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Barack Obama's campaign is rolling out a number of centrist Republicans who are endorsing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee over Republican rival John McCain - in a show of his ability to win cross-over votes. A conference call Tuesday featured former Iowa Rep. Jim Leach, former White House intelligence adviser Rita Hauser and former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who represented his state as a Republican, but switched to become a Democrat so he could vote for Obama in the primary. Leach predicted that a lot of Republicans and independents are going to be attracted by Obama's campaign. The Obama...

While campaigning in a traditionally Republican district, Sen. Barack Obama attempted to beat back rumors about him– telling the Springfield, Missouri crowd that Republicans and Sen. McCain are trying to make voters “scared” of him because they don’t have another strategy.“Nobody thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me,” Obama warned, “You know he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills.”

Oh, for the love of crumbcake, this is getting so creepy.I have been saying for weeks that Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism has really helped my understanding of Barack Obama. I have pointed it out in three other posts:Barack Obama is a 1920s-style fascist Early 20th century "progressivism" has returned... Barack Obama: I AM America Every time I do, I think to myself, oh dear, this is going to sound overwrought. I do it anyways, because truth is truth, and the truth is that Barack Obama talks about himself and his plans in the same transcendent, populist, cult-of-personality terms as...

Last night Obama had to field an off-the-cuff question from ABC News: "If you had it to do over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge?" Well .. there was a small problem. This was not a question that Barack's handlers had prepared him for. He had no script. He had to ad lib, and for Obama that's not good. Sit down folks. Here is Barack's answer. http://boortz.com/more/video/072108_obama_abc.html See if you can make any sense at all out of this. Remember, this is the man who wants to be our Commander in Chief responding to a...

After eight years in the wilderness, the left expects a clean sweep in the 2008 election -- the presidency (and with it the federal bureaucracy) and larger majorities in both houses of Congress. Looking ahead, liberals are determined to derail potential opposition to their plans to accelerate the deconstruction of America. Consequently, they have targeted talk radio. Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine is just one facet of their scheme to eviscerate the only part of the media controlled by conservatives. Crucial to an understanding of the jihad against talk radio is this: The left will do anything to gag its...

The Real Barack Obama reports on the Obama campaign's plans to control the image of his Berlin rally:“Looks like the Germans figured out why Obama won’t allow anyone to bring anything into his big show,” Beethovenqueen writes. The Bild headline reads “Barack Obama bans protest signs in Berlin.” The article then goes on to say: Obamas Organisatoren wollen nichts dem Zufall überlassen. Auf Handzetteln, die seit Montag für die Rede im Berliner Bezirk Tiergarten ausgeteilt werden, heißt es: „Plakate oder Transparente sind nicht gestattet.“ Aus Sicherheitsgründen sollen die Besucher auch keine Taschen und Rucksäcke mitnehmen dürfen. Translation: Obama’s organization is...

Barack Obama has published an enemies list and conspiracy web on his presidential campaign website, Fight the Smears.The site lists conservative activists David Bossie, Floyd Brown, Bob Perry, Craig Shirley, Bruce Hawkins and James Lacy.The Obama campaign posted an accompanying graphic that lays out a web of connections between the conservatives, groups they represent and their efforts opposing liberals, including "Swift Boat", "Clinton Impeachment" and "Willie Horton Ad".The text never connects any of those listed to 'smears' against Obama, but instead lists their politcal sins such as working with the Minutemen, Ann Coulter, Gary Aldrich, donating to the Swift Boat...

The owners of a small South End gallery say they had the best of intentions when they commissioned a famous and often mischievous street artist to install a massive political mural on a construction wall lining one of the artiest strips of the South End. The mural, 13 feet high and nearly a block long, features multiple composite portraits of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln, their faces melded together in a rainbow of colors. It is meant, the gallery said, to inspire dialogue. That it did. The morning after artist Ron English and his band of...

Last fall, Barack Obama explained why he hadn't been wearing an American flag pin on his lapel. "I won't wear that pin on my chest," the presumptive Democratic nominee said. "Instead, I'm going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great, and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism." What a difference a presidential campaign makes. Obama, who suggested back then that the flag pin "became a substitute for I think true patriotism" after the Sept. 11 attacks, now regularly sports the patriotic symbol at campaign events. He even briefly employed...

July 10-24, 2008 issue of Rolling Stone....

"Obama volunteers from Columbus, Ohio, who have adopted the middle name Hussein include J. T. Marcum, left, Aaron Barclay, Alex Enderle, Norm Shoemaker and Chelsey McCune. They use the name on the Internet and in greeting one another."

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) may have one of the best-known faces in the world, but that doesn’t mean he is recognized everywhere, even in Washington. Washington Sports Club employee Takehia Wheeler was manning the front desk to scan members’ identification cards Friday morning when the presidential candidate walked in with his entourage. The gym opened a month ago in the Columbia Heights district. “He came in and walked past me,” Wheeler told In The Know. “I was like, ‘Sir, you need to come back.’ ” Wheeler said Obama looked familiar, but she didn’t recognize him. So she asked for his...

Jonah Goldberg at The Corner: I caught the beginning of the Daily Show the other night and saw what appears to be a recurring segment: “Barackaphobia.” This, as you might guess, is where Stewart mocks anybody who is overly concerned with Barack Obama’s ideas, background, whatever. In short, anybody who takes stark exception to Obama or the cult of Obama is paranoid. [...]The left loves to characterize conservative dislikes and disagreements as “phobias” and other maladies of the mind. Specifically, conservative “hate” is based on “ignorance” and “fear.” Rhetorically, this tactic amounts to a way for liberals to avoid arguments...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Newsweek magazine, the new cover. The cover is of Obama, and they put another halo on his head! The original picture did not have a halo, but the wife of editor Jon Meacham walked in, saw it, didn't like it. So Newsweek changed the cover photo of Obama with a halo and a bright light behind him because the editor's wife didn't like the original. (playing of Obama Messiah spoof) END TRANSCRIPT

A hip rock band that features the Soviet national anthem and communist-inspired lyrics was on stage to open for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama at his record-breaking Portland, Ore., rally that attracted 75,000. The Decemberists, a Portland-based group with a large local following, also closed the May 18 event. The Decemberists typically begin their concerts with a Russian-language recording of the USSR's national anthem. A YouTube video shows the Decemberists beginning an April 31, 2007, concert at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., with the anthem.

LOS ANGELES—Facing a backlash from supporters, Barack Obama's campaign reversed course Thursday and reinstated hundreds of people to lists of prospective California delegates for the Democratic National Convention. The campaign's decision this week to block approximately 900 people from trying win seats to the convention as Obama delegates set off a deluge of criticism that reached Web sites, newspaper headlines and party offices, shaking a campaign known for galvanizing the party's grass roots. Campaign manager David Plouffe said in a letter to potential delegates that all names would be restored to ballots that will be used Sunday to elect delegates,...

Watching the Democrat Presidential candidates swing through the state of Pennsylvania, it's as if the state all of the sudden had an epidemic of "lifelong Republicans", going through a change of heart and switching over to the Democrats. Not to take part in their primaries, but due to ideological reasons. Obama seemed to be the major, perhaps the only, beneficiary of all these former "lifelong Republicans", now Democrat voters. It seems that we are dealt this left wing propaganda every election, every primary year. Hordes of "lifelong Republicans" who tell us that they are now Democrats. In reality, the vast...

From Shailagh Murray's pool report on Obama's visit to the Italian Market in Philadelphia, where he met an extremely persistent photograph-seeker: Run in #1: outside the first shop, on the way in Man: Senator can I have a quick picture with you. (Obama has his arm on the guys arm in a very nice way, like he does when he shakes peoples hand) but Obama refuses to take a picture and walks away.) Man: It will take you two seconds. Don't cram me, I'm not doing anything to anybody. Jesus. Run in #2: after the first shop Man: "Senator can...

A tangle with a cop and an achy heartBy Jeri Rowe Staff writer Tuesday, Apr. 1, 2008 3:00 am GREENSBORO — Alexander Kohanowich is a patriotic guy. His six grandchildren call him Pop. For at least five years, Pop has traveled around our city, showing his support for American troops overseas. He doesn't say much. He just holds his signs at busy intersections and busy events to get people's attention. Maybe you've seen him. He'll hang, say, on Westover Terrace, near Wendover. He'll face east in the morning, west in the afternoon, so drivers can see his signs clearly, without...

It's a free country, and if Barack Obama's campaign wants to make money from posters ($70 a pop!) designed by the artist Shepard Fairey, they can go right ahead. (The candidate himself thanked the artist, and said that his "images have a profound affect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign." You know, because they're put on stickers and posted all over public property.) And I'm sure I'll be told that the artist uses Communist propaganda imagery in an ironic way, or a satirical way, or in a way of making a pro-freedom political statement...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., revealed Friday that two years ago he discussed the blown cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame with then CIA director George Tenet and that Tenet "was furious." Tenet promptly called the Justice Department to demand an investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak, Schumer said at a hearing held by House and Senate Democrats. Novak revealed Plame's identity in July 2003 in a column in which he said she played a key role in having her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to investigate...

I am thinking about writing a letter to my local fish wrap because editor was crying about the Rove nonsense and the fact that Judith Miller was a hero to all for standing up for the press and their "First Amendment Rights" and protection of confidential sources. The jest of my letter is going to focus on why we shouldn't feel sorry for Ms. Miller and the rest of the press because they (the liberal press) are the first ones to applaud when the First Amendment protections to free speech during federal elections was attacked (McCain/Feingold) and when a court...

In journalism, the definition of “leak” suggests that it is applied to government officials who purposely give reporters secret or confidential information in order to publicize something they do not like so that it can be defeated before being voted upon. “Outing” a CIA agent is only a crime if the agent is under cover overseas or has been during the past five years. This law was created to prevent the assassinations of CIA agents on foreign shores as had been caused by Philip Agee in 1978 who listed CIA agents undercover in foreign cities, causing the murder of some....

The buzz is that all of the fun-loving Dims are having "Rovegate" parties to trash Karl Rove and GWB over the CIA outing controversy. We need to show we can have fun too......by having a Wilson-Plame Look-Alike Contest. Post here your choices for the look-alikes.

Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?" I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program. On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an...

Now I read that Matt Cooper’s (the journalist who received Rove’s so-called ‘leak’) wife is Mandy Grunwald; media consultant and campaign advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton......

David Corn responding to Clifford May's column in National Review. Blah, blah, blah. Unconvincing. Those of you following this closely will want to read it for clues, but I'm only going to post what (to me) was the big news: Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point:Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0. What the h*ll is this? David Corn published an article only two days after Novak's column that exposed Plame in far greater detail than Novak...

An interesting post by Cliff May: "This morning, I have a piece up elsewhere on NRO showing that The Nation’s David Corn--not syndicated columnist Bob Novak--was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover operative. It further suggests that David did so based on information provided to him by none other than Joseph C. Wilson IV. While working on that piece, I had an exchange with David and, with his permission, I thought I’d share that with you. Dear David: I have a question--one you may not be willing to answer but I’m curious so let me try:...

Oct. 18 — Bacteria found in a 2,000-year-old piece of cheese could be the final evidence that this food was a continuous source of infectious disease in the ancient Roman world. According to a study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Infection, a tiny piece of cheese containing disease bacteria was carbonized in the volcanic eruption that one night in late August, 79 A.D. covered Pompeii and the nearby towns of Herculaneum and Stabiae with nine to 20 feet of hot ash and pumice. About 250 people fled to the beach, trying in vain to escape the...