News

Elizabeth Edwards, who has been diagnosed with breast cancer, said on "Good Morning America" Monday that Barack Obama' healthcare plan would provide better coverage for her than John McCain's.

"You know, I have cancer. If you have cancer, preexisting conditions, if you have those kind of conditions, Sen. Obama guarantees that you have coverage. Preexisting conditions are covered," she said. "Sen. McCain's is a lot more problematic, and potentially enormously expensive. In his latest suggestion about how it is we cover people with preexisting conditions can be enormously expensive, and contrary to what Sen. McCain says, a huge government-run program."

Edwards had preferred the healthcare proposals of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) over Obama's. But she said that she would "partner with" Obama.

"The idea is that we want to get to universality; we want to make certain that every American is covered," Edwards said.

She later added: "And although I have my particular preferences, it makes a huge difference whether or not it's Sen. Obama's plan or Sen. McCain's plan."

Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) said Sunday on "Meet the Press" that he is not interested in being vice president.

Biden did say that if Barack Obama called to ask, he would accept. "But he isn't going to call," Biden said, "and I'm not interested."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Friday that he will try to get a telecommunications immunity provision stripped when the Senate takes up the FISA rewrite.

"I'm going to try real hard to have a separate vote on immunity,'' Reid said on Bloomberg TV. "Probably we can't take that out of the bill, but I'm going to try."

A FISA rewrite including immunity passed the House earlier Friday, outraging several House Democrats, including House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) who called the bill "unacceptable."

House Democratic leadership supported the bill's passage.

The Barack Obama campaign unveiled a new campaign symbol Friday during a meeting of Democratic Governors in Chicago.

Instead of the presidential seal's "E pluribus unum" which means "Out of many, one" the Obama sign says "Vero possumus," a rough translation for "Yes, we can."

Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel said Friday that he would "consider" being Barack Obama's running mate.

"If it would occur, I would have to think about it," Hagel said.

"I think anybody, anybody would have to consider it. Doesn't mean you'd do it, doesn't mean you'd accept it, could be too many gaps there, but you'd have to consider it, it's the only thing you could do. Why wouldn't you?"

The Nebraska senator made the remarks during an interview with AP. Hagel did not endorse during the Republican primary and has yet endorse either Obama or the GOP standard bearer John McCain.

Hagel, a Vietnam vet, is not seeking reelection and has been a vocal critic of the Bush Administration, especially on the Iraq war.

The Nebraska Republican would have to reconcile vast difference in many areas with Obama, but Hagel hinted those differences could be reconciled.

"What this country is going to have to do is come together next year, and the next president is going to have to bring this country together to govern with some consensus," Hagel said.

Citing what he called

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) explained that she supported the rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because it provided civil liberties protections and a constraint on executive power, not because of the retroactive immunity it will give to telecom companies.

Pelosi said in a speech on the House floor Friday that the changes will help with gathering intelligence that's needed to keep troops safe and able to do their job.

"Good intelligence is necessary for us to know the plans of the terrorist and to defeat those plans," she said. "So we can't go without a bill. That's just simply not an option. But to have a bill we must have a bill that does not violate the Constitution of the United States and this bill does not. "

She also added that the bill increases congressional oversight and transparency of intelligence gathering and makes clear that a president does not have the constitutional authority to alter FISA requirements. President Bush had argued he had the constitutional right to conduct his domestic warrantless wiretapping program.

"[W]hat this bill reaffirms is that the FISA law is the authority for collecting foreign intelligence," Pelosi said. "There is no inherent authority of the president to do whatever he wants. This is a democracy; it is not a monarchy."

The bill passed the House, 293 to 193. The Senate is expected to take up the bill next week.

Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) are taking criticism from liberal activists, who have said that the White House got the better end of the deal. The critics had hoped that the Democratic leadership would not grant the companies immunity from lawsuits for participating in President Bush's domestic warrantless wiretapping program.

Pelosi said in her speech that she disagreed with the immunity provisions in the bill. Under the legislation, companies who participated in the wiretapping program will be exempt from lawsuits if a federal district judge determines that the Bush administration gave written directives to the companies authorizing them to engage in the wiretaps.

"Those companies have not lived up to the standards expected by the American people," she said. "I don't think today is any cause of celebration for them. They come out of this with a taint."

She added, however, that she didn't believe the lawsuits would have achieved their aim, "which is to learn the truth about the President's Terrorist Surveillance Program and give us the information we need to make sure that never happens again."

Instead, she believes a report on the program by the inspector general will uncover that information.

John McCain criticized Barack Obama on Friday for what the Republican sees as a shift in his position on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

"For months, Barack Obama said that he would 'make sure that we renegotiate' NAFTA, demanded unilateral changes and threatened to unilaterally withdraw if he did not get his way," McCain said in a statement. Barack Obama knew better. America has not had a protectionist president since Herbert Hoover, but Barack Obama held his position anyway to further his cynical political purposes in the primary campaign."

McCain's campaign released the statement while McCain was in Canada, which is a party to NAFTA in addition to the United States and Mexico.

Obama, who had said during the Democratic primaries that NAFTA renegotiations should be considered, said in a Fortune magazine interview published this week that he didn't believe in unilaterally re-opening NAFTA.

"I'm not a big believer in doing things unilaterally," Obama said. "I'm a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out how we can make this work for all people."

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Friday that John McCain's stance on trade will make it hard to win Ohio, a key swing state in recent elections.

Brown said McCain has "voted for every single trade agreement that has come along the line" on an AFL-CIO conference call with reporters.

"This is one case where John McCain has put no distance between him and George W. Bush," Brown said, calling McCain "out of touch" on trade.

Brown said McCain's stance will make things tough for the Arizona senator to get to 270 electoral college votes.

"John McCain absolutely cannot win without Ohio. Period," Brown said.

- Kristen Coulter

The House passed a rewrite of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, 293 to 129, that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

The outcome is considered a win for the White House and loss for liberals.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) expressed his displeasure, calling the result "unacceptable."

"Every American deserves their day in court, and we deserve to learn the truth about the President