The fact you as editor in chief focus on nonsense like Obama's response to a trivial question, your absurd claim that racism is behind people's dislike of Bonds (a man who has been reviled even by teammates since he was in college) and your pathetic implementation of this blog speaks to why I stopped being a Salon subscriber after many years.

Why should the next President, a person who has to clean up the various debacles of the Bush administration, pay even the slightest attention to how well some person hits a yarn, leather-covered ball with a wooden stick? I mean abstract this issue a bit and it shows what an ass Obermann was even to ask it, although as a former sportscaster he has some excuse. What's yours out there in leftist field, Joan?

"I give Bonds the benefit of the doubt. I do it because I care about the underdog,..."

"underdog"? Bonds, a college-educated, multi-millionaire superstar, an underdog? You are a disturbing parody of a leftist when you say things like that Joan.

"benefit of the doubt"? For a man who has explicitly admitted to using substances (e.g. "the clear") now known to contain illegal steroids?

If Bonds were not black, you would not be in his corner, period. That is racism.

Contrast all of this with your constant attacks on Barack Obama for not being black-enough, manly-enough, etc. He is a true underdog in the context of the Presidential Race, yet you treat him like garbage.

Obama is moral, decent man and Bonds is an egotistical cheater. But I guess a black man who doesn't play into some prescribed victim role just doesn't fit your phony white-man's burden leftism.

when Joan as editor-in-chief approved the following two articles:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/01/22/obama/index.html

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/07/12/obama_hillary

Also see AncientAssyrian's detailed post from yesterday on how much Phony Joanie is a 'fan' of Obama:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/walsh/election_2008/2007/08/07/obama_bonds/permalink/1ff3947b5e7965292b2f506cf0e4fa72.html

Earlier I wrote: "Bonds, a college-educated, multi-millionaire superstar, an underdog? You are a disturbing parody of a leftist when you say things like that Joan."

Since posting that I remembered his dad and Willie Mays so I should have written:

Bonds, a born into an upper-class income bracket, given privileged exposure to the game and a star player from an early age, college-educated, multi-millionaire superstar, an underdog? You are a disgusting parody of a leftist when you say things like that Joan and show a very broken moral compass.

As long as you are at the helm of Salon it will continue to betray liberal values and reason for what ever fashionable, uncritical victim-worship you choose to engage in, a trend seen in the mainstream media as well. You have in effect become the Fox News of ‘liberal’ journalism and your Bonds support is an eerie leftist parallel to something Rush Limbaugh might do for the baseball equivalent of Ollie North.

It would be better that Salon die than to continue much longer with its current ethos. I for one and finished with Salon completely after almost ten years. You have simply run out of credibility.