In today’s New York Times, conservative columnist Bill Kristol falsly claims that “Obama was in fact in the pews,” when his pastor Rev. James Wright made several controvesial statements about the state of race in America. In reality, Obama was on his way to campaign in Miami on the day Wright gave the sermon. Kristol was duped by a false report from the far-right NewsMax.

Kristol’s shoddy journalism reminds progressives that while Obama has enjoyed consideable success this primary season, he is still dogged by biggotted, prejudicial rumors as a result of his ethnic background. Google’s search suggestions (which are based on frequently used phrases in search requests), betray the breadth of the smear campaign being perpatrated against Obama.

Can you spot the difference?

Of the various patriotic displays in which Obama will allegedly not participate listed above, only one is based in fact. Obama refuses to wear a flag pin on his lapel. Instead, Obama says, “I’m going to try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”

The Republicans of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce issued a satirical press release grossly misrepresenting the vetoed legislation that would have expanded the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Based in the fictional Springfield from The Simpsons, the release featured the rich Montgomery Burns and Mayor Quimby jockeying for government funded health care.

The release quoted Burns saying, “The little darlings are needy? Me, too. I need somebody to pay ,” suggesting that well-off parents would be allowed access to free health care should SCHIP be expanded.

Such scenarios, however, have absolutely no basis in reality. Under the vetoed plan, parents would only be eligible for coverage if they work low-income, uninsured jobs and the poorest children be “first in line” for coverage. The release comes just a day after the Republican Leadership in the Senate was found by ThinkProgress to be propagating known fictions about 12-year-old SCHIP beneficiary Graeme Frost. As Paul Krugman recapped in the New York Times:

Right-wingers began “insisting that the Frosts must be affluent because Graeme and his sister attend private schools (they’re on scholarship), because they have a house in a neighborhood where some houses are now expensive (the Frosts bought their house for $55,000 in 1990 when the neighborhood was rundown and considered dangerous) and because Mr. Frost owns a business (it was dissolved in 1999).”

Indeed, the “press release” and their previous smear campaign betrays the callous zeal with which House Republicans and some Senate Republicans have sought to prevent the needed expansion of SCHIP. While an astounding 91% of Americans want “Congress to help states cover more uninsured children”, a “vast majority [of Americans] also supported covering uninsured parents in low-income working families,” and “more than 600,000 children joined the ranks of the uninsured last year,” House Republicans are more concerned with scoring cheap brownie points with an out-of-touch Bush administration. (via Atrios, Wonkette)

*Seriously Joe, stop.

Adam Key, a law student at Pat Robertson’s Regent University, has been banned from campus and ordered undergo a mental health evaluation for posting a screen-capture of a “video in which Robertson scratches his face with his middle finger.”

Robertson told the AP that, “in general, no action should be taken against anyone who exercises their freedom of speech and expression, and that includes criticism or satire of the chancellor.” Adding, however, that “the school did not feel that deliberately manipulating a television image to turn it into something obscene was included in that freedom.”

When the university was made aware of the “unflattering” photo of Robertson, “officials demanded that [Key] publicly apologize, then withhold public comment about the matter, or submit to the law school dean a legal brief defending the posting. Key chose the latter, arguing that his posting was satire protected under the First Amendment, and said [the university] rejected his written legal brief.”

The University said in a letter to Key that several of his fellow students had expressed “concern about Key’s behavior this semester, and have reported that Key said he brought a gun onto campus.” Key denies the accusation and accuses the university of “exploiting the fear that lingers since a gunman at Virginia Tech killed 32 people last April.”

“Former Vice President Al Gore Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today, along with a United Nations panel that monitors climate change, for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.”

Gore said of the award:

I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis–a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.

Gore also said he would donate the prize money to “Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan non-profit organization that is devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.”

Other recent Peace Prize winners include Former President Jimmy Carter, IAEA Chief Mohamed ElBaradei, and Former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan.

No word on whether or not the New York Sun is disappointed that their Peace Prize favorite, Gen. David Petreaus, was passed over. At least the Sun can still campaign for a Petreaus presidency.

UPDATE: Joseph Romm, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress “explains how Gore’s environmental work is directly related to peace and security issues.”

The Vice President and many others have said that climate change is a security issue because it will create millions of environmental refugees and will lead to water scarcity that can cause conflict. Conflicts like those in Darfur have environmental roots and need environmental solutions, along with political and economic solutions. Gore is trying to prevent a humanitarian crisis; he is trying to prevent regional wars that will be driven by resource scarcity. This isn’t the first time that a major environmental issue has won the peace prize. Winning this Prize proves this isn’t an ordinary environmental issue. It is one of the most important issues of our time. It would be good if this award were part of a trend.

Good Magazine illustrates the growing crisis of student debt. Currently, the “total federal student loan debt in the United States is $492 billion.”

The UN’s senior human rights officer in Iraq, Ivana Vuco, announced yesterday “that private security contractors were still subject to international humanitarian law and that meant there were specific consequences for any breach.” She called for “investigations as to whether or not crimes against humanity [or] war crimes” have been committed by private military contractors, like Blackwater USA, have been committed.

UPDATE: Nico Pitney, National Editor for Huffington Post, reports that Center for Constitutional Rights in New York has initiated a federal suit against Blackwater USA for firing on Iraqi civilians in Iraq “on behalf of an injured survivor and the families of three killed.” Previously the Center for Constitutional Rights has successfully argued that detainees at Guantanamo Bay should have access to federal courts and initiated the first law suites against the Bush administration’s warentless wiretapping program.

According to the New York Times, “The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there.”

Ten months into the President’s surge strategy meant to create “space” for political reconciliation across the country, Iraqi political leaders are declaring failure. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih told the Washington Post, “I don’t think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such.”

“‘There has been no significant progress for months,’ said Tariq al-Hashimi, one of Iraq’s two vice presidents and the most influential Sunni politician in the country. ‘There is a shortage of goodwill from those parties who are now in the driver’s seat of the country.’”

UPDATE: Some Iraqi leaders are claiming that the government structure established by the United States in 2003 actually “entrenches sectarian divisions.”

In 2003, the U.S. government handpicked a 25-member Iraqi Governing Council — including 13 Shiites and five Sunni Arabs — that would mirror the population’s majority Shiite makeup…This imperfect balance of power, deemed the “national unity government,” entrenches these sectarian divisions and prioritizes a politician’s ethnic or sect background above experience or ability, Iraqi officials say. The system makes selecting Iraqi ambassadors or cabinet ministers an exercise in horse-trading subject to bitter disputes.

UPDATE II: In a September interview posted on the State Department website, Iraqi Ambassador Ryan Crocker explained that “achieving security is relatively easy compared to a political solution which is more complicated and needs time.” Crocker emphasized that “the most important thing here [in Iraq] is national reconciliation…Iraqis do believe that if national reconciliation is achieved, it will provide the right condition fort the withdrawal of coalition forces…”

But if the above story is any indication, Iraqi politicians disagree with the American position. Instead, they are calling for a “government of majority.” Where does this leave the US? President Bush has called Iraq a “sovereign nation.” Will he continue to force-feed Iraqis “national reconciliation,” or will he allow the Iraqis to govern their country in their own way? Bet on the former.

Megan O’Sullivan, the President’s former “top Iraq adviser while the war sank into an abyss over the past few years,” is having a little trouble sleeping these days. The Washington Post reports:

“I was dreaming about Iraq last night,” she said. “And I woke up and thought, ‘When do you think this will stop?‘ ”

O’Sullivan lived [the Iraq War] every waking hour — and many of the sleeping ones. The dreams came every night, often prosaic, sometimes straight out of a war movie, filled with violence and menace. It was, she said, “all consuming.

Indeed, the soldiers who suffered the results of her ill-conceived advice to Bush are surely asking the same thing. At least she can take some solace in how well the surge worked out.

The Post reports further:

One former senior official said nearly everyone who has left the administration is angry in some way or another — at the president for making bad decisions, at his staff for misguiding him, at events that have spiraled out of control. … Interviews with a dozen top aides who left in recent months reveal a profound sense of ambivalence about the ultimate outcome of their work beyond toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

British to cut presence in Iraq by 1,000 troops by the end of the year. Currently, the UK has about 5,500 troops in Iraq.