Japan may release data proving Chinese radar incident: media

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan may release data it says will prove a Chinese naval vessel directed its fire control radar at a Japanese destroyer near disputed islands in the East China Sea, local media reported.

Japan has said a Chinese frigate on January 30 locked its targeting radar on a Japanese destroyer - a step that usually precedes the firing of weapons - but China insists that its vessel used only ordinary surveillance radar.

The incident has added to tensions between the two nations over the disputed islands.

Japan will consider how much normally classified data it can release, the media reports said, citing comments by Japan Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera on local television.

"The government is considering the extent of what can be disclosed," Kyodo news agency quoted Onodera as saying.

China has accused Japan of smearing its name with the accusations, and on Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency continued the war of words.

"By spreading false accusations and posing as a poor victim, Japan had intended to tarnish China's image so as to gain sympathy and support, but a lie does not help," it said in an English language commentary.

"China has been exercising maximum restraint and stayed committed to solving the dispute through dialogue and consultation."

Japan and China have been involved in a series of incidents in recent months in the East China Sea where Chinese and Japanese naval vessels regularly shadow each others movements.

Both countries claim a small clusters of islands, known as Diaoyu in China and Senkaku in Japan, believed to be rich in oil and gas. Controlled by Japan, possession of the uninhabited outcrops and the sea surrounding them would provide China with easier access to the Pacific.

Hopes had been rising for an easing in tensions, including a possible summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping. But the radar issue has seen China and Japan engage in a fresh round of invective.

China's Defence Ministry on Thursday said Japan's complaints did not "match the facts". The Chinese ship's radar, it said, had maintained regular alerting and surveillance operations and the ship "did not use fire control radar".

Japan's position against China has hardened since Abe led his conservative party to a landslide election victory in December, promising to beef up the military and stand tough in territorial disputes.

The commander of U.S. forces in the Asia-Pacific said the squabble between Japan and China underlined the need for rules to prevent such incidents turning into serious conflict.

China also has ongoing territorial disputes with other Asian nations including Vietnam and the Philippines over islands in the South China Sea.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; Editing by Michael Perry)

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Analysis: Obama's shift to schmooze offensive reflects political reality

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's abrupt shift to a schmooze offensive - dining and visiting with Republican lawmakers - reflects a need for some resolution in the budget wars so he can move on to other priorities like gun control and immigration that could define his second term.

A drop in his approval ratings in recent weeks and a new round of media questions about his scant socializing with members of Congress have also likely put pressure on Obama to start talking to his political foes.

"He has a limited amount of time to tackle the items on his agenda, like immigration, increasing the minimum wage and gun control," said Nancy-Ann DeParle, who recently stepped down as deputy White House chief of staff and is now a Brookings Institution guest scholar.

"He can't waste time on a protracted battle over the budget and sequester," said DeParle. "That should be left to the Congress to figure out."

With another budget deadline looming, he needs to get a deal completed so he can seek legislative approval of other items on his second-term agenda. This year is key because by year's end Congress will start to look toward the 2014 midterm election.

White House aides say the socializing came about because Obama felt there had been a break in the crisis atmosphere that gripped Washington in the weeks leading up to automatic spending cuts, known as the sequester, that kicked in on March 1.

But beyond their statements, they are contending with an unfavorable trend in his approval ratings.

A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Wednesday showed 43 percent of Americans approve of Obama's handling of his job, down 7 percentage points from February 19. That came after his high-profile campaign to shame Republicans into accepting higher taxes to avoid the sequester cuts fizzled.

With the lack of a bipartisan breakthrough on the sequester, reporters are once again pestering the president and his spokesman about why, for the sake of compromise, he doesn't reach out more to his opponents.

It's an old theme, Obama's "aloofness." But it came to the fore again a week ago when Obama was pressed at a news conference on why he did not lock himself in a room with his opponents to negotiate a way out of a budget dispute that led to $85 billion in automatic spending cuts.

To engage in a "Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what's right" would not necessarily work, Obama said.

A REASONABLE CONVERSATION

Then, suddenly, the president who doesn't like to schmooze, was out to dinner with Republicans, calling them on the phone, and having lunch, as he did Thursday, with Paul Ryan, the conservative chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee, whose budget policies are detested by Democrats.

Plans have also been announced for the president to visit the Capitol next week to talk to lawmakers.

All these concerns forced Obama to the dinner table with members of what he hopes will become a "caucus of common sense," a group of lawmakers who might be willing to go along with a budget deal that raises revenues and reforms entitlement programs in a way that cuts spending.

Obama's defenders say his move to meet with lawmakers other than the Republican leadership team, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, marks an attempt to move past two men he considers unwilling to consider a reasonable compromise.

They say he has done plenty of socializing, much of it out of the public eye.

"There is this false narrative that pops up every six months where people assume that the president could just invite John Boehner over and open a magnum of Merlot and they would sort everything out. It just doesn't work that way," said Tommy Vietor, a Democratic strategist who recently left the White House.

"All the guy wants is a Republican leader that he can have a reasonable conversation with," said Vietor.

In fact, Obama has said he believes "the big stuff" depends less on schmoozing and more on "the attitude of the American people," as he put it at a January 14 news conference.

He has spent most of his energy traveling around the country and staging televised White House events, with ordinary people as backdrops, to promote his views on issues, particularly during his budget battles with Republicans.

It worked in the past, particularly in the fight over the "fiscal cliff" in January. But it failed to produce his desired result in February and March in the stand-off over budget cuts.

"He's tried it the other way, and it didn't seem to work very well. I think he's going to a Plan B so to speak," said Andy Smith, director of the University of the New Hampshire Survey Center.

For a full story on recent budget talks:

(Reporting By Steve Holland; Editing by Fred Barbash, Mary Milliken and Todd Eastham)

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Obama Bids Farewell to Panetta

President Obama today praised outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta for strengthening the military and making the nation better prepared to meet future challenges.

"No one has raised their voice as firmly or as forcefully on behalf of our troops as you have," Obama said at a farewell ceremony at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. "You've served with integrity and decency and grace. You're a reminder of what public service ought to be.

"You've led with heart, and you've led with humor," he said. "Indeed, they say that you've never seen our wounded warriors smile as wide or heard them laugh as loud as when they get a visit from their secretary of defense. And whatever the challenge, Leon, you always give it to us straight, sometimes in words that can't be repeated here in public."

The president also lauded Panetta for "welcoming more of our fellow citizens to military service," citing the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the opening of combat roles to women in uniform.

Panetta was initially set to retire in 2011 when he planned to leave his post as CIA director. Obama then asked him to stay on and run the Defense Department.

"Your leadership of the CIA will forever be remembered for the blows that we struck against al Qaeda and perhaps the greatest intelligence success in American history, delivering justice to Osama bin Laden," he said.

Obama retold how Panetta repeatedly turned down the defense secretary job.

"But I kept asking. I am persistent," he joked. "That's how Michelle married me. I just kept at it."

Today's farewell ceremony may have been a tad premature. Senators have not yet scheduled a vote on the nomination of Chuck Hagel, Obama's pick to replace Panetta.

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Bush's Paintings and the Art of Projecting Guilt

What’s George W. Bush more annoyed about, getting hacked or getting psychoanalyzed? Hard to know, but I’m betting on the latter.

This is a family that famously hates to be put on the couch. Neither George H.W. Bush nor his son is given to much public introspection about their thoughts, their motivations or their own relationship. How much do we know of how George the elder’s life shaped by his near death in World War II at age 18, or the death of his toddler daughter Robin later on? What do we know of the relationship between the presidential father and son? Look at what washed over us when George W. said he consulted with a “higher father” than his own about invading Iraq. A tidal wave of Oedipal analysis based on two words!

Now there are a few more clues, three paintings by the artist “43,” available for public viewing and picking apart. They are not the first evidence of Bush’s hobby. Last week he released a shockingly good portrait of his dog, Barney, after Barney’s death. The latest haul, compliments of a hopefully-soon-to-be-arrested hacker called Guccifer, includes a photograph of Bush working on a painting of a church, and partial portraits of himself in the shower and the bathtub.

Bush sent the two self-portraits to his sister in emails forced into public view by the hacker, and they likely are not the only types of art he’s been producing in the past few years. Let’s remember that before we get caught up in his alleged symbolic obsession with the themes of cleansing and redemption.

Wait, never mind, too late for that. The art critics – and the liberals projecting onto Bush the guilt they think he ought to feel -- have already pounced.

“A Freudian will have to tell us why the water is running in both pictures. Private baptism; trying to get clean; infantile ecstasies; purification rituals?” writes Jerry Saltz at Vulture.com. “Even in the quiet inner sanctum of the bathroom, where a man is just a man, George W. Bush cannot escape his past,” Clare Malone writes in The American Prospect.“Bush, slightly hunched, is standing out of the water, staring off into the corner of the shower, as if contemplating past sins that can never be washed away, no matter how much soap you use and how hard you scrub,” writes Dan Amira at New York Magazine.“If you ask me there is something of a simple allegory to the moments chosen here: the discredited former leader trying to wash himself clean of the long failure that was his life,” writes Miles Klee at blackbookmag.com.“Perhaps, he is trying to cleanse himself in a more metaphorical way, seeking a kind of redemption from his less fortuitous decisions as president,” Roberta Smith writes in The New York Times. Of course, she also refers to “the introverted self-absorption for which Bush is known” – begging the question, by whom?

The spectacular hacking obviously involved far more egregious breaches than the emergence of Bush’s G-rated paintings, topped by a security nightmare for the family. They’ll also have a bit of fence-mending to do with some of the people mentioned in their emails.

But it’s the paintings that have caught the imagination of the public and of the critics, some of whom profess to like the former president’s work even as they patronize it. It’s because a sensitive Bush, an artistic Bush, a man who paints himself nude and vulnerable, is not the Bush we thought we knew. Although, of course, he did marry a librarian who loves to read. So maybe we should have suspected an artistic temperament all along?

And there I am, off and running in the latest irresistible political parlor game. But it ends right here. I’m kicking Bush off the couch and advising him to skip reading his reviews. People who review art for publications in big cities -- let's see, Bush voters? I think not.

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Obama salutes Panetta as he prepares to retire

ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Calling it "the honor of my life," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said farewell to the U.S. military Friday, capping a venerated public service career that spanned four decades and included stints as a lawmaker, a top White House official and the spy chief who oversaw the killing of Osama bin Laden.

President Barack Obama, honoring his first-term Pentagon chief at a ceremony at a military base outside Washington, said Panetta would be remembered for welcoming more Americans into the military by opening combat roles to women and overseeing the repeal of a ban on gays serving openly — "In short, for making our military and our nation that much stronger."

"Every decision he has made has been with one goal in mind: taking care of our sons and our daughters in uniform and keeping America safe," Obama said.

Panetta, the son of immigrants and self-described son of Italy, said he hoped in some small way to have helped to fulfill the dreams of his parents. As he spoke, row upon row of U.S. troops stood behind him, rifles and bayonets at their sides.

"It's been, for me, a hell of a ride," said Panetta, who served in Congress and in the Clinton administration before becoming Obama's CIA director and ultimately serving a brief but pivotal term as defense secretary.

"I will never forget the pride and exhilaration when I walked out of the White House after the president announced the success of the bin Laden operation," he recalled. "I could hear the chants of those people who were gathered around the White House and in Lafayette Park yelling, 'U.S.A. U.S.A.'"

Looming awkwardly over the formal farewell ceremony was the ongoing uncertainty about Panetta's replacement.

Obama has nominated former Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Republican, to take over for Panetta, but Republicans have expressed deep misgivings about his previous statements about Iran, Israel and other issues. Days after postponing a vote on Panetta's confirmation amid GOP demands for more information, the Democratic chairman of the Senate's military panel said Friday he will press ahead with a vote.

Making no reference to the political hurdles, Obama said Hagel's mission would be to keep the U.S. military prepared and described Hagel as "a combat veteran with the experience, judgment and vision that our troops deserve."

Panetta has said he will remain on the job until the Senate confirms a successor. Then he will finally leave the Pentagon, returning home to his walnut farm in Carmel, Calif., after more than 40 years in Washington.

Panetta's tenure at the Pentagon was marked both by major milestones and a series of obstacles he and the military had to work to overcome. He oversaw the military's formal exit from Iraq and the start of the last drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, plus the end of a successful NATO campaign to rid Libya of Moammar Gadhafi.

But his attention was also diverted by prostitution scandals, spikes in sexual assaults and suicides, and ethical lapses by a handful of senior military leaders. An ongoing battle over spending cuts prompted Panetta to warn continually of the dire consequences of an underfunded military. Even as Panetta continued the efforts against al-Qaida, the threat from the terrorist group expanded in places like North Africa.

"We've overcome wars. We've overcome disasters. We've overcome economic depressions and recessions. We've overcome crises of every kind," Panetta said. "And throughout our history, the fighting spirit of our fellow Americans has made clear that we never, never, never give up."

___

Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP

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New high-profile bipartisan group on immigration

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is part of a new bipartisan group that will push for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws and a path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States.

The other co-chairs of the new effort are former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell; former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros, a Democrat; and former Republican Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, several people involved told The Associated Press on Friday.

The high-profile group, brought together by the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, will aim to keep up momentum behind overhauling immigration and serve as a sounding board for policy makers, Rendell said.

The effort is also meant to underscore that there is a bipartisan consensus behind passing immigration legislation. Bipartisan Senate negotiators are aiming to finalize a bill by March and get it through the Senate by summer, although success is far from certain. Even if legislation gets through the Senate the Republican-led House would still have to approve it. President Barack Obama is also pushing on the issue.

"I hope it makes plain that there is bipartisan support for pro-growth solutions that would result from immigration reform," Barbour said in an interview.

Rendell said that, "there are a lot of issues that are yet to be resolved and it's going to take a lot of goodwill and a lot of patience, and anyone who thinks we're going to have an immigration bill by the end of March is probably a cockeyed optimist."

"Obviously this cannot wait," Cisneros said. "If we're going to be helpful we need to weigh in immediately."

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State of the Union to Feature Gun Violence Victims

When President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress Tuesday night to deliver his State of the Union address, numerous Democratic members will bring victims of gun violence as their guests.

After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was critically wounded in January 2011, lawmakers organized a State of the Union date night, with members from opposing political parties teaming up to sit next to each other in a display of bipartisanship. That effort was repeated last year, and a similar initiative is expected on a smaller scale next week.

This year, Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., is leading an effort to persuade lawmakers to give their guest passes to victims of gun violence. Attending the president's address will be family members of victims in some of the nation's deadliest mass shootings, including Virginia Tech, Aurora, Tucson and Newtown.

Each member of Congress is entitled to one guest ticket for the State of the Union. The White House and Members of congressional leadership get additional guest passes.

Langevin, who is serving in his seventh term, has invited one of his constituents, Jim Tyrell, to attend the address. Tyrell's sister, Debbie, was murdered in 2004 during a robbery at a convenience store she owned in Providence, R.I.

Langevin is the first quadriplegic to serve in the House. As a 16-year-old, he was injured while working with the Warwick Police Department in a Boy Scout Explorer program when an officer handling a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol thought the chamber was empty, and pulled the trigger. A bullet bounced off a metal locker, striking Langevin in the neck and severing his spinal cord.

Carlos Soto, the brother of Newtown victim Vicki Soto, will attend as a guest of Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. Vicki Soto has been remembered as a hero for shielding her first grade students in the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting last December.

"Having Carlos at the State of the Union will be a powerful reminder that the victims of gun violence are not statistics, and they are not even just the people who are physically wounded by a bullet. They are parents, siblings, families, co-workers and friends," DeLauro said in a statement. "The Sotos and the other Sandy Hook families have shown tremendous courage by speaking out when they are still grieving. Upholding the legacy of them and their loved ones is an honor we must all try and live up to."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has invited a Newtown, Connecticut 4th grade student and her mother as her guests. The student does not attend Sandy Hook, but she attends another elementary school in Newtown and wrote Pelosi a letter imploring Congress to enact new gun control measures.

"What everyone in Newtown wants, is for you to ban semi-automatic weapons and large capacity magazines and to make everyone use gun safes," the girl wrote. "This ban will help prevent individuals, families and communities from suffering the way we are in Newtown."

Rep. Brad Schneider has invited Cleopatra Cowley, the mother of Hadiya Pendleton, a 15-year-old Chicago girl who was murdered just days after performing with her high school band during President Obama's inauguration festivities.

Teresa Hoover and her brother David were invited as the guests of two Colorado lawmakers, Rep. Ed Perlmutter and Diana DeGette. Hoover is the mother of AJ Boik, an 18-year-old killed in the Aurora movie theater shooting.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband Dennis was killed in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road rampage that also wounded her son, Kevin, has invited Chief John Aresta of Malverne, New York to be her guest. Aresta has lost two people close to him in acts of gun violence. In 1989, when he was a member of the NYPD, his partner was killed while responding to a domestic dispute call. In 1993, Aresta's uncle James Gorycki was killed in the same mass shooting that claimed McCarthy's husband.

Sami Rahamim, of Minneapolis, will attend as the guest of Rep. Keith Ellison. Rahamim's father Reuven was one of six victims of a workplace shooting at Accent Signage on September 27, 2012.

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., has invited Cleora Francis-O'Connor. Her son, Malik, was 17 when he was killed in a shooting in South Providence in 1997.

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., has invited Lori Haas, whose daughter Emily was shot twice and survived the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., is bringing her constituent Carolyn Murray whose son Justin was fatally shot in Evanston, Ill. on November 29, 2012.

"Too many young people have been killed by guns, and it must end," Murray said in a statement released by the congresswoman's office. "As the mother of a young victim, I'm committed to doing everything in my power to end gun violence. The time is now for Congress to act to save lives."

Some of the lawmakers and their guests will hold a news conference Tuesday at the Capitol, several hours before the president's address.

No Republican members have announced any gun violence victims as their guests to date. According to Langevin's office, the following Democrats are participating so far:

1. Jim Langevin (RI-2) 2. Keith Ellison (MN-5) 3. Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4) 4. David Cicilline (RI-1) 5. Lois Frankel (FL-22) 6. Gloria Negrete-McLeod (CA-35) 7. Ed Perlmutter (CO-7) 8. Janice Hahn (CA-44) 9. Bobby Scott (VA-3) 10. Brad Schneider (IL-10) 11. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3) 12. Elizabeth Esty (CT-5) 13. Mike Thompson (CA-5) 14. Jim Himes (CT-4) 15. Tammy Duckworth (IL-8) 16. Diana DeGette (CO-1) 17. Krysten Sinema (AZ-9) 18. Jan Schakowsky (IL-9) 19. Nancy Pelosi (CA-12) 20. Chris Van Hollen (MD-8) 21. Lujan Grisham (NM-1) 22. Alan Lowenthal (CA-47)

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