xanthro: excellent post and couldn't agree with you more regarding the coming campaign ad. the only thing you forgot to add was, "I'm John McCain, and I approve this message." Or maybe not. The dirty work will probably be parceled out to some hatchet Swiftboat-like group to keep McCain clean. But either way, it will be lethal.

chrisj: i believe the Faulkner quote may be from his Nobel acceptance speech, but I'll defer to a Faulkner scholar if someone hasn't already attributed it. (sorry, haven't kept up with all the recent posts.)

Akron Mike: You make a lot of sense. I just can't imaging so many people being fooled by an amateur like Obama.McCain and the republican's will draw and quarter him.Can you imagine what the SwiftBoater's will dig up about Obama's GDing pastor and his indicted criminal buddy in Chicago. let me tell you they will slaughter him and all the speeches in the world won't help him.

I think Obama supporters who work on his campaign do consider themselvs part of a movement...a movement to get Obama elected.

I know you don't see it as a movement, but what exactly constitutes a movement?; can we in the eye of a movement actually tell that we are part of a movement? If a movement falls in the forest does it make a sound... and all that crap.

Sorry. Look, the fact is that all of the canidates can talk about what they plan on doing if they get elected, but once they are, who knows what the heck is going to happen. I'm sure Bush wasn't planning on September 11.

"The president is the CEO of the country, not its file clerk."

I'm sorry, but wrong analogy. A CEO can get things done because if the employees don't follow his orders they get fired. The President cannot fire Congress or the House. On this point someone like Clinton actually comes out ahead because the "wheeling and dealing" that many people decry are actually what needs to be done when trying to get people with disparate agendas to agree on something -- compromise.

Unless, of course, Obama is counting on a subservient Congress and House. In which case he will be able to get anything he wants done. And the thought of that scares me, honestly.

One too many "if a person is" in that previous post's opening sentence - sorry about that!

I could care less if a person is a person is black or white or checkered or has polka dots - they're either a nice person or an ***hole. I'm so utterly tired of the race debate - this is 2008, let's move on!

Warren Beatty said it best in his brilliant film "Bulworth": we'll f*** till we're all one color.

And dang it - Obama is fifty-fifty, raised by a white mother IF we want to get nitty-gritty and talk percentages.

"should not we,

in false iambic

pentameter declaim

what bullshit?"

Uncle Fester, I love you. You are a treasure.

to repeat myself - but to all the "Hillaries" out here -

When will you finally learn from Obama - fight fight fight is not good enough or as COLBERT says: There's a way to make it positive. Why not embrace it? EMBRACE IT!!!

HILLAR? : No, no, no.

COLBERT: What about a good monster like Cookie Monster? And your campaign slogan - I'm helping out here - the campaign slogan could be "C is for Clinton, that's good enough for me." Think about it. THINK ABOUT IT!!

but the grandmother segment was terribly inappropriate. I do think there are great differences between the grandmother and pastor's mistakes; one may voice an opinion from a place of naiveté, in the context of a private familial relationship (in which you would assume would be off the record). The other seems to be currently fanning flames (if not deliberately stirring shit) for public record.

So yeah, I did find comparing the two for similarities kind of heartbreaking. Despite the mistakes of your elders, you still have to respect their life experience. You can always find another pastor, but your grandmother won't be around forever. Your relatives might be responsible for off-color opinions at times, but unless they agree specifically to be used an as example for your benefit, then this aspect of their history should be omitted from personal revelations.

I also noticed no one addressed Akron Mike's excellent letter, especially on the Swiftboat issue. I seem to recall not thinking this was going to be a huge deal back in 2004, but never underestimate your enemy or overestimate the voters I suppose.

Now go, my children! Go and spread the word that not only is Obama a token secret Muslim anti-Semite empty suit idiot and corrupt gangster, but he HATES GRANDMOTHERS AS WELL! HE SAID IT HIMSELF! OMG! OMG! OMG!!!!1!!!1!11!!!!! THE OUTRAGE

*fan myself in moral indignation until I collapse fromt eh strain*

And.........CURTAIN!

Thank you for understanding. Let's all hope for the best. I've been crossing my fingers for some time now. And if you still haven't got one, take my advice -- have a plan B ready. This economy's going to be in an even deeper of a sh*thole very soon.

Peace

you raise a valid concern, but again i don't think it's applicable. the president is the ceo of the country, not its file clerk. ceos often have big ideas that they rely on others to implement - i don't think steve jobs is in the trenches writing code for the new ipod.

a good leader needs vision, judgment, and the ability to inspire others to get the job done. they do not need administrative skills. hillary tried to spin his admission about losing papers in an early debate, and it fell flat precisely because that's not what the president does.

i can understand your frustration with your "idea" minded boss, but that's the whole point - you need "idea" people as leaders, but they have to also possess the judgment to make the ideas good ones!

hillary would make an excellent cabinet member. she is a very worthy public servant. but she is not a leader. she inspires as much contempt as she does admiration, if not more. and mccain does not have anywhere near the ability to get a nation mobilized and inspired to act that obama does.

so i just have to ask, between the three of them, who's the right person?