Barack Obama

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  • 2008-07-07 /S/D/ Self-Swiftboating “Is the impression [given by] this bobbing and weaving [..] a misimpression? Or are we seeing, as the pundits are now beginning to chant, the true face of Obama? ... It is false. I know it is false because I believe I know the man, and because I know some inside the campaign struggling with these issues. I see them struggling to get it right.” ... “So writes a friend who has raised a b'gillion for Obama: "I feel the campaign is going dangerously off course. I think it’s unclear at this point whether Barack’s word on an issue really matters. It’s unclear what he actually stands for." .. Hey HQ: You've got a guy who really stands for something (the tall thin guy, the one from Illinois). A man whose word really does matter. But you've so bungled the last month that even your core begins to wonder about the core of your candidate. McCain didn't do this to you. You did this to Obama. .. Something is going very wrong here, and someone needs to take note.”
  • 2008-07-05 /S/D/ Obama's America blesses God Totally rips into Obama's 2008-07-01 speech on religion. Sadly, this is one of the few real reasons not to vote for Obama -- but due to our two-party system, it's the only way to defeat the guy who will win otherwise and who is a lot worse on these same issues (not to mention many others).
  • 2008-07-04 /S/D/ Not questioning their patriotism, but... “My wife and I just got back from a July 4th walk. We walked eight miles around our neighborhood and a bunch of surrounding ones here in Durham. I saw lots of Obama signs in front yards signs and lots of American flags on houses. But I didn’t see a single house with an American flag AND an Obama yard sign. Not one. Just sayin’...” Some dialogue ensues. It's not clear if they're taking this seriously or not; if they are, they're totally missing the irony in view of Obama's recent remarks on this topic.
  • 2008-06-22 /S/D/ focus “I can't begin to understand why in a war where soldiers go to jail for breaking the law, the US Congress is so keen to make sure telecom companies don't have to fight a law suit about violating civil rights. Obama doesn't support that immunity. He promises to get it removed. But he has signaled agreement with the compromise, which I assume means he will not filibuster immunity as he had indicated before he would. I wish he had decided differently. ... This is a hugely complex chess game. (Or I'm assuming it's complex, since how else can you explain losing twice (ok once) to this President.) The objective of this chess game is to keep focus on the issues that show America why your candidate should win. Keeping focus (in this media environment, at least) is an insanely difficult task. But one tool in that game is picking the fights that resonate in ways that keep focus on the issues that show America why your candidate should win. ... we need to remember now: you don't sacrifice a pawn because you want to kill pawns.”
  • 2008-06-20 /S/D/ The Two Obamas “ But as recent weeks have made clear, Barack Obama is the most split-personality politician in the country today. On the one hand, there is Dr. Barack, the high-minded, Niebuhr-quoting speechifier who spent this past winter thrilling the Scarlett Johansson set and feeling the fierce urgency of now. But then on the other side, there’s Fast Eddie Obama, the promise-breaking, tough-minded Chicago pol who’d throw you under the truck for votes. .. This guy is the whole Chicago package: an idealistic, lakefront liberal fronting a sharp-elbowed machine operator. He’s the only politician of our lifetime who is underestimated because he’s too intelligent. He speaks so calmly and polysyllabically that people fail to appreciate the Machiavellian ambition inside.” Brooks seems to have evolved into an intellectual hit-man for the neocons, whatever he might once have been. -W.
  • 2008-06-20 /S/D/ Obama Replied “...To my letter to him. He told me to fuck off. "...It is not all that I would want. But given the legitimate threats we face, providing effective intelligence collection tools with appropriate safeguards is too important to delay. So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives – and the liberty – of the American people."”
  • 2008-06-19 /S/D/ Obama, telecoms and the Beltway system “As noted yesterday, Blue Dog Rep. John Barrow of Georgia has been one of the most enthusiastic enablers of the radical and lawless policies of the Bush administration. When running for re-election, he ran ads accusing his own party of wanting to "cut and run in Iraq," and was one of the 21 Blue Dogs to send a letter to Nancy Pelosi demanding that they be allowed to vote for the Rockefeller/Cheney Senate bill to give warrantless eavesdropping powers to the President and amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms. ... Despite all of this, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday that Barack Obama -- who has been claiming to be so emphatically opposed to warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty, to say nothing of the Iraq War -- taped a radio endorsement this week for Rep. Barrow, with the specific intent to help him defeat Regina Thomas in the Democratic primary.” Obama's first real misstep?
  • 2008-06-18 /S/D/ Visiting The Old Country Buffoon “The ‘Obama gaffes’ thing is a right-wing chant of the eternal shifting Now. Its meaning is that ‘gaffes’ are a bad thing as applied to John “Gaffer O’Blabby McGaffalot” McCain, but if you take out ‘John McCain’ and substitute ‘Barack Obama,’ then. . .opposite! The idea, as with all of these chants of theirs, is to repeat it a lot, winkingly for awhile, until they forget that it’s just something they made up to be saucy and pugnacious. Then it becomes true, and thus are worlds created through gradual accretion. It will become a fact through which other facts can be proved. ... Plus, ‘gave money and housing’ is the best-ever framing of putting someone in prison that has ever been attempted. Did you know that the Bush administration is giving money and housing to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? ZOMG.”
  • 2008-06-18 /S/D/ Obama cuts an ad to help John Barrow in his primary fight “Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has taped a radio commercial on behalf of U.S. Rep. John Barrow of Savannah, who faces a July 15 primary challenge. ... the Obama campaign made clear to my colleague Aaron Sheinin that it sees Barrow, a two-term Democrat, as an important ally. We’ve got calls into the Barrow campaign, but haven’t heard from them yet. .. “Senator Obama believes that Congressman Barrow has worked hard to bring change that families in his district deserve, and we’ll work hard to help John Barrow win in November,” Obama spokeswoman Amy Brundage said.” Commentary: Glenn Greenwald
  • 2008-06-15 /S/D/ Williams Calls Hume and Kristol ‘Out Of Touch’ For Saying McCain’s Tax Plan Will Help Working Americans “Earlier this week, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center released a paper showing that Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) tax plan “offers three times the break for middle class families” than the proposals of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), which “would steer the bulk of the benefits to the wealthiest families.” On Fox News Sunday this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol called the report “good for McCain” because it labels Obama as “a tax raiser” and he doesn’t think voters will be swayed when it’s pointed out that “it’s only a tax on the wealthy.””
  • 2008-06-15 /S/D/ Obama Seen Beating McCain in Web War “A record-breaking 46 percent of Americans have used the Internet to get political news and share their thoughts about the campaign this year, according to a survey released today by the Pew Research Center. .. And while Sen. John McCain may have been the first major presidential candidate to harness the power of the Internet for fundraising in 2000, the survey finds Sen. Barack Obama is winning the online political war in 2008.”;
  • 2008-06-09 /S/D/ Obama: Give economy $50 billion boost “On the first day of what is to be a two-week economic tour around the country, Barack Obama said Monday that lawmakers should inject another $50 billion immediately into the sluggish U.S. economy. .. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee cited the largest monthly increase in the unemployment rate in over 20 years, and record highs in oil prices, food prices and foreclosures. ... Obama has pledged to keep the tax cuts in place for everyone except those making roughly $250,000 and up. He has also made proposals to cut taxes further for the middle class, some of which he reiterated in his speech: exempt seniors making less than $50,000 from having to pay income tax; give a tax credit worth up to $500 per working person ($1,000 per family) to offset the Social Security tax on the first $8,100 of earnings; and expand the earned income tax credit.”
  • 2008-06-06 /S/D/ The value of experience “For those who think Obama, out of inexperience, might do something dangerous, I have only this to ask: more dangerous than refusing to engage diplomatically with countries we don't like, instead threatening and bombing them? More dangerous than digging in our heels and continuing to pour money and lives into the pit that is Iraq? More dangerous than continuing George Bush's bankrupting tax cuts and appointing more far-right judges who will roll back the civil rights gains of the last sixty years?”
  • 2008-05-26 /S/D/ Poor whites are being conned “Jon Stewart of The Daily Show ran a clip of a white woman who explained her refusal to vote for Obama thusly: I guess because he is another race. I'm sort of scared of the other race 'cause we have so much conflict with 'em. She spoke in the vaguely shamefaced, what're-you-gonna-do? voice of someone who knows she should stick to her diet or stop smoking, but just can't help herself.”
  • 2008-05-19 /S/D/ Obama's Iraq challenge: debate me “Until now, Barack Obama's attacks on John McCain have invariably been preceded with an honouring of the Arizona senator's military service and his status as a "true American hero" for the five years he spent as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. .. But the courtesy went missing last week as Obama and McCain had their first serious down-and-dirty scrap over foreign policy and national security. .. The impetus was George W. Bush's controversial speech to the Israeli parliament, in which he said people advocating negotiations with "terrorists and radicals" were deluded and were promoting "the false comfort of appeasement".”
  • 2008-05-18 /S/D/ I knew JFK, says Gore Vidal, and believe me Obama’s the better leader ““I never believed in Jack’s charisma,” Vidal says shortly. JFK, he believes, was “one of our worst presidents”; Bobby, his brother, was “a phoney, a little Torquemada”; and their father, Joseph, was “a crook – should have been in jail”. .. So much for Camelot. “But Jack had great charm,” he adds. “So has Obama. He’s better educated than Jack. And he’s been a working senator. Jack never went to the office – he wanted the presidency and his father bought it for him.” ... [Vidal']s views on the man the Democratic candidate will have to beat are even more brutal than his views on Hillary: “ You could beat McCain! I’ve never met anyone in America who has the slightest respect for him. He went to a private school and came bottom of his class. He smashed up his aeroplane and became a prisoner of war, which he is trying to parlay into ‘war hero’.” .. In his view, McCain is “a goddamned fool. He was on television talking about mortgages, and it was quite clear he does not know what a mortgage is. His head rattles as he walks”.”
  • 2008-05-18 /S/D/ Doug Kmiec on 'The Politics of Apostasy' “Having been drawn to Senator Obama’s remarkable “love thy neighbor” style of campaigning, his express aim to transcend partisan divide, and specifically, his appreciation for faith ("secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square"), I did not expect to be clobbered by co-religionists. .. On the blogs, I have been declared “self-excommunicated,” and recently at a Mass before a dinner speech to Catholic business leaders, a very angry college chaplain excoriated my Obama-heresy from the pulpit at length and then denied my receipt of communion.” Commentary: Dana Hunter
  • 2008-05-16 /S/D/ Senate Votes to Reverse FCC Decision Allowing Media Consolidation “Thursday night, the Senate cast a near-unanimous vote to reverse the Federal Communication Commission's December 2007 decision to let media companies own both a major TV or radio station and a major daily newspaper in the same city. .. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced the rarely used "resolution of disapproval," said last night that "the FCC is supposed to be a referee for the media industry, but instead they've been cheerleaders in favor of more consolidation. ... We already have too much concentration in the media." .. Senator Barack Obama added his support to the resolution saying, "I urge my colleagues in the House of Representatives to expeditiously pass the legislation."”
  • 2008-05-09 /S/D/ Barack Obama wants to be president of these 57 United States “"It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it." .. The Times' conscientious Robin Abcarian thought she heard something different there. She checked her tape recorder. It had captured what he had actually said -- 57 states now. A new Louisiana Purchase that's gone unannounced so far? Was he channeling his inner John Kerry-Heinz 57 personality?” The right-wing commentatorship is making much of this [1] but it seems obvious from the video that Obama was a little tired and simply said "fifty" when he meant "forty".
  • 2008-05-08 /S/D/ Where did the Web rumors about Obama come from? “...it's unlikely that any campaign or political professional is associated with creating the sordid stuff – the fallout would be a political nightmare ... In fact, they tend to be the work of committed political amateurs. .. One practitioner in Virginia, who hates Obama like a dog hates cats, led a reporter through his efforts. Because the man is a retired clandestine CIA officer, identifying him could endanger officers or operations that remain classified, so McClatchy will not reveal his name. .. In late 2006, convinced that an Obama presidency would be disastrous for America, he decided to start an anti-Obama operation. He combed the public record on Obama. He used a couple of allies and informants — half-jokingly dubbing his group "The Crusaders" — to learn about Obama's background, especially his Africa connection and how he came to be the editor of the Harvard Law Review. .. He assembled a dossier on Obama, including allegations that Obama attended a madrassa, or Islamic religious school, in his youth in Indonesia.”
  • 2008-05-05 /S/D/ The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind “On the eve of crucial presidential primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has found himself dogged by questions about his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. As the Democratic front-runner's popularity has suffered after public statements by Wright about race relations in America, Obama supporters have been at a loss to understand why Wright's views are being linked to their candidate, when Obama has explicitly told voters that Wright does not speak for him.” Explains the problem as an example of guilt by association, with some details on that phenomenon.
  • 2008-04-22 /S/D/ Obama Climbs On The Vaccine Research Bandwagon “So there you have it, our next President will share the views of such radical fringe crazies as, well, me, Democrat Robert Kennedy, Jr., Republican Joe Scarborough, former NIH and Red Cross chief Bernadine Healy, and several researchers at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, the Universities of California and Washington and elsewhere. .. All of us agree: Current evidence suggests the need for more reseach into whether vaccines could be a contributing factor in some cases of autism.” This article has been roundly attacked within scientific circles. [2] As one commenter on Pharyngula says: “How many studies need to be done before the anti-vaccine people are satisfied? Oh yeah...they're never going to be satisfied.” The problem is, where are these studies? They need to be online so that people outside the scientific establishment (e.g. parents of autistic kids) can read them and make up their own minds. CITOKATE.
  • 2008-04-15 /S/D/ Obama Outraises Clinton Among Small Town Pennsylvanians “Sen. Barack Obama's political opponents charge that his recent remarks on the economic woes and bitterness of low-income voters put him gravely out of touch with small town Pennsylvanians. .. But a review of campaign finance records -- conducted for The Huffington Post by the Spotfire Division of software firm TIBCO -- reveals that it is Obama, not Sen. Hillary Clinton, who has received the majority of donations from these very same Keystone State communities.”
  • 2008-04-14 /S/D/ I Was There: What Obama Really Said About Pennsylvania “Clinton, McCain, and media pundits have parsed a blogger's audio tape of Obama's remarks and criticized a sentence or two characterizing some parts of Pennsylvania and the attitudes of some Pennsylvanians. In context and in person, Senator Obama's remarks about Pennsylvania voters left an impression diametrically opposed to that being trumpeted by his competitor's campaigns.”
  • 2008-04-11 /S/D/ Obama Exclusive (Audio): On V.P And Foreign Policy, Courting the Working Class, and Hard-Pressed Pennsylvanians “Here is the full audio from Senator Barack Obama's fundraiser hosted at a home in Pacific Heights in San Francisco on Sunday, April 6, 2008.”
  • 2008-04-11 /S/D/ Barack Obama tells it like it is “Below is text and video of Barack Obama responding to the most recent production of Fainting Couch Scandal-Opera Theater now playing on the Clinton and McCain channels - as well as among some of the usual flabbergasted flutterskulls (talking to yooo Kitty Pilgrim!) in the network and cable news media - in response to statements he made in San Francisco, CA on April 6, 2008.”
  • 2008-04-10 /S/D/ A Silver Lining In the Blue Battle by Markos Moulitsas: “No matter how you define victory, Barack Obama holds an insurmountable lead in the race to earn the Democratic nomination. He leads in the one metric that matters most: the pledged delegates chosen directly by Democratic voters. But he also leads in the popular vote, the number of states won and money raised. Still, Obama's advantages aren't large enough to allow him an outright victory. He needs the 20 percent of party delegates who aren't bound to a candidate. It's with these superdelegates that Clinton has staked her ephemeral chances. ... Yet while the Beltway establishment frets about the alleged damage this drawn-out contest is doing to the Democratic Party, in reality, it's been an almost unalloyed good.”
  • 2008-04-04 /S/D/ Obama and King by Juan Williams: “Now comes Barack Obama, a black man and a plausible national leader, who appeals across racial lines. But to his black and white supporters, Mr. Obama increasingly represents different things.”
  • 2008-04-03 /S/D/ All Those Academics by Daniel Larison: “Is there any evidence that most, or even a singficant chunk, of Obama’s supporters are academics?” Jonathan Chait asks in response to this column by Michael Barone. “Considering that he has received something in the neighbourhood of 14 million votes (including all caucus and disqualified states), that would be an awful lot of academics if they constituted a large percentage of his support. Even if there are that many graduate degree-holders running around out there, there are probably still a lot fewer full-time academics. Besides, this isn’t a mystery. We have exit polls [...]”
  • 2008-03-31 /S/D/ Some Republicans Emerge To Endorse Obama “With an eye to the general election and the Pennsylvania primary, some Republicans who oppose President Bush’s war policy are endorsing Senator Obama.”
  • 2008-03-31 /S/D/ Shades of Gray By Dahlia Lithwick: “Barack Obama has gotten past affirmative action. Have we?”
  • 2008-03-31 /S/D/ Obama had greater role on liberal survey “During his first run for elected office, Barack Obama played a greater role than his aides now acknowledge in crafting liberal stands on gun control, the death penalty and abortion — positions that appear at odds with the more moderate image he has projected during his presidential campaign.” The article apparently claims he has changed his positions for his presidential run, which is apparently a bad thing. Refers to this article as a source. Some discussion here.
  • 2008-03-29 /S/D/ The Chickens of Identity Politics Come Home to Roost “This is what the triangulation of Obama has helped to unleash: most Americans will now doubt the moral authority of the African-American intellectual and religious community not just to question the questionable racial remarks of a Bill Clinton, Ed Rendell, or Geraldine Ferraro, but also the Wright-like crudity of a Don Imus or a Michael Richards. Context is now king.” Further comments here.
  • 2008-03-28 /S/D/ Deeper and Deeper by James Taranto: “Does this mean he would have left? Or does it mean he would have stayed but felt uncomfortable? And when did Wright apologize? Blogger Tom Maguire undertakes an extensive investigation, and the answer appears to be: Never. In fact, Obama came close to apologizing to Wright.”
  • 2008-03-24 /S/D/ The conservative case for Barack Obama by Andrew J. Bacevich: “Barack Obama is no conservative. Yet if he wins the Democratic nomination, come November principled conservatives may well find themselves voting for the senator from Illinois. Given the alternatives — and the state of the conservative movement — they could do worse.”
  • 2008-03-21 /S/D/ Will Rush Limbaugh Be Indicted for Voter Fraud? “While this all makes for great talk radio and sounds like fun, there is one catch: What Limbaugh encouraged Republican voters to do in Ohio was a fifth-degree felony in that state, punishable with a $2,500 fine and six to 12 months in jail. That is because in order to change party affiliation in Ohio, voters have to fill out a form swearing allegiance to that party's principles "under penalty of election falsification."” Limbaugh urged Republicans to re-register as Democrats so they could vote for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, apparently in the belief that Clinton would be an easier opponent for John McCain to beat – in effect, deliberately weakening the Democratic Party.
  • 2008-03-21 /S/D/ The full story behind Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s 9/11 sermon by Roland Martin: “One of the most controversial statements in this sermon was when he mentioned “chickens coming home to roost.” He was actually quoting Edward Peck, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of President Reagan’s terrorism task force, who was speaking on FOX News. That’s what he told the congregation.” The "chickens" metaphor implied that 9/11 was possibly just part of the harvest America has sown with its many acts of terrorism abroad, of which he listed a handful. Opponents of Barack Obama have been attacking him for not distancing himself more forcefully from Rev. Wright's statements.
  • 2008-03-21 /S/D/ Mayhem At Fox News: Anchor Walks Off Set, Wallace Rails Network For "Obama-Bashing" (includes 2 embedded videos) “This morning on "Fox and Friends," Brian Kilmeade walked off the set after a dispute with his co-hosts Gretchen Carlson (she who celebrates deadly floods) and Steve Doocy over Obama's comment that his grandmother is a "typical white person." Kilmeade argued that the remark needed to be taken in context and eventually got so fed up with his co-hosts that he walked off set. .. Later, "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace came on the show and railed against "Fox and Friends" for what he called "Obama-bashing."
  • 2008-03-18 /S/D/ A More Perfect Union speech by Barack Obama, with video
  • 2008-03-14 /S/D/ John McCain Supports Barack Obama on Reverend Wright Issue (video) “During an interview, John McCain expressed his understanding of and appreciation for Barack Obama as some seek to attack him over controversial comments his pastor has made.”
  • 2008-02-25 /S/D/ The Audacity of Data by Noam Scheiber: “Obama is adamant about consulting bona fide experts. "The staff kept saying, 'What he wants to know is that he's really talking to experts in the field. When you go see him, you know, make it clear that you're an expert.'"”
  • 2008-02-23 /S/D/ Star-Telegram Q&A with Barack Obama “ [Q:] Some critics have questioned your patriotism. Is that fair game? [A:] It typically is based on this scurrilous e-mail [possibly this one?] that's been going around, which is completely false. So to the extent that it's a vicious, false rumor that's deliberately being spread over the Internet, no, that's not fair game. But nobody said politics was fair. It is important for us to dispel it ... I am not a Muslim and never have been. I've been going to the same church for the last 20 years. I was sworn in on my family Bible. And I have been pledging allegiance since I was 3. And in fact you can see it on C-SPAN sometimes. When I've opened up the Senate and am presiding over the Senate, I lead the Senate in the Pledge of Allegiance, so these are just the kinds of, I think, dirty tricks that you see crop up periodically.”
  • 2008-02-21 /S/D/ Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally “The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security. ... Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection. .. They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event. .. "How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman.” The "interview" link at the top of the page is wrong; see 2008-02-23 Star-Telegram Q&A with Barack Obama.
  • 2008-01-29 /S/D/ Our Tech President Endorsements: Barack Obama and John McCain “We’ve been interviewing 2008 presidential candidates for the last few months to get them to state, on record, their positions on ten key technology related issues (Barack Obama, John McCain, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich). .. Senator Obama has put more time and effort into defining his technology policies than any other candidate.” Includes links to interviews with all candidates mentioned.
  • 2008-01-28 /S/D/ Politics The author of the webcomic XKCD gives a strong and detailed endorsement for Barack Obama.
  • 2007-12-11 /S/D/ Liberal views could haunt Obama “When Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was seeking state office a dozen years ago, he took unabashedly liberal positions: flatly opposed to capital punishment, in support of a federal single-payer health plan, against any restrictions on abortion, and in support of state laws to ban the manufacture, sale and even possession of handguns.” Story progresses here.
  • 2007-11-28 /S/D/ Obama Scoffs at Clinton War Claim “The issue of mandates for health care has driven the debate between Clinton and Obama for the past few weeks. Obama says he would enforce his mandate for health care for all children by fining parents if they refused to allow health care coverage for their children. .. "I am happy to be very clear how we enforce mandates for children, and the reason is because children don't have an option."” Jon Ham and other right-wingers [3][4] see this as being rather totalitarian, and a comment poster sees this as hypocrisy given the left's views on abortion (Obama presumably representing the left since he's a democrat). Did he actually say this? It seems inconsistent, and a search did not turn up any confirmation that the quote is accurate; this link appears to be the source of all the quotes. There doesn't seem to be anything in Obama's health plan about punishing parents for not signing their kids up, and it specifically says that clients would be able to choose whether or not to stay on their old plan. This page says "Like many other issues, Senator Clinton still refuses to tell the American people exactly how she will penalize them when they can't afford to purchase health insurance,' said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.", which implies heavily that Obama's plan does not obligate anyone to make that purchase.
  • 2006-09-26 /S/D/ Obama's First Law Known As 'Google For Government' “The new law provides Americans with a new website, what Obama calls a "Google for government." Eventually, anyone will be able to type in a few key words and learn details of where federal tax dollars go, and perhaps whether those trillions are being spent wisely or foolishly.”
  • 2006-06 /S/D/ Obama religion speech Excerpts from a June, 2006 speech in which Barack Obama says some very sensible, non-political (and probably not very popular with the religious right) things about religion; full video is here. Commentary: Pharyngula (2008-06-10)
  • 2002-10-02 /S/D/ Barack Obama's Iraq Speech “I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. .. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”

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  • 2007-06-03
    • Wolf Blitzer: "I want you to raise your hand if you believe English should be the official language of the United States."
    • Barack Obama: "This is the kind of question that is designed precisely to divide us. You know, you're right. Everybody is going to learn to speak English if they live in this country. The issue is not whether or not future generations of immigrants are going to learn English. The question is: How can we come up with both a legal, sensible immigration policy? And when we get distracted by those kinds of questions, I think we do a disservice to the American people." [5]
  • 2007-02-11 In response to 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft’s question: "Would you advocate the use of military force to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?": "I think we should keep all options on the table..." (sources; related: potential US invasion of Iran)

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