I know. I think Trasher is mentally ill, but he's lucid enough to make accusations of racism against other people, and sometimes that does need to be rebutted.

For the record, I think Thrasher is in fact a black man who has been so affected by racism that he has himself become a racist.

I call you a "minstrel" because you are a black man who deliberately plays the fool. In your case, it's a fool who spews racism and hatred, but a fool nonetheless. You do yourself and the causes you care about a real disservice by your awful rantings.

Sorry, but I do think you are mentally ill and that you need professional help.

Good point on the Repugs going after Edwards' manliness. However, after South Carolina's results, I don't think we'll have to worry about how they attack Edwards, since he came in last with 4 percent in what ought to have been his stronghold. It's a Clinton-Obama fight now.

Your point does jibe with my point, in that the Repugs are going to unleash all the vileness and hatred they can muster -- and they have oceans of the stuff -- and we are going to see racism or sexism or homophobia in its rawest and ugliest manifestation. I just hope that this time the nation rejects it, but I'm not certain that it will.

We Democrats need to be damn sure that we don't do the Repugs' dirty work for them. If we tear ourselves apart, the Repugs will win in 2008.

After South Carolina it looks like Edwards is out, with Clinton in the lead over Obama, for now. The Clinton and Obama campaigns, and their supporters, need to do all they can to eliminate attacks based on gender or race. Besides being morally wrong, such attacks are suicidal for the party.

We Democrats can only lose in 2008 if we destroy ourselves. We must keep our eyes on the prize, because another 4 years of Repug misrule would be horrendous.

I concur with Garry. If you read through Thrasher's posts, you'll see that he is the most virulent bigot in Salon's letter pages. He is in fact so awful that some people here think he is really a white racist posing as a black racist. Maybe he is, but I take him at his word that he is a black man. Whatever he is, his postings are deliberately hateful.

Your letter went after that soft target of the straw man white-liberal-who-is-really-a-racist. While there are liberals like that, Salon and its letters pages are hardly a bastion of such people. In that regard, your letter is reactionary.

I grew up getting a lot of crap from people, both white and black, for being Jewish. As a result, I'm not fond of bigots, to put it mildly. Living in D.C. for nearly 20 years now, I can tell you that the majority of the racism I've witnessed, and even been subject to, has been black on white, either in a crude way, or in an "intellectual" attack that reveals the racism of a well-educated black liberal.

Instead of going after broad targets, go after specific acts of racism, regardless of who instigates it, and who is targeted by it.

The Republicans are a classist, racist, xenophobic party, and in the last decade or so even a fascist party. Of course their policies harm black America, because their policies harm the vast majority of Americans who are neither wealthy nor religiously insane. As a leading Republican, Clarence Thomas is a tool of that harm (pun intended).

As for affirmative action: I despise affirmative action based on race or gender. Affirmative action ought to be based on class. If Clarence Thomas is on board with that, so it goes.

"This is why you fascists on the left scare us all so much."

Two facts for you:

1. Fascism is a rightwing phenomenon.

2. Jonah Goldberg is not that bright.

Just when you thought that humanity really was doomed, that chick had a baby. Too bad. But then, maybe the baby would die before reaching maturity, so there's always hope.

"Eugene V Debs was a huge fan of Mussolini, BTW."

That's nice. Got any more guilt by association trivia for us?

You are the only person so far, outside of the wingnut blogosphere, who takes Goldberg's ramblings seriously.

On the other hand, there's plenty of validity to the charge that today's GOP is fascist.

As far as Debs being a fan of Mussolini (I take you at your word on that, which might be a mistake), so what? Did you know that Stalin liked steaks? Ergo, by your logic, people who like steak also like mass murder.

Don't complain when people call you on your silly posts, bub.

Really, compared to a new George Romero movie, does anything else at Sundance really matter?

Let us remember that Clarence Thomas, along with his hero Scalia, was one of only two Justices who opined in the minority in the 1992 case, Hudson v. McMillian. In that case Hudson complained that while a prisoner, he was shackled, taken out of his cell, and brutally beaten by prison guards with the tacit approval of the warden.

The Court ruled that this brutality violated the Eight Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. However, Thomas & Scalia balked at extending those rights to prisoners, and Thomas dismissed Hudson's injuries as "trivial."

Of all the wrongs perpetrated by the George Herbert Walker Asswipe Bush Administration, the appointment of Thomas to the Supreme Court is perhaps the worst, in that this unqualified, cruel, and bitter man will harm our nation for generations.

And yes, I believed Anita Hill then, and still believe her now.