President joins in tribal talks

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama has done something that none of the previous 43 U.S. presidents ever did: He met with tribal leaders every single year of his term.

On Wednesday, the man known as Barack Black Eagle among American Indians met again with 566 leaders from federally recognized tribes at his fourth White House Tribal Nations Conference.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called it a "promise made, promised delivered," recalling how Obama had pledged yearly visits with tribes when he first ran for president in 2008. That's the same year that Obama received his Indian name, after being adopted by Hartford and Mary Black Eagle in a traditional ceremony on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana.

More promises came at the daylong conference as Obama and many of his cabinet secretaries said tribes can expect more federal aid during the president's second term - for education, health care, jobs, food programs and energy projects, among other things.