Behind the Hunt for Bin Laden

Back in Washington, Mr. Panetta met with Mr. Obama and his most senior national security aides, including Mr. Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. The meeting was considered so secret that White House officials didn’t even list the topic in their alerts to each other. That day, Mr. Panetta spoke at length about Bin Laden and his presumed hiding place. “It was electric,” an administration official who attended the meeting said. “For so long, we’d been trying to get a handle on this guy. And all of a sudden, it was like, wow, there he is.”

Published: May 3, 2011
Length: 12 minutes (3,060 words)

The White House Looks for Work

The path from crisis to anemic recovery was marked by turmoil inside the White House. The economic team fractured repeatedly over philosophy (should jobs or deficits take priority?) and personality (who got to attend which meetings?), resulting in feuds that ultimately helped break it apart. The word commonly used by those involved is “dysfunctional,” and in recent months, most of the initial team has left or made plans to leave, including Larry Summers, Christina Romer, Peter Orszag, Rahm Emanuel and Paul Volcker.

Published: Jan 19, 2011
Length: 26 minutes (6,547 words)

The Education of President Obama

If there was something incongruous about the president of the United States checking out reviews of his décor by Arianna Huffington, well, let’s face it, he has endured worse reviews lately.

Published: Oct 12, 2010
Length: 33 minutes (8,285 words)

The Limits of Rahmism

He was chosen as White House chief of staff because he could make things happen. What happened?

Published: Mar 8, 2010
Length: 32 minutes (8,176 words)

Obama’s War Over Terror

Barack Obama was inaugurated as the first president to take office in the Age of Terrorism. He inherited two struggles — one with Al Qaeda and its ideological allies, and another that divides his own country over issues like torture, prosecutions, security and what it means to be an American. The first has proved to be complicated and daunting. The second makes the first look easy.

Published: Jan 4, 2010
Length: 6 minutes (1,626 words)

The Mellowing of William Jefferson Clinton

Bill Clinton loves to shop. On a March day in an elegant crafts store in Lima, the Peruvian capital, he hunted for presents for his wife and the women on his staff back home. He had given a speech at a university earlier and just came from a ceremony kicking off a program to help impoverished Peruvians. Now he was eyeing a necklace with a green stone amulet.

Published: May 26, 2009
Length: 32 minutes (8,114 words)