well, you have mentioned and used my identity in arguments that, i would like to believe you yourself know are specious.

while you are right, there are no scottish-american identity politics worth mentioning despite their outnumbering jewish americans by a large margin, my politics are not entirely devoid of identity (white, male as joan walsh would have it).

i think what i wanted to infer or imply to you is that, as much as it does matter, identity politics don't matter. jew, jamaican, scottish, irish, german, afghan.. people are people.

barack obama is the black candidate because he chose to identify with the african-american community as he says in his "a more perfect union" speech. hillary clinton is a woman, a harder type of identity politics (unless you have the will and money for the surgery and hormone treatments -- then, that's transgender politics, a whole other ball of wax).

africans do not consider themselves black, nor do they generally identify with american "blacks". and africa is not a country -- from somalia to ethiopia to nigeria to south africa there is a world of difference.

i was brought up post-ethnic. i didn't even know whether i was scottish, welsh, irish or finnish for all i knew until i made it a point to ask my father and aunt. the other half of me is decidedly austrian, and i can trace back to franz schubert (jokingly as a way to explain how my father can be so tone deaf and how i can play with a degree of competence any instrument you put in front of me).

when clinton made it clear two years ago that she would be running for president i held close to my vest my reservations, and i prepared myself for the actuality of her nomination which i considered to be a fete accomplis. i knew it would be an uphill battle from the start, but i figured that unlike john kerry, clinton wasn't about to be blindsided by the rove playbook.

then obama came along and the game changed fundamentally. instead of "having to have to" support the nominee, i had a candidate who i could really back. and i wasn't alone.

when you think about it, the mere fact that obama will now presumably be the nominee is in and of itself stunning.

that is the story i hope howard dean, al gore and yes hillary clinton tell america come june when all is said and done: for years the republicans have been telling us that you cannot achieve the american dream if you let democrats, the enemies of free-trade, the tax men, the purveyors of big government win. well, here's a democrat who proves that wrong.

i welcome a woman president, and whenever mary macdonnell runs, she has my vote (roslin for prez!), but until the democrats run the kind of woman who can drive the kind of energy across so many demographics as obama does, the first woman president is relegated to the future, not the present.

wow.. hitler?

Godwin's Law (also known as Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1] is an adage formulated by Mike Godwin in 1990. The law states:[2][3]

"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."

Godwin's Law is often cited in online discussions as a caution against the use of inflammatory rhetoric or exaggerated comparisons, and is often conflated with fallacious arguments of the reductio ad Hitlerum form.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Barack Obama is Hitler? Is that all you have left, having lost all other arguments?

There, there, poor child. Lay your head down to rest, and may sanity greet you in the morning.

Yes, I'm on a side conversation. Go complain to Joan.

Showing your age, "primal scream therapy?"

You're making me want to put on Tears For Fears "The Hurting."

Perhaps these last few months have been an exercise in poo-flinging. Makes since, as Clinton lost this thing months ago. I, for one, welcome it to one extent. That's which doesn't kill the Obama campaign only makes it stronger.

Shawn -- Joan is a racist, and a sexist. Just like me.

David -- I have no problem with Jews. "Some of them are my best friends."

Just because I take issue with the more right-wing, militant stances of, yes, Israelis doesn't mean I hate Jews. I hate militarism. I am a pacifist. If being labeled as anti-Semetic is the price I have to pay for harboring the belief that humanity is capable of existing without war then so be it.

And I say that, and put it that way in a manner that puts you on defense. But I know that you and I really want the same things, ultimately.

Primal scream therapy came out in 1970, and it was out of favor by the late 1980s. I wouldn't call 1989-2000 "cutting edge" in contrast to "primal scream".

Then again, I went to a John Bradshaw seminar with my mom in the 1980s,.

..as a religion? I've always been fuzzy on exactly how that works.

I'm am atheist who lives in a country where you must declare some sort of (Christian) faith to be elected to high office. That has always bothered me, and it bothers me about Obama too.

Tell me.. why do we need faith in God? Which God?