Barack Obama

Pointing to increases in defense spending, efforts to get out of Iraq and revamp the strategy for Afghanistan, and a broad campaign to repair the U.S. reputation abroad, retired Marine Gen. James Jones said the nation is safer today than it has been. But, he added, no administration is perfect.

“I think that the former vice president knows full well that perfection is an impossible standard,” said Jones, adding that the U.S. can only do everything it can “to keep threats at bay and as far away from our shores as possible.”

Reference taken from YAHOO NEWS partially

President Barack Obama said on Friday that U.S. combat operations in Iraq would end on Aug. 31, 2010, but some 35,000-50,000 troops would remain to support the Iraqi government and security forces.

In a speech at the Camp Lejeune Marine base in North Carolina, Obama said “Iraq is not yet secure” and difficult days lay ahead, but he said his administration intended to remove all U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011.

The 18-month timetable marks a historic juncture in a war that has been enormously costly to the United States and defined the presidency of George W. Bush. It has been a huge drain on the Treasury, cost the lives of some 4,250 U.S. soldiers and damaged America’s standing in the world.

“I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months. Let me say this as plainly as I can, by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” Obama said in a speech at Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina.

Obama said 35,000 to 50,000 troops would remain to train and equip the Iraqi forces, protect civilian reconstruction projects and conduct limited counterterrorism operations.

“Under the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011.

The United States has no desire for a “long-term” military presence in Afghanistan despite plans to send more troops to the war-torn country, President Barack Obama said Friday.

“One of the things that I think we have to communicate in Afghanistan is that we have no interest or aspiration to be there over the long term,” Obama said in an interview with PBS public television.

“There’s a long history, as you know, in Afghanistan of rebuffing what is seen as an occupying force and we have to be mindful of that history as we think about our strategy,” he said.

Obama, who earlier Friday announced an end to US combat operations in Iraq within 18 months, has vowed a new focus on fighting Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The new president has ordered another 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan and is conducting a review of policy in the region.

Obama, who opposed his predecessor George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, defended the US involvement in Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda extremists who carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks were holed up.

Obama said he believed the US commitment to Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest nations, should involve more than military force.

“Our bottom goal in the region is to keep the American people safe,” Obama said.

But he declined to set a timeline on when US troops would exit Afghanistan.

“Until we have a clear strategy, we’re not going to have a clear exit strategy,” he said.

“My goal is to get US troops home as quickly as possible without leaving a situation that allows for potential terrorist attacks against the United States,” Obama said.

Some left-wing critics have questioned the extra deployment to Afghanistan, fearing that the United States would get bogged down in an escalating conflict similar to Vietnam.

The Obama administration this week convened a three-way meeting with the Afghan and Pakistani foreign ministers as part of a review on how to move forward in the “war on terror.”

Michelle Obama graces the cover of next month’s Vogue magazine, marking the second time a U.S. first lady has appeared on the front of one of the world’s leading fashion magazines.

Obama, 45, who has been hailed by both U.S. retailers and the media as a new fashion icon, donned a magenta sheath dress for the cover photo. The dress was designed by Jason Wu, who also created her white inaugural ball gown.

Famed photographer Annie Leibovitz took the cover photo and several fashion shots featured inside the March edition of Vogue.

With the exception of Bess Truman, every U.S. first lady since Lou Hoover in the 1930s has been featured in Vogue, but Obama is only the second presidential wife to appear on the cover, Vogue said. Hillary Clinton did so in 1998.

Obama has won praise from fashionistas for mixing designer pieces with off-the-rack American brands like J. Crew and Gap.

Vogue’s editor-at-large, Andre Leon Talley said Obama selected the outfits worn for the photo shoot herself, from her own wardrobe, pairing designer wear with affordable clothes.

“She doesn’t need any help. She loves fashion and knows what works for her. She’s never had a conversation with me about, ‘What do you think?’ or ‘How did this look?’ And I’m glad for that.”

A department worker and member of the Prairie Band Potawatomi tribe, Nedra Darling, presented Mrs. Obama with a handmade shawl that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said honored a woman of high achievement. The Black Bear Singers, a drum group, performed a traditional song in her honor.

This was the first lady’s third stop on a listening tour through the federal bureaucracy to thank employees for their work.

“It’s been such a great way for me to get to know our new community and to meet you, our new co-workers and our new neighbors,” Mrs. Obama said of her visits.

She praised Interior Department employees, saying they would be critical to the new administration’s energy policies, such as using natural resources responsibly and fighting climate change.

First Lady Michelle Obama has hit the ground running, already receiving praise for being more active and more public in the first 100 days than perhaps any other president’s wife.

First ladies always pick a cause - Laura Bush had literacy, Hillary Clinton health care, but Mrs. Obama, perhaps reflecting on this generation of Uber-moms, seems to have an awful lot going on.

Michelle Obama, nicknamed ‘the closer’ during the campaign because she helped win over undecided voters, is still stumping for her husband. She is now pushing her husband’s economic stimulus package.

“It is critical we stem the tide of foreclosures,” said Mrs. Obama. “Through this stimulus package we’ll be able to prevent teacher layoffs.”

Mrs. Obama is also a First Lady with a lot on her plate. Unlike the traditional president’s wives who were largely hostesses overseeing state dinners and White House tours, Michelle Obama mirrors today’s multitasking woman. She has said being a mom-in-chief is her top priority, but she also wants to help working and military families and boost volunteerism.

I’m sure she’s used to juggling it all. I think she was a partner in a large law firm in Chicago, with two children,” said Marta Erceg, Falls Church resident.

While both the president and first lady have said she is his wife and ‘not’ senior adviser, no one doubts the first lady has unique access to the president and can convey the concerns she’s hearing out in the public.

And although Waldorf resident Calvin Montgomery think Mrs. Obama is “a very classy young lady” who “supports her husband very well,” he does not want her job, saying, ” I don’t think I could handle it as well.”

While both the president and first lady have said she is his wife and ‘not’ senior adviser, no one doubts the first lady has unique access to the president and can convey the concerns she’s hearing out in the public.

These days all eyes are firmly fixed on President Barack Obama — even those of First Lady Michelle Obama!

Looking chic and sophisticated wearing a royal blue dress and an elegant pearl necklace, Mrs. Obama carefully listens to President Obama speak during the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday in Washington D.C.

At the breakfast, President Obama said he would announce plans to establish a White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships — an initiative that will replace or be an extension of former President George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

President Obama acknowledged yesterday that he “screwed up” in trying to exempt some candidates for positions in his administration from strict ethics standards and accepted the withdrawal of two top nominees, including former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle, in the first major setback of his young presidency.

Obama officials had sought a seamless transition, nominating most of his cabinet at record pace and taking office ready to implement a raft of new policies. His reversal yesterday suggested that speed may have come at a cost, and that Obama, despite the overwhelming popularity he had upon taking office and the major challenges facing the nation, will not be spared from the same kind of scrutiny his predecessors have faced.

In jettisoning one of his closest and earliest political allies, the President appeared eager to make a course correction after days of criticism that his administration was not abiding by its own stated ethical standards and questions about his ability to bring change to the capital.

“Did I screw up in this situation? Absolutely. I’m willing to take my lumps,” Obama told NBC’s Brian Williams, one of five interviews he gave yesterday afternoon. Obama told the network anchors that there are “not two sets of rules” for people, and said that average taxpayers deserve to have public officials who pay their taxes on time.

“I’ve got to own up to my mistake, which is that ultimately it’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules,” Obama said in an interview with NBC News. “You know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes.”

Daschle, a closer confidant to Obama than any other cabinet nominee, had offered to step down over the weekend, but officials close to both men said Obama had urged him to fight for confirmation.

In evening interviews on broadcast and cable television networks, Obama said he took responsibility for the errors. “And so I’m frustrated with myself, with our team,” he told NBC, “but ultimately my job is to get this thing back on track because what we need to focus on is a deteriorating economy and getting people back to work.” He added: “I’m here on television saying I screwed up and that’s part of the era of responsibility.”

The nominees’ tax problems also gave Republicans a new argument against Obama and his party as the economic debate proceeds: that Democrats are cavalier about taxing other people because they do not abide by the tax laws themselves. It was the rockiest day yet for the new White House.

Two hours before Daschle withdrew, Obama’s nominee to be the chief White House performance officer, Nancy Killefer, pulled her name from consideration because of unpaid payroll taxes for a household employee.

And perhaps most significant, the move threatened Obama’s plans to overhaul the health-care system, a central policy initiative and one so important that he had chosen Daschle for a perch both at the department of health and human services and in the White House itself.

Hours before delivering the same mea culpa to each of the five television anchors at the Oval Office, Obama and his wife Michelle made an unscheduled stop at a public school not far away.

“We were just tired of being in the White House,” Obama told second graders at the Capital city Public Charter school.

Michelle Obama’s Chicago hairstylist, Rahni Flowers, has been styling the now First Lady for 25 years. During her time as First Lady, though, she’s going to have to find someone new to do her hair - Flowers ain’t moving!

He says, “It would not be a very pragmatic thing to fly me back and forth to Washington D.C. in light of the economic climate in the United States.”

So what’s Michelle gonna do????

“What we agreed to do is I would help train people who live in D.C. to maintain her look and her schedule — that would be a lot better,” says Flowers.

Rahni also mentioned that the most important thing for Michelle is creating “a look that will work with her lifestyle.”

What do U think of Michelle’s hair?

Should she keep her current stylist’s influence or is it time for a new ‘do?

First Lady Michelle Obama promoted President Obama’s economic stimulus plan on Wednesday as she rallied hundreds of government employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The government workers clapped, cheered and snapped photos in a packed auditorium as Mrs. Obama told the crowd that the stimulus plan would expand the availability of affordable housing, weatherize homes and help families hurt by the foreclosure crisis, among other things.

“We know times are hard right now,’’ said Mrs. Obama, who thanked the HUD employees for their hard work. “There are so many families who have lost their homes.’’

Mrs. Obama’s visit marked the second in a series of trips that Mrs. Obama plans to make to federal agencies in the coming weeks as she expands her profile as first lady.