Barack Obama

Barack Obama elected 44th president

2008-11-04T22:23:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama elected 44th president

'Change has come to America,' first African-American leader tells country

Scott Olson / Getty Images

President-elect Barack Obama walks on stage at his victory celebration in Chicago with his wife, Michelle, and daughters Malia and Sasha.

By Alex Johnson

Reporter

msnbc.com

updated 1:10 a.m. ET Nov. 5, 2008

Barack Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, shattered more than 200 years of history Tuesday night by winning election as the first African-American president of the United States.

A crowd of 125,000 people jammed Grant Park in Chicago, where Obama addressed the nation for the first time as its president-elect at midnight ET. Hundreds of thousands more — Mayor Richard Daley said he would not be surprised if a million Chicagoans jammed the streets — watched on a large television screen outside the park.

"If there is anyone out there who doubts that America is a place where anything is possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," Obama declared.

"Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled, Americans have sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of red states and blue states," he said. "We have been and always will be the United States of America.

"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America," he said to a long roar.

McCain notes history in the making
Obama congratulated his opponent, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, for his "unimaginable" service to the United States, first as a prisoner of war for 5½ years in North Vietnam and then for nearly three decades in Congress.

McCain called Obama to offer his congratulations at 11 p.m. ET, Obama's chief spokesman, Robert Gibbs, told NBC News. Obama thanked McCain for his "class and honor" during the campaign and said he was eager to sit down and talk about how the two of them could work together.

Video

'Change has come to America'
Nov. 4: Barack Obama tells more than 125,000 people in Chicago, "If there's anybody out there who still questions ... the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer."

MSNBC

Saying, "The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly," McCain told supporters in Phoenix that he "recognized the special significance" Obama's victory had for African-Americans.

"We both recognize that though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still have the power to wound," McCain said.

"Let there be no reason for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth," said McCain, who pledged his support and help for the new president.

President Bush called to congratulate Obama and promise a smooth transition of power on Jan. 20, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

"Mr. President-elect, congratulations to you. What an awesome night for you, your family and your supporters," said Bush, who invited Obama and his family to visit the White House as soon as it was convenient.

The president also called McCain to say that he was proud of the senator's efforts and that he was "sorry it didn't work out."

"You didn't leave anything on the playing field," Bush said.

A broad and deep victory
Campaigning as a technocratic agent of change in Washington and not a pathbreaking civil rights figure, Obama swept to victory over McCain, whose running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was seeking to become the nation's first female vice president.

Obama's election was a broad one. He won Florida, the scene of so much electoral chaos in recent elections. He won Ohio, a key to President Bush's two election wins. He won Colorado, home of the religious right. And he won Virginia, reversing 40 years of Republican victories there.

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Surveys of voters as they left polling places nationwide encapsulated the historic nature of the victory by Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas. As expected, he won overwhelmingly among African-American voters, but he also won a slim majority of white voters. He won among women and Latino voters, reversing a longstanding Republican trend. And he won by more than 2-to-1 among voters of all races 30 years old and younger.

Slide show

Parties and prayers
Supporters of both candidates gather across the nation to watch the results roll in.

That dynamic was telling in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, where McCain poured in millions of dollars of scarce resources. Obama won both, along with Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and New York, all states with hefty electoral vote hauls, NBC News projected.

McCain countered with Texas and numerous smaller states, primarily in the South and the Great Plains.

In interviews with NBC News, aides to McCain said they were proud that they had put up a good fight in "historically difficult times."

A senior adviser said McCain himself was "fine" but that he felt "he let his staff and supporters down."

Obama will have a strongly Democratic Congress on the other end of Capitol Hill. The Democrats won strong majorities in both the Houseand the Senate. NBC News projected that the party would fall just short of a procedurally important 60 percent "supermajority" in the Senate, however.

'Transformation of America'
In the end, Florida, the scene of electoral chaos in recent elections, had little impact. Florida had been closely watched, but results there and in other closely contested states were delayed until after Obama clinched his victory as record numbers of voters flocked to polling stations, energized by an election in which they would select either the nation's first black president or its first female vice president.

Americans voted in numbers unprecedented since women were given the franchise in 1920. Secretaries of state predicted turnouts approaching 90 percent in Virginia and Colorado and 80 percent or more in big states like Ohio, California, Texas, Virginia, Missouri and Maryland.

Voters were lured to the polls by the historic nature of an election that held the potential to yield an African-American president.

Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a living legend of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, said he was "overwhelmed" and had broken down in tears.

Video

Lewis: Struggle was worth it
Nov. 4: Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., talks about Barack Obama's historic breakthrough.

MSNBC

"I never imagined, I never even had any idea I would live to see an African-American president of the United States," Lewis said in an interview on MSNBC.

"We have witnessed tonight in America a revolution of values, a revolution of ideals," Lewis said. "There's been a transformation of America, and it will have unbelievable influence on the world."

Ellora Lyons, 81, of Peoria, Ill., recalled boarding a train to Oklahoma with her two oldest boys in 1948. Her brother had been killed in an accident, and they were going to his funeral.

"There was a sign on this train that said, 'n-----s to the back,'" she said. "And we couldn't drink out of the same water fountain."

"I remember my mom and my dad talking about black folks being not able to vote," Lyons said. "I never thought that I would see a black man [in the White House], but I was hoping that one day that a black man would run for president."

All told, election experts predicted that as many as 140 million Americans would vote, many of them minority, immigrant and younger Americans who were casting their ballots for the first time.

Maria Reyes, who immigrated from El Salvador and was sworn in as a citizen in August, was one of them. She cast her ballot with help from her daughter, Elvia.

"It's wonderful time for our country right now — Obama!" Reyes said as she waved a small American flag.

In the Little Saigon section of Los Angeles, Timothy Ngo, a Vietnamese immigrant, turned out to support McCain.

"I came here as a refugee, so Mr. McCain and I grew up and fought in the same war in Vietnam," Ngo said.

Obama, McCain cast their ballots
Obama and his wife, Michelle, voted with their young daughters at their sides at Beulah Shoesmith Elementary School in Hyde Park, Ill. The family was ushered inside ahead of a line of their neighbors that wrapped around the block.

Fellow voters watched in silence and snapped cell-phone pictures. They cheered when Obama held up his validation slip with a smile and said, "I voted."

"The journey ends, but voting with my daughters, that was a big deal," he told reporters later.

Obama's final days of campaigning were bittersweet: He was mourning the loss of his grandmother Madelyn Dunham, who helped raise him but died of cancer Sunday night and never got to see the results of the historic election.

In Delaware, Obama's running mate, Sen. Joe Biden, went to the polls with his elderly mother. Speaking to reporters on his plane, Biden said he had made a deal with his wife, Jill.

"If you get the vice presidency and get elected, you can get a dog," Biden said his wife told him. "I know what kind I want, [but] I don't know what kind I'm going to get yet. We're not there yet. The deal's not closed yet."

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McCain, meanwhile, cast his ballot early Tuesday at a church near his home in central Phoenix. A small crowd cheered "Go, John, go!" and "We love you!" as he stepped out of a sport utility vehicle with his wife, Cindy. One person carried a sign that read, "Use your brain, vote McCain!"

Palin returned to where her political career began to cast her vote in the snow-dusted, two-story Wasilla City Hall where she once presided as a small-town mayor.

Palin, accompanied by her husband, Todd, voted just after 7 a.m. Tuesday, pushing aside a red, white and blue curtain on a voting booth and handing her white paper ballot to a clerk.

With Tom Curry of msnbc.com and Athena Jones, Steve Handelsman and George Lewis of NBC News. The following NBC stations contributed to this report: KPNX of Phoenix; WAFF of Huntsville, Ala.; WEEK of Peoria, Ill.; and WTMJ of Milwaukee.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27531033/page/2/

Obama starts hitting back, too softly for some

2008-08-07T01:38:00.001-07:00

Democratic strategists at odds over campaign's response to McCain attacks

By Jonathan Weisman and Perry Bacon Jr.

updated 12:34 a.m. ET Aug. 7, 2008

Barack Obama released a television advertisement Wednesday that questions John McCain's claims to be a "maverick," and he charged in a campaign appearance that the Republican displays independence only when it suits him politically.

Obama aides said Democratic hand-wringing about polls showing that the presidential race remains tight had nothing to do with the volleys.

"We are not going to base our campaign on the concerns of so-called campaign strategists on cable TV," spokesman Bill Burton said.

But the ad and the Democrat's rhetoric in Indiana appeared to up the ante in a campaign that took a distinct turn toward the negative last week.

"The price [McCain] paid for his party's nomination has been to reverse himself on position after position," Obama told a crowd of more than 1,000 at a high school gym in Elkhart. "That doesn't meet my definition of a maverick. You can't be a maverick when politically it's important for you but not a maverick when it doesn't work for you."

The parries come more than a week after his Republican opponent launched a string of increasingly personal attacks on Obama. McCain has said that his rival would lose a war in order to win a campaign, accused him of going to a gym rather than visiting wounded troops, and, while aides asserted that he had "played the race card," hinted that Obama has a messiah complex and portrayed him as a celebrity comparable to Paris Hilton or Britney Spears. That final line of assault continued yesterday with a new McCain ad, again mocking Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world."

'Democrats are worried'
Such attacks have raised worries among Democratic strategists -- haunted by John F. Kerry's 2004 run and Al Gore's razor-thin loss in 2000 -- that Obama has not responded in kind with a parallel assault on McCain's character. Interviews with nearly a dozen Democratic strategists found those concerns to be widespread, although few wished to be quoted by name while Obama's campaign is demanding unity.

"Democrats are worried," said Tad Devine, a top strategist for Kerry who thinks Obama must stay on the high road. "We've been through two very tough elections at the national level, and it's very easy to lose confidence."

Obama's latest ad may be his toughest yet, using words and images to link McCain to President Bush and concluding: "The original maverick? Or just more of the same?"

But Democratic strategists said that it is nothing like the character attacks by McCain, and that the response could be far nastier, perhaps raising McCain's ethical scrape in the Keating Five savings and loan scandal, mocking his family wealth and designer shoes, or highlighting his age. After McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm suggested that the United States has become "a nation of whiners," Democratic strategists said Obama should have immediately started an ad blitz.

"If somebody attacks you, you have to frame the attack: 'This is the same old politics, or better yet, the Bush-Rove politics,' " something Obama has done well, said one Democratic strategist. "At the same time you do that, you have to counterattack. You don't want to look like a whiner. You want to look tough."

Obama's rules hurting him?
Said another Democratic consultant: "There needs to be a negative McCain track beyond the Bush policy stuff. One of the great strengths of the Obama campaign has been to not listen to the D.C. chattering class. They have a plan and they stick to it. But clearly, the D.C. chattering class are all wringing their hands."

A liberal advertising consultant said: "There's frustration there because they're watching these childish ad campaigns, and they know exactly how to answer it, but they're powerless to do so."

Powerless, that is, because most of the independent groups that would have taken the lead in such an independent campaign have been sidelined by Obama's insistence that Democratic donors channel their money to him, rather than outside groups. Obama's efforts have succeeded in maintaining message discipline in a campaign predicated on what the senator from Illinois has called a new kind of politics.

But that has hamstrung what would have been one of the three fronts on which Democrats had hoped to wage the 2008 campaign, said Donna Brazile, Gore's 2000 campaign manager. Obama's team was able to push back quickly against McCain's character attacks, she said, and the Democratic National Committee is beginning to engage the Republican National Committee in a more cutting effort, yesterday starting an "Exxon-McCain '08" campaign that portrays the Republican as the running mate of the oil giant.

Will the ads matter?
But the surrogate groups remain dormant, Brazile said, because of Obama's decision to cut them out.

"There are no independent groups. Everybody's walked off the field," said Tom Matzzie, who left MoveOn.org to form Progressive Media USA specifically to launch a massive attack against McCain. The group has since disbanded for lack of funding.

So far, said Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org's executive director, the best response to McCain's celebrity attack has come from Paris Hilton herself, who released her own ad Tuesday calling McCain "the oldest celebrity in the world, like super old."

Consultants close to Obama say the Democrat has good reason not to risk his own campaign by following McCain's lead. Because McCain has accepted public financing for the general-election campaign, he must spend all his primary campaign money before the party conventions. Obama is focusing on turning out voters, while airing on a mix of positive ads and responses.

And more ads may not help, according to a Pew Research Center poll released yesterday. Nearly half of respondents -- including 51 percent of independents -- said they have been hearing too much about Obama lately, and 22 percent said all that news has made them feel less favorable toward him. On the other hand, significantly more Americans view McCain's ads as mostly negative than say the same of Obama's.

Because Obama opted out of public financing and the spending limits that come with it, he will be free to swamp McCain with television spots in the fall. If he needs to become more negative at that point, he can -- knowing that McCain would be hard pressed to reply.

Obama spokesman Burton said the campaign sees no reason to shift strategy.

"This is a classic Washington story, anonymous quotes from armchair quarterbacks with no sense of our strategy, data or plan," he said.

Bacon reported from Elkhart, Ind.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26063773/page/2/

Bill Clinton says Barack Obama must 'kiss my ass' for his support

2008-07-28T08:09:00.000-07:00

Bill Clinton is so bitter about Barack Obama's victory over his wife Hillary that he has told friends the Democratic nominee will have to beg for his wholehearted support.

Mr Obama is expected to speak to Mr Clinton for the first time since he won the nomination in the next few days, but campaign insiders say that the former president's future campaign role is a "sticking point" in peace talks with Mrs Clinton's aides.

The Telegraph has learned that the former president's rage is still so great that even loyal allies are shocked by his patronising attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks damaging his own reputation by his intransigence.

A senior Democrat who worked for Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told friends Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return for his support.

A second source said that the former president has kept his distance because he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the election.

Mr Clinton last week issued a tepid statement, through a spokesman, in which he said he "is obviously committed to doing whatever he can and is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the next president of the United States ".

Mr Obama was more effusive at his unity event with Mrs Clinton on Friday, speaking fondly of the absent former president, who attended Nelson Mandela's birthday celebrations in London instead. The candidate told the crowd: "I know how much we need both Bill and Hillary Clinton as a party. They have done so much great work. We need them badly."

But his aides said he has so far concentrated on cementing relations with Mrs Clinton first. They say they are content to let relations with Mr Clinton thaw gradually.

It has long been known that Mr Clinton is angry at the way his own reputation was tarnished during the primary battle when several of his comments were interpreted as racist.

But his lingering fury has shocked his friends. The Democrat told the Telegraph: "He's been angry for a while. But everyone thought he would get over it. He hasn't. I've spoken to a couple of people who he's been in contact with and he is mad as hell.

"He's saying he's not going to reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One person told me that Bill said Obama would have to quote kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his support.

"You can't talk like that about Obama - he's the nominee of your party, not some house boy you can order around.

"Hillary's just getting on with it and so should Bill."

Another Democrat said that despite polls showing Mr Obama with a healthy lead over Republican John McCain, Mr Clinton doesn't think he can win.

The party strategist, who was allied to one of the early rivals to Mr Obama and the former First Lady, said Mr Clinton was "very unhopeful" about the nominee's prospects in November.

"Bill Clinton knows the party will unite behind Obama, but he is telling people he doesn't believe Obama can win round voting groups, especially working-class whites, in the swing states," the strategist said.

"He just doesn't think Obama will be able to connect with the voters he needs."

Joe Klein, the author of Primary Colours, a fictionalised account of Mr Clinton's 1992 election, who has known the former president for 20 years, said he also heard that he was "very, very bitter", from people who have spoken with him.

"It's time for him to get over it or go off and do his charitable work. He knows the rules of the road. What's going on now is kind of strange. I think his behaviour is really, really shocking."

OBAMA'S SECRET RESCUE MISSION

2008-07-28T08:01:00.000-07:00

SEEKS TO FREE US MOM'S KIDS FROM PALESTINIAN 'CAPTIVITY'

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS
Barack Obama gave a note to the Palestinian PM last week seeking the girls' return.

Last updated: 5:10 am
July 27, 2008
Posted: 4:06 am
July 27, 2008

Barack Obama carried out a secret assignment during his global tour last week.

While talking about the Middle East peace process in the West Bank Wednesday, the presumptive Democratic nominee slipped a note to Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The private message: Help an anguished Chicago mother get her daughters back.

Post Script: Book Of RevOlations

Obama detailed the plight of Colleen Bargouthi, 36. She says that for the last year, her four daughters have been held in the Palestinian territories, made to wear headdresses and schooled in Islam by their Muslim father, Yasser Shibli.

Obama asked Fayyad's help in Colleen's fight to get her girls home after their Palestinian dad blocked them from returning from what was to be a six-week family trip to his hometown of Ramallah on the West Bank.

"According to Colleen, [her husband] hit her, kept her as a virtual prisoner in her in-laws' home and menaced her with guns," the note reads.

The husband promised he "would return the girls if she went home and found a job and a place for the family.

"Yasser Shibli Bargouthi has since told Colleen that her daughters will never be allowed to leave to return to their mother. I would ask that the minister of justice look into this case."

Obama also asked the US consul general in Jerusalem, Jacob Welles, to investigate and work with Fayyad.

Colleen had taken her case to the Chicago media and met with Obama's camp. But she was unaware of his efforts until contacted by The Post.

An Obama staffer called Colleen Thursday saying that Fayyad had vowed to look into the situation.

"I can't believe it. I am so amazed and pleased," she said.

Colleen could never have imagined the turn of events her life has taken. She was Colleen Davis when she met Yasser, a grocery-store manager, in 1993 through a friend while she worked as a waitress at Midway Airport.

He was a Muslim and she a Baptist, but he told her it was not an issue. She made her religious beliefs clear to his clan and got their blessing before the two married in a Christian ceremony 15 years ago.

Six months later, they traveled to Ramallah and she was welcomed into the family. "I always told him that I was a Christian and would remain one, and that any children we had would be raised Christian," she says.

The couple settled in a Chicago suburb with her son, Ricky, from a previous marriage and had four daughters, Emily, 11, Hannah, 8, Amanda, 6 and Sarah, 5.

Colleen was a stay-at-home mom and her husband became manager of a cellphone store.

The couple bought a house in 1999 but sold it when they couldn't make the payments.

Her husband rarely spoke about his religion and never went to mosque services, she said. Their children attended Cedar Lake Community Christian school.

The couple returned to Ramallah for a family visit and were there on Sept. 11, 2001. They were unable to return home for months and Colleen gave birth there to her fourth child, Amanda.

"Things were so politicized at that time. It was frightening," said Bargouthi. "I had to walk through a checkpoint when I went into labor."

She told her husband she never wanted to return to the Palestinian territories. But in a nightmare ordeal, he packed up his wife and the five kids for a third trip to Ramallah in June 2007.

"He really wanted to go, and I trusted him, and assumed we'd all come back from this trip, as we had the others," she said.

Almost immediately, tensions arose between the formerly happily married pair.

"He said right away that he didn't want to go home again," Colleen said.

He enrolled all five children in a private American school and signed them up for Islamic religion classes.

"I protested, but it didn't matter . . . When I refused to put headdresses on my daughters, the school said they would fail. Eventually, I pulled them out," Colleen said.

"He felt it was better for the girls to be raised in an Islamic society and not in America."

He demanded that she convert to Islam and grew angry over her refusal, and began to get abusive.

Colleen turned to the US Consulate in Jerusalem for help, and discovered that he had gotten Palestinian passports for the girls.

After months of arguments and altercations, the couple agreed that he'd return the girls to her in America once she found a job. She and her son Ricky arrived back in Chicago in May. Within 24 hours, she had opened a child-custody case with the US State Department.

She took night shifts driving a cab and tried to plan the return of her daughters. Her husband now refuses.

Colleen speaks to them once a day by speaker phone as he listens and cuts off the conversation if she brings up topics he considers taboo. She has hired two lawyers, human-rights professor Anthony D'Amato and Bob Pavich of PSA International, a global consulting firm.

"There's no legal precedent in this situation, because we're dealing in an area where we don't have established diplomatic relations," Pavich said. "We needed Senator Obama's help to try and break through the legal and diplomatic walls."

Having Obama as her advocate was Colleen's wildest fantasy come true.

"I'm just extraordinarily pleased with what he's done for me," she said. "It makes me feel wonderful - one step closer to my daughters."

Not long after she got word from Obama's camp about his efforts, the phone rang again. It was her estranged husband.

He reportedly told her, "F- - - Washington, f- - - Obama and f- - - you."

gotis@nypost.com

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07272008/news/nationalnews/obamas_secret_rescue_mission_121815.htm?page=2

Was Barack Obama a Muslim?

2008-07-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

by Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com

[FPM title: "Obama and Islam"]

"If I were a Muslim I would let you know," Barack Obama has said, and I believe him. In fact, he is a practicing Christian, a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ. He is not now a Muslim.

But was he ever a Muslim or seen by others as a Muslim? More precisely, might Muslims consider him a murtadd (apostate), that is, a Muslim who converted to another religion and, therefore, someone whose blood may be shed?

The candidate for president of the United States has delivered two principal statements in reply. His campaign website carries a statement dated Nov. 12 with the headline, "Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim," followed by: "Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian." Then, on Dec. 22, in the unlikely setting of the Smoky Row Coffee Shop in Oskaloosa, Iowa, as he munched on pumpkin pie and drank tea with four locals, Obama provided more detail took on this topic than before. When asked to explain his Muslim heritage, he replied:

My father was from Kenya, and a lot of people in his village were Muslim. He didn't practice Islam. Truth is he wasn't very religious. He met my mother. My mother was a Christian from Kansas, and they married and then divorced. I was raised by my mother. So, I've always been a Christian. The only connection I've had to Islam is that my grandfather on my father's side came from that country. But I've never practiced Islam. … For a while, I lived in Indonesia because my mother was teaching there. And that's a Muslim country. And I went to school. But I didn't practice. But what I do think it does is it gives me insight into how these folks think, and part of how I think we can create a better relationship with the Middle East and that would help make us safer is if we can understand how they think about issues.

These statements raise two questions: What is Obama's true connection to Islam and what implications might this have for an Obama presidency?

Was Obama Ever a Muslim?
"I've always been a Christian," said Obama, focusing on his own personal lack of practice of Islam as a child to deny any connection to Islam. But Muslims do not see practice as key. For them, that he was born to a line of Muslim males makes him born a Muslim. Further, all children born with an Arabic name based on the H-S-N trilateral root (Hussein, Hassan, and others) can be assumed to be Muslim, so they will understand Obama's full name, Barack Hussein Obama, to proclaim him a born Muslim.

More: family and friends considered him as a child to be Muslim. In "Obama Debunks Claim About Islamic School," Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press wrote on January 24, 2007, that

Obama's mother, divorced from Obama's father, married a man from Indonesia named Lolo Soetoro, and the family relocated to the country from 1967-71. At first, Obama attended the Catholic school, Fransiskus Assisis, where documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim, the religion of his stepfather. The document required that each student choose one of five state-sanctioned religions when registering – Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Catholic or Protestant.

Asked about this, Obama communications director Robert Gibbs responded by indicating to Pickler that

he wasn't sure why the document had Obama listed as a Muslim. "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim."

Two months later, Paul Watson of the Los Angeles Times (available online in a Baltimore Sun reprint) reported that the Obama campaign had retreated from that absolute statement and instead issued a more nuanced one: "Obama has never been a practicing Muslim." The Times looked into the matter further and learned more about his Indonesian interlude:

His former Roman Catholic and Muslim teachers, along with two people who were identified by Obama's grade-school teacher as childhood friends, say Obama was registered by his family as a Muslim at both schools he attended. That registration meant that during the third and fourth grades, Obama learned about Islam for two hours each week in religion class.

The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said Zulfin Adi. … Obama's younger sister, Maya Soetoro, said in a statement released by the campaign that the family attended the mosque only "for big communal events," not every Friday.

Recalling Obama's time in Indonesia, the Times account contains quotes that Obama "went to the mosque," and that he "was Muslim."

Summarized, available evidence suggests Obama was born a Muslim to a non-practicing Muslim father and for some years had a reasonably Muslim upbringing under the auspices of his Indonesian step-father. At some point, he converted to Christianity. It appears false to state, as Obama does, "I've always been a Christian" and "I've never practiced Islam." The campaign appears to be either ignorant or fabricating when it states that "Obama never prayed in a mosque."

Implications of Obama's Conversion
Obama's conversion to another faith, in short, makes him a murtadd.

That said, the punishment for childhood apostasy is less severe than for the adult version. As Robert Spencer points out, "according to Islamic law an apostate male is not to be put to death if he has not reached puberty (cf. ‘Umdat al-Salik o8.2; Hidayah vol. II p. 246). Some, however, hold that he should be imprisoned until he is of age and then ‘invited' to accept Islam, but officially the death penalty for youthful apostates is ruled out."

On the positive side, were Obama prominently charged with apostasy, that would uniquely raise the issue of a Muslim's right to change religion, taking a topic on the perpetual back-burner and placing it front and center, perhaps to the great future benefit of those Muslims who seek to declare themselves atheists or to convert to another religion.

But would Muslims seeing Obama as a murtadd significantly affect an Obama presidency? The only precedent to judge by is that of Carlos Saúl Menem, the president of Argentina from 1989 to 1999. The son of two Muslim Syrian immigrants and husband of another Syrian-Argentine, Zulema Fátima Yoma, Menem converted to Roman Catholicism. His wife said publicly that Menem left Islam for political reasons—because Argentinean law until 1994 required the president of the country to be a member of the Church. From a Muslim point of view, Menem's conversion is worse than Obama's, having been done as an adult. Nonetheless, Menem was not threatened or otherwise made to pay a price for his change of religion, even during his trips to majority-Muslim countries, Syria in particular.

It is one thing to be president of Argentina in the 1990s, however, and another to be president of the United States in 2009. One must assume that some Islamists would renounce him as a murtadd and would try to execute him. Given the protective bubble surrounding an American president, though, this threat presumably would not make much difference to his carrying out his duties.

More significantly, how would more mainstream Muslims respond to him, would they be angry at what they would consider his apostasy? That reaction is a real possibility, one that could undermine his initiatives toward the Muslim world.

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

Jan. 7, 2008 update: For a follow-up to this article, please see "Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam." In it, I reply to a challenge to the above analysis from Media Matters for America. The article also spurred several hundred comments by readers.

Apr. 29, 2008 update: I provide a streamlined version of the above, with more evidence, at "Barack Obama's Muslim Childhood."

May 12, 2008 update: Edward N. Luttwak picks up on my theme above in his article today in the New York Times, "President Apostate?" Writes Luttwak: "As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother's Christian background is irrelevant." He concludes that Obama's election "would compromise the ability of governments in Muslim nations to cooperate with the United States in the fight against terrorism, as well as American efforts to export democracy and human rights abroad."

Comment: This goes further than I argued above, where I only suggest the "real possibility" that his religious background "could undermine his initiatives toward the Muslim world." Implied is the real possibility that it will not. It is much too early to know for sure.

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5286

Barack Obama - Leaders & Revolutionaries

2008-07-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

The first time I met Barack we had coffee together at a shop in downtown Chicago. He was in a small law firm, and I was at the Justice Department's civil rights division in the Clinton Administration. Like many who meet him, I hoped he would one day run for public office. You just want people of his caliber to lead.

When at last he decided to run for the Illinois Senate, he called to ask for my help, and I was eager to give it. "I'll contribute at the max," I pledged. "Deval," he said, "in Illinois there is no max." I said, "Brother, I'm sorry, there has to be a max!"

Barack, 46, has already changed American politics. We often hear about the size of the crowds he attracts, as a measure of the excitement about his candidacy. It's the variety of the crowd that is the real phenomenon: little kids who sit on the floor in front of the podium, and the 101-year-old gentleman who stood up from his wheelchair in Iowa and said, "I'm with him too." Farmers in overalls next to people in business suits. Every race, religion and creed. Every political party and no party at all.

You can feel their excitement about being in Barack's presence—and about being in the presence of one another. They glimpse for a minute what it might be like to find common cause across differences. That's how Barack has changed politics.

Patrick is governor of Massachusetts

Obama campaign hires Muslim liaison

2008-07-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

By Ben Smith

POLITICO - Obama's campaign has created a Muslim liaison, according to two sources familiar with the move.

The sources said the job was likely to be filled by Haim Nawas, a Jordanian-American who filled a similar role for the campaign of General Wesley Clark in 2004.

The job is complicated by the fact that Obama has been forced repeatedly to deny that he is Muslim, a situation that grates on some Muslim-Americans.

Nawas wrote in 2005 that the Bush Administration should take a more nuanced approach to public diplomacy directed at Muslim women.

"We need to recognise that the social structure in the Muslim world is very different from America's," she wrote. "American women need to understand that what is best for them is not necessarily what is best for Muslim women. Advocacy of women’s rights in the Muslim world must show sensitivity to local political realities."

The creation of the position comes as Obama builds out a more traditional, constituency-based campaign structure than he had in the primary.

Neither Nawas or the campaign immediately responded to questions about the hire.

UPDATE: An Obama aide confirmed that the job had been created, but said the campaign had not made a final decision on who would fill it.

Source: The Politico

Dem Rep.: Obama Right On The Surge

2008-07-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Political Players: Debbie Wasserman Schultz Of Florida Defends Obama On Israel, Iraq

(CBS) Political Players is a regular conversation with the leaders, consultants, and activists who shape American politics. Last week, as Barack Obama completed his foreign tour, CBS News' Brian Goldsmith talked with one of his key supporters, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), about the impact of that trip, and about Republican attacks on Iran and Iraq.

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

CBSNews.com: You represent one of the most Jewish districts in the United States. Many American Jews, as well as Israeli Jews, have had their doubts about Sen. Obama's commitment to Israel. Do you think he reassured them this week?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: I really think he did. I think his trip is another step in the journey to help make sure that the majority of Jewish voters, and the majority of voters in this country, understand that Barack Obama's foreign policy as president, particularly as it relates to Israel, will be one that they will wholeheartedly embrace and be enthusiastic about. He will continue the policy not only of having American stand side by side Israel as an ally, but make sure that the United States fully engages in helping to advance the peace process, which the Bush administration has not done.

CBSNews.com: One of the reasons that a number of Jews have expressed uncertainty about Obama is his statement a year ago this week in which he said he would unconditionally negotiate with the leaders of a lot of rogue countries, including Iran, a statement that Senator Clinton called naïve and irresponsible. Do you now agree with his policy on that?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Well, what I agree with is what he actually stated, not what has been exaggerated or reported that he stated. He didn't say he would meet unconditionally with leaders around the world regardless of their involvement in terrorism or issues that we don't agree with. What he said was that he would not have preconditions to those conversations.

That's different than unconditional communication. And that what he does want to make sure we do, because we certainly have not made any progress on the Iran front under the Bush administration's policy. He’d do tiered conversations. There would not be preconditions on sitting down, but beginning at lower levels.

CBSNews.com: But it is true that the candidate you supported at the time disagreed with the notion of doing talks without preconditions with these leaders. She did call that policy naïve and irresponsible. Do you think that the policy has been clarified since then? Or have you seen it in a different way?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Well, I think if you sat down with Hillary Clinton and asked her whether she thought she was closer to Barack Obama or to John McCain on this question about the direction that we should take our foreign policy, and the pursuit of diplomatic communication, that she would agree that she is much closer to Barack Obama's approach than she is to John McCain's. John McCain would offer us more of the same.

CBSNews.com: Some prominent supporters of Sen. Clinton feel like Sen. Obama hasn't done enough yet to reach out to them, to raise money for Clinton to help her pay off her debt. Do you think there are additional steps he could take to bring more Clinton supporters into the fold?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Sure, there are. I mean, I think this is an ongoing process. I mean, I think there are additional steps that Senator Obama can take, and there are additional steps that his campaign's leadership, as well as the rank-and-file staffers on his campaign can take.

I mean, this is an evolutionary process, where the two campaigns are going to eventually become intertwined inextricably. And that is not an easy process to complete, especially with a campaign where you had supporters of both candidates who were so emotionally invested in the success of their candidate. You had two unprecedented history-making candidacies here. And a lot of people's hearts and souls were poured into those campaigns. And so we are trying to make sure that we can combine those hearts and souls into a really powerful organization that will help elect Barack Obama president.

CBSNews.com: Have you been able to get over your disappointment that Senator Clinton isn't the nominee?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Oh, yeah. I'm long past my
disappointment. I mean, I certainly still wish that the outcome had been different. But my wish is not because I'm unhappy with Barack Obama, or because I don't agree with him. I mean, I fully believe in Barack Obama.

I have 100 percent confidence in his ability to be president. I'm 100 percent behind him. I'm not looking wistfully back at what might have been. We have to look forward. We have to move forward.

CBSNews.com: So, looking forward, what are those additional steps that the Obama campaign, and Senator Obama himself, as you outlined, should take to bring more of the Clinton supporters into the fold?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: I think most of the Clinton supporters are in the fold. I mean, I think what we have right now is, a vocal minority. You know, a relatively small group compared to the millions of people who supported Hillary Clinton who are now supporting Barack Obama.

So, I think there isn't anything extraordinary that Barack Obama has to do. They have to just continue to do more of what they have been doing, and focus on the issues.

CBSNews.com: On the issues, a number of Republicans this week have brought up Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC, in which he pledged that Jerusalem would remain undivided but the next day, he said, well, that would be a subject of negotiations between both sides. Some Jewish leaders have come out and said they're anxious about that.

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Look, I just spoke to the Hadassah convention on behalf of the Obama campaign. And there were 2,000 progressive Jewish women there. And I can tell you that I spoke opposite former U.S. Senator Rudy Boshowitz for McCain. And the reception for our complete message on the issues that are important to the Jewish community was, you know, far more enthusiastic for Senator Obama than it was for Senator McCain.

On the issue of Jerusalem, specifically the Israeli people and the Israeli leadership are the ones that will ultimately decide this. And the fact that they have stated that Jerusalem will be part of final status negotiations is something that Barack Obama is absolutely supportive of.

But what he has reaffirmed many times is that Jerusalem must remain the capital of Israel, and should never be re-divided. It should never again be separated by barbed wire and physical separation and checkpoints like it was from 1948 to 1967.

CBSNews.com: That's what he meant by undivided?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Yes.

CBSNews.com: On Iraq, Senator Obama's position seems to be that the additional troops were helpful. But given the costs of the surge, even if he had it to do over again, he would not support it. Is that your position, as well?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Well, yes. It's absolutely my position. And, I mean, it's really hard to see how leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that's taking responsibility for its future while we would go and focus on the fight in Afghanistan, how that's losing. I mean, Senator McCain keeps referring to victory.

We've got an ever-increasing problem with Afghanistan, and the Taliban, and we have hot spots that are popping up all over the world. Iran is really twisting and spiraling into an extremely, extremely dangerous problem.

And we are hopelessly mired in the war in Iraq. We need to responsibly bring an end to that war, so that we can confront the other pressing threats that are around the world. Because we have spread ourselves so thin, militarily, that it almost precludes a military option.

CBSNews.com: But isn't it somewhat ironic that it may be the surge that he opposed, that John McCain supported, that allows Senator Obama, if he becomes president, to begin withdrawing troops from a much more stable situation?

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Look, the whole stated purpose of the surge was to provide separation and relief, so that there could be political progress. Which there has been none. None of. So, that's why we continue to say that the surge was not effective. Because the stated purpose of the surge was to provide that sort of separation so that politically, the Iraqi government could stand on their own. And they have yet to be able to do that.

By Brian Goldsmith

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/politics/politicalplayers/main4296173.shtml

McCain Mocks "Audacity Of Hopelessness"

2008-07-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

Republican Says Obama's Policies Could Have Engulfed Entire Middle East In War

(CBS/ AP) Republican presidential candidate John McCain, ridiculing Barack Obama for "the audacity of hopelessness" in his policies on Iraq, said Friday that the entire Middle East could have plunged into war had U.S. troops been withdrawn as his rival advocated.

Speaking to an audience of Hispanic military veterans, McCain stepped up his criticism of Obama while the Illinois senator continued his headline-grabbing tour of the Middle East and Europe. The Arizona Republican contended that Obama's policies - he opposed sending more troops to Iraq in the "surge" that McCain supported would have led to defeat there and in Afghanistan.

"We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right," McCain said, a play on the title of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope."

McCain laid out a near-apocalyptic chain of events he said could have resulted had Obama managed to stop the troop buildup ordered by President Bush: U.S. forces retreating under fire, the Iraqi army collapsing, civilian casualties increasing dramatically, al Qaeda killing cooperative Sunni sheiks and finding safe havens to train fighters and launch attacks on Americans, and civil war, genocide and a wider conflict.

"Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened," he said. "Terrorists would have seen our defeat as evidence America lacked the resolve to defeat them. As Iraq descended into chaos, other countries in the Middle East would have come to the aid of their favored factions, and the entire region might have erupted in war."

Noting that the buildup was unpopular with most Americans, McCain said: "Sen. Obama told the American people what he thought you wanted to hear. I told you the truth."

“Sen. Obama said this week that even knowing what he knows today that he still would have opposed the surge. In retrospect, given the opportunity to choose between failure and success, he chooses failure. I cannot conceive of a Commander in Chief making that choice.”

The Obama campaign said McCain’s “false accusations” would not add to the debate over the Iraq war.

“Barack Obama and John McCain may differ over our strategy in Iraq, but they are united in their support for our brave troops and their desire to protect this nation,” said Obama spokesman Bill Burton. “Sen. McCain's constant suggestion otherwise is not worthy of the campaign he claimed he would run or the magnitude of the challenges this nation faces.”

Obama has called for a withdrawal over 16 months. McCain again criticized him for advocating "a politically expedient timetable" and for voting against funding for troops. McCain had raised eyebrows earlier this week by charging that Obama "would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign."

With once exception, Obama has voted for every spending bill for troops at war. In 2007, Bush vetoed a bill that provided funding on condition of troop withdrawals, and Obama joined 13 other senators who opposed the measure that took its place.

McCain's speech in Denver came at the conclusion of a week in which he struggled against Obama's overseas tour de force. Yet amid the awkward moments, McCain managed to campaign busily in key battleground states and to raise millions of dollars at fundraisers.

Polls in many swing states are close, and some are tightening. The Arizona Republican sought to turn this to his advantage in what was clearly a difficult week to be a stay-at-home candidate.

McCain repeatedly emphasized his long military and congressional background, scolded Obama from afar on foreign policy, and kept playfully fueling speculation that he was close to picking a running mate. His address to the group of Hispanic veterans also gave him a chance to court the valued Hispanic vote.

Veterans care has been an issue that has come up numerous times at recent town halls McCain has held, reports CBS News' John Bentley, and the Arizona senator reaffirmed his commitment to getting soldiers appropriate treatment.

McCain was to visit the Dalai Lama in Aspen, Colo., his first meeting with the Tibetan spiritual leader and a chance to express criticism of Chinese treatment of those who live in Tibet just weeks before the Olympics in Beijing.

McCain also was to spend the weekend in Arizona and make a round of television news shows on Sunday.

Everywhere he went in recent days - in New Hampshire, Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio and here in Colorado - the Arizona senator drew warm and appreciative crowds. No matter that many, if not most, of those in the audiences were senior citizens. Seniors vote in big numbers.

For the most part, the side-by-side images weren't pretty:

Obama meeting with leaders in Iraq, McCain on a golf cart in Kennebunkport, Maine, with the first President Bush.

Obama before a sweeping Mideast landscape, McCain holding a news conference in a supermarket in Bethlehem - Pennsylvania, that is - and narrowly escaping an attack from a tumbling stack of apple sauce jars.

Obama delivering his trip's keynote speech at Berlin's Victory Column, McCain eating bratwurst and chatting with reporters at a German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.

McCain responds philosophically when asked about being overshadowed by his rival's overseas trip and outsize attention: "It is what it is."

McCain has inched ahead of Obama in Colorado, come within inches in Minnesota and narrowed the gap in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to Quinnipiac University polls of likely voters in these battleground states. The polls, taken for The Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com, showed voters in each state saying energy policy is more important than the war in Iraq.

©MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/politics/main4294547.shtml

Obama Working To Ensure Jewish Vote

2008-07-28T07:29:00.000-07:00

Washington Post: Meticulous Planning For Visit To Israel Indicates Importance

(Washingtonpost.com) This story was written by Jonathan Weisman and Michelle Boorstein.

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

Before embarking on a sprawling international trip that would take him to seven countries, two continents and two war zones, Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign staff fixated on a speck on the globe that is slightly smaller than New Jersey: Israel.

For all the hype about his trip to Iraq and his speech in Berlin, it was the Israel leg that was the most sensitive and the most meticulously planned, according to sources involved with the arrangements. That fact alone is a testament to the presidential candidate's ongoing concerns about the Jewish vote this November, and the extraordinary lengths to which the senator from Illinois is going to ensure support from that traditional Democratic constituency.

Obama's position on Israel has been fairly mainstream. He has declared himself an undying ally of the Jewish state and has indicated that he would like the United States to return to a position of honest broker in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. But his connection to his former pastor Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., whose anti-Israel sermons were widely reported this past spring, caused concern among some Jewish groups.

"I think he does still have issues with the Jewish community," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a prominent Jewish member of Congress. "In the end, I think he's going to do as well as any Democratic nominee with the Jewish community, but people still have to feel more comfortable with him."

Plans for yesterday's swing through Israel and the West Bank were hashed and rehashed, down to who would accompany the candidate, what venues he would appear at, whom he would meet, and even the order of those meetings.

"There was some very serious thought that went into this," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign who consulted with the campaign about the trip.

Obama aides considered taking some Jewish lawmakers on the visit, but then thought the idea was potentially demeaning. Instead, Obama's travel mates included Dennis Ross, a prominent former Middle East peace envoy, and Eric Lynn, a former House aide, Chicago community activist and Obama's liaison to the Jewish community. There was some talk of scuttling a planned news conference, for fear that any slip would be magnified by the attention the Jewish community is paying to the visit. Obama, in the end, did talk to the media.

"There is an extraordinary amount of attention, and it's for good reason," said Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), who has served as an Obama liaison to Jewish voters in and beyond Florida. "People believe Senator Obama is going to win the election and become the next president of the United States."

Rep. Paul W. Hodes (D-N.H.), another national campaign co-chairman, described meeting with a group of New England Jewish leaders in Boston on July 11 to sound out lingering concerns with Obama. He then relayed those issues to the candidate before his trip.

"As impressive and phenomenal as the senator's campaign has been, he just hasn't been on the scene as long as others have been," Hodes said. "And the Jewish community is one that has a special feeling when it comes to roots."

Obama's statements and appearances yesterday were carefully choreographed to assuage such feelings. He met with an array of the Israeli political establihment -- left, right and center -- before venturing to the West Bank to sit down with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. The focal point of his day was a visit to Sderot, an Israeli town on the edge of the Gaza Strip where Hamas-fired rockets have rained down for months.

Considering Obama's poll numbers, all this attention may seem like overkill. New Gallup poll data indicate that he leads Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, by 60 percent to 33 percent among Jewish voters, close to the average split of 65 to 32 percent in favor of Democrats among Jewish voters in exit polls since 1972. But that average was lowered by the 1980 election, when Jimmy Carter received just 45 percent of the Jewish vote.

In 2004, Sen. John F. Kerry won 74 percent. In 2000, Al Gore won 79 percent, about what Bill Clinton took in 1996 and 1992. If McCain wins a third of Jewish voters, that would be better than any other GOP candidate has done among the group since 1988.

Jews made up 3 percent of the electorate in 2004, but Obama aides think their vote may be key in a few swing states where the margin in November could be razor thin: Florida, where Jews make up 4 percent of the population; Nevada, where they make up 3 percent; and Ohio, where they are strong in the Cleveland suburbs. If McCain is able to put New Jersey and Pennsylvania into play, the Jewish vote could loom large there, as well.

Jonathan Sarna, a historian of American Jewry, said that Carter was the only Democrat in many decades who won the presidency -- in 1976 -- with less than 70 percent of U.S. Jews supporting him.

"It's like the canary in the mine. It's not because Jews are so important, but it's symbolic," he said.

Suzanne Kurtz, a spokeswoman for the Republican Jewish Coalition, said Obama is still having problems because some high-profile surrogates and supporters have questioned Israel's central position in U.S.-Middle Eastern policy. Robert Malley, who was a State Department official in the Clinton administration, resigned from his role as an informal Obama policy adviser after it emerged that he had met regularly with members of the militant group Hamas. Obama campaign officials have worked assiduously to distance themselves from Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Carter's national security adviser and who is considered anti-Israel by many Jews.

"This is a very important clue to the source of skepticism and doubt," Kurtz said.

With such sensitivities in mind, Obama hewed closely to the advice Wexler and others gave him before his departure. He met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak as well as opposition leader and conservative hawk Binyamin Netanyahu. He won Netanyahu's blessing as being sufficiently vigilant in the struggle to keep a nuclear weapon out of Iran's hands, Wexler said, and he made condemnation of Palestinian terrorism the central message of the day.

"We are still making our arguments," he cautioned, but after all the preparation, Jewish Obama supporters yesterday appeared satisfied that the day had gone fairly smoothly.

"I think it's an extraordinary home run," Hodes said.

By Jonathan Weisman and Michelle Boorstein
© 2008 The Washington Post Company

Obama And Terrorism

2008-07-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

By Kevin Drum

Jul 24, 2008
(Political Animal) OBAMA AND TERRORISM....The Cornerites are in such an apoplectic frenzy over Barack Obama's Berlin speech that I'm almost afraid of being hit by a barrage of spittle flecked pixels if I head over there again before they've calmed down. In the meantime, though, how about this from Byron York?
It's a small passage from Obama's Berlin speech, but this formulation, common in some circles, grates on some ears, like mine:
The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.
Yes, the victims were from all over the globe — places like Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and Manhattan, and Queens, and Staten Island, and New Jersey — all over. And most were Americans, weren't they?
This is crazy. Obama was in Berlin. He was trying to connect with a European crowd. He was trying to convince those Europeans that the fight against terrorism is their fight too. Isn't that a good thing? Isn't that a point that conservatives try to make all the time? What better way to make it?

Copyright 2008

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/24/politics/animal/main4291085.shtml

Americans In Europe Open Wallets For Obama

2008-07-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

Democrat Has Raised About 10 Times More Than McCain From U.S. Citizens Living In Western Europe

(AP) Barack Obama's campaign has received roughly 10 times more money from declared U.S. donors living in Germany, France and Britain than his Republican rival, reflecting his popularity in Europe as he makes his first tour of the continent as the presumed Democratic nominee.

Federal Election Commission reports show Obama has raised at least $1 million from donors who identify themselves as Americans living in Great Britain, Germany and France, while John McCain has taken in at least $150,000.

Some donors say the huge disparity, which also exists in overall funding raising in which Obama has raked in $338 million to $126.3 million for McCain, is more about disliking Bush and the prospect of another Republican succeeding him than it is an affection for Obama.

"I contributed because of the absolutely appalling performance of the Bush administration during the last eight years," said Eileen Taylor, a chief operating officer for Deutsche Bank in London.

She made two $2,300 donations, the maximum allowed, and is also working on a voter registration drive to make it easier for Americans abroad to cast ballots in the November election.

"We're actively signing people up to vote," she said. "Democrats Abroad is working with a lot of companies to set up voter registration and absentee ballots. The key message is that it's not about the money. A lot of people are putting emotional energy into this campaign."

Only U.S. citizens are permitted to contribute to presidential campaigns. The European totals include contributions of $200 or more from each individual as election laws do not require campaigns to itemize lesser amounts. So it's possible Obama has received additional money from smaller donors. McCain, however, publishes all contributions, even amounts smaller than $200.

While Bush is unpopular at home, hostility to the outgoing president appears to be much deeper among expatriate donors than the general population in the United States. Obama's many backers in Europe say they are motivated by a yearning for America to once again be viewed with respect by the rest of the world.

Gerald Wood, an American living in Germany, said he contributed $1,000 to Obama because he wants to see America's reputation restored after it "worsened" during the Bush years.

"For me Barack Obama is the one who can improve America's image," he said, comparing the youthful candidate to John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. "I want more bipartisanship, to give the land a vision."

The amounts raised in Europe are not terribly significant in the costly White House race, but the disparity between the two candidates underscores the Democratic candidate's appeal on a continent where Obamamania seems to have taken hold of expatriates and Europeans alike.

It also may reflect the Obama campaign's adroit use of the Internet as a prime fundraising tool while the McCain camp was for a long time saddled with a Web site that made it difficult for Americans abroad to contribute.

Patricia Toner, a retired IBM employee who lives in southern France, said she gave a total of $2,000 to Obama's campaign after receiving a mass e-mail from a friend during the primary season that contained a link to the candidate's Web site.

"I'm a retired information technology professional and I found their Web site so well crafted," she said.

Mary Jo Jacobi, a Republican who was an adviser to President Reagan and the first President Bush, conceded that Obama had a big advantage over McCain in Internet campaigning.

"A lot of McCain backers were saying it was very hard or impossible to donate over the Web site," she said. "Obama made it easy. Obama has been much more sophisticated about Internet usage, and when you live overseas that's the easiest way to contribute."

She also acknowledged Obama's message of change had drawn a positive response among Americans abroad, pointing out that people who uproot themselves to work overseas are by nature receptive to change. An estimated quarter of a million Americans live in Britain alone.

In London, many of Obama's donors are members of London's high-flying financial and legal elite, and also include information technology executives, architects and a celebrity restaurateur.

It has become fashionable to support him ever since Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of newspaper mogul Rupert Murdoch, hosted a high profile fundraiser for Obama in April.

The occupations listed on the FEC reports are impressive: lawyers, corporate vice presidents and chief executives are common.

The Obama list includes corporate luminaries like Joanna Shields, the chief executive officer of the popular Bebo social networking site; Ruth Rogers, co-founder of the exclusive River Cafe and wife of celebrated architect Richard Rogers; David Giampaolo, chief executive officer of the private equity investment company Pi Capital; John Graham, a director of the investment firm Rogge Global Partners; and Cheryl Solomon, general counsel for The Gucci Group.

Each donor is permitted to give a maximum of $2,300 for each election, but since the primaries are regarded as a separate election, a person can make two separate donations of $2,300 before the general election in November. While some gave the maximum, others made contributions in the $10 and $25 range.

McCain also enjoyed support from a number of investment bankers and international banking executives, but he received donations from only 63 individuals in Britain while Obama has about 600 donors.

McCain did receive money from Charles Thompson, with Saudi Petroleum Overseas, and Tom Fenton, a former CBS News correspondent who has long been a fixture on the London journalistic scene.

Thompson refused to discuss his contribution. Fenton, an independent, paid $1,000 to attend a McCain lunch in London so he could sit with the candidate and judge him up close. He said he may also contribute to the Obama campaign as well.

©MMVIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/politics/main4293051.shtml

Obama's Handwritten Prayer Made Public

2008-07-28T07:11:00.000-07:00

Israeli Paper Publishes Democrat's Note Left In Cracks Of Western Wall

(AP) An Israeli newspaper's decision to publish a handwritten prayer that Barack Obama left this week in the cracks of the Western Wall drew criticism Friday as an invasion of his privacy and his relationship with God.

In the note, placed at Judaism's holiest site, Obama asks God to guide him and guard his family.

"Lord - Protect my family and me," reads the note published in the Maariv daily. "Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair. Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just. And make me an instrument of your will."

Maariv published a photograph of the note on its front page on Friday. It said the note was removed from the wall by a student at a Jewish seminary immediately after Obama left.

The paper's decision to make the note public immediately drew fire from religious authorities. The rabbi in charge of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitz, said publishing the note intruded in Obama's intimate relationship with God.

"The notes placed between the stones of the Western Wall are between a person and his maker. It is forbidden to read them or make any use of them," he told Army Radio. The publication "damages the Western Wall and damages the personal, deep part of every one of us that we keep to ourselves," he said.

Many visitors to the 2,000-year-old Western Wall leave notes in its crevices bearing requests and prayers. Obama did so during a pre-dawn visit there Thursday, following a day spent meeting Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Obama bowed his head in worship after placing his small note of prayer into the wall.

The Western Wall is the lone remaining outer retaining wall of the second biblical Jewish temple, which was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., and is revered at Judaism's holiest site. It stands where the bible says King Solomon built the first Jewish Temple, which was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.

"It's inappropriate that the prayers of a person at the Western Wall should become a subject of public knowledge at all," said Jonathan Rosenblum, a Jerusalem-based analyst of the religious community and director of the Orthodox Am Ehad think-tank. "There is a rabbinic prohibition against reading other people's private communications and certainly anyone who goes to the wall expects that those communication will be protected."

Another Israeli paper, Yediot Ahronot, published an article Friday saying it had also obtained the note but decided not to publish it to respect Obama's privacy. Nearly all other Israeli media outlets ignored the story.

Thousands of notes and prayers are stuffed into the cracks of the wall. In recent years, The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which operates the site, has opened a fax hot line and a Web site where people overseas can send their prayers and have them printed out and placed in the wall.

The wall is emptied of its notes several times a year. These are treated as a prayer book and buried, rather than burned.

Rosenblum said the Maariv publication showed "a lack of sensitivity," toward Obama and the wall. However, the extraction and publishing of the note do not appear to be illegal. Police said Friday it was not investigating the incident.

Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs would neither confirm nor deny the note was Obama's

The handwriting appeared to match a message Obama inscribed Wednesday in the guest book at Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial, and was written on stationery from the King David Hotel, where Obama stayed while in Israel.

Obama signed the Yad Vashem message. The note from the Western Wall was unsigned.

At the Western Wall, Obama was greeted by a crowd of curious onlookers and photographers. He donned a white skullcap, listened to a rabbi read a prayer, and inserted a folded white piece of paper between the stones. One hardline Israeli protester shouted, "Obama, Jerusalem is not for sale."

The visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories was part of an international tour meant to shore up Obama's foreign affairs credentials ahead of the November election. Obama's prospective rival, John McCain, visited Israel in March.

©MMVIII, The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/25/politics/main4293894.shtml

Obama sticks to his guns on ‘Meet the Press’

2008-07-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

Presidential hopeful remains mum on VP, stands by overseas trip

By Christine Schomer
Msnbc.com contributor
updated 12:23 p.m. ET July 27, 2008
If Barack Obama is worn-out following his nine-day trip overseas, he certainly has a funny way of showing it. The Democratic candidate for president appeared on “Meet the Press” Sunday, appearing calm and alert as he defended his positions on Iraq, Afghanistan and the economy.

Moderator Tom Brokaw began by re-tracing the steps of Obama's trip. Underscoring the busy itinerary, the presidential candidate joked, “It makes me tired just listening to you read it.”

Moving to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama called for a comprehensive military shift away from Iraq — in cooperation with military advisors — and towards Afghanistan, which he referred to as “the central front on terror, [where] the Taliban and al-Qaida have reconstituted themselves.”

Claiming that “we need a more serious effort on the part of the Afghan government and President Karzai,” Obama promised two additional brigades to buttress the efforts there.

“My job as the next commander-in-chief is going to be make a decision-- what is the right war to fight, and how do we fight it?” Obama said. “And I think that we should have been focused on Afghanistan from the start. We should have finished that job. We have not.”

Discussing Obama’s initial rejection of the concept of a troop “surge” in Iraq, Brokaw asked whether the United States would have the luxury of contemplating withdrawal at this point if the surge had not been implemented. While Obama refused to give full credit to the military maneuver for the recent reduction of violence, insisting that the Sunni political decision to back the American forces had been an equally important factor.

With the topic of conversation remaining on the Middle East, Obama stressed the importance of finalizing a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, as a key to building international support for the renewed efforts in Afghanistan.

Such a diplomatic coup would not only restore U.S. credibility in the region, he said, but also would diffuse Iran’s influence there. Obama said that in a meeting with King Abdullah of Jordan, he had promised close supervision and immediate support from a potential Obama administration.

Moving to discuss the rock concert-like atmosphere of Obama’s speech in Berlin, Brokaw pointed out the objections raised by critics. Critics have argued that the candidate’s popularity and soaring rhetoric while abroad overshadowed vague policy talking points.

In reaction, Obama shot back explaining, “I could have delivered an exhaustive list of policy prescriptions, but I suspect that 200,000 people would have slowly drifted off.” He continued, “[The point was] to get Europeans to recognize the extraordinary sacrifices that Americans have made on behalf of world freedom and security. And to get Americans to recognize we need partners in order to be effective to solve our problems.”

On the subject of the economy, Obama said that the increasingly squeezed middle class was his priority, and that he would spend Monday with top economic advisors in an effort to hone a plan that would address citizens' concerns. “I think that ... what is driving people all across the country right now are worries and concerns about inability to pay the gas bill, inability to buy food because prices have gone up so high … we've got to fundamentally shift how we approach economic policy.”

Promising a large influx of investment in the research and development of renewable energy, Obama said, “We have to have the same approach that John Kennedy said we're going to the moon in 10 years. We should be saying in 10 years' time, that we're going to cut our oil consumption drastically.” However, he did not explain how he would pay for the proposed $150 billion dollar industry stimulus, nor by how much our consumption should be cut.

Finally, on the topic of potential running mates, Obama was mum, refusing to speculate on the timing of his announcement, geographic considerations, or whether his running mate would have a national security background. He did, however, brush aside rumored reservations about having Hilary Clinton as a running mate, along with her husband waiting in the wings. “[Hilary Clinton] is one of the most effective, intelligent courageous leaders that we have in the Democratic Party. Not only do I want Hillary Clinton campaigning with me, I want Bill Clinton – one of the smartest men in the history of politics — involved in our campaign.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25872549/

'Meet the Press' transcript for July 27, 2008

2008-07-28T07:04:00.000-07:00

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

updated 12:32 p.m. ET July 27, 2008
MR. TOM BROKAW: And we are here with Senator Obama late Saturday afternoon in London, the last stop of his nine-day overseas trip.

You head back to the United States in a few hours. For purposes of this program, we'll say good morning. By my judgment, at least, the only television appearances that you've missed this week have been the Home Shopping Network and "Morning Devotional." We're going to take...

SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): Right. But those are scheduled when I get back.

MR. BROKAW: All right. We're going to take you through the itinerary...

SEN. OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: ...so everyone will know what you've been doing. A week ago on Saturday you were in Kuwait visiting troops. On Sunday you moved to Afghanistan, where you visited troops and met with President Karzai. Monday, the epicenter of the trip, Baghdad, meeting with Prime Minister Maliki and American commanders. Tuesday you were in Amman, Jordan, with the king of that country, King Abdullah. And Wednesday meeting a variety of Israeli leaders and a prominent Palestinian. Thursday you were in Berlin meeting with the German Chancellor Merkel, and you gave a speech to a huge throng at Brandenburg Gate. Friday, in Paris, meeting with President Sarkozy of France. Saturday, in London, meeting with Tony Blair, the former prime minister, then with Gordon Brown, the current prime minister, and with David Cameron as well, who is the opposition leader in this country where there's a fair amount of political turmoil here as well.

SEN. OBAMA: It makes me, makes me tired just listening to you read it.

MR. BROKAW: When you get home and Michelle says to you, "Barack, what did you learn that surprised you? And did you change your mind about anything based on this entire trip?"

SEN. OBAMA: Well, I, I, I didn't see a huge shift in the strategic policies that I've laid out throughout this campaign. It was clear to me that Afghanistan is the central front on terror, that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have reconstituted themselves. They are--they have safe havens along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Our troops are doing an outstanding job, and many coalition troops are doing an outstanding job. But frankly, we need a, a, a more serious effort on the part of the Afghan government and President Karzai to get out of Kabul, to start the development process. We're going to need two additional brigades in Afghanistan and we've got to work with Pakistan to get serious about these terrorist safe havens. So that's got to be a priority. I was pleased to see the reductions in violence in Iraq. And there's no doubt that we have seen violence lessen, our troops are performing in an extraordinary fashion. The Sunni awakening has helped to eliminate, if not eliminate, then greatly lessen the possibilities of al-Qaeda reconstituting itself as a big and effective force. And the fact that Prime Minister Maliki is ready to take on more responsibility for the security of their country, I think is a positive development.

MR. BROKAW: Let's begin there in Iraq, and that judgment of yours that violence has lessened and that there is a possibility now that Prime Minister Maliki can take on more responsibility. You engaged in some verbal kung fu with reporters and others as well this week about the surge. You opposed the surge, the addition of other American troops in there. Many analysts believe that the reason that violence has decreased is because the American troops were deployed in a more effective manner...

SEN. OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: ...And it allowed President Maliki to stabilize his government somewhat. But you would not apologize, and you said you did not regret your opposition this surge.

SEN. OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: That prompted this radio ad from your opponent John McCain, which is running today. So let's listen to that and then respond.

(Videotape)

SEN. JOHN McCAIN: (From political ad) Now that it's clear that the surge has succeeded and brought victory in Iraq within sight, Senator Obama can't quite bring himself to admit his own failure in judgment. Instead, he commits the even greater error of insisting that, even in hindsight, he would still oppose the surge. Even in retrospect, he would choose the path of retreat and failure for America over the path of success and victory. That's not exactly my idea of the judgment we seek in a commander-in-chief.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW: That's a radio speech from Senator John McCain that is running on this Sunday in America. He's referring to what you had to say on January 10th, 2007...

SEN. OBAMA: Right.

MR. BROKAW: ...and repeated several times. Let's listen to you now and your immediate reaction to the idea of the surge back in the beginning of 2007.

(Videotape)

SEN. OBAMA: I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there; in fact, I think it'll do the reverse.

(End videotape)

MR. BROKAW: We're not talking about angels on the head of a pin here, but let me ask you a direct question.

SEN. OBAMA: All right.

MR. BROKAW: Do you believe that President Maliki would be in a position to more or less endorse your timetable of getting troops out within 16 months if it had not been for the surge?

SEN. OBAMA: You know, we don't know, because in my earlier statements--I mean, I know that there's that little snippet that you ran, but there were also statements made during the course of this debate in which I said there's no doubt that additional U.S. troops could temporarily quell the violence. But unless we saw an underlying change in the politics of the country, unless Sunni, Shia, Kurd made different decisions, then we were going to have a civil war and we could not stop a civil war simply with more troops. Now, I, I...

MR. BROKAW: But couldn't they make that political decision because troops were there to help them make it.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, the--well, the--look, there's no doubt, and I've said this repeatedly, that our troops make a difference. If--you know, they do extraordinary work. The troops that I met, they were proud of their work, they had made enormous sacrifices, they had fought, they had helped to construct schools and, and rebuilt the countryside. But, for example, in Anbar Province, where we went to visit, the Sunni awakening took place before the surge started, and tribal leaders made a decision that, instead of fighting the Americans, we're going to work with the Americans against al-Qaeda. That was a political decision that was made that has made a huge difference in this entire process.

So the, the point I want to make is this, Tom, I mean, you know, if we want to look at the question of judgment which is the one that John McCain raised, John McCain's essential focus has been on the tactical issue of sending more troops, and he's, he's made his entire approach to foreign policy rest on that support of Bush's decision to send more troops in. But we can have a whole range of arguments about past decisions--the decision to go into Iraq in the first place, and whether that was a good strategic decision, where we've spent a trillion dollars at least by the time this thing is over, lost thousands of lives in pursuit of goals John McCain supported that turned out to be false. We can make decisions about does it make sense for us to set a time frame for withdrawal to encourage the kind of political reconciliation that needs to take place to stabilize Iraq. We can talk about the distractions from hunting down al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, where there is no doubt that we would be further along had we not engaged in some of these actions, and...

MR. BROKAW: But we have to talk about the reality of what's going on in Iraq right now.

SEN. OBAMA: Well, but, but, but, let me...

MR. BROKAW: And the Anbar awakening, most people believe, was successful in large part because the American troops did come in and make it possible for them to have the kind of political reconciliation...

Click for more from 'Meet the Press'
Obama sticks to his guns on 'Meet the Press'

SEN. OBAMA: Tom, look--Tom, I'm, I'm--the fact that--the...

MR. BROKAW: Do you disagree with that?

SEN. OBAMA: As I said before, our troops made an enormous contribution, but to try to single out one factor in a very messy situation is just not accurate, and it doesn't, it doesn't take into account the larger strategic issues that have been at stake throughout this process. Look, we've got a finite amount of resources. We've got a finite number of troops. Our military is stretched extraordinarily because of trying to fight two wars at the same time. And so my job as the next commander in chief is going to be to make a decision what is the right war to fight, and, and how do we fight it? And I think that we should have been focused on Afghanistan from the start. We should have finished that job. We have not, but we now have the opportunity, moving forward, to begin a phased redeployment and to make sure that we're finishing the job in Afghanistan.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25872804/

UPDATE 1-US deficit seen near $490 bln in fiscal 2009-source

2008-07-28T07:03:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON, July 28 (Reuters) - The Bush administration on Monday plans to project the U.S. budget deficit will soar to a new record of nearly half a trillion dollars in fiscal 2009 as the economic outlook darkens.

The White House is expected to raise its forecast to almost $490 billion in the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 -- up from $407 billion predicted in February -- because of the slowing economy and an economic stimulus plan approved this year, an administration official said.

"The fiscal year 2009 deficit will be nearly $490 billion due to the bipartisan economic stimulus bill and slowing economy," the official said on the condition of not being further identified. However, the official cautioned that "a lot can happen" between now and then.

Congress approved and U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law a $168 billion, two-year economic stimulus plan that included tax rebates to millions of Americans and business tax breaks in an effort to ward off a recession.

The U.S. economy has been hobbled by the collapsing housing market and soaring food and energy prices. The government is due to report an initial estimate of second quarter gross domestic product on Thursday followed by the July jobs figures on Friday.

The grimmer budget picture and slowing economy will be inherited by Bush's successor in January 2009, either Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona or Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois.

The budget has been sapped by the prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and experts have been warning about an expected rise in health care spending as the baby boom generation's retirement looms and other entitlements are likely to expand. (Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky; Editing by Theodore d'Afflisio)

U.S. voters give Obama's overseas trip mixed reviews

2008-07-28T06:45:00.000-07:00

By Andrea Hopkins

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Ohio sales manager Lucas Seltzer isn't thrilled that Barack Obama is overseas talking to foreigners instead of at home speaking to Americans, but he understands the politics behind the Democratic presidential candidate's high-profile international trip.

"I would rather see Obama running around this country talking about his issues than in Iraq talking to prime ministers about foreign policy," said Seltzer, 33.

"But he's probably doing that to show he has foreign policy exposure since he's been criticized for not having any. And it's just a week, so I don't have a big problem with it."

With newspapers awash with photos of Obama addressing 200,000 cheering Germans in Berlin and wall-to-wall media coverage of his stops in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. voters offered a mix of support, anger, scepticism and shrugs.

Seltzer said he had not decided who he would vote for in November's presidential election, but he is leaning toward Republican John McCain.

Seltzer's girlfriend, Kristin Altieri, 26, favours Obama, a first-term Illinois senator and said she was glad he was overseas trying to repair relations damaged by eight years of failed diplomacy under Republican President George W. Bush.

"It's important to mend those broken ties," said Altieri, a student.

Other voters were scathing. "My first reaction when I heard about it ... yesterday was 'How dare you?'" said Marcus Laubli, a Swiss-American who works in a coffee shop in Scottsdale, Arizona.

"Obama tried to make it a Kennedy moment for himself and it was sacrilege for his party ... (trying) to recreate the situation but in a very calculating and naive way," said Laubli, a Republican.

Obama spoke not far from Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, where in 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy told a cheering crowd, "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner).

POLITICALLY STAGED

Public opinion polls show Obama's relative lack of experience in world affairs remains one of his biggest hurdles with voters in his battle with McCain, a four-term Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war.

Obama supporter Micah Cox, 32, said the first part of Obama's trip -- to Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel -- was valuable because it showed the 46-year-old senator could be an international leader, while the European leg has been more politically staged.

Cox, who lives about an hour outside of Chicago in Indiana, shrugged off Republican criticism of Obama's trip.

"They almost forced Obama to go over there and when he went they say he shouldn't be there," she said.

Cincinnati waitress Marty Garcia, 46, agreed. "McCain is the one who said he (Obama) doesn't know what he's doing overseas, so criticizing him now is just sour grapes," said Garcia, an Obama supporter.

McCain, 71, has marketed his military and foreign policy credentials in the campaign and goaded Obama into the trip by criticizing his failure to visit Iraq since he made a trip there in January 2006.

Garcia said she knew Obama's short trip would not fundamentally change world affairs, but it was a start.

"We need friends in the world and if we have a figurehead who makes leaders and people in other countries believe America is willing to listen and not take unilateral decisions, that's a good thing," she said.

Others also gave Obama high marks for his seven-nation trip.

"I think it's wonderful that people can get so excited about bringing America and Europe together. And I am for all that Obama has done in this respect. It's a good idea for us to get closer and I'm glad someone has said that," said Ed Morris, who writes about country music in Nashville, Tennessee.

While Obama was in Berlin, McCain was at a German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, talking with business leaders about economic issues, including soaring food and fuel costs.

Ohio is a politically divided state that narrowly supported Bush in 2004 and is considered up for grabs this year.

McCain's aides have fumed at the heavy media attention focused on Obama and have struggled to compete.

Altieri, the student, proved their point. "I know McCain has been in Ohio, but I don't know what he's doing," she said.

(Additional reporting by John Whitesides in Washington, Erin Zureick in Chicago, Tim Gaynor in Arizona and Pat Harris in Nashville; Editing by Chris Wilson)

Obama says conditions to dictate final Iraq force

2008-07-28T06:43:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said in an interview published on Saturday the size of a residual U.S. force left in Iraq after the withdrawal of combat troops would be "entirely conditions-based."

In comments seized upon by the campaign of Republican rival John McCain, Obama told Newsweek Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki recognized Iraq was "going to need our help for some time to come."

"We're going to have to provide them with logistical support, intelligence support. We're going to have to have a very capable counterterrorism strike force," Obama told the magazine while approaching Paris during a high-profile foreign tour, which included stops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We're going to have to continue to train their army and police to make them more effective," the Illinois senator added, calling such support consistent with his proposal for a 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops.

Asked if he had a clearer idea after talks with diplomatic and military officials how big a force would need to be left behind for those tasks, Obama replied: "I do think that's entirely conditions-based.

"It's hard to anticipate where we may be six months from now, or a year from now, or a year and a half from now."

The McCain campaign said the comments were the latest shift in Obama's position on Iraq toward his opponent's view that troop withdrawals must be based on security conditions.

"Barack Obama is ultimately articulating a position of sustained troop levels in Iraq based on the conditions on the ground and the security of the country. That is the very same position that John McCain has long held," said McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds.

"We welcome this latest shift in Senator Obama's position, but it is obvious that it was only a lack of experience and judgment that kept him from arriving at this position sooner," the campaign said in a statement.

McCain, like U.S. President George W. Bush, has opposed a fixed schedule for withdrawing combat troops, preferring to remain until Iraq is fully secure.

But Bush agreed last week with al-Maliki that security gains made it possible to set a time horizon for achieving a U.S. troop withdrawal. Maliki later said 2010 was an appropriate goal for a U.S. withdrawal, similar to the date Obama has proposed.

McCain acknowledged in a CNN interview on Friday that a 16-month period would be "a pretty good timetable" for withdrawing U.S. troops, but said any withdrawal must be based on conditions on the ground.

(Writing by Peter Cooney; editing by Jeff Mason)

Obama to turn campaign focus back to economy

2008-07-28T06:41:00.000-07:00

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will convene an all-star panel of advisers on Monday as he shifts his campaign focus from world affairs to the top issue for American voters -- the faltering U.S. economy.

Hitting the campaign trail again after a weeklong foreign trip, Obama travels to Washington to meet with a star-studded panel that includes billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and Google chairman Eric Schmidt.

Polls show economic worries lead voter concerns by a wide margin. After a week out of the country meeting world leaders and discussing foreign policy, Obama said he is anxious to shift gears to high gas prices, home foreclosures and bank failures.

"People are worried about gas prices, they're worried about job security, they're worried about their retirement fund as the stock market goes down," Obama told a gathering of minority journalists in Chicago on Sunday.

"People are understandably concerned about the immediate effects of the economy, and that's what we will be talking about for the duration," he said.

Among other attendees at the economic session in a Washington hotel on Monday will be former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

Obama said the session was designed to look at both his existing proposals and to help him develop additional steps to help turn around the economy.

The Illinois senator told NBC's "Meet the Press" he wanted the group to "examine the policies that we've already put forward: a middle-class tax cut, a second round of stimulus, an effort to shore up the housing market."

Those types of economic issues, he said, will dominate voter concerns in the race to the November election against Republican John McCain.

McCain, an Arizona senator, has criticized Obama for promising to repeal President George W. Bush's tax cuts for Americans who make more than $250,000 and for opposing McCain's call to lift the ban on offshore drilling.

Obama has accused McCain of clinging too closely to Bush's economic approach. Polls show a majority of voters prefer the leadership of Obama and Democrats on the economy.

But McCain, a harsh critic of what he says is runaway government spending, has made inroads among voters with his call for increased offshore drilling and construction of new nuclear power plants.

One of McCain's top economic advisers, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, was forced to step down recently after describing the United States as a "nation of whiners" and saying it suffered from a mental recession.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

(For more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)

Obama: Culture in Washington Must Change, Implement Tough Ethics Reform

2008-07-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) today delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor in support of the Honest Government and Leadership Act. This legislation would provide increased transparency and accountability, reduce the influence of lobbyists and special interests, and bring about the concrete changes we need in Washington. In January, Obama joined with Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) to introduce Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act, which set a standard for strong ethics legislation this Congress. Obama also sponsored an amendment to the Honest Government and Open Leadership Act that required the disclosure of lobbyists that bundle campaign contributions for candidates.

Senator Obama's remarks are below:

"First, let me commend Senator Reid for his leadership on this bill and especially my good friend Senator Feingold, who I have worked closely with on this issue over the past year and a half.��?

"The bill that's before us today could not be more urgently needed. For too long, the American people have seen lobbyists treat the legislative process like a game, using targeted contributions to maximize their leverage. For too long, people have felt like their voice and their interests have been drowning in a sea of lobbyist money in Washington.��?

"This is not the first time we have faced a crisis of confidence in government. Around the turn of the last century, wealth was becoming more concentrated in the hands of a few robber barons, railroad tycoons and oil magnates. It was an era known as the Gilded Age, and it was made possible by a government that played along.��?

"But when President Theodore Roosevelt took office, he wouldn't play along. He devoted his presidency to busting trusts, breaking up monopolies, and doing his best to give the American people a shot at the American dream once more.��?

"America needs this kind of leadership more than ever. We need leadership that sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American.��?

"We cannot settle for a second Gilded Age in America. And yet we find ourselves once more in the midst of a new economy where more wealth is in danger of falling into fewer hands; where CEO pay grows from year to year as the average worker's pay remains stagnant; where Americans are struggling like never before to pay their medical bills, or their kids' tuition, or high gas prices, all while the profits of the drug and insurance and oil industries have never been higher.��?

"And once again, we are faced with a politics that makes all of this possible. In recent years, the doors of Congress and the White House have been thrown wide open to an army of Washington lobbyists who have turned our government into a game only they can afford to play. Year after year after year, they stand in the way of our progress as a country. They stop us from addressing the issues that matter most to our people.��?

"Take health care. The drug and insurance industries spent $1 billion in lobbying over the last decade. They got what they paid for when their friends in Congress broke the rules and twisted arms to push through a prescription drug bill that actually made it illegal for our own government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies for cheaper drug prices.��?

"And because reform has been blocked up to now, there are parents and grandparents in this country who are walking into a drugstore and wondering how their Social Security check is going to cover a prescription that's more expensive than it was a month ago; those who are being forced to choose between their medicine and their groceries because they can no longer afford both.��?

"Let me be clear, I do not begrudge businesses for trying to make a profit, and I do not begrudge them for hiring lobbyists to plead their case before Congress. It is protected political speech, and we appreciate that there are many lobbyists who represent their clients well and fairly. But it's time we had a Congress that tells the drug companies and the oil companies and the insurance industry that while they may get a seat at the table in Washington, they don't get to buy every chair.��?

"We need to put an end to the prevailing culture in this town. And that's what we've been trying to do for the past couple of years. Last year, Congress came up with a watered-down version of reform. Last year, I and Senator Feingold and Senator McCain, voted against it because we thought we could do better. So in January, I came back with Senator Feingold and we set a high bar for reform. And I'm pleased to report that the bill before us today comes very close to what we proposed.��?

"By passing this bill, we will ban gifts and meals and end subsidized travel on corporate jets. We will close the revolving door between Pennsylvania Avenue and K Street. And we will make sure that the American people could see all the pet projects that lawmakers are trying to pass before they are actually voted on.��?

"And we'll do something more. Over the objections of powerful voices in both parties, we'll ensure that our laws shine a bright light on how lobbyists help fill the campaign coffers of members of Congress by bundling contributions from others. Because in an era in which soft money is prohibited, the real measure of a lobbyist's influence isn't how much money he's contributed, it's how much he's raised from others.��?

"For too long, this practice has been hidden from public view. But today, we can change that. I'm pleased that the amendment I've offered on bundling is part of this bill, and I want to thank Rep. Chris Van Hollen who has fought so hard to get this provision included in the House bill. As the Washington Post described the bundling provision earlier this year: 'No single change would add more to public understanding of how money really operates in Washington.'��?

"So there's a lot of good in this bill, and I truly hope and believe that it will change the way we do business in Washington. Let's not forget that there's more we need to do.��?

"One of the things I've argued is the necessity of an independent entity to enforce ethics rules in Congress. Because no matter how well we police our own conduct, so long as we're our own prosecutor, judge, and jury, the public will never have complete trust in our decisions. So far, that's a fight I've lost, but I'll continue to support independent enforcement because I believe it's in our nation's best interests.��?

"I also believe that if we're serious about change, we need to have a real discussion about public financing for congressional elections. Because even if we can stop lobbyists from buying us lunch or taking us out on junkets, they'll still be able to attend our fundraisers - and that's access the average American doesn't have.��?

"In our democracy, the price of access and influence should be nothing more than your voice and your vote. That should be enough for health care reform. That should be enough for a real energy policy. That should be enough to ensure that our government is still the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American.��?

"It's time to show the American people that we have the courage to change the prevailing culture in this city. It's time to give people confidence in their government again. And we have the chance to start doing that with this bill. So I proudly support this legislation.��?

Statement of Senators Obama, Reed, and Hagel on Trip to Iraq

2008-07-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Michael Ortiz (Obama), Chip Unruh (Reed), or Jordan Stark (Hagel)

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - U.S. Senators Barack Obama, Jack Reed and Chuck Hagel traveled today to Iraq, first to Basra, then to Baghdad. In Basra, they met with U.S., British and Iraqi troops; Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, Commander Multinational Corps - Iraq; Major General Barney White-Spunner (UK), Commander, Multinational Division Southeast; and Major General Abdul Aziz, Commander, 14th Iraqi Army Division. In Baghdad, the Senators met with U.S. troops; Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki; President Jalal Talabani; Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi; and Vice President Adil Abdulmahdi. They received a detailed briefing from and consulted extensively with U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and General David Petraeus, Commander, MNF Iraq. They visited with doctors, nurses and patients at the 86th Combat Support Hospital and took part in a helicopter over flight of Baghdad conducted by General Petraeus.

"We are in Iraq to thank our troops, diplomats and civilians for the remarkable job they are doing and to let them know that, back home, Americans are proud of them. We came to consult with our military leaders, embassy team and the Iraqi government about a way forward in Iraq that advances the interests of the United States, Iraq and the entire region.

"We found a strong, emerging consensus on a number of critical points:

"First, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our armed forces, more effective Iraqi security forces, the decision by the Sunni Awakening to fight 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' and the cease-fire by Shiite militia, violence in Iraq is down significantly. An overwhelming majority of Iraqis reject what remains of 'Al Qaeda in Iraq' and violent militias.

"Second, political progress, reconciliation and economic development continue to lag. There has been some forward movement, but not nearly enough to bring lasting stability to Iraq.

"Third, Iraqis want an aspirational timeline, with a clear date, for the redeployment of American combat forces. Prime Minister Maliki told us that while the Iraqi people deeply appreciate the sacrifices of American soldiers, they do not want an open-ended presence of U.S. combat forces. The Prime Minister said that now is an appropriate time to start to plan for the reorganization of our troops in Iraq -- including their numbers and missions. He stated his hope that U.S. combat forces could be out of Iraq in 2010.

"Fourth, Iraqis seek a long term partnership with the United States to promote political and economic progress and lasting stability. In particular, they want our continued help in training Iraqi security forces, helping conduct counter-terrorism operations, developing Iraq's economy and advancing political compromise. Vice President Abdulmahdi noted that "the quality of American engagement matters more than the quantity."

"We raised a number of other issues with the Iraqi leadership, including our deep concern about Iranian financial and material assistance to militia engaged in violent acts against American and Iraqi forces; the need to secure public support through our respective legislatures for any long term security agreements our countries negotiate; the importance of doing more to help the more than 4 million Iraqis who are refugees or internally displaced persons; and the need to give our troops immunity from Iraqi prosecution so long as they are in Iraq.

"America has a strategic opportunity to build a new kind of partnership with Iraq and to refocus our foreign policy on the many other pressing challenges around the world - starting with the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

What do you pray for?

2008-07-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

NEWSWEEK: Do you and Michelle talk to your girls about having a God? Jesus?
Obama: Well, we do, but we don't have a systematic course of study for the girls. We say grace at the table. They are inquiring minds, so whenever they have a question about God or faith, then I have a conversation with them … I'm a big believer in a faith that is not imposed but taps into what's already there, their curiosity or their spirit.

You said you didn't hear a lot of the sermons at Trinity. How often did you go?
At the beginning, we went fairly frequently. We were single, so I'd say we probably went two or three times a month. When we had Malia, our first child, we went less frequently, and that probably continued for a couple of years, just because—I don't know if you've had the experience of taking young, squirming children to church, but it's not easy … As they got older, we would go back a little more frequently, probably twice a month. But then I started campaigning for the United States Senate, and at that point I was in church every Sunday, maybe two, three churches a Sunday, but they weren't Trinity—because that was one of the most effective ways for us to campaign and reach out to people. So, there was quite a big chunk of time, especially during the Senate race, where we might not have gone to Trinity for two, three months at a time.

You used to travel with your Bible. Do you still do that?
Sometimes, because my briefcase gets so packed, I forget to pack it, but I often have my Bible with me. It's something that I read in the evenings and it takes me out of the immediacy of my day and gives me a point of reflection.

What do you think about the Kingdom of God? Is it attainable on Earth by humans?
I am a big believer in not just words, but deeds and works. I don't believe that the Kingdom of God is achievable on Earth without God's intervention, and without God's return through Jesus Christ, but I do believe in improvement.

What is the role of doubt in faith?
I wrote about this in "Audacity of Hope," that even after I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, that doesn't mean that I don't have doubts. I had doubts when my mother died. I have doubts every time I pick up the newspaper.

Do you pray in your personal life?
Yes, I do.

Daily?
Yeah, every day.

What do you pray for?
Forgiveness for my sins and flaws, which are many, the protection of my family, and that I'm carrying out God's will, and not in a grandiose way, but simply that there is an alignment between my actions and what he would want. And then I find myself sometimes praying for people who need a lift, need a hand.

Is there a time you have had to make a decision that was important and you called on God? Can you walk us through that?
Well, that's pretty personal. I'm not sure I'd want to walk you through that. I mean, I prayed on marrying Michelle because that's a pretty big decision, getting married. So I wanted to make sure I got that right, and I did. So, prayer worked. I prayed on running for president. That's a big decision that had an immediate impact on my family—and that I knew, win or lose, would have an impact on the country. Had I run a miserable race, that would have had an impact on the country. Should I win, that carries with it enormous responsibilities. I've spent a lot of time in prayer on that.

© 2008

about Barack Obama

2008-07-28T02:50:00.000-07:00

In 1981 Barack Obama was 20 years old, a Columbia University student in search of the meaning of life. He was torn a million different ways: between youth and maturity, black and white, coasts and continents, wonder and tragedy. He enrolled at Columbia in part to get far away from his past; he'd gone to high school in Hawaii and had just spent two years "enjoying myself," as he puts it, at Occidental College in Los Angeles. In New York City, "I lived an ascetic existence," Obama told NEWSWEEK in an interview on his campaign plane last week. "I did a lot of spiritual exploration. I withdrew from the world in a fairly deliberate way." He fasted. Often, he'd go days without speaking to another person.

For company, he had books. There was Saint Augustine, the fourth-century North African bishop who wrote the West's first spiritual memoir and built the theological foundations of the Christian Church. There was Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher and father of existentialism. There was Graham Greene, the Roman Catholic Englishman whose short novels are full of compromise, ambivalence and pain. Obama meditated on these men and argued with them in his mind.

When he felt restless on a Sunday morning, he would wander into an African-American congregation such as Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "I'd just sit in the back and I'd listen to the choir and I'd listen to the sermon," he says, smiling a little as he remembers those early days in the wilderness. "There were times that I would just start tearing up listening to the choir and share that sense of release."

Obama has spoken often and eloquently about the importance of religion in public life. But like many political leaders wary of offending potential backers, he has been less revealing about what he believes—about God, about prayer, about the connection between salvation and personal responsibility. In some respects, his reticence is understandable. Obama's religious biography is unconventional and politically problematic. Born to a Christian-turned-secular mother and a Muslim-turned-atheist African father, Obama grew up living all across the world with plenty of spiritual influences, but without any particular religion. He is now a Christian, having been baptized in the early 1990s at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. But rumors about Obama's religion persist. In the new NEWSWEEK Poll, 12 percent of voters incorrectly believe he's Muslim; more than a quarter believe he was raised in a Muslim home.

His baptism presents its own problems. The senior pastor at Trinity at the time of Obama's baptism was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., the preacher who was seen damning America on cable TV for weeks last spring—and will doubtless be seen again this fall. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, almost half of the respondents say Obama shares at least some of Wright's views; nearly a third say Wright might prevent them from voting for the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The story of Obama's religious journey is a uniquely American tale. It's one of a seeker, an intellectually curious young man trying to cobble together a religious identity out of myriad influences. Always drawn to life's Big Questions, Obama embarked on a spiritual quest in which he tried to reconcile his rational side with his yearning for transcendence. He found Christ—but that hasn't stopped him from asking questions. "I'm on my own faith journey and I'm searching," he says. "I leave open the possibility that I'm entirely wrong."

The story of Obama's faith begins with his mother, Ann. Raised in the Midwest by two lapsed Christians, she lived and traveled throughout the world appreciating all religions but confessing to none. One of Ann's favorite spiritual texts was "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth," a set of PBS interviews with Bill Moyers that traces the common themes of religion and mythology, Obama's half sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, tells NEWSWEEK. When the family lived in Indonesia, Ann, on occasion, would take the children to Catholic mass; after returning to Hawaii, they would celebrate Easter and Christmas at United Church of Christ congregations. Ann later went back to Indonesia with Maya, and when Obama visited, they would take him to Borobudur, one of the largest Buddhist temples in the world. Later, while working in India, Ann lived for a time in a Buddhist monastery.

Visiting temples was not just tourism for Ann. "These kinds of experiences were a regular part of our childhood and our upbringing, and were important to [our mother] because they involved ritual," says Maya. "She thought that ritual was very beautiful. The idea of human beings' striving to be better, having the curiosity and questions about all these things, [was] perpetual and constant inside her."

Did Ann believe in God? Obama calls his mother "an agnostic." "I think she believed in a higher power," he says. "She believed in the fundamental order and goodness of the universe. She would have been very comfortable with Einstein's idea that God doesn't play dice. But I think she was very suspicious of the notion that one particular organized religion offered one truth."

Obama's father, raised Muslim in Kenya, was, by the time he met Ann, "a confirmed atheist" who considered religion "mumbo jumbo," writes Obama in "The Audacity of Hope." (Barack Obama Sr. left the family when Obama was 2.) During his years in Indonesia, Obama went first to a Catholic school—and then to a public elementary school with a weekly class of religious education that reflected the dominant Muslim culture. He was raised, in part, by his stepfather, a man named Lolo, who "like many Indonesians … followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths," Obama wrote in "Dreams From My Father." "He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate." Lolo introduced young Obama to the taste of dog meat, snake meat and roasted grasshopper. In Indonesia, Obama has said, he saw women with and without head coverings and Muslims living comfortably next to Christians. He has said that his life among Muslims in Indonesia showed him that "Islam can be compatible with the modern world."

Though Obama was a serious student in Hawaii—and, even then, a seeker—"Dreams" describes an adolescence there of predictable teenage drinking and smoking (and basketball). During his first two years of college at Occidental, he says, he was "not taking anything particularly seriously, or at least, on the surface, not taking anything particularly seriously." After transferring to Columbia, though, the spiritual quest began in earnest.

People who knew him around that time describe a reserved, monkish man, uninterested in the extracurriculars of New York student life: bars, socializing, gossiping. William Araiza was in a political-science seminar with Obama their senior year, and what he remembers most is Obama's detachment. "I don't want to imply he was intentionally aloof, he just seemed like he wasn't part of the college gang," Araiza says. "He was the kind of guy who didn't live in the dorms, didn't hang out on campus."

Obama's first job out of college was at Business International, a research service in New York. "There was a lot of socializing," says Beth Noymer Levine, one of Obama's colleagues. "Here you had a hotbed of young singles—from the socializing there would be some storytelling—but [Obama] pretty much stayed out of that stuff … He was very together, very mature, and I was 23 and felt like a train wreck next to him."

Obama says his spiritual quest was driven by two main impulses. He was looking for a community that he could call home—a sense of rootedness and belonging he missed from his biracial, peripatetic childhood. The visits to the black churches uptown helped fulfill that desire. "There's a side very particular to the African-American church tradition that was powerful to me," he says. The exuberant worship, the family atmosphere and the prophetic preaching at a church such as Abyssinian would have appealed to a young man who lived so in his head. And he became obsessed with the civil-rights movement. He'd become convinced, through his reading, of the transforming power of social activism, especially when paired with religion. This is not an uncommon revelation among the spiritually and progressively minded. ("There's no more dramatic story in American life" than the story of the civil-rights movement, says North Carolina Rep. David Price, who knows Obama professionally and writes about politics and religion. "You could not continue to be kind and gentle in your personal life and also be denying other people's humanity.") When Gerald Kellman recruited Obama to go to Chicago as a community organizer, he remembers, the young man was "very much caught up in the world of ideas." He was devouring Taylor Branch's "Parting the Waters," which is part history of the civil-rights movement, part biography of Martin Luther King Jr.

In Chicago, Obama found that organizers and activists there (and elsewhere) were employing a progressive theology to motivate faith groups to action. Using the writings of Paul Tillich and, especially, Reinhold Niebuhr—and also King, African-American and Roman Catholic liberation theologians, and Christian fathers like Saint Augustine—local religious leaders emphasized original sin and human imperfection. Christ's gift of salvation was to the community of believers, not to individual people in isolation. It was therefore the responsibility of the faithful to help each other—through deeds—to respond to the call of perfection that will be fully realized only at the end of time. Adherents of this particular theology frequently refer to Matthew 25: "Whatever you neglected to do unto the least of these, you neglected to do unto me." Everyone, in other words, is in this salvation thing together.

Obama's organizing days helped clarify his sense of faith and social action as intertwined. "It's hard for me to imagine being true to my faith—and not thinking beyond myself, and not thinking about what's good for other people, and not acting in a moral and ethical way," he says. When these ideas merged with his more emotional search for belonging, he was able to arrive at the foot of the cross. He "felt God's spirit beckoning me," he writes in "Audacity." "I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth."

Was it a conversion in the sense that he heard Jesus speaking to him in a moment after which nothing was the same? No. "It wasn't an epiphany," he says. "A bolt of lightning didn't strike me and suddenly I said, 'Aha!' It was a more gradual process that traced back to those times that I had spent in New York wandering the streets or reading books, where I decided that the meaning I found in my life, the values that were most important to me, the sense of wonder that I had, the sense of tragedy that I had—all these things were captured in the Christian story." And how much of the decision was pragmatic, motivated by Obama's desire, as he says in "Dreams," to get closer to the people he was trying to help? "I thought being part of a community and affirming my faith in a public fashion was important," Obama says.

The cross under which Obama went to Jesus was at the controversial Trinity United Church of Christ. It was a good fit. "That community of faith suited me," Obama says. For one thing, Trinity insisted on social activism as a part of Christian life. It was also a family place. Members refer to the sections in the massive sanctuary as neighborhoods; churchgoers go to the same neighborhood each Sunday and they get to know the people who sit near them. They know when someone's sick or got a promotion at work. Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama met in the context of organizing, became a friend; after he married, Obama says, the two men would sometimes get together "after church to have chicken with the family—and we would have talked stories about our families." In his preaching, Wright often emphasized the importance of family, of staying married and taking good care of children. (Obama's recent Father's Day speech, in which he said that "responsibility does not end at conception," was not cribbed from Wright—but the premise could have been.) At the point of his decision to accept Christ, Obama says, "what was intellectual and what was emotional joined, and the belief in the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, that he died for our sins, that through him we could achieve eternal life—but also that, through good works we could find order and meaning here on Earth and transcend our limits and our flaws and our foibles—I found that powerful."

Maya says their mother would not have made the same choice—but that Ann understood and approved of Obama's decision: "She didn't feel the same need, because for her, she felt like we can still be good to one another and serve, but we don't have to choose. She was, of course, always a wanderer, and I think he was more inclined to be rooted and make the choice to set down his commitments more firmly."

After his stint as an organizer, Obama went to Harvard Law School. He didn't officially join Trinity until several years later, when he returned to Chicago as a promising young lawyer intent on becoming a husband, a father and a professional success. Around the time Obama was baptized, he says he studied the Bible with gifted teachers who would "gently poke me about my faith." As young marrieds, Barack and Michelle (who also didn't go to church regularly as a child) went to church fairly often—two or three times a month. But after their first child, Malia, was born, they found making the effort more difficult. "I don't know if you've had the experience of taking young, squirming children to church, but it's not easy," he says. "Trinity was always packed, and so you had to get there early. And if you went to the morning service, you were looking at—it just was difficult. So that would cut back on our involvement."

After he began his run for the U.S. Senate, he says, the family sometimes didn't go to Trinity for months at a time. The girls have not attended Sunday school. The family says grace at mealtime, and he talks to the children about God whenever they have questions. "I'm a big believer in a faith that is not imposed but taps into what's already there, their curiosity or their spirit," he says.

Amid the hubbub, Obama continued to try to work out for himself what it meant to be a person of faith. In 1999, while still in the Illinois State Senate, he shared an office suite with Ira Silverstein, an Orthodox Jew. Obama peppered Silverstein with questions about Orthodox restrictions on daily life: the kosher laws and the sanctions against certain kinds of behavior on the Sabbath. "On the Sabbath, if I ever needed anything, Barack would always offer," remembers Silverstein. "Some of the doors are electric, so he would offer to open them … I didn't expect that."

Since severing ties with Wright and Trinity, Obama is a little spiritually rootless again. He lost a friend in Wright—and he lost a home, however tenuous those ties may have been toward the end, in Trinity. He has not found a new church, and he doesn't plan to look for one until after the election. "There's an aspect of the campaign process that would not make it a good time to figure out whether a particular church community worked for us," he says. "Because of what happened at Trinity, we'd be under a spotlight."

Nevertheless, his spiritual life on the campaign trail survives. He says he prays every day, typically for "forgiveness for my sins and flaws, which are many, the protection of my family, and that I'm carrying out God's will, not in a grandiose way, but simply that there is an alignment between my actions and what he would want." He sometimes reads his Bible in the evenings, a ritual that "takes me out of the immediacy of my day and gives me a point of reflection." Thanks to the efforts of his religious outreach team, he has an army of clerics and friends praying for him and e-mailing him snippets of Scripture or Midrash to think about during the day.

The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell—who gave the invocations at both of George W. Bush's inaugurals and presided over the wedding of the president's daughter Jenna—is among those on Obama's prayer team. When Caldwell talks about Obama, he can barely keep the emotion out of his voice. The thing that impresses him most, he says, is that when he asks Obama, "What can I pray for?" Obama always says, "Michelle and the girls." "He never says, 'Pray for me, pray for my campaign, pray that folks will quit bashing me.' He always says, 'Pray for Michelle and my girls'."

But Obama's faith is not without its critics. Some on the right say his particular brand of Christianity is a modern amalgam—unorthodox, undisciplined, even insincere. Last month Dr. James Dobson accused Obama of "deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology." The campaign responded that Obama was reaching out to people of faith and standing up for families.

When Franklin Graham asked Obama recently how, as a Christian, he could reconcile New Testament claims that salvation was attainable only through Christ with a campaign that embraces pluralism and diversity, Obama tells NEWSWEEK he said: "It is a precept of my Christian faith that my redemption comes through Christ, but I am also a big believer in the Golden Rule, which I think is an essential pillar not only of my faith but of my values and my ideals and my experience here on Earth. I've said this before, and I know this raises questions in the minds of some evangelicals. I do not believe that my mother, who never formally embraced Christianity as far as I know … I do not believe she went to hell." Graham, he said, was very gracious in reply. Should Obama beat John McCain, he has history on his side. Presidents such as Lincoln and Jefferson were unorthodox Christians; and, according to a Pew Forum survey, 70 percent of Americans agree with the statement that "many religions can lead to eternal life." "My particular set of beliefs," Obama says, "may not be perfectly consistent with the beliefs of other Christians."

Last March, when video clips of Wright damning America blitzed the airwaves, Obama wrote a speech about race that he hoped would save his campaign. But it was, to some, also a speech about faith. Obama tried to explain his relationship with his pastor, to appeal to Americans' sense of the best in themselves. He spoke of racial divides in America as "a part of ourselves we have yet to perfect," and of his pastor as a flawed, human creature. "That speech," says Paul Elie, the Catholic author of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," "is steeped in Christianity. We have relationships, they're all flawed, we're all broken. You can't renounce your history with a person at a stroke, we have to fare forward with other imperfect people and resist the claims to perfection coming from both sides." After Wright's performance a month later at the National Press Club, Elie says, Obama was right—and Christian—to repudiate him.

Did Obama see the race speech as a religion speech? Last week, aboard the campaign plane, he said: "Race is a central test of our belief that we're our brother's keeper, our sister's keeper … There's a sense that if we are to get beyond our racial divides, that it should be neat and pretty, whereas part of my argument was that it's going to be hard and messy—and that's where faith comes in." As the general election wears on, Obama will have to summon all of his faith, in all of its complexity. Few things in life are harder, or messier, than the last months of a presidential campaign.

With Sarah Kliff

© 2008

Barack Hussein Obama

2008-07-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

Barack Hussein Obama II[2] (pronounced /bəˈrɑːk hʊˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois. He is the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party in the 2008 presidential election, and the first African American to be a major party's presumptive nominee for President of the United States.

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Obama worked as a community organizer and practiced as a civil rights attorney before serving in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004. He also taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. Following an unsuccessful bid for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2000, he announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate in January 2003. After winning a landslide primary victory in March 2004, Obama delivered the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He was elected to the Senate in November 2004 with 70% of the vote.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, he cosponsored legislation to control conventional weapons and to promote greater public accountability in the use of federal funds. He also made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In the current 110th Congress, he has sponsored legislation regarding lobbying and electoral fraud, climate change, nuclear terrorism, and care for returned U.S. military personnel. Since announcing his presidential campaign in February 2007, Obama has emphasized withdrawing American troops from Iraq, increasing energy

Early life and career
Main article: Early life and career of Barack Obama
Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at the Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Obama, Sr., a Black Kenyan of Nyangoma-Kogelo, Siaya District, Kenya, and Ann Dunham, a White American from Wichita, Kansas. His parents met while both were attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where his father was enrolled as a foreign student.[3] They separated when he was two years old and later divorced.[4] Obama's father returned to Kenya and saw his American-born son only once more before dying in an automobile accident in 1982.[5] After her divorce, Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, and the family moved to Soetoro's home country of Indonesia in 1967, where Obama attended local schools in Jakarta until he was ten years old. He then returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents while attending Punahou School from the fifth grade in 1971 until his graduation from high school in 1979.[6] Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972 for several years, then returning to Indonesia for her fieldwork. She died of ovarian cancer in 1995.[7]

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years.[8] He then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialization in international relations.[9] Obama graduated with a B.A. from Columbia in 1983, then worked at Business International Corporation and New York Public Interest Research Group.[10][11]

After four years in New York City, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer for three years from June 1985 to May 1988 as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Greater Roseland (Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale) on Chicago's far South Side.[10][12] During his three years as the DCP's director, its staff grew from 1 to 13 and its annual budget grew from $70,000 to $400,000, with accomplishments including helping set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.[13] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.[14] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time to Europe for three weeks then Kenya for five weeks where he met many of his Kenyan relatives for the first time.[15]

Obama entered Harvard Law School in late 1988 and at the end of his first year was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review based on his grades and a writing competition.[16] In his second year he was elected president of the Law Review, a full-time volunteer position functioning as editor-in-chief and supervising the law review's staff of 80 editors.[17] Obama's election in February 1990 as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review was widely reported and followed by several long, detailed profiles.[17] He graduated with a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard in 1991 and returned to Chicago where he had worked as a summer associate at the law firms of Sidley & Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.[16][18]

The publicity from his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review led to a contract and advance to write a book about race relations.[19] In an effort to recruit him to their faculty, the University of Chicago Law School provided Obama with a fellowship and an office to work on his book.[19] He originally planned to finish the book in one year, but it took much longer as the book evolved into a personal memoir. In order to work without interruptions, Obama and his wife, Michelle, traveled to Bali where he wrote for several months. The manuscript was finally published as Dreams from My Father in mid-1995.[19]

Obama directed Illinois Project Vote from April to October 1992, a voter registration drive with a staff of 10 and 700 volunteers that achieved its goal of registering 150,000 of 400,000 unregistered African Americans in the state, leading Crain's Chicago Business to name Obama to its 1993 list of "40 under Forty" powers to be.[20][21]

Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years, as a Lecturer for four years (1992–1996), and as a Senior Lecturer for eight years (1996–2004).[22]

In 1993 Obama joined Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, a 12-attorney law firm specializing in civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development, where he was an associate for three years from 1993 to 1996, then of counsel from 1996 to 2004, with his law license becoming inactive in 2002.[10][23]

Obama was a founding member of the board of directors of Public Allies in 1992, resigning before his wife, Michelle, became the founding executive director of Public Allies Chicago in early 1993.[10][24] He served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, which in 1985 had been the first foundation to fund Obama's DCP, from 1993–2002, and served on the board of directors of The Joyce Foundation from 1994–2002.[10] Obama served on the board of directors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge from 1995–2002, as founding president and chairman of the board of directors from 1995–1999.[10] He also served on the board of directors of the Chicago Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Lugenia Burns Hope Center.[10]

State legislator, 1997–2004
Main article: Illinois Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, succeeding State Senator Alice Palmer as Senator from the 13th District, which then spanned Chicago South Side neighborhoods from Hyde Park-Kenwood south to South Shore and west to Chicago Lawn.[25] Once elected, Obama gained bipartisan support for legislation reforming ethics and health care laws.[26] He sponsored a law increasing tax credits for low-income workers, negotiated welfare reform, and promoted increased subsidies for childcare.[27] In 2001, as co-chairman of the bipartisan Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, Obama supported Republican Governor Ryan's payday loan regulations and predatory mortgage lending regulations aimed at averting home foreclosures,[28] and in 2003, Obama sponsored and led unanimous, bipartisan passage of legislation to monitor racial profiling by requiring police to record the race of drivers they detained and legislation making Illinois the first state to mandate videotaping of homicide interrogations.[27][29]

Obama was reelected to the Illinois Senate in 1998, and again in 2002.[30] In 2000, he lost a Democratic primary run for the U.S. House of Representatives to four-term incumbent Bobby Rush by a margin of two to one.[31][32]

In January 2003, Obama became chairman of the Illinois Senate's Health and Human Services Committee when Democrats, after a decade in the minority, regained a majority.[33] During his 2004 general election campaign for U.S. Senate, police representatives credited Obama for his active engagement with police organizations in enacting death penalty reforms.[34] Obama resigned from the Illinois Senate in November 2004 following his election to the US Senate.[35]

2004 U.S. Senate campaign
See also: United States Senate election in Illinois, 2004
In mid-2002, Obama began considering a run for the U.S. Senate, enlisting political strategist David Axelrod that fall and formally announcing his candidacy in January 2003.[36] Decisions by Republican incumbent Peter Fitzgerald and his Democratic predecessor Carol Moseley Braun not to contest the race launched wide-open Democratic and Republican primary contests involving fifteen candidates.[37] Obama's candidacy was boosted by Axelrod's advertising campaign featuring images of the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington and an endorsement by the daughter of the late Paul Simon, former U.S. Senator for Illinois.[38] He received over 52% of the vote in the March 2004 primary, emerging 29% ahead of his nearest Democratic rival.[39]

Obama's expected opponent in the general election, Republican primary winner Jack Ryan, withdrew from the race in June 2004.[40]

In July 2004, Obama wrote and delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts.[41] After describing his maternal grandfather's experiences as a World War II veteran and a beneficiary of the New Deal's FHA and G.I. Bill programs, Obama spoke about changing the U.S. government's economic and social priorities. He questioned the Bush administration's management of the Iraq War and highlighted America's obligations to its soldiers. Drawing examples from U.S. history, he criticized heavily partisan views of the electorate and asked Americans to find unity in diversity, saying, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America."[42] Broadcasts of the speech by major news organizations launched Obama's status as a national political figure and boosted his campaign for U.S. Senate.[43]

In August 2004, with less than three months to go before Election Day, Alan Keyes accepted the Illinois Republican Party's nomination to replace Ryan.[44] A long-time resident of Maryland, Keyes established legal residency in Illinois with the nomination.[45] In the November 2004 general election, Obama received 70% of the vote to Keyes's 27%, the largest victory margin for a statewide race in Illinois history.[46]

U.S. Senator, 2005–present
Main article: United States Senate career of Barack Obama
Obama was sworn in as a senator on January 4, 2005.[47] Though a newcomer to Washington, he recruited a team of established, high-level advisers devoted to broad themes that exceeded the usual requirements of an incoming first-term senator.[48] He hired Pete Rouse, a 30-year veteran of national politics and former chief of staff to Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, as his chief of staff, and economist Karen Kornbluh, former deputy chief of staff to Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, as his policy director.[49] He recruited Samantha Power, author on human rights and genocide, and former Clinton administration officials Anthony Lake and Susan Rice as foreign policy advisers.[50]

The Senate historian lists Obama as the fifth African American Senator in U.S. history, and the third to have been popularly elected.[51] He is the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.[52] CQ Weekly, a nonpartisan publication, characterized him as a "loyal Democrat" based on analysis of all Senate votes in 2005–2007, and the National Journal ranked him as the "most liberal" senator based on an assessment of selected votes during 2007.[53][54] Asked about the Journal's characterization of his voting record, Obama expressed doubts about the survey's methodology, blaming "old politics" labeling of political positions as "conservative" or "liberal" for creating predispositions that prevent problem-solving.[55]

Legislation
See also: List of bills sponsored by Barack Obama in the United States Senate
Consistent with his interests in conservation, Obama voted in favor of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Obama took an active role in the Senate's drive for improved border security and immigration reform. In 2005, he cosponsored the "Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act" introduced by Republican John McCain of Arizona.[56] He later added three amendments to the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act", which passed the Senate in May 2006, but failed to gain majority support in the House of Representatives.[57] In September 2006, Obama supported a related bill, the Secure Fence Act, authorizing construction of fencing and other security improvements along the United States–Mexico border.[58] President Bush signed the Secure Fence Act into law in October 2006, calling it "an important step toward immigration reform."[59]

Senate bill sponsors Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Obama discussing the Coburn–Obama Transparency Act[60]Partnering with Republican Senators Richard Lugar of Indiana and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama successfully introduced two initiatives bearing his name. "Lugar–Obama" expanded the Nunn–Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept to conventional weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles and anti-personnel mines.[61] The "Coburn–Obama Transparency Act" authorized the establishment of www.USAspending.gov, a web search engine launched in December 2007 and run by the Office of Management and Budget.[62] After Illinois residents complained of waste water contamination by a neighboring nuclear plant, Obama sponsored legislation requiring plant owners to notify state and local authorities of radioactive leaks.[63] A compromise version of the bill was subsequently blocked by partisan disputes and later reintroduced.[64] In December 2006, President Bush signed into law the "Democratic Republic of the Congo Relief, Security, and Democracy Promotion Act," marking the first federal legislation to be enacted with Obama as its primary sponsor.[65]

In January 2007, Obama worked with Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to eliminate gifts of travel on corporate jets by lobbyists to members of Congress and require disclosure of bundled campaign contributions under the "Honest Leadership and Open Government Act," which was signed into law in September 2007.[66] He introduced S. 453, a bill to criminalize deceptive practices in federal elections, including fraudulent flyers and automated phone calls, as witnessed in the 2006 midterm elections.[67] Obama's energy initiatives scored pluses and minuses with environmentalists, who welcomed his sponsorship with McCain of a climate change bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two-thirds by 2050, but were skeptical of his support for a bill promoting liquefied coal production.[68] Obama also introduced the "Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007," a bill to cap troop levels in Iraq, begin phased redeployment, and remove all combat brigades from Iraq before April 2008.[69]

Later in 2007, Obama sponsored an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act adding safeguards for personality disorder military discharges, and calling for an official review following reports that the procedure had been used inappropriately to reduce government costs.[70] He sponsored the "Iran Sanctions Enabling Act" supporting divestment of state pension funds from Iran's oil and gas industry, and joined Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska in introducing legislation to reduce risks of nuclear terrorism.[71][72] A provision from the Obama–Hagel bill was passed by Congress in December 2007 as an amendment to the State-Foreign Operations appropriations bill.[72] Obama also sponsored a Senate amendment to the State Children's Health Insurance Program providing one year of job protection for family members caring for soldiers with combat-related injuries.[73]

Committees

Obama and Richard Lugar visit a Russian mobile launch missile dismantling facility[74]Obama held assignments on the Senate Committees for Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works and Veterans' Affairs through December 2006.[75] In January 2007, he left the Environment and Public Works committee and took additional assignments with Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.[76] He also became Chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on European Affairs.[77]

As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama has made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. In August 2005, he traveled to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. The trip focused on strategies to control the world's supply of conventional weapons, biological weapons, and weapons of mass destruction as a first defense against terrorist attacks.[78] Following meetings with U.S. military in Kuwait and Iraq in January 2006, he visited Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian territories. At a meeting with Palestinian students two weeks before Hamas won the legislative election, Obama warned that "the U.S. will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel."[79] He left for his third official trip in August 2006, traveling to South Africa, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Chad. In a speech at the University of Nairobi, he spoke about political corruption and ethnic rivalries.[80] The speech touched off controversy among Kenyan leaders, some formally challenging Obama's remarks as unfair and improper, others defending his positions.[81]

2008 presidential campaign
This section contains information about one or more candidates in an upcoming or ongoing election.
Content may change as the election approaches.

Main articles: Barack Obama presidential primary campaign, 2008 and Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2008
In February 2007, standing before the Old State Capitol building in Springfield, Illinois, Obama announced his candidacy for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election.[82] Describing his working life in Illinois, and symbolically linking his presidential campaign to Abraham Lincoln's 1858 House Divided speech, Obama said: "That is why, in the shadow of the Old State Capitol, where Lincoln once called on a house divided to stand together, where common hopes and common dreams still live, I stand before you today to announce my candidacy for President of the United States of America."[83] Speaking at a Democratic National Committee (DNC) meeting one week before the February announcement, Obama called for putting an end to negative campaigning.[84] Since announcing his presidential campaign Obama has emphasized ending the war in Iraq, increasing energy independence, and providing universal health care as his top three priorities.[85]

Obama on stage with his wife and two daughters just before announcing his presidential campaign in Springfield, IllinoisObama's campaign raised $58 million during the first half of 2007, topping all other candidates and exceeding previous records for the first six months of any year before an election year.[86] Small donors, those contributing in increments of less than $200, accounted for $16.4 million of Obama's record-breaking total, more than any other Democratic candidate.[87] In the first month of 2008, his campaign brought in $36.8 million, the most ever raised in one month by a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries.[88]

With two months remaining before the first electoral contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and national opinion polls showing him trailing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama began directly charging his top rival with failing to clearly state her political positions.[89] Campaigning in Iowa, he told The Washington Post that as the Democratic nominee he would draw more support than Clinton from independent and Republican voters in the general election.[90]

Among the first four DNC-sanctioned state contests, Obama won more delegates than Clinton in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina while winning an equal number in New Hampshire. On Super Tuesday, he emerged with 20 more delegates than Clinton.[91] He broke fundraising records in the first two months of 2008, raising over $90 million for his primary campaign while Clinton raised $45 million in the same period.[92] After Super Tuesday, Obama won the eleven remaining February primaries and caucuses.[93] Obama and Clinton split delegates and states nearly equally in the March 4th contests of Vermont, Texas, Ohio, and Rhode Island; Obama closed the month with victories in Wyoming and Mississippi.[94]

In March 2008, a controversy broke out concerning Obama's former pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright.[95] After ABC News broadcast clips of his racially and politically charged sermons,[95][96] Obama responded by condemning Wright's remarks and ending Wright's relationship with the campaign.[97] Obama delivered a speech, during the controversy, entitled "A More Perfect Union"[98] that addressed issues of race. After Wright reiterated some of his remarks in a speech at the National Press Club,[99] Obama strongly denounced Wright, who he said "[presented] a world view that contradicts who I am and what I stand for."[100] Obama resigned from Trinity on May 31, 2008, after a visiting orator, Catholic priest Michael Pfleger, mocked Hillary Clinton. Obama stated his resignation was to avoid the impression that he endorsed the entire range of opinions expressed at that church.[101][102][103]

General David Petraeus gives an aerial tour of Baghdad to Barack Obama and Chuck Hagel.During April, May, and June, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana, and South Dakota held primaries; Obama won North Carolina, Oregon, and Montana, and Clinton won the rest, with an aggregate result of Obama remaining ahead in pledged delegates after these contests. During the same period, Obama received endorsements from more superdelegates than did Clinton.[104] On May 31, the Democratic National Committee agreed to seat all of the Michigan and Florida delegates at the national convention, each with a half-vote, narrowing the delegate gap between the two Democrats and increasing the number of delegates needed to win the nomination.[105] On June 3, with all states counted, Obama passed the 2118 delegate mark and became the Democratic presumptive nominee.[106] On that day, he gave a victory speech in St. Paul, Minnesota, paying tribute to his rival Clinton, who suspended her campaign and endorsed him on June 7.[107] Obama is the first African American to be the presumptive nominee of a major political party.[108]

On June 19, Obama became the first major-party presidential candidate to turn down public financing since the system was created after the Watergate scandal.[109]

Policies and proposals
Main article: Political positions of Barack Obama
On the role of government in economic affairs, Obama has written: "We should be asking ourselves what mix of policies will lead to a dynamic free market and widespread economic security, entrepreneurial innovation and upward mobility [...] we should be guided by what works."[110] Speaking before the National Press Club in April 2005, he defended the New Deal social welfare policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt, associating Republican proposals to establish private accounts for Social Security with social Darwinism.[111] In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Obama spoke out against government indifference to growing economic class divisions, calling on both political parties to take action to restore the social safety net for the poor.[112] Shortly before announcing his presidential campaign, Obama told the health care advocacy group Families USA that he supports universal healthcare in the United States,[113] the same kind of health care that Members of Congress give themselves.[114]

Obama speaking at a rally in Conway, South Carolina[115]A standard method that political scientists use for gauging ideology is to compare the annual ratings by the Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) with the ratings by the American Conservative Union (ACU).[116] Based on his years in Congress (i.e. 2005, 2006, and 2007), Senator Obama has a lifetime average conservative rating of 7.67% from the ACU,[117] and a lifetime average liberal rating of 90% from the ADA.[118]

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Obama announced an $18 billion plan for investments in early childhood education, math and science education, and expanded summer learning opportunities.[119] Obama's campaign distinguished his proposals to reward teachers for performance from traditional merit pay systems, assuring unions that changes would be pursued through the collective bargaining process.[120]

At the Tax Policy Center in September 2007, he blamed special interests for distorting the U.S. tax code.[121] His plan would eliminate taxes for senior citizens with incomes of less than $50,000 a year, repeal income tax cuts for those making over $250,000 as well as the capital gains and dividends tax cut,[122] close corporate tax loopholes, lift the $102,000 cap on Social Security taxes, restrict offshore tax havens, and simplify filing of income tax returns by pre-filling wage and bank information already collected by the IRS.[123] Announcing his presidential campaign's energy plan in October 2007, Obama proposed a cap and trade auction system to restrict carbon emissions and a 10 year program of investments in new energy sources to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil.[124] Obama proposed that all pollution credits must be auctioned, with no grandfathering of credits for oil and gas companies, and the spending of the revenue obtained on energy development and economic transition costs.[125]

Obama was an early opponent of the Bush administration's policies on Iraq.[126] On October 2, 2002, the day President Bush and Congress agreed on the joint resolution authorizing the Iraq War,[127] Obama addressed the first high-profile Chicago anti-Iraq War rally in Federal Plaza,[128] speaking out against the war.[129] On March 16, 2003, the day President Bush issued his 48-hour ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq before the U.S. invasion of Iraq,[130] Obama addressed the largest Chicago anti-Iraq War rally to date in Daley Plaza and told the crowd "It's not too late" to stop the war.[131]

Obama sought to make his early public opposition to the Iraq War before it started a major issue in his 2004 U.S. Senate campaign to distinguish himself from his Democratic primary rivals who supported the resolution authorizing the Iraq War,[132] and in his 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign, to distinguish himself from four Democratic primary rivals who voted for the resolution authorizing the war (Senators Clinton, Edwards, Biden, and Dodd).[133]

Obama taking questions from a crowd in New HampshireSpeaking to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in November 2006, Obama called for a "phased redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq" and an opening of diplomatic dialogue with Syria and Iran.[134] In a March 2007 speech to AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby, he said that the primary way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is through talks and diplomacy, although not ruling out military action.[135] Obama has indicated that he would engage in "direct presidential diplomacy" with Iran without preconditions.[136][137][138] Detailing his strategy for fighting global terrorism in August 2007, Obama said "it was a terrible mistake to fail to act" against a 2005 meeting of al-Qaeda leaders that U.S. intelligence had confirmed to be taking place in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas. He said that as president he would not miss a similar opportunity, even without the support of the Pakistani government.[139]

In a December 2005 Washington Post opinion column, and at the Save Darfur rally in April 2006, Obama called for more assertive action to oppose genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan.[140] He has divested $180,000 in personal holdings of Sudan-related stock, and has urged divestment from companies doing business in Iran.[141] In the July–August 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs, Obama called for an outward looking post-Iraq War foreign policy and the renewal of American military, diplomatic, and moral leadership in the world. Saying "we can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission," he called on Americans to "lead the world, by deed and by example."[142]

Obama has encouraged Democrats to reach out to evangelicals and other religious groups.[143] In December 2006, he joined Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) at the "Global Summit on AIDS and the Church" organized by church leaders Kay and Rick Warren.[144] Together with Warren and Brownback, Obama took an HIV test, as he had done in Kenya less than four months earlier.[145] He encouraged "others in public life to do the same" and not be ashamed of it.[146] Before the conference, 18 anti-abortion groups published an open letter stating, in reference to Obama's support for legal abortion: "In the strongest possible terms, we oppose Rick Warren's decision to ignore Senator Obama's clear pro-death stance and invite him to Saddleback Church anyway."[147] Addressing over 8,000 United Church of Christ members in June 2007, Obama challenged "so-called leaders of the Christian Right" for being "all too eager to exploit what divides us."[148]

Obama made several statements in a campaign video released in October 2007 related to defense spending and nuclear weapons. In addition to promising to end the war in Iraq, Obama stated that he will enact budget cuts in the range of tens of billions of dollars. He stated that he will stop investing in missile defense systems, that he will not weaponize space, that he will "slow development of future combat systems," and that he would work towards a world without nuclear weapons. To achieve this goal, Obama wishes to end development of new nuclear weapons, to reduce the current U.S. nuclear stockpile, to enact a global ban on production of fissile material, and to seek negotiations with Russia in order to take ICBMs off high alert status.[149]

Obama is a sponsor of the Global Poverty Act, which "requires the President to develop and implement a comprehensive policy to cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief, and coordination with the international community, businesses and NGOs."[150]

Family and personal life
Obama met his wife, Michelle Robinson, in June 1989 when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.[151] Assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, Robinson joined him at group social functions, but declined his initial offers to date.[152] They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992.[153] The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born on July 4, 1998[154], followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.[155]

Obama playing basketball with U.S. military in Djibouti in 2006[156]Applying the proceeds of a book deal,[157] the family moved in 2005 from a Hyde Park, Chicago condominium to their current $1.6 million house in neighboring Kenwood.[158] The purchase of an adjacent lot and sale of part of it to Obama by the wife of developer and friend Tony Rezko attracted media attention because of Rezko's indictment and subsequent conviction on political corruption charges unrelated to Obama.[159][160]

In December 2007, Money magazine estimated the Obama family's net worth at $1.3 million.[161] Their 2007 tax return showed a household income of $4.2 million, up from about $1 million in 2006 and $1.6 million in 2005, mostly from sales of his books.[162]

In a 2006 interview, Obama highlighted the diversity of his extended family. "Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations," he said. "I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher."[163] Obama has seven half-siblings from his Kenyan father's family, six of them living, and a half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, the daughter of his mother and her Indonesian second husband.[164] Soetoro-Ng is married to a Chinese Canadian.[165] Obama's mother is survived by her Kansas-born mother, Madelyn Dunham.[166] In Dreams from My Father, Obama ties his mother's family history to possible Native American ancestors and distant relatives of Jefferson Davis, president of the southern Confederacy during the American Civil War.[167]

Obama plays basketball, a sport he participated in as a member of his high school's varsity team.[168] He is left-handed, but prefers his right hand for some tasks.[169] Before announcing his presidential candidacy, he began a well-publicized effort to quit smoking. Obama told the Chicago Tribune. "I've quit periodically over the last several years. I've got an ironclad demand from my wife that in the stresses of the campaign I do not succumb."[170]

In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that he "was not raised in a religious household." He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents (whom Obama has specified elsewhere as "non-practicing Methodists and Baptists") to be detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known." He describes his Kenyan father as "raised a Muslim," but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his Indonesian stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful." In the book, Obama explains how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change."[171][172]

Books
Main articles: Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope

The Audacity of HopeObama's first book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, was published before his first run for political office. In it he recalls his childhood in Honolulu and Jakarta, college years in Los Angeles and New York City, and his employment as a community organizer in Chicago in the 1980s. The book's last few chapters describe his first visit to Kenya, a journey to connect with his Luo family and heritage. In the preface to the 2004 revised edition, Obama explains that he had hoped the story of his family "might speak in some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience."[173] In a 1995 review, novelist Paul Watkins wrote that Dreams "persuasively describes the phenomenon of belonging to two different worlds, and thus belonging to neither."[174] The audiobook edition earned Obama the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album of 2006.[175]

His second book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, was published in October 2006 and soon rose to the top of The New York Times Best Seller hardcover list.[176] Its title came from a sermon delivered by Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The paperback edition currently ranks fifth on The New York Times nonfiction list.[177] The Chicago Tribune credits large crowds that gathered at book signings with influencing Obama's decision to run for president.[178] Former U.S. presidential candidate Gary Hart said the book's self-portrayal presents "a man of relative youth yet maturity, a wise observer of the human condition, a figure who possesses perseverance and writing skills that have flashes of grandeur."[179] Reviewer Michael Tomasky writes that it does not contain "boldly innovative policy prescriptions that will lead the Democrats out of their wilderness," but does show Obama's potential to "construct a new politics that is progressive but grounded in civic traditions that speak to a wider range of Americans."[180] In February 2008, he won a Grammy award for the spoken word edition of Audacity.[175] Foreign language editions of the book have been published in Italian, Spanish, German, French, Danish and Greek.[181]

Cultural and political image
Main article: Cultural and political image of Barack Obama‎
With his Kenyan father and white American mother, his upbringing in Honolulu and Jakarta, and his Ivy League education, Obama's early life experiences differ markedly from those of African American politicians who launched their careers in the 1960s through participation in the civil rights movement.[182]

In January 2007, The End of Blackness author Debra Dickerson warned against drawing favorable cultural implications from Obama's political rise: "Lumping us all together," Dickerson wrote in Salon, "erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress."[183] Film critic David Ehrenstein, writing in a March 2007 Los Angeles Times article, compared the cultural sources of Obama's favorable polling among whites to those of "magical negro" roles played by black actors in Hollywood movies.[184] Expressing puzzlement over questions about whether he is "black enough," Obama told an August 2007 meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists that the debate is not about his physical appearance or his record on issues of concern to black voters. Obama said, "we're still locked in this notion that if you appeal to white folks then there must be something wrong."[185]

In a December 2006 Wall Street Journal editorial headlined "The Man from Nowhere," Ronald Reagan speech writer Peggy Noonan advised "establishment" commentators to avoid becoming too quickly excited about Obama's still early political career.[186] Echoing the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, Obama acknowledged his youthful image, saying in an October 2007 campaign speech, "I wouldn't be here if, time and again, the torch had not been passed to a new generation."[187]

A prominent part of Obama's political image is a belief that Obama's rhetoric and actions toward political reform are matched with a political savvy that often includes a measure of expediency. In a July 2008 The New Yorker feature article, for example, Ryan Lizza wrote, "(Obama) campaigns on reforming a broken political process, yet he has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist."[188]

Although Obama is Christian, July 2008 polls have shown that some Americans believe incorrectly that he is Muslim or was raised Muslim (12% and 26%, respectively, in Pew[189] and Newsweek[190] polls). Cited the latter poll by CNN's Larry King, Obama responded, "...I wasn't raised in a Muslim home," and said that advancement of the misconception insulted Muslim Americans.[191]

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^ Fornek, Scott (September 9, 2007). "Maya Soetoro-Ng: 'He Helped Me Find My Voice'", Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
^ Fornek, Scott (September 9, 2007). "Madelyn Payne Dunham: 'A Trailblazer'", Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
^ Obama (1995), p. 13. For reports on Obama's maternal genealogy, including slave owners, Irish connections, and common ancestors with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Harry Truman, see: Nitkin, David; Harry Merritt (March 2, 2007). "A New Twist to an Intriguing Family History", Baltimore Sun. Retrieved on 2008-06-24. Jordan, Mary (May 13, 2007). "Tiny Irish Village Is Latest Place to Claim Obama as Its Own", The Washington Post. Retrieved on 2008-06-24. "Obama's Family Tree Has a Few Surprises", Associated Press, CBS 2 (Chicago) (September 8, 2007). Retrieved on 2008-06-24.
^ Kantor, Jodi (June 1, 2007). "One Place Where Obama Goes Elbow to Elbow", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-28. See also: "The Love of the Game" (video), HBO: Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, YouTube (BarackObama.com) (April 15, 2008). Retrieved on 2008-04-28.
^ Melissa Roth (July 4, 2008). "Leading With Their Left: No Matter Who Wins, The Next President Will Be a Southpaw", Washington Post, p. C01.
^ Parsons, Christi (February 6, 2007). "Obama Launches an '07 Campaign—To Quit Smoking", Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-04-28.
^ Obama (2006), pp. 202–208. Portions excerpted in: Obama, Barack (October 23, 2006). "My Spiritual Journey", Time. Retrieved on 2008-04-28.
^ Obama, Barack (2006-06-28). "'Call to Renewal' Keynote Address". Barack Obama: U.S. Senator for Illinois (website). Retrieved on June 16, 2008.
^ Obama (1995), p. vii.
^ Taylor, Ihsan (August 29, 2004). "New & Noteworthy Paperbacks", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-09.
^ a b "Obama Wins a Grammy for 'Hope' Book", Associated Press, KVOA.com (February 10, 2008). Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
^ Bosman, Julie (November 9, 2006). "Obama's New Book Is a Surprise Best Seller", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
^ "Best Sellers". The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
^ Dorning, Mike; Christi Parsons (June 12, 2007). "Carefully Crafting the Obama 'Brand'", Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
^ Hart, Gary (December 24, 2006). "American Idol", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
^ Tomasky, Michael (November 30, 2006). "The Phenomenon", New York Review of Books, Internet Archive. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
^ Malkoutzis, Nick (March 27, 2008). "Obama's Audacious Vision", Kathimerini English Edition, International Herald Tribune in Greece and Cyprus. Retrieved on 2008-04-06.
^ Wallace-Wells, Benjamin (November 2004). "The Great Black Hope: What's Riding on Barack Obama?", Washington Monthly. Retrieved on 2008-04-07. See also: Scott, Janny (December 28, 2007). "A Member of a New Generation, Obama Walks a Fine Line", International Herald Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
^ Dickerson, Debra J (January 22, 2007). "Colorblind", Salon. Retrieved on 2008-01-14. For a sampling of views by other black commentators see: Younge, Gary (posted October 27, 2006 (November 13, 2006 issue)). "Obama: Black Like Me", The Nation. Retrieved on 2008-04-07. Crouch, Stanley (November 2, 2006). "What Obama Isn't: Black Like Me", New York Daily News. Retrieved on 2008-04-07. Archived from the original on 2007-03-08. Washington, Laura (January 1, 2007). "Whites May Embrace Obama, But Do 'Regular Black Folks'?", Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2008-04-07. Page, Clarence (February 25, 2007). "Is Barack Black Enough? Now That's a Silly Question", Houston Chronicle. Retrieved on 2008-04-07. Archived from the original on 2007-03-08.
^ Ehrenstein, David. "Obama the 'Magic Negro'", Los Angeles Times, March 19, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
^ Payne, Les (August 19, 2007). "In One Country, a Dual Audience" (paid archive), Newsday. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
^ Noonan, Peggy (December 15, 2006). "The Man From Nowhere", OpinionJournal (Wall Street Journal). Retrieved on 2008-04-07. See also: Obama (2006), pp. 122–124. For Noonan's comments on Obama winning the January 2008 Iowa Caucus, see: Noonan, Peggy (January 4, 2008). "Out With the Old, In With the New", OpinionJournal (Wall Street Journal). Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
^ Dorning, Mike (October 4, 2007). "Obama Reaches Across Decades to JFK" (paid archive), Chicago Tribune. Retrieved on 2008-04-07. See also: Harnden, Toby (October 15, 2007). "Barack Obama is JFK Heir, Says Kennedy Aide", Daily Telegraph. Retrieved on 2008-04-07.
^ Making It: How Chicago shaped Obama
^ Poll: Obama extends national lead over McCain, Associated Press (11 July 2008).
^ Jonathan Darman, Glow Fading?, Newsweek online exclusive (11 July 2008).
^ King, Larry (2008-07-15). "CNN Larry King Live: Interview with Sen. Barack Obama …", CNN. Retrieved on 2008-07-17.
Cited works
Mendell, David (2007). Obama: From Promise to Power. Amistad/HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-085820-6.
Obama, Barack (2004). Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Times Books. ISBN 1-4000-8277-3.
Obama, Barack (2006). The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. Crown Publishing Group. ISBN 0-307-23769-9.

Further reading
Listen to this article (info/dl)

This audio file was created from a revision dated 2007-01-31, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. (Audio help)
More spoken articlesCurry, Jessica. "Barack Obama: Under the Lights", Chicago Life, Fall 2004. Retrieved on 2008-01-14.
Graff, Garrett. "The Legend of Barack Obama", Washingtonian, November 1, 2006. Retrieved on 2008-01-14.
Lizza, Ryan. "Above the Fray", GQ, September 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-14.
MacFarquhar, Larissa. "The Conciliator: Where is Barack Obama Coming From?", New Yorker, May 7, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-14.
Mundy, Liza. "A Series of Fortunate Events", The Washington Post Magazine, August 12, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-14.
Wallace-Wells, Ben. "Destiny's Child", Rolling Stone, February 7, 2007. Retrieved on 2008-01-14.
Zutter, Hank De. "What Makes Obama Run?", Chicago Reader, December 8, 1995. Retrieved on 2008-01-14.

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