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Sooner or later, voters are going to recognize the exquisite sensitivity of the Obama campaign to ridicule as weakness. By choosing to cry foul  over the New Yorker cover depicting the Obamas as the opposition supposedly sees him, the campaign reveals the precariousness of the substance-free image-building effort to date. The irrepressible Doug Ross  dug up a New Yorker cover mocking Bush and Cheney as the gay cowboys from Brokeback Mountain, sarcastically noting the missing firestorm of protest.   Are Americans really going to want to vote for someone who holds himself to be above criticism and mockery?    

Grover Norquist, a former CRNC executive director, dropped by the LA Times’ Washington bureau and shocked the media: “As part of his negative critique of Obama’s liberal stances on economic issues and other matters, he termed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee ‘John Kerry with a tan.’”

Democratic Presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks to the Executive Council of New York at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York, September 17, 2007. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid (UNITED STATES)

By all indications, we are closer this week to Barack Obama’s announcement that he is running for president. He and his wife Michelle are featured on Ebony magazine’s February cover. His book, "The Audacity of Hope," hit the New York Times’ best-seller list and with Democrats winning the U.S. Senate majority, he is highly sought for political talk shows. Along with all the speculation comes increased curiosity about Obama’s background and influences. The night he won his U.S. Senate seat, Obama thanked his campaign staff generically and immediately recognized his longtime spiritual advisor, the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., pastor...

Could Meredith Vieira be emerging as one of the morning shows' most incisive inquisitioners? As we noted here, Katie Couric's replacement at "Today" recently gave Ted Kennedy a rather rough going-over regarding his legislative proposal to require the president to obtain congressional approval for a surge. This morning, she took on the hitherto untouchable Barack Obama. And while her tone and line of questioning were not disrespectful, neither was there any hint of the kind of MSM cheerleading that the junior senator from IL has no doubt come to expect. Before we get to Vieira's questions, take a good...

Crazies Link Obama to Terrorism Senator Barack Obama has an unusual problem for a potential presidential candidate. His first name rhymes with Iraq, his middle name is Hussein, and his last name rhymes with "Osama". Of course, when his parents named him 45 years ago, they would have no way of knowing that we'd be at war in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein would be the dictator we overthrew, or that Osama bin Laden would have led an attack against the United States, let alone that their new baby boy might someday make a run for the presidency. Almost two years...

Barack Hussein Obama is the closest Democrats can come to electing a foreign Muslim President of the United States without actually violating the constitutional requirement that American Presidents be native-born. Obama’s nomination would follow in the footsteps of 2004 Democrat presidential candidate John Forbes Kerry, whose French-language Swiss boarding school education made him the closest thing to a European socialist able to run for President of the US without violating the constitution. Not only does Obama’s name sound like some kind of sick Islamist joke on America—a candidate whose moniker invokes both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden—but he would be...

NEW YORK -- CNN apologized Tuesday for mistakenly promoting a story on the search for Osama bin Laden with the headline "Where's Obama?" A spokesman for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said the apology was accepted. The blunder came Monday evening on Wolf Blitzer's news show "The Situation Room." Both Soledad O'Brien and Blitzer offered separate apologies during CNN's morning show Tuesday. CNN called it a "bad typographical error" . . .

Like a dutiful dancing partner, Senator Barack Obama has begun courting the evangelical right, and some are already waltzing along in perfect time. With his attendance at Rick Warren‘s church, Saddleback Valley Community, a mega-church in California for a large conference about AIDS, Obama has begun to align himself with an important base of voters to gain what conservatives lost this last year. Already lauded by some prominent evangelical publications for his outstanding "Christian faith" and a person Rick Warren called a "good friend" and a someone he'd like to work with on important issues, Obama is in perfect position,...

...Even his aides wonder if he can meet lofty expectations, which have elevated him beyond a politician’s normal realm, thanks to his celebrity, ambition and biography. While a presidential campaign would highlight Mr. Obama’s strengths as a lyrical communicator and personable campaigner, it also could expose the shortcomings of a 45-year-old politician not fully developed, and one who will not enjoy the luxury of learning in obscurity. The next phase of his political development will inevitably draw intense and less flattering scrutiny, particularly if he goes head to head with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination; he...

Finally, Barack Obama has a scandal. It’s small–a mere sapling next to its towering twentieth-century predecessors–but, with enough time and a little more attention, it could blossom into a White House Travel Office, or maybe even a Whitewater. The junior senator’s youthful drug habit (and his adult nicotine addiction) just never had legs, so if you need a cocktail-party reason to predict trouble for Obama’s candidacy, look no further than his business dealings with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, the indicted Chicago real-estate developer that sold the senator a sliver of his yard. Of course, there’s just one problem with the scandal...

Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim By Debbie Schlussel Many months ago, readers began asking me whether Barack Obama is Muslim. Since he identifies as a Christian, I said, "no," and responded that he was not raised by his Kenyan father. But, then, I decided to look further into Obama's background. His full name--as by now you have probably heard--is Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Hussein is a Muslim name, which comes from the name of Ali's son--Hussein Ibn Ali. And Obama is named after his late Kenyan father, the late Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., apparently a Muslim....

New Hampshire recently was brightened by the presence of Barack Obama, 45, who, calling the fuss about him "baffling," made his first trip in 45 years to that state, and not under duress. Because he is young, is just two years distant from a brief career as a state legislator and has negligible national security experience, an Obama presidential candidacy could have a porcelain brittleness. But if he wants to be president - it will not be a moral failing if he decides that he does not, at least not now - this is the time for him to reach...

Remember back when Rick Warren was adamantly denying that his inviting Barack Obama to his HIV conference had anything to do with politics? Well - if that's the case - why is it that he's now TALKING POLITICS on CNN and sending the message that "Obama's Da Man"?

RUSH: Here we go with Barack Obama. As you know, he was up in New Hampshire -- do you know, by the way, TV ads for Barack Obama are going to start airing this weekend? Presidential ads for Barack Obama in New Hampshire start airing this weekend. Hillary, I think, is starting to get panicked because she's called up all of Bubba's old buddies, Carville and Begala and Joe Lockhart, she had them over to dinner to discuss what to do about this. Her team wasn't there. They're all one team, of course, but publicly Carville and Begala have said,...