I think we're starting to drill this down. I think you're gettng hung up on the lack of intent. I think we all agree that racism implies intent. By using typical GOP talking points, the McCain campaign can avoid all allegations of being intentionally racist itself, because its attacks can arguably be used against a white candidate. But the typical lines of attack are more powerful against a black candidate because of institutional racism. The McCain campaign is well aware of this.

It's the institutional racism embedded within the electorate that is allowing these weak-ass lines of attack to stick, which is what is so frustrating. And the McCain campaign is well aware of this.

The McCain campaign knows they're not just unleashing a swarm of bees - they're doing it on a group of people who are allergic to bees. In othe words, the electorate has a particular weakness that the McCain camp is intentionally exploiting. Of course their built-in excuse is simply that "this is what we've always done. It's not our fault that it works better against negroes."

So maybe that's the disconnect here. I fully agree that the McCain campaign won't release ads that are overtly racist. But they will make every excuse they can to appeal to the racism of the electorate, and these petty, shallow, simplistic, superficial attacks are what they've decided are the key to victory. And they very well may be.

This charge that every negative comment about Obama -- celebrity, hubris, attention-seeking, egotistical, cocky, or even excessively confident or even presuming to be more experienced that communitiy organizers and memoir writers generally are -- is racist and puts any accurate descriptors in the racist column.

The unifying theme of all these "negative" comments about Obama is that they're nebulous, impossible to prove, and have nothing to do with the ability to lead. Show me one candidate for president throughout history that hasn't possessed these "qualities" in spades. The fact that they're used as such powerful "negatives" against Obama is where the racism lies.

In other words, it's not racist to call a black man cocky. However it is racist to treat cocky white men and cocky black men differently.

That's the distinction here. If only the American public was intelligent and well-informed enough to have a serious election run on the issues, and not this celebreality infotainment simplistic superficial character-based pablum.

Imagine if we selected our Military Generals by having a swimsuit competition. Imagine if we selected the Chairman of the Fed by having a battle of the bands. By letting this garbage take over our national discourse, that's essentially what we're doing in choosing our president.

I guess I'm just less interested in exacting revenge against stupid people (what a tireless endeavor that would be) than I am in making sure our country is put back on the right course.

I hear you that some of Obama's supporters don't get it on the same fundamental level that McCain's and Hillary's don't get it. In fact, I think it's safe to say that a healthy majority of Americans don't get it.

The fact is racism exists, and can be exploited for political gain by both sides. Accepting your position for the sake of argument, would it be totally unfair that for the first time in the history of our country the black guy was able to leverage racism to his advantage? Are you saying that you're upset because for 300 years racism has been keeping the black man down, and this one time a black man was able to flip it around and use it to lift himself up? Is that what's stuck in your craw?

I guess to me, using Obama's supporters instead of Obama himself as a reason to allow John Fucking McCain to become president seems pretty self-defeating. We're not going to solve the cultural scourge of racism and stupidity in one election cycle ... but we can make it better, and it ain't gonna get that way with Old Man Hairtrigger and his GOP cronies in office.