This is from the Los Angeles Times, online, Wed. 23rd:

"Since the gas lines of the '70s, Democrats and Republicans have talked about energy independence but nothing's changed -- except now Exxon's making $40 billion a year and we're paying $3.50 for gas. I'm Barack Obama. I don't take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won't let them block change anymore," says the spot, which aired as recently as April 8.

Obama's ad is factually correct. He does not take money from oil companies. A 1907 federal law bars all corporations from giving money to political candidates. However, oil company employees can make donations.

As the ad aired, Obama took $12,400 from oil company executives and employees in increments of $1,000 or more. Altogether, people who identify themselves as working for oil and gas companies donated $46,000 in March.

Obama spokesman Ben Labolt said unlike Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and McCain, Obama refused to take money from federal lobbyists and political action committees.

"He accepted no contributions from oil and gas company political action committees, or from those who are paid to lobby Congress on behalf of oil and gas companies -- the money that is intended to purchase influence and access on behalf of corporate interests," Labolt said.

Clinton countered Obama's ad with one detailing his oil company-related donations from employees and executives of Exxon and other major petroleum companies. Factcheck.org, part of the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania, also chastised Obama for airing the spot.

"From our perspective, if there is a distinction between oil company PACs and lobbyists, and their executives, it is a mighty fine line," said Sheila Krumholz, director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign donations. "They all represent the same interest -- oil."

A researcher named Dr. Drew Weston did research that showed that individuals who make a strong commitment to a candidate (idea, etc.)react in the following way when information challenging that belief is presented to them: the pleasure centers in their brains light up when they REJECT the new information, giving them, in effect, mini orgasms for refusing to change their minds. Obama made a sexist statement, face it and move on. You can still support him for president even if he isn't perfect. Just don't be too disappointed when he starts doing more favors for Exelon and Tony Rezko.

As an historian of American history, I dispair when fact and truth-telling are identified as signs of insanity and ugliness.

The truth is, the struggle for the nomination has often in the twentieth century gone past June, even to the convention itself, whether because of an extended battle or illness or death. Bill Clinton didn't get the nomination locked up until the California primary in June. Bobby Kennedy's assination in June delayed the outcome. Senator Eagleton's past illness threw off the process too. And Ted Kennedy fought Jimmy Carter to the convention itself. Those facts do not suggest bringing Bill Clinton back to the fight, encouraging a racist or a sexist to kill either Obama or Hillary Clinton, hinting a candidate was mentally ill, or supporting a convention fight. They are facts. Facts which explain why a candidate need not be forced out of a contest in April or even May. Not ugly or insane. Perhaps beautiful, as the truth, however sad it might be, is.

The only ugliness or insanity connected to Clinton's answer to a reporter's question lies in the response of those like Obama, Olbermann, and Robinson who seem desparate to malign Clinton for something, anything. In this case, committing the obviously unpardonable act of telling truth, of using facts to explain a decision or position.

We are doomed as a country if the press corps and candidates push the notion that facts are ugly. After 8 years of Bush, haven't we had enough of the idea that unpleasant facts are ugly and insane and those who speak truth are somehow dispicable. A look in the mirror for those like Robinson and Olbermann who damn Clinton would reveal the real ugliness in this event. They should be ashamed. However, they are hacks (and Olbermann is becoming one) who no longer merit serious attention.

But it is Obama's response, calling her comments low and inappropriate that was the final straw, after earlier straws such as manipulating the media into suggesting the Clintons were racists, pretending to be purer than all while taking money from Excelon and oil company executives and rewriting legislation to suit Excelon, and asking favors from Rezko the slum landlord.

I swore I would not do it again, but if women don't force the Democratic party to defend women against sexist slurs and behavior, defend not support for office, it will continue to allow women like Clinton and Anita Hill to be trashed.

So, with sadness and worry, I won't vote for Obama. I won't vote for McCain either. I will write in Hillary Clinton's name like I wrote in Gene McCarthy's name to protest the Vietnam war. I have struggled with this decision for months, but Obama's response to this event on top of other similar behavior proves Obama is not an honorable man, and he has not insisted that his supporters behave honorably.

To repeat, Obama is not honorable man, and so I can't and I won't vote for him. The short-term costs of this decision, if enough others join me, will be high, but the long-term costs of allowing his and the Democratic party's pattern of sexist behavior and dishonest manipulation of voters to continue will be higher.

The Democratic Party may have bullied the Clintons into supporting Obama, but he has trouble on his left flank, and I don't mean just Ralph Nader. Some progressive blacks have echoed Nader's complaint about Obama's right-wing corporatist ties. See the following web site:

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index

The online magazine of Black political thought comes out weekly on Wednesday's. The article referred to came out in the June 25, 2008 issue.

Linda