Dems always have owed to a reliable block of black voters - but increasingly took them for granted - ever since FDR put together a coalition that brought "Negro" voters into the fold from their traditional Lincoln Republican vote.

W.E.B DuBois had been telling them to switch since Wilson.

It is my understanding that the assertion that Palin didn't know Africa is a continent came from the Newsweek reporters assigned to cover the background story of the McCain campaign, with the agreement that none of the story be told until after the election. That's where I first read prettymuch the same account that Cameron gave on Fox.

Actually, in the Newsweek account, the Palin back story is just a nugget in the larger account of a disastrously mismanaged campaign.

Taped to my book case:

"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."

-P.J. O'Rourke

Doesn't she have a daugter who was seven months pregnant in August? Isn't she most seriously needed at home now to help out with an infant grandchild and a wedding coming up?

I'm a native Detroiter, still here in this tough town I love. We have lived in this solidly middle-class neighborhood for over 40 years, meaning we've been here through three boom and bust cycles. The neighborhood recovered from the last two, but I fear for it's survival this time.

There are 1,400 homes in this community, with about 10% in foreclosed. There isn't a block in this community, The University District, that doesn't have at least one house vacant. There are two on my block; one is next door. Both former owners had been here as long as us. They weren't sub-prime buyers - what Phil Graham calls "predatory purchasers". They fell on hard times and evidently remortgaged their homes.

It breaks my heart to see this lovely community revaged like this.

It's its, not it's.

The Republicans of 1799 had nothing to do with the Republican party of today. They originally called themselves Democratic Republicans, later Jeffersonians, and finally Democrats when Andrew Jackson became president. They were essentially anti-Federalist, wantlng a weak central government, a Bill of Rights to guarantee individual rights, and greater franchisement than the Federalists, who wanted a strong central government and a Constitution that favored the landed and merchant class.

The party of Jefferson and Madison was, indeed, the strong advocate of secular goverment and separaration of church and state.

A great book on the political factions of this era is The Other Founders, Saul Cornell.

...it is a civil contract. Religious institutions csn onlt sactify marriage; civil authority confers legal status.

Our nephew was recently married in the bride's parish church. A day or two later they got a frantic call from the priest. It seems the license they had applied for over a month earlier had expired before the wedding ceremony.

The two possibilities given for Obama's change of mind are that he did it for political ambition or that he had a change of mind on the rights of gays. A third option is that he shares an opinion I have and am hearing more and more. Let the government be in charge of the legal contract between consenting adults wishing to become a family. Call it a Civil Union. Let the churches be in charge of the religious obligations according to their traditions. Call that a Marriage.

This is already the case. Church officials can only "sanctify" a couple's union. The power of granting legal rights regarding property and inheritance, etc. comes exclusively from the secular government. (Try getting a priest or minister to marry you without a marriage license.) This is no recent matter of secular government. The colonial Puritans recognized marriage as a civil contract; it was the reason they allowed divorce.

Scared grandma, it was Hannah Arendt who coined the phrase, referring to Eichmann's role as the one heading the "Jewish solution."

A few years ago, when my daughter was greduated from UofA, she had a party where she was living in Tempe. There were about 25-30 guests whom she introduced to me. "Now you've met all the Democtats in Arizona," she said.

So, Mike, I must have met you at that party.

I find it extraordinary that not one single post here pointd out that Rick Santelli is a former derivstives trader.

Derivatives. You know, those high risk loans that are buried in bundles of conventional low-risk packages and sold to investors? Noone hows how much of the financial world is honeycombed by this Wall Street shell game because - due to years of reckless, ideolgical deregulation - derivatives are entirely lacking in oversight. Rick's rant is an attempt to draw us off the scent of those largely responsible for the economic meltdown, and turn those of us againse one another.

I fully agree with all of hetjude's excellent posts here. Most people caught in foreclosures are not liars or living beyond their means. They, like the rest of us, are blameless victims of the biggest heist of this nation's wealth since Hamilton tried the same sort of game in the early days of the Republic.

I fully own my house, where I have lived for over 40 years. Of course I support Obama's plan. Why wouldn't I? Every time a house around here forecloses, it sucks more equity out of my home.

It is absurd and obscene that health care in the country is provided by for-profit institutions.

how can that be a problem when the country will be making significant progress toward recovering the "free and open inquiry" lost in the past eight years?

Obama's speech should be engraved in stone.

Democrats!

I loved your father's reviews. I always read those books to which he gave high praise; I was never disappointed. He was a gift to all of us.