Free Republic

There had better be something to this "divinely anointed" business, because if there isn't, Barack Obama is setting himself up for the biggest political spill in recorded history - all the way down the slopes of Olympus to whatever gunk lies below. Which is to say, nobody, probably, can be as good as Mr. Obama's adoring followers, whether in Portland or Berlin, seem to believe he is. Disillusionment is ugly to see in action: The higher the expectations, the angrier the eventual response to reality. What gives these musings their relevance isn't just the unfortunate track record of idols who...

"In 2008, the world will be blessed. They will call him 'The One.'"

Did Barack Obama get an ovation after his speech in Chicago at Unity '08, a convention of minority journalists, or was it merely a warm reaction? It matters because "the ovation problem" hovers over the quadrennial Unity conventions. Applause levels are predictably high for Democratic politicians and low for Republicans. At the last Unity convention in 2004, John Kerry received a thunderous reception, while George W. Bush got the traditional Republican small hello, with a slight mixture of booing....Al Gore, on the other hand, got a wildly positive reception with the "cheering, hooting and salivating you'd expect at a campus...

Every day, for the past several months, I've made a habit in my morning prayers of thanking God for the emergence of Barack Obama.  Not because my hope is in Obama, but because my hope is always, unequivocally in God. As so many have noted, 2008 is not an ordinary American election. Rather than two people with different policy positions vying for the President's job, we have one man who understands he's a mere mortal like the rest of us, and one man, who seems to think he is a god. And y'all know what I'm talkin' about here.  Many...

While everyone has been contemplating one "unthinkable" outcome of the fall vote---Obama's election (and, for what it's worth, as of right now this does appear to be the likely outcome)---let me suggest an equally unthinkable result: Obama loses. I have been giving a lot of thought to this because of the coverage of Obama as a "transfiguring" personality, as an "image," as (to use the phrase of some of the pundits), a "superman," and, of course, as the German schlub said, "a messiah." What happens when superman loses an election? What happens when voters reject the messiah? We all need...

TALLINN, Estonia – When I arrived in Estonia last week – a former Soviet republic that lies just south of Finland – everyone had an opinion on Barack Obama's speech in Berlin. The headline of the British Daily Telegraph we picked up in Finland blared "New walls must not divide us," with half-page photos of the American presidential candidate silhouetted against a sea of 200,000 people. One of the first people I met in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, was Abdul Turay, the editor in chief of The Baltic Times, an English-language weekly that covers Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the...

Ross Douthat at the Atlantic.com notes that the Obama camp is accusing the McCain campaign of making Obama's rally in Berlin look like the sort of thing that Der Fuhrer might have staged. It's remarkable what those fiendish GOP operatives can squeeze into thirty seconds: Not only does McCain's "celeb" ad have "Barack Obama will rape yo daughters overtones," says Rick Perlstein (who's apparently under the impression that most Americans think of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears as stand-ins for their daughters), but it was edited to blatantly evoke Triumph of the Will as well - the better to freak...

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Lindsey Ellerson Report: Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., told Planned Parenthood Tuesday that sex education for kindergarteners, as long as it is "age-appropriate," is "the right thing to do." "I remember Alan Keyes . . . I remember him using this in his campaign against me," Obama said in reference to the conservative firebrand who ran against him for the U.S. Senate in 2004. Sex education for kindergarteners had become an issue in his race against Keyes because of Obama’s work on the issue as chairman of the health committee in the Illinois state Senate. "'Barack...

And my cousin, Neil Hussein Armstrong, went to the moon. Then there was my uncle George Hussein Washington, who was involved in that whole Revolutionary War thing. Daniel Hussein Boone was a grandfather on my cousin's side who was a security guard for a fort in San Antonio. Funny, I guess all the stars and legends are on his mom's side. He never talks about all the heroes and America-lovers on the Muslim side of the family.

"Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them."-- Matthew 7: 15, 16 (NIV) Barack Obama bellowed before a crowd in Germany, "The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christians and Muslims and Jews, cannot stand." Obama's words do not speak of freedom. A coming together under one banner, the banner of "working together," indicates Mr. Obama believes that the world has a responsibility to unite. Newsflash,...

Oh, for the love of crumbcake, this is getting so creepy.I have been saying for weeks that Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism has really helped my understanding of Barack Obama. I have pointed it out in three other posts:Barack Obama is a 1920s-style fascist Early 20th century "progressivism" has returned... Barack Obama: I AM America Every time I do, I think to myself, oh dear, this is going to sound overwrought. I do it anyways, because truth is truth, and the truth is that Barack Obama talks about himself and his plans in the same transcendent, populist, cult-of-personality terms as...

Last night on Fox News’ Special Report, host Brit Hume asked the “All-Star Panel” for “help” in determining whether or not Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) got “a bounce” in the polls as a result of his recent trip to the Middle East and Europe. Referring to Obama’s Berlin speech that was reportedly in front of more than 200,000 people, neo-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said he did not get a bounce because apparently, Americans don’t like it when politicians emulate Adolf Hitler at a Nazi rally: HUME: Panel, help. Did [Obama] get a bounce from the trip or not? […] KRAUTHAMMER:...

Has Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine's chances of landing the coveted spot as Obama's Veep risen? According to stories at both The Politico and the Washington Post Kaine has risen to the level of serious contender, along with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh and Delaware Sen. Joe Biden. The WaPo story has close Kaine associates acknowledging that Kaine has told them that he has had "very serious" conversations with Obama about joining the ticket.

How eerie. What is going on here? Is the Obama campaign so stupid it cannot see how bad all this has become?

The Sen. Barack Obama campaign held a conference call this morning on one of the key battleground states in this race: Pennsylvania. Team O, led by Gov. Ed Rendell, stressed the importance of registering and winning over the one-million-plus, un-registered voters spread out over the Keystone State.

Barack Obama's world tour scored big points back home. The presumptive Democratic nominee jumped to a significant 9-point lead over GOP rival John McCain - his largest lead since the Gallup Poll began tracking the general election horse race in March. Obama tops McCain, 49% to 40%, among registered voters nationwide, Gallup's daily tracking poll conducted from Thursday to Saturday revealed.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Barack Obama acknowledged today that he had failed to understand how much violence would decrease this year in Iraq, but he contended that President Bush and Sen. John McCain, the Republicans' presumptive presidential candidate, had made the same mistake. Meanwhile, McCain insisted in an interview on ABC's "This Week" that he had not shifted his support of an American exit in 2010, despite comments he made Friday that the 16-month withdrawal plan espoused by Iraq's prime minister "is a pretty good timetable." Addressing what has become one of his most difficult campaign issues, Obama said that the...

In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has unfortunately become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe's role in our security and future. Both views miss the truth. It was this kind of bridge-building language, and the clear signal that under Barack Obama America would not operate as a unilateral power in its foreign policy, that inspired the loudest applause. Clearly, Europeans are ready to end their anti-US mindset and start afresh. But...

Barack Obama returned to Chicago Sunday and made an appearance before the UNITY minority journalists' convention (including the whole soup of black, Latino, Asian, and Native American journalist solidarity groups.) The Chicago Tribune's Swamp blog found some journalists were restrained, and some were not: At UNITY, the applause was restrained, after organizers reminded conference participants that the appearance was being nationally broadcast and they should make every effort to maintain "professional decorum." Still, Obama received a standing ovation from many in the audience at the start and end of his appearance. There was also a rush toward the stage after...

It's complicated. Pennsylvania is a "purple" state that must go Democrat blue instead of Republican red for Barack Obama to win the November election. John McCain does not need Pennsylvania to win the White House, but Obama sure does.

In the path of lightning Valerie Jarrett is known as the other side of Barack Obama's brain. Can this tough-minded adviser, who is guided by aphorisms and gut instinct, help him reach the White House? Say you're Sen. Barack Obama, the hottest politician on the planet. You fill up stadiums like the Beatles. You're JFK-smooth, scary smart and, for a skinny middle-aged Ivy Leaguer who quit smoking not that long ago, your basketball game isn't half-bad. No African-American politician has soared this close to the sun. Everyone sings your praises, from Hollywood starlets to rappers on YouTube. One excitable cable...

HT goes to the JPA Live BTR Show and Danger Girl for an article in Military Times, which is owned by Gannett which also publishes the USA Today newspaper. I called your attention to the MT's affiliation because the MT in no way and by no means whatsoever is linked to the "official" military news outlets. All "official" news outlets of the military are either .org or .gov. Any alleged military news outlet which has a .com or a .net designator should be taken with a grain of salt - or something of a lesser value. This, however, does not...

So now that you know that the rest of the world loves Obama, how about you? I raised that question last Thursday night on my radio talk show at Washington, DC’s 630 WMAL, albeit rather facetiously. Despite what the forces at CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Rueters, The New York Times, and “CNN International” may want me to believe, I don’t assume that “the world loves Obama,” anymore than I assume that “the world hates Bush.” But now that the week of cathartic revelry is behind us and the excitement has subsided a little bit, it’s time for some reflection....

1.) Selma Got Me Born - NOT EXACTLY, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 - Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma was in 1965. (Google 'Obama Selma' for his full March 4, 2007 speech and articles about its various untruths.) 2.) Father Was A Goat Herder - NOT EXACTLY, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government. 3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter – NOT EXACTLY, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had. 4.) My...

Obama’s radical background Obama would describe his grandparents as ‘white folk.’ (Yeah, ‘white folk’ that would NOT abandon you, their grandchild. Shame on you Obama.) Barack has stated his support for Luo Raila Odinga (Opposition Leader in Kenya who signed a ‘Shariah pact’ with Muslims and claims to be Obama’s cousin) and is married to Ida Odinga. They have four children - two sons and two daughters. His oldest son, Fidel, is named after Fidel Castro U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s uncle has been a prisoner in his own home, trapped by post election violence that has left more than...

Barack Obama has railed against Chinese Imports and free trade that is ‘ruining’ the United States. Now we find out that the Obama clan has a relative promoting cheap Chinese imports to America. Obama’s half brother Mark Ndesandjo hides from the limelight unlike his sibling Barack jr. Mark lives a shady existence in China with a questionable reputation.

If you will go to the url here, you will see the entire bill that Obama has put up for vote in the US Senate. This bill will have the United States funding a supposed remedy for world poverty with the USA footing the bill. This is the revenge that Obama is seeking to help to destroy the USA. The USA has millions of it's own people in poverty, and it is a problem that we have never been able to solve, and now Obama wants us to make repatriations to the entire world. Obama was not sitting in that...

It is an extraordinary sight to walk into a basic two-room house under a mango tree in rural east Africa and discover what is essentially a shrine to Barack Obama. The small brick house with no running water, a tin roof and roving chickens, goats and cows is owned by Sarah Obama, Barack's 86-year-old step-grandmother. Inside, the walls are decorated with a 2008 Obama election sticker, an old "Barack Obama for Senate" poster on which he has written "Mama Sarah Habai [how are you?]", a 2005 calendar that says "The Kenyan Wonder Boy in the US", and more than a...

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama's 67-year-old step mother, Kezia Obama, believes that he will change the way the world thinks once he takes charge at the White House in Washington. As he arrived in London on Saturday, Kezia Obama, Barack Senior's first wife, said proudly: "The things Barry Junior says are the things the world needs to focus on." "I believe he's the right person at the right time. He's the one to make the changes we need. If he does win he will be a president for the whole world," The Mirror quoted her, as saying. Kezia describes herself...

Barack Obama breezed into London and asked Gordon Brown every tourist’s favourite question: “Can you show me where the Queen lives?” The request prompted the PM to act as a VIP tour guide for the US senator hoping to become the most powerful man in the world. But alarmed US and British secret service officials curtailed their walkabout in front of a growing crowd of astonished tourists before the two leaders could get close to Buckingham Palace.

At a morning press conference after a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London, Barack Obama got caught up in the web of lies his campaign has spun about the cancellation of his planned visit to wounded troops at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany on Friday.Obama stated: "We had scheduled to go, we had no problem at all in leaving, we always leave press and staff off -- that is why we left it off the schedule."Not true, Washington Post reported this morning: When Obama arrived in Germany on Thursday, a printed schedule said he would fly...

NOTE by TexasDarlin: This is the second article in a two-part series by Judah Benjamin challenging the Constitutionality of Barack Obama’s bid for President. This article was preceded by my Foreword, and by the author’s Part 1, which explores the legal history and definition of “natural born citizen” under Article II of the US Constitution. Those two posts should be read first, and in full. Part 2 explores the factual basis for Barack Obama’s dual citizenship, and concludes that he has been a citizen of at least two countries, and therefore is ineligible to be President.

No. 44 Has Spoken By Gerhard Spörl Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin's Siegessäule on Thursday could recognize that this man will become the 44th president of the United States. He is more than ambitious -- he wants to lay claim to become the president of the world. It was a ton to absorb -- and what a stupendous ride through world history: the story of his own family, the Berlin Airlift, terrorists, poorly secured nuclear material, the polar caps, World War II, America's errors, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, freedom. It's amazing anyone could pack such a potpourri of issues...

WITH gestures that ranged from a wink to a sneer, most anyone you met here this week volunteered the view that Barack Obama’s visit to Europe caused unprecedented frenzy. But it’s been hard for me to find a European, aside from two Harvard-educated friends in Paris, who confessed to excitement — not just about the visit, but the prospect of an Obama presidency. It is true that Der Spiegel, the German newsweekly, featured Mr. Obama on its cover, topped by the words “Germany Meets the Superstar” — but the cover was satire, and nasty satire at that. The editors managed...

Here's the real story. I found a source who put Quinn's report on the net: Barack Obama is basing his plans for this civilian force on something whipped up by Canadian Senator Jacques Hebert, called the “Katimavik“. Katimavik is the Inuit word for “commune”. Hebert, an admitted communist and avowed socialist, was a big supporter of the USSR and communist China as far back as the 60s and 70s. In the late 70s, he came up with the idea for and initiated Katimavik, in an attempt to get rid of Canada’s version of the ROTC, the volunteer military cadets. Hebert...

Barack Obama's foreign tour loses him ground back home Tim Reid in Washington Barack Obama denied yesterday that he was ignoring the concerns of ordinary Americans while he tours the world, amid signs that the adulation he is receiving abroad has alienated some US voters. After the Democratic presidential candidate holds meetings with Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron in London today, the last leg of his nine-day international tour, he returns home to a general election campaign with new polls showing him in a tightening race against John McCain, the Republican candidate. Mr McCain and his surrogates have...

"Nicolas Sarkozy's advisors received only one demand from the team of the Democratic candidate: no American flag for the press conference, because it's a candidate being received, not the president of the United States."

The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your children – as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors and everyone else in America – each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce poverty around the world. The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort to raise the standard of living around the globe. Barack Obama S.2433 already has been approved in one form by the U.S. House of Representatives and now has been...

If that is what the senator thought he was doing, he still has a lot to learn about both foreign policy and the views of the American people. Although well received in the Tiergarten, the Obama speech actually reveals an even more naive view of the world than we had previously been treated to in the United States. In addition, although most of the speech was substantively as content-free as his other campaign pronouncements, when substance did slip in, it was truly radical, from an American perspective.

Just a Humble Public Servant As the Great Man triumphantly tours Europe... I'm reminded to lookin in on the Obamamessiah blog. They have been doing yeoman work compiling all the deranged messianic tributes to this god for the godless. I continue to be astonished at the towering humility of the Lightworker and his disciples. Here's just some of the press the Son of the Living God is getting (and is in no hurry to discourage): Barack Obama isn't really one of us. Not in the normal way, anyway. No, it's not merely his youthful vigor, or handsomeness, or even inspiring...

Every political campaign has its weak spot. Every human being has his own blind spots. In politics and war, it's those blind spots that eventually make for victory or defeat. When an opponent discovers that weak spot, he just needs to hit it over and over again to win. In Iraq, Al Qaida's blind spot was its penchant for bloody random killing of innocent civilians. It turned the tribes against AQ. Every time they car-bombed another peaceful marketplace they made more mortal enemies. That's why they lost. For Barack and Michelle Obama, the biggest blind spot is Ego Tripping --...

So Barack Obama, whose father is from Kenya and who attended school in Indonesia, now appears before a crowd of 200,000 cheering Germans in Berlin to proclaim himself a "citizen of the world." It makes you wonder whether he's running for president of America or secretary general of the United Nations, and it is reminiscent of Senator Kerry's ill-fated 2004 debate pledge to subject American policies to a "global test." Not that these columns are against a judicious internationalism. Mr. Obama's turn toward the idea of global responsibility is actually a welcome note coming from someone who spent the primary...

Georgetown, S.C — "What’s this guy running for, ‘Emperor of the world?’” asked the sunburned fellow at the next table where we stopped for lunch. Mr. Sunburn was holding a copy of The Charleston Post and Courier and pointing to a headline, “Obama pledges to work for peace.” The inquiry, addressed to those sitting beside him elicited only shrugs, so he answered his own question: “Just doesn’t make any sense to me.” The Obama machine’s, “Hope & Change World Tour” has left more than a few people perplexed. Some – like the gentleman beside us at the restaurant – are...

CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, reporting on Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin on Thursday’s “The Situation Room,” expressed her shock that the European crowd didn’t seem to have the same mania for the Democrat that the media has: “I did ask some people as they were leaving what they thought. Everybody said good, good. But I was surprised that there wasn't this sort of euphoria afterwards, given how many people had come to listen and how much it had been anticipated.” She later stated in the segment that one unnamed political analyst talked about how “people [in Europe] want...

In perhaps the most striking passage, Obama asserted: “I know my country has not perfected itself.” “But I also know how much I love America,” he said. “We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye towards the future, with resolve in our heart, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.” Obama’s sweeping vision also includes: — "This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons." — "This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle...

Was watching ABC World News Tonight and a German interviewed called him his new "messiah".

Anyone who saw Barack Obama at Berlin's Siegessäule on Thursday could recognize that this man will become the 44th president of the United States. He is more than ambitious -- he wants to lay claim to become the president of the world. It was a ton to absorb -- and what a stupendous ride through world history: the story of his own family, the Berlin Airlift, terrorists, poorly secured nuclear material, the polar caps, World War II, America's errors, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, freedom. It's amazing one could even pack such a potpourri of issues into sentences and then succeed in...

I've been collecting Obamisms for a couple of weeks now, thought I'd post them to share and hopefully to be added to. Barry Hussein Obamisms Obagasms Obeyme Obamination Barack O'Possum Saint of Hyde Park St. Barack Obamacons Fauxbama Messiah Obambi Hussein ObamaMessiaHamas NObama Barack, the pander bear O’barmy Ubingobangobongo Obamaciples Ego-bama “The One,” (Oprah) Black Whiteguilt Oblack Obamajugend Obama-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong Obamacaca obammy Omabama Obamafuhrer Obamao Obamasama Barraaack al obama Unidentified Flying Muslim Obama Christ Lord Messiah Obama Hazbin Laden BARRYSTROIKA (BARRYSTROIKA Barack [let no infidel see behind these brackets] Obama's program of economic, political, and social restructuring which aims to end...

This man must not be elected.