Well, I acknowledge the reality of myth making. Corporations spend billions annually to shroud their mundane products in mystique. They must know something or believe it strongly. But seeing that reality doesn't get us off the hook. Certainly not my dear fellow readers here at Salon, who I will hold to a higher standard.

If you think about the number of people posting here from all different walks of life, and experience, and different points on the globe, we have an opportunity for a salon in the true sense of the word, a post modern Henry James or Boswell and Johnson experience. We usually squander that potential by squabbling over pre-digested talking points. I'm ok with that most of the time because it's hard work to have something original to say, and why not recycle someone else's words if they truly represent the position you arrived at after deliberation.

It's the lack of deliberation and the failure to adjust a position after new facts are presented that I find discouraging.

All this racism stuff is a red herring. Trying to prove/disprove that is a big distraction, and largely pointless, IM!HO

The other side of the coin to "Obama is winning because he is black" is "Hillary is losing because she is a woman".

I will now await the bad vibes.

It looks like your link is now broken :(. Yes, there is racism and sexism.

I agree that it was inevitable that all this stuff would boil to the surface.

And we can keep score and keep score about keeping score and try to add everything up and keep going around and around the wheel. Or we can step off the wheel. That's the fish I will follow, not the bloody herring.

Thanks for the new (?) link. I think the short answer is that I wouldn't vote for that guy. He's old school, defining problems the old way. Not that a lot of his points still don't have currency. But I think we are in new times and old problems need new solutions.

And I think this notion of a purity test should be resisted. Do you renounce Satan? And his works? And Farrakan and the crazy Rev Wright?

I listen to a lot people who are crazy (www.969fmtalk.com 3-7pm EST). Does that make me authoritarian?

The 527's are going to after whoever wins the nomination.

As far as I know (am I allowed to say that?)

We can grant you honorary American status; you can say whatever you want, no matter how stupid or ill-advisted. It's what made America great. I think those saying their free speech are infringed because a lot of people disagree with their interpretation of Ferraro's remarks are being silly. If you have suffered through my prior postings, you'll get a sense of where I'm coming from.

JFK is a good example of mythmaking writ large, I agree. And like it or not aspects of Obama are reasonating against that mythos, starting with his good looks and oratory, and his position as the vision candidate after a very reactionary period. The war on terror aka muslim extremists does seem to me at times like a HUAC and red scare flashback. Of course, Obama is no JFK, at least not yet. He has to get elected first and become an actor on the world stage.

Thanks CRL

I don't claim the sight to peer into the hearts of men and women and see the light and darkness there. And yes, I thought Kieth was over the top last night. Sometimes I think he's auditioning for an opera spot, even when I agree with his basic premises. But I would agree there seems to be a pattern, or the appearance of a pattern. Power knew she stepped in doo, apologized, and commited seppuku right away. Ferraro kept digging herself deeper, The Clinton campaign initially failed to reject and denounce, so that looks like a double standard to me.

And I think that the flip side of this coin "That Obama is winning because he is black" is "Hillary is losing because she is a woman". I don't buy that. But I certainly hear and read that quite a bit in the letters. Another thing we really don't want to talk about.

One school of thought interprets If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. to mean that Obama is skating due to blackness, and that his other qualities are insufficient to make him competitive.

Another school of thought thinks it means only that his blackness is a plus in addition to his other qualities.

"I'm only a VP nominee because I'm a woman doesn't seem to bolster the latter position, IM!HO. The first camp knows that Obama is black and that it could be useful, but thinks he also has a lot else going on. Thus the peeved tones.

[...]while what Ferraro said was poorly-worded and badly-reasoned, i [...]

If it's poorly worded and badly-reasoned, then how can anyone be clear as to the underlying message? And subsequent follow ups didn't seem to clarify anything, other than to blame the Obama campaign for mis-understanding, and the lingering bad taste left in many people's minds. I don't understand your POV

[...] responding to a post from Uncle Fester, who never feels the need to be truculent or abusive.

Fester often feels the need to be truculent or abusive. Or even to be just a dick, to employ the local vernacular. Don't turn me into a saint just yet. The guaranteed fall from grace would be horrifying. My handle is a reminder not to take it too seriously and never forget the need for self-illumination.

Self portrait: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/53/53_images/53chapFester_lightbulb_ani.gif

So you're saying that a group of people that have been systematically f'ed over for centuries don't deserve any redress?

Really.