US vice president Joe Biden dropped off to sleep while his boss was delivering a much-hyped speech on saving the nation's economy.

As President Barack Obama worked his way through statistics and policy goals during a 30-minute speech, his right-hand man couldn't resist the urge to nod off.

Mr Biden's nap managed to steal some of the limelight from Mr Obama's speech, and it was not the first time that the vice president had blundered during a major political event.

President Obama has granted a waiver allowing four countries to continue receiving U.S. military aid even though they use child soldiers, officials said Wednesday.

Human rights groups reacted with surprise and concern, saying the decision would send the wrong message.

"What the president has done is basically given everybody a pass for using child soldiers," said Jo Becker, children's rights director at Human Rights Watch.

President Obama and his fellow Democrats are mocking Republicans and the Tea Party as stupid. But they could be the ones who look foolish on election day.

The problem for Obama and the Democrats is that belittling the Tea Party movement, which is taking hold of much of Middle America, merely fuels the popular sense that the party in power is out of touch. It also highlights the reluctance of Obama and the Democrats to discuss the Wall Street bail-out, economic stimulus and health care bills because they know they are not vote winners.

Joining the Europeans in mocking ordinary Americans for their supposed idiocy may play well at big-dollar fund-raisers. In adopting this as a political strategy, however, the Democrats could be the ones who end up looking stupid.

US President Barack Obama on Friday branded Republicans as extreme and reactionary, in campaign appearances for high-profile Democratic senators under threat in November's mid-term polls.

Obama rallied crowds in Los Angeles, California, and was to move on to gambling paradise Nevada in a bid to rescue wobbling Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid, on the third day of a four-day campaign blitz.

He charged that the first Republican president, his political hero Abraham Lincoln would not be able to win the opposition party's presidential nomination in the modern age.

For most of the 634 days Barack Obama has been president of [the]United States, he and his voluble sidekick from Delaware have pleaded with the gay community to give them time, trust us, be patient, we understand, you'll be happy with us later, you know where we stand over the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Valerie Jarrett, the president's senior adviser who seems at his elbow virtually everywhere, this week gave a videotaped interview to Jonathan Capehart, an editorial writer at the Washington Post...In it, she described the pain of a gay man's family after his suicide: "They were aware that their son was gay. They embraced him. They loved him. They supported his lifestyle choice."

To get back in line with her boss' public position, Jarrett issued an apology Thursday clarifying that what she said about sexual orientation wasn't what she believes about sexual orientation. "I meant no disrespect to the LGBT community, and I apologize to any who have taken offense at my poor choice of words," Jarrett said. "Sexual orientation and gender identity are not a choice."

Speculation about Hillary Clinton's continued presidential ambitions is rife. Husband Bill is back on the campaign trail, offering thanks to those who backed her in 2008 – and laying the foundations for another try in 2016.

Bill's energetic reappearance on the campaign trail comes just as rumours, some of them eagerly fuelled by the Clinton camp, swirl that Hillary might replace the hapless Joe Biden as Obama's vice-presidential running mate in 2012 or even challenge the President for the Democratic nomination if his popularity continues to slide.

President Obama has finally admitted that a core premise of his nearly trillion-dollar stimulus package was false. In an interview this week with The New York Times' Peter Baker, the president acknowledged that "there's no such thing as shovel-ready projects," despite the president's near-constant invocation of the term over a two-year period to explain how government spending was going to create jobs.

The president's admission is no minor matter; it goes to the heart of why his economic policies have been such a failure. Not since President Jimmy Carter's confession in 1980 that it took the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan for him to fully understand "what the Soviets' ultimate goals are" has a sitting president so fully exposed his ignorance.

Obama's admission might be refreshing if it meant he would rethink his economic assumptions, but the Baker interview gives no such indication. Instead, the president seems to think his biggest problem has been his failure to communicate his policies effectively.

The pollster goes down the list of issues tested. Health care? Nope. They hate your stand on that. The economy? Thumbs down. Foreign policy? Nobody cares anymore.

Then, finally, something that works. An assistant at the polling shop throws in a question about campaign contributions by foreigners. Turns out most voters don't like them. They don't think it's an important issue, but, hey, nothing else works. So let's go with it.

Last month, Barack Obama took to saying that D (Democratic) stood for Drive and R (Republican) stood for Reverse: shorthand for his notion that history inevitably and correctly moves left. Focus groups and polls showed that didn't work.

So now we have the issue of supposed foreign contributors to Republican campaigns. It looks like D stands for demagoguery and desperation.

The Chicago Sun Times reported that First Lady Michelle Obama became the first early voter at the Martin Luther King Center on Chicago's South Side just after 9 a.m. Thursday. The Times reported that Michelle Obama is back home in Chicago to help with the Democrat fund raising effort. Continuing with the trend of early voting, in Obama's Chicago 25% of votes were cast early or by absentee ballots, Michelle Obama wowed election Judge Dorothy Yarbrough, a retired CTA bus driver, who checked in the first lady.
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However, towards the end of the Times article, the reporter noted how fellow voters took photos with the First Lady using their cell phones. Dennis Campbell, a 56-year-old electrician said of Obama "she was telling me how important it was to vote to keep her husband's agenda going." This is in clear contradiction if Illinois law.

Illinois state law -- Sec. 17-29 (a): "No judge of election, pollwatcher, or other person shall, at any primary or election, do any electioneering or soliciting of votes or engage in any political discussion within any polling place [or] within 100 feet of any polling place." It would appear that the First Lady is in breach of this state law by electioneering and soliciting votes from Mr. Campbell.

An Ilinois State Board of Elections official tells the DRUDGE REPORT that Mrs. Obama, a Harvard-educated lawyer, may have simply been ignorant of the law and thus violated it unintentionally. "You kind of have to drop the standard for the first lady, right?" the official added late on Thursday.

When questioned about the brazen nature of Mrs. Obama's campaigning, press secretary Robert Gibbs defended the First Lady's breaking of state law. "I don't think it would be much to imagine, the First Lady might support her husband's agenda," Gibbs smirked.

Rove and his associates have taken some glee in suggesting that the Democratic queries and attacks – including a Democratic National Committee ad accusing Rove, Gillespie and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of "stealing our democracy" – may have actually helped the groups.

"Backfire," asserted Jim Dyke, an American Crossroads board member in a tweet, pointing out the groups' fundraising spike since Obama began attacking the group. "Thanks for the exposure, Mr. President," he concluded.

Last week when the presidential seal fell off the podium during a speech in Pittsburgh, President Obama joked, "That's all right, all of you know who I am."

Even though the incident made headlines for no discernible journalistic reason, it was noteworthy as a succinct example of Obama's arrogance problem. Rather than make a self-deprecating joke, he opted instead to make a self-inflating one, as if to say that the title mattered less than the man.

The good news is that it's apparently not racist to call Obama arrogant anymore. Not long ago, Keith Olbermann and other gargoyles on the parapets of establishment liberalism insisted that if you were to call attention to the fact that Obama holds himself in very high regard, you were really calling him "uppity," if you know what I mean.

So convinced that he was bringing renewed hope to America, Barack Obama even titled a biography "The Audacity of Hope". He campaigned on a platform of hope - new jobs, economic growth, harmoneous race relations, protecting the environment, restoring America's reputation around the world. There was no limit as to what could be achieved in America with Obama and his hope agenda running America.

How times change. Obama is finding governing considerably more difficult than campaigning. After entering office, Obama had approval ratings of 63%, they have now fallen to a miserly 45% - the lowest since Eisenhower at this point in his presidency. The Democrats are staring at big defeats in the November mid-terms and Keith Bartley, Floyd County's Democratic chairman in Kentucky, recently said, "Charles Manson could beat Barack Obama [in an election] here right now." Faced with an electorate that has lost faith in Obama's legislative agenda (a majority favor the repeal of Obama's Healthcare law for example) the message of hope has become one of fear. Instead of highlighting his achievements in office, Obama has taken it upon himself to warn America of his detractors.

It began with Fox News. Fox News pushes "a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world," Obama said. The motivation for his attacks are clearly stated at the start of what he said. He disagrees with them. Therefore, to Obama, they must be dangerous. They're destructive to America's prosperity, he warns us, just because they have a differing opinion.

Recently, at a campaign speech in Philadelphia, Obama attacked Republicans, saying "they're counting on… black folks staying home." For a man that was supposed to unify America, what was Obama attempting to say to black America? Obama saying Republicans want black folks to stay home on election day is a divisive use of the "race card", unworthy of the president of the United States, Lloyd Marcus of the left-wing British newspaper The Guardian states. Black America must fear those evil, racist Republicans because they disagree with Democrats is the Obama message. Fear mongering is the name of Obama's game right now.

Just this week Obama made baseless accusations against the Chamber of Commerce for accepting foreign donations which Obama asserted, after picking up the story for a far-left blog, was paying for political ads. The Chamber of Commerce denied this, even the New York Times sided with the Chamber of Commerce. However, the Chamber of Commerce is a fierce critic of Obama's economic agenda and because the Chamber has a different opinion, they became a target of the Obama administration. The Chamber of Commerce, Obama insisted, threatens America's democracy! It's not enough to say Fox News threatens America's future prosperity, it's not enough to warn Americans that the Republicans are an evil racist party, now the Chamber of Commerce threatens America's democracy. Obama's message is desperate, the Democrats are hurting badly in the polls and his own approval rating is hitting rock bottom. To counter the appalling popularity trends, Obama has responded not with the hope he campaigned on, but with the fear that he detested Republicans for doing. Obama is fast becoming America's biggest fear-mongering hypocrite.

Rahm Emanuel said never let a good crisis go to waste. Obama is having a crisis of his own but it is his presidency that is going to go to waste. Elected with such promise, the hope has turned to fear.

"Isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless." These are not the words of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, two of America's fiercest critics of the Obama administration. It is the blunt assessment of the Obama White House by Mark Halperin, editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time Magazine, for decades a publication at the very heart of the liberal media establishment, and owned by Time Warner, the parent company of CNN.

For anyone who still doubts that Barack Obama is in serious trouble, take a look at Halperin's searing article, "Why Obama is Losing the Political War", which is nothing short of a damning indictment of the president's first 20 months in office.

So the White House and the hapless Democrats running for re-election on November 2nd must be in near despair over David Axelrod's interview with Shieffer yesterday. In it, the host of CBS's Face the Nation was incredulous at Axelrod's focus not on the economy or jobs or health care or the Islamist threat or the wars America is engaged in but, er, the possibility that the US Chamber may be funding ads with foreign money. A charge, of course, which would be called racist if Republicans had levelled it against Obama.

Barack Obama's populist attack on the "rich" is the beginning of a war on the middle classes. The temporary tax rates currently in effect are due to expire at the end of the year and Congress has packed up and gone home to campaign without anything on the table to suggest that they will extend them. Allowing them to lapse would end up being one of the biggest tax rises America has ever seen.

The "Bush tax cuts" have been coined by Democrats as merely a tax break for the rich. Obama, who always seems to spend more time campaigning, even as president, than he does governing, is once again out and about trying to arouse the masses against the inequity of not raising taxes on "the rich." He opposes extending the Bush tax rates that are due to expire at the end of the year when a higher rate is restored for "millionaires and billionaires" as Obama calls it. The people President Obama believes fall into this category are the typical political scapegoats - "lawyers, investment fund managers, bankers". It's a populist attack and with it, Obama is being incredibly liberal with the truth too.

This isn't just a tax hike on the millionaires and billionaires, it's a tax hike on what is roundly considered to be his core base: police officers, teachers and the like. In Obama's Chicago, a high-school principal can earn $148,000. A police officer with 25 years service can earn $114,000 not even counting overtime. If the principal and the officer are married, supposedly they are rich as they would fall into Obama's new net for the "millionaire's and billionaires". Household income does not need to be the million dollars that Obama claims, but $250,000 - a figure easily achieved by those who have given lengthy service to public institutions such as education or policing. There's a $750,000 credibility gap. The hard-working, honest middle class teachers and police officers could now become the despised "rich" in Obama's America.

This only tells part of the story. It's not just the tax rates for those households earning more than $250,000 that are due to expire at the year's end, it's everyone's tax rates including the low earners. Congressional Democrats delayed a vote on extending the tax breaks for low-earners until after the mid-term elections because party leaders conceded that before the elections on November 2nd, despite holdng 59 Senate seats, Democrats wouldn't be able to find the 60 votes required to support their measure. The uncertainty surrounding the rates of tax is becoming a large burden on American business as well as individuals who may stop spending and investing for fear of being hit by higher tax rates in the near future. Consumer confidence once again fell in September.

We must, however, recognize and give credit to the Democrats in Congress who have a grasp of reality. Democrat Indiana Senator Evan Bayh got it right when he said it was not a good idea to risk dampening consumer demand right now. 4 other Democrat senators support Bayh in extending the tax cuts across the board. 31 other Democratic members of the House of Representatives got it right when they let Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., know they would not support increasing taxes right now.

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, an independent who usually caucuses with Democrats, said he supports extending the lower rates for everyone. "I don't think this is the time to raise anybody's taxes, including those who are wealthiest," Lieberman said on CNN. Lieberman added that there is a "possibility" that the cuts will expire and everybody's taxes would go up. "I think when we come back in November or December, the first thing is we've got to extend these tax cuts." As yet, there is no credible plan on the table to extend the tax cuts, even for the less wealthy.

While remembering that this is not a debate about increasing taxes on the "millionaires and billionaires" as Obama is attempting to frame the argument, but on honest, hard-working long-serving teachers and police officers and the like, as well as those on lower-earnings who should be in no uncertain terms that their lower tax rates may well expire come December 31st.

The ad makes the totally unsubstantiated charge that the Chamber of Commerce is taking money from foreign interests and using it to "steal our democracy." And worse, President Obama is out on the campaign trail, according to the New York Times, creating an echo chamber by making the same reckless claims just as the ad hits the airwaves. And when CBS newsman Bob Schieffer Sunday asks David Axelrod if there is any proof for the claim, the senior Obama aide says they don't need proof -- it's up to the Chamber of Commerce to prove it isn't true.

There is a growing perspective in corporate America that President Obama is anti-business. An increasing number business leaders are going public with their criticism of a president that is undermining America's economic recovery through his intense dislike of businesses, or arguably worse than that, through his own economic ineptitude.

Ivan Seidenberg, the chief executive of Verizon and chairman of the Business Roundtable, a grouping of some 140 top CEOs, recently accused the president of creating an "increasingly hostile environment for investment and job creation", claiming that the administration's regulatory expansion into "every sector of economic life" is making it "harder to raise capital and create new businesses." Jeff Immelt, the boss of GE, has said that the administration is not in sync with entrepreneurs. The US Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby, has complained that the Obama administration has "vilified industries". Even Dan Loeb, a former classmate of Barack Obama's and a big-time donor to Obama's election campaign has criticised the president's economic policy. Citing heavy handed government policy for stifling economic recovery Loeb's letter is a damning indictment of Obama's economic policy thus far into his presidency.

Obama has an image problem, particularly when it comes to the economy. A president who does so little to counter the idea that he dislikes business is a worryingly negligent chief executive argues The Economist. A Bloomberg survey this week found that three-quarters, 77%, of American investors believe Obama is against business. Carlos Vadillo, a fixed-income analyst at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in San Francisco, said Obama has been in a "constant war" with the banking system, using "fat-cat bankers and other misnomers to describe a business model which supports a large portion of America." The Economist is further damning of Obama on the economy: In their interviews they have lost count of the number of prominent chief executives, many of them Democrats, who complain privately that the president does not understand their trade, that he treats them merely as adornments at photocalls and uses teleprompters to talk to them; that he shows scant interest in their views on which tax cuts would persuade them to hire people; that his team is woefully short of anyone who has had to meet a payroll (there are fewer businesspeople in this White House than in any recent administration); and that regulatory uncertainty is hampering their willingness to invest."

On a personal level, Obama even portrays himself as a man who was redeemed from the sinful private sector only by becoming a community organiser. Over the years there have been endless digs at Wall Street and Big Pharma, not to mention the recent public flogging of BP with language unbecoming of a man in control of the world's largest economy. Business leaders are rightfully very weary of what Obama has done and could do in the future. The outlook is uncertain, and with uncertainty business leaders hold back - they hold back from investing, they hold back from hiring and they hold back from growing their business which is what America needs to restart the economy. Even more uncertainty surrounds Obama's fiscal policy thanks to the president's refusal to produce a credible plan to rein in the deficit. Why should any entrepreneur plough money into a new factory when he has no idea what taxes he will eventually be asked to pay? The question surrounded the extension of the Bush tax cuts still remains. These are questions that business needs answering in a businesslike way instead of by an ambiguous speech that's tough on rhetoric and short on ideas delivered from a teleprompter.

Unless Obama changes course, and changes course soon, America's economy will continue to be a Titanic taking on more and more water.

Sen. Mitch McConnell: "Earlier this week, Democrat leaders who've spent the past year and a half working tirelessly to expand the reach of government, left town without doing the single most important thing they could have done for jobs. Too preoccupied enacting the rest of their agenda, they neglected to pass or even propose legislation that would prevent one of the largest tax hikes in history. As a result, at the stroke of midnight on December 31st, every American who pays income taxes is set to get a tax hike that Democrats have had two years to prevent."

President Obama made an as tonishing claim this week that he has accomplished 70 percent of all the Hope and Change he promised us during his 2008 campaign.

"If you look at the checklist, we've already covered about 70 percent," he boasted to the crowd of mostly college kids, that one sector of Obama's base most likely to fall for his magic tricks two elections in a row.

The throngs applauded as Obama jumped from the bogus to the absurd when he explained why he hasn't accomplished even more.

"I figured I needed to have something to do for the next couple of years," he said with a flash of his famous modesty.

When über liberal Hollywood director James Cameron had a global box office hit back in 1997 with his epic depiction of the 1912 sea disaster, I doubt he thought the name Titanic would later become synonymous with the most left-wing presidency in American history. Thirteen years on, instead of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet clinging for dear life, it's now Obama's desperate White House team struggling for survival, but without the CGI effects.

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is well ahead of the curve by jumping ship today before the November mid-terms, and who can blame him. The Obama presidency is likely heading for a massive humiliation at the polls in less than five weeks' time and Emanuel won't be the last to jump. He will now run for mayor of Chicago.

The United States has been overtaken by Sweden and Singapore in the World Economic Forum's (WEF) competitiveness survey for 2010-11.

The change meant that the US slipped two places to fourth in the WEF's latest ranking.

Switzerland, which overtook the US last year, remains the top ranked economy.

The WEF says the US has lost ground because of what it calls a weakening of its public and private institutions, as well as what it describes as "lingering concerns about the state of its financial markets".

America faces a "crisis of leadership" that is damaging the country's recovery, one of Wall Street's leading hedge fund managers has warned in a scathing attack on President Barack Obama.

Daniel Loeb, the founder of the $3.3bn (£2.1bn) Third Point fund, said that the administration's policies appear intent on "redistribution rather than growth", and should send a chill through those who believe in free markets.

US President Barack Obama has staunchly defended controversial plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero in New York.

Opponents have protested against the construction of an Islamic cultural centre and mosque several hundred feet away from the site of the Twin Towers.

Mr Obama acknowledged "sensitivities" surround the 9/11 site, but said Muslims have the same right to practice their religion "as anyone else".

"Our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable," Mr Obama said.

The environmental damage caused by BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill may have been grossly exaggerated, a growing body of experts is suggesting.

In a bold move, scientists have dismissed the torrent of grim predictions from President Obama and environmentalists as 'hype' with no data to back it up.

Instead, those working on the ground say the oil is breaking up far more quickly than expected and the number of birds being killed is low.

Just days after the Deepwater Horizon leak was capped two weeks ago, coastal grass began to grow back, as did trees which serve as breeding grounds for fish and other wildlife.

The White House has apologised to a black US official fired after a video appeared to show her making racially charged remarks about a white farmer.

Agriculture department official Shirley Sherrod was exonerated in the full video, which surfaced on Tuesday.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the apology reflected "the feelings" of President Barack Obama.

Mrs Sherrod said the video...lacked context and was part of a larger story about learning from her mistakes and racial reconciliation, not racism.

Only 25 percent say the economy is improving, according to a recent CBS survey. That's just one of the dark findings for the administration in a slew of recent polls that suggest that the administration's summer tour will do little to improve the president's political fortunes and those of his party.

Three polls that came out in the last two days offer discouraging news for the White House. In the Washington Post/ABC News poll, public confidence in the president has hit a new low. Six in 10 voters say they lack faith in the president. In a CBS News poll, 54 percent of the country disapprove of his handling of the economy, the highest number to date. In a Pew Research Center/National Journal poll, the number of Americans who approve of the president's health care legislation, the signature achievement of his presidency so far, sits at an anemic 35 percent.

The nation is on a "disastrous fiscal track" and Democrats must deal with it more directly or risk "huge" political consequences, Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) said in an interview Friday.

[H]e was blunt in saying that his party has not been successful in expanding on its 2006 and 2008 victories and must move toward the center in order to win back support of independent and moderate voters.

Bredesen called the new health-care law "a missed opportunity," saying Democrats would have been better off politically if they had been able to put together bipartisan reform. He said efforts by a small, bipartisan group of governors to offer ideas for doing so were rebuffed by Congress.

The United States has better relations with almost every nation on the planet thanks to President Barack Obama's foreign policy "outreach," the White House spokesman has claimed.

Robert Gibbs fiercely defended Mr Obama against accusations he has failed to reform US foreign policy from the damaging era of his predecessor George W. Bush.

"We have better relationships with virtually every country in the world as a result of the president's foreign policy outreach," Gibbs hit back. "There's no doubt that we have taken foreign policy in a different direction."

The White House has admitted for the first time that Republicans could win control of the House of Representatives in crucial elections in November.

Robert Gibbs, the president's spokesman, acknowledged that deep frustration with the economy could see the Democrats' 75-seat majority in the lower chamber wiped out.

"There is no doubt there are enough seats at play that could cause Republicans to gain control, there is no doubt about that," Mr Gibbs told NBC's "Meet the Press".

Such outcomes would make it difficult for President Barack Obama to push through his agenda, which is likely to include major reform of energy and immigration. It would not augur well for his re-election bid in 2012.

As a reporter, I do not use euphemisms - such as calling murderous terrorists "militants" or "activists." And as an American, I can exercise my First Amendment right to say plainly that President Obama is a liar with regard to our new health-care law, often referred to as Obamacare.

When a number of critics of Obamacare, including myself, warned that it would bring the rationing of treatments, medications and research into new procedures, the president said to the American Medical Association (June 15, 2009) that this rationing charge was a "fear tactic."

And, again unlike the president, Berwick [appointed by Obama to head Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)] tells it like it frighteningly is in a June 2009 interview for the magazine, Biotechnology Healthcare:

"It's not a question of whether we will ration health care. It is whether we will ration with our eyes open."

When signs of a severe economic downfall emerged more than two years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama was quick to point a finger at the man he hoped to replace.

Seventeen months into his administration, the message is often the same, and Republicans say it's time for him to drop the Bush bashing and take ownership of the problem.

It's a familiar message from his days on the campaign trail when criticisms of President Bush were as common as policy proposals.

Republicans can barely contain their glee at their electoral prospects for this year.

There is reason for this optimism. The Obama administration's poll numbers continue to sink, and history tells us that things could get worse before they get better. Republicans are poised to have one of our best elections ever in November.

But what the GOP will find if and when it wins one or two houses of Congress is not pretty.

President Barack Obama's Democrats have set out to alter fundamentally the nature of the U.S. political system. The changes they've wrought will not be easily undone.

Joe Biden sent a donation appeal email to Democrat followers which compared the Republican Party to Nazis. Biden, often criticized for inappropriate off-the-cuff comments has committed his biggest, and most offensive gaffe yet. In a PR disaster for the White House, Biden's email stated, "As things heat up, you can expect House Democrats will be hit with a GOP blitzkrieg of vicious Swift-Boat-style attack ads, Karl Rove-inspired knockout tactics, thinly veiled attempts at character assassination and tea party disruptions."

Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-mechanized force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery and air power, concentrating overwhelming force and rapid speed to break through enemy lines, and once the latter is broken, proceeding without regard to its flank. It was a method used by Nazi Germany during invasions to Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.

Biden continued with his Nazi slur by referring to Democrats as the Allies who fought back the Nazi occupation of Europe. "Our Democratic allies in the House need your help, and the President and I hope we can count on you to come to their defense so we can hold onto our Democratic Majority and continue moving American forward in a new direction."

Outrage justifiably ensued. Spokesman for Minority Leader John Boehner, Kevin Smith, e-mailed a reply, "When will Democrats learn that invoking the Nazis' crimes against humanity in a political debate is simply inappropriate?"

Whatever Biden and some far left-wing zealouts may think, comparing either the Democrats or Republicans to Nazis is simply unacceptable and inappropriate. Foot-in-mouth Biden may well be forced to issue an apology if his conscience has does recognize the fact that he crossed the line. This from the second-in-command of the United States is appalling and he should be ashamed of himself.

The U.S. president's message of spending is out of step with the other members.

At this G20, the U.S. is advocating spending while Canada advocates restraint and Europe runs for fiscal cover. At the 2012 meeting the U.S. is likely to be doing the sprinting.

A military source close to Gen. David Petraeus told Fox News that one of the first things the general will do when he takes over in Afghanistan is to modify the rules of engagement to make it easier for U.S. troops to engage in combat with the enemy, though a Petraeus spokesman pushed back on the claim.

Troops on the ground and some military commanders have said the strict rules -- aimed at preventing civilian casualties -- have effectively forced the troops to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.

The issue is likely to be front and center in Senate confirmation hearings for Petraeus next week.

Despite myriad changes in recent days, Democrats appear poised to deliver a final bill that largely reflects the administration's original blueprint unveiled almost precisely a year ago. Although it would not fundamentally alter the shape of Wall Street or break up the nation's largest firms, the legislation would establish broad new oversight of the financial system.

Obama, speaking to reporters before leaving for a meeting of global finance ministers and central bankers in Toronto, said the compromise legislation includes "90 percent of what I proposed when I took up this fight."

The president said he is committed to a "strong, robust financial sector" but wants to curb abuses and tighten oversight to make the financial system more transparent and safe.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate [said] "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works."

All around, there are Democrats telling us their prospects for November are looking up. Things aren't as bad as Republicans say! Health care is becoming more popular! The country wants financial reform! People still like Barack Obama! Isn't Joe Barton awful!

They're fooling themselves. The basic indicators of voters' intentions -- their general mood and attitude toward the policies of Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid -- are clear and solid. Unless those indicators change, and most experts believe that would take a huge, unforeseen event that fundamentally alters the political equation, Democrats are in for serious losses this November.

For all the tough rhetoric on BP, Obama finally unleashed his wrath on the General tasked with securing success in Afghanistan after McChrystal and his aides revealed to Rolling Stone magazine exactly what they thought of the White House and the Obama administration.

McChrystal was forced to resign in a 20 minute with Barack Obama - a similar length to the time Obama spent meeting with BP executives. The resignation was accepted and the president remarked that it was the right decision for "national security". Obama staked his presidency upon the Afghanistan war, campaigning vigerously that it was the right war while Iraq merely took America's eye off of the real threat. It is impossible for a General to retain his position after criticizing the White House in the way he did, it was almost a foregone conclusion. McChrystal apologized for his remarks to Rolling Stone magazine in which he told how the "real enemies are the wimps in the White House". Obama revealed that he made the decision to replace McChrystal with "considerable regret", but some of what McChrystal said may have just hit home too much for Obama and his administration.

Upon meeting the president, a McChrystal aide remarked, "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was. Here's the guy who's going to run his f****** war; but he didn't seem very engaged. The Boss [McChrystal] was pretty disappointed." The revelations from McChrystal add to the remarks that the President has been disengaged on terrorism-related issues before. Regarding the Christmas Day bombing attempton a Northwest airliner bound for Detroit, Obama was criticized as being "disengaged" and "detached". It took Obama 3 days to release a press statement in which he said, "Here's what we know so far: On Christmas Day, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was en route from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit. As the plane made its final approach to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, a passenger allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body, setting off a fire." Allegedly? There's not alledgedly about it, it happened. Furthermore, Obama called the terrorist an "isolated extremist" yet we know that he was an al-Qaeda operative and the authorities are looking or at least one or two other accomplices. It's little wonder, if this was the attitude shown by Obama to terrorist-related incidences, that McChrystal's aide found Obama to be disengaged.

McChrystal was similarly unimpressed by Vice-President Joe Biden. "Are you asking me about Vice President Biden? Who's that?" An aide added "Biden? Did you say 'bite me'?". Biden has long been a critic of escalating the war in Afghanistan and disagreed with McChrystal's request for 40,000 new troops for an Iraqi-style surge in the country. Biden's unwillingness to back up McChrystal and the president on the strategy for Afghanistan even prompted Arianna Huffington to call for the Vice-President's resignation.

Others were also in McChrystal's firing line. On Richard Holbrooke, senior envoy to Afghanistan, an aide said, "the Boss says he's like a wounded animal. Holbrooke keeps hearing rumours that he's going to get fired, so that makes him dangerous." Upon receiving an email from Holbrooke, McChrystal was recorded as saying, "Oh, not another email from Holbrooke, I don't even want to read it." McChrystal referred to National Security Advisor James L. Jones as a "clown" who is "stuck in 1985". McChrystal felt betrayed by a cable from Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador to Afghanistan that was subsequently leaked. Eikenberry felt that the troop buildup would make Hamid Karzai too dependent upon the United States and hurt the war effort. Regarding Eikenberry, McChrystal said, "here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so'."

The likes of Eikenberry, Vice President Biden and James Jones are the "wimps" to McChrystal who are hampering the war effort. Obama has failed to quash to criticism of the Afghan strategy within his own administration but he has found a convenient scapegoat in McChrystal who could no longer stand the criticism from people whom he felt had no idea what they were talking about. McChrystal has been replaced by General David Petreaus, essentially to continue the same strategy employed by McChrystal. Problems are mounting in Afghanistan, military success seems to be falling away and the Taliban will see this as a major victory in pushing back the American-led forces and we may be witnessing the beginning of the end.

Obama finally found an ass to kick and McChrystal has been made the scapegoat for a war that seems to be falling out Obama's grip. To save a presidency that pinned its reputation on winning in Afghanistan, Obama is going to have to do more than force the resignation of a General that he only ever partially backed.

A huge majority of senators co-signed a letter to President Barack Obama Wednesday defending Israel's actions in the flotilla incident last month and urging the administration to oppose a U.N. resolution critical of the country.

Led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — and signed by 85 other members of the upper chamber — the letter argues that Israel's blockade of Gaza was both legal and necessary, and that Israeli commandos were acting in self-defense when they landed on the ship.

"[V]ideo footage shows that the Israeli commandos who arrived on the sixth ship, which was owned by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (the IHH), were brutally attacked with iron rods, knives, and broken glass," the senators wrote.

For all his John Wayne rhetoric on the BP oil spill, President Obama has failed to administer a swift kick to the ample, deserving rump of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. No matter. Federal judge Martin Feldman has now done the job the White House won't do.

In a scathing ruling issued Tuesday afternoon, New Orleans-based Feldman overturned the administration's radical six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling -- and he singled out Salazar's central role in jury-rigging a federal panel's scientific report to bolster flagrantly politicized conclusions. In a sane world, Salazar's head would roll. In Obama's world, he gets immunity.

Salazar, with his boss's blessing, imposed the blanket moratorium on Hornbeck and 33 permitted rigs without a shred of threat/safety analysis. Of course, Hope and Change have always been exercised with Arbitrary and Capricious power.

Gen Stanley McChrystal was far more popular in Kabul than he was in Washington.

Both President Karzai's office and the Afghan defence ministry spent the afternoon reiterating their support for the commander, but by the end of the day there was an acknowledgement that the counter-insurgency strategy in Afghanistan would continue without its chief architect.

Mr Karzai's spokesman, Wahid Omar, described Gen McChrystal as "an important and trusted partner for the Afghan government and the Afghan people".

Mr Karzai even spoke to President Barack Obama via video conference earlier, and requested that the general be allowed to keep his job.

Chancellor Angela Merkel roundly rebuffed U.S. President Barack Obama's call for Germans to aid the global recovery by spending more and relying less on exports, even as she warned that Europe's own financial crisis is far from over.

Berlin's emphasis on fiscal discipline received support from top European Union officials Wednesday in a letter to the G-20 that said the "global recovery is progressing better than anticipated," so that the time for stimulus is ending. Leading economies should agree to consolidate budgets "starting at the latest in 2011," EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso wrote in the letter.

The president's low ratings mean he can't lift his party by campaigning. Democrats are acknowledging they'll lose ground in the midterms. The only question is how much. Today, the evidence points to quite a lot.

The most important indicator is the president's job approval. In the Real Clear Politics average of the last two weeks' polls, President Obama has a 48% approval and 47% disapproval rating. This points to deep Democratic losses. The president's approval rating last November was 54% when his party was trounced in New Jersey and Virginia.

In a significant blow to the anti-oil Obama administration, a judge has overturned the Deepwater Drilling Moratorium that would have halted the approval of any new permits for deepwater drilling and suspended drilling at 33 existing exploratory wells in the Gulf.

Oil executives slammed Obama for his moratorium saying that president's knee-jerk ban on risky deepwater drilling would cripple world energy supplies. Prices at the pumps for ordinary Americans would necessarily skyrocket. The judge's overturning of the moratorium is a big boost to everyone that relies on being able to fill up their car at a reasonable price in the economic downturn.

"There are things the administration could implement today that would allow the industry to go back to work tomorrow without an arbitrary six-month time limit," Steve Newman, CEO of Transocean who owned the Deepwater rig that exploded, told reporters on the sidelines of an oil conference in the British capital.

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the judge's decision, but it remains uncertain as to whether that appeal will be successful.

Oh dear, I fear General Stanley McChrystal will be making a one-day trip to Washington after U.S. President Barack Obama summoned him to Washington to explain his less than flattering remarks about the Obama administration that are due to appear in this week's edition of Rolling Stone magazine.

Gen McChrystal has already apologised for the remarks, but that has not saved him from Mr Obama's rage. There are many misguided souls in this world who still believe that the American president who is fundamentally a nice guy, who doesn't get involved in petty political in-fighting.

Well, they are about to have a rude awakening. You don't get to be elected President of the United States simply for a being a nice guy. You need to be a ruthless, political opportunist, and Mr Obama has these qualities in abundance.

A disappointing government jobs report last month shows there's still a long road ahead to righting the nation's economic problems, and voters are slowly shifting the blame for those problems away from the previous administration.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters shows that 47% still blame today's economic problems on the recession that began during the presidency of George W. Bush. But now 45% say they're due to the policies of President Obama.

White House Budget Director Peter Orszag plans to leave his job in a few weeks, making him the first senior member of President Barack Obama's economic team to step down, Democratic sources said on Monday.

Oil services companies were waiting on Tuesday to see if their legal bid would succeed in overturning a six-month ban on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as more fishing areas were closed in response to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

The ban by President Barack Obama's administration was imposed in response to the explosion aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20 that killed 11 workers and ruptured a well owned by BP Plc, unleashing millions of gallons of crude oil and causing an environmental catastrophe.

U.S. District Court Judge Martin Feldman promised he would decide by Wednesday whether to temporarily lift the ban while the case is heard. More than a dozen companies involved in offshore drilling operations filed the lawsuit, calling the ban "arbitrary and capricious."

I've never been a fan of the "outrage over politician going on holiday" genre of newspaper story. The outrage is usually bogus and often tinged with an unseemly resentment. Presidents and prime ministers need a break sometimes and let's face it they still receive briefing each day, hold meetings and probably engage in enough work activities to trigger a divorce if any of us lesser mortals tried it.

Is it wrong for Barack Obama to play golf or yuk it up with Paul McCartney while oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico? Of course not. It would be foolish to suggest that Obama does not work extremely hard – or that he should never take any time to relax with his family.

The problem is, you can't have it both ways. George W. Bush got it in the neck for taking loads of vacation time down at his ranch in Crawford and for playing golf while there was a war on. Obama, on the other hand, has played lots and lots of golf – more already that Bush did in his eight-year presidency – but he gets a pass for this. Obama is clearly aware of the potential PR problem so he doesn't allow himself to be filmed and photographed teeing off as Bush and Bill Clinton were.

This hypocrisy was taken a step further this weekend when Rahm Emanuel stuck the boot into BP's Tony Hayward for going yachting with his son off the Isle of Wight.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government rebuffed U.S. calls to focus on bolstering growth over debt reduction, setting a course for conflict at the Group of 20 summit in Canada this week.

"Nobody can seriously dispute that excessive public debts, not only in Europe, are one of the main causes of this crisis," Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told reporters in Berlin today alongside Merkel. "That's why they have to be reduced."

Five days before G-20 leaders meet in Toronto, the economic-policy divide between Europe and the U.S. is hardening. President Barack Obama, in a letter to his G-20 counterparts dated June 16, urged a focus on economic growth, saying order to public finances should be restored in the "medium term."

German Economy Minister Rainer Bruederle, at a separate press conference earlier today, said the U.S. must join Europe in "urgently" cutting spending.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is expected to quit as soon as this year because he's fed up with the "idealism" of President Obama's inner circle.

"I would bet he will go after the midterms," a Democratic consultant told the Telegraph. "Nobody thinks it's working, but they can't get rid of him -- that would look awful."

The consultant added that Emanuel is trying to line up the right job offer to explain his departure, but "the consensus is he'll go."

Speculation in Washington has been building for months about divisions between Emanuel and other Obama confidantes.

Thuggery is unattractive. Ineffective thuggery even more so. Which may be one reason so many Americans have been reacting negatively to the response of Barack Obama and his administration to BP's gulf oil spill.

Take Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's remark that he would keep his "boot on the neck" of BP, which brings to mind George Orwell's definition of totalitarianism as "a boot stamping on a human face -- forever." Except that Salazar's boot hasn't gotten much in the way of results yet.

Or consider Obama's undoubtedly carefully considered statement to Matt Lauer that he was consulting with experts "so I know whose ass to kick." Attacking others is a standard campaign tactic when you're in political trouble, and certainly BP, which appears to have taken unwise shortcuts in the gulf, is an attractive target.

President Barack Obama hit the golf course Saturday with Vice President Joe Biden.

The White House pool report noted that Obama left at about 1 p.m. for the course at Andrews Air Force base, and his golfing parters included White House Trip Director Marvin Nicholson and David Katz, the energy efficiency campaign manager at the Department of Energy.

Obama left the course shortly before 6 p.m.

Nicholson and Katz, along with Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, joined Obama for four hours of golf last weekend. The Republican National Committee released an ad soon afterward taking aim at Obama's golfing during the ongoing BP oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico.

President Barack Obama on Saturday pinned blame on Republicans for making life harder for the unemployed and for those who could lose their jobs without new federal intervention. He did so even as he sought to distance himself from the "dreary and familiar politics" of Washington.

Capping a week in which the administration scored a victory — a $20 billion fund to be paid by BP for the victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill — Obama reserved his radio and Internet address to focus on the work that didn't get done.

His main concern was the rejection of a bill in the Senate that would have provided more money for the long-term unemployed, aid for strapped state governments and the renewal of popular tax breaks for businesses and individuals.

"If this obstruction continues, unemployed Americans will see their benefits stop," Obama said. "Teachers and firefighters will lose their jobs. Families will pay more for their first home. All we ask for is a simple up or down vote. That's what the American people deserve."

The broad economic bill failed Thursday when Democrats could not muster the 60 votes needed to end debate. The 56-40 vote fell four shy of the total required to break the GOP filibuster. Republicans support many of the policies in the legislation but are demanding changes to shrink its toll on the deficit.

"Americans want us to show we're serious about lowering the debt, so the president and his allies in Congress have a choice to make: they can either vote to reduce the deficit, or they can lock arms and dig an even deeper hole of debt," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

The standoff again revealed the gaps between the Democratic president and the Republican congressional leaders on how to solve the nation's problems.

Obama was at the same time branding the opposition party as obstructionist while seeking a higher level of debate from his own party and Republicans.

"We have an obligation to care for the next generation," Obama said. "So I hope that when Congress returns next week, they do so with a greater spirit of compromise and cooperation. America will be watching."

In his address, Obama also bemoaned the stalling of a separate measure that would lift a $75 million liability cap on economic damages for companies such as BP during disasters like the Gulf oil spill. The Senate is considering a bill to increase that cap to $10 billion.

And Obama also said Republicans are the ones at fault for preventing votes on his nominees to key positions in the government. Former President George W. Bush often had the same complaint about Democratic lawmakers.

Republicans used their weekly address to claim that the president has been too slow to react to the threats posed by the Gulf oil spill and that some steps taken by his administration will do more harm than good.

"I'm glad President Obama is finally putting this catastrophe at the top of his agenda, but his response has been too slow," Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi said. Wicker criticized Obama for pushing for an energy bill and increases in oil cleanup fees and for calling for a moratorium on deep-water drilling, which he said would cost jobs and raise the price of energy.

Wicker said Obama should have made the point in his Tuesday speech that many Gulf coast beaches are clean and would welcome tourists. But he acknowledged that Obama made this point at a Monday news conference along the Gulf.

Trumpeting the 10,000th road project funded by his Recovery Act, President Obama borrowed two of three words made famous in March by Vice President Biden.

This is a "big....deal," said Mr. Obama, pausing for effect between the two words between which Biden had inserted an expletive in an overheard whisper three months ago.

Enacting a law is one thing; implementing it is another. And early indications about ObamaCare's implementation via new regulations suggest this law will validate its critics' dire predictions.

The president repeatedly promised Americans that they'd be able to keep their existing health coverage under ObamaCare. Yet an early regulatory draft -- of his administration's own making -- predicts that in just three years, changes that employers will have to make will put 51 percent of workers into plans subject to new federal requirements.

Those changes will raise -- not rein in -- costs. And employers will have to keep modifications to deductibles, co-payments and benefits within a narrow range -- defined by unelected bureaucrats -- or lose their "grandfathered" plans' exemptions from those otherwise mandatory changes.

President Obama's relationship with many Americans has soured.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the magic has drained away. Even among his most ardent supporters, there now exists a certain frustration and disillusionment — not necessarily in the execution of his duties, but in his inability to seize moments, chart a course and navigate the choppy waters of public opinion.

What's left for many is a big plume of disappointment and sadness lurking just beneath the surface.

I suspect all this excessive anger directed at the Obama administration over the BP oil spill is likely symptomatic of an unhealthy faith many of us have in government's supernatural abilities. But watching one of the leading proponents of The Faith taking it on the chin for not doing enough ... well, karmic justice certainly has its moments.

Not to worry, though. I also have faith that Barack Obama will turn calamity into political opportunity. And this very week, he pulled out the playbook.

Could he provide the American people with an example of government-subsidized industries that have spurred a wondrous economic boom? Because at this point, even with the billions in subsidies and handouts -- not to mention mandates -- only 5 percent of our energy needs are met with renewable sources. Renewables are unable to compete in this arena unless government artificially spikes the price of carbon-based fuel. That's [Obama's] plan.

The Obama administration is focused on meeting its July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but it has no political strategy to help stabilize the country, current and former U.S. officials and other experts are warning.

The failure to articulate what a post-American Afghanistan should look like and devise a political path for achieving it is a major obstacle to success for the U.S. military-led counter-insurgency campaign that's underway, these officials and experts said.

The result is "strategic confusion," said Ronald E. Neumann, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005-07.

Rep. Joe Barton has a shaky fundraising background to be delivering such a shocking defense of BP (via Slate twitter). The Texas Republican received $1.5 million in donations last year from big oil, according to Open Secrets.

Barton's biggest donor is Anadarko Petroleum --at $146,500 -- a company that drills heavily in the deepwater Gulf and has suffered from the drilling moratorium.

Not being George W. Bush while apologizing for America's purported sins is not a foreign policy.

Ronald Reagan came into office with the idea of rolling back the Soviet Union...Bill Clinton pushed Western-inspired liberal globalization to lift the Third World out of poverty. After 9/11, George W. Bush sought to keep America safe from another round of Islamic terrorism while promoting Middle East constitutional government as a way of weakening Islamic terrorism. But what exactly does Barack Obama wish to accomplish abroad?

Obama emphasizes his nontraditional background and his father's Islamic heritage. Apparently, he hopes that by reminding the world that he is not George W. Bush, America will be better liked.

But without a strategic vision, "Bush did it" leads nowhere -- given that most of the world's problems predated and transcend Bush. Obama doesn't seem to understand than wanting people to like America is only a means to an end, not a policy in itself -- and an especially dubious means, given the character of many nations in the world today.

US intelligence has shown Iran could launch an attack against Europe with "scores or hundreds" of missiles, prompting major changes to US missile defenses, Pentagon chief Robert Gates said on Thursday.

President Barack Obama in September cited a mounting danger from Iran's arsenal of short and medium-range missiles when he announced an overhaul of US missile defense plans.

The new program, called the "phased adaptive approach," uses sea and land-based interceptors to protect NATO allies in the region, instead of mainly larger weapons designed to counter long-range missiles.

Barack Obama doesn't do the mundane. He was sent to us to do larger things. You could see that plainly in his Oval Office address on the Gulf oil spill. He could barely get himself through the pedestrian first half: a bit of BP-bashing, a bit of faux-Clintonian "I feel your pain," a bit of recovery and economic mitigation accounting.

It wasn't until the end of the speech — the let-no-crisis-go-to-waste part that tried to leverage the Gulf Coast devastation to advance his cap-and-trade climate-change agenda — that Obama warmed to his task.

Mr. Fix-It he is not. He is world-historical, the visionary, come to make the oceans recede and the planet heal. How? By creating a glorious, new, clean green economy.

And how exactly to do that? From Washington, by presidential command and with tens of billions of dollars thrown around. With the liberal (and professorial) conceit that scientific breakthroughs can be legislated into existence, Obama proposes to give us a new industrial economy.

A White House meeting between Obama administration officials and executives at BP Plc went longer than expected on Wednesday as the two sides wrangled the company's response to the oil spill.

According to a White House schedule, President Barack Obama was slated to attend the meeting for roughly 20 minutes starting at 10:15 a.m. The meeting was still going -- though the president had long left -- several hours later

Economist John Taylor (Stanford University) says government intervention caused the market meltdown of 2008 and that "short-run government spending" has only made matters worse. He dismisses the theory that stimulus spending can jump-start an economy as an "old-fashioned" Keynesian illusion.

Economist John Cochrane (University of Chicago) says the Keynesian theory of stimulus spending to end recessions is so wrong that it is now taught "only for its fallacies."

Mr. Obama appears to have lost the bet. The markets are downright skeptical. Unemployment remains high. In May, the U.S. economy generated 400,000 government jobs, but only 40,000 private sector jobs. Many Americans now think their President has assumed massive debt for precious little gain.

When ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero last week addressed the progressive conference America's Future Now, he began by saying: "I'm going to start provocatively . . . I'm disgusted with this president." Last night, after Obama's Oval Office speech, Jon Stewart began his show with an 8-minute monologue on Obama's executive power and civil liberties record which, in essence, provided just some of the reasons why Romero's strong condemnation is so justified.

None of this will be remotely new to any readers here, but it's still nice to see its being distilled so clearly by a voice which even the most hardened Obama loyalists have decided is a credible and trustworthy one (at least when he's mocking Sarah Palin and exposing Fox News; we'll see what reaction this provokes from them, if any).

While President Obama is speaking tonight, oil will continue to leak from the well and extend its stranglehold on the lives and livelihoods of the people in the affected areas. Even now, nearly two months after disaster first struck, the federal response remains inadequate and disorganized. Americans are rightly angry about this failure of government, and they want to know that their president is focused squarely on stopping this leak, cleaning up this mess, and finding out what went wrong.

"President Obama should not exploit this crisis to impose a job-killing national energy tax on struggling families and small businesses.

From the moment he began, hands folded on his desk like a well-behaved student, the imagery and energy was off, inadequate to the visual, horror-movie scope of the Gulf oil disaster.

I'm not sure anyone walked away from the speech clearer on what Obama will do to hasten the clean up and prevent future disasters.

On the 54th day of the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, President Obama projected that the transformational impacts of the oil spill will be as fundamentally world-changing as those of 9/11. He's overreaching on that one.

The jets that sliced into the World Trade Center pushed America, indeed the globe, into recognizing that the U.S. was a nation upon which a maniacal enemy had declared war.

The lessons of the undersea gusher and its terrible environmental toll are hardly of the same eye-opening, galvanizing order. Everyone already knew that fossil fuels make the global economy go and are critical to the U.S. standard of living. Everyone already knew that energy consumption, whether produced by oil, coal, natural gas or nuclear reaction, entails environmental costs.

What everyone did not know was...how far short Obama would fall from American expectations of presidential leadership.

The politics around the BP Gulf oil spill border on hysterical, discredit our national leadership and exacerbate the already devastating economic costs of the worst environmental disaster in the nation's history.

The federal government's handling of the disaster gets a worse grade in polling than did the government's response five years ago to Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans. Like President Bush then, President Obama now is criticized as having been slow to respond to a national crisis.

Furthermore, Obama's famous coolness doesn't naturally translate into the empathy and anger liberals feel is part of the de rigueur feel-your-pain emoting necessary for a disaster, especially one associated with a left-wing villain like an oil company.

People are worried about the economy, and they should be. They have been told to expect a strong rebound from our deep recession. The usual pattern is that recoveries mirror the strength of the decline--the steeper the drop, the more vigorous the rebound. It isn't happening. The latest employment report makes it clear that the economy is not adding jobs. State and local governments faced with declining revenues are being forced to cut employment, wages and services, and they are raising taxes wherever they can.

A little over a year ago the Obama administration passed a staggering $787 billion stimulus package designed to rescue the economy. More than half of that money has now been spent, and the economy is still just creaking along. But now people are realizing that there is a dark side to this spending orgy. It has to end, and then we have to pay the bill. If we need any reminders that the day of reckoning is coming we have only to look to Europe.

More Americans (69%) now disapprove of Obama's handling of the oil spill than they did of Bush's handling of Katrina (62%). Many Democrats have attempted to defend Obama by suggesting that BP are entirely to blame. However, The Great Orator, as Obama was affectionately called by some during the election campaign, has turned into a president with a mixed message born out of confusion and a lack of leadership.

President Obama said, "In case you were wondering who's responsible," Obama also said, "I take responsibility. It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down...The federal government is fully engaged. And I'm fully engaged." America was looking to their president to be a leader in the face of disaster. Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, one of Obama's biggest supporters during the 2008 election campaign, observed, "Once more, [Obama] has willfully and inexplicably resisted fulfilling a signal part of his job: being a prism in moments of fear and pride, reflecting what Americans feel so they know he gets it." Despite taking responsibility for the crisis, by assuring America that he was fully engaged, he felt that it was more urgent to go fundraising in San Francisco for Senetor Barbara Boxer than find a solution for the oil leak. Commenting further about Obama's priorities, Dowd added, "He's spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of troops killed in battle and with veterans at Arlington Cemetery." Obama clearly has his priorities mixed up. It may be little wonder, however, that Obama has taken responsibility. The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, "We will keep our boot on the throat of BP to ensure that they're doing all that is necessary while we do all that is humanly possible to deal with this incident," [President Obama's White House Press Secretary Robert] Gibbs said. "Absolutely." Republican Senate nominee, Rand Paul, said of this rhetoric, "What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,'" Paul said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." "I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business." Sen. Nominee Paul added, ""And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen." So despite accepting responsibility, the Obama administration was doing its best to pass the buck and absolve itself of any responsibility. Ironic, given Obama's message at a graduation ceremony recently: "The truth is, no matter how hard you work, you won't necessarily ace every class or succeed in every job. There will be times when you screw up, when you hurt the people you love, when you stray from your most deeply held values. It's the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Don't make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well." The political expediency is starting to gush from the Obama administration at a faster rate than oil is leaking from the bed of the Gulf of Mexico.

After the rhetoric from Salazar and Gibbs, the critics grew in number. "No matter how outraged one is at the oil spill, which is terrible, isn't the image of the Obama administration putting its "boot on the throat" of an entire company that, after all, has plenty of innocent and law-abiding taxpaying Americans as employees and shareholders and vendors maybe a little bit unseemly?" Not only does BP employ upwards of 29,000 people in the USA, countless millions across the world have pensions and 401k plans. The vast majority of these investment funds will have a large proportion of BP stock. In the UK, national newspaper The Daily Telegraph commented, "The industrial might of the United States has been built partly on what some call Big Oil, and they don't come much bigger than BP. For all that many in America are choosing to emphasise the "British" rather than the "Petroleum" as they seek to attach culpability for the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the nationality of the drilling company is irrelevant. Indeed, the jingoistic chippiness that has characterised the response to what is one of the worst ecological calamities in years has been as unedifying as it has been unhelpful. No one sought to blame America as a nation when Occidental Oil's Piper Alpha platform exploded in the North Sea in 1988, killing 167 people." Putting the boot on the throat of BP merely tightened the noose on the necks of Obama's administration.

Speaking just yesterday, Obama said "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers -- so I know whose ass to kick." Not exactly the eloquent language the world has come to expect from the "Great Communicator". Whether or not that is step up from the "plug the damn hole" comment will be an area for debate. On Thursday afternoon, Obama said "I want people...who don't make excuses when things break down but get in there and fix them, and I have confidence Ken Salazar will do that." A trend is beginning to appear. Obama wants people around him that don't make excuses yet making excuses has been the staple of the Obama administration's response to this crisis. However, if Obama truly wants to chart a new course in dealing with the BP disaster and accelerating America's transition to a clean energy future, he should start by requesting Ken Salazar's resignation, not singing his praises.

Obama is out of his depth. Boots on throats, plugging damn holes and kicking ass is a strange choice of words, but perhaps understandable when the tide of public opinion is turning in the wrong direction for the president. Deepwater is showing the country that maybe "yes, we can" is "no, we really can't."

The UK Foreign Office is becoming increasingly concerned that criticism towards BP over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is threatening Anglo-US relations.

The scale and ferocity of the US attacks are said to have disturbed David Cameron, according to Whitehall sources.

Some American politicians have suggested that BP should be barred from future government contracts. The company is the biggest supplier of oil and gas to the US military with contracts worth $2 billion (£1.4billion) a year. Such a move would be likely to benefit US rivals such as ExxonMobil and Chevron.

With American midterm elections only five months away, Whitehall officials are understood to be concerned that the issue is becoming a political football in the States.

The truth is, no matter how hard you work, you won't necessarily ace every class or succeed in every job. There will be times when you screw up, when you hurt the people you love, when you stray from your most deeply held values. It's the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. Don't make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well.

Wise words from the President. Perhaps now he can take his own advice and take responsibility instead of blaming every ill in the world on Bush.

It's excuse time in the fudge factory. President Obama is getting lots of cover and advice from his left-leaning media friends. Their ideas run the gamut from public relations to, well, public relations.

Beyond the irony of journalists urging more spin from a politician, the really remarkable fact is that none dare consider the possibility that Obama is simply not up to the job. It is a scary thought, but evidence of consistent failure is overwhelming.

The high point of his presidency came the day he took office. Since then, a majority of Americans has opposed virtually all his major policies and he has prevailed on several only because of large Democratic congressional advantages.

A newly-produced document today from the Clinton archives is the second to show Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan defending ex-President Bill Clinton's veto of a bill to ban partial-birth abortions. The memo, and others, may increase Republican opposition to her nomination.

This new memo comes after the unveiling of a prior one showing her defending Clinton's veto of the partial-birth abortion ban.

The first memo has Kagan defending a phony abortion ban that Clinton supporters ran in the Senate to help him and opponents of the authentic measure deflect criticism for opposing it.

Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee eventually told LifeNews.com the Kagan memo likely helped keep partial-birth abortions legal longer.

Barack Obama's half-brother was denied entry to the UK after being accused of a serious crime on an earlier visit, the Home Office has confirmed.

Samson Obama, who lives in Kenya, was on his way to the US presidential inauguration in January when he was stopped at East Midlands Airport.

Samson Obama is one of several half-siblings of the US president.

US President Barack Obama has written a personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il as part of an intensifying effort to draw the reclusive nation back to nuclear disarmament talks.

The letter was delivered to North Korean officials last week by Mr Obama's special envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, during a visit to Pyongyang aimed at restarting the stalled negotiations according to the Washington Post.

Mr Bosworth's visit to Pyongyang was the Obama administration's first high-level contact with North Korea. He said after leaving the North that the two sides reached a ``common understanding'' on the need to restart the six nation nuclear negotiations, which involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, the US and Russia.

The existence of the letter has been kept quiet, with the Obama administration insisting to its partners in disarmament talks with North Korea that it not be publicly discussed.

So what's the delay now?

The White House says an an nouncement on whether President Obama will give Gen. Stanley McChrystal the 40,000 troops he's asked for in Afghanistan is weeks away.

This, despite yesterday's canceling of a runoff in the disputed presidential election, after challenger Abdullah Abdullah abruptly withdrew over the weekend -- saying he believed the second round of balloting would be as corrupt as the first.

It was barely a week ago that the White House -- via Sen. John Kerry -- successfully pressed embattled President Hamid Karzai to accept a runoff, insisting that no decision on a troop surge could be made until new voting proved the legitimacy of his government.

As the anniversary of his victory looms, the troubles are mounting for a president who promised so much.

His popularity ratings have slumped to an anaemic average of 51 per cent. He has spent a full 60 days thus far considering a request from General Stanley McChrystal, Nato commander in Afghanistan, for another 44,000 troops to stave off defeat.

In Congress, Mr Obama's health care plan – which the White House had said it wanted to be finalised by August – is in deep trouble. Senate Democratic leaders have defied him by backing a liberal bill that establishes a government-run insurance option – something that the sole Republican who has supported reform has said she cannot countenance.

The White House is pleading for patience, arguing that change sometimes doesn't come quickly or easily. Unfortunately for Mr Obama, Americans tend to expect instant results. If Mr Obama doesn't deliver soon, they are liable to write him off as – to use the Texan phrase – all hat and no cattle.

The decline in Barack Obama's popularity since July has been the steepest of any president at the same stage of his first term for more than 50 years.

Gallup recorded an average daily approval rating of 53 per cent for Mr Obama for the third quarter of the year, a sharp drop from the 62 per cent he recorded from April.

His current approval rating – hovering just above the level that would make re-election an uphill struggle – is close to the bottom for newly-elected president. Mr Obama entered the White House with a soaring 78 per cent approval rating.

The Congressional Budget Office predicted deficits over the next decade will add up to $7.1 trillion. The White House Office of Management and Budget earlier increased its 10-year-budget projection to more than $9 trillion, an increase of about $2 trillion.

The Congressional Budget Office predicted deficits over the next decade will add up to $7.1 trillion. The White House Office of Management and Budget earlier increased its 10-year-budget projection to more than $9 trillion, an increase of about $2 trillion.

The national debt is $11.7 trillion.

Switzerland is trying to ensure UBS is not forced to hand over account details to the US authorities, an apparent reversal of promises to share tax data.

The Swiss government is arguing that handing over the client details would breach its national bank secrecy rules.

UBS is refusing to release data on 52,000 Americans that hold Swiss bank accounts to US tax authorities who accuse them of tax evasion.

The fuzzy math behind the Massachusetts universal healthcare law is starting to add up - just as Washington studies the law as a possible model for the nation.

Because of a recession-related drop in state revenues and a surge in enrollment by the recently unemployed, the truth is emerging at an inconvenient time. Massachusetts doesn't have enough money to pay for the coverage envisioned by the law.

In June, state officials announced they are cutting $100 million from Commonwealth Care, which subsidizes premiums for needy residents. The poorest residents, along with the newest - legal immigrants - will take the hit.

This outcome is not surprising, but it is instructive as President Obama pushes for a national healthcare plan.

Stymied by Congress so far, the White House is considering issuing an executive order to indefinitely imprison a small number of Guantanamo Bay detainees considered too dangerous to prosecute or release, two administration officials said Friday.

The administration also is considering asking Congress to pass new laws that would allow the indefinite detentions. Without legislative backing, an executive order is the only route Obama has to get the needed authority.

The U.S. House of Representatives was poised to approve on Thursday a $550.4 billion defense authorization bill for fiscal 2010 that has drawn a veto threat from President Barack Obama because it contains money for fighter jets he does not want.

The bill also authorizes $130 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the fiscal year that begins October 1.

The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said it supported the overall bill but the president's senior advisers would recommend a veto unless some provisions were dropped.

The White House has accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of seeking to blame the US for unrest following Iran's disputed election.

The US replied one day after Mr Ahmadinejad was sharply critical of President Barack Obama for condemning Iranian violence against protesters.

"There are people in Iran who want to make this not about a debate among Iranians in Iran, but about the West and the United States," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

"I would add President Ahmadinejad to that list of people trying to make this about the United States."

President Obama's town hall meeting on health care delivered a sickly rating Wednesday evening.

The one-hour ABC News special "Primetime: Questions for the President: Prescription for America" (4.7 million viewers, 1.1 preliminary adults 18-49 rating) had the fewest viewers in the 10 p.m. hour.

The special drew fire from Republican leadership after refusing to allow an official opposition response, or even a paid ad. ABC also interviewed Obama on "Good Morning America" to help promote the special.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused President Barack Obama of behaving like his predecessor on Iran and called on him to apologize for what he called U.S. interference following the Iranian elections.

Obama has ramped up his previously muted criticism, saying he was "appalled and outraged" by a crackdown on protests which followed Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.

"Mr Obama made a mistake to say those things ... our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously (former U.S. President George W.) Bush used to say," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

President Barack Obama delivered his sharpest criticism of Iran's election and political crackdown, throwing into question his plan for diplomatic outreach to Tehran that stands at the center of his broader Middle East security strategy.

After days of criticism from Republicans, Mr. Obama opened a White House news conference saying he was "appalled and outraged" by the threats and confrontations in the streets of the Iranian capital. He declined to confirm whether a U.S. offer of direct talks with Iran will still stand, instead saying he would wait to see how the postelection crisis there "plays itself out."

During a contentious debate in Las Vegas, Nevada, Mr. Obama said "the only difference between Senator Clinton's health care plan and mine is that she thinks the problem for people without health care is that nobody has mandated -- forced -- them to get health care. That's not what I'm seeing around Nevada. What I see are people who would love to have health care. They -- they desperately want it. But the problem is they can't afford it."

He underlined again during the debate: "I don't think that the problem with the American people is that they are not being forced to get health care."

But during his interview with Diane Sawyer, President Obama said that while "mandates are an example of... something that I was resistant to during the campaign... [but] if we want to have a system that drives down costs for everybody, then we've got to have healthier people not opt out of the system.

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday declined to apologize for a past CIA interventions and alleged coup attempts in Latin America, after talks with Chilean leader Michele Bachelet.

"I'm interested in going forward, not looking backward," said Obama, who has pledged to reinvigorate ties with Latin America, after what his advisors believe was neglect during the previous Bush administration.

In a letter to Malia and Sasha issued ahead of Father's Day he said: "I know I have been an imperfect father. I know I have made mistakes.

"There were many days out on the campaign trail when I felt like my family was a million miles away and I knew I was missing moments of my daughters' lives that I'd never get back. It is a loss I will never fully accept."

When big shots the world over get really, really sick, they come to America for treatment, because we've got the best doctors, the best hospitals, the best medical technology and the best medicines.

These aren't cheap. We also have the most expensive health care in the world. Spending for health, which accounted for five percent of our gross domestic product in 1960, has risen to 18 percent today, and, says President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, will rise to 34 percent of GDP by 2040 if nothing is done.

So it's hard to disagree with the president when he says getting a handle on health care spending is an urgent national priority. But Mr. Obama proposes to do this by having the government spend at least a trillion dollars more on health than we're spending now. That's an imprudent expenditure to make when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is forecasting a deficit of $1.85 trillion for this fiscal year.

And $1 trillion is just for openers.

While the president remains broadly popular, his standing has eroded noticeably among political independents in recent weeks. That slide, among a set of citizens central to Mr. Obama's sizable victory in last year's election, means he has reached a politically hazardous juncture at the midpoint of his first, exceptionally hectic year.

The shifting attitude among independent voters, in fact, is the most significant change to emerge from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, completed just last week. In that survey, Mr. Obama's job-approval rating among Americans overall slipped a notch, to 56% from 61% in April. That's not much of a drop, and is in keeping with the pattern for a new president at this point in his term.

But the slide was much more pronounced among self-identified purely independent voters -- that is, Americans who express no loyalty to either party.

Among these people, who tend to reside in the middle of the ideological spectrum, the president's job-approval rating fell to 45% from 60% in April.

Is a government-dominated health-care system unconstitutional? A strong case can be made for that proposition, based on the same "right to privacy" that underlies such landmark Supreme Court decisions as Roe v. Wade.

The Supreme Court created the right to privacy in the 1960s and used it to strike down a series of state and federal regulations of personal (mostly sexual) conduct. This line of cases began with Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 (involving marital birth control), and includes the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

The court's underlying rationale was not abortion-specific. Rather, the justices posited a constitutionally mandated zone of personal privacy that must remain free of government regulation, except in the most exceptional circumstances. As the court explained in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), "these matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life."

The turtles, lizards, newts and tree frogs that live around Lake Jackson, near Tallahassee, are due to benefit from a new $3.4m (£2.1m) tunnel that will enable them to migrate under one of the state's busiest roads without getting squashed.

Florida's so-called "turtle tunnel" was identified by a Republican senator last week as a prime example of misplaced priorities as Obama attempts to jump-start the US economy with more than $1 trillion worth of spending on a huge range of job-creation projects.

When Coburn produced a list of 100 questionable stimulus projects last week - including a plan to put a $1m guard rail around an empty lake and a $580,000 homelessness prevention grant to a town with no homeless people - the White House retorted that Obama had taken "historic steps" to ensure stimulus funds were well spent.

Millions of Iranians take to the streets to defy a theocratic dictatorship that, among its other finer qualities, is a self-declared enemy of America and the tolerance and liberties it represents. The demonstrators are fighting on their own, but they await just a word that America is on their side.

And what do they hear from the president of the United States? Silence. Then, worse. Three days in, the president makes clear his policy: continued "dialogue" with their clerical masters.

Dialogue with a regime that is breaking heads, shooting demonstrators, expelling journalists, arresting activists. Engagement with -- which inevitably confers legitimacy upon -- leaders elected in a process that begins as a sham.

As President Obama struggles to turn around the moribund economy and confront multiple international issues, he wastes few opportunities to remind the country that the problems are not of his making.

Mr. Obama is hardly the first president to point to his predecessor. Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for the poor economy he inherited, just as Bill Clinton blamed the first President Bush and the younger Mr. Bush then blamed Mr. Clinton.

But at a certain point, a new president assumes ownership of the problems and finds himself answering for his own actions. For Mr. Obama, even some advisers say that moment may be coming soon.

Last Wednesday a man named Gerald Walpin, a U.S. inspector general investigating the possible misuse of Americorps funds, received a call from the White House informing him of his firing, a firing some believe was politically motivated and highly illegal.

By law the President has the power to fire inspectors general, high ranking officials whose jobs require them to audit and investigate fraud within the government independent from influence by the executive and legislative branches, but Walpin claims that he was fired without warning, which would be a clear violation of the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, a law requiring the president to provide Congress with a written explanation of cause a minimum of 30 days before firing an inspector general.