ThinkFast: June 23, 2009

This week, Obama and his allies are “launching a public relations blitz to bolster the case for health care reform,” resulting in a “huge burst of health care cheerleading before Congress breaks for the July Fourth recess at the end of the week.” White House aides remain hopeful that “that floor consideration in the Senate and House can be completed next month, as originally planned.”

52 percent: Americans who give President Obama “high marks for his response to the crisis in Iran,” according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. Thirty-six percent disapprove of how he is handling the situation. When it comes to Obama’s “handling of foreign affairs in general,” 61 percent approve while 32 percent disapprove.

Iran’s Guardian Council today “ruled out the possibility of nullifying the country’s disputed presidential election that returned hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, saying it could find no evidence of any ‘major’ irregularities.” The council’s spokesman said most of the irregularities occurred before the election, “which he suggested were outside the scope of the Guardian Council’s authority.”

After having been reported missing, South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s whereabouts have been determined. His staff said late Monday that the governor is hiking on the Appalachian Trail. Neither Sanford’s office nor the State Law Enforcement Division had been able to reach Sanford since he left the mansion Thursday in a black Suburban SUV. His last known location was near Atlanta late last week.

At 12:30 PM today, President Obama will hold his fourth domestic press conference “as he seeks to re-focus the political debate amid criticism of his approach to the ongoing protests in Iran and lingering doubts about the state of he economy and the viability of his health care reform proposal.” A senior White House official told The Washington Post that Obama wants to “address the questions directly.”

Senate Republicans announced yesterday that they will “begin formally making their case against the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court on Tuesday with a series of [floor] speeches questioning her involvement in a Puerto Rican civil rights group and her positions on a number of legal issues.”

A new report from the Government Accountability Office has found that “[w]hen people on the government’s terrorist watch list have tried to buy guns or explosives in recent years, the government has let them the vast majority of the time.” Ninety percent of the 963 background checks that matched with terrorist watch list records were allowed to proceed “because the checks revealed no prohibiting information.”

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called yesterday “for the establishment of a Palestinian state within two years, a timeline he said is possible if Israel upholds its existing commitments and Palestinians ‘roll up their sleeves.’” “I call upon you all to line up on the project of state-building, good government and proper management so the Palestinian state can be a reality,” said Fayyad.

Census officials have said that married same-sex couples will be counted as such in the 2010 national tally, “reversing an earlier decision made under the Bush administration.” Professor Gary Gates explains the important and valuable ramifications this decision will have.

And finally: On Friday, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow “gained valuable self-knowledge” while tending bar at the after-party of the annual Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association Dinner. When asked what she learned from the night, Maddow replied, “I am the slowest, clumsiest bartender known to mankind. Josey Packard [of Drink in Boston] and the other real bartenders I was working alongside were very nice to me, but it was like they were a NASCAR pit crew and I’d never seen a wrench before.” ThinkProgress attended the event and captured a picture of Maddow bartending here.

Sign up here to receive our daily e-newsletter, The Progress Report.