that seems like the only place.

Except if there's a "clue" in this interview then I don't see it. Unless the reading in a cafe part, since Opus likes to read in the tub, doesn't he?

Maybe not.

I love Madame Butterfly also. No cliche, Puccini was a genius, Verdi thought so too, despite what all the recent snobs pretend to think.

The biggest misconception about this election is that McCain was ever ahead in any meaningful way, or that it's been back and forth, or some sort of neck and neck race.

McCain was ahead once, exactly once, in any sustained way, and that was his week-long convention bounce. It was going to fade. It was expected to fade. It did. So did Obama's. This put things right back where they were before both conventions, with Obama somewhat ahead. For months. Steadily.

Yes, the economic crisis probably added to it but the idea that this "the only reason Obama took the lead again" is wrong. People became familiar with Obama finally, and that's why he's winning.

Put another way: All of the "Why isn't Obama walking away with this?" questions, with Salon one of the main forums asking it, by the way, well the answer is: Now, he is. He wasn't because he was black, had a funny name, and there were all these stupid rumors about him. Now, after the debates he was seen as not scary, more serious, more calm, and smarter than McCain. And less creepy and weird. And erratic.

All of this mattered, but mainly he's winning because a Democrat was going to win this year, and it took a while for some of the more wary voters to accept Obama as that Democrat.

Of course, the same pundits will continue to say "McCain was ahead until the financial crisis hit" and they'll be wrong. But that's what they do.

I return to read what Joan is saying after months, and it's all transformed!

Well good.

I'm not complaining. Nor opening old battles, but I can't help just pointing out that it's interesting that Obama did none of the things that everyone was demanding. He didn't "really let McCain have it", any more than he always had been, his tone throughout this campaign hasn't changed at all, aside from small shifts it's exactly the same positive, calm, reasonable, personable, well all of the things that Joan just described. It always was.

And yet nothing anymore in these pages about how lacking he is, what terrible mistakes he's making, how all of his associatations mean that he can't win-- all gone. It was all you heard for months here. What's changed? Not him.

I once predicted that Joan Walsh would get to this point around January. I'm happy to see that I was a few months off.

Good.

but you were wrong about the constant drumbeat for Obama to really fight back and just let McCain really have it and all the rest of it.

You'll disagree I'm sure but that's how I read it, and Obama never gave in to going that direction. He's pushed back lightly, with humor, never taking the bait to go negative. And it worked. It's worked for him all along.

Salon in general was utterly wrong about this race, from the start. You were on the money in most ways but I was dissapointed to read the many times you pleaded and pushed for him to go negative. It was clear that he was going to win a different way. And he did.

back when you were slamming every move he made, it was because he was a bad candidate. Now, you're supporting him wholeheartedly because he's an entirely different candidate, he's improved.

Right.

Funny how many of us were just as impressed by him back then, but what do we know?

I find the analysis lacking, to say the least. Two different times, two different occaisions, two different purposes. Yes, he probably changed, learned, all sorts of things probably happened but to write "To see why he's winning, compare the two speeches" is ridiculous. That early speech won this for him just as much as the recent one did, because many of us were supporting him back then just as much as now, and without that, none of this would have happened.

Folks, anytime Joan ever writes about Obama, no matter how positive she is, there's always a handful or more of folks saying that she "slammed" him during the primaries and could never cut him a break.

Are you serious about this?

Salon was not only slamming, it was all-Reverend-Wright, All-The-Time Central, for weeks if not months.

I counted three front page stories about Wright one day.

Three. Posted there, at the same time.

Anyone who dredges up the Wright angle now is seen as racist and smear mongering. Salon pushed the story for weeks and weeks. Joan Walsh wouldn't let it go.

You're just wrong about this one. "Slammed" is a mild word for what was going on here.

I'm glad that Joan Walsh is wholeheartedly on the bandwagon now, but her dredging up of some bogus justification for why she wasn't earlier was just silly, and brought all that up without anyone here prompting it.