Barack Obama

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. (born in Nyanza Province, Kenya) and Ann Dunham (born in Wichita, Kansas). Barack Hussein Obama (born August 4, 1961) is the junior United States Senator from Illinois and a member of the Democratic Party.

Obama grew up in culturally diverse surroundings. He spent most of his childhood in the majority-minority U.S. state of Hawaii and lived for four years in Indonesia. Obama delivered the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention while still an Illinois state legislator. Since announcing his candidacy in February 2007, Obama has emphasized ending the Iraq War and implementing universal health care as campaign themes.

As a member of the Democratic minority in the 109th Congress, Obama co-sponsored the enactment of conventional weapons control and transparency legislation, and made official trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Obama's parents separated when he was two years old and later divorced. His father went to Harvard University to pursue Ph.D. studies, then returned to Kenya, where he died in an auto accident when the younger Obama was twenty-one years old.

Former senator Fred Thompson has begun his unannounced quest for the
Republican presidential nomination by telling audiences in New
Hampshire that Washington is badly out of touch with the country.

As a senior campaign adviser put it to The Post's Michael Shear,
Thompson believes that "the politicians have lost their connection
with what people really want and what they really expect."

A participant in a rally against illegal immigration on the Mall in June.
A participant in a rally against illegal immigration on the Mall in
June. (By Lawrence Jackson -- Associated Press)

David S. Broder:
A Mob-Rule Moment

George F. Will:
The Court Returns To Brown

Harold Meyerson:
Global Safeguards for a Global Economy

Newt Gingrich:
Sarkozy's Lesson for America

David Ignatius:
When the 'Bleed-Out' Begins

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Few if any of the other 17 men and one woman vying for the presidency
would be bold enough to challenge Thompson's claim. The belief that
official Washington is deaf to the people's wishes is a staple of
political rhetoric for both Republicans and Democrats -- even those,
including Thompson, who have operated inside the Beltway for decades.

Let a reporter who is not running for anything suggest that exactly
the opposite may be true: A particularly virulent strain of populism
has made official Washington altogether too responsive to public
opinion.

From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, philosophers have written of the
healthy tension that normally exists between the understanding and
strategies of leaders and the sentiments and opinions of their people.

In today's Washington, a badly weakened president and a dangerously
compliant congressional leadership are no match for the power of
public opinion -- magnified and sometimes exaggerated by modern
communications and interest group pressure.

The latest cave-ins involve immigration and trade policy, and both
seriously threaten the national interest.

The collapse of the immigration reform bill in the Senate last month
means that the broken border system, which allows a continuing flood
of illegal immigrants to enter the United States with no hope of
attaining the responsibilities and privileges of citizenship, will
continue for at least two more years. No one is talking of reviving
the effort until after the 2008 election installs a new president and
Congress.

With all its shortcomings, the defeated legislation offered some
prospect of improving at least some aspects of that broken system. But
it was buried by an avalanche of phone calls to the Capitol from good
citizens decrying what they had been told on many talk radio stations
and by some conservative politicians: that it was an amnesty bill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a man I have criticized on other
occasions, stood his ground and produced 33 Democratic votes to move
to close debate -- much to his credit. But Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell, who had promised to support the bill, which was President
Bush's last hope for a major domestic victory, saw only a dozen
Republicans rally to that cause -- and then bailed out himself, voting
no.

Predictably, McConnell blamed the defeat on public sentiment. The bill
"wasn't the people's will," he told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
"And they were heard."

The House was no more courageous. A day after the Senate folded on
immigration, the Democratic leadership of the House quietly scuttled
the president's authority to negotiate trade agreements for the United
States.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: washingtonpost.com - David S. Broder -- Washington Post Politics
Writer <rssfwd@rssfwd.com>
Date: Jul 5, 2007 11:21 AM
Subject: 05 Jul, 2007 from washingtonpost.com - David S. Broder --
Washington Post Politics Writer
To: black.hole.of.calcutta@gmail.com

A Mob-Rule Moment Former senator Fred Thompson has begun his
unannounced quest for the Republican presidential nomination by
telling audiences in New Hampshire that Washington is badly out of
touch with the country.

David S. Broder Thu, 05 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EDT
________________________________
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/04/AR2007070401218.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns
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