CHICAGO - Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack Obama went to church on Sunday and joked about being “too black.”
 
In a Father’s Day speech to several thousand people at the predominantly black Apostolic Church of God, Obama talked about how people need to have high expectations for themselves then shared a few anecdotes about running for president.
 
“You remember at the beginning, people were wondering — how come he doesn’t have all the support in the African American community. You remember that?” he said to shouts of “oh yeah.”
 
“That was when I wasn’t black enough. Now I’m too black,” he said to laughter and applause.
 
Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president if elected in November, is the son of a Kenyan father and a white mother from Kansas.

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Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress (Obama speaks at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago on June 15, 2008)

 WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate John McCain admitted on Saturday it can be difficult at times to be proud of the United States.
 
“I’ll admit to you … that it’s tough in some respects,” McCain said when asked by a questioner at a town hall meeting how to be proud of the country.
 
“We have not always done things right and we mismanaged the war in Iraq very badly for nearly four years.”
 
McCain’s wife, Cindy, pounced on Michelle Obama, the wife of presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, for saying in February that she was proud of her country “for the first time in my adult life.”
 
The Arizona senator said it was important for the United States to be more humble and inclusive.
 
“I think we can be proud of America because of what we’ve achieved and accomplished in this world,” he said.
 
“What we have to do is tell our friends around the world that we will be proud of America because of what we’re going to do.”

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 - Photo credit: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton (McCain speaks during a town hall meeting at Federal Hall in New York on June 12). 

Fox News Channel has raised the ire of Barack Obama supporters again, this time for referring to the Democratic candidate’s wife Michelle as his “baby mama.”

Fox ran a graphic reading “Outraged liberals: Stop picking on Obama’s baby mama!” during a June 11 segment about planned Republican attacks on the candidate’s outspoken spouse.

According to the Urban Dictionary, “baby mama” is slang for the unmarried mother of a man’s children.

Fox has had other Obama-related gaffes in recent weeks.

Anchor E.D. Hill apologized for referring to Obama’s fist bump with wife Michelle during a rally as a “terrorist fist jab,” while commentator Liz Trotta apologized for joking about an Obama assassination.

NEW YORK - Republican John McCain, who spent several years in a prison camp in Vietnam and declined offers to be released before his comrades, said on Thursday he did not consider himself a hero. 

Modesty? Say what you will about the Arizona senator, but he appears to sincerely feel that way. 

Which is why the question continues to come up. At fundraisers and town hall meetings, supporters — especially younger people — ask the 71-year-old why he doesn’t spend more time talking about his own personal story.

“I don’t consider myself a hero,” McCain said at a televised campaign event on Thursday night, when told by one audience member that many young people were unaware of the senator’s military history. 

“The great honor of my life years ago was in a North Vietnamese prison camp to serve in the company of heroes. I observed a thousand acts of courage and compassion and love,” McCain said.

Supporters would like to hear more about that. But the candidate is reluctant. 

“I’ve been an imperfect servant of this country,” he said, saying he did not put himself in the same category as those who served with him in the war.

Many beg to differ. Even Barack Obama, the Democratic White House candidate, regularly refers to McCain as an American hero — before ripping into his policy proposals and tying him to unpopular Republican President George W. Bush.

McCain acknowledged that his story inspires, and promised to tell it to younger voters, whose support he is competing for. 

“It took me a long time til I was in a prison camp in North Vietnam, and I figured out that there’s nothing nobler than to serve a cause greater than your self-interest, and sometimes when I talk to young people they say those stories inspire them,” he said. 

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (McCain puts his hand to his head as he speaks to the National Federation of Independent Business).

ROME - Age does matter, at least to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, in the U.S. presidential race between 46-year-old Democrat Barack Obama and 71-year-old Republican John McCain.
 
Asked about the U.S. election as he stood with Republican President George W. Bush at a news conference in Rome, the  Italian leader said he could not express any preference about an election campaign going on in another country.
 
But Berlusconi could not resist expressing a personal preference for the Republican candidate.
 
“This is for a very selfish reason, and that is that I would no longer be the oldest person at the upcoming G8 (summit), because McCain is a month older than me,” Berlusconi said.

The Arizona senator, who turns 72 in August, would be the oldest elected first-term president if he wins the November election.

The G8 summit takes place next month in Japan.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Berlusconi gestures during a news conference in Rome, June 12, 2008)

WASHINGTON - Look out Obama Girl, the McCain Girls have returned with another off-key tribute to their favorite candidate and his quest to reach “that hard warm place of mystery,” the White House.

Michelle Obama has a new defender from those who say she isn’t patriotic enough — First Lady Laura Bush. In an interview with ABC News, Bush said that Obama’s February remark that she was proud of the United States “for the first time in my adult life” was misconstrued.

“I think she probably meant ‘I’m more proud.’ That’s what she really meant,” Bush said from Afghanistan.

“You have to be really careful in what you say because everything you say is looked at and in many cases misconstrued,” she said.

Some commentators have said the remarks show that Obama, wife of likely Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, does not love her country.

Bush also praised her White House predecessor, Hillary Clinton, who formally ended her bid to be the first female president on Saturday.

“Well of course, I want the woman president to be a Republican woman,” Bush said, when asked whether she was sorry to see Clinton’s campaign end.

“But I will say I watched the campaign and I admired Hillary’s grit and strength,” she said.

“I have to say I had a lot of admiration for her endurance,” she added.

Bush, who has endured five political campaigns with her husband dating back to the 1970s, said she would not run for office herself.

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Photo credit: Top: Reuters/Jason Reed (Barack and Michelle Obama board plane in Chicago recently); Bottom: Reuters/Larry Downing (Laura Bush visits Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan)

BEAVERTON, Oregon (Reuters) - The battle for the Democratic nomination has been long and tiring. So much so that Democratic frontrunner Barack Obama seemed to forget how many states were in the United States.

“Over the last fifteen months, we’ve travelled to every corner of the United States,” the Illinois senator said during a campaign event in Beaverton, Oregon.

“I’ve now been in 57 states, I think — one left to go,” Obama said. “Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to … my staff could not justify it,” he added after hearing laughter from the audience.

Obama apparently did not realize that he had said 57, instead of 47, states visited so far.

“It sure seems like there are 57 states,” a travel-weary campaign aide said after the event. 

Obama has actually been to 46 U.S. states so far during the campaign. He has not visited South Dakota, Arkansas, Alaska or Hawaii, an aide said.

The Illinois senator and his rival, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, have criss-crossed the country as they vie for the Democratic presidential nomination. The winner will face Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in November’s general election.

Photo credit: Reuters/Steve Dipaola (Obama speaks about economy in Beaverton, Oregon) 

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CHICAGO - As Barack Obama celebrated his compelling win in North Carolina and the unexpected closeness of the Indiana race on Tuesday night, his senior strategist said one of the campaign’s top tasks now is to court influential Democratic Party figures.
 
The Democratic senator from Illinois was seen as showing resilience after a bumpy ride in which he has struggled with questions about his former pastor’s fiery sermons and efforts by Clinton to paint him as an “out of touch” elitist.
 
Analysts said his rival Hillary Clinton, who won only narrowly in Indiana where she had been favored to do well, was likely to face increased pressure to exit the race because her showing did little to advance her argument that she would be more electable than Obama in a matchup against Republican Sen. John McCain.
 
Asked by reporters whether there would be a slew of new endorsements from the party stalwarts and officials known as the “superdelegates,” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, was careful not to reveal too much.
 
“We’re going to be reaching out to them,” Axelrod told reporters as Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, flew back home to Chicago from his evening rally in North Carolina.
 
The Obama strategist said the message in these conversations would be a simple one: “Read the newspapers.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Chris Keane (Obama waves to supporters at his North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Raleigh.)

Fiery sermons didn’t drive Barack Obama away from his church, but they did unnerve one other prominent parishioner — media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

According to Newsweek, Winfrey stopped attending Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ in the 1990s in part because she wanted to distance herself from the incendiary views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

“She’s always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn’t be smart,” one anymous source tells the magazine. “She’s been around black churches all her life, so Rev. Wright’s anger-filled message didn’t surprise her. But it just wasn’t what she was looking for in a church.”

Wright, of course, is the preacher whose racially charged denunciations of the U.S. government have caused such heartburn for Obama’s bid for the Democratic nomination since they were made public in March. Evidently Winfrey, an Obama supporter, wanted to avoid a conflict of her own.

But Oprah had other reasons for leaving as well, another anonymous source tells Newsweek.

“There is the Church of Oprah now,” the longtime friend says. “She has her own following.”

Photo: REUTERS/Danny Moloshok (Winfrey campaigns for Obama in Los Angeles, April 2)