NEWS
By John M. Glionna and Paul Richter | August 5, 2009
North Korea's surprise "special pardon" of two American television journalists may have reopened the channels of communication between the Obama administration and the secretive regime that for years has defied the world with its nuclear tests and political bombast. After a whirlwind 24-hour visit that capped months of quiet diplomatic negotiations, former President Bill Clinton left Pyongyang on a private jet with the reporters today following talks with leader Kim Jong Il, according to North Korea's state news media.
NEWS
By Paul Richter | August 5, 2009
The negotiations that led to former President Bill Clinton's secret mission to North Korea began when two U.S. journalists were seized by the isolated Stalinist state, and were spurred on by the administration's hope that they might lead to a resumption of gridlocked disarmament talks, according to people close to the process. The goal was a specific deal: If the United States showed respect by dispatching a high-level emissary to Pyongyang, the North would release journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, who were arrested along the border with China on March 17. "This has been an orchestrated diplomatic process, carefully calibrated in both capitals," said a person who has been close to the exchanges since they began.
NEWS
By SUSAN REIMER | January 19, 2009
When Barack Obama enters the Oval Office for the first time tomorrow, the "In" basket on his desk will already be piled high. The new president has a couple of wars and an economy in a tailspin to deal with. If that were not enough, just about every constituency - from ecologists to dressmakers - seems to have a stake in his presidency. And they are all convinced they have Obama's ear. An analysis by PolitiFact shows that Obama made 510 promises while running for president - twice as many as George Bush and Bill Clinton - and the fact-checking Web site for the St. Petersburg Times is going to keep track of every one. Obama promised everything from ending the war in Iraq and cutting taxes to establishing programs to help animals survive global warming, according to the Web site.
NEWS
By Dan Morain and Andrew Zajac | December 19, 2008
WASHINGTON - Hoping to allay conflict-of-interest concerns as his wife prepares to become secretary of state, former President Bill Clinton yesterdayreleased a donor list that showed he had raised as much as $131 million from foreign governments - including Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Norway - for the William J. Clinton Foundation. More than 200,000 patrons who had given a combined $500 million to his foundation since its inception in 1997 were identified by name only. The disclosures reveal a veiled world of international intrigue with a charitable goal but a cast of characters that includes countries, companies and individuals with vital and sometimes less than altruistic interests in U.S. foreign policy.
NEWS
By John Gartner | December 3, 2008
It's stunning how fast Bill Clinton's stock plummeted - faster, it seemed, than the Dow Jones industrial average after the fall of Lehman Brothers. When Hillary Clinton launched her bid for the presidency, the question was: How would she deploy "the greatest politician in our generation"? Unfortunately, a few ill-timed comments caught on tape during the campaign transformed Bill almost overnight into the crazy uncle in the attic, an embarrassment to be kept largely out of public sight. Early in her campaign, Hillary called Bill "the most popular person in the world" and vowed to use him as a "roving ambassador."
NEWS
By RON SMITH | November 5, 2008
Finally, blessedly, it's over. After the longest, most expensive campaign in American history, the voters have decided who will be the next Great Man to take the helm of our ship of state. Sen. Barack Obama has been swept into the presidency on a wave of contrasting yet complementary emotions. There is the positive enthusiasm generated by the 47-year-old's "transformational" identity, the idea millions of Americans have seized upon that here is a leader who reflects the multicultural, multiracial reality of present-day America, who seems thoughtful and careful and is a full generation younger than his opponent.
NEWS
By Ron Smith | August 27, 2008
The first and only time I went to the national political conventions was in 1996 - first to San Diego for the GOP conclave, at which the elderly U.S. senator from Kansas, Bob Dole, was nominated to run against President Bill Clinton in his re-election bid. I remember that Mr. Dole was such a boring old politician that the Republicans were thrilled that he selected Jack Kemp, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback and proponent of "supply-side" economics, as...
NEWS
By KATHLEEN PARKER | June 6, 2008
WASHINGTON - Not so long ago, Bill Clinton was the man of the moment, the one who was going to put Democrats back in power and baby boomers in charge. His defeat of George H.W. Bush with 43 percent of the vote wasn't just a changing of the guard. It was a baton passing from one generation to the next. The rest you know: the triangulating, the interning, the squandering. Then came Hillary's turn. And then, apparently, it went. The primaries finally are over, and Sen. Hillary Clinton missed her date with destiny.
NEWS
By Douglas MacKinnon | June 2, 2008
Back in 1996, President Bill Clinton's re-election campaign spot-welded the highly unpopular Newt Gingrich to Mr. Clinton's Republican challenger, Sen. Bob Dole. From television commercials to radio ads to speeches, the Darth Vader of the House of Representatives was continually morphed into any image or mention of Mr. Dole - to the point where some Americans actually thought Mr. Gingrich was Mr. Dole's running mate, or at the very least his Svengali. Was a strategy that basically ignored policy and the pressing issues of the time in lieu of a superficial and misleading attack effective?
NEWS
By PAUL WEST | May 4, 2008
DUNN, N.C. -- If Barack Obama wants to connect with white, working-class voters, he could take a lesson from William Jefferson Clinton. The former president has been on tour for months, almost exclusively in small towns and rural county seats, attracting adoring crowds and votes that are keeping his wife's candidacy alive. Of course, he's hurt her chances, too, perhaps fatally, with unscripted remarks that angered voters and aided Obama. Regardless of how the nomination turns out, Clinton's extraordinary efforts as a campaign surrogate - he's visiting 40 communities in North Carolina alone - far exceed those of any former president.