Harvard Law's dean voted in as solicitor general

Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, was confirmed yesterday by the Senate as the nation's first female solicitor general, to represent the Obama administration before the Supreme Court.

The vote was 61 to 31.

Some Republican opponents questioned her legal views and experience, as Kagan has never argued a Supreme Court case. But she was a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and worked in the Clinton White House as an associate counsel and policy adviser. All former solicitor generals since 1985, both Democrats and Republicans, endorsed her nomination, Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told colleagues yesterday.

She and President Obama taught together at the University of Chicago Law School during the 1990s. She became Harvard Law dean in 2003.

Kagan, 48, is thought to be on a short list for a Supreme Court vacancy, particularly if Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the only woman on the high court, who is battling pancreatic cancer, retires.

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WASHINGTON - The White House is getting a new garden.

Michelle Obama plans to break ground today on a garden on the South Lawn that will provide produce for the White House kitchen.

She will be joined by students from Bancroft Elementary School in the District of Columbia, who will stay involved with the project, including planting fruits, vegetables, and herbs in the coming weeks and harvesting the crops later in the year.

Such a White House garden has been a dream of California chef Alice Waters, a leader in the movement to encourage consumption of locally grown, organic food. She has been appealing for change through the taste buds since the 1960s, and has lobbied Obama for the garden.

Waters said yesterday she was thrilled by the news. "It just tells you that this country cares about people's good health and about the care of the land," she said.

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The Obama administration is announcing today that David Blumenthal, a Harvard Medical School professor who is director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital, will be national coordinator of health information technology.

In his new post, he will be in charge of nearly $20 billion in the economic stimulus package to build healthcare-related information technology, including encouraging doctors and hospitals to use computers.

"President Obama believes we must take serious steps to modernize our healthcare system in order to improve the health of all Americans, bring down costs, and ensure sustained longterm economic growth," Jenny Backus, a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.

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WASHINGTON - President Obama, a best-selling author who received royalties of $2.5 million last year, will get hundreds of thousands more for a youth-oriented version of his memoir and will write another book after he leaves the White House.

Obama agreed in early January to deliver the new book after he leaves office. The White House said he already had a deal to write another book, and agreed Jan. 9 that he would produce the book after his term ends.

About a week later, shortly before his inauguration, Obama agreed to a $500,000 advance for an abridged version of "Dreams From My Father" that would be suitable for middle school or young adult readers, according to a new personal financial disclosure report released this week.

Obama will get $250,000 of the advance and the publisher will get the other half, a spokesman said yesterday. The president didn't indicate how much he might get for writing the new book, whose subject is yet to be determined. Terms would probably be negotiated at the end of his term. Former president Clinton got $15 million for "My Life."

Obama received nearly $2.5 million in book royalties last year for his two best-selling works - "Dreams From My Father," which was written before he was elected to the US Senate from Illinois, and "The Audacity of Hope."

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Members of Congress are seeming to revel in bashing AIG, the poster child in Washington for Wall Street greed. But as a watchdog group pointed out yesterday, they were more than happy to accept campaign donations from the company when it wasn't seen as so toxic.

Over the past two decades, American International Group has contributed nearly $9.4 million to federal candidates and parties, the Center for Responsive Politics says. That ranks AIG 79th on the center's "heavy hitters" list, and the company is also a major lobbying player.

Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut - who on Wednesday said he watered down an executive pay provision in the stimulus bill that could have blocked the controversial AIG bonuses - is the top individual recipient, with more than $281,000 between 1989 and 2008.

Now chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, Dodd said he took the action at the behest of unnamed officials at the Treasury Department, who worried that a retroactive clause would invite lawsuits, and has scoffed at any suggestion that the campaign cash played any role.

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