"I don't know if Obama can change that, but he's the only presidential candidate who's willing to try and talk about Really Big Things, instead of lapel flag pins and bowling scores."

Here's the thing, Bryan: It's not up to Obama to change all that, it's up to us!

We, the voters, are the only ones who have the real power to change things on this front by opting out of the debate.

This is why every time a Clinton supporter--often under pretext of "What will the Republicans think?"--expresses concern about Wright or the Weather Underground or whatever, they legitimate the status quo wherein bullshit carries the day.

The only way to get beyond this is for all of us, regardless of whether we support Obama or not, to refuse to play the fucking game.

This is why I find Clinton so poisonous. By invoking Farakkhan, she's doing more than attacking Obama to scrounge up some extra votes, she's showing herself to be an active participant in the dumbing down of America, pandering to the very worst in all of us.

That's not what leaders ought to do. Leaders ought to lead and they ought to stand for virtue.

No, I'm not saying that Obama is pure and Clinton is not. That's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that Clinton is a cynic and Obama is an idealist. I'm suggesting that cynicism, fear and ignorance are responsible for things such as the War and that these need to be dispelled.

You don't dispel them by harnessing them for political gain, as Clinton does.

But it's not Clinton's fault, it's our fault for wink-winking. Even those of us who, if asked, would admit that things should be better, that the discourse should be higher, somehow throw up their hands, defeated: "Well, that's the way things are, what can you do?"

And voila the status quo.

It's up to us to demand more and to hold politicians accountable for serious issues (like the war) and to discern substance from bullshit.

We get the government we deserve.

Oh, absolutely. You're right.

I only meant to suggest that we have a part to play in this too, that Obama is actually demanding things of us.

I point it out because that's another fundamental difference between the two campaigns. Clinton's is basically about how she can bring home the bacon, all she needs is the job.

Obama's is that he can't bring home the bacon unless we all (and by all, he means a serious consensus, including red-staters) agree to work together. To this end, he calls on us to re-prioritize the criteria by which we elect politicians.

Extremely telling to me is his anecdote about trying to get some progressive legislation passed in Illinois only to find that the electorate didn't have his back. His lesson was that consensus has to be attained in order to make things happen.

This is the polar opposite of Clinton's approach, which relies not on consensus, but on coming out on top of a hand-to-hand death match.

There's something to that approach too, of course, but I think in the long run, figuring out how to generate such an electoral consensus that it's no longer about a death-match, but about negotiating over the details is far more sustainable.

I just don't find Clinton's politics sustainable.

Anyway, as you say, yes, I agree that a movement needs a standard-bearer and that in that capacity, Obama excels.

Because I believe in my heart's core that anti-intellectualism is one of this country's most pernicious scourges, I have to call a time out here.

You write: "Even crazy preachers, like the one in There Will Be Blood, sometimes tell the truth. Jeremiah Wright is able to shine a true light on American sins while he encourages the already paranoid and mentally sick black community to indulge even further in unhelpful behavior and belief."

Are you suggesting that Wright is a "crazy preacher?" If so, could you substantiate that for us? Otherwise, it sounds like you're just indulging your own superstition (by which I mean unsubstantiated prejudice).

"John Hagee is obsessed with the usual nonsense you find among evangelicals but he looks correctly at the Catholic Church which more than any other institution is responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis through its two thousand year long program of vicious anti-semitism."

You can't be serious about this claim, can you? "More than any other institution?" Would you care to substantiate that? I understand your underlying point, that the CAtholic church has a history of anti-semitism, but does the historical trajectory really add up to the Holocaust in the way you think? As an historian, I have to warn against such bold and facile historical conclusions.

It's not ok to make serious, consequential claims like this with zero substantiation. It's superstitious. To me, one of liberalism's core values has to do with a commitment to empiricism, to rational argument, and to the open-mindedness that allows one to embrace the truth wherever it is found, even when, especially when doing so entails jettisoning one's most deeply-held prejudices and beliefs.

So can you substantiate your claim here about the Catholic church and the holocaust?

"The only question left is this: why do rational people allow these preachers to continue?"

Who do you mean by "these preachers?"

Again, you seem to be speaking more from vague prejudice than reasoned analysis.

Just so you know, I raise this not to pick on you, but to plant a flag for what I consider to be a core liberal value, viz., a commitment to intellectualism over the powerful draw of blind prejudice.