A few weeks ago, outgoing White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten gathered nearly a dozen former chiefs of staff in his corner West Wing office and held a courtesy orientation session for Rahm Emanuel, the next man to assume the second hardest job in Washington.
Tag Archives: Barack Obama
President Bush’s Easy Commute
President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence on Monday will fuel speculation that others at the White House helped coordinate the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA officer in 2003. But politically the move makes sense.
The ‘unfathomable’ arrest of a black scholar
Boris Kodjoe owns a mansion in Atlanta. But when he goes to answer his door, the black actor knows what it’s like to be an outcast. “When I’m opening the door of my own house, someone will ask me where the man of the house is, implying that I’m staff,” said Kodjoe, best known for starring in Showtime’s “Soul Food.” It’s a feeling some African-Americans say is all too common, even to this day in America: No matter your status or prominence in society, you’re still typecast
Facebook’s War on Nipples
The breast-feeding wars have long followed a familiar pattern. A woman gets thrown off a plane for nursing her toddler; she sues Delta
Israeli Settlers Versus the Palestinians
In a hilltop suburb South of Jerusalem called Efrat, Sharon Katz serves a neat plate of sliced cake inside her five-bedroom house, surrounded by pomegranate, olive and citrus trees that she planted herself. She glances out the window at the hills where, she believes, David and Abraham once walked. “We are living in the biblical heartland,” she sighs.
Is Secretary Clinton being back-benched?
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers a major foreign policy speech and some Washington political observers ask: "Is she trying to get back in the spotlight?" Since she slipped and broke her elbow last month, the secretary has had to cancel an international trip, and some inside-the-Beltway types are reading the tea leaves. Is it another step in the process of keeping Secretary Clinton from the real foreign policy decision-making in the Obama administration “The Daily Beast’s” Tina Brown writes: “Left behind on major presidential trips, overruled in choosing her own staff — Hillary Clinton is the invisible woman at State.” “It’s time for Barack Obama to let Hillary Clinton take off her burqa,” she said
A Cross-Country Tour to Rewrite the Bible
The bright red words scrolling across the electronic Fox News ticker in New York City high above Mandy Helton Jones demand immediate attention: The Dow is up 102.27 . Barack Obama allegedly lamented some years ago that the Supreme Court hadn’t ventured into wealth redistribution
The Five Pillars of Obama’s Foreign Policy
The introductory phase of Barack Obama’s foreign policy ambitions concluded Saturday before the Ghanaian parliament, when a solo trombonist sounded a few ceremonial notes.
Obama in Ghana Preaches Unity and Action
American leaders usually speak of Africa in the abstract, as a problem in need of solution: a place of epidemic, hunger, genocide or coup d’etat. On Saturday, Barack Obama, the first U.S
Africans reach out to Obama via text messages
The text messages address various issues and come from all over the African continent. From the personal: “Obama, as a young lady I dream of being the president. U r a huge encouragement.” To cries for help: “Dear president, Darfur firing again…waiting for peace through the change u promised.” To calls for intervention: “Encourage African leaders to improve the quality and access to education for citizens.” The messages, from Ghana, Sudan and South Africa respectively, were among more than 5,000 sent to Barack Obama during his first visit as president to sub-Saharan Africa as president