A Curious Eye

Washington (CNN) — President Barack Obama comes out of what was arguably the worst week of his presidency with his approval rating holding steady, according to a new national poll.

It is past time to abandon selective history and wishful thinking, and realize the inherent limits of presidential power.

President Barack Obama says he supports recognizing gay unions in a broad immigration bill pending in Congress but won’t say whether he would sign legislation that fails to do so.

From Appalachian hollows to urban neighborhoods, the ways people speak can bring them together or cause social isolation. A language expert explains why.

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence has concluded with “varying degrees of confidence,” that the Syrian government has twice used chemical weapons in its fierce civil war, the White House and other top administration officials said Thursday. However, officials also said more definitive proof was needed and the U.S. was not ready to escalate its involvement in Syria beyond non-lethal aid, despite President Barack Obama’s repeated public assertions that Syria’s use of chemical weapons, or the transfer of its stockpiles to a terrorist group, would cross a “red line.”

“What gets lost are those revealing moments when the president’s held accountable by the representatives of the public who are there in the form of the media,” says McCurry.

What’s different now, says Mark Jurkowitz of the Pew Research Project for Excellence in Journalism, is new technology that allows the White House to distribute its own content far more widely and effectively than past presidents could. At the same time, it’s getting harder for cash-strapped news outlets to resist using photos, video and other content supplied by the White House.

Investigative reports and on-the-ground testimonies have made it public knowledge that far more people than al-Qaida leaders are killed by drone strikes. The U.K.’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) estimates that in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia over 1,o00 civilians may have been killed by U.S. drone strikes. The Obama administration has long maintained, however, that strikes are only ever authorized to target “specific senior operational leaders of al-Qaida and associated forces.” Documents obtained by McClatchy newspapers suggest that these claims are false.

President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats met behind closed doors on Capitol Hill today to discuss a list of legislative priorities ranging from the budget to immigration reform and gun control. Missing from the discussion, however, was one of the last major pieces of federal LGBT-rights legislation.

According to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), neither the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) nor an executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from LGBT discrimination were discussed during the nearly 90-minute meeting.

Harkin, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that oversees ENDA, promised last month that action would be taken on ENDA this year. But at today’s meeting, ENDA did not come up.

Asked by Metro Weekly if he believes Obama thinks ENDA is a priority, Harkin said he hasn’t asked, but reaffirmed his commitment to see action taken on ENDA this year.

Stephanopoulos then asked whether Obama could imagine a circumstance wherein a state’s gay marriage ban could pass constitutional muster.

“Well, I can’t, personally. I cannot,” Obama responded.

“That’s part of the reason I said, ultimately, I think that, same-sex couples should be able to marry. That’s my personal position. And, frankly, that’s the position that’s reflected — in the briefs that we filed — in the Supreme Court.”

Nearly all Americans have used government social policies at some point in their lives. The beneficiaries include the rich and the poor, Democrats and Republicans. Almost everyone is both a maker and a taker.