If what you say is true about the rallies, that makes the party faithful look pretty shitty, I admit it. I am from Indiana. I have seen basketball games in small towns where hideous racist jeering against city teams with black athletes occurred many years ago, and believe it or not still occurs today. I know what this is. I don't condone it.

The strange thing here is that the party faithful has known all year long about Brother Jeremiah and Brother Ayres. I don't know why they are getting bent out of shape now. Maybe you're right, and it's the fact McCain and Palin are finally mentioning it, so people feel like its time to come out and vent. It might also be the fact that the polls are down and people are angry about it.

The other strange thing is: what is the alternative? To never mention the Ayres/Obama connection, out of courtesy? The media certainly wasn't doing anything with it -- National Review had ten times the detail as the New York Times, and a month sooner. CNN even claimed NR took Obama's side, which was laughable - CNN's head is so far up Obama's rear end it can't see, read, think or breathe.

So, I do have mixed feelings about all this. I'm just not sure you can give Obama a complete pass on his entire dubious past, and be prohibited from even mentioning it, just to keep some jerks from getting hysterical. And, I don't think McCain and Palin, by mentioning it, are secretly hoping for some horrible act to occur. Gosh, that's an awful thing to allege. I think much more highly of them both.

You're right. I declared some time ago you would not have Readerreader to kick around any more. But then I figured: Nixon held 30 press conferences in a few short years after his *last* one, maybe I could follow suit and share a few more posts with my friends at Salon.

Alas, I do not have a "bullshit rationalization" ready at hand, as you suggested, but I do have an explanation. I am as fired up as the rest of you about this election, and this is the best place on the web to have a meaningful exchange with intelligent people. Unlike the posters you *really* don't like, I am trying, as always, to offer some genuine opinions, take the occasionally nasty feedback with good humor, and otherwise enjoy my opportunity to converse. Why just read the news when you can share your views with others?

So, there you have it. I'm back.

Ok, there's a lot there in your article and I am going to respond briefly to it from memory.

First, I can't go through the whole Ayres thing again - it would take more than the word limit. Let me just point out that we've had Truman who was pals with the Pendergast crooks. We've had Billy Carter and Donald Nixon. We've never had a president who was friends with a terrorist. If you look at how these two came together in the 90's, it looks a lot like a mentor/protege relationship. Neither one of them will talk about it. It's strange. If the media had any self-respect, they would investigate. They haven't, and they don't.

Second, with respect to Wright, the speech in Philadelphia was revealing. Obama said he reviewed Wright's inflammatory stuff, including his view that the white race poisoned blacks with AIDS to commit genocide, etc., then said he could not condemn Wright the man because (i) his good outweighed the bad (like the trains running on time in fascist Italy); and (ii) his white racist grandmother -- let me repeat that, the woman who raised him when his mother was deceased, his grandmother -- was no better than Wright. What a slug!

Third, a brief point on Palin and abuse of power. The trooper story struck me as incredibly lame, an embarrassment to the people who pursued it. Their "conclusion" that she broke the law (who cares about due process when you can score a headline?) - specifically, violating an anti-embezzlement statute by achieving the "personal gain" of seeing someone fired, struck me as just comically absurd. Now granted, maybe I'll live to eat those words. But from what I read, this thing was a farce.

By the way, John McCain's "trophy VP," as you call her, has a name. It is Sarah Palin. Using labels to substitute for names ia a form of de-humanization. Coming from a critic of such tactics, you should know better. :)

You are right about Martin Luther King. He is the best example of a prominent public figure being gunned down in an atmosphere of intense contra feeling. I don't believe, however, that McCain and Palin are hoping for something similar here. I'm sorry you do.

Let's take Lewis at his word, and assume he is bothered by some of the overheated rhetoric we are hearing about at rallies. If that is the case, Lewis should have no problem with non-rally, "non-mob" criticism of the Ayres/Obama connection, including the undeniable fact that Ayres and Obama are "friends" (according to Richard Daley), or, if you prefer Sarah Palin's terms, "pals." By the way, has anyone accused Mayor Daley of "incitement" for backing up Palin and confirming her account of the relationship? Have any media fact-checkers handed out "pinnochio" awards to him? Has Sarah Palin said anything about the relationship which went beyond Mayor Daley's statement or the account found in the New York Times? If so, please point me to the link. I don't think there is an issue here, other than the correctable (and as of today, apparently corrected) question of overheated silliness at the rallies.