Obama rebuffs Biden comment, selects site for announcement

The presidential hopeful today reacted to a comment by Senator Joseph Biden seeming to suggest that Barack Obama is the first "articulate" and "bright and clean" black presidential candidate. Biden made the remarks on the same day he announced he was also running for the democratic presidential nomination.

"I didn't take Sen. Biden's comments personally, but obviously they were historically inaccurate," Obama said. "African-American presidential candidates like Jesse Jackson, Shirley Chisholm, Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton gave a voice to many important issues through their campaigns, and no one would call them inarticulate."

On another front, possibly in reaction to Obama's introduction of a planned phased redeployment of troops from Iraq by 2008, President Bush said that the senator still had a long way to go before reaching the White House.

Obama also announced today that he would declare his decision on whether to run or not at the Old Capitol used by Abraham Lincoln, a symbolic gesture as Lincoln like Obama was a bit of a novice when he won the presidency.


Senator Barack Obama, D-Ill., center, tastes some food from New Orleans brought to his Capitol Hill office in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007, by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., left, and Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., as a payoff for the Super Bowl bound Chicago Bears beating the New Orleans Saints in the NFC playoff game. AP Photo/Susan Walsh via Yahoo News.