I think Hillary is the next president

henry miller · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domisoldo

Surely most of the contributors of this forum are smart enough to know that the economic boom of the 90s was not the result of Bill's actions as a president (although he was smart enough to capitalize on that boom).

I didn't say he was responsible for it. I said merely he is perhaps a reminder of a happier time in this country's history.

dong20 · 01-30-2008

I read this on the tube a little earlier. Interesting concept, sort of...

Dennis Haysbert, who once played the president on “24,” thinks that show helped America get used to the idea of a non-white president.

“People on the street would ask me to run for office,” Haysbert told TV Guide. He was even called “Mr. President” during a visit to Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office in Washington.

“As far as the public is concerned, it did open up their minds and their hearts a little bit to the notion that if the right man came along — I do believe Barack Obama is the right man — that a black man could be president of the United States.”

I set stage for Barack Obama to become president says 24 star - Mirror.co.uk

www.kansascity.com | 01/28/2008 | Stargazing: Haysbert, Morrison go for Obama, Olsen won’t be questioned.

Freddie53 · 01-30-2008

Many people on this thread have spoken about Obama being black hurting him. I'm in the south and I haven't heard one person mention his skin color in a negative way. What I am hearing is Baroc HUSSEIN Obama. He is Muslim. He took the oath of office on the Koran. He won't salute the flag. I received an e-mail that has Hillary, Obama and someone else. Obamba is the only one not having his hand over his heart. Of course the pic could have been taken right at the beginning and Obama just hadn't placed his hand there yet or the pic might have been at the end and Obama was the first to put his hand down.

Nevertheless, the pic is there. The e-mail is circulating. The Muslim factor has the potential to be much more damaging to Obama then his skin color.

On the other hand, Bill is now being seen as a negative for Hillary.

Obama has used the race card as well. He was just much more smooth about it and got away with it.

I do believe that if McCain gets the nomination the election will be the Democrats to lose no matter who the Democrat nominee is.

for the record, yes I am for Hillary. But I have the utmost respect for Obama. And as someone pointed out, there isn't a dime's difference in what they will do if they are elected president. I suspect that is why the issues have dealt with personalities. There really isn't any political issue to debate. They are on the same page.

AS I stated on another thread, I believe a Clinton/Obama ticket would win easily.

Domisoldo · 01-30-2008

If those two can make up after all the bitter bickering they can certainly re-unify the nation...I have my doubts...

Monster · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by henry miller

Suffice it to say they both have a strike working against them. But I think Obama actually has two strikes: his skin color; his name.

Thats really screwed up that anyone would vote for someone because of their skin color or gender but, unfortunately their are people who will.

davec94 · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freddie53

Many people on this thread have spoken about Obama being black hurting him. I'm in the south and I haven't heard one person mention his skin color in a negative way. What I am hearing is Baroc HUSSEIN Obama. He is Muslim. He took the oath of office on the Koran. He won't salute the flag. I received an e-mail that has Hillary, Obama and someone else. Obamba is the only one not having his hand over his heart. Of course the pic could have been taken right at the beginning and Obama just hadn't placed his hand there yet or the pic might have been at the end and Obama was the first to put his hand down.

Nevertheless, the pic is there. The e-mail is circulating. The Muslim factor has the potential to be much more damaging to Obama then his skin color.

On the other hand, Bill is now being seen as a negative for Hillary.

Obama has used the race card as well. He was just much more smooth about it and got away with it.

I do believe that if McCain gets the nomination the election will be the Democrats to lose no matter who the Democrat nominee is.

for the record, yes I am for Hillary. But I have the utmost respect for Obama. And as someone pointed out, there isn't a dime's difference in what they will do if they are elected president. I suspect that is why the issues have dealt with personalities. There really isn't any political issue to debate. They are on the same page.

AS I stated on another thread, I believe a Clinton/Obama ticket would win easily.

he's not a muslim and never was. His father was a non-practising muslim whom Barack never got to know and Obama himself was not religious until sometime twenty odd years ago when he became Christian. Obama never took any oath to office over the Koran, that was Keith Ellison. Anyone who tells you otherwise is patently lying.

That being said, America is in an absolute low point in international relations right now. Policy aside Hillary will not be popular with the world at large. Obama will be able to win the international public with his legendary oratory skills, he will be huge in Africa (he's already somewhat of a rock star in Kenya where he somehow found time during his campaign to try and talk some sense into Kibaki and Odinga), and might even be able to gain a sympathetic ear from the Muslim world.

Calboner · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freddie53

He is Muslim. He took the oath of office on the Koran. He won't salute the flag. I received an e-mail that has Hillary, Obama and someone else. Obamba is the only one not having his hand over his heart. Of course the pic could have been taken right at the beginning and Obama just hadn't placed his hand there yet or the pic might have been at the end and Obama was the first to put his hand down.

I am sorry that there are so many people like you who can be taken in so easily by such bundles of falsehoods. The e-mail to which you refer has been widely circulated. Here is the first part of the commentary on it from Snopes.com (the bits precede by the word "claim" are quotations from the e-mail message in question; I have had to split this into two posts because the server will not accept the entire text in one post):

Quote:

Barack Obama has an unusual and interesting background, which the above-quoted piece draws on to paint him as a dangerous, camouflaged radical Muslim. Much of the information presented therein about his background is distorted and exaggerated, however, and no evidence supports a claim that Obama is currently, or ever has been, a Muslim (radical or otherwise).

Claim: Barack Hussein Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a black MUSLIM from Nyangoma-Kogel, Kenya and Ann Dunh am, a white ATHEIST from Wichita, Kansas. Obama's parents met at the University of Hawaii.

Barack Hussein Obama (Senator Obama's father) was born on the shores of Lake Victoria in Alego, Kenya. He met and married an American woman, Ann Dunham of Wichita, Kansas, while they were both attending the University of Hawaii. Their son, also named Barack Hussein Obama was born on 4 August 1961 at the Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Although the elder Obama was raised as a Muslim, no evidence supports the claim that he was ever a "radical Muslim," and Senator Obama's family histories note that his father was an atheist or agnostic (i.e., no longer a practicing Muslim) by the time he married the younger Obama's mother. Of his mother's religious views, Senator Obama wrote:

Quote:

For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness.

This isn't to say that she provided me with no religious instruction. In her mind, a working knowledge of the world's great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. But I was made to understand that such religious samplings required no sustained commitment on my part. Religion was an expression of human culture, she would explain, not its wellspring, just one of the many ways — and not necessarily the best way — that man attempted to control the unknowable and understand the deeper truths about our lives.

In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist she would become; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well.

Claim: When Obama was two years old, his parents divorced. His father returned to Kenya . His mother then married Lolo Soetoro, a RADICAL Muslim from Indonesia. When Obama was 6 years old, the family relocated to Indonesia. Obama attended a MUSLIM school in Jakarta . He also spent two years in a Catholic school.

Barack Obama's parents divorced when he was two years old, his father moving to Connecticut to continue his education before returning to Kenya. When the younger Obama was six years old, his mother married again, this time to Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian oil manager. Barack and his mother moved to Jakarta, Indonesia, where Obama spent 4-5 years attending both Muslim and Catholic schools before his mother sent him back to the United States to live with his maternal grandmother. The school Barack Obama attended in Indonesia was "Muslim" primarily in the sense that the preponderance of its student body was Muslim (because Indonesia is a predominantly Muslim country), but both the Muslim and Catholic schools he attended in Indonesia offered a few hours of religious instruction each week.

In his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope, Obama elaborated on his early schooling, explaining that he attended both Catholic and Muslim schools in Indonesia — not out of any particular religious affiliation, but because his mother wanted him to obtain the best education possible under the circumstances:

Quote:

During the five years that we would live with my stepfather in Indonesia, I was sent first to a neighborhood Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school; in both cases, my mother was less concerned with me learning the catechism or puzzling out the meaning of the muezzin's call to evening prayer than she was with whether I was properly learning my multiplication tables.

Claim: Obama takes great care to conceal the fact that he is a Muslim. He is quick to point out that, "He was once a Muslim, but that he also attended Catholic school." Obama's political handlers are attempting to make it appear that he is not a radical.

Barack Obama never stated that he "was once a Muslim" (radical or otherwise), so his "handlers" have nothing to "conceal." Obama communications director Robert Gibbs noted that "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim. As a six-year-old in Catholic school, he studied the catechism." Barack Obama has been associated with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s, describes himself as a Christian, and says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition."

Calboner · 01-30-2008

Snopes reply to urban-legend e-mail on Obama, part two:

Quote:

Claim: Obama's introduction to Islam came via his father, and this influence was temporary at best. In reality, the senior Obama returned to Kenya soon after the divorce, and never again had any direct influence over his son's education.

As noted above, Barack Obama's parents divorced when he was only two years old, and his father then moved thousands of miles away, from Hawaii to Connecticut, so he couldn't have received much of an "introduction to Islam" from his (biological) father:

Quote:

My father was almost entirely absent from my childhood, having been divorced from my mother when I was two years old.

At the time of his death, my father remained a myth to me, both more and less than a man. He had left Hawaii back in 1963, when I was only two years old, so that as a child I knew him only through the stories that my mother and grandparents told.

(Barack's only other childhood contact with his father occurred when he was eleven years old, and his father came to visit Hawaii for a month at Christmastime. The elder Obama died when Barack Jr. was twenty-one years old.)

Claim: Lolo Soetoro, the second husband of Obama's mother, Ann Dunham, introduced his stepson to Islam. Obama was enrolled in a Wahabi school in Jakarta. Wahabism is the RADICAL teaching that is followed by the Muslim terrorists who are now waging Jihad against the western world.

The claim that Obama attended a radical school in Indonesia in the mid-1960s is exceedingly far-fetched, given that:

Quote:

The large Indonesian community resident in Mecca was a medium through which knowledge about Wahhabism reached Indonesia, but the community itself appears to have remained virtually immune to Wahhabi influences. In reality there was little direct influence of Wahhabism on Indonesian reformist thought until the 1970s.

Insight magazine claimed in a January 2007 article that Barack Obama spent at least four years attending what is variously described as a "madrassa," a "radical Muslim religious school," or a "Muslim seminary" in Indonesia, but CNN has more recently reported that its own investigation found those claims to be false:

Quote:

[R]eporting by CNN in Jakarta, Indonesia and Washington, D.C., shows the allegations that Obama attended a madrassa to be false. CNN dispatched Senior International Correspondent John Vause to Jakarta to investigate.

He visited the Basuki school, which Obama attended from 1969 to 1971.

"This is a public school. We don't focus on religion," Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school, told Vause. "In our daily lives, we try to respect religion, but we don't give preferential treatment."

Vause reported he saw boys and girls dressed in neat school uniforms playing outside the school, while teachers were dressed in Western-style clothes.

"I came here to Barack Obama's elementary school in Jakarta looking for what some are calling an Islamic madrassa ... like the ones that teach hate and violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan," Vause said on the 'Situation Room.' "I've been to those madrassas in Pakistan ... this school is nothing like that."

Vause also interviewed one of Obama's Basuki classmates, Bandug Winadijanto, who claims that not a lot has changed at the school since the two men were pupils. Insight reported that Obama's political opponents believed the school promoted Wahhabism, a fundamentalist form of Islam, "and are seeking to prove it."

"It's not (an) Islamic school. It's general," Winadijanto said. "There is a lot of Christians, Buddhists, also Confucian. ... So that's a mixed school."

The Associated Press reported similarly:

Quote:

A spokesman for Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs said claims that Obama studied at an Islamic school are groundless.

"SDN Menteng 1 is a public primary school that is open to people of all faiths," said the spokesman, Sutopo, who goes by only one name. "Moreover, he studied earlier at Fransiskus Assisi, which is clearly a Catholic school."

Obama later transferred to SDN Menteng 1 the elite, secular elementary school at the center of the controversy. The school is public but is very competitive and has exceptionally high standards. It is located in one of the most affluent parts of Jakarta and attracts mostly middle- to upper-class students, among them several of former dictator Suharto's grandchildren.

Indonesia is home to several of the most radical Islamic schools in Southeast Asia, some with alleged terrorist links. But Akmad Solichin [the vice principal at SDN Menteng 1], who proudly pointed to a photo of a young Barry Obama, as he was known, said his school is not one of them.

Moreover, a statement released by the Obama campaign affirmed that:

Quote:

In the past week, many of you have read a now thoroughly-debunked story by Insight Magazine, owned by the Washington Times, which cites unnamed sources close to a political campaign that claim Senator Obama was enrolled for "at least four years" in an Indonesian "Madrassa". The article says the "sources" believe the Madrassa was "espousing Wahhabism," a form of radical Islam.

All of the claims about Senator Obama’s faith and education raised in the Insight Magazine story and repeated on Fox News are false. Senator Obama was raised in a secular household in Indonesia by his stepfather and mother. Obama’s stepfather worked for a U.S. oil company, and sent his stepson to two years of Catholic school, as well as two years of public school.

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.

Claim: Since it is politically expedient to be a CHRISTIAN when seeking major public office in the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has joined the United Church of Christ in an attempt to downplay his Muslim background.

As noted above, Barack Obama describes himself as "a Christian," says that he is "rooted in the Christian tradition," and his association with the United Church of Christ began over twenty years ago, long before he contemplated a political career. (Obama was first elected to the Illinois state senate in 1996, but he has been involved with the United Church of Christ since the mid-1980s.) The beginnings of Obama's relationship with the church were described in an April 2004 Chicago Sun-Times article:

Quote:

Obama is unapologetic in saying he has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ." As a sign of that relationship, he says, he walked down the aisle of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ in response to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's altar call one Sunday morning about 16 years ago.

The politician could have ended his spiritual tale right there, at the point some people might assume his life changed, when he got "saved," transformed, washed in the blood. But Obama wants to clarify what truly happened.

"It wasn't an epiphany," he says of that public profession of faith. "It was much more of a gradual process for me. I know there are some people who fall out. Which is wonderful. God bless them ... I think it was just a moment to certify or publicly affirm a growing faith in me."

These days, he says, he attends the 11 a.m. Sunday service at Trinity in the Brainerd neighborhood every week — or at least as many weeks as he is able. His pastor, Wright, has become a close confidant.

So how did he become a churchgoer?

It began in 1985, when he came to Chicago as a $13,000-a-year community organizer, working with a number of African-American churches in the Roseland, West Pullman and Altgeld Gardens neighborhoods that were trying to deal with the devastation caused by shuttered steel plants.

"I started working with both the ministers and the lay people in these churches on issues like creating job-training programs, or after-school programs for youth, or making sure that city services were fairly allocated to underserved communities," he says. "And it was in those places where I think what had been more of an intellectual view of religion deepened.

"I became much more familiar with the ongoing tradition of the historic black church and its importance in the community. And the power of that culture to give people strength in very difficult circumstances, and the power of that church to give people courage against great odds. And it moved me deeply."

Claim: ALSO, keep in mind that when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran.

This statement is completely false. It is a mistaken reference to a different politician, Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison, not Barack Obama.

Claim: Barack Hussein Obama will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance nor will he show any reverence for our flag. While others place their hands over their hearts, Obama turns his back to the flag and slouches.

Senator Obama drew some criticism over a photograph that showed him standing without his hand over his heart during the playing of the U.S. national anthem, but the claim that he "will NOT recite the Pledge of Allegiance" is false.

During the Democratic candidates' debate on 15 January 2008, Senator Obama directly refuted the three primary rumors about him that are circulating via e-mail: that he is a Muslim, that he was sworn in to Congress on the Quran, and that he refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance: [Link to YouTube video]

Industrialsize · 01-30-2008

If you re-read freddie53's post, it's not that HE believes that Obama is a Muslim, it's what he has heard OTHER people say in the South where he lives.

trinasalina · 01-30-2008

lets get the clintons n bush dynatsy over with,....they had their chances....a fresh n new is now.....go obama!!!

Calboner · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Industrialsize

If you re-read freddie53's post, it's not that HE believes that Obama is a Muslim, it's what he has heard OTHER people say in the South where he lives.

You may be right about what Freddie meant to say, but what he wrote was ambiguous:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freddie53

What I am hearing is Baroc HUSSEIN Obama. He is Muslim.

Et cetera. It is not at all clear that the phrase "What I am hearing is" is meant to govern not just the phrase that completes the sentence but all the sentences that follow.

Grammar and interpretation aside, I am sorry if I misunderstood Freddie's intent, but I have read posts on this very forum in which people have repeated the canard about Obama being a Muslim.

viking1 · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Industrialsize

He does live in a dream land...but it's a good dream, that;s why I support his candidacy.

I agree. I think Obama is our best chance for a real change of regimes, out of those who are currently running.

Domisoldo · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by davec94

That being said, America is in an absolute low point in international relations right now. Policy aside Hillary will not be popular with the world at large. Obama will be able to win the international public with his legendary oratory skills, he will be huge in Africa (he's already somewhat of a rock star in Kenya where he somehow found time during his campaign to try and talk some sense into Kibaki and Odinga), and might even be able to gain a sympathetic ear from the Muslim world.

Hillary is equally capable of eloquence. Since when does she have a speech impediment?

No offense but mending our relationship with the major economic powers of Europe and Japan counts more than a kudos from Kenya, or even the whole African continent. I am not aware of any generalized antipathy towards Hillary or the Clintons in Europe at least. It's W they can't stand (people and state heads alike)

A sympathetic ear from the muslim world? With Obama's father apostasy!

Dude, that's one big fatwa right there for the fundamentalists! That's death for sure in the Quran at least as interpreted literally!

losangelestim · 01-30-2008

Industrialsize · 01-30-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domisoldo

Hillary is equally capable of eloquence. Since when does she have a speech impediment?

No offense but mending our relationship with the major economic powers of Europe and Japan counts more than a kudos from Kenya, or even the whole African continent. I am not aware of any generalized antipathy towards Hillary or the Clintons in Europe at least. It's W they can't stand (people and state heads alike)

A sympathetic ear from the muslim world? With Obama's father apostasy!

Dude, that's one big fatwa right there for the fundamentalists! That's death for sure in the Quran at least as interpreted literally!

I respect Senator Clinto immensely, BUT have you ever heard her where she gave a speech that inspired the crowd, made them hope, moved the crowd to tears???All common on the trail with Senator Obama.

I think Hillary is the next president

Originally Posted by Domisoldo Surely most of the contributors of this forum are smart enough to know that the economic boom of the 90s was not the result of Bill's actions as a president (although