By Karl Rove Which campaign promises has he kept? Americans learned last year that President Obama discards campaign promises like most people discard used Kleenex. Among the pledges he cast aside were reducing the deficit, reining in federal spending, not allowing lobbyists to work in his administration, increasing taxes only on those who make more than $250,000, and opposing “government-run... 

By Michael Isikoff President Obama’s decision to suspend sending any detainees being held in the Guantánamo Bay detention facility back to Yemen was “politically, a no-brainer,” a senior administration official tells NEWSWEEK. But the move will do more than complicate Obama’s commitment to shut down the base: it has raised new questions about whether the facility will be shuttered... 

It seemed among the easiest of his transparency pledges and is entirely under his control, but President Obama is finagling his promise to post bills on the White House Web site for comment for five days before he signs them. Share/Save Read More →

By Walter Alarkon Key Democrats in Congress are claiming that President Obama is backtracking on his previous support for government programs that preserve wildlife, wetlands and farms. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, are expressing frustration that Obama wants to reduce funding... 

By Ed Henry President Obama is planning on Friday to resume the Bush administration's controversial military tribunal system for some Guantanamo detainees — which he suspended in his first week in office — according to three administration officials. Share/Save Read More →

President Obama met with White House counsel Greg Craig and other members of the White House counsel team last week and told them that he had second thoughts about the decision to hand over photographs of detainee abuse to the ACLU, per a judge's order, and had changed his mind. Share/Save Read More →

NYT - The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system. Share/Save Read More →

By David D. Kirkpatrick Not long after Senator John McCain returned last month from an official trip to Iraq and Pakistan, he received a phone call from President-elect Barack Obama. As contenders for the presidency, the two had hammered each other for much of 2008 over their conflicting approaches to foreign policy, especially in Iraq. (He'd lose a war! He'd stay a hundred years!) Now, however,... 

President-elect Barack Obama said this weekend that he does not expect to close Guantanamo Bay in his first 100 days in office. "I think it's going to take some time and our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do," Obama said in an exclusive "This Week" interview with George Stephanopoulos,... 

President-elect Barack Obama said reviving the U.S. economy will require scaling back on his campaign promises and personal sacrifice from all Americans. “I want to be realistic here, not everything that we talked about during the campaign are we going to be able to do on the pace we had hoped,” Obama said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” program broadcast this morning.... 

By Alec MacGillis President-elect Barack Obama wrapped up his Cabinet appointments yesterday, meeting his ambitious holiday deadline by assembling a team full of outsize personalities with overlapping jurisdictions and nominees who are known more for pragmatism than for strong leanings on the issues they will oversee. Share/Save Read More →