The White House said National Security Adviser Tom Donilon held "comprehensive and constructive" talks Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in preparation for President Obama's meetings with Mr. Putin later this year.
The conventional wisdom is that President Obama dodged a politically perilous "bullet" when he declined to nominate Susan Rice as the next secretary of state.
Tuesday's re-election of President Obama triggered immediate speculation about the future of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, who will turn 75 in June. Mr. Panetta, defense secretary since June 2011, has had a long career in government and is said by associates to be ready to return to private life in Northern California, where he frequently visits and owns land.
Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld blamed President Obama's apologies and policies of blaming America for the ills of the world as the root cause behind the anti-U.S. violence that erupted recently in the Muslim world.
Pentagon general counsel Jeh Johnson is leading a major effort to plug news leaks and recently sent a memorandum to all Defense Department employees requesting that they all search their computers for information about contacts with reporters, according to defense officials familiar with the memo.
With President Obama back in the U.S. after his trip to South Korea, Speaker John Boehner sent him a letter demanding answers about comments he made to the president of Russia earlier this week,which were caught on a hot mic.
Spinning is a deceiver's art, the craft of persuading suckers they didn't really hear what they just heard. It's what modern politics is all about. President Obama has put his best spinners to work to "clarify" what he meant with his remarks in confidence to the Russians that once past November he'll have the "flexibility" to alter the American missile-defense system in a way that will please Moscow.
There is only one thing scarier for the future of America than all of the debt and bad policies President Obama has built up since his 2008 election: It's what the prospect of an Obama second term would bring. And the president isn't being honest about what his secret plans are.
U.S. intelligence agencies threw cold water on the President Obama's thus-far-unsuccessful effort to "reset" relations with Russia by making concessions to Moscow.
