I just typed in the word salon & anthrax and got all the articles right at the top.

The trouble may be that they list GG in the web search area, not specifically in the "news" search.

He needed to go vacation somewhere much less showy than Hawaii.

It's an American state, Obama was born there, he went to high school there, he still has family there. He doesn't need to pretend he's too poor to travel, that would be false.

If Mr. Private jet to his 8 homes feels the need to say Obama's pretentious...throw it right back in McCain's face.

Besides, I think it's more ridiculous for candidates to pretend they are something they're not. Obama'd look pretty silly going to Branson and Dollywood for his private vacation, it would look contrived.

I know it's never stopped Bush from cutting brush, but R's are a little more forgiving of their own team.

I often wonder who some of these posters are, too. Some of the more angry ones I imagine as 19 or 20 year old males, students, bored, resentful, and in person, shy and reticent.

A few days ago I went to a job site and took along an audio book to pass the time on my long drive. It was the "The Thirteenth Tale" and was read by Lynn Redgrave and Ruthie Henshaw, and I really enjoyed it. Now whenever I read Maureen's posts, I "hear" Ruthie Henshaw's imperious voice in my mind. I know it is the wrong accent, very upper class British, and probably much too old, but the image is stuck for me.

We're not a bad lot here, have you ever tried to read the HuffingtonPost boards? Or worse, Yahoo! or AOL boards?

For the latter, I think the following Onion article is dead on accurate in addition to being pretty funny.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on

Maureen, now you've shaken up my image a little more. You've described my paternal grandmother (and more than one relative)to a tee, again, not a comment on age. Though come to think of it, her voice is like Ruthie Henshaw's, too.

She was from the Boston area, very smart, a little brittle, and was of solid Irish stock. At 92 when she died, even though she was very fair and spent way too much time in the sun unprotected, her face looked like that of a 60 year old. Though with her, I think it was genetics, not product. I imagine the same is true of you, but the Shiseido products are a nice treat.

Her dogs and cats lived unnaturally long lives and seemed to have the same fierce will to live that she did. In fact, the only hint of softness in her that was detectable to me was that her elderly, incontinent dog was still allowed to sleep on one of her precious rugs by the fire.

Now, it's back to getting the house ready for company. Have a nice weekend everybody.

The result is Joe Liebermann as V.P in response to media's call for Gore to distance himself from the "damaged" Clinton.

I see it a little different. Unfortunately, 9/11 did change someone, it was Lieberman. Until then, he was a pretty darn decent liberal Senator, even if he was a bit prissy...but it could be argued Gore was, too.

From all I've read, Gore and Bill Clinton respected each other, but didn't particularly like each other. I remember reading that Clinton's temper was pretty fierce but the one guy that could talk him down and make him see reason and be logical was Gore. I wish I could quote (remember) the source, but it stuck with me because it was one I trusted.

Seeing Bill's (who I liked very well in 1999) defensive and inconsistent performance in the primaries on Hillary's behalf, makes me think that Gore might have been right to not have Clinton be out there actively campaigning for him. I actually don't blame Clinton, picture in 1999, a Gore event, the MSM would have been focused on asking Clinton if he and Hillary would get divorced after he leaves office, who is he going to pardon, how could Gore return diginity to the office, etc. All things designed to get "interesting" answers and to provoke Clinton, none of them helpful to Gore.

Gore (like Dole before him) somehow did come off as wooden. Neither one of them are/were. The cool club kids that make up some of the most widely read and watched pundits didn't like them. Made fun of them. It sucked for Gore, wasn't "fair", but he still did manage to get the popular vote anyway. The rest is history.

On another note, the same thing happened in the debates. It used to make my head explode. When we still had a large group in contention, the debates were always about Clinton and her plans. "Senator Dodd, what do you think about what Senator Clinton's plan for topic de jour?" If they agreed it was boring, if not, it was painted as an attack. They were left in the background regardless, never able to articulate their own plans. This happened with Edwards, if he wanted to present his own views in the debate, it was usually to answer why he disagreed with Hillary's.

Maybe the reason racial undertones were heard were because Penn wanted Obama to be seen as "foreign". Many of us saw that as racist, there's nothing "foreign" about him. Obama's American, comes off that way.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12420_Page2.html

The article shows that it was worst of both worlds, the undertones were there and so there was backlash, and at the same time the ads weren't negative enough to be effective. Hmmm.

My bet is McCain and his supporters will pull out all the stops and soon we won't be arguing about "implied" racism. If Hillary had been nominated we would see what real sexism is, too.