Yes, I have read "Devil in a Blue Dress." Your point? You are still stereotyping.

I enjoy Walter Mosely and think he is a writer well worth reading. However, not having read him does not make one illiterate. You paint with a very broad brush. Right now I am sitting in my living room surrounded by 5 bookcases filled with books. Downstairs in my study are 6 more bookcases filled with books. Just a random sampling of the books in my living room that I can see from where I am sitting: "Daniel Deronda," "The Last Chronicle of Barset," "Everything is Illuminated," a biography of Cromwell, a biography of Alexander Hamilton, a biography of Oppenheimer, "King Constantine's Sword," "Hamlet," "Idoru" "Pattern Recognition"(William Gibson), "Atonement," "The Quiet American," "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles," Three Complete Novels by Isaac Bashevis Singer, "Emma," several books by Thich Nhat Hanh, "The Blind Watchmaker," "England under the Tudors," "Bleak House," "Our Mutual Friend," "The Russina Debutante's Handbook," "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," "Middlemarch," "King Lear," books by Henning Mankell, Elizabeth George, P.D. James, Grisham, and, yes, Walter Mosely. So, there you go, at least one Salon reader is not illiterate. Does the fact the 1st three seasons of "Lost" are sitting on my coffee table cancel out my claims to literacy (egads! TV).

Just what makes Obama supporters "insufferable"? What you really should have said is that you were fine with Obama until he started gaining supporters, until it looked like he had a chance to win.

Stereotype much?

Writes:

"[Y]ou will never convince me that Hillary Clinton was too stupid or too clueless to be clued in to all of this."

and, if someone could convince him (or me) of this it would mean that no way in hell should she be President!

And

"There is only one explanation for her vote, and it can be summarized in two words: political cowardice. And while it is true that many other Democrats showed similar cowardice, none of them is currently running for President."

again, yet more proof that Clinton should not be President.

pieceofcake is right - not all Obama supporters are like BryanS - one bad apple doesn't spoil the whole bunch. BryanS' post to HRCin08 was gratuitous. Was there a deadline that HRCin08 missed and, therefore, forfeited her or his right to participate? Please. She has every right to be here. So, HRCin08 as an Obama supporter I say to you welcome and enjoy.

The war resolution in question is the one that authorized us to go to war against Iraq. Not one ounce of proof has ever been found that showed that Iraq was involved in 9/11. So, what would Obama have done if the planes hit the Sears Tower on 9/11? He would have supported action against the proper target: al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Obama was never against war in Afghanistan. And his position is that the Bush administration's abandonment of Afghanistan to take on Iraq was a blunder of monumental proportions that has made the world less safe. The Taliban (the very folks who nurtured and gave haven to al Qaeda) are on the move and the Bush administration seems to be clueless or just doesn't care.

...Obama's response to Hillary's Rovian "3 a.m." ad, along with his swift and forceful responses to recent Republican attacks should convince all but the most rabid Clinton fanatics that he is more than capable of holding his own and, indeed, besting his Republican opponents. This is what a fighter looks like!

You write: "Since I have not sought out information on www.barackobama.com, I really don't know what he's about, other than lifting up the country, uniting the country, and changing the country."

Strange this. You don't support him yet (a) you have never bothered to find out "what he's about" (what would you have done in the days before radio, television or the Internet - egads! you'd actually have to read something to get information about a candidate rather than relying on a 20 second sound byte) and (b) what you do know about him "he's about...lifting up the country, uniting the country, and changing the country" seem like pretty good reasons to support him.

It is easy to say that voting for the war was a mistake and that if you had it to do over again you would vote against it.

Of course no one can prove or disprove that Obama would have voted against the war had he been in the Senate at the time. On the other hand, there are no "do overs" in real life. Here's what is real:

1.) Hillary voted for the war. You can look it up.

2.) Obama was a candidate for the Senate when he opposed the war in 2002; think back to what the mood in the country was like back then - opposing the war, going up against the Bush administration was not exactly the most popular thing to do but Obama did it anyway and he probably lost votes because of it. That is what I call judgment and courage.