The idea of prohibiting members from designating funding for specific projects in their states or districts is popular with reform-minded deficit hawks, but it has traditionally been opposed by some congressional veterans trying to steer funds to constituencies back home.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, a longtime defender of earmarks, announced Monday that he would vote for the ban.

“I’m not wild about turning over more spending authority to the executive branch, but I have come to share the view of most Americans that our nation is at a crossroads,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. The “only way we will be able to turn the corner and save our future is if elected leaders like me make the kinds of difficult decisions voters are clearly asking us to make.”

But McConnell also expressed his own personal conflict on the issue.

McConnell backs banning earmarks

“Make no mistake, I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them,” McConnell said. “But there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the wasted and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight.”

President Barack Obama responded with a statement welcoming McConnell’s “decision to join me and members of both parties who support cracking down on wasteful earmark spending, which we can’t afford during these tough economic times.”

But the president added, “We can’t stop with earmarks as they represent only part of the problem.”

As Republicans voted in their caucus, Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said she wants the full Senate to vote on a binding moratorium that would include Democrats, too.

“The arguments against this, every single one of them, I just don’t think pass the smell test,” she said about senators who oppose a ban.

But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, later indicated disagreement with McCaskill. Reid defended earmarks Tuesday, telling Capitol Hill reporters he has “an obligation to the people of Nevada … not to some bureaucrat with green eyeshades.”

“I think (an earmark ban is) a tremendous step backward,” Reid said. “It just gives more power to the executive. … I am not in favor of delegating my constitutional responsibility to the White House.”

Nevertheless, McCaskill’s push puts pressure on Senate Democrats, many of whom agree with Reid, to get behind a ban, which has taken on increased political significance in light of Tea Party gains in the midterm elections.

McCaskill is working with Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma on an earmark-ban amendment they might add to a food safety bill that’s expected to be on the floor later this week. She is working with Democratic leaders to schedule a vote.

The ban would come in the form of a change in Senate rules, an aide to Coburn explained. Senators would be allowed to raise points of order against bills with earmarks, which would be binding.

“If these things (earmarks) are so good, will someone tell me how they’re decided,” a spirited McCaskill asked reporters. “Little cards getting handed around in caucus. There is not an open process. Who decides who gets the most money and on what basis is that decided?”

McConnell, who unexpectedly lent his support to the ban, said in a speech this month to the Heritage Foundation that “you could eliminate every congressional earmark and you would save no money.”

That’s because earmarks don’t represent extra spending. They represent spending that lawmakers have already approved for federal agencies. And earmarks typically account for less than 1 percent of the budget.

For the earmark ban to reduce spending, “you have to lower the spending authorizations by the same amount,” said Maya MacGuineas, fiscal policy director at the New America Foundation.

It’s typically up to federal agencies to decide how their money gets allocated to projects in states, cities and counties, and those decisions are made through an application-and-review process, except when earmarks are involved.

Definitions of earmarks vary widely, and agencies catalog them differently. But typically an earmark is defined as a slice of agency money that a lawmaker or the president requests be set aside for a specific project.

So earmarks are not subject to the same review process, and they are often slipped into unrelated spending bills at the last minute without most people’s knowledge.

The notion that earmarks are wasteful bridges to nowhere is misleading.

Residents of a state or city may not view federal dollars earmarked to help them improve their transit system as a waste.

The problem is that the earmark system is based on “political muscle rather than merit,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan spending watchdog group.

The earmark issue is one of several the lame-duck session of the Democratic Congress is expected to tackle.

The session convened Monday, with members preparing to make decisions on a host of contentious issues that could have major political ramifications for Obama and the incoming Republican House majority.

At the top of the agenda: whether to extend the Bush tax cuts for families making more than $250,000 a year. Republicans contend that failure to extend the cuts for everyone would be a mistake in a weak economy. Obama considers such a move a roughly $700 billion budget-busting mistake, but he recently suggested he’s willing to compromise.

If Congress fails to act, all the cuts will expire at the end of the year.

In addition to the tax cuts, the lame-duck Congress also has to consider expiring cuts in the estate tax and decide what to do about a bill that is keeping the government running but is set to expire December 3.

Other items on the agenda include:

– A possible repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces.

– Ratification of the nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

– A child nutrition bill backed by first lady Michelle Obama.

– The Dream Act, which would create a path to citizenship for young illegal immigrants if they attend college or serve in the military.

CNN’s Alan Silverleib, Dana Bash, Ted Barrett, Deirdre Walsh and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Earmarks get ax from GOP senators

In a memo sent to CIA employees, Director Leon Panetta said the government is taking “a hard line” and warned that unauthorized disclosure of information to media has done “incredible damage” and could endanger lives.

In the memo, Panetta references only one example, WikiLeaks, but writes that in other cases “CIA sources and methods have been compromised.”

The citing of Wikileaks is curious since the bulk of the 400,000 Iraq documents posted by the website are mostly military-related. There are some documents that refer cryptically to other agencies’ activities — some believed to be CIA-related — which appear under the label “OGA,” which stands for “other government agency.”

“Here at the Agency, we are a family, which means we depend on each other — sharing burdens, challenges, and successes,” Panetta writes in the memo. “But sharing cannot extend beyond the limits set by law and the ‘need to know’ principle.”

Panetta noted recent prosecutions for leaking information and said unauthorized information disclosure will be investigated by the CIA’s Office of Security and referred to the Justice Department.

There was no specific reason for releasing the memo now, a U.S. intelligence official said.

“A number of leaks over time — and across our government — prompted Panetta to remind agency employees of their obligation to protect America’s secrets,” the official said. “Unauthorized disclosures of classified information can harm national security, and he wanted to emphasize that important point.”

CNN’s Pam Benson contributed to this report.

CIA chief: No more leaking

Mary Jane Holland is one of 1,000 female members of the United Steelworkers gathered here to talk about how to mobilize her labor colleagues to re-elect what she calls “worker-friendly candidates” across the country.

She made the trip to Pittsburgh from West Bend, Wisconsin, where she is the president of her local USW chapter. She’s been spending weekends knocking on doors, sending out voter information and urging fellow union members to vote.

“People hear negative things, and we’re trying to be positive and trying to make sure they understand how these [candidates] are working for them day in and day out,” Holland said.

She conceded many voters are upset because President Obama and congressional Democrats haven’t turned a bad economy around yet, but she said they need to be patient.

Video: Democrats’ last line of defense?

“Are we going to achieve everything in 18 months? No we’re not going to. We know it is a slow process, just like women coming up in the union.”

Tonya DeVore-Foreman is from Michigan, which has a 13.1 percent unemployment rate, the second-highest in the country. She said the sluggish economy is a reason to stick with candidates who back labor — usually Democrats, she notes — not reject them.

“We’re losing our manufacturing base every day. The manufacturing base decreases, the loss of jobs continues to grow. And we feel it is very important to get labor-friendly, working-family-friendly candidates in office.”

These are the women House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was trying to energize Monday when she visited the “Women of Steel” conference. She entered the convention ballroom to loud cheering and Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best” blaring over the speakers. Women stood up, waving signs that said, “Best Speaker Ever.”

It was a warm reception for a politician who has become a liability for many Democrats this election season. According to a recent CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll, more than half of Americans have an unfavorable impression of Pelosi. She has kept a low profile on the campaign trail this year, traveling the country fundraising, rather than doing public appearances with Democratic candidates.

Speaking to this friendly audience in Pittsburgh, Pelosi was able to do something many Democrats have avoided this cycle — touting legislative victories on health care reform and Wall Street regulation and accusing Republicans of wanting to return to the Bush era.

“It’s a choice, as the president said, of moving America forward or going back to the failed policies. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: We’re not going back and we’re not going back and we’re going to win because the Women of Steel, the Women of Steel are going to help us lead the way in our country to that great victory,” Pelosi said.

The problem for Democrats is that the enthusiasm in this room is not necessarily shared by other Democratic voters.

A recent CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll shows women, who tend to support Democratic candidates over Republicans, are much less inspired to head to the polls than their male counterparts, who generally favor GOP candidates.

Thirty-eight percent of likely male voters said they were “extremely enthusiastic” about voting in the midterm elections, compared with just 23 percent of women who rated themselves the same way.

But DeVore-Foreman pushes back at polls showing voters who rallied for Obama in 2008 might be less enthusiastic now, saying union members will succeed in firing up those Americans.

“Polls talk about likely voters. One of the things we’re gonna do is we’re gonna bring people who weren’t reached in those polls, and get them to vote. Because when working people vote, our voice is heard,” DeVore-Foreman said.

She’s reaching out to fellow union members, sending postcards to workers in other states with competitive races, reminding them how important these elections will be to pushing the labor agenda through Congress.

While these women know people are disheartened by the stalled economy, they remain confident that their efforts will turn the tide for Democrats on Election Day.

“People have been sitting back, waiting and looking looking and investigating,” Holland said. “And when the election comes around, I think you’ll see it especially in the union vote. I think they’re gonna come out and vote, and it’s gonna make the difference.

Unions and women: Democrats’ last line of defense

The voting on November 2 is expected to diminish Democratic majorities in both chambers and perhaps cost them control of the House. Whatever the final tally, widespread voter dissatisfaction with the hostile political climate in Washington is evident.

Democrats blame Republican intransigence, calling the GOP a “party of no” that has opposed almost every initiative to undermine President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge to change Washington politics.

Republican leaders say their opposition is a response to a left-leaning agenda pushed by Obama and Democratic leaders that far exceeds what the public wants.

In a new development this election cycle, the conservative Tea Party movement wants to throw out both parties, but its agenda aligns it with Republicans in the heated campaigning.

Video: David Axelrod talks elections, tax cuts

While Obama and some Democrats and Republicans say they hope for better relations after the election, they express different views of what that would mean.

“We’re going to continue to reach out, and we’re going to look for common ground and a way forward to solve the problems facing this country,” White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program Sunday.

Axelrod predicted Democrats will keep their majorities in both chambers, but conceded that “Republicans will have more seats in Congress.”

“We’re hoping with that comes a greater sense of responsibility,” he said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas had a different take, telling “Fox News Sunday” that it is up to Obama to change, not Republicans.

“If the president’s going to maintain his ideological stance and try to jam things through to support the left in America, when we’re still a center-right country, then we’re going to say ‘no,’ ” Cornyn said, adding that Republicans will work with Obama on issues such as job creation, spending cuts and reducing the national debt.

“There is , I think, a fatigue on the part of the American people with the aggressive agenda that, frankly, they don’t agree with, but they haven’t been listened to,” Cornyn said. “They’ve been lectured to, and they’re tired of it. They’re going to speak up on November 2nd.”

Cornyn’s Republican colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, agreed on the CBS program “Face the Nation” that Obama and Democratic leaders “over-reached” in the first two years, which he said rattled the American people.

“I don’t think it’s about everybody becoming a Republican in the last two years,” Graham said of expected GOP election victories next month. “I do believe it’s a rejection of an agenda that scares people. The health care bill, the stimulus package, the financial regulation, all the spending was not what people expected from this president.”

At the same time, some bipartisanship will occur, Graham predicted.

“There will be a bipartisan effort to extend the Bush tax cuts and not let them expire” at the end of the year, Graham said. As Democratic candidates in swing states realize voters want middle-ground policies instead of a liberal agenda, more compromise will come, he said.

“I think we’re going to have some bipartisanship when it comes to replacing the health care bill with a more moderate approach,” Graham said. “You’ll see some Democrats and Republicans working early on to try to moderate things.”

According to Graham, the Tea Party movement has helped refocus the national political debate on a center-right agenda, but added that conservatives shouldn’t get carried away.

“Our Tea Party friends have done us a favor, “Graham said. “But if we talk about doing away with Social Security as part of our agenda, then we’re going to lose the public. … If you get too far right or too far left, you’re going to lose the American people.”

Axelrod and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs outlined an agenda for the second half of Obama’s presidential term that focuses on the nation’s immediate and long-term economic welfare.

Gibbs told the NBC program “Meet the Press” that the president will work on strengthening the economy and trying to ensure its future stability, while continuing to push education reform and making sure that health care and Wall Street reforms are properly implemented.

Obama needs Democrats and Republicans to work together to deal with the federal debt, Gibbs said. A bipartisan debt commission is scheduled to report a set of proposals in December.

He made no mention of major issues such as immigration reform and energy reform, which Obama pushed strongly in his first two years. Axelrod, speaking on CNN, said both issues were part of the necessary foundation of reforms for sustainable economic growth in the future.

“I think that regardless of the outcome of election night that voters are going to want two political parties who may have different ideas but understand they have to come together and work together to solve our problems,” Gibbs later told reporters.

However, other Democrats don’t expect a new spirit of partisanship to emerge.

“It doesn’t appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more,” Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill said of the effect of the Tea Party movement on GOP candidates.

“I think that independent voters need to take a hard look in these elections and realize that what we may be getting to is the kind of gridlock that, frankly, is not something that’s desirable in terms of good policy in this country,” McCaskill said on “Fox News Sunday.

Republicans “won’t even pledge that they’ll quit earmarking,” she said, later adding: “If they won’t even say they’ll stop earmarking in this kind of spending problem that we’re facing, I just think there’s a lot of politics being played.”

Can Dems and GOP work together after the election?

The question came at a town hall-style meeting in the yard of an Albuquerque home as part of Obama’s public outreach to explain his policies and campaign for Democrats in the November congressional elections.

With a recent survey showing that only a third of Americans can correctly identify Obama as a Christian, the president gave a personal account of his conversion as an adult and how his public service is part of his faith.

“I am a Christian by choice,” Obama began, standing beneath a blazing sun, when asked why he is a Christian.

“I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead,” Obama said. “Being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. Treating others as they would treat me. And I think also understanding that, you know, that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility that we all have to have as human beings.”

Humans are “sinful” and “flawed” beings that make mistakes and “achieve salvation through the grace of God,” the president continued, adding that we also can “see God in other people and do our best to help them find their, you know, their own grace.”

“So that’s what I strive to do,” Obama said. “That’s what I pray to do everyday. I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith.”

At the same time, Obama emphasized his belief that freedom of religion is “part of the bedrock strength” of the United States.

“This is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists” and others, he said, adding that “their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own, and that is part of what makes this country what it is.”

The same questioner also asked Obama about regulations on early and late-term abortion, a politically charged issue in the abortion debate.

Obama responded that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” in America, adding that families — not the government — “should be the ones making the decision.”

Restrictions against late-term abortion are in place now, he said, adding that “people still argue and disagree about it. That’s part of our Democratic tradition.”

On September 19, Obama publicly attended church for the first time in nearly six months when the first family joined the 9 a.m. service at St. John’s Church Lafayette Square, an Episcopal congregation about a block from the White House.

The family sat a few rows from the altar, among roughly 40 worshippers. Each family member received communion, led by the president.

A survey conducted in late July and early August by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that nearly one in five Americans believe Obama is a Muslim, up from around one in 10 Americans who said he was Muslim last year.

The number of Americans who expressed uncertainly about the president’s religion, meanwhile, is much larger and has also grown, including among Obama’s political base. For instance, fewer than half of Democrats and African-Americans now say that Obama is Christian.

According to the Pew survey released last month, most of those who think Obama is Muslim are Republicans, but the number of independents who believe he is Muslim has expanded significantly, from 10 percent last year to 18 percent this summer.

In March 2009, 36 percent of African-Americans said they didn’t know what religion Obama practices. Now, 46 percent of African-Americans say they don’t know, according to the survey.

Obama questioned on abortion, religion

Colbert, accompanied by a media swarm, sarcastically testified on Capitol Hill Friday about the conditions facing America’s undocumented farm workers. The popular host of “The Colbert Report” told members of a House Judiciary subcommittee that he hoped to bring attention to the workers’ hardships.

“I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN 1,” he joked.

“America’s farms are presently far too dependent on immigrant labor to pick our fruits and vegetables,” he told the subcommittee, keeping in character with the arch-conservative he plays on television.

“Now, the obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables. And if you look at the recent obesity statistics, many Americans have already started.”

Video: Colbert shows serious side

Video: Mr. Colbert goes to Capitol Hill

Colbert told the panel that “we all know there is a long tradition of great nations importing foreign workers to do their farm work.”

“After all,” he said, “it was the ancient Israelites who built the first food pyramids. But this is America. I don’t want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan, and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.”

“My great-grandfather did not travel across four thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this nation overrun by immigrants,” he declared. “He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland. That’s the rumor.”

Colbert appeared before Congress the day after “The Colbert Report” showed video of him packing corn and picking beans on a farm as part of a challenge from a pro-immigrant-labor group.

“I’ll admit I started my work day with preconceived notions of migrant labor,” Colbert said. “But after working with these men and women … side by side in the unforgiving sun I have to say — and I do mean this sincerely — please don’t make me do this again. It is really, really hard.”

The brief experience, he said, “gave me some small understanding why so few Americans are clamoring to begin an exciting career as seasonal migrant field workers.”

Colbert appeared alongside, among others, United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez, whose group over the summer launched “Take Our Jobs,” a campaign that challenged U.S. citizens to replace immigrants in farm work.

The group, which says only seven citizens or legal residents have taken it up on the offer, argues that immigrant workers aren’t taking citizens’ jobs, and is pushing for a bill that would give undocumented farm workers currently in the United States the right to earn legal status.

On his show Thursday night, Colbert mocked those deriding his appearance before the committee, saying he agreed that showing up in character would “sully the good name of experts that Republican-controlled Congresses have actually called to testify in the past,” like Elmo, the Sesame Street character who promoted music education before a House subcommittee in 2002.

Republicans on the subcommittee were not impressed or swayed by Colbert’s appearance.

“Maybe we should be spending less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there — ones that require real hard labor and ones that don’t involve sitting behind a desk,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.

“If we did we’d realize that every day … Americans perform the dirtiest, most difficult, most dangerous (jobs) that can be thrown at them.”

Many of these workers, King said, “would prefer the aroma of fresh dirt to that of the sewage of American elitists who disparage them even as they flush.”

“It’s an insult to me to hear that Americans won’t do this work,” he added, arguing that the hiring of undocumented workers is driving down wages and taking jobs away from those in the country legally.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, used the occasion to rip the Obama administration’s immigration policy. The notion that there’s little competition for jobs between citizens and undocumented workers is a “myth,” he claimed.

“We could make millions of jobs available to American citizens … if the federal government simply enforced our immigration laws,” Smith asserted. “Unfortunately this administration is turning its back on American workers.”

Democrats were quick to challenge the Republicans’ claims.

While Americans will take tough jobs, “study after study” shows that “people would rather have no income and no welfare than take the back-breaking jobs that the migrant farm worker has to do every single day,” said Rep. Howard Berman, D-California.

“Were it not for immigrant farm workers in this country, there would be no seasonal fresh fruit and vegetables,” he said.

Most of the media attention, however, remained focused on Colbert. The chairwoman of the subcommittee, Rep. Zoe Lofrgen, D-California, told CNN’s Dana Bash before the hearing that she didn’t think Colbert’s appearance was a stunt.

“Celebrities add pizzazz to an issue,” she said. “I hope his celebrity will bring attention” to this one.

But another Democrat, Michigan Rep. John Conyers, initially seemed unimpressed with Colbert, asking him to leave the committee room and merely submit his written statement instead.

Colbert noted that he was testifying at Lofgren’s invitation, and said that he would remove himself at her request.

Conyers later told CNN he feared Colbert would create a “circus” atmosphere. But Colbert, who engaged in a question-and-answer session with the subcommittee, actually turned out to be “profound,” he said.

CNN’s Jason Hanna, Deirdre Walsh, Alison Harding and Catherine Shoichet contributed to this report

Colbert serious, sarcastic in hearing

But for decades even Etchberger’s own children didn’t know about his heroism.

Cory Etchberger was in third grade in 1968, when he was told that his father had died in a helicopter accident in Southeast Asia. At age 29 he learned the truth, when the U.S. Air Force declassified his father’s story.

“I was stunned,” he told CNN during a visit to his hometown of Hamburg, Pennsylvania.

During the Vietnam War, U.S. troops weren’t supposed to be in neutral Laos, so Richard Etchberger and a handful of colleagues shed their uniforms and posed as civilians to run a top-secret radar installation high on a Laotian cliff. Called Lima Site 85, it guided U.S. bombers to sites in North Vietnam and parts of Laos under communist control.

The North Vietnamese wanted to eliminate the installation, and early on the morning of March 11, 1968, its soldiers succeeded in scaling the 3,000-foot precipice and launching an attack.

Timothy Castle, of the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence, wrote the book “One Day Too Long: Top Secret Site 85 and the Bombing of North Vietnam.” He calls Etchberger “a hero.”

Castle said Etchberger, a technician, picked up an M16 rifle, which he barely knew how to use, and ferociously protected his colleagues. One of them was Stanley Sliz. “I got hit in both legs,” Sliz remembered, “and everybody was screaming and hollering, but they weren’t able to get close because of Etch firing at them.”

Video: Medal of Honor hero

Video: Son tells dad’s story of heroism

John Daniel still has scars from the shrapnel wounds he got that day. “He was the only one that didn’t get injured in the firefight,” he recalled. “They kept throwing grenades and shooting, and we kept picking up hand grenades and throwing them, or kicking them to the other side of the mountain.”

When a helicopter flown by CIA-affiliated Air America arrived to evacuate them, Etchberger braved enemy fire to load three wounded comrades, including Daniel and Sliz, onto hoists.

“Thank God for Dick Etchberger. If it wasn’t for him, I would not be alive today,” Daniel told CNN.

Etchberger made it onto the chopper unwounded. But as it began to pull away, enemy shots rang out.

Sliz said he saw a splotch of red, and realized the man who had saved his life had lost his own. One round had hit Etchberger and killed him.

“I live it every day,” said Sliz. “I live it every day. It haunts me.”

Shortly after Etchberger’s death, he was secretly awarded the Air Force Cross for bravery. He was recommended for the Medal of Honor, but then-President Lyndon Johnson rejected the idea, fearing it would expose the U.S. military’s activities in Laos.

In his hometown of Hamburg, American flags fly from the light poles and men congregate on the steps of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Since Etchberger’s story became public, a memorial has been erected commemorating his heroism, and his name is proudly displayed on the town’s sign. But now there is an addition: a hand-drawn banner reading “Medal of Honor winner.”

Though the battle of Lima Site 85 took place more than four decades ago, Castle believes it is important to recognize the heroism of the men who were there.

“We have these extraordinary folks in the U.S. military who are willing to accept these types of missions and to go to these very remote places in very dangerous conditions,” he said. “The men that went to Site 85 had every reason to believe that no one in the public would ever know anything about what they were doing or what they had done, but they went anyway.”

Etchberger’s three sons will be at the White House Medal of Honor ceremony Tuesday. So will John Daniel, whose life he saved. “There might be some tears there. Carpet in that White House may be wet. But we’ll make it,” said Daniel.

But Castle noted that the full story of Lima Site 85 still isn’t known. Ten technicians who were on the Laotian mountaintop with Etchberger, Daniel, and Sliz that March morning in 1968 have never been accounted for.

CNN’s Jim Spellman, Sara Weisfeldt and Floyd Yarmuth contributed to this report.

Medal of Honor recipient’s valor hidden for decades

During a candidate’s forum, Republican Christine O’Donnell and Democrat Chris Coons displayed little of the animosity that came to define O’Donnell’s bitter primary battle with Rep. Mike Castle.

Rather, the night was marked by polite discourse and even agreement as the two candidates sought to lay out their position on many key issues.

Their messages did diverge, however, as the two sought to define their political narratives.

Coons, a county executive, repeatedly brought up his political know-how, saying in his opening statement that he had the “value, skills and experience” needed in a senator.

“Delaware’s next senator should be someone who is prepared, who has concrete ideas and who is ready, willing and able to get our economy back on track, to restore America’s middle class, to revitalize manufacturing,” Coons said.

Video: GOP unhappy with O’Donnell?

Video: GOP’s political mystery money

O’Donnell, meanwhile, portrayed herself as a “hard-working average citizen who understands what it’s like to fall on hard economic times.”

The conservative commentator and marketing consultant has never held an elected office. She became the latest Tea Party-backed candidate this election season to defeat an incumbent candidate after she easily beat Castle, a moderate Congressman and former governor. The primaries were held Tuesday.

“As we approach the general election over the next month and a half, it’s my goal for you to get to know who I am, and why I’m running in this race, and why I’m asking for your vote on November 2,” O’Donnell told the standing-room only crowd.

O’Donnell has received an outpouring of national attention from conservative groups and heavyweights, including the Tea Party Express and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

At the forum, O’Donnell expressed her gratitude for the national support, and lamented her own state party’s failure to get behind her candidacy. The Delaware Republican Party backed Castle in the primary, and has yet to publicly embrace their new candidate.

“I am fighting two political parties here in Delaware. Our political system has become an entrenched system. My goal is to open up the political process to ‘we the people’ where you get to decide based on the policies who you want to represent you in Washington, D.C., not who a party has anointed you,” O’Donnell said.

Polls suggested that Castle would have been favored in the general election battle over Coons, but with O’Donnell as the party’s nominee, surveys indicate that Coons is now considered to have the advantage.

Delaware Senate candidates set stage for November

His address was the first of two speeches the president is scheduled to make this week to frame his administration’s ongoing response to the recession, less than two months ahead of midterm elections in which Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are in jeopardy.

“Today, I am announcing a new plan for rebuilding and modernizing America’s roads, and rails and runways for the long term,” said Obama, who spoke on Labor Day in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — a state with competitive gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races.

“We used to have the best infrastructure in the world. We can have it again,” he said to loud cheers from a crowd of union workers.

The proposal envisions — over a six year period — rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads, 4,000 miles of rail and 150 miles of airport runways. It also would include modernizing the nation’s air traffic control system in an effort to reduce delays and travel time.

“This will not only create jobs immediately. It’s also going to make our economy hum over the long haul,” said the president.

Obama hopes to work with Congress to enact an up-front investment of $50 billion — an amount a White House statement said would represent a significant chunk of new spending on infrastructure.

The investment would then be paired with what the administration called a framework to improve transportation spending.

The long-term plan would include the establishment of an Infrastructure Bank, which would leverage federal dollars and focus on projects that could deliver the the biggest bang for the buck, Obama said.

The president stressed the need for Democrats and Republicans to work together on the transportation initiative, which would need to be approved by Congress.

Congress returns from recess next week and will likely be in session for less than a month before leaving Washington for midterm elections.

On Monday, before Obama’s speech, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, criticized the plan and said Americans do not want to pay want higher taxes.

“A last-minute, cobbled-together stimulus bill with more than $50 billion in new tax hikes will not reverse the complete lack of confidence Americans have in Washington Democrats’ ability to help this economy,” he said in a statement.

Obama is focused this week on the economy, after a week in which his administration concentrated on Middle East peace talks and the end of America’s combat role in Iraq.

Senior aides have said the president recently asked his economic team to come up with various proposals he could roll out to show he’s working hard to kick-start growth. Ideas have included more federal spending on infrastructure projects and tax cuts popular with the business community, such as a permanent extension of the research and development tax credit.

However, a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday suggests the White House still has work to do to win over the American public. Nearly six in 10 respondents disapproved of Obama’s track record on the economy, which is the No. 1 issue in the minds of Americans.

On Wednesday, the president is scheduled to deliver an economic speech in hard-hit Cleveland, Ohio — a state that has competitive U.S. House and Senate races that will help determine control of Congress.

CNN Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry contributed to this report.

Obama pushes infrastructure spending to spur growth

Obama is set to give his second Oval Office address, a speech meant to mark the end of combat missions in Iraq. But besides the remarks he will make, the setting of his speech will convey something, too.

“The Oval Office invokes the center of the presidential authority. That’s the president’s office, that’s where he supposedly makes decisions, where he governs,” says presidential historian Robert Dallek.

“[When] a talk to the nation is given from that office, [it] is underscoring his executive powers, his leadership.”

Video: U.S. combat role comes to an end

The Oval Office symbolizes power, command, and authority, Dallek said. It shows the president, “as George W. Bush put it, is the ‘decider’ ” and that symbolism is important.

For example, former President George H.W. Bush announced the start of the first Gulf war from the Oval Office, telling Americans and the world that he was the commander in chief just by setting the scene in the Oval Office.

And on the night of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, former President George W. Bush spoke to the American people from the Oval Office, to show he was in command and to reassure the nation.

Dallek points out the differences between giving a speech in the Oval Office versus a speech in a different venue.

For example, Obama’s speech in front of the joint session of Congress a year ago conveyed his desire to get Congress to act on health care reform.

“A joint session of Congress has a different function,” Dallek said. A speech in front of both the Senate and House shows the president is “trying to convince Congress to join with him.”

When Obama addressed both chambers in September 2009, the health care debate was still waging. He called for bipartisan proposals to address health care reform and focused attention on the issue, on Congress and on the presidency.

An Oval Office address is different. The prime-time address focuses the attention singularly on the subject matter.

“Presidents don’t give speeches from the Oval Office casually,” Dallek said. “It’s given with forethought and consideration. So the fact that he’s giving the current speech about the end of America’s combat role in Iraq is something that he wishes to emphasize and underscore and in a sense I think it’s a demonstration of his completion of his mission or fulfillment of a commitment that he made.”

Because of the singular focus on the subject matter during Obama’s Tuesday evening address, Obama will have to navigate the tricky road of marking the end of a war he did not support and honoring the lives of all the Americans killed in the war, Dallek said.

Obama must use a “certain amount of domestic diplomacy to bring the war to a close; you don’t just end the war and say it’s a mistake. It’s unpalatable because of all the deaths,” Dallek said.

So Obama must do it in a way that is “politically palatable to the American public — that is at the heart” of his address Tuesday, Dallek said.

The Oval Office will also help convey a sense of intimacy of the message. Since former President Jimmy Carter, each president has delivered his farewell address from that room, using the office of the presidency to say goodbye to the American public.

President Reagan used the intimate space to comfort the public after space shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986.

President Johnson used the room in 1968 to tell Americans he would not seek re-election and President Nixon gave several speeches regarding the Watergate scandal, including his decision to resign from the presidency in the wake of Watergate in 1974.

Obama’s other Oval Office address was two months ago to address the nation about the Gulf oil disaster.

And who does the presidential historian think was most successful at intimate talks to the American people?

Franklin Roosevelt’s fireside addresses — although there were no televisions at the time, these radio talks were effective in boosting the country’s confidence.

Obama speech setting sends message