Rebecca, that was fucking beautiful. Thank you so much for so quickly distilling those moments in prose.

I love a blog as much as the next guy. And, I've really been enjoying War Room and Broadsheet these past few months. That said:

Today I discovered what a brilliant writer, Thomas Schaller is, and I've been reminded what a brilliant writer you are, Ms. Traister. Blog posts are nice and all, but--for chrissakes!--Salon, let your writers write some freakin' columns from time to time!!!

May we all continue to engage one another in dialogue and in action as we take up the renewed mantle of civic duty that Barack Obama has offered us. I am proud to be an American today.

Change Is Gonna Come.

Joan, I'm disappointed.

Oh, and Tupac's 'Changes'

;-)

to McCain's concession speech.

I understand your bristling at the mention of special pride. But, Joan...really? You think that your special pride as a white liberal can even remotely compare to black American's whose parents and grandparents had honest-to-goodness relationships with former slaves???

As a fellow white liberal I have a wholly unique sense of pride in my country this evening. But I would never presume to have any visceral understanding of the pride felt by my black friends. Never.

McCain did a courageous thing by putting that in his speech. And, by so doing turned the page on a long, hateful chapter of Republican politics in this country. Don't belittle that, please.

Of course, we must remain diligent as hell to see to it that radical conservatives don't try and flip back a few pages to revisit the violent illustrations of the past!

Yes, I see your point. And, I agree with it; the McCain camp has been incomprehensibly tone deaf for months now.

I don't know that that's news to them though. And, I still believe--based on the rest of his address--that McCain really was trying to do the right thing. I think his "shout-out" to African-Americans was sincere.

To inject my imagination a bit further, I get the sense that McCain gets that violent opposition to Obama would be an horrific, if not-surprising outcome of his campaign's race/terrorist-baiting and he is desperately, humbly, if much too belatedly trying to quash any sort of conservative up-rising.

@Klytus: I don't believe I was being hyper-sensitive. I just think that McCain was going out of his way to give props to African-Americans, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. In fact, I find it admirable coming from the party of Willie Horton ads! I do think that it should not in any way rub white progressives the wrong way.

I'm sympathetic to your pardon suggestion, but I lean towards those who say accountability is primary! Our congress did nothing these past 8 years, and the American people deserve the truth and we deserve justice. Period.

But, Garrison, NO GOLF? WTF?

All of this anxiety about the same party ruling all three branches being some sort of doomsday scenario is so much bunk!

The Democrats controlled congress for most of the 20th Century, regardless of which party controlled the executive branch. This resulted in some of the greatest achievements of our nation and some of the least; these greater and lesser achievements came with Democrats in the White House and with Republicans in the White House.

The Congress, by its very nature, is much more directly responsible to the voter than the President. If they screw up in the next two years (as determined by the electorate) they will pay the price. It will only take two years before there is a correction--if necessary.

People who fear "one party rule" forget that the democratic process--for all its faults--actually works. Y'all need to take a breath and hold the high watch rather than letting your imagination run away to worst-case scenarios.

P.S. As an Oregonian: Cheers to Senator-elect Merkley!!!

Here's hoping Beyoncé, Tim McGraw, Kanye West, Death Cab for Cutie, the Dixie Chicks and the Harlem Boys Choir perform "People Get Ready."

As if I hadn't cried enough the past two days; this got right to the f@ckin' heart of it. Thank you.

(and as a Spokane native [with an 'e'--I know, not the same] much respect to you on your continued success. And, please say "hey" to Jim Boyd for me. We played together at SFCC back in the day)

All love,

Brian Harris

Thanks King, this was a serious and beautiful post; and a perfect, pointed addition to the dialogue. I'm so glad you can bring sport into this national discussion in such a--for lack of a better way of saying it--proportional way: a piece of the puzzle--a necessary piece, but only a piece.

Do you decline offers to pundit-ize on Costas, ESPN, etc? Or are they all just too stupid to know a good thing (and a forward-looking one at that!) when it stares them in the face?

Ditto on the praise for bookworm's letter. Beautiful.

...James' columns always make for some really great letters!!!