Has the national media and the Bush administration Republican party pigeon holed American conservatives into single minded (maybe double minded if you consider both permanent tax cuts and war) drones of neoconservative ideas? According to this PEW study Republicans have chewed and swallowed the Fox News/Bush Administration definition of conservative and adopted it as their own. Or maybe I don't know anything about Republicans. You tell me.

The courageous volunteer lawyers for Gitmo detainees, 80 of them in total, have endorsed Barack Obama stating that they believe he's the best candidate to reverse some of the shameful policies of the Bush-Cheney torture regime. I've always said that if anyone could be trusted to restore checks and balances and the rule of law in America it would be the Senator from Illinois. The Bush administration has awarded itself retroactive immunity for it's crimes but there is still hope that their work can be reversed.

It's getting harder and harder to keep those two names out of the same sentence. Here is a nice primer on why the Ted Kennedy endorsement matters:

Way to spin being an irrelevant candidate into something positive Rudy:

I'm just going to get right into it. I'm a big fan of Barack Obama but lately I've been wondering if much of his success has to do with the fact that he's Black. No doubt he's smart, charismatic, passionate and one of the best political writers and orators of our times, but he's young, relatively inexperienced and idealistic. Reminds us all of a modern day JFK, or so the mainstream opinion goes.

I'm torn on this one. Part of me thinks regardless of race he's a top tier candidate, and political celebrity. And another part of me thinks he's got a big advantaged gained from the fact that he's the best Black politician in recent memory and his message of change is directly tied to his race.

Right now, I'm leaning towards his race being the biggest factor in his success thus far, but I want to hear what you think.