It was January, 1973, and the U.S. Supreme Court had just ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion was not a crime. According the New York Times, Nixon made no public statement.

Privately he told Charles Colson, with whom he was chatting in the Oval Office;...

As Lynn Sweet reports in her Sun-Times blog, the list of the 28 members of the President's Commission on White House Fellows is out.

Among the Chicago names are Facing History guru Judy Wise, the founder of the group's Chicago office, formerly its executive director, an early...

No one expects the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a man of education, intellect, talent and professional and material success to commit an act of violence. I don't believe that Wright, now retired, is trying consciously to incite his admirers and former congregants to do much more than go to the polling...

The consensus of the commentariat is how wonderful that our new Commander in Chief of all things foreign and domestic could find the time to take his wife on a first-rate night on the town, or, more accurately, night out of town.

I posted that the "date night"...

Still another column, this one in the Sunday New York Times about Barack Obama last week taking Michelle on a date to Manhattan.

Jan Hoffman writes glowingly about Barack; if he can find time for a "date night" after 16 years of marriage and a plate overflowing with downright...

I've reported here and here about President Obama's appointment of Louis B. Susman, 71, as Ambassador to the Court of St. James--a Chicagoan since 1989, by way of St. Louis, so skilled at extracting money for Obama and John Kerry and Ted Kennedy that he was nicknamed "the...

The release of the transcript of Roland W. Burris's typically weaselly recorded-by-the-FBI conversation with indicted Blagojevich brother Rob-- the "W" in Burris's name should stand for "weasel"-- does not prove what Burris' lawyer, Timothy Wright, says it proves.

In logic worthy of the spookiest pages of...

When President Obama named Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr., a Republican, as ambassador to China last week, the appointment was greeted with cheers. Another Republican would bolster Obama's promise of bipartisanship. Democrats and Republicans praised Huntsman's obvious qualifications--from fluency in Mandarin to being the father of a girl adopted...

Is Hillary Clinton the one who should be really angry at Edwards -- Elizabeth, I mean, not John?
Hawking her new book, Resilence,
Elizabeth Edwards admitted in interviews with Oprah
and with Matt Lauer
that she learned that John...

Could there be anything more telling about the difference between Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama?

Michelle Obama -- introduced by Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- tells diplomats and staff at the US mission to the United Nations in New York that she has just come...

On Wednesday's "Don Wade & Roma Morning Show" Cook County Board President Todd Stroger said he may or may not veto Tuesday's vote to repeal a 1 percent Cook County sales tax increase imposed last year. He is said to have the votes to do it.
...

Those "100 Days" analyzes have focused on the President and, to a lesser degree, on the First Lady. The Vice President has been outside that loop. Had an objective journalist undertaken the task much of it would have been embarrassing -- the verbal gaffes, the bad jokes, Biden's comical cascade...

Here comes news from John Ibbitson writing in Toronto's Globe and Mail that 42 (Bill) and 43 ("W") will share a stage May 29 in Toronto for what's being billed as a moderated "conversation."

Although fees were not disclosed, the two former presidents -- both represented by lecture...

The answer is Lon Monk, Rod Blagojevich's law school roommate, marathon companion, wedding groomsman, former chief of staff, favored running partner through the streets of Chicago after Blagojevich was elected governor and, now, his fellow indictee.

Monk, who is said to be cooperating with the feds,...

Only Barack Obama knows what he was thinking when he appeared to bow from the waist to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on April 1 while heads of state attending the G-20 economic summit awaited their photo op in London with Queen Elizabeth II..

Conservatives went nuts: The right-of-center...

The reason that Michelle Obama's approval ratings are in the 70s; the reason she is so popular that she joins the ranks of superstars who need only a first name -- former First Lady Laura Bush needed both names in most quarters and Hillary needed only one during her husband's...

Twice in early January-- see here and here-- I wrote about what, exactly, our now entrenched Senator Roland Burris did for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich to win the jackpot of being appointed to Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat.

I suggested that one of the favors Burris...

The Sun-Times' Neil Steinberg points out in his column Wednesday that Barack Obama is not the only president with roots in Chicago. Steinberg mentions Ronald Reagan, who, he notes, lived as an infant above a store in South Shore. He also mentions Valdus Adamkus, who lived in Chicago for...

During the President's exchange Thursday with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, the line that received the most play was Obama's mention of American Idol's Simon Cowell. (Except for his unfortunate comparison of his bowling score of 129 on the White House bowling lane as "like Special Olympics,...

Is Barack Obama getting ready to appoint Chicago fundraiser and former Citibank executive Louis B. Susman (he retired February 1 as vice chairman of Citigroup Global Markets) to the plumiest of ambassadorships: the U.S Ambassador to Britain (a.k.a. The Court of St. James's)? That's been the speculation in news and...