President Obama attended a fundraiser in New York Thursday night with one of the most important factions of his big money base: Gay donors. With gay marriage headed toward legalization in New York state, the issue of Obama’s …
Barack Obama
Cheney’s Lawyer Gives Obama Advice on War Powers
House Speaker John Boehner has joined forces in an odd coalition with the left to declare President Obama’s continued military action in Libya a dangerous and potentially unconstitutional power grab because Obama failed to …
The Libya Conundrum
The House of Representatives on Friday is expected to hold two votes on U.S. action in Libya. One will fail and one will pass. House GOP leaders are hoping that the Democratic-controlled Senate will take up the one that passes. …
The Risk for Obama in Afghanistan
War supporter Robert Kagan posits it:
If the war is going badly in the summer and fall of 2012, it will be because of the decision the president made this week. Everyone will know he did it against the advice of his commanders. Everyone will know he did it for political reasons. So if the war is going badly a year from now, whom do you
…
Republicans Ask: Where’s Obama? But, Where Are The GOP Leaders?
Updated 12:30pm
Republicans are demanding to know why President Obama isn’t at the table pin the deficit talks. Today, Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, and Majority Leader Eric Cantor abruptly withdrew from the talks saying they have gone as far as they can and now presidential leadership is needed – particularly on the …
Al Gore Attacks President Obama for Failing to Do Al Gore’s Job
Al Gore takes some shots at President Obama in a new Rolling Stone essay, grumbling that he has “thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change.” Wait: Isn’t that Al Gore’s job? The president’s job is the action, not the case-making. And while I don’t plan to spend all my time …
The Outlook in Afghanistan
On our sister blog Battleland, TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson has a bracing take on the drawdown strategy for Afghanistan that President Obama articulated Wednesday night. As Mark writes:
Obama’s decision simply locks into place a U.S. drawdown that may doom all that has been achieved in Afghanistan over the past decade.
…
Selling a New Stimulus
While Mitch McConnell is betting that the economy will bring down President Obama, Democrats are betting that Republicans aren’t immune to the bad jobs numbers either.
Senate Democratic leaders held a press conference this morning calling on Republicans to include a short-term stimulus package as part of the deficit reduction deal. …
McConnell: Obama Has ‘Made It Worse’
Last month, for this story in the dead-tree edition, I asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell if defeating President Obama is still his No. 1 priority. “Yeah, sure. I think every Republican in the country would like to elect a Republican president,” McConnell told me. “But that’s next year. The question this year is: what …
What to Look For in Obama’s Speech
As esteemed Swampland alum Mark Thompson explains, the devil is in the details:
The outlines seem clear: Obama will declare some kind of success tonight and call for the 30,000 troops he sent into Afghanistan as a “surge” force over the last 18 months to come home by the end of next year. The key question is when: will they come home
…
In the ArenaAfghanistan
Afghanistan Speech Preview
It now seems likely that President Obama will take a modest course on withdrawal from Afghanistan, with the consensus guess that he’ll withdraw 30,000 troops by the end of the 2012 fighting season. I had hoped for a larger draw …
Reading The Afghan Draw Down Tea Leaves
President Obama spent weeks in 2009 developing an Afghan battle plan that could win consensus from his senior generals. The centerpiece was a pledge to begin drawing down troops in July 2011. But it was never clear that Obama would be able to keep the consensus as that date approached. From the beginning, many in the Pentagon, including …
Could Congress Cut Off Funding to Libyan Conflict?
Don’t hold your breath, our colleague Mark Benjamin writes at TIME’s Battleland blog. The House appears poised to vote on an amendment to a defense appropriations bill that would cut off funding to the war non-hostile armed conflict in North Africa. While the measure could find support among the bipartisan cadre of members irked by the …