New Chatter Around First Lady\'s Portrait

Chuck Kennedy/The White House, via Reuters; Pete Souza/The White House, via Reuters The new official photo portraits of President and Michelle Obama.

Four years ago, the buzz was all about the arms when the White House unveiled the official photo portrait of first lady Michelle Obama. Now it is all about the bangs.

For Mrs. Obama’s new portrait for her husband’s second term, which the White House released on Wednesday, the photographer got in closer to the first lady; in the earlier portrait, she is shown standing at more of a distance. The latest pose accentuates the bangs that Mrs. Obama had cut in time for President Obama’s inaugural festivities in January.

The president’s scond-term portrait was unveiled last month, and it also seemed to capture a more casual, confident subject. But in his case, the comparisons focused on the president’s evident increase in gray hairs after four years in office.

Mrs. Obama’s portrait makes for a more casual, if still elegant, look. She is wearing a navy dress with three-quarter-length sleeves, a contrast with her 2009 portrait, for which she wore a sleeveless black dress by Michael Kors that showed off her well-toned arms, signaling what became her signature style.

Joyce N. Boghosian/The White House, via A.P.; Pete Souza/The White House, via Reuters The Obamas’ portraits from 2009.

This year’s dress looks to b! e the same one and with the same pearls that she wore recently on the Rachael Ray television show, where the 49-year-old Mrs. Obama said of her new bangs, “This is my midlife crisis, the bangs. I couldn’t get a sports car. They won’t let me bungee jump. So instead I cut my bangs here.”

In the new photo, by Chuck Kennedy, she is shown from the waist up, leaning against a green patterned chair in the Green Room of the White House. The 2009 photo, taken by Joyce N. Boghosian, has Mrs. Obama standing in the Blue Room.

Romney Will Address Conservative Conference

3:59 p.m. | Updated When Republican activists gather for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in March, a long roster of the party’s rising stars will be on hand.

Mitt Romney will be there, too, making his public debut after his bid for the White House fell short last year.

“We look forward to hearing Governor Romney’s comments on the current state of affairs in America and the world, and his perspective on the future of the conservative movement,” said Al Cardenas, chairman of the American onservative Union, the group that organizes the event.

Mr. Romney said he accepted the invitation because he wanted to express his gratitude to Republican activists who supported his presidential bid. His relationship with the party’s conservative leaders had often been strained, but his appearance is the next step in his plan to move beyond his defeat and steadily return to public life.

“I look forward to saying thank you to the many friends and supporters who were instrumental in helping my campaign,” Mr. Romney said Wednesday in a statement.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida will also be onstage at the event, organizers said, as will more than a dozen other leading Republicans, including Sarah Palin, the former gove! rnor of Alaska. The conference will sound the opening bell of the next election season, where Republicans are working to regroup and win control of the Senate in 2014 and the White House in 2016.

The Conservative Political Action Conference will be held March 14 to 16 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Md.

Sanford\'s South Carolina Campaign Begins with an Appeal for Second Chance

In a Congressional race with 16 Republicans, high name recognition is key. Though in the case of Mark Sanford, South Carolina’s former governor whose very public confession of marital infidelity seemed to end his national political aspirations less than four years ago, there can also be a downside.

As he runs in the special election for the state’s First Congressional District, Mr. Sanford has the dual challenge of reintroducing himself to voters as a fiscal conservative with a career of public service, while also addressing the scandal for which he is perhaps best known.

In his first ad, released Monday, Mr. Sanford touts his record of cutting spending, but quickly acknowledges what’s on the minds of many in South Carolina: “More recently, I’ve experienced how none of us go through life without mistakes. But in their ake, we can learn a lot about grace, a God of second chances, and be the better for it.”

Mr. Sanford’s political career appeared to be over when, after disappearing from the public eye for almost a week in June of 2009, he revealed in a news conference that he was having an affair with an Argentine journalist, and that he had used public money to visit her. Though he was not forced out of office, Mr. Sanford was censured by the State House of Representatives and left office when his term ended in 2011. He is now divorced and engaged to the woman, María Belén Chapur.

The open seat presents a unique second chance for Mr. Sanford. After the surprise resignation of Senator Jim DeMint in December, Gov. Nikki R! . Haley appointed Representative Tim Scott, a rising Republican star, to fill the vacancy. That left a hole in Mr. Scott’s district, and many have jumped in to fill it, including, on the Republican side, Teddy Turner, son of the broadcasting mogul Ted Turner. Because the large field makes it unlikely that one candidate would win a majority of votes in the March 19 primary, a runoff on April 2 seems probable â€" meaning Mr. Sanford could be banking on a second second chance.

There is recent precedent for a politician addressing personal failures before a return to the political stage. In 2011, Newt Gingrich discussed his infidelities with conservative media outlets ahead of his presidential campaign. In 2007, when he was thought to be considering a White House bid, Mr. Gingrich confessed in an interview with James Dobson, the Focus on the Family founder.

The tactic appeared to be fairly effective. Even Rick Santorum, in a 2011 interview with National Review, seemed ready to look past that aspect of Mr. Gingrich’s history: “I am not saying that it is not a legitimate question, but it’s not an issue with respect to the positions he takes.”

At the time, Mr. Santorum was setting up a contrast between someone who fails to live up to his own ideals and someone who changes his ideals, like, he said, Mitt Romney, who was seen as the front-runner in the still emerging Republican presidential field.

Now Mr. Santorum’s campaign manager, Mike Biundo, is working for Andy Patrick, a South Carolina legislator running for the House seat. But Mr. Patrick’s team has adopted a harsher tone against Mr. Sanford.

“Andy Patrick is a Christian man a! nd believ! es in repentance,” said Mr. Biundo, in a statement. “But he also believes past is prologue. Governor Sanford displayed a sad dereliction of duty in abandoning the people of the entire state of South Carolina, and his personal tour of redemption is now a disservice to the people of the Lowcountry.”

South Carolina Republicans forgave Mr. Gingrich for his personal failings: he won their primary in 2012. Mr. Sanford is hoping they will similarly forgive him.

Conservative News Outlets Cite Fake Group in Opposition to Hagel

A couple of weeks ago, the conservative Web site Breitbart.com reported that former Senator Chuck Hagel had received financing from a group called “Friends of Hamas.’’

“Senate sources told Breitbart News exclusively that they have been informed that one of the reasons that President Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, has not turned over requested documents on his sources of foreign funding is that one of the names listed is a group purportedly called ‘Friendsof Hamas,’ ” the Web site reported, noting a White House spokesman “hung up,’’ when asked about it.

The hang-up was apparently enough of a confirmation to give the report ample attention, especially among conservative pundits.

“There was a report that came out last week, not confirmed yet,” Andrew McCarthy, a National Review contributing editor and former federal prosecutor, said on “Lou Dobbs Tonight’’ on the Fox Business Network, “that one of the groups behind the speeches may have been an outfit called ‘Friends of Hamas.’ ”

In the Washington Times, Frank J. Gaffney Jr. acknowledged in a ! piece entitled “Obama’s ‘Friends of Hamas’”, “At this writing and absent the requested disclosure, it cannot be determined whether Mr. Hagel is literally associated with the ‘friends’ of a designated terrorist organization.” But, he added, “The mere fact, though, that it seems entirely plausible â€" given the nominee’s record of hostility toward Israel and his affinity for its enemies (including Hamas’ longtime sponsor, Iran), should be the last straw for Senate Republicans and Democrats alike.”

Yet, there has been no evidence that any such group exists. And on Wednesday, a reporter with the New York Daily News, Dan Friedman, said he believed he was the inadvertent source of the rumor, born of a joke he made while speaking with a Republican aide on Capitol Hill.

“Hagel was in hot water for alleged hostility to Israel. So I asked my source, had Hagel given a speech to, say, the ‘Junior League of Hezbollah, in France’ And: What about ‘Friends of Hamas’ The names were so over-the-top, so linked to terrorism in the Middle East, that it was clear I was talking hypothetically and hyperbolically,” Mr. Friedman wrote.

The Breitbart report, he said, hit the following day, leading him to check back with his initial Capitol Hill contact. “The person denied sharing my query with Breitbart but admitted the chance of having mentioned it to others,” Mr. Friedman wrote.

Ben Shapiro, who wrote the original Breitbart post, is strenuously denying that his report came from a joke originated by Mr. Friedman. “Our Senate source denies that Friedman is the source of this information. ‘I ! have rece! ived this information from three separate sources, none of whom was Friedman,’ the source said.”

Biden Shotgun Advice Draws Quizzical Response

Not every American has Secret Service protection, so Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has some advice for protecting one’s self and home: Get a shotgun, just as he has.

That might sound a bit jarring, especially coming from a Democrat who is President Obama’s point man in their campaign for new gun safety measures. But Mr.Biden, who made the comment on Tuesday for at least the second time, has a point to make - in fact, a couple of points.

One is explicit: A shotgun is easier to use than the kind of assault rifle that the Obama administration would like to ban, Mr. Biden argued, and is effective in scaring off would-be intruders. His other point is implicit: Democrats are not anti-gun.

The vice president was responding in an online forum on Facebook hosted by, of all things, Parents magazine, after the moderator said that a reader named Kate and numerous others wondered whether law-abiding citizens would be left defenseless by federal bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

“Kate,” Mr. Biden said, looking into the camera as if to the questioner, “if you want to protect yourself, get a double-barrel shotgun, have the shells, a 12-gauge shotgun.”

Noting that he has two at his secluded home in Delaware, locked in a cabinet, Mr. Bid! en said he told his wife: “Jill, if there’s ever a problem, just walk out on the balcony here, walk out, put that double-barrel shotgun and fire two blasts outside the house. I promise you, whoever’s coming in is not going to.”

“You don’t need an AR-15,” Mr. Biden continued, referring to a popular style of assault rifle like the one that the police said was used in the Newtown, Conn., school massacre in December. “It’s harder to aim, it’s harder to use. And in fact, you don’t need 30 rounds.” As he spoke, the vice president lifted his hands as if aiming a rifle.

Mr. Biden made a similar comment in January, speaking in a “fireside chat” on Google. That chat, like th one on Tuesday, illustrates how aggressively the administration is using social media - as the Obama-Biden re-election campaign did - to reach its audience and build support for gun violence measures over the heads of the Washington-based news media and opposition groups.

If many listeners were bemused or took his point, Mr. Biden managed to vex commentators on the political left and right. The liberal television talk show host Bill Maher wrote on his Twitter account: “Buy a shotgun, buy a shotgun! Says it all about our gun ctrl charade - the ‘liberal’ party loves guns too, just diff. ones.”

And Ben Shapiro, a columnist for the conservative Web site Breitbart.com, noted on Twitter that if Mr. Biden fired off two shots from a double-barrel shotgun, he would be defenseless: “Now your gun is empty, moron.”

The Early Word: Retired

Today’s Times

• Gen. John R. Allen, the four-star Marine Corps officer who served as the top commander in Afghanistan, will retire from the military to focus on “health issues within his family,” Thom Shanker and Michael D. Shear report. President Obama nominated General Allen to be the supreme commander of NATO, but he decided to step down instead.

• Mr. Obama once again finds himself in a budget showdown with Republicans, Jackie Calmes writes. On Tuesday, he tried to shame them into a compromise that could avoid further self-inflicted job losses and damage to the fragile recovery, but Republicans were declining to engage.

• Mr. Obama paints a dire picture for the federal government after automatic budget cuts hit on March 1, Michael D. Shear reports. The impacts are expected to ripple gradually across the nation as agencies are faced with across-the-board cuts to all their programs.

• The Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to federal campaign contribution limits, Adam Liptak reports. It may be the most important federal campaign finance case since the 2010 decision in Citizens United.

Around the Web

• Thanks to the movie “Lincoln,” Mississippi passed a timely vote abolishing slavery this month, The Clarion-Ledger newspaper reports.

Happenings in Washington

• Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will host the Medal of Valor ceremony at the White House. The honor is awarded to public safety officers who have “exhibited exceptional courage” in the attempt to save or protect others.

• The National Archives will host free screenings of the Academy Award nominees in four categories: documentary feature, documentary short subject, live action short film and animated short film at the William G. McGowan Theater through Feb. 24.

Q&A: Locking Caps on an iPhone

Q.

While I have no desire to SHOUT MY WAY through text messages, I do have to use ALL UPPERCASE sometimes and would like to have CAPS LOCK available on my iPhone. Do I have ANY HOPE

A.

While the phone’s software keyboard has no dedicated Caps Lock key, quickly tapping the Shift key twice turns on the Caps Lock function. The Shift key turns blue when in Caps Lock mode. To turn off the Caps Lock mode, tap the Shift key again.

The iPhone keyboard has a few other shortcuts to make typing in such a small area more efficient. For example, instead of tapping the .123 key in the bottom-left corner to switch over to the section of the keyboard that holds the numbers and punctuation keys (and then having to tap the corner key again to switch back to the ABC keyboard), just press the .123 key down and slide your finger to the number or punctuation mark you need. Once you slide over and select the characer, you can resume typing without having to tap back and forth between the different keyboards.

Pressing and holding keys for vowels (and other letters) that use accent marks reveals a pop-up list of accented characters to choose from, like é or ü. When you tap the space bar twice at the end of a sentence, the iPhone inserts a period and capitalizes the next letter you type to begin a new sentence. Apple’s site has an illustrated page of other tips and tricks for the iPhone 5.