Presidents, like normal people, tend to seek in others what they admire about themselves. Which brings us to the par-5 12th hole at Woodlawn golf course in Fort Belvoir, Va., on Father's Day. Vice President Joe Biden, an 8 handicap, has leaked a 3-wood into the trees near the green. He stands amid the underbrush, talking with his match-play teammate, the President of the United States. Take a drop or risk the trees A few inches off either ...

Insurance companies have always been an effective villain in the health-care reform debate, but this year the industry thought things might be different. Recognizing the growing sentiment for some kind of change and fully aware that universal coverage would help bulk up their rolls as baby boomers age into the Medicare system, private insurers early on declared their support for President Obama's health reform effort. So when word came last month that the Democrats were drawing up a ...

The release of a report that would free up more than $100 million in U.S. aid to Mexico to combat drug cartels has been delayed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont. Mexico has not met all of the conditions for aid, specifically the prosecution of police and military officers who violate human rights, Leahy said in a statement released Wednesday. The money in question is part of the Merida Initiative, a $1.4 billion, three-year program, aimed at fighting drug cartels that ...

Former U.S. Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana was convicted Wednesday on 11 of the 16 corruption charges against him. Jefferson, a 62-year-old Democrat, was indicted by a federal grand jury on June 4, 2007, on corruption charges, about two years after federal agents said they found $90,000 in his freezer. Authorities said the cash was part of a payment in marked bills from an FBI informant in a transaction captured on video. Jefferson had pleaded not guilty. The jury convicted ...

Democrats are accusing Republicans of organizing "angry mobs" to disrupt town hall meetings across the country, but conservatives say the protests are a sign of the opposition to President Obama's health care plans. The Democratic National Committee released a Web video Wednesday charging that Republican operatives "have no plan for moving our country forward, so they've called out the mob." The video shows footage of angry constituents and protesters at recent events and then flashes pictures of Senate Minority Leader ...

To be a young person and a conservative is such a rare combination these days it approaches an act of defiance. Voters in their teens and 20s backed President Obama by a 2-to-1 ratio over John McCain last year, amid a flood of support from musicians, movie stars and other youth icons. Late-night TV hosts lampoon Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney as punchlines while MTV throws support to left-leaning causes such as gay marriage. But hundreds of young people ...

Republican politicians and human-rights activists rarely agree on how to treat terrorist suspects, but they are unwitting allies in opposition to the Obama Administration's latest proposal: the creation of a special facility in the continental U.S. where Gitmo inmates could be detained, tried and imprisoned. President Obama's interagency task force on detention policy is considering such a plan, and the most likely locations are the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kans., and a soon-to-close maximum-security prison in Standish, ...

Authorities have identified what is believed to be the wreckage of a Merpati Nusantara Airlines plane that disappeared shortly after takeoff in eastern Indonesia over the weekend. The three were arrested in the western Iranian city of Marivan, the deputy governor of Kurdistan province, Iraj Hassanzadeh, told the Fars News Agency. Earlier, Swiss diplomats in Iran and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington had urged Iran to provide information on the hikers. "Obviously, we are concerned," she said. ...

Swiss diplomats are trying to meet with three American hikers being held in Iran, the Swiss Embassy in Tehran said Monday. The embassy would not say whether Iranian authorities had responded to their request or if diplomats had met the Americans. Four American friends -- seasoned travelers -- were hiking through Iraq's Kurdistan region last week before three of them crossed the unmarked border with Iran, where Iranian authorities detained them. Kurdish officials identified the hikers as Shane ...

As the House and Senate prepare to embark on their summer recess without having passed any health-care-reform bills, President Obama's dreams of radically restructuring the system have, at least for now, bumped up against the reality of Washington politics. But even if Congress manages to overcome the many obstacles and pass some kind of meaningful reform this fall, the goal of covering some 50 million currently uninsured Americans will encounter a whole new range of hurdles. Chief among them ...