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Video. This one is a little unnerving. Either we’re missing something, or Obama needs medication and some quality time with a psychiatrist.

DRUDGE HEADLINE WITH PHOTO: "POLITICS HITS THE WALL: PRAYER FOR CHANGE"

After meeting with top U.S. military commanders and members of the Iraqi government, Sen. Barack Obama today said his opposition to the surge and support for a firm timetable for the withdrawal of troops hasn't changed. ~snip~ Obama and Petraeus have also staked out opposing positions on whether there should be a timetable for withdrawing American forces. Obama said that in his meeting with Petraeus, the general discussed his "deep concerns" about "a timetable that doesn't take into account what they anticipate might be a change in conditions." "My job is to think about the national security interests as a...

Campaign '08: The man who opposed the surge in Iraq now wants a surge in Afghanistan. But if Barack Obama had his way, there would be no troops to be redeployed and no free Iraq to visit.Much has been made, too much we think, of the remarks by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the German newsmagazine Der Speigel that seemingly endorsed Barack Obama's proposed 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. As John McCain has pointed out, and a fawning press has not, there would be no democratic Iraq to visit and no Prime Minister al-Maliki to have a photo-op...

U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Wednesday said he'd like the world free of nuclear weapons and pledged to fight emerging threats posed by biological and cyber-terrorism. The Senator from Illinois made the remarks at a roundtable discussion on national security in West Lafayette, Ind.

The list of issues on which Barack Obama has flipped now that the primaries are over is long and growing rapidly: # He says he believes in a Second Amendment right to bear arms. # He now opposes late-term abortion. # He suddenly is a devotee of using faith-based institutions to deliver public services. # He now says that he won’t raise Social Security taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. In the primary, he said he’d eliminate the threshold entirely, including on people making as little as $100,000. # He recently opposed the Fairness Doctrine for talk...

McCain has got an 80 - 55 % advantage over Obama regarding his ability to be Commander in Chief. Hmmm. Interesting.

A runaway metaphor is not the worst sin in the world. But if former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig really is a potential national security adviser under President Obama, he's doing his potential future boss no favors when he talks like this: Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if...

“My grandfather marched in Patton’s army, but I cannot know what it is to walk into battle like so many of you,” he told a small group of veterans here Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz.

Obama Grilled on Ties to Pro-Palestinian Professor by FOXNews.com Thursday, May 22, 2008 A persistent questioner at a campaign stop Thursday grilled Barack Obama on his ties to a professor with pro-Palestinian views, prompting Obama to speak at some length against “guilt by association” and about his support for the Jewish community. The at-times heated exchange occurred during a town hall event held at a synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla. The questioner focused on Obama’s relationship to Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University who has drawn fire for some of his criticisms of Israel. Obama responded...

You always know you've struck gold when liberals react with hysteria and rage to something you've said. So I knew President Bush's speech at the Knesset last week was a barn burner before even I read it. Liberals haven't been this worked up since Rev. Jerry Falwell criticized a cartoon sponge. Calling the fight against terrorism "the defining challenge of our time" -- which already confused liberals who think the defining struggle of our time is against Wal-Mart -- Bush said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will...

Likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama told supporters Iran is just a “tiny” country at a campaign stop in Oregon Sunday evening. "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us,” Obama said. Obama’s rivals, including his fellow Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, have criticized Obama for his willing to meet with Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism. Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain issued a strong retort to Obama's assessment at a stop in Chicago on Monday. "The...

Democrat Barack Obama has a message for Tennessee's Republican Party: "Lay off my wife." ADVERTISEMENT Obama, his party's presidential front-runner, and his wife, Michelle, were asked in an interview aired Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" about an online video last week by the state's GOP taking her to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic. "The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. "If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I...

Sen. Barack Obama ripped into a Republican ad today that targets comments made by his wife, Michelle, and called the GOP tactic "low class" and "detestable." The senator and his wife discuss the race for the White House. The Illinois senator told "Good Morning America" that he expects hardball tactics from the Republicans if he becomes the Democratic presidential nominee. "But I also think these folks should lay off my wife," he told "GMA" as his wife chuckled beside him. Obama told "GMA" that he believes he will win a majority of the Democratic delegates once the votes are counted...

So, round one of the 2008 foreign policy debate goes to ... Barack Obama? Improbable as it seems, in the first direct rhetorical showdown of the general election campaign - over a question, foreign policy "toughness", that's been a perceived Democratic weakness since Vietnam - it was the guy with the thin foreign policy résumé, suspected by some of his compatriots of being a Muslim, who out-punched the war hero with the extensive résumé. And shall I add that the one with the thin résumé and the strange name has a dodgy position on the question at hand, and yet...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Perhaps no one took greater comfort in the Republican Party's third straight loss of a long-held House seat this week than Barack Obama, who says the results point to clear limits in the effectiveness of attack ads he expects this fall. The Democratic presidential candidate played a prominent role in all three special elections to fill vacant GOP seats, and he landed on the winning side each time. In recent contests in Louisiana and Mississippi, Republicans or their allies ran TV ads linking the Democratic House nominees to Obama, warning that a vote for them was a...

By Amanda Carpenter Thursday, May 8, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flatly promised to raise taxes in a television interview Thursday afternoon. “I will raise CEO taxes,” Obama told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” “If you’re a CEO in this country you’ll probably pay more taxes,” Obama said. Obama speculated his CEO tax rates “won’t be prohibitively high, you’ll pay roughly what you did in the 90’s when they were doing fine.” Obama also said he would eliminate the Bush tax cuts and install what he called a “middle class tax cut.” Blitzer asked Obama to define...

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

Live NOW on FOX, CNN, and MSNBC! The Holy Messiah Obama is throwing Rev, Wright under the Bus!!

Barack Obama on Monday once again distanced himself from his retired pastor, Jeremiah Wright, as the reverend grabbed the spotlight for the fourth day in a row by suggesting the furor around his controversial remarks is an attack on black churches in America. Plagued by the ongoing uproar regarding Wright, Obama said Wright does not represent his views or vice versa. “I have said before and I will repeat again that what some of the comments that Reverend Wright have made offend me and I understand why they’ve offended the American people,’ Obama told reporters while traveling in Wilmington, N.C....

McCain spoke with bloggers this morning on a number of issues ranging from William Ayers to Rev. Wright to Tony Rezko. Jennifer Rubin noted that Hamas had endorsed Senator Obama and asked McCain whether Obama might have given "an unhelpful signal" to the terrorist group. McCain's response: All I can tell you Jennifer is that I think it's very clear who Hamas wants to be the next president of the United States. So apparently has Danny Ortega and several others. I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare....If senator Obama is favored by Hamas I...

Prominent Democrats only whisper when they compare Obama, the first African-American with a serious chance to be president, with what happened to Los Angeles' black Mayor Tom Bradley a quarter of a century ago. Exit polls in 1982 showed Bradley ahead for governor of California, but he actually lost to Republican George Deukmejian. Pollster John Zogby (who correctly predicted Clinton's double-digit win Tuesday) said what practicing Democrats would not. "I think voters face-to-face are not willing to say they would oppose an African-American candidate," Zogby told me.The escape route from this dilemma only a few months ago seemingly was indicated...

Unable once again to score a knockout, Sen. Barack Obama is likely to make his new negative tone even more negative -- with a sharp eye on trying to end the Democratic presidential nomination fight after the May 6 primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's victory yesterday in Pennsylvania has only accentuated the quandary that Obama faces: Stay negative and he risks undermining the premise of his candidacy. Stay aloof and he underscores Clinton's argument that he will not be able to beat a "Republican attack machine" sure to greet him this summer. Obama campaign manager...

U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, a Hebron Republican, compared Obama and his message for change similar to a "snake oil salesman" [at a Northern Kentucky Lincoln Day dinner]. He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a "highly classified, national security simulation" with Obama. "I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said. "He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country." -snip-

Senator Barack Obama fought back Saturday against accusations from his rivals that he had displayed a profound misunderstanding of small-town values, in a flare-up that left him on the defensive before a series of primaries that could test his ability to win over white voters in economically distressed communities. For a second day, Mr. Obama sought to explain his remarks at a recent San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Acknowledging Saturday that “I didn’t...

<p>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...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.</p>

Barack Obama seeks to portray himself as a new type of politician. He wants to lead us, he says, with hope for the future, change in the present and repudiation of the past eight years so that America can exchange the failed policies of the last eight years for those of the past one hundred years, He seeks, if you will, to transcend politics. But if you were to take an objective look at Obama, you could reasonably conclude that Obama transcends politics by making the typical politician appear more honest. With each passing day, a new lie springs forth...

Delegate for Obama quits over remark CARPENTERSVILLE, IL Says when she called black kids 'monkeys,' she was asking them to get out of tree April 8, 2008 BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com Moving to nip in the bud some potential bad press, White House hopeful Barack Obama's campaign persuaded a delegate to step down after she was ticketed for calling her neighbor's African-American children "monkeys." Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Carpentersville village trustee, was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She sports an Obama sign in her front yard. On Saturday, two neighbor children were playing in...

Obama church published Hamas terror manifesto Compares charter calling for murder of Jews to Declaration of Independence ________________________________________ Posted: March 20, 2008 12:45 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2008 WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama's Chicago church reprinted a manifesto by Hamas that defended terrorism as legitimate resistance, refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and compared the terror group's official charter – which calls for the murder of Jews – to America's Declaration of Independence. The Hamas piece was published on the "Pastor's Page" of the Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter reserved for Rev. Jeremiah...

Rev. Wright reprints "Hamas' Stand" in church bulletin!: ” Finding an article written by the deputy leader of Hamas, a globally designated terrorist organization, in Trinity Church of Christ’s bulletin on Rev. Jeremiah Wrights ‘Pastors Page’ is beyond shocking. This is just another troubling insight into Barack Obamas friend and spiritual mentor and, of course, Barack Obama himself who said in his speech he could never disown Wright as he is a part of himself. This is unbelievable: The July 22, 2007 Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin reprinted an article written by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy of the political...

Trying to put his past with Antoin "Tony" Rezko behind him, presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday said he never thought the nowindicted Chicago businessman would try to take advantage of him because his old friend had never asked for a political favor. But in a 90-minute interview with Tribune reporters and editors, Obama disclosed that Rezko had raised more for Obama's earlier political campaigns than previously known, gathering as much as $250,000 for the first three offices he sought. Obama also elaborated on previous statements about his private real estate transactions with Rezko, saying they were not simply mistakes...

Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated. "What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice," Obama said. "He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics." Wright has continued on an independent path ever since, often questioning the common sense of Scripture, objecting to mandatory prayer in...

Barack Obama's words are often attractive but oddly concealing. His speeches are all balm and mood. It's all very well to seek, as Mr. Obama claims, to transcend old categories, to reject the "old politics." But then what? This graceful rhetorician leaves you wondering: Who is he really? What does he want for himself and for his country? In search of answers that go deeper than the Congressional Record, I read his first book, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." Once you get past the happy surprise of finding a politician who can actually write, the...

Democrat Barack Obama ridiculed the idea of being Hillary Rodham Clinton's running mate Monday, saying voters must choose between the two for the top spot on the fall ticket. The Illinois senator used his first public appearance of the week to knock down the notion that he might accept the party's vice presidential nomination. He noted that he has won more states, votes and delegates than Clinton so far. "I don't know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who is first place," Obama said, drawing cheers and a long standing ovation...

ABC News' Kate Snow and Eloise Harper report: A controversial party guest was spotted at Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's election night party in Columbus, Ohio Tuesday. He was hard to miss. He was the one wearing the "Osama for Obama" t-shirt. Columbus resident Todd Elbaum told ABC News his friend makes the t-shirts. Elbaum did not hold back on his views of Obama when he was interviewed by ABC within full view of a Clinton staffer. "The truth is he was born a Muslim, his father was a Muslim, his mother married a Muslim after divorcing his father. His grandfather...

Obama If elected I will use the bully pulpit for gay causes http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=27510 . . . Barack Obama sought the support of voters in the homosexual community Feb. 28, telling them in a letter that if elected president he would work to pass laws important to that constituency and would use the "bully pulpit" to urge states to grant same-sex couples the legal benefits of marriage. . . He used the acronym LGBT -- which stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender" -- six times. "As your President, I will use the bully pulpit to urge states to treat same-sex...

NELSONVILLE, Ohio (BP)--Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama defended his belief in same-sex civil unions March 2 by referencing Jesus' Sermon on the Mount and then implicitly criticizing those who view Romans as a binding teaching on homosexuality. Obama made the comments during a question-and-answer session with voters in Nelsonville, Ohio. A local pastor asked Obama how he plans to win the votes of evangelical voters when they disagree with him on moral issues. "I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other," he said, referring to...

SAN ANTONIO It took many months and the mockery of "Saturday Night Live" to make it happen, but the lumbering beast that is the press corps finally roused itself from its slumber Monday and greeted Barack Obama with a menacing growl. The day before primaries in Ohio and Texas that could effectively seal the Democratic presidential nomination for him, a smiling Obama strode out to a news conference at a veterans facility here. But the grin was quickly replaced by the surprised look of a man bitten by his own dog. Reporters from the Associated Press and Reuters went after...

<p>New York (AP) -- The IRS is investigating the United Church of Christ over a speech Barack Obama gave to its national meeting last year after he became a candidate for president.</p>

McCain says he will 'absolutely repudiate' comments by an introductory speaker who says Obama sympathizes with 'world leaders who want to kill us.' CINCINNATI -- In a possible foreshadowing of a potentially bruising general election campaign, a speaker who introduced presidential candidate John McCain at a rally here today accused Barack Obama of sympathizing with "world leaders who want to kill us" and invoked Obama's middle name -- three times calling him "Barack Hussein Obama." Local conservative radio talk show host Bill Cunningham described Obama as "a hack Chicago Daley-style politician who is picturing himself as change. When he gets...

Obama is a product of the corrupt Chicago Machine. One of the key players in this corrupt machine is Tony Rezko - a Syrian real estate developer/slumlord who gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the machine and to Obama's law firm and to Obama's various campaign funds - and was VERY connected to the governor of Illinois. We've covered it previously HERE. NOW, THERE'S NEW NEWS: The real estate agent who sold Obama the house he now lives in - for more than a million bucks - was a pal of Rezko, someone he'd been pressuring the guv to...

Barack Obama criticised over 'cult-like' rallies By William Lowther in Washington Last Updated: 4:24pm GMT 23/02/2008 For many it is simply a sign of his charisma. But for a growing number of Barack Obama sceptics, there is something disturbing about the adulation with which the senator and Democratic presidential frontrunner is greeted as he campaigns for the White House - unnervingly akin to the hysteria of a cult, or the fervour of a religious revival. Thousands wait in line to see him wherever he stops. Members of the audience have taken to rushing the stage during campaign rallies, forcing the...

Only a link is permitted.Obama Says Community Colleges Key to Economy

I am having trouble fully appreciating the phenomenon that is Senator Obama. Certainly, Obama’s overpowering charisma has an amazing effect on any listener, such as spontaneous tears or quasi-erotic tingling in one’s leg. (The latter phenomenon is dubbed the "Matthews syndrome” after a man whose capacity for rational thought has been completely destroyed by the syndrome’s effects.) For me, however, any such tingling is immediately recognized and countered by my brain, which forces the nascent Obasm to a premature and unsatisfying conclusion. Usually, my brain counters the Obasm by asking difficult and disturbing questions. For example, I will begin trembling...

Cure for mysterious ailment causing women to faint at Barack Obama rallies discovered. Obamaplexy now has a cure.

On Sunday, after he learned he'd won that day's Democratic presidential primary in Maine but before his appearance on CBS's "60 Minutes," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) sat down at the keyboard of his computer to write an e-mail. Not to a media consultant or a delegate counter, but to banker Robert Wolf, chief executive of UBS (UBS, news, msgs) Group for the Americas. The two men exchanged notes about the Senate-passed economic stimulus package and that weekend's G-7 economic summit, Wolf says. ... Obama has also been in touch with former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who endorsed the freshman...

A nice-sounding bill called the "Global Poverty Act," sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations. Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has not endorsed either Senator Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. But on Thursday, February 14, he is trying to rush Obama's...

To get right to the point, I believe Barack Obama is going to win the Democratic nomination setting the table for a great race for the fall. Here's why: In doing the math on delegates, it looks highly likely that Obama will end up with a pledged delegate lead when all this is finished by June. Even if Hillary wins some big states along the way, Obama will score enough delegates to keep his count moving. The super delegates (those 796 party folks who can decide on their own who to vote for and change their mind along the way)...

Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton is losing ground to Sen. Barack Obama in a national CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released on the eve of critical Super Tuesday presidential primaries and caucuses. The two are virtually tied in Monday's survey, which shows the New York senator has lost a comfortable national lead she's held for months over Obama and other rivals. The survey also shows Arizona Sen. John McCain as the clear Republican front-runner. Obama, who trounced Clinton in January's South Carolina primary, garnered 49 percent of registered Democrats in Monday's poll, while Clinton trailed by just three points, a gap well...