Interview with President Obama on Health Care

TIME: I thought I’d talk to you a little bit about the whole degree to which this is really a test of leadership. The fact is that no President has been able to pull off anything on this order of magnitude in 44 years [since Congress passed Medicare and Medicaid].President Obama: Well, as you point out, the last time we did something of this magnitude was 1965. And the circumstances in some cases were similar — in some cases were profoundly different.

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TIME’s Exclusive Interview with President Obama

TIME senior writer Karen Tumulty sat down with President Barack Obama on Tuesday afternoon to talk about his work both in public and behind the scenes to push a health-care-reform measure through Congress. Here’s the full transcript. TIME: I thought I’d talk to you a little bit about just sort of the whole degree to which this is really a test of leadership, health care is, as much as anything

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Going Too Far with Assisted Suicide?

Was there a duet playing in the back of his mind, I wonder, when Sir Edward Downes, the former conductor of Britain’s Royal Opera, held hands with his wife of 54 years and drank the poison with her? Wagner maybe, or Verdi’s Aida, one lover condemned to die, the other choosing to follow rather than live half a life, all alone

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Poll: Nearly three-quarters favor pullout from Iraqi cities

A national poll suggests that nearly three-quarters of all Americans support the plan to withdraw most U.S. combat troops from Iraqi cities and towns, even though most respondents said they think the troop movements will lead to an increase in violence in that country. The CNN/Opinion Research Corp.

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How to Moonwalk Like Michael

On March 25, 1983, Michael Jackson took one small, backwards step onto a television stage — and one giant leap into dancefloor history. The thin, angular pop star was only 24 years old when he took an obscure break-dancing move and transformed it into of the most recognizable routines of all time. Jackson debuted the Moonwalk during his performance of “Billie Jean” during the ABC television special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever and the heavy rotation that the song’s music video enjoyed on MTV injected it into America’s pop cultural consciousness

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In Iraq, Colbert gets military haircut to show his solidarity

Stephen Colbert left no doubt about his solidarity with American troops when he taped the first of four Comedy Central shows he’ll produce in Iraq this week. Colbert, wearing a business suit made of the same camouflaged material used for soldiers’ desert uniforms, submitted to a regulation military haircut as hundreds of U.S. troops cheered wildly Sunday.

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The 5 Big Health-Care Dilemmas

Max Baucus, the Senate’s point man on health care, sounds supremely confident when he talks about the odds that Congress will pass its most sweeping piece of social legislation since the New Deal. “Meaningful, comprehensive health-care legislation passes this year. That’s a given,” he declares, sipping a bottle of water in his functionally furnished hideaway office just steps from the Senate chamber

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In Somalia, Another Government Teetering?

Just last month, Western donors gathered in Brussels to pledge money to the new Somali government of Sheik Sharif Ahmed, in the hope that he could restore order and put an end to the offshore piracy that has plagued shipping off his country’s coastline. But renewed fighting in and around Mogadishu has raised fears that Somalia’s 15th government in 18 years is about to fail.

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