this man, that Holcaust quote alone is more offensive than anything I've seen in ages outside of the hate-spewing preachers John McCain used to welcome aboard his campaign bus.

I still think it was a good idea for Barack Obama to go however. Let's face it, hard core evangelicals like this extremist were never going to vote for him anyway, as this nut case makes clear above. The people Obama needed to influence are those who just might be open to a non-fanatic anti-abortinist, but have just heard that Obama is Muslim or some other nonsense.

Restated: If there's a debate about which side of the various Christian divides Obama stands on, that makes it a whole lot harder for people to avoid the fact that he's Christian.

Overall, every time I've seen people second-guess some possible bad move that "could spell trouble for Obama"-- and not to put too fine a point on it, but no stranger around here, that sort of thing --- he's proven it wrong. So if he turns out to have been the one who was right when others were saying "oh, this will hurt him", I don't know, eventually you sort of have to start having faith that he knows what he's doing? Too much to hope for?

"If they think that life begins at conception, then that means that there are 40 million Americans who are not here [because they were aborted] that could have voted."

Plus it's a completely self-defeating argument, that particular one, the "potential" tack. You can take it step by step back to anything, by that logic: If every time two people decide not to have sex when they might have, my god through history that's billions of people we've murdered!

Anything that starts with "If you believe that..." well, yeah, if I believed that every dust mite was ridden by a tiny Jesus then I'd think that vacuuming was Diecide.

What they just can't accept is the basic axiom, which I swear we need written down somewhere: Just beceause you believe something doesn't mean I have to. I know the constitution says it in so many words but maybe they're the wrong words, these people aren't that patient with long passages.

If I believed that Rick Warren were an alien sent to test the limits of offensive speech (Holocaust deniers, my god) then a lot of things would make more sense.

A Baptist woman I once knew who prided herself on going out of her way to be kind once said of Indonesian tsunami victims, "God punished them for their unbelief. I cannot feel sad about that."

Barack, meet the tsunami.

Uh, okay so you're saying that Barack Obama is being punished by the Democratic God, because he didn't listen to you and Joan? Which makes you what, priests, in this thing? Mother superiors? Not knowing your gender, I'll throw both of those out there.

If there's some other intepretation here (mabe you meant "Barack, meet the Baptists"?) you can untwist it but just letting you know that as it stands you've got Barack Obama being punished by Rick Warren and his flock as an act of God.

"I swore I'd never defend Obama", oh that's the Hillary thing I imagine, yes? The not lowering yourself to actually helping anyone like Barack Obama get elected because having McCain as President will show those mean people who didn't like your candidate..

Eh. Never mind.

Time for another break from this place, it's too depressing, little pocket of three months ago that it remains. When's the next boat leaving the Island of Mindanao....

@ Bill E Pilgrim

I don't really believe in God, but as long as you're passing out titles, I'll take High Priestess.

I won't be any more phony than Rick Warren.

Okay it's yours. I could make any number of cracks about the "high" part but I don't want to be smitten. Er, smited. Smoten. Smoot. Now that you're ordained I mean.

I actually thought that "Mother Superiors" was pretty good, though I deliberately sort of buried it, or didn't call it out. It must just be so frustrating to be right all the time, and I do hope that Joan is wrong about all his bad moves and Obama can actually win the nomination.

And now, I shall fast forward to catch up with the rest of the world, unbeliever that I am.

that the people who read this and don't write comments actually get it. I'm going to do that just for my own sanity, otherwise If I thought the people writing letters here were a real reflection of the majority of readers, I'd have to think that Salon has turned into a sort of refuge for bitter Hillary holdouts from the modern equivilant of the Island of Mindanao, where 200 Japanese soldiers were found still fighting the war years after it had ended.

I don't want to think that, but it's becoming harder not to.

Salon, take a moment and reflect. 80 % of Democrats are enthusiastically backing Barack Obama. Those who would call themselves liberal or progressive, it's a higher percentage. By all counts, the hard core Hillary backers who refuse to vote for Obama on those grounds are an almost invisible quantity, the "18 million" turned to 2 millions then turned to not being able to get the minimum of 250 of them to have a meeting, so it was canceled.

Poster at Salon, it appears, are running around 90% anti-Obama these days.

(Sparky-like pause goes here)

So has it occured to you that Salon is now being read to a large degree by either right wing Republicans or fanatic Hillary holdouts?

Has it occured to you to wonder why?

Brilliant as always, TT. You and Greenwald should find a new home though.