White House

WASHINGTON - Career CIA officers were responsible for administration claims that the armed attack in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead last fall grew out of a protest of an anti-Islamic video, an incorrect assertion that became a flash point for critics who say the Obama administration deliberately misled the public for political reasons, according to emails released by the White House on Wednesday. The 99 pages of emails from the two days after the Sept. 11, 2012, attack reveal confused and occasionally sharp negotiations among officials at the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, the White House and the State Department as they scrambled to craft so-called talking points about a nightlong assault that was still little understood.

In those early days after we met 5 1/2 years ago, when Nathaniel Ayers slept on the streets of skid row, he was a dreamer. He'd play a two-string violin at the feet of the Beethoven statue and imagine a day when he would figure out how to get the two missing strings, or a day when he might visit a concert hall or play well enough to draw an audience. But he never would have guessed that one day he'd be invited to the White House to meet the president and to perform at a celebration commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act. "It's the most incredible thing I ever could have imagined," Mr. Ayers said a few weeks ago on hearing of the invitation through his sister, Jennifer.

WASHINGTON -- A yearlong investigation into whether Clinton administration aides left the White House in fraternity-party disarray as they vacated the presidential premises has turned up about $15,000 in damage, according to a government report released Tuesday. Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.

When Philip B. Heymann was sworn in as deputy attorney general last June in the Department of Justice, where he had served four previous attorneys general, he apologized "for looking so pleased," and said he had accepted Atty. Gen. Janet Reno's offer "with unseemly haste." The comments were vintage Heymann: A puckish manner combined with a deep reverence for the institution of federal justice.

Wally Bean was invited to play with his new friend, Archibald. Archibald didn't live in a regular house like Wally, though. He lived in a great big one called the White House. Archibald's father, Theodore Roosevelt, was president of the United States. "You must look proper, Wally," Mama said. She straightened his collar and slicked down his hair. "Your shoes are scruffy," said Papa. He spit on his handkerchief, bent down and polished the toes. "Remember your manners," Mama reminded.

WASHINGTON -- An internal review found no evidence that White House staff members engaged in "improper conduct" in Cartagena, Colombia, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. Carney said the Office of White House Counsel conducted the review of White House staff members "out of due diligence" and not in response to a "specific credible allegation. " The Colombian prostitution scandal has consumed much of Washington for more than a week and led to rampant speculation, as reports of heavy drinking and hard partying among a Secret Service and military advance team have leaked out.   "There is no indication that the White House advance team engaged in any improper conduct or behavior," Carney said.

The White House apologized Tuesday for the apparent mishandling of Muslim holy books at a military base in Afghanistan, calling the episode a "deeply unfortunate incident. " "It does not represent the views of our military," White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters. "And it certainly does not represent the conduct of our men and women in uniform or our general respect for the religious practices and beliefs of the Afghan people. " U.S. officials are trying to limit the fallout from news that the books, including Korans, were being burned inside the base.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs is leaving his position to work as an outside adviser for President Barack Obama's re-election campaign, an administration official said Wednesday. Gibbs is to depart in early February. A successor is to be announced within the next two weeks, the official said. Gibbs, a close confidant of Obama's going back to his time as a U.S. senator from Illinois, has for many Americans been one of the most public faces of the White House staff while holding near-daily news briefings.

Re "Virginia caught in attack ad crossfire," July 26 I remember a time (I'm 68) when constant negative ads and such a truly disgusting elongated period of campaigning were unheard of. Why have party conventions anymore? What, now, is their purpose? Maybe for the delegates to indulge in food and drink in a city perhaps they've never been to before? The campaigns have become reality TV shows, except this is for real. Where will it all end? Maybe, to spare us, they will just have a wrestling match and the winner becomes president.

In the wake of President Obama's reelection, there was much clucking about the demise of the political power of white men and the inability of Mitt Romney -- the quintessential Republican white man -- to capture the support and votes of women and minorities and other Americans increasingly disenchanted with the conservative party's message. Yet, if you looked at the Dec. 29 photo of Obama meeting with senior advisors in the Oval Office, which made the front of the New York Times on Wednesday, you would rest assured that white men are still very much in power -- in the first black president's White House, as it turns out.  In the photo, 10 of his 11 advisors standing before him are men, and eight of them are white.  The one woman, who is black, in the photo is Valerie Jarrett, which you only know because it says so in the caption of the photo.