Rev. Al Sharpton unabashedly uses black identity to make his points re: race in the United States. That's a fact. Take it or leave it.

Hillary Clinton accidentally (if the explanation is true) used white identity to make her point re: race in the Democratic primary.

Here lies a legitimate comparison. Period. There's nothing scandalous about it (at least not in terms of what Matthews said--and, I'm SO not a fan of his!).

Can we move on to the REAL story that MSNBC (and everyone else) doesn't want to cover since it takes away the story they've chosen to tell:

All of this "white working-class", "college educated", "african-american", "urban", "suburban", "rural", "female", "male", "latino", (why doesn't anyone ever parse out the asian-american vote?!?), demographic deconstruction DOES NOT MEAN SHIT!

We're talking about Democrats, people. Yes, there are some conservative Dems who will vote for McCain in November; apparently a huge percentage of them live in West Virginia. Other than that over-represented demographic--if we look only at yesterday!--Democrats are going to damn-well vote for a Democrat come election day.

How is this a mystery? How is this glossed over week after week after week? What is there in this that's difficult to grok?

It matters absolutely not, that Clinton appealed to certain Dems more than Obama, and vice versa; Obama has more votes and more delegates and will be the nominee. Democrats will vote for him in November--that's why they call themselves Democrats! Even the white ones with only a GED.

Could someone outside of a letters thread force-feed this commonsense to anyone in the MSM (including Salon) so we can move-the-hell on and start campaigning against the Republican.

E-effing-nough already.

most of this I posted in response to WarRoom's Chris Matthews post, but I paste it here minus the C.M. observations, because--damn!:

All of this "white working-class", "college educated", "african-american", "urban", "suburban", "rural", "female", "male", "latino", (why doesn't anyone ever parse out the asian-americans?!?), demographic deconstruction DOES NOT MEAN SHIT!

We're talking about Democrats, people. Yes, there are some conservative Dems who will vote for McCain in November; apparently a huge percentage of them live in West Virginia (they were over-represented yesterday!). But, Democrats are going to damn-well vote for a Democrat come election day.

How is this a mystery? How is this glossed over week after week after week? What is there in this that's difficult to grok?

It matters absolutely not, that Clinton appealed to certain Dems more than Obama, and vice versa; Obama has more votes and more delegates and will be the nominee. Democrats will vote for him in November--that's why they call themselves Democrats! Even the white ones with only a GED.

Could someone outside of a letters thread force-feed this commonsense to anyone in the MSM (including Salon) so we can move-the-hell on and start campaigning against the Republican.

E-effin'-nough already.

...that was funny!

I'm more than a little disappointed that MoveOn didn't get it. I really don't see anything terribly offensive in it. Although, there is still a very large portion of the left that is stuck in militant-political-correctness mode. I suppose they're probably disproportionately represented in MO.org.

"Coach, from "Cheers" was color blind" was my favorite!

I've lived in Oregon since the late 90's, and I've never not voted by mail. I voted by mail in 2000. I voted by mail 2004. Everyone in the state has voted exclusively by mail for many years now, including primaries and off year elections.

To say that this is the first time the Vote By Mail system will be tested in a national election is just plain false. According to the Oregon Secretary of State's office: On November 3, 1998 Oregon voters decide to expand Vote By Mail to primary and general elections by a vote of 757,204 to 334,021.

Sloppy reporting, Salon. Shame on you.

Nor was Kennedy a Boomer, but he was the first leader the Baby Boomers found inspiring. (never mind that when the boom actually ended is completely speculative at best!) As a gen-xer, I find Obama to be the first to inspire me to this degree, and dozens of my friends and colleagues of many generations agree!. B. Clinton nearly did it for me back in '92, but Obama takes it to another level.

As for your assumption that it would be President Obama sitting down with Kim Jong Il and the like: that's a bit presumptuous. This sort of diplomacy is the responsibility of the State Department. Regardless of the causal nature of Kennedy/Kruschev on B.O.Ps., most administrations send teams of diplomats months or years in advance to calm the waters and sus out whether a summit is possible, or reasonable.

So much pessimism!

Wow, that was really classy: putting the word 'ass' in my username (jazztao).

Your methods undermine your credibility, and thus your arguments. Those with reason on their side need not resort to name-calling.

Sad.