How come knowone cares, that the care givers in the nurseing homes are taking the elderly to vote for Obama.Why is it WE as Americans cant be happy, i dont care what color a man is if he has had the back ground that Obamas has we as americans should say NO WAY.

I am a Republican. The fact that the RNC would make an issue of this only points to why the party is in such disastrous shape.

We have just witnessed Obama destroy the Clinton machine and this type of ridiculous pettiness that masquerades as political debate. I remember when we had a Contract With America, based on issues that brought us back into the majority.

This Rovian nonsense has brought us to the place we are today, a ever smaller minority party on its way to losing the Presidency. The sooner Republicans face up to this the better off we will be. I am over 60 and even I can see that time has passed Rovianism by.

So, the man made a mistake. It is, however, unfortunate that no politician can make a mistake in what they say.

We all know how Hillary “Isn’t Robert Kennedy,” as she put it. Which fine, innappropriate comment, but, she got caught up in the heat of conversation, and used a bad example.

and now we know that Barack Obama doesn’t have all of his nazi containment memorized by heart.

It doesn’t by any means make them less qualified because of slip ups. Let’s give them an “Oops,” card, and move on with our live, concentrating on what actually matters.

Obama, really needs to do his homework before he opens his mouth. As a African American I really don’t see his change all I see is other African Americans voting because he is black and that is sad. When is this country going to look at the future in not the color.

From a 50yo African American

I understand from some other blogs that Charlie Payne (the great uncle) was a soldier in WWII. However, he enlisted with the Navy.

I haven’t seen the press, however, take up on this. The 86th is an Army contingent (that spent a few hour in Ohrdruf before moving on to the next battlefield).

I’m an independent voter..and not impressed. I’ll cut the Dems as much slack as they cut the Republicans (and Bush)for their “gaffs”. Obama’s speech before he ran for President was impressive…because he claimed to be bi-racial. Now he seems to be only the “black” candidate. Why did this change? I want unity in government, not this awful divisiveness that leads to inaction from all sides. I’ve had enough! I’m just waiting to see who McCain chooses for a running mate, and if the Dems will knock off victimizing perfectly capable people by giving them entitlements instead of opportunities!

I had a great-uncle who served as a Colonel in the Army Air Corps, and seldom heard much detail from him about his service despite his having flown numerous missions. The fact is the importance of what little he cared to say was that it was harrowing but necessary. What I gleaned from talking to him over the years was not specifics as to what they bombed or how many of his compatriots were lost. If Obama’s uncle is like mine, he did not want to tell much about his experience but when he did the message was broad and emotional rather than a narrative about what exactly he saw. Many Vietnam veterans are similarly reticent, but their eyes say it all. Obama’s point was that he had an uncle who suffered great trauma from having seen the evils of Nazism, and nobody is suggesting that the point was false. Does it really matter which concentration camp caused Obama’s great uncle to suffer emotional damage?

Say What, Barrack?

By Paul R. Hollrah

Tuning in to C-Span recently, I found myself
listening to a speech by Senator Barrack
Hussein Obama, Jr. He was standing in
the pulpit of a black church in Selma,
Alabama, and as I studied the body
language of the dozen or so black
ministers standing behind the senator,
I couldn’t help but be reminded of the
little head-bobbing dolls that people
used to place in the rear windows of
their 1957 Chevrolets. If their reactions
are any indication, the new “Schlickmeister”
of the Democrat Party is actually a
pretty accomplished public speaker.
However, as he spoke, I found my b.s.
alarm going off, repeatedly. But I
couldn’t quite figure out why until
I actually read excerpts of his
speech several days later. Here’s
part of what he said:

“…something happened back here
in Selma, Alabama. Something happened in
Birmingham that sent out what Bobby
Kennedy called, “ripples of hope all
around the world.” Something happened
when a bunch of women decided they
were going to walk instead of ride
the bus after a long day of doing
somebody else’s laundry, looking
after somebody else’s children.

“When (black) men who had PhD’s
decided ‘that’s enough’ and ‘we’re
going to stand up for our dignity,’
that sent a shout across oceans so
that my grandfather began to imagine
something different for his son. His son,
who grew up herding goats in a small
village in Africa could s uddenly set
his sights a little higher and believe
that maybe a black man in this world
had a chance.

“So the Kennedy’s decided we’re going to do
an airlift. We’re going to go to Africa
and start bringing young Africans over to
this country and give them scholarships
to study so they can learn what a wonderful
country America is.
“This young man named Barack Obama got
one of those tickets and came over to
this country. He met this woman whose
great great-great-great- grandfather
had owned slaves; but she had a good
idea there was some craziness going
on because they looked at each other
and they decided that we know that,
(in) the world as it has been, it might
not be possible for us to get together
and have a child. There was something
stirring across the country because of
what happened in Selma, Alabama, because
some folks are willing to march across
a bridge. So they got together and Barack
Obama Jr. Was born. So don’t tell me I
don’t have a claim on Selma , Alabama.
Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to
Selma, Alabama.”

Okay, so what ’s wrong with that?
It all sounds good. But is it?
Obama told his audience that, because
some folks had the courage to “march
across a bridge” in Selma, Alabama,
his mother, a white woman from Kansas,
and his father, a black Muslim from Africa,
took heart. It gave them the courage to
get married and have a child. The problem
with that characterization is that Barrack
Obama, Jr., was born on August 4, 1961,
while the first of three marches across
that bridge in Selma didn’t occur until
March 7, 1965, at least five years after
Obama’s parents met.

Obama went on to tell his audience that
the Kennedys, Jack and Bobby, decided
to do an airlift. They would bring some
young Africans over so that they could
be educated and learn all about America.
His grandfather heard that call and sent
his son, Barrack Obama, Sr., to America.
The problem with that scenario is that,
having been born in August 1961, the
future senator was not conceived until
sometime in November 1960. So if this
African grandfather heard words that
‘’sent a shout across oceans,” inspiring
him to send his goat-herder son to America,

it was not a Democrat Jack Kennedy he heard,
nor his brother Bobby, it was a Republican
President, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Obama’s speech is reminiscent of
Al Gore’s claim of having invented
the Internet, Hillary Clinton’s claim
of having been named after the first
man to climb Mt. Everest, even though
she was born five years and seven
months before Sir Edmund climbed
the mountain, and John Kerry’s
imaginary trip to Cambodia.

As one of my black friends,
Eddie Huff, has said, “We need
to ask some very serious questions
of the senator from Illinois.
It’s not enough to be black,
it’s not enough to be articulate,
and it’s not enough to be eloquent
and a media darling. The only question
will be how deaf an ear, or how blind an eye,
will people turn in order to turn a frog into a prince.”

OK, so Ohrdruf was an abandoned forced labor camp. But the correction was for Buchenwald (also a labor camp, but not abandoned). I think it was a gaffe, but as comment #2 illustrates, an easy one to make. And if the best the critics can do is split hairs on whether a great uncle shouldn’t be someone’s “uncle”, all I can say is this election is going to be really easy for Obama.

This is another red herring.

These guys (the republicans) don’t have anything on Mr. Obama. They’re simply waiting for him to slip up by saying something dumb.

What he said about Auschwitz (v. Buchenwald) wasn’t dumb, just inaccurate. It would take an expert on Nazi death camps to keep all of them straight. All most people know (besides the horror of them) is that they were located mostly in Poland and Germany, and there were many.

Both the dumb and the inaccurate can be forgiven, but the former should definitely be avoided by a presidential candidate (well, maybe not…look who came out on top in 2000 and 2004!).

And how long has this young man been campaigning for president? He gets tired, and doesn’t have a wife to hold on to him to make sure he doesn’t fall down stairs or walk off in the wrong direction. Mrs. Obama is off campaigning elsewhere most of the time.

Mr. Obama also doesn’t have a Mr. Lieberman to help keep him straight on what’s best for Israel, or which southwest and central Asian terrorist is which.

Nor does Mr. Obama have a Mr. Graham (Lindsey) hanging out with him to keep him straight on Guantanamo Bay issues.

The list is longer than just the trio mentioned, of course.

When I see Mr. Obama, he is usually alone and providing his own counsel. This is a good thing. Why? Because that means he can make his own decisions as well.

Mr. McCain looks unsure of himself a lot. He rarely says anything that is not scripted. The latter was the way Mr. Reagan became the “great communicator”. Whenever Mr. Reagan found himself in a spot and having to do impromptu speaking, he would crack jokes…or simply stutter his way out of it. That’s why his aides (who wanted to keep their jobs) kept him scripted. Mr. McCain is pretty much in the same situation, except he doesn’t stutter. Funny thing…that also describes Mr. Bush. Complex off the cuff analysis and synthesis is not their forte at all.

Of course Mr. Obama doesn’t have any military service!

Why should he have? Ninety-nine (99%) of Americans don’t have any military service. The Constitution doesn’t require military service in advance of holding political office.

The Constitution doesn’t require military service at all for any American…period.

The framers were pretty smart guys. If they had thought that military service should be requisite to being president (or commander in chief)…or representative…or senator…or supreme court judge…they would have debated it and in the end included it in “this Constitution for the United States of America” and/or the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments).

I have military service, a quarter century of it. I prefer a president who has military service.

However, something tells me that Mr. Obama will think twice (or even thrice) before committing Our Best & Finest to the path that lies in harms way. In other words, I think that this young man will make wise decisions…not decisions based on religious hysteria or (contrary to popular belief) what his pastor whispers in his ear. In the case of Mr. Bush, he simply says that the grand creator of the universe whispers in his. That’s what I’ve heard anyway. Mr. McCain apparently likes to have Mr. Bush around too. So that’s at least four.

I really long for the days when religion and government policy (domestic and foreign) weren’t mixed in the same pot…as they have been for the last 8 years. It’s very dangerous to do that. Look where we are today…bogged down in counterinsurgency operations that simply can’t outlast the insurgencies they are attempting to counter!

Yes, I know that the democrat party is more tolerant than the republican party…so tolerant in fact, that stuff I’m not particularly fond of gets the democrat stamp of approval. However, in the long run I see the pendulum having to swing this way again in order for America to get back on track.

The bottom line is that the republicans see where this is all going, i.e., down the tube for them in the short run, and perhaps in the long run as well. They also know full well that an Obama slip of the tongue is not going to keep them in the White House, nor regain their majority in congress.

Jack