'We Are Not Your Enemy,' Prez Tells Muslims

Clinton a strong secretary, but not yet administration's voice

(NEWSER) - Ask Hillary Clinton or her staff about President Obama and they’ll praise him and tell you the relationship between the two really is strong. But the tensions between the State Department and White House are starting to show, writes Joe Klein . The president’s foreign policy hasn’t yet yielded results, and on her recent Pakistan trip, Clinton gave the first hints that she’d like to assert her independence—and move beyond what Klein calls “the Rodney King ‘Can’t we all just get along?’ phase.” More»

Says she burst into tears when Obama gave her the news

(NEWSER) - Sonia Sotomayor sat by the phone for 12 hours waiting for the call. When it finally rang, “I had my left hand over my chest, trying to calm my beating heart,” she recalls in an interview with C-SPAN. When President Obama offered her the Supreme Court appointment, “I caught my breath and started to cry and said, ‘Thank you, Mr. President.'” More»

It's OK Obama's 'jamming a lot of change down the system'

(NEWSER) - Bill Clinton has a hopeful exhortation for Congressional Democrats trying to push through health care reform. “The president's doing the right thing. It is both morally and politically right,” Clinton tells Esquire. “I wouldn't even worry about the Republicans,” who are just “sitting around waiting for us to mess up,” he says. “I'd worry about executing.” Clinton sees parallels between Obama’s first year and his own, with one caveat. More»

(NEWSER) - President Obama skillfully made the case for women's rights in the Muslim world during his Cairo speech today with the help of the hijab, or head scarf, writes Tracy Clark-Flory in Salon. "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal," he said, demonstrating tolerance and respect before reaching his main points: that women must have the right to education and the right to reject "traditional roles." More»

Why? 'He is decidedly not' his predecessor

(NEWSER) - President Obama’s speech in Cairo sounded a lot like President Bush’s 2006 speech to Muslims—yet Obama’s manages to carry far more weight, writes Michael Crowley in the New Republic. Both spoke of respect for “the history and traditions of the Muslim world”; both suggested governmental systems can’t be “imposed.” But Bush’s speech was “forgotten,” while Obama’s “seems to offer the potential of making millions of Muslims reconsider their view of America,” Crowley writes. More»