memeorandum: U.S. Pledges to Help South Korea in Bid for U.N. Action (New York Times)

9:15 AM ET, May 26, 2010

Top Items:

Obama, McCain clash at GOP lunch — President Barack Obama battled with Senate Republicans in a tense closed-door meeting Tuesday, facing tough criticism from his GOP adversaries — including John McCain — on issues ranging from health care to border security.

Discussion: Washington Wire, No More Mister Nice Blog, Pundit & Pundette, American Thinker, Another Black Conservative, Associated Press, Left Coast Rebel, Fire Andrea Mitchell!, The Note, Hot Air, Gateway Pundit, The Hill, Doug Ross, Washington Monthly and JustOneMinute

Washington Post:

After closed-door talks, GOP senator calls Obama ‘thin-skinned’ — President Obama traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday for a rare meeting with Senate Republicans, but the 75-minute session yielded little progress on hot-button topics and left some senators with bruised feelings.

Discussion: Associated Press, The Nation, msnbc.com, TPM LiveWire, Hot Air, The Plum Line, The Political Carnival, Jules Crittenden, Front Row Washington and Scared Monkeys

Jordan Fabian / The Hill:

Obama heckled over 'Don't ask, don't tell' — again — President Barack Obama was heckled by a protester Tuesday night while at a fundraising event for Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) in San Francisco. — The protester was upset with the pace of the repeal of the “Don't ask, don't tell” policy barring openly gay military service members.

Discussion: CNN

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

Senator criticizes Obama's ‘audacity’ in using GOP as ‘props’ — A GOP senator ripped into President Barack Obama at a meeting on Capitol Hill Tuesday, telling him he had “audacity” coming in and using Republican lawmakers as “props.” — Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the Democrats' partner …

Discussion: Reuters, Weasel Zippers and FrumForum

Charles Babington / Associated Press:

Obama gets an earful in clash with GOP senators — WASHINGTON (AP) - If President Barack Obama thought having a private lunch with Republican senators would ease partisan tensions in Congress, he grabbed the wrong recipe. — The president walked into a remarkably contentious 80-minute session Tuesday …

Discussion: JammieWearingFool, Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers

Wall Street Journal:
U.S. to Toughen Drill Rules

Discussion: MyFox Philadelphia, Political Punch and The Page

Carol E. Lee / The Politico:
Obama: Day for ‘partnership’ passed

Discussion: Guardian

Laurie Kellman / Associated Press:
AP sources: Obama, Corker clash in private meeting

Discussion: Associated Press, The Corner on National … and The Hill

CNN:
Republican calls Obama meeting ‘wasted opportunity’

Discussion: ChattahBox News Blog, The Politico and The Caucus

Greg Sargent / The Plum Line:

The decisive action Obama can take — As I noted this morning, there's been a palpable shift in the tone of media coverage of Obama's handling of the Gulf spill, with newly-aggressive news orgs raising more questions about whether the admistration has ceded too much control to BP.

Discussion: The Left Coaster, The Moderate Voice and Hullabaloo

David Rogers / The Politico:
Dems wrestle with W.H. mixed signals

Discussion: Open Left, Eduwonk, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog and ourfuture.org/blogs_chrono/*

John Aravosis / AMERICAblog Gay:
Webb to vote no on DADT compromise, blames WH and Gates statements …

Discussion: Truthdig and Daily Kos

Pejman Yousefzadeh / The New Ledger:
The White House And The Oil Spill

Discussion: ABCNEWS, Riehl World View, protein wisdom, RealClearPolitics Video Log and Wake up America

Mike Riggs / The Daily Caller:
Justice Department declines to appoint independent counsel for Sestak case

Discussion: The Other McCain, Big Journalism, Weasel Zippers, Glenn Thrush's Blog and The Corner on National …

Anne Flaherty / Associated Press:
Senate Republican to back repeal of gay ban

Discussion: Washington Monthly, The Huffington Post, Hot Air, The Hill and Boston Globe

Allahpundit / Hot Air:

Chris Christie to teacher: If you don't like my education budget, find a new job — I begged for video on Twitter, my friends, but none is forthcoming. What can I say? I tried. … Elsewhere today, he warned about New Jersey becoming a new Greece. In lieu of a clip of the exchange …

Discussion: Bloomberg, Cassy Fiano and The Anchoress

Herb Jackson / NorthJersey.com:
N.J. Gov. Chris Christie defends cuts, promotes property tax cap in Rutherford

Discussion: Betsy's Page

portal.sre.gob.mx:

STATEMENT BY THE EMBASSY OF MEXICO — Regarding the Administration's decision to send 1,200 National Guard servicemen to the US Southern border, the Government of Mexico trusts that this decision will help to channel additional US resources to enhance efforts to prevent the illegal flows …

Discussion: Michelle Malkin, Moonbattery, Liberty Central and Gateway Pundit

Randal C. Archibold / New York Times:
National Guard to Help Secure Southwest Border

Discussion: Outside the Beltway, The Politico, Another Black Conservative, Power Line, The Daily Beast, Salon, Gateway Pundit, Ben Smith's Blog, Balloon Juice and FrumForum

Michael D. Shear / Washington Post:
Obama to send more National Guard troops to U.S.-Mexico border

Discussion: TRAIL BLAZERS, Fausta's Blog, Weekly Standard, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and The Washington Independent

Yvonne Wenger / postandcourier.com:

Folks says Haley campaign consulted him on breaking silence about ‘inappropriate sexual relationship’ — Blogger Will Folks said Tuesday that GOP gubernatorial candidate State Rep. Nikki Haley and her campaign asked him for advice on how they should handle the news of their inappropriate relationship when he broke it.

Discussion: Erick's blog, The Other McCain and Charleston City Paper

FITSNews:
Memories ... Of The Way They Were — Seriously ... how funny is this?

Discussion: The Eye and Wonkette

FITSNews:
Clearing The Air — A little over twenty-four hours ago …

Discussion: Riehl World View, New York Times, The Atlantic Online, TPMMuckraker and Daily Kos

New York Times:

U.S. Pledges to Help South Korea in Bid for U.N. Action — SEOUL, South Korea — With political and military tension increasing daily on the Korean Peninsula, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Wednesday that Washington would stand beside Seoul as it seeks redress …

Discussion: SWJ Blog and The Page

Laura Rozen / Laura Rozen's Blog:
Noting progress at UN, Congress slows Iran sanctions bill

Discussion: Commentary and FrumForum

David Weigel / Right Now:

Sarah Palin's strange, unprofessional and paranoid grudge — Sarah Palin took to her Facebook account today to inform her readers that Joe McGinniss, an award-winning reporter and author, had rented the house next door. — I saw Ben Smith flag this earlier today but did not really appreciate …

Discussion: JustOneMinute, NewsBusters.org, Balloon Juice, Gawker, Washington Post, Mediaite, Cassy Fiano and TBogg

Ben Smith / Ben Smith's Blog:
Annals of journalistic enterprise

Discussion: Hot Air, Another Black Conservative, The Daily Caller, Flopping Aces, Facebook and Beltway Confidential

Jimmy Orr / Top of the Ticket:

Mitch McConnell to Rand Paul: Shut your yapper! — The continuing implosion, better known as Rand Paul's post primary campaign, will be taking a break from self-immolation it appears. — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is telling fellow Kentuckian Paul to shut his pie hole.

Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:

As Ugly as It Gets — I confess that when I first saw the May 17 picture of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, joining his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with raised arms — after their signing of a putative deal …

Discussion: Fausta's Blog, Eunomia and Prairie Weather

Brian Montopoli / CBS News:

Poll Finds Americans Pessimistic, Dissatisfied with Washington — CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto. — Americans are frustrated with nearly everyone in Washington - including President Obama, Congress …

Discussion: Real Clear Politics, Daily Kos, Pollster.com All Content, The Atlantic Online and USS Neverdock

NPR:

Rush Limbaugh's Conservative Charge … In the early 1970s, if you were a resident of McKeesport, Pa., who turned your radio to WIXZ-FM in the morning, you might hear a voice belonging to a DJ named “Bachelor Jeff” Christie giving you the weather report in between Top 40 tunes.

Discussion: Hot Air, The Nation, Washington Post and The Huffington Post

Andy Borowitz / The Huffington Post:

Experts Propose Plugging Oil Leak with BP Executives — WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - At a conference of oil leak experts in Washington today, attendees proposed plugging the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico with executives of BP, the company responsible for the catastrophic spill.

Discussion: naked capitalism

Igor / Think Progress:

GOP Rep. Slams Fox News: 'I Don't Know What They're Doing At Fox News, But They Should Stop Smoking It' — This morning, Fox and Friends characterized Sen. Bob Casey's (D-PA) Create Jobs & Save Benefits Act as a “$165 billion bailout” of union pensions. “It has been decades since you've seen …

Discussion: Rough Sketch, sisu, Media Matters for America, The Hill and The Political Carnival

Sabrina Tavernise / New York Times:

U.S. Heads a Cast of Villains in Pakistan's Conspiracy Talk — ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan's capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.”

Discussion: At War and The Page

Chris / AMERICAblog News:

BP CEO walks on oil covered beach, barks orders to media — So who died and made Tony Hayward the king? Yes, that's the BP CEO yelling “get 'em out of there, get 'em out of there” to the media who is filming him as he “works” on the oil slick cleanup. The last time I checked, we don't live in the United States of BP.