…it’s obviously time to take a look at Sen. Obama’s worldview and how much it is influenced by his spiritual adviser and “sounding board”, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Further down in the article linked there, this connection was raised:

The candidate already has heeded his church’s “nonnegotiable commitment to Africa,” spending an inordinate amount of his campaign time on the Kenyan crisis, for one. Obama has close family ties to Kenya, and even founded a school in his ancestral village — the Senator Obama School.

In the bloody conflict there, which already has claimed some 700 lives, Obama appears to have sided with opposition leader Raila Odinga, head of the same Luo tribe to which Obama’s late Muslim father belonged.

Obama’s older brother still lives there. Abongo “Roy” Obama is a Luo activist and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must “liberate himself from the poisoning influences… click here to read whole article and make comments

Yes, President George Bush has made a big impact on the Supreme Court of the United States.

Now, as Bush enters the last months of his presidency, he has come close to accomplishing his goal. He is likely to end up with fewer total judicial appointments than this two-term predecessors, Reagan (1981-89) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001). Yet Bush has appointed conservatives to lifetime posts with the potential to affect the law in America for decades.

“I think that what he has done on judges is his major triumph,” says political science professor Sheldon Goldman at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who has been tracking judges since the 1960s. “In almost every other area, domestic policy and foreign policy, there have been failures. But with judges, it’s a major success story.”

But look at the evidence of how hard the Democrats are still fighting his appointments, which is… click here to read whole article and make comments

The guy who filed this lawsuit last August probably never imagined, in his wildest dreams, it could turn out to be so….pivotal.

Atlanta could become the center of the political storm on Monday when a federal appeals panel hears a lawsuit that seeks to force the Democratic National Committee to seat all of Florida’s delegates at the party’s national convention in August.

The suit was filed in August in Tampa on behalf of Floridian Victor DiMaio. It claims the DNC violated his constitutional rights when it stripped Florida’s Democratic Party of all 210 of its delegates to the convention as punishment for holding its Jan. 29 presidential primary earlier than DNC rules allow.

This is like some obscure atheist who files a suit in court alleging that a Christian symbol somewhere violates his constitutional rights…..and the thing blows up into a big media affair that winds up stripping some… click here to read whole article and make comments

Anybody know?

You have to search for coverage. Here’s an interesting piece. It actually analyzes an issue.

Fellow Americans, choose your revolution. One way or another, we’re getting a new health-care system. The old one is obviously broken. The U.S. now has 47 million uninsured, and costs are out of control…

The crisis has gotten so severe that fixing the system is no longer a partisan issue. Everyone understands that something has to change, and fast. In this presidential race, both sides are proposing radical fixes that would totally transform the way health care is delivered and paid for in America. Both the Democrats and the Republicans embrace the same goals: John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton are all putting forth ways of making health care affordable for every American and stopping a disastrous escalation in costs. Both sides also envision a world where employers play a much smaller… click here to read whole article and make comments

The great success of Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has proven that America is finally getting past the barriers of race and the injustice of racial discrimination. Or so say respected journalists like Peggy Noonan, among others.

On the other hand, Obama’s campaign is the source of charges and accusations of racism when just about anyone criticizes the senator, or even raises his African-American heritage as a benefit, as Geraldine Ferraro just found out. But unlike others who back down quickly, Ferraro is not intimated or willing to let her words be turned into a campaign tactic.

Former vice presidential candidate and Hillary Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro fought back against charges of racism Wednesday, defending comments she made earlier this week that Barack Obama “would not be in this position” if he were white.

Speaking with FOX News on Wednesday, Ferraro said her comments are being misconstrued, and that she… click here to read whole article and make comments

Wasn’t that a line in a Neil Diamond song? Increasingly, columnists are applying it to the Obama campaign.

It is not actually clear that Obama has sought to make his campaign such a cult of personality, but whether sought or not, this is how he has been received. The traveling revivalist cabaret has certainly helped Obama immensely, and contributed to his electoral strength, but it also carries serious risks for him. In the long run, the messianic flavor of his campaign could endanger his support from the very quarters now most receptive to the message; and even in the short run it could hurt him with blue-collar voters who have little patience for the grand production.

It’s going to become a problem for the cultural elites, too, Levin predicts. After all, they’re ”powerfully allergic to forthright displays of devotion and fervor”. This can’t last, he suggests.

How long can a politician go… click here to read whole article and make comments

He’s plenty ticked that the Clintons are floating the idea of Obama as VP.

In a fiery rebuttal to suggestions emerging over the past week, Barack Obama on Monday shot down suggestions he become Hillary Clinton’s wing man and questioned the logic of those who say he is prepared for the vice presidency but not to be president.

Understandable, given his standings throughout the primaries.

“I am not running for vice president, I am running for president of the United States of America. I am running to be commander in chief,” Obama boomed to applause. “I don’t know how somebody in second place is offering vice president to the person in first place.”

But, Sen. Obama, you know it’s not based on logic. It’s strategy. Clinton strategy.

Clinton began talking up the idea of a “dream ticket” last week when she suggested that maybe… click here to read whole article and make comments

Is currently Mississippi. 

There’s no stopping the daily onslaught, from the politicians and the media. Click on that link. The most interesting thing there is the video of Saturday Night Live you can launch about midway down the page. If you didn’t catch it on Saturday night, don’t worry. It’s been all over the news shows, as SNL continues to be a prominent player in the Democratic campaign.

We have to laugh, to make it through this thing. Yes, it’s exciting. It’s also intense and wearisome at times (though some Democrats are calling it worrisome).

But now the threat of stalemate, vituperation and disillusionment hangs over a contest structured to declare a verdict a month ago. Potential fallout could imperil Democratic hopes for both the presidency and larger Congressional majorities.

“I’m very concerned,” said Representative Mark Udall of Colorado, who needs Democrats in his state to unite… click here to read whole article and make comments

Not for others. That’s the illogic in Barack Obama’s world. Creative Minority Report calls it mad.

Watch the video, it’s very short. Read the comments below it. This is all over the blogosphere, and obviously on YouTube.

It goes back to the incongruity of Obama’s position of advocating for civil rights while working in partnership with the abortion movement to deny rights to the most vulnerable little lives in our country.

Just to remind people again what this was all about - what’s in that YouTube video and behind the story linked above here in the Forum - let’s go back to the story within the story.

Here’s a summary, picking up after Obama refused to approve the Born Alive Infants Bill in the Illinois Senate, the only senator to do so:

That June, the U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of the Born… click here to read whole article and make comments

Some are debating whether they should.

Speaking of which, the new issue of Voices is out, and I’ve got this piece continuing the examination of the state of that union in current affairs.

A snip:

Do faith and politics intersect?

No. They serve the public interest and the common good together. They are mutually supportive, or are intended to be by the Founding Fathers. That terminology of the two intersecting has been used in mainstream media essentially since the 2004 elections when the Democratic party began to see the need to appeal to the religious vote. But an “intersection” implies two separate roads meeting at a cross point, when in fact the Church teaches that faith informs everything we do. Communications, politics, voting are all moral acts.

Someone’s values, someone’s worldview and vision of what constitutes morality, will prevail in society.… click here to read whole article and make comments