Two weeks ago, as the prosecution made its final points in his corruption trial, a pale Rod Blagojevich listened nervously as his wife, Patti looked on, sullen and indignant, from the bench, the arms of her brother around her. It was as if they could feel what was coming. On Monday, June 27, the jury returned from 10 days of deliberation and everyone gathered to hear its decision. Blagojevich blew an air kiss to his weeping wife and then clasped his hands as ...

It was inevitable that Barack Obama's decision to draw down 33,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer would be controversial. Most Democrats — as well as a growing cohort of Republicans and, according to the polls, a majority of Americans — were looking for a bigger, faster pullout. The Pentagon was hoping for something slower. General David Petraeus, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, must be particularly disappointed that the counterinsurgency strategy that ...

Many Afghans had been awaiting Barack Obama's announcement of a troop drawdown with a mixture of dread and happiness. In Kabul, the big surprise was not the announcement that U.S. forces will be leaving, but that the number of troops to be withdrawn by the end of 2011 — 10,000 — would be so large and that 23,000 more will leave over the course of a "fighting season" next spring and summer. Obama said the withdrawal of ...

President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday the deficit appears on track to hit $1 trillion soon. Speaking to reporters after meeting with top economic aides, Mr. Obama said: "Potentially we've got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on." — Associated Press, Jan. 6 Actually, the deficit is on track to hit $1.2 trillion this year, but what's $200 billion among friends? Seriously, what is it? To the average person, a number ...

Beyond the broad smiles, the jokes about Hillary Clinton's wardrobe, and the ceremonial reassurances that accompanied German Chancellor Angela Merkel's three-day visit to Washington this week, there was a clear message that President Barack Obama expects Germany to demonstrate leadership with NATO and in Europe. Considering the context — Tuesday's love fest on the White House lawn — Obama was outspoken in urging his guest to take more responsibility in Libya, saying that he expected full and ...

On paper, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for United Nations ambassador has much in common with another boundary-breaking, African-American, Stanford-affiliated, female foreign policy expert with the same surname. But the similarities with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice end there. Susan Rice brings to the U.N. job a career devotion to African affairs and eight years of experience in the Clinton administration. Fast Facts: • Age 44, Rice is married to Canadian journalist Ian Cameron, executive producer of ABC's This Week ...

For the first two years of Barack Obama's presidency, Mitch McConnell never got a phone call from the White House. Instead, he sat in his office on the second floor of the Capitol and plotted Obama's political demise. Now, ask the Senate Republican leader when he last spoke to Vice President Joe Biden, and he lets out a laugh, his golden presidential-seal cuff links — a gift from George W. Bush — flashing as his hands go ...

If the U.S. economy had leaped from its worst five-month stretch in recent history to a record-breaking surge, Barack Obama could proudly announce, "The Great Recession is over." The country's finances have seen no such dramatic upturn, but in the movie business they're singing "Happy Days Are Here Again." The Hollywood hills are alive with the sound of money, and on this holiday weekend the cash registers were caroling with the top Memorial Day frame ever. Moviegoers ...

President Barack Obama does not like to get angry. His equanimity is his pride, and he rarely uses the bully pulpit of the Presidency for explicit criticism. But on Friday morning, Obama directed a rare showing of public pique toward the energy giant BP and the other companies involved with the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill — Transocean and Halliburton — each of which has dodged responsibility for the accident by repeatedly blaming the others, a pattern ...

Of all the petty annoyances, misdemeanors and felonies of public life, there is none that Barack Obama detests more than to have his words twisted or oversimplified. It is a big part of his frustration with the media; it is a bigger part of his disdain for the talk-show wing of the Republican Party. And so it wasnt hard to imagine smoke jetting from the Presidents ears as Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, willfully misinterpreted ...