As Candidate, Obama Carves Antiwar Stance

A generally favorable article that I suspect will be on the front page of tomorrow's NYT.  This is very true:

These days Mr. Obama dismisses the suggestion that it was easier for him to speak against the war because he was not serving in the Senate and therefore not obligated to vote on the matter. He recalled worrying, at the time, that he might lose his Senate primary election because of his decision to oppose the Iraq invasion.

“It certainly didn’t look like a cost-free decision when Saddam Hussein’s statue was being pulled down in Baghdad,” Mr. Obama said in an interview. “I was in a hotel room in the middle of my Senate campaign, watching that happen, and President Bush’s job approval rating was at 60 percent. Those who voted for the authorization felt pretty good.”

-------------------

As Candidate, Obama Carves Antiwar Stance

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: February 26, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/us/politics/26obama.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — Senator Barack Obama is running for president as one of the few candidates who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, a simple position unburdened by expressions of regret or decisions over whether to apologize for initially supporting the invasion.

In Clinton's Backyard, It's Open Season as an Obama Fund-Raiser Lines Up Donors

It's great to see Obama getting a lot of traction among big money in NYC -- I'm getting emails from A LOT of people about Obama and the March 9th events.

The race was on for New York’s prized political donors, and Mr. Johnson, one of Senator Barack Obama’s leading fund-raisers in the city, was trying to poach in the heart of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s financial territory.

Before the day was up, Mr. Johnson got about a dozen people on the phone with the pitch that Mr. Obama represented “a generational shift” away from the partisan chokehold gripping Washington. A few told him they were not ready to give, but more than half said they were willing to sign checks and come to a March 9 fund-raiser at the Grand Hyatt New York.

--------------------

In Clinton’s Backyard, It’s Open Season as an Obama Fund-Raiser Lines Up Donors

 

By ERIC KONIGSBERG

Published: February 24, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/02/24/us/politics/24bundler.html

Twenty-eight stories above Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, Jeh Johnson was dialing away.

Peggy Noonan with a very interesting and accurate take on the Geffen/Obama/Hillary dustup:

Mr. Geffen should be braced for a lot of bad personal box office -- negative press, searching profiles, strained relations. We're probably about to see if the Clinton Machine can flatten him. Little doubt it will try. John Dickerson wrote in Slate this week of Bill Clinton generously sharing his campaign wisdom: "Your opponent can't talk when he has your fist in his mouth." Among some Democratic political professionals this kind of talk is considered tough and knowing, as opposed to, say, startlingly belligerent and crude.

But the outcome of the Geffen-Clinton episode is worthy of watching because it is going to determine whether it is remembered as the moment in the 2008 campaign when it became clear you are allowed to criticize Hillary -- or as the moment it became clear you are not.

Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton's spokesman and an emerging dark prince among political operatives -- he is, in the strange way of Washington, admired by journalists for his ability to mislead them -- quickly responded with a challenge: If Mr. Obama is a good man, he'll renounce Mr. Geffen and give back the money he contributed in his famous Hollywood fund-raiser. This was widely considered a brilliant move. Is it? Now everyone who follows politics even cursorily will have to have an opinion on whether Mr. Obama should apologize, which means they'll have to know exactly what Mr. Geffen said, which, again, boiled down, is: I've known them intimately for almost 20 years, and they're bad people and bringers of trouble. It's good for Mrs. Clinton that America is going to spend the weekend discussing this? It's good that Mr. Geffen's comments, which focused on the area on which she is most touchy and most vulnerable -- the character issue -- will be aired over and over again? Mr. Wolfson might have been better off with, "We're sorry to hear it, as Mrs. Clinton thinks the world of David."

Mrs. Clinton has never gone after a fellow Democrat quite the way she's going after Mr. Obama, and it's an indication of how threatened she is not only by his candidacy but, one suspects, his freshness. He makes her look like yesterday. He makes her look like the old slash-and-burn. I doubted he could do her serious damage. Now I wonder.

--------------------

A Surmountable Hill

By PEGGY NOONAN
February 24, 2007; Page P16

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117226320515017638.html

Republicans and conservatives have been trying to sink Mrs. Clinton for years, but she keeps bob-bob-bobbing along. "Oh those Clinton haters, what's wrong with them?"

Only a Democrat could hurt her, and a Democrat just did. Hollywood titan David Geffen, who now supports Barack Obama, this week famously retagged the Clintons as an Ivy League Bonnie and Clyde. Bill is "reckless," Hillary relentless -- "God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary?" In an interview that seemed like an audience, with the New York Times's Maureen Dowd, Mr. Geffen said, "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling." In this he was, knowingly or unknowingly, echoing Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator, who said in 1996 of the then-president, "Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good. Do you realize that?" Mr. Kerrey suffered for the remark and was shunned within his party for a while, but didn't retract.

In her column Ms. Dowd labeled the campaign operation "Hillary Inc." but Mr. Geffen got closer to the heart of it: It is the Clinton "machine" and it "is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective."

He's probably about to find out how true that is.

Anyone who thinks McAuliffe is joking needs their head examined.  It's hard to find a better example of the dark side of politics.

At a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton in Hollywood two weeks ago, as Mr. McAuliffe told the story in an interview on Thursday, he joked in a crowded room that big contributors would be honored with limo rides with the new president while those who wrote checks to, say, Mr. Obama could give up their dreams of access.

“Clarence Avant’s daughter was there, he’s a friend of mine, and I looked at her and in front of 500 people I said, If you don’t contribute, you’re not going to get that ambassadorship to France,” he said, referring to the former chairman of Motown Records. “It’s a joke! I said it in front of 500 people.”

The Los Angeles Times quoted Mr. McAuliffe as saying at that event, “You are either with us or you’re against us,” a remark Mr. McAullife and other attendees said was jocular.

-------------------------

February 23, 2007

Detour From High Road in Clinton-Obama Clash

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/us/politics/23feud.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 — After weeks of watching in frustration as Senator Barack Obama presented himself as a fresh face gliding above partisan politics, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has drawn Mr. Obama onto a muddy political field, engaging him in a back-and-forth that recalls the kind of Washington bickering Mr. Obama has decried.

Mrs. Clinton’s effort to identify Mr. Obama with an attack made by one of his chief Hollywood supporters was widely viewed among Democrats as carrying some cost to Mrs. Clinton. The remarks at the heart of the dispute, by David Geffen, the Hollywood executive who was once a big fund-raiser for the Clintons, were a sharp reminder of Clinton family history that has led some Democrats to believe Mrs. Clinton cannot win a general election.

Statehouse Yields Clues to Obama

An insightful article in today's WSJ about Obama's record and style in the IL legislature.  I like what I read.

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama was a leader in helping to tighten state ethics laws -- up to a point. When a 2003 package seemed doomed in the Senate's final hours -- with his Democratic leader among the foes -- he left the chamber to tell advocates there was nothing more he could do.

"He wasn't going to stand on the desk and pound his shoe," recalls Cynthia Canary, director of the nonpartisan Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, and an admirer. "Barack is a political realist. You may know that in his heart he feels strongly, but he'll only go so far." Yet a compromise was salvaged, she adds, and Mr. Obama helped to toughen it in subsequent legislative sessions.

The accomplishment was emblematic of the picture that emerges of the eight years Mr. Obama spent here: of a lawmaker of lofty, liberal rhetoric who nonetheless pragmatically accepted bipartisan compromises that won over foes -- and sometimes left supporters dissatisfied.

-------------------------

Statehouse Yields Clues to Obama

Sharp Elbows of Illinois
Politics Taught Lessons
In Art of Compromise

By JACKIE CALMES
February 23, 2007; Page A4

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117219748197216894.html

Geffen is indeed expressing widely held concerns, which I share:

Mr. Geffen has been telling friends for two years that he thinks that Mrs. Clinton is a divisive figure who would fail to bring the nation together. He has since thrown his support behind Senator Barrack Obama of Illinois, who raised $1.3 million this week at a fund-raiser for which Mr. Geffen was a co-host.

“What Geffen did was he gave an expression to what is in the collective unconscious about the Clintons,” said one Obama supporter in Hollywood, who, like everyone who was interviewed about the issue, would not speak for attribution out of fear of retribution from the Clinton camp, the famously irascible Mr. Geffen, or both.

Mr. Geffen’s embrace of Mr. Obama is a notion that — backed with checkbooks and liberal blogging — could have resonance among Hollywood money raisers, who love nothing more than a fresh face attached to even perceived early momentum. It appears to be an outgrowth of Mr. Geffen’s anger and disillusion with both Clintons, and his belief that Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy impedes Democrats from regaining the White House

-------------------------

February 23, 2007

Et Tu, David? A Lucrative Friendship Sours

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and DAVID M. HALBFINGER

www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/us/politics/23geffen.html

LOS ANGELES Feb. 22 — The public unwinding of the relationship between the Clintons and David Geffen has many of the makings of a Hollywood who-done-it: While the outcome is now known, the trail remains complicated and mysterious.

The strains between Mr. Geffen and the Clintons were brought to the fore this week when Mr. Geffen, an entertainment executive and longtime benefactor of the Clintons, made clear with shards of verbal glass that he would not support the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama Mines Hollywood Gold, but Takes Heat From Clinton

Oh, puh-leeze!

This morning, Clinton aide Howard Wolfson demanded that Obama remove Geffen from his campaign and return the money he had helped raise.

"While Sen. Obama was denouncing 'slash and burn' politics yesterday, his campaign's finance chair was viciously and personally attacking Sen. Clinton and her husband," Wolfson said.

"If Sen. Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign, and return his money," the Clinton backer said.

Wolfson added that there was no place in the Democratic Party or in politics for the kind of personal insults made by Obama's "principal fundraiser."

-------------------------

Obama Mines Hollywood Gold, but Takes Heat From Clinton

Tinseltown Rolls Out Red Carpet for Obama as Clinton Camp Decries 'Vicious' Attack by Former Supporter

By JAKE TAPPER

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2892321

Feb. 21, 2007 — - At the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards Tuesday night at the posh Beverly Hilton -- the site of last month's Golden Globes -- the stars came out for another million-dollar affair honoring a thin, statuesque, idol of color.

Though Hollywood is focused on the Oscar race to air Sunday, the icon in question was presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

Stars Shine on Obama as Clinton Longs for Rerun of Husband's Hollywood Success

Obama's presidential candidacy is thrilling Tinseltown's liberals and clearly upsetting the campaign of his chief rival for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., which took umbrage with comments made by one of Obama's chief Hollywood fundraisers, media mogul David Geffen.

Only hours after Obama had boarded a plane for Iowa, comments that Geffen made to The New York Times slamming Clinton prompted her camp's ire.

Obama: U.S. Ready for Black President

Good for Obama for speaking out strongly against this nonsense:

Ford said one reason he was supporting Clinton, the New York senator, is that he is skeptical Obama can win the presidency and worries his nomination could hurt other Democratic candidates.

"Every Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose - because he's black and he's top of the ticket. We'd lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything," Ford said.

Ford drew widespread criticism for his comment and later apologized.

------------------------------

Obama: U.S. Ready for Black President
By JIM DAVENPORT 02.17.07, 1:29 PM ET

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/17/ap3436427.html

White House hopeful Barack Obama, taking a fellow black lawmaker to task, said Saturday voters are ready to elect a black president.

"At every turn in our history, there's been somebody who said we can't," the Democratic senator from Illinois told a nearly all-black audience of about 2,000 at Claflin University.

"Some people said we can't do this, we can't do that, so we shouldn't even try. If I have your support, if I have your energy and involvement and commitment and ideas, then I'm here to tell you, 'Yes we can.'"

The comments drew the loudest ovation during a question-and-answer session in his first campaign swing through South Carolina, an early voting state.

 

'I trust him' -- standoffish Iowans flocking to Obama

It's good to see the reaction Obama's getting in Iowa (which is the same everywhere, as best I can tell):

But there is something about Barack Obama that is challenging Iowans' solid, basic instincts, even as they try to resist making a decision so soon. After all, it's a year before the Iowa caucuses, and there are many Democratic candidates passing through: Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden.

Except for Clinton, none of them draw the crowds that Obama, a seeming political pied piper, does. The annual steak fry fund-raiser thrown by Sen. Tom Harkin in September first introduced Obama to Iowans, and they can't get enough, crowding gymnasiums across the state. "I know this man will one day run to lead our country" wrote one local blogger after watching the steak fry on C-SPAN.

-------------------------

'I trust him' -- standoffish Iowans flocking to Obama

 

February 23, 2007

BY JENNIFER HUNTER Staff Reporter

http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/269879,CST-NWS-hunter23.articleprint

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Iowans see themselves as a pragmatic people; they deliberate stubbornly before they reach a decision, particularly when it comes to choosing presidential nominees.

They like to meet and query the candidate up close in a neighbor's living room or the local school library. And they are demanding; they want to see the candidate again and again before offering support.

Obama Mines Hollywood Gold, but Takes Heat From Clinton

Oh, puh-leeze!

This morning, Clinton aide Howard Wolfson demanded that Obama remove Geffen from his campaign and return the money he had helped raise.

"While Sen. Obama was denouncing 'slash and burn' politics yesterday, his campaign's finance chair was viciously and personally attacking Sen. Clinton and her husband," Wolfson said.

"If Sen. Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign, and return his money," the Clinton backer said.

Wolfson added that there was no place in the Democratic Party or in politics for the kind of personal insults made by Obama's "principal fundraiser."

-------------------------

Obama Mines Hollywood Gold, but Takes Heat From Clinton

Tinseltown Rolls Out Red Carpet for Obama as Clinton Camp Decries 'Vicious' Attack by Former Supporter

By JAKE TAPPER

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2892321

Feb. 21, 2007 — - At the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards Tuesday night at the posh Beverly Hilton -- the site of last month's Golden Globes -- the stars came out for another million-dollar affair honoring a thin, statuesque, idol of color.

Though Hollywood is focused on the Oscar race to air Sunday, the icon in question was presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

Stars Shine on Obama as Clinton Longs for Rerun of Husband's Hollywood Success

Obama's presidential candidacy is thrilling Tinseltown's liberals and clearly upsetting the campaign of his chief rival for the nomination, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., which took umbrage with comments made by one of Obama's chief Hollywood fundraisers, media mogul David Geffen.

Only hours after Obama had boarded a plane for Iowa, comments that Geffen made to The New York Times slamming Clinton prompted her camp's ire.

As Candidate, Obama Carves Antiwar Stance

A generally favorable article that I suspect will be on the front page of tomorrow's NYT.  This is very true:

These days Mr. Obama dismisses the suggestion that it was easier for him to speak against the war because he was not serving in the Senate and therefore not obligated to vote on the matter. He recalled worrying, at the time, that he might lose his Senate primary election because of his decision to oppose the Iraq invasion.

“It certainly didn’t look like a cost-free decision when Saddam Hussein’s statue was being pulled down in Baghdad,” Mr. Obama said in an interview. “I was in a hotel room in the middle of my Senate campaign, watching that happen, and President Bush’s job approval rating was at 60 percent. Those who voted for the authorization felt pretty good.”

-------------------

As Candidate, Obama Carves Antiwar Stance

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: February 26, 2007

www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/us/politics/26obama.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 25 — Senator Barack Obama is running for president as one of the few candidates who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, a simple position unburdened by expressions of regret or decisions over whether to apologize for initially supporting the invasion.

Peggy Noonan with a very interesting and accurate take on the Geffen/Obama/Hillary dustup:

Mr. Geffen should be braced for a lot of bad personal box office -- negative press, searching profiles, strained relations. We're probably about to see if the Clinton Machine can flatten him. Little doubt it will try. John Dickerson wrote in Slate this week of Bill Clinton generously sharing his campaign wisdom: "Your opponent can't talk when he has your fist in his mouth." Among some Democratic political professionals this kind of talk is considered tough and knowing, as opposed to, say, startlingly belligerent and crude.

But the outcome of the Geffen-Clinton episode is worthy of watching because it is going to determine whether it is remembered as the moment in the 2008 campaign when it became clear you are allowed to criticize Hillary -- or as the moment it became clear you are not.

Howard Wolfson, Mrs. Clinton's spokesman and an emerging dark prince among political operatives -- he is, in the strange way of Washington, admired by journalists for his ability to mislead them -- quickly responded with a challenge: If Mr. Obama is a good man, he'll renounce Mr. Geffen and give back the money he contributed in his famous Hollywood fund-raiser. This was widely considered a brilliant move. Is it? Now everyone who follows politics even cursorily will have to have an opinion on whether Mr. Obama should apologize, which means they'll have to know exactly what Mr. Geffen said, which, again, boiled down, is: I've known them intimately for almost 20 years, and they're bad people and bringers of trouble. It's good for Mrs. Clinton that America is going to spend the weekend discussing this? It's good that Mr. Geffen's comments, which focused on the area on which she is most touchy and most vulnerable -- the character issue -- will be aired over and over again? Mr. Wolfson might have been better off with, "We're sorry to hear it, as Mrs. Clinton thinks the world of David."

Mrs. Clinton has never gone after a fellow Democrat quite the way she's going after Mr. Obama, and it's an indication of how threatened she is not only by his candidacy but, one suspects, his freshness. He makes her look like yesterday. He makes her look like the old slash-and-burn. I doubted he could do her serious damage. Now I wonder.

--------------------

A Surmountable Hill

By PEGGY NOONAN
February 24, 2007; Page P16

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117226320515017638.html

Republicans and conservatives have been trying to sink Mrs. Clinton for years, but she keeps bob-bob-bobbing along. "Oh those Clinton haters, what's wrong with them?"

Only a Democrat could hurt her, and a Democrat just did. Hollywood titan David Geffen, who now supports Barack Obama, this week famously retagged the Clintons as an Ivy League Bonnie and Clyde. Bill is "reckless," Hillary relentless -- "God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary?" In an interview that seemed like an audience, with the New York Times's Maureen Dowd, Mr. Geffen said, "Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it's troubling." In this he was, knowingly or unknowingly, echoing Bob Kerrey, the former Nebraska senator, who said in 1996 of the then-president, "Clinton's an unusually good liar. Unusually good. Do you realize that?" Mr. Kerrey suffered for the remark and was shunned within his party for a while, but didn't retract.

In her column Ms. Dowd labeled the campaign operation "Hillary Inc." but Mr. Geffen got closer to the heart of it: It is the Clinton "machine" and it "is going to be very unpleasant and unattractive and effective."

He's probably about to find out how true that is.

'I trust him' -- standoffish Iowans flocking to Obama

It's good to see the reaction Obama's getting in Iowa (which is the same everywhere, as best I can tell):

But there is something about Barack Obama that is challenging Iowans' solid, basic instincts, even as they try to resist making a decision so soon. After all, it's a year before the Iowa caucuses, and there are many Democratic candidates passing through: Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden.

Except for Clinton, none of them draw the crowds that Obama, a seeming political pied piper, does. The annual steak fry fund-raiser thrown by Sen. Tom Harkin in September first introduced Obama to Iowans, and they can't get enough, crowding gymnasiums across the state. "I know this man will one day run to lead our country" wrote one local blogger after watching the steak fry on C-SPAN.

-------------------------

'I trust him' -- standoffish Iowans flocking to Obama

 

February 23, 2007

BY JENNIFER HUNTER Staff Reporter

http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/269879,CST-NWS-hunter23.articleprint

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Iowans see themselves as a pragmatic people; they deliberate stubbornly before they reach a decision, particularly when it comes to choosing presidential nominees.

They like to meet and query the candidate up close in a neighbor's living room or the local school library. And they are demanding; they want to see the candidate again and again before offering support.

Statehouse Yields Clues to Obama

An insightful article in today's WSJ about Obama's record and style in the IL legislature.  I like what I read.

As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama was a leader in helping to tighten state ethics laws -- up to a point. When a 2003 package seemed doomed in the Senate's final hours -- with his Democratic leader among the foes -- he left the chamber to tell advocates there was nothing more he could do.

"He wasn't going to stand on the desk and pound his shoe," recalls Cynthia Canary, director of the nonpartisan Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, and an admirer. "Barack is a political realist. You may know that in his heart he feels strongly, but he'll only go so far." Yet a compromise was salvaged, she adds, and Mr. Obama helped to toughen it in subsequent legislative sessions.

The accomplishment was emblematic of the picture that emerges of the eight years Mr. Obama spent here: of a lawmaker of lofty, liberal rhetoric who nonetheless pragmatically accepted bipartisan compromises that won over foes -- and sometimes left supporters dissatisfied.

-------------------------

Statehouse Yields Clues to Obama

Sharp Elbows of Illinois
Politics Taught Lessons
In Art of Compromise

By JACKIE CALMES
February 23, 2007; Page A4

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117219748197216894.html

Anyone who thinks McAuliffe is joking needs their head examined.  It's hard to find a better example of the dark side of politics.

At a fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton in Hollywood two weeks ago, as Mr. McAuliffe told the story in an interview on Thursday, he joked in a crowded room that big contributors would be honored with limo rides with the new president while those who wrote checks to, say, Mr. Obama could give up their dreams of access.

“Clarence Avant’s daughter was there, he’s a friend of mine, and I looked at her and in front of 500 people I said, If you don’t contribute, you’re not going to get that ambassadorship to France,” he said, referring to the former chairman of Motown Records. “It’s a joke! I said it in front of 500 people.”

The Los Angeles Times quoted Mr. McAuliffe as saying at that event, “You are either with us or you’re against us,” a remark Mr. McAullife and other attendees said was jocular.

-------------------------

February 23, 2007

Detour From High Road in Clinton-Obama Clash

By ADAM NAGOURNEY

www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/us/politics/23feud.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 — After weeks of watching in frustration as Senator Barack Obama presented himself as a fresh face gliding above partisan politics, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has drawn Mr. Obama onto a muddy political field, engaging him in a back-and-forth that recalls the kind of Washington bickering Mr. Obama has decried.

Mrs. Clinton’s effort to identify Mr. Obama with an attack made by one of his chief Hollywood supporters was widely viewed among Democrats as carrying some cost to Mrs. Clinton. The remarks at the heart of the dispute, by David Geffen, the Hollywood executive who was once a big fund-raiser for the Clintons, were a sharp reminder of Clinton family history that has led some Democrats to believe Mrs. Clinton cannot win a general election.

Krugman makes some VERY good points.  Too bad he only gives kudos to Edwards, when Obama has been a breath of fresh air in quickly admitting his mistakes -- one of the reasons, for example, why his "wasted lives" comment last week failed to create the firestorm it might have.

----------------------------

February 19, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

Wrong Is Right

By PAUL KRUGMAN

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/opinion/19krugman.html

Many people are perplexed by the uproar over Senator Hillary Clinton’s refusal to say, as former Senator John Edwards has, that she was wrong to vote for the Iraq war resolution. Why is it so important to admit past error? And yes, it was an error — she may not have intended to cast a vote for war, but the fact is the resolution did lead to war; she may not have believed that President Bush would abuse the power he was granted, but the fact is he did.

The answer can be summed up in two words: heckuva job. Or, if you want a longer version: Medals of Freedom to George Tenet, who said Saddam had W.M.D., Tommy Franks, who failed to secure Iraq, and Paul Bremer, who botched the occupation.

For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire — and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan — if Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on that things weren’t going well or that their handpicked appointees weren’t the right people for the job.

The experience of Bush-style governance, together with revulsion at the way Karl Rove turned refusal to admit error into a political principle, is the main reason those now-famous three words from Mr. Edwards — “I was wrong” — matter so much to the Democratic base.

The base is remarkably forgiving toward Democrats who supported the war. But the base and, I believe, the country want someone in the White House who doesn’t sound like another George Bush. That is, they want someone who doesn’t suffer from an infallibility complex, who can admit mistakes and learn from them.

Obama is looking to make another jump

NOW I know why I like Obama so much! ;-)  This article about his prowess (or lack thereof) on the basketball court basically describes me as well -- not much natural talent, but lots of passion, energy, scrappiness and, especially this: "He's not afraid to take a shot."  (When I'm out there gunning on the court, I constantly remind myself of the famous Wayne Gretzky quote: "100% of the shots never taken don't go in."  LOL!)

----------------------------

Obama is looking to make another jump

 

By Dave Kindred - SportingNews

http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news?slug=obamaislookingtomakeanot&prov=tsn&type=lgns

 

Barack Obama would be the first black president. He also would be the first rat baller with good ups to be leader of the free world.

 

"A real rat baller," says an old high school teammate, Alan Lum. "He'd have a basketball with him in class sometimes so that between classes, when we had an hour or so, he'd get in a pickup game on the outdoor courts."

 

"Tall and skinny, lithe -- he was angular," says Marshall Poe, a pickup game buddy from Obama's law school days. "Because he didn't have any weight, he had to go up and over people to get the ball. He had good ups."

 

Now Barack Obama, presidential candidate, he once was Barry Obama, basketball player, maybe 6-1 and 170, quick, aggressive, a lefthander, a slasher with a nice double-pump shot in the lane.

A very interesting article on why Biden's use of the word "articulate" was so offensive.  I share the author's feelings and thinks she makes very good points:

With the ballooning size of the black middle and upper class, qualities in blacks like intelligence, eloquence -- the mere ability to string sentences together with tenses intact -- must at some point become as unremarkable to whites as they are to blacks.

''How many flukes simply constitute reality?'' Mr. Hudlin asked, with amused dismay.

----------------------------

February 4, 2007

The Racial Politics of Speaking Well

By LYNETTE CLEMETSON, NYT

www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/04/news/web.0205race.php

SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN'S characterization of his fellow Democratic presidential contender Senator Barack Obama as ''the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy'' was so painfully clumsy that it nearly warranted pity.

There are not enough column inches on this page to parse interpretations of each of Mr. Biden's chosen adjectives. But among his string of loaded words, one is so pervasive -- and is generally used and viewed so differently by blacks and whites -- that it calls out for a national chat, perhaps a national therapy session.

It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is. Black people get a little testy when white people call them ''articulate.''

The Ever-'Present' Obama

This is fair:

But as Democrats--and Americans--are searching for their next leader, the Illinois senator's record, and not just his rhetoric, will be examined under a microscope. As president, Obama will be faced with countless difficult decisions on numerous gray issues, and voting "present" will not be an option. He will need to explain those "present" votes as a member of the Illinois Legislature if he hopes to become America's commander-in-chief.

------------------------------

OPINIONJOURNAL FEDERATION

The Ever-'Present' Obama
Barack has a along track record of not taking a stand.

BY NATHAN GONZALES
Wednesday, February 14, 2007 12:01 a.m.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/federation/feature/?id=110009664

Finally and officially, Barack Obama is running for president. His symbolic announcement, in the Land of Lincoln, called for a new era in politics. Obama downplayed his thin federal experience while championing his record on the state and local level, and he talked about the need to change Washington, set priorities, and "make hard choices."

"What's stopped us is the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics--the ease with which we're distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions," Obama said in his announcement speech. But a closer look at the presidential candidate's record in the Illinois Legislature reveals something seemingly contradictory: a number of occasions when Obama avoided making hard choices.

While some conservatives and Republicans surely will harp on what they call his "liberal record," highlighting applicable votes to support their case, it's Obama's history of voting "present" in Springfield--even on some of the most controversial and politically explosive issues of the day--that raises questions that he will need to answer. Voting "present" is one of three options in the Illinois Legislature (along with "yes" and "no"), but it's almost never an option for the occupant of the Oval Office.

A long and insightful profile in the latest Rolling Stone.  I love this:

He came to Washington pushing the hope that politics could be better -- but now he can give the impression that he'd rather be just about anywhere other than in Washington. "It can be incredibly frustrating," he tells me. "The maneuverings, the chicanery, the smallness of politics here." Listening to a bloviating colleague at his first meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama slipped a three-word note to a member of his staff: "Shoot. Me. Now." On a recent day, as Obama made his way through the Capitol's corridors, his fellow senators seemed like good-natured sportscasters, jolly and easy with their power, bantering about the fortunes of baseball teams in their home states. . Obama is aloof and quiet. He prefers to listen, attentive as a rector, not quite of this world, silently measuring it. "The typical politician pushes himself on people to get them to pay attention," says Frank Luntz, the Republican campaign strategist. "Obama is quieter. He doesn't push -- he has a laid-back feel that pulls you in. That is so rare."

This was good to see as well:

He had thought he might enter politics since before he left for law school, and eventually he did, winning a seat in the state Senate at the age of thirty-seven.

"He was a little off-putting at first -- that whole Harvard thing," says Rich Miller, a veteran observer of Illinois politics. "But the bottom line is pretty much everybody I know had a high opinion of him, Republican or Democrat. In this state it's hard for anyone to get along, and even though he was very liberal, he was able to pass a hell of a lot of bills."

Many of the stands Obama took were pretty radical for a candidate who would end up aiming for national office. He led an ambitious but failed effort to provide health care for every citizen of Illinois, fought against predatory lending practices and wrote a bill making Illinois the first state to require police to tape their interrogations of murder suspects.

And this is VERY interesting:

But in 2003, when Obama began to run for the U.S. Senate, his legislative track record wasn't enough to get him elected. He was one of seven Democrats in the field, third or fourth on name recognition and even farther behind in funds. He barely stood a chance.

Then, running preliminary polls, his advisrs noticed something remarkable: Women responded more intensely and warmly to Obama than did men. In a seven-candidate field, you don't need to win every vote. His advisers, assuming they would pick up a healthy chunk of black votes, honed in on a different target: Every focus group they ran was composed exclusively of women, nearly all of them white.

There is an amazingly candid moment in Obama's autobiography when he writes of his childhood discomfort at the way his mother would sexualize African-American men. "More than once," he recalls, "my mother would point out: 'Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet.' " What the focus groups his advisers conducted revealed was that Obama's political career now depends, in some measure, upon a tamer version of this same feeling, on the complicated dynamics of how white women respond to a charismatic black man. "I remember when we realized something magical was happening," says Obama's pollster on the campaign, an earnest Iowan named Paul Harstad. "We were doing a focus group in suburban Chicago, and this woman, seventy years old, looks seventy-five, hears Obama's life story, and she clasps her hand to her chest and says, 'Be still, my heart.' Be still, my heart -- I've been doing this for a quarter century and I've never seen that." The most remarkable thing, for Harstad, was that the woman hadn't even seen the videos he had brought along of Obama speaking, had no idea what the young politician looked like. "All we'd done," he says, "is tell them the Story."

From that moment on, the Story became Obama's calling card, his political rationale and his basic sale. Every American politician has this wrangle he has to pull off, reshaping his life story to fit into Abe Lincoln's log cabin. Some pols (John Edwards, Bill Clinton) have an easier time of it than others (George Bush, Al Gore). Obama's material is simply the best of all. What he has to offer, at the most fundamental level, is not ideology or even inspiration -- it is the Story, the feeling that he embodies, in his own, uniquely American history, a longed-for break from the past. "With Obama, it's all about his difference," says Joe Trippi, the Democratic consultant who masterminded Howard Dean's candidacy. "We see in him this hope that the country might be different, too."

It has become fashionable, given Obama's charisma and compassion, to compare him to Robert F. Kennedy, whose 1968 campaign for the presidency achieved near-rock-star status. But Obama is not Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy grew up studying how to use America's power, and in his forties he began to venture out and notice its imperfections. Barack Obama came up in a study of those flaws, and now, thrust into a position of power in his forties, is trying to figure out what to do with it.

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URL: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13390609/campaign_08_the_radical_roots_of_barack_obama

Rollingstone.com

Back to Campaign '08: The Radical Roots of Barack Obama

Destiny's Child

No candidate since Robert F. Kennedy has sparked as much campaign-trail heat as Barack Obama. But can the one-term senator craft a platform to match his charisma?

BEN WALLACE-WELLS

>> Talk back: Does Obama have the stuff to get him to the White House? Join the debate.

Shortly after Barack Obama was elected to the United States Senate in 2004, he began residing, Monday through Thursday, in a one-bedroom apartment a few blocks from the Capitol. For a forty-three-year-old man who had been married for thirteen years and who had two young daughters, it was an isolating experience. The building has a yoga studio and a running track and a decidedly own-and-urban view of some ratty rooftops in the city's tiny Chinatown district; its decor, glass and brick, is less U.S. senator than junior management consultant. In his return to bachelor life, Obama found himself "soft and helpless. My first morning in Washington, I realized I'd forgotten to buy a shower curtain and had to scrunch up against the shower wall in order to avoid flooding the bathroom floor." The other new Democrat elected to the Senate that year, Ken Salazar of Colorado, took an apartment in the same building with his brother John, who is himself a congressman; they spent their time watching documentaries about leathery old cowboys on the Western Channel. Obama spent most of his time reading briefing books.

When Obama first got to Washington, he wanted to be a wonk, to keep his head down and concentrate on small issues. "The plan was: Put Illinois first," one of his aides tells me. Obama himself admits that his initial agenda had a "self-conscious" modesty. His early legislative accomplishments have been useful and bipartisan -- he has even sponsored bills with ultraconservative Sen. Tom Coburn, who believes that high school bathrooms breed lesbianism -- but they have been small-scale and off the headlines: a plan to make it easier for citizens to find out about government spending, increased research into ethanol, more job training and tax credits for "responsible fathers." This is the kind of head-down diligence that plays well in the Senate. "I am amazed by his sheer stamina," says Sen. Dick Lugar, a Republican from Indiana who has become something of a mentor to Obama.

What percentage of your support for Obama has to do with him being black?

A friend recently asked me, "Honestly, what percentage of your support for Obama has to do with him being black?"  I had to think about that for a moment.  Would I be enthusiastically supporting an inexperienced WHITE Senator with an interesting personal history and a gift for oratory?  The obvious answer is not nearly to the same degree, but that's not because I want to feel good about myself by "proving" I'm not a racist or because I support affirmative action or something like that.  There are a number of reasons:

 

A) My main concern is that a Democrat become the next President and my concerns about Hillary's electablity would exist regardless of Obama's race.  Obama's got "magic" -- people go NUTS for him in a way I've never witnessed -- and if he were a white JFK/Robert Kennedy who had this magic, I'd still be supporting him.  To win, the Democratic candidate must be able to draw support from people who traditionally vote Republican and I've been hearing from and reading about A LOT of people in this category who are considering supporting Obama, but would NEVER vote for Hillary or John Edwards.

B) I think we need a President who genuinely connects with average Americans, who knows what it's like to struggle to make ends meet, to suffer from discrimination, etc. -- both because I think this person is more likely to get elected, and also is more likely to lead this country in the right way once elected.  I think Bill Clinton had it -- that's why people nodded knowingly rather than laughing when Toni Morrison called him "the first black President."  (I know that some people believe it was phony -- I disagree -- but nobody denies that downtrodden people believed that Bill Clinton was one of them.)  I know John Edwards is grasping for this mantle, but I'm not convinced -- he's been too rich for too long.  As for George Bush, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary and the rest?  Gimme a break!

 

C) Some have expressed concerns that America isn't ready for a black President -- in other words, there are too many racists out there who, while they'll never admit it to pollsters, when they're in the voting booth, won't pull the lever for a black man.  Of course, the Republicans will subtlely (or not so subtlely) play the race card to exacerbate this problem.  Exhibit A would be Harold Ford's recently unsuccessful bid for Senate in Tennessee.  My answer is that Ford and Obama are different -- he had family baggage (corruption, etc.) and being a swingin' single, partying guy baggage that Obama doesn't have.  Also, while I know there are plenty of racists in this country, they sure as shootin' aren't going to vote for Hillary or Edwards either!  So I don't think Obama's blackness costs him many votes, whereas (perhaps I'm being naive) I think it could draw plenty of votes.  As one very politically experienced friend said to me, "There are lots of whites who feel good about themselves when they vote for a black candidate.  They go home and proudly tell their kids who they voted for.  This only happens, however, if the candidate is articulate, charismatic and NEVER plays the race card."  That's Obama!

 

D) Speaking of which, I think that racial divide in America is one of our most vexing issues.  I can't think a better way to start to close that divide than having a black President, especially one who doesn't appear to suffer from the victimization mindset.

 

E) Other than dealing with whatever mess remains in Iraq, I think the single most important job of our next President will be to repair America's image in the world, which is in tatters, and rebuild bridges with every other country in the world, which have been burned.  It is truly horrifying what has happened in this area under our current administration and it jeopardizes our security enormously.  Our next President not only needs to be able to really connect with average Americans, but average citizens around the world.  Read this excerpt from a recent Rolling Stone article (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13390609/campaign_08_the_radical_roots_of_barack_obama) and ask yourself if any other Presidential contender could even come close to this:

But on the same trip, it also began to become clear what it might mean if Barack Obama were somehow, despite it all, to become president of the United States -- the resonance it might have not just within the United States but beyond. On a bright morning, the senator's convoy pulled into the Kibera district of Nairobi, which is called, perhaps unscientifically, the largest slum in all of Africa. It is undoubtedly the most compact: There are up to 750,000 people living in less than two square miles of malign-looking shacks, with no electricity and no running water. The whole place stinks of human waste. Kibera has become a common stopping point for American notables touring Africa's stricken zones -- congressmen, Chris Rock, Madeleine Albright -- and the place has assumed a kind of indifference to visiting celebrity. This is not the case with Obama. The senator has no speech planned today -- he is here for a meeting on microfinance -- but thousands of people have choked the dirt paths through the ghettos. Obama biro, yawne yo! they shout -- "Obama's coming, clear the way!" His name, in its local rhythms, sounds almost like a religious chant. Kenyan police on horses, thin and jumpy animals, try to beat back the surging crowd.

When Obama is finished with his meeting, he comes out of a hut: a skinny American dude, looking more like thirty-five than forty-five, his face treadmilled-thin, all teeth and cheekbones, holding a megaphone at his side. The roar is deafening. For a second, Obama looks stunned. He lifts the megaphone to his lips, but he can't make himself heard. When he lowers it, he's grinning. For the first time, it seems as if some resistance has broken in Obama: His reluctance has been replaced by something deeper and more spontaneous. He raises the megaphone again. "Hello!" he calls out in the local dialect. The wave of sound that greets him is awesome. He half-loses it, just starts yelling into the megaphone: "Everyone here is my brother! Everyone here is my sister! I love Kibera!" The crowd is so loud that he can't be heard more than twenty feet from where he is standing, and so he begins to wade into the crowd, shouting into the megaphone again and again: "You are all my brothers and sisters!" The look on his face is one of pure joy. Months later, his eyes still glitter when he recalls the sheer spectacle of it all. "It was a remarkable experience," he says.

The residents in Kibera know little about Obama besides his race, the fact that his father is from this country and what the Kenyan papers have told them: that he represents a younger and more empathetic vision of America. It's enough. Here, at last, is what it would mean to have a black president of the United States, one with a feel for what it means to suffer the rough edge of American power. In Kibera, something raw and basic about global politics began to stir, to make itself heard. These people, among the poorest in the world, are hoping for something more. And in the shouting crowds and the ecstasy of the moment, it has begun to seem, for the first time, as if Obama wants it all, too.

Some might read this and shrug, asking "Why should we care if slum dwellers in Nairobi love Obama?" but I think this is critically important, especially since I think he'd get similar reactions around the world.

1) When I read this (Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is apologizing for saying the lives of the more than 3,000 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war were ''wasted.''), my heart sunk as I thought to myself, "Uh oh, the media -- esp. on the right -- is going to go nuts and turn this into another Biden and Kerry episode of another Democrat (and one who never served) who doesn't respect the military, etc."

 

I watched the NY Times web site for a big "gotcha" article, but no dice -- as of this morning, there was only a link to a brief AP story (below).  "Well, I thought to myself, maybe the "liberal" media won't cover this, but surely Fox News will be screaming about it," so I went to FoxNews.com, but again, NOTHING!  The only thing I could find on any of the Democratic contenders was "Second Blogger Quits Edwards Campaign".

 

Why isn't there the usual media firestorm (though it could still happen of course)?  Three reasons: A) At least he called them "the bravest young Americans" -- plus it was true statement!  Given that we have achieved NONE of our objectives (other than toppling Saddam) and, in fact, made matters FAR WORSE overall, the sad truth is that the lives of those brave soldiers HAVE been wasted (though Obama could have been phrased better; he should have said: ''We now have spent $400 billion and sacrificed the lives of over 3,000 of the bravest young Americans, and what do we have to show for it?''); B) He quickly and unequivocably apologized (it's amazing how important -- and little practiced this is); and C) He's the teflon candidate (for now anyway), which is a GREAT place to be!

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February 13, 2007

Obama Apologies for 'Wasted' Comment

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Obama-Apology.html

Filed at 11:47 a.m. ET

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) -- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is apologizing for saying the lives of the more than 3,000 U.S. troops killed in the Iraq war were ''wasted.''

Given what Dowd normally does to people (leaves them a pile of smoldering rubble), Obama actually got off pretty lightly.  And given the glowing articles Frank Rich and Bob Herbert have written, he should no complaints about the treatment the NYT Op Ed page has given him. 

 

Dowd also makes some VERY good points that he would be wise to heed, like this:

He is backed up by a strong, smart wife and a professional campaign team, but he doesn’t have a do-whatever-it-takes family firm with contract killers and debt collectors, like Bush Inc. and Clinton Inc.

And this:

He sounded self-consciously pristine at times, as if he was too refined for the muck of politics. That’s not how you beat anybody but Alan Keyes.

And this:

Using the dreaded third person that some candidates slip into, he told the press that one of their favorite narratives boiled down to “Obama has pretty good style, he can deliver a pretty good speech, but he seems to prioritize rhetoric over substance.”

And this:

He doesn’t lack confidence, but he’s so hung up on being seen as thoughtful that he sometimes comes across as too emotionally detached and cerebral with crowds yearning for an electric, visceral connection. J.F.K. mixed cool with fire.

For a man who couldn’t wait to inject himself into the national arena, and who has spent so much time writing books about himself, the senator is oddly put off by press inquisitiveness.

-----------------------

 

February 14, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

Obama, Legally Blonde?

By MAUREEN DOWD

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/14/opinion/14dowd.html

IOWA FALLS

Barack Obama looked as if he needed a smoke and he needed it bad.

Everyone knows you’re not supposed to make two big changes at once. But Michelle Obama’s price for letting her husband run was that he quit.

So there he was, trying to meet the deep, inexhaustible needs of both Iowa activists and the global press behemoth on his first swing across the state, while giving up cigarettes.

He was a tad testy.

Obama on 60 Minutes

I was driving back to the city when 60 Minutes aired last night, but there's an article/transcript (copy below) on the CBS web site plus video clips at: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/09/60minutes/main2456335.shtml

 

After reading this, I just like the guy -- I think he's genuine and honest, two things that are SORELY lacking among most politicians...

It’s not the only thing people will be watching for over the next two years. It’s the beginning of a long examination in which every utterance will be scrutinized, every speech dissected, every gaffe and foible magnified for close inspection to determine whether he is up to the task.

It's possible that, you know, after we go through this whole process that the voters conclude: 'You know what. He's not ready.' And I respect that," Obama says. "I don't expect that simply because I can move people in speeches that that automatically qualifies me for this job. I think that I have to be tested and run through the paces, and I have to earn this job."

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Candidate Obama's Sense Of Urgency

Feb. 11, 2007

 

(CBS) One thing you can say with certainty about Illinois Sen. Barack Obama is that there has never been another presidential candidate like him.

He has a foreign sounding name that rhymes with "Osama," his middle name is Hussein, and he has admitted to using marijuana and cocaine as a teenager. Racially he is half black, half white, and in terms of political experience, green.

With just seven years in the state legislature, and two in the United States Senate, it would be easy to dismiss him, were it not for the fact that he is running second in the polls behind Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. On Saturday, 17,000 people braved frigid weather to watch him declare his candidacy in Springfield Ill., where correspondent Steve Kroft joined him on the eve of his speech.

"Three years ago, you were a state legislator here in Springfield. What makes you think that you're qualified to be president of the United States?" Kroft asks.

"You know, I think we're in a moment of history where probably the most important thing we need to do is to bring the country together and one of the skills that I bring to bear is being able to pull together the different strands of American life and focus on what we have in common," Obama replies

Obama says he has no doubts that he's ready to run. Asked where he gets all this confidence, the senator jokes, "My wife asks me that all the time.

A cover story in today's NYT on the different reaction Hillary and Barack are getting on their respective positions on Iraq.  I really don't understand why Hillary can't simply say what millions of other Americans have said (myself included): "I supported the war based on the information I had then and the assumption that this administration would have a plan not only to topple Saddam, but also what to do afterward.  Obviously, knowing what I know now, I never would have supported it."  Of course, as an Obama supporter, the longer she screws this up, the better!

--------------------

Political Memo

For Clinton and Obama, Different Tests on Iraq

By PATRICK HEALY and JEFF ZELENY

Published: February 12, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/12/us/politics/12campaign.html

KEENE, N.H., Feb. 11 — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was challenged on Iraq from corner to corner of New Hampshire this weekend, while Senator Barack Obama drew cheers in Iowa for his opposition to the war.

Besides giving voters a chance to probe the views of two major rivals for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, the weekend appearances gave the two campaigns a chance to road test their strategies for dealing with the central issue of Iraq in the primaries and beyond.

At nearly every stop in New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton, the junior senator from New York, has been greeted warmly but has been met by skeptical voters asking pointedly about her 2002 vote authorizing the use of force in Iraq. On Sunday in Nashua, one person told her that her explanation “doesn’t fly,” while another asked why she did not simply say that the vote was a mistake.

In these instances and similar moments in New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton stuck to a set of talking points that she and her advisers hope will ultimately overcome the antiwar anger that is particularly strong among Democrats likely to vote in primaries. She took full responsibility for the vote, said she would not vote for military action in Iraq again, and then pivoted quickly to frame Iraq as President Bush’s war. This answer was usually met with applause.

Yet Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to use clear, categorical phrases — “I’m sorry” or “I made a mistake” — has created an opening for Mr. Obama and another rival, former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, who has openly apologized for his identical 2002 vote.

On Sunday, at a news conference in Ames, Iowa, Mr. Obama declined to say whether Mrs. Clinton should explicitly express regret for the vote, but he phrased his answer to keep the onus on her.

“I will let her speak to her plan, and I will let her address both past decisions and how she wants to move forward,” Mr. Obama said. “I am not clear on how she would proceed at this point to wind down the war in a specific way.”

Obama's Audacity of Hope Contagious in Africa

A friend in Africa sent me this article and comment:

I thought I would share this with you.  It is from an online newspaper in the Cameroon.  I went to buy Audacity of Hope but they were sold out at three different Exclusive Books stores in Johannesburg. 

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February 11, 2007

Obama's Audacity of Hope Contagious in Africa

By Ben Nakomo,

US Senator, Barack Hussein Obama has officially declared his candidacy for the US 2008 Presidential elections. With an appeal to his generation to transform America, the Illinois Senator said on Saturday, February 10, 2007 that he's running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama made the announcement at the Old State Capitol, where Abraham Lincoln in 1858 called for Unity against slavery and charting of a common course for all of America's citizenry. Obama's bold attempt to take on America's political establishment and gunning for a whitehouse under the tutelage grip of caucasian special interest groups, is carefully being watched by political analysts and commentators in the African continent.

Obama, 45, who has been a U.S. senator for two years and served seven years in the Illinois legislature, acknowledged his inexperience, and stated; "I recognize there is a certain presumptuousness in this, a certain audacity to this announcement," "I know I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington. But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." In his view, "the failure of leadership, the smallness of our politics" has held America hostage. "The time for that politics is over. It is true. It's time to turn the page, right here and right now," he said.

Obama had a date with history on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at Springfield, Illinois. He joins other Democratic candidates that include New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee. "Let us be the generation" to reshape the economy, end poverty, tackle the health care crisis and free America "from the tyranny of oil," Obama said. "Most of all, let's be the generation that never forgets what happened on that September day and confront the terrorists with everything we've got."

Obama is an intellectual by every indication. His assuidity and grasps of issues belittles the mumbling and fumbling slips of the former Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, who became the President  of the United States . The theme of Obama's speech reflected the title of his best-selling 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope. "It's humbling, but in my heart I know you didn't come here just for me," he said to the cheering crowd. He castigated the Bush administration with its tyranical foreign policy. "You came here because you believe in what this country can be. "In the face of war, you believe there can be peace. In the face of despair, you believe there can be hope," he said. "In the face of a politics that's shut you out, that's told you to settle, that's divided us for too long, you believe we can be one people, reaching for what's possible, building that more perfect union."

Obama, born of a Kenyan father and a caucasian American mother, truely has the audacity to bid for the highest office in America. Obama, the Senate's only African-American, traced his personal history as a $13,000-a-year community organizer in Chicago's black neighborhoods, civil-rights lawyer and professor of constitutional law. It was among Chicago's poor, he said, "that I received the best education I ever had, and where I learned the meaning of my Christian faith."

It is time for a new generation in America to recoup America's spent capital and influence around the world. Every time the nation has faced great challenges, Obama said, "A new generation has risen up and done what's needed to be done. Today we are called once more — and it is time for our generation to answer that call. For that is our unyielding faith — that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it." That's what Lincoln understood, he said. "He had his doubts. He had his defeats. He had his skeptics, he had his setbacks. But through his will and his words, he moved a nation and helped free a people." Africa is watching the Obama trail to the White House. Will it be an African-American first?

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