Richard Wolffe

When Barack Obama chose not to land a big punch at the last TV...

He helped Hillary Clinton raise a stunning amount of money in the third quarter. Can he make sure she carries the Iowa caucus? He's giving it a shot, one small cluster at a time.

A Bush family friend may be undermining Iraqi peace.

The Illinois senator talks obliquely about the Democratic front runner. Time to start scoring some direct hits.

Republicans were running for cover. Democrats were on the march. The polls were trending against him. How Bush got a bit of his groove back on Iraq—for the moment, anyway.

President Bush granted six sit-down interviews to author Robert Draper. The results have not been especially helpful as the administration sets course on Iraq for the fall.

As key members of Bush's inner circle file out, a former White House official suggests Democratic pressure may have helped hasten the departure of Karl Rove.

Does Barack Obama have have enough experience to be president? This is the question Hillary Clinton would like to spend the next seven months debating. Her slogan is that she's "ready to lead"; she cites her extensive foreign travel and sessions with world leaders. For his part, Obama prefers to talk about living overseas and the good judgment he displayed in opposing the Iraq War from the start. For months, Clinton and Obama have taken subtle digs at each other's résumés. But there's nothing subtle about it now.At last week's contentious presidential debate, Obama was asked if he would meet with hostile foreign leaders like Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions in the first year of his presidency. Obama said he would. He said George W. Bush's policy of shunning those leaders had failed, and he would bring about change. Clinton turned the answer against Obama. She said she would not meet with the hostile leaders without preconditions, and...

How Barack Obama is shaking up old assumptions about what it means to be black and white in America.

NEWSWEEK's Richard Wolffe about his interview with the Democratic presidential hopeful

It was a low-key event for the rock star of American politics: a poorly lit seminar room at a community college in Mason City, Iowa, full of voters sharing their woes about the health-care system. Yet Barack Obama worked the policy forum with the energy of someone who was hearing stories about the burdens of chronic illness and costly premiums for the first time. "What those people said to me was so amazing," he told a senior aide as they walked out of the event in early April. "It was so interesting to hear how their perspectives were similar and different from the folks we saw in New Hampshire."Obama started his career as a community organizer, and he thrives when he's doing grass-roots work. It's his appeal, but it also exposes a potential flaw: he's running for commander in chief now, not city council, and Obama's aides are acutely aware that his approach doesn't always translate in a modern presidential campaign. His set-piece speeches are often received in respectful silence,...

Barack Obama cultivates an image as a politician whose appeal reaches...

The G8 meeting is off to a rocky start, as protesters stymie transportation and Putin lobs threats.

Barack Obama grabbed the headlines. And Hillary Clinton...

Yes, the two new books on Hillary Clinton go into lurid detail about...

The White House victory on the war-funding bill is a rare moment of second-term triumph

The Bush administration reached a long-awaited deal on immigration reform with a bipartisan group of senators Thursday. Prospects for the deal to become law are unclear, given the fraught politics of immigration—especially among conservatives. But in theory the deal promises to give legal status to some 12 million illegal immigrants, as well as strengthening border security and tightening controls on employers. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff spoke to NEWSWEEK's Richard Wolffe about the deal and where it goes from here. Excerpts: ...

Bush and Blair have been quite a team over the years. But their last joint appearance in Washington was a reminder that the president got more out of their union than the prime minister did.

Once again, a Democratic governor was sparring with the White House over disaster relief. Only this time, the war in Iraq was added to the Greensburg tornado equation.

Maybe it was the white tie and tails. Or maybe it was the backdrop of a four-year-old war and 28 percent approval ratings. ...

Barack Obama is a man of grace. With his eloquent language and compelling life story, he has crafted two best-selling books and can deliver campaign rhetoric with deftness. At town-hall meetings, he looks pensive as he carefully answers voters' questions, like the law lecturer he used to be. He sweeps his hand across the stage when he sounds expansive, and jabs a finger when he's critical of President George W. Bush. Even his clothes on the campaign trail suggest a seriously cool character, with his trademark black suit and white shirt unbuttoned at the neck.But beyond his charm and magnetic personality, what is the substance of the Obama campaign? In another era, his rivals might have asked, "Where's the beef?" John Edwards—the candidate Obama pushed into third place in the polls—is more specific, suggesting that Obama's fine words are no substitute for his missing health-care policy. "We have a responsibility, if you want to be president of the United States, to tell the American...

The country says it wants a change. The candidates are not exactly embracing the legacy of President Bush. So why do they sound so much like him whenever they talk about national-security threats?

In their first debate of Campaign 2008, Democrats clearly aimed to vote one candidate off the island.

The president is suggesting that a troop withdrawal would turn Iraq into a battleground between regional powers. Not so, says a senior administration official.

There's a turncoat inside Hillary Clinton's money machine. Over the past several years, Leonore Blitz has helped raise about $250,000 for Clinton's Senate races, and she signed up early to help the new presidential campaign. But in recent weeks the Manhattan marketing consultant has secretly attended finance meetings and fund-raisers for Clinton's archrival, Barack Obama. Under intense pressure from the Clinton team to pick sides, Blitz—who bundled more than $1 million for John Kerry in 2004—felt deeply conflicted. Clinton operatives have warned donors not to contribute to other campaigns, and put a price on disloyalty: early supporters will be valued and latecomers scorned. But now Blitz is coming out of the shadows, ready to test the rules. "I have been a lifelong advocate of women and minorities' participating and running for political office," she told NEWSWEEK last week. "Therefore, I'm supporting both Clinton and Obama."The Clinton campaign denies that it has strong-armed...