Maybe she misheard the question. Maybe the French translator got it wrong, translating "what does your husband think" for "what does your president think." Maybe she was tired, amid a grueling 11-day odyssey to Africa.

Whatever the explanation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bristled the other day at a questioner in the Democratic Republic of Congo seeking the views of her husband, former President Clinton.

"Wait, you want to know what my husband thinks? My husband is not the secretary of State -- I am," she snapped. "You ask my opinion, I will tell you my opinion. I'm not going to be channeling my husband."

Pundits immediately seized on the episode as evidence of further troubles in the Clinton marriage. The New York Daily News noted that Bill Clinton "big-footed her off the front pages last week with his surprise trip to North Korea to bring back two jailed female U.S. journalists."

Columnist Eugene Robinson wondered on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" if there was a back story. Perhaps Hillary Clinton -- sidelined in June with a broken elbow that kept her from accompanying President Obama on some high-profile foreign trips -- bristled because this is not the first time people have asked for her husband's POV.

Meanwhile Bill Clinton was celebrating his 63rd birthday a week early at his favorite restaurant. In Las Vegas for a clean energy summit, Clinton decided to invite some  friends to join him at the pricey  Craftsteak at the MGM Grand hotel to mark his Aug. 19 birthday. How pricey? asked the New York Times. "The 8-ounce wagyu New York strip steak goes for $240. (Potatoes and other sides are extra.)"

On hand for the meat-eating: former DNC chairman and Clinton golfing buddy Terry McAuliffe, senior adviser Paul Begala, former chief of staff John Podesta, Hollywood executive Haim Saban, former communications director Jay Carson and Steve Bing, the Hollywood media mogul who lent Clinton his jet for the diplomatic mission to North Korea to negotiate the release of two American journalists.

No word on what they ordered. As they say, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

-- Johanna Neuman

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These are the same lawmakers who pummeled Wall Street executives when they "testified" before Congress, excoriating them for taking bonuses while Americans were losing their jobs and their homes amid the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Now, with 14 million Americans still out of work, Congress is seeking $550 million for eight new aircraft that would increase the fleet the Air Force uses to ferry senators and representatives to war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan as well less dangerous locations like London, Paris and the Galapagos.

No question, congressional travel is on the upswing. Overseas trips by lawmakers has increased almost tenfold since 1995. Last year, members of Congress spent $13 million in travel expenses, not counting airfare. So the Obama administration requested $220 million in its budget to buy four passenger jets for congressional use, including two that are currently being leased by the Air Force.

For some reason, the House Appropriations Committee thought that wasn't enough. So just before lawmakers left for August recess, the House doubled the order to eight aircraft, at a cost of $550 million.

With the measure on its way to the Senate, opposition there is mounting.

"The whole thing kind of makes me sick to my stomach," Missouri Democrat Claire McCaskill told the Wall Street Journal. "It is evidence that some of the cynicism about Washington is well placed -- that people get out of touch and they spend money like it's Monopoly money."

Republican John McCain, the maverick Arizona senator who has made a career of fighting pork barrel projects, is also said to be opposing the appropriation. He leaves soon with other senators on a week-long trip to Libya, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Iceland.

The uproar is partly of their own making. In 2007, with Democrats newly in control of both the Senate and the House, Congress passed S. 1, the "Honest Leadership, Open Government Act." Cracking down on lobbyist gifts and tightening ethics procedures, the bill also created an online, searchable public database of lawmakers' travel and personal financial disclosure forms.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo credit: Getty Images

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It was another first in presidential history.

When President Obama left the White House on Thursday for Andrews Air Force Base, the Marine One helicopter that lifted off from the South Lawn was piloted by the first female helicopter aircraft commander in Marine One history. Maj. Jennifer Grieves of Glendale, Ariz., flew her first Marine One mission in May 2008, and had flown Obama and then-President George W. Bush.

In honor of Grieves' last day in the rotation, the Marines assigned two other female officers -- Maj. Jennifer L. Marino, of Palisade, Colo., and Sgt. Rachael A. Sherman, of Traverse City, Mich. -- to complete the crew. And that all-female crew was another first.

Marines say Grieves is off to Command and Staff College in Quantico, Va.

When the president boarded Marine One en route to try to salvage Gov. Jon Corzine's reelection bid in New Jersey and to address the NAACP in New York, he stopped to talk to Grieves and shook her hand.

Of course Obama is accustomed to being surrounded by women. At the White House he lives with First Lady Michelle Obama; their daughters, Malia and Sasha; and his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson.

Still, it was a singular moment in girl power when the chopper lifted off.

Perhaps CNN put it best when it called Grieves "the woman that shattered Marine One's glass rotors."

-- Johanna Neuman

Photos: President Obama. Credit: Associated Press.

Maj. Grieves. Credit: Getty Images.

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The rest of us seem to be tightening our belts in the face of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Auto giants GM and Chrysler have declared bankruptcy, small businesses are hurting or going under, and just this morning the Labor Department released numbers showing that Americans lost jobs at a faster pace in June than in the prior month, and the unemployment rate ticked higher to 9.5%, the highest in 26 years.

But in Congress, where the only limit on spending is the (apparently not very effective) stigma on spending taxpayer funds, expensive travel to far-off places is booming.

According to a Wall Street Journal analysis of 60,000 congressional travel records, hundreds of lawmakers traveled overseas in 2008 at a cost of about $13 million -- not counting airfare, since the U.S. Air Force maintains a fleet of 16 planes for congressional travel. And that, says the Journal, represents a 50% jump since the Democrats took control of Congress two years ago.

Interestingly, the appetite for overseas travel is one area where Congress seems to have reached bipartisan harmony -- both Democrats and Republicans have the bug.

Hawaii's Sen. Daniel Inouye, a Democrat, led a group of senators and spouses on a four-day trip to France for the Paris Air Show, staying at the Intercontinental. One Republican on the trip, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby,  used the occasion to take a cruise on the River Seine with Defense industry executives and elected officials from Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

House members are regulars too.

Republican Bud Cramer, a lame-duck congressman from Alabama who was not running for re-election last year, took a two-week trip to Europe instead, running up a $5,700 bill for hotels, meals and other expenses.

And Democrat Brian Baird of Washington, a member of the House Science Committee, took a four-day trip to the Galápagos Islands with his wife, four other lawmakers (both Dems and GOPers) and their families to study climate change. The price tag was not priceless. It was $22,000. Questioned by a reporter, then-Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, an Oregon Democrat, explained that they were up at 6 a.m. every morning to meet with scientists, naturalists and preservationists. "If this was a luxury trip, I would eat my hat," she said.

To be fair, lots of codels (shorthand for congressional delegations) are to war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan, where accommodations are not luxurious, expenses are low, and the upside -- gain in knowledge, time with U.S. troops -- are real. But the Journal says many lawmakers couple their war-zone trips with visits to more tranquil spots. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last year led a delegation of eight colleagues and a large entourage to visit U.S. troops in Afghanistan -- after first spending nearly $60,000 on meals and hotels during an eight-day stay in Italy.

Maybe Wall Street executives -- regular targets of Washington's holier-than-thou flogging of excessive bonuses and salaries -- could use this the next time they testify on the Hill.

-- Johanna Neuman

Photo: A hawk perches on a tortoise in the Galápagos. Credit: Tui De Roy / Minden Pictures/Getty Images

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Fresh from a day of middle-classing in Ohio and upper-classing at a Democratic fundraiser in Boston, Vice President Joe Biden is back in Washington this morning for a closed but no doubt transparent meeting with President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, who already met with President Obama but Biden isn't due to speak to the Communications Workers of America until 11.

In the afternoon, Biden will watch the president meet with a group of governors to talk over -- you'll never guess -- healthcare reform.

And then because he went to Syracuse University and the president doesn't really care about men's or women's lacrosse, Biden will meet with the Syracuse men's team, which is NCAA champion.

All in preparation for his next big foreign trip -- to Georgia and Ukraine the last week of July -- when he "will demonstrate U.S. support for continued democratic and economic reforms and discuss issues of mutual interest." Pretty much the same assignment Biden had last month in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The neat part of the lacrosse meeting today is that the VP will likely get a Syracuse lacrosse jersey, probably with the same No. 2 as was on the Boston Red Sox jersey he was given last night at the Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Fenway Park.

"Gimme that shirt!" Biden said as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick was doing a presentation. According to Biden, he is a huge Red Sox fan, but his wife is "the most rabid" Phillies fan. So he's got to be careful or he'll "be sleeping alone."

Biden said pretty much what The Ticket recently reported he's telling Democratic donors paying $X,000 to hear his remarks. He said the Obama-Biden administration would not be where it was without the people present, that no administration had ever started with so much on its plate and how they can see some light but there was still much to do.

Biden said: "We're at one of those inflection points in American history, ladies and gentlemen, non-action is action. No administration has moved as fast"  to tackle as many issues.

"We believe we need to build a platform for the economy of the 21st century," Biden added. "Our job is to change the dynamic. Rebuild the beginning of a platform for a new economy."

Then, at the end of his 20-minute or so oration, the voluble vice president quoted Seamus Heaney (see photo): "History teaches us not to hope on this side of the grave."

Biden could have stopped there. But in yet another incredible gaffe that will offend two or three poetry lovers, on both sides of the Atlantic, he added: "I quote Irish poets all the time because they're the best poets."

Gasp! 

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Seamus Heaney at the Edinburgh Book Festival.  Credit: Getty Images

Major League Baseball announced today that known basketball fan Barack Obama, who never got around to going down the street in Washington to see a hockey playoff game, will travel all the way to St. Louis in three weeks to be the starting pitcher in baseball's annual All-Star Game.

The 47-year-old liberal southpaw out of Chicago known for his eloquent fastballs and embarrassing gutterballs is expected to be pulled after one pitch, the ceremonial opening one.

He'll be, of course, standing to throw the ball in Busch Stadium in front of a nationwide Fox Sports TV audience during Missouri's vaunted mid-summer humidity. But he'll also be only the fourth sitting president to do so -- after John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. That makes 2 D's and 2 R's now out of 44 total presidents, although early presidents were not fans. (Scroll down for a complete list of all presidential appearances at the mid-summer classic.)

This being politics, there is, not surprisingly, a catch to the president's appearance.

The league has dedicated this 80th All-Star Game to calling attention to and raising money for volunteer community service, a cause that you-know-who and his wife, you-know-her, have long supported, having been community organizers in their previous lives as White Sox fans you-know-where.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Being a New York woman in the Obama administration seems like a dangerous thing to be these days.

First, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor broke her ankle in a fall en route to Washington from New York.

Now, former New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, who's already safely traveled thousands of miles around the world as President Obama's secretary of State, tripped and fell near the White House on Wednesday, breaking her right elbow. (See right elbow above.)

The 61-year-old former first lady was en route to a meeting there and was treated and released from George Washington University Hospital.

According to a brief midnight announcement from an aide, Clinton will undergo surgery next week to repair the damage. So much for handshaking for a while. Sotomayor is making her way around Capitol Hill to Senate interviews on crutches.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

After a very busy, short week of breaking ground for the cameras in several states, Vice President Joe Biden is taking the entire weekend off. Sort of. Here's his official White House schedule:

In two busy days this week, the VP was in three states, shoveling dirt at groundbreakings to call public attention to the hundreds of construction projects the administration says are now underway to stimulate the economy.

The last event was in Kalamazoo, Mich., of all places, for some widening of I-94 so people can flee that Michigan community quicker in these difficult economic times. (Word also has it that through the magic of videotape, Biden will talk on "Meet the Press" on Sunday.)

Besides the vice president and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the K-zoo event also attracted the Gov. Jennifer Granholm, and Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. Each said they were happy to be there and delighted at the wonderful work President Obama's economic program is performing.

Someday someone should add up the afternoons'-worth of salaries and travel and security expenses of public officials at such publicity events. That money could count as significant economic stimulation too as well as part of the next generation's debt load.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Associated Press

(Written while sitting at a desk)

A new poll finds that after considerable public debate, countless PSAs, stern warnings about danger and numerous state laws banning the practice, pretty much everybody with a cellphone still talks on them while driving a motor vehicle.

Not only that, but a quarter of those surveyed also still send text messages while driving. (In Southern California, texting while driving is much safer than many other places because so much time is spent not moving.)

The good news from the poll is that the percentage of people who believe that talking on a cellphone while driving is dangerous has climbed from 82% three years ago to 88% last month. The bad news is they don't really care.

So much for legislating chatter.

The new nationwide online Harris poll of 2,681 adult Americans did not address people who drive while eating Double Whoppers, sipping way-too-hot coffee or dealing with squabbling, sticky siblings in a backseat full of party balloons and a barking dog while inserting a different CD to drown out a crabby spouse insistent on directing traffic.

But the survey results may show the effectiveness of legislating such human behaviors. Prohibition laws caused the entire nation to stop drinking alcoholic beverages so successfully some decades back.

The survey found that pretty much everybody believes that talking and driving are to varying degrees unsafe.

It also found that after the last three years of public warnings, concerned conversations and legislation written by elected government officials who often have drivers so they can talk legally with their hands, the percentage of people using cellphones while driving plunged from 73% to 72%.

In states like California that have formally banned cellphone use without hands-free equipment, fully half the people who drive and own cellphones still do both at the same time. Harris reports that 71% believe that hands-free cellphone equipment makes ...

THE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Thank you, President Sarkozy, Prime Minister Brown, Prime Minister Harper, and Prince Charles for being here today. Thank you to our secretary of  Veterans Affairs, Gen. Eric Shinseki, for making the trip out here to join us.

Thanks also to Susan Eisenhower, whose grandfather began this mission 65 years ago with a simple charge: "OK, let's go."  And to a World War II veteran who returned home from this war to serve a proud and distinguished career as a United States senator and a national leader: Bob Dole.  (Applause.)

I'm not the first American president to come and mark this anniversary, and I likely will not be the last.  This is an event that has long brought to this coast both heads of state and grateful citizens; veterans and their loved ones; the liberated and their liberators. 

It's been written about and spoken of and depicted in countless books and films and speeches.  And long after our time on this Earth has passed, one word will still bring forth the pride and awe of men and women who will never meet the heroes who sit before us: D-Day.   

Why is this?  Of all the battles in all the wars across the span of human history, why does this day hold such a revered place in our memory?  What is it about the struggle that took place on the sands a few short steps from here that brings us back to remember year after year after year?

Part of it, I think, is the size of the odds that weighed against success. For three centuries, no invader had ever been able to cross the English Channel into Normandy. And it had never been more difficult than in 1944.

That was the year that Hitler ordered his top field marshal to fortify the Atlantic Wall against a seaborne invasion. From the tip of Norway to southern France, the Nazis lined steep cliffs with machine guns and artillery. Low-lying areas were flooded to block passage. 

Sharpened poles awaited paratroopers. Mines were laid on the beaches and beneath....