Here's several interesting news reports and commentaries regarding the presidential campaign of Barack Obama you might find of interest:* Here is a report from Politico about Obama aides spinning a story of questionnaires. It seems that some fibs were told and now they're trying to wriggle away from the heat those fibs have generated. And over here is a review of how Obama's biography also tells a few whoppers that reporters are just beginning to notice. Of course, with his current competition being Hillary Clinton, Obama doesn't have to worry much about fibs right this minute (Hill's "sniper fire" has him covered), but these things will almost surely return to haunt his campaign come fall.
* Devlin Barrett, writing for the ultra-liberal Huffington Post, gives us the chilling news that Senator Obama, if elected, would give the American people another big dose of Al Gore.
...At a town-hall meeting, Obama was asked if he would tap the former vice president for his Cabinet to handle global warming.
"I would," Obama said. "Not only will I, but I will make a commitment that Al Gore will be at the table and play a central part in us figuring out how we solve this problem. He's somebody I talk to on a regular basis. I'm already consulting with him in terms of these issues.."
* Victor Davis Hanson comments on the "disastrous regression in race relations" that the Obama/Jeremiah Wright fiasco has created and suggests that "Barack Obama is on his way to a McGovern candidacy." Very enlightening.
* Over at the Gateway Pundit are links to Barack Obama's involvement as both a participant and organizer (along with Rev. Wright) of Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March in 1995. Hmm. If Senator Obama has seen his campaign damaged by his association with Wright, just wait until America learns more about his connections with an even more aggressive anti-Semite and anti-American racist.
* And finally, note this column by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post in which Obama's Extreme record on abortion" is contrasted with the increasingly pro-life mood of the country. Here is an excerpt:
Obama has not made abortion rights the shouted refrain of his campaign, as other Democrats have done. He seems to realize that pro-choice enthusiasm is inconsistent with a reputation for post-partisanship.
But Obama's record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion -- a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.
For decades, most Democrats and many Republicans have hoped the political debate on abortion would simply go away. But it is the issue that does not die. Recent polls have shown that young people are more likely than their elders to support abortion restrictions. Few Americans oppose abortion under every circumstance, but a majority oppose most of the abortions that actually take place -- generally supporting the procedure only in the case of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother.
Perhaps this is a revolt against a culture of disposability. Perhaps it reflects the continuing revolution of ultrasound technology -- what might be called the "Juno" effect. In the delightful movie by that name, the protagonist, a pregnant teen seeking an abortion, is confronted by a classmate who informs her that the unborn child already has fingernails -- which causes second thoughts. A worthless part of its mother's body -- a clump of protoplasmic rubbish -- doesn't have fingernails...
