Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's big speech tonight will be delivered from an elaborate stage resembling a miniature Greek temple. The stage, similar to structures used for rock concerts, has been set up at the 50-yard-line, the midpoint of Invesco Field, the stadium where the Denver Broncos' National Football League team plays.

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I'll give it 50/50 odds that his approval rating takes another dive after this...

Remember Kinnock....

"Some 80,000 supporters will see Obama rise up appear from between plywood columns...."

And a fair proportion of those seem to employees of the BBC; fawning, drooling, hero-worshipping the Great Man.

I find the whole Obama thing very puzzling. I wonder if any other subscribers to this blog do so also - especially those who have also been following the 'Texasdarlin' & 'freerepublic' websites which have been doing a running demolition job on Obama over the last 2 months at least. There are so many question marks about his background & ID which I can't believe John McCain, Hillary Clinton, & anyone else of any significance in either of the US Democrat or Republican parties aren't fully aware of.

There are at least 4 problem issues, in addition to the central one of his lack of competency & inexperience. These are:

1. He is a former Muslim according to what is believed to be his childhood school registration at the Fransiskus Assissi school in Jakarta, being registered under the name of BARRY SOETORO. Having that religion is entirely his business in my view, but how are both extremists & moderates going to deal with his renunciation of Islam (assuming that he genuinely has done so) if he is elected? And in a highly religious country like the USA, voters there expect him to be absolutely forthright about whatever his true religion is - as that's an issue that strongly affects voting patterns there.

2. Then there are the problems relating to his Hawaiian birth certificate & consequent US nationality (disputed by some on the grounds that he is really an Indonesian, & may have used his Indonesian passport to visit Pakistan some years ago). According to relatives he was born in Kenya to his Kenyan mother, & then soon after birth was rushed to Hawaii to be registered as American by his father's very close American friend Alice Dunham (I think that is her name) who then continued looking after him in Hawaii when his Kenyan father Barack Hussein Obama Snr moved out, later dieing apparently in a motor accident. Yet Obama was registered as Barry Soetoro later when at school in Jakarta, because of his adoption by his Indonesian adopting father Lolo Soetoro - which under Indonesian law automatically made Obama Indonesian. However, neither indonesia nor the USA permit their citizens to be dual nationals, & only genuine US citizens under US law may become US president!

3. Forgery experts have closely analysed the document that Obama alleges is his duplicate Hawaiian birth certificate. This document has been featured on the Democrat-party supporting website Daily Kos, but their version has his ID number blanked out. Consequently, some forgery experts have suggested that what is claimed to be his birth certificate (ie the version displayed on the Daily Kos website) may instead be a photoshop version of the birth certificate of his Hawaiian-born sister, herself the natural daughter of Obama's mother & Lolo Soetoro. The forgery experts' grounds for this claim refer to the clearly visisble technical overlappings on the alleged birth certificate when it has been magnified several times over.

4. When Egyptians & other Middle Easterners are asked what religion do they think Obama is, they all say "Moslem". Why? Quite simply because his second name is "Hussein". If he genuinely was not still a Moslem, they contend that he could easily have changed his second name at some stage in his 47 years, for example when his American mother Alice Dunham (mother in the sense of the woman who cared for him almost all his childhood life) parted from his Indonesian adoptive father Lolo Soetoro, & he re-acquired the name Barack Hussein Obama II, while abandoning the name Barry Soetoro.

The question to me is: when will he be found out? Or when will what looks to be a grand subterfuge be revealed to the world? The Democratic Convention would have been a natural place to do it, though whoever sinks him now will NOT be liked at all by many African-Americans!

There are clearly a lot of problems about him - all of which could get him into real hot water, however well or otherwise he does in the coming US election.

On the humour trail, I just read some witty American say this:

Hilary Clinton a victim of affirmative action!

It is beyond parody, I loved it on Monday, French radio did a bit on the blacks in French suburbs all supporting Obama, as soon as they finished that gushing tribute they started talking about affirmiative action, I ended up shaking my head at the racism of both reports, which is why I find this comment rather funny.

Conspiracy nuts are everywhere...

The MSM is in the tank for this candidate but regular Americans are starting to see the truth. He is too inexperienced to be Commander -in-Chief. Without a teleprompter he struggles with off the cuff questions and the debates/townhall meetings will show his weakness. To be honest we are so sick and tired of the campaigning over here that we just want to vote and get this over with!
-nn

Charlie is right about the Beeb. Are they going to cover the GOP the same way?

One of the real pleasures of 2000 and 2004 was watching the BBC news people having to report that they'd got it wrong. How they tried to hang on to their illusion! What spluttering outrage when the US electorate got it wrong! And the same again in 2004. I'm thinking I'll get to see it all again in November. Do they know nothing of 'flyover' America?

Rather a difficult one to answer the way you phrased it. I guess they know about as much as does the New York Times. Mind you, if you think the Beeb is bad, have a look at the Daily Telegraph. Gush is not in it.

It is beginning to look like this turkey is not going to fly.His supporters are ignorant and stupid and just don't know how to conduct a civil debate.The public is sick of being called racist for asking specific questions of this candidate. I think the public is often stupid, but anyone thinking they are infinitely stupid is likely to be disappointed. He has jumped the shark,here.

This is a record of a formal reception at the imperial court of Byzantium, written by Liudprand, ambassador of the king of Italy in 948:

Before the emperor's seat stood a tree made of bronze gilded over, whose branches were filled with birds, also made of gilded bronze, which uttered different cries, each according to its varying species. The throne itself was so marvelously fashioned that one moment it seemed a low structure and at another it rose high into the air. It was of immense size and was guarded by lions, made either of bronze or of wood covered over with gold, who beat the ground with their tails and gave a dreadful roar with open mouth and quivering tongue. Leaning upon the shoulders of two eunuchs I was brought into the emperor's presence. At my approach the lions began to roar and the birds to cry out, each according to its kind... After I had three times made obeisance to the emperor with my face upon the ground, I lifted my head and behold! the man whom just before I had seen sitting on a moderately elevated seat had now changed his raiment and was sitting on the level of the ceiling...

The whole post is absurd. Anyone who has seen pictures of Bush's 2004 acceptance speech will not a great similarity between the podium on which Bush spoke and the 2004 RNC acceptance speech podium. Bush had columns behind him, the flags, and yes, under his feet the ultimate in pretentiousness, a reproduction of the Great Seal of the United States. Karl Rove must have known this when he ordered his minions to mock the DNC 2008 podium. How come you guys did not notice the similarities?

Bush 2004 http://www.americanrhetoric.com/images/gwbrnc8.jpeg

With the difference, of course, that in 2004 Bush actually was President. Obama has some way to go. Or had you forgotten that, C. Barton?