Brilliant.

Simply brilliant.

All of his supporters need to redouble their efforts. There will be more and more stuff to fight because Obama has embraced a diverse community and put himself out there - he is a wonderful man, and we can't miss the chance to put ourselves on the line for him.

When is Hillary going to give her video response to this offensive stuff:

http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2008/03/hillary-in-da-house.html

Damn.

I actually think this might end up helping Obama.

Here is something interesting from Edwards campaign, doing their bit

http://www.thebluestate.com/2007/11/video-hillary-c.html

Living from moment to moment. Hillaryous.

I wonder how pissed off the right wing smear machine is going to be when they fail to make a impact on Obama and he only grows stronger.

"Yep, people in middle America will totally accept this."

I think that going into the lion's den on Fox gave him some cred. It was a grilling but he handled it well. People respect the quick and forthright response.

Great to see this posted!

This guy has more class and offers more depth of understanding than any politician I've ever seen, and I've been voting since 1972.

I'm guessing that part of the "firestorm" he's referring to has to do with the fear a lot of people feel at the change he represents and expresses. It ain't easy to let go of the past. I'm having trouble with it myself. The last 7 and 1/2 years have made me increasingly angry: between Dubya's unbelievably bad presidency and the lack of will in Congress to oppose him, I don't trust politicians any further than I can throw them.

Having said that, I'd rather take a chance on Obama than settle for anybody else. Can you imaging any other politician you know creating a video like this one?

This may help Obama? This has got to be a joke.

I know a lot of people are saying that this is a *good* thing because people will actually now know he is not a Muslim. This is certainly true. However, I can't help but think this is what they call whistling past the graveyard.

You simply cannot take Wright's incredibly awful comments and combine them with Obama refusing to wear his flag pin, Michelle saying she has until recently never been proud of the United States, and the fact that Obama has called him his "mentor" and "moral compass" and not come out a loser in the end.

Wright's comments about 9/11 were made the very next Sunday after 9/11. A reporter in 2003 brought this to Obama's attention, yet Obama continued to attend the chuch. Not only that, but Obama even had the 'audacity' to make the disgusting fool a part of his campaign...and I don't care how 'honorary' the position was. This alone destroys any claim Obama can make to having better judgment than either Clinton or McCain.

And, please, lets not kid ourselves. We all know there is much more to come. There are thousands of hours of footage out there. I'd be willing to bet, not too long from now, we're going to have a clip of Wright saying some incredibly idiotic thing and a cutaway right to Obama's mug, sitting right there in the pews. I, for one, hope this happens before anymore primaries!

If Obama is the nominee or is even on the ticket as VP, the GOP will use this to all its advantage. If anyone saw CNN last night, they saw the deplorable Newt Gingrich deliver an absolutely blistering critique on Obama-Wright. If you saw this, you saw, I think, a fairly accurate pre-view of what is to come. I have no doubt that it will work and bring down the ticket.

Notice how I did not mention or imply in anyway that Hillary Clinton does not come with her own baggage. She certainly does and it is a lot of baggage. However, there is nothing there that will make a huge part of the white electorate recoil in disgust like Obama's preacher and his adoring admiration for the man will do.

I personally find this all very upsetting, to be perfectly honest. I like Obama a lot. I do not think Obama hates America or is in any way an ignorant fool like his pastor. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter what I think. After being involved in and studying politics for the last 15 years, I find I am no longer surprised by the sheer stupidity of the American public.

If Obama is on that ticket, again, the GOP will come at us like the fate of civilization is at stake. They will cut ads with Wright in them and ask the public if the person who called him their "moral compass" and refuses to wear his pin and then they'll play the clip of Michelle Obama,etc. they'll ask the American public if they want them anywhere near the White House. The answer will be a resounding NO.

And all the stupid liberals (yes, I am a liberal) will say, oh, no, whheeee, they're swiftboating us! Nonsense, because this stuff is absolutely fair game. Don't think for a second we wouldn't try to do the exact same thing to McCain-Hagee, although the two are hardly comparable...with Obama-Wright being the much worse situation, for very obvious reasons.

Think about it folks. This is a reality we all must familiarize ourselves with.

What liberal historian said. Kudos.

That vid's fabulous.

Thanks for posting that vid, Erick.

Deep doo doo.
SOS as yesterday.
Toast. Make a deal, take VP.

Senator Obama, name all comments that were inflammatory you heard from Reverend Wright and when?

Describe your Church and its beliefs?

There seems to be a bit of Baking Soda in your excuses, Senator. Those REV Wright tapes do not lie. Church members seem to agree with the good REV's anti-US view and the good REV HIV accusations against the government, 911, God Damn America, etc.

Obama has known about the good REV since March 2007:

March 6, 2007
Disinvitation by Obama Is Criticized
By JODI KANTOR

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/06/us/politics/06obama.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

In addition why the deviation in stories on Rezko as a fundraiser?

The REV Wright's political comments in Church, the N word, his hate speech, this is news to you. The choice to remain in this church after March 2007 was yours and your completely.
Obama: A manufactured image with no philosophy

Lets not feed the troll who sounds like this airhead resident of clownhall

MKyleM

Sorry, that was not meant for you. I was for the poster above you. I meant to make that clear but hit send before I got that clear. Apologies!

Thanks, Evainee. However, unfortunately, I've been dismissed as such many times before. I apologize for jumping to conclusions with you and your post, but I'm sure you will understand.

I just have this crazy idea in my head that the more ideas that are thrown into the mixture and the more we slice and dice them all, the more we all benefit in, what should be, our common goal: electing a Dem in 2008. That's all I, for one, care about.

But, perhaps I should slink off back under my bridge....or NOT!

WHO ARE YA KIDDIN’ OBAMA!!!? Trustworthy, Naïve, Poor Instincts – All the qualities of a good Chief Executive?!

All of these are quotes from the Chicago Tribune Story:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-obama-rezkomar15,0,2968927.story

His first big contributor

Asked if he ever thought Rezko would expect something from their relationship, Obama was emphatic: "No.

Obama said voters should view his Rezko dealings as "a mistake in not seeing the potential conflicts of interest." But he added that voters should also "see somebody who is not engaged in any wrongdoing . . . and who they can trust."

Obama said he asked his friend about them. Rezko assured him there was nothing wrong. "My instinct was to believe him," he said.

My Comments:

Either he is sincerely naïve and inexperienced and therefore not qualified to be a good chief executive OR he is just another politician caught trying to triangulate his way out of a mess. Get real. All those years and all that money and he never wanted any thing from you? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaase!

The amount of bile being spewed at Obama in the comments sections of the NYT, WP, et all has been really shocking in the past week or so. Are these die-hard Clinton/McCain supporters, or true rank-and-file democrats?

You Obamabots are simply singing past the graveyard.......smell that...it's toast.....it's Obama toast burning..........yumyum.

The problem with Obama's video and latest round of lies is that he will convince only the already converted.

Two days ago Obama said that until the uproar over Wright he was totally unaware of the inflammatory and racist comments.
That was proven to be a lie by Wright himself.
Now Obama very very careful tries to walk back his lies telling us that he never "personally" heard exactly those racist rants from the despicable Wright.
Note the wriggle room. Obama is saying that he has known of Wright's inflammatory speech and has heard other equally extreme examples and if he was present when Wright denounced Israel or blamed the Towers' victims for their own deaths well then Obama just wasn't paying close attention.
Further he now demotes Wright, the man he has in the past called friend, mentor, advisor, spiritual guide to "only" his pastor. Obama's own words and history put the lie to that.
This is not spin.
Obama continues to tell such basic lies, such outright distortions of reality, that it must be called the mendacity it is.

So what do we have? What do the facts tell us?
As an ambitious young politician and egged on no doubt by the racial grievance politics of Michele (by the way where did her loud mouth disappear to of a sudden?) Obama joined and worked with the racist Wright, supporting the madman in every way possible.
Fully aware of the despicable and hateful sermons spewed forth by Wright what did Obama do? In almost 20 years did he even once publicly object to the hate being vomited forth from his "Christian" church?
Hell no.
We have seen this ObaSleaze before.
In SC Obama openly embraced and advertised and gave venue to gay baiting "preachers" to gin up the vote in his black campaign and then gave a speech decrying the very attitudes he had helped promote. That speech, which should have warned the nation what a fucking fraud Obama is, was allowed to send down the memory hole Obama's promotion of homophobia.
After all they only hated the fags right?
Now we learn that Obama's "Christianity" hates everyone and everything that isn't black, that it denounces Jews and Israel and praises Palestinian terrorists, that it blames the firemen who died on 9-11 for their own deaths, and like Michele it despises America.
That is Obama's religion. Those are the tenets of his church.

ObaFans think this weak assed lying video is going to erase the truth about Obama and the disgusting racist politics he aligned himself with all these years and that he used to advance his political career.
They are delusional.
If the Democratic party is so stupid as to nominate this lying race baiting sob then they will deserve the damage done to them. Do you think for one moment that a Congressional candidate will not be asked what he thinks of Obama's church and its message? Obama will tar every Dem in every race with ObaRacism and ObaHate.
You think the Right hates HRC? Ha ha ha ha ha!
Obama supports a church and minister that in turn support midEast terrorism. Oh yeah, that will sell well in all those red states Obama "wins".
Have you seen the video going round of Obama and Wright with the "Yes we can HATE!" soundtrack? Will i. am is lost in the dust.
The Republicans don't need to smear Obama just let the world hear Obama praise Wright and Wright's ideas and words.
And Obama will have to explain why, even after he knew of Wright's antiSemitic (as but one example) rants, BHO gave Wright tens of thousands of dollars to promote Wright's racist hateful speech.
Obama helped fund the DVD's and tapes that were made of Wright's venom and then sent out into the world to infect others with their stupidities.
Listen up: Obama knew what was on those tapes, sat through some of those sermons, and then gave money to saturate the atmosphere with that poison. He is ObaToast.

Do even the most gullible ObaFans believe middle America will buy into Obama's lie upon lie?
Would all of you holier than thou "progressives" actually continue to attend a church and give money knowing that the "minister" used his sermons and your money to spread Wright's kind of "Christian" filth?
Well Obama did exactly that.
That is the truth.
Those are the facts.
Obama can't lie and weasel his way out of them.
Obama is one over done self igniting cooked goose.
It is about time the ugly truth oozed out from under his rock.

There's nothing like a FAILED Swifboating attempt tp strengthen, immunize and engender sympathy for a candidate. Thanks for the inadvertant help, racist slimeballs.

You might want to take a tranquilizer to help you deal with all that hate. It's very bad for your cardiovascular system.

Pastor not political advisor? This is someone who has been personally and closely involved with Obama and his family for 20 years. He is his spiritual advisor, married him, baptized his kids, lent his thoughts and ideas to Obama. This is likely one of the more important people in Obama's life, definitely more important than a political advisor. It is simply NOT credible that Obama did not know the racially charged and anti-American hate Rev. Wright spewed at the pulpit. This does help explain Michelle Obama's hatrid. Obama was either asleep for 20 years or is blatantly lying.

Can anyone who hates America and lies about his church be president? Is this the candidate that progressives so cultishly want? Is progressive now Anti-American and hate filled? (Granted, many Obama Cult writers are definitely hate filled in comments on TPM and elsewhere, but Obama's religious affiliation and apparent beliefs -- yes, guilt by association -- are very, very damning.)

Again, 20 years as a member of this church won't be undone or disappear because Rev. Wright retired or Obama fires him from the campaign. Especially, as he still retains his ties and -- yes, guilt by association.

"Perfect fodder for right wing radio, shock jocks on the right will just love this video."

So let's live our life according to what Rush thinks?

"It's naive to believe that centuries of racism will be swept under the carpet and that it won't be an issue in the general election. "

I think you are wrong and here's why. The racist/sexist contingent would never have voted for BO, but they were **already counted** in polling that shows both HRC and BO competitive if not ahead with McCain. The racists/sexists/rightwingers are already within McCain's 45% (and Bush's hardcore 29% deadenders). Not a swing vote but who cares.

I think either BO or HRC will beat the GOP this year. It's just a fact. Ohio is bleeding jobs. It's grim. We are in bad shape. Even troops are donating to Dems far more than to the GOP. Obama is leading in donations from the troops!

I say: Dems get a backbone. Nominate who you like, not who Bill O'Reilly likes. If he doesn't like our nominee, so much the better, because if he did it would be a problem. This isn't 2002, it's 2008, and the GOP is toast.

Confirmed:

June 27, 2007... should have walked out of the sermon. Problems are coming.

We have a confirmed Obama attendance...one of what will be many come tomorrow on talk radio...June 27, 2007.

Newsmax.com:

Presidential candidate Barack Obama preaches on the campaign trail that
America needs a new consensus based on faith and bipartisanship, yet he
continues to attend a controversial Chicago church whose pastor routinely refers
to "white arrogance" and "the United States of White America."
In fact, Obama was in attendance at the church when these statements were made on July 22.

. . . Wright's strong sentiments were echoed in the Sunday morning service attended by NewsMax.

Wright laced into America's establishment, blaming the "white arrogance" of
America's Caucasian majority for the woes of the world, especially the
oppression suffered by blacks. To underscore the point he refers to the country
as the "United States of White America." Many in the congregation, including
Obama, nodded in apparent agreement as these statements were made. [Emphasis added]

The sermon also addressed the Iraq war, a frequent area of Wright's
fulminations. "Young African-American men," Wright thundered, were "dying
for nothing." The "illegal war," he shouted, was "based on Bush's lies" and is
being "fought for oil money."

In a sermon filled with profanity, Wright also blamed the war on "Bush
administration bulls--t."

If one thinks this is over, pass the bong, filled please.

.
.
Rae wrote:

It's too little too late.

American has now gotten a glimpse into the real Barak Hussein Obama. And it ain't pretty.

We got a peak into their mindset when Michelle Obama stated that "for the first time in [her] life, [she] was proud to be an American." And this was confirmed by her writings in which she stated that U.S. was a "mean" country.

We see now, these views are in perfect alignment with their pastors' views. It wasn't just Michelle's mis-speak.

Obama dis-invited the pastor at his nomination announcement because he knew it would be better to keep him in the background, and not surface. He wanted to keep this dirty little secret hidden. The point is, he knew about it. That is the kind of judgment he has.

He sat in that church for over twenty years, being pumped up with that racist, hatefilled speech for that 20 years - he and his wife. And now he wants to run this blessed country? No. I don't think so.

Even if he can convince enough blacks who willingly buy into that hatred, to continue to vote for him, and enough liberal clueless whites, many of which never lived through the 60s & 70s civil rights struggles, he will never convince regular Americans to put him in our beloved White House to stain it with his hate and Michelle's hate. Hate breeds hate. And that is what we are now seeing.

For the first time in many many years, we are seeing a race war re-ignited: A war that had been won and laid to rest many years ago, thankfully. And it is Obama and his wife Michelle that are fueling that debate with such talk as "for the first time in my life, I'm proud to be an American" talk and "America invented Aids to kill the black man".

Obama, like Bush, campaigned as the "uniter". Maybe from now on, we should run as far away as we can from these self proclaimed "uniters", as it has proven in recent history to be the rhetoric of the Most devisive of all the candidates who we hear proclaiming it. To paraphrase Shakespear, me thinks you proclaimeth too much!

Obama now will no doubt try to turn lemonade into lemons by claiming surprise at this explosive hate and sentiment and the need to heal such feelings and claim he is the one to do that... All the while ignoring the fact that he and his co-parishioners and his pastor, are the ones perpetuating such hate and devisiveness.

But the American people, black and white, are too smart this ploy to work.

If the superdelegates are willing to roll the dice on him and elect him anyway, he will be bloodied and go down in defeat in the general election and the democratic party will once again lose the white house and be ridiculed.

The far leftists, like Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry are about to snatch failure from the jaws of victory yet once again and in an election that was thought to be almost inevitable at one time and which should have been.

It is so disgusting to me and many others, that it will almost be worth seeing Barak Hussein Obama get the nomination to watch the attack machine that is the Republican party, do its job on these stooges. Maybe then, we will get rid of them all once and for all and a stronger and more united democratic party can then emerge in the future.

Rae

I live in Indiana (one of the reddest states in the union) and went to the Obama town hall yesterday in Plainfield.

There were 2,000 tickets available to the public and they were gone in within 30 minutes.

I showed up anyway (without a ticket) and was put into an "Overflow" room with about 200 other people. The school finally opened up an additional balcony so everyone got a chance to get in. The AP reported today that 3,200 were in attendance. It is my assumption that voters don't care about what surrogates say..preachers, finance managers..etc. They care more about their jobs, economy, and the war. Obama did a fantastic job yesterday by answering those questions to voters.

JTHB-

"(Michele Obama) is a trash-talking political ho."

Thanks for contributing to the sophisticated political discourse here.

To Obama fans here at TPM.

Shouldn't we just ignore HRC / Repug trolls like MaeK, JTHB, marginal player, readytoblowgasket, et.al and move on to positive territory ? BHO has.

Newsmax? Newsmax?! The best you can come up with to bolster your specious and empty arguments is a notorious right-wing megaphone? What's next, World Net Daily? Or maybe you can quote directly from the Great Oracle himself, Rush Limbaugh.

The marriage of convenience between Klinton Kooks and lunatic right-wing fringe says everything we need to know about these anti-Obama trolls. The circle was officially closed when their official deity, the newly repellent Bill Clinton, appeared on the Limbaugh show himself.

Folks, let them troll on. This crew is as close to genuine Democrats as Pat Buchanan. Oy, what Hillary hath wrought.

Myra, Thanks for your news from Indiana! I was looking for some news about that speech and didn't come across anything while browsing the news. I'm so glad to hear that Obama was well received!

My oh my, all the rednecks are out in force. Sadly, it is getting hard to tell the Klinton Kooks from the regular GOP racist trolls.

Wright is not a racist. I think some white racists are attacking him just because he is angry about racism in America. Unfortunately, some of the comments here seem to show that Wright is probably right.

It seems like we have lots of white people who are afraid of Wright's angry castigation of an arrogant, warmongering and racistly unfair America.

I love my country, but not blindly. I agree -- instead of wagging your finger at Wright, you should perhaps point it right in the mirror. How have YOU treated minorities, the poor, the suffering?

-----
The black church has had a long history of speaking out against American hubris:

"Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "you are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God. Men will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore." I don't know about you, I ain't going to study war anymore."

Martin Luther King Jr.
Address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1967-08-16)

-------

Even John McCain defends Obama on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3-WQ1vX3PE

. I hadn’t heard what all the uproar was about (we don’t watch TV and I had been focusing on the economic news) and had seen an article in the NYT and so went off trying to find out what was going on. I found endless videos of Wright, and the ‘gee whiz, I made a poor judgment about Rezko’ interview in the Chicago Trib. And this is very very bad folks. Wright alone is devastating.

Now we are highly educated Quakers (the group reknown for tolerance and understanding.) We watched a huge number of the tapes – and sat here in stunned disbelief at the hatred, vitriol and conspiracy theories that poured out of Obama’s 20 year friend/pastor/”major influence”/source of his book title and campaign theme/moral and spiritual guide/counselor. It was clearly a radical black ‘blame whitey’ church. When Wright said that Clinton had not been subject to prejudice or that her ‘people’ had not been considered non-persons, that was it for me with respect to Obama. Women were ‘non-persons’ for far longer than black men, In the 1850’s free black men could own property – women could not. Black men got the vote before any women ever did. White women may not be called ‘nigger’, but they are still routinely called ‘bitch’ and ‘cunt.’ When Wright said Obama is not white, all I could think is ‘what does that say about Obama’s view of his white mother and her family that he would associate with someone who would literally say they do not exist.’ Race and racial attitudes are now a major issue and factor in the outcome - and it has been put there squarely by Obama's 20 year ties to Wright and a 'hate whitey' church.

Yet Obama has been deeply deeply involved with this man for 20 years, claims that the Wright brought him to Christianity through his preaching, and relies upon his moral counsel. Since one’s religious views and world views are inseparable, there is no way that Wright could have preached a gentle loving, inclusive Christianity and preached hatred, blame and divisiveness on social matters and public policy. Obama’s denials of any knowledge about Wright’s views rings patently false.

(BTW, this is nothing new for Wright. We are from Chicago and he has been spewing this line for decades. You would have had to be deaf dumb and blind not to have know what he preached if you lived in the Chicago area. He was the Christian version of Farrahkan and anyone who paid the slightest attention to the Chicago-area news knew it.)

As far as political analysis goes, I was a Congressional aide and ran political campaigns when I was younger. My first political involvement was at the age of 16 taking campaign literature door-to-door for McGovern and I have never voted for a Republican in my life. Here is my analysis of the political fall-out.

You can’t spin the tapes of Wright. The typical voter is Caucasian, 40ish or older, has an income under $85,000 (bottom 75% of households) and/or does not have a college degree (72% of the voters), lives in a community just like them, and thinks the US was innocent in the events leading up to 9/11 and that the terrorists are going to come and blow up the playground in their town. No one can spin those tapes now enough to persuade average Aunt Tilly and Uncle Jake who just got home from the Lutheran Church in their suburban/small town and who get their political news from TV. Never underestimate how very shallow is the pool of information upon which the vast majority of voters base their decision.

These voters will see the tapes with ‘God damn America’, ‘whites invented AIDS to kill blacks, ‘the US is evil and causes genocide’, and ‘hate whitey’ rants – and they will be horrified. They have spent their lifetimes being told it is wrong to judge people on their color (and that saying such things can get them sued or fired from their jobs) – and they see the tapes of Barack Obama’s 20 year minister - his close friend, ‘major influence upon him’, ‘moral and spiritual guide’ and the pastor of the church he choose because of the pastor - ranting that ‘whites are to blame’ for everything and created an evil world; and you have lost them as voters.

They hear Obama do the ‘gee golly whiz, I didn’t know he said this kind of thing even though I have been very close to him for 20 years and have attended his church for 20 years’ and they look at the tapes and see the congregation whooping it up in response and conclude that Wright’s statements must be normal to them. They conclude Obama is lying through his teeth (or too stupid to be dogcatcher if he could sit there in that church for 20 years and not notice what was being said.) They will hear Obama say ‘trust me – I’m for inclusiveness and not being divisive” – and they see the tapes of his chosen minister and church preaching divisiveness, racial anger, blame and hatred; and think ‘actions speak louder than words.’ Obama has no credibility on his claim that he didn’t know what his minister and church preached and believed – non, zero, zip, nada.

Now you have to explain away Wright to all these voters who make decisions based upon news clips and soundbites. Good luck.

You can’t reach all these voters and try to do the explanation of why a 60ish year old black man spews such hate and venom at them based upon their race. All these posts trying to explain it, justify it and rationalize it are too much and too long for the typical voter. They are not going to read them, they are not going to believe them as an excuse. They make decisions based upon soundbites and images.

Even if you could get them to listen to the rationale of ‘well, the guy grew up under Jim Crow, they are going to respond ‘that was 40 years ago – get over it and besides, I had nothing to do with it and I’m sick and tired of hearing about it.’

Even if you could get them to listen to and consider that the US’s Israel policy is irrational and unfair, you are not going to persuade them because of the way Wright expressed such a view. He alienated them.

Even if you could get them to listen to why Wright says that the US policies led to 9/11, you most definitely are not going to persuade them because the average voter clings to the myth that the US is on the side of truth, justice and right – and is always the ‘good guys.’

And you will never persuade them that the ‘whites created AIDS to kill blacks’ is merely a misunderstanding of a scientific theory that was rapidly discredited and not just wacky looney ravings of a racist (with whom Obama has been, for 20 years, and still is, intimately connected.)

It doesn’t matter that Clinton and McCain have taken the ‘hands off, we won’t use it’ approach. Why should they? With this stuff coming out, Obama is self-destructing. The Swift-boat type groups haven’t said they will keep hands-off. They will use it – use it hard. A reprimand and disavowal by McCain won’t matter squat. It will be out there. A 30 or 60 second commercial funded by the Swift-boat type groups will sink Obama so far down in the general election that he will make the Herbert Hoover’s electoral returns look good. And for those who don’t know what that means, Hoover got 59 electoral votes from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Vermont. In this case, you would have to deduct Pennsylvania.

I am finding it hard to comprehend that the Democrats managed to turn a shoo-in election into a near certain lose by narrowing it down to the 2 worst possible candidates that have been seen in decades. One is has negatives over 51% - and those haven’t budged in months – complicated by misogyny and too many vicious old political battles.. The other has no real experience beyond a part-time state legislature, does the ‘trust me/visionary’ thing and turns out to have close personal ties to a racist ‘hate whitey, blame whitey’ church which he denies knowing about throughout a 20 year association. The Democrats have turned a sure thing into a potential debacle in their desire to be politically correct and progressive by supporting either a woman or a man who is half black/half white without really seriously considering the background of either (and actually digging into to their backgrounds rather than merely accepting facile self-serving assertions by the candidate) and how it will play with the voters at large. The point was to WIN the 2008 election, not to make history by running a candidate who may make history because of their race or gender but will end up losing because of underlying inadequacies. Sheesssshhhh! Thanks a lot people. Looks like you are going to land us with McCain!

Today in WaPo, no less a conspiracy theorist and radical left-winger than Alan Greenspan is quoted as saying that the Iraq war was engaged to a large extent because of oil. I'd like to see the administration wiggle its way out of that one.

I deal in political realities in pedicting voter behavior - have done for years and even got paid for it.

Sitting at a keyboard blogging only with those who do the same thing and reinforcing each others views is so insular. Go out and talk to Aunt Tilly and Uncle Jake who don't join in the online club and are the majority of voters.

If you don't deal with the realities - pro and con of a candidate - you are in a fantasy land.

For me personally, I have had over 30 years of holding my nose and voting for the weak candidates of the Democrats - and that includes Bill Clinton who was politically somewhere to the right of Nixon and Eisenhower on economics. The Dems haven't had a true viable progressive candidate since FDR died.

This time I may say enough is enough and stay home. I'm out of anti-nausea medication.

When Clinton claimed Obama hadn't been vetted yet, I wonder if a little birdy whispered in her ear...

MLK: "America, you are too arrogant"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bOOL3BYaIEQ

"Don't let anybody make you think God chose America as his divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. God has a way of standing before the nations with justice and it seems I can hear God saying to America "you are too arrogant, and if you don't change your ways, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power, and I will place it in the hands of a nation that doesn't even know my name. Be still and know that I'm God. Men will beat their swords into plowshafts and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not rise up against nations, neither shall they study war anymore." I don't know about you, I ain't going to study war anymore."

Martin Luther King Jr.
Address to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1967-08-16)

Many of the mega-churches that have some of the folks we need to cross over don't preach what Jesus taught, they teach "prosperity".

They are also the most flag-waving and likely have many voters who will recoil at Wright's sermons. Now, the question is, would they have ever seriously considered Clinton or Obama anyway?

Lets not feed the rage spewing trolls.

Check this out---

Pastor Jeremiah Wright (a name that belongs in the pages of Elizabeth Gaskell novels...IMHO...) pealed jeremiads upon his congregation. OMG! What will we tell the children?! Fellow TPM’rs lets just bypass this fake wingnut shock and awe and horror over a non-shocking event.

Yes, he said many things over a period of 20 years of preaching, some unusual, some crazy and many good – just like many pastors and religious people say and have said from pulpits across this country. It is an old tradition and not unusual at all. What’s silly is the way ABC and Faux News made a mockery of Wright’s life by diminishing him and his pastorship of 20 years to three minutes of incendiary soundbites sans context and then viralling it to the rest of the cloddish MSM.

I’m not Christian. Yet, when I heard Pastor Wright’s jeremiads, particularly that bit leading up to "God damned America" I heard the echoes of the Rev. Jonathan Edwards’ sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"

So all this crying and gnashing of teeth and flinging of poo, shock and rage because this Presidiantial candidate's not perfect is over the top. Let’s just come off that ledge and have a civil conversation.

See y'all on another thread 'cause I'm outahere. This topic is already going cold in spite of Faux's continous flogging of it. For people who don't want to vote for this candidate - well, this is the USA and they don't have to.