Life in the spotlight must be grand.

It sure beats living under a rock.

I don't know if sending folks with whom we don't agree to this website is constructive.

One thing I do notice is that the accusations against Obama are without evidence. To me, this is the first indication that someone is playing fast and loose with facts. After all, shouldn't the veracity of claims be blessed by citations?

Does this bother anyone else?

Actually, the reason the haircut thing stuck is that Republican pundits managed to get it injected it into the MSM narrative. You don't do that with commercials. Your intended audience with that kind of barb is solely the MSM.

And, unfortunately, the MSM luvs luvs luvs them some John McCain and will never, ever allow such petty nonsense to sully the narrative of this very substantive and issue-oriented campaign.

Oh come on, John McCain is only an advocate for the rich in our eyes. We all know the whole Republican schtick is that they're tough blue collar everymen who appeal to the little white working class guy. That's the point of the Sturgis appearance, that's the point of painting Obama as an effete lib elitist. That's the point of the celebrity ads and exploiting their support from Veterans and enlisted members of the military. The hidden hand of the rich is exactly that, HIDDEN.

But McCain has never taken that tack [styled himself as a champion of the working man]

I disagree. Calling someone an elitist implies that you are not one yourself. And to most people the word implies someone putting on airs -- and needlessly expensive clothing can be one way of doing so. The whole "aw shucks" routine McCain put on at the Sturgis rally? Please. Let me guess that he did not wear the $500 shoes at that venue.

That means a quote where it was not used in jest. Can you tell the difference?

Yeah, that's called an metaphor. Tell me, is there any benefit to being a simpleton? I mean, does it lessen the stress of day to day life at least?

Well some of us pick up on it by living in the south our whole damn lives, seeing how its done in successive political campaigns, and observing the response from the slightly to severly racist whites among whom we live and work.

If you observe a pattern of conduct and observe that that pattern has a predicably consistent effect on a particular target group, then its hard to avoid the conclusion that the conduct is intentional. See how that works?

Careful. I didn't say you wouldn't see the racism if you weren't a racist. But if you were a racist, it's a pretty good bet you would, indeed, pick up on it.

Just because a number isn't "1" doesn't mean it is "2".

Because some of us actually know a little history and recognize that accusations, usually false, of black men raping, assaulting or lusting after white women were the most common excuse used for the nearly 5,000 lynchings carried out in this country between 1862 and 1955.

The actual 'offense' of most of the victims was to threaten white's sense of dominance by being economically successful, insufficiently deferant (uppity) or having entirely consensual relations with white women (sometimes sexual, frequently just social).

It's also worth noting that the electoral dominance that permitted the passage of laws and state constitutions disenfranchising blacks and poor whites and of the Jim Crow laws was the result of a successful campaign of terrorism conducted across the south in the mid 1870s.

"But it's not true that I'M AN ELITIST."

D'OH!!!

If our side is changing only to accomodate that agenda in an bipartisan manner rather than fighting against it, then all we've done is declared them the winner.

My thoughts exactly. We do not need bipartisanship on the Lieberman model.

As the song says in another context, "Ya gotta know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em." Tough-minded bipartisanship knows when to insist on principle, when to concede on fine points, and when the middle ground is solid.

The current Republican party regards bipartisanship as "do what the Republicans want." They concede nothing. That's not bipartisanship; that's caving in to a bully. It's because the Democratic leadership hasn't yet seemed to realize that that the approval rating of Congress is in the single digits.

People old enough to have lived through a few difficult changes in their lives know that change is difficult. Obama is too cool to make them believe he gets that.

Thank you! Yes, I am one of those "older voters" and I want to see some evidence that Obama is committed to making the hard choices to implement this change agenda he has talked about so much. I want to see evidence that he is willing to call Republicans out on their obstructionism and their low-road propagandizing. I want to think that when push comes to shove, he will be willing to do the same sort of thing that Bill Clinton did when he called Gingrich's bluff on the impasse over the 1996 budget.

Also Obama did promise he would get tougher in the General -- I can't remember his exact words -- but he did imply he would respond very differently against McCain than he had been doing with Clinton...

I'ma waiting.

Cheney Energy Bill