President Barack Obama has frequently commented on the incredible influences he encountered on his road to the White House. One such influence, Prof. Charles Ogletree of Harvard University, spoke yesterday at Ithaca College, commenting on the President’s impact and early years before being elected to the highest position in the country.

I will leave it to readers to reference the source of this quotation. Hint: It was spoken by a world-famous leader when he got a cool reception in his old home town. “A prophet is not without honor,” he said, “save in his own land.”

Barack Obama can relate. The President has made great progress in repairing America’s international reputation by engaging in much-needed diplomacy with Russia, China and the Arab/Muslim world only to be dismissed as a do-nothing, dud of a president by his fellow countrymen.

The Nobel Committee’s decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize calls into question the purpose of this prestigious award. If the prize serves to recognize concrete action and tangible efforts towards peace, the committee failed to adhere to these measures. Yet, if the committee sought to praise intent and catalyze future action, their decision was dead on.

Thanks Oprah. We give you one job — drop by Denmark with the O-Team and use your magic to bring the 2016 Olympics to Chicago. One job! And what happens? We get eliminated in the first goddamn round of voting. Somehow Tokyo beat us out for third place despite the fact that they planned to fund the Games by expanding the scope of their dolphin-hunting industry to encompass all adorable marine life.

Depicting the President with a Hitler-stache is all the rage these days. During a recent health insurance forum in Dartmouth, Mass., a young woman asked Congressman Barney Frank why he supported President Barack Obama’s proposed “Nazi policy” of universal health care.

“Ma'am,” the congressman replied, “trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table.” He asked, “On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

Had her mic not been cut off, the young woman might have replied, “Prison Planet” — the name of an anti-Obama website and online community helmed by talk radio host and professional conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

Just because George W. Bush has passed you the baton does not mean it is OK to use it as a bludgeon.

Next month will mark the eighth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, a war instigated by Bush and inherited by President Barack Obama.

For the last six of those years the Afghan conflict has shared the public stage with, and played second banana to, the Iraq war. But as Obama vows to wind down the Iraq war and rev up the Afghan war, Afghanistan may end up taking centre stage — and defining Obama’s legacy.

As yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, President Barack Obama delivered a speech at New York City’s Federal Hall, urging Congress to pass stronger financial regulations in the coming year.

Obama started off by praising the “terrific leadership” of his administration during the past year, saying that the recovery plan has restored “capital and confidence” and assured that “the storms of the past two years are beginning to break.”

Blaming Wall Street’s “unchecked excess” for the crisis, the president urged that the U.S. economy needs “strong rules of the road to guard against … systemic risks” of the financial sector.

Last night, in a rare address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama issued yet another appeal to Congress and the American public regarding his highly controversial healthcare reform. Despite his “excellent” delivery, several Cornell professors expressed reservations on the actual impact of the speech.

In his remarks, the president emphasized the importance and timeliness of healthcare reform since “health care represents one-sixth of our economy.”

He began by outlining some of the current problems facing our healthcare system, including the concern that “if you move, lose your job, or change your job, you’ll lose your health insurance.”

If America adopts universal health care, what will become of quantum physics?

Some weeks ago, a conservative newspaper called Investors’ Business Daily ran an editorial stating, “Scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K.” because, as a result of a degenerative disease that has left him paralyzed, “National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man ... is essentially worthless.”

Hawking, who is British and has lived in the U.K. his entire life, responded that he “would not be here today” if not for Britain’s public health-care system.

The Daily Show, one had to believe, had fallen off. Sapped of his steady stream of Bush- and Cheny-isms, Jon Stewart exposed himself as just another starstruck commentator from the time President Obama became a major player in the 2008 presidential campaign. Stewart still hasn’t come up with a consistent angle on the new president, but I think he hit on something a few weeks ago; after playing a clip of Obama’s recent Gettysburg-esque speech on gas mileage, in which he rejects the notion that “our nation [is] too divided, our people too weary of broken promises and lost opportunities to take up a historic calling,” Stewart said, “don’t blow your load on mileage, baby. Save it for when the Chinese invade.”