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It looks like the Obama administration has finally found a home for the 17 Uighurs detained at Gitmo. According to the Associated Press, the small Pacific Island of Palau is reportedly taking all 17 Uighurs in exchange for $200 million. If true, this raises a few obvious observations and questions. First, it says much about how poorly the effort to close Gitmo is going that no nation, other than an island resort nation that is heavily dependent on aid from the U.S., is willing to take the Uighurs. The Obama administration considered the Uighurs the easiest bunch of detainees to...

The president of the United States has completed another outing abroad in his now standard form: as the un-Bush. At one stop after another -- the latest in Latin America, where Hugo Chávez expressed wishes to be his friend -- Barack Obama fulfilled his campaign vows to show the nations of the world that a new American leadership stood ready to atone for the transgressions of the old. All went as expected in these travels, not counting certain unforeseen results of that triumphal European tour. The images of that trip, in which Mr. Obama dazzled ecstatic Europeans with citations of...

Today the Obama administration unveiled what it promised would be the last "emergency," "supplemental" spending bill to cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The total of $83.4 billion is supposed to pay for the two wars for the rest of the fiscal year. The President is using the emergency request as an excuse to slip money to North Korea and the Palestinians. Included within that $83.4 Billion is over $800 million for the West Bank and Gaza and $95 Million for North Korea and another $45 Million for Zimbabwe. Maybe I'm missing something but didn't North Korea just launched...

President Obama told Californians during a campaign-style town hall meeting on Wednesday that rich people can afford to pay higher taxes in selling his budget plan as an investment in the nation's future. Mr. Obama pushed back on people who say he is overtaxing the nation, saying his tax increases on families earning $250,000 or more a year are reverting to the tax system under former President Bill Clinton. The president added he will pay higher taxes himself as a result. "These folks can afford it. They were rich back in the '90s," he said. "It's not like suddenly they're...

COSTA MESA, Calif. – President Barack Obama said Wednesday he still supports "comprehensive immigration reform," even though he rarely mentions it anymore. Asked about the emotional and politically delicate topic at a town hall format in Southern California, the president said the nation must find a way to strengthen its borders while also giving about 12 million illegal immigrants a path to possible citizenship. "If they stay in the shadows," he said, some employers will exploit them, hurting wages and work conditions for all American workers. Obama said illegal residents who have been in the United States a long time...

The furor over the huge federal spending under President Obama — a $1.75 trillion deficit — obscures an even more basic question: Does he know what he is doing? That is, Does he know how to do anything other than spend? His stimulus package, of course, took no special ability: He left the details to Democrats in Congress. But his two other major initiatives, banking and mortgage-relief plans, are both flawed and unlikely to solve their respective problems. Indeed, they're so wide of the mark as to prompt questions not of Obama's ideology but of his basic competence. The bank-bailout...

The Obama administration is highly critical over the recent AIG executive bonuses controversy. The administration is once again trying to blame the Bush Administration for its faulty bailout which enables AIG to pay out such bonuses using tax-payer funds. Reality Check: Obama and his administration need to look in the mirror! Last fall, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner not only consulted with then-Secretary Hank Paulson, it was Geithner, not Paulson, who put together the original rescue plan for the American International Group (AIG)!

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, "Do you think they know what they're doing?" The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts. Yes, it's early, but an eerily familiar feeling is spreading across party lines and seeping into the national conversation. It's a nagging doubt about the competency of the White House. It was during George W. Bush's...

President won’t budge on veteran insurance proposal March 16th, 2009 Regular readers will remember the exchange I wrote about last week in which Eric Shinseki the new VA director proposed a system to force veterans to buy insurance to treat their service-connected injuries from a Stars and Stripes article; The administration is considering charging veterans’ health insurance plans earned through civilian employment for VA’s costs in treating service-connected injuries or ailments.The VA already taps “third party” insurance plans for treatment of non-service-related conditions. Collections in fiscal 2008 totaled $2.4 billion. The VA expects to collect $2.5 billion this year. The...

Surfer that he is, President Obama should know a riptide when he's in one. The center usually is the safest, most productive place in politics, but perhaps not now, not in a once-in-a-century economic crisis. Swimming in the middle, he's denounced as a socialist by conservatives, criticized as a polite accommodationist by government-is-the-answer liberals, and increasingly, dismissed as being in over his head by technocrats. Luckily for Obama, the public still likes and trusts him, at least judging by the latest polls, including NEWSWEEK's.But, in ways both large and small, what's left of the American establishment is taking his measure...

Afghanistan's Taliban on Tuesday turned down as illogical U.S. President Barack Obama's bid to reach out to moderate elements of the insurgents, saying the exit of foreign troops was the only solution for ending the war.snip"The Taliban are united, have one leader, one aim, one policy...I do not know why they are talking about moderate Taliban and what it means?," "If it means those who are not fighting and are sitting in their homes, then talking to them is meaningless. This really is surprising the Taliban."

There's such a thing as a contradiction in terms: Obama's "adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined" while preaching the message of "fiscal responsibility" certainly qualifies. Hence "Obama budget" and "fiscal responsibility" is oxymoronic. Another terrific new oxymoron that Obama has added to the lexicon is "moderate Taliban": NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is open to the idea of reaching out to moderate elements of the Taliban, The New York Times reported on Saturday. "Moderate elements of the Taliban"? Did FDR reach out to "moderate Nazis"?...

The New York Times reports that during an interview Friday, President Barack Obama indicated he is considering negotiations with some elements of the Taliban. Outwardly, the concept of America negotiating with barbarians seems absurd. Remember the brutal atrocities committed by the Taliban in Afghanistan under Mullah Mohammad Omar?Perhaps the insurgents collectively known as 'Taliban' in Afghanistan and Pakistan need closer examination. Perhaps these are not the same Taliban as the ones Mohammad Omar once ruled (he reportedly resides just across the border in Quetta, Pakistan).

The United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan and there may be opportunities to reach out to moderates in the Taliban, U.S. President Barack Obama has told the New York Times. In an interview done Friday and published Sunday, Obama pointed to the success in peeling Iraqi insurgents away from hardliners in al-Qaeda in Iraq. In recent years, U.S. troops persuaded Sunni Muslim insurgents there to co-operate in some instances because they had been alienated by the tactics of al-Qaeda terrorists. "There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and in the Pakistani region," Obama said. "But the...

President Obama conceded today that the US was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the way for negotiations with moderate elements of the Taleban, much as America did with Sunni tribes in Iraq. The new strategy, which comes as Mr Obama prepares to send an additional 17,000 US troops into Afghanistan, emerged after a frenetic 48 hours of American diplomacy in the region involving new overtures to Iran, Russia and the Muslim world. The fresh approach to Tehran is causing significant concern in Israel and the Arab world over fears that Mr Obama is making too many concessions...

[excerpt. And see video of Obama without a teleprompter] Say what? Turns out President Obama, a man whose soaring oratory won him an election, is hapless and helpless without his Teleprompter. He refuses to give a speech without one (see accompanying video to see why). The ol’ teleprompter broke down a few times on the campaign trail last summer and Obama responded by delivering some “less than ordinary” speeches.

Being President sure is hard. Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been “overwhelmed” by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest. Unfortunately for us, this is President Hussein’s first actual job. No wonder he’s so stressed and sleep-deprived. Perhaps he’s spent too much time building that frame for Henrietta Hughes’ new house. But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama’s inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama says he hopes U.S. troops can identify moderate elements of the Taliban and move them toward reconciliation. Asked in an interview with The New York Times if the United States is winning in Afghanistan, Obama said "no," while adding "our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult situation."

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama says he hopes U.S. troops can identify moderate elements of the Taliban and move them toward reconciliation. Asked in an interview with The New York Times if the United States is winning in Afghanistan, Obama said "no," while adding "our troops are doing an extraordinary job in a very difficult situation." "But you've seen conditions deteriorate over the last couple of years. The Taliban is bolder than it was. I think ... in the southern regions of the country, you're seeing them attack in ways that we have not seen previously," Obama said in...