Johhny come lately?, Obama is the new kid running for president...???
Dang him--because, you know, he had my hopes up; but despite his initial vote-gathering? support for Universal Health Care, Obama now says he's all about merely an expansion of existing health care programs.
In fact, at the time of its birth in 1948, Britain's National Health Service was a beautiful model for the entire world. A system of publicly owned HOSPITALS and community services, unfortunately nowadays the system is declining--alegedly due to the 10-year pro-business reform program (the NHS Plan).
I guess you blew it Obama, "As the party responsible for the NHS's creation, Labour has always benefitted from the MOST POPULAR element in Britain's welfare state."
OK--National Health Care does have a few kinks worth working out, still, how come Obama's not real busy arguing the pros and cons of the "Canadian experience," which is a working health care alternative that's been in operation for twenty years...
And, so don't you know it--if Obama's popularity is based upon his POPULAR IDEAS like shifting tax breaks from companies that send jobs overseas (what tax breaks...?) to companies that keep jobs here--he should be more careful that his tongue doesn't grow forked...
To quote Obama, "Our enemies are fully aware that they can use oil as a weapon against America. And if we don't take this threat as seriously as the bombs they build or the guns they buy, we will be fighting the War on Terror with one hand tied behind our back."
Long on alluring rhetoric, short on actual sense...
...What does make sense here is that Obama is 100% behind ethanol--and evidently simply turning his back on the current electric car technology, and those wind turbines that could easily power the entire world, in an completely environmentally safe manner...
So..., when Obama chooses new bed-fellows, and says that "The Dems have been advocating a phased withdrawal for months, and started doing so before no less an authority than the IRAQ STUDY GROUP endorsed the same idea," well, I'm more than a little leery, because if we leave before the problem we unnecessarily created is fixed (which is all BS, because that oil is "Bush's honey", and it's not going anywhere except into "Western bound tankers") than the problem is bound to get worse...
As anyone can tell you (except our politicians?), we need to get to the root of the problem in Iraq...
So..., to hell with Obama's and McCain's deft use of public manipulation technique--let's get real (and save all kinds of innocent lives) and embrace ideas like enclosing Iraq's population centers within well guarded walls--and didn't the Berlin Wall do the trick...!; and what about banning all private vehicles in Iraq...--instead give them about a "zillion" large buses, and mybe smaller ones too (dedicated for things like runs out to remore job sites). Install video cameras in them--and perhaps that's the end of terrorists carting their bombs all about the country...

Obama came across as a foreign policy lightweight; but McCain showed gravitas advocating a position I personally don't support. This "Jim Webb Democrat" will probably vote for McCain over Obama if it comes down to it (which one hopes it doesn't).

Obama may be a light-weight, but he is at least of this time. McCain still fighting the last war we lost, the one that holds him prisoner today.

Ron Paul for president in 08...the only candidate who can say he's been against this debacle since the start.

Well, Michael, That looks like a lot of concentration camps! Maybe we need some crematoriums to go in them, also. As far as McCain goes, he fits in with what we have now. As far as the Dems go, not long ago, Ms. Clinton wanted even more troops than Bush. We can't make them make a country that they don't want. We removed the control, now we have to watch what we created! It would have happened eventually, we caused it to happen suddenly rather than slowly.They have to fight it out, if that's their choice. If at the start, if once we overthrew the regime, we had put the machine in reverse and returned home, I think it would have been a lot less blood shed and we would have looked a lot better to the world!

The discussion of marriage here misses the forest for the trees. Obama, this so called "civil rights lawyer," is the ONLY Democratic candidate who has opposed marriage equality for purely religious reasons. Notice that not one lawyer/lawmaker has provided even one LEGAL reason for denying this civil right. Is it really asking too much of lawyers and lawmakers to provide LEGAL reasons for denying civil rights? It's not so much about "marriage" as it is about punching a big hole in the wall that separates Church and State. When politicians, as a pretext for denying civil rights, march out their preachers and ostentatiously parade their "deep faith" then watch out or you are duped.

Aside from religious rubbish the only other reason Obama has proffered for denying marriage equality is (as he stated on Larry King Live) that America "is not ready" for this kind of equality. Coming from an African-American Harvard educated "civil rights" lawyer this statement is astounding and telling:

(1) If he or his mixed-race parents had to wait till American was "ready" to respect their civil rights we can pretty well guess how their lives might have wound up.

(2) We all know how "ready" America was to give up Jim Crow segregation in public schools in 1954. The vast majority of Americans were against Brown v. Board of Education.

(3) As the sickening photos of the battered and bloody Freedom Rider John Lewis (D. Ga.) and the infamous photos of burning Greyhound busses testify to, we all know how "ready" America was to allow equal access to public accommodations.

(4) We all know how "ready" American was to respect interracial marriage when the Supreme Court struck down all state anti-miscegenation laws in Loving v. Virginia in 1967. The vast tyrannous majority of America was appalled and there were serious movements to amend the Constitution and impeach Chief Justice Earl Warren. In fact, 40 years after the Supreme Court had to step in to protect Obama's parents from criminal prosecution in 17 states, 40% of Americans still believe inter-racial marriage is wrong. "Not Ready"? The notion that American was "not ready" for equality was partly what prompted Dr. King to write his poignant book, Why We Can't Wait. Now senator Obama tells Lesbian and Gay families that America is "not ready" to respect them as equal.

(5) While Mr. "Humble beginnings" (gimmie a break!) was enjoying the privileges of attending the finest prep-schools and private universities America could possibly offer, gay men and lesbian women were spilling their warm blood on the cold streets of Alabama so that he and his parents could enjoy their civil rights unmolested. But now that he has his rights he tells them America is "not ready." "How sharper than a serpent's tooth is it to have a thankless child!!"

We all know too well what kind of dust he was blowing in high school but please rtell me what kind of junk they smoke at Harvard law school.

In the words of a true Freedom Rider whose legacy Obama denigrates and whose wisdom he audaciously abjures, "I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they STINK of the same FEAR, HATRED, and INTOLERANCE, I have known in racism and in BIGOTRY." (Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), (Boston Globe, 11/25/03.) (Emphasis added.)

God forbid that Obama is elected to the Presidency, or anything else in this country for that matter. The degree of naivete reflected in the comments on this site is shocking and troubling. Obama is about nothing other than himself. He has no concerns about you or me; he is a political creature who is only interested in his self-interest! He is no more qualified to be president than Anna Nicole Smith was!! Tell me, what are his qualifications? What is it, other than the fact that he is black, that qualifies him to be president? Nothing.

This post has nothing to do with hatred, intolerance or bigotry, and everything to do protecting the Liberty we have in this country. How can anyone support him? He is a Muslim. Read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in light of what you know about the Koran and the Muslim faith. Then advise me how Mr. Obama reconciles the fact that he is a practicing Muslim who has pledged to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States? On matters of Liberty, where the Koran conflicts with the principles of the Constitution, by which does Mr. Obama believe he is bound and which will he follow? In other words, which document does he pledge to uphold? If his answer is that he will ignore the Koran and uphold the principles of the Constitution and uphold and defend the Constitution, how does he reconcile the conflict, since portions of the Koran clearly conflict with the Constitution's concept of "Liberty?"

Read the Koran folks! When you do so, then tell me you want Obama, or any Muslim, president. If you do, you are clearly misguided and do not value the way of life we have in this country under the Constitution. According to the Koran, non-Muslims are infidels! According to the Koran, if infidels do not convert to Islam, it is justifiable to kill them !!!!!!!

WAKE UP!!!!!

The muslim faith is not compatable and never can be compatable with our republican form of government, unless portions of the Koran are rejected outright. This is due not just to the fact that (i) the Koran is clear that non-muslims are infidels and, once given the opportunity, if they do not covert to Islam they are to be taxed in order to be allowed to live in a muslim society, or can be killed and that such killing is "justified", but (ii) when a conflict between the Koran and government develops, their first allegiance is to the Koran. Why is this a problem, you say? It is a problem because on points concerning freedom and "liberty", the Koran and the muslim faith which is based upon it, are diametrically the opposite of the Christian concepts of "Liberty" as expressed in this country's founding documents and upon which our government and society generally are founded and based. These are two irreconcible concepts. Islam rejects the notion that government arises from the consent of the people, or that government exists to serve the people. One cannot read the Koran and objectively come to any other conclusion.
(Unfortunately, there are already many people in our country who believe that people should serve the government, rather than the other way around.)

As such relates to our government and our elected representatives, this may or may not be a concern during our lifetimes, but it will surely develop in the years to come and at some point, it will be an issue that will not be ignored. I found it profoundly incongruous and very troubling that recently elected member of the House of Representatives, Keith Ellison, from Minnesota, was sworn in using a Koran (even if it had belonged to Thomas Jefferson). The fact that he took the oath of office on the Koran, completely nullified his oath to protect and defend the Constitution, because his oath was based upon the Koran which requires him to reject any portion of the Constitution outright if such portion conflicts with the Koran! I wager that you did not hear any analysis of that by ANY mainstream media.

My, my, all the vitriol against the Black man during Black history month. He is not Muslim nor the devil. He is no better nor worse than the rest. Let the games begin. Let us not devour our own.