Romney in London: Private Meetings and Public Comments on the Weather

By ASHLEY PARKER

LONDON - Before even leaving the United States, Mitt Romney said that he would not attack President Obama abroad, a position he reiterated Thursday during before a meeting with Britain's Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband.

“While I'm on foreign soil, I'm very careful not to be critical of my own government's policies,” Mr. Romney said, sidestepping an invitation to weigh in on Britain's economic policies. “I would be even more remiss if I were to be critical of any other government's policies.”

And so it went for much of the morning. Mr. Romney, who has a busy schedule of meetings planned for the day with British leaders likely to be recognizable to voters back home, avoided questions from reporters during his first two meetings - with Tony Blair, the former prime minister, and Mr. Miliband. In front of a small press pool he stuck largely to pleasantries.

With Mr. Blair, Mr. Romney commented on the weather (“warmest day of the year”) and the coming Olympic Games (“I'm looking forward to seeing at least one swimming event”).

Mr. Romney also mentioned, unprompted, the dressage horse part-owned by his wife, Ann. The mare, Rafalca, will be making an Olympic debut.

“And my wife has a horse competing in the equestrian events, in dressage,” he said. “Her horse was chosen No. 3 of all the U.S. horses, so she's very pleased to be a part of that.”

Mr. Blair, in response to Mr. Romney's question about “any favorite sporting events” that he was looking forward to attending, responded that, “The British have now become very focused on cycling… so there will be a lot of interest in that.”

After their meeting, which was closed to the press, an aide provided a broad readout: “Ahead of the governor's visit to the Middle East, they discussed the Middle East peace process, the situation in Syria, Iran and the wider region. The meeting then covered the economic challenges facing both Europe and the U.S.,” the Romney campaign said in an e-mail.

Mr. Romney was slightly more expansive in his brief chitchat before his meeting with Mr. Miliband, who began by welcoming him to London and mentioning their “shared allegiance to the Boston Red Sox, the baseball team I believe you support.”

He began again with the weather (“could not be better”), but then praised “the unique relationship” between the two nations, and talked about his eagerness to work with Britain to address challenges and developments around the globe.

“Obviously the world is a tumultuous and dangerous place and certainly in many regions in the world and we have great interests - a common effort to see greater peace and prosperity,” Mr. Romney said. “I also appreciate the work of the military of this great nation and our joint effort in Afghanistan. The people of Britain have sacrificed enormously in helping bring p eace to that nation.”

Though Mr. Miliband took questions from his British press, Mr. Romney opted not to take answer questions from his traveling press corps - but he did answer the questions directed at Mr. Miliband. When asked why Mr. Miliband took questions and Mr. Romney did not, Andrea Saul, a Romney spokeswoman, said, “That was his choice.”

“We said we were doing a photo spray,” she said, referring to the photo opportunity before each of the closed meetings.

Mr. Romney, who arrived here Wednesday with his wife, spent most of his first day abroad adjusting to the time difference before taking Mrs. Romney out at The Wolseley - a restaurant in St. James's that describes itself on its Web site as being “in the grand European tradition.”

New Obama Ads Were Filmed in the West Wing

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and PETER BAKER

When President Obama sat down to record his latest campaign ads, he didn't have far to go.

Two ads released in the last two days were filmed just a few feet from the Oval Office in the West Wing workplace of his chief of staff, an unusual - but not unprecedented - use of the official space of the White House for campaign purposes.

Speaking directly to the camera in one ad, Mr. Obama urges voters to see the election as a big choice between competing visions for the country. The backdrop? The floral couch, rust-colored pillows and white mantel in the room that currently serves as Jack Lew's office.

In another ad, Mr. Obama accuses Mr. Romney of twisting his words about small businesses. That ad was filmed in the same office, in front of Mr. Lew's conference table.

What benefit Mr. Obama's campaign team saw in the backdrops is unclear. To the untrained eye, the president m ight just as easily have been sitting in a nicely appointed room in a fancy hotel. The campaign referred calls to the White House.

White House officials insist there is absolutely nothing illegal or improper about it. They point to numerous campaign ads that show George W. Bush walking along the White House Colonnade and ads for Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan that show them working in the Oval Office.

Reagan, in particular, filmed a four-minute ad from his desk in the Oval Office, speaking directly about the choice before voters.

A White House spokesman was immediately ready with the video clips and citations that show Mr. Bush's campaign once used a still image of the Republican president standing in the Oval Office.

Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said the filming of Mr. Obama's campaign commercials was “no different than the multitude of examples of past presidents of both parties spanning th e last four decades.”

But others say Mr. Obama's ad pushes somewhat beyond the generic shots and B-roll of a president at work by briefly turning a West Wing office into an advertising studio for his campaign.

“What a White House has to be careful of is that they don't too easily use the tools around them in a way that would be inappropriate,” said Matt Schlapp, who served as Mr. Bush's political director.

Several former Bush officials, including Mr. Schlapp, said they recalled Mr. Bush being filmed walking along the Colonnade alongside the Rose Garden, including some of him walking side-by-side with favored Republican lawmakers. But Mr. Schlapp, now a Republican strategist, said Mr. Obama's ad is different.

“Presidents are careful. There are these conversations about where the lines are,” Mr. Schlapp said. “The perception could be to the voter that President Obama is more focused on his re-election instead of getting the job done.”

< p>Richard W. Painter, who was the chief ethics officer in the Bush White House and now teaches at the University of Minnesota law school said that “filming a political commercial in the chief of staff's office would imply official endorsement, and I would probably say no.”

But he added that it would not be illegal, and that he would not have made a big case of it. “So long as it does not involve fund-raising I wouldn't strenuously object,” he said. “I would not describe it as highly improper.”

Sara Fagen, who also served as political director for Mr. Bush, was more charitable, calling the filming of the ad “an issue that won't matter at all. This will not change one vote.”

“There are a lot of things to criticize the president about,” Ms. Fagen said. “I don't think this is one of them.”

The use of the White House has long been a fraught area for presidents. It is both their home and their place of business, and they are inherent ly political candidates even as they are public servants. The lines have not always been clear.

After Mr. Carter held a luncheon for contributors in the Family Dining Room of the White House in 1978, the Justice Department issued an opinion making a distinction between the White House residence and the West Wing, essentially ruling that a president was entitled to use his home for political purposes. The opinion dealt specifically with fund-raising under the terms of a 19th century law intended to protect federal workers from solicitation in the workplace.

President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore ran into harsh criticism and a Justice Department review for their fund-raising activities from the White House before the 1996 election. Mr. Clinton hosted donors for coffees and Lincoln Bedroom overnights in the residence, while Mr. Gore made fund-raising calls from his White House office. Mr. Gore famously defended himself by saying there was “no controllin g legal authority.”

The Justice Department opinion on White House activities focused on fund-raising and did not extend to other political activity like advertising. But presidents have often, though not always, followed the same practice by holding purely political activities like campaign strategy meetings in the residence. Mr. Obama has been attending campaign briefings on Sunday nights in the Roosevelt Room of the West Wing.

Some critics took note of a recent report that Mr. Obama convened from Air Force One a conference call with supporters about fund-raising.

“I'd take a grass-roots check every time,” he told the supporters, according to one who later wrote about it on The Huffington Post. “Whatever you can do will be helpful. I have confidence that the number of people who can beat gazillionaires every single time.”

Mr. Painter said that a general strategy call from Air Force One would not be as objectionable as one explicitly request ing money. “I don't think an ask call should be made from Air Force One,” he said.

Mr. Obama's campaign has also recently added a campaign spokeswoman to the gaggle of aides that routinely travel on Air Force One with the president when he takes campaign trips. While on Air Force One on several recent trips, Jen Psaki, the spokeswoman, has used a laptop to show campaign ads to the reporters along on the trips.

Senate Candidate in Hawaii Gets Unusual Support From Alaska

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Linda Lingle may enjoy the broad and hopeful support of the Republican Party in her bid to fill an open Senate seat in Hawaii, but she can count out Representative Don Young of Alaska, a Republican who is not only supporting Ms. Lingle's Democratic opponent, Representative Mazie K. Hirono, but went out of his way to make an ad with his House colleague.

After discussing his work with Ms. Hirono on an amendment that helped save funding for schools for native populations in their respective states, Mr. Young says: “Here's what's important, Hawaii: If you're looking for a United States senator who doesn't just talk about ‘bipartisanship,' but actually knows how to work with both Republicans and Democrats to get things done, Mazie Hirono will be that senator.”

The often-irascible Mr. Young then tries to make unkind remarks about Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader and former speaker, while Ms. Hirono gives him a playful nudge.

Lawmakers from Hawaii and Alaska often bond over the far-flung and federally dependent nature of their states in a way that defies party loyalty. But endorsing a Democrat against a Republican challenger in a Senate race that could potentially help Republicans vault to a majority in the Senate, and to do it in such a public and aggressive manner, is unusual to say the least.

“Having worked together on several issues important to both Alaska and Hawaii,” said Luke Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Young, “Congressman Young and Congresswoman Hirono have developed a close personal friendship and working relationship. Congressman Young respects Congresswoman Hirono's ability to work across party lines and do what's best for the people of Hawaii.”

Mr. Young should not expect to hear “mahalo” from his fellow Republicans.

The Agenda: Too Much Medical Care?

In the latest post from The Agenda series, Tara Parker Pope looks at the rising costs of health care in the United States, and the problems with receiving unnecessary medical services.

Q&A: One Book, Two iPads

By J.D. BIERSDORFER

I have two iPads - one for personal use and one for work. Is there a way to make the purchased Amazon e-books from my personal iPad appear on the work iPad as well so I can do my reading on either tablet?

You should be able to read the books in your Kindle library from either iPad as long as you have the Kindle apps on both tablets registered to the same Amazon account. If you have not added the Kindle app for iPad to the work tablet, download a copy from Apple's App Store and install it.

Once you install the Kindle app on the second iPad and start it up for the first time, the app should ask you to register it with Amazon. Type in the same Amazon account name and password that you used to set up the app on your personal iPad.

Once the app registers your account credentials with Amazon, you should see a list of your purchased Kindle e-books on the app's Cloud screen. Tap a book cover to download the title to t he second iPad. If you do not see your Kindle library on screen, try deleting the app, re-downloading it and re-registering it with Amazon.

You can also visit the “Manage Your Kindle” page on Amazon's site to deliver books to your various registered devices. When you are logged into your Kindle account page, select a book, click on the Actions drop-down menu and select the “Deliver to my…” option. Choose the device you want to use from the drop-down list and click the Deliver button.

By default, Amazon keeps track of your page progress as you work your way through a book and syncs your electronic bookmarks across the different Kindle apps and devices you use. You can turn this off on the “Manage Your Kindle” page - where you can also deregister any devices you decide not to use with your Amazon account. Amazon has a troubleshooting page for its Kindle apps that may also be of help.

Q&A: Moving Bookmarks Between Computers

By J.D. BIERSDORFER

How do I transfer my Internet browsers' bookmarks (Internet Explorer and Firefox) from a Windows XP computer to a new computer with Windows 7?

Both Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox offer a few ways to transfer your bookmarks from one machine to another. For a manual approach, you can export the bookmarks to a file with the old browser to a USB drive, and then plug the drive into the new computer so you can import the bookmarks into the new browser. Mozilla has steps for Firefox here and Microsoft has instructions for the export/import process with Internet Explorer here.

You can also transfer bookmarks between computers with a syncing program. Mozilla's own Firefox Sync is one option for its browser and there are others out there, like Xmarks. Since you are moving between Windows machines, Microsoft's Windows Easy Transfer program can move bookmarks, as well as other settings.

Senate Sends Obama a Bill Demanding Details on Automatic Spending Cuts

By JONATHAN WEISMAN

The Senate on Wednesday evening gave final approval to legislation demanding that the White House provide details on how the Obama administration would mete out across-the-board spending cuts to defense and domestic programs scheduled for next year. The vote sends the measure to President Obama for his signature.

The White House had opposed the legislation, believing the shroud of uncertainty about the automatic cuts, called sequestration, increased the chances that Congress would reach a bipartisan deficit-reduction deal before the end of the year that would cancel the cuts. Officials from the White House budget office feared that detailing the cuts would spook lawmakers from both parties, persuading them to simply abrogate the deficit-reduction deal that is forcing the cuts.

The details could also hurt the president politically. Mitt Romney, the likely Republican nominee, has been slamming Mr. Obama for doing noth ing to head off $500 billion in automatic defense cuts over 10 years that amount to 10 percent of the military budget next year.

Now Mr. Obama must decide whether to sign the bill and produce the details within 30 days of enactment or veto it and risk an embarrassing override. The House passed the Sequestration Transparency Act last week 414-2. It passed the Senate by voice vote, to bipartisan applause.

“Everyone should understand that sequestration is a terrible way to cut spending, so I am hopeful that the more information my colleagues receive about its impact, the more they will be willing to move off their partisan positions and work with us toward a balanced and bipartisan replacement,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who drafted similar legislation with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona.

“The president owes it to our forces around the world and to their families to put a plan on the tabl e for all to see now, rather than waiting until after the November elections pass,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said last week.

Last year's Budget Control Act, the hard-fought deficit reduction law that allowed the nation's borrowing limit to rise, set up a bipartisan committee tasked to agree on at least a trillion dollars in deficit reduction. If it failed, automatic cuts, split between defense and nondefense programs, would kick in. It did fail, but in recent weeks, Republicans have ratcheted up demands that the defense side of the cuts be canceled. Democrats have said they are willing to go along only if Republicans agree to increase revenues to the government and not just roll all the cuts onto domestic programs.

White House officials did not immediately say whether the president intended to sign the bill.