"Uppity" + Dungeons and Dragons paranoia in the "street kids" article...Salon has officially gone down the toilet.

I was sick and tired of the Obama-bashing from the last Obama-bashing article. I'm still waiting for your "critical" and "provocative" look at Hillary Clinton.

Please.

Please get over your sensitive selves. And learn to read (you clearly can't). The author voted for him. Twice. He applauded Obama's political sophistication and ability to play in the big leagues rather than giving up after an early misstep. This is a positive piece, and a good examination of how a politician learns to work in the system. He's compared to one of the most overwhelmingly successful politicians in the second half of the twentieth century. This is not a smear campaign. It is a well-considered article.

Here's a probably futile request to Salon to stop the Obama bashing. If this article was meant as positive, it did not come across to me that way, and I read every word.

The great thing about America is that you can reinvent yourself. The people I meet now do not judge me on the person I was ten years ago, and rightly so.

We have had enough negativity in the current administration.

I applaud anyone who wants to rise above the cynicism and run a positive campaign. Unlike our President, Obama has already demonstrated the ability to listen and learn from his past mistakes. That is an invaluable quality and one I want in the next president.

I don't object to articles that dissect a candidate's politics and background, but the ones on Obama lately seem unnecessarily mean-spirited. And if you want to slam me as "drinking the Obama juice" go right ahead.

>We screwed up by using the word uppity...<

That wasn't a screw-up--that was deliberate. "Uppity" isn't a word one just pulls out of one's toolbox. Are you going to claim that the Free Republic creeps hacked your site or something? I expect this crap from them--I sure as hell would never expect it from SALON.

Your article was so lacking it's no wonder that Salon alone, the tabloid of last resort, would publish it.

Obama is the news du jour, and since Salon can't seem to get many decent writes these days, they stoop to publishingin Edward McClelland's rehash of an unremarkable seven year old interview. Pathetic.

the evidence he give's of Obamas rough edges is that he

1) checked his watch at the beginning of an interview. Geeze, what a chrono-nazi!

2) remarked in an interview, to a writer covering his bio, that he was proud of his personal sacrifice and work for common people rather than taking the easy road to fame and fortune which was, and is, in fact the norm for people of his accomplishments. Oh, how shameless of him!

And on from there.

There are too many cheap shot artists and assorted assholes in our media. the type who are always trying to work some tired formula of controversy or hype to turn a buck. People like Edward McClelland.

I didn't get here in time to read the "uppity" bit, but I didn't find this article quite so "Obama bashing" as everyone else. I did think it was mostly pointless and awfully self-satisfied and smug on the part of the author, but I ended up liking Obama more. He is able to learn from his mistakes, he's smart and good at legislating and now he's good at campaigning too. Governing shouldn't be just a popularity contest, but it speaks well of a candidate if everyone likes him and even his former opponents praise his abilities.

What I really took offense to was the equating of supply-side economics with universal health care. The former probably did have to be masked and obfuscated in order to feed it to the public, it was a bad idea and has been proven thus. The latter, on the otherhand, has long had wide support among people, the problem is clearly the powerful insurance and pharmaceutical and hospital interests who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. It will probably take a gifted politician to bring about universal health care, but not because he will have to hoodwink the people into something they don't want.

I hope many of the Salon letter writers realize Salon is just milking people for clicks so as to boost ad revenue. I suggest readers who find Salon's continual decline offensive, write to Salon's advertisers to tell them they find Salon offensive, and should either pressure Salon to do better journalism or close shop.

Salon has become expert at controversy, basically by pouring shit into the 'series of pipes' that is the internet, so it can pour our your screen. Then write in letters, and generate more clicks. Which, is incentive for Salon to keep piping the sewage.

Uppity was a mistake? About a historically black candidate? Most half decent bloggers have higher standards. Do the idiots at Salon even deserve to run a web site? I say let them go bankrupt and find other areas of work. They could become plumbers for example, and literally go into the shit piping business.

Lately, I noticed that I come to read Salon less and less... and this is a perfect example of why. I couldn't be more fed up of people writing stories about absolute crap here. Please tell me what this has to do with anything?

Honestly, Salon, I'm done. Done hoping that it was just me being a little extra picky. The writing on this site has gone completely down the hole. The stories here don't seem relevant. Also, more often than not someone has to go back over and fix articles that have false information (that readers point out no less!). That's just plain sloppy!

I used to love checking Salon every morning... now I tend to skip it. I am so disappointed. You've just lost yourself another reader.

Shame on you, Salon.

It was a slanted article with a politically crafted spin to make it sound positive analysis. It only shows that at some point Obama was not quick enough to even pay attantion to journalists like Ed McClelland. Looks like, the real story behind his tirade is some cold shoulder towards a journalist with a big ego and then came the negativity in Mr McClellands columns. It is purely vindictive journalism until Obama gave him some more importance and learned how important it is to "charm" him. This is serious national politics, not a place for some old Chicago day grudge to rum amock. His bitterness is still very fresh and somehow he became the only pundit that Salon could find! As for the people who thinks that we are offended because we don't like anyone criticizing Obama, you must be missing your daily dose of Rush Limbaugh! The republican spin machine, Hillary's ambition will all soon join forces and hope they hire Mr McClelland for "objective" analysis of Obama's past.