Democrats: Please continue to support Obama. My friends and I will continue to vote for him in the primaries to ensure he gets the nod from the Dems.

He will be the easiest to beat in the general election... wait til the gloves come off, then they will rip Obama apart. I appreciate your help on the path to electing Republican leadership once again.

Regards.

"A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA."

Where is the commitment to the U.S.?

By the way, just because your a Republician does not mean your a racist. Hence you forget, Lincoln was a Republician. The only color Republicians like is green and we just want to keep the green we make.

Hillary will be probably second but maybe third

Obama 08 lets change washington, lets get the people involved!

Republicans and all Americans need to worry. Some movements are dangerous!

A "cross between JFK and MLK"? Oh, PUHLEEEZE, give me a break!

Far from burying my head in the sand, I'm old enough to remember both of them and to borrow from Dick Cheney and paraphase, Obama is no JFK or MLK!!

My goodness – Martin Luther King had his own dream and wrote his own speeches about it! He had the fire and spirit to be the revolutionary he was in his life. That is why anyone who possibly can do so attempts to tie themselves to his star decades later. The string that would tie Barack Obama to said star would be a fragile one at best.

John F. Kennedy designed the original facade of Camelot, but in the decades since anyone who can read understands that it wasn't what it appeared to our country. We did not have to read about the indiscretions or the backroom deals cut by his father to secure his position as our president. This is not to diminish the greatness that surrounded JFK, it is merely the reality of the situation without the benefit of revisionist history.

The young people in this world today missed out on a powerful era in America's history and grapple to find their own equivalent. That is understandable. Please don't denegrate the legacies of their work for the American people by attaching their name to every flavor of the month before they have even begun to prove whether they are worthy.

Unfortunately, charisma is inadequate. His biggest flaw, for me, is his tendency toward after-the-fact politics. Almost all of what we know about his positions on critical issues comes from him watching as others have made missteps and then griping loudly about it afterwards. He has no substantial record of standing up to anyone when it actually mattered.

Example: when Clinton passed her vote in the Senate to label an Iranian group a terrorist organization, Obama criticized her for it, saying he would have voted against the measure if he had bothered to show up for the vote (he was to busy campaigning in New Hampshire at the time).

Even when I disagree with a candidate on some issues, I'd rather have someone who ACTS than someone who complains about it later.

To answer your question, though, tell your son exactly what Obama said about his past: That it was a stupid decision and a mistake. Obama is not for legalizing pot; he's said in fact that the only reason he got where he is today is because he GAVE UP the stuff.

Mr. Obama inspires a wisdom of courage to have the audacity to seek victory in the weather of doubt. Through his words and actions he has manifested a leadership quality that has suaded even those that do not call his membership to cast him in the light of national attention. This quality: Is it not what we need in the halls of legislation and at the tables of negotiation?

Great is the number of Americans that can find within themselves a good they no longer wish to hide. With direction that collective will be a force to be feared by our enemies and will be a regained respect from our friends.

No one man nor one woman can affect this national change. The personal hopes, dreams and desires of the masses are what fuel the movement of growth. My Republican friends do not and should not fear the man, Barack Obama. They fear his leadership will so resoundlingly kindle the death of status quo.

Maybe Obama can even handle and survive the inevitable GOP 2008 Swiftboat-style attacks.

Is NewsMax Corrupt?
Using the standards NewsMax itself applies to the New York Times, absolutely.

By Terry Krepel
Posted 9/6/2002

For an organization whose journalistic values hover pretty close to those of its Florida tabloid neighbors, NewsMax sure does get all hot and bothered about the journalistic standards of others.

An Aug. 20 article takes the New York Times to task for allegedly distorting comments by Henry Kissinger to make it appear he is against the apparently imminent war against Iraq. It's actually a compilation of three other articles on the subject: columns by Russ "Mugger" Smith in the New York Press and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer and an editorial in the Washington Times. It starts with a quote from Smith that "It's only a slight stretch to state definitively that the New York Times is a corrupt institution" and goes from there in the direction you'd expect.

The Washington Times excerpt touches on its accusing the New York Times of "willful misrepresentation" and "intellectual slovenliness." NewsMax then summarizes: "Noting that the New York Times is the pre-eminent newspaper in America (and probably the world), the Washington Times said that it has 'a singular responsibility to get its stories right.'"

The WashTimes criticism, of course, rings rather hollow in the wake of its own intellectual slovenliness with its willful misrepresentation of the National Education Association's suggested lesson plans for teaching about the events of Sept. 11 (which the Daily Howler and Spinsanity have dissected). Then again, no one's accusing the Washington Times of being the pre-eminent newspaper in America, let alone Washington, so any "responsibility to get its stories right" is apparently not a high priority to folks like Times employees and NewsMax editors. (And, wouldn't you know it, Laura Ingraham parrots the WashTimes line in her Aug. 20 NewsMax commentary.)

The NewsMax article concludes by saying "it's no stretch at all" to call the New York Times corrupt. Which begs the question: If distortion of another's views is all it takes to be a "corrupt institution," what does that make NewsMax?

So corrupt it's the poster boy for a journalistic RICO statute.

Proof? Let's take a quick tour of the ConWebWatch archives:

It distorts reality by running only negative news about its political enemies and avoiding bad news about its political friends.
it spent a lot of time misrepresenting Judicial Watch press releases as NewsMax stories.
NewsMax CEO Christopher Ruddy presented tabloid rumors as fact in stating the Clintons were selling their house in New York. Today, long after the story can be calling nothing but false, it remains on NewsMax, and it has never published a correction or apology. (Even the New York Times issued a clarification of its Kissinger article. When was the last time you saw NewsMax correct anything?)
NewsMax tried to distort reality even more than usual immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks by ham-handedly denouncing anything that could be remotely construed as criticism of President Bush with terms starting with "anti-Americanism" and going all the way to "treason."
NewsMax's use of willful misrepresentation (that phrase is getting a workout here, isn't it?) continues as we speak in its distortion of remarks made by Bill Clinton to plug its latest anti-Clinton book. One recent headline promoting the book on NewsMax's front page declared, "Clinton Blamed America, Christians for 9-11." He, of course, did no such thing; he cited unpleasant events in American history such as slavery and the taking of land from Native Americans as an example of the long history of terror even as he expressed his support to President Bush's antiterror refforts. Even the Wall Street Journal defended Clinton on this, sort of. NewsMax would rather sell books than tell the truth.

NewsMax is so consumed by its biases and distortions that it no longer sees them for they are, if indeed it ever did. An example of this is a Sept. 3 column by Ruddy in which he notes that "A left-wing magazine recently made some snide remarks about NewsMax, noting that we are the heirs to the ideological legacy of Ronald Reagan." (What, Ruddy is suddenly offended by snide remarks?) The commentary to which Ruddy refers appeared in February in the American Prospect, and Ruddy distorts it horribly. That commentary, by Brendan Nyhan, never declared NewsMax "heirs to the ideological legacy of Ronald Reagan"; it cites NewsMax as proof that "the right's cynical exploitation of Ronald Reagan's legacy has always been something of a race to the bottom" and adding that "it's certainly questionable that (Reagan) would endorse NewsMax ... as the key to his legacy."

Then there's the occasional actual legal question involved, as with its recent overenthusiastic promotion of the re-election of New Hampshire Sen. Bob Smith. NewsMax toned it down considerably in recent days (not that ConWebWatch is taking credit...), but the "intellectual slovenliness" it employs in the service of its ideology is apparently too inbred to be stopped.

The lead of a Sept. 1 story gushes that "The latest statewide poll in New Hampshire shows U.S. Sen. Bob Smith in a virtual tie against challenger Congressman John Sununu." That's the last we hear of that poll in the story, the rest of which is dedicated to describing Smith's latest ad campaign. The poll statistics nor the poll's conductor are never mentioned.

Wherever it was conducted, it wasn't in a New Hampshire that exists in this particular universe, if another poll is any indication. This one, conducted in conjunction with New Hampshire's top TV station, puts Sununu a whopping 22 points ahead of Smith.

NewsMax is journalistically corrupt, all right - but in an incompetent, John Gotti Jr. kind of way.

No, you know that it's a lie, which is why you're trying to help spread it. There is no uncertainty, Obama is a devout Christian.

Charlie Gibson: Senator Obama , if you had intelligence to the fact you knew where OSAMA BIn Laden was at and ,that intel claimed he was held up in Pakistan would you ask Musharaff for permission to wage war???

Obama: No i would go right in and kill everything in sight.

Well sounds like a preemptive strike to me and guess what charlie gibson agrees to and avid liberal supporter...The guy( Obama) is an empty suit..he has no clue he is just alot of words and emotions his rel job should go to hollywood and become a singer or something.

If he becomes the Dem nominee, I hope he's ready to cope with the Republican attack dogs – they will be at him with everything they've got.

That being said, though, we should all take a moment to think of the other side of the coin. Just what have "experienced" people done for us lately? That Rumsfeld guy sure had a lot of "experience." Remember Tom DeLay? Dick Cheney has so much "experience" in his head, there's no more room left to learn about gun safet... nevermind.

Think of some of the more remarkable leaders throughout world history. Only a portion of them had all this political experience that's supposed to be the asset that is more important than any other. Some examples?:

-The first Queen Elizabeth surely didn't have any experience being in charge of what would become the most powerful empire in the world, but had PLENTY of knowhow when it came to dealing with PEOPLE. Obama shares that trait, among his other qualities.

-George Washington knew much about many things, but had he ever run a brand new country with a brand new type of government before?

-Did MLK or Ghandi ever have previous experience leading gigantic peaceful civil rights movements directly against violent opposition?

I'm not trying to say that experience isn't a valuable asset. I'm just pointing out that it should be considered among, and equal to, a dozen other criteria. Like I pointed out earlier, there's plenty of idiots in Washington who have political experience.

Obama has plenty of experience in dealing with many different things, but he just hasn't been a politician at the federal level for as long as she. A weak point if you look at the whole picture.

Hilary is pushing this because Obama simply outshines her in several other catagories.

Barack Obama's Racist Church
If Sen. Obama rejects the Rev. Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church?

Monday, January 7, 2008 10:16 AM

By: Ronald Kessler Article Font Size

Imagine if Mitt Romney’s church proclaimed on its website that it is “unashamedly white.”

The media would pounce, and Romney’s presidential candidacy would be over. Yet that is exactly what Barack Obama’s church says on its web site — except in reverse.

“We are a congregation which is unashamedly black and unapologetically Christian,” says the Trinity United Church of Christ’s website in Chicago. “We are an African people and remain true to our native land, the mother continent, the cradle of civilization.”

That’s just the beginning. The church has a “non-negotiable commitment to Africa,” according to its website, and its pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. subscribes to what is called the Black Value System.

While the Black Value System includes such items as commitment to God, education, and self-discipline, it refers to “our racist competitive society” and includes the disavowal of the pursuit of “middle-classness” and a pledge of allegiance to “all black leadership who espouse and embrace the Black Value System.” It defines “middle-classness” as a way for American society to “snare” blacks rather than “killing them off directly” or “placing them in concentration camps,” just as the country structures “an economic environment that induces captive youth to fill the jails and prisons.”

In sermons and interviews, Dr. Wright has equated Zionism with racism and Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid. On the Sunday after 9/11, Wright said the attacks were a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.

“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in a church-affiliated magazine. “White America and the western world came to realize that people of color had not gone away, faded into the woodwork or just ‘disappeared’ as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.”

In one of his sermons, Wright said, “Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!...We [in the U.S.] believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.”

As for Israel, “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now,” Wright has said. “Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”

Obama says he found religion and Jesus Christ through Wright, whom he met in the mid-1980s. He has been attending Wright’s church regularly since 1988.

The church occupies a tan building on West 95th Street near a public housing project and railroad tracks. Since becoming pastor in 1972, Wright has seen the church’s membership grow to more than 8,500. The church is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ, a predominantly white denomination known for its liberal politics.

In 1991, Obama joined the church and walked down the aisle in a formal commitment of faith. Wright later married Obama and Michelle Robinson and baptized their two daughters.

The title of Obama’s bestseller “The Audacity of Hope” comes from one of Wright’s sermons. Wright is one of the first people Obama thanked after his election to the Senate in 2004.

But Obama’s life does not exactly support Wright’s thesis that blacks in America are oppressed. A Harvard Law School graduate, Obama married a black Princeton graduate who also has a degree from Harvard Law School. Obama is a U.S. senator from Illinois; his wife is a vice president of the University of Chicago Hospitals. With his wife, Obama has been making more than $1 million a year.

On a few points, Obama has sought to distance himself from Wright’s teachings or explain them away. While Wright is his pastor and friend, Obama has said, they do not see eye to eye on everything. In particular, Obama has said he “strongly disagrees with any portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that advocates divestment from Israel or expresses anything less than strong support for Israel’s security.”

As for Wright’s repeated comments blaming America for the 9/11 attacks, Obama has said it sounds as if the minister was trying to be “provocative.”

Just before Obama’s nationally televised campaign kickoff rally last Feb. 10, the candidate disinvited Wright from giving the public invocation. Wright explained: “When [Obama’s] enemies find out that in 1984 I went to Tripoli” to visit Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, “a lot of his Jewish support will dry up quicker than a snowball in hell.”

According to Wright, Obama then told him, “'You can get kind of rough in the sermons, so what we’ve decided is that it’s best for you not to be out there in public.'” But privately, Obama and his family prayed with Wright just before the presidential announcement.

To his credit, Obama so far has avoided race-specific appeals as part of his candidacy, accounting in part for his widespread appeal.

Obama “has taught the black community you don’t have to act like Jesse Jackson, you don’t have to act like Al Sharpton,” conservative commentator Bill Bennett said on CNN on Jan. 3. “You can talk about the issues. [Obama has] great dignity.”

But if Obama rejects Wright’s warped view of this country, why does he continue to attend his church, raising the question of whether Obama secretly agrees with his friend and mentor? At the least, Obama’s membership in Wright’s church suggests a lack of judgment and an insensitivity to views that are repugnant to the vast majority of white Americans who are not bigots.

That same lack of judgment has shown up in Obama’s gaffes—threatening to invade Pakistan and offering prompt negotiations with anti-American despots. More frightening, Obama voted last August to give Osama bin Laden and other terrorists the same rights as Americans when it comes to intercepting their overseas calls in order to pick up clues needed to stop another attack.

Jen Psaki, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, has tried to paper over the candidate’s support of the Black Value System by saying that Obama “believes its basic tenets of commitment to God, to community, to self-discipline and self-reliance continue to have applicability not only to the African-American community but to all people.”

But that is not what the Black Value System says. One can only imagine the outrage that would erupt if a white presidential candidate like Romney subscribed to something called the White Value System. Yet while Obama has been referred to in the media tens of thousands of times in the past month, only one story in the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire offhandedly mentioned Obama’s church’s “unashamedly black” slogan.

In contrast, in an exquisite example of the double standard they apply to Democrats versus Republicans, the media love to focus on Romney’s religion, which is not relevant to how he would perform as president. Close to half the media references to Romney refer to the fact that he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Very few of them mention that he is both a Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School graduate, credentials that are relevant to how he would perform as president.

When Romney’s father ran for president, his religion was not an issue simply because the media rightly recognized that it was not pertinent to his candidacy. Today, as part of their coverage of Romney, the media run denigrating quotes about Mormonism that they would never dare to run about any other religion. At the same time, the media have largely ignored or downplayed the clearly racist slogan of Obama’s church and the anti-American and anti-Israel stances of its pastor.

In two exceptions to the media blackout, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC described Trinity as having a “racially exclusive theology” that “contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity.” Sean Hannity of Fox News confronted Wright on TV and asked how a black value system is any more acceptable than a white value system.

If a white presidential candidate’s church had a similar statement and “you substitute the word black for white, there would be an outrage in this country,” Hannity said. “There would be cries of racism in this country.'”

“If your spiritual advisor makes outrageous statements, it’s incumbent on you as a leader to denounce those statements,” says Brad Blakeman, a former Bush White House aide who heads the conservative Freedom’s Watch. “Silence is an admission that you agree with what your spiritual advisor pronounces.”

If his church membership calls into question Obama’s judgment, the dichotomy in the coverage of his and Romney’s religious affiliations spotlights the media’s double standard and how its skewed reporting influences who will become president.

But media bias or not, if Obama is his party’s nominee, his Republican opponent will rightly be able to make use of Rev. Wright and his radical teachings as effectively as supporters of George H.W. Bush used Willie Horton’s furlough to help Bush win the presidency.

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous dispatches and have them sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.

© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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