"Nobody got asked about Wright's theory that AIDS was created in a CIA laboratory as part of a massive government conspiracy, or any of the array of other nutball ideas that Wright has extracted from the fever-swamp of racial hatred." - Elephantman

If you were more a student of history than you are right-wing propaganda, you might have known that the belief that AIDS was created by the US Government intentionally to damage African-Americans is not at all as far-fetched as you proclaim. While it is a view that is not pervasive among African-Americans, it is a deep-seated suspicion that lingers among many. Many white gay men believed the same thing at one time. Some still do.

For forty years between 1932 and 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) conducted an experiment on 399 black men in the late stages of syphilis. These men, for the most part illiterate sharecroppers from one of the poorest counties in Alabama, were never told what disease they were suffering from or of its seriousness. Informed that they were being treated for “bad blood,” their doctors had no intention of curing them of syphilis at all. The data for the experiment was to be collected from autopsies of the men, and they were thus deliberately left to degenerate under the ravages of tertiary syphilis—which can include tumors, heart disease, paralysis, blindness, insanity, and death. “As I see it,” one of the doctors involved explained, “we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”

There have long been assertions, with some evidence, that the U.S. military distributed small pox infected blankets to Native Americans, most notably the Lakota near the end of the 19th century.

Given the history of treatment of non-whites in the United States, it is not surprising that there exists a level of distrust and suspicion among many African-Americans toward official explanations issued by government agencies. That you insist that they have the same genesis as the lunatic Hagee and his ilk, or that they are attributable to "the fever-swamp of racial hatred" speaks to your ignorance, insensitivities and racial biases.

Ever since Ohio, it would seem that the Obama campaign has made a strategic decision, as they continue to search for the delegates necessary to clinch the nomination. Even though it sees like this primary season will never end, this is still the primaries! Perhaps the strategy is no more complicated than this..."focus on the states we can win!" Let's assume that the Obama folks made a calculated cost/benefit analysis and figured out a way to get to the nomination spending as little money as possible, and wasting as little time as possible in places he's not likely to win. They all do their own polling. They're running a Presidential primary race, not a consciousness raising session. Time is running out. He doesn't have time to get ALL the hillbillies up to speed! Once he gets the nomination, he'll be back. Clinton's going to win KY today and from the looks of things Obama's going to clobber her in Oregon, a state with more delegates than KY. Where would you spend your time if you're trying to get the delegates?

What about his surrogates and his supporters in these rust-belt and upper southern states? What role do they play in informing and convincing voters that Obama's their man?

So you can write and post partisan screeds on Salon.com. So what?

"Government is not supposed to solve all our problems or absolve us of our responsibilities. And no politician will be able to rescue us from ourselves."

This is what I hear in Obama's speeches, his vision, his rhetoric too. He makes the point over and over that we, the voters, the citizens, are the ones who will make whatever changes are coming by being involved, by being participants and not by expecting government to solve every problem. Sometime we need government's help, sometime we need government leadership, and sometime we need government to stay out of it. We need leaders with the wisdom to know the difference. His approach to good governance is grass roots up, which is the defining feature of the most successful and healthy Republics.

"There do not seem to be any penalties or consequences for being wrong-headed and in certain public places - such as in the media - there actually appears to be a strong positive correlation between success and ignorance." TRKid

--------

I'm going to skip over the next 35 pages of comments to post a reply here to your painful, but keen, observation about American life in particualr. This is not new information however: "With enough self-confidence and sufficient stupidity, success is guaranteed in this life." - Mark Twain

"I'm sure there's no precedent for it, but if there were we would easily see how damaging it was to the peculiar traditions, to the very way of life, that some people hold precious." - Amity

-----------

I'm going to skip over the next 156 pages of comments to post this so someone has probably already pointed this out. It seems to me that Amity is being facetious in her commentary. Her references to "peculiar" traditions (slavery was referred to as that "peculiar institution".) and her "defense" of states' rights, and her warning reference to the threats to a "way of life" that the CA SC's gay marriage decision implies...all implies that Amity's comments are tongue-in-cheek.

I never had the idea that Vidal was defending McVeigh, rather explaining him. But even I, a true fan (of his essays), can clearly see that he should stop doing interviews. He's starting to rattle and some of his theories do border on the "cockamamie." I'd pay to hear his reaction to that characterization!

I love ya man! You made me laugh out loud. Jesus!

It's petulant jealousy. Immature, juvenile silliness. It should mesh well with the adolescent American psyche.