Obama, call Michael Jordan, the greatest closer of all time and ask him "how to close" number one, and number two, "how to handle a double-team."

 

'I DON'T REMEMBER MEETING REZKO'
Fri Jan 25 2008 07:40:02

**INTERNET EXCLUSIVE**

Photo surfaces of smiling Clintons with Tony Rezko.

MORE...

Clinton injected the indicted developer's name this week in debate with Obama: 'I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago.'

Clinton tells NBC 'TODAY' show on Friday: 'I probably have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures. I don't know the man. I wouldn't know him if he walked in the door.'

Developing...
***

Hillary and Bill Clinton are the biggest liars on earth.

 

After blasting Obama during debate concerning slumlord Rezko, it turns out that Hillary knew Rezko long before Obama.

 

And now after having been caught red-handed, she lies about it.

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash1.htm

 

It appears that America is going to let Hillary and Bill lie their way back into the White House.

That means America is going to get 8 more years of Bill Clinton.

Oh while you are at it America, remember the Office of the Vice-President under Hillary Clinton will be null and void, because Bill Clinton will be the de-facto Vice-President.

That means that the Constitutionally elected VP will be third in line behind, Hillary and Bill; instead of second; thus shredding the Constitution.

And just like Bill rips into Obama now, just wait until Bill gets mad at the VP, and rips the VP in public; embarrasing the US world image.

Can't happen, you say?

Watch and see.

Nobody can control Bill Clinton on the camapaign trail, so how do you suppose anyone will be able to control him once he returns to the White House.

Remember, you heard it here first.

If I were you I would join this fight with the following:  "Bill Clinton had 8 years to pass health care and could not get the job done.  I will pass healthcare."

"Bill Clinton was in power and let Bin Laden blow-up the World Trade Center in the 1990's.  Bin Laden will bomb nothing, when I become President." 

"Had Bill Clinton captured Bin Laden, there would not have been any 911.  I will get Bin Laden.  Bill and Hillary had their chance to get Bin Laden and could not get the job done.  You can bet your last money, that I will get Bin Laden!!!"

"Bill Clinton backed the Nevada law suit, to suppress voter participation.  I will never ever suppress any vote in this nation."

"Bill and Hillary say that they will hit the ground running.  Yes, I would say that too if I had 16 years to get ready.  Eight years in office and 8 years since.  Well it's not going to take me 16 years to get ready.  I AM READY NOW!!!!!"

And if Bill and Hill really want to get nasty, hit them with this.  This will drive a stake right through there hearts:

"I will not be fooling around with interns while I'm on the phone conducting foreign policy.  Mothers of America can rest assured that their intern sons and daughters will be safe when Michelle and I are in the White House."

First, Hillary left the impression that white Lyndon Johnson was more important that black Martin Luther King.

Next, Hillary's friend Gloria Steinem said that black men have had an easier time to the top than white women.

Now Bill Clinton, echoing Gloria Steinem, says  that a white woman president would be more of a change than a black president.

Black leaders don't have a clue.  I think the rest of us get it!!!

Clinton, Obama Crossfire Continues

 Email this Story

Jan 22, 9:27 PM (ET)

By BETH FOUHY

 

 

"I think it would be just as much a change, some people think more, to have the first woman president than to have the first African-American president," Bill Clinton said.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080123/D8UBADF80.html

While Black Leaders ride the cold buses in South Carolina, Hillary vacations in warn, sunny California, Arizona and New Mexico.

These Black Leaders will give their lives for Hillary, while she leaves them holding the bag; and could care less about them.

Clinton Limits Time in SC

 Email this Story

Jan 21, 6:53 PM (ET)

By BETH FOUHY

 

"Asked whether Clinton's absence from the state in the week before the primary sent a negative message to black voters, campaign officials noted that several prominent black surrogates had come to campaign for her here, including Reps. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and attorney Vernon Jordan. Supporters from the Congressional Black Caucus toured the state by bus for her during the weekend."

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080121/D8UAJ26O0.html

Clinton: "Si Se Pueda is Right"

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January 22, 2008 8:06 PM

ABC News' Eloise Harper Reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., flew across the country to receive the United Farm Workers endorsement in Salinas, California on Tuesday. The Union, founded in 1962 by Cesar Chavez, represents 27,000 farm workers

Ghettoizing Barack
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Tuesday, January 22, 2008

"I guess this is how the West was won," Hillary Clinton exulted at her victory rally in Las Vegas after the Democratic caucuses.

Well, not exactly, ma'am. Yet how the Clintons, by deftly playing the race and gender cards, turned back the greatest single challenge to a Clinton Restoration will be studied for a long time to come.

It began in Iowa, where Barack Obama, the first African-American crossover candidate with broad appeal to all racial and ethnic groups, was on fire in a state that was overwhelmingly white.

Came then Billy Shaheen, the Clinton New Hampshire co-chair, to suggest that, were Barack to be nominated, Republicans would ask when he had stopped using drugs and whether he ever bought or sold drugs. Mark Penn of the Clinton campaign denied on MSNBC's "Hardball" that his team was raising the "cocaine issue."

Mission accomplished, Shaheen dutifully resigned. Bill Clinton drove the point home, telling an interviewer that to nominate Obama would be a "roll of the dice."

Nevertheless, Barack won Iowa going away and stormed into New Hampshire for what pundits predicted would be a defeat for Hillary so crushing it would be the final chapter of the Clinton era.

Then Bill Clinton told a Dartmouth audience that Obama's claim to being consistently antiwar was a "fairy tale."

That, plus the media pile-on, Barack's snide dismissal of her in the debate -- "You're popular enough, Hillary" -- and her choked-up moment hours before voting began caused the women of New Hampshire to rally in sympathy. Obama's lead, estimated by some at 15 points, vanished, and Hillary won what became one of the great upsets in New Hampshire history.

Stunned and stung, Barack's African-American backers then rushed into the baited trap. One after another, they headed for the TV cameras to charge that the Clintons had fought dirty, forcing voters to focus on the race and gender of the candidates rather than on their records, ideas and issues.

When Hillary said sweetly that while Dr. Martin Luther King was the inspirational leader of the civil rights revolution, LBJ was the indispensable leader who had enacted the laws, King, martyr-hero of black America, became an issue.

As the raillery grew acrimonious and the rage among Barack's backers rose, his black support solidified, but his white support, recoiling from race politics, peeled away. And the sisterhood rallied to Hillary.

Robert Johnson of Black Entertainment Television then stoked the fire once more, asserting that when Bill and Hillary were fighting for civil rights, Barack was in Chicago doing whatever he was doing in the neighborhoods. The implication: Barack was doing drugs, while Bill and Hillary marched. Denying malevolent intent, Johnson, too, apologized.

But the damage has been done. And reviewing the returns from Nevada and the polls in South Carolina, it may be irreversible. Barack is no longer a crossover candidate who transcends race. The color-blind coalition he seemed to be assembling appears to be coming apart.

His momentum is gone. The emotional movement that was Iowa has passed. The media are no longer smitten. And as African-Americans rally to him, Democratic women, a majority of the party, are rallying around Hillary.

Consider the stark Nevada returns. Though Barack used as the refrain of his concession speech in New Hampshire "Yes, we can!" -- the battle cry of Hispanics, "Si, se puede" -- though he was endorsed by the Culinary Workers Union, he lost Hispanics by nearly two to one.

Equally ominous, he lost both the white vote and the women's vote by the same three-to-two margin, while sweeping the African-American vote five to one. Once a candidate who happened to be black, Obama is now the black candidate.

This may be a portent of what is to come. With Hispanics, whites and women a huge majority of Democrats, Hillary should sweep a majority of states in the Southwest and the West, including Texas and California, where African-Americans are relatively few in number and Hispanics are many.

If Barack loses South Carolina, he is cooked, as the Clintonites have made him the favorite. Even if he carries South Carolina, it will be written off as black folks coming out for a native son.

Folks will look instead at how well, or badly, he does among whites. If Hillary and Edwards crush him among white voters, the message will be that the Democratic Party will risk ruin if it nominates an African-American who has shown little appeal among whites and even less among Hispanics. For whites and Hispanics are the swing votes in presidential politics.

In three weeks, Barack has been ghettoized. The crossover candidate, the great liberal hope, has become a Jesse Jackson, who is ceded the black vote and a few states, then given a speaking role at the convention, as the party moves on to the serious business of electing a president.

One cannot deny that Bill Clinton was right. Nominating Barack would be a "roll of the dice." But nor can one deny that Bill and Hillary helped make sure the risk would be one the party would not take.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/Column2.aspx?UrlTitle=ghettoizing_barack&ns=PatrickJBuchanan&dt=01/22/2008&page=full&comments=true&submitted=true618349b4-6dc4-41c0-9beb-23475ebf04bd

The Temper-Tantrum Kid
By Rich Lowry
Monday, January 21, 2008

In full psychoanalytical mode, Bill Clinton once observed, "I was born at 16, and I'll always feel I'm 16."

In this, Bill Clinton displayed unusually acute self-awareness. After two terms as president of the United States and a post-presidential career as a world celebrity adored by all the great and good, Bill Clinton is still 16. In recent weeks, he has proved that adolescents can't be elder statesmen.

His performance on Hillary's behalf has been desperate, accusatory, self-pitying and misleading. It has been a full-on blast of Bill Clinton's do-whatever's-necessary ethic of the sort we haven't seen since he wagged his finger at the country almost 10 years ago and denied having sex with Monica Lewinsky (in itself, an adolescent escapade that could have been straight out of "National Lampoon's White House").

During his presidency, Clinton was supposedly assailed by the forces of Republican extremism and of an out-of-control special prosecutor. Now, he's being attacked by the forces of hope and change. Barack Obama has, by almost any standard, run a scrupulously high-minded campaign.

But that hasn't mattered. As far as Bill Clinton is concerned, Obama might as well be a member of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Obama is guilty of what they call in the laws of war a "status offense." He is running against Hillary, and therefore interposing himself between the Clintons and the object of their ambitions. This makes him as much fair game as Newt Gingrich, Paula Jones or Ken Starr.

Bill Clinton has distorted nearly everything he's commented on lately, whether it's Obama's record on the war or the Nevada caucus process. Before the caucuses, Clinton said that Obama-supporting union officials were following him around a Las Vegas hotel, telling workers who came up to him to express support for Hillary that their work schedules would be changed so they couldn't attend the caucus. Fantastic on its face, the Clinton campaign hasn't produced any evidence to buttress this "fairy tale."

Clinton has usually delivered his anti-Obama broadsides in a state of red-faced near-rage, as though the Clinton campaign -- with all its formidable advantages going into this year -- has been offended against at every turn. What he is displaying is the face of aggrieved entitlement, and his trademark hypersensitivity about his own legacy -- both of which are informed by his overweening ego and inability to control it.

Newsweek reports that top Democrats have been pleading with Clinton to tone it down to keep from diminishing himself. Good luck. If the dignity of the office meant so little to him, why should the dignity of the former office restrain him at all? It is the misfortune of the Democrats that the most talented politician of his generation happens to be a man-child.

Besides, Clinton has no incentive to stop his New Hampshire-to-Nevada-to-South Carolina tantrum tour because it appears to be working. Strategically, there might not be much more the Clinton campaign can do to sell Hillary, but it certainly can tear down Obama. The Illinois senator has pledged to fight back against Bill, probably exactly what the Clinton campaign wants: It's hard to be hopeful at the same time you're in a war of words with an ex-president who is willing to use any cheap and dishonest argument at hand.

The uglier the race gets, the better for the Clintons. In Nevada, mysterious "robo-calls" were made to voters that used Barack Obama's middle name, "Hussein," four times. It can't be long before the Clinton team uses Obama's relationship with a shady Chicago developer named Tony Rezko to try to make him seem as if he's running the most corrupt political operation since, well, the 1996 Clinton re-election campaign.

And if that doesn't work, there will be something else, as Bill Clinton tries to whine, kidney-punch and scold his way back to the White House, where he will have the run of the place, the happiest 16-year-old in the world.

http://www.townhall.com/Common/Print.aspx

Senator Obama,


You are bringing your A-game.

Good job, during the South Carolina debate.

Mandates on Healthcare: Just say, "How many people in the audience believe that government over the years has mandated too many things in our lives: No Child Left Behind, but Bush left the money behind; talk about building a fence; but not providing enough funds to pull it off; So I believe that children should be mandated, but adults must have a choice."

Expand the majority; instead of fighting with Republicans:  Great job with that.  You beat Edwards and especially Hillary soundly on that one.

Edwards: Every where to compete.  "Just say like you did; you won in Upstate Nevada and Downstate Illinois; but also, it was Ron Brown in all areas who lead Bill Clinton to victory as head of the DNC; so we can go everywhere."

Voting present:  Keep emphasizing your 4000 votes and that they are cherry picking 100.  That is twenty-five thousandths (0.025) of a percent of my total votes, (100/4000 = 0.025).

Then also emphasize that on the life and death issues of the war; you were dead on!!! 

Edwards and Hillary tried to bump you off of that; by clouding the issue; with these 100 votes.

Don't let them do that.

Hillary fillibustering:  You did a great job on that.  You stood your ground; and you did not let her always get the last word.  Excellent.!!!!

Bill Clinton:  Good job on making it clear that you were running against bot Bill and Hillary.  Excellent!!!!

Mischaracterization of your positions:  Great job on noting that that is in fact what Bill and Hillary do.

On the broader themes of bringing people together.  I think you won hands down.

Slum lord:  Good job; however, bring it up first the next time; and explain it clearly.

Holding your own and defending yourself: You did a great job.  Slug it out with both Bill and Hillary if you have too.  You did a real good job on that!!!

Hillary making it seem as though you are wishy-washy on votes:  Don't let her do that.  She is the one who votes wrong, and can't answer a straight forward question.  Drive that home more.

The war: Hammer her on that war vote; and never cede that ground.

I wished you had said:  Ready to go on day one, is that right Bill and Hillary?  I don't think so.  You had 8 years to pass healthcare and you and Bill could not get it done.  I will bring people together to pass healthcare"


Closing statement:  You got the last word in and yours was the best.  Great job!!!

You are almost at the A-game.

Keep practicing, practicing, practicing.

Ratings:  Edwards A.                             Hillary B                                                   Obama A-

Now go out and campaign as if you are 40 points behind.
                                 

Black Leaders,

How much more proof do you need?

Bill Clinton thinks that the black vote is so important, that he fell asleep on one of America's most inspring holidays, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's Holiday Ceremonies.

This man could give a rats rear about the black community.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/33364.html

This is an Appeal to Black Leaders.

Come out for Obama early, not because he is black but because Bill Clinton is liar, and will stab you in the back as soon as he gets in office.

As we have seen with his trashing of Obama, he will always put his wife's interest ahead of America's interests, and Black interests.

Bill Clinton made a political calculation in New Hampshire, when Hillary faced certain defeat, to trash Obama, to trash Martin Luther King and the black community, reach out to the Hispanic community, and beat Obama with White and Hispanic votes; and forget about the black vote in South Carolina and the nation.

Think about this:  If Bill had been misinterpreted on the "fairy tale" statement in New Hampshire and if Hillary's MLK statement had been mischaracterised; if they were truly genuine, what would you have expected their next move to be?

They would have gone to South Carolina immediately after New Hampshire to mend fences.

Did they do that?

"No."

What did they do?

You got that right.  They headed to Nevada and California to pick up Hispanic and White votes.  The Black vote in the nation and South Carolina be hanged.

Oh, sure Bill has done some damage control, but deep down in is heart, he has written off the black community; and feels he can win without it.

But it is much more than that.

He knows he can get more super delegates than Obama, and call in all his old chits.

But it is much more than that.

He figures that if he can prevent Black Leaders from coming out for Obama early, he can prevent an early Black Leader avalanche towards Obama, and defeat Obama in all phases, the primaries, black leader endorsements, women, the white vote and Hispanics.

He's lied on Obama so many times, that whatever obligation you felt towards Bill Clinton should be broken.

I just feel that if he'll blatantly lie on Obama, he'll lie to you.
****
Obama and Michelle are great people with great character.

That speech at Ebenezer yesterday was on of the best I've heard.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/mlkvideo

Since you already feel that Hillary is better than Obama, then she should be able to win fair and square right.

Let her prove it.

You can be loyal to Hillary, but don't give up your common sense.

Come out early for Obama.

If she is so much better, then she should be able to win whether or not you come out early or late, right?

Let's just see.

Finally, the nail in Bill Clinton's coffin of lies.

Clinton asserts that Obama said "There is no difference in Obama's position and Bush's," leaving the impression that Obama had moved towards the Bush position on the war.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

It was the other way around.  Bush embraced international community, and thus moved closer to the Obama position.

It was always Kerry's position and Obama's, that international community imput should be sought.

As Bush moved towards the Kerry and Obama position, Obama could then say that "there was no difference in the Kerry position and the Obama position and Bush.

It is a distortion to say that Obama had moved towards the Bush position when in fact it was the other way around.

Finally, as you read through the article, even Bush spokesman said that Obama would have voted against the Iraq War Resolution.

Here the summary in Obama's own words:

"On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago," Obama said during a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters of Tribune newspapers. "There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."

"If you look on paper, [Bush] has come our way, but he has come our way at a significant cost in terms of blood and treasure," Cutter said Monday. "Bush finally agreed to go to the international community, but in voters' minds that doesn't change their opinion as to why we're at war or how the president mismanaged the war from day one."


America and the world, now we can read the entire article:

Obama says war to decide election

By David Mendell and Jeff Zeleny | Tribune staff reporters

July 27, 2004

 

BOSTON - Barack Obama, who will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, said Monday that he believes the Iraq war will be the deciding factor in the presidential contest, but that he does not think there is a great difference "on paper" between presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry and President Bush on the issue.

Instead, Obama, the U.S. Senate candidate from Illinois, said he believes the Bush administration has lost too much credibility in the world community to administer the policies necessary to stabilize Iraq.

"On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago," Obama said during a luncheon meeting with editors and reporters of Tribune newspapers. "There's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute."

Stephanie Cutter, communications director for the Kerry campaign, did not dispute Obama's statement, but said the true comparison rests in the differences over the past two years.

"If you look on paper, [Bush] has come our way, but he has come our way at a significant cost in terms of blood and treasure," Cutter said Monday. "Bush finally agreed to go to the international community, but in voters' minds that doesn't change their opinion as to why we're at war or how the president mismanaged the war from day one."

Obama, a state senator from Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, opposed the Iraq invasion before the war. But he now believes U.S. forces must remain to stabilize the war-ravaged nation--a policy not dissimilar to the current approach of the Bush administration.

The problem, Obama said, is the low regard for Bush in the international community.

"How do you stabilize a country that is made up of three different religious and in some cases ethnic groups, with minimal loss of life and minimum burden to the taxpayers?" Obama said. "I am skeptical that the Bush administration, given baggage from the past three years, not just on Iraq. . . . I don't see them having the credibility to be able to execute. I mean, you have to have a new administration to execute what the Bush administration acknowledges has to happen."

A Bush spokesman said the Democrats' comments are not representative of Bush's policy and again reveal the inconsistency of Kerry's Iraq stance. Kerry voted to give Bush authority to invade Iraq; Obama said he would have voted against it.


http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:rNt7Xamx0oYJ:www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/elections/chi-0407270351jul27,1,1339453.story?coll=chi-electionsprint-hed+%22said+he+believes+the+Bush+administration+has+lost+too+much+credibility+in+the+world+comm


You know, Mr. Clinton, what you are doing is gutter politics worse than David Duke.

President Kennedy and Obama appeal to the highest common denominator.

You sir appeal to the worst in people.  You are not what we need in the White House.

Bill Clinton is not only a liar but a vicious liar.


The following are two videos, showing that Obama was not only against the war but consistently against the Iraq war, over the last 5 years.

The first video shows Obama being asked point blank by Berkowitz how he would have voted on the Iraq War Powers Resolution.

Obama clealry states that he would have voted "Nay."

The second video is a montage of Obama in 2002, 2004, and 2007, at the Chicago Rally, part of the Berkowitz interview, the 2004 Charlie Rose interview, and the 2007 Announcemet for the Presidency.

In each case he reiterates his opposition to the war; especially on the Charlie Rose show in 2004.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=obama%27s+2002+speech+on+video+against+the+iraq+war&btnG=Google+Search


I had great respect for Bill Clinton, but not any more.

 

It is ok to atttack Obama, but it is not ok to distort his record.

Bill Clinton is a liar three times over.

He tries to minimize Obama's vote against the war, and calls his record on the war a "fairy tale."

America and the world, see for your self.

Obama was clearly against the Iraq war 2002, before the war started.
 
Obama, just like Barbara Lee, was against this war from the start.

And just like Black Leaders, Martin Luther King, Julian Bond and Muhammed Ali, who opposed conventional wisdom at that time, when it was not popular to do so, and opposed the war in Vietnam, Obama exhibited judgement bravery and courage, in opposing this war in Iraq.

No Mr. Clinton, this was no small thing.

This was huge.



Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq  October 02, 2002

October 2, 2002

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don't oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton's army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don't oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration's pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don't oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income - to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear - I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He's a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let's fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let's fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn't simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not -- we will not -- travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.


http://www.barackobama.com/2002/10/02/remarks_of_illinois_state_sen.php