Barack Obama Will Make History

[Guest Obama for America]

Right now groups supporting Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are flooding Iowa and the other early states with millions of dollars in paid ads, phone calls, and mailings.

 

Some of it is negative and even deceptive, and a lot of it is paid for by huge, unregulated contributions from special interests.

 

Taking on these groups isn't just a matter of setting the record straight about me or my positions.

 

It's about proving that a new kind of campaign -- funded by ordinary people who want something better for all of us -- can defeat the same tired, old political textbook that so many Americans just don't trust anymore.

[Guest Metro DC for Obama]

Please come celebrate Barack's next step towards the Presidency! NH Primary Watch at Porter's Dining Salon (1207 19th St NW) TONIGHT (1/8) at 7pm.

 

To get involved with DC for Obama, come to the monthly meeting at the Hawk & Dove (329 Pennsylvania Ave SE) TOMORROW (1/9) at 7pm.

 

To get involved with VA for Obama, come to one of the Volunteer Days!

 

Saturday the 12th: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/organizing/4vy4q

Monday the 14th: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/organizing/4vy4d

 

Thanks,

 

The Metro DC for Obama Team

[Guest BlingBling_*]

Obama,

Made history again last night in South Carolina. He also got Caroline Kennedy's endorsemnt. She stated that not since her father has there been a Presidential candidate that has move her like Obama.

[Guest DC 4 Obama]

Sen. Ted Kennedy on Monday endorsed Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, lending the full weight of the Kennedy name to a candidate who is seeking to defeat the Clinton political machine.

 

Making explicit comparisons to his slain brothers, Kennedy, D-Mass., appeared at a rally in Washington alongside his niece, Caroline, and his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to make his endorsement official.

 

"I feel change in the air," Kennedy said to thunderous applause, with a turn-away crowd of more than 4,000 crowding an auditorium at American University.

 

"Every time I've been asked over the past year who I would support in the Democratic Primary, my answer has always been the same: I'll support the candidate who inspires me, who inspires all of us, who can lift our vision and summon our hopes and renew our belief that our country's best days are still to come," Kennedy said.

 

"I've found that candidate," he added. "He will be a president who refuses to be trapped in the patterns of the past."

[Guest One Hot Chick]

I think it would be sexy if Obama picks Kennedy as his running mate.

 

 

[Guest Obama for America]

Tomorrow is Primary Day in Washington, DC, and I'm writing to you with an important reminder to vote and to make sure that your family, friends, and neighbors get out and vote too.

 

Use this online tool to find your polling location:

 

http://www.dcboee.org/voterreg/ppl_step1.asp

 

When Michelle and I talked about my running for president, one of the core goals we both had for this campaign was to leave the political process better off than we found it.

 

You have challenged conventional thinking and built a grassroots movement for change that is sweeping this country.

 

I have no doubt that the election tomorrow will be close. It's vitally important that you vote and ensure that others who want change in this country vote too.

 

Our work here will have a lasting impact in Washington, DC for a long time to come.

 

I believe that this movement for change can do more than just win an election. Together, we can transform this country.

 

Find your polling location and vote tomorrow:

 

http://www.dcboee.org/voterreg/ppl_step1.asp

 

Thank you for being part of this,

 

Barack

 

P.S. -- Here are a few details and rules that will help make the voting process run smoothly. Make sure to share these with your friends:

 

Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. You must be allowed to cast a ballot if you are in line when the polling place closes.

 

You can bring voter information materials with you to the voting booth.

 

You can vote a Special Ballot if your name is not on the voter registration list; if your eligibility is in question; if you are a first-time DC voter who has not provided identification; if you are unable to vote at your assigned precinct because of age or disability; if you are claiming a different party registration than what's listed; or if your right to vote has been challenged at the precinct for administrative reasons.

 

You can also update your address on Election Day by voting a Special Ballot.

[Luke_Wilbur]

On Tuesday, the Senate, with the backing of 18 Democrats and every Republican, defeated attempts by Sens. Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold to hold the telecom companies accountable for their past illegal wiretapping conduct.

 

Sen. Barack Obama voted to hold telecom companies accountable.

Sen. John McCain voted against holding telecom companies accountable.

Sen. Hillary Clinton did not vote.

[Guest WhiteMansBurden]

Before everyone starts praising Obama the media needs discuss his Communist links.

 

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/obamas-communist-mentor/

 

In his biography of Barack Obama, David Mendell writes about Obama's life as a "secret smoker" and how he "went to great lengths to conceal the habit." But what about Obama's secret political life? It turns out that Obama's childhood mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, was a communist.

 

In his books, Obama admits attending "socialist conferences" and coming into contact with Marxist literature. But he ridicules the charge of being a "hard-core academic Marxist," which was made by his colorful and outspoken 2004 U.S. Senate opponent, Republican Alan Keyes.

 

However, through Frank Marshall Davis, Obama had an admitted relationship with someone who was publicly identified as a member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA). The record shows that Obama was in Hawaii from 1971-1979, where, at some point in time, he developed a close relationship, almost like a son, with Davis, listening to his "poetry" and getting advice on his career path. But Obama, in his book, Dreams From My Father, refers to him repeatedly as just "Frank."

 

The reason is apparent: Davis was a known communist who belonged to a party subservient to the Soviet Union. In fact, the 1951 report of the Commission on Subversive Activities to the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaii identified him as a CPUSA member. What's more, anti-communist congressional committees, including the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), accused Davis of involvement in several communist-front organizations.

 

Trevor Loudon, a New Zealand-based libertarian activist, researcher and blogger, noted evidence that "Frank" was Frank Marshall Davis in a posting in March of 2007.

 

Obama's communist connection adds to mounting public concern about a candidate who has come out of virtually nowhere, with a brief U.S. Senate legislative record, to become the Democratic Party frontrunner for the U.S. presidency. In the latest Real Clear Politics poll average, Obama beats Republican John McCain by almost four percentage points.

 

AIM recently disclosed that Obama has well-documented socialist connections, which help explain why he sponsored a "Global Poverty Act" designed to send hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. foreign aid to the rest of the world, in order to meet U.N. demands. The bill has passed the House and a Senate committee, and awaits full Senate action.

 

But the Communist Party connection through Davis is even more ominous. Decades ago, the CPUSA had tens of thousands of members, some of them covert agents who had penetrated the U.S. Government. It received secret subsidies from the old Soviet Union.

 

You won't find any of this discussed in the David Mendell book, Obama: From Promise to Power. It is typical of the superficial biographies of Obama now on the market. Secret smoking seems to be Obama's most controversial activity. At best, Mendell and the liberal media describe Obama as "left-leaning."

 

But you will find it briefly discussed, sort of, in Obama's own book, Dreams From My Father. He writes about "a poet named Frank," who visited them in Hawaii, read poetry, and was full of "hard-earned knowledge" and advice. Who was Frank? Obama only says that he had "some modest notoriety once," was "a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes during his years in Chicago..." but was now "pushing eighty." He writes about "Frank and his old Black Power dashiki self" giving him advice before he left for Occidental College in 1979 at the age of 18.

 

This "Frank" is none other than Frank Marshall Davis, the black communist writer now considered by some to be in the same category of prominence as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker. In the summer/fall 2003 issue of African American Review, James A. Miller of George Washington University reviews a book by John Edgar Tidwell, a professor at the University of Kansas, about Davis's career, and notes, "In Davis's case, his political commitments led him to join the American Communist Party during the middle of World War II-even though he never publicly admitted his Party membership." Tidwell is an expert on the life and writings of Davis.

 

Is it possible that Obama did not know who Davis was when he wrote his book, Dreams From My Father, first published in 1995? That's not plausible since Obama refers to him as a contemporary of Richard Wright and Langston Hughes and says he saw a book of his black poetry.

 

The communists knew who "Frank" was, and they know who Obama is. In fact, one academic who travels in communist circles understands the significance of the Davis-Obama relationship.

 

Professor Gerald Horne, a contributing editor of the Communist Party journal Political Affairs, talked about it during a speech last March at the reception of the Communist Party USA archives at the Tamiment Library at New York University. The remarks are posted online under the headline, "Rethinking the History and Future of the Communist Party."

 

Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, noted that Davis, who moved to Honolulu from Kansas in 1948 "at the suggestion of his good friend Paul Robeson," came into contact with Barack Obama and his family and became the young man's mentor, influencing Obama's sense of identity and career moves. Robeson, of course, was the well-known black actor and singer who served as a member of the CPUSA and apologist for the old Soviet Union. Davis had known Robeson from his time in Chicago.

 

As Horne describes it, Davis "befriended" a "Euro-American family" that had "migrated to Honolulu from Kansas and a young woman from this family eventually had a child with a young student from Kenya East Africa who goes by the name of Barack Obama, who retracing the steps of Davis eventually decamped to Chicago."

 

It was in Chicago that Obama became a "community organizer" and came into contact with more far-left political forces, including the Democratic Socialists of America, which maintains close ties to European socialist groups and parties through the Socialist International (SI), and two former members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), William Ayers and Carl Davidson.

 

The SDS laid siege to college campuses across America in the 1960s, mostly in order to protest the Vietnam War, and spawned the terrorist Weather Underground organization. Ayers was a member of the terrorist group and turned himself in to authorities in 1981. He is now a college professor and served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago. Davidson is now a figure in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, an offshoot of the old Moscow-controlled CPUSA, and helped organize the 2002 rally where Obama came out against the Iraq War.

 

Both communism and socialism trace their roots to Karl Marx, co-author of the Communist Manifesto, who endorsed the first meeting of the Socialist International, then called the "First International." According to Pierre Mauroy, president of the SI from 1992-1996, "It was he [Marx] who formally launched it, gave the inaugural address and devised its structure..."

 

Apparently unaware that Davis had been publicly named as a CPUSA member, Horne said only that Davis "was certainly in the orbit of the CP [Communist Party]-if not a member..."

 

In addition to Tidwell's book, Black Moods: Collected Poems of Frank Marshall Davis, confirming Davis's Communist Party membership, another book, The New Red Negro: The Literary Left and African American Poetry, 1930-1946, names Davis as one of several black poets who continued to publish in CPUSA-supported publications after the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact. The author, James Edward Smethurst, associate professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, says that Davis, however, would later claim that he was "deeply troubled" by the pact.

 

While blacks such as Richard Wright left the CPUSA, it is not clear if or when Davis ever left the party.

 

However, Obama writes in Dreams From My Father that he saw "Frank" only a few days before he left Hawaii for college, and that Davis seemed just as radical as ever. Davis called college "An advanced degree in compromise" and warned Obama not to forget his "people" and not to "start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that ***brown trout***." Davis also complained about foot problems, the result of "trying to force African feet into European shoes," Obama wrote.

 

For his part, Horne says that Obama's giving of credit to Davis will be important in history. "At some point in the future, a teacher will add to her syllabus Barack's memoir and instruct her students to read it alongside Frank Marshall Davis' equally affecting memoir, Living the Blues and when that day comes, I'm sure a future student will not only examine critically the Frankenstein monsters that US imperialism created in order to subdue Communist parties but will also be moved to come to this historic and wonderful archive in order to gain insight on what has befallen this complex and intriguing planet on which we reside," he said.

 

Dr. Kathryn Takara, a professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who also confirms that Davis is the "Frank" in Obama's book, did her dissertation on Davis and spent much time with him between 1972 until he passed away in 1987.

 

In an analysis posted online, she notes that Davis, who was a columnist for the Honolulu Record, brought "an acute sense of race relations and class struggle throughout America and the world" and that he openly discussed subjects such as American imperialism, colonialism and exploitation. She described him as a "socialist realist" who attacked the work of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

 

Davis, in his own writings, had said that Robeson and Harry Bridges, the head of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and a secret member of the CPUSA, had suggested that he take a job as a columnist with the Honolulu Record "and see if I could do something for them." The ILWU was organizing workers there and Robeson's contacts were "passed on" to Davis, Takara writes.

 

Takara says that Davis "espoused freedom, radicalism, solidarity, labor unions, due process, peace, affirmative action, civil rights, Negro History week, and true Democracy to fight imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy. He urged coalition politics."

 

Is "coalition politics" at work in Obama's rise to power?

 

Trevor Loudon, the New Zealand-based blogger who has been analyzing the political forces behind Obama and specializes in studying the impact of Marxist and leftist political organizations, notes that Frank Chapman, a CPUSA supporter, has written a letter to the party newspaper hailing the Illinois senator's victory in the Iowa caucuses.

 

"Obama's victory was more than a progressive move; it was a dialectical leap ushering in a qualitatively new era of struggle," Chapman wrote. "Marx once compared revolutionary struggle with the work of the mole, who sometimes burrows so far beneath the ground that he leaves no trace of his movement on the surface. This is the old revolutionary ‘mole,' not only showing his traces on the surface but also breaking through."

 

Let's challenge the liberal media to report on this. Will they have the honesty and integrity to do so?

[wiley]

Has anyone seen this Obama Video?

 

[Guest Republican No More]

Yes We Can is great. I feel the message resonating accross the country.

 

I would never have thought it possible for a black man to lead our country. I now admit I was wrong.

 

Senator Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States.

 

According to the Library of Congress, Mrs Clinton has authored 20 pieces of legislation in her time in the Senate.

 

According to the Library of Congress, Mr Obama, in his first year alone, authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427.

 

Since Senator Obama was sworn into the United States Senate, he has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1,096.

 

He has charisma and wants to actually work for the people.

 

That is why he has my vote.

[Guest David Plouffe]

When we won Iowa, the Clinton campaign said it's not the number of states you win, it's "a contest for delegates."

 

When we won a significant lead in delegates, they said it's really about which states you win.

 

When we won South Carolina, they discounted the votes of African-Americans.

 

When we won predominantly white, rural states like Idaho, Utah, and Nebraska, they said those didn't count because they won't be competitive in the general election.

 

When we won in Washington State, Wisconsin, and Missouri -- general election battlegrounds where polls show Barack is a stronger candidate against John McCain -- the Clinton campaign attacked those voters as "latte-sipping" elitists.

 

And now that we've won more than twice as many states, the Clinton spin is that only certain states really count.

 

But the facts are clear.

 

For all their attempts to discount, distract, and distort, we have won more delegates, more states, and more votes.

 

Meanwhile, more than half of the votes that Senator Clinton has won so far have come from just five states. And in four of these five states, polls show that Barack would be a stronger general election candidate against McCain than Clinton.

 

With our overwhelming victory in the Mississippi primary yesterday, our lead in earned delegates is now wider than it was on March 3rd, before the contests in Ohio and Texas.

 

And thanks to your help, we have dramatically increased our support among so-called "superdelegates" -- Governors, Members of Congress, and party officials who have a vote at the Democratic National Convention in August.

 

As the number of remaining delegates dwindles, Hillary Clinton's path to the nomination seems less and less plausible.

 

Now that Mississippi is behind us, we move on to the next ten contests. The Clinton campaign would like to focus your attention only on Pennsylvania -- a state in which they have already declared that they are "unbeatable."

 

But Pennsylvania is only one of those 10 remaining contests, each important in terms of allocating delegates and ultimately deciding who our nominee will be.

 

We have activated our volunteer networks in each of these upcoming battlegrounds. We're putting staff on the ground and building our organization everywhere.

 

The key to victory is not who wins the states that the Clinton campaign thinks are important. The key to victory is realizing that every vote and every voter matters.

 

Throughout this entire process, the Clinton campaign has cherry-picked states, diminished caucuses, and moved the goal posts to create a shifting, twisted rationale for why they should win the nomination despite winning fewer primaries, fewer states, fewer delegates, and fewer votes.

 

We must stand up to the same-old Washington politics. Barack has won twice as many states, large and small, in every region of the country -- many by landslide margins. And this movement is expanding the base of the Democratic Party by attracting new voters in record numbers and bringing those who had lost hope back into the political process.

 

David Plouffe

Campaign Manager

Obama for America

[Guest J. Hogue]

Al Gore is the most influential of the supreme super-duper donkey-demo-delegates. He will broker a solution in June at the latest that will see either an Obama-Clinton, or Clinton-Obama compromise ticket presented before the convention.

[Guest Luke]

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/...1727145,00.html

 

Lee Hamilton Endorses Obama

 

Former Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton is backing Sen. Barack Obama in an endorsement that could boost the presidential hopeful's national security standing, the Associated Press has learned.

 

Hamilton, who during a three-decade House career rose to be chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, also was vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission. He planned to announce his endorsement of Obama on Wednesday.

 

In an interview Hamilton said he viewed the Illinois senator as a champion of "the politics of consensus and not of partisan division."

 

"I think he is driven by the search for the common good," Hamilton said.

 

Hamilton is best known as the top Democrat on the panel that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He also was co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission that assessed U.S. policy in Iraq.

 

Although Hamilton is not a Democratic superdelegate, his backing comes on the heels of several high-profile endorsements for Obama, who leads Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in delegates for the party's nomination. Sens. Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota endorsed Obama in recent days.

 

Hamilton is the highest-profile Indiana Democrat to back Obama before the state's May 6 primary. Sen. Evan Bayh and the bulk of Indiana's Democratic Party leadership have campaigned actively for Clinton in a state where neither candidate is regarded as a natural front-runner.

 

Hamilton, once mentioned as a possible running mate for Bill Clinton, told the AP he believed Obama was the candidate most likely to unite the country.

 

"I begin by asking myself what kind of leadership the country needs at this juncture and I think, for me at least, the answer is that you want a candidate that will try to bring together a country that is very evenly divided, a country in which partisanship has been very sharp and to try to get a candidate who will create a new sense of national unity and will try to transcend the divisions within the country," he said.

 

Hamilton spent 34 years in Congress representing a southern Indiana district before retiring in 1999.

 

Hamilton now leads the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. In a speech there last year, written by a longtime aide to Hamilton, Obama warned Pakistan that he would use military force if necessary to root out terrorists.

[Guest marty_*]

Obama holds LGBT fundraiser in New York City

 

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT OR WANT TO SHARE THIS IMPORTANT INFORMATION.

 

http://www.advocate.com/news_detail_ektid53048.asp

 

03/29/08-03/31/08

Obama Holds LGBT Fund-raiser In New York City

 

Sen. Barack Obama waded deep into Clinton territory Thursday evening at a private LGBT fund-raiser in New York City where the price of

admission was $2,300 per person.

 

Held at the apartment of GLSEN founder and executive director Kevin Jennings and his partner, Jeff Davis, the event drew about 125 people and

raised $170,000. No press were admitted, but based on several accounts, attendees were struck by the Illinois senator’s candor as well as his fluency with LGBT issues.

 

"I’ve been to many events over the past 10 years of candidates running for office," said Corey Johnson, one of the hosts, “This was the most

forthright, eloquent, and detailed stuff I’ve heard from a politician [regarding gay issues].”

 

Molly Lenore, 43, compared Obama’s discussion of the LGBT community to the speech he gave about race in America last week. "During his race speech, everybody said afterward that he treated the American people like adults, and I felt like that’s what he did," said Lenore, who is transgender and an Obama supporter. “I might not agree 100%, but I want to have an intelligent conversation with somebody."

 

According to those present, Obama spoke for about 30 to 35 minutes about queer issues and then fielded questions, most of which were not LGBT-specific.

 

Johnson, who is 25, has supported Obama for about a year but prefaced his remarks by saying he has never been an "Obama-phile." He said the senator addressed some of the most contentious LGBT issues without prompting, such as same-sex marriage and the inclusion of transgender people in the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. In fact, those were the two issues Sen. Obama singled out as being potential

disappointments to the LGBT community right now, while he signaled that a hate-crimes bill could likely be passed and signed into law and that repeal of "don’t ask, don’t tell” might be on the horizon.

 

According to several sources, including Johnson and Lenore, Obama said he did not think it was “politically feasible” to secure marriage rights for

same-sex couples in the country at this point. Sen. Obama acknowledged that the community wanted full marriage rights but said that he favored civil unions for now while leaving open the possibility that his position might evolve in the future.

 

In terms of ENDA, Obama said he supported an ENDA that included transgender protections but that he didn’t believe a fully inclusive bill had enough votes to pass the Senate at this time.

 

"I don’t agree — I think we’re much stronger united as a community,” Lenore said of keeping transgender protections in the bill. “But I do

understand the politics and I do appreciate the fact that he said, hey, it’s not going to pass in this political climate. Many other politicians haven’t

really done that. They make decisions but they never really address the trans community.”

 

Should he become president, Obama said his first three priorities would be designing a safe exit strategy for Iraq, working on affordable health

care, and addressing greenhouse gases and the environment.

 

As Sen. Obama made his way to the door, Johnson said he asked the senator directly to do more interviews with the gay press, citing the fact that

he has conducted only one interview with an LGBT outlet during his presidential campaign. “I said, ‘Your speech tonight was so moving to all of us, the way you spoke about our community. You need to do more [interviews],” recalled Johnson. “And he said, ‘You’re right, absolutely. We do need to do more with the LGBT press.’”

 

(Kerry Eleveld, The Advocate

[Guest psyche]

ABC's fake debate production of "Dumb and Dumber," starring Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos really showed how low American news has gone. It seems that issues do not get get ratings. The networks think that you Yanks are too stupid to understand the issues. American intellect has been slipping over the years. The Irish genes that have turned you all into couch potatoes. I both love and hate you crazy bastards.

[Guest Atom]

ABC's fake debate production of "Dumb and Dumber," starring Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos really showed how low American news has gone. It seems that issues do not get get ratings. The networks think that you Yanks are too stupid to understand the issues. American intellect has been slipping over the years. The Irish genes that have turned you all into couch potatoes. I both love and hate you crazy bastards.

 

How ignorant you are. But, you better fear how crazy we can get with people we do not like.

[Guest Eric Reed]

I think it is funny how the husband of Clinton's senior campaign advisor, Kiki Mclean, is not even a Hillary supporter. His choice for President is Senator Obama. So, I guess by Clinton's guilt-by-association smears, Hillary is actually a supporter for Obama. HA HA

[BlingBling]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is over. Barack Obama has made history by being the first African American Presidential candidate. There is no way that even including Florida and Michigan that Hillary Clinton can win the Democratic nomination. I will never forget this night.

[Guest BlingBling_*]

The world's richest man can't be wrong. Billionaire Warren Buffett is backing Barack Obama for the top job.

 

"I will be very happy if he is elected President," Buffet said.

 

"He is my choice."

 

PRESIDENT OBAMA. I CAN'T WAIT!!!!

[Guest John McCain 2008]

In September 2007, over three quarters of the United States Senate joined together in a bipartisan fashion to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. Barack Obama opposed this legislation, deciding that playing partisan primary politics was more important than our nation's security. Even Senators Hillary Clinton and Dick Durbin had the judgment to call our enemies by their name, especially a group responsible for the killing of American troops in Iraq. If Barack Obama does not have the judgment and experience to even identify our enemies, how can we expect him to stand up to them.

 

At A July 2007 Debate, Obama Announced He Would Personally Meet With Leaders Of Iran, North Korea, Syria And Other Hostile Nations "Without Precondition." Question: "[W]ould you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?" ... Obama: "I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous." (CNN/You Tube Democrat Presidential Candidate Debate, Charleston, SC, 7/23/07)

 

In The New York Times, Barack Obama Claimed "I Didn't Say That I Would Meet Unconditionally." Obama: "I didn't say that I would meet unconditionally as John McCain maintained, because that would suggest whether it was useful or not, whether it was advancing our interests or not, I would just do it for the sake of doing it ... That's not a change in position, that's simply responding to distortions of my position." (Jim Rutenberg And Jeff Zeleny, "Obama Seeks To Clarify His Disputed Comments On Diplomacy ," The New York Times, 5/29/08)

[Guest LAW_*]

In her morning briefing with reporters, White House press secretary Dana Perino said the president congratulates Obama. The Illinois senator has gained enough delegates to become the Democratic Party's nominee, besting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

 

Perino said "Senator Obama came a long way in becoming his party's nominee. And his historic achievement reflects the fact that our country has come along way, too."

 

Perino said she does not anticipate Bush will call Obama. She said President Clinton did not call Bush when he clinched the Republican nomination in 2000.

[Guest Hillary Rodham Clinton]

I want to congratulate Senator Obama and his supporters on the extraordinary race that they have run. Senator Obama has inspired so many Americans to care about politics and empowered so many more to get involved, and our party and our democracy are stronger and more vibrant as a result.

[Guest Obama for America]

I'm about to take the stage in St. Paul and announce that we have won the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.

 

It's been a long journey, and we should all pause to thank Hillary Clinton, who made history in this campaign. Our party and our country are better off because of her.

 

I want to make sure you understand what's ahead of us. Earlier tonight, John McCain outlined a vision of America that's very different from ours -- a vision that continues the disastrous policies of George W. Bush.

 

But this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past and bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

 

It's going to take hard work, but thanks to you and millions of other donors and volunteers, no one has ever been more prepared for such a challenge.

 

Thank you for everything you've done to get us here. Let's keep making history.

 

Barack

[BlingBling]

 

View the video at YouTube.

[Guest Oprah Gail Winfrey]

I'm euphoric, I've been doing the happy dance all day. I'm so proud of Barack and Michelle Obama and what this means for all of us ... the new possibilities for our country. And if he wants me to, I'm ready to go door to door.