TRIPOLI: Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, who applauded Barack Obama's election, has said the United States under the new president is a "new America."
"Today, America is a different America," Kadhafi said on Wednesday in a video link-up with students at Washington's Georgetown University, according to extracts published on Thursday by the state news agency Jana.
Kadhafi, who for years was Washington's bete noire, underscored what he said was the "need to give an historic world opportunity to President Obama and the new America ... to permit the new America to be a state that is loving of peoples and freedom."
He said he hoped Obama's campaign call for change would mean that the country is neither imperialist nor hostile to the peoples."
New tone from Obama campaign hasn't materialized, Jay Z and Young Jeezy have racist hate filled rant at an Inaugural Ball. O'Reilly and Miller talk about the video.
By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ HAVANA (AP) - Fidel Castro watched the U.S. inauguration on television and said Wednesday that Barack Obama seems "like a man who is absolutely sincere," Argentina's president said after meeting with the ailing Cuban icon. "Fidel believes in Obama," Cristina Fernandez said.
The meeting with Fernandez, just before she ended a four-day visit to Cuba, dispelled persistent rumors that the 82-year-old Castro had suffered a stroke or lapsed into a coma in recent days.
"I was with Fidel about an hour or more," she told reporters at the airport as she left. "We were chatting, conversing. He looked good."
WASHINGTON (AP) — After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday night at the White House — a rare do-over. The surprise moment came in response to Tuesday's much-noticed stumble, when Roberts got the words of the oath a little off, which prompted Obama to do so, too.
Don't worry, the White House says: Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day.
Nevertheless, Obama and Roberts went through the drill again out of what White House counsel Greg Craig called "an abundance of caution."
This time, the scene was the White House Map Room in front of a small group of reporters, not the Capitol platform before the whole watching world.
"We decided that because it was so much fun ...," Obama joked to reporters who followed press secretary Robert Gibbs into the room. No TV camera crews or news photographers were allowed in. A few of Obama's closest aides were there, along with a White House photographer.
Roberts put on his black robe.
"Are you ready to take the oath?" he said.
"Yes, I am," Obama said. "And we're going to do it very slowly."
It's bugging me that the crowd is chanting his name. Did that ever happen to the other presidents? I guess it helps that his name is three syllables and mostly vowels. You didn't hear Bush, Bush, Bush, or even Clinton, Clinton, Clinton did you?
Who flubbed the swearing in? Was it Justice Roberts or Obama? Campbell Brown of CNN blames Justice Roberts. My first impression was that Obama rushed it, flubbed up and forgot the words. You would think Obama would have memorized those words and burned them into his brain. Not a great way to start the presidency.
I Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Looks like Roberts was the one who messed up.
The messiah has been coronated! Nice 21-gun salute.
Now his speech.
Just wish he had said, my fellow "Americans", instead of my fellow "citizens". But hey, we are citizens of the world now aren't we! Citizen Barack, say good-bye to Citizen Bush.
This poem could have been written by a fifth grader. And the way it's being read . . . tedious.
Obama seems to tilt his head up a lot. I wonder if that's natural, or is it planned so every photo of him looks heroic?
OK, it's over.
Listen to the recording. Doesn't it sound like Di Fi pronounced "oath" of office as "oaf" of office? I did a double take when I heard that. Listen and see if you agree. Rush Limbaugh just mentioned it too, and I think he was surprised, because he's been using that word.
CAMPO CARABOBO, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday Barack Obama had the "stench" of his predecessor as U.S. president and was at risk of being killed if he tries to change the American "empire."
Most world leaders expect a new era of U.S. foreign relations when Obama, a Democrat, is sworn in as president on Tuesday after Republican George W. Bush's eight years in the White House.
But Chavez said frayed ties with Washington were unlikely to improve despite the departure of Bush, who the Venezuelan leader has often called the "devil."
"I hope I am wrong, but I believe Obama brings the same stench, to not say another word," Chavez said at a political rally on a historic Venezuelan battlefield.
"If Obama as president of the United States does not obey the orders of the empire, they will kill him, like they killed Kennedy, like they killed Martin Luther King, or Lincoln, who freed the blacks and paid with his life."
. . . Until recently, Chavez had said he hoped relations with Washington could improve. But in the last few days, he has picked up on comments he attributes to Obama accusing him of obstructing progress in Latin America and exporting terrorism.
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There's already plenty of opposition to Obama in the right-wing fever swamps of the Internets, of course. (I would link that sentence to Ann Coulter's site, but she's such a cartoon character, I don't want my vast audience to give her any traffic. That'll fix her.)
But eventually, even mainstream media outlets will turn their guns on the man who, in the eternal formulation of insider Washington, will become known as "this President." No matter how much the media was in the tank for Obama during the campaign, no matter how enthusiastic they were in celebrating the coming of BAM-A-LOT, eventually Obama and his Administration will make missteps that even the most liberal papers cannot ignore.
