Meanwhile, reader Joseph Edwards emails:Agreed. It does raise myriad questions the Obama campaign should address pronto.All these stories about Obama's campaign contributions (lack of credit card verification, Aunti Zaitun, etc.) prompted me to check Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends) to see from which countries people are searching for "Donate McCain" versus "Donate Obama." Check it out yourself. Nothing other than the USA registers for McCain, but a statistically significant number of Canadian and British residents apparently have enough interest in donating to Obama's campaign they show up as numbers two and three. Somehow I don't believe these are all US service men and women stationed in Montreal or London who are googling this topic.He's right. Here's "Donate Obama," and here's "Donate McCain" on Google Trends. Of course, that just tells you who's searching, not who's donating.
But because McCain was so spectacularly right, and because President Bush ultimately took his advice, the war has become a non-issue in the campaign. No one could have foreseen it: the 2008 Presidential race is about the banking industry and the stock market, not the war against Islamic terrorism. And, in just one of the many ironies of this election season, the result may well be that the candidate who was most spectacularly wrong about Iraq--Barack Obama--will benefit from the fact that his opponent was proved right, and win the White House. This is why throughout human history, people have referred to the "wheel of fortune," not the "wheel of justice."
Without question, the Barack Obama infomercial served as a very slick and powerful recitation of the biggest promises he's made as a presidential candidate. But the very bigness of his ideas is the problem: he seems blind to the concept his numbers don't add up.
Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, disclosed today that computer inquiries on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were not restricted to a child-support system.
The agency also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes, she wrote.
Jones-Kelley made the revelations in a letter to Ohio Senate President Bill M. Harris, R-Ashland, who demanded answers on why state officials checked out Wurzelbacher.
Harris called the multiple records checks "questionable" and said he awaits more answers. "It's kind of like Big Brother is looking in your pocket," he said.
'"[the] department frequently runs checks for any unpaid child support obligations "when someone is thrust quickly into the public spotlight."
Barack Obama has lived one version of the American Dream that has taken him to the steps of the White House. But a few miles from where the Democratic presidential candidate studied at Harvard, his Kenyan aunt and uncle, immigrants living in modest circumstances in Boston, have a contrasting American story.
Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Mr Obama’s best-selling memoir Dreams from My Father, lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.
A second relative believed to be the long-lost “Uncle Omar” described in the book was beaten by armed robbers with a “sawed-off rifle” while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city. He was later evicted from his one-bedroom flat for failing to pay $2,324.20 (£1,488) arrears, according to the Boston Housing Court.
