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Jake Tapper from ABC News asks why Barack Obama "is speaking today about Haiti, for the third time in as many days": White House officials say . . . Haiti is in dire straits. This is a nation that had little to begin with. As opposed to what might be the case had the earthquake struck elsewhere in the hemisphere, Haiti has nearly no ability to deal with this severe crisis on its own.

Late last night, the White House announced that there would be no pool coverage for Sunday, January 10. While the President had no scheduled events this weekend, there was pool coverage yesterday. It could be a mere coincidence, or it could be that the White House is trying to catch its breath before responding to bombshell revelations in the upcoming book Game Change,excerpts of which poured out all day yesterday. President Obama already issued a statement about Harry Reid’s “negro dialect” quote, but even more explosive passages have emerged since. The newest passages from the book to hit Marc Ambinder’s...

On This Week this morning, I noted to White House press secretary Robert Gibbs that there was some deal-making that went on as the health care reform legislation hit the House and especially the Senate -- the kind of deal-making that was one of the reasons that President Obama, then Senator Obama, pledged on the campaign trail that "we'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so the people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who is making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." PolitiFact labeled that a broken promise...

One of the most significant Christmas presents President Obama ever received was a basketball from the father who was largely absent from his life, the president told Oprah Winfrey. This and other Xmas revelations are part of "Christmas at the White House: An Oprah Primetime Special," set to air Sunday night on ABC at 10 p.m. ET. Asked his favorite Christmas gift as a child, the president recalled a 10 speed bike and then said, "I do remember the one time I met my father he was visiting during Christmas and he gave me a basketball and - the degree...

Another Goldman employee marries into the power-borg The former First Daughter and her investment banker boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky became engaged before Thanksgiving, ABC News' Jake Tapper reports. Via Tapper's "Political Punch" blog: The two sent out an email the morning of Friday November 27 saying: "We're sorry for the mass email but we wanted to wish everyone a belated Happy Thanksgiving! We also wanted to share that we are engaged! We didn't get married this past summer despite the stories to the contrary, but we are looking toward next summer and hope you all will be there to celebrate with...

This really takes the cake: “What I think is appropriate is that in the same way that everybody has to get auto insurance and if you don't, you're subject to some penalty, that in this situation, if you have the ability to buy insurance, it's affordable and you choose not to do so, forcing you and me and everybody else to subsidize you, you know, there's a thousand dollar hidden tax that families all across America are -- are burdened by because of the fact that people don't have health insurance, you know, there's nothing wrong with a penalty.” -...

Alternate headline: “Rabidly pro-choice president sides with pro-choicers.” TAPPER: Here’s a question a lot of Senate Democrats want to know. You said, when you gave your joint address to Congress, that under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions. This amendment passed Saturday night which not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public option, but also prohibits women who receive subsidies from taking out plans that — that provide abortion coverage. Does that meet the promise that you set out or does it over reach, does it go too far? OBAMA: You know, I laid out...

Obama said the main message he took from last week’s election results – with Republicans winning gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia – was that Americans are “nervous, and they’re worried and they’re anxious.” “I don't think there's any denying the fact that people are worried out there,” he said in an interview with ABC’s Jake Tapper today. Obama said Democrat Bill Owens victory in the special election in New York’s 23rd congressional district, the one bright spot for the president’s party last Tuesday, “sent an important signal.”

NBC's "The Biggest Loser" is at the White House tonight. This is not a joke.

ABC News fields at least one real reporter. He’s White House correspondent Jake Tapper. Most AT readers, like many Americans, are thoroughly convinced that the legacy media reports with a bias toward Obama and the policies of his administration. So, when a notable exception surfaces, it’s only right that he or she be acknowledged. Jake Tapper has a front row seat at the White House (WH) briefings. He shows all the signs of being a for-real reporter. Here’s visual evidence of that. Remember the cell phone irruption episode back on May 19th during one of Robert Gibbs’ press conferences before...

With Democrats poised to lose the governor's race in Virginia, and to possibly lose the governor's race in New Jersey and a special election for a House seat in New York, the White House has started insisting any pending losses will not have any significance. "Whatever the results are I don't think they portend a lot in dealing with the future," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters on Friday, pointing to the fact that Democrats won the Virginia and New Jersey governors' races in 2001 despite a very popular President Bush, with Republicans picking up seats in Congress...

Here is a video report on ABC's Jake Tapper confronting White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on the White House's decision to attack Fox News as not being a real news organization. Tapper asked Gibbs why they were doing that and what gave them the right to do so. Gibbs eventually said, "That's our opinion." Gibbs made the comment in an "off-camera" White House briefing yesterday. "It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of...

On Tuesday, another prominent media member challenged the White House strategy of attacking the Fox News Channel. This time up at the plate was ABC's Jake Tapper who asked White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs during today's gaggle: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one?

It's tough to imagine this year's Republican National Convention featuring a prime-time speaker who once said that that "Zionism is a kind of poisonous weed that is choking Judaism." Or that he was "sick and tired of hearing about the Holocaust." Or that traditional Democratic support for Israel is because of "the Jewish element in the party ... a kind of glorified form of bribery." And certainly not if he had ever referred to Jews as "Hymies" and New York as "Hymietown." The Rev. Jesse Jackson, of course, has made all of these comments, and more.

President Obama at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation dinner last night, discussing false claims made about the health care reform bill, told a little anecdote. "I was up at the G20 -- just a little aside -- I was up at the G20, and some of you saw those big flags and all the world leaders come in and Michelle and I are shaking hands with them," the president said. "One of the leaders -- I won't mention who it was -- he comes up to me. We take the picture, we go behind. "He says, 'Barack, explain to me...

As we all know, in the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. Last night's episode of television's longest running drama -- NBC's "Law & Order" -- featured District Attorney Jack McCoy prosecuting a John Yoo-esque Bush administration Justice Department attorney for writing a legal memo authorizing the torture of detainees. "Jack, you want to prosecute a member of the Bush administration for assaulting suspected terrorists?" McCoy is asked in the season premiere episode, titled "Memo from the Dark Side."...

A short time ago, President Obama's Justice Department filed a brief in the U.S. District Court in Massachusetts defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defends the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages from other states -- a law President Obama opposes. You can read the brief HERE. Unlike the administration's previous filing in June -- which upset gays and lesbians by seeming to compare the illegitimacy of same sex couples to incestuous couples -- this filing states right off the bat that the president opposes DOMA because it is "discriminatory." "The government’s filing continues to make...

ABC News has learned that President Obama will be meeting with 16 Democratic senators (and one "Independent Democrat") this afternoon at the White House. They are: Senators Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Mark Warner of Virginia, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tom Carper of Delaware, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, Mark Begich of Alaska, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Bill Nelson of Florida, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, and Independent Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.

ABC News’ Rachel Martin and Sunlen Miller Report: President Obama said that on Labor Day it’s time to “reaffirm” the nation’s commitment to rebuild, and declared that the stimulus plan is working. Speaking before the friendly crowd during the annual AFL-CIO Labor Day picnic in Cincinnati Ohio this afternoon, the President said that it’s time to ensure that the middle class remains the backbone of the economy, “not just a vanishing ideal we celebrate a picnics once a year as summer turns to fall.” In rhetoric similar to the campaign trail, the President said this has been is an ideal...

[Title was edited to comply with space requirements. Full, accurate title is: "Controversial Obama Administration Official Denies Being Part of 9/11 "Truther" Movement, Apologizes for Past Comments" A top environmental official of the Obama administration issued a statement Thursday apologizing for past incendiary statement and denying that he ever agreed with a 2004 petition on which his name appears, a petition calling for congressional hearings and an investigation by the New York Attorney General into "evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur." Van Jones, the Special Advisor for Green Jobs at...