The many faceted Barack Obama

Obama drew a large crowd in Portland when he was here in Oregon. There is no doubt that he has plenty of support throughout the country and no matter what kind of swift boat politics or Rovian spin is coming at him he will become the POTUS. Can there be a better choice for the country at this point.

It's disappointing to see him become a politician that tries to cover all the bases, but the rules of the game have been in place for a long time and will continue to have a large influence on the outcome of this election.

Obama says Iraq trip could refine his policy

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 3, 7:11 PM ET

FARGO, N.D. - Democrat Barack Obama struggled Thursday to explain how his upcoming trip to Iraq might refine, but not basically alter, his promise to quickly remove U.S. combat troops from the war.

A dustup over war policy — one of the main issues separating the Illinois senator from his Republican opponent, John McCain — overshadowed Obama's town-hall meeting here with veterans to talk about patriotism and his plans to care for them. Republicans pounced on the chance to characterize Obama as altering one of the core policies that drove his candidacy "for the sake of political expedience." He denied equally forcefully that he was shifting positions.

Arriving in Fargo, Obama hastily called a news conference to discuss news of a sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, but the questioning turned to Iraq policy and his impending trip there.

"I am going to do a thorough assessment when I'm there," he said. "I'm sure I'll have more information and continue to refine my policy."

He left the impression that his talks with military commanders there could refine his promise to remove U.S. combat troops within 16 months of taking office.

"I have said throughout this campaign that this war was ill-conceived, that it was a strategic blunder and that it needs to come to an end," he said. "I have also said I would be deliberate and careful about how we get out. That position has not changed. I am not searching for maneuvering room with respect to that position."

Hmm, here's an interesting developement, in the light of what was said by Obama the other day about refining his policy.

Pentagon rebuffs Iraqis on withdrawal timetable

July 7, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) - In a rebuff to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Pentagon said Monday that any timetable for a US withdrawal from Iraq would depend on conditions on the ground there.

Maliki told Arab ambassadors on Monday he was pressing for such a timetable in negotiations with Washington on an agreement on the status of US forces in Iraq beyond 2008.

Asked about the prime minister's comments, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters: "With respect to timetables I would say the same thing I would say as respects to the security situation -- it is dependent on conditions on the ground."

Some of Obama's interesting background...



Barack Obama's grandmother, Sarah Hussein Onyango Obama

I'm sure glad that he has heritage that is close to the Earth; I'll vote for him, if for no other reason that I feel really good about his grandmother...




Barack Obama poses at Columbia University in New York City during a visit by his grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. (Photo courtesy of Maya Soetoro-Ng / March 23, 2007.

And I think that his grandparents from Great Briton are pretty cool too...



Not to mention his immediate family...

"If I am the face of American foreign policy and American power," Obama observed in a recent New York Times interview, "I think that if you can tell people, 'We have a president in the White House who still has a grandmother living in a hut on the shores of Lake Victoria and has a sister who's half-Indonesian, married to a Chinese-Canadian,' then they're going to think that he may have a better sense of what's going on in our lives and in our country. And they'd be right."