Free Republic

Nobody can dispute that Barack Obama opposed the Iraq war from the start and, with striking prescience, predicted U.S. troops would be mired in a costly conflict that fanned "the flames of the Middle East." But nobody should accept at face value the Illinois senator's claim that he was a "courageous leader" who opposed the war at great political risk. The truth is that while Obama showed foreign policy savvy and an ability to keenly analyze both sides of an issue in his October 2002 warnings on Iraq, the political upside of his position rivaled any risk. And, once elected...

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton drew another distinction between herself and Sen. Barack Obama yesterday, refusing to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama bin Laden or other terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Clinton's comments came in response to Obama's remarks earlier in the day that nuclear weapons are "not on the table" in dealing with ungoverned territories in the two countries, and they continued a steady tug of war among the Democratic presidential candidates over foreign policy. "I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance" in Afghanistan or Pakistan,...

Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democratic party's frontrunners for the White House, are locked in a battle that has unleashed a raft of negative campaigning as their party debates who should be its 2008 presidential candidate. An ugly fight between the two politicians raged all last week in the first serious bout of open infighting in the current Democratic political campaign. Previous spats had broken out between campaign officials, but now the candidates are openly attacking each other. There are signs that the fight has damaged both the top-tier candidates and perhaps opened a door of opportunity to...

Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama cast himself as the leader the US needed to stand up to and engage renegade nations such as North Korea. ’We need a president who’ll have the strength and courage to go toe-to-toe with the leaders of rogue nations, because that’s what it takes to protect our security,“ the Illinois senator told Democrats at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa. “That’s what I’ll do as your next commander in chief.” Obama and rival Hillary Clinton have had a running argument since clashing in last week’s debate over how far the US should be willing to...

“Obama Just Got Less ‘Brown’ Friendly,” reads the Indian American blog Sepia Mutiny. The US-India Political Action Community, having elicited one tepid pseudo-apology from the Barack Obama campaign, then demanded an acceptably contrite expression of contrition. Barack Obama’s macaca moment is hardly the campaign killer that George Allen’s proved to be, but the spectacle of a Kenyan Kansan would-be president deflecting criticism from pro-trade Indian Americans is at least more interesting. Last week, Obama’s campaign sent out a not-for-attribution memo to media professionals, slamming Hillary Clinton for courting Indians and the Indian American Community. The dossier, delicately titled “Hillary Clinton...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday that fathers have to share the responsibility for raising children and caring for families because their role doesn't end at conception. Days before Father's Day, the first-term Illinois senator and father of two daughters delivered his life message as well as an assessment of what government needs to do in remarks at a Baptist church. "What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise a child," Obama said. In his prepared text, Obama said: Men need to "stop acting like boys - who need...

Republican Rudy Giuliani once derided Hollywood in his Senate bid against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Today, as he pursues the presidency, he's collecting checks from actors Adam Sandler and Kelsey Grammer, and Paramount studio chief Brad Grey. The entertainment industry has always been a wealth of cash for political candidates—a whopping $27.5 million in the 2004 election cycle—and Democrats traditionally have been the top draw. In the last election, $7 out of every $10 from the industry went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Yet, the latest campaign finance reports show Republicans making some inroads, not only with...

We sat around the dinner table, a group of 50-something progressive feminists, talking to a friend from England about presidential politics. We were all for Hillary, weren’t we, he asked. Hillary? We hated Hillary. He was taken aback. Weren’t we her base? Wasn’t she one of us? Why did we hate Hillary? Of course, a lot of people seem to hate Hillary. According to some polls, anywhere from 39 to 50 percent of respondents claim they’d vote against her no matter what; her “negatives” continue to be high. Many of these are Republicans and men. But many are not. According...

Fred Thompson isn't the only 'Law and Order' character eyeing the 2008 presidential campaign. Inside Sam Waterston’s efforts to help promote a third-party ticket. The actor Sam Waterston, who plays the hard-hitting assistant D.A. in “Law and Order,” has a confession to make. “I’m a moderate,” he declared in a speech at the National Press Club. “You’re looking at a bird rarely seen in Washington, even in springtime.” Waterston was in town to promote Unity ’08, an Internet scheme to launch a third-party ticket, made up of a Republican and a Democrat, to run together against the two major party...

Obama criticizes war in Iraq during Ames visit By Charlotte Eby, Journal Des Moines Bureau AMES, Iowa -- A day after jumping into the presidential race, Democrat Barack Obama began the courting of Iowa party activists Sunday with a blistering critique of the war in Iraq. More than 6,000 people who came to hear him at the Iowa State University campus saved their biggest cheers for his criticism of the war. "We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion and have...

PRIME Minister John Howard has been described as bizarre and irrelevant by US Democrats after he launched an attack on Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Mr Howard said yesterday al-Qaeda would be praying for an Obama-led White House because Senator Obama has promised to withdraw US combat troops from Iraq by March 2008. A string of Democrats have reacted angrily to Mr Howard's comments which have received widespread media coverage in the US. Terry McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Convention, criticised Mr Howard's strong links to US President George W. Bush. "The prime minister has been a...

Barack Hussein Obama fired back at Autralian PM John Howard today, invoking the familiar “nutroots” chickenhawk meme. Responding to Howard’s criticism of Obama’s Iraq surrender-by-May plan, Obama lashed out at Howard by minimizing the Australian troop commitment of 1400, and said that if Howard believes so strongly in the American effort, he should commit an additional 20,000 Australian troops. (I have been reminded that “stategic redeploment” does not mean “surrender”, but failing to see the difference, I have decided to continue to use my original characterization.) Perhaps Obama thinks Howard is an easy target. Given Obama’s lack of experience on...

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (Reuters) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama (news, bio, voting record), citing the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, pledged on Saturday to bridge the partisan gridlock in Washington, end the war in Iraq and transform American politics as the first black U.S. president. Launching his 2008 White House campaign outside the building in where Lincoln began his fight against slavery with a famous 1858 speech that declared "a house divided against itself cannot stand," Obama said it was time to "turn the page" to a new politics. "Let us begin this hard work together. Let us transform this nation,"...

George Soros, the billionaire New York philanthropist, has made maximum donations in the past to both candidates, for instance, and last week he faced a choice: support Mr. Obama, who created his committee on Tuesday, or stay neutral and see what Mrs. Clinton and others had to say. In this case, Mr. Obama won. Mr. Soros sent the maximum contribution, $2,100, to Mr. Obama, the first-term senator from Illinois, just hours after he declared his plans to run. “Soros believes that Senator Obama brings a new energy to the political system and has the potential to be a transformational leader,”...

Boston (CNSNews.com) - Without a formidable Republican opponent in his U.S. Senate race, Barack Obama has little reason not to take money from billionaire liberal financier George Soros, a man other Democrats keep at a distance. ...Obama, however, is different from most Democrats because of his willingness to embrace the controversial Soros. Shortly after Soros equated the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Obama joined him for a New York fund-raiser June 7.Little has been made of his connection to Soros, although it is quite unique. Not only did George Soros donate...

After only being a U.S. Senator for a couple of years, Barak Hussein Obama, Democrat Senator from Chicago, has managed to catapult himself to the status of a messiah in the Democrat Party. The result is that, ever since, he's been walking on water toward the White House. Obama says after his visit with friends and family in Hawaii during the 2006 year-end holidays, he'll announce if he's going to run for president in 2008. Bets are that he will. Who is Obama and what has he done? Independent columnist, Andy Martin (Out2.com) says he believes Obama is a political...

In 1994, two sociologists went to Red Hook, Brooklyn, to solve a mystery. Red Hook abutted the East River, and along the waterfront sat shipping companies and warehouses — all in need of low-skilled labor. Next door sat a housing project teeming with exactly that. But the locals — primarily African Americans — didn't get hired. Instead, the jobs went to workers from outside the neighborhood, often Caribbean immigrants. Employers, wrote The New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell in summarizing the sociologists' findings, "had developed an elaborate mechanism for distinguishing between those who they felt were 'good' blacks and those they felt...

Even if you are not a Muslim, calling someone a Muslim in America is a common political technique to destroy a candidate’s chances for election. Barack Obama is best known as an overnight political success story. Only a few years ago, he was just a local legislator in the Illinois State Senate. Two years ago, we was slated for the US Senate and won. Today, he is seen as a potential candidate for president of the United States. And, he is African American. And, his middle name is Hussein, and his father was, in Obama’s own words, an African “goat...

“Swift boating” is a term that came into use during the 2004 presidential election to reflect Senator John Kerry’s flaccid response to attacks on his wartime record in Viet-Nam. The term, a noun, adjective and verb, has entered the political lexicon and is usually invoked when liberals and Democrats are stung trying to defend themselves against unpleasantly truthful accusations hurled by conservatives. Well, “swift boating” is obviously a two-way street in politics. Democrats are equally adept at hurling painful accusations at Republicans and conservatives. I have no problem with people bringing the truth to light, digging up unpleasant facts and...

One of the most entertaining opportunities that will emerge in 2007 will be using Barack Obama to fight Islamofascism. He is the product of a black Moslem from Kenya, Barrack Hussein Obama, and a white atheist from Kansas, Shirley Ann Dunham, who met at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. That is why his middle name is the same as Saddam’s: Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. His first name is taken from the Islamic term in Arabic for “blessed,” baraka, used in the Koran. His father deserted the family when Barack Jr. was two and returned to Kenya. His mother then...