Obama Takes Another Hit From Support Group

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Home Team Disadvantage

New York Democratic Senator Charles Schumer is asking the Obama administration to block millions of dollars in stimulus aid from going to a clean energy wind farm in Texas, because all of the turbines would be made overseas.

Schumer sent a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu calling the plan "quite troubling": "The purpose of the Recovery Act was to jump start the economy to create and save jobs — American jobs. Yet the Texas wind farm project would create an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 clean energy manufacturing jobs in China."

The New York Times reports only about 30 permanent positions would be created in Texas along with 300 temporary jobs; a fact that the liberal Daily Kos Web site is not pleased about: "This is a problem... if we're watching our tax dollars go to finance companies that set up jobs for people overseas I guarantee — guarantee — we're going to see any current support for alternative energy dry up fast."

Blame Game

Gay rights leaders and advocates are faulting President Obama for the vote in Maine Tuesday to reject legalized gay marriage.

The national advocacy group, Freedom to Marry, says: "President Obama missed an opportunity to state his position against these discriminatory attacks with the clarity and moral imperative that would have helped in this close fight... subtle statements from the White House are not enough."

Gay blogger Andrew Sullivan writes on The Atlantic: "Obama... is treating this civil rights movement the way [President] Kennedy first treated his. But we don't need Obama."

Have No Name

Music fans in Berlin had a painful flashback as the band U2 found itself in a rather ironic situation.

The band played a free concert Thursday at the city's Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. Ten-thousand tickets were distributed, but, in honoring one wall's demise, the organizers put up another one — literally.

A 12-foot-high metal fence draped with a white tarp was set up to keep people without a ticket from seeing the concert. Concertgoers were not amused, with one fan saying, "It's completely ridiculous that they are blocking the view."

Some Berliners were heard shouting "Tear down this wall!" about the U2 concert wall.

— Fox News Channel's Lanna Britt contributed to this report.