WASHINGTON -- Why wait for the president's speech? If you want to know his theme -- and it's hardly a surprise -- just glance at the quintessential Beltway pre-spin transaction: White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer's "exclusive" preview feed to Mike Allen's "Playbook."

According to Pfeiffer, President Barack...

WASHINGTON -- Lord knows I am no dance critic. But I do claim to know something about the country. So before the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater leaves the Kennedy Center here after its annual visit, I want to say something vaguely political about this famous, pioneering company.

Here it...

WASHINGTON -- Somewhere in my files I have a snapshot of a skinny young guy named Karl Rove running for president of the College Republicans. The year is 1972. He is standing at a podium on an empty lawn of a college somewhere, and there is exactly one...

As President Barack Obama sets off on his second-term journey, we wish him well.

In the weeklong "Road Forward" series that ends today on Inauguration Day, we've laid out the many challenges he faces to fulfill the promise of his presidency.

We reminded him -- and ourselves -- that too...

Le simple fait d'avoir battu Mitt Romney -et John McCain avant- ne signifie pas que vous soyez un grand, ni même un très bon président. Le président Barack Obama s'est montré particulièrement doué pour planifier et gagner les élections. Mais jusqu'ici, sa présidence n'a pas été à la...

WASHINGTON -- My boss, the wonderful Arianna Huffington, asked me to summarize the essence of the week-long, in-depth series we're running on HuffPost about the challenges President Obama faces in his second term. This is what I told her for her appearance on Morning Joe. I figured that...

WASHINGTON -- Just because you beat Mitt Romney -- and John McCain before him -- doesn't mean you're a great president or even a particularly good one.

President Barack Obama has proved to be brilliant at digital organizing and winning elections. But his presidency so far has been less than...

Even though House Republicans ended up reluctantly supporting the Senate deal, resentment in the Tea Party (and among conservatives generally) over the Senate tax deal was bad news for Sen. Mitch McConnell, who wanted to be Henry Clay but who risked having feet of clay.

McConnell, who faces a reelection...

Ducking out of the closed-door meeting of Democrats to attend another event, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas said that Vice President Joe Biden had made a pitch based on "historical perspective."

He explained that he had taken a central role in the final deal because, as president of...

This "fiscal cliff" thing? Get used to it. We now operate in a continuous "crisis" of pending governmental collapse.

The cliff we rushed to avoid New Year's Eve is just the first of many that we will face.

It's how we roll now. It's not how the framers...

AUCKLAND, New Zealand -- New Zealand is about as far from the Washington Beltway, physically and socially, as you can get and still be on planet Earth.

They don't care a whit for status here, and not that much for money or power. They love the outdoors and with good...

WASHINGTON -- Feel free to dismiss what I am about to write as a shameless act of homerism, but so be it. Here we go: Louisville, the city and the university, are about to become a hot commodity.

This is a story about how college sports can -- and in...

ETATS-UNIS - Beaucoup de téléspectateurs considèrent la série Homeland (Showtime) ridiculement tirée par les cheveux. Mais elle frappe par son réalisme quand on la compare à "L'Odyssée de Petraeus", une fabuleuse tragédie grecque sur l'orgueil démesuré qui risque d'entacher l'administration Obama tout juste réélue.

L'histoire...

PRINCETON, N.J. -- A leading historian of American leaders in war and espionage said the exploits of David Petraeus, John Allen and the Tampa, Fla., Centcom crew seem tame by the standards of the men who led the nation in World War II and the Cold War.

"Marital...

WASHINGTON -- The Showtime series "Homeland" strikes many viewers as preposterously far-fetched. But it's gritty and realistic compared with the "Odyssey of Petraeus," a fabulous Greek morality play about hubris that has the potential to inflict serious collateral damage on the just-re-upped Obama administration.

The story teaches an old lesson:...

NEW YORK -- Everything seems so clear the morning after.

A Manhattan friend, one of the shrewdest guys in media, public relations and politics, just sent me an email that pretty much summarized it all.

"Obama ran a flawless campaign except for the first debate, and they pivoted correctly every...

Le président Obama n'a pas seulement gagné sa réélection ce soir. Sa victoire est le signe du triomphe indéniable d'une nouvelle Amérique du 21ème siècle : multiraciale, multiethnique, ouverte au monde et tournant le dos à des siècles de traditions raciales, sexuelles, maritales, et religieuses.

Obama, le fils métis d'Hawaï,...

NEW YORK -- President Barack Obama did not just win reelection tonight. His victory signaled the irreversible triumph of a new, 21st-century America: multiracial, multi-ethnic, global in outlook and moving beyond centuries of racial, sexual, marital and religious tradition.

Obama, the mixed-race son of Hawaii by way of Kansas, Indonesia,...

NEW YORK CITY -- Today, Election Day, marks the end of the most expensive, least informative, least inspiring presidential election since TV took over politics in the Kennedy-Nixon race of 1960.

Whose fault is that?

I’ll start with Mitt Romney, who ran a race based solely on the “take the...

Je me suis assis pour la première fois avec Barack Obama dans son bureau au Sénat, inondé de soleil. Il s'est avancé avec son grand sourire, sa cravate desserrée, s'est assis dans un profond fauteuil, en posant les pieds sur la table basse. J'ai été saisi par son assurance, son...