Colin Powell, a Republican and former Secretary of State in the Bush administration, endorsed Barack Obama for president today on Meet the Press:
The best part of the endorsement starts at the 4:27 mark in the video above, where Powell takes his own party leaders to task for all of their fear mongering about Obama being Muslim. Powell makes the points that 1) Obama is actually Christian, and 2) even if he were Muslim, so what? This is America, and freedom of religion is part of the philosophical bedrock upon which this great nation was built. Religious freedom does not only mean that you have the freedom to pick which form of Christianity you believe, it also means that you can worship Allah or Zeus or even (gasp!) no God at all. Sadly, intolerant, overly zealous members of a number of religions both in America and abroad are giving religion in general a bad name. But I digress....
Colin Powell isn't the only one endorsing Barack Obama for President these days. Obama leads McCain 105-33 in newspaper endorsements. Lest you believe the "liberal elite media bias" it should be noted that Kerry and Bush had basically a dead heat in endorsements 213-205. Obama has been endorsed not only by traditionally Democratic papers, but also many that have historically leaned Republican.
And it's not just Americans who love Obama. The Economist is running a global online poll asking people all over the world who they favor for the next President of the United States. They are tabulating the results as a global electoral map, weighting the results of each country based on their population. As of this writing, Obama is leading McCain by a staggering 8,906 to 38. McCain is only carrying four countries in the poll: Cuba, Moldova, Macedonia, and Georgia. Granted, the Economist's editorial stance is classically liberal, but only four countries for McCain? Ouch.
And as if it wasn't already painfully obvious, Barack Obama receives the highly coveted GoNutty.com endorsement. Regardless of who you love in this year's election, be sure to get out there and vote!
:: Keith 23:11 [link] :: ::