Public Opinion: Is Barack Obama Qualified to Be President?

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I think that it is important that the "truth" be known whether or not Obama is qualified according to our Constitution.
If ,he is not qualified, according to the Constitution,and he is allowed to take place in office as the president of the United States , Then this simply implies that we no longer live by the written Constitution,and that our leaders do not care about " We the People of the United States of America".
What is next? Re-writing the whole Constitution so that it fits our governments bill.
Our government has become too powerful, and we as a people have become to lazy to do anything about it.
The rich (Government) are getting richer and the Poor (The People) are getting Poorer.
I am ready to stand and fight, if there is anyone that wnats to join me , Please let me know.

Loyd Hess of IL 10:11AM December 05, 2008

Regarding the current state of the economy--have the democrats forgotten they have controlled Congress for the last couple years? I trust no one who is not responsible enough to take responsiblity for his/her actions. Let's see if Congress can handle these issues: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2075.cfm
I have to laugh when the so called politically educated keep blaming the President for the current state of our economy. (Sure, George gets on his laptop every morning and says, "Let's set Gas at $4.00 today.") Sadly, many people think like that.
I'm STILL waiting for someone to tell me Obama's qualifications--besides the fact that he's democrat or that "we need him." That's just not enough to sway me. No one seems to be able to come up with anything, and please cut the emotional rhetoric. I only want the facts. By the way, I am independent.
My democrat friend/neighbor said to me, "you know there's a one in three chance McCain will die in office." I said; "I'll take my chances. I'd rather have someone in there that can handle it." If it's for a year, two, etc. that's better than having a mess the entire time with someone who comes across totally full of himself. Would you hire someone with no experience to to run your company?

C. H. of CO 12:40AM October 02, 2008

The Unusual Challenges Palin Faced in Alaska
By KIRK JOHNSON
ANCHORAGE — Like so many other distinctions about Alaska — the biggest, wildest, coldest state not even half a century removed from its territorial days — being governor here is just flat different.
“Alaska is its own world,” said Tony Knowles, a Democrat who served as governor from 1994 to 2002.
Sarah Palin’s experience as Alaska’s governor since taking office in late 2006 has been a keystone argument by Republicans that she is fit to serve as vice president. At the convention Wednesday in St. Paul, Ms. Palin and other speakers contended that her time as governor has given her more practical experience than Mr. Obama.
Many Americans in other states, though, might not recognize the job she holds or the unusual challenges she has faced — from managing a $5 billion budget surplus in a time of economic distress elsewhere, to upending an entrenched political establishment within her own party that was literally around for the state’s founding.
Alaska’s economic well-being — sustained, as most things are here, by oil and federal spending — has allowed Ms. Palin to avoid some of the tough budgetary choices vexing governors in dozens of other states. That in turn raises questions for some people about how much her experience is relevant to the rest of the nation and how much she can relate to the troubles of struggling blue-collar workers in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, worried about the winter gas bills and the mortgage.
At a time when most other state governments are cutting back, Alaska is now distributing $1,200-per-resident oil-bounty bonus checks.
That said, by other measures, Alaska is harder to govern than a smaller, more settled realm in the Lower 48. With vast distances, large numbers of indigenous peoples and a narrowly based extraction economy — with a handful of giant multinational oil corporations dominating the game — some economists say a country like Nigeria might be an apter comparison.
“Alaska really is a colonial place,” said Stephen Haycox, a professor of history at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. “One third of the economic base is oil; another third is federal spending. The economy is extremely narrow and highly dependent. It’s not to say that Alaska is a beggar state, but it certainly is true that Alaska is dependent on decisions made outside it, and over which Alaskans don’t have great control.”
Overlaid across all of that is a distinctly informal Alaskan style. At the annual governor’s picnic, usually held in July, the governor is expected to turn the brats and burgers on the grill — something Ms. Palin has done with gusto — with cabinet members in aprons rounding out the kitchen staff.
Alaska also came of political age recently, which has meant two crucial things to Ms. Palin’s rise and experience as governor.
First, the State Constitution concentrates power in the governor’s office more thoroughly than in almost any other state — a legacy of the late 1950s, historians say, when statehood and a simultaneous trend all over the country toward elevating executive authority coincided.
Alaskan governors can edit legislation and their vetoes are tougher for lawmakers to overcome. In the numerical scale of power devised by Thad Beyle, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina, only Massachusetts’ governor has a mightier tool kit.
Second, inch-deep history has meant that the leading lights of statehood are not mere names in history books but are in many cases still around and even still in power, like Senator Ted Stevens and Representative Don Young, both Republicans with decades under their belts in Washington. That old guard is still revered by some Alaskans, but it is disdained by others who have been on the lookout for fresh Republican faces.
It is in that densely layered Alaskan mix that Ms. Palin rose, governed and must be understood, academics and people in both parties say — not as merely a governor, or a woman, but as an Alaskan.
“The frontier mentality, whether myth or not, is still alive,” said Donald Linky, director of the Program on the Governor, at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
Political organizations and the careful grooming of rising stars have long been part of the political culture in creating governors-to-be in many other states, Mr. Linky said. Not so in Alaska, and elsewhere in the West.
In places where politics is closer to the ground, an insurgent like Ms. Palin, who challenged a governor from her own party in 2006 and won, has an easier road, Mr. Linky said. Ms. Palin’s storming of the gates was helped by the taint of the Alaskan money culture gone awry, as federal authorities investigated oil-cash corruption in the State Legislature in 2006, an inquiry which has since expanded to include Mr. Stevens and others.
“It was a situation that was absolutely ripe for somebody to come in and say, ‘Hey, the emperor has no clothes,’ ” said Mr. Haycox of the University of Alaska. “To give her her due, she had the morals and intellectual acumen to do that, but the situation was just waiting for someone to take advantage.”
Perhaps the biggest difference between Alaska and other states comes down to money. Alaska, at the opposite end of the energy equation from the one most Americans know, is booming as never before from the rise in energy prices in the last year.
Thirty-one other states are projecting shortfalls in their state budgets. Alaska is expecting $5 billion more than it can spend in a state with only 680,000 people.
Back when Mr. Knowles was governor, by contrast, oil was $9 to $22 a barrel, which meant year after year of state budget cuts and downsizing. “I struggled with the things you have to do, laying people off, making ends meet,” he said.
“That was at a time when Alaska was the only state cutting its budget — the rest of the world was going through the dot-com age,” Mr. Knowles said. “Now we’re awash in money.”
But if Ms. Palin’s arrival in power just in time for a new boom was good luck, what she did in pushing her agenda — including a tax increase on the oil industry, building from a process begun by her predecessor — was more about how Alaskan politics is played. In the process, people here say that a steely populist emerged from behind the sweet smile and the hockey-mom-who-loves-to-fish story line. She worked with Democrats, who are in the minority in the Legislature, to trump members of her own party on several crucial bills, and was not above using her personal popularity in the state to suggest that anyone in the Legislature who disagreed with her was perhaps in the pocket of Big Oil.
“People were afraid to vote ‘no’ against her,” said Lyda Green, a state senator and Republican — and a neighbor of the governor in the Anchorage suburb of Wasilla. In the oil industry tax overhaul, for example, Ms. Green said the pressure became intense.
“Her extraordinary popularity and this intense dislike of the industry that many Alaskans have — you put those two together and it’s tough,” she said. “People would go to town meetings and come back feeling compelled to support her.”
A debate is on now as to whether Ms. Palin’s policies will be wise for the state in the long run. Some economists have questioned, for example, whether the three-quarters of a billion dollars or so given to Alaskans this summer in the oil-bounty checks (a bill passed this summer with Democratic support in the Legislature), might have been better used in the state’s rainy-day fund.
And the oil tax overhaul, which linked state payments to net profits from the oil companies, rather than gross revenue, also exposes the state to potentially deep hits when oil prices decline. There are no neighboring states or regional economies to provide an alternative if the local economy dries up, nor is there a state income tax to fall back on.
“The state has always been exposed, but now it’s even more so because the state is now sharing the market risks more with the industry,” said Matthew Berman, a professor of economics at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. What might happen if commodity prices plunge is untested territory, he said.
“Nobody knows how the Palin administration is going to react to that, because they haven’t faced that problem yet,” Mr. Berman said.
William Yardley contributed reporting.

Sam of NY 11:34PM September 07, 2008

Yes, she is Governor of Alaska. No, she’s not the Lieutenant Governor. No, she’s not currently Mayor of Wasilla. Yes, she was Mayor of Wasilla, some years ago.
Yes, as Governor of Alaska, she’s the Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard. And yes, her professional military subordinate is quite impressed with her in that role.
And yes, the New York Times says the job of Governor of Alaska is one of the harder, and more powerful, jobs in state government.
Yes, there are people in Alaska who think she’s too liberal.
Yes, she did giggle when someone called Lyda Green a “bitch.” Yes, it was the same Lyda Green who tried to force a scheduling conflict that would make Palin miss her son’s high school graduation. Yes, this would also be the Lyda Green who complained no one had asked her about Palin during the vetting process.
Yes, she did push for and approve the Wasilla Sports Center. Yes, it did cost a lot of money. (People keep saying $20 million, that article says $14.5 million, but then they also added a $1.2 million dollar food service/kitchen piece. This year, since Palin was out of office as Mayor.) Yes, the city went into debt to do it (how did you buy your house, bunkie?) and raised the city sales tax from 2 percent to 2.5 percent to pay for it. Yes, the city is paying it off early.
Yes, she did want authority to have wolves culled from the air, because they were taking too many moose and caribou. Which people hunt for food in the back country in Alaska. No, she isn’t shooting them herself. I mean, not that she couldn’t, but I’m sure she doesn’t have time. (Thanks to bluemerlin in the comments.)
No, the Downs baby (Trig) isn’t Bristol’s kid, and no, the kid wasn’t born with Downs because (a) Palin flew on an airplane (b) went home to have the baby after an amniotic leak (c) because he was the result of incest between Todd Palin and Bristol.
No, Track (the kid who is leaving for Iraq) didn’t join the NG because he was a drug addict. He may have joined the NG because he was tired of people saying his Mom was getting him into the good hockey leagues. (Yes, that one was original reporting. I’ve got sources in Wasilla.)
No, Willow and Piper aren’t named for witches on TV. Among other things, Willow was born before Buffy came on TV, and Piper was born before Charmed.
Yes, Trig’s name may be misspelled. Isn’t it usually “Tryg” as in “Trygve”? In any case, I doubt he’s named for the Secretary General of the UN (1948-1952), either. But at least that was before he was born, unlike the others.
Yes, it appears that she has a Big Dipper tattooed on her ankle. She lost a bet.
No, she’s never been in any porn as far as anyone can find (and God knows I get enough google hits on those very topics.) I would think the Big Dipper tattoo would be a giveaway.
No, no one seems to be able to even find swimsuit pictures of her from her beauty queen days; God knows I looked. The bikini pictures that are around are photoshopped, just like the Vogue cover I have up.
No she wasn’t a member of the (wild-eyed libertarian) Alaska independence Party, although her husband once was
No, neither the (Canadian) National Post, nor Marc Armbinder at the Atlantic have troubled themselves to issue a correction. Yes, the New York Times did finally correct their story of September 1 — on September 5. This was after Elizabeth Bumiller was quoted by Howard Kurtz as saying she was “completely confident about the story.” Yes, that was after the New York Times’s source retracted the story. Yes, this should embarrass the Times, Bumiller, and Howard Kurtz. No, there have been no signs of embarrassment.
No, she was never a Pat Buchanan supporter; even when Buchanan claims she was, she was on the board of Steve Forbes’a campaign in Alaska.
No, she’s not anti-semitic. In fact, she has an Israeli flag in her office. (Contrary to popular belief, the usual Evangelical thinks Israel has a right to exist, granted by God.)
No, I don’t think she’s being “indoctrinated by Lieberman and AIPAC as we speak”; I don’t get the feeling that being indoctrinated is something that Palin does well.
Yes, it seems unlikely that she’s going to be in hiding for the next two weeks seeing as she’s been in rallies twice in the last two days. Or at least it’s going to be real rough, given that she has three media interviews scheduled today (6 September) alone.
Yes, it does appear that Palin’s local pastor preached about an end time when God will judge everyone, even Wasilla, Alaska, and the United States. Duh. This is called the Book of Revelations, and while I don’t believe it personally, I don’t see it as a disqualifier for the hundred million or so Baptists, Methodists, Evangelicals, Episcopalians, Catholics, Assembly of God, Presbyterian, Lutherans (traditional and Missouri Synod), African Methodist, and so on Christians in the US.
Yes, I do sometimes wonder about the state of Andrew’s health.
No, she’s doesn’t believe that the Iraq War was directed by God. Yes, she did pray that proceeding with the war was God’s will: “they should pray ‘that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.’” (Ever hear the phrase “Not my will, but Thine, be done”?) Yes, this apparently freaks some people right out.
No, Buchanan doesn’t support her now; in fact he’s supporting Obama. (Buchanan did think her speech was amazing, but then so do 80 percent of the people who saw it.) Or maybe not. Buchanan sure doesn’t like McCain though.
Yes, she was apparently pregnant when she got married
No, so far there’s no confirmation she had an affair while she was married, and they’ve denied it pretty strongly. No, she wouldn’t be the first Christian woman who got a little on the side, if it were true.
No, she wasn’t named as a co-respondent in a divorce; there’s no evidence she had an affair with her husbands’ business partner. The partner tried to have his divorce records sealed because he was being harrassed by journalists who used them to get his phone number.
Yes, barring immaculate conception virgin birth (whatever), Bristol appears to have had sex with her fiancee. No, Bristol didn’t receive only “abstinence-only” sex ed.
Yes, I have it on reliable report that Sarah Levi’s mom has been heard screaming “Way to go Levi!” at her future son-in-law son. No, it doesn’t appear to have been when Bristol broke the news to her family.
Note: I originally understood this story to be about Sarah, not Levi’s mom, in the context of hockey games. As such, it’s shouldn’t be in a Sarah Palin Rumors story, but I like the story too much to delete it.
yes, her 17 year old daughter is pregnant; no, the baby’s father is not an eighth grader; no, having sex at 16 is not statutory rape in Alaska. And no, there’s no way that a 17 year old can be 5 months pregnant as a result of having sex before she was 16. Learn to count for God’s sakes.
yes, she did fire the public safety guy — but he said in the Anchorage paper that, for the record, she never, and no one else in her administration ever, tried to make him fire her ex-brother-in-law
and yes, the state trooper (her sister’s ex-husband) she was worried about did: tase her 10 year old nephew; drive his state patrol car while drinking or drunk; did threaten to “bring her down”; and did threaten to murder her father and sister if they dared to get an attorney to help with the divorce.
yes, the state trooper was suspended when he was put under a court protective order
no, the trooper wasn’t fired
yes, she did fire the Wasilla Chief of Police as Mayor; yes, it was because he was lying to the City Council.
Yes, she did try to cut her own salary as Mayor by $4000 a year; yes, she had voted against the $4000 a year raise while on the City Council.
No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program. No, the Washington Post doesn’t appear to have corrected their story. Even after this was pointed out in the comments on the story.
No, she didn’t cut special needs student funding; yes, she did raise it by “only” 175 percent.
yes, she did try, clearly unsuccessfully, to get Bristol married off to her fiancee before the story came out
yes, she did ask the librarian if some books could be withdrawn because of being offensive; no, they couldn’t; yes she did threaten to fire the librarian a month later; no, that wasn’t over the books thing but instead over administrative issues; no, the librarian wasn’t fired either; yes, the librarian was a big supporter of one of her political opponents; yes, the librarian was also the girlfriend of the Chief of police mentioned above; no, this is not the first time in the history of civilization that someone has been threatened with being fired over a political dispute
No the list of books she wanted to ban that’s being passed around isn’t real; among other things, it includes a number of books published after her time in office there.
No, that hasn’t actually deterred people from claiming it really is true even if the list isn’t correct. For example:
“This list might not in fact reflect the books Sarah Palin wanted banned. As more than one person in Comments has pointed out, some of them were not published when Palin was in office. It is my hope that the mainstream media will not let this story drop and that at some point an actual list will surface. The very thought of having someone who once advocated book-banning possibly occupying one of the highest offices of our land fills me with profound dread. It should fill you with dread too.”
No, I don’t understand why a fake list is supposed to fill me with dread, either.
no, it wasn’t a shotgun wedding; Bristol and Levi been engaged for a good while according to his mother. It was either an accident or just an unconventional order.
yes, she’s an was an Assembly of God Holy Roller. No, she doesn’t attend an AoG church now. Yes, she did leave the AoG because they were getting too weird for her.
No, she’s not anti-Mormon. No, not all AoG churches are anti-Mormon. (AoG is even more hard-core about allowing each pastor and congregation to make their own decisions than the Baptists are.) (Thanks to AnonAmom in the comments.)
No, she’s not from another planet. No, I haven’t actually heard that one yet, but you wait.
yes, she apparently believes in some variant of Intelligent Design
no, she didn’t try to force the schools to teach it; she said if someone brought it up, it was an appropriate subject for debate.
No, she doesn’t believe in “abstinence only” education. Yes, she thinks abstinence is an effective way of preventing pregnancy. Duh. Yes, she believes kids should learn about condom use in schools.
Yes, she did smoke marijuana, when it was legal in Alaska. Yes, she apparently did inhale.
yes, she kills animals and eats them, and wears their skins
yes, she was a beauty contest contestant
yes, she was once a sportscaster
yes, she has a college degree in Journalism, but I won’t hold that against her, as she seems to have found honest work as well
yes, she sometimes wears her hair up; no that’s not a “beehive”
yes, her husband is Not A White Person (he’s a Yup’ik; an Eskimo but not an Inuit as my Inuit cousins have taken some pains to explain)
yes, she has on occasion, as Mayor, tried to get money from the federal government.
yes, she did finally turn down the money for the bridge. Yes, that meant changing her mind about it.
yes, she was vetted extensively, not just in three days — I’ve got links to press reports about people coming to Wassila on 29 May, and we had her on our Veepstakes at PJM from the first day we ran it.
yes, she want to a bunch of colleges before getting a degree. No, that’s not illegal. Yes, she seems to have made something of herself anyway.
no, they didn’t talk to a lot of the R’s power structure during the vetting; that probably has to do with the fact that she beat them in elections and sent a bunch of them to jail.
Yes, Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech was written by a speechwriter. Duh. No, none of Obama’s, McCain’s, nor Biden’s speeches were impromptu off the cuff things either.
Yes, she did put the Governors plane on eBay. No, that’s not how it was finally sold. Yes, McCain did say it wrong. Bad McCain.
No, Sarah Palin doesn’t have such control of Alaskans that people are afraid to say bad things about her. (What, are you nuts? Look at this list.) No, I don’t think it’s likely that she called Obama “Sambo”. (Good God, man, I’m ten years older than she and I barely remember “Little Black Sambo.”) Yes, it seems unlikely to me that she’s be real racist and marry a Yup’ik (or a part Yup’ik.) But yes, people are capable of amazing things. Yes, I’m sure there are people who don’t like her — I’ve talked with some myself. And no, I don’t think this waitress would have been thrilled to be called an “aboriginal”. And yes, if she called Hillary a “bitch”, I’m pretty confident is wasn’t the first time anyone in politics has said that.
No, she’s not a “global warming denier”, and when the crush dies down remind me to explain why the very phrasing “global warming denier” is anti-scientific, anti-intellectual, and a clear sign of a desire to impose your beliefs by coercion. But in the mean time, while I do believe that she has expressed some skepticism that warming is wholly human-caused, the existence of the Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet and the Alaska Climate Change Strategy work demonstrate that she’s considering the problem and has brought together people more expert than she to advise her.

Sam of NY 11:33PM September 07, 2008

Obama's $100,000 garden grant wasted
He vowed to 'work tirelessly' to build an oasis for Englewood. It never happened.
July 11, 2008
As a state senator, Barack Obama gave $100,000 in state money to a campaign volunteer who failed to deliver on a plan to create a botanic garden in one of Chicago's most blighted neighborhoods.
..... what was supposed to be a six-block stretch of trees and paths is now a field of unfulfilled dreams, strewn with weeds, garbage and broken pavement.
Kenny B. Smith, whose nonprofit group got the money, said it was spent legitimately, mostly on underground site preparation. But he admitted Thursday that the garden is a lost cause because other government money never came through.
..... Smith -- an early Obama supporter who gave $550 to his state and congressional campaigns -- said he gave his paperwork documenting the work to a state agency and no longer has it.
..... a reporter walked the site last week with a landscape architect from the Illinois Green Industry Association who found no evidence of the work Smith cited. The only major changes since 2000: A gazebo was added, and some trees were cut down.
Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said through a spokesman he wasn't responsible for monitoring the work; the staffs of Gov. Blagojevich and former Gov. George Ryan were.
..... In 2001, at Obama's direction, a $100,000 Illinois FIRST grant went to Smith's group. The garden site was part of Rosewood Estates, an affordable-housing development being built by the group, whose unpaid board chairman was Brian Washington, a Sun-Times security guard.
Plans called for more than 50 homes, but only a dozen were built, Smith said.
The remaining $1 million for the botanic garden was never raised.
Those legendary $400 hammers for the military have nothing on this $100,000 gazebo.
A trifling matter? I don't think so. More like a revealing one:
Obama feels no sense of responsibility for the results of money directed to someone HE chose. This isn't "the buck stops here" of Harry Truman fame; this is "the buck went somewhere else."
Gubernatorial staffs aren't responsible for monitoring projects like this. State agencies are. If the agency involved didn't do their job (according to the article, it's the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity), that's one thing, but the blame-shifting to other pols is either hopelessly naive (a legitimate possibility, given the candidate's seemingly endless well of ignorance) or irresponsible.
If you look at the full text of the press release that announced the project, you'll see that Kenny Smith was on hand, and that he made representations about how he was "work(ing) with a variety of governmental agencies and not-for-profit groups to secure funding this project including the Chicago Transit Authority, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the American Society of Landscape Architecture. We have made some progress ....

Sam of NY 11:22PM September 07, 2008

It remains whether this turns out to be Barack Obama's "Christmas in Cambodia" untruth, his Dukakis-in-tank hilarity -- or both.
Regardless, what follows is a pretty obvious "misstatement" that would not possibly be ignored if it were uttered by a conservative or a Republican.
In his hilariously titled post ("Mighta Joined If He Coulda Capped Some Cong") on Barack Obama's interview in a barn this morning (not kidding) on This Week with Georage Stephanopoulos, fellow NewsBuster Mark Finkelstein reported on Obama's answer to a viewer's question about whether he ever considered military service. You can read Mark's post for his overall thoughts, but I want to focus on something the Illinois senator said that several commenters at the post took exception to:
You know, I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school. .... But keep in mind: I graduated in 1979.
There are only two "little" problems:
Selective Service Registration was not possible in 1979.
Bob Owens at Pajamas Media noted that Obama registered with the Selective Service with an effective date of September 4, 1980.
The Wikipedia entry on Obama's early life agrees with the candidate's memor of when he graduated (other verification will be obtaned after this post goes up):
Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from the fifth grade until his graduation in 1979.
Wiki's Selective Service entry says the following about the registration requirements at the time:
On March 25, 1975, Pres. Gerald Ford signed Proclamation 4360, Terminating Registration Procedures Under Military Selective Service Act, eliminating the registration requirement for all 18-25 year old male citizens. Then on July 2, 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed Proclamation 4771, Registration Under the Military Selective Service Act, retroactively re-establishing the Selective Service registration requirement for all 18-26 year old male citizens born on or after January 1, 1960. Only men born between March 29, 1957, and December 31, 1959, were completely exempt from Selective Service registration. The first registrations after Proclamation 4771 took place on Monday, July 21, 1980, for those men born in January, February and March 1960 at U.S. Post Offices. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were reserved for men born in the later quarters of the year, and registration for men born in 1961 began the following week.
Obama could not have registered upon graduation from high school as he claimed. His actually registered occurred roughly 45 days after the first post-Proclamation 4771 registrations took place in 1980.
Obama's statement, that "I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school," is inarguably false.

Sam of NY 11:19PM September 07, 2008

What Do the Joint Chiefs Really Do?
Before the long weekend began, Barack Obama made a semi-flip-flop regarding the situation in Iraq, even allowing that the surge had achieved some stability and that the next president would be foolish to fritter away those gains. Predictably, this acknowledgement of the obvious triggered howls of outrage on the left. Obama firmly stuck to his new position for almost two full hours before assembling the press once more to reaffirm his long-expressed intention to abandon Iraq. “I am absolutely committed to ending the war,” the longtime community organizer declared. “I will call my Joint Chiefs of Staff in and give them a new assignment and that is to end the war.”
While everyone has focused on the first part of the statement – Obama’s “absolute commitment” to defeat – I want to devote a little attention to the second part, the mechanism whereby Obama will make that defeat a reality. In Obama’s telling, he will call in his Joint Chiefs of Staff and reset their priorities.
I know Obama is a student of military matters and intellectually voracious, so it is thus rather stunning that he would betray such ignorance regarding the way the military actually functions. In truth, the Joint Chiefs are not part of the chain of command. Indeed, they are specifically by statute not part of the chain of command but instead serve solely in an advisory capacity to the president.
Surely Obama knows this. Obviously he wouldn’t be seeking the role of Commander-in-Chief without knowing how the job is done. So what follows will be familiar to him, but may be enlightening to the media types who to date have overlooked yet another Obama misstatement.
In 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols act passed congress, and it reorganized the way the military functions. Its prime goal regarding the Joint Chiefs was to cut down on inter-service rivalries. To give you the hyper-condensed Reader’s Digest version of things (which will still obviously put you several leagues ahead of presumptive-nominee Obama), the intent was that a guy like Norman Schwarzkopf could have command of a theatre without having to repeatedly go hat in hand to the different services. The Joint Chiefs would have a representative from each of the services that could advise the president of their individual service’s insights, but they were specifically cut out of the command loop so that the Schwarzkopf-type could run things efficiently.
So what is to become of our poor President Obama, barking out orders to his Joint Chiefs only to learn that they don’t carry out orders but just give advice? Will he claim he is powerless to end the war? Or will he eventually figure out that he has to get Odierno or Gates or Petraeus on the phone to make his wishes known?
And what are we to think of our Candidate Obama? I’ll admit the Goldwater-Nichols act isn’t exactly a household name like Miley Cyrus or Amy Winehouse, but the guy is running for president for the specific

Sam of NY 11:17PM September 07, 2008

The American Dichotomy: To Change With The Same
Forty-five years to the day after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech in Washington D.C., Barack Obama officially accepted the Democratic nomination for the office of President of the United States. As he accepted the nomination, Americans across this country were moved by how far we have come from the Jim Crow segregation motivated march on Washington.
African-Americans who never believed they would live to see an African-American become or even be nominated to become America’s Commander-In-Chief, beam with pride as they witness this watershed moment. White and Black Americans(as well as all other ethnic groups of Americans) who are hungry for change in American politics, devour the eloquent words of Hope and Promise delivered by Mr. Obama. In a country that for so long has been divided by race, it seems fitting that a son of a Black African father and a White American mother delivers such a poignant message of hope and reconciliation. Barack has the unique ability to simultaneously speak to the issues and concerns of African-Americans, while comforting White America’s uneasiness about treading in topical waters not discussed in depth here-to-fore.
We witness tears flowing from the eyes of African-American men and women raised in a pre-Civil Rights era America who never thought they would personally see this day. Some African-Americans(and White Americans) raised in post-Civil Rights era America use the fact of this nomination as evidence of our arrival into a post-racial, color blind society.
We should readily acknowledge that we have progressed from the “segregated restroom”, “can’t eat at this lunch counter”, “sit in the back of the bus” era which helped fuel Dr. King’s led march on Washington D.C. 45 years ago. It is amazing, inspirational and exciting to witness such a monumental advancement in the 45 years of time marking the space between these powerful moments.
While we recognize the advancements made over the past 45 years, we continue to hear and see incidents containing elements which would lead one to believe that race continues to be relevant in 21st Century Society and Politics. While campaigning during the Democratic Primary, Barack Obama was subjugated to suggestions, innuendoes and flat out racially charged comments questioning his religious affiliation, his patriotism, his ability to lead and his elect-ability. So many potentially damaging statements, comments and accusations were coming out about Mr. Obama that he felt it necessary to open a website specifically purposed do dispel all of the falsities being told about him. Have we ever witnessed a candidate bombarded with so much negative unsubstantiated fodder(believed by so many to be true) that he would need to set up a website for the specific purpose of dispelling each one? Still we cannot say definitively that it was racial, because it’s not overt enough. Much of what is said is implied or suggestive.
We live in a time in this country where the majority of voting age Americans are not happy with the Bush Administration’s politics and policies. We(as a country) are involved in a very unpopular war in Iraq. Our economy is suffering greatly as well. Most people’s view of the Republican Party is not very favorable due to the Bush administration. An overwhelming majority believe we need “Change”. Here we have, in Barack Obama, a candidate who’s very political platform is built on “Change”. A man who speaks with such presence and purpose that he makes many people who were initial opponents and those otherwise skeptical of politics believe that, “Yes We Can”. In a climate of such disdain for the policies of the past eight “Bush Republican Years”, with a loud call for “Change” and a candidate bringing a message of “Change” in such a galvanizing and refreshing manner; How is it possible for him to be in a virtual tie in the polls with a man(Mr. McCain) perceived so closely affiliated with the failed policies and missteps of the Bush Administration?
The Political Environment has changed significantly over the past 45 years; Have our attitudes?
Schools in many Southern states were integrated because of the Brown v. The Board Of Education decision of the 1950's. Making “separate but equal” unlawful and ushering in an era of Blacks being able to get into previously “White only” schools. Move ahead some 50 years to the present and we find that the same schools integrated in the 50's and 60's by Blacks were exited by Whites and subsequently became majority Black populated schools plagued by some of the same under funding and sub-par educational offerings which led to the equality seeking Brown v. Board case of the 1950's. So we find that although the law does not allow discrimination of entrance into a facility, attitudes and prejudices can produce some of the same results and effects.
Let’s make sure that when we vote, that although we may despise the overall wearing, tobacco spitting, hateful Jim Crow of the Civil Rights era, we do not support his more clandestine, subliminally suggestive, suit wearing, politically savvy, yet just as harmful grandson James Theodore Crow Esquire The Third.
Perceptions drive our thoughts and actions more than we may want to acknowledge.
Jonathan Richardson
Author/Speaker/Poet
This Articles is Part of the “perspectives” series By the author of the thought provoking book: The Complicated Life Of The African-American Man(What’s on his mind)

Jonathan of OR 7:21AM September 06, 2008

What is the core issue with exprience and how is experience to be president really measured? Maybe there should be a job description with mimimum qualifications. Short of that, the discussion needs to stop.
Barack Obama has served over 10 years (state senate and then in the US senate). Why all the jokes about him turning down a job with a top law firm after graduating from Harvard to work instead for as a community organizer? To me, this was putting country first.
I am deeply offended about the attacks on Senator's Obama's qualifications. It's even more humiliating to be comparing him to Sarah Palin. He is running against Sen. McCain.
Does either Sen McCain or Gov Palin understand or have deep knowledge of the the US constitution because Barack Obama does.
The president is to protect the constitution but you have to understand it to defend it.
I wonder if he were not a man of color would anyone dare question hes credentials. Sarah Palin seems like a gutsy, smart woman but to compare her to Barack Obama is grossly unfair. Alaska has a population of 650k and the state doesn't have the diverse issues that many other governers have to deal with so her exprience is limited. Governers don't have foreign affairs experience, senators don't have executive experience. So what is this about?
Stop it. Vote for who you want but don't diminish either of the candidates' experience.

Audrey of CA 9:02PM September 05, 2008

when you listen to Obama it is total destruction for this country he wants to raise taxes almost double to what they are now and he wants to have terminate a baby life up to nine months and look at history when the people have their guns taken away from them they are helpless and can be led to slaughter like Hitler did to the Jews at Holocost. the USA is on the same route with Obama at the presidential seat .a few months in congress does not qualify him nor does his eloquent mouth but he has as the Native American would say he speaks with a forked tongue --It is impossible to deliver things he has promised when he is elected and if the American people dont wake up we will be a moselum nation within a few years. And i thought a president had to be a native born citizen but i guess a democrats can change the Constitution whenever they want to say whatever they want. I have voted Democrat for a lot of years but with this farce i have changed to Republican and if this is the way the democrats work i will remain a republican and if the people think for one second they are voting for a African American they are just Dumb they are voting for a Mosleum and he will remain a moselum he wont even salute the American Flag or acknowledge our National anthum. America wake you and take notice as to what this country is and stands for. We live in the greatest nation on earth and why do we need to change to to be substandard nation as Obama wants to do. that is my two cents worth and "God Bless America" before the destruction of this great country begins with Obama

Georgia Boy and proud of it of GA 10:13PM August 28, 2008