Domestic Policy

After months of almost single-minded focus on healthcare, President Obama is about to shift the White House spotlight to global warming -- first with a speech to the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, then later in the week at the G-20 economic conference in Pittsburgh. The renewed emphasis on climate change and reducing carbon dioxide emissions comes at a crucial time: Negotiators are entering the home stretch in the drive to unveil a comprehensive new international agreement to curb rising temperatures at a December conference in Copenhagen.

As President Bush prepares to deliver his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress tonight, he may be at the lowest point in his six-year presidency. Yet on domestic policy, at least, the president may have an opportunity to revive his fortunes on several fronts, including healthcare, immigration and energy policy.

President Bush urged Congress to avoid broad changes to the education law that represented one of his key domestic policy accomplishments, saying Friday that "watering down" the No Child Left Behind Act "would be doing thousands of children a disservice." "It's working," Bush said. "We can change parts of it for the better, but don't change the core of a piece of good legislation that's making a significant difference in the lives of a lot of children."

Former President George Herbert Walker Bush spent a significant part of his speech in Los Angeles on Monday night talking of his love of family and his pride in the son who currently occupies the White House. Yet as the 82-year-old former chief executive recounted his years as president, the tale of how he governed stood in marked contrast to what critics, a few of whom were in the audience, say are the official actions of his beleaguered son.

In a high-profile dissent from Bush administration policy, the nation's top medical research official told senators Monday that he backs an end to restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. "From my standpoint, it is clear today that American science will be better-served, and the nation will be better-served, if we let our scientists have access to more stem cell lines," Dr. Elias A.

President Bush unveiled the basics of his latest immigration proposal Monday, a mix of tougher border enforcement and a complicated path to legal status for illegal immigrants that the White House hopes can break the congressional deadlock over the thorny issue. "It's important that we get a bill done," Bush said at a Border Patrol station, asking Congress to send legislation to his desk this year.

President Bush renewed his efforts Saturday to address a major domestic policy challenge -- one that possibly remains in reach -- by telling graduating students that the United States must build new immigration laws around economic needs and border protection, while helping newcomers join American society.

The way Son Hye Suk sees it, having nuclear weapons means more than security for this Stalinist state. It means North Koreans will have more food on their plates. "Our nuclear weapons are a source of great pride in our country, and if anyone insults us now they won't survive," said Son, an ideologically vetted worker at the International Friendship Museum north of the capital.

President Bush began the week struggling to salvage his most important foreign and domestic initiatives: the war in Iraq and an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. He ends it closer to losing both than at any time in his presidency. And in a remarkable reversal for a president who once commanded nearly unflagging loyalty from lawmakers in his party, those most responsible for his setbacks are Republicans.

When Bill Clinton proposed dropping the ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, Army Gen. Colin L. Powell, then the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was vehement in his opposition. "The presence of homosexuals in the force would be detrimental to good order and discipline for a variety of reasons, principally relating around the issue of privacy," Powell said in a January 1993 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, just days before Clinton took the oath of office.