The Week: Most Recent Barack Obama

'The Choom Gang': 9 juiciest details from Barack Obama's days as a pothead

The Week — Fri, 25 May 2012 16:08:00 -0400

The "audacity of dope"? In his memoir Dreams From My Father, Barack Obama admits having smoked marijuana during high school, but newly released excerpts from David Maraniss' upcoming biography Barack Obama: The Story paint a picture of a truly committed pothead. The "giggle-worthy" details — many attributed to Obama's high school buddies collectively known as "the Choom Gang," after the slang term for smoking marijuana — are "right out of a buddy stoner flick," says Adam Sorensen at TIME. Here, the most scandalous allegations:

1. The Choom Gang
While in high school at the Punahou...

The 'Obama spending binge': Fact or fiction?

The Week — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:00:00 -0400

Mitt Romney has accused Obama of overseeing a "debt and spending inferno," a massive increase in government spending that could jeopardize our kids' future. And even many Democrats agree. Only problem, says Rex Nutting at MarketWatch: The "Obama spending binge" never really happened. Federal spending jumped by 17.9 percent in the 2009 fiscal year — the last budget approved by George W. Bush — but fell by 1.8 percent under Obama's first budget, rose by 4.3 percent and 0.7 percent in his next two years, and is scheduled to fall again, by 1.3 percent, in fiscal 2013. That, says Nutting...

The real dangers of the Secret Service prostitution scandal

The Week — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:45:00 -0400

On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will open hearings on the U.S. Secret Service prostitution scandal. Mark Sullivan, the director of the Secret Service, will be called to testify. This will be his first public statement on the controversy, which involved agents soliciting prostitutes in Cartagena, Colombia, and later, very publicly and drunkenly, refusing to pay the tab. Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) has already stated that he plans to ask: "What are you going to do, Director Sullivan, to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again?" ...

Time for Obama to dump Joe Biden?

The Week — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:57:00 -0400

Vice President Joe Biden reportedly had to apologize to President Obama last week after he revealed that he supports gay marriage, pressuring Obama to go public with his own endorsement. The president shrugged off the incident, saying that, while Biden had gone "a little over his skis," he'd merely sped up the timetable for a planned announcement. Still, the events of last week have spurred yet another round of speculation that Obama might replace his gaffe-prone No. 2 with someone less likely to make unexpected headlines. Should Obama find a new running mate?

Yes. Biden must go: I'm all for gay...

Did Obama really try to bribe Jeremiah Wright?

The Week — Mon, 14 May 2012 11:14:00 -0400

President Obama's controversial former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is back in the news. Edward Klein, a former New York Times Magazine editor and author of a forthcoming unauthorized Obama biography called The Amateur, said in Sunday's New York Post that Wright, by his own account, was indirectly offered $150,000 by one of Obama's "closest friends" to stop preaching until after the 2008 presidential election. Wright told Klein that he turned the offer down. Conservative bloggers are leaping on the story, insisting that Obama tried to "bribe" Wright to deflect attention from the pastor's sometimes...

What the Chen Guangcheng debacle reveals about Obama

The Week — Tue, 08 May 2012 10:40:00 -0400

Talk about poor timing. Last week, during President Obama's well-deserved bin Laden anniversary victory lap, he handed Mitt Romney and his Republican friends a pretty good reason to question the incumbent president's competence on foreign affairs.

The issue: The administration's handling of the case of Chen Guangcheng, the human rights activist famous in the People's Republic of China for exposing forced abortions.

Chen's story is worthy of any Hollywood thriller. In late April, he fled the provincial home where he and his family had been under house arrest for 20 months (after serving four years...

A young Obama in love: 7 takeaways from a juicy biography

The Week — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:10:00 -0400

Vanity Fair has published excerpts from Barack Obama: The Story, a forthcoming biography of the president by David Maraniss that focuses on two of Obama's former flames from his days as a student and young graduate in New York City. Obama dated Alex McNear for a brief period in 1982, and Genevieve Cook from December 1983 to May 1985, and Maraniss had access to Obama's letters to McNear and, perhaps most revealingly, to Cook's diary. The previously unseen documents show Obama wrestling with the issues of identity that would later be addressed in his memoir, Dreams From My Father. They also offer...

Highlights from the White House Correspondents' Dinner

The Week — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 07:00:00 -0400

President Obama took his fourth turn as comedian-in-chief on Saturday night, sharing the stage with late-night host Jimmy Kimmel at the 98th annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. (Watch video highlights below) Obama and Kimmel roasted several of the journalists, celebrities, and politicians in the room — including the president himself — and a few who weren't present, most notably Obama's presumptive 2012 opponent, Mitt Romney. Here's a look at some of the evening's best zingers, quips, one-liners, and, yes, dog jokes:

OBAMA
Kimmel's jokes:

"Mr. President, remember when the...

Another Secret Service sex scandal?

The Week — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:48:00 -0400

As the fallout from the Colombia prostitution scandal — which has so far cost eight Secret Service members their jobs — continues, news of another possibly damning scandal involving the Secret Service, strippers, and prostitutes is emerging. Already being dubbed the "Salvadoran Sexcapade," the latest incident reportedly took place in El Salvador in 2011, and was uncovered by Seattle TV station KIRO-TV. Here's what we know so far:

What happened?
Seattle-based investigative reporter Chris Halsne interviewed a U.S. government subcontractor who claims to have worked extensively with the...

10 telling details about the Secret Service scandal

The Week — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:30:00 -0400

As the fallout from the Secret Service prostitution scandal that broke last week continues, more facts are surfacing about the 11 service agents who are accused of bringing as many as 20 prostitutes to a hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, just days before President Obama arrived to take part in the annual Summit of the Americas. Three agents have already been ousted, while more resignations and firings are expected. Here, the 10 buzziest details to emerge about the scandal over the past week:

1. The club where the agents partied is essentially a brothel
Before allegedly bringing a "harem of hookers...

5 reasons the Secret Service prostitution scandal won't go away

The Week — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:50:00 -0400

This week, the Secret Service forced out three of the 11 agents who are accused of bringing as many as 20 prostitutes to a hotel in Cartagena, Colombia, just days before President Obama was due to stay there. One agent was allowed to retire, the second resigned, and the third was fired. Ousting the agents was seen as an attempt by the Secret Service to quell an embarrassment that has dominated headlines, but it's unlikely that the controversy will be swept aside that neatly. Here, five reasons the scandal will stick around:

1. A lawsuit is in the works
One of the three agents who lost their jobs...

From Jesus to Charlie Brown: 18 ways The Week has depicted Obama

The Week — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:04:00 -0400

President Obama once famously compared himself to a "blank screen" on which people could project their views, and the public has often done just that. Over the years Obama's been called a socialist and a savior, a charlatan and a professor — what he represents depends as much on our opinions as what's happening in the world around us. Here, a look back at the many hats and costumes the president has worn on the cover of The Week.

5 scandals that could undo Obama's re-election bid

The Week — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:50:00 -0400

The Obama administration has largely been heralded as the most scandal-free in modern history. But now, right in the middle of an election year, President Obama is being saddled with a string of embarrassing — and potentially damaging — incidents. Most recently, The Los Angeles Times released photos of U.S. soldiers posing with the corpses of Afghan insurgents. While the revelation was deeply troubling, that scandal has mostly reflected poorly on the military. Obama hasn't been so lucky, though, with respect to the still-unfolding Secret Service prostitution scandal that blew up in...

4 ways the Secret Service prostitution scandal hurts Obama

The Week — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:21:00 -0400

It will likely take awhile for the Secret Service to restore its reputation as a paragon of self-sacrifice. New details are emerging about last week's scandal in Colombia, in which 11 agents allegedly brought prostitutes back to the hotel in Cartagena where President Obama was soon to be staying. The inebriated agents reportedly revealed their identities at a Cartagena brothel, bragging that they were in Colombia to protect the president. They also brought back 21 girls to the hotel, and the military says as many as 10 of its servicemen might be involved as well. While the scandal hasn't implicated...

Replacing Hillary Clinton: 5 top Secretary of State candidates

The Week — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:40:00 -0400

Hillary Clinton is stepping down as Secretary of State next January, regardless of whether President Obama is sworn in for a second term or Mitt Romney is inaugurated for a first. And it looks like Clinton is going out on a high note, says David Graham in The Atlantic. She boasts "sky-high" approval ratings, was the subject of a flattering "Texts from Hillary" meme (which she very cooly dipped her own toe in), and set the internet abuzz by dancing and drinking beer at a late-night club in Colombia. Really, Graham says, the blazing hot "secretary of cool" will be a hard act to follow. But someone...

4 ways the 2012 election is shaping Obama's foreign policy

The Week — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:30:00 -0400

In his first term, President Obama notched some impressive achievements on his foreign policy belt. From the spectacular (killing Osama bin Laden), to the managerial (winding down the war in Iraq), Obama is the rare Democrat who heads into a November election bear-hugging foreign policy, a Republican strong point in recent years. But as confident as the White House appears to be, liberal and conservative critics say domestic political considerations are harming America's geopolitical positions. Here, four examples of how Obama's decisions have been affected by electoral considerations:

1. Taking...