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Treasury chief to meet with Chinese leaders

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is set to meet with several high-ranking members of the Chinese leadership this week, marking the Obama administration’s first major overture to the powerhouse nation. Geithner left Saturday for meetings in Beijing, where he’ll discuss ways to strengthen relations between China and the United States, according to the Treasury Department. China is one of America’s most important trading partners, and its economy is tightly intertwined with efforts to reverse the global downturn

The Limits of Empathy for Sonia Sotomayor

If you doubt that President Obama has changed American politics, consider that we are about to have the first Supreme Court confirmation hearing in almost a quarter-century that does not revolve, in one way or another, around Roe v.

White House responds as GOP continues Sotomayor attacks

Republicans kept the pressure on the president’s Supreme Court pick Friday, pushing the idea that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is an activist judge who will bring a leftist agenda to the bench. Meanwhile, the White House tried to soften remarks Sotomayor made in 2001 that have rankled conservatives, who say her assertion that her experiences as a Latina woman might make her judgments more sound than those of a white man brands her as a racist. “I’m sure she would have restated it, but if you look at the entire sweep of the essay she wrote, what’s clear is that she was simply saying that her life experiences will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through that will make her a good judge,” President Obama said in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams.

Obama creates position to guard online security

President Obama announced Friday he is creating the post of cyber security coordinator to oversee "a new comprehensive approach to securing America’s digital infrastructure." The president said he will personally select the person who takes on that post.

Bush defends interrogation program in Michigan speech

Former President George W. Bush on Thursday repeated Dick Cheney’s assertion that the administration’s enhanced interrogation program, which included controversial techniques such as waterboarding, was legal and garnered valuable information that prevented terrorist attacks. Bush told a southwestern Michigan audience of nearly 2,500 — the largest he has addressed in the United States since leaving the White House in January — that, after the September 11 attacks, “I vowed to take whatever steps that were necessary to protect you.” In his speech, Bush did not specifically refer to the high-profile debate over President Obama’s decision to halt the use of harsh interrogation techniques

Robert Gates: Secretary of Hilarity!

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had his famous rules, a written roster of commands about how to deal with Washington, including such pearls as “It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.” Robert Gates — his successor in the Bush Administration and, as of this week, the Obama Administration — doesn’t have a list of rules. Those who only see his serious pronouncements about the nation’s wars might even get the impression that Gates doesn’t have a personality

Petraeus says releasing detainee photos would be risky

Releasing images of the alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody could damage Pakistan’s efforts to battle Islamic militants as well as increase the risks to American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the top U.S. commander in the region has told a federal judge

U.S. officials headed to Asia for ‘intensive’ talks on North Korea

A high-level U.S. delegation is going to Asia for "intensive consultations" on what North Korea’s increasingly alarming behavior means for U.S. security alliances in the region, senior administration officials tell CNN.

Prepping Sotomayor for hearings: Get your game face on

Turning a federal judge — even one like Sonia Sotomayor, who has gone through Senate confirmation hearings before — into a Supreme Court nominee ready for prime time takes a lot of preparation, mock hearings and coaching.

Online campaign gathers support for Myanmar’s Suu Kyi

The global drumbeat against what is widely considered the unlawful detention of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar grew louder Wednesday with the launch of an online campaign to let supporters leave 64-word messages of support for her. The site, 64 for Aung San Suu Kyi (http://64forsuu.com), aims to collect as many messages as it can by June 19, when the pro-democracy advocate turns 64.