Now, I don't like to defend the Republican party, and I'm not doing so entirely here, but you've got to say one thing for them, they don't eat their young. They take an idiot like George W and they protect him and prepare him and none of them acknowledge one damn flaw and look - they got themselves a president! What does the left do? Run articles with overly sensational headlines exposing that the candidate everyone's falling in love with has actually been - gasp - stiff as a speaker! Smug! How could we ever get by with such qualities in a politician?

OK, there's a few other differences between Democrats and Republicans. And of course I don't defend covering up real flaws just to stand by one of our own. But let's find some real flaws, first.

The editor and writer need to do a little fact checking. The northside restaurant that the writer declares is "organic" is no such thing. It's certainly a restaurant where the hippies and poseurs hang out, but it's not organic. I suppose this is a minor mistake for a writer to make, but it's a big slap to those few restaurants in Chicago that are truly organic.

Well after reading all the letters in response to all the Obama articles all I can say is "wow, apparently America is TOTALLY FUCKED UP when it comes to race!!"

Jeebus hell, really? you're getting your head in a knot of "uppity"??

read the bloody article before blasting it...it's written by someone who saw him years ago and has seen someone who has become a leader, what's so bloody wrong with that??

thank christ i live in nice, normal, sane Canada.

More like more muted, more quiet Canada. I like Canada - it's my home. That doesn't make it free of problems, or a good cudgel to hit Americans with. The Americans have their deficiencies, and we have ours. I submit in support of this perspective the police practice of dumping Natives out on the prairie in mid-winter, without coats and shoes, where they freeze to death.

I am all for vigorous criticism of the US, in part because of its influence outside of its own borders. However, the idea of Canada as absolutely clean and sane is, minimally, wilfully blind.

Fair enough, I hadn't thought of that, you're absolutely correct, that practice is appalling.

I guess I'm just blinded by living in Toronto. I was thinking about this last night while taking the bus home, I made a point of looking at everyone around me and noticed that the great majority were non british/french and it dawned on me that I if I didn't consciously make a point to take note I wouldn't have noticed. Maybe it made me think that race is not so much of an issue here (but I forgot about the Native issues, prolly because there just isn't a large and visible Native population here)

point taken

cheers,

I came over today because Glenn Greenwald is here now. I stopped subscribing a year or so ago after Salon seemed to start dwelling endlessly on the trivial. I miss War Room and thought that the wooing of Unclaimed Territory to the site meant things were getting better. Then I visit and discover a long essay on how uppity Obama--sly, sly thing!--has become a better politician over the years.

Is there no end to this kind of nonsense? Could reporters everywhere dispense with pieces worrying over Obama's black-or-not-really-black-enoughness, or Hillary's "conniving" or "shrill" nature, and just write about what ideas (or lack of them) these people have to clean up the mess the Bush administration is going to leave us with?

Almost no one reading this article has actually seen the word anywhere in conjunction to this article. It was in the byline and removed very early on the first day the article was posted.

Yet everyone wanting to attack this piece latches onto it, obviously not responding to the piece (in which they never saw it) but the comments of others here, which are being taken at face value. It's most probable that McClelland didn't write the byline and that the racist interpretation of it (if that's accurate) never was a part of his thought process.

"Uppity" has become the straw man letter writers are using because, for some reason, they are highly sensitive to any criticism of Obama.

It seems McClelland objects to the Obama's process of maturing and learning from his mistakes - that we should view this process instead as a cynical bid to manipulate his image for personal gain. What of it - to some degree we all do it all the time. It's call 'growing up'.

I do love Salon, but the tone of this article does not suggest any kind of real journalism. It's nasty, poorly written, and dare I say it, "uppity" AND "smug".

Smae on you.

I do love Salon, but the tone of this article does not suggest any kind of real journalism. It's nasty, poorly written, and dare I say it, "uppity" AND "smug".

Shame on you.

"I don't know enough about Obama, but I do know that one is either a 'natural' or one is not - you can't learn it, or become one through practice...the phrase carries its own definition."

It was immediately obvious to me that this headline "How Obama learned to be a natural" was meant ironically. The same way one might say "In politics, sincerity is everything - once you can fake that, you have it made". Is no one capable of reading with subtlety anymore? As for polititians being smug and arrogant, didn't one of Shaw's characters say "you know nothing and think you know everything; you are obviously destined for a career in politics". What else is new? I take it for granted that a politician is self-aggrandizing and power-mad. My only concern is for the policies he/she espouses, and whether he/she can actually promote them and implement them. Where does Obama stand on war, on universal health care, on reigning in the military industrial oligarchy, on climate change and peak oil? Who pulls his strings? What will he do to reduce wealth disparity in this country? As for Hillary, how could anyone vote for someone who voted in favor of the Iraq war - a war that may even exceed Vietnam in stupidity and waste? But to criticize Obama for faking being "natural" is to fall into the error of hopeless naivity, and to lose all claim on being taken seriously.