I know people who use "nigger" just because they were brought up that way, and they aren't bigots, racists, or anything like that. It's just the word they grew up with. They do know it's "wrong" and won't use it with strangers, but with old friends, it's just the way they talk and means nothing.

I know other people who use that word to be sarcastic, same as any number of other exagerated words, most not even dealing with people. If someone's Fiat breaks down, out comes the old joke acronym "Fix it again Tony, or "Found on road dead" for Fords. It has nothing to do with disrespect for Itailans, Italian cars, or Fords, it's just sarcasm or exageration, a joke, like "barking spiders" when someone farts.

I can only assume that a lot of people here have sheltered lives and need to get out more. Maybe they should try to think of all kinds of people as potential friends, not just those who have similar thoughts.

"will allow us to see ourselves in black and white"

I think you must have a serious identity problem, have no ideas of your own, or otherwise be ready fodder for anyone who tells you what to do.

I don't need ANYBODY's permission to see myself as I am. It might be an interesting argument whether I need a shrink, but that's another question.

Where do you get off speaking for "us", saying that "we" need someone else to "allow us" to see "ourselves' in some manner?

Gack, what a meaningless headline. Get a grip. The election is over. Deal with some other problem now. If Mr. Barack needs to bask in the adoring starry glow of people like you, then the country is in a heap of trouble. If *you* think he needs it, then *you* are the one in trouble.

He won with what, 52% vs 47% or something? That's certainly more than either Bush win, but to call that a mandate is ridiculous.

To say that "America joyously elected ..." is more hogwash, just as the Bushies claims were hogwash. Almost half the voters didn't want him.

Ditto for center right vs center left. America's left is a joke to the rest of the world's lefties, but aside from all that, the change in votes from one party to the other, 2004 vs 2008, is so miniscule that it's no more than a wobble.

Criminy you winners are as full of yourselves as the neocons have been. Doesn't make either of you correct.

I despise politicians in general, regardless of party, but I have never despised any as much as these neocons. When they wasted a year or two trying to find ways of impeaching Clinton and finally had to settle for perjury about his zipper, they set a moral purity bar which they then proceeded to trash. To compare his moral failings with lying about war, trashing the constitution, dictatorial attitudes (the unitary executive exempt from the constitution), cronyism (Heckuva job, Brownie), corruption (Haliburton), and all the rest they have done for 8 years -- it is simply unforgiveable.

They set the bar high with Clinton's impeachment, an implication that they were better than him, and showed they weren't. Worse, they haven't shown the slightest signs of remorse or regret. Those craven asslickers in Congress let Bush and Cheney and Rove do whatever they wanted, and now it is time to pay the piper.

Folks, when you set yourself up as morally superior to everybody else, you damn well better walk the walk.

Polygamy, slavery, a widow must marry her brother-in-law .... makes you really wonder why the Mormon church was so freaked out by this.

To be serious, this crap from gay haters about preserving traditional marriage really sums up how out of touch they are with plain old common sense. It's bad enough they confused marriage as a legal institution governing inheritance, power of attorney, etc, with marriage as a religious matter. Besides the afore mentioned polygamy etc, what about Catholics not divorcing -- not only has the state redefined that, but the various difference Christian sects (and probably non-Christian ones too) are all at odds over divorce. How do they think government should reconcile that?

And how two guys or two gals getting married has anything to so with anybody else's marriage -- you'd think they government had a quota on marriages the way they carry on.

It's bigotry pure and simple.

Republicans thought they won in 1994 and 2000 because the country was fed up with Democratic misdeeds. Maybe they were right. They also thought they had a permanent Republican majority. They were wrong.

Democrats won in 2006 and 2008 because the country was fed up with Republican misdeeds. You are wrong to think it heralds a Democratic majority.

One false step, such as a repeat of the 1994 gun ban, and Democrats will be on the road out. Just as Republicans return time and again to the tried and tested method of corruption to lose office, so do Democrats return to their own tried and tested method of getting all preachy about nany state nonsense.

I don't expect Democrats to understand this any more than I expected Republicans to understand it. But it sure is depressing to see such nonsense. People vote for the lesser of two evils. Make no mistake, voters despise politicians and their sycophants, but they have little choice, just one or the other, and they aim for the lesser, altho sometimes it's mighty hard to tell.

You babble about permanent majority and mandate at your peril.

How much of that huge drop in September is from Boeing workers on strike and not producing airplanes for export?