Uppity/smug? Your white sheet is showing!

I don't care how he learned to be a natural. I don't like this guy. I don't know why, but I just don't like him. No fawning inspiration here. I think "smug" is still a very appropriate term for Obama.

I've been reading Salon for a year+ now, and I am pretty sure that I haven't seen any major articles-- and certainly no critical journalism-- on Hillary. Am I missing something? I know that Salon has some very strong ties to Clintoncrats, and a growing relationship to the general establishment, but this is too much.

Am I a conspiracy theorist to think that power, money, and political connections have overtaken journalistic integrity? Am I a sexist for wondering if the delicate treatment of Hillary is a reflection of the recent shift to a female-dominated editorial board? I would like to think not-- please prove me wrong!

Now, if Salon does decidedly support Hillary, and if they were to officially endorse her, then I could not complain so much. After all, an official endoresment would at least let us readers know beforehand the filter through which Salon.com articles are pushed, what the motives of the editors are, and why they choose to continue banging the Obama bashing drum. I would be less suprised to see such blatant race-baiting, in the Service of the Queen. I would be more forgiving of the contributing authors; I might even feel sorry for them, that their original writing and intentions are edited and billed to an agenda not necissarily their own. I would have subscribed by now.

So Salon, please make your choice. Decide if your master is journalistic integrity or the promotion of a candidate. Decide if you will be a slave to profit-generating or to politics. Just decide, because if you are not fully honest and open, then you are liars at your best,-- and cutthroat, bigoted, opportunistic, political operatives on your worst days.

The whole media attention on whether Obama is "black enough" and calling voters who are inspired by him "juice drinkers" ala Jim Jones followers seems to me to be yet another attempt to diffuse a candidate by making them seem ridiculous as they did to Howard Dean. I would like to read something about what Obama's policies and his point of view as a candidate, just like any other candidate.

Although, the Salon article is insightful in many ways, it seems Salon is the one "drinking the kool aid" and following the media pack.

"Uppity" has long been used to describe a black person who, according to the racist using it, has "gotten above his station" -- hence the angry, puzzled response here in the letters section. You also see it applied to women who don't take chauvinism lying down.

I am a big fan of Salon, I read it daily, have writting for it before, hope to again, and I have tremendous respect for what how the magazine has taken huge chances other media avoid.

That said, I was very disappointed to see the correction (as it were) of the use of "uppity" buried within the comments.

I've been a journalist for decades, and words that loaded don't just appear. Any thinking political commentator or editor sees the word "uppity" and knows exactly what it means.

It's use was purposeful, if regrettable. If Salon regrets it, the editors need to put a statement to that effect on the front page. Thanks to the blogs, too many faithful Salon readers know about it. By scrubbing it; it looks shifty and disengenuous.

Slate, a magazine I don't enjoy nearly as much, does a fantastic job making corrections a public matter. Their technique of anchored corrections show integrity dealing with the smallest mistakes that Salon should mirror with this giant one.

This is all very interesting, and good information to know about a guy who is trying to sell himself as today's everyman. Frankly, though I vote Democrat and I don't dislike Obama, I feel I don't trust him enough to give him my vote. I simply don't know enough about him... and what I do know, and what I am learning from articles like this, paint a portrait of a man who, just like every other politician, is more concerned with being successful at politics than really doing anything.

Obama claims he will be a uniter (I recall another unseasoned, 'trustworthy' presidential candidate who made the same claim not too long ago), but where is the evidence to support such an assertion? Why are we to believe that he will be any more successful in generating bipartisan support than anyone else? The attacks on him by the right-wing media, blamed on Clinton, indicate that the right-wing is no more willing to listen to his ideas than anyone else's.

The author of this article makes clear that before he learned it was advantageous to disguise his contempt for his fellow legislators, Obama was a pompous ass, an arrogant Ivy-leaguer "stooping" to state-level politics rather than making big bucks at a high profile firm. So far as I can tell, the only thing that's changed is that he's not a lot smarter about hiding his arrogance. Does anyone really think that a spanking at one of his first elections really changed his heart on such matters? His loss seems to have smartened him up, but I don't think it seriously humbled him. His skyrocketing path towards political stardom, and his own insistence on his superior abilities to govern despite his lack of experience, demonstrate his arrogance.

The left-wing likes Obama because he is conveniently multiracial, has a relatively spotless record, he's young and charismatic, and he's electable without being soft. The right-wing fears him for the same reasons. But can anyone say what the hell Obama could actually accomplish, as president, that anyone else couldn't?

Until Obama can prove that he's more than a smooth-talking, intellectually arrogant pretty-boy, Hillary's got my vote.

"What the Obama-phenomena says more about is the vapidity and shallowness of the media than anything else."

Ha!

You mischaracterize the Obamenon. He's the guy who:

a) Can say he didn't vote for the war

b) Can say he didn't vote for the war

c) Has nothing to do with Vietnam, cultural revolutions, or any of the other toxic bullshit that have hampered lefty boomers

d) Did I mention he didn't fuck up on the Iraq war? And that even if you say 'he couldn't have voted for it', this very thin excuse still puts him head and shoulders above all the other leading Democratic candidates. Maybe we're excited about voting for a man who hasn't failed the most important vote in a generation

e) Can articulate a vision for political discourse that is consensus driven

f) Isn't related to anyone who has been President in the last 10 minutes

g) Isn't John "False Sincerity" Edwards

h) Can win!