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Barack Obama will lay out his priorities for U.S. national security tomorrow in a speech in Washington, DC.

Obama will outline strategies for withdrawing from Iraq, "finishing the fight" in Afghanistan, and "pursuing our broader strategic objectives in the world," the campaign announced today.

The Illinois senator has recently taken heat from critics who have alleged a flip-flop on Iraq, after Obama said he may withdraw troops at a slower pace, depending on safety concerns for U.S. soldiers, than the 16-month timeline he has forwarded throughout the campaign. The Obama campaign denied the flip-flop, arguing the senator had always said he would listen to U.S. military commanders in implementing his withdrawal policy.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said Monday that he has "no interest" in being Barack Obama's vice presidential pick.

"There are people that are spending a lot of time, one, looking for candidates, and...trying to promote themselves as candidates," Reed told the AP. "And I'm in neither category."

Reed said the Obama campaign has not contacted him to be vetted.

Reed, along with fellow frequent veep mention Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), will accompany Obama on a coming trip to Iraq and Afghanistan.

- Michael O'Brien

Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) pushed back against President Bush's call on Congress to lift the federal ban on offshore oil drilling, suggesting that Bush is just as wrong on drilling as he was on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

"Today President Bush is invoking the specter of another WMD: wells of mass deception," Markey said at a press conference Monday. "The president's own press spokeswoman said earlier today that today's announcement by the president will change nothing, since all of the legislative moratoria on offshore drilling remain in place. The Bush oil policy is an attempt at mass deception by a White House that has, for the last seven and a half years, pursued Big Oil's agenda of drill, drill, drill."

Markey said that drilling has failed to make the country independent from foreign energy sources and hasn't prevented rising gas prices.

He echoed Democratic calls for more drilling in areas where it's allowed, instead of in areas offshore that where exploration is prohibited under federal law.

"The Democrats are saying, no, instead of drilling off the beaches of our country, drill into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," Markey said. "Drill where we have the oil right now, 700 million barrels. Begin to deploy upwards of 500,000 barrels a day into the marketplace, directed at the speculators, at the manipulators, at OPEC, at the oil industry."

The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar has a must-read interview with David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, which is catching flack from Barack Obama's campaign and supporters for a cover cartoon satirizing fears about the Democrat.

"Obviously I wouldn't have run a cover just to get attention

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) today lashed out at President Bush's decision to lift the executive ban on new offshore oil drilling, calling the president "the oilman in the White House" and reiterating criticisms of the GOP's energy platform.

"Once again, the oilman in the White House is echoing the demands of Big Oil," Pelosi said. "The Bush plan is a hoax. It will neither reduce gas prices nor increase energy independence. It just gives millions more acres to the same companies that are sitting on nearly 68 million acres of public lands and coastal areas."

Bush owned an oil and gas company in Midland, Texas after graduating Harvard business school in 1975.

Pelosi has recently stressed that oil companies are not drilling on millions of acres they already lease, making the point to attack GOP proposals for more drilling off U.S. coasts and in Alaska. Read more...

In two Midwest swing states, Barack Obama is out-pacing John McCain when it comes to getting campaign offices open and workers on the ground.

In Missouri, Obama will soon have 30 offices open and 150 paid staffers, according to the Kansas City Star. The Democrat's campaign already has 50 staffers on the payroll. McCain has only four workers on the ground, with plans to expand to 50 people in about a dozen offices.

In Iowa, Obama has 15 campaign offices open while McCain's team is still trying to find locales for six offices, the Des Moines Register reported.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said the John McCain campaign has not reached out to him or made any effort to vet him as a potential running mate.

Huckabee told an Iowa audience that the McCain campaign has not requested any personal background information from him, but added, "most everything that somebody would want or need to know is in some public record somewhere."

"I don't expect to be asked. I really don't," Huckabee said. "I mean, it's pretty obvious if you look at what I'm doing -- you know I'm not sitting around waiting on the phone to ring. Right now it would really mess up a whole lot of things I have going."

"I'm clearly not living with any expectation that this is going to happen for me."

President Bush repealed the executive ban on offshore oil drilling, trying to apply pressure on Democrats in Congress to go along.

"With this action, the executive branch's restrictions on this exploration have been cleared away," Bush said at a press conference Monday. "This means that the only thing standing between the American people and these vast oil resources is action from the U.S. Congress. Now the ball is squarely in Congress's court. Democratic leaders can show that they have finally heard the frustrations of the American people by matching the action I have taken today, repealing the congressional ban, and passing legislation to facilitate responsible offshore exploration."

Bush also said that it has been nearly a month since he called on Congress to lift its ban.

"And as the Democratically controlled Congress has sat idle, gas prices have continued to increase," he said. "Failure to act is unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me, and it's unacceptable to the American people."

Put Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) down as a skeptic of the government bailouts of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee said on CNBC Monday that he has long been a critic of the government-sponsored mortgage companies and has tried to limit their activities for years.

"Fannie has -- and Freddie have all the benefits of being a private company with none of the risks," Ryan said. "And so, you know, I've been one of these GSE hawks for a long time, and now those chickens are coming home to roost. Now we don't have many options. We've got to get through this rough patch. What I'm worried about is, after the dust settles, what is it all going to look like?"He added: "Are we socializing credit risk in this country? Are we socializing investment risk? Are we going down that path? Are we going down the path of having this debt put on our books, a 50 percent increase in the public debt?"

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) took aim at John McCain over Iraq Monday, saying the Arizona senator and longtime military officer's Iraq policy fails to understand the reality of the situation.

Biden said McCain has a "total lack of understanding" and "no notion of what is going on" in Iraq.

"I don't understand anything about John's policy here," Biden said during a conference call with reporters. "I don't know what he is talking about except more of the same."

Biden said McCain's Iraq policy would "prevent" the US military from fighting resurgent al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan and shows no "larger strategy" to fight terrorism beyond Iraq's border.

In an op-ed in Monday's New York Times, Obama called for a 16 month phased redeployment out of Iraq to free up troops to fight resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan.

Biden called Obama's plan "profoundly right" and said it is "more in line with what our military needs are and what our military thinks."