Photograph by Christopher Polk/Getty Images

Actor Daniel Day-Lewis and wife Rebecca Miller arrive at Hollywood & Highland Center on Feb. 24, 2013 in Hollywood.

Fresh from a mixed Oscars performance, the reanimated spirit of Abraham Lincoln can seek solace today in the 150th birthday celebration kicked off by one of his lesser-known legacies.

While fighting the Civil War and emancipating slaves, the 16th president also found time to breathe life into a federal banking system, starting with the National Currency Act on Feb. 25, 1863. That law led to the establishment of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

Today the OCC, as it’s known, announced with pride the start of a yearlong celebration of its heritage.

“I am especially proud to lead the agency as it achieves this milestone in its distinguished history,” said the OCC’s current chief, Thomas Curry, issuing a huzzah to his agency’s “long heritage of public service.” Recognition will continue at agency events throughout the year.

As with most regulatory efforts, Lincoln’s was born of crisis: a little matter of finding a way to pay for the war. Today’s members of Lincoln’s Republican Party will likely spend the OCC’s sesquicentennial year looking askance at the stiffening of banking regulations provided in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

No word yet on whether Daniel Day-Lewis will be available to blow out candles.

Original post is No Best Picture, but Another Washington Party for Lincoln by Political Capital.

Photograph by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama bows his head during a prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on Feb. 2, 2012.

President Barack Obama approached the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington this morning with a mixture of humor and humility, some insight into what he was thinking as he asked for another chance to look out upon that crowd at his second inaugural ceremony at the Capitol and a lament about the real Washington to which he returns after church today.

Following an introduction of the president, Obama joked: “I thought he was going to talk about my gray hair…  It is true that my daughters are gorgeous.  That’s because my wife is gorgeous.  And my goal is to improve my gene pool.”

He spoke of faith and conviction and spoke of the Bibles on which he had sworn his oaths of office.  He spoke of his friend and director of the Faith-Based Office, that office a carry-over from the administration of George W. Bush. The current director, Joshua DuBois, sends Obama a daily meditation via e-mail, a “snippet of Scripture for me to reflect on.”

“Recently I had occasion to reflect on the power of faith,” Obama said. “A few weeks ago, during the inauguration, I was blessed to place my hand on the Bibles of two great Americans, two men whose faith still echoes today.  One was the Bible owned by President Abraham Lincoln, and the other, the Bible owned by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  As I prepared to take the sacred oath, I thought about these two men, and I thought of how, in times of joy and pain and uncertainty, they turned to their Bibles to seek the wisdom of God’s word — and thought of how, for as long as we’ve been a nation, so many of our leaders, our Presidents, and our preachers, our legislators and our jurists have done the same.  Each one faced their own challenges; each one finding in Scripture their own lessons from the Lord. ‘

After his ceremonial inauguration outside the Capitol on Jan. 21, the second-term president paused, explaining that he wanted to take another look at a scene on the national mall that he wouldn’t see again.

“As I was looking out on the crowd during the inauguration I thought of Dr. King,” Obama said today. “We often think of him standing tall in front of the endless crowds, stirring the nation’s conscience with a bellowing voice and a mighty dream.  But I also thought of his doubts and his fears, for those moments came as well — the lonely moments when he was left to confront the presence of long-festering injustice and undisguised hate; imagined the darkness and the doubt that must have surrounded him when he was in that Birmingham jail, and the anger that surely rose up in him the night his house was bombed with his wife and child inside, and the grief that shook him as he eulogized those four precious girls taken from this Earth as they gathered in a house of God.”

“And I was reminded that, yes, Dr. King was a man of audacious hope and a man of relentless optimism.  But he was always — he was also a man occasionally brought to his knees in fear and in doubt and in helplessness.  And in those moments, we know that he retreated alone to a quiet space so he could reflect and he could pray and he could grow his faith.”

“We know Lincoln had such moments as well,” the president said. “To see this country torn apart, to see his fellow citizens waging a ferocious war that pitted brother against brother, family against family — that was as heavy a burden as any president will ever have to bear.”

“Today, the divisions in this country are, thankfully, not as deep or destructive as when Lincoln led, but they are real,” he said. “The differences in how we hope to move our nation forward are less pronounced than when King marched, but they do exist. ”

Thinking, finally, of that Capitol where he pledged to carry out a second term as president, Obama said this, again eliciting some laughter:

“I have to say this is now our fifth prayer breakfast and it is always just a wonderful event.  But I do worry sometimes that as soon as we leave the prayer breakfast, everything we’ve been talking about the whole time at the prayer breakfast seems to be forgotten — on the same day of the prayer breakfast.  I mean, you’d like to think that the shelf life wasn’t so short.  But I go back to the Oval Office and I start watching the cable news networks and it’s like we didn’t pray.”

His hope, he said, is that that humility “carries over every day.”

Original post is Obama’s Prayer for Humility in D.C. by Political Capital.

Photograph by Byron Cohen/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

The cast of "1600 Penn."

“Lincoln” it’s not.

Still, the cast and crew of NBC’s new comedy “1600 Penn,” which premieres tomorrow, are being feted this evening at the White House, where President Barack Obama is hosting a private screening.

The show chronicles a fictional First Family, the Gilchrists, who neither in race nor hammy demeanor appear to have much in common with the Obamas.

One of the executive producers is former White House speechwriter Jon Lovett.

Obama hosted a screening of “Lincoln” late last year.

As for “Zero Dark Thirty,” the film about the killing of Osama bin Laden that has generated controversy for its depictions of torture and for questions about the access Obama administration officials gave the director and screenwriter, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today he didn’t know whether the president has seen it. While the movie opens Jan. 11 in theaters, it has already has been showing in New York and in screenings including one in Washington last night that drew journalists and administration officials.

Original post is White House Popcorn Roasting: `Gilchrists’ Perform for Obamas by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Goldman/AP Photo

People arrive on a school bus at Newtown High School for a memorial vigil attended by President Barack Obama for the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

President Barack Obama will assign Vice President Joe Biden to lead efforts to find ways to curb gun violence after the Dec. 14 massacre at a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school, according to a White House official. Obama will make a statement outlining his administration’s review of potential responses this morning.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee gets a closed-door briefing on the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, Libya, after review panel found “grossly inadequate” security there.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Acting Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank hold a signing ceremony with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan following two days of talks on intellectual property rights, industrial policies and regulatory obstacles that hinder American companies in China.

Over on the fiscal cliff, House Speaker John Boehner aims to use a vote on his alternate budget proposal to highlight Republican opposition to tax increases sought by Obama, as the two sides negotiate a larger fiscal deal. Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat, holds a press conference on the status of the discussions at the National Press Club.

The House is scheduled to consider 23 bills including a Medicare identity theft measure and changes to the Hatch Act, while the Senate debates a $60.4 billion supplemental disaster-relief appropriation for superstorm Sandy.

Also today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce holds a discussion on innovation in agriculture, with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Cargill Inc. CEO Gregory Page and Monsanto Co. Executive VP Jerry Steiner. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret Hamburg holds a media briefing before meeting with states on compounding pharmacies. And the Commerce Department issues a final ruling on anti-dumping and countervailing duties for washers imported from Mexico and South Korea.

And Director Steven Spielberg and actor Daniel Day-Lewis will attend a special screening this evening of “Lincoln” for members of Congress.

Original post is Washington Daybook: Newtown Response by Political Capital.

Photograph by David James/20th Century Fox Film Corp./Everett Collection

Byron Jennings, Joseph Cross, Hal Holbrook, Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln, David Strathairn, Jeremy Strong, and David Costabile in 'Lincoln.'

Lame-duck sessions of Congress can be larger than life.

That’s the way the lame-duck session of the winter of 1864 was portrayed in the film, “Lincoln,” the tale about President Abraham Lincoln’s winning of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution barring slavery.

Fitting that the film should play for the lame-duck session of the winter of 2012, as lawmakers struggle to avert a “fiscal cliff.”

Steven Spielberg, director of the film, and Daniel Day-Lewis, who delivered a powerful portrayal of Lincoln in it, plan to attend a screening for members of Congress at 5 pm EST tomorrow.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, a film buff, already has taken fellow Republicans to see the film on one of his move nights out. It focuses on the power of a president to convince a balking House of Representatives to narrowly do the seemingly impossible.

Based on the state of play of fiscal-cliff talks, some may need a second viewing.

Original post is Spielberg’s `Lincoln’: Cinematic Treat Best Served with Lame-Duck by Political Capital.

Photograph by David James/20th Century Fox Film Corp/Everett Collection

Daniel Day-Lewis as President Abraham Lincoln, center, in the film "Lincoln."

Kevin McCarthy is big on the big screen.

Last year, during the debt debate on Capitol Hill, the Republican congressman from California and House majority whip showed his troops a clip from the film “The Town,” the Ben Affleck-directed film about a career thief planning his next heist — appropriate for the deficit talks?

He also organized a caucus screening of “Moneyball,” Brad Pitt’s portrayal of a market-minded baseball manager.

This week, McCarthy is taking fellow Republicans to see “Lincoln,” the film portrayal of the party’s most honored president, played by Daniel Day Lewis.

“We do movie nights from time to time,” McCarthy explained today outside an official meeting of the Republican conference in the Capitol. The viewing will take place at an undisclosed location, for security reasons.

Lincoln, whose memorial on the National Mall stands as the grandest reminder of a nation held together amid unspeakable bloodshed, and freedom for the enslaved, often plays an inspirational role in modern-day Washington.

And this film may hold special significance for lawmakers as they brace for weeks of high-stakes negotiating during a post-election session on averting the fiscal cliff. It focuses on Lincoln’s successful efforts in 1865 to horse-trade and cajole members of Congress — some of them so-called “lame ducks,” having just lost their re-election bids — into supporting the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which outlawed slavery.

President Barack Obama looked to Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, “Team of Rivals,” for inspiration in Lincoln’s assemblage of advisers of clashing persuasions.

Follow the subtitle of that book: “The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.”

Perhaps McCarthy’s caucus will take away some of that from the show.

Brian Faler, Kate Hunter and Mark Silva contributed to this review. 

Original post is Republicans Rallying for `Lincoln’ — Majority Whip’s `Movie-Night’ Out by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addresses the Republican National Convention.

In his convention speech in Tampa last night, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie spoke of “a second American Century.”

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my children and grandchildren to have to read in a history book what it was like to live in an American Century,” the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention said on stage.

“I want them to live in a second American Century,” Christie said. “A second American Century of strong economic growth where those who are willing to work hard will have good paying jobs to support their families and reach their dreams. A second American Century where real American exceptionalism is not a political punch line, but is evident to everyone in the world just by watching the way our government conducts its business and everyday Americans live their lives. A second American Century where our military is strong, our values are sure, our work ethic is unmatched and our Constitution remains a model for anyone in the world struggling for liberty.”

Let’s not quibble about the few centuries that have passed since the 18th Century, say in 1787, when the Constitutional Convention opened at the State House in Philadelphia, the same location where the Declaration of Independence had been signed 11 years earlier. Fifty-five delegates created a Constitution for a federal republic that would last into “remote futurity.”

Let’s skip past the 19th Century, and that doctrine articulated by President James Monroe in his seventh annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823: that European powers were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States’ sphere of interest.

Or Abraham Lincoln, who saved the union.

Let’s fast forward past the 20th Century and Republican Teddy Roosevelt, the president elected in 1901. He asserted a global responsibility and oversaw negotiations for the digging of the 48-mile Panama Canal, dug and built from 1904 to 1914 to bridge East and West with a swifter trade route. (Or Democrat Jimmy Carter, who was blamed for “giving it away” in 1977, or Republican John McCain, the 2008 presidential nominee born in the Canal Zone in 1936.)

In the 21st Century, it is Republican Mitt Romney calling for “an American Century.” 

In 2012, Romney pledges a foreign policy that “will proceed with clarity and resolve. Our friends and allies will not have doubts about where we stand and what we will do to safeguard our interests and theirs. Neither will our rivals, competitors, and adversaries. The best ally world peace has ever known is a strong America. The “last best hope of earth” was what Abraham Lincoln called our country. Mitt Romney believes in fulfilling the promise of Lincoln’s words and will defend America abroad in word and in deed.”

Christie, for his part, is leapfrogging to the “second American century.”

That’s the one that starts in 2016.

Original post is Christie’s `Second American Century’ — Who’s Counting? by Political Capital.