Barack Obama, Default | featured news

The president is the most visible symbol of what voters see as a badly dysfunctional government. Some Democrats say he could have negotiated better. Though he succeeded in staving off a historic default, President Obama emerges from the debt talks in a weakened political position with limited influence over a divided Congress.

As the nation stood Friday on the edge of a historic default and markets sank amid grim economic news and the legislative chaos, President Obama called on both Democrats and Republicans to abandon their favored debt-ceiling plans and come together to find a last-minute deal.