One reason I fully support Obama is his Service Plan, which can be found on his website. I specifically like these parts

Expand the Peace Corps: Obama will double the Peace Corps to 16,000 by 2011. He will work with the leaders of other countries to build an international network of overseas volunteers so that Americans work side-by-side with volunteers from other countries.

Show the World the Best Face of America: Obama will set up an America's Voice Initiative to send Americans who are fluent speakers of local languages to expand our public diplomacy.

Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation's Schools: Obama will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. He will develop national guidelines for service-learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.

More below the fold.

Barack Obama spent July 4th in Montana, celebrating his daughter Malia's birthday and attending a parade link.  Here on Daily Kos were are engaged in a massive fit of buyer's remorse and we want our primary vote back.now that we don't have the Clinton's to kick around any more, we seem to want to kick the nearest Democrat.  Why oh why, when there is John McCain to mock?

Where in the world was John McCain on the Fourth of July, the only one he gets in his campaign for President?  Why he was down Mexico way, Cindy and Joe Liebermann at his side (along with his Republican BFF, Lindsey Graham), celebrating how well the war on drugs is going these days and figuratively delivering a big giant check for 400 million dollars.  And then back home to the McCain Compound in Sedona Arizona for a little campaign regrouping.  link

The New York Times just can't lay off the GOP's Kool-Aid. Take, for example, their story ("In Montana, Obama Tries to Rally Support on Iraq ") about Barack Obama's Fourth of July in Montana:

Mr. Obama’s statements about Iraq on Thursday continued to reverberate. First, he said he might "refine" his plan for withdrawing troops after meeting with military commanders in Iraq this summer. Later, he emphasized his commitment to removing combat troops within 16 months of his taking office.

Wonderful. Pray tell, where might that reverberation be taking place? Oh, I see -- it's reverberating in the very same article:

One day after Mr. Obama said he would consider refining his plan to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months, he offered no timetable for withdrawal as he criticized the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, which he said "has not made us more safe and has fanned anti-American sentiment all around the world."

Was this some detailed policy speech worth of such misguided over-analysis? No. He was speaking at a barbeque -- not the Council on Foreign Relations.

Here's the most straightforward explanation I've seen of what's underlying Obama's blunders on FISA:

The real quandary for Obama is that he has to win the "low-information voters" in November in order to win the election, but he needs the "high-information voters" now in order to field his grassroots operations leading up to November. Low-information voters are never going to understand FISA. It is a subject that takes time and energy to master. Low-information voters look at FISA and only see the ability or inability of the government to investigate potential terrorists. Yet a large number of high-information voters in both the left and right wing of politics understand that this is much more than an issue about national security -- it's an issue of balancing national security and individual rights. At the same time, most low-information voters only understand that FISA relates to national security. In other words, low-information voters are susceptible to fear mongering on this issue...

So Chuck Hagel is saying his ideas are closer to Obama's, but he doesn't plan to endorse either candidate.  Could mean he's still trying to negotiate himself a spot on the ticket (seems unlikely), or he doesn't want to offend his friend John McCain or hurt himself further within the GOP, or he wants to burnish his non-partisan credentials by being not even partisan enough to support a presidential candidate.

Who knows?  But it occurs to me that Hagel could draw some more of the attention he seems to relish, and earn some good will from congressional leadership, if he stays neutral but pipes up every now and then to slap back some of Joe Lieberman's ridiculous attacks on Barack Obama.

Picture it:

This should be interesting.  In light of the media firestorm that erupted after General Wesley Clark's comments on Face the Nation last week, it will be quite interesting to hear what John Kerry has to say.  The story made many twists and turns, including the McCain campaign trotting out a Swiftboater, Bud Day, who had appeared in Swift Vet ads against John Kerry in 2004.  Given all of this, and that the original comments came on Face the Nation, it is a foregone conclusion that Bob Schieffer is going to ask about Clark's remarks, for which I can imagine Kerry will want to mention the McCain campaign hypocrisy.  Lindsay Graham will also be appearing, but from what I gather will not be appearing at the same time as Kerry (well, Kerry did out debate him last time; it's not like Lindsay wanted to go through that again :)).  More details below the fold.

This is absolutely hacktackular. The BBC compiles a list of McCain and Obama "flip-flopping." In an apparent stab at "journalistic balance," they list five examples for each candidate. The problem? That in order to find five Obama flips, they had to just make things up. That's right. Go ahead and list Obama flip-flops that have never happened. That will be fair and balanced.

Check this out:

"Mr Obama himself has announced that he plans to visit Iraq, where he will make 'a thorough assessment' which could lead him to 'refine' his policy. Some critics have seized on this as an indication that Mr Obama is laying the groundwork for a change in position."

Wow. "Some critics" say there are indications that Obama might change positions in the future. As someone who once saw a piece of burnt toast that looked a little bit like Elvis flip-flopping, I'm not sure I can trust this future Obama that a psychic saw in a vision one time.

And there's more, of course ..

While Jay McKinnon was on an American road trip, opendna was "outed" (sic) and accused of counterfeiting a birth certificate for a United States Senator Barack Obama. This diary is dedicated to Jeniffer, an enthusiastic and hopeful voice and the first person to ask me to explain the very weird things being said about Jay McKinnon.

"I believe that there is overwhelming evidence, which establishes beyond a reasonable doubt, that Senator Obama is a natural born US Citizen, and that he has acted in good faith to establish this fact. I have no evidence to contradict that belief, have not seen any, and do not believe any exists. I have been libeled by humorless fools trying to look clever on the internet." - Jay McKinnon

The following is the transcript of an interview conducted on July 4th 2008.

so basically, i just wanna provide a couple of tips for making phone calls via the Obama website.

also, i decided to compile some stats about household internet usage in general and on internet usage for political advocacy.... i realize that the people we are calling (who want to volunteer) will be called by a local organizer, but it's just that I imagine only a small proportion of Obama's supporters will actually use my.BO to its fullest potential by searching for events and using the other online organizing tools available there.

I am reluctant to wade in here, but I've seen too much derision of those of us who are deeply disappointed with Obama of late, and it is time for the phrase "purity troll" to be retired.  Some of this needs to be addressed for the attempt to stifle dissent that it represents.  I for one will not be silenced for standing for the principles I believe to the best ones to base American government upon.  

I will still vote for Obama, but I am clear that he is merely less bad than McCain.

I was going to offer his FISA non-stance and his embrace (longstanding) of religious institutions as part of federal programs, too, but it's already too long.  The point is, I do not find his actions consistent with progressive principles more often than I am comfortable with.

Well, as usual, we have members of this site saying they won't/might not vote for the Democratic candidate for President of the United States.

It happened in the primaries, with mainly Obama supporters saying they wouldn't vote for Clinton if she became the nominee.

Clinton, and now Obama failed a "purity test" to some people.

To quote New York Mayor Ed Koch has often said that a one-issue candidacy isn’t sufficient to run on. "If you agree with me on 9 out of 12 issues, you should vote for me," Koch often has said. "If you agree with me on 12 out of 12 issues, you should see a psychiatrist."

    TalkLeft is a blog that initially supported another Democrat for POTUS and not Barack Obama. During the primary season, the blog came to epitomize for me the old adage that politics makes strange bedfellows. Soon the opinions of Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Richard Mellon Scaife were cited with approval by many of the commentariat.  

    This proved irresistable to various political species, including those who supported another Democrat besides Barack Obama, and those who supported the Republican alternative. I was reminded of the Cane Toad:
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From Obama's statment on Thursday, July 3:

"That's why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate." Later in the statement Senator Obama concludes:

"And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have."

Chances are you ate too much yesterday while celebrating the ideals on which our nation was founded (though certainly not the current administration’s trashing of all of those ideals). I know I ate too much.

But barbeques aside, the American left seems to have a terrible eating disorder. As the saying goes, we eat our own. I have never realized just how true this is until this past week.

So many progressives, including friends of mine, have been so quick to jump off the Obama train, it's breathtaking.  But they're missing the point.

Fresh off CNN's decision to promulgate the idea that Obama's 5-point lead over McCain (which has been consistent with other polls) constituted a "statistical dead heat", CNN has come out with yet another misleading poll headline--this time regarding the state of Clinton voters.

You can imagine my concern this morning when I directed my browser to CNN and saw the "latest news" about a poll that showed "warning signs" for Obama.

More below the fold.

i have mentioned this before and im sure many others have as well, but i wish to explore it a little more in depth.

"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady," Colbert continued, in a nod to George W. Bush. "You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."

in deference to a candidate who has not resorted to talking down to us, can we at least stop using baby talk like, "flip flop" & "flip flopper?"
i know we cannot expect the cool sophisticates of the media to stop, it's a guilty pleasure for them, like fart jokes - anderson cooper for one, can't wait to report the first charges of obama having "cooties." still, we should be able to discipline ourselves to the point of not using the language of preschoolers in a sandbox.