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As Washington struggles over debt crisis, Obama stays mum on veto threat

By Major Garrett
National Journal

Washington may have become, as President Obama said on Monday, a place where "compromise has become a dirty word," but in the context of the menacing debt-limit crisis there was a far dirtier word he didn't utter.
Veto.
While Obama warned House Speaker John Boehner not to turn Americans into "collateral damage," he did not vow to veto the bill Boehner's now pushing to lift the debt ceiling by $1 trillion (good for six months). Boehner's two-step process would impose $1.2 trillion in spending cuts and establish a select congressional commission to propose an additional $1.8 trillion in savings by Thanksgiving.
If Republican leaders were sifting through Obama's speech for one word it was "veto." Its absence gives Obama, Boehner, and the Senate room to maneuver if, as now appears likely, Boehner's bill squeaks through the House and arrives in the Senate as a viable, though less-than-optimal, alternative to default.
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Clearly, Obama prefers Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's proposal to extend the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion (enough to last until 2013) with the new credit line financed entirely by spending cuts that spare entitlements and impose no new taxes—even on easy political targets like corporate jets or oil companies. But Obama did not single Reid's bill out as the only option, just a preference. As Obama and every serious player in this tug-of-war knows, the time for preferences is dwindling and the time for least-best options is nigh.
Consider Obama's carefully worded description of the Reid bill and the way forward.
"I think that's a much better path, although serious deficit reduction would still require us to tackle the tough challenges of entitlement and tax reform," Obama said of the Reid bill, which may fail on a procedural vote on Wednesday. "Either way, I have told leaders of both parties that they must come up with a fair compromise in the next few days that can pass both houses of Congress—a compromise I can sign. And I am confident we can reach this compromise."

The compromise remains undefined and Obama made one last bid for a so-called "grand bargain," the elusive $4 trillion combination of discretionary and entitlement spending cuts and tax reform that represents the biggest possible down payment on long-term deficit reduction. Obama asked Americans made weary by the partisan strife to prod Congress with e-mails, phone calls, and social-media pokes. 
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"The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn't vote for a dysfunctional government," Obama said in what may be the speech's most durable line. "So I'm asking you all to make your voice heard. If you want a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, let your member of Congress know. If you believe we can solve this problem through compromise, send that message."
Notice that a "balanced approach" and "compromise" are no longer the same thing. By endorsing Reid's spending cut-only bill (even with proposals Republicans deride as gimmicks), Obama has given up on the grand bargain and so-called balanced approach. If the nation rallies behind that and tells Congress as much, it will be lobbying in a vacuum. If it calls on Congress to "compromise" it will be theoretically pushing for Reid's bill.
Either way, Obama's call for outside help to isolate Boehner and pressure Republicans into buckling is classic divide-and-conquer politics. Boehner is struggling to hold his conference together behind a proposal that's a retreat from the cut, cap, and balance bill passed only last week. 
TEXT: Full comments from President Obama, House Speaker Boehner
Boehner's taking flak on his right. Now, Obama's depicting House Republicans as stubborn, small-minded, and willing to risk default, higher interest rates, and stock market volatility just to block higher taxes. Obama must position himself against House Republicans—even if he ultimately has to cut a deal with Boehner.
Why? Because even though Obama retains more public confidence and support in this mess than Hill Republicans, this crisis has not elevated his stature. Last week Obama's Gallup weekly approval rating fell to 43 percent, the lowest level of his presidency and lower than Bill Clinton at a similar stage of his budget standoff with Republicans in 1995. The stalemate, as Obama called it, has taken a toll on all players and now the battle is one of short-term leverage.
If Obama can weaken Boehner so much that he can't pass a bill in the House, Reid's bill has a chance in the Senate. Significantly, the current timing (very fluid, to put in mildly) is for the House to vote late on Wednesday and the Senate to follow on Thursday. But if Boehner prevails and his method becomes a live option in the Senate and Reid's bill can't overcome an expected GOP filibuster, Obama's choices will dwindle to two: sign Boehner's bill or come up with something new on the fly. 
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That Obama didn't promise to veto Boehner's bill signals that Obama may already know the sweet spot between divided government and dysfunctional government. He may not sign the Boehner bill, but the absence of a veto threat is a tell-tale sign that, in the end, Obama may tolerate something much closer to it than Monday night's speech conveyed.
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Bad news for Social Security recipients

NYC boy's gruesome killing shocks community

NEW YORK (AP) — Walking home alone from day camp for the first time, 8-year-old Leiby Kletzky disappeared.
A day-and-a-half search led police to the Brooklyn home of a man seen on a surveillance video with the young Orthodox Jewish child. They asked: Where is the boy?
The man nodded toward the kitchen, authorities said, where blood stained the freezer door. Inside was the stuff of horror films — severed feet, wrapped in plastic. In the refrigerator, a cutting board and three bloody carving knives. A plastic garbage bag with bloody towels was nearby.
"It is every parent's worst nightmare," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Wednesday, following the arrest of 35-year-old Levi Aron on a charge of second-degree murder.
Leiby disappeared Monday afternoon while on his way to meet his mother on a street corner seven blocks from his day camp, the first time the young Hasidic child was allowed to walk the route alone. Authorities said he had evidently gotten lost after missing a turn, and had reached out to Aron, a stranger, for help.
The gruesome killing shocked the tight-knit Hasidic community in Borough Park, in part because it is one of the safest sections of the city and because Aron is himself an Orthodox Jew, although not Hasidic. The Hasidim are ultra-Orthodox Jews.
"This is a no-crime area," said state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, whose district includes the area. "Everybody is absolutely horrified," he said. "Everyone is in total shock, beyond belief, beyond comprehension ... to suddenly disappear and then the details ... and the fact someone in the extended community ... it's awful."
While the medical examiner's office said it was still investigating how the boy was killed, the body was released so that the boy could be buried Wednesday evening according to Jewish custom.
Thousands gathered around a Borough Park synagogue for the funeral service. Speakers broadcast over a loudspeaker, chanting and speaking in Yiddish and Hebrew. They stressed the community's resilience and unity after what one called an unnatural death.
"This is not human," said Moses Klein, 73, a retired caterer who lives near the corner where the boy was last seen.
The break in the case came when investigators watched a grainy video that showed the boy, wearing his backpack, getting into a car with a man outside a dentist's office. Detectives tracked the dentist down at his home in New Jersey, and he remembered someone coming to pay a bill. Police identified Aron using records from the office, and 40 minutes later he was arrested, shortly before 3 a.m. Wednesday.
Aron told police where to find the rest of the body; it was in pieces, wrapped in plastic bags, inside a red suitcase that had been tossed into a trash bin in another Brooklyn neighborhood, Kelly said.
Police said there was no evidence the boy was sexually assaulted, but they would not otherwise shed any light on a motive except to say Aron told them he "panicked" when he saw photos of the missing boy on fliers that were distributed in the neighborhood. Police were looking into whether Aron had a history of mental illness.
Police said Aron, who is divorced, lives alone in an attic in a building shared with his father and uncle.
Kelly said it was "totally random" that Aron grabbed the boy, and aside from a summons for urinating in public, he had no criminal record. A neighbor told authorities her son had said Aron had once tried to lure him into his car, but nothing happened and she didn't think much of it until the news of the killing, police said.
He lived most of his life in New York and worked as a clerk at a hardware supply store around the corner from his home, authorities said. Co-workers said Aron was at work on Tuesday.
"He seemed a little troubled," said employee Chamin Kramer, who added Aron usually came and went quietly.
Aron lived briefly in Memphis, Tenn., and his ex-wife, Deborah Aron, still lives in the area. She said he never showed signs of violence toward her two children from a previous relationship.
"It's utter disbelief," she said from the toy-littered backyard of her home in the Memphis suburb of Germantown. "This ain't the Levi I know."
Deborah Aron said the couple divorced about four years ago after a year of marriage. She described Levi Aron as a person who was shy until he got to know you and said he enjoyed music, karaoke and "American Idol." She said he attended Orthodox Jewish services in Memphis.
He was "more of a mother's boy than a father's boy," who lived at home until he met her, she said.
She said Levi injured his head when he was hit by a car while riding his bike at the age of 9 and suffered problems stemming from that accident.
___
Associated Press Writers Karen Matthews and Karen Zraick in New York and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., contributed to this report.

Mila Kunis Accepts Marine's Invite to Corps Ball

Mila Kunis, reporting for duty!
When Sgt. Scott Moore posted a YouTube video last week inviting the Black Swan actress to accompany him to the Marine Corps Ball on Nov. 18, it probably seemed like a long shot. But at the urging of her Friends With Benefits costar, Justin Timberlake, Kunis agreed to head to Greenville, North Carolina to be Moore's date!
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In the video, Moore addressed the actress directly from Afghanistan. "Hi Mila, I just want to take a moment out of my day to invite you to the Marine Corps Ball with yours truly," he said. "So take a second to think about it, and get back to me."
When FOX411 asked the actress if she knew about the invitation, Timberlake, 30, made certain that Kunis would go. "Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?" he asked her. "You need to do it for your country!"
"I'm going to work on this, man," he said in a message to Scott. "This needs to go down!"
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"I'll go. I'll do it for you," Kunis said, before asking Timberlake if he was going to attend as well.
"They don't want me!" he exclaimed. "They want you."
Check out Sgt. Scott Moore's invitation below: