The Obama administration deserves credit for backing away from one of the Bush administration’s more ill-considered policies: the pursuit of medical-marijuana sellers. A number of states have passed laws permitting the medicinal use of pot. But the Bush administration would have none of it. It zealously used federal law to go after dispensaries—in contravention of common sense, right reason, and the principles of federalism conservatives generally hold dear.

A U.S.-born al-Qaida terrorist convicted of plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush has been sentenced to life in prison. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who grew up in Falls Church, was resentenced today.

President Barack Obama says he’s spoken with former President George W. Bush since taking office. But the current commander in chief is keeping mum about the details.

Continuing a White House ritual, President George W. Bush left a note in the Oval Office for President-elect Barack Obama, wishing him well as he takes the reins of the executive branch.

President George W. Bush defended his two terms in a farewell address to the nation last night, claiming a series of successes at home and abroad.

Although George Bush’s unpopularity contributed to significant GOP losses in 2006 and 2008, the departing president recently gave his party some good advice. Bush restated his confidence in “compassionate conservatism,“ and identified immigration as an area where rhetoric and posture have hurt Republicans seriously—and, if the party does not correct itself soon, perhaps fatally.

Rep. Eric I. Cantor’s congressional campaign will keep $2,300 in contributions it received from Robert I. Toussie, whose son had a presidential pardon granted and rescinded this week. Ray Allen, a senior strategist, speaking for Cantor’s campaign, said the congressman had “nothing to do with” the granting or rescinding of a pardon for Isaac R. Toussie.

WASHINGTON—On a cold January morning in 2001, Mel Martinez, who was then the new secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was headed to his office in his limo when he saw some homeless people huddled on the vents of the steam tunnels that heat federal buildings. “Somebody ought to do something for them,“ Martinez said he told himself. “And it dawned on me at that moment that it was me.“