Thanks for that link to the race card article. I have felt all along that everything the Clintons and their surrogates have said, most of which has been both benign and true, has been completely and intentionally distorted by Obama supporters, and then repeated ad nauseum until the distortion becomes commonly accepted fact among those who haven't been following events closely.

And, to those of you who are about to call me a racist Republican Clinton-shill hope-killer, you can bite me. I don't have to agree with lolcait's bizarre laundry list or be a Klanner to see the obvious, that Obama has been playing the race card to his benefit from the start.

Anyone who thinks this Ivy-educated, book-writing rich kid from the sunny suburbs of Hawaii, this guy who attended a church he must now distance himself from in order to be "black enough" for Chicago, this kid who was raised by his white mother and grandmother but nevertheless romanticizes his father to the tune of a spectacular book deal, is actually more interested in hope than he is in power is absolutely stupid. The Clintons are interested in power, but at least they're honest about it. Obama is so disappointing because he is just like everyone else, but lies about it.

If you want to see a man who could very well be in Obama's shoes right now, but has chosen to do some real, tangible good in the world instead, just look up Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey. Here's a guy who not only has ideas about hope, but a track record of action and responsibility. It's clear from the way he lives his life that people like Obama have no idea what real change looks like or how to possibly bring it about.

The fact that you are unable to write without resorting to contrived insults and over-wrought cliches leads me to believe that you don't really want to be taken seriously. Sorry, if you were trying to insult me, I've been insulted by smarter people than you. If you were trying to persuade me that I was wrong, then you need a few lessons on rhetoric and persuasive writing. So I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish other than your own apparent need to label those who don't agree with you as racist.

If only his books weren't self-serving, truth-bending, and not particularly well written. You'll note that Hillary has also written books. As I said, I am not comparing Obama to Hillary, but Obama to his own inflated notion of himself. He is no saint, far from it, and I don't think people will realize that until he starts making his first major blunders in office.

So nice to see a comic that boldly defies conventional campaign rhetoric and fearlessly offers unbiased, meaningful criticism that we can all take to heart.

Oh.

Nevermind.

Before I read this article, I was about to list Dan Brown and Ayn Rand as the two authors whose fans I simply could not ever respect enough to date. Mostly Ayn Rand as a matter of principles, and Dan Brown as a matter of taste.

Though anyone who reads all that self-help, neo-spiritual crap would be on my shit list as well. Joel Osteen is the antichrist and I couldn't abide going out with someone who didn't think he was full of crap....

To clarify, I think this article is mostly talking about whether you like/agree with a book, not just whether you've read it. I've read some crap in my time and I wouldn't want to be judged for it, but I wouldn't go off recommending the book or the ideas it purveys to people either. I even made it about a third of the way through The Da Vinci Code before I gave up. Does that make me a bad person?

Let's not kid ourselves. There are a lot of young girls who get with boys or men because they think their relationship with their guy is the sum total of their value as a human being. There are a lot of girls who get with guys because they have no idea that it's okay not to. So probably a good healthy dose of feminist values would prevent a lot of girls from doing away with their virginity, at least until they're good and ready for it.

Not all Obama supporters, of course, but a great deal of the ones I have met seem to be a lot like 50 Cent. They don't know much or care much about the issues or the candidates but they hear Obama speak, and upon hearing the 2004 Democratic Convention speech recycled for the 2004th time, they go into ecstatic conniptions.

It's the strangest thing in the world. It also shows the degree to which people project their own beliefs onto Obama, since his are so vague thus far. The moderate independents think he is a moderate independent... the progressives think he is a progressive... the environmentalists think he is an environmentalist... the blacks think he is completely black... the whites think he is unthreateningly half-white. And now 50 Cent has decided he is just like Malcolm X. It's an amazing thing...

I am interested to see the disappointed looks on all these people's faces when they find out who Obama actually is and realize that they've been living out their own political fantasies through this unknown chameleon.

"I also agree with an earlier poster that women should have to register for the draft, just like men. That might help more engage the other half about war the next time some yahoo president gets a burning idea..."

I don't know quite what you're trying to suggest here, but if you're implying that women were disengaged from the Iraq war stuff, I think you'll find most peaceniks are women, most peace protestors are women, and most of the people who voted for W (both times) were men.

So I don't know quite what you're getting at.