That is the headline on Huffpost right now.  I had dueling emotions upon seeing it.  On the one hand, it frightens me; I worry about a pseudo-patriotic backlash: If Obama is the world's favorite, then he's not for us!  

On the other hand, it warms my heart.  Because, you see, I am one of those strange Americans who grew up overseas.  I won't get into it too much other than to say that I am an American citizen who was raised primarily in Vietnam, Thailand, and India.  Sociologists call us "Third Culture Kids" or "TCKs" because we are a blend of both our passport cultures and our international, expat environments.  

Supporters of Barack Obama have been called starry-eyed hope-mongers and Kool-Aid drinkers from the very beginning of the primary season.

Most who expected the Clinton machine to prevail, including Senator Clinton herself, warned that Obama was offering substance-less bromides and giving the people of this nation false hope.  We were told to "get real."

I know this isn't a real diary.  Nothing new here.  But please don't flame me!  

I don't want to step on anyone's toes with this diary, but after reading Frank's diaryabout being accepted into the Obama Organizing Fellows and after reading all of the comments from people who want to help, I felt that there should be a broader effort to support these wonderful people.

My mother, Cherie Clark, grew up in the cornfields of Indiana.  She moved to Vietnam during the war to do humanitarian work, adopted 4 children, 3 of whom are half black ("war babies").  She had to leave Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon in 1975.  Heartbroken and lost, she moved to India.  There, she met my father, founded the International Mission of Hope, worked with Mother Theresa, and saved countless lives in the 12 years she lived there.  In 1988 she was finally able to move back to Vietnam to continue her work, and I was lucky to have been able to move there with her.  I grew up in Hanoi but now live in Colorado and work as a high school English teacher.  Since 2000, my mother has worked extensively in the middle east, mostly in Palestinian refugee camps, and she even, against our wishes, traveled to Iraq at a most dangerous time.  

Like Rachel Maddow, I believe that Hillary's goal now is to put up as many road blocks as possible to keep this race going until the convention.  I'm not sure whether this is because she wants to make it difficult, even impossible, for Obama to win in Novemeber, or because she wants to strongarm her way onto the ticket.  In any case, she's not going to concede as long as she feels there's some chance that she can delegitimize Obama's soon-to-be victory.  

My Mom is from a little town in the middle of the cornfields of Indiana, so I guess that makes me a Hoosier, too. My greatest hope is that Obama will win Indiana, but, if the polls are correct, he won’t.

My brother Thanh, whom my mother adopted during the Vietnam War, has been in the Navy for over a decade.  My Mom, who has been a peace activist her entire life, was devastated when he was sent to Iraq.  The irony that her son, whom she rescued from the grips of one unjust war, was now at risk of being lost in another unjust war, was too painful to bear.  But now he's home.  I haven't been able to see him yet, as he lives in California, but just the knowledge that he's safe and sound means everything to us.

I have been screaming this from the top of my lungs since, I dunno, Iowa, when Obama was coasting on a media narrative as the "uniter."  I do still see him as a uniter, but let's face it, the undercurrent of the latest attacks against him is that he's somehow not American enough to be President.  For too long, the Right has had a stranglehold on what it means to be a patriotic American.  We cannot let their monopoly on this issue continue.  

10 signs you've been watching way too much politics...

A Newsweek article discusses the possibility of a delegate "loophole" for Clinton.  

Clinton herself drew notice last week during a NEWSWEEK interview when she said her delegate numbers aren't "bleak at all," even though by most counts she trails Obama by more than 100. "Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to," she added. Although her campaign quickly denied it was waging any effort to "flip" Obama's pledged delegates, Clinton's remarks weren't academic.

In making the effort to get potentially crippling matters behind him and to move on, Obama is now freer than before to go after Clinton’s lapses on the ethics and disclosure fronts.

I just watched this video from the Obama website entitled, "Meet Barack."  It details Obama's family background and political rise.  I think the Obama campaign seriously needs to consider creating a distilled version of this ad to air in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.  I believe they're going to need something like this to counter the GOP slime machine in the GE, anyway.

In moments of sadness, while watching my mother, a lifelong Democrat, shake her head in dismay at dirty tactics and outright lies, I have said, "I just can't vote for her. I won't vote at all."  In moments of anger, vowing to teach my nieces, my future daughters even, that this is not what it means to be a woman, I have said, "I'll vote for McCain instead."  

My sister and I drove up to Laramie, Wyoming (from Colorado) last night.  We didn't think we'd actually get into the rally at UW, but we decided to try anyway.  Thankfully, the line was relatively short, and were ushered in right before he started speaking.  We were happy to have had to pass through metal detectors.