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As he watched the first night of his Democratic National Convention from the cozy living room of local supporters Jim and Alicia Girardeau, Sen. Barack Obama undoubtedly wanted his wife, Michelle Obama, the headline speaker Monday, to be the news-making highlight of the day. But vocal protestors, the media and a few complicated egos directed the public's attention earlier in the day to his primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. As frustrated Democrats converged on Denver yesterday, some began chanting "caucus fraud," while others shouted the word "sweetie," a reference to the time Obama called a female reporter by the...

As frustrated Democrats converged on Denver yesterday, some began chanting "caucus fraud," while others shouted the word "sweetie," a reference to the time Obama called a female reporter by the same name. One Clinton supporter who spoke to ABC News said Obama couldn't be trusted. Another said, "He's shifty and untrustworthy." It was assuredly not the kind of message Obama and his diligently image-conscious team were counting on at the Democratic National Convention. "I'm thoroughly disgusted with the Democratic Party. I believe the magic of Barack Obama was his ability to turn lifelong Democrats like us into McCain supporters overnight,"...

UPDATE: ABC News' Ron Claiborne, traveling with the McCain campaign, reports that McCain senior adviser Charlie Black would not say whether people around McCain while he was en route to Rick Warren's forum had access to blackberries and cell phones from which they could have tipped off Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., about the questions. "There's no reason we would do that," was all Black would say, though quite obviously there is a reason.

“At what point does a baby get human rights in your view?” Obama said that “whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade. “

Don’t get me wrong – I half expected to see anti-Obama author Jerome Corsi at today’s Bigfoot press conference. But not everything in the Obama campaign’s 40-page refutation of Corsi’s shoddy and dishonest book “Obama Nation” is fair. Much of what Corsi writes in his book is demonstrably false, irresponsible, and feverishly conjured. The book is indefensible, as are Corsi’s many bigoted remarks about Arabs, the Pope and others. But the Obama campaign got a little greedy in their refutations. First of all, on the front of the response, is a labeled stamped “Brought to you by Bush/Cheney Attack Machine.”...

  Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine who is under consideration as a possible running mate for Barack Obama gave the Senator credit for the Russian ceasefire in Georgia.From ABC News' Jake Tapper."The Senator's goal was to be tough and smart," Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine said of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, "and so when the action (in Georgia) happened on Thursday, he immediately called for a ceasefire, condemned the unwarranted use of force by Russia.  It was a bad crisis for the world.  It required tough words, but also a smart approach to call on the international community to step in --...

How many young white women professing adoration for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, can you count in this anti-Obama web video that the campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, was sending out yesterday? One...two...three...four...sure are a lot of young white women in this thing.... Why do you think they put so many young white women professing their love for Obama in what is clearly an anti-Obama video? What would possibly be negative about young white women liking Sen. Obama?

As we close up a week wherein Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, on the stump and in a TV ad accused rival Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., of being "in the pocket of big oil," and doing the industry's bidding -- not to mention a week during which the Democratic National Committee launched an Exxon-McCain '08 website to drive home this Democratic talking point -- the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics points out that the issue is a bit more complicated than it first would appear. McCain has received three times more money from the oil industry in general -- $1.3 million...

"So I told them something simple," Obama said. "I said, 'You know what? You can inflate your tires to the proper levels and that if everybody in America inflated their tires to the proper level, we would actually probably save more oil than all the oil we'd get from John McCain drilling right below his feet there, or wherever he was going to drill.'" (Note: that's not accurate, as we fact-checked last week. But the larger point about energy savings is correct.) "So now the Republicans are going around - this is the kind of thing they do. I don't...

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, met with House Democrats yesterday, talking about his trip abroad and his observations. Obama told the caucus, according to an attendee, "Nobody said this to me directly but I get the feeling from my talks that if the sanctions don’t work Israel is going to strike Iran." The notion that Israel is preparing for such an action against Iran's myriad nuclear facilities is not new, with conjecture heating up in May after an Israeli military exercise featuring 150 aircraft flying almost a thousand miles over the Mediterranean Sea in what was seen as a dress rehearsal...

After meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, came before the microphones... SNIP But the Pentagon said that wasn't true, that Obama was more than welcome to come, it was just that he couldn't bring the media or campaign staff. So here's what Obama said about it all: "The staff was working this so I don’t know each and every detail but here is what I understand happened," Obama said. "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we...

I think America may soon learn that "the Emperor has no clothes." The protective press veil around Barack Obama may be about to be torn away. This is video (see video) of ABC News' Jake Tapper reporting from Berlin yesterday on Good Morning America. In his report, Tapper reveals the truth about Barack Obama's excessive ego by showing that Obama has replaced the U.S. Flag that was on the tail of his airplane "with an enormous Obama "O". He also describes how Obama has redesigned the airplane to separate Obama and his staff "from us lowly reporters," and he shows...

Not every reporter covering Barack Obama's world tour is entranced by the words and imagery of the Democratic candidate. On Thursday's "Good Morning America," political correspondent Jake Tapper jabbed at Obama's overconfidence, describing the senator's July 24 speech in Berlin as "one the Obama campaign is billing at almost presidential. Even though he is not the president." Regarding the Obama plane, the ABC journalist also pointed out: "The American flag on the tail wing has been replaced by an enormous Obama O."

On the heels of John McCain's strong statement to Israel and the Jews that he would "not allow a second Holocaust" to happen, Barack Hussein Obama was asked whether he'd prevent a second Holocaust by reporters during his trip to Israel. The setting for the question is notable. It was just before he made a photo op visit to "Yad VaShem," the Holocaust museum in Israel. What is also notable was Obama's "response" and how it was "covered" by the Mainstream media. While the Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon and Cam Simpson noted the question, they did not note the...

"Let me be absolutely clear," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said today at a press conference in Amman, Jordan. "Israel is a strong friend of Israel's. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under a McCain...administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel's under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change."

Though a majority of the American people support ending the war in Iraq and think the invasion was a mistake, Republicans have tried to put Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, into a box as he prepares for his first trip to Iraq since securing his party's presidential nomination. Weeks ago, after Obama said he would be willing to listen to commanders in the ground to "refine" his policy, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Republicans said Obama was flip-flopping. Then after Obama clarified that he is sticking by his plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months, McCain and Republicans...

The sophisticates at The New Yorker have come up with a cover that is sure to get the magazine a lot of attention. Negative attention. From their friends. An illustration by Barry Blitt depicts Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and his wife Michelle in the Oval Office, revealing their "true" selves: Michelle is in full revolutionary garb, an enormous afro making her look like a millennial Angela Davis, holding an automatic weapon and wearing military pants. In the cartoon Michelle is giving dap, or fist-bumping, with her husband who is wearing a turban and is dressed in garb perhaps more appropriate...

For those voters who think Ralph Nader and Bob Barr are too conventional, the Green Party this weekend named former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Georgia, its 2008 presidential nominee. At the Green Party's nominating convention Saturday in at the Chicago Symphony Center, McKinney received 313 out of 532 votes cast in the first round of balloting. "I am asking you to vote your conscience, vote your dreams, vote your future, vote Green," McKinney told the convention's 800 or so attendees. "A vote for the Green Party is a vote for the movement that will turn this country right-side-up again." McKinney, a...

In Pennsylvania, McCain Tells a New Version of Heroic P.O.W. Story -- Subbing the Pittsburgh Steelers for the Green Bay Packers July 10, 2008 5:37 PMYesterday in Pittsburgh, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., professed his love for the Steelers to KDKA-TV. Watch HERE. Asked what first comes to his mind when he thinks of Pittsburgh, McCain chuckled, "the Steelers.  I was a mediocre high school athlete but I loved and adored the sports but the Steelers really made a huge impression on me particularly in my early years." And then McCain told a rather moving story about his time as a...

"To be clear," Sen. Barack Obama. D-Illinois, spox Bill Burton told Talking Points Memo last October about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, "Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." Reaffirmed Obama's Senate office in December: “Senator Obama unequivocally opposes giving retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies and has cosponsored Senator Dodd's efforts to remove that provision from the FISA bill. Granting such immunity undermines the constitutional protections Americans trust the Congress to protect. Senator Obama supports a filibuster of this bill, and strongly urges others to do the same...Senator Obama will...

Sen. Barack Obama has emerged from his bruising battle for the Democratic presidential nomination with only a six point lead over Sen. John McCain and claiming his Republican rival has been getting a "pass" from the media. An ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Obama, D-Ill., leading McCain, R-Ariz., by a margin of 48 percent to 42 percent. It is a surprisingly small lead considering that the incumbent Republican president George Bush is at record lows and public opinion overwhelmingly feels the country is on the "wrong track". No Bounce, Resistance from Clinton Supporters The poll indicates that Obama did not...

The campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain are engaging in an angry exchange today over Obama's remarks to Jake Tapper yesterday in which he talked about the role of law enforcement in combating terrorism. In the interview, Obama said, "[I]t is my firm belief that we can track terrorists, we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. And there has been no evidence on their part that we can't. "And, you know, let's take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist...

Rev. Pfleger: "America is the Greatest Sin Against God" June 01, 2008 10:46 PMIn another excerpt from Rev. Michael Pfleger's sermon last Sunday, May 25, from the pulpit of Sen. Barack Obama's now former church, Trinity United Church of Christ on the South side of Chicago, the longtime Obama associate condemns America for racism in fairly harsh terms. Watch HERE. "Racism is still America's greatest addiction," Pfleger says. "I also believe that America is the greatest sin against God." There seems to be a mixed reaction to that from the pews. But Pfleger explains: "If the greatest command is to...

In the Des Moines Register, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said that the worldview of Navy veteran Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is the son and grandson of Admirals, has been shaped too much by the military. "He has a hard time thinking beyond that," Harkin told reporters. "I think he's trapped in that. Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous.""It's one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just how you're...

Lost in the uproar over Sen. Hillary Clinton's invoking of the assassination of Robert Kennedy when explaining why her staying in the race won't hurt party unity is an actual examination of her comparison of the 2008 Democratic primary season to the one from 1968. Clinton yesterday before the Argus Leader editorial board also invoked her husband's race in 1992. We've already twice now looked at how her reference to how her husband was still campaigning in June 1992 is a disingenuous claim.

Tragedy struck the first filly in the Kentucky Derby since 1999, as Eight Belles went down on the track after her second-place finish today, broke two ankles, and was euthanized. Showing a sisterhood with the female horse, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., during a trip to Louisville this week had said she was going to bet on Eight Belles to win, place, and show. ABC News' Karen Travers reports that Clinton told supporters in Jeffersonville, Ind., earlier this week, "I hope that everybody will go to the derby on Saturday and place just a little money on the filly for me....

Pressure Mounts on Obama After Reverend's Reappearance -- It's crunch time on the campaign trail, and candidates can't afford any mistakes or for any controversial friends to suddenly reappear. Will the Rev. Jeremiah Wright drag the Illinois senator's campaign down? Some speculate the re-emergence of Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is turning off white voters. Democratic sources tell ABC News that Wright is unquestionably worrying superdelegates about Obama's electability. On Monday at the National Press Club, Wright was defiant, embracing some of the most controversial items he has said. "Jesus said, You cannot do terrorism on...

"This is not an attack on Jeremiah Wright," said Rev. Jeremiah Wright this morning at the National Press Club, explaining why he was emerging before a national audience, regardless of what harm it might do to the candidacy of one of his parishioners, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. "This is an attack on the black church." With that justification -- however sincere or self-serving -- in mind, Wright continued his publicity blitz, arguing that he's compelled to speak out because he does not operate in the world of politics. "On November 5 and on January 21, I will still be a...

Obama has twice apologized since implying that U.S. troops had died in vain, telling a rally crowd in Ames, Iowa, on Sunday, "We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should never been waged, and on which we have now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted."

At a fundraiser in San Francisco, Ca., Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., claimed he had more world experience than his rivals, Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and introduced a new bit of biographical information. "Foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain," Obama said, according to the Huffington Post. "It's ironic because this is supposedly the place where experience is most needed to be Commander-in-Chief. Experience in Washington is not knowledge of the world. This I know. When Senator Clinton...

The Huffington Post's Mayhill Fowler reports that, at that same San Francisco fundraiser where Obama revealed his previously unknown college sojourn to Pakistan, the junior senator from Illinois seemed to try to get inside the mind of small towners in Pennsylvania, with a dose of sociology and a dollop of dime-store psychology. "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them," Obama said. "And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration...

In Eugene, Oregon, Saturday. Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, attempted to change the measure by which anyone might assess who criticized the Iraq war first, her or Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, by saying those keeping records should start in January 2005, when Obama joined the Senate. (A measure that conveniently avoids her October 2002 vote to authorize use of force against Iraq at a time that Obama was speaking out against the war.) She claimed that using that measure she criticized the war in Iraq before Obama did. But Clinton's claim was false. Clinton on Saturday told Oregonians, "when Senator Obama...

Last August, I ran into Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, outside the Senate chamber in the Capitol. This was before the Obama surge, before he had omnipresent Secret Service agents... Frankly, he reeked of cigarettes. Obama ran off before I could ask him if he'd just snuck a smoke, so I called his campaign. They denied it. He'd quit months before, in February, they insisted. They reported back that he had told them he hadn't had a cigarette since he quit. Except….last night on MSNBC's Hardball, Obama admitted that his attempt to wean himself from the vile tobacco weed had not...

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., launches a biography tour next week, which looks to tell the American people about his days as a POW in Vietnam, at least based on his new TV ad (watch HERE) introduced today in New Mexico. In response, Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean issued a statement, saying, “John McCain can try to reintroduce himself to the country, but he can’t change the fact that he cast aside his principles to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush the last seven years. While we honor McCain’s military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers...

It is improbable but, yes, still mathematically possible that New York Sen. Hillary Clinton could win the Democratic presidential nomination. What Democratic officials across the country fear is what Clinton will have to do to party rival Illinois Sen. Barack Obama -- who leads in pledged delegates and the popular vote -- to make that happen. "I don't think she has no chance, but the route for her to victory is so bad for the Democratic Party -- it's to damage Obama so much that people feel he's not electable," said ABC News political contributor Matthew Dowd, a former adviser...

Until recently the most popular metaphor to describe the Hillary Clinton campaign was Scorched Earth. This metaphor implies that Hillary is willing to destroy the entire Democrat party in an effort to win the nomination. However, there is a new metaphor on the block which is a bit more precise in its description: the Tonya Harding Option. This new metaphor was supposedly introduced yesterday by Jake Tapper in his ABC News 'Political Punch' posting, Democratic Party Official: Clinton Pursuing 'The Tonya Harding Option': l just spoke with a Democratic Party official, who asked for anonymity so as to speak candidly,...

Time to lace up the skates and cut some rhetorical figure-eights. GMA has quoted a Dem official as saying that in her desperate quest for the nomination, Hillary Clinton is down to "the Tonya Harding option." ABC senior political correspondent Jake Tapper cited the skating simile in his Good Morning America segment this morning. JAKE TAPPER: It is mathematically possible, improbable yes, but possible for Senator Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination. What concerns Democratic officials in Washington is what Clinton will have to do to Senator Barack Obama in order for that to happen. One Democratic official told...

Obama's Speech Applauded -- By Republican FoesGOPers and Conservatives Say Candidate's Speech Didn't End Wright Controversy By JAKE TAPPER March 19, 2008 Campaigning in North Carolina today, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., enjoyed overwhelmingly warm reviews from the media and the crowd in Charlotte for his speech about race and his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But for far different reasons, Republican political consultants were delighted with the speech, as well. Looking ahead to November, GOP strategists say Obama did not remove Wright as a campaign issue. "He didn't explain why he continued to attend a church whose minister...

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democrat Barack Obama suffered in the polls Thursday after a much-acclaimed speech on race that, pundits said, had failed to defuse voters' anger over rage-filled sermons by his former pastor. Waging an acrimonious battle against Hillary Clinton for the Democrats' White House nomination, Obama confessed to being bruised by the controversy surrounding his longtime Chicago preacher, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. "In some ways this controversy has actually shaken me up a little bit and gotten me back into remembering that, you know, the odds of me getting elected have always been lower than some of the other conventional...

In his Friday night cable mea culpas on the incendiary comments made by his spiritual adviser Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., repeatedly said, "I wasn't in church during the time that these statement were made. I did not hear such incendiary language myself, personally. Either in conversations with him or when I was in the pew, he always preached the social gospel. ... If I had heard them repeated, I would have quit. ... If I thought that was the repeated tenor of the church, then I wouldn’t feel comfortable there." Obama told CNN that he "didn't know...

This is how ugly things have gotten between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- Clinton supporters are staging what they call a "strike" at the influential liberal website DailyKos. It's not really a "strike" -- blogging for these diarists is not a job, and stopping their blogging won't cause them financial hardship. But, that said, these diarists' boycott of DailyKos is indicative of the turmoil in which the Democratic party finds itself. Read more on their "strike" HERE.

Hillary Clinton's campaign is casting her not-entirely-disastrous showing in the Wyoming caucuses as a victory. Clinton's campaign manager Maggie Williams said, "We are thrilled with this near split in delegates and are grateful to the people of Wyoming for their support. Although the Obama campaign predicted victory in Wyoming weeks ago, we worked hard to present Senator Clinton’s vision to the caucus-goers and we thank them for turning out today." Waitasec... I thought victories in red states, small-population states and caucus states were irrelevant...? I guess losses there somehow rock the house?

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said that his votes to fund the war in Iraq do not contradict his opposition to the war. Once we were in, we were going to have some responsibility to try to make it work as best we can," the presidential candidate said. "More importantly, you make sure the troops are supported. I don't think there's any contradiction there whatsoever. We should not get in; once we were in, we had to make the best of a bad situation." There isn't necessarily a contradiction in this position; other opponents...

Bill Clinton: "If You Elect Me" (I'm Speaking as Her)Jake Tapper, ABC Blog.com For a natural-born politician such as former President Bill Clinton, it may be tough to spend so much time talking about someone else. In Portsmouth, Ohio, he said, " If you elect me, I'll repeal those subsidies. And put them into a strategic energy fund that will create American jobs for America's future with clean energy." Watch Video HERE. If you coughed and missed the "Hillary says" in that sentence you might be surprised when he reaches the "if you elect me" part of the pitch more than 60 words later....

If that sound isn't the fat lady clearing her throat, it might be the MSM humming Hillary's dirge. Consider, for example, ABC national political correspondent Jake Tapper's Good Morning America segment today on the differences in tone between the Obama and Clinton campaigns. After playing footage of an angry Hillary waving allegedly misleading Obama campaign literature and then of a relaxed Obama laughing it off, Tapper had this to say. JAKE TAPPER: There's a difference between a winner's confident stride and the strained scurrying of the also-ran. View video here.

The charismatic, brilliant, inspiring black politician came to the stage to address the latest attack from his white female opponent. "Her dismissive point, and I hear it a lot from her staff, is all I have to offer is words," he said. "Just words. "'We holds these truths to be self-evident,'" he continued as the crowd began to cheer and applaud, "'that all men are created equal' -- just words. Just words." The applause increased. "'We have nothing to fear but fear itself,'" the pol said. "Just words. 'Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you...

On WMAL-AM yesterday in an interview with Chris Plante, former President Bill Clinton implied the media has been unfair to his wife, stated that she was standing up to sexism when she took on NBC, and -- when asked about MSNBC's David Shuster's comments about his daughter, Chelsea -- said there was a double standard. "If he had made a racial slur against Senator Obama, he would have been fired," Clinton said. Of his wife's recent travails, he said, "the caucuses aren't good for her. They disproportionately favor upper-income voters who, who, don't really need a president but feel like...

And Obama Wept February 07, 2008 9:43 AM Inspiration is nice. But some folks seem to be getting out of hand. It's as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, "Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat." Obama supporter Kathleen Geier writes that she's "getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama's supporters. On listservs I'm on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young...

Mitt Romney was asked about the assault weapons ban on Meet the Press on December 16, 2007. "I would have supported the original assault weapon ban," Romney said. "I signed an assault weapon ban in Massachusetts governor because it provided for a relaxation of licensing requirements for gun owners in Massachusetts, which was a big plus." Asked Tim Russert: "So the assault ban that expired here because Congress didn’t act on it, you would support?" "Just as the president said, he would have, he would have signed that bill if it came to his desk, and so would have I,"...

Perhaps no other issue causes politicians to shift to the right as they enter the national arena more so than guns… And perhaps no other issue so explicitly causes politicians attempting such a leap to shoot themselves in the foot. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was asked about the assault weapons ban on Meet the Press on December 16, 2007. "I would have supported the original assault weapon ban," Romney said. "I signed an assault weapon ban in Massachusetts governor because it provided for a relaxation of licensing requirements for gun owners in Massachusetts, which was a big plus." Asked...