Interesting angle for Obama considering 95% of Republicans think he's Muslim anyway.

P.S. Registering is quick. Waiting for your comments to show up is not.

I remember thinking as the Democrats rolled over on the AUMF in 2002--they are doing this to save themselves in the next campaign, but it will backfire: if the people really want warmongers, they will not elect warmonger-wannabes but go for the real thing (Republicans). People who do not want this foolish war will see no reason to vote at all, when neither choice is acceptable. I was right, and the Dems lost their majority.

Obama is right that, rather than trying to parrot Republicans on issues from immigration to national defense--the Democrats and the American people are better served if they are offered a real choice--between someone who wants 100 more years and a 100 more wars and someone who wants creative diplomacy. Because when the candidates are similar, the vote gets down to differences in integrity, sincerity and character, and Clinton might well lose that to McCain.

I also think that Clinton I, who introduced America's policy of "regime change for Iraq" and the rendition program and who carried out the unpopular sanctions in Iraq before that, may have credibility in Europe, but he and Clinton II, who voted for the war, are already tarnished in the Arab world in a way that Barack is not.

The rest of the world is looking at our choices for President and saying, "You guys are thinking twice about this!!!???" If we elect anyone other than Obama I imagine we would be able to hear the laughter and dismayed sighs from across the Ocean.

As Madeleine Albright has written elsewhere, the United States is suffering from a "dangerous lack of self-awareness." Being able to see the world through someone else's eyes also gives us the ability to see ourselves in another way. This is lacking in our politicians because it is lacking in most Americans, and until it changes we won't have an effective foreign policy.

Barack Obama is the one candidate who I believe can change this, and it's at least partially due to his experience growing up in another country. No other candidate has this experience, and no other candidate has proven to me that he or she possesses this vital talent.

someone alert the media that Obama has smeared himself...

This may play fine in the primary, but I think this will come back to haunt him later, if he were to win the nomination.

I think Obama makes a great point with his image in the Muslim world. But doesn't anybody see the irony that so many of his supporters attacked Clinton surrogates like Bob Kerrey for basically saying the same thing? In the wacky world of some Obama fanatics, Obama's Muslim ties are a strength if he raises them, but a religious slur if a Clinton supporter says the same thing.

But doesn't anybody see the irony that so many of his supporters attacked Clinton surrogates like Bob Kerrey for basically saying the same thing?

Kerrey said he attended a "secular madrassa" which is false

what kerrey said is that obama attended a madrassa. he didn't.

JP Wolf:
>>>But doesn't anybody see the irony that so many of his supporters attacked Clinton surrogates like Bob Kerrey for basically saying the same thing?

Yes, many Obama *supporters* did attack Bob Kerrey when he made his comments about Obamas middle name and time spent in Indonesia being a plus, not a minus. But if you'll check back, I think you'll find that Sen. Obama took no offense at all and quickly aquitted former Sen. Kerrey of any negative motivation. (Personally, I'm an Obama supporter who saw Kerrey make the statements and saw nothing at all negative about them. I think his, and Sen. Obama's, subsequent actions and exchanges have confirmed that.)

I CANT BELIEVE that Sen. Obama says in effect that he can bond with Muslin leaders overseas. Better than whom? George W. with the Saudis, for example?

Do anyone out there have any idea of what the Republicans can do with this kind of material in the general election? All they have to do is to point out that Sen. Obama belongs to a church with ties to Louis Farrakhan and the whole election goes POOF!

in modern American society, it often matters who raises a point and in what context. in this case, Kerrey's comments tried to paint Obama's middle name and background as a weakness, Obama is here trying to cast it as a strength. which is smart.

Obama is right that his background (and his face) are a plus for improving foreign relations and developing the partnerships necessary to productively fight terrorism - intelligent Republicans will realize this too. There is no reason he shouldn't come right out and say this. Even Republicans will be able to celebrate that a country which once enslaved men who look like him can eventually live up to its stated ideals. How can we succeed against the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism unless we can show that liberal democracy walks its talk?

This strikes me as a singularly stupid thing for Barack Obama to say in light of the whisper campaigns that have been going on for months. There's still a chance he could end up being the Democratic nominee for the general election. He should really try and bear that thought in mind.

I am astounded that he would so unnecessarily stumble into this.

Why in the world would he want to talk publicly about how credible he is to Muslims? Why would he want to flaunt the fact that many of his relatives are Muslims who live in East Africa?

It may all be right and admirable past January 2009, but is he so euphoric and so confident -- or he is so tone deaf -- as not to understand that this video clip is likely to haunt him from now through November (should he win the nomination), or from now through March (should he lose it)?

I have to pinch myself.

Perhaps he is a bit more self-centered and slightly less bright that many of us thought or rather hoped. I know I am going to rethink my support for him if only because his political judgment is being called into question. I am afraid the Republicans will swiftboat him with tremendous ease, if we assume that the Clintons are far too discredited to make a successful use of this "I Am a Muslim" speech (not literally, just like Kennedy "I am a Berliner" in 1961).

Listen, those Muslin leaders aren't going care your last name is Clinton. Horrible as it is, those guys think women are subhuman. So compared to Hillary, Obama does have instant cred.

BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA – An opening to Islamic fundamentalists?

“The River of Doubt,” a 2006 history by Candice Millard tells the story of Teddy Roosevelt’s exploration of South America in 1914, following his defeat for a third term as President in 1912. TR, the indefatigable adventurist abandoned a much less risky river trip to investigate a previously unexplored river, known simply as the River of Doubt. TR survived bacterial infection and his son Kermit malaria, both nearly dying in the Amazon.

Roosevelt was enticed to this near debacle by a challenge from Brazil’s preeminent explorer , Candido Mariano da Silva Rondon. Their journey included a march through 400 miles of Brazilian Highlands to the Amazon basin, from which they embarked on what would today be regarded as a suicide mission.

Sailing off a mountain, with no charts, and poorly equipped, on a thousand mile plus trip through land populated by hostile indigenous tribes, in the parlance of the day, Indians, they barely survived. Rondon, himself an “Indian” had risen to the pinnacle of Brazilian military leadership. He sought TR’s company for the visibility it would give his desire to map the river for the later installation of a telegraph line.

Rondo did not view the indigenous people as hostile, and throughout the trip left tokens of good will – a fancy axe, unusual foods, and other trinkets from “civilization.” When after multiple near death experiences, TR and his crowd ultimately emerged from the forest at the other end, the entire world marveled at his “discovery” of a river longer than the Mississippi.

Millard reports that the survival of TR and his retinue did not depend on any decision on their part. Instead the indigenous population, on their own “decided” to let them live because of a tradition of acting on the basis of consensus. Although there were “hawks” who wanted to kill TR's troop – and nothing could have stopped them – Rondon’s acts of good will, caused the “doves”, to withhold approval for the certain extinction of the exploration party.

Flash forward. The US and most of the “Western” world has made an effective peace with their two most threatening, long-term enemies – the People’s Republic of China, and the former Soviet Union. One major player remains in hostilities – the fundamentalist Muslim movement personified, if not exactly led, by Osama Bin Laden. And they are perceived to be undeterred by the threat of conventional retaliation, and the practicalities of it are difficult in any event because there is no obvious, single state sponsor for the trans-national fundamentalists.

In the US Presidential sweepstakes, one candidate has a name issue, at least according to the fundamentalist branch of the Republican party. Barack Hussein Obama. Obama, if we are to believe the bottom-seeking Republicans, is himself a fundamentalist because his Indonesian step-father enrolled him in a Madrassa, the fundamentalist oriented school system of the Muslim world. Forget the fact that he was also enrolled in a Roman Catholic school during the same time frame in Indonesia. And forget that the Indonesian Madrassa school itself disclaims the fundamentalist orientation claimed by the Republican evangelists. No, all you need to know is that his middle name is Hussein. Period.

But is it possible that his middle name might just be the best opening an Obama presidency might have to the one armed and hostile group seemingly bent on our destruction. Is it possible that the current day fundamentalist Muslims -- at least the man on the street types upon whom the remote leaders depend for implementation of their acts of terror -- might just pause. Might just ask, what this guy named Hussein intends? Will Obama, like Rondon, cause the enemies of the West to holster their weapons, if only temporarily?

And if we are able to gain even a pause in the ongoing hostilities, is it possible that the Islamic world will give a Democratic president the opportunity to pursue a policy of energy independence, which doesn't threaten to the sovereignty of the Islamic world. Or a policy of simply speaking to Iran, instead of isolating and surrounding it, as the Republicans have attempted to do.

Stated otherwise, does anybody seriously expect the Islamic world to pause even momentarily to hear the opening salvo from a Mormon named Romney, a Catholic named Guiliani, or a Christian fundamentalist named, buckle your seat belt, Huckabee.

I’m putting my money on Hussein.

Remember the proposal by Dubai World Ports to acquire certain US commercial ports operations companies in 2006? Obama was opposed to it. Here's what he said about it at the time: "We're allowing our port security to be outsourced to foreign governments". http://obama.senate.gov/press/060221-obama_statement_17/

Remember the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in 2006? Recently in Israel the officially commissioned Winograd Report said the whole operation didn't stand up to rational scrutiny and was essentially unjustified. But Barack Obama back at the time of the bombing indicated that Kofi Annan's pleadings should be disregarded and that the Israelis should get uncritical carte blanche to do whatever they judged best.

Obama is an ordinary US politician whose foreign policies are and will be dictated by US public opinion, not by the stuff he stammers through on that video.