A quip about the commerce secretary job elicited laughter from the crowd at a Lincoln birthday celebration
President Barack Obama, in a speech honoring President Lincoln on the 200th anniversary of his birth, seemed to make light of the news earlier in the day that his nominee for commerce secretary [...]

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — President Barack Obama says Judd Gregg’s withdrawal as commerce secretary won’t deter him from working with the GOP or trying to change partisan ways of Washington.
The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that he’s glad the New Hampshire Republican “searched his heart” and changed course now before the Senate confirmed [...]

Review required » He ‘hit the pause button’
Washington » President Barack Obama said Wednesday his administration’s shelving of the oil and gas lease sale in Utah doesn’t signal a permanent shift against drilling on federal lands in the nation’s energy policy.
But the president said he wanted to suspend recent decisions of his predecessor, President George [...]

President Barack Obama said Monday he is considering whether to overturn a Pentagon policy that bans the media from taking pictures of the flag-draped coffins of U.S. troops returning from the battlefield.
A leading military families group says the policy, enforced without exception during the administration of former President George W. Bush, should let survivors of [...]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says this is “not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession” in appealing for quick congressional action on an economic recovery package.
At his first prime-time news conference, the president defended the bleak language he has used to describe the nation’s financial ills, such as crisis and catastrophe. He even suggested Monday in [...]

Firms using public funds need oversight, he says.
WASHINGTON — In a pointed effort to assuage public anger over sky-high pay for corporate executives of failing companies, President Barack Obama proposes tight limits on compensation for business leaders who accept major infusions of tax dollars during hard times, including a $500,000 pay cap for top execs.
The [...]

WASHINGTON, Feb 1 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama told Americans on Sunday a substantial number of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq would be home within a year, saying Iraqis were now ready to take more responsibility for their own security.
Obama, who inherited two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pledged during his presidential campaign to [...]

President Barack Obama says his team is preparing a new strategy for reviving the American financial system, and promised to make sure that corporate executives don’t drain public money intended to spur the economy.
“We’ll ensure that CEOs are not draining funds that should be advancing our recovery,” Obama said in his weekly radio address this [...]

US President Obama gives exclusive interview to Al-Arabiya TV

U.S. President Barack Obama says “the moment is ripe” for Israelis and Palestinians to achieve a lasting peace, but added that all parties in the region must play a role in the process.
In an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television, Mr. Obama said both sides would have to [...]

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US President Barack Obama said that the United States would offer arch-foe Iran an extended hand of diplomacy if the Islamic Republic’s leaders “unclenched their fist.”
Obama said he would in the next few months lay out a general framework of policy towards Tehran in an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya satellite television network, [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama vowed on Monday that his new Middle East envoy George Mitchell would engage vigorously in the quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace and expressed confidence he would achieve concrete results.
Wading quickly into Middle East diplomacy, Obama dispatched Mitchell, a veteran international trouble-shooter, to tackle a conflict the new president’s predecessor George [...]

uk.reuters.com
By Caren Bohan
CHICAGO, Dec 19 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Friday that he will be mindful of the huge budget deficits the government faces as he works to craft a stimulus plan aimed at lifting the economy from a deepening recession.
“Part and parcel of our overall economic plan is going to be [...]

www.latimes.com
Staff And Wire Reports
December 18, 2008

He says the delay is frustrating but is because of a request from the U.S. attorney.

Reporting from Chicago — President-elect Barack Obama told reporters Wednesday that they’d have to wait until next week to hear about his advisors’ dealings with Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich.
At a news conference, Obama said [...]

www.marketwatch.com
By John Spence, MarketWatch
Last update: 12:14 p.m. EST Dec. 7, 2008
President-elect voices opposition to court-supervised bankruptcy

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday that the auto industry is the “backbone” of American manufacturing and that top automakers can’t be allowed to go bankrupt.

Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Obama said management at the Big Three [...]

Barack Obama speaks in Nashua, New Hampshire on the night of the primary. Highlight footage from the past week in New Hampshire included.

By KENNETH P. VOGEL & CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN
The stinging criminal complaint against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris raises lots of questions for President-elect Barack Obama – questions he’ll have a chance to answer Thursday when he does his first news conference since Blagojevich was charged.
Here are seven worth asking:
1 [...]

“Politics in Louisiana is as clean as an angel’s ghost.”
– Louisiana Sen. Huey Long, in 1934.
“I don’t believe there’s any cloud that hangs over me, I think there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me.”
– Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the day before he and his chief of staff were arrested on federal charges of bribery [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Barack Obama failed to give a straight answer when asked on a U.S. talkshow on Sunday whether he had managed to quit smoking.
In a country where cigarettes are responsible for one in five deaths and smoking costs tens of billions of dollars in health care, Obama has been under pressure [...]