Obama Weekend Reading

• From the Guardian Unlimited: Obama calls for debate footage to be publicly available "for free and without restriction."

• From the Chicago Tribune: Pill-popping loud mouth Rush Limbaugh continues to bombard his audience with his patently racist "Barack the Magic Negro" song.

• From the Washington Post: Columnist Sally Quinn on why Barack Obama needs to introduce America to his staff.

• From the Associated Press: How presidential candidates pay for the private jets and charters they use to dart around the country.

Race a Factor in Obama's Secret Service Protection

Senator Barack Obama will now campaign under the protection of the Secret Service in the earliest security increase for a presidential candidate who was not already involved in a presidential administration.

"The secretary did authorize and the Secret Service is implementing today protection for presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama," Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren said. "We're not going to discuss further details as to the number of resources or as to those protection operations."

According to CBS News, an anonymous law enforcement official stated that the the increase in security was prompted by "general concerns about the safety of a prominent black candidate."

Senator Obama has received no direct threats, although the anonymous official did comment on the presence of "racist chatter" on the Internet, particularly among white supremacist groups.

"I face the same security issues as anybody," Obama told the Associated Press back in February. "We're comfortable with the steps we have taken."

The Obama campaign did not comment on the security increase.

Online Obama Supporter Tries to Sell MySpace "Friends"

The Obama campaign took control of the Barack Obama MySpace profile today, after the profile's original creator, 29-year-old Joe Anthony of Los Angeles, CA attempted to bill the campaign $39,000 plus around $10,000 in fees for the profile and its 160,000 "friends."

 

The Obama campaign had worked together with Anthony to build the profile, sharing access to the site and control of its content.  As the campaign moves forward, however, campaign officials felt it was important that only those officially involved with the campaign would be able to post content under Barack Obama's name.

 

MySpace, which reserves the right to take control of a profile at any time, gave control of the profile to the Obama campaign.  Anthony retained the old profile's online "friends" and an "unofficial" Barack Obama profile.

 

Already, Obama has 13,000 "friends" on the new profile.

 

 

 

Obama Responds to Bush's Veto

"With one stroke of his pen, President Bush has stubbornly ignored the will of the American people, the majority of Congress and, most disturbingly, the realities on the ground in Iraq.

"Now we call upon our Republican colleagues in Congress to help override this veto and acknowledge what the President will not – that there is no military solution to a political conflict that lies at the heart of this civil war.

"Only the Iraqi leadership can make peace, and the best way to pressure them to do so is still a phased withdrawal of American forces with the goal of removing all combat troops from Iraq by March 30th, 2008.

"It is time to end this war so we can bring our troops home and redeploy our forces to help fight the broader struggle against terrorism and other threats of this new century."

-Senator Barack Obama, May 1st, 2007