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* US diplomat says destroying Qaeda real goal in Afghanistan * Core strategy is to help Afghans take responsibility of their own security LAHORE/WASHINGTON: Taliban can rejoin the “social and political fabric of Afghanistan” if they renounce Al Qaeda, US special envoy Richard Holbrooke said on Tuesday. In an interview with SPIEGEL, Holbrooke said, “Majority of Taliban do not support Mullah Omar’s extreme views and that there is room for them to rejoin the social and political fabric of Afghanistan if they renounce Al Qaeda and reintegrate peacefully into Afghanistan. And that is a major part” of the Unites States...

President Barack Obama will deliver Tuesday's address on Afghanistan policy at 8 p.m. Eastern time from the United States Military Academy at West Point, the White House said Wednesday. The setting allows the commander-in-chief to talk directly to future officers as he announces a troop buildup in the eight-year war.

If you’re feeling queasy, look away now. The New York Times scales new heights of sycophancy in its report of the White House state dinner last night, which by their account was the most charming, imaginative, glittering – yet tasteful! – social event since Jackie Kennedy was Queen of Camelot. Indeed, it may even have surpassed Jackie’s standards, since Barack and Michelle added a deeply appropriate and thoughtful element of multiculturalism to the glamorous proceedings. And the decorative magnolia branches, I’m relieved to report, were “sustainably harvested”. Modern Flourishes at Obamas’ State DinnerBy RACHEL L. SWARNSWASHINGTON — It is an...

Not all revolutions begin in the streets with tanks and guns. Some advance slowly, almost imperceptibly, until a nation is transformed and the public realizes too late that their freedoms are gone. Such is the revolution now taking place in America. The '60s crowd has emerged from the ideological grave and is about to impose on this country a declaration of dependence in the form of government-run health insurance and treatment. It matters not what facts are known about this "coup," because to those from the '60s - whether they lived in that decade or were born later and adopted...

The Office of Personnel Management will be reviewing political appointees who have "burrowed in" to federal career jobs over the past five years, according a memo issued by Director John Berry to all government agencies and executive departments. "Burrowing in" is what Beltway insiders call it when someone who was appointed by say, President George W. Bush, leaves an appointed position to take a career job inside the government. "While political appointees may not be excluded from consideration for federal jobs because of their political affiliation, they must not be given preference or special advantages," Mr. Berry said in his...

President Barack Obama plans to announce in next year's State of the Union address that he wants to focus extensively on cutting the federal deficit in 2010 – and will downplay other new domestic spending beyond jobs programs, according to top aides involved in the planning. The president's plan, which the officials said was under discussion before this month’s Democratic election setbacks, represents both a practical and a political calculation by this White House. On the practical side, Obama has spent more money on new programs in nine months than Bill Clinton did in eight years, pushing the annual deficit...

On a chilly morning, President Obama came to the Rose Garden Friday morning to try to offer reassurance in the wake of both the Fort Hood shootings and dismal economic news, suggesting -- regarding the latter issue -- that he was considering even more economic stimulus measures. (snip) Turning to this morning's news that unemployment has risen to 10.2%, the president also announced that he signed into law a bill that he said "will help grow our economy, save and create new jobs, and provide relief to struggling families and businesses," the need for which was "made clear by the...

At least one Democratic political strategist has gotten a blunt warning from the White House to never appear on Fox News Channel, an outlet that presidential aides have depicted as not so much a news-gathering operation as a political opponent bent on damaging the Obama administration. Political consultants are a staple of cable television talk shows, analyzing current events based on their own experiences working on campaigns or in government. One Democratic strategist said that shortly after an appearance on Fox he got a phone call from a White House official telling him not to be a guest on the...

It is no coincidence that Barack Obama held a key campaign rally last year in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring Germans, as though he were running for Mayor of Berlin. Obama remains in many ways a quintessentially European politician, a firm believer in big government, large-scale state intervention, social liberalism, supranational institutions, and the projection of soft power abroad. His political philosophy is frequently more attuned to Brussels or Strasbourg than it is to Washington. For a host of reasons however, President Obama is increasingly viewed by his natural allies in Europe- the left-wing intelligentsia in particular –...

For the past nine months, the Obama team has waged a campaign of political convenience against lobbyists. Its policies against so-called special interests include: a refusal to accept lobbyists' campaign contributions, a ban on employing lobbyists within the administration, discouraging lobbyists' contact with government workers, new rules that will result in the public disclosure of every lobbyist who visits the White House, and a directive to exclude lobbyists from serving on department and federal agency boards and commissions. All of this is meant to give the impression of purity. But this is illusory. At the same time that the White...

Just 14% of U.S. voters say Hillary Clinton would be doing a worse job as president than Barack Obama if she had won last year’s Democratic presidential nomination. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 27% of voters think Clinton would be doing a better job as president while 49% say she would be performing about the same. Democrats who think things would be different with Clinton are evenly divided between whether they’d be better or worse. Republicans and unaffiliated voters who think things would be different tend to believe Clinton would have done a better job as...

Valerie Jarrett announced the other day that "we're going to speak truth to power." Who's Valerie Jarrett? She's "senior adviser" to the president of the United States - i.e., the leader of the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth. You would think the most powerful man in the most powerful nation would have a hard job finding anyone on the planet to whom to speak truth to power. But I suppose if you're as eager to do so as his senior adviser, there's always somebody out there: The supreme leader of Iran. The prime minister of Belgium....

While President Barack Obama still faces stiff headwinds on a range of major legislation on his agenda, he has been signing into law a slew of smaller initiatives that had gathered dust on the Democratic wish list for years. Many of the bills had been blocked by Republicans who considered the measures unnecessary expansions of government or too costly. But facing Democratic majorities in Congress, conservatives are picking their battles and in many cases letting the legislation roll through. Last week, Mr. Obama signed defense-policy legislation that included an unrelated measure widening federal hate-crimes laws to cover sexual orientation and...

White House senior adviser David Axelrod shot back on Sunday to scathing criticism by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. “It is a surreal day when you are getting lectures on humility by Rush Limbaugh,” Axelrod said on CBS’s "Face The Nation." “He is an entertainer. The president has to run the country.” Limbaugh called Obama “immature, inexperienced,” “narcissistic,” and “a child,” on "Fox News Sunday." He also accused President Barack Obama of “destroying” the economy, pursuing an “unconstitutional” health care reform plan, and “not caring” about the war in Afghanistan, in the Fox interview. “It’s no surprise that Rush Limbaugh...

States that allow gay marriage can't force the federal government to provide benefits to those couples, the Obama administration argued Friday in court papers in a lawsuit by Massachusetts. The Justice Department is at odds with Massachusetts - the first state to allow gay marriage - over a 1996 federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Massachusetts sued in July, saying that law is discriminatory and deprives gay couples in the state of some federal spousal benefits. The Obama administration agrees the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is discriminatory and wants it repealed,...

National liberal groups are pressing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to act on one of President Barack Obama’s most controversial nominees. Nearly 40 organizations have called on Reid to schedule a vote on Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s pick to lead the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which is tasked with providing legal advice to the president. Several members of this coalition are frustrated that Johnsen’s nomination has languished in the Senate for nearly eight months despite Democrats’ control of 60 seats. Johnsen has run into strong Republican opposition because of her statements on sensitive political issues ranging from abortion...

The Obama administration is trying to strong-arm America’s colleges and universities into complying with a bill that hasn’t been signed into law yet. The bill, which would replace current subsidized-student-loan programs with a government-run system, passed the House last month, but its fate in the Senate is far from clear. Sen. Tom Harkin, chairman of the Education Committee, plans to use the budget-reconciliation process to pass the contentious bill with a simple majority, but The Hill newspaper reports that it might not even have 51 votes. The bill is far from a fait accompli, making the administration’s pressure campaign all...

The Federal Election Commission has presented the Obama administration with the choice between standing behind President Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric or possibly threatening one of his pet causes – and maybe his reelection chances, not to mention highlighting his differences with his own lawyer, rumored to be under consideration for a top White House post. For all this, Obama can thank the FEC, the independent panel charged with overseeing campaign cash, and its partisan vote last week not to appeal a sprawling federal court ruling that could uncork a new wave of election spending by outside groups that some predict...

President Barack Obama has been in office just nine months and already he is defending his legacy, pushing back more aggressively against criticism of his record on health care, climate change, closing Guantanamo, reforming immigration laws and financial regulations and managing the war in Afghanistan. For the past two weeks, as he’s jetted across the country to fill Democrats’ 2010 coffers, Obama has been test driving a new speech that sounds a lot like one he’d be giving if he were on the ballot next year: A line-item defense of his record so far, and a sober reminder to supporters...

Allow me to take a card from President Barack Obama’s playbook and recant a former message. No, not that former President George W. Bush is the source of all things going wrong, including the Chicago Bears and Cubs being awful sports teams, European antagonism and the swine flu. The message I wish to repeat is Obama’s presidency so far has been a failed one. First let us consider that apparently this H1N1 situation is a national emergency. Yet the administration has failed to present any evidence to back this announcement. Their buddies in the media can do nothing but repeat...

The mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki invited President Barack Obama on Tuesday to visit the two cities hit by American nuclear weapons ... ... during the Second World War, AP reports. AP: "The two cities' mayors formally invited Obama on Tuesday to visit sometime before next May, but U.S. officials say it is highly unlikely he will travel to either city during his Nov. 12-13 visit to Tokyo. "An April speech Obama gave in Prague calling for a world free of nuclear weapons raised expectations, and winning the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month heightened them further. "'Many of the...

When Gunnery Sgt. Marcus Hyman was told he’d get to sit down with Barack Obama on Monday, the Marine knew what he wanted to find out: What’s the president’s plan for Afghanistan? Obama didn’t go into great detail answering Hyman, the young man said after their chat, but the future of the faltering war was clearly on the president’s mind during his afternoon visit to Jacksonville Naval Air Station. (snip) Not everyone in the audience was as excited — some sailors said they were upset about being ordered to come — but for many, the speech was a unique opportunity.

Memo to the White House political smart guys: It’s not that the body isn’t cold yet; it’s that the body is not even dead yet. There will be plenty of time after the election for you to explain that Creigh Deeds’s loss in Virginia had nothing to do with the president’s 25-point drop in job approval. It had nothing to do with the fact that a majority of Americans in every survey disapprove of the policies the president is advocating. Nothing to do with the 4.2 million jobs lost since Inauguration Day. Nothing to do with the 36 percent rise...

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) is drawing criticism from his congressional colleagues, but President Obama offered him some warm words at a Miami fundraiser for the Democratic congressional campaign committees last night. Obama, in introducing the members of Congress in attendance, called Grayson – along with Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Kendrick Meek – as “outstanding members of Congress.” Obama may regret his praise of Grayson, who is now drawing fire from members in both parties for referring to Linda Robertson, the adviser to Obama’s Fed Chief Ben Bernanke as a “K Street whore” in a radio interview last month. And...

(snip) Officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development have commissioned the first-ever national study of housing discrimination on the basis of sexuality and have expanded the definition of a "family" to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals. HUD said a new rule clarifying what is considered a "family" is needed to ensure subsidized housing is available to all families, "regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity." "The evidence is clear that some are denied the opportunity to make housing choices in our nation based on who they are, and that must end," HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said....

President Barack Obama will announce a $3.4 billion investment of stimulus funds to modernize the electric grid at an event in Arcadia, Fla., Tuesday, administration officials said. One-hundred private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and others will receive grants of between $400,000 and $200 million to help build a nationwide "smart energy grid" that will cut costs for consumers and make the nation's electrical system more reliable. The grants are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs - the administration did not say exactly how many - and also lay down the infrastructure to create a new renewable energy industry,...

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. --...

While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama said his cap-and-trade tax plans would "bankrupt" anyone building a coal-fired power plant. Although those taxes haven't materialized, the Environmental Protection Agency has put the brakes on 79 surface mining permits in four states since he was elected. The EPA says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. But the agency went even further last week, announcing plans to revoke a permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia - a move that has caused anxiety among coal-state Democrats about the future of the...

We asked Terry O'Neill, the new president of the National Organization for Women, what she thought of those Democratic women and others quietly complaining about a "boy's club" atmosphere at the White House, as exemplified by the president playing basketball earlier this month with 11 members of Congress and four Cabinet Secretaries -- all men. As the New York Times and cable news chatter looked at whether the Obama White House is too fratty yesterday, President Obama brought along a woman golf partner for the first time in his 24 golf outings as president, domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes. Is...

A top White House economic adviser will make the case for healthcare reform this afternoon while taking shots at Bush administration policies. In a speech to the liberal Center for American Progress, Christina Romer, Director of the Council of Economic Advisers, will argue that the actions of the Bush administration--and not stimulus spending--were largely responsible for the current deficit. According to excerpts released by the White House, Romer will cite a study concluding that "roughly half of the long-run deficit is due to the policy actions of the past 8 years," while "just 3 percent of the long-run fiscal problem...

Roughly $211 billion separates what the country owes and its self-imposed credit limit. And by Friday, after another week of massive debt sales by the Treasury Department, that gap will likely have narrowed considerably. It is now expected that the $12.104 trillion debt ceiling could be breached by the end of November. It is also expected that lawmakers will raise the ceiling, as they have done more than 90 times since 1940 -- eight of them since 2002. If they don't, the government could be forced to shut down. But that's not the worst that could happen. In fact, the...

BRATISLAVA - Corruption, doubts over Afghan leadership and faltering public support have emerged as the main stumbling blocks to a demand for more North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops in Afghanistan. NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, had wanted NATO defense ministers meeting in the Slovakian capital of Bratislava on Thursday and Friday last week to agree to raise troop numbers in Afghanistan. The United States and NATO troops commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has asked for 40,000 more troops. Rasmussen made energetic appeals to NATO states to endorse the general's plan, which also calls for a shift in...

A month into reviewing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, President Obama appears to be operating in an increasingly narrowing space between reality on the ground in Afghanistan, and political camps in Washington, with pressure closing in from all sides. Leading one camp is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is urging the president to make a decision on strategy in Afghanistan as soon as possible, and follow the recommendations laid out by Gen. Stanley McChrystal in his Aug. 30 assessment on how to succeed in Afghanistan, (snip) On the other side is Vice President Joe Biden, who reportedly favors a counterterrorism strategy...

The Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel headline for Sunday, October 25th screams:  "Swine flu a national emergency." Oh, really. Looks like President Obama has gone ahead and declared that the swine flu outbreak is indeed a national emergency.  And we know that Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel,  has stated in the past that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."   Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius now has more power and authority to bypass federal rules regarding the operations of hospitals and alternative care sites.   And the government has taken another step towards grabbing more power in controlling the population of America because of Obama's...

A great week for Glenn Beck show and FNC. Not so great for the Obama attack machine and democrats. Clip 1 : Glenn Beck Clips 10-23-09 Seg1- GREAT! Running America the Chicago Way, Mafia & Baseball Bats Welcome to the Glenn Beck program. Tonight here are the question we are going to talk about : Chicago type lessons and are they being applied ? And who is going to whacked, and why ?.... It's the Chicago way. If you don't know what that is let me play you a scene from the movie ‘The Untouchables.’ (Plays clip of Sean Connery...

This past week showed us why modern liberalism poses such a grave threat to the United States of America as we know it. It's not because liberals want a strong, secure social safety net for the poorer among us. The truth is, we should have a strong, secure social safety net for the poor, and we should end corporate welfare to help pay for it. No, it's not that. It's not because they want peace and love. Don't we all? So hail to Peter, Paul and Mary, I swear it's not too late. No, it's not that. It's not because...

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor is criticizing the White House’s strategy of targeting Fox News as “not the American way.” “When you have the White House focusing on one news outlet, it is a little strange. We believe in free press and freedom of speech in this country,” Cantor said Thursday night during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “Why would the White House choose to go after its critics instead of trying to bring people together?” the Virginia Republican asked. “After all, this president ran on trying to unite this country, trying to bridge the differences so...

Gun Rights: A decade after Congress forbade the CDC from studying the health consequences of gun ownership, the National Institutes of Health has started funding such research. Will reform pry the guns from our cold, sick hands? More than a decade ago Congress, seeing it as a backdoor assault on the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, voted to cut funding for firearms research by the Centers for Disease Control. Such research was viewed as one-sided and based on flawed assumptions that all gun use was bad, even that which saved lives and deterred crime. The...

Last night, former Vice president Cheney had some harsh comments about President Obama’s decision making process about strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying "the White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger." At this afternoon’s briefing, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs fired back. “It's a curious comment,” Gibbs said, arguing that “the vice president was for seven years not focused on Afghanistan. Even more curious given the fact that an increase in troops sat on desks in this White House, including the vice president's, for more than eight months, a resource request filled by President...

Under fire for its management of a wave of problems, the Obama administration has reached into its bag of tricks and pulled out a new bogeyman: Fox News. Given the seriousness of the challenges our nation faces, the administration’s ploy to delegitimize Fox is nothing more than a distraction. On Sunday, the White House communications director charged that Fox is not a real “news network.” Why? Because the White House says so. The administration repeatedly accuses Fox of lies and has urged the rest of the media not to treat it like a news organization. The White House is so...

The Senate must soon increase the national debt limit to above $13 trillion — and Democrats are looking for political cover. Knowing they will face unyielding GOP attacks for voting to increase the eye-popping debt, Democrats are considering attaching a debt increase provision to a must-pass bill, possibly the Defense Department spending bill, according to Democratic and Republican sources. Adding it to the defense bill would allow Democrats to argue that they voted for the measure to help troops in harm’s way — and downplay that their vote also expanded the limit for how much money the country can borrow....

You'd think the leader of the free world would have more important things to worry about. We are, after all, in the midst of a recession, two wars and a swine flu epidemic. Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons. Russia is rebuffing our overtures to cooperate in imposing sanctions on Iran. The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating amid a fraud-marred election and White House indecision about a troop surge. Meanwhile, the dollar's value is falling; Americans are struggling to hold on to their homes and jobs and Congress is flirting with a health care reform proposal that...

As a little-known Minneapolis police sergeant, Sharon Lubinski made headlines when she declared she was a lesbian on the front pages of the city's largest newspaper — a bold move that other gay officers say inspired them to come out, too. More than a decade later, Lubinski could become the first openly gay U.S. marshal after President Barack Obama nominated the 57-year-old assistant police chief to one of the country's top law enforcement jobs last week. Though some gay rights activists have criticized the nomination as nothing more than a symbolic gesture from a president they say has lagged behind...

First Amendment: Diversity czar Mark Lloyd's FCC votes Thursday on the issue of net neutrality. Advertised as providing access to all, it will do to the information superhighway what Lloyd proposed for talk radio. Not much was said when $7.2 billion was included in the stimulus bill "to accelerate broadband deployment in unserved and underserved areas and to strategic institutions that are likely to create jobs or provide significant public benefits." The administration has big plans for the Internet — like controlling it. Susan Crawford, the so-called Internet czar, told the Wall Street Journal in April that the broadband billions...

During the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency, the left constantly told us that "dissent is the highest form of patriotism." During the Obama presidency, dissent is routinely considered the lowest form of treachery. Candidate Barack Obama promised to be a "new kind" of leader who would welcome vigorous debate and listen to all opinions. As president, however, he has shown a disturbing intolerance for any viewpoint other than his own. Rather than his promised post-partisan open-mindedness, his White House is using its power to try to smear and delegitimize those who oppose its agenda. With Orwellian coldness...

Malmstom Air Force Base says it has completed the full deactivation of 50 missile launch facilities for Malmstrom Air Force Base's 564th Missile Squadron after two years of work. A maintenance group put in more than 29,000 hours to remove all the major equipment and components from the 50 launch facilities, or silos, as well as the five missile alert facilities that controlled them. Top military officials determined in early 2006 that it was no longer strategically necessary to keep 500 intercontinental ballistic missiles on alert nationwide. The Air Force chose to deactivate the 564th, which lay northwest of Great...

On Tuesday, Matt Drudge ran a headline about the weakening U.S. dollar on his website, Drudgereport.com. In and of itself, that would be unremarkable, except that it was the 18th time Drudge had posted a link to a story about the weak dollar this month. And October was only 20 days old. Clearly, Matt Drudge has developed a fascination with the declining U.S. dollar. “He’s fixated on it,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. “There’s no question that Drudge can alter what people are paying attention to.” Market watchers say it’s unlikely...

On three fronts -- South Korean trade, Ukrainian/Russian diplomacy and Afghan war fighting -- the Obama administration is being increasingly pressured by unfolding events to shed ideology and rationalizations and come quickly to a realistic analysis of world events and their consequences. In each of these cases, in the absence of very prompt United States policy decisions and actions, we shall incur long-term irreversible economic, geopolitical or national security harm. I will discuss the Afghan war decision in a future column.

It's war! A rumble in Washington. Two titanic political forces locked in a bloody battle to the very end. A confrontation between good and evil. A clash of civilizations. Of course, I'm talking about the scuffle between the White House and Fox News. I'm watching this fight as no disinterested observer. For years I was a rare commodity: a liberal commentator on Fox News. I enjoyed working with the bookers and producers at Fox's Washington bureau. But the place often felt like a foreign territory. On air, I was always the visiting team. The routine usually went something like this:...

This is the first of a two-part look at the marginalization of the GOP. Tomorrow: GOP officials fear that the party's image is being defined increasingly by boisterous conservative commentators. President Obama is working systematically to marginalize the most powerful forces behind the Republican Party, setting loose top White House officials to undermine conservatives in the media, business and lobbying worlds.  With a series of private meetings and public taunts, the White House has targeted the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest-spending pro-business lobbying group in the country; Rush Limbaugh, the country’s most-listened-to conservative commentator; and now, with a new...