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I picked up a copy of Time magazine yesterday, in which a columnist declared that issues of "character" were a "distraction" in the Presidential race. Obama actually said the same thing in his North Carolina press conference, that the Reverend Wright affair has been a "distraction." Isn't this what liberals usually say when their own characters come under public scrutiny? What a heap of pure poppycock!

An African-American from Generation X, two White Guys from the Silent Generation and a woman from Generation X. Arguably, the greatest diversity the U.S. has ever seen in its leading general election candidates for the Presidency. I think that’s a healthy thing. The progress our nation has made on the topic of diversity is, surely, the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. But, he taught us not to judge people based on observable differences – e.g. the color of skin (or the age of skin or the shape of skin). Rather, his instruction was to base judgment on content of...

Integrity in Politics by Dr. Jeff Mirus, August 29, 2008   The selection of Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, as John McCain’s running mate has people thinking about integrity again. Palin is a pro-life mother of four who makes no bones about fighting corruption and standing up for the vulnerable. She opposes abortion not only in speech but in personal practice, having resisted suggestions to abort her own Downs-syndrome child. She swept into office in Alaska by exposing and campaigning against serious ethics violations, and she has the highest approval rating of any significant public figure in any state in...

Character development is a process; it is not automatic. When we received Christ, we got all of His character. You have the ability with Christ in you to have all of His character traits coming out of your life. We received this character and then we begin to do what Paul said in Colossians 2:6, “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” Or in other words, as you’ve received His character in you, now live out His character in your words, in your deeds, in your actions. We’ve got to go after character by...

. . . honor, integrity, honesty, ethics, morals, character, judgement? Recently, rumors at the company where I work have started proving true. Our building will be sold and the manufacturing facility sold to another company. Something new; unusual? Market downturn? No, not really. Just greed. Greed likely performed by an officer of the company who thought it would be okay to misreport our earnings. In other words, they "cooked the books". I'm sure they thought that no harm would come as a result of lying; it made their quarterly earnings look better than they were and earned them a higher...

GATES MILLS, Ohio -- President George W. Bush made a pit stop on his way back to the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport Tuesday evening. After leaving a fundraiser in Gates Mills, his motorcade passed a home with a sign asking the president to stop by -- so he did. Bush got out of the car and spent a few minutes with Ruth Harris, who was celebrating her 91st birthday with her family. Bush sat in a chair next to Harris and said "91 years old -- how special." When neighbors noticed what was happening, they soon surrounded the president for...

It's pretty amazing when you think about it. War hero John McCain has been in the public eye almost his entire adult life. He's run numerous campaigns, served in Congress for 25 years, and is in his second run for the presidency. Yet, there is so much of his life that reveals an absolutely sterling character, but remains largely unknown to the public. And in spite of the tremendous political advantages that publicity could confer, McCain instinctively keeps that information private. Although as a presidential candidate he may be forced to overcome this reticence, he honorably shies away from using...

Return to the Article June 30, 2008Obama's Callous IndifferenceBy Peter Kirsanow Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen declares that Barack Obama is " 'likable enough' -- in fact, so much so that he is the most charismatic presidential candidate I have seen since Robert F.Kennedy." Well, even though I've  never spoken with Obama, I don't like him very much  (I did testify with him [and a few others] once about a bill he'd sponsored on voter intimidation, but at the time he didn't impress me as unlikable, just a little intellectually lazy) . This hasn't always been the case.  Until...

He’s so old that his young-enough-to-be-his-daughter trophy wife, for whom he dumped the woman who loyally waited for him while he was a POW, is old.

One thing that was going for Barack Obama this endless primary reason, what justified his entire and only claim to the presidency was the belief that he embodied a new type of a politician, the one above politics. Never mind the oxymoronic and improbable premise of such a formulation - this is what his near-worshippers and supporters went for. It must be clear to everyone by now, except for his most hard-core acolytes, that his candidacy represents nothing of the sort. [1] He is not merely a regular politician (those of us who value politics realize that there is nothing...

It's amazing what some people will do for 30 pieces of silver. Scott McClellan was given the signal honor of being the spokesman for the president of the United States, a distinction few Americans have ever achieved. Being the spokesman for the world's most powerful political figure is no small thing, and I'm sure that the men and women who have held the post view their service as an honor more given that deserved. It doesn't appear as if McClellan sees it that way. He is not the first press secretary to be forced out of the job, and he...

WASHINGTON, May 19, 2008 – The 1st Marine Division’s 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines’ is focusing on Afghan people, not on fighting terrorists, the battalion commander said May 16. “What’s unique about our mission is that we’re doing a police training and mentoring mission, as opposed to coming in here kinetically like a lot of our past exploits have been, especially in Iraq,” Marine Corps Lt. Col. Richard Hall told online journalists and “bloggers” in a teleconference. The 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, deployed at the end of March for this mission to assist Afghanistan’s Regional Security Command South with their focused...

I picked up a copy of Time magazine yesterday, in which a columnist declared that issues of "character" were a "distraction" in the Presidential race. Obama actually said the same thing in his North Carolina press conference, that the Reverend Wright affair has been a "distraction." Isn't this what liberals usually say when their own characters come under public scrutiny? What a heap of pure poppycock! Character is the primary issue in every Presidential election. Period. And we, the voters, have an inalienable right to know the specifics, as much as can be discerned, of a candidate's character.

I picked up a copy of Time magazine yesterday, in which a columnist declared that issues of "character" were a "distraction" in the Presidential race. Obama actually said the same thing in his North Carolina press conference, that the Reverend Wright affair has been a "distraction." Isn't this what liberals usually say when their own characters come under public scrutiny? What a heap of pure poppycock! Character is the primary issue in every Presidential election. Period. And we, the voters, have an inalienable right to know the specifics, as much as can be discerned, of a candidate's character. But don't...

“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” So said British statesman Edmund Burke in his famous 1774 speech to the electors of Bristol. Similarly, James Madison wrote in Federalist 57 that voters should choose the candidates “who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society.” Wise counsel, albeit forlorn in today’s campaign world in which most people—especially primary voters—back the candidates who are most shameless in sacrificing their judgment to the voters’ opinions. Burke...

I think a significant problem that Obama has, which will come to light, is a personal characteristic of his seeking to to avoid difficult choices and take an EASIER way out of a situation. Here are just five examples. (1). As a child and young man, he was called Barry, not Barack. That was EASIER for him and for the people who knew him. (2). In 1988, at the age of 27, he became a Christian to enable a career in politics and to enable a relationship with Michelle Robinson, who later became his wife and the mother of his...

Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Senator John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist. The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what's expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA. The...

Obama’s denunciation of Wright’s bigotry amounts to too little too late. The time to stand up to him wasn’t now, when his association with Wright is sinking his hopes for the White House. The time to have stood up to Wright was when Obama was just another member of his church. If he truly believes in what he says he believes, he should have walked out of Wright’s church or grabbed Wright’s microphone and told his fellow churchgoers that Wright was wrong and that they mustn’t hate. In twenty years of attending Wright’s church, why didn’t Obama once stand before...

The victimization continues. The Trinity United Church of Christ accused the media of character assassination today in response to the coverage of repeated instances of controversial rhetoric coming from its pastor and confidante of Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright. But does it count when the victim provides the poison himself? The Chicago church attended by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) issued a statement Sunday contending that coverage of his pastor’s inflammatory statements amounted to character assassination and “an attack on … the history of the African American church.”Obama condemned inflammatory statements by the church’s retiring pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.,...

PARIS - Partial results showed President Nicolas Sarkozy's backers losing in Paris and other key French cities Sunday in the first round of municipal elections seen as a referendum on the increasingly unpopular conservative. Official results of the total vote nationwide showed candidates from Sarkozy's UMP party and its allies with 45.5 percent and the Socialists and their allies with 47 percent. The total was not broken down by city, but projections based on partial results by the polling agencies Ipsos and TNS-Sofres showed Socialists on track to take over key cities previously held by the right, including Strasbourg, Reims,...

Story.

HARACTER COUNTS; some- times it counts in the count. In Florida, Arizona Sen. John McCain yesterday won the Republican primary, overcoming big disadvantages favoring former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. What disadvantages? Let us, well, count. Mr. Romney built a huge campaign apparatus in Florida over the last year, while Mr. McCain, since his campaign nearly expired last summer, was able to do very little organizationally in the Sunshine State. Many Floridians voted early--before Mr. McCain picked up the endorsements of Florida U.S. Sen. Mel Marinez and the state's governor, John Crist (to say nothing of Sly Stallone). The number of...

Here is my impression of the character of each candidate, arranged alphabetically: Rudy Giuliani is strongly temperamental, strong on courage, highly intelligent and has good insight. Moderately to highly self-serving which impairs his ability to choose right over wrong. Liberal to moderate with more liberal background. Mike Huckabee is strongly temperamental, weak on courage, highly intelligent and has moderate insight. Highly self-serving, which impairs his ability to choose right over wrong. Able to deceive through high creativity. Liberal but hides this fact from a lot of people. John McCain is excessively temperamental, strong on courage, moderately intelligent and has low...

Fox this evening has been discussing Huck-a-boom’s “Sneak attack ad” and earlier this afternoon CNN showed the Huck saying that he wanted people to turn to the television when the President was speaking and believe that the President would tell him the truth. After the clip the CNN correspondent observed that Huckabee was “Gifted at saying things in subtle ways.” In my view, its not generally subtle if a CNN correspondent can note it. It was in fact an overt attack on Romney. Mike Huckabee has not been shy about telling us all that he has “character,” that he is...

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE "Freedom comes to us as the fruit of our responsibility. Only after we have done all we can to create, nurture, protect and utilize our duty to care for Life may we possibly discover a moment of true freedom," to taste the rewards of our labours. ...

YOU WILL FIND THE SECRET SERVICE VIEWS ON THE PERSONALITIES OF PAST PRESIDENTS TO BE QUITE INTERESTING. For those who don't know... Capt. Denny Keast flies for UAL and flew many SAM's (Special Air Mission's) for the White House. Some of us flew these Presidential Support Mission. The only thing they left out was the pain in the ass communication people..........Shem I flew 4 Presidential support missions in the C-141 out of Dover AFB, DE.. Two for President Johnson and two for President Nixon. Johnson was a first class jerk and on the two occasions I flew for him, if...

DAN: Before the game on Friday night a nice honor for you, you'll play in San Antonio, Texas in the US Army All-American bowl in January... TIM TEBOW: It's very exciting, we've known for a while but they didn't want us to let anyone know..its a huge honor and I am looking forward to it... DAN: I've heard that you may be making an announcement about your college intentions December 14th... TIM TEBOW: Yes sir, that's when ESPN wants me to do it..and they're doing this series thing too, so we're looking at that...but it's a good possibility we'll announce...

"Join Kenneth Copeland and his special guest Governor Mike Huckabee as they take a unique look at their life experiences and explore two foundational teachings: The Need for Character and Integrity and The Integrity of Character."

Something isn’t working in parenting and the school system. • 24% of high school students say they took a weapon to school at least once in the past year. (Josephson Institute of Ethics) • Adolescent suicide has increased 400% in 30 years. • The United States has the highest youth homicide and suicide rates among the 26 wealthiest nations in the world, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. • Every 7 minutes a child is arrested for a violent crime. US kids are 10 times more likely to commit murder than comparably aged youths in Canada. • 73% of...

Contenders for the GOP Presidential nomination bring not only the positions they espouse, but the additional spouses they have espoused. Does anyone have trophy wife bios and photos and stories of succession? This exploration is not totally even - Romney cannot enter, and Rudy can enter more than once - but in a campaign this long it would be interesting to know how our candidates walk the walk, and who walks with them.

All the breathless debates about Michael Vick are missing the point. The bigger issue has nothing to do with whether or not he deserves the right of due process, or whether NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should suspend him, or whether Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank should enable him or give him tough love. It's not even about whether ... Nike should be launching another designer shoe with his name on it. All of those are minor distractions from ...: How did someone like Michael Vick ever come to exist? Are we really ready to have that conversation? Do we dare...

June 29, 2007, 1:10 p.m. McCain’s Courage A rare American politician. By Tom Coburn As the American people, elected officials, and commentators reflect on the heated immigration debate that came to a temporary close in the Senate this week many will ask, and have asked, why U.S. Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) staked out a position that may, in retrospect, be seen as devastating to his presidential ambitions. I hope the American people, at least, step back from the obsessive play-by-play pre-season election analysis and reflect on Senator McCain’s actions for what I believe they were: One of the purest...

My mother had little use for arrogant people. She didn't like people without manners or civility, either. She took great offense at people who said things behind others's backs, too. In fact, my mother, though tolerant and kind to most people, too great offense at those who lacked, in her terms "character". One day at dinner, my mother commented on some people she had met during the day at her work (hospital food service department head), and how she was very put out a their behavior. "I just get so tired of "those kinds of people", she said. Well, me...

When are many of us (including me) going to issue our GREAT BIG PUBLIC APOLOGY to Bill Clinton--as Mike Huckabee has suggested last Sunday--if the Republican Party nominates someone who’s personal life is an absolute TRAIN WRECK, like Rudy Guiliani’s? When Bill Clinton was repeatedly slammed by many conservatives like myself, the Clinton sycophants loudly and repeatedly voiced their approved pathetic ‘talking points’ for the ‘Clinton Defense’, which included: (1) What he does with his personal life in meaningless--as long as he’s doing a good job, (2) I could care less about his personal life—as long as the economy is...

The Profile: Middle Aged. Balding. Big Paunch in the middle. Married. Teenage and adult children. Professional Wife. Businessman. Bad Teeth. Gee, that's a pretty generic profile, you say. Ok, let's get a bit more specific. Small Businessman. Goes to church at least 35 times a year, excluding weddings and funerals. Doesn't cheat on wife. Wife doesn't cheat on me, either. Shares grocery buying and cooking duties. Can find most nations immediately on a world map. No criminal history. Doesn't beat the wife nor kids. Doesn't molest children. Doesn't even swipe snacks from the "Honor" vendor boxes. End of profile. What,...

(KUTV) BOSTON - Former Massachusetts governor and Salt Lake Olympic chief Mitt Romney has gotten plenty of media attention this week – not for his political campaign, but rather for appearing in a comic strip. Romney, who is running for president, has appeared in the satirical comic strip Doonesbury all week long. The comic features Romney speaking to a fictional radio show host about his campaign, and his reported “flip flops” on certain issues. “Say it ain’t so, governor,” the radio host says in one of this week’s comic strips. “Changed positions on abortion, gun control and gay rights. What’s...

One of the most touching photos in years taken by an AP photographer moved across the wires last night (Thursday) and few newspapers published it. The Daily Mail did. It showed President Bush helping Robert Byrd walk. The occasion was the overdue awarding of a congressional Gold Medal to the Tuskegee airmen who served in World War II. There is irony there. But there also is compassion from President Bush. This may be why the photo received so little play in the newspapers today.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is considering whether to run for president, said on Tuesday the personal lives of White House hopefuls shouldn't become an issue in the 2008 campaign.Earlier this month Gingrich went on Focus on the Family founder James Dobson's radio program to confess and seek forgiveness for his own extramarital affair committed while he pursued President Clinton's impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.The former Georgia congressman said he's received a positive response from colleagues and others."Most Americans are very positive and very receptive," Gingrich said before a speech at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "Overall, it's been...

For all the policy blueprints churned out by presidential campaigns, there is this indisputable fact: People care less about issues than they do about a candidate's character. A new Associated Press-Ipsos poll says 55 percent of those surveyed consider honesty, integrity and other values of character the most important qualities they look for in a presidential candidate. Just one-third look first to candidates' stances on issues; even fewer focus foremost on leadership traits, experience or intelligence. "Voters only look at policies as a lens into what type of person the candidate is," said Ken Mehlman, chairman of President Bush's 2004...

What's Your Dark Ages Character?

Chuck Norris The truth will find you ouch I was not surprised to read this past week, WND's report about a rural pastor who discovered documents in the Smithsonian Institution's files that reveal a possible cover-up in identifying Ten Commandments displays in the U.S. Supreme Court. Is anyone shocked anymore to discover when one conceals the truth? It has become a normal way of life. Lying isn't the problem – getting caught is. But hasn't history (ours and others) taught us anything about the fact that lies will eventually be revealed and the truth will ultimately triumph? Pick a decade!...

January 22, 2007 Boot Camps Gaining Popularity With Korean Parents, Not Kids By CHOE SANG-HUN POHANG, South Korea — Spitting plumes of white smoke, a wave of South Korean amphibious assault vehicles lands on the freezing cold beach. Inside the armored vehicles, schoolchildren huddle in oversize helmets and camouflage fatigues. Some look terrified, but one girl snaps open a hand-held mirror to check her face before the landing. A 14-year-old boy dozes all the way to the beach. “Some of these kids are hard cases to crack,” said Sgt. First Class Shim Sang-kyu, a crew-cut marine, shouting above the noise...

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), poised to announce a White House bid, got a taste of the intense vetting that will take place in a presidential campaign. The Wednesday edition of the Washington Post ran a Page 1 story about Obama's drug use -- pot and cocaine -- under the headline, "Effect of Obama's Candor Remains to Be Seen." Obama wrote about trying cocaine in high school and using pot in his memoir, Dreams of My Father, published after he finished law school. Drug use was not an issue in his 2004 Illinois Senate race, either in the primary or general...

1. Murder, crime, terrorism, injustice, evil, none of these things bother you very much. Words terrify you and hurt your feelings. 2. You're very sensitive to being very sensitive. 3. You think the whole world thinks like you do. Or ought to. 4. You can't understand how somebody could enjoy harming, raping, torturing, and dismembering others. So you don't believe it really happens. 5. You get all of your news either from Internet message boards, from comedy shows on cable channels, from late night talk shows, from syndicated cartoons, or all of these things. You think anything that is popular...

UPI Poll: Character counts in election WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- The "values, morals and character" of a candidate top the pre-election selection process of participants in a UPI-Zogby International poll. The 8,086 likely U.S. voters who participated in a Zogby interactive poll were asked to select two areas of consideration as they prepare for Tuesday's election in the United States. The option "their values, morals and character" topped the results with 42.6 percent of those asked giving that response. That choice was first among Republican respondents -- 63.2 percent choose it -- and self-described independents, 39.2 percent of whom...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27, 2006 – The United States will win the war against global terrorism, Vice President Dick Cheney said at a Missouri military air base today, calling the conflict a test of American character. Terrorists in Iraq are making a stand now, and testing America’s resolve, Cheney told servicemembers at Whiteman Air Force Base, near Sedalia. Although much work lies ahead, “we will prevail in the war on terror, and that victory will mean a better and safer world for our children and grandchildren,” the vice president vowed. The U.S. military is fighting terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq, Cheney...

Feeling the collective aches in many stomachs lately, I thought maybe it was time for another rant? Where to begin? It was only a few days ago when we were riding high, enjoying the drop in gas prices and looking forward to a record stock market close. At the same time, our enemy on the Left was beginning to panic, having all their various attack strategies failing, as Bush rose in the polls at the same time that people started paying attention to the upcoming election cycle. I think it is important to look back beyond those days, and remember...

"I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous." -- Benjamin Franklin (The Busy-body, No. 3, 18 February 1728) Reference: The Works of Benjamin Franklin, Bigelow, ed., vol. 1 (350)

The Trouble with Turtle Bay Watching President George W. Bush’s address to the 61st Session of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, some of us couldn’t help but wonder: Why can’t we get along with the UN? Why can’t we make it work? After all, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea of an international body designed to provide a forum for the resolution of the grievances of its members. To be sure, the UN does a great many things very (or at least reasonably) well. UN agreements keep airplanes from colliding in the air and ships from colliding...