i hereby appoint the honorable steve womack to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. signed, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray. gracious god, we give you thanks for giving us another day. you have blessed us with all good gifts and this past week with thankful hearts, we gathered with family and loved ones throughout this great land to celebrate our blessings together. bless the members of this people's house who have been entrusted with the privilege to serve our nation and all americans in their need. grant them to work together in respect and affection and to be faithful in the responsibilities they have been given. as the end of the first session approaches and much is left to be done, bestow upon them the gifts of wisdom and discernment that in their words and actions they will do justice, love with mercy and walk had you ever beenly with you. -- walk humbly with you. amen. the speaker pro tempore: the chair has examined the jou

i hereby appoint the honorable steve womack to act as speaker pro tempore on this day.ned, john a. boehner, speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by our chaplain, father conroy. chaplain conroy: let us pray.

podesta, former vice president cheney's one time spokeswoman anne womack-kolton, republican flacks like john feehery and democratic flacks like steve mcmahon and mcmahon's business partner, the republican media guru alex castellanos, who's a contributor to cnn. >> yes. mcmahon is on msnbc, so it's very bipartisan that way too. >> and mcmahon, the democrat and castellanos the republican are partners in a firm called purple strategies. bp hires them to spearhead this $50 million television campaign you talk about. >> to those affected and your families, i am deeply sorry. >> they were brought, you say, into the fold by the democratic operative, hilary rosen, who was working for a london-based firm that was also working for bp. and she was also a pundit for cnn. i mean, what a web. >> and again, i think the other piece of this is that a year later geoff morrell, who is the head spokesman for the pentagon under, you know, president obama's pentagon, has become the chief washington spokesman for bp. >> former white house correspondent for abc news. >> abc news. he followed bob gates to the pentagon first with president bush then with pr