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In an interview with The Times, President Obama opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to elements of the Taliban.

Help me out here folks Could he really be this stupid???? Now Obama has insulted French President Sarkozy! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh no! Obama sent a letter to Chirac, saying he looks forward to working with him the next four years. Le Figaro, French newspaper is horrified at the faux pas. Doesn't Obama ever consult his staff before acting? Sarkozy is the President there! It's like Sarko writing to George Bush and saying he looks forward to working with him. Chirac is the FORMER president. Here is a translation of the letter in Le Figaro: Vendredi 20 mars 2009 OBAMA PREFERS CHIRAC...

*snip* Obama told "60 Minutes" interviewer Steve Kroft that criticism of Geithner is natural and that neither he nor Geithner had mentioned the possibility of a resignation. The president, according to CBS, joked that he wouldn't accept the Treasury chief's resignation even if it were tendered, saying he'd respond, "Sorry, buddy, you've still got the job."

After the United Nations diplomat John Solecki, who had forcefully converted to Islam under the doctrine of the Taliban militants, a Canadian journalist - Beverly Giesbrecht, became the latest Taliban target, with the deadline of March 30 being announced by the militants for her release. Even as the 48-hour deadline for kidnapped United Nations official John Solecki ends, the Taliban has released another hostage video, this time of a Canadian journalist, threatening to behead her by March 30. As Beverly desperately calls out for help, she says, "The timeline is very short and my life is going to end. So...

<p>It looks like it's taking people a long time to get the hint that Meghan McCain is rubber, and they are, in fact, glue. The latest media figure to tangle with Meg? Howard Kurtz, Washington Post reporter, and host of CNN's Reliable Sources.</p>

JERUSALEM (Map, News) - An American demonstrator was critically wounded Friday in a clash between protesters and Israeli troops over Israel's West Bank separation barrier. Peace activists with the International Solidarity Movement said Tristan Anderson, of the Oakland, Calif., area, was struck in the head with a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops. The military and the Tel Aviv hospital where Anderson was taken had no details on how he was hurt. "He's in critical condition, anesthetized and on a ventilator and undergoing imaging tests," said Orly Levi, a spokeswoman at the Tel Hashomer hospital. She described Anderson's condition...

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is making a big mistake in escalating U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan, where he already has acknowledged he doesn’t believe victory is possible. We should ask: What are we doing there seven years after the 9/11 attacks by the al-Qaida network? Historically, the country has lacked a strong central government and has been governed by locally strong tribal leaders and warlords. Al-Qaida was able to take advantage of this loose structure and turn Afghanistan into the plotting ground for the terrorists who struck the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York. But what...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Beverly in East Texas, nice to have you on the EIB Network. Hello. CALLER: East Texas blessings to you, Mr. Limbaugh. RUSH: Thank you very much. CALLER: From a military mother of two, I'm wondering, sir, if I might shift your focus from the war on economy to the war that we are also fighting on another front. Might I do that, sir? RUSH: You mean the war that Joe Biden says we're losing? CALLER: Yes, sir. RUSH: That would be the war in Afghanistan? CALLER: On Saturday our president said we aren't winning which I would...

Here is video of Billionaire Warren Buffet in an interview with CNBC today saying in an interview that the U.S. Economy has "fallen off a cliff." Buffet says he has seen more drastic changes in American consumers than at any time in his lifetime. He believes the fear Americans have has changed their spending habits, and that will not be altered quickly. Buffet said the core of the problem goes back to the belief that housing prices could only go up and never down, a belief he said everyone had - including himself. Buffet said this economic disaster will end,...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNSNews.com on Thursday that she supports an amendment to a Senate bill that would force the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to “take actions to encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership and to ensure that broadcast station licenses are used in the public interest.” The amendment’s language is viewed by many media experts as a means to regulate conservative talk radio, particularly popular programs such as the Rush Limbaugh Show and the Mark Hannity Show, among many others. House Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.), a former radio broadcaster and one of...

Vice President Joe Biden gave a warm and well-received speech to the AFL-CIO Executive Council at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida today. “And old joke…you go home with them that brung you to the dance,” the vice president said, according to remarks put out by the White House. “Well, you all brought me to the dance a long time ago. And it's time we start dancing, man. It's time we start dancing.” Biden noted that the National Labor Relations Act “explicitly says this nation's policy is to encourage -- encourage -- collective bargaining, encourage unions.” He said he...

A top U.N. official accused the United States of committing inhuman "atrocities" in Iraq and Afghanistan during a speech Wednesday to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. "The aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," said U.N. General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. • Click here to see the speech. D'Escoto claimed that U.S. actions have directly led to more than a million Iraqi civilian deaths since 2003, a vastly inflated figure that does not correspond with the...

President Barack Obama doesn’t go anywhere without his TelePrompter. The textbook-sized panes of glass holding the president’s prepared remarks follow him wherever he speaks. Resting on top of a tall, narrow pole, they flank his podium during speeches in the White House’s stately parlors. They stood next to him on the floor of a manufacturing plant in Indiana as he pitched his economic stimulus plan. They traveled to the Department of Transportation this week and were in the Capitol Rotunda last month when he paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln in six-minute prepared remarks. Obama’s reliance on the teleprompter is unusual...

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Socialist President Hugo Chavez met with a 21st-century incarnation of one of the world's biggest revolutionary icons Wednesday: actor Benicio del Toro, who stars in the new film chronicling the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara... "He's nice," the actor told journalists following the encounter at the presidential palace...

Four months after he lost his bid for the White House, no one in the Senate really knows what to make of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). This week McCain tried to strip most of the earmarks from a pending $410 billion omnibus spending bill. The effort failed. While the former GOP presidential candidate managed to rally 30 of his Republican colleagues behind his amendment, once it was struck down, 27 of them were happy to abandon the stand and accept their millions of dollars in earmarks, now secure in the bill. The moment seemed to answer a question raised immediately...

To all those scared to death about the tumbling stock market, President Obama played financial adviser yesterday, offering the age-old counsel: Buy low and sell high. The president, in a departure from usual form, directly addressed the swoon in the stock market. The benchmark Dow Jones industrial fell nearly 300 points Monday to the lowest level in 12 years - and more than 50 percent off its all-time high in October 2007 - and finished down about 37 more points yesterday.Obama waved off the ups and downs in the market, comparing them to tracking polls that his campaign often ignored...

Hillary Clinton threw herself into the turmoil of the Middle East crisis yesterday by backing the creation of a Palestinian state despite opposition from the incoming Israeli Government. The US Secretary of State also dispatched high-level envoys to Syria to discern the opportunities for regional talks. Mrs Clinton urged continued dialogue with the Palestinian Authority to create an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. “We happen to believe that moving towards a two-state solution is in Israel’s best interests,” she said. The new Administration of President Obama would be vigorously engaged in pursuing that goal, she...

TEHRAN (AFP) — Top US film actress Annette Bening, in Iran as part of a Hollywood delegation, said on Sunday she hoped their presence in the country can help to kick-start talks between arch-foes Washington and Tehran. "I hope that we can be a bridge to open a dialogue between the two countries", Bening, wearing a black traditional hejab and headscarf, told reporters. She is part of a team of film-makers and actors from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the organisation which stages the annual Oscars, that is currently on a week-long visit to the Islamic...

...Totalitarian regimes require the complete subservience of the individual to the state and tolerate only one party to which all institutions are subordinated. Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it’s far from meeting these criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable...