The Daily Beast

Gregory Craig, White House counsel to President Obama and national security advisor to Obama during the presidential campaign, resigned his post this past Friday. But when rumors broke Thursday of his imminent departure, Craig had not written his farewell note and may not have planned to leave -- yet.

To hear the Obama administration tell it, the problem with American foreign policy towards China is that we haven't been paying enough attention. In the weeks and months leading up to the President's arrival in Beijing, a bevy of administration officials implied that the Bush administration had become so preoccupied with the Middle East that it gave China free reign to expand its influence in Asia. Now, by sending Obama to the continent in his first year -- after sending Hillary Clinton there on her first foreign… more

Don't mess with Moonbeam.

The most striking thing about San Francisco Gavin Newsom's decision to withdraw from the race for California governor is that no one else is in the race. Newsom's only opponent-Jerry Brown, the former governor and attorney general-may be the frontrunner in the polls, but he isn't a declared candidate. Brown only recently set up an exploratory committee.

The case of Najibullah Zazi serves as a grim reminder that al Qaeda continues to plan deadly attacks against American civilians. Zazi traveled to Pakistan's rugged borderlands, where he connected with al Qaeda operatives who provided him with explosives training in the summer of 2008. The next year, a few months after he had returned home to the United States, Zazi began gathering explosive materials to launch an attack, one that could have killed dozens. Yet it's worth keeping in mind that this plot, however dastardly, pales… more

Maybe that Saturday Night Live skit wasn't so funny after all. Four days after Fred Armisen announced that Barack Obama's signature accomplishments were "jack" and "squat," our do-nothing president did something that Democratic presidents have been trying to do for most of the last century: He celebrated a universal health care bill's passage through Senate Committee. For good measure, the Dow topped 10,000 for the first time since last fall's meltdown. Obama's polling has even ticked up: According to Gallup,… more

After months of contentious deliberation over U.S. policy in Sudan, President Barack Obama has announced his administration's long-awaited position on the largest country in Africa. In a statement released on Monday, Obama said...well, not very much, really. Carefully calibrated not to further enrage the Khartoum regime or the human-rights activists irate over the softening approach the Obama administration has appeared to be taking on Sudan, the president's missive offered a nod to both.

In an address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in August, President Obama made an impassioned case for the American military effort in Afghanistan. "If left unchecked," Obama said, "the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." Indeed, he went so far as to call the war in Afghanistan a "war of necessity," a term one normally reserves for repelling a foreign invasion or foiling an imminent attack. One of the vitally important points the… more