Michelle Obama's new hairdo or don't?

Don't call it the Rachel, the Farrah or even the Kate (Gosselin). First Lady and fashion plate Michelle Obama showed off a new bob hairstyle that's all her own at a country music celebration at the White House last night. The shorter look is no doubt cooler for summer, but it reads a bit matronly to me. What do you think? Modern or matronly?

-- Booth Moore

Source

Senator Hatch Remonstrates President Obama Regarding Guantanamo

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) today took the Obama administration to task for its failure to meet its self-imposed deadline for issuing a report on its detainee policy for Guantanamo.

In his remarks on the Senate floor, the Utah Republican chided the administration for its poor planning on the issue that is vital to national security.

“It is easy to say that Guantanamo can be closed when you are a candidate for president,” Hatch said. “It is even easier to sign an order on your first full day in office as president that says in 12 months Guantanamo will close. What is hard is taking a deliberative methodical approach and then formulating the proper plan to balance the safety of this country with the needs of lawful detention.”

Sen. Hatch’s complete remarks on the Senate floor follow:

Mr. President, today, I rise today to express my concerns about the Administration’s failure to make the deadline of issuing a report on the Guantanamo detainee policy. Today’s deadline, like the January 2010 closure deadline, was self-imposed. It concerns me that the administration maintains that closure will occur even though the execution of this process has been less than stellar.
In January, on his first full day in office, President Obama signed the order to close the Guantanamo Bay Detention facility in 12 months. The President created separate task forces to examine closure and detainee issues. These task forces were developed and staffed by the Obama administration to achieve successful closure in one year. The product of this review was to include a report on a broader detainee policy.
Today marks the first deadline in this process. It was set to be the date of release and publication of the task force report on a broader detainee policy going forward. The administration’s failure to meet the deadline appears to me to be the “canary in the coal mine” that a January closure of Guantanamo without a detailed plan is an exercise in futility.
Yet the White House downplays the missed deadline and publicly states that the January closure is still on track. Really, is it? Despite not having a plan and missing a deadline for a key integral part of the closure process, the administration claims it can still meet the overall deadline of closure by January. I find that notion suspect at best and completely absurd at worst.
In May, a Gallup poll indicated that 65 percent of Americans oppose the closure of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility. Even so, the administration intends to follow its timeline and close Guantanamo by January 2010. The task force examining the cases of the remaining 229 detainees has only reviewed half of the necessary caseload thus far. The Justice Department hopes to complete its review by an October reporting deadline, but that benchmark is quickly slipping away too. This review process has taken twice the amount of time the administration thought it would take. Yet keeping Guantanamo open beyond January is inexplicably still not an option in the administration’s view.
Recently, media reports are circulating that the administration’s Guantanamo closure plan has been fraught with political miscalculation and internal dissension. Moreover, the complex nature of the issue will undoubtedly force the transfer of detainees inside the United States. Since the announcement of the President’s intention to close Guantanamo, I have joined other Senators in pointing out the lack planning and clear miscalculation of this decision. That pool has grown and a groundswell of bipartisan support is signaling the White House to “pump the brakes.”
In May, the Senate voted 90-6 to strip out funding in the FY2010 War Spending Request that would authorize $80 million for the transfer of detainees to the United States. Now that the failure to meet this deadline has been reported by outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times, the administration still doesn’t get it. Senior administration officials are letting hubris get in the way. This is neither the proper manner nor the right time to close Guantanamo.
There should have been more study of this issue prior to setting us on a course for closure. It is easy to say that Guantanamo can be closed when you are a candidate for President. It is even easier to sign an order on your first full day in office as President that says in 12 months Guantanamo WILL close. What is hard is taking a deliberative methodical approach and then formulating the proper plan to balance the safety of this country with the needs of lawful detention. Had the administration conducted a careful and thorough review of this issue, the conclusion would have been that Guantanamo fulfills both requirements. Instead, the administration has painted itself into a corner.
Clearly, the administration miscalculated and underestimated the depth and breadth of this issue. From the onset, the administration has tried to reverse-engineer the process for closing Guantanamo – starting from the end and working backwards. If changes are not made immediately, administration officials will force this issue on American cities and towns in just 185 days. They will limp across the finish line on January 22, 2010, and herald their accomplishment as a victory despite its ill-conceived planning and “Three Stooges-like” manner of execution.
Guantanamo is still an asset to this country. It complies with international treaties and exceeds the standards of domestic corrections facilities. I don’t see how anyone who is honest about the matter can characterize it any other way, especially when there is not a sufficient replacement located domestically to meet the Justice Department’s needs. It is my fervent hope that the President and the Attorney General will reconsider their ill-considered plan to close Guantanamo and recognize the obvious – that a $200-million-dollar facility that is already operational and in compliance with international treaties should not be shuttered.

Source

Abortion Opponents Criticize Health Reform Bills

President Obama, who has vowed to find common ground on culture-war issues, finds himself in the middle of a classic Washington dispute over abortion that is further undermining support among conservative Democrats for his ambitious health-care reform efforts.

Abortion is not explicitly mentioned in any of the major health-care bills under consideration in Congress. But abortion opponents charge that the legislation would make abortion more widely available and more common by requiring insurance plans to pay for the procedures and providing government funding to subsidize plans that pay for them.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said this week that decisions on specific benefits such as abortion coverage should be "left to medical experts in the field," referring to a proposed advisory board that would recommend minimum levels of coverage for private insurers.

The dispute presents another unwelcome distraction for the White House and a political opportunity for Republicans, who are seizing on the issue as part of a broader attempt to kill health legislation that they believe is too intrusive and too costly.

A group of conservative Democrats led by  Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) has proposed a compromise that would neither require nor forbid private insurers to cover the procedure as long as no federal funding is used; another group of Democrats and Republicans held a news conference Wednesday to call for an explicit ban on funding.

The conflict comes as two House Democrats on either side of the abortion divide prepare to introduce legislation this week aimed at encouraging pregnancy prevention and greater government support for young mothers. The measure from Ryan, who opposes abortion, and  Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who supports abortion rights, has attracted an unusual array of supporters ranging from Planned Parenthood to evangelical leaders such as the Rev. Joel Hunter of Orlando.

The developments underscore the emotional and often intractable nature of the abortion debate, which also flared during the recent confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Obama has repeatedly called for finding common ground by advocating policies to reduce the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies, a message he amplified as part of a widely watched address at Notre Dame University and during a recent visit with Pope Benedict XVI.

But the health-care legislation has reignited allegations from antiabortion groups that such pledges are an attempt by Obama and his allies to paper over their support for abortion rights with policies that will do little to reduce use of the procedure. Abortion opponents are preparing to rally Thursday against the proposed health-care reforms, and the group Americans United for Life has demanded a meeting with Obama to discuss the issue.

"This is a president who says he wants to reduce abortions," said Douglas Johnson, legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee. "But the actual policies that this administration is promoting will result in massive public subsidies for abortion and result in a massive increase in the number of abortions."

Democratic leaders and abortion rights groups say those concerns are exaggerated, and some accuse abortion opponents of attempting to use the health-care debate to further restrict legal access to abortion under private insurance plans. "This is the kind of divisiveness that the public has grown very tired of," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which has endorsed the Ryan-DeLauro bill.

 Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who says the House legislation contains "a hidden abortion mandate," is in talks with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman  Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) about compromise language. "It's been a long-held conviction by many members that taxpayer dollars should not be used for abortion," Stupak said in an interview, referring to restrictions first enacted in 1976 for Medicaid funds.

In their proposal to  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Ryan and four other Democrats say that allowing insurers to chart their own abortion policies as long as taxpayer money isn't used for the procedures represents "a common ground solution" that effectively maintains current law on abortion funding. Their proposal also stipulates that current state restrictions on the procedure would still apply.

The pregnancy prevention bill proposed by Ryan and DeLauro would establish and expand initiatives focused on contraceptives and other prevention measures, including an expansion of Medicaid coverage for family-planning services. The bill, which was drafted by the centrist advocacy group Third Way, also includes policies aimed at helping young mothers, including expanded maternity care and more financial assistance for adoptions.

Backers say the bill has been carefully scrubbed for months to remove policies that might alienate either side, such as financial support for the morning-after pill. Hunter, senior pastor of Orlando's Northland megachurch, said the proposal "isn't going to end the disagreement or the alarm that comes up on both sides. But I think it is the first of its kind to take such an incendiary culture-war issue and really make progress. It's a start."

Rachel Laser, Third Way's culture program director, said that the "approach represents the politics of the future on abortion."

But Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, said Wednesday that the bill would effectively subsidize abortion providers by increasing funding for family-planning services and would "further encourage promiscuous sex."

The White House has not endorsed any specific legislation on reducing abortions. But Melody Barnes, Obama's domestic policy adviser, said in an interview that the Ryan-DeLauro proposal represents "a very positive development." She also said the administration, which has been hosting meetings between advocates on both sides of the abortion debate throughout the summer, expects to issue its own package of proposals later in the year.

"The president started this process with the desire to find common ground and to work with people across the political spectrum," Barnes said, adding: "The bottom line is to put concrete ideas on the table."

Source

Republicans Assail President Obama Meeting with Congressional Budget Office Director As Inappropriate

Republicans on Wednesday criticized as inappropriate a meeting President Obama held Monday with the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf.

Elmendorf, a Democratic appointee, has been a thorn in the side of President Obama and congressional Democrats for the way he has analyzed health care reform legislation. In their view, Elmendorf hasn’t sufficiently given their health care reform proposals enough credit for cutting costs – which has caused them political problems in getting the legislation passed. Last week, frustrated at one analysis by Elmendorf, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., snapped, "what he should do is maybe run for Congress.”

“No one blames Mr. Elmendorf for accepting an invitation from the President of the United States,” House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.“The issue is whether it was appropriate for the White House to invite him to discuss pending legislation before Congress at all.” 

Said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky: "I noticed that the CBO director was sort of called down to the White House yesterday. It strikes me as somewhat akin as the owner of the team asking the umpires to come up to the owner's box."

McConnell said that "if the CBO is to have credibility, they're the umpire. They're not players in this game."

CBO is tasked with providing “objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses to aid in economic and budgetary decisions on the wide array of programs covered by the federal budget.”

The White House flatly rejected the idea that there was anything untoward about the invitation or the meeting, which took place on Monday for just under an hour. In addition to the president and Elmendorf, present in the meeting were White House officials such as Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs Phil Schiliro, Director of the White House Office of Health Reform Nancy-Ann DeParle, Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag (a former CBO director himself), National Economic Council Director Larry Summers, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Christy Romer, senior adviser David Axelrod, and press secretary Robert Gibbs.

Others were there as well, including Department of Health and Human Services adviser Meena Seshamani, Harvard University economist David Cutler and Alice Rivlin of the Brookings Institute, who was founding director of CBO from 1975-1983.

“The President invited the director to the White House to discuss health care reform and reducing health care costs,” said White House spokesman Reid Cherlin.

Gibbs described the meeting as a way to discuss ways to reduce health care costs, with no discussion of the CBO methodologies that have annoyed Democrats in their drive to pass health care reform legislation.

Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican appointee who advised the 2008 presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said that he never had a private meeting at the White House during his time helming CBO, from 2003 to 2005.

“The only appearance could be that they’re leaning on him,” Holtz-Eakin said. “CBO was created for Congress, for independent analysis. The White House did him (Elmendorf) a terrible disservice.”

Writing about the meeting on his blog, Elmendorf said President Obama asked him and other outside experts for their “views about achieving cost savings in health reform.  I presented CBO’s assessment of the challenges of reducing federal health outlays and improving the long-term budget outlook while simultaneously expanding health insurance coverage..”

He said those in the meeting also discussed “various policy options that could produce budgetary savings in the long run.” He described why last week he assessed the health care legislation offered by Senate Democrats as failing in the president’s stated goal of bending the cost curve of health care. “In the legislation that has been reported we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount,” Elmendorf testified last week. “And on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs.”

He said it was exciting to meet the president and be in the Oval Office and his children will be jealous “when they get back from summer camp and hear about it. “

“Of course,” Elmendorf wrote, “the setting of the conversation and the nature of the participants do not affect CBO’s analysis of health reform legislation. “

So far those analyses have been causing Democrats headaches.

"One of the things that's disappointing about CBO -- and frustrating -- is all the work…done on prevention" that the CBO doesn’t factor in, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., co-author of the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee legislation, recently griped.

"You don't get the benefit in CBO of cost-savings with prevention programs,” Dodd said. They'll tell you how much an anti-smoking program may cost. They don't tell you the benefit occurs when a number of people stop smoking."

During the health care town hall meeting, President Obama said, "the Congressional Budget Office, the CBO, which sort of polices what all various programs cost, they're not willing to credit us with those savings.  They say, ‘That may be nice, that may save a lot of money, but we can't be certain.’ So we expect that not only are we going to pay for health care reform in a deficit-neutral way, but that's it also going to achieve big savings across the system -- including in the private sector where the Congressional Budget Office never gives us any credit -- but if hospitals and doctors are starting to operate in a smarter way, that's going to help you even if you're not involved in a government system."

Before that, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said that "it's always been a source, yes I will say frustration, for many of us in Congress that the CBO will always give you the worst case scenario on one initiative and never ... any credit for anything that happens if you have early intervention, health care. If you have prevention, if you have wellness ... you name any positive investment that we make, that we know reduces cost, brings money to the Treasury in the case of education but never scored positively by the CBO. Yes, it is frustrating."

Pelosi said, "I hope we will see them say, 'This is what we see the cost of something. We have not accounted for the benefits' because they don't and they haven't and it should not be inferred from what they do that they have."

Holtz-Eakin, who said he’s starting a think tank, added that if the White House was interested in Elmendorf’s views or suggestions, they needed to just have “read the CBO studies and left it at that. A wiser White House than this one would have seen that….These guys may have I.Q. points off the scale, but a reverence for institutions and something about a respect for the process is not their strong point.”

-jpt

Source

President Obama Uses Magnetism, Political Capital to Push Health Care Bill

Swaying public opinion would go a long way toward convincing resistant lawmakers that a massive health care reform bill is vital and needed immediately. The task could be a heavy lift for the president, who so far is getting little love from either voters or Congress.

President Obama is spending his considerable political capital and using his personal magnetism Wednesday in a prime-time appeal to Americans on the virtues of the 10-year, $1 trillion-plus health care reform package big-footing its way through Congress.

Swaying public opinion would go a long way toward convincing resistant lawmakers that a massive health care reform bill is vital and needed immediately. The task could be a heavy lift for the president, who so far is getting little love from either voters or Congress despite talking about the topic 10 times over the past 10 days.

Watch FOX News Channel and FOXNews.com for a live broadcast of President Obama's prime-time press conference at 8 p.m. ET.

Causes for hesitation include, among other issues, the massive price tag, the number of people covered, the elimination of insurance options, the fear of long lines and inability to access physicians, the increase in taxes to pay for it and concern that the 1,000-page bill is not being vetted enough as it is moves quickly through Congress.

The Congressional Budget Office upset Democratic supporters of the plan by last week projecting that the House legislation will cost $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion over 10 years, depending on the plan adopted. The price tag sent shock waves through Washington and beyond.

But the CBO can only project out 10 years by law. Other projections based on CBO's numbers and extending into the future show the bill could explode the deficit once the benefits are fully implemented. One estimate by the Republican staff of the House Ways and Means Committee estimated the deficit would increase by $759 billion over the first 10 years the benefits are fully in effect, which is in 2015. Another projection of long-range costs done by congressional staff shows deficits in the 2020s of $50 billion to $250 billion per year.

On top of that, while the administration claims the legislation will be "deficit neutral," one senior administration official acknowledged Tuesday that the pledge does not apply to an estimated $245 billion to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients over the next decade.

Trying to rein in Medicare costs is a major challenge. In 1966, the year Medicare law was enacted, the cost was $3 billion and estimated to be $12 billion by 1990. Actual cost in 1990 for Medicare was $107 billion. In 2007, Medicare spent $468 billion on prescription drugs, hospital care and physician services.

The Medicare account is now projected to spend more than it gets in revenues in 2017.

Backers insist that savings will be realized in other areas, for instance, by Americans becoming healthier and spending less on doctors visits and because emergency rooms won't be used for primary care. But an increase in taxes on upper income brackets is expected to accompany the bill.

"There (are) efforts to invest in wellness, to go after fraud and abuse, which we know is a huge
part of the system with people stealing money away from our senior citizens and our most
vulnerable citizens," Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told FOX News.

Adding to the suspicions about the bill are reports of a meeting held at the White House with a group that included CBO Director Dougles Elmendorf. It's very unusual for the CBO director, who is appointed by the majority party to serve as the official numbers cruncher, to go to the White House, and Elmendorf's visit raised questions about whether he was being pressured to revise his dire analysis.

A White House spokesman said that Elmendorf was invited to be one of the participants at the meeting because he, like the president, is serious about bringing down costs.

"If someone thinks it's inappropriate for the president to meet with the CBO director, that's unfortunate," White House spokesman Reid Cherlin told FOX News.

Elmendorf added on his Web log that he offered to the president a personal briefing of the contents of his analysis and the same testimony he gave Congress, but would not be swayed by a personal meeting with Obama.

"People have asked whether it was exciting to meet the president and be in the Oval Office: Yes, and my kids will be jealous when they get back from summer camp and hear about it," Elmendorf wrote.

"Of course, the setting of the conversation and the nature of the participants do not affect CBO's analysis of health reform legislation. We will continue to work with members of Congress and their staffs, on both sides of the aisle, to provide cost estimates and other information as health reform legislation is considered," he added.

Previewing his evening press conference, the president told CBS in an interview that aired Tuesday morning that the country needs a reform bill immediately to stem the rising costs of health care. He defended himself against claims that the bill is being hustled through without proper consideration.

"We've been studying this ad infinitum. Starting in November after my election, a lot of members of Congress, including the chairman of the Finance Committee, Max Baucus, started meeting and working through ideas," Obama said. "So we've actually been working on this for a good solid nine months now."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., vowed weeks ago that the House would vote by the end of July on the legislation to meet the goals established by Obama months ago. On Wednesday, Pelosi expressed confidence in the ability of her caucus to pass the legislation though her stance on a timeline was less firm.

She said that the House wanted to wait to see what the Senate would offer in terms of legislation. However, she insisted that "we are going in a forward direction" towards passage.

The pace of movement continues to concern Democrats and Republicans alike.

"No one wants to tell the speaker that she's moving too fast and they damn sure don't want to tell the president," Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., a key committee chairman, told a fellow lawmaker as the two walked into a closed-door meeting on Tuesday. The remark was overheard by reporters.

"If we don't put the brakes on the president, he's going to break our country right now," Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told FOX News. "And the last time we let him ram something through Congress, we ended up with this catastrophic stimulus failure that's hurting our jobs and mortgaging our future. And now he's trying to push this trillion-dollar health care bill through in two weeks, before we go home on the August break. And we've got to slow him down."

Sebelius said the differences that divide lawmakers and competing legislation are not as big as they seem. Among the five bills being ushered through the House and Senate, all share "common ground that everyone would be covered, that we would provide a new marketplace for those that don't have coverage or coverage they can't afford to have some choices and have some cost competition."

"No one is going to be forced to lose their private coverage. That's just an incorrect assertion and assumption," Sebelius added.

But still bothering GOP lawmakers are measures to include 5.6 million illegal aliens among those covered as well as the refusal to cap medical malpractice awards.

"Taxpaying families, already weighed down by bailouts and massive spending bills, cannot afford to pay for health insurance for millions of illegal aliens," said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. "It is wrong to reward law breakers. The American people are speaking loud and clear and saying, 'No health care for illegal aliens.'"

"There is something fundamentally wrong with America when it is easier to sue a doctor than see a doctor," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.

Each year, $30 billion is awarded to victims of medical malpractice. Obama has said he does not support caps on awards.

"There are bad doctors out there, but the answer is not frivolous lawsuits, and it's not these incredible liability costs imposed on all of us, it's take their licenses away. That's what you do with bad doctors," Hensarling said, noting that many doctors order a battery of unnecessary tests to protect themselves from a lawsuit, further driving up the prices of health care.

Source

Obama Defends Vacationing in Down Economy

(CBS)  After a wide-ranging interview of President Obama, "CBS Evening News" anchor Katie Couric strolled along with him outside the White House and asked him a question suggested to her by someone on Twitter -- on whether he feels "guilty going on vacation when so many families are struggling."

Mr. Obama and his family plan to take a break in Martha's Vineyard next month.

"If the question is, 'Do I think every single day about the hardships that people are going through'? Absolutely," the president responded. "Do I think the American people think that because of those hardships I shouldn't spend some quality time with my daughters? I don't think that's what the American people think about it."

Couric then observed, "You're so confident, Mr. President. And so focused. Is your confidence ever shaken, do you ever wake up and say, 'Damn, this is hard! Damn, I'm not going to get the things done that I want to get done,' and it's just too politicized to get anything done?"

Mr. Obama's response? "Are there days where I say, 'This is a big dose'? Absolutely. Are there days where, you know, I think we've suffered setbacks and I've got to continually question and reexamine how I'm approaching problems, all the time. You know, there's a constant process of reevaluation in it, and self reflection that the job forces on you. But this country just makes me confident. I have faith that in the end we will do what's right for the next generation."

Couric's interview covered the battle over healthcare reform, the economy, joblessness, abortion funding and other key issues.

Source

Clinton Discusses Relationship With Obama

PHUKET, Thailand, July 22 -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that President Obama agreed to give her "an enormous amount of authority . . . really everything I asked for" before she agreed to take the job of chief U.S. diplomat.

Clinton made the remarks during an expansive one-hour interview with Thai television in Bangkok before she flew to this resort island for a regional security forum. The interview with two energetic questioners took place before a live audience in a former king's palace built in 1909.

Clinton said she was "very surprised" when her former rival for the Democratic nomination asked her to become secretary of state. "He said, 'Look, I really need you and I believe that we can have a great relationship.' And we do. It's been everything I could have hoped for," Clinton said.

She added that her first response when Obama called her was to give him a list of names of people she thought "would be so much better. . . . But as you have seen watching on TV, he is very persuasive."

Speculation has risen in official Washington that Clinton has lost some of her luster and the State Department has been sidelined, with much of the foreign-policy power residing in the White House. But Clinton dismissed that, saying the rumors were the result of her reduced travel schedule after she broke her elbow in June.

"What happened is I broke my elbow. Very sad. I tripped and fell, but luckily I didn't hit my head. I hit my elbow and it broke in two," Clinton said. She then had to cancel plans to do a solo European trip and to join the president on another trip to Russia.

"I'm not with the president on the trip and all of sudden everyone said 'Ooooh . . . she's disappeared.' I'm thinking, gosh, I'm here, actually here."

Clinton said that from her own experience living in the White House as first lady, she understands that the president is always going to be the top policy-maker. "The president is the president. You know, I tried to be the president but I was not successful," she said to loud applause. "But I know -- the president is the president."

The questioners pressed Clinton on her run for the presidency and whether she still entertained the notion of running again.

"That's not anything I'm at all thinking about," she replied.

She was asked if she had ever given up hope, and she said: "I don't know, but I doubt very much that anything like that will ever be part of my life."

Is it wait and see? "No, no, no, no."

Finally, one questioner pressed, "Never say never," and Clinton seemed to shut the door.

"Well, I am saying no because I have a very committed attitude to the job I have and so that's not at all on my radar screen."

Source