How is comparing the black experience to the Irish one a minimizing of black people's pain? The Irish may have become 'white,' in America now, but their history is as tragic and painful as anyone's. They know all about the kind of self pity that stops people from taking responsibility for themselves. How typical of Americans not to know anything about the rest of the world. I hear black people say that 'white people don't know they're white', meaning, I take it, that they don't feel marked by their race in the same way as black people. But Americans, of any color, don't know they're American. Most of the behaviors that people condemn as racist and as the property of one identity or another, are merely human.

Republicans aren't the only ones who incontinently jump on anything that seems to substantiate their paranoia about the opposition. In the Duke Lacrosse case when the person making up the story was a black woman and her 'attackers' white men the left was all over it before they knew anything about the details, and since it was proven false, have been totally unapologetic about their behavior. The woman in question has been given a degree by NCCU. The corruption is not just in the McCain-Palin Campaign, but in the fact that everybody in this country is busy helping to constitute their own identity by being on a hair trigger to find racism and sexism and prejudice against them everywhere they look. You do it yourself, Joan. A recent example was when you jumped to the conclusion that McCain's 'that one' remark was racist. The woman who did this surely deserves as much compassion as the Duke Lacrosse woman, but she won't get it. Activist compassion is politically motivated more often than not, in my opinion, and most of you would need years of psychotherapy to find out what you're really angry about. I say this as someone who fervently wants Obama to win, because I think he's done a reasonably good job of being fair to everyone, even if his motivations are also purely political, though I don't necessarily think they are.

Fair point, I suppose. I guess I feel that there should have been some official consequences attending on what she did, and there weren't.

Obama won the election because he went around the country meeting all kinds of people and seeing that they were people who were usually doing their best by their own lights. He met George Bush and has said that he found him to be an okay person, even if he fundamentally disagrees with him politically. He's not the devil, just somebody with a very different outlook from you. Obama has transcended the kind of nastiness that characterizes this article, the general run of Salon reader responses, and other specimens of Salon journalism, such as Stephanie Zacharek criticizing the movie 'W' for not being nasty enough. You people need to take a leaf out of your hero's book i.e. grow up. God does not take sides, and if he's there at all he works in much more mysterious ways than simply influencing the outcome of elections. People are at their most dangerous when they're in the right. George Bush proved that, and why should you be any different. The reason I have high hopes for Obama is because he's not like Bush and not like you.

This guy is Irish. He doesn't necessarily work the same way as the kind of guy Cary imagines. I think he's telling you his head is messed up and he doesn't know what he feels because he feels guilty about telling you he doesn't want to pursue a serious relationship. His mother's love may not have been unconditional in every way. More likely his relationship with her is complicated by the fact that he always felt responsible for her feelings, and he doesn't want to feel responsible for yours too. You gave up a lot for him, and he feels the burden of that sacrifice, and he thinks you won't be okay if he tells you the truth: that he wants to be independent. I'd say the nicest thing you can do for him is go to grad school in America and let him attend to his mother on his own.

I can't tell if you're a man or woman, but my advice is to ignore all the outraged women who are calling you a monster here. That's their stuff and nothing to do with you. You decided to 'cheat' and maybe fucked up your perfect life. I'm sure you didn't intend this outcome, but demons are no joke. They make us do things we don't want to do, and yet we're responsible for their actions nonetheless. Some people get to blame everything on patriarchy or racism and they don't like it that you have demons. You're encroaching on their prerogatives as victims. I think It might be worth your while doing what Cary suggests and using this as an opportunity to get to know your demons. The other people involved will survive. Just don't make it worse by trying to make it better. It is what it is. Happens everyday: pain, confusion, loss, guilt, choruses of outrage or disapproval from people just like you. The only way out is through. Best of luck with it

already know everything Cary said in his response, but boy does it help to hear it from someone besides yourself.

You're going to get A LOT of hatemail.

Scratch the surface of any American, whether they call themselves liberal or conservative, and there's a dyed in the wool puritan right underneath: humourless, moralising, supercilious, judgemental. I'm moving to China. I'm sure they've got problems too, but a change is as good as rest, so they say.