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In Norway they may think that President Barack Obama has a great knack for peace, but around here his forte seems to be stirring up strife. New Orleans is mad because Obama's visit tomorrow will be little more than a whistlestop. The Mississippi Gulf Coast is mad because New Orleans gets all the attention, such as it is, while the lingering effects of Katrina over there are ignored. And from southwest Louisiana comes the cry, "What about Rita, Gustav and Ike? The president really needs to take a look at Cameron Parish." Obama is also being denounced for an apparent...

Gordon Brown has made an overtly religious call for a new world order based on the 'deep moral sense' shared by all faiths. Making the first speech by a serving Prime Minister at St Paul's Cathedral in London, he quoted scripture as he urged people to unite to forge a new 'global society'. The Prime Minister argued that through all faiths, traditions and heritages runs a 'single powerful modern sense demanding responsibility from all and fairness to all'. He quoted the Christian doctrine of 'do to others what you would have them do unto you' and highlighted similar principles in...

Will ending the culture wars be as difficult as repairing a broken economy? If President Obama's primary task is to restore economic growth, he has also been waging a quiet, long-term campaign to ease the nation's divisions around religious and moral questions. That venture, which has its roots in a 2006 speech that paid tribute to the political role of religious Americans, bore fruit in last year's election. Obama increased the Democratic share of the vote among Roman Catholics and younger evangelical Christians. Since assuming the presidency, he has pressed this effort through persistent calls to personal and family responsibility,...

Unprecedented press coverage of the Inauguration means an audience which could top the Super Bowl as the whole world makes an American moment into a global one.

If Europe wants to phone America on the Gaza crisis, who does it call? Not George Bush, who has two weeks left in the White House. And not Barack Obama, who has been mute on Israel’s military action, although the world looked to him immediately the conflict filled the screens. “Nobody at home in Washington”, ran one US headline on the turmoil. “President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,” said Brooke Anderson, his chief national security spokeswoman. This is disingenuous. Even if silence is meant only as...

Canadians have made some mighty distinctive music, and CBC wants Barack Obama to know it. Starting next week, Canadians will collect some choice homegrown songs for the new president to groove to as he takes office Jan. 20. CBC Radio 2 is calling on the public to take care of business, tune-wise - to help select 49 songs from north of the 49th parallel that best represent the northern nation. "We believe that a country is defined by its artistic expression. If you wanted to know about Canada you just close your eyes and listen to our songs," said Denise...

Villagers hold posters of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama in the village of Cavustepe in the province of Van, eastern Turkey. ANKARA, Turkey — Residents of a mainly Kurdish village in southeastern Turkey have sacrificed 44 sheep to celebrate the election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States. Dogan news agency video Friday shows villagers in Cavustepe village, in the province of Van, bordering Iran, holding Obama posters smeared with blood. In overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey, the practice is believed to protect people or property from bad luck. The posters read "you are one of us" and...

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn): "Barack Obama was a community organizer like Jesus, who our minister prayed about. Pontius Pilate was a governor."

For reasons only "progressive" minds can fathom, several bloggers on the left think—or more likely, are perhaps wishing—that Sarah Palin, John McCain's newly-announced choice for Vice President, will drop out of the Presidential race. Jeralyn Merritt, probably once the most consistently rational member of the leftist blogosphere, is actively promoting a drop-out pool. Merritt claims that McCain must force Palin out because she wasn't adequately vetted, and then quite seriously suggests that Obama was: Obama presented himself for 17 months to the American people, they heard him debate more than a dozen times, they made their own decision that he...

A photo essay of Barak-O-polis at the link.

These hagiographic pictures are displayed in Denver during the DNC featuring the One.

"Well, how could they be jamming us if they don't know...if we're coming?" - Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) If you watch TV or go to the movies, you're already pretty familiar with the black sidekick. From Rochester to Robin Quivers, there is frequently at least one African American in the crew to provide a little flavor and a little, um, color. Spenser: For Hire had Hawk, Bruce Springsteen had Clarence Clemons, and Han Solo had Lando Calrissian, but now the country might have a black guy sitting in the big chair and his lieutenant, his road dog, his ace...

Hillary Clinton would have won this election. Joe Biden would have won this election. Bill Richardson would have won this election. Barack Obama just might lose this election. Has anybody noticed that, in this Year of the Democrat, Barack Obama is starting to choke? In a year when voters seem fed up with all things Republican, and poll after poll pitting a hypothetical Democrat against a hypothetical Republican shows the GOP candidate getting slaughtered, Barack Obama is in a dead heat with the oldest and least-inspiring man ever to run for the presidency. Is it time to start recognizing that...

Obama, his campaign trying to transcend it -- but can't I can't be the only person who sees the snake in the room. The one that slithers away whenever the political pundits start explaining what the latest presidential poll means. From the moment Barack Obama went from a wannabe presidential contender to a front-runner, the race factor curled up and waited to strike anyone who got too close. Former President Bill Clinton got bit. So did the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Still, whenever commentators talk about the close contest between Obama and John McCain, they ignore the snake. Yet anyone who...

When it comes to the end times, there isn't much that I agree with Hal Lindsey about. Hal Lindsey, author of the huge (and phenomenally misguided) "Late Great Planet Earth" and rapture promoter wrote a column last week comparing the reception received by Barack Obama on his world tour to the reception that the Antichrist will one day receive. After describing some of the detail of Obama's trip, Lindsey says this: And the Bible says that such a leader will soon make his appearance on the scene. It won't be Barack Obama, but Obama's world tour provided a foretaste of...

"WASHINGTON: A day after Senator Barack Obama said he could support broad energy legislation even though it would permit offshore oil drilling, which he has opposed, an aide to Senator John McCain said Sunday that he too might support such a package."

Something's going on. Or some things. A new CNN/Opinion Research poll out Wednesday shows that despite nine solid days of blanket media coverage from overseas with Barack Obama cheered by adoring throngs of Germans and parlez-vousing with the French, making a three-point shot in the Middle East and standing outside No. 10 Downing Street, the freshman Illinois Democratic presidential nominee to be Senator Barack Obama of Illinois stayed static in the polls despite his well-covered long foreign tripsenator is stuck right where he was in the polls before he left.

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee (RNC) today launched a new Web Site, titled “Obama Audacity Watch.” From Obama’s fond memories of “when I was a United States Senator” to his short-lived “presidential” seal, the Web site tracks his audacious comments. The Web site features news and video clips, and will be continually updated through Election Day. To view the RNC’s new Web site “Obama Audacity Watch,” click here. To learn more about Barack Obama, visit: www.MeetBarackObama.com.

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...