The Week: Most Recent Barack Obama:The Obama Administration

The true story behind Chuck Hagel and 'Friends of Hamas'

The Week — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:15:00 -0500

Chuck Hagel is still waiting for the Senate to vote on his bid to become defense secretary, after a brutal confirmation hearing that saw Republicans attack his alleged connections to "extreme and radical groups." It's perhaps no surprise, then, that a new poll from Pew shows that Hagel's favorability ratings are down, which has prompted a fair amount of jubilation among the anti-Hagel contingent. However, at least one charge against Hagel appears to be totally false, reinforcing Democratic claims that the decorated war hero has been the victim of a rightwing smear campaign.

The conservative...

David Axelrod joins NBC News: Is the White House running MSNBC?

The Week — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:15:00 -0500

On Tuesday, NBC News announced a new hire: David Axelrod, most recently chief strategist to President Obama's re-election campaign, is now a senior political analyst, slated to "contribute frequently across all broadcasts and platforms of both networks." Axelrod joins former Obama White House colleague Robert Gibbs, who was unveiled as a political contributor at the liberal-leaning NBC cable-news network MSNBC a week ago, as well as numerous other alumni of various White Houses who contribute regularly.

In one sense, this is pretty unremarkable in today's media market, says Bill Carter at...

Is it time to disband the White House press corps?

The Week — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 07:15:00 -0500

It was probably, in retrospect, bad timing for Politico to publish a long article complaining about the Obama administration's ill treatment of the White House press corps on the same day the White House press corps, with lots of help from Politico, was complaining bitterly about not getting a photo-op of Obama and Tiger Woods golfing together in Florida last weekend. The big golf grievance successfully "kicked off a kind of debate about the Obama administration's atrocious record of letting the press corps talk to the president," raging "from the pages of Politico to... well, to the pages of ...

The costs of the GOP's Chuck Hagel filibuster

The Week — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:30:00 -0500

Well, they did it: Thursday evening, Senate Republicans staged what amounts to the first-ever successful filibuster of a presidential Cabinet nominee, mustering enough votes to leave Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel — himself a former Senate Republican — one aye short of confirmation. Four Republicans voted with all 55 members of the Democratic caucus to proceed to an up-or-down vote that Hagel is sure to win — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) changed his vote to "no" at the end, a procedural move that will allow him to bring up the vote after the upcoming recess...

The Chuck Hagel filibuster: What do Republicans want?

The Week — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 07:30:00 -0500

"Republicans don't want to filibuster Chuck Hagel's nomination to be the next secretary of defense," says Rachel Weiner at The Washington Post. "They just want to require a 60-vote threshold to end debate on his confirmation." Got it? On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed for cloture, or a motion to end debate and move to a vote on confirming the Nebraska Republican, starting the clock for a Friday showdown — and a Saturday vote, if Reid gets the 60 ayes to end debate — right before the Senate adjourns for a weeklong recess.

"This is the first time in the history...

The political failure of Obama's State of the Union proposals

The Week — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 09:35:00 -0500

Shielded from the scrutiny of an absent future election, President Obama is a politician unleashed. And, as evidenced by his State of the Union address, America's chief executive is reveling in his newfound freedom.

Unfortunately, last night's forceful call to action offered little for a country desperate for serious solutions. On topics from the national debt to the war in Afghanistan, the president's speech was rich in partisanship and weak on good policy.

Let's consider the details.

On the economy, Obama offered a combination of new and old. First, a new minimum wage — which, although...

Obama's ambitious State of the Union address: 5 takeaways

The Week — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 07:00:00 -0500

The early reviews of President Obama's fourth State of the Union address are pretty good for the White House: A snap CNN/ORC International poll found that 53 percent of viewers had a "very positive" reaction to the speech, another 24 percent had a "somewhat positive response," and only 22 percent reported a negative response. The CNN sample skewed Democratic, but even National Review's Maggie Gallagher gave Obama an "A" for his "politically effective speech." (The conservative publication's editors were less impressed, panning Obama's "halting and graceless" spending-fest.) There was a lot packed...

Why the State of the Union still matters

The Week — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:06:00 -0500

Tonight, all the networks will be running what amounts to two long commercials: The State of the Union and the Republican response. The current version of the president's address couldn't be further from its original purpose of having the country's chief executive report to Congress once a year. Over the past century, it has become an exercise in political theater, especially with the advent of television. Which raises the question: Is there any reason to continue giving this annual tradition so much attention?

The idea for a State of the Union comes from a vague provision in the Constitution...

Obama's State of the Union address 2013: A viewer's guide

The Week — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 06:51:00 -0500

President Obama delivers his fourth State of the Union address on Tuesday night, a high-profile opportunity to lay out his plans and hopes for his second term — while there's still enough second term left for him to get things done before Washington turns its attention to the 2014 elections. "I don't want to say it's the last important speech he's going to give, but the window for a second-term president is fairly narrow," Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman for George W. Bush, tells Reuters. Here's a guide to Obama's best, last chance to set the agenda for a divided Washington:

What should...

Will Republicans block Chuck Hagel over Benghazi?

The Week — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:55:00 -0500

Republicans have used the deadly Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, to argue against President Obama and his foreign policy competence since early Sept. 12, 2012, when the attack dropped into the middle of a heated presidential campaign. The GOP effort to spotlight the attack wasn't without its consequences for the Obama administration — U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice is not secretary of state, for example — but Obama was re-elected and Hillary Clinton just retired as secretary of state with enviably high popularity ratings. On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey...

The GOP should filibuster Chuck Hagel

The Week — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 06:21:00 -0500

Normally, the Senate's role in a presidential appointment involves a testing of the waters, an airing of public disputes over policy, and then an uneventful vote to confirm the nominee. Presidents usually get a great deal of leeway in choosing their appointments, especially Cabinet officers.

Cabinet and sub-Cabinet officials serve at the pleasure of the president and are replaced on a regular basis. Presidents who win elections are entitled to their choice of advisers. The only solid rationales for denying confirmation are corruption, abuses of power, and/or incompetence. Senate Republicans...

Clinton's parting shot at her Benghazi critics

The Week — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 15:00:00 -0500

On her last day as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton took a parting shot at critics of the Obama administration's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. "I was so unhappy with the way that some people refused to accept the facts, refused to accept the findings of an independent Accountability Review Board, politicized everything about this terrible attack," she told The Associated Press. "There are some people in politics and in the press who can't be confused by the facts. They just will not live in an evidence-based world. And that's regrettable...

Did Chuck Hagel blow his shot at becoming defense secretary?

The Week — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 07:05:00 -0500

The consensus is that former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) didn't do very well in his Senate confirmation hearing to be the next defense secretary. And few people in Washington are happier about that than Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, one of Hagel's most tenacious critics. "It's fascinating, actually, to see a nominee of this importance do so poorly," she says. Hagel went "from awful to atrocious" on Thursday, repeatedly correcting himself, disavowing his own words, and squirming under the questioning from his former GOP colleagues. "Forgetting about his views, he does not radiate the confidence...

Chuck Hagel's brutal confirmation hearing: 3 key moments from round one

The Week — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:25:00 -0500

It was never going to be easy for Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska whom President Obama tapped to lead the department of defense. His erstwhile colleagues in the GOP had promised to give him a tough hearing over his foreign policy positions, including his fierce opposition to the Iraq War, his perceived hostility toward Israel, and his dovish positions on Iran. And a tough hearing is what he received, with Republican senators grilling Hagel for hours in what turned into a seat-squirming spectacle for the decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. Here, three key moments from...

The failure of the anti-Hagel campaign

The Week — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:20:00 -0500

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel's confirmation as secretary of defense was really never much in doubt, despite the clamorous complaints of a few vocal conservatives. Still, Hagel's likely confirmation has gained additional support in recent weeks that make his success all but certain. Despite the concerted efforts of a few outside Republican interest groups and a steady stream of hostile coverage from conservative media outlets, Hagel has received the public support of numerous former national security officials, diplomats, and retired military officers, as well as securing endorsements from several senators...

WATCH LIVE: Chuck Hagel's confirmation hearing

The Week — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 09:40:00 -0500

Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator from Nebraska, was tapped by President Obama to be the next secretary of defense. Watch his confirmation hearing, courtesy of CBS News, below: