On Hillary Clinton’s last day as secretary of state… The Guardian: “Bomb explodes outside US embassy in Turkey, killing at least two people.”
New York Times: “Syria Says It Has Right to Counterattack Israel.”
“In farewell remarks Thursday before the Council on Foreign Relations, Clinton used her final public address as secretary of State to offer a robust defense of her four years as the nation's chief diplomat,” USA Today writes. She noted: "Remember what we faced in January 2009: two wars, an economy in free fall, traditional alliances fraying, our diplomatic standing damaged. And around the world, people questioning Americans' commitment to core values and our ability to maintain our global leadership."
More Clinton: "We need a new architecture for a new world — more Frank Gehry than formal Greek. Now some of his work at first might appear haphazard, but in fact, it's highly intentional and sophisticated. Where once a few strong columns could hold up the weight of the world, today we need a dynamic mix of materials and structures."
President Obama will take questions from CBS’s Scott Pelley at 4:30 pm ET before the Super Bowl Sunday.
AP: “Curbing guns can’t ensure an end to mass slayings like December’s killings of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Conn., but it will reduce firearm deaths, Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday.”
“Conflicts in Syria and Mali, as well as Iran’s nuclear program, are expected to take center stage as top global diplomats and defense officials gather Friday in Munich for an annual security conference,” AP writes. “U.S. Vice President Joe Biden joins a dozen heads of state and government and 70 foreign and defense ministers for the Munich Security Conference opening Friday. Biden stopped Friday morning in the German capital of Berlin for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel before traveling on to Munich. The conference, in its 49th year, is renowned as a setting where senior officials are able to address policy issues in an informal setting.”
Politico: “Several former White House staffers have found a new way to promote Obamacare: They’re spending millions of dollars in secret corporate and union cash, and they’re harnessing grass-roots tactics to some of the biggest names in the health care industry. Organizing for Action, the successor to President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and Enroll America, a group led by two former Obama staffers that features several insurance company bigwigs on its board, are planning to unleash the same grass-roots mobilization and sophisticated micro-targeting tactics seen in the 2012 campaign.”
Jill Lawrence sees a good cop, bad cop routine taking shape between Obama and Biden, and that may not please the “kumbaya” crowd, as she calls them, but “the White House doesn’t have much incentive to rejigger because, surprise, polls by and large show a majority of Americans like this unapologetic second-term Obama. Six in 10 people viewed him favorably in one recent poll.” More: “A full-scale charm offensive probably wouldn’t change much at this point in Washington. Some Republicans say it will be difficult to impossible for them to trust Obama (his public statements since the election -- particularly his Jan. 14 lecture to Congress about paying its bills -- have been like ‘fingernails on the chalkboard,’ a top strategist told me).” And: “Republicans should be forewarned: They'll be dealing with a president who is feeling less patient and more empowered than he was in his first term and one who, for now, has the public in his corner.”
Ron Brownstein says Obama’s strategy centers on the Democratic “coalition of the ascendant” of “minorities, the millennial generation, and socially liberal upscale whites, especially women.” But he notes: “Even if the president deepens his affinity with his coalition’s cultural values, failing to deliver better economic growth by 2016 could also sour supporters. And while Obama’s agenda could help Democrats solidify a presidential majority, it could simultaneously make it tougher for them to control Congress, at least until demographic change ripples through more states and House districts still largely unaffected by it.”
But there are risks for Republicans, too. Says former congressman and NRCC Chairman Tom Davis (R-VA): “These votes are going to continue the Democratic narrative that we are hostile to these groups. From a demographic point of view, this is a winner for the Democrats and a loser for the Republicans. They are putting a wall around these groups, and that makes it harder for Republicans” to retake the White House.
Charlie Cook also warns about the economy: “Immigration and gun control have dominated the issue agenda for the past few weeks, pushing away, for a time, the previously dominant worries about fiscal issues and their impact on the overall health of the U.S. economy. But Wednesday morning’s news that the economy, as measured by real gross domestic product, had declined in the fourth quarter of 2012 by one-tenth of a percentage point—surprising economists who had expected the economy to grow by 1 percent—brings these issues back to the forefront. In the third quarter of 2012, real GDP grew by 3.1 percent.”