Senator John Kerry, the new senior senator from Massachusetts, stood with his eyes closed, his right hand on Ted Kennedy's flag-draped casket. Thirty seconds went by and, head bowed, Kerry crossed himself and stepped back. His hand reached toward the casket one last time for a final friendly pat. "As far as I'm concerned we still have a senior senator and we have to celebrate his life," Kerry says a few minutes later, backstage at the John F. ...

As President Obama struggles to regain control of the health care debate, he's finding himself caught in a game of tug of war with members of his own party. The conservative Blue Dog Democrats don't want a bill with a government-sponsored, public health plan, and liberal Democrats have said they won't pass legislation without one. Despite strong majorities in both chambers of Congress, Democrats have been unable to reach an agreement on the legislation. And the administration has acknowledged ...

President Obama took his health care message to talk radio Thursday, telling listeners of Philadelphia-based host Michael Smerconish that he wants to overhaul the nation's ailing health care system out of necessity rather than politics. Appearing with Smerconish for 30 minutes on a broadcast from the White House, Obama faced some of the persistent questions of conservative Americans and others concerned that overhauling the nation's health care system will unnecessarily expand government authority and drive up the deficit. The questions ...

A hostile crowd shouted questions and made angry statements Tuesday at a town hall meeting on health care in Pennsylvania led by Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter. The meeting drew an overflow of about 250 people, with more gathered outside the hall to demonstrate for and against President Obama's push to expand health insurance for 46 million people without coverage while bringing down costs. It was the latest in a series of emotional public meetings on the health care issue that ...

Six months into the Obama Administration, a clear pattern of legislative pragmatism has emerged: focus on winning the big votes and don't fret too much about losing some of the details. Working at a furious pace, Obama's team has racked up by almost any measure one of the most successful early records in modern memory, especially if you focus on big scoreboard numbers and not the detailed stats. But each of his team's major accomplishments — ...

TIME senior writer Karen Tumulty sat down with President Barack Obama on Tuesday afternoon to talk about his work both in public and behind the scenes to push a health-care-reform measure through Congress. Here's an excerpt of the full transcript, which will be published on TIME.com on July 30. TIME: So how much of your day are you spending on this President Obama: Well, I think over the last two, three weeks I'd say I'm spending at least ...

His eloquence is a big part of the reason that Barack Obama got to the Oval Office. There's always been a sense that his ability to explain things was tantamount to his ability to fix them. But the sheer complexity of health care has so far defied both his ability to explain and his power to fix. And in this case, the latter is an even greater challenge than the former. As the President sat surrounded by his ...

TIME senior writer Karen Tumulty sat down with President Barack Obama on Tuesday afternoon to talk about his work both in public and behind the scenes to push a health-care-reform measure through Congress. Here's the full transcript. TIME: I thought I'd talk to you a little bit about just sort of the whole degree to which this is really a test of leadership, health care is, as much as anything. And last year at the news conference, ...