August recess may be shorter this year, as Nancy Pelosi tweeted everyone had to return, but the District is finally slowing back down to wait out the heat.
Politico (in the first of a proposed three-part series it seems) engages the Capitol Hill bar culture about what happens when tired and thirsty staffers seem to disappear for a few weeks.
President Obama’s weekly address was a Christmas message, with First Lady Michelle Obama, and included a special tribute to the men and women in the military serving overseas. The White House web site suggested ways to support the troops through DOD’s Military Homefront, OurMilitary.mil, and the USO.
Watch the address here:
“This has been in the making for a very, very long time,” says Oprah Winfrey, of the upcoming “Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special” airing this Sunday at 10pm ET on ABC.
No doubt, Ms. Winfrey has a hotline to the White House and apparently White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was often on the receiving end.
“I didn’t think I was going to get the first interview for the first 100 days – but I wanted an opportunity to sit down with them in a comfortable setting that all of America would be familiar and relate to. So I started asking when they first moved in to do a Christmas Special because I wanted to be at the White House during Christmas time and to experience their first Christmas in the White House.”
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama greet Oprah Winfrey in the Blue Room of the White House, Dec. 3, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Winfrey tours the White House in all its grand holiday glory, with more than 27 trees and an almost 400 lb gingerbread “White House.” She sits down with her good friends President Barack and Michelle Obama in the Green Room – where, Winfrey points out, is where Thomas Jefferson used to eat his lunch – to discuss gift giving, stockings (even Bo has one) and yes, more decorations.
But behind the glittering tree lights and ribbons, comes a poignant recollection by the President on a cherished Christmas gift. “The one time I met my father he was visiting during Christmas and he gave me a basketball and – the degree to which I came to love basketball – it wasn’t until much later in life that I realized, ‘Actually, he gave me that basketball.’ I think there was some cause and effect there in terms of the degree to which I just ended up taking up the sport as a kid who didn’t know his dad.”
New memories will surely be made this Christmas as the Obamas celebrate their First
Christmas at the White House. But the real question remains: what are they giving Oprah?
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