barackobama

Obama’s first commercial, currently being shown in Iowa, shows Republican praising him.

Full text story about the first Obama commercial is below:

From the Minneapolis - St. Paul Star Tribune: Veterans, Obama say number of war wounded grossly understated

Veterans groups and Sen. Barack Obama say government officials are obscuring the actual number of wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars by leaving out of some public documents troops who suffer non-combat injuries.

…the number of wounded in the wars often circulated publicly is around 23,000.

That number only accounts for those wounded in combat. When troops from those wars who were wounded in other ways are counted, the number more than doubles, to about 53,000.

“It doesn’t make a difference whether you were hit by enemy fire, or injured because your vehicle crashed, or got sick because of serving in a war zone,” Obama said in a statement. “The effects on the soldiers and their families are the same. And the impact in terms of the current fighting force and future demands on the VA are also the same.”

Combined Joint Task Fork - Horn of Africa, Obama sees benefits in Horn of Africa mission
Harowo, .S. Senator Barack Obama Visits Counterterrorism Force Base In Djibouti

Yuck, just read that Barack is a smoker!

He’s trying to quit though, thank goodness. 
Read about it yourself at ABC News: Obama to Quit — Smoking, That Is

If he suceeds in kicking the habit this time maybe he will be an inspiration to others.

When I mention Barack Obama to people most either don’t know who he is or comment that he is too young and inexperienced.

Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe provides some humorous perspective on the situation in her article published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press: Is Obama really too green, or are boomers mislabeling him?

A few snippets:

“Somehow I do not think that Barack Obama gets up in the morning, brushes his teeth, looks in the mirror and says, ‘Wow! A fresh face!’ It doesn’t happen at 45. At 45, you count the crow’s feet and measure the circles under your eyes.

If you are a woman, you start reading the fine print on the Oil of Olay Regenerist label. After, of course, putting on your new reading glasses. If you’re a man, you start swiping eye cream from your wife’s stash.

Is it possible that the same generation that famously didn’t trust anybody over 30 when they were 20 doesn’t trust anybody under 50 now that they are turning 60?

It’s a shock when the people you went to high school with start ruling the world. It’s another rite of passage to acknowledge juniors as your superiors. But boomers are now turning 60 with a life expectancy of 82. It’s an early sign of memory loss to forget that at 45 you were wise or foolish, or both — but you weren’t young.

“The time has come for universal health care in America,” Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.

“I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country,” the Illinois senator said.

Continue Reading at FOX NEWS

There is no doubt that Barack Obama can appeal to white audiences —witness the huge crowds of people the Presidential contender has drawn in Iowa and New Hampshire, or his best-selling book. But one of the many unknowns about Obama is how black activists and voters will respond to a different kind of candidacy for an African-American hopeful. Jesse Jackson’s focus on the underclass and poverty didn’t win him the Democratic nomination in 1988, but Obama would surely like to win the 90% of the black vote in most states that Jackson did.

Continue Reading at Time.com