Good morning. It’s Tuesday, February 11, the birthdays of inventor Thomas Edison, former governors Jeb Bush and Sarah Palin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, actor Burt Reynolds, singer Sheryl Crow, and professional surfer Kelly Slater.
An 11-time world champion, Slater blew the judges’ minds—they gave him a perfect 10—for his artistry in the pipeline at a pro tour event in Hawaii last week. Today he turns 42. Happy birthday, dude.
When George Washington was a boy in Virginia, he would have celebrated February 11, 1731, as his birthday. But in 1752 Great Britain and its colonies switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, which made the future general one year and 11 days “younger”—as Washington’s birthday is now demarked as February 22, 1732.
Tonight, Barack and Michelle Obama host a state dinner in honor of Francois Hollande, the president of France. Yesterday, Obama took his counterpart on a trip to Monticello, the estate of France’s former ambassador and good friend Thomas Jefferson. The president showed Hollande a sweeping view of the Virginia countryside from a Monticello terrace normally barred to tourists. “That’s the good thing as a president,” Obama quipped. “I can do whatever I want.”
Monday was perhaps not the right day to offer that witticism, as White House officials were simultaneously confirming that the administration had unilaterally executed yet another delay in implementing key components of the Affordable Care Act. But in the morning note this week we are concentrating on other historical events, namely, interesting mileposts in the relationship between France and the United States this week.
In that spirit, we note that 60 years ago today, President Eisenhower convened a top-secret meeting of the White House National Security Council. The subject: how the U.S. could assist the French in their quest to hold onto its colonial empire in Vietnam.
I’ll have more on that ominous meeting in a moment, after first pointing you to our front page, where we aggregate stories and columns spanning the political spectrum. We also offer a complement of original material from RCP’s staff and contributors:
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GOP Irked by New Delay of Obamacare Mandate. Republicans expressed outrage Monday after the administration again extended deadlines for employers to comply with the law. Alexis Simendinger has the story.
Do Demographics Really Work Against the GOP? Sean Trende takes issue with a fellow analyst’s commentary that Republicans need to heed demographic trends and “reach groups that have not traditionally been supportive” of the party.
Nonbeliever PAC Gets Into the Midterm Game. Jose Gonzalez reports on a new political action committee dedicated to supporting humanist ideals and candidates opposed to religious influence on government policy.
Christie-Led RGA Sets Fundraising Record. Adam O’Neal has the numbers.
Clay Aiken Running for Congress as Defense Hawk. The onetime “American Idol” celeb surprised many observers by announcing his candidacy. But as Adam reports, the openly gay political novice had another surprise in store in his first campaign video.
Poll: Coloradans Say Pot Law Hurts State’s Image. Adam has the details here too.
10 Surprising Facts About the Sochi Games. RealClearSports reprises this info-graphic.
Was Mantle Was Better Than Mays? Also in RCS, Sheldon Hirsch lays out his case.
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More than eight years after the end of World War II, the situation was deteriorating rapidly for the French forces in Indochina. France had requested—and had been given—American military assistance in the form of 200 U.S. airmen, various warplanes, and some replacement parts and mechanics.
It wasn’t proving nearly enough, and at the White House, Dwight D. Eisenhower convened a top-secret war council that included three cabinet officials, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and top presidential advisers.
“The President commented on the extraordinary confusion in the reports which reached him from the area of Indochina,” according to the now-declassified notes of the meeting taken by the NSC staff. “There were almost as many judgments as there were authors of messages. There were, nevertheless, only two critical factors in the situation. The first was to win over the Vietnamese population; the other to instill some spirit into the French.”
Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., Eisenhower’s recently appointed U.S. ambassador to the U.N., who had had a great deal of experience dealing with the French, said “that if you get behind them and push hard enough they will do what is required.”
Eisenhower responded to this sentiment indirectly, according to the minutes of the meeting, and in two ways. First, he said he’d concluded that it was probably time for a change of ambassadors in Vietnam, which is ironic, because John F. Kennedy would later give that thankless job to Lodge.
Ike also subtly reminded his advisers that he himself had some experience with the French—and with war—by offering a prescient thought:
“The President commented that the mood of discouragement came from the evident lack of a spiritual force among the French and the Vietnamese. This was a commodity which it was excessively difficult for one nation to supply to another.”
Carl M. Cannon
Washington Bureau Chief
RealClearPolitics
Twitter: @CarlCannon
We update throughout the day at www.realclearpolitics.com.
From RealClearPolitics: Another Obamacare Delay; GOP Demographics; Christie"s Fundraising Record
