Tina Tchen and Valerie Jarrett

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to the President and  Tina Tchen, FLOTUS Chief of Staff and head of the White House Council on Women and Girls, penned an editorial in the Washington Post promoting the President’s jobs initiative and the importance of his new partnership with the National Science Foundation (NSF).  It detailed initiatives that will help bring a work-life balance to the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields that often see women drop out due to family responsibilities.  They say, “for many women who dream of becoming scientists and researchers, these kinds of simple, common-sense changes will make a world of difference. And our entire economy can benefit, because if more women have the chance to pursue STEM careers, it will lead to more innovation, entrepreneurship and growth.”

Read their entire editorial here.

Alan Krueger playing at the 2009 WTT Celebrity Tennis Match

President Obama nominated Alan Krueger as the Chair to the Council of Economic Advisers.  In his remarks given in the White House rose garden, Obama said,

“Alan brings a wealth of experience to the job.  He’s one of the nation’s leading economists.  For more than two decades, he’s studied and developed economic policy, both inside and outside of government.”

Krueger served as the chief economist at the Treasury Department until 2010 when he left to go to Princeton as a Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs.  He will be replacing Austan Goolsbee who left the White House to go back to Chicago.

Read the Washington Post story here.

Watch the President’s remarks below:

While President Obama is travelling throughout the Midwest this week checking in on the American people, he’s also checking in via Foursquare, the location-based networking website. According to the official White House Blog the administration is “excited to launch” the president’s latest venture into social media as he kicks off his economic bus tour.

You can follow the President on the road through Cannon Falls, Minnesota; Decorah and Peosta, Iowa; and Atkinson and Alpha, Illinois. Through the new White House page on Foursquare, you can keep up with the President’s tour and check-in to let your friends know you’re there.

The administration already has a Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Flickr account where people can engage with officials.

The President, in between his Congressional negotiations, met with World Series Champions, San Francisco Giants.  Joining them in the East Room were former San Francisco Mayors Willie Brown and Gavin Newsom, as well as current Mayor Ed Lee, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Baseball legend, Willie Mays, was also in attendance who “was just a 23-year-old out-fielder the last time the Giants won the World Series, back when the team was in New York.”  President Obama said, “even though there have been some great Giant’s teams since them, none of them had brought a championship back to the Bay Area.”  This was a special team indeed, as Obama quoted manager Bruce Bochy, who once called them a bunch of ‘misfits and cast-offs’ and then looks around at the unique team, but then said the “one thing they know, is how to win.”

The President ended his talk with wishing the Giants the best of luck, ”unless the White Sox are in the world series, which right now is not a sure thing” and was then presented with a signed bat, custom glove and jersey #44.

Gavin Newsom, was also in town to discuss his upcoming release of California’s Economic Growth and Competitiveness plan–state’s first plan in a decade–meeting with the Center for American Progress, Brookings Institution, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the State Department, and the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and stopped by 701 Pennsylvania Avenue with friends such as Eve and Peter O’Toole, Marc Adelman, Reta Jo Lewis, Dan Maldonado, Evan Ryan, Francisco Sanchez, Maria Teresa Kumar, Neil Albert, Patricia Daley and Paul Glenchur.

Check out photos below:

Kathryn Ruemmler currently serve’s as Bauer’s deputy and has been at the White House since January of 2010. Ruemmler will be the third White House counsel for this administration (after Bauer and Greg Craig). Prior to the White House, she served at the Department of Justice and, at the office of Latham & Watkins, and was a co-lead prosecutor in the Enron investigations.

For the full announcement go here.

Check out the videos below:

Obama’s speech is now the most watched video on C-SPAN’s YouTube channel with over 6 million hits and counting.

With Advise the Advisor, every week a member of senior staff will post a video seeking the opinions and feedback of the American people on different issues. Plouffe kicked off the program with a short video harkening back to the President’s “win the future” State of the Union message.

You can go now to whitehouse.gov/advise and send your thoughts on American innovation. Be sure to check back in to see if your idea passed muster – they promise to read through as much of the feedback as possible and post a summary a few days after the video goes up.

Dec. 7, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

It may have been Steelers vs. Packers out on the field last night but Bill O’Reilly tried his best to get President Obama to fumble during their pre-Super Bowl interview on Fox News.

As Susan Milligan points out in US News, the President deftly handled O’Reilly’s line of questioning and observes that Obama’s “behavior indicates he is unwilling to engage in petty political food fights.”

O’Reilly: “Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?”

Obama: “You know, the truth is that the people—and I’m sure previous presidents would say the same thing, whether it was Bush or Clinton or Reagan or anybody—the people who dislike you don’t know you.”

The objective of Milligan’s piece was to point out media irresponsibility. But the O’Reilly/Obama interview is also another example of what John Harris and Jim VandeHei explore today in POLITICO: how the President is “playing the press like a fiddle.”

He is doing it by exploiting some of the most long-standing traits among reporters who cover politics and government — their favoritism for politicians perceived as ideologically centrist and willing to profess devotion to Washington’s oft-honored, rarely practiced civic religion of bipartisanship.

Click here to read the entire article on POLITICO.

People around the world have been watching the reports of tens of thousands of Egyptians flooding the streets of Cairo calling for a regime change. The White House response to the clash between anti-government protestors and supporters of President Hosni Mubarak has been guarded, making few statements on what is being called a major foreign policy crisis.

Left without substantive updates on the situation in Egypt and shut out from the President’s Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the White House Correspondents Association sent a letter to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs complaining that “for two straight days the full press pool is being shut out of events that have typically been open and provided opportunities try to ask the President a question.”

The letter, written by WHCA Executive Director Julia Whitson, was sent in advance of the President’s signing of the New START Treaty, the new nuclear arms reduction pact with Russia.

“We are writing to protest in the strongest possible terms the White House’s decision to close the President’s Cabinet meeting on Tuesday and his signing of the START Treaty today to the full press pool.

The START treaty was held up as one of the President’s most important foreign policy priorities for almost a year dating back to the trip to Prague last spring. We are concerned that now his signing of it is open to still photographers but closed to editorial, including print and wire reporters and television cameras.” Read the full letter at mediabistro.com.

In the end, the White House stuck by its decision and allowed only a small group of photographers into the Oval Office for the signing of the treaty.

As reported in The Hill, Gibbs said the decision to keep reporters out of the signing was based on fear they would shout questions to the President about Egypt, and continued to defend the decision by stating it was “part of the coverage plans that have been in place for a bit now.”

According to the Old Farmer’s Almanac, March 20th is the first day of spring…

President Obama sat down for “Your Interview with the President,” hosted by YouTube’s Steve Grove, and responded to questions on subjects ranging from education reforms, healthcare, the recent unrest in Egypt, to his “pick” for the Superbowl.

Watch the entire video here: