**Lede of the Day: "Nancy Pelosi is a woman of many talents. Yesterday, she performed the delicate art of backtracking while walking sideways," writes Washington Post's Dana Milbank.

**Congress
*In case you missed it (and there's no way you did), Speaker Pelosi had a press conference yesterday: "Under fire from Republicans for what she knew about harsh questioning of terror detainees, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday acknowledged that she had learned in 2003 that the C.I.A. had subjected suspects to waterboarding, but she asserted that the agency had misled Congress about its techniques. At a tense press conference, Ms. Pelosi said for the first time that a staff member alerted her in February 2003 that top lawmakers on the House Intelligence Committee had been briefed on the use of tough interrogation methods on terror suspects," NYTimes reports.

*War Supplemental: "The House passed a bill yesterday that would provide more than $96 billion in funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through Sept. 30, as President Obama had requested, but a bloc of 51 Democrats opposed it."

**President Obama
*A Fox News poll finds Obama with a 60% approval rating. He now has a 61.0% RCP Average Approval Rating.

*WSJ: The Obama administration's new Afghanistan commanders are likely to order fresh military strikes against the Taliban as part of a broad push to encourage more militants to join U.S. and Afghan reconciliation efforts, senior defense officials said. The shift comes amid a growing U.S. realization that outreach to the Taliban -- a core part of the American strategy for pacifying Afghanistan -- won't succeed until the armed group feels its power is waning, the officials said."

*Gallup: On the issue of abortion, 51% of Americans call themselves "pro-life" and 42% "pro-choice." "This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995."

*The New York Times reports that on abortion, "Obama is suddenly in the thick of the battle he had hoped to transcend, and his delicate balancing act is being put to the test." His speech at Notre Dame and the opening of a Supreme Court seat "threaten to upend Mr. Obama's effort to 'tamp down some of the anger' over abortion, as he said in a news conference last month, and to distract from his other domestic priorities, like health care."

*At his town hall yesterday, the president called on Congress to send him a bill by Memorial Day "that would curb what he described as abusive credit card practices in which lenders raise interest rates and slap consumers with high fees," per the LA Times. Obama also stressed that consumers may need to rethink spending practices. "This is not free money; it's debt," he said. "And you shouldn't take on more than you can handle."

*Also during his town hall, Obama said the EFCA doesn't yet have sufficient support to pass. "I think that there may be areas of compromise to get this bill done. I'm supportive of it, but there aren't enough votes right now in the Senate to get it passed," Obama said.

*And, he took a pot shot at the media, which he said unfairly downplayed $17 billion in budget cuts while condemning him for signing a bill with earmarks. "Well, you can't have it both ways," the president said. "If those earmarks were important, then this money is important, too."

*AP follows up on the report that Obama will restart military tribunals for a small number of Guantanamo detainees, "reviving a Bush-era trial system he once assailed as flawed but with new legal protections for terror suspects." The administration does plan some changes, however, including restrictions on hearsay evidence that can be used in court, and giving detainees greater leeway in choosing their own military counsel.

*Obama announced today that he has appointed Dr. Thomas Frieden, currently Commissioner of the New York City Health Department, as Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

*The president called an agreement among health care stakeholders to lower costs a "watershed moment." But now the New York Times reports, hospitals and insurance companies said Thursday that Obama "substantially overstated their promise," and "the companies' trade associations raced to tamp down angst among members around the country."

*Defense Sec. Robert Gates: "For decades, the Pentagon's focus has been on building expensive, high-tech weapons programs for conventional wars. Gates has embarked on an ambitious effort to force the department to focus more of its energy on developing arms and equipment that can help troops on the ground as they battle insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq," WaPo reports.

*David Axelrod is on "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" this weekend. He was asked what the campaign might have done different. "The whole Barack Hussein Obama thing," Axelrod replied, joking. "We thought about changing that... Barry O, or something..."

**Republicans
*Politics Daily's Cannon, on Cheney: "When first tapped to be George W. Bush's running mate, Richard Cheney received the kind of press you cannot buy. In what might be seen now as the last hurrah of the old mainstream media, Cheney was heralded as an accomplished man, prudent and wise, experienced in the ways of Washington. ... Nine years later, the most frequent comments about the former vice president cannot be published in a family newspaper like The Times. Today, when Democrats, bloggers, and liberals discuss Dick Cheney they are plotting how he can be prosecuted."

*Some day this has to stop. Rush Limbaugh fires back at John McCain's mom, who said she belongs to a different GOP than he does. "She is absolutely right," he said. "The Republican Party she belongs to gets shellacked election after election after election."

**Campaign Stuff
*Joe Torsella clears the way for Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary, Hotline notes. "Senator Specter's decision to join the Democratic Party transformed this election," he said. "Over time, it's become clear to me that the kind of campaign this would become is not the kind of campaign I - or you - signed up for. It would probably become negative, personal, and all about Senator Specter's past, not our common future. And that doesn't do Pennsylvania any good."

*The Washington Times calls the Florida Senate a test of the GOP's response to the stimulus. "Key national Republicans, including Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who chairs the party's 2010 senatorial campaign, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky quickly endorsed Mr. Crist - despite his pro-stimulus stance - in advance of a potential primary fight. Mr. Steele, despite his previous statements, said he won't be playing favorites as Florida Republicans choose their nominee."

*In Florida yesterday, Crist showed he was determined to focus on his gubernatorial duties. "What was originally scheduled as a 25 minute 'media availability' was instead four minutes and 23 seconds of his avoiding questions about the Senate race," the Sun-Sentinel reports.

*Rand Paul, son of Texas Congressman and viral presidential candidate Ron Paul, plans to get into the Kentucky Senate race. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that he planned to make his announcement on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show - "an indication that he expects his father's national network of Libertarian-leaning Republicans to play a key role in any campaign he runs."

*MO Sen: "A new Democracy Corps survey by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research shows Secretary of State Robin Carnahan leading Republican Congressman Roy Blunt 53 to 44 percent and leading former Treasurer Sarah Steelman 54 to 42 percent."

*Potential Missouri Senate candidate Thomas Schweich came to the state Capitol Thursday to meet with Show Me State political leaders. Former Sen. Jack Danforth served as the sherpa. "What I'm hearing is we need a fresh face," said Schweich, a Washington University political science professor. "I think we need to win the seat. I believe I would have the best chance to beat Robin Carnahan. I'm very worried about losing this seat."

*More, from Roll Call: "Nearly three months after Rep. Roy Blunt (R) announced his plans to run for Senate, the Republican primary to replace him in Missouri's conservative Southwestern 7th district is a crowded affair -- and it appears likely to keep growing."

--Mike Memoli and Kyle Trygstad