President Obama, in his interview with Fox’s Bill O’Reilly before the Super Bowl denied that he’s moving to the center: "I haven't -- I didn't move to... I'm the same guy," he said. He explained, "Over the first two years of my presidency, we had a complete disaster. Right? We had a complete crisis. The financial markets were breaking down. We were slipping into a Great Depression. And we had to take a bunch of extraordinary steps in order to make sure that the economy was growing again, which it is now, growing. Making sure that the private sector was creating jobs again. It's now doing that."

The AP tees up Obama’s speech at the U.S. Chamber. “After two years of vociferous conflict over health care and financial regulations, the two have entered into something of a detente. President Barack Obama has scheduled a speech Monday at the Chamber, a first for him. Not four months ago, he had attacked the huge, Republican-leaning trade organization for failing to disclose donors to its $32 million congressional political campaign, ‘Their lips are sealed,’ Obama said at the time, ‘but the floodgates are open.’”

“Their bitter fights overshadowed areas of solid agreement, including the Chamber's support of Obama's 2009 economic stimulus plan and the bailout of General Motors and Chrysler. Obama played a populist hand, referring to bankers as "fat cats," rebuking corporate lobbyists and casting the insurance industry as an antagonist in the health care debate.”

The New York Times: "The budget that President Obama will release next week reflects scores of 'tough calls' that cut deeply into programs that the president supports, in keeping with his proposed five-year freeze on a broad category of domestic spending, according to the administration’s budget director. In an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Sunday, the director, Jacob J. Lew, gives three examples of those calls: proposed cuts for programs that support community organizers, a job the president once held; that clean the Great Lakes; and that finance community development. Together, they would save $775 million."

The Boston Globe profiles Elizabeth Warren and her challenges as head of the new consumer protection agency, especially with the administration’s shift in tone toward big business: “The Obama administration has shifted from bashing Wall Street ‘fat cats’ to courting some of the same groups that fiercely opposed Warren and her agency. That has left Warren with a pair of challenges: being a tough industry watchdog in what is now characterized as a business-friendly administration and trying to quickly assemble and manage an agency when her skills are rooted in the proverbial ivory tower at Harvard Yard. ‘I know there are plenty of people with a handful of rocks — people just like me in my former life as an academic — watching this consumer agency every step of the way,’ Warren said.”

Turning to the situation in Egypt… “After days of efforts to nudge Mubarak off the stage, if not necessarily out the door, the White House was compelled to shift its approach last week after both the Egyptian president and his top aides made clear that he intends to stay,” the Washington Post says.  “Mubarak's defiance was followed by a convulsion of violence in Cairo, then a period of hopeful calm as progress toward negotiations appeared to gain momentum, then renewed uncertainty as that effort faltered while Clinton flew. With the Muslim Brotherhood's agreement Sunday to enter talks with Mubarak's newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman, optimism has reasserted itself.”

More: “While acknowledging that violence could erupt again, U.S. officials and Middle East experts credited the administration with establishing useful parameters - in essence, that the government must avoid violence and that Suleiman and the opposition must talk, and quickly - that have helped to prevent, for now, the country's slide into anarchy.”

The New York Times zeroes in on Mubarak. "The question of whether Mr. Mubarak will yield power willingly — and how and under what timetable he might do so — are driving the Obama administration’s national security team to assess and reassess their strategy in dealing with him. It is being watched intently by the antigovernment protesters in Cairo, much of the Arab world and even by members of his own government."