Here’s what we’re reading at The Daily Rundown for Thursday, May 9, 2013.
Who’s coming to dinner? House Democratic leaders got their chance to sit down with President Obama last night. Even though they share the president’s party, some “were chafing at being neglected,” the New York Times reports. “That is not uncommon: with Republicans tightly controlling the House since the 2010 election, House Democrats typically have to watch as the White House deals almost exclusively with the Democrats who run the Senate.” On Thursday’s The Daily Rundown, we’ll talk with Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who was at the dinner.
Benghazi hearing. “In a day of congressional testimony that once again found the Obama administration under fire, a trio of whistleblowers expressed frustration toward the government’s response to the Sept. 11, 2012 assault against a U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, and its subsequent investigation into that incident,” NBC News reports. “The witnesses said that the government was poorly prepared to weather the attack and was hesitant to respond, also contending that a subsequent review of the incident ordered by the State Department came up woefully short.”
Clinton watch. Just after House Republicans put former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s handling of the terrorist attack under a microscope, she didn’t “explicitly mention the controversy” during a speech to accept an award in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, but “she did reference partisan bickering in the nation’s capital,” the Los Angeles Times reports. Clinton: “We truly, still today — despite all of our partisan wrangling, and the gridlock that sometimes seems to take hold — we stand up for the rights and opportunities of all people.”
Boston in focus. This morning, Congress will hold its first hearing on the Boston Marathon bombings, examining whether better cooperation and information sharing over Russian warnings concerning the Tsarnaev brothers could have stopped the attacks. Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis is set to testify, and he told the Boston Globe that “from the looks of it now, there’s no indication of a huge systematic issue.”
Jessica Taylor