" “Barack is very much human,” Mrs. Obama tells Glamour ... " “So let’s not deify him... "

September 6, 2007, 11:58 am
Tales From the Obama Bedroom
By Katharine Q. Seelye

When is some information too much information?

(snip)

Mrs. Obama has been famous, of course, for humanizing her husband with such homespun details, including his habit of not picking up his socks. Is this useful information? With a voracious media out there, the line is getting blurrier and blurrier. But Mrs. Obama seems to feel it serves a purpose.

“Barack is very much human,” Mrs. Obama tells Glamour in response to a reader who wants to know why Mrs. Obama thinks she has been criticized for discussing her home life in such detail. “So let’s not deify him, because what we do is we deify, and then we’re ready to chop it down. People have notions of what a wife’s role should be in this process, and it’s been a traditional one of blind adoration. My model is a little different — I think most real marriages are.”


http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/tales-from-the-obamas-bedroom/

``The vote on the resolution was the right vote, even in hindsight,'' Edwards, a first-term U.S. senator from North Carolina, said in an interview aboard his campaign plane on Oct. 8. ``It was the right vote to give the president the authority to confront Saddam Hussein,'' he said. ``That's what would have given the president the power that would have allowed the weapons inspectors back into Iraq.''

We must achieve the central goal of disarming Iraq. Of course, the best outcome would be a peaceful resolution of this issue. No one here wants war. We all hope that Saddam Hussein meets his obligations to existing Security Council Resolutions and agrees to disarm, but after 11 years of watching Hussein play shell-games with his weapons programs, there is little reason to believe he has any intention to comply with an even tougher resolution. We cannot trust Saddam Hussein, and we would be irresponsible to do so.

That is why we must be prepared to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, and eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction once and for all.

The path of confronting Saddam is full of hazards. But the path of inaction is far more dangerous. This week, a week where we remember the sacrifice of thousands of innocent Americans made on 9/11, the choice could not be starker. Had we known that such attacks were imminent, we surely would have used every means at our disposal to prevent them and take out the plotters. We cannot wait for such a terrible event--or, if weapons of mass destruction are used, one far worse--to address the clear and present danger posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq .

Edwards' Cabinet List Includes GOP Names

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards carries a running list of people he might put in his Cabinet, and it includes “more than one” Republican.

“I want to be ready for when I get sworn in,” the former North Carolina senator said between campaigns stops as he dug into a travel bag for the list.

“I might have it with me,” Edwards told The Associated Press. “I wouldn’t show it to you, but I could have it with me.”

He didn’t hand over the list, nor did he commit to putting Republicans in his Cabinet.

“No, because the test for me is not whether they’re Democratic or Republican. The test is how competent they are and whether they’re the best person for the job, and to make a decision about who’s best to choose you have to spend time talking to them,” said the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate.


http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hN1BF1pYTXf63Z0xkLeL4IA5QICw