Congress Designs Its First Car

Keeping Warm in Washington

Things We'd Love to See

Hard Times and the Banking and Finance Com

VooDoo Economics

Bob and Harry, the Existentialists

Sen. Chris Dodd Got Most from Mortgage Cos

Christopher Dodd explains how the mortgage market crashed:

Sarah Palin Visits Maine

Now Is the Time to Invest in Fuel Economy!

Statemanship, Behind the Scenes

I'll Huff and I'll Puff and...

The Quest for the Perfect Car

Hurricane Season in Washington, D.C.

A Lipstick Smear Campaign

The Sky is Falling!

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Meanwhile, the feminists all stick together. They tried to put the sticks on Palin's bonfire but may yet be interrupted by Election Day, 2008.

http://townhall.com/blog/g/9b3375c7-6a27-4b5e-9204-b267282a1ce1

How They Deal with Storms Depends on Where They Live

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Paris for First Ho

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ROUND AND ROUND ...

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Will They Blame This on Global Warming?

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A NEW CAMPAIGN DIRECTION

Not AGAIN!?

Another View on the "Dream Team"

The HILLABEAST

"Republicrats"

Remember the Bridge to the 21st Century?

Just Who IS He?

The Real Barack Obama
By Ronald Kessler

Michelle Obama’s comment that, for the first time in her adult life, she feels proud of America helps crystallize who Barack Obama is.

To be sure, the wife of a candidate is perfectly free to have views that are distinct from her husband’s. But on a matter that is so fundamental to one’s being as love of country, it is difficult to imagine that Michelle Obama would publicly twice make such a statement suggesting disdain for America unless she felt it comported with her husband’s views.

Equally important, her statement aligns perfectly with the hate-America views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s minister, friend, and sounding board for more than two decades. On the Sunday following 9/11, Wright characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.

“In the 21st century, white America got a wake-up call after 9/11/01,” Wright wrote in his church magazine Trumpet. “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.”

Wright has been a key supporter of Louis Farrakhan, and in December, honored the Nation of Islam leader for lifetime achievement, saying he “truly epitomize[s] greatness.”

Farrakhan has repeatedly made hate-filled statements targeting Jews, whites, America, and homosexuals.

Those who think two of the closest people to Obama could publicly make anti-America statements unless Obama himself felt that way, are fooling themselves. To date, Obama has proven himself to be nothing more than a great orator, rendering the statements of those around him even more important in illuminating his true character and agenda. During his Senate career, he skipped 17 percent of the votes and sponsored only one bill that became law. That bill was to promote “relief, security, and democracy in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Bereft of official accomplishments, Obama has distinguished himself mainly by being against measures that protect American security, such as finishing the mission in Iraq. If we were to leave Iraq quickly, as Obama vows he would do, it would become a launch pad for al-Qaida attacks on the U.S.

Obama avoided voting on extending the Protect America Act, thus putting America at risk when immediate interception of terrorist communications is required. Last August, Obama voted against a measure that would have allowed the U.S. to continue to monitor overseas conversations of terrorists like Osama bin Laden without first obtaining a warrant.

If his radical vote had prevailed, bin Laden would have been given the same rights as Americans.
To this day, Obama has not distanced himself from most of Rev. Wright’s comments. In a statement supposedly issued to address the matter, Obama ignored the point that his minister and friend had spoken adoringly of Farrakhan and that Wright’s church was behind the award to the Nation of Islam leader. Instead, as outlined in a Jan. 17 Newsmax article, he disingenuously claimed he thought the magazine bestowed the award on Farrakhan for his efforts to rehabilitate ex-prisoners.

Neither Wright’s encomiums about Farrakhan nor the Trumpet article mentions ex-prisoners.
Similarly, after John McCain’s wife Cindy responded to Michelle Obama’s remarks by telling a Wisconsin rally, “I have, and always will be, proud of my country,” Barack Obama told a radio interviewer that his wife did not say what people think she said. He then proceeded to rewrite her comments, claiming that she had meant she was encouraged by the “large numbers of people” who have gotten involved in the political process. Michelle Obama then made a similar revision of her remarks.

In her speech in Milwaukee, Michelle Obama said flatly, “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country, and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.”

And what has been wrong with America up to now? That it gave Michelle the opportunity to attend Princeton and Harvard Law School? That it gave Barack Obama the chance to attend Harvard and Harvard Law School and become a U.S. senator making more than $1 million a year from book royalties?

Was it that America stopped Nazi Germany from continuing to murder millions of Jews? That America has provided Africa and other countries with $15 billion to combat the spread of AIDS/HIV and that another $30 billion is on the way? That 46 percent of all Americans classified by the Census Bureau as poor own their own homes, 76 percent of them have air conditioning, and 75 percent of them have at least one car? Or that America allows us to express our views freely without fear of being put in jail, as is the case in Russia?

A lawyer, Michelle Obama is perfectly capable of expressing herself precisely. In fact, she spoke from a written speech.

Those who do not want to believe she meant what she said — and that Barack Obama could not be so close to Rev. Wright if he did not himself believe in much of what he has said — are in denial.

The real Barack Obama is starting to emerge, and for those of us who are grateful to America for everything it represents, it is not a pretty sight.

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail.

Ted and Bill and Hill

UPDATE: Obama Paces Clinton in New Hampshire And SC

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton accused rival Sen. Barack Obama of changing positions on issues in a heated debate Saturday night, only three days before the nation's first primary in New Hampshire.

Support for former Sen. John Edwards, who edged out Clinton for second place in Iowa, dropped from 20 percent in Saturday's poll to 16 percent.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by a narrower margin -- 32 percent to 26 percent, the survey found -- while former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee moved to third place after winning last week in Iowa.

The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire, surveyed 341 likely Democrats and 268 Republicans likely to vote in Tuesday's primary. It had a sampling error of 5 percentage points.

"The Iowa caucus results have convinced growing numbers of Granite State voters that Obama can really go all the way," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said. "In December, 45 percent thought Clinton had the best chance of beating the GOP nominee.

But in Saturday's poll, Clinton and Obama were tied on that measure, and now Obama has a 42 percent to 31 percent edge over Clinton on electability." And CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider said the poll "strongly suggests an Obama surge in New Hampshire."

"Obama's gaining about three points a day, at the expense of both Clinton and Edwards," Schneider said. "Obama's lead has now hit double digits going into the home stretch." New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson ranked fourth among the Democratic contenders with 7 percent, while Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich trailed at 2 percent. Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel had less than one half of 1 percent support.

The big difference was in third place, where Huckabee -- whose upset win in Iowa came after being outspent by millions of dollars by Romney -- passed former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. In Saturday's poll, Giuliani had 14 percent and Huckabee had 11 percent; those numbers were reversed on Sunday.

The results suggest that Huckabee's win in Iowa, which saw him win strong support among evangelical Christian voters, is giving him momentum in more secular, libertarian-oriented New Hampshire, Schneider said. Anti-war Texas congressman and onetime Libertarian Party presidential nominee Ron Paul was in fifth place at 10 percent in the poll, with Rep. Duncan Hunter of California and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee both at 1 percent.

Meanwhile, the leading Democratic presidential candidates clashed Sunday heading into the slushy New Hampshire homestretch, deriding each others' claims to be the true candidate of change. Clinton told Democratic voters they should elect "a doer, not a talker." Obama countered that his critics are stuck in the politics of the past.

At a raucous rally in a high school gymnasium in Nashua, Clinton skewered Obama for several votes he has cast in the Senate, such as his vote in favor of the Patriot Act and for energy legislation she described as "Dick Cheney's energy bill." She never mentioned Obama's name but left no doubt about whom she was discussing. "You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose," Clinton said.

Obama, speaking at a packed Manchester theater, took issue with Clinton's criticism of him during Saturday's Democratic presidential debate.

"One of my opponents said we can't just, you know, offer the American people false hopes about what we can get done," he said. "The real gamble in this election is to do the same things, with the same folks, playing the same games over and over and over again and somehow expect a different result," he said. "That is a gamble we cannot afford, that is a risk we cannot take. Not this time. Not now. It is time to turn the page."

The rhetoric reflected the potentially pivotal nature of Tuesday's primary. Obama, the freshman Illinois senator, is hoping to sustain momentum from his caucus victory in Iowa, and Clinton is looking to recover from her stinging third-place finish.