he will use to highlight U.S.-Asian economic ties and the long-standing U.S. role in the region's security.
His absence from Washington will coincide with a deadline for Congress to avoid a government shutdown and a pivotal stretch of deficit-cutting negotiations that investors and credit rating agencies will be watching closely.
White House officials said Obama has diplomatic goals he hopes to advance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that he will host in Honolulu on November 12-13 and during his visits to Canberra, Darwin and Bali.
But there is speculation he could face pressure to cut the trip short to rush back to Washington for the budget crunch-time and to avoid criticism that he failed to step up if the negotiations start to go off track.
Is he taking his golf clubs?
That's some real leadership, boy howdy! A major deadline is looming and the President, the leader of the Democrat Party, gets on a plane. Doesn't this recall when Joe Biden went on vacation right at the start of the previous budget negotiations? Maybe that's exactly what Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer want: when it gets down and dirty, get those two bozos off the stage.