Obama

President elect Barack Obama has a selected his chief of staff and his name is Rahm. Though the name has nothing to do with the Hindu mythological figure of Ram, Indian Americans who are loyal Obama supporters are sure to be happy with the name that sounds so like the Hindu God.

Representative Rahm Emanuel is a former Clinton Administration official and a fellow member of Congress from Illinois and the President elect says that he selected Rahm for the crucial job because he has "deep insights into the challenging economic issues that will be front and center for our administration."

American co-host on the talk show ‘The View’ Elizabeth Hasselbeck stunned viewers when she began supporting president-elect Barack Obama.

Hasselbeck, who had campaigned with John McCain''s running mate Sarah Palin, was asked on the show by executive producer Barbara Walters how she felt about McCain/Palin losing the elections.

The former reality show contestant replied that her daughter Grace, 3, had asked her who won and who lost the election.

“No one lost,” Fox News quoted Hasselbeck as telling about what was her reply to her child’s question.

An editorial appearing in the New York Times has said that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama appears to be much clearer than his Republican rival John McCain on what ails the American economy, and what solutions are needed.

It says that the McCain proposed capping of executives’ pay at firms that get bailout money, is at best a “punitive idea, but one that does nothing to mitigate the crisis.”

John McCain’s move to seek a bipartisan bailout solution to the Wall Street meltdown is not without risk.

According to CBS, there is no doubt that the current proposal is becoming unpopular.

It also says that there could be resistance to any sort of a bailout deal, and warns that next one would have McCain’s imprint all over it.

The TV channel has also raised doubts about whether the first debate between Obama and McCain sticking to the assigned topic – foreign policy? (ANI)

There is at least one area where John McCain and Barack Obama agree – they would not fancy lying to the public.

In separate interviews with CBS, both said that they would seek to be above board and transparent in their interactions with the American public, should either of them become president.

When asked when it would be appropriate to lie to the American people,

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden has said that a campaign ad that mocked Republican presidential candidate John McCain as computer illiterate was “terrible” and would not have been done had he known about it.

Obama, McCain’s Democratic rival, launched the ad earlier this month, part of an aggressive push to slow McCain’s rise in the polls after he chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate.

John McCain trying to reclaim the advantage that slipped to Barack Obama as the Wall Street mess has unfolded, has criticized his democratic rival of running the same “corrupt Chicago political machine” as convicted felon and Obama patron Tony Rezko and the Daley family, which controls Chicago politics.

McCain’s campaign in a new advertisement said they are raising the corruption issue because the press has failed to do so, the Washington Post reported.

Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, has called his Republican rival, John McCain, a “Free Market Gambler”, and suggested that his approach to government, not McCain''''s, is the tonic the country needs.

"There''''s only one candidate who called himself, and I quote, ''''fundamentally a deregulator,'''' when it was reckless deregulation and lack of oversight that''''s a big part of the problem on Wall Street right now," Fox News quoted Obama as saying here.

The Obama and McCain campaigns have agreed to an unusual free-flowing format for the three televised presidential debates, which begin on September 26, but the McCain camp fought for and won a much more structured approach for the questioning at the vice-presidential debate.

Obama won an agreement for the first debate to be about foreign policy and national security on Friday, The New York Times reported.

US President George Bush and both the Presidential candidates –Democrats’ Barack Obama and Republican John McCain – have condemned yesterday’s suicide bombing at a hotel in Islamabad killing 50 persons and injuring more than 200.

A statement released by the US Presidency said: “President Bush offered his sincere condolences to the families of all those lost in today''s vicious attack.”