Rahm Emanuel, under fire for making an "f-ing retarded" comment during a strategy session months ago, met Wednesday at the White House with Special Olympics head Tim Shriver and other advocates for the disabled to try to quell the controversy.

The White House chief of staff issued the invitation last week after Shriver wrote him to protest the derogatory comment, reportedly made by Emanuel in reference to some liberal activists.

Also on hand for Wednesday’s mea culpa meeting were Andrew Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities; Ricardo Thornton, a Special Olympics athlete; and, Peter Berns of The Arc.

The remarks drew increasing national attention after Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin called Monday for Emanuel’s firing...

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is calling on the White House to fire Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for using the word "retarded" in a recent strategy session.

The Obama White House is addicted to the “unprecedented.”

Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action."

What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May.

But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedents...

An Iowa congressman is questioning the timing of the sudden resignation of a controversial Obama administration official, whose husband has had close ties to ACORN and has recently been named President Obama's White House counsel.

In serving as White House communications director, Anita Dunn had created a stir when she told school children earlier this year that Chinese Communist leader Mao Tse Tung was one of the people she admired the most. She also launched a public attack against the Fox News Channel for its reporting on the ACORN prostitution scandal.

Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) thinks it is curious that Dunn abruptly resigned from her White House post, just four days after Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell raided ACORN's national office, seizing paper records and computer hard drives...

White House Communications Director Anita Dunn will step down by the end of November and be replaced by her deputy Dan Pfeiffer, Fox News has learned.

Dunn's departure had been expected as she took the position on an interim basis earlier in the year. The White House had long said Dunn would leave before the end of 2009.

But her exit comes at a critical time for the White House, with the administration trying to push the Senate to follow the House of Representatives' lead in passing health care reform.

Dunn, who has been a vocal critic of Fox News and last month accused the network of being a "wing of the Republican Party," will remain as an outside consultant to the White House and continue to be involved in strategy...

A federal "car czar" would oversee a government-run restructuring of U.S. auto companies in return for a $15 billion bailout of the beleaguered industry under an emerging deal between the White House and Congress.
 
Negotiators worked through the night Monday narrowing differences on a bill to rush short-term loans to the struggling carmakers through a plan that requires that the industry reinvent itself to survive -- and pay back the government if it doesn't. The package could come to a vote as early as Wednesday...