SCOTT SIMON, host:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. This week President Obama attends the G-20 Summit in London, marks the 60th anniversary of NATO, and sees versions of his budget squeezed through Congress. Joining us now is NPR's senior news analyst Dan Schorr. Hello, Dan.
DAN SCHORR: Hi, Scott.
SIMON: And of course the G-20 was the first mass meeting of President Obama with other world leaders; extraordinary publicity and expectation.
SCHORR: Right.
SIMON: Let me put it this way. How did Michelle Obama's husband do?
(Soundbite of laughter)
SCHORR: Well, obviously she did better than anybody could, but he did pretty well himself on the whole. As he himself said, I did okay, which is kind of an understatement. He actually did very well. He went there and there were sharp divisions between the continental France and Germany and U.S. and Britain on the other side, on how much you needed to have more stimulus and how much you needed to have more regulation; that caused a lot of trouble. And in the end he didn't get all of what he wanted. He didn't give all what they wanted. But there was enough there for them to come out and present a united front to the world, which at this point was what was needed.
SIMON: And President Sarkozy of France had indicated, initially threatened, really, that he might walk out.
SCHORR: Right.
SIMON: Because he didn't like the draft communiqué, thought there was nothing to talk about. He ended up practically arm in arm - that's not just a metaphor - with President Obama.
SCHORR: That was not a metaphor. That is the kind of thing that our president can do. Can go over there, walk into a situation (unintelligible) looks as though it is fraught with possibilities for disagreement, goes in there and talks to them, butters them up, doesn't insist on having everything all at once. It's okay, I'll give you (unintelligible) and he takes what he can get. This is something Europeans understand pretty well. And so they're all climbing on the bandwagon and saying sort of hurray for your president. We haven't seen that in a long time.
SIMON: And we do - must note every now and then, Mr. Obama's popularity ratings are often larger than those of the actual elected officials of the countries that he's meeting with.
SCHORR: Well, that's right.
SIMON: Not just in the United States, I mean in their countries.
SCHORR: That is exactly right. Well, for another thing, you know, it is really for these people such a relief after George Bush, who became rather universally unpopular, especially in Europe. And now you get somebody who speaks civilly, who seems to understand what he's talking about, and doesn't try to push you into anything. And they kind of love it.
SIMON: He did meet with some government leaders (unintelligible) including the Russian president.
SCHORR: Yeah.
SIMON: Is that just a photo op or did something come out of that?
SCHORR: I think it was something more than a photo op. President Medvedev was really ready to start on a new course, which Joe Biden had called hitting the reset button. Doesn't translate very well into Russian, but he got the general idea and we're ready to talk business. And business in the first place consists of arms control business, of a proposal to bring down the total number of warheads on each side, which is somewhere now about 2,200, bringing them down to 1,500, and really aim for getting rid of - of nuclear weapons.
They are apparently going to resume formal negotiations for the first time in a long time and that is a considerable advance.
SIMON: President went onto Strasbourg to mark the 60th anniversary of NATO.
SCHORR: Yes.
SIMON: You covered that.
SCHORR: Well, yes. I was, as they say, I was present at the creation of NATO, 60 years ago. And I can remember that as they gathered to sign the treaty, there was a Marine band playing and it played Gershwin tunes, including "I Got Plenty of Nothing," which I thought was not really the most auspicious way to launch a great alliance. On the other hand, it has been, I think, probably the most successful military alliance in history. The only question is, what kind -since this whole purpose at that time was to defend Europe against the Soviet Union and there being no Soviet Union, what do they do now for an encore?
Well, the United States would like NATO to get more directly involved in troops for Afghanistan than they so far have, and that is what is being presented at the summit of NATO.
SIMON: The House and Senate back in the United States, before leaving town for Easter break, passed versions of the Obama budget.
SCHORR: Yes.
SIMON: Significant victory?
SCHORR: I think it is a significant victory. It didn't give him all he wanted in every respect, and he lost some Democratic votes on it, and it wasn't a totally clean victory, but it was very important to him. It sets the blueprint for how he proposes to do the next four years, in the way of energy assistance and doing things about health and all of that. He got basically what he wanted, was his go-ahead plan.
SIMON: The indictment against former Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich was finally handed out this week. Is this the specter of what could be a political embarrassment over the next few months as the trial proceeds?
SCHORR: It is a considerable embarrassment to a great many; obviously in the first place to Blagojevich, but then as they - with all these counts in the indictment, as they go to trial, there are going to have to be a lot of people who are going to be dragged into it who may have played a part with Blagojevich in trying to trade favors like a seat, like a Senate seat and so on.
Yes, it is. Whether Senator Burris, who was appointed by Blagojevich, whether -and is a sitting senator and intends not to be anything else but - whether he can survive this, I don't know, but the Senate Ethics Committee still has some work to do on that. But embarrassment? Plenty.
SIMON: And Attorney General Holder dropped the charges against former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens because of prosecutorial misconduct.
SCHORR: Yeah. I think that is really amazing. It is so unusual for an attorney general to say the people in my department did wrong, and if they did wrong we cannot sentence this guy to jail or to a fine based on evidence which was withheld. What was wrong was that a prosecutor did not turn over some of the evidence that they were bound to turn over. That is prosecutorial misconduct. And so, yeah. Of course I don't think that Stevens can get his Senate seat back, which he lost in an election right after that, but it is an amazing event.
SIMON: NPR's senior news analyst Dan Schorr, thank you.
SCHORR: (Unintelligible)
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