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President Obama and his political rivals in Washington have jumped into the epic battle in Wisconsin between organized labor and the state’s newly elected Republican governor over the rights and benefits of state workers.

Efforts by Scott Walker, the state’s Republican governor, to slash collective-bargaining rights of public employees prompted days of protests at the state capitol by thousands of union workers, fueled and organized in part by Mr. Obama’s own political apparatus in Washington.

Even as Democratic lawmakers in Wisconsin fled their own state in an attempt to stall a vote in the Republican-controlled state senate, Mr. Obama decried the tactics of Mr. Walker as “an assault on unions.”

That prompted House Speaker John Boehner to rip into Mr. Obama, accusing him of having “unleashed the Democratic National Committee to spread disinformation and confusion in Wisconsin.”

Mr. Boehner, in a statement, praised Mr. Walker and other Republican governors for making the tough decisions to cut spending. And he chided the president for siding with the wrong side in the contentious Wisconsin debate.

“Rather than shouting down those in office who speak honestly about the challenges we face, the president and his advisers should lead. Until they do, they are not focusing on jobs, and they are not listening to the American people who put them in power.”

The sharp-edged retorts from Mr. Obama and Mr. Boehner reflect the broader debate in the nation’s capital as Democrats and Republicans dig in to rigid positions about spending, investment, the deficit and changes to entitlement programs.

In the next two weeks, Democrats and Republicans in Washington are set to play a game of chicken with the federal budget. The government’s authority to spend money runs out on March 4 and could force a shutdown in federal services unless the parties can agree on a new spending plan.

But despite recent calls for bipartisanship and promises to work together in Washington, the standoff in Wisconsin is a preview of how easily discussions could disintegrate into chaos.

For Mr. Boehner, the Wisconsin debate is another opportunity to preach a message of fiscal restraint in the face of demanding unions and government employees. Republican governors in several states, including Wisconsin, have said they must make drastic cuts to deal with huge budget problems.

By jumping quickly to condemn Mr. Obama’s comments, Mr. Boehner explicitly questioned the president’s leadership, suggesting he is unwilling to make the deep sacrifices necessary to put the country on the right fiscal path.

Other Republicans, too, see opportunity in the imagery coming out of Wisconsin. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, who is trying to head off a primary challenge from the Tea Party in his state, praised Mr. Walker and other Republican governors for making “tough choices” in their budgets.

“It is too bad that Washington Democrats are attacking them rather than following their lead,” Mr. Hatch said on Thursday. “President Obama’s comments today were, frankly, way off base. The only assault is from a bunch of self-interested government union employees who are putting their interests ahead of the interests of the Wisconsin taxpayers who have been funding their runaway spending.”

He added: “This is not the way public servants should behave.”

Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the Republican chairman of the budget committee in the House, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “It’s like Cairo has moved to Madison these days.”

For Mr. Obama and the Democrats, the Wisconsin debate provides an opportunity to stand by their supporters in organized labor in a part of the country that is likely to be an important battleground during the 2012 presidential election campaign.

It also allows Democrats to once again raise questions about Mr. Boehner’s willingness to see government jobs lost.

This week, Democrats seized on Mr. Boehner’s comment that if government jobs were lost because of the cuts that Republicans are calling for, then “so be it.” Democrats now view the situation in Wisconsin as another example of Mr. Boehner taking sides against workers.

Former Representative David Obey of Wisconsin on Thursday accused Mr. Walker of acting like Hosni Mubarak, the deposed president of Egypt, as protestors marched in the streets of Cairo.

“I think what Gov. Walker is trying to do amounts to political thuggery,” Mr. Obey told Talking Points Memo. “It is one thing to say that these are tough times — everybody’s got to cut back and public employees are going to have to take cuts like the rest of us … but he’s using it as an excuse to gut the ability of workers to organize and bargain collectively. In my view that’s outrageous.”

A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee declined to respond to Mr. Boehner’s accusation of spreading disinformation. But officials confirmed that Organizing for America, an arm of the party, has been “quietly, but significantly, involved in
building grassroots energy and organizing protests.”

The political efforts on behalf of the union workers in Wisconsin were undertaken at the direction of Tim Kaine, the D.N.C. chairman, according to officials at the party.

In addition to helping build crowds for two rallies in Madison this week, O.F.A. organized 15 “rapid-response phone banks” aimed at getting supporters to call state lawmakers. The effort covered 10 cities in Wisconsin, officials said.

Volunteer leaders of O.F.A. helped organize the rallies and youth leaders at college campuses brought buses to help transport people. Another O.F.A. program sought to get letters published in 23 targeted newspapers in Wisconsin. O.F.A. also used blogs, Facebook, Twitter and e-mail messages to rally opposition to Mr. Walker’s efforts.

Mr. Boehner, in his comments Thursday, said Mr. Obama should call a stop to those efforts.

“I urge the president to order the D.N.C. to suspend these tactics,” Mr. Boehner said. “This is not the way you begin an ‘adult conversation’ in America about solutions to the fiscal challenges that are destroying jobs in our country.”

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HONOLULU – President Obama, who wraps up his 11-day Hawaiian escape Monday night and returns to Washington on Tuesday, will sign a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s food safety system into law when he gets back to the White House. But he is likely to face a fight from budget-minded Republicans over the cost of the measure, estimated at $1.4 billion over five years.

The legislation would greatly strengthen the regulatory hand of the Food and Drug Administration, giving it new authority to order mandatory recalls and to require importers to show that the food they get from foreign suppliers is safe. Kathleen Sebelius, Mr. Obama’s health secretary, told reporters in a conference call set up by the White House on Monday that the idea is for “sea bass from Chile’’ to meet the same safety standards “as lobster that we get out of the shores of Maine.’’

The bill, which has the backing of food-safety advocates and industry groups, passed the Senate with considerable bipartisan support. Ms. Sebelius called it, “the most significant food safety law of the last 100 years.’’ Under the current system, the F.D.A. simply tracks outbreaks after they occur; the new law will change the agency’s mission to focus on preventing outbreaks before they happen.

But with Republicans, who are set to take control of the House when the new Congress convenes on Wednesday, vowing to slash domestic spending on a variety of fronts, advocates fear lawmakers will not appropriate the full amount necessary to put the law into effect. On the conference call Monday, the commissioner of Food and Drugs, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, said she intended to work with industry and advocacy groups to persuade Congress to appropriate the money.

“Shifting from a reactive to a preventive mode is something that we are committed to doing,’’ Dr. Hamburg said. “Congress has clearly given us the mandate to take that on, industry wants to work with us.’’ She added, “The costs of not going forward to put in place this kind of approach are simply unacceptable.’’

The measure has been a high priority of Mr. Obama’s since the beginning of his administration. But there will be no formal signing ceremony when he puts his signature to it on Tuesday, according to his deputy press secretary Bill Burton. The president and his family are scheduled to leave Honolulu at 8:45 p.m. local time, and should be back in Washington — perhaps feeling a bit jet-lagged after a 9 1/2-hour overnight flight — by late morning.

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Joe Skipper/Reuters Starbucks and Kraft Foods are locked in a takeover battle. Only nobody is calling it that yet. On Monday morning, Kraft sought to pursue a case against Starbucks over its rights to sell prepackaged coffee and other branded goods under the Starbucks name as part of a pact that the two companies reached [...]

The other night I was on “Hardball” with conservative bad-boy Pat Buchanan. Michael Smerconish, the guest host, asked about a column I had written noting that George W. Bush, in his new book, had disingenuously airbrushed Karl Rove out of his (superficial) accounting of the Plamegate affair. The reason was obvious: Bush wanted to avoid [...]

11:05 a.m. | Updated: Shuler Considers Run Top House Democrats said late Friday night that they had settled on an arrangement that avoided a divisive fight for the No. 2 position in the party when it reverts to the minority in January.

In a statement, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would nominate Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina to be the No. 3 Democrat when the party holds an internal party election on Wednesday.

“Over the past four years, Congressman Clyburn’s effective leadership in the whip’s office was crucial to our passage of historic legislation on jobs, health care, veterans and Wall Street reform on behalf of the American people,” Ms. Pelosi said.

Since Ms. Pelosi decided to run for Democratic leader despite the loss of more than 60 seats in the midterm elections, Mr. Clyburn was competing with Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat and majority leader, for the slot beneath Ms. Pelosi. As the new minority party, Democrats would typically lose one top spot since they will relinquish the speakership.

Ms. Pelosi’s statement did not define the new job but made it clear it would rate above the caucus chairmanship, which typically would be the No. 3 position for the party in the minority.

The competition between Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Clyburn had the potential to cause hard feelings. As the highest ranking African-American in Congress, Mr. Clyburn had the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, while Mr. Hoyer was backed by many remaining party moderates and senior Democratic committee members. Mr. Hoyer appeared to have been ahead in the race.

Ms. Pelosi has run into resistance from some House Democrats about seeking the minority leader’s spot, but she appears to have the support of the majority of House Democrats, who value her fund-raising ability. No one has formally announced plans to oppose her, although Heath Shuler, the three-term Democrat from North Carolina, has said that he would run for minority leader himself if no alternative emerged to Ms. Pelosi (though he admitted that he would be an underdog).

Mr. Shuler, a member of the Blue Dog coalition in the House, was one of the first Democrats to call for Ms. Pelosi to step down as leader after the election-night defeat.

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A group of investors holding the junior debt of Anglo Irish Bank have vowed to oppose the offer made by the Irish government last week to pay them a fraction of the face value of the bonds. The government would pay 20 cents on the euro for about 1.6 billion euros’ worth of subordinated Anglo [...]