CQ Politics' Web Picks

New Yorker: Partisanship, by the Bye

Obama has a tough-minded understanding of the political uses of bipartisanship, which, even if it fails as a tactic for compromise, can succeed as a tonal strategy: once the other side makes itself appear intransigently, destructively partisan, the game is half won. Obama is learning to throw the ball harder. But it's not Rovian hardball he's playing. More like Gandhian hardball.

Bloomberg: Democrats May Be Headed to Showdown With Obama Over Bush Probes

Some Democrats in Congress don't want to let George W. Bush leave town. They want to continue investigating alleged wrongdoing by former administration officials like Karl Rove just as President Barack Obama is urging them to turn the page.

Detroit Free Press: New Team Will Steer a New Auto Industry

President Barack Obama will name a task force today to oversee the remaking of the U.S. auto industry, as General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC press for late concessions to work into turnaround plans that are due to the government on Tuesday. The team will be headed by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers. It will include staffers from several agencies, including the departments of Transportation, Energy, Labor, Commerce and Treasury, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

New York Times: States and Cities in Scramble for Stimulus Cash

Well before President Obama's stimulus package completed its tortuous path through Congress last week, state and local officials facing multimillion-dollar budget deficits, crumbling infrastructure and the prospect of massive reductions in services were already jockeying for the upper hand in deciding how the money should be spent.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Local Political Donations Used for Overseas Travels

Campaign money raised for local elections sometimes gets spent in unusual places -- like Europe. To the mayor, tapping the campaign kitty is a way to keep taxpayers off the hook. To some watchdogs, relying on private donors to fund travel that's not clearly election-related could be corrosive.

Politico: Obama Slows down Troop Boost Decision

President Barack Obama is refusing to be rushed into his first decision to send troops into combat, an early sign he may be more independent-minded than U.S. military leaders expected. Rather than sign off quickly on all or part of a long-standing Pentagon request for three Army combat brigades and Marine units, totaling over 10,000 troops, Obama and his aides are questioning the timetable, the mission and even the composition of the new forces, officials familiar with the deliberations said. Former President George W. Bush usually signed off quickly on requests for additional troops from his commanders.

USA Today: Alexandra Pelosi Takes a Hard 'Right' Turn in Documentary

For those wondering why the "liberal media" rarely show interviews of conservative voters on TV, documentary director Alexandra Pelosi offers up a visceral counterpoint in HBO's Right America, Feeling Wronged: Some Voices From the Campaign Trail, a documentary premiering Monday night (8 ET/PT).

Mental Floss: A Presidents' Day Round-up of Presidential Facts

Learn who the nation's eighth president left out of his autobiography and other interesting-but-obscure facts about chief executives.