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The troop surge in Iraq has been more successful than anyone could have imagined, Barack Obama conceded Thursday in his first-ever interview on FOX News. As recently as July, the Democratic presidential candidate declined to rate the surge a success, but said it had helped reduce violence in the country. On Thursday, Obama acknowledged the 2007 increase in U.S. troops has benefited the Iraqi people. “I think that the surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,” Obama said while refusing to retract his initial opposition to the surge. “I’ve already said it’s succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.” Speaking on...

Rightwing fodder-- Barack Obama Invesco Field convention tickets picture upside down US flags- an international symbol of distress. The DNC tickets printed for Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field show an upside down US flag on both sides. This is the international symbol of extreme distress. FOX 9 reported: Some viewers contacted 9NEWS Saturday, questioning the design of the credentials to see Sen. Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party's presidential nomination at INVESCO Field at Mile High. The viewers say with the stars and blue field in the lower left corner, it looks like an upside down American flag....

<p>DALLAS - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama side-stepped a pointed query about abortion on Saturday by “mega-pastor” Rick Warren during a televised forum.</p> <p>Asked at what point a baby gets “human rights,” Obama, who strongly supports abortion rights, said: “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”</p>

"We could save all the oil that they're talking about getting off drilling if everybody was just inflating their tires and getting regular tune-ups. You could save just as much."

Video. This one is a little unnerving. Either we’re missing something, or Obama needs medication and some quality time with a psychiatrist.

DRUDGE HEADLINE WITH PHOTO: "POLITICS HITS THE WALL: PRAYER FOR CHANGE"

Barack Obama's campaign said Sunday he will give a speech on the future of trans-Atlantic relations in front of a Prussian war monument in downtown Berlin _ in view of the historic Brandenburg Gate. The announcement that he will speak at the Victory Column, or Siegessaeule, ended weeks of speculation here. It also triggered criticism that the 226-foot column built in 1873 to celebrate Prussian war victories over Denmark, Austria and France was an inappropriate choice. One of Berlin's best-known monuments, the column is topped by a golden, winged figure representing Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory. It stood in...

The list of issues on which Barack Obama has flipped now that the primaries are over is long and growing rapidly: # He says he believes in a Second Amendment right to bear arms. # He now opposes late-term abortion. # He suddenly is a devotee of using faith-based institutions to deliver public services. # He now says that he won’t raise Social Security taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. In the primary, he said he’d eliminate the threshold entirely, including on people making as little as $100,000. # He recently opposed the Fairness Doctrine for talk...

Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama will appear at Carnegie Mellon University Thursday, hosting a round-table conversation on competitiveness and the world economy. The morning panel discussion, which will be closed to the public, includes speakers from industry, labor and the academic world.The participants are to include: Lael Brainard, vice president of the Brookings Institution; Eli Broad, founder of the Broad Foundation; Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children's Zone; Steve Case, chairman and CEO of Revolution Health and former chairman and CEO of America Online; Susan Hockfield, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Federico Pe??a, former U.S....

A runaway metaphor is not the worst sin in the world. But if former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig really is a potential national security adviser under President Obama, he's doing his potential future boss no favors when he talks like this: Richard Danzig, who served as Navy Secretary under President Clinton and is tipped to become National Security Adviser in an Obama White House, told a major foreign policy conference in Washington that the future of US strategy in the war on terrorism should follow a lesson from the pages of Winnie the Pooh, which can be shortened to: if...

“My grandfather marched in Patton’s army, but I cannot know what it is to walk into battle like so many of you,” he told a small group of veterans here Obama also spoke about his uncle, who was part of the American brigade that helped to liberate Auschwitz.

Obama Grilled on Ties to Pro-Palestinian Professor by FOXNews.com Thursday, May 22, 2008 A persistent questioner at a campaign stop Thursday grilled Barack Obama on his ties to a professor with pro-Palestinian views, prompting Obama to speak at some length against “guilt by association” and about his support for the Jewish community. The at-times heated exchange occurred during a town hall event held at a synagogue in Boca Raton, Fla. The questioner focused on Obama’s relationship to Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University who has drawn fire for some of his criticisms of Israel. Obama responded...

Likely Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama told supporters Iran is just a “tiny” country at a campaign stop in Oregon Sunday evening. "Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us,” Obama said. Obama’s rivals, including his fellow Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, have criticized Obama for his willing to meet with Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism. Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain issued a strong retort to Obama's assessment at a stop in Chicago on Monday. "The...

Democrat Barack Obama has a message for Tennessee's Republican Party: "Lay off my wife." ADVERTISEMENT Obama, his party's presidential front-runner, and his wife, Michelle, were asked in an interview aired Monday on ABC's "Good Morning America" about an online video last week by the state's GOP taking her to task for a comment some considered unpatriotic. "The GOP, should I be the nominee, can say whatever they want to say about me, my track record," Obama said. "If they think that they're going to try to make Michelle an issue in this campaign, they should be careful because that I...

So, round one of the 2008 foreign policy debate goes to ... Barack Obama? Improbable as it seems, in the first direct rhetorical showdown of the general election campaign - over a question, foreign policy "toughness", that's been a perceived Democratic weakness since Vietnam - it was the guy with the thin foreign policy résumé, suspected by some of his compatriots of being a Muslim, who out-punched the war hero with the extensive résumé. And shall I add that the one with the thin résumé and the strange name has a dodgy position on the question at hand, and yet...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Perhaps no one took greater comfort in the Republican Party's third straight loss of a long-held House seat this week than Barack Obama, who says the results point to clear limits in the effectiveness of attack ads he expects this fall. The Democratic presidential candidate played a prominent role in all three special elections to fill vacant GOP seats, and he landed on the winning side each time. In recent contests in Louisiana and Mississippi, Republicans or their allies ran TV ads linking the Democratic House nominees to Obama, warning that a vote for them was a...

By Amanda Carpenter Thursday, May 8, 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama flatly promised to raise taxes in a television interview Thursday afternoon. “I will raise CEO taxes,” Obama told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room.” “If you’re a CEO in this country you’ll probably pay more taxes,” Obama said. Obama speculated his CEO tax rates “won’t be prohibitively high, you’ll pay roughly what you did in the 90’s when they were doing fine.” Obama also said he would eliminate the Bush tax cuts and install what he called a “middle class tax cut.” Blitzer asked Obama to define...

Sen. Barack Obama won the endorsement of the Teamsters earlier this year after privately telling the union he supported ending the strict federal oversight imposed to root out corruption, according to officials from the union and the Obama campaign. It's an unusual stance for a presidential candidate. Policy makers have largely treated monitoring of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as a legal matter left to the Justice Department since an independent review board was set up in 1992 to eliminate mob influence in the union.

Live NOW on FOX, CNN, and MSNBC! The Holy Messiah Obama is throwing Rev, Wright under the Bus!!

U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, a Hebron Republican, compared Obama and his message for change similar to a "snake oil salesman" [at a Northern Kentucky Lincoln Day dinner]. He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a "highly classified, national security simulation" with Obama. "I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said. "He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country." -snip-

Senator Barack Obama fought back Saturday against accusations from his rivals that he had displayed a profound misunderstanding of small-town values, in a flare-up that left him on the defensive before a series of primaries that could test his ability to win over white voters in economically distressed communities. For a second day, Mr. Obama sought to explain his remarks at a recent San Francisco fund-raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters, bitter over their economic circumstances, “cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them” as a way to explain their frustrations. Acknowledging Saturday that “I didn’t...

<p>You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.</p>

Barack Obama seeks to portray himself as a new type of politician. He wants to lead us, he says, with hope for the future, change in the present and repudiation of the past eight years so that America can exchange the failed policies of the last eight years for those of the past one hundred years, He seeks, if you will, to transcend politics. But if you were to take an objective look at Obama, you could reasonably conclude that Obama transcends politics by making the typical politician appear more honest. With each passing day, a new lie springs forth...

Delegate for Obama quits over remark CARPENTERSVILLE, IL Says when she called black kids 'monkeys,' she was asking them to get out of tree April 8, 2008 BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Political Reporter/apallasch@suntimes.com Moving to nip in the bud some potential bad press, White House hopeful Barack Obama's campaign persuaded a delegate to step down after she was ticketed for calling her neighbor's African-American children "monkeys." Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Carpentersville village trustee, was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She sports an Obama sign in her front yard. On Saturday, two neighbor children were playing in...

Obama church published Hamas terror manifesto Compares charter calling for murder of Jews to Declaration of Independence ________________________________________ Posted: March 20, 2008 12:45 pm Eastern By Aaron Klein © 2008 WorldNetDaily JERUSALEM – Sen. Barack Obama's Chicago church reprinted a manifesto by Hamas that defended terrorism as legitimate resistance, refused to recognize the right of Israel to exist and compared the terror group's official charter – which calls for the murder of Jews – to America's Declaration of Independence. The Hamas piece was published on the "Pastor's Page" of the Trinity United Church of Christ newsletter reserved for Rev. Jeremiah...

Rev. Wright reprints "Hamas' Stand" in church bulletin!: ” Finding an article written by the deputy leader of Hamas, a globally designated terrorist organization, in Trinity Church of Christ’s bulletin on Rev. Jeremiah Wrights ‘Pastors Page’ is beyond shocking. This is just another troubling insight into Barack Obamas friend and spiritual mentor and, of course, Barack Obama himself who said in his speech he could never disown Wright as he is a part of himself. This is unbelievable: The July 22, 2007 Trinity United Church of Christ bulletin reprinted an article written by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy of the political...

Trying to put his past with Antoin "Tony" Rezko behind him, presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday said he never thought the nowindicted Chicago businessman would try to take advantage of him because his old friend had never asked for a political favor. But in a 90-minute interview with Tribune reporters and editors, Obama disclosed that Rezko had raised more for Obama's earlier political campaigns than previously known, gathering as much as $250,000 for the first three offices he sought. Obama also elaborated on previous statements about his private real estate transactions with Rezko, saying they were not simply mistakes...

A buddy of mine calls Obama Mohammed's Pony and I believe that is a good nickname for him. Barak was indeed the name of the horse that the prophet Mohammed supposedly leapt into heaven on. It is sometimes spelled Buraq. So Obama is named after Mohammed's horse. He is called Mohammed's Pony out of recognition of his total lack of qualifications and experience to be seeking the office of president of the United States.

Contest Profiles Real People's Creativity and Enthusiasm for Barack Obama Winner Will Run On National Television WASHINGTON, March 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- MoveOn.org joined forces today with Academy Award-winners Ben Affleck, Matt Damon and Oliver Stone, multiple Grammy-winner John Legend and author Naomi Wolf to announce a new ad contest, "Obama in 30 Seconds." The contest provides a platform for Obama supporters to show in 30-second spots what inspires them about the Senator's candidacy. MoveOn will buy time to run the winning ad on national television. "After eight years of President Bush campaigning on fear and war, people are feeling hopeful...

Apparently Jeremiah Wright has offered controversial analysis of 9/11 more than once. Courtesy Sweetness & Light, a column from Wright: In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01. 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. The hundreds of thousands who have been killed in Rwanda, in Angola, in Zimbabwe, in Mozambique and in Kenya are still invisible. There has been no international uproar about the...

CHICAGO - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday that Sen. John McCain reversed his position on President Bush's deep tax cuts in order to win the Republican presidential nomination, one of his sharpest criticisms yet of the Arizona senator he hopes to face this fall. Criticizing GOP efforts to extend major tax cuts from Bush's first term and to eliminate the estate tax, Obama said: "These are all steps that John McCain rightly said were irresponsible when they first came up." "He made a decision to reverse himself on that," Obama told reporters as he flew from Chicago to Washington...

This must be heard, several times, to be believed. Then, consider the influence your minister, rabbi or priest has had on you for the last TWENTY YEARS. This is the man who presided over their wedding, who christened their children...

This report, from January 2007, is worth reading as we learn more and more of what Jeremiah Wright is all about. It fawns over the principals (Wright, for example, is described as "a straight-talking pragmatist"), but it's illuminating about the regard Obama has for Wright and his views. Did you know, for example, that the Reverand is the inspiration for Obama's memoir The Audacity of Hope — the title is evidently taken from a Wright sermon called "Audacity to Hope." (I didn't until I heard Rush mention it a few minutes ago.) Some excerpts: Wright, 65, is a straight-talking pragmatist...

13 Percent of Registered Voters Think Obama Is a Muslim The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll asked respondents what Barack Obama's religion is. Among registered voters, 37 percent said Protestant. Two percent said Catholic, two percent said "other," two percent said "none." Forty-four percent said they weren't sure or refused to answer. Thirteen percent answered "Muslim." When the same pollster asked the question in December, 18 percent said Protestant, 2 percent said Catholic, 8 percent said Muslim, and 70 percent didn't know or refused to answer.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan received the "Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright,Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer" Award at the 2007 Trumpet Gala held on November 2, at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.

On a conference call today, Mark Penn -- the senior adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, declared that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, can't win the general election. Penn says that Obama can't win Pennsylvania, a primary which is key to the general. "We believe fundamentally it provides a very test of who can really win the general election," Penn says. "We believe this will again show Hillary is ready to win and Senator Obama really can't win a general election." After a reporter presses for clarification, the Clinton campaign denied Penn made the statement and Penn clarifies, saying: "I think...

Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11 Obama's Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Has a History of What Even Obama's Campaign Aides Say Is 'Inflammatory Rhetoric' By BRIAN ROSS and REHAB EL-BURI March 13, 2008— Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America." The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11...

Witness at Tony Rezko trial talks about his connections Rezko witness Thomas Beck said yesterday he's cousins with former longtime ward boss (and former parks superintendent) Ed Kelly. When asked today, Beck laughed. He explained that Kelly is his mother's sister's husband's sister's son. That got a laugh in the courtroom. He calls Kelly his cousin: "to make it simple for everyone." The two have known each other their whole lives, said Beck, former head of the state's health planning board. Beck testified he set up Kelly with a lawyer, Jeff Ladd, who hired Kelly as a consultant to represent...

It’s no wonder that Michelle Obama has never been proud of her country before or that Barrack Hussein Obama refuses to wear an American Flag pin on his lapel. This is a sermon by Jeremiah Wright, Chief pastor at the Trinity United Church of Christ where Obama and Michelle were members. In it he describes how a black Jesus was oppressed by white people and Pastor Wright proceeds even deeper down that well. A “Damning” Indictment of Left Wing HateAnd if you really want to see the hate filled influence that is so pervasive within the circle of liberals that...

(CNN) – One day after she stepped down from her role in Hillary Clinton's presidential bid, Geraldine Ferraro said she blames Barack Obama's campaign for the uproar over her recent comments. In an interview Thursday with CNN affiliate WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, the onetime vice presidential candidate also said the Obama campaign made a mistake in taking aim at her remarks."I do think this was a mistake on part of the Obama campaign," she said. "They didn't have to do this, and they did it to hurt Hillary. I just think that's bad. I think it's bad business, and...

It appears that Barack Obama, allegedly decent guy and agent of "change" in Washington, requested an earmark in 2006 for $1 million taxpayer dollars for the hospital where his wife works. Said hospital, by the way, gave Michelle Obama a huge raise (nearly $200,000, more than doubling her salary) in 2005 after Barack got elected to the United States Senate. Now, I know that there are lots of ways to talk about transactions like this involving public officials - quid pro quo, etc., but I prefer to call a crook a crook and just say that we're dealing with good,...

For a United States Senator, Barack Obama has been doing a lot of explaining about the company he has kept for the last 17 years or so. Take some Joe Blow Alderman off the streets of Chicago and examine his friends and acquaintances and you’re bound to come up with a couple of unsavory characters that straddle the line of legality with regard to city contracts or their business dealings. But Obama is not some regular Machine pol juicing the way for his ward heeling friends so they can grow fat and rich at taxpayer expense. He is a United...

MM’s (Michelle Malkin's) point about Obama adopting a cretin as his “spiritual guru” is well taken, but as loathsome as the good reverend is, I’m actually on Powers’s side on this one. The guilt-by-association game has gotten tiresome, with Josh Marshall’s attempt to hold McCain responsible for every objectionable word uttered by a conservative being the most imbecilic example. We all play it, me included, but I used to play the “every borderline joke by a liberal is a screaming outrage” game too and that’s also grown tedious. If Obama cut ties with Wright now, would you think any more...

New: Two area pols on Rezko witness listMarch 13, 2008 FROM STAFF REPORTS Two Fox Valley politicians are on a list of possible witnesses in the trial of Tony Rezko, an indicted businessman and political fundraiser. Illinois Minority House leader Tom Cross, R-Oswego, and Republican DuPage County state’s attorney Joe Birkett were named on the list alongside high-profile politicians such as Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and former GOP Gov. Jim Edgar. Jurors could be hearing as many as 237 names, according to a 33-page questionnaire made public this week that’s to...

When Barack Obama promises change for America, I graciously assume, for now, that he doesn't mean he will change America to conform to his apparently racist pastor's vision for this country, though that whole subject deserves far more scrutiny. But we should also seriously examine his promise to deliver a more harmonious climate. It's not just Obama. A lot of Democrats have been pushing the idea of bipartisanship for years. One of the Democrats' earliest criticisms of President Bush was that he didn't reach across the aisle and extend a hand to Democrats. Of course, the truth is precisely the...

One of Obama's Earmarks Went to Hospital That Employs Michelle Obama. In the list of earmarks he requested, $1 Million was requested for the construction of a new hospital pavilion at the University Of Chicago. You know who works for the University of Chicago Hospital? Michelle Obama. She's vice president of community affairs. As Byron noted, "In 2006, the Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just...

Obama says that rather than advising him on strategy, Wright helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated. "What I value most about Pastor Wright is not his day-to-day political advice," Obama said. "He's much more of a sounding board for me to make sure that I am speaking as truthfully about what I believe as possible and that I'm not losing myself in some of the hype and hoopla and stress that's involved in national politics." Wright has continued on an independent path ever since, often questioning the common sense of Scripture, objecting to mandatory prayer in...

While senators gravely speak about the nation's fiscal health all day during the Senate budget debate, they're not above making purely political points aimed at embarrassing one another. To wit: Sen. Wayne Allard, a Republican from Colorado, has crafted a massive budget amendment that claims to fund every policy proposed by Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on the presidential campaign trail. Allard's amendment — doomed to fail by a significant margin — includes $1.4 trillion in spending over five years by proposing Obama's universal health care program ($65 billion a year), expanding the Army ($6.6 billion a year) and eliminating income...

Barack Obama's words are often attractive but oddly concealing. His speeches are all balm and mood. It's all very well to seek, as Mr. Obama claims, to transcend old categories, to reject the "old politics." But then what? This graceful rhetorician leaves you wondering: Who is he really? What does he want for himself and for his country? In search of answers that go deeper than the Congressional Record, I read his first book, "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance." Once you get past the happy surprise of finding a politician who can actually write, the...

Democrat Barack Obama ridiculed the idea of being Hillary Rodham Clinton's running mate Monday, saying voters must choose between the two for the top spot on the fall ticket. The Illinois senator used his first public appearance of the week to knock down the notion that he might accept the party's vice presidential nomination. He noted that he has won more states, votes and delegates than Clinton so far. "I don't know how somebody who is in second place is offering the vice presidency to the person who is first place," Obama said, drawing cheers and a long standing ovation...