The answer is that the majority of American voters is pretty stupid and uneducated. When Obama talks, he describes nuance, and complexities that the average American doesn't understand. With belief in evolution, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and an apocalypse hovering at 50%, the American voter cannot possibly understand Obama when he discusses complex issues like the wars in the Middle East.

Seriously folks, we've got an electorate the equivalent of a slack-jawed, drooling moron who guzzles cheap beer and was raised on mind-numbing cable television. The electorate doesn't read, ANYTHING, and can't find Iraq on a map.

Marx once wrote that, to paraphrase, a slave who wants only to be a slave, deserves to be a slave. There is no collective class consciousness in this country; the unions are crushed, there is no equivalent to the Wall Street Journal (no major worker's daily with equivalent circulation), the media are consolidated in the hands of the few, and the celebrity journalists are all whores (are you reading, Joan Walsh?) who have to kiss ass (or worse) to get interviews and scoops.

The American electorate will have to suffer much more at the hands of McCain before it will wake up. The shit hasn't hit bottom, yet. The Republicans have succeeded in dragging everything to the Right to the extent that to look at the American political landscape you have a nearly Fascist party competing with a conservative, nominally Christian, center-right-wing party. That's it.

McCain will win, folks.

Just because I point out that the American electroate is stupid and undeducated doesn't mean that I'm an elitist or condescending. Quite the opposite. They've been conditioned that way, due to our culture and historical circumstances. That doesn't mean that they can't wake up and think differently, and take actions. I point out the reasons in my earlier post. People can and *DO* change, but it will take great suffering before this happens.

I consider myself a progressive. We progressives are not the ones who voted for lower wages, no health care, lost jobs, crumbling infrastructure, no education. Condescension and elitism are the hallmarks of the Republican Party and their allies by telling the American people that they're basically no better than herded swine who deserve nothing. We have a financial meltdown on Wall Street and guess what, we have a bail-out for the wealthy, we are told, because it benefits us, the common folk! We've had a wholesale transfer of enormous wealth from the working class to the super-rich in the way of the revised tax code, and, again, we're told it's all for the better. Bush and his allies are creating a permanent aristocracy that simply doesn't have to work, where wealth is transferred to progeny. We basically have socialism for the rich, something akin to serfdom. That's the definition of elitism and condescension!

Just walk away from this guy AND his wife and leave it at that. You don't know her; she most likely knows something is up and is just as fucked up as he because she is still with him. You need to protect yourself and extricate yourself from this relationship without causing any more hurt, pain, or drama.

You need to ask yourself WHY you stayed in this relationship against your will and work through this. It would be TOTALLY different if he were just a good bang in bed and all you got out of it was sex, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I'm all for having "fuck-buddies" to relieve some stress and have a good time, but, for sure, married guys are dangerous, always because there is that ever-present danger of actually falling in love with your fuck-buddy.

I like to watch all the teams and all the competitors. I'm not patriotic, I don't wave the flag, and I don't root for the Americans.

Patriotism is like religion, the opiate of the masses. I do realize that I'm in the minority.

I would love to have more stringent libel laws, more like the UK.

How this bastard is not being sued is beyond me.

Yes, you hit this one right on...

I know some liberals love Rick Warren, but to me he seems like yet another preening narcissistic televangelist -- especially as he was high-fiving Obama about their multimillion-dollar book deals, and kvetching about how $250,000 a year in Orange County isn't "rich." Let's think about the least of our brothers, OK, Rick?

I must write that I agree that Obama should never have performed the gig. If he keeps up these let's-go-for-the-middle (whatever THAT means) of the road voters he'll lose by a bigger margin than Kerry. The lesson that the Democrats haven't learned is that when they try to pretend to be Republican-lite, they get their asses blasted.

The people who aren't voting are disgusted by the whorish opportunism of the big-money political parties. Joan is right to be suspicious of Obama, but too bad she couldn't see that Hillary is no different.

If Obama channeled that energy into hammering the Republicans harder and became more progressive, he would surge ahead. And that entails never ceding any territory.

I don't understand why PUMA's are so angry and I don't know why they are skeptical of Obama. Not a single person, not even Joan Walsh, who is a Hillary fan, has explained the differences between the candidates' platforms.

This whole controversy in the media seems pretty mindless, devoid of any specifics, any analysis of the difference between Hillary's platform and Obama's. We even hear idiots on NPR's "Morning Edition" saying stupid shit like "Obama has asked for my money, but not my vote."

Joan! Please ENUMERATE the policy differences that P.U.M.A.'s and Obama skeptics at the Convention are talking about. What differences are there? What are they demanding of Obama? If there are no substantive differences between their platforms, I can't figure out why they are so passionate for Hillary other than this whole affair is nothing more than mindless identity politics and fodder for Republican trolling.