Free Republic

When is some information too much information? In an interview with Glamour magazine, Michelle Obama reveals that her husband, Barack, is so “snore-y and stinky” when he wakes up in the morning that their daughters won’t crawl into bed with him. The interview, in the magazine’s October issue, was conducted by Tonya Lewis Lee, who is married to Spike Lee, the filmmaker. Referring to their daughters, Mrs. Obama says: “We have this ritual in the morning. They come in my bed, and Dad isn’t there — because he’s too snore-y and stinky, they don’t want to ever get into bed...

Why not Obama? Millions of people are inspired by him; witness the polls, the stunning breadth of his financial support, the rapture over his way of speaking. He is the first black candidate to have a serious chance of winning his party's nomination and the presidency. That is a remarkable statement of how far America has come on race-but it also reflects Barack Obama's ability to present himself as a politician for all Americans, just somebody who happens to be black. America seems to yearn for a post-partisan consensus builder who is undeniably brilliant, rather than an ideological rabble-rouser, despite...

Barack Obama announced his bid for president Saturday, a black man evoking Abraham Lincoln's ability to unite a nation and a Democrat portraying himself as a fresh face capable of leading a new generation. "Let us transform this nation," he told thousands shivering in the cold at the campaign's kickoff. Obama, 45, is the youngest candidate in the Democrats' 2008 primary field dominated by front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and filled with more experienced lawmakers. In an address from the state capital where he began his elective career 10 years ago, the first-term U.S. senator sought to distinguish himself as...

Acknowledging that his presidential campaign has opened a racial debate, Sen. Barack Obama, who has a white mother and an African father, says if you look African-American, you are treated like one. Obama and his wife, Michelle, who also addresses the race issue, appear in an interview with Steve Kroft to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES, Sunday Feb. 11 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS television Network. If, as expected, Obama declares his formal candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination tomorrow, it will be his first interview to be broadcast after that event.

Barack Obama’s free ride is ending. The charismatic Illinois senator has enjoyed a lifetime of hagiography, starting with an 800-word story in The New York Times the day after his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Now, Obama’s about to endure a going-over that would make a proctologist blush. Why has he sometimes said his first name is Arabic, and other times Swahili? Why did he make up names in his first book, as the introduction acknowledges? Why did he say two years ago that he would “absolutely” serve out his Senate term, which ends...

SPRINGFIELD -- The building where Barack Obama will announce his presidential intentions Saturday is a sturdy dolomite structure with thick Doric columns and a facade as plain as the man who spent most of his political career there, Abraham Lincoln. It was here in the Old State Capitol, in the governor's corner offices, where Lincoln sat with his supporters, plotting his 1860 U.S. presidential campaign. Gov. John Wood wisely vacated his offices, leaving behind his rocking chair and desk and moving home to Quincy to avoid the crowds. Lincoln's legacy endures, not only because he saved the Union and was...

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record) is asking whether he can take money from donors who want him to be president, then give it back later. The Federal Election Commission said Wednesday that it will look into the novel question. Obama is indicating that he wants to at least keep the option of using the public financing system for his presidential campaign if he becomes the Democratic nominee. To do so, the Illinois senator could not spend any money from contributors for political purposes, but instead use federal funding that is expected to total about $85...

“Politics has become so bitter and partisan,” Senator Barack Obama said, “so gummed up by money and influence. . . .” Though the rest of his sentence petered out into a bureaucratic “big problems that demand solutions,” what struck me was the forceful word picture evoked by the verb phrase gummed up. Here was a presidential candidate unafraid to use a slang verb with verve. It’s an Americanism in the sense of “spoiled,” first cited by the O.E.D. in the college slang at Yale in 1901. Rudyard Kipling helped it along to trans-Atlantic status with a pregnant observation in a...

Sen. Joe Biden expressed regret Saturday for describing presidential rival Barack Obama as an articulate and clean African-American, trying to stem damage to his nascent 2008 campaign...Biden spent his first day as an official presidential candidate Wednesday explaining his statement that Obama is "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean." Biden is one of nine candidates in the Democratic presidential race. All appeared ... for the DNC gathering, and the divisions began to show, particularly on the Iraq war. Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack criticized senators in the race who refuse to cut the money that...

He is hailed by his supporters as the hope of an increasingly multicultural nation, a political phenomenon who can wow white voters while carrying the aspirations of African-Americans all the way to the White House. So why are some black voters so uneasy about Senator Barack Obama? The black author and essayist Debra J. Dickerson recently declared that “Obama isn’t black” in an American racial context. Some polls suggest that Mr. Obama trails one of his rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the battle for African-American support. And at the Shepherd Park Barber Shop here, where...

SEN. BIDEN SHOCK INTERVIEW: OBAMA FIRST 'CLEAN' BLACK IN MAINSTREAM... 'I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A North Carolina-based Marine was ordered Tuesday to stop an online auction in which he promised to legally change his name to whatever the highest bidder wanted it to be. Sgt. Cody Baker, 29, could have become "Mr. Clean" or even "Finest Freshest Fastest," but he was told the auction violated military rules against commercial endorsements, said Camp Lejeune spokesman Lt. Col. Curtis Hill.

In these last days, the Bible says it will be a time of mass hybridization and the mixture and corruption of human DNA by fallen angels, also known as "Aliens." The government is and has been, conditioning the existence of aliens through Hollywood, science fiction, cartoons, and other sources. However, they are not telling you the whole truth. These Aliens are not ascended masters, or enlightened ones, or beings from galaxies millions of miles away, nor are they our forefathers or original creators. They are fallen angels who were kicked out of heaven for their rebellion against the headship...

<p>Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will appear at a New York City fund-raiser this month asking political heavy hitters in the nation's banking and finance capital to donate as much as a whopping $500,000 each to his campaign to sell Californians on a $15 billion bond proposal.</p>