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Poor Barack Hussein Obama. Fred Hiatt of The Washington Post thinks he has a "happiness deficit" because he hates his job. But we have another theory: Barack Obama isn't sad... he's afflicted by SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Hiatt—overlord of the worst opinion section in America—paints our president in such melancholy hues that you can imagine Hamlet slapping his back with a heartening "Buck up, kiddo." The problem, Hiatt writes, is that Obama "doesn't seem all that happy being president." Hiatt wonders with concern: "What part of it does he enjoy?" Obama bristles at "schmoozing with foreign leaders;" he only reluctantly...

A prominent black Christian pastor says Barack Obama (D-Illinois) made "an inept attempt to be a theology major" in Thursday night's Democratic presidential forum on homosexual issues. During Thursday's forum, Obama was asked by one of the moderators why many black churches remain strongly opposed to homosexuality. Moderator Jonathan Capeheart of the Washington Post then referred to such opposition as "homophobia." Obama responded to the question by saying some black pastors "have elevated one line of Romans over the Sermon on the Mount." Bishop Harry Jackson Jr., who chairs the High Impact Leadership Coalition, says Obama is an intelligent man...

The L.A. Times has morphed Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama's over-the-top campaign rhetoric that he would attack Pakistan into "suggestions by U.S. politicians that American forces unilaterally strike" that country. But, no where did the story mention Obama, nor that no Administration officials are advocating such a move. How is it that Obama's absurd gaffe has suddenly become a U.S. political policy that the Pakistanis fear is impossible to know, but the way the L.A.Times wrote the story, one would cast blame on the Bush Administration instead of Obama for this slight to Musharraf and the Pakistani government. The story...

War On Terror: Sen. Barack Obama thinks troops should be sent into Pakistan. But he really wants to fight terrorism the same way liberals combat inner-city crime: with social programs financed by U.S. taxpayers. After foolishly promising as president to meet unconditionally with terrorist states, Obama, the Illinois Democrat, has gotten tough: He now wants U.S. forces to zero in on the mountains of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden may still be alive. "There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," Obama told the Woodrow Wilson Center on Wednesday. "If we...

Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama cast himself as the leader the US needed to stand up to and engage renegade nations such as North Korea. ’We need a president who’ll have the strength and courage to go toe-to-toe with the leaders of rogue nations, because that’s what it takes to protect our security,“ the Illinois senator told Democrats at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. “That’s what I’ll do as your next commander in chief.� Obama and rival Hillary Clinton have had a running argument since clashing in last week’s debate over how far the US should be willing to...

 Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama told New Hampshire voters Friday that President Bush grossly misunderstands his role as commander in chief. "When President Bush says, 'I just want to give the commanders what they want, listen to the generals,' he doesn't understand how we work here in America. Civilians control the military and we are supposed to set the mission for the generals and then the generals should carry out the mission," Obama said at an outdoor town hall meeting.

CHICAGO (AP) - Standing before a church congregation that has witnessed inner-city violence firsthand, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama said Sunday that more must be done to end a social ill that is "sickening the soul of this nation." Obama told churchgoers at the Vernon Park Church of God on Chicago's South Side that too many young lives are being claimed by violence and more must be done to combat the problem. "From South Central L.A. to Newark, New Jersey, there's an epidemic of violence that's sickening the soul of this nation," the Illinois senator told the crowd. "The...

Former South Dakota Senator Backs Obama For President Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama is getting support from former Senate Majority Leader and South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle. Daschle made stops throughout Iowa on Saturday, campaigning for Senator Obama. In Spencer and Algona, he officially opened Obama's campaign offices. Doors for the Spencer office opened at four o'clock Saturday afternoon. Daschle says Obama's ideas, age, and honesty are what he likes most. Daschle says "I'm backin' Obama because I believe strongly we need someone with real integrity and he's got it because I agree with him on the issues on Iraq,...

Obama Says Some Have `hijacked' Faith Jun 23 03:24 PM US/Eastern By STEPHEN SINGER Associated Press Writer HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right- wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division. "Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked," the Democratic presidential candidate said in remarks prepared for delivery before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ. "Part of it's because of the so-called leaders of...

D.C. Townhouse Where Barack Obama Lives Catches Fire Sunday , June 17, 2007 AP WASHINGTON — A Capitol Hill house where Sen. Barack Obama rents an apartment caught on fire Sunday, but a spokesman said the Democratic presidential contender was out of town to celebrate Father's Day. The fire appeared to be on the third floor of a townhouse in northeast Washington, and was likely caused by an old fan that had malfunctioned, said Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs. Obama rents an apartment on the second floor, Gibbs said.

IOWA CITY, Iowa - Seeking to add heft to his presidential bid, Democrat Barack Obama is offering a sweeping plan that would provide every citizen a means to have health coverage and calls on government, businesses and consumers to share the costs of the program. Obama said putting in place universal health coverage has been debated for decades, but the time has finally come to act. He said his plan could save the average consumer $2,500 a year and bring health care to all. "The time has come for universal, affordable health care in America," Obama said in remarks prepared...

Despite questions about the country's readiness for a black president, Barack Obama will win the race for the 2008 White House if he connects with Americans, his wife Michelle Obama told "Good Morning America" anchor Robin Roberts in her first major morning television interview. "I think that the American people ... are ready to have somebody that they can believe in and that they can connect to," Obama said in an interview that begins Tuesday. "And I think that if Barack does what he's supposed to do and this campaign is ... run well, and he can be clear and...

The religion of the left seems to be environmentalism, and the everyone knows what happens when religious figures on the right are exposed as hypocrites. Ted Haggard, Jim Baker and others have claimed to stand for one thing and privately lived a life that conflicted with their stated beliefs, and the media covered it non-stop. In contrast, the media ignore that the darling of the Democratic presidential candidates has again been nailed as an environmental hypocrite. Barack Obama was outed as an SUV driver in 2006, who said at the same time, "the blame for the world's higher temperature rests...

Barack Obama, caught up in the fervor of a campaign speech Tuesday, drastically overstated the Kansas tornadoes death toll, saying 10,000 had died. The death toll was 12. "In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died—an entire town destroyed," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a speech to 500 people packed into a sweltering Richmond art studio for a fundraiser. Obama mentioned the disaster in Greensburg, Kan., in saying he had been told by the office of Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius that the state's National Guard had been depleted by its...

If the same standard that was applied to President George W. Bush were to be applied to Senator Barack Obama, then Obama must be considered a theocrat who shows no respect for separation of church and state. What else is one to conclude after seeing a color photo of him on the front page of the New York Times preaching from the pulpit of a Christian church? The article itself is even more indicting. Obama's spiritual mentor is a radical minister who blames the U.S. for the war in Iraq. So controversial is Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. that Obama...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Is MySpace always mine or can it belong to someone else? At the cost of losing 160,000 friends, Democrat Barack Obama's presidential campaign has taken over control of the MySpace page listed under his name on the popular social networking site. For the past two and a half years, the page has been run by an Obama supporter from Los Angeles named Joe Anthony. At first, that arrangement was fine with the Obama team, which worked with Anthony on the content and even had the password to make changes themselves. But as the site exploded in popularity...

Soon it will be time for Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to face a moment of truth and decide whether he is going to lead the anti-war movement or cave in under administration pressure. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) move toward an accommodation with the White House over funding for the war in Iraq, they are also moving toward a civil war within their own party. If Pelosi and Reid agree to give Bush a new bill providing funding for the war without a deadline for troop withdrawal, they will redeem their party’s...

...Obama's speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs last week was pure John Kennedy, without a trace of John Mearsheimer. It had a deliberate New Frontier feel, including some Kennedy-era references ("we were Berliners") and even the Cold War-era notion that the United States is the "leader of the free world." No one speaks of the "free world" these days, and Obama's insistence that we not "cede our claim of leadership in world affairs" will sound like an anachronistic conceit to many Europeans, who even in the 1990s complained about the bullying "hyperpower." In Moscow and Beijing it will...

Sen. Barack Obama emerged as the big winner at Thursday's first Democratic presidential debate. It's not so much that he scored a knockout punch, or that he was head and shoulders above any of the other candidates — in fact, it's the opposite. Obama held his own with the others, particularly vis-à-vis his chief rival, Hillary Clinton. He clearly showed that he belonged on the stage with his longer-serving rivals. In doing so, he helped vanquish his leading negative: inexperience. The polls indicate that experience is Hillary Clinton's leading virtue in the eyes of her supporters; her experience is clearly...

Paul Tudor Jones, the wealthy hedge fund manager, has become the latest in a growing band from his profession to throw their weight behind Barack Obama, the US senator vying for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mr Jones is said to be planning to host a 500-guest fundraiser for Mr Obama on May 19. The event will be held at Mr Jones’s seaside mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, a big US centre for hedge funds. “The whole of Greenwich is backing Obama,” said one leading US businessman. Hedge fund managers, whose newly found wealth has made them attractive targets for presidential hopefuls,...

That was fast. The Sun-Times broke the story about Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record)'s relationship with Tony Rezko on Monday, but I think we may have already reached the point where Obama's reaction to the story is drawing more attention than the particulars of the story itself. Carol Marin, a reporter for NBC 5 and a columnist for the Sun-Times, puts the boot in today: Barack Obama tells us he is the messenger of a new kind of politics. Open. Transparent. Different. But put the pedal to the metal and ask Illinois' junior senator new and serious questions about...

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama said Tuesday that America needs to ask Israel to help change the status quo in its conflict with the Palestinians, the only candidate at a National Jewish Democratic Council conference to suggest that there is any onus on the Jewish state when it comes to making peace with its neighbors."The United States government and an Obama presidency cannot ask Israel to take risks with respect to its security," he told the crowd of Democratic activists and campaign contributors. "But it can ask Israel to say that it is still possible for us to allow more...

CHICAGO - Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) said Monday that President Bush has fallen short in his role as leader of the free world, and the 2008 election is a chance to change that. "This president may occupy the White House, but for the last six years the position of leader of the free world has remained open. And it is time to fill that role once more," Obama said in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The Illinois senator was in his hometown to deliver a foreign policy address that was...

NEW YORK (AP) - Wooing black voters while tackling questions about his experience, Democrat Barack Obama said Saturday that his years as a community organizer and accomplishments in the Illinois state Senate have prepared him well for the presidency. Addressing the National Action Network, a civil rights group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton, Obama touted his successes as an Illinois lawmaker in providing health insurance to children and reducing the price of prescription drugs for senior citizens. He also told of passing legislation to monitor racial profiling and to require that police interrogations of suspects in capital cases be videotaped....

A woman's tearful plea to Barack Obama to end the Iraq war momentarily caught the Democratic Presidential candidate off guard during a public appearance in Nashua yesterday. "I can't breathe," said the woman......more at link

DURHAM, N.H. - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) on Friday issued a call to save future generations from global catastrophe as he offered an energy proposal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. "We've been talking about climate change in Washington for years and energy independence and efficiency for years," Obama said. "But no matter how many scientists testified about greenhouse gases, no matter how much evidence that they're threatening our coasts and endangering our weather patterns, nothing happened with global warming until now." The Illinois senator stood in front of University of New Hampshire campus buses that...

....a speech that Barack Obama made in Milwaukee just hours after the massacre. It must be heard to be believed. After deploring and expressing grief about the shootings, he continues (my transcription): "I hope that it causes us to reflect a little bit more broadly on the degree to which we do accept violence in various forms. . . . There's also another kind of violence . . . it's not necessarily physical violence." What kinds does he have in mind? First, "Imus and the verbal violence that was directed at young women [of Rutgers]. . . . For them...

Hours after the Virginia Tech massacre, Barack Obama spoke at a campaign stop in Milwaukee. Obama could have shown compassion unalloyed with politics, what one hopes to find in a leader when disaster strikes. But he didn't. In the grand tradition of leftist orators, Obama repackaged the awful news of the day to "reflect" on his own political themes. "I hope," the candidate said about the massacre, "that it causes us to reflect a little more broadly on the degree to which we do accept violence in various forms all the time in our society: we glorify it, we encourage...