Poster SRaber had it exactly right when s/he said:

"I continue to be astonished by the degree to which people are willing to project on to McCain all sorts of positions and attitudes that he has never consistently demonstrated or effected."

Remember those surveys right before the 2004 election when all kindsa moderates, swing-voters, and Reagan Democrat types were asked what they believed Ws policies to consist of, and HUGE (like 60-80%) proportions of them were attributing to W policy goals that were the EXACT OPPOSITE of what he had been doing for four years, and was loudly proclaiming he would do over the next four?

Are we as stupid and ill-informed as they are? Are we to be as guilty of "projecting" (perfect word, SRaber) what we WISH were there onto McCain?

I sure hope not, but it's looking more like that every day. I got on the McCain bus back in 2000 for three reasons: first, he AT THAT TIME had staked out exactly those maverick positions that still do him credit -- attempting to minimize the impact of big-money in politics, etc. Second, in his campaign appearances in near-to-me NH, he was giving polite listens to eco-activists who were showing up at his rallies dressed as trees (!). (And, even more to his credit, he followed up on this, again staking out a position on global warming that's more forward than most of our Democratic "leaders" have done.) And third (and least noticed at the time and since), he expressed considerable concern about the increasing disparity in incomes, wealth, and opportunity in our country -- much more so, again, than most Dem's, who have allowed themselves to be completely cowed by the Repuke lies and cries of "class warfare."

But what he's done since then -- voting for the Bush tax cuts, throwing all his support behind the Worst. President. Ever. I'm sorry -- I understand that he has to survive the Repellican primaries to be on the ticket at all. I understand "triangulation." But there are limits -- and he's been WAY too far over them for WAY too long. He's burned too many bridges and his bus can't get back to Straight Talk -- not now, not ever.

"whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Galations 6:7)

Y'know, if these people would ever actually READ their Bibles...

D'oh! Always preview, always preview, always preview.

"Grandma Moses" was over 75 when she BEGAN her career as an artist; the record price for ONE of her works is over $200k (how much over, I know not -- further detail costs $; you're not worth the expense). How much do YOU make doing whatever you do besides being an asshole, Cartman?

And the actual percentage of people with ADHD is a matter of considerable controversy even among professional clinicians, one of which I'm reasonably confident you, "Cartman," are not.

Whatever wretched existence you have that would make you say something as utterly and self-evidently stupid and unhelpful as that to another person, Cartman, it's still insufficient to excuse your saying it HERE.

Can somebody ban this jerk, please? There are limits.

"Only 27 percent of those polled say they think 'things in this country are going in the right direction.'"

"Get America Back on Track" has been my suggested slogan for the Dems for half a year now. With one of the most widely-reported and regularly-asked (and thus universally recognized) of polling questions being the "right track / wrong track" one (it's more frequently reported w/that wording), it's well-fertilized ground, just waiting for the seeds to be planted -- a pre-positioned meme already working on our behalf, and begging to be further exploited.

And (IMHO of course) it beats the pants off of "Together we can do better" or whatever pablum it was came out of the big Dem confab last fall (as would, I think, just about anything this side of "Democrats -- we couldn't possibly be any WORSE, now, could we?" -- are there really NO salespeople at all among the Dems?).

But I've been dropping the suggestion onto various blogs for a while to no effect -- so either just one voice isn't enough, or nobody agrees with me & my suggestion bites (or possibly both of course). But if anyone does think this deserves promotion, feel free to send the suggestion along in any directions you think might help.

Anonymous, thank you for that ("Standard") -- think you could you do the same for the posters at "Since You Asked..."?

I really should know better than to read the comments section there -- same thing only more so.

between essentialist terminology like this:

Whatever being Caribbean means to you, let it be a source of strength. Look at the Caribbean women around you for models... Do the women in your culture complain bitterly about mistreatment by men?

...and racism. Am I the only one thinking this doesn't feel quite right? I notice at least one or two posters who mention being of Caribbean origin haven't complained, so maybe I'm just seeing problems where there really aren't any...

O, and my $0.02 -- yeh, this guy's totally playing the LW and she'd be well served to move on. She's worth more than what she's getting from him, and cutting him any slack because he's hurting? Please, he almost certainly brought that on himself. If he wasn't willing to marry the mother of his kids after that many years, he's got no basis for complaining when she upgrades. LW should do the same.