Perhaps the president won’t be golfing after all. The White House is expected to announce today that President Obama will be attending the annual HRC dinner in Washington, DC on Saturday evening, the day prior to the National Equality March.

Mr. Obama’s appearance on Saturday at the annual dinner for the Human Rights Campaign, a leading gay rights advocacy group, represents a significant show of support for gay rights at a time when many prominent gay and lesbian activists have been questioning the president’s commitment to their issues.

Many gay rights activists have become increasingly vocal about their frustration over what they see as tepid support from Mr. Obama. While the president has professed support for overturning the ban on gays in the military and called the law that precludes federal recognition of same-sex marriages discriminatory, he has not engaged on gay rights issues as actively as some had hoped.

The Justice Department is defending the federal marriage law, known as Defense of Marriage Act, much to the dismay of many gay rights advocates. And Mr. Obama has been noncommittal about when he will move to end the “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. In June, he acknowledged their irritations at the slow pace of change at a gathering of about 250 gay rights leaders who had been invited to the White House.

While it remains to be seen what Mr. Obama’s appearance at the dinner will do to his standing in the eyes of gay rights activists, his speech may mollify some of their concerns.

His appearance will mark only the second time a sitting president has spoken to the Human Rights Campaign. The first time was in 1997 when Bill Clinton spoke to the group. That was the first time a sitting president had ever addressed a gay rights organization.

Here’s hoping the President will hang around and make an appearance at the Equality March on Sunday. But I wouldn’t count on it, despite this warmly worded invitation.

Former president Bill Clinton revealed in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN why he’s nolonger hung up on word “marriage” when its preceded by the word “gay.” Watch:

At the Netroots Nation conference yesterday Bill Clinton responded forcefully when heckled by gay activist and blogger Lane Hudson on the topics of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT), and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Watch.

Full transcript available at Blabbeando.

Former president Bill Clinton has successfully secured a pardon for two American journalists sentenced to hard labor in North Korea , as reported by the Associated Press.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has issued a “special pardon” to two American journalists convicted of sneaking into the country illegally, and he ordered them released during a visit by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, North Korean media reported early Wednesday.

The release of Laura Ling and Euna Lee was a sign of North Korea’s “humanitarian and peaceloving policy,” the Korean Central News Agency reported.

Clinton, who arrived in North Korea Tuesday on an unannounced visit, met with the reclusive and ailing Kim — his first meeting with a prominent Western figure since his reported stroke nearly a year ago.

North Korea accused Ling, 32, and Lee, 36, of sneaking into the country illegally in March and engaging in “hostile acts,” and the nation’s top court sentenced them in June to 12 years of hard labor.

But not everyone is amused.

John Bolton, an outspoken hardliner in the previous administration of George W. Bush, told AFP that Clinton’s mission to Pyongyang undermines a number of public stands held by his own wife, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists,” Bolton told AFP when asked about Bill Clinton’s trip to secure the release of journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee.

“I think this is a very bad signal because it does exactly what we always try and avoid doing with terrorists, or with rogue states in general, and that’s encouraging their bad behavior,” Bolton said.

No John. That’s called diplomacy. A concept your not familiar with.