George H. W. Bush (1924– ) was the forty-first president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. Bush began his political career after World War II. During the war, he flew fifty-eight combat missions and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery. At Yale, he excelled in sports and academics. Later he worked in the Texas oil business before being elected as a Republican to the US House of Representatives in 1966. He served as US ambassador to the United Nations in 1971–1972, and headed the CIA in 1976–1977. Bush...

Barack Obama (1961– ) is the forty-fourth president of the United States. Before becoming the first African American elected to the nation’s highest office, Obama attended Columbia University and earned a law degree from Harvard. He also worked as a community organizer in Chicago for several years and in 1997 became a member of the Illinois senate. He was elected to the US Senate in 2004, and that same year his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention lifted Obama into the national spotlight. In 2007 he announced his candidacy...

Donald Rumsfeld (1932– ) was the US secretary of defense under President George W. Bush. He was largely responsible for the early handling of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Before serving in the Bush administration, Rumsfeld worked as a private businessman and served in Congress and under Presidents Nixon and Ford. Though he earned praise for ending the regime of Saddam Hussein, public opinion turned against Rumsfeld as US military involvement in the Middle East was prolonged and the Abu...