I agree with Arthur about the Israel line - to be frank, it's total bullshit. "Radical Islam" only has power because the policies of America and Israel give it power. Without Israel's ongoing genocidal war, without America's ongoing military subjugation of the region for cheap oil, its reason for existing collapses. However, if Obama admitted this, he could not be elected. It would end his candidacy in an instant. McCain would be the next President, no matter who walked out of Denver. So I don't believe we know what Obama's stance on Israel or Islam is, and we won't and can't until we look back from the end of his Presidency. That statement's unimportant.

What is important is that he's addressed the race issue head-on. He's refused to sever his ties with Wright, or simply dismiss his complaints outright. He's provided reasoned and rational analysis and explanation of the complaints, explored their causes and implications, and embraced them without tying himself to them. He's talking about the elephant in the room, and using it to articulate progressive values. This is exactly the rhetoric he needs to be using:

It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

Will his policies stand up to his rhetoric? Will he be able to turn American foreign policy away from the looming iceberg of disaster? I don't know. But he's sure as hell not any less likely to do so than Clinton and McCain, who're both standing on the bridge screaming "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" Ashley's story in particular gives me some hope that he might just understand the plight of the poor in America right now. And make no mistake, anyone who's not in the top 0.1% is poor, or about to be. It's Shruburb time, ladies and gentlemen - the Hoovervilles are back with a vengeance.

Kill because somebody was killed. Get killed because he killed. Do you think peace will ever come like that?

I have been an Obama supporter for a long time but if it looked as bleak for him as it does for HRC right now, I would be wanting him to bow out without costing her a chance at victory.

Fear Mongering, Anti Muslim Religion Whispering Campaigns, and depressing vote totals are straight out of the GOP's horrific playbook.

Her campaign's low blow behavior along with Slick Willie's act proved that all the GOP slime unjustly thrown the Clintons' way in the 90's maybe had more validity in it than I ever imagined.

The Democrats and Independents want something different in this country other than what Hillary Clinton is selling or what George McBush is offering too.

At what point to the Clinton's realize their time is over and it is time for a new era in US government? NEVER?

Blue Tidal Wave

An uppity black man, surrounded by angry black people, being preached to and led by a bunch of Louis Farrakhans.

Every issue in this election is going to become obscured by the race card.  There was no way to keep it from happening.  Because the majority of the United States is inhabited by bigots and racists.

And Hillary and Bill team have done their bit to feed this momentum.  This is the only way that Hillary or McCain can win this thing.  Bring out the worst possible fears in white America.  So that is what will be done.  Because this is the character of our country and this is a reflection of our collective soul.  The fear of terrorism card has become, for the most, ineffective.  So let's make it about the next best scary thing, angry subhuman dark skinned people just looking for a reason to fuck over whitey.  

I've said all along that this election cycle would be worse than we could possibly imagine.  This is bad, but the worst, by far, is yet to come.

Bet on it.

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity"

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike. I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed. But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

At the end of this paragraph.

The conflict in the Middle east does NOT emanate "from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam", it emantes from the same perverse and hateful policies of American and European economic imperialism over the last few hundred years that supported the slavery and racial discriminatiuon that he so decries at home and all the political tapdancing in the world isn't going to make that fact go away.

Eliminate those policies and "radical Islam" disappears into a corner with fools like David Koresh and Pat Robertson.

The nutted-out 10% or so that is ALWAYS with us. With all cultures.

I haven't finished reading the speech yet. But there itis, right on page 2.

Sorry...he can't run a campaign on truth principles and simultaneously lie through his teeth like that.

And he IS lying, Booman.

He's too smart not to know better.

Too bad.

The parsing of politics is what is STOPPING him.

Too bad.

He's got more than that.

AG

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

How'd he do?

"This is pretty ugly and unfair though of Obama, to equate statements by Ferraro with Wright. Obama goes on and on about how great a person Wright is, without a single kind word about Ferraro, just rubbing it in further. I believe the campaign has reached a new low.
Otherwise, great speech."

Turns my stomach to be reading this on the heels of such a remarkable speech.  I think we've already past the point of no return for the ugliest campaign season of my lifetime anyway.

I mean...gawd.  We're in for some pretty bad times, I'm afraid.

The Wages of Sin is about $5.15 an Hour

But then, so did Curtis Mayfied

People get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord

People get ready
For the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
From coast to coast
Faith is the key
Open the doors and board them
There's room for all
among the loved the most

There ain't no room
for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just
To save his own
Have pity on those
whose chances are thinner
Cause there's no hiding place
From the Kingdom's Throne

So people get ready
for the train a-comin'
You don't need no baggage
you just get on board !
All you need is faith
to hear the diesels humming
Don't need no ticket
you just thank, you just thank the Lord

Yeah
Ooh

Yeah
Ooh

I'm getting ready
I'm getting ready
this time I'm ready
this time I'm ready

I think we've been geting ready for this fight a long time.  We're not foolish enough to say 'bring it on,' but we are ready.