Can't you guys let the Obama publicity alone for just ONE day? Give us a break for the Holiday season at least....

What a waste of time and money!When middle America finds out Barack's middle name is "Hussein", his fater was a muslum and Barack belongs to The United Church of Christ,which is anti-Isreal and of course the new stories about his intern having ties to Rezko...it's OVER!!!
The Clinton's probably have a file on him 3 feet thick and may already be leaking this info.
Paulo

You people are ridiculous!

I am middle America and Obama does not have the experience. I don't want him for President!

There is not one person in the democratic party that I would vote for. They stand for nothing.
Certainly Hillary is ridiculous. She stands for whatever the crowd wants.

It is really unfortunate that people have to rely on things such as his name and his fathers religious orientation to decide wheter this man is a respectable candidate for the next presidential campaign. It is pwoplw such as these who make the world a hostile place to live. Why can't we just see Barack Obama for what he IS and what he plans to do for our country? Or have we not learned from our past mistakes?

Great Ad ... using his '04 Dem Keynote speech (and other speeches) is very moving. Thanks for doing a link to it so many more will view it.

The article "What is it about Obama?" from LA Times in today's Tribune is one of the best I've read.

What would bring the greatest joy to our house this season would be to hear that Obama is running for President.

Obama in 2008!

Hey Pauloser,

I see you're still crying about being in the minority party,that was a HUGE LOSS for the corrupt Republicans wasn't it????

I have yet to see you make a solid argument,and I'm going to enjoy listening to you cry after the corrupt Republicans lose the 08 Pesidential election.

Join the military or shut up you loser.

You my friend,are the best reason people on the Swamp have for NOT voting Republican ever again,and the best part is that you actually think that you are helping the Republican cause.

Keep it up Paulo Rosie O'Donnell,I'm loving having you do the dirty work for us Democrat's.

OBAMA IN 08 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Perhaps we should decide on the promise of a presidential candidate by the character of the man and his espoused beliefs rather than resorting to making decisions by association. Barak Obama has character and an understanding of the complexity of the world and human nature unmatched by those who have ONLY walked a white privledged path. The world that my children will live in requires someone that can cross racial and cultural boundaries and certainly deserves a leader who can navigate an increasingly more interconnected, global world. If Hillary pulls out a file 3 feet thick in an effort to ruin his character, she WILL lose my vote. Maybe she should ask him to join her as a VP candidate rather than ruin the character of a man with integrity.

Merry Christmas President Obama !!!!!!!

Our Country Needs You !!!!!!!!

If you need a break, then please go ahead and take one instead of reading news online - that's what the Holidays are for. You may not care about Obama, but I do.

As for names & religions, if adult voters can't get past somebody's name or religion, then they haven't quite graduated from playground politics, have they? And if the majority of our voters are still stuck within that mentality, then our country is truly beyond hope, and we deserve the bully president we currently have now.

I know that Obama is a great candidate for President because I'm spending all of my time "swiftboating" him,and he's still a better candidate than anyone us Republicans have.

John McCain - Filpfloping to the Religious Right,and he still has to explain why he was almost kicked out of Congress because of his involvement in the Keating scandel.

Rudy Guliani - He's got more skeletons in his closet than McCain.
I wonder who his "girlfriend" is these days???

Mitt Romni - Major Flipflopper,he's changing up on all of his positions so that he can be a Presidential candidate,and he has some weirdo Religious beliefs.

The Republicans have - Obama's middle name is Hussien,he has big ears,ALLEGEDLY gave Rezco's relative a job,but this has been proven false already.

Oh well,we tried,the Democratic candidates are far Superior in 08....I need to take my meds again...
At least we can say that we got the greatest President in history elected twice,George W. Bush.

Here's a story that combines the very best of America;
Our love of Christmas and the 2nd Amendment!

Enjoy, and have a very Merry Christmas! Everything is 'OK'!!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ats-ap_top11dec24,1,3000856.story?coll=chi-news-hed

u guys with your cynicism, , i guess you belong among those who dont really want anything good for this country other than "hoping" there would be a well of negativity from which you might infect others with your tainted water...

names are not by default diseased. it is the skeptic mind who chooses not to believe that is plagued over and over like a man in quicksand who longs to rescue himself by sacrificing the lives of others...

let it go and just watch what happens..

and if there isnt enough fodder... join the club who just happens, out of brimming creativity, to look for something primordial (read: high school bigotry) to infect others with the common racist cold...

get over it and base your conclusions on something other than utter pettiness....

in other words.. get a life...

Paulo,

For your information the name Barack has nothing to do with United Church of Christ. Barack in Swahili means one who is "Blessed". African names given by African fathers carry a form covenant relationship. Names represent a permanent pronouncement and constant reminder of who you are. In this case anytime you call Barack, you are reminding him that he is Blessed.

No matter what you say about this guy so long as you call him Barack you are confessing that he is Blessed. Indeed Barack is Blessed.

Amos Ajo

Barack Obama is the best candidate for Prez since JFK and Bill Clinton.

Both of them were highly intelligent,and good,personable speakers,and Obama has their gift.

I wondered whether he should run or not,but since then I've watched as the Republican hacks have gone out of their way to discredit him.

They are scared of him,and they know what's coming,a good,solid DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT.

This is why the Republican party has been imploding,they can't promote their own candidates because they are so bad,so they spend all of their time and money discrediting the other side.

America has caught on to the Republicans Karl Rove games,and thanks for giving us George W. Bush by the way......NOT !!!!

Bruce and Paulo, why are you so afraid?

The intern being related to Rezko turned out to have nothing to do with anything Obama was affiliated with, and consindering his centrist policies, none of those factors would have an impact on his campaign. I love the way people are so desperately trying to find a way to hurt this guy.

A day without coverage of Obama is a day I'm not going to read the Tribune. He is the future of post-Bush America, and my family and I can't wait for that time to arrive. We want to see the latest about Obama, to provide at least a little bit of hope next to coverage of the current administration, the worst in the history of our country. By the way Tribune: no thanks for being a Bush enabler over the last few years. I understand your pro-GOP stance in the face of corrupt Cook County Dems, but with regards to politics at the national level, please use your common sense.

Many Republicans seem to believe that America will cool on Obama when they find out his middle name is Hussein. I believe most will just be relieved that his last name isn't Bush.

I am a registered Republican who just switched parties because of George W. Bush and his ill-considered and antagonistic policies. From the first time I heard Barack Obama speak - in 2004 - I became a fan and supporter. Finally there is someone in national politics that has the good of the people in mind and can clearly and eloquently articulate that. --- My hope for the future: 2008 - Clinton/Obama. 2016 - Obama/Edwards. Long live common sense!

America should really sit back and think about the far-reaching implications if the wrong man for the presidential sit is elected.The world is tired of America and even Americans are tired of America.Cant we see the country is on a downward spiral of regeneration?Obama,with his political and diplomatic ways is the best thing that can happen to America..as far as I see.I believe he can lead this nation back to greatness.I dont even agree with Obama in some important issues to me...but I still see beyond my prejudice-so to speak-and know that the country desperately needs his type.Wake up from divisiveness,in-fighting and small-time politics America. AMERICA NEEDS SOMETHING NEW AND DIFFERENT if not I wonder what's next...

Barack Obama would make a fine U.S. President and it is my daily prayer that he is given the opportunity to run and win. I also pray daily that God divinely protects him and his family, because I grew up in the 1960s and I remember it well.

Senator Obama is much more than a charismatic figure. He is intelligent, well-spoken, a gifted thinker and writer, a devoted family man, a spirtual thinker, and I believe he has the integrity, and leadership to be an excellent 44th president of the United States. In addition to all that, I believe he would change this country for the better, and also change this country's image around the would for the better, and that in 2017, we will look back and say, "Yes - this man was the JFK of the 21st century, and we were blessed to have him as our President!"

For more information visit:

http://www.billslater.com/who_is_barack_obama.htm

http://www.billslater.com/wfs_with_OBAMA_tag_02

Go Barack Obama in '08!

Wiliam F. Slater, III
Chicago

Oops! URL typo in my previous posting, and it is corrected below:

http://www.billslater.com/wfs_with_OBAMA_tag_02.jpg

his middle name is hussein?!? ha ha ha ha

you really think that's a valid argument?? get an education you moron. anyone who is against obama knows nothing of his goals. sure he has little experience, but dick cheney did. did that help us??

he has the heart, the goals, the ambitions. that's what really counts - advisors and cabinet members are the ones that have experience. learn abaout the man before you brand yourself a racist.

Aloha Mark Silva,

I am sure you are a professional journalist who does not appreciate when someone rips one of your stories off the Chichago Tribune web site and reproduces it entirely on their own web site.

We do not condone the practice ourselves. I would state that we don't mind people excerpting small portions of our articles and linking to our articles for purposes of fair use, discussion and dissemination of information.

But I must emphatically state that we do not appreciate other web sites reprinting our stories in-full on their web sites. This deprives us of traffic to our own product and it deprives us of the revenue generated by the web site.

We do not charge for viewing our content and we do not block users from reading our articles. We do not require registration to read our articles.

Please edit your post to excerpt our article and point to the original Honolulu Star-Bulletin article, which is permanently housed at: http://starbulletin.com/2006/12/23/news/story05.html

According to the Chicago Trib copyright notice, you have violated your own terms by ripping our article in its entirety. To quote:

"If you operate a Web site and wish to link to Chicagotribune.com, you may do so provided you agree to cease such link upon request from Chicagotribune.com. No other use is permitted without prior written permission of Chicagotribune.com. The permitted use described in this Paragraph is contingent on your compliance at all times with these Terms of Service."

Sincerely,

Blaine Fergerstrom
Webmaster, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Diane...sorry to break it to ya sweetie, but Barack "walked a white privledged path". He was loved and raised by his white mother and her family. His father abandoned him--a real deadbeat. But, let's feel not hold him accountable because he was black. Let's continue the "white people bad...brown people good" liberal hogwash. Good for votes.

Posted by: L Sherrod -- "Certainly Hillary is ridiculous. She stands for whatever the crowd wants."

Interesting. I always thought that the job of a politician is to represent their constituents. Hence, they are obiligated to stand for whatever the crowd wants.

Obama sounds too much like Osama. And Hussein is his middle name? This is getting better by the minute. Who will be the vice president? Aldorf Hitmire?

I cannot rember any time I have been more exited about any cantidate for anything as I am now for Barack Obama.
He is more charismatic that John F. Kennedy. I voted for him also.
President Bush will go down in history as one the worst of any.
A President Obama would be among the best..

Barrack Obama spends few years in Menteng, Central Jakarta, Indonesia during his childhood. Indonesians would be proud of him, known as Barry by his neighbours and childhood friends, if he runs for presidency.

Dear Sen Obama,
Every day you face personal tests in your life—at work, at home and in how you relate to those around you. Today I am writing to ask you to face the test you have as a citizen—to commit yourself to a cause larger than yourself.

With just 22 months to the election, there are citizens who need your support. They are challenging the politicians in Congress who steered America in the wrong direction. Can you chip in your time to support them?

As a citizen, you have a choice between two different paths.

One path is easy. When you turn on the TV or open the newspaper and hear about all the trouble in the world you could walk away from the stories about Iraq or poverty or violence or joblessness or hopelessness.

Just turn it off and tune out. That would be the easiest thing in the world to do. There will be pundits and politicians who will tell you that it's someone else's fault and someone else's problem to fix.

I am not one of them.

There is a second path. This one is more difficult. It asks more of you. It asks you to not just pursue your own individual dreams, but to help perfect our collective dream as a nation. It asks you to realize there is more to life than being rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. It asks you to recognize that there are people out there who need you.

I already know you are headed towards the second path—you are part of MoveOn. One easy thing to do right now is to throw your hat into the ring and announce your candidacy for President.

When you choose the second path—when you choose to broaden your ambit of concern and empathize with the plight of others, whether they are close friends or distant strangers—it becomes harder not to act; harder not to help.

Please run.

Thank you.

America

I love America. We all should love 'IT' enough
to use Its human resource in Obama, in our ever elusive quest for peace and the unity of our nation and the world at large. It's time to get smart.

Blaine Fergerstrom
Webmaster, Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Maui Christmas.........Blaine!

I'm quite young and assumedly much more naive than the majority of readers, but I've found my in general education of political history, the more power a politician has -- the more likely he'll alter his personal constitution or platform to keep it.

Obama is a great moral man with ideals that *must* be spread among other politicians of today, but I believe he is and will continue to be more effective in a smaller position of power. He would be too easy to criticize and be nitpicked as Presidents.

The best thing I hope for is that his fans are loud and praising of his character enough, to affect the behavior and standpoints of more likely presidential hopefuls for the 2008 running. Obama is a superb role model. Let him nor his appeal be tainted by pressing his agenda further than he'd wish.

Dan makes a great point. He calls out an earlier poster for saying that "Certainly Hillary is ridiculous. She stands for whatever the crowd wants.". Dan points out that this is what politicians are elected to do, follow the wishes of their constituancies. He is absolutely right. I don't believe that Senator Clinton will listen to the right "crowd", however. Her politics are the politics of divisiveness which, after years of George W. Bush, is not what this nation needs right now. What our next President needs to do is focus on what unites us as a people, not on that which divides us. I have great hope that Senator Obama is the man to do this.

So what are the things we need to look at to untie the people and restore our once great nation? First we need to identify the issues which divide us. Gay marriage, abortion, gun control, prayer in schools and other so-callled "hot button" issues serve no purpose in the public debate because they are issues on which many of us will never agree. Tehy garner headlines, invoke heated debates and dominate our news but ultimately can't be solved so focusing on these things becomes pointless, except fro those that strive to keep us in an "us vs. them" mentality. Not that these issues aren't important, it's just that it is unlikely that agreement can be reached on tehse things any time soon. The second thing is to find the issues that people who identify with either the right or the left can at least begin discussion on. These could include the growing divide between the very wealthy and the por, the shrinking of the midddle class, some sort of solution to health care, improving education, improving our relations with other nations in the world, fighting terror with words and deeds instead of violence and a host of others too numerous to name. On these issues, while many of us may not agree, there is room to talk, bargain and ultimately compromise. If we focus on our divisions the dialogue will cease as we have seen over the last six years.

I believe that Senator Obama understands that we need to get back to the table and start talking to each other rather than at each other. This is why he, and others in both parties that wish to embrace this challenge of unity, should run. By all means listen to the "crowd" but listen to the messages that unite, not those that divide us and fracture the American spirit.

GW got me interested enough in politics to put my money ($500 I couldn't afford sent to MoveOn.org) where my mouth is.

I'm still a member of the working poor and I'm okay with that. But I will never again let myself be walked on in a national election without a fight. I want to live in an America I can be proud of.

OBAMA in '08!!!

Hello Friends,

On the www.draftobama.org website, there is a forum topic about where to go to get cool Obama Stuff. This was my suggestion:

(indulge me please, you have my permission to copy the same ideas for your favorite candidate too!)

Is it any wonder that they call U.S. elections our "Quadrennial Madness."

Enjoy!

Bill
+++

Great ideas!

Try these also:

http://www.cafepress.com/buy/obama/-/cfpt2_/x_11/cfpt_/source_searchBox/copt_/y_5

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104-8401159-5247953?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=barack+obama&Go.x=13&Go.y=11

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=obama

Also, go to your department of motor vehicles and get an OBAMA-based vanity tag like:

OBAMA

OBAMA 08

B OBAMA

OH OBAMA

GO OBAMA

YO OBAMA

MY OBAMA

YER OBAMA

MR OBAMA

OBAMA YES

OBAMA 4 US

LUV OBAMA

AH OBAMA

X OBAMA X

BARACK

BARACK O

X BARACK X

GO BARACK

BARACK 08

And mine is actually:
http://www.billslater.com/wfs_with_OBAMA_tag_02.jpg

I also have an OBAMA for President in '08 bumper sticker in the rear window.

We need to wake up the world up to importance of Barack Obama, and these vanity tag initiatives and bumper stickers are good ways to do it. Especially because I am in traffic about three hours a day, five days a week.

Obama in '08!!!

Regards,

Bill
http://www.billslater.com/who_is_barack_obama.htm

Barak Obama clearly is a gifted and humane leader who all Americans can be proud of.

The Democratic Party is all the richer for his role in our nominating process.

Remember last month when all the cognescenti assumed that the nomination was Senator Clinton's for the asking?

Senator Clinton remains the best qualified and best suited candidate to lead America in the challenges it faces in paying off the debts that Bush has saddled us with.

Senator Clinton has the experience and the toughness to deal effectively with the other leaders in the world and to get us out of the Iraq mess with all our members intact.

Most of all, as an effective and productive legislator Senator Clinton has shown she has the vision of the future needed to restore a sense of national greatness, dignity and hope among our diverse and sundry people.

Robert Chapman
Lansing, NY

Sounds like Blaine has some kind of problem with deep linking. Blaine, you do realize that this is the main way information is shared on the web, don't you? Regardless of your company's linking policy? Seems to me that you should be happy to get the traffic in the first place.

P.S. I hope they draft Obama. Between his endorsement of political stooges and the trading of internships for money and land with an indicted Illinois democrat machine financier he's shaping up to be just another corrupt Illinois democrat.

I think in Hawaii they are just happy to have a new story. Been there many times and their papers run the same story for 3 days straight.

I guess it beats the random tourist helicopter crashing.

Obama sounds too much like Osama. And Hussein is his middle name? This is getting better by the minute. Who will be the vice president? Aldorf Hitmire?

Posted by: Chris | Dec 26, 2006 12:28:26 AM

There's some deep thinking! How about we find a nice candidate with the name of Butch, Spike, or
some other macho name for all you tough guys?

Diane...sorry to break it to ya sweetie,
Posted by: J. Smith | Dec 25, 2006 9:43:57 PM

and while you're at the:"white people bad...brown people good" liberal hogwash.
We can also do the rightwing sexest remarks.

Whew, vanity plates! For a second there I thought this was going to be a campaign of substance. Is it any wonder this guy has never won any contested election for national office?

Diane, I've got news for you, Barack Obama has led nothing but a life of privilege. He was the son of diplomats and while he's of mixed-race (his relatives on his mother's side are white) he was raised in what you call the "white, privedged (sic)" way.

Obama's upbringing is a far, far cry from that of America's poor. It's more like the upbringing of limousine liberals such as Ted Kennedy and John Edwards. Heck, even Obama's last house purchase, which he bought below market value, was influenced by corrupt financier Tony Rezko, the democrat money man who's being indicted by the feds for his deals with Rod Blagojevich.