The most pertinent date this week for the White House is tomorrow, Feb. 17 -- first anniversary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which spread $862 billion in federal largesse around the nation. The administration is fanning out coast to coast all week to promote the spending, and the jobs that come with it.

Vice President Biden, fresh from the Olympics in Vancouver, will kick off the week's celebration today with a visit to economically depressed Saginaw, Michigan. Before the week is out, Cabinet members will be in Ohio, Georgia, Texas and Virginia. Obama wraps up the week with events in Colorado and Nevada.

Today, the president will tout the joys of job training at an electrical workers union headquarters in Lanham, Maryland. There he is expected to announce that the government will guarantee more than $8 billion in loans to build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in nearly three decades in Burke, Georgia, according to The Associated Press.

The rest of Obama's day is under wraps -- private meetings at the White House with his HUD, EPA and Defense chiefs. It's becoming more typical for the president to remain in private these days, says The Oval's chum and CBS Radio correspondent Mark Knoller: four days last week he was neither seen nor heard, a record for his presidency.

Whether in public or private, the president should be pleased today: a top Taliban commander has been captured by U.S. and Afghan forces.

On the other hand, Obama's policy of engagement with Iranappears to be disappearing, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that nation is taking on the feel of a military dictatorship.

That's not the feeling here in Washington, where the federal government, fresh from a snow week and Presidents' Day, will brave the Capital's still snow-infested roads and head back to work -- late.

And so we leave you, at least until later this morning, with White House counselor Valerie Jarrett's last Olympics post on the White House blog -- a paean to patriotism. Be safe out there on Fat Tuesday!

toyota' reall struggles

Toyota is facing a deepening image crises as it continues weekly to expand its recall of cars for problems that include sliding floor mats, sticky pedal and software glitches in brakes.

The latest move came Tuesday when Toyota recalled more than 400,000 of its Prius and other hybrid models over braking problems. The company also recalled more than 7,300 late-model Camrys in the U.S. for a separate braking issue.

Mr. Carter had no comment on a possible Corolla recall amid steering complaints from owners of that model and said the company is studying the issue.

"We are working very closely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and we have a good relationship with them," Mr. Carter said when asked whether there could be more recalls. "We are working through these situations one at a time."

The executive admitted Toyota had considered canceling the press conference, which overshadowed the global launch of its new Avalon sedan. Indeed, the vehicle became an impromptu work surface for reporters covering his remarks.

Mr. Carter reiterated Toyota's stance that the pedal problems weren't linked to external electrical interference and the steps the company has taken should solve sudden-acceleration concerns.

"There is nothing that we can find that even comes close to indicating our electronic controls would be causing unintended acceleration," Mr. Carter said. "We had discovered some mechanical issues; one was the floor mat and the other was the sticky pedal. But we are confident in the fix we have found for the pedal."

Production of all Toyota vehicles has resumed in the U.S. with new vehicles beginning to arrive at showrooms, the company said.

Meanwhile in Washington, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said he wants Mr. Toyoda, grandson of Toyota's founder, to testify. He also wants to arrange a meeting with Mr. Toyoda and congressional leaders of both parties to go over issues surrounding Toyota's troubles.

Mr. Issa is the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 24 on Toyota's recalls.

"Given the number of outstanding questions surrounding Toyota's relationship with U.S. regulators and in the best interests of moving forward, I'd like to help facilitate a dialogue between Mr. Toyoda and lawmakers from both parties and both chambers," Mr. Issa said.

"I would think that Mr. Toyoda would be receptive to the opportunity to meet with policymakers and there certainly is widespread interest from Capitol Hill and the American people to hear directly from him," the lawmaker said.

Mr. Issa said he asked his committee's chairman, Rep. Edolphus Towns (D., N.Y.), to formally invite Toyoda to the hearing.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Towns said the committee chairman "looks forward to receiving Rep. Issa's letter and to discussing his request." Martha Voss, a Toyota spokeswoman, said Mr. Toyoda "would look forward" to meeting with members of Congress but that, for now, the plan is for Yoshimi Inaba, head of Toyota's North American operations, to testify.

Obama has mobilized a huge emergency aid effort for Haiti and officials say the United States will remain involved in rebuilding the impoverished Caribbean nation so that, after some 200 years of independence, it can eventually stand on its own.

"I want the people of Haiti to know that we will do what it takes to save lives and to help them get back on their feet," Obama said on Friday. "The scale of the devastation is extraordinary ... and the losses are heartbreaking."

This is what could happen next.

THE U.S. EFFECTIVELY TAKES OVER

U.S. officials have stressed that the assistance effort, which involves thousands of U.S. soldiers, sailors and Marines along with civilian search-and-rescue teams, is being organized in cooperation with the Haitian government led by President Rene Preval.

But the Haitian government, fragile at the best of times, is almost entirely out of contact, meaning that many of the operational decisions must come from Washington.

Experts say the United States has few options: it must either step up to the task of relief rebuilding, or open itself to criticism and as a possible new flood of Haitian refugees.

Dan Erikson, a Haiti specialist at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington-based think tank, said at least in the short term the United States was calling the shots.

"Haiti had barely functioning ministries even before the earthquake," Erikson said. "The Obama administration can describe this as a partnership, but it is one where one partner is doing all the work and has all the authority."

U.S. aid chief Rajiv Shah said the strategy was to "saturate" assistance networks run by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations -- after which U.S. forces will start delivering emergency help themselves.

It will not be the first time U.S. soldiers have taken the lead in Haiti, the hemisphere's poorest country. After decades of political turbulence, the United States first sent troops to Haiti in 1915. They stayed 19 years.

More recently, former President Bill Clinton helped restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide after he was ousted by the military in 1991. But President George W. Bush did little to help Aristide stay in office when his second term was cut short in 2004 by an armed revolt.

Aristide, speaking from exile in South Africa, has offered to return -- which could complicate things.

"What happens if the Venezuelans decide to fly him back?" said Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. "Until there is some kind of political resolution, it is going to be very hard to have rehabilitation."

UNITED NATIONS TAKES THE LEAD

U.S. officials sketch out a long-term strategy under which the United Nations -- which already has a peacekeeping force of about 9,000 in the country -- takes the lead.

While U.S. forces will contribute much of the initial emergency earthquake response, over time this will shift to a broad-based international assistance project that will concentrate on areas such as energy, farming and healthcare.

"Before this earthquake, we weren't talking about restoring (Haiti) we were talking about building a whole new country, former President Clinton said on U.S. television on Sunday.

"And there was a government plan that they developed in cooperation with the U.N., but it was their plan. And what I believe will happen is they will take all this devastation into account, all the work that has to be done, and they will rewrite their plan."

Coordination could be simple. Bill Clinton is already the U.N. special envoy for Haiti, and repeated donor conferences have established a well-known set of development priorities as well as a mechanism -- the Interim Cooperation Framework -- for delivering the help.

U.N. and NGO offices in Haiti are themselves struggling with the quake's aftermath. But given time, analysts say they should be well positioned to help channel assistance.

THE HELP DRIES UP

Some analysts say perhaps the biggest fear is that time will push Haiti off the priority list as other disasters intervene. For Haiti, already among the world's least developed nations, this could be a compound catastrophe.

"Donor fatigue is a very real concept," Birns said.

With a population of 9 million, an annual per capita income of just $560 and high infant mortality and HIV/AIDS rates, Haiti needs help virtually across the board but often lacks the ability to handle it when it comes.

"Often a lot more money is pledged than is actually delivered. And once the money is delivered, the Haitian government doesn't have the capacity to execute so the money doesn't get spent," said Erikson.

Still, like many development experts, he saw the earthquake as a possible fresh start for Haiti in its relations with its powerful northern neighbor -- who this time is intervening for humanitarian, rather than political, reasons.

"I think we ought to care from a humanitarian perspective and I also think from a strategic perspective because it makes sense to have a stable democracy in our neighborhood," former President George Bush said in a U.S. television interview.