This just in from Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, a frequent purveyor of political anecdotes. She bring us an enlightening one here regarding the (quote) undisclosed location (unquote) we heard lots about in the days after Sept. 11. Here's Eleanor:

Ever wonder about that secure, undisclosed location where Dick Cheney secreted himself after the 9/11 attacks? Joe Biden reveals the bunker-like room is at the Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years and which is now home to Biden. The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall. Cheney has emerged as the leading critic of the Obama administration on national security, saying the president’s policies are making America less safe, and if there’s another attack, it will be Obama’s fault. This is tough stuff, but as the architect of the Bush administration’s policies on war and torture, he has a much bigger legacy to protect than the president he helped steer onto the shoals.    

New York Times Reporter Robert Pear has had two really interesting healthcare stories this week, both illustrating just how rocky the path the meaningful reform will be. The first was a report about Senate Democrats who, concerned by mobilizing opposition to the President's health reform proposals, huddled with David Axelrod and Jim Messina to strategize. Pear writes: Democrats said they felt an urgent need to devise a “message” to answer Republicans assertions that Mr. Obama’s proposals could lead to “a Washington takeover of health care.” They'd been spurred into action by a memo written to GOPers by language expert Frank Luntz.

In the memorandum, Mr. Luntz said his polling and analysis had identified this as “the best anti-Democrat message”: “No Washington bureaucrat or health care lobbyist should stand between your family and your doctor. The Democrats want to put Washington politicians in charge of your health care.” Mr. Luntz advised Republicans to show they “understand and empathize” with voters’ concerns about soaring health costs. “You simply must be vocally and passionately on the side of reform,” he wrote. He urged Republicans to argue that the Democratic plan would “deny people treatments they need and make them wait to get the treatments they are allowed to receive.” Mr. Luntz recommended this language: “If you have to wait weeks for tests and months for treatment, that’s a health care crisis.”

The second article worth noting is Pear's story about how the health industry leaders that met with Obama at the White House this week claim that the President overstated their committment to reduce costs by $2 trillion by 2019. From Pear's piece:

Health care leaders who attended the meeting have a different interpretation. They say they agreed to slow health spending in a more gradual way and did not pledge specific year-by-year cuts.

“There’s been a lot of misunderstanding that has caused a lot of consternation among our members,” said Richard J. Umbdenstock, the president of the American Hospital Association. “I’ve spent the better part of the last three days trying to deal with it.”

Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said “the president misspoke” on Monday and again on Wednesday when he described the industry’s commitment in similar terms. After providing that account, Ms. DeParle called back about an hour later on Thursday and said: “I don’t think the president misspoke. His remarks correctly and accurately described the industry’s commitment.”

The Washington office of the American Hospital Association sent a bulletin to its state and local affiliates to “clarify several points” about the White House meeting.

In the bulletin, Richard J. Pollack, the executive vice president of the hospital association, said: “The A.H.A. did not commit to support the ‘Obama health plan’ or budget. No such reform plan exists at this time.”

Moreover, Mr. Pollack wrote, “The groups did not support reducing the rate of health spending by 1.5 percentage points annually.”

He and other health care executives said they had agreed to squeeze health spending so the annual rate of growth would eventually be 1.5 percentage points lower.

Listen: Your Gaggler has long been a fan of NPR's sharp, witty weekly news quiz Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. There's almost nothing I'd like more than to have Carl Kasell's voice on my home answering machine. If you haven't discovered the show, this week would be a good time to tune in: Presidential pal and Senior Adviser David Axelrod will be playing "Not My Job", a game where highly qualified people are asked about professions that have absolutely nothing to do with them. I'm looking forward to it, but it will be hard to beat the 2006 episode where Obama's Senate Office provided Wait Wait with a tape of a phonecall where the then-Senator apologized to a young journalist (who he'd mistaken for a student) for "messing up his game" in front of a lady the reporter had tried to impress. Or Obama's own very funny appearence in 2005. If you listen to the Wait Wait year end special, you can hear that, along with a hilarious Huckabee appearence.

Watch: The 60 Minutes interview with Robert Gates where he says he doesn't really like his job much.

Wait, in Breathless Anticipation: for the new, sexy-looking, revamped Newsweek, which will hit stands Monday.

CIA Director Leon Panetta has written a memo to his staff pushing back against Pelosi's claims that the agency misled her. The memo has the feel of a pep talk, giving confidence boost a demoralized agency. Interestingly, the White House has yet to weigh in.

Politico's Glenn Thrush has the memo:

There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone. But the political debates about interrogation reached a new decibel level yesterday when the CIA was accused of misleading Congress.

Let me be clear: It is not our policy or practice to mislead Congress. That is against our laws and our values. As the Agency indicated previously in response to Congressional inquiries, our contemporaneous records from September 2002 indicate that CIA officers briefed truthfully on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, describing “the enhanced techniques that had been employed.” Ultimately, it is up to Congress to evaluate all the evidence and reach its own conclusions about what happened.

My advice—indeed, my direction—to you is straightforward: ignore the noise and stay focused on your mission. We have too much work to do to be distracted from our job of protecting this country.

We are an Agency of high integrity, professionalism, and dedication. Our task is to tell it like it is—even if that’s not what people always want to hear. Keep it up. Our national security depends on it.

Hot on the heels of Obama's decision to oppose the release of those detainee abuse photos, the White House has just released a statement from the President outlining his decision to revive and modify the Military Commission process used to try Gitmo detainees. He's playing defense in the statement, knowing he's about to face a barrage of criticism from the left for what is easily construed as an about face. In his campaign, Obama had said that military courts martial or federal courts were more appropriate avenues for trying the prisoners. In today's statement, Obama clarifies that his opposition to the commissions in the past was specific to their construction under the Bush Administration's Military Commissions Act. Here's part of the statement:

Military commissions have a long tradition in the United States. They are appropriate for trying enemies who violate the laws of war, provided that they are properly structured and administered. In the past, I have supported the use of military commissions as one avenue to try detainees, in addition to prosecution in Article III courts.  In 2006, I voted in favor of the use of military commissions. But I objected strongly to the Military Commissions Act that was drafted by the Bush Administration and passed by Congress because it failed to establish a legitimate legal framework and undermined our capability to ensure swift and certain justice against those detainees that we were holding at the time. Indeed, the system of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay had only succeeded in prosecuting three suspected terrorists in more than seven years.

Obama is instructing the Pentagon to seek rule changes. Statements obtained through "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment will be banned and the hearsay provisions will be altered so that the objecting party won't have the burden of disproving its reliability. Detainees will also have more freedom in choosing counsel. "These reforms will begin to restore the Commissions as a legitimate forum for prosecution, while bringing them in line with the rule of law," the President's statement says.

ABC's Jake Tapper asked a "White House Official" about this statement regarding the Hamdan verdict made by Obama in August 2008:

That the Hamdan trial – the first military commission trial with a guilty verdict since 9/11 – took several years of legal challenges to secure a conviction for material support for terrorism underscores the dangerous flaws in the Administration’s legal framework. It’s time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice. (Emphasis added.)

Tapper writes: "A White House Official says that the President has "always a role for commissions, properly constituted" and the August statement was not meant to preclude them." 

Critics have already starting pounding the President on this decision. Per the NYT:

The executive director of Human Rights First, Elisa Massimino, called the commission system of trying war crimes cases irredeemable. “Tinkering with the machinery of military commissions will not remove the taint of Guantánamo from future prosecutions,” she said. The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony D. Romero, said he was preparing an advertising campaign that will call the use of an inferior legal system to try detainees “the Bush Obama doctrine.”

Predictably, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham are pretty happy about the move. No word yet on indefinite detention. Gibbs danced around the issue when asked at today's briefing.

The Associated Press reported yesterday that the fresh, new face of the Democrat party, Senator Arlen Specter (hat tip to POTUS for that line), has been meeting with organized labor groups to develop an alternative to the Employee Free Choice Act, or card check bill. He said yesterday that prospects were "pretty good" that a compromise would be reached that would allow workers to unionize more easily. Unions have been waiting for years for the right moment to push on card check. After the 2008 election, many felt this year was it, and that Specter would provide the critical 60th vote. But in March, Specter announced that he'd oppose the bill, leaving chances for its passage at almost zilch. Specter did say back then that he could possibly support an alternative bill, but since joining the Democratic party, unions have stepped up the pressure. Complicating matters for Specter is the emergence of Rep. Joe Sestak as a likely primary opponent, and one who unions could easily throw there support behind if they aren't getting results from Arlen.

Almost as soon as the President took office, pundits began whispering about likelihood that Democrats in Congress would end up being the biggest thorn in his side. Jonathan Chait over at The New Republic wrote a blistering critique of the ability of Congressional Democrats to govern effectively in April. Chait wrote: "At a time when the country desperately needs a coherent response to the array of challenges it faces, the congressional arm of the Democratic Party remains mired in fecklessness, parochialism, and privilege. Obama has made mistakes, as did his predecessors. Yet the constant recurrence of legislative squabbling and drift suggests a deeper problem than any characterological or tactical failures by these presidents: a congressional party that is congenitally unable to govern.....Even when they control the White House and both branches of Congress, Democrats have not displayed the parliamentary-style cohesion Republicans managed under Bush." Whoa. Harsh. Chait uses recent legislative history to argue that despite their flaws, Congressional Republicans are disciplined, so GOP Presidents rarely watch their plans come assunder at the hands of their own party's legislators. Dems on the other hand won't let little things like party loyalty or effective governance get in the way of a good fight.

There's been a few moments in his young Presidency where Obama has received some Democratic pushback, but on the big issues, Dems have pretty much toed the line. (WIth the possible exception of Evan Bayh, the former bright young thing in the Democratic Party who was readily eclipsed by Obama's rising star. Jealous much?) Yesterday, however, your Gaggler noticed perhaps the strongest signal yet that some House Dems don't intend to let the popular President have things his way. The House voted on a bill providing $96 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It passed 368-60. Only 9 Republicans voted against it; 51 Democrats said no. It's a victory for bipartisanship on the one hand, and an indicator of Democratic unrest on the other. Although the President has announced a plan to withdraw combat troops by 2010, bitterness and suspicion about the war linger in Congress. Even some Democrats who voted for the bill did so just to give the President a chance to alter course in Iraq and Afghanistan - but that doesn't mean they'll be doing that again.

The bill did not include the $80 million that the President requested to facilitate the closure of Guantanomo Bay. It did contain language that prevents the President from moving those detainees to American soil before he's announced a plan of how to deal with them over the longer term. The Senate has approved the funding, but slapped on a similar stipulation about a plan for detainees.