Caving to right-wing flailing and conservatives’ anti-abortion fear machine, President Obama is reportedly pressuring House Democrats to strip family planning funding from its economic recovery proposal — even though it would potentially save $700 million over 10 years.

This afternoon, MSNBC’s David Shuster pressed Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) about the provision, pointing out that it would help relieve states of some health care costs. Apparently unable to respond, Hutchinson launched a reflexive and knee-jerk attack on the recovery plan, defaulting to the first opposition point she could think of:

SHUSTER: When you give them [states] money to help with Medicare, it means that the states that have to balance their own budgets won’t have to spend as much of their own money to try to pour into Medicare because people are hurting.

HUTCHISON: Well, one of the big problems I have with this bill is that you don’t know which states it’s going to, there’s no allocation, it’s just going to be in the agencies and the bureaucracies to make these decisions.

Watch it:

With the family planning provision now off the table, Hutchison seemed desperate to find another reason to oppose the bill. However, the claim she stumbled onto — that “there’s no allocation” of the recovery funds — is laughably inaccurate. USA Today clearly broke down where the $200 billion in state aid would go (click through for state-by-state details):

The truth is that despite Obama’s compromise efforts, the right wing will always find a bogus reason to oppose the recovery plan, whether it’s too few corporate tax cuts, too little payback to the rich, or too much grass on the National Mall.

Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell is currently in Egypt, the first stop on his eight-day listening tour that will also include visits to Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, France, and Britain. Yesterday in a meeting with his national security team, President Obama praised Mitchell as “a talented and dedicated public servant.” Also at this gathering were former Center for American Progress Senior Fellows Mara Rudman, who is now serving as executive secretary at the National Security Council (NSC), and Denis McDonough, who is the NSC’s director of strategic communications. Previously, Mara was deputy national security advisor to President Clinton and worked for the House Foreign Affairs Committee. McDonough was a close adviser to Obama during the campaign, served as a foreign policy adviser for Tom Daschle, and also worked for the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

While at CAP, both Mara and Denis were instrumental in launching Middle East Progress, which interviewed Mitchell in November 2007. Sign up here to receive the project’s Middle East Bulletin.

Today, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) had a message for Republicans complaining about the stimulus bill: “Being bipartisan does not mean having to lay down and say we’ll do whatever you want.” His comments came after President Obama met earlier with congressional Republicans to discuss their concerns about the package, which is scheduled to be voted on in the House tomorrow. Hours before that meeting, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) urged Republicans to oppose the bill unless Democrats make significant concessions. Hoyer called it “very unfortunate” that Boehner “set the stage [by saying], ‘Yeah, you’re coming up here, but we’re voting against you.’” He added, “It takes two parties and two groups to be bipartisan. Bi means two.”

-Matt Finkelstein

Unable to find a coherent reason to oppose President Obama’s economic recovery legislation, conservatives have been cherry-picking a few provisions from the recovery package to poke fun at. One of those “controversial” aspects is funding the revitalization of the National Mall.

Today, Fox News’s Major Garrett asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the National Mall funding. Gibbs sharply explained that revitalizing the Mall would be good for tourism, job opportunities, and small business growth:

GIBBS: When we met on the first day of our presidency, we were on the Mall, right? 1.8 million people stood on the Mall, which happens to be the most visited national park that we have, right? I think that you can make a very credible case and the economic team has that reconditioning the National Mall will create jobs — probably through spending in small businesses. … You know, how is hiring cops stimulative? Well, if you’re about to fire cops, then hiring cops is stimulative. It’s putting people back to work.

“When we speed down the interstate and it says, Slow, workers ahead, those are jobs,” he added. Watch it:

Indeed, after Obama’s inauguration, the turf of the National Mall is virtually destroyed. A local DC network reports that park rangers are eagerly waiting for the Obama recovery package:

Rangers with the National Park Service say with close to 25 million visiting the mall each year it’s almost impossible to keep it in pristine shape, but they try. They also say they are waiting to see if part of President Obama’s proposed stimulus package might send funds their way, so they can make the needed improvements.

“Congress seems to be waking up to its responsibility to provide the money for needed repairs,” wrote the Washington Post on Sunday. Gibbs concluded, “I think the president believes that we’ll all be in political trouble if we don’t get people back to work. We’re all in a big boat, and we’re all having to row.”

Fox News contributor Juan Williams — who has complained about the “militant anger” that Michelle Obama “sometimes uses” — kept up his attacks on the First Lady last night. Appearing on the O’Reilly Factor, Williams agreed with conservative commenter Mary Katherine Ham that Obama will have to watch what she says since, according to Williams, she is “Stokely Charmichael in a dress“:

WILLIAMS: And let me just tell you this: If you think about liabilities for President Obama that are close to him, Joe Biden’s up there, but Michelle Obama’s right there. Michelle Obama, you know, she’s got this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going. If she starts talking, as Mary Katharine suggested, her instinct is to start with this “blame America,” you know, “I’m the victim.” If that stuff starts to come out —

O’REILLY: Yeah, it’ll be death.

WILLIAMS: — people will go bananas and she’ll go from being the new Jackie O to being something of an albatross.

Ta-Nehisi Coates noted that Williams’ remarks “prov[e] he knows very little about Michelle Obama and even less about Stokely Carmichael,” the civil rights leader who coined the phrase “Black Power.” Resisting “the urge to say something really nasty,” Coates simply quipped, “It’s a dangerous, dangerous thing to make a living running your mouth.”

President Obama has made it clear that he wants to work with conservatives on putting together an economic recovery package. He has agreed to accept business tax cuts in the package and today met personally with House GOP leaders. But from the beginning, conservatives made up their minds to oppose the economic recovery package, no matter the concessions. Since that time, they have been grasping at straws to justify this position: too few corporate tax cuts, objections to revitalizing the National Mall, and opposition to a family planning provision.

Today, Roll Call reports that conservatives’ newest line of attack will be on housing — specifically, that there isn’t enough addressing this crisis in the economic recovery package:

Republicans now appear set to draw their line in the sand over the issue. One senior Senate GOP aide said Republicans were coalescing Monday evening around a plan to demand that Obama and Congressional Democrats reconfigure the stimulus to help mitigate foreclosures and spur buyers to invest in new homes.

“Republicans are increasingly concerned that the stimulus bill is leaving the housing crisis out of the equation,” the aide said.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is not supposed to focus on housing. Instead, its key areas are: energy, science and technology, health care, education, infrastructure, tax cuts, and helping workers hurt by the recession.

The Obama administration and Democratic leaders aren’t planning to ignore housing, however; they are attempting to address the foreclosure crisis through separate legislation. Last Wednesday, the House passed Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) legislation. As the Gavel pointed out, a key part of this legislation — in addition to stabilizing the financial markets — was helping Americans stay in their homes. Some provisions that were included:

– “Calls on Treasury to immediately commit up to $100 billion (with a mandatory minimum of $40 billion) of the second $350 billion TARP funding on a comprehensive foreclosure mitigation plan (to be developed by Treasury by March 15 and implemented by April 1).”

– “Makes changes to the Hope for Homeowners refinancing program to encourage more lenders to refinance home loans for borrowers at risk of losing their homes.”

– “Mandates that the foreclosure mitigation plan include at least $20 billion for a systematic program to guarantee loan modifications to help families in danger of losing their homes.”

Conservatives seem to be the ones actually “leaving the housing crisis out of the equation.” Only 18 Republicans voted for the TARP legislation; 156 voted against it. Last summer, conservatives also put up a vicious fight against Democratic-sponsored housing legislation.