Joseph Biden

Career diplomats protest Obama appointments

The White House, unaware of historic norms, had been on track to give more than the usual 30 percent of ambassadorial jobs to political appointees until objections from career diplomats forced it to reconsider, administration officials say.

As a result of the reversal, some donors to President Obama’s election campaign — as well as senior advisers and other supporters of the campaigns of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — are likely to find their hopes of being rewarded with an embassy dashed. “The White House has come around, and we truly expect that, at the end of the process, the balance will be within historical norms,” said one senior administration official who asked not to be named because he was discussing internal deliberations.

Read More

New hopes for rail travel

Have you heard that trains are “in” again? They have been “out” for so long, it’s almost hard to believe it, but President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to ride the rail into Washington for his inauguration has excited many train lovers.

Since flying became the main form of long-distance transportation in the United States in the past couple of decades, repeated warnings by railroad executives and industry advocates that insufficient funding and out-of-date equipment would lead to the system’s collapse seemed to fall on deaf ears. Finally this fall, Congress more than doubled funding for Amtrak, the semi-public company, in a $13 billion railroad improvement bill sponsored by Reps. James L. Oberstar, Minnesota Democrat, and John L. Mica, Florida Republican…

Read More

You can’t hurry love

She lives in Notting Hill, he in Washington’s slightly bohemian equivalent, Adams Morgan. Their 14-month marriage has been a whirlwind of weekend rendezvous and transatlantic phone calls. The world sees them on television, sometimes even sharing a split screen, more frequently than they see each other in person.

But the prospect of their first child — due in early April — has already started to change the way they live. They have spent more time together over the past few months and, though the decision where the baby will be born is yet to be taken, they both realise that compromises will be inevitable.

For CNN’s chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, and State Department spokesman James Rubin, the forthcoming member of their family has become a way to show the world that “some of us can have everything” — successful careers and a normal personal life.

Read More