The Washington Post 20100419

A2

Politics & The Nation

Militia movement’s heroes will be packing heat at rally on the Potomac......................................................................A3 Growers harness flames to prepare meadows for wildflowers .....A4 Abortion rulings could bring scrutiny of possible Supreme Court pick Wood .............................................A5 NSA stops collecting some data to resolve issue with court ..........A6 Obama lacks support for nuclear ambitions...................................A6 Group challenging enhanced surveillance law faces uphill climb...............................................................................A6

The World

Mass honors Polish president; ash keeps many leaders away.......A8 Shanghai prepares world’s fair while wondering about costs.......A8

Foreign Digest

Eroglu wins Turkish Cypriot vote................................................A8

In Malta, Pope Benedict meets with 8 who were sexually abused by priests ...............................................A9 Despite billions in U.S. aid, Colombia struggles to reduce poverty .............................................A9

Washington Business

The economic downturn suits menswear retailer Jos. A. Bank just fine ........................................A11

Value Added | Thomas Heath

Learning from a dynamic duo in graphic design .....................A11

Geithner says financial overhaul will clear Senate with GOP votes ....................................................A12

The Fed Page

Robert Barnes | The High Court

Supreme Court still resists pressure to televise proceedings..A13 Questions for Jon Jarvis, director of the National Park Service ..A13 Federal benefits to be paid electronically by 2013.........................A13

Opinion

Editorial: What Congress should do about the Bush tax cuts .....A14 Editorial: The D.C. Council is taking a mature approach to medical marijuana ........................................A14

Robert Moffit:Health reform’s mythical origins............................A15

Anne Applebaum: Nature brings modern Europe to its knees....A15 Jackson Diehl: Obama, lost in the Middle East .............................A15 E.J. Dionne Jr.: The Tea Party’s populism of the privileged..........A15 Robert J. Samuelson: The VAT is no easy fix for budget woes......A15

CORRECTION

 An April 18 A-section article about a Supreme Court case in which the Christian Legal Society is challenging an anti-discrimi- nation policy at the University of California’s Hastings College of

corrections@washpost.com.

the Law misstated the name of a group mentioned as one example of the variety of student organiza- tions on the campus. It is the Has- tings Federalist Society, not the Federal Society.

The Washington Post is committed to correcting errors that appear in the newspaper. Those interested in contacting the paper for that purpose can:

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Rain could delay shuttle landing till Tuesday

Associated Press

cape canaveral — NASA

warned the space shuttle Discov- ery’s astronauts Sunday to expect rain delays as they wrapped up their two-week mission and pre- pared to return home. Discovery and its crew of seven were scheduled to land Monday morning at the Florida space- port.

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Commander Alan Poindexter said Sunday that he enjoys spending extra time in orbit and doesn’t mind if he can’t make it back to Earth until Tuesday. Mission Control will continue monitoring the weather in case the forecast improves. Discovery could always aim for the backup landing site in Southern Califor- nia on Tuesday. Poindexter and his crew are re- turning from the international

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space station after stockpiling it with supplies, science experi- ments and spare parts, including a tankful of ammonia coolant. It took three spacewalks to install the tank. Providing Florida’s weather co-

operates, Discovery will criss- cross much of the United States during reentry, zooming in from the Pacific Northwest. For safety reasons, NASA typically prefers to bring a space shuttle home from the southwest, up over the South Pacific, Central America and the Gulf of Mexico. It is a lesson NASA learned the hard way in 2003, when Colum- bia shattered over Texas during reentry. All seven astronauts were killed, but remarkably, no one was hurt on the ground by the wreckage.

Since then, only one other

shuttle mission has ended with a continental flyover, in 2007. The rare U.S. flyover — weath-

er permitting — was expected to provide a streaking light show for those beneath the flight path. For Monday’s first landing op- portunity, at 8:48 a.m., Discovery would zoom over British Colum- bia and Alberta, swing down over Montana and the Dakotas, and pass over Sioux City, Iowa, and the middle of Missouri. Then it would come down over the east- ern border of Arkansas and Ten- nessee, then over northeastern Mississippi and Alabama, south- western Georgia and almost di- rectly over Jacksonville, Fla. The second opportunity, 11

⁄2

hours later, would have the shut- tle crossing over Washington state and passing over more of the heartland. Discovery has enough supplies to remain in orbit until Wednes- day. Regardless of when the shut- tle returns, the volcanic eruption in Iceland and cloud of ash over Europe will pose no concern, Lunney said. The shuttle will not be anywhere near that part of the world during reentry.

W

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hen Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter announced on March 1 that he would

enter the Democratic primary against Sen. Blanche Lincoln, many political observers viewed it as the beginning of the end for the incumbent. Instead, the announcement

may have marked the start of her political comeback. Before Halter’s candidacy, which had been discussed for months in Democratic political circles in the state, Lincoln’s reelection campaign seemed moribund. She had come under withering criticism from both the right and the left for her role (or lack thereof) in the health-care debate, and her campaign seemed to reflect that stuck-in- neutral mentality. Three days after Halter made it

official, however, Lincoln launched television ads touting her Senate seniority (she is the first Arkansan to chair the Agriculture Committee) and casting herself as an independent. One ad included a defiant message for the left, which had begun pouring money into Halter’s campaign: “I don’t answer to my party,” she said. “I answer to Arkansas.” Suddenly, Lincoln was relevant again. And, polling suggests that despite Halter’s eye-popping fundraising and a slew of national labor groups spending money to bash her, Lincoln is holding steady in advance of the May 18 primary.

MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2010

Challenge from the left energizes Lincoln campaign

the closing weeks of the race. And, as Moulitsas notes, there is a third candidate in the primary, D.C. Morrison, who could keep either Lincoln or Halter from the 50 percent threshold required to avoid a June 8 runoff. “Time is [Lincoln’s] biggest asset,” Moulitsas said , adding that a runoff “would equal more time, which Lincoln can’t afford to give Halter.”

BRENDAN HOFFMAN/BLOOMBERG NEWS DANNY JOHNSTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Some counted her out, but Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) leads in polls against her rival in the May 18 primary, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter.

CHRIS CILLIZZA

The Monday Fix

A recent Research 2000 survey sponsored by the liberal Daily Kos blog (its founder, Markos Moulitsas, is a Halter supporter), showed Lincoln leading Halter by 45 percent to 33 percent, a margin virtually unchanged from a poll done for the blog three weeks earlier. The survey also showed that Lincoln has held up under the negative attacks — 65 percent of Democrats view her

favorably, while 31 percent see her in an unfavorable light. Halter, too, remains quite popular among his own party, with a 69 percent favorable rating and just an 11 percent unfavorable score. (Halter’s campaign spent the

latter part of last week touting an automated poll that showed him within seven points, but the firm that conducted the survey is little known, and other private, i.e. unreleased, data suggest the margin is far closer to the Kos figures.) The race remains far from a sure thing for Lincoln. Halter is well financed — he raised more than $2 million in the first three months of the year — and his allies insist that he will clean up among undecided Democrats in

If Lincoln does win — and most unaligned Democratic strategists we talk to believe she can — she will have built up some momentum heading into what promises to be a difficult fall campaign. “Defeating the unions and national political bloggers will speak to a key part of Lincoln’s reelection argument — that she is independent and will always put Arkansas first,” said one senior party strategist who has worked in Arkansas but is not involved in this race. Democratic Party officials hope similar scenarios play out in two other states where incumbents face serious primary challenges. In Pennsylvania, party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter will fight it out with Rep. Joe Sestak on May 18. In Colorado, appointed Sen. Michael Bennet is preparing for an Aug. 10 face-off with former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff.

chris.cillizza@wpost.com

Join the Fix for a live chat Fridays at 11 a.m. at washingtonpost.com/ politics.

Gates says memo on Iran was not sounding alarm

by Glenn Kessler

Defense Secretary Robert M.

Gates acknowledged Sunday that in January he sent a memo to the White House outlining the “next steps in our defense planning process” for Iran. But, in a statement issued by his press secretary, Gates said that a New York Times article that re- vealed the existence of the memo “mischaracterized its purpose and content” when it suggested Gates has despaired that the ad- ministration lacked a strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear pro- gram. Iran has refused to abide by

international demands to halt en- riching uranium, saying it is not developing a nuclear weapon. The Obama administration initially tried to engage Iran but has now

spent months pressing for a new round of U.N. Security Council sanctions on the Islamic republic. “The memo was not intended as a ‘wake up call’ or received as such by the President’s national security team,” Gates said. “Rath- er, it presented a number of ques- tions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and time- ly decision making process.” The White House had also pushed back hard against the story when it was posted on the Times Web site Saturday night. Ben Rhodes, deputy national se- curity adviser for strategic com- munications, said: “It is absolute- ly false that any memo touched off a reassessment of our options. The administration has been planning for all contingencies re- garding Iran for many months.” Various other officials, while acknowledging privately that

Gates has sent some sort of memo on Iran, declined to discuss its content but suggested it was not an earth-shattering moment in the administration’s Iran discus- sions.

“I think there is less here than

meets the eye,” a senior adminis- tration official said Sunday, speaking on the condition of ano- nymity because he was not au- thorized to speak publicly. “We do have a strategy that emerges from the Nuclear Posture Review and will be seen at the review confer- ence” of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in May. “We will strengthen the global nonproliferation re- gime and expect countries to abide by their obligations.” Still, the story had received

wide attention online and on tele- vision, and the administration ap- parently believed Gates had to ad- dress the issue. “There should be

no confusion by our allies and ad- versaries that the United States is properly and energetically fo- cused on this question and pre- pared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests,” Gates said. Obama’s opponent in the 2008 presidential race, Sen. John Mc- Cain (R-Ariz.), seized on news of the memo to charge that the ad- ministration lacks “a coherent policy” on Iran. “We have not done anything

that would in any way be viewed effective,” McCain told “Fox News Sunday.” “I didn’t need a secret memo from Mr. Gates to ascertain that. We have to be willing to pull the trigger on significant sanc- tions. And then we have to make plans for whatever contingencies follow if those sanctions are not effective.”

kesslerg@washpost.com

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