"It is a truism that liberals think people are formed by exterior forces around them and are helpless before them, while conservatives think individuals make their own destiny."

Ooh, this burns me up. Everyone knows that the nature/nurture debate can't be neatly resolved by an either/or formulation. (Advances in genetics show that environment and genes interact, which only makes thing more gray...)

In practical terms, it can be a benefit to choose to focus only on what one can control. (And a detriment to cast oneself as passive victim rather than active agent.) I'm definitely for self-responsibility, and think there's merit in the ideas of choosing to be responsible for one's own destiny.

But if we choose to completely ignore these "exterior factors," our ignorance could hurt us in a big way.

Take high fructose corn syrup: since its introduction into our food supply, levels of diabetes have risen correspondingly.

Now, I'm not a saying every overweight American is an innocent victim; clearly people are making decisions and many of them aren't healthy/responsible, etc.

But should we really close our eyes to this clear social trend? Just pretend there isn't a multi-billion $ food and ad industry selling us and our children fatty, sugary junk "food" 24 hrs a day? That the poor and less educated (black and white) have much higher levels of obesity?

It's also true that we're animals who have evolved to crave fat and sugar (calorie gold mines in the life of a hunter/gatherer). That we are as capable of being psychologically conditioned as Pavlov's dogs. We don't like to admit that ads affect us, but obviously they do.

Acknowledging this doesn't necesarily mean we are renouncing free will. In fact, if we use this knowledge to make smart decisions, we can actually increase our liberty by guarding against the temptation to shackle ourselves to fatty foods or credit card debt in the service of needless consumption.

So there's that. The moral problem with refusing to see the powerful influences of "external factors" is the ugly Calvinistic tendency to assume that wealth (or lack) is itself representative of a person's moral virtue. Empathy and compassion aren't dirty commie words.

So how do we balance 1) honestly acknowledging the powerful influence of external forces with 2) accepting reponsibility for our actions and encouraging others to do the same?

There's no easy answer.

Pretending there is, though, and demonizing though who want to do grown-up evaluations of the world we live in doesn't seem particularly moral, responsible, or forward-thinking.

"This is powerful criticism because it resonates with a long-standing talking point against Clinton -- that she is a political phony willing to do anything to get elected."

Just to clarify, this is not merely a manufactured talking point, but a conclusion many voters reached of their own accord after witnessing Senator Clinton's campaign.

...and the black ones and gay ones and wealthy ones, too, which is why running a campaign based on uniting people is such a fine idea.

And we don't need to just con them long enough to have an election—as so many detractors falsely accuse Obama of trying to do—we need them to feel and to be an important part of this process of self-governance that is the living Great Experiment (which is what Obama intends).

b.t.w I've done more blue collar jobs than many people I know, I have advanced degrees, and I grew up on U.S. military bases around the world. This egghead/sixpack business may have some limited utility, but it's a pretty tiny hole through which to view the world.

"The transcript below doesn't capture what Brazile said to tick off Begala: She suggested Barack Obama might not need to worry so much about the white working-class and Latino voters that are going with Hillary Clinton, because behind Obama, the party is being remade by young voters, urban voters and suburban voters."

I'm curious to see the quote rather than paraphrase.

Is she proposing a vision of a party that shuns white working class people?

Or is she answering the contention that Obama cannot win enough white voters to get elected?

That contention, of course, and a healthy dose of pragmatism, is why so many Hillary backers support or turn a blind eye to campaign tactics which heighten tensions between race/gender/class groups.

But it's a false choice. We don't have to choose between

1) embracing blue collar white voters by pandering to prejudices/fears

-and-

2) looking down our snooty noses at the [insert deragotory term]

I'm all for white blue collar workers but not so fond of Rovian tactics.

And again, it's certainly true that Obama draws a lot of support from people across the spectrum, and this seems a fair point to make against the electibility argument.

Plus, the Clinton campaign has regularly been trying to trump up charges of elitism and heighten tensions between constituents, so I wonder if Begala's righteous defense wasn't him seeing an opportunity for a Talking Point.