Five Republicans woo Iowa voters ahead of 2012 race

Five possible Republican White House hopefuls including Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty courted conservative voters on Monday in Iowa, the state that holds a critical early contest on the road to the party's 2012 presidential nomination.

Former House of Representatives Speaker Gingrich, former Minnesota Governor Pawlenty, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, former Louisiana Governor Buddy Roemer and former Godfathers Pizza CEO Herman Cain took turns bashing President Barack Obama.

Republicans aim to deny Obama a second term as president.

The Iowa caucuses, an important early prize in the race for the Republican nomination, are scheduled for February 6, 2012. No leading Republican, including the five who appeared at the event in Iowa, has yet formally launched a candidacy.

Meanwhile, a top aide to real estate tycoon Donald Trump visited Iowa on Monday to gauge interest in the idea of a Trump bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump, a billionaire and the celebrity star of NBC's "The Apprentice," has been flirting with a presidential run, speaking to a conference of conservatives in Washington last month. Many Republicans doubt he is serious.

Battles on budget and healthcare loom for Obama

After a good end to a not-so-good year, President Barack Obama faces even tougher challenges in the months ahead as looming fights over spending and healthcare set the stage for a difficult 2012 re-election campaign.

When a new Congress convenes on Wednesday, Obama will be confronted for the first time by a Republican majority in the House of Representatives and a strengthened Republican minority in the Senate.

Whether he strikes deals with those newly powerful foes and continues the momentum built in December's "lame-duck" Congress or becomes mired in another bout of legislative gridlock could be a critical factor in Obama's prospects for a second term.

"The political climate is about to completely change for Obama, and how those budget and healthcare battles play out will really determine his status for the race in 2012," said Steven Schier, a political analyst at Carleton College in Minnesota.

A burst of accomplishment in Congress during the final days of December produced a tax deal with Republicans, repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military and ratification of a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia.

Obama attacks Bush policies in Bush's home state

President Barack Obama attacked the economic policies of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush in Bush's home state on Monday as evidence of the way Republicans would operate if given power in November 2 U.S. congressional elections.

At a fund-raising event for Democrats in Dallas, where Bush now lives, Obama said the former president's "disastrous" policies had driven the U.S. economy into the ground and turned budget surpluses into deficits.

Obama defended his repeated references to Bush's policies, saying they were necessary to remind Americans of the weak economy he inherited from Bush in January 2009.

"The policies that crashed the economy, that undercut the middle class, that mortgaged our future, do we really want to go back to that, or do we keep moving our country forward?" Obama said at another fund-raising event in Austin, referring to Bush's eight years as president.

In reminding voters about the policies of the unpopular Bush, Obama is trying to protect his fellow Democrats' majorities in Congress and limit anticipated Republican gains.

On November 2, voters will choose all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 37 members of the 100-seat Senate.

Republicans say they doubt Obama's effort to cite Bush as a reason to vote against them in November will work because Americans are more concerned about getting or keeping a job.

"When we talk about this 'going back' thing, I notice that some Republicans say, 'Well, he just wants to bash the previous administration, he's looking backwards.' ... No, no, no. The reason we're focused on it is because the other side isn't offering anything new," Obama said in Austin.

Obama heading back to Gulf Coast

President Barack Obama will make another visit to the Gulf Coast next week to review efforts to contain and clean up the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the White House announced Tuesday.

Obama's Monday and Tuesday itineraries will include stops in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, three of the four states affected by the 50-day-old disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the White House announced. It will be his fourth trip to the region since the spill erupted in late April.

On Friday, Obama was in Grand Isle, Louisiana, where he met with local business leaders directly affected by the undersea gusher and huddled with regional officials involved in the response effort.

Tuesday's announcement followed Obama's blunt defense of his administration's handling of the disaster in an interview on NBC's "Today" show. Asked about complaints that his public appearances have been too cerebral and reserved, Obama said, "This is not theater."

"I don't sit around talking to experts because this is a college seminar," he said. "We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."

Obama said that his administration's response is the largest mobilization against an environmental catastrophe in the history of the federal government and that officials understood "from day one" that the spill would be a major disaster. He said it is "tough" to see images of oil-smeared birds or meet fishermen "who are on the verge of tears," but "we just got to keep on moving."

Obama Pledges Tough Inquiry Into Oil Spill

WASHINGTON — President Obama vowed Tuesday to pursue criminal inquiries into the cause of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, as the crisis he called “the greatest environmental disaster of its kind in our history” threatened to engulf his second year in office.

“We have an obligation to determine what went wrong,” Mr. Obama said, appearing in the Rose Garden after meeting with the two men he has appointed to lead an inquiry into the cause of the spill, former Senator Bob Graham of Florida and William K. Reilly, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator.

“If laws were broken, leading to death and destruction,” Mr. Obama said, “my solemn pledge is, we will bring those responsible to justice.”

Mr. Obama’s heightened rhetoric reflected deepening frustration within the administration at the inability of BP to stop the spill, along with wide concern that the government and Mr. Obama are appearing increasingly impotent as oil laps at the Louisiana shoreline with no end in near sight.

Mr. Obama said the commission will examine the disaster and its causes, and will make sure that the country never has to face anything like this again. A full investigation will occur, Mr. Obama said, before he allows any expansion of offshore oil drilling.

“Mr. Graham and Mr. Reilly,” Mr. Obama said, “have my full support to follow the facts wherever they may lead without fear or favor.”

The Twins celebrated their 12th inning victory over the Tigers

If not for those pesky Major League Baseball playoffs that start today, the Minnesota Twins might still be circling the old, dumpy Metrodome, high-fiving their fans amid whirling Homer Hankies and awash in down-home Midwestern love. The Twins not only took over their hometown, they charmed the heck out of everyone not a die-hard Tigers fan.

Remember how big Brett Favre was in Minneapolis on Monday? Neither does anyone else. He is so two days ago.

The Twins turned their 163rd game of the season into a splendid finale, writes Gene Wojciechowski on ESPN.com, and even the Tigers were saying it was the greatest game they have been a part of, writes Michael Rosenberg in the Detroit Free Press. The Twins have become an easy team to love, writes Jay Mariotti of Fanhouse.com, with lunch-pail players and a sardonic manager.

Even with a strong strain of sympathy for economically ravaged Detroit, the Tigers became less Cinderella-y after the drunken escapades of first baseman Miguel Cabrera over the weekend, for which he apologized before the game. But they certainly played their part in turning the game epic. You can relive the top 10 plays of the game on this Yahoo Big League Stew blog post, complete with links to MLB.com video highlights of each play, or just marvel at a Twins team that now believes it can beat anyone, writes Dan Wetzel on Yahoo.com.

Sure, there are a few killjoys who quickly stepped in to mention that the Twins have to play the Yankees next, like ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark who believes the title will return to the Bronx after nine long years. Sure, the Twins should be completely exhausted, writes Ben Reiter on SI.com, and the Yankees are one of the powerhouse teams packing the playoffs, but Steve Aschburner of SI.com writes that the Metrodome just does not want to die.

The Yankees, though, will quickly become a focal point of the playoff drama, with Lisa Olson of Fanhouse.com writing that they are risking team chemistry by taking Jorge Posada from behind the plate when A.J. Burnett pitches. The key questions in the playoffs outlined by Scott Miller on CBSSports.com include the playoff fates of Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia and third baseman Alex Rodriguez. Tom Verducci of SI.com takes a bigger step back to consider more story lines from the playoff teams. Joe Posnanski writes on SI.com that the playoffs always throw surprises at us and Bill Shaikin writes in the Los Angeles Times that there is at least one person rooting for a Freeway Series between the Angels and Dodgers (him) despite its environmentally unfriendly connotations. It would, writes Mark Yost on WSJ.com, give us more time to enjoy Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully before he retires.

The N.F.L. counters all this hype with the news that the Favre-o-rama on Monday Night Football was the highest-rated show in cable history, and throws in a few choice pieces of news for the non-baseball set, including Cleveland shipping the increasingly unpopular receiver Braylon Edwards to the Jets — which Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes is a deal that should have happened before the N.F.L. draft — and first-round draft pick Michael Crabtree reportedly ending his holdout with the 49ers.