Obama supporters have Obama's critics cowed. And the reason is race. I don't like Bill Clinton but he was exactly right when he said Obama's much-touted opposition to the Iraq War was a "fairty tale." It was. Obama made a mild speech when he was in the Illinois legislature. I doubt anyone even noticed. His main opposition to the Iraq War since then has been tactical (Bush hasn't done it right, not that Bush shouldn't have done it at all). And Obama seems to have a burr under his saddle about wanting to attack Packistan.

spite of all this, when Bill Clinton made his fairy tale remark, people acted as if he'd dressed in blackface, rolled his eyes, spoke in southern dialect and called Obama "a colored man."

Obama supporters are cynically using Obama's race to shield him from legitimate citicism. I mean, if Obama was such an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War how come none of us heard about his legendary spirited dissent until he decided to run for president?

I think Obama understands that if he wants to be president he can't use his skin color to deflect legitimate criticism of his record. Some of his supporters, unfortunately, do not.

The main criticism of Bill Clinton isn't from the fairy tale comment but from the "Jessie Jackson won south carolina too" dismissal. Facts. You should get them straight. Question: HRC doesn't "hide" behind her gender? You could legitimately see a man running on a platform based on his famous wife's experience?

He IS colored, you know. I'm just sayin'....

Okay, enough smart-assery. Look, apparently nobody told you, but I'll let you in on a little secret: being non-white doesn't shield you from critcism; it lets you in for more criticism. Hence the old "joke" "What do you call a black man with a JD from Harvard?" "A nigger."

Do you really think that if Senator Obama were Senator O'Hara who had come out of *nowhere* to unseat a front-running candidate with international name-recognition in one of the two political families that had ruled a nation for the past twenty years; who was ahead in the popular vote; ahead in pledged delegates; had won more primaries and caucuses; had gotten over a MILLION Americans to send him their hard-earned money; had inspired a nation so much that the freakin' Grateful Dead came back together and did a reunion concert on his behalf; do you think ANYONE would be questioning that guy's right to the nomination?

If he were Sen. O'Hara, you might not have gone for the head-fake, for example, and known or looked up the fact that he'd been speaking out against this war consistently since President Bush first began floating it as a possibility. He was right and our involvement there DOES distract us from going after al Qaeda operatives who're holed up in Pakistan where the Pakistani government seems not to be able to reach them. (And, oh, didn't we send some airstrikes in there just a couple of weeks ago and kill al Qaeda's number three guy?)

I don't know why you haven't heard what you didn't hear. Maybe you weren't paying attention.

Obama supporters have Obama's critics cowed. And the reason is race.

The only part you got right.

It was a "fairy tale" according to Clinton because subsequent to Obama's speech, which was brilliant, every chance Obama got to vote on the subject he voted in favor of maintaining the war. It was poor Bill Clinton logic but that was the gist of his comment. Had it not been poor logic those in the audience would not have heard that Bill Clinton was calling BHO's whole candidacy a "fairy tale."

As far as the Jesse Jackson comment goes, it was quite evidently calculated to give a racial spin to the outcome of the vote under the guise of factual commentary. Brilliant if you at core have no values other than grasping power at any costs.

YOU: "He was right..."

No, he wasn't.

I feel I was duped with the WMD argument but I didn't think that was the only reason to invade Iraq.

Obama was against the war because he comes form a liberation theology perspective. If Bush had gone in prepared to win the war and with numbers for a sustainable occupation Obama would have been wrong.

As a matter of fact he remains wrong. We were enforcing no-fly-zones and an economic embargo on Iraq. These policies hurt the Iraqi people and did not loosen the grip of Saddam on his country. These policies in fact damaged our prestice and good will with Muslims in the Middle-East. We had three choices:

1) Keep up our policies indefinitely at great monetary and political cost regionally.
2) Walk away from the situation and leave Saddam to his own devices.
3) Invade and restore Iraq from rogue state classification

The no fly zones were deemed illegal and they were going to be sunsetted. Saddam, as his debriefer has recently stated on national television, was waiting for the pressure to subside and was going to return to gathering WMD's. His policies included various tactics that destabilized the world. Such as sending money to the family members of suicide bombers in Israel. His demonic sons were going to inherit the power at some point. Leaving the region with decades of a hellish reality.

We had to invade. We invaded poorly prepared for an occupation and that is our disgrace.

Obama can make a great case. Which I swallowed up until I found out about his root in liberation theology. He is no genius in "seeing" the consequences of the invasion he merely extrapolated from his liberation theology world view.

our involvement there DOES distract us from going after al Qaeda operatives who're holed up in Pakistan where the Pakistani government seems not to be able to reach them.

This is true.

Jesus help me Lord: I thought you guys were maintaining he was a secret Moslem a few threads ago?? Not that there's anything wrong with that...

No, seriously, you can't say, "He wasn't really strongly consistently against the war" and then, when that is refuted, turn around and say "Well, he *was* but it was for bad theological reasons." (This is the "moving the bar" about which you may have heard.)

Personally, as a Christian, I'm with James: you show me what somebody does, and I'll show you what they really believe, 'cause faith w/o works is dead.

Thats just dumb. Backfit logic to justify the erroneous conclusion you came to in the first place. Why on earth do we "have to" invade a sovereign nation that poses no credible threat to our own sovereignty. Without the presence of WMDs or any credible link to an "Al Qaeda" training facility, you're grasping at straws. NO worse. To quote Lebowski: You're out of your element Donnie.

No back fitting. It was what I thought at the time.

I put up cogent arguments and you rebut with with a Lebowski quote? You're a clown

Obama was against the war because he comes form a liberation theology perspective.

Hmm...I wonder why I opposed the war, then?

I can't understand why everyone considers Obama black. His mother was from Kansas. His father from Africa. To me that makes him half-white and half-black. I know people always explain their calling him black by citing the Jim Crow one-drop rule. But that was clearly a racist sentiment from 150 years ago. Why would anyone want to follow that now?

Duscany-- Please tell us which criticisms Obama's race has shielded him from.

I didn't quite get your connection between such "shielding because of his race" and Obama's opposition to the Iraq war, which has been clear and consistent. I'm surprised that you would claim that Obama was not a fierce critic of the war when he has made repeated statements since 2002, and not just on tactic or strategy as you claim.

Voting to provide essential support for the troops who are in battle now is not the same as voting to maintain the war.

Also, Obama said he would support a targeted strike in Pakistan (just as has been done in Afganistan and Somalia) against Al-Qaeda operatives based on solid intelligence. He's not advocating going to war against Pakistan (or obliterating Iran). There is so much misrepresentation going on.

As for being called "black", I think America hasn't changed much over the years in its categorization of people into the traditional racial groups. There's little room and still a lot of resistance by society, to any exceptions. There's a lot of societal pressure, too, to conform to such "boxes." Remember how Tiger Woods was criticized for choosing to identify himself as "Cabalasian," not black, to acknowledge his very diverse cultural and racial heritage.