Popurls tipped me to the buzz surrounding his recent speech on race, and so I tracked down a complete online version on Obama’s YouTube page. I watched it and was floored. Now I understand my so many writers use the word presidential when referring to him. Everything about the speech was fantastic–the delivery, content, message, timing, everything. A cogent speech delivering a powerful message, in well-crafted prose spoken with exquisite finesse. What’s more is that he apparently wrote the thing himself. How refreshing after years of watching the speech-impaired, semi-literate Bush clumsily try to string more than a few words together without looking at his notes.

Obama is the first presidential candidate in 40 years to match the authoritative presence and oratorical power of John F. Kennedy, and the similarities don’t end there. His populist message of unity and an unflinching willingness to take the issue of race head-on has earned him the respect of pundits and politicos on both sides of the political divide. For once it seems as though we might have someone who can actually redraw the lines of our cultural debate, and take us from the endlessly divisive left-right debate to a more meaningful and important discussion of class, economic division, and income inequality.

In other words, Obama just might be the one who can train the spotlight on the issues that really matter to most Americans: jobs, health care, education, fairness and equality for all, and a bright future for our children. He might be the one that can return the focus to those things we all share, instead of those which divide us. He might just be the one who can restore the the dignity of the United States and our respect abroad after two terms of Dubya and the catastrophic damage the current administration has done to both. He might just be the one after all. After listening to him speak today, I think he might.

Obama, you’ve got my vote. Godspeed.

I promise to blog the new digs, but for now you can have this instead. It’s freedom, baby, yeah!

Anyway, the gist of the story is this:

An Australian scientist involved in the search for WMD claims US spy chiefs censored his report to suggest the lethal weapons existed.

Rod Barton, a microbiologist who worked for Australian intelligence for more than 20 years, also said Washington and London wanted elements inserted in the Iraq Survey Group’s (ISG) report “to make it sexier”.

Basically, this non-US intelligence operative was instructed to research the WMD threat in Iraq prior to our invasion of that country and report on his findings. When his findings concluded no real threat existed, the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), now headed by Bush-appointee Charles Duelfer, told him to remove some bits to make it more ambiguous and add others to imply a threat.

He complained, of course, but his report was censored anyway and ultimately submitted with all fixes and revisions intact, providing another link in the long chain of fabrications and outright lies used to justify the war in Iraq, which, just in case you weren’t paying attention, has cost US taxpayers over 300 billion dollars and stands to cost a whole lot more.

Come to think of it, I thought Republicans were supposed to be the fiscally conservative half of our little binary “democracy.” Small government, run like a business, that sort of thing. Certainly a far cry from the “tax and spend” Democrats we all know and love to hate, eh?

Frankly, I much prefer the “borrow and spend the country into the biggest debt in recorded history” model of the current administration. I mean, as long as we ensure our safety and lower taxes through a delicate mix of disinformation, torture, law-breaking, corruption and unbridled military spending, I’m pretty happy with the status quo. You?

It seems that the Bush Administration had a problem with IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei’s reluctance to play ball and support the US by parroting their hardline stance regarding Iran’s recent interest in nuclear energy. (He also didn’t make any friends in Washington by exposing the grossly inflated nuclear “threat” fabricated by the Bush team and used as justification to attack and subjugate that country two years ago.)

So, what do you do with a UN official who doesn’t get with the program and follow orders from the West Wing? Why, tap his phone and look for dirt, that’s what. Which is just what Bush and Co. did.

Too bad for them they couldn’t find any, and so instead they went around to the rest of the Freedom Posse to drum up support for blocking his assumption of the post for another five-year term. Unfortunately it seems that the only people who have a problem with him are in the US. Japan, Canada, even Britain all think he’s doing a good job, and, well, refused. From the Post:

“It’s on hold right now,” said one U.S. policymaker who was involved in lobbying against ElBaradei. “Everyone turned us down, even the Brits.”

Some people think there’s no limit to the hubris of Bush and his goons, but you know what? We may have just seen it.