In his first State of the Union address, President Obama declared that he would work to "finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are." Though a June 2009 Gallup poll showed that 69% of Americans support allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military, repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" will take more than a declaration — it will take an act of Congress. ...

If Barack Obama had not chosen a life in politics, he might have made a fine psychotherapist. He is a master at taking what you've told him and feeding it right back. What I hear you saying is ... Open his book The Audacity of Hope to almost any page and listen. On immigration, for example, Obama first mirrors "the faces of this new America" he has met in the ethnic stew pot of Chicago: "in the ...

On the streets of Guangzhou and nearby Shenzhen, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo is turning heads. Since holding a press conference for his semiautobiographical Nairobi to Shenzhen: A Novel of Love in the East on Nov. 4, Ndesandjo, a half brother of U.S. President Barack Obama, has appeared on television in Hong Kong, and his picture has been splashed on the front pages of China Daily, the South China Morning Post and other regional newspapers. Ndesandjo had ...

It was fateful that Paul Ryan released his budget plan the same week Barack Obama launched his re-election campaign — because we will now see what matters most to Obama. The President has talked passionately and consistently about the need to tackle the country's problems, act like grownups, do the hard things and win the future. But he has also skipped every opportunity to say how he'd tackle the gigantic problem of entitlements. Ryan's plan is deeply ...

Barack Obama's speech on Libya last night was a curious beast — both ambitious and cautious at once. The president surprised Washington by articulating a big idea about American power. But he may have disappointed Americans by dancing around the challenge that remains in Libya. Obama was clear enough, to be sure, about why he chose to intervene in Libya. With his army outside Benghazi, Obama said, Moammar Gaddafi was prepared to commit "a massacre that would have ...

As Muammar Gaddafi's troops closed in on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi on March 15, President Barack Obama put the fate of the city's 1 million residents in the hands of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. At a meeting of the National Security Council that afternoon, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, leery of another war in the Middle East, told Obama a U.N.-proposed no-fly zone would not stop Gaddafi from taking the town. Rice, participating via video teleconference ...

With growing demands for President Obama to clarify the international mission in Libya and with many calling for the escalation of military force in support of those challenging Muammar Gaddafi's rule, it is crucial to identify and move to the next stage of the intervention in Libya. That stage should not be targeting Gaddafi, which would surely be viewed as tantamount to an attempt at foreign-imposed regime change. That would break the international coalition and congeal support for Gaddafi inside Libya. ...

AIG and U.S. Set Faster, Riskier Exit Path American International Group Inc and the U.S. government agreed on Thursday agreed on a plan that would accelerate the payback of bailout money and could yield a profit for taxpayers but also increase their risk. The plan comes a little over two years after AIG was first rescued with an aid package that ballooned to $182.3 billion. The plan allows the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to be repaid in full and ends ...

Oil drilling in Gulf of Mexico could restart soon Federal authorities who regulate offshore oil drilling will report earlier than scheduled on whether President Obama should lift a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that he imposed after the BP oil spill. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will submit its report on deepwater drilling in the Gulf to Interior Department Secretary Ken Salazar by the end of the week, Bureau Director Michael Bromwich told a national panel ...

Sudan’s Future Is Now, U.S. Envoy Says A day after Sudan’s leader coasted to victory in a fraud-tainted election, a senior Obama administration official defended the vote, and said the United States should turn its attention to getting southern Sudan  ready for its likely future as an independent state. “If we don’t redouble our efforts, and work so hard, we know what the predicted outcome will be: it will be violence,” Maj. Gen. Scott Gration, the administration’s special envoy to Sudan, said ...