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Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Email to a FriendAdvertisement While Barack Obama has touted his travel to the Middle East and Europe this week as a “fact-finding” trip, 63% of Americans do not believe it makes the Democratic candidate any more qualified to be president. A new Rasmussen Reports national survey, taken Monday night, also finds that less than a third (32%) think Obama will learn from his trip to Iraq. Forty percent (40%) say his mind is already made up about policies to deal with the war there. The Democrat has been accused by liberals in his party of softening...

Last night on Anderson Cooper 360, two CNN political analysts charged that Senator Obama overstepped his authority as a United States Senator in acting as a negotiator with the Iraqi government and publicly disclosing statements made during those interviews. During an interview with Anderson Cooper, David Gergen, CNN's Senior Political Analyst stated,...

NYT Poll: Obama "Not Likely" to Be Effective Commander-in-ChiefBy Floyd and Mary Beth BrownFrontPageMagazine.com | 7/21/2008 On the night of January 20, 2009, a new commander-in-chief will leave the inaugural podium, parade, and festivities for the Oval Office. A national security staff ready with the latest “threat briefing” will join him there. On his desk, they will place a thick binder of reports, each focusing on real or emerging threats to our national security. In the quiet of the Oval Office -- in the presence of these stern-faced, deadly serious briefers and advisers -- Barack H. Obama, should he...

This is pretty powerful.

Obama is a three-year senator without a single important legislative achievement to his name, a former Illinois state senator who voted "present" nearly 130 times. As president of the Harvard Law Review, as law professor and as legislator, has he ever produced a single notable piece of scholarship? Written a single memorable article? His most memorable work is a biography of his favorite subject: himself. It is a subject upon which he can dilate effortlessly. In his victory speech upon winning the nomination, Obama declared it a great turning point in history — "generations from now we will be able...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Indiana (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama on Wednesday said he wants to rid the world of nuclear weapons and pledged to fight emerging threats posed by biological and cyber-terrorism. It's time to send a clear message to the world: America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons," the White House hopeful said. "As long as nuclear weapons exist, we'll retain a strong deterrent. But we'll make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy." The remarks, delivered at Purdue University in Indiana before a roundtable discussion with foreign policy experts, come as...

Welcome to the party boys. Maybe next they'll be calling for a grown-up like Hillary to take the helm.

IN all the brouhaha over the New Yorker's cover car toon satirizing Barack and Michelle Obama, a truly "tasteless and offensive" passage in the magazine's feature article got lost. The piece quotes Obama's recommendations for how to stop jihad, which he had previously published in a local Chicago newspaper eight days after 9/11. It's a self-parody of blind, deaf and dumb Kumbaya liberalism: "We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of...

With all the reporters covering the major presidential candidates, it amazes me no one ever seems to ask the right questions. For several days now, WND has been hounding Barack Obama's campaign about a statement he made July 2 in Colorado Springs – a statement that blew my mind, one that has had me scratching my head ever since. In talking about his plans to double the size of the Peace Corps and nearly quadruple the size of AmeriCorps and the size of the nation's military services, he made this rather shocking (and chilling) pledge: "We cannot continue to rely...

Leadership: With oil hitting $147, Nancy Pelosi finally admits energy is a problem. But instead of drilling for it, she's cooked up a new drain-the-reserves scheme. It's pure politics at a time of crisis. She ought to resign.Any leader with an energy record as derelict as Speaker Pelosi's ought to step down. Where she once was just incompetent and irresponsible, she has now — with her latest scheme to fix oil prices — become dangerous. Despite polls showing Americans in favor of drilling more oil from America's huge untapped supplies, Pelosi won't allow it. She just wants to empty our...

In a blockbuster New York news conference Monday, July 14th, Andy Martin asks: "Why has Barack Obama been lying for decades about the 'marriage' of his parents when he knew full well he was lying? There was no marriage. How can anyone vote for Obama for president when Obama is so cowardly he can't tell the truth to the American people?" Andy Martin's book and writing begin to impact the presidential campaign. ~snip~ Legendary Chicago Internet columnist and Obama author Andy Martin will hold a New York news conference Monday, July 14th to drop the first of several bombs on...

While there is not unanimity as to what types of experience should be considered necessary for a presidential candidate to possess, there is a general consensus that the following four categories are relevant. They are: - White House (Vice-Presidential and Presidential) experience - Gubernatorial (Governor) experience - Congressional (US House and US Senate) experience - Military experience Other kinds of experience (owner/manager of a business/corporation, secretary of a Cabinet-level office, mayor, state legislator, diplomat, attorney, judge, etc.) can be helpful to a candidate for the presidency, but are not by themselves usually considered qualifying experience. (Just ask Steve Forbes, Alan...

I have previously requested a copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Janice Okubo, Public Information Office of the Communications office of the State of Hawaii, responding on July 3, has chosen to refuse to provide a copy of the birth certificate. This blog consists of three parts. First, I quote Ms. Okubo's letter, dated July 3, 2008, verbatim. Her letter responds to my inquiry under the Freedom of Information Act. Although Ms. Okubo points out that the Freedom of Information applies to the federal government and not the states, most states, including Hawaii, have similar statutes. With respect to birth...

...How important is calumny today? In 2000, calumny effectively led to John McCain's defeat in South Carolina. That smear campaign against him used robo-calls and fliers, and e-mail also played an important role, as the New York Times reported in February 2000. Arguably, calumny defeated John Kerry in 2004, and the infamous Swift boat television ads of that summer were, importantly, preceded by an aggressive Internet campaign begun that January that included perhaps the first viral campaign e-mail: a computer-generated image of Kerry and Jane Fonda beside each other on a podium at an antiwar rally. The image originally emerged...

Here's the You Tube link. Change that works for him! It's about time someone put together all the words this hypocrite and his cadre of followers have said regarding Iraq.

In what the media are hailing as “a breath of fresh air that adds a large dollop of class to the campaign,” presidential contender Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) disassociated himself from supporter General Wesley Clark’s contention that Republican rival Senator John McCain’s military record should count against him. “The truth behind General Clark’s remarks is beyond question,” Obama said. “While fighting in Vietnam, McCain did bomb innocent women and children, lose his plane and get captured by the enemy. Not a sterling record, to be sure. But these mistakes occurred long long ago, when McCain was a young man. They...

Following are 10 excuses Obama has given through the years for voting "present" and "no" on the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act, or BAIPA. Click on the link for the list of Obama's top ten excuses for supporting baby killing:http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59702 "wnd.com must be excerpted per copyright complaint from Joseph Farah"

In terms of concrete accomplishments, Obama and "hundreds of other organizers" were not able to transform the South Side neighbohoods or bring in new industries to provide jobs. Obama's most commonly cited achievement was in forcing the city to begin testing for asbestos in all city apartments. ... It does appear that his history of community organizing is central to Obama's identity, seemingly even more important to him than his work as a legislator. The mystery is how with all this community activity, Obama managed to remain ignorant of the fact that his benefactor, Antoin Rezko, wasn't paying utility bills...

The reigning media narrative is that because this is a heavily Democratic year, Senator McCain is a clear underdog to Senator Obama. The narrative has almost nothing to do with the appeal of the candidates' respective policies -- and it's clear the Obama campaign is concerned voters will begin to notice. Consequently, in order to position himself for the general election, Obama has been running furiously toward the center-- deemphasizing his liberalism with the adroit use of linguistic jiu jitsu.

On Thursday, CNN's Jeanne Moos made the case that because John McCain is not computer savvy, he's not qualified to be president. She even disgracefully quipped -- as a video of a stripper appeared on the screen! -- "At least John McCain knows the difference between a laptop and a lap dance." Not surprisingly, she also took the time to demonstrate just how much of a techie Barack Obama is while adding a dash of Bush-bash. MOOS: While Cindy McCain has been spotted scrolling her BlackBerry, John McCain tends to be handed a BlackBerry to talk on. Barack Obama, on...

SPEAKING without a text in front of him, Barack Obama betrays a troubling lack of knowledge on important issues - such as the law and terrorism. In his ABC interview last Monday, for example, Obama attacked the Bush approach on fighting terror. He claimed that, in the case of "the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in US prisons, incapacitated."

Barack Obama speaks sweet words on the campaign trail. He speaks of national unity and worldwide peace. He tickles our ears with his words. These are words Americans want to hear. He tells 75,000 adoring fans in Oregon that Iran is not a serious threat. The very next day in Montana he says, "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave." Which is it, Mr. Obama? The leader of Iran repeatedly and virulently states that he wants Israel and the United States destroyed.

Obama advisers say bin Laden can appeal to U.S. civilian courts Barack Obama has expressed support for the Supreme Court’s decision in favor of civilian prosecution of terrorism suspects, and his advisers said Tuesday that if Osama bin Laden were captured, he too should face civilian prosecution. – AP Bill Sammon, The Examiner 2008-06-18 07:00:00.0 Current rank: # 13 of 6,452 WASHINGTON - Barack Obama’s foreign policy advisers said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden, if captured, should be allowed to appeal his case to U.S. civilian courts, a privilege opposed by John McCain. Responding to questions from The Examiner, Sen....

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...

Finally, Barack Obama saw the light and broke with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. It took him 20 years to realize that its leaders, its in-house publications, and even its guest preachers were anti-American. If elected president, he will not have so long a grace period to make his decisions. Another vulnerable point for Senator Obama is his changing policy toward Cuba. A few days ago he announced that, if elected president, he would promote a much friendlier policy toward that country. It was a rousing speech. Even Fidel Castro rose from his sickbed to praise this oration by...

It starts in his home state of Illinois, as Alec MacGillis reports for the Washington Post: Obama’s advisers have pointed to his success in winning over “downstate” Illinoisans as a sign of his electability, but political analysts question the claim. Obama lost most of downstate Illinois in his Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate in 2004, and his big win in the general election that year came against Alan Keyes, a black conservative with a Maryland address. In this year’s presidential primary, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) beat Obama in southern Illinois’ struggling coal counties, highlighting the same weakness he...

Lieberman irks Democrats by criticizing Obama By ANDREW MIGA, Associated Press Writer 33 minutes ago Joe Lieberman is fast becoming the Democrats' public enemy No. 1. The four-term Connecticut senator, who came tantalizingly close to being Al Gore's vice president in 2000, not only has been campaigning for his pal, presumed Republican nominee John McCain, now he's publicly criticizing the Democrats' standard-bearer, Barack Obama. Lieberman has strayed before, most notably switching from Democrat to independent in 2006 to hold onto his Senate seat after a Democratic primary loss. But the latest betrayal has upset Democrats, who often answer in clipped...

Just a little bit of info. I saw on Mark Levin's site a link to a youtube video concerning Obama. I viewed it and it showed him stating - right after he won his US Senate site - that he is not qualified to run as President because he doesn't have any experience. I went back about a hour later to view it again and youtube states the video was removed. Man, are they touchy over there.

He has a high job rating in what was the most fiercely contested state in 2004, a state whose 20 electoral votes would have made John Kerry president if he had gotten 119,000 votes. But Strickland has taken himself out of the running. "If drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; and, if elected, I will not serve." Some find that astonishing. A look at Strickland's curriculum vitae tells why he bowed out. He served as an associate minister in a Methodist church a year or so in the late 1960s. He worked two years as...

Barack Obama likens himself to an agent of change and hope for America, but behind his gifted oratory skills is the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate. Many of my friends are choosing to vote for Sen. Barack Obama because they see him as someone who is able to rise above the partisan politics, but again they are mistaken. Obama is a master of the bait and switch game. He can say that he can cross the gap between partisans, but his record proves otherwise. The November 2008 election will set the course of the country for the next...

Mr. Presidential Democratic Nominee Obama, fasten your seat bet. We're talking a bumpy ride. Scorched earth policy. Swift Boat time, The GOP's first salvo is a book. Already written by National Review's David Freddoso, whose playpen is politics. . . . Publisher, Regnery. Ships to stores, July. On shelves, August. Price $37.95. Title, the longest in captivity: "Scorcher. The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate." The so-called scorching? . . .

Discovered in the directory left wide open by the Obama site designers: a PDF file containing Obama’s plan to “hold accountable any perpetrators of war crimes� in Iraq.And something tells me they don’t mean Al Qaeda.

It would be hard to design a better test for the job of commander in chief than the real-life test senators John McCain and Barack Obama have undergone in the last two years. As the situation in Iraq deteriorated during 2006 and the war reached its most critical moment, both senators served on national security committees: McCain on Armed Services, Obama on Foreign Relations. From those positions, with access to classified situation reports as well as the public testimony and private advice of those who knew the situation in Iraq best, each man reached an understanding of the facts on...

After being assailed by the police officer whose satiric videos earned him and nearly two dozen others suspensions in 2005, San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong acknowledged that she has gone years without taking the target practice required for officers who carry guns. Department rules require all police officers who carry guns to pass shooting range tests every six months... The issue of Fong's proficiency with a gun was raised last week by Officer Andrew Cohen. He wrote to Police Commission President Theresa Sparks that the chief had gone five years without being certified, which he called "an egregious matter...

Where Is Obama’s Testicular Fortitude? by Joan Swirsky, Featured Writer First, my heartfelt congratulations to Senator Barack Obama for his historic victory in becoming the first African-American in United States history to achieve the Democrat nomination for President of the United States! I wish that Obama – with his natural-born gifts of intelligence, soaring oratory, and political passion – were a conservative. We conservatives would cherish such a gifted politician. But, alas, he remains a hard-core Marxist who only recently – and solely for calculated political reasons – distanced himself from fellow radicals and Chicago “machine” operatives Rev. Jeremiah Wright,...

Defense Policy: In the middle of a war on two fronts, Barack Obama plans to gut the military. He also wants to dismantle our nuclear arsenal. And he wants to keep you in the dark about it.The Obamatons of the mainstream media have failed to report one of the most chilling campaign promises thus far uttered by the presumptive Democrat nominee for president. He made it before the Iowa caucus to a left-wing pacifist group that seeks to reallocate defense dollars to welfare programs. The lobbying group, Caucus for Priorities, was so impressed by Obama's anti-military offering that it steered...

Barack Obama was widely considered the probable Democratic nominee in March. Instead of voters rallying to him, as they often do with winners, Obama went on to lose nine of the final 16 primary contests, five by double digits. This suggests that Democrats may have experienced a case of buyer's remorse. One reason for such remorse could be a realization that if he is elected president, Sen. Obama would be the least qualified and experienced man to hold the office in modern times. This is not a criticism or a value judgment, but rather an observation of fact. Since the...

The Democrats are on the brink of nominating an individual to serve as our Commander in Chief who would likely not qualify to be a basic military enlistee, based on his associations. The typical things that the military looks for during routine enlistment background checks for recruits are associations with people or organizations that wish harm to the United States. They also look for ties to radical religious organizations and individuals, and association with those who have connections with openly hostile countries, such as Syria (Tony Rezko has dual citizenship and traveled there regularly). Unfortunately, there is no such background...

The question of the moment: Is Barack Obama too naive to be commander in chief? Now that Obama is the presumptive Democratic candidate, this is the line of attack that John McCain is aggressively pushing. In part, this is because he doesn't have much else to run on. In part, it's because there's video footage, from the Democratic primary contests, of Hillary Clinton making the same accusation. So is there something to the charge? The notion stems from the Democrats' CNN-YouTube Debate of July 23, 2007, when a viewer named Steve asked the candidates whether—in the spirit of Egyptian President...

With Barack Obama claiming the democratic nomination, I decided to ponder just what might be a possible group of Cabinet members should he win the Presidency. Here are a few names that came across as possibilities: Janet Napolitano (Gay Gov'r of AZ) - Vice President Al Sharpton (the 'good' Rev) - Secretary of State Charlie Rangel (Rep from NY) - Attorney General Donna Brazile (Gore's former asst) - Press Secretary Kweisi Mfume - Dept Homeland Security Louis Farrakhan - Secretary of Defense Snoop Dog - Dept of Public Affairs Ice Cube - State Dept Director Oprah Winfrey - Secretary of...

Mark it down - Sen. John McCain warned Americans yesterday in a speech before AIPAC (Strong Pro-Israel Lobby)that Barack Obama's plans for an Iraq Withdrawal regardless of the conditions on the ground will result in a "catastrophe" in the Middle East. (See Video)

And fix things they did. Today, white Democrats like Harriet Christian are angry as she (and many others) believes an unqualified black man is being shoved down their throats, while a more qualified white woman (with more popular votes) is being kicked to the curb. Others believe whites have it in for their black candidate who is winning the delegate count. Knowing Democrats (and the Clintons) as we do, this will not be fixed in a way that will end in a Kumbaya moment. The Denver Fire Department will surely be on alert during the Democrat National Convention. "And they...

National Review Online: Senator Approves Of The Political-Theological Outlooks Of Michael Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright Having now left Trinity United Church of Christ, can Barack Obama escape responsibility for his decades-long ties to Michael Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright? No, he cannot. Obama’s connections to the radical-left politics espoused by Pfleger and Wright are broad and deep. The real reason Obama bound himself to Wright and Pfleger in the first place is that he largely approved of their political-theological outlooks. Obama shared Wright’s rejection of black “assimilation.” Obama also shared Wright’s suspicion of the traditional American ethos of individual self-improvement and...

Let's be honest here. How can Obama be so close to the presidency with a complete lack of political experience? Would his backers be as enthusiastic about Obama if he held other positions without any experience? "Geeks On Caffeine" examines this very issue in a comic that is funny, thought provoking and ultimately tragic in that it exposes the sorry state of today's American political scene.

(CNSNews.com) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is facing renewed criticism regarding his national security policies as he continues his campaign for his party's presidential nomination. In a YouTube video Obama made for a liberal pacifist organization last year, the senator called for major cuts in defense spending, slowing the development of future combat systems, and cutting investments in America's ballistic missile defense program. Some conservatives have expressed surprise at the degree of Obama's proposals on the video, and this past weekend, Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) campaign released an ad criticizing Obama's alleged national security inexperience and trumpeting her as the...

A new narrative seems to be developing about Barack Obama; that he is smart but also a "gaffe machine." The WSJ's John Fund writes: "As smart and credentialed as he is, Sen. Obama is often an indifferent speaker without a teleprompter. He has large gaps in his knowledge base, and is just as likely to dig in and embrace a policy misstatement as abandon it. ABC reporter Jake Tapper calls him "a one-man gaffe machine." Let's be honest, when you talk as much as presidential candidates must, some gaffes are unavoidable. Others occur when a candidate is tired. But Obama's...

In a strange video address intended to reassure American voters regarding his military bona fides, Senator Obama ends up doing just the opposite. Among other things, he promises to cut "tens of billions of dollars" from the military budget, at a time when our armed forces are already stretched and in need of new weapon technologies and armor; to "cut investments in unproven missile defense systems," which in reality have already proven remarkably effective; that he "will not weaponize space" even though other nations such as China do exactly that; to terminate the Iraq war just as the surge proves...

Here are some things we can look forward to learning about Barack Obama: • That he was mentored in high school by a member of the Soviet-controlled Communist Party. • That he launched his Illinois state Senate campaign in the home of a terrorist and a killer. • That while serving as a state senator, he was a member of a socialist front group. • That his affiliations are so dodgy that he would have trouble getting a government security clearance. • That there is reason to doubt his "loyalty to the United States."

Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor best known for shaking up public companies, says he is very concerned about the Democratic frontrunner, Barack Obama. “I personally think he would be a terrible president,'' Icahn told investors in New York, according to wire reports. Icahn thinks a President Obama would increase spending dramatically, something he says “the country can't afford right now.” An Obama spending spree and the resulting tax hikes to pay for it would kill the dollar and result in higher interest rates, Icahn warned. “I don't think Obama really understands economics,'' Icahn said. Obama also would take office with...

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin is catching grief for suggesting John McCain’s family history of military service makes the presumptive Republican presidential nominee unfit to be commander-in-chief. Harkin, who has a history of embellishing his own military record, told Iowa reporters last week that McCain’s background as the son and grandson of Navy admirals creates a “dangerous” situation because he can only view the world through the prism of the military. “He has a hard time thinking beyond that,” Harkin said, according to The Des Moines Register. “I think he’s trapped in that. Everything is looked at from his life experiences,...