OBAMA AGENDA: NEED FOR HEAVIER HAND?

"Despite President Barack Obama’s claim Friday that the White House has jumped 'with both feet' into the ongoing health care negotiations, Capitol Hill critics are charging the president with treading too lightly and warned that a heavier hand is needed to keep the process on track," Roll Call reports.

The Washington Times notes how the word "rationing" is becoming a potentially effective tool for the GOP to beat up on Obama's health care plans. "For Republicans, ‘rationing’ could be that poison-tipped arrow for the Democratic-led health care bill, much as ‘amnesty’ was the club with which conservatives beat President Bush's attempt at immigration reform into a bloody pulp in 2007.”

The Washington Post’s Balz makes this point: "No one expects Obama to declare in dictatorial terms what shape the legislation must take, but lawmakers are now looking for much clearer guidance from the White House on the tough issues remaining. As one nervous administration ally said, "The president's involvement and engagement almost exclusively on health care the next two weeks is essential."

The AP: "After a week of difficult summitry in Russia and Italy, trying to get balky allies to follow his lead, the outpouring Obama was treated to in Ghana can only be called rapturous -- from Africans overjoyed at the visit of America's first black president to a country south of the Sahara."

In an interview with CNN from Ghana, Obama spoke about how slavery should be taught in U.S. schools. "I think it's important that the way we think about it and the way it's taught is not one in which there's simply a victim and a victimizer. And that's the end of the story… I think the way it has to be thought about, the reason it's relevant, is because whether it's what's happening in Darfur or what's happening in the Congo or what's happening in too many places around the world, you know, the capacity for cruelty still exists."

Video: President Obama and the rest of America's first family took time out to visit the Cape Coast Castle while in Ghana. The site was once a seaside fortress used for slave trading by the British in the 17th century. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo reports.

The Washington Post takes a sneak peek into the long days and nights for White House aides. “The grueling schedule has forced most of the presidential aides to abandon physical exercise, and the few who persist -- often because of incessant goading from their fitness-fixated commander in chief -- have planned their workouts at times that stretch their schedules even further.” 

Immigration isn't getting ANY attention these days but Jeb Bush is trying with an op-ed in the L.A. Times. He co-writes it with Clinton Chief of Staff Mack McLarty

"Thanks a lot, Hillary! In a surprise turnaround that will cost the city $260 million in back taxes and untold millions in future lost revenue, Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department has quietly reversed a longstanding policy requiring foreign governments to pay taxes on some diplomatic residences," The New York Daily News reports. "It's a shocking about-face by Secretary of State Clinton -- who repeatedly spoke in favor of the city's right to collect the taxes when she was New York's junior senator." (By the way, Rep. Anthony Weiner and Clinton aide Huma Abedin are engaged.)

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