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Saturday's Stories

We are following several developing stories this afternoon.  One is unfolding right now.  North Carolina's Attorney General is holding a news conference today to talk about the review of the case involving 3 Duke lacrosse players charged with assault.  This comes after the D.A. in Durham... Michael Nifong recused himself from the case following accusations of prosecutorial misconduct.  NBC's Michelle Kosinski is there... and will have the latest.

Also... we heard from the parents of the 2 missing children who were found in Missouri.  We'll find out how police got a break in the case.  Kevin Tibbles is there.

There is a major winter storm brewing in the central part of the country... spreading ice as far south as Texas...  and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of residents in several states.  NBC's Charles Hadlock will have that story.

Plus... the President selling his new plan for Iraq to the American people... he faces a big challenge in Congress.  NBC's Kevin Corke reports.

And NBC's Andrea Mitchell is traveling with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and reports on the trouble the secretary is facing at home… and the tough questions she's facing tonight in Jerusalem.  Those are some of the stories we're working on tonight.  We hope to see you then.

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POTUS plus two

"It was so cold today, Barry Bonds tested positive for SOUP."

"I don't read the newspapers and I don't watch TV -- and a lot of stories go right over my head."
-- Madonna (with recently-acquired British accent) to David Letterman, moments later

Two days now since the speech that launched a change in policy, and the President is at Camp David, Congress is at odds, and the American people are at loggerheads over what to think is right where Iraq policy is concerned. All this week we've been thinking about the American military families: those expecting a loved one home soon, those with a reservist in the family, and those who are preparing to say goodbye. They are at the heart of this, along with the stability of a nation and a region. We'll cover today's moving parts from the White House to Congress to Iraq.

Weather is making news in California (the kind that will ultimately affect costs) and insurance is in the news in New Orleans. And because it's Friday, we have a special and emotional segment in our "Making a Difference" series: A woman who has given of herself so that thousands of our men and women in uniform could have a proper send-off as they leave for war.

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Early Nightly is up

Brian anchors the broadcast tonight, but Chip Reid is on vlog duty in Washington, where the news continues to center on congressional reaction to President Bush's plan for Iraq.

Click here or on the image to watch.

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The day after

"Show me a man who never made a mistake and I will show you a man who never did anything."
-- President Lyndon Baines Johnson, June 12, 1967

"Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."
-- President George W. Bush, Jan. 10, 2007

"As a wise man once said: 'An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.'"
-- President John F. Kennedy, April 27, 1961

Tonight: our coverage of the President's speech, the reaction and aftermath. We'll go from the White House to the Hill, the Pentagon to Iraq. We'll also talk to Tim Russert, and we'll hear from Americans reacting to the speech last night.

There's news from New Orleans today, and news regarding the confluence of soccer, high fashion, stylists and the like: the product known as David Beckham will be coming to America. For an insane amount of money. One of the most interesting debates in our editorial meeting for a good long while took place today. It had to do with a question we wrestle with constantly regarding news stories we're considering: Who cares? On the question of Beckham, where Americans are concerned, I have my own suspicions about socio-economic influences, but he is plainly not what he is overseas. His status as a Walking Event is safe, however. So are his chances of snagging a good free checking account with ATM privileges at a Los Angeles bank.

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Early Nightly is up

Brian anchors the broadcast tonight in New York, but Congressional Correspondent Chip Reid handles the vlog. He'll report tonight from Capitol Hill, where reaction to President Bush's plan for Iraq dominates the discussion.

Click here or on the image to watch.

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'Not for quotation'

While it's just one comment from just one viewer, I felt the need to write a clarification for the blog -- given the fact that the comment in question, from a viewer in Massachusetts, flirts with a comparison between the Bush Administration and Nazi Germany. Please understand: there was no attempt Wednesday to curtail anyone's Constitutional freedoms.

Background briefings are commonplace in Washington. They are often the only way to learn the motivation of a public official. I've attended them under Democratic and Republican Presidents. At times, I've had long conversations with Presidents (current and former) knowing I couldn't repeat a word of it -- it never happened, in effect. It educates my thinking and my coverage of them, but it's all held in confidence. Some of it goes with me to my grave. Other times, like today, we're allowed to express the President's views without direct quotes. We all took notes, but there were no recording devices in the room. The business of quoting Presidents directly is actually astonishingly new in the "modern era"... and you don't have to go back many decades to find a time when it was not allowed at all. Sometimes it's a member of Congress, the Cabinet, or the White House staff giving the briefing. Briefings are designed to benefit the briefing party in some way, by controlling the message, and can be many things: on the record (everything is quotable), on background (a "senior official" says...) or off the record (nobody knows nothing). There are other (deep background, for example) categories in between. It's usually understood in advance. Wednesday, President Bush declared certain comments "off the record" after they were uttered and notes had been taken... and so I was careful to check with others present to make sure our collective recollection was correct. He gets to do that, the topic was national security, and the alternative was not having a window into his thinking at all. In this case, those looking for a dark corner, something sinister or partisan, are simply looking in the wrong place.

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Shakespeare… in Washington

"Now is the winter of our discontent…"

This month kicks off a six-month citywide celebration honoring William Shakespeare. Venues in and around Washington, D.C., will be filled with plays, ballet, readings, exhibits -- all honoring the Bard of Avon.

So how curious it was to see that Richard III begins on Monday here in Washington. This 16th century play is considered by many to be his masterpiece. In it, he created a political character of evil incarnate in the form of Richard III. The Shakespeare Theater Company is serendipitously located in the Lansburgh Theater, just off Pennsylvania Avenue, almost halfway between the White House and Capitol Hill.

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Bush's speech on Iraq

If you find yourself not in front of a TV, but in front of a computer, you can watch a live stream of NBC News' coverage of President Bush's speech tonight by clicking here. It begins at 9 p.m. ET and is expected to last about half an hour.

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White House diarist

As is the custom prior to a major speech (normally the State of the Union and select others), the White House today invited a small group of broadcast journalists to the Roosevelt Room for a briefing, which was mostly with national security types... until the President walked in, unescorted. Tim Russert and I calculated that he was with us for just over an hour. He was forceful, animated and at times aggravated by the current state of the debate over Iraq. While the conditions of the conversation do not allow for direct quotation, we can certainly reflect the President's thinking when we come on the air tonight. Upon exiting the West Wing, I phoned one particular detail into MSNBC: Toward the end I asked the President if he'd seen the Saddam Hussein execution video. He said he had, and when I asked where it "ranked" (among the mistakes of the war) he indicated it was just below Abu Ghraib in terms of damage -- meaning slightly less damaging. The President also noted the damage done at Haditha.

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Airport security ads?

While you're waiting to take off your shoes and put your laptop in a plastic tray in the airport security line, how about passing the time by reading about why you should change your car insurance?

The Transportation Security Administration is ready to give you that opportunity. And it wants to know if airports would like to use security checkpoint ads to generate some income. TSA notified industry that it will accept proposals for the next month from airports and advertisers who want to take part in a one-year program that will evaluate interest and effectiveness of checkpoint advertising.

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