My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context brilliant African father he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness a deracination.

When the entertainers of the Right aren't declaring their disgust with President Obama for groveling before foreign potentates they're pretending to fear him as a left-wing thug an exemplar of what they call 'the Chicago way.'

Barack Obama is the most famous living person in the history of the world.

No doubt the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family his Ivy League elegance his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.

President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. My promise... is to help you and your family.

In the richest country in the history of the world this Obama economy has crushed the middle class. Family income has fallen by $4 0 but health insurance premiums are higher food prices are higher utility bills are higher and gasoline prices have doubled. Today more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before.

There will be trying times during Obama's presidency and liberty will need staunch defenders. Can Obama reshape liberalism to be as it was under F.D.R. a fighting faith unapologetically patriotic and strong in the defense of liberty? That would be a service to our country.

President Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It's about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First they came for the Catholics. Who's next?

It's possible that the 2012 general-election race will be the least overtly religious one since 1972 the last campaign before Roe v. Wade and the rise of Jimmy Carter brought evangelicalism into the political mainstream. That's because faith remains a complicated issue for Obama who is still wrongly thought to be a Muslim in some quarters.

That someone like Obama could be elected president of the United States - with its unrivaled power and prestige - has begun to restore the country's and the world's faith in America as the land of opportunity.