... about Obama's faith in the American public is this:

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
— H. L. Mencken

If Obama wants us to believe his empty rhetoric in regards to racial harmony, then why attend a church with such a dividing message at it's core....

Oh, I dunno. Maybe it's because we must, of necessity, not only believe everything we voluntarily listen to, but unconditionally support it 110%.... Hmmmm. Waidaminnit. Why are you here, listening to all this crap on Glenn's blog in support of Big Black Scary Doods?

Cheers,

led to the demise of Jimmy Carter and the rise of Reagan/Bush and the neo-con nasties. Looking back, I now think this may have been the most important speech of the late 20th century, since I think it drew the battle line of them (the oil industry) and us (the rest of the world), energizing them to take over all aspects of the media.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html

Obama is a better speaker though, so one can always hope.

And by the way, I'm still trying to figure out what Rev. Wright said that was all that radical. I mean, suggesting that our middle east policy over the last 30 years may be the reason why terrorists have targeted us? I mean, how many brain dead Americans actually believe OBL hates us for our "freedoms" and not for our meddling in internal middle east politics to profit our oil companies? Don't stir up the wasp's nest if you are afraid to be stung. This, by the way says nothing at all about the rightness or wrongness of our middle-eastern policy, just that it does make us a target of terrorists, and is a lesson from 9/11 that the Bushies and all the nutcase Repugs (like the trolls on this site) don't want the American people to learn. What our politicians ad corporations do over there, right or wrong, pisses some of the Saudi nutcases off enough to send suicide killers after us.

And as far as the Israel comment by Obama, I took it the way I think that it was meant. Middle East politicians like to blame Israel for everything bad that happens in the whole region, when most of the problems really are due to the meeting and mixing of radical Islam and corporate greed. Israel is the general excuse for all bad behavior in the region by radical muslims. Recognizing that doesn't imply anything at all about the Palestinian situation.

His familiar quotation, "Each nation has that government which it deserves":

Je me tranquillise beaucoup par ma maxime: Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite.
- - Joseph Marie de Maistre, 1811

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_de_Maistre

Isaiah Berlin counts him, in his Freedom and Its Betrayal, as one of the six principal enemies of liberty amongst major Enlightenment thinkers. He maintains that Maistre's works were regarded as "the last despairing effort of feudalism in the dark ages to resist the march of progress".

Émile Faguet, whom Berlin thinks the most accurate and fairest-minded critic of Maistre in the 19th century, described Maistre as "a fierce absolutist, a furious theocrat, an intransigent legitimist, apostle of a monstrous trinity composed of Pope, King and Hangman, always and everywhere the champion of the hardest, narrowest and most inflexible dogmatism, a dark figure out of the Middle Ages, part learned doctor, part inquisitor, part executioner"

[...] Pat Buchanan praises de Maistre, calling him a "great conservative" in his 2006 book State of Emergency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_de_Maistre

Just how stupid do you think the electorate had to be to buy that particular smear campaign?

-- Aycharaych

You or anyone could no doubt come up with a million examples of dumb as a bag of hammer Americans. So what? There are also a million examples of Americans showing true courage, and true and reasoned good sense.

You know, I have to ask you again, Aych, do you think that I and just about every one here was born yesterday? I mean, I was alive and aware while watching the painfully slow on his feet, John Kerry, get beaten by the imbecile Bush who somehow convinced nearly enough (he stole it, twice) fools to vote for him. So, as I said, I am quite aware that examples of extreme stupidity are not hard to find. That doesn't equal the American populace as a whole being dumb as a bag of hammers.

McCain made yet another huge, huge verbal gaff today. He made it because he actually is nearly dumb as a bag of hammers, and he doesn't work very hard at learning how to cover up his ignorance.

Whatever one might say about Obama, stupid or slow doesn't fall into a description of him. McCain is grossly over matched by Obama, and plenty enough of the American people have already or are going to figure that out.

I love what you do, Glenn. But almost to a perso, everyone I have listened to or read seems to think that Obama was too "high toned" or "high minded" for the "ignorant masses".

People may be easily manipulated by sound-byte poitics, but they may rise above manipulation. Until a politician tries to elevate the debate we will be forced to wallow in the debasing politics of false association and personality.

I think more people "got it" than anyone can yet see.

good zeitgeistian sketch, glenn. i feel it pretty much nailed it. and i do hope that he is right. i really do. i feel at this point we either aim a lot higher or fall very far.

L.W.M. As I said previously I want a democrat. I have gone back and forth between the two quite a few times. I just think that this issue will be toxic in the general election. As I said in a previous letter

Have you forgotten how they made a war hero a craven coward and a craven coward a president? This time they have actual footage to work with.

They are only scratching the surface with this now. Democrats aren't going to attack him on this but once he gets the nomination, look out!

I want a Democrat, it doesn't matter which one.

Kitt you wrote:

"If you two think that Rove and others like him are greater and smarter than Gawd, and that the Republicans and Bush, who happen to be both as popular as a family of skunks at a picnic"

No I don't think that they are "greater and smarter" and yes the Rethugs aren't very popular now but McCain goes into the GE with a reputation as a straight shooter, a moderate republican who will go against his party occasionally, and a war hero.

Now we know most of this is BS but the press loves him and will be sure to bolster that narrative at every opportunity.

I believe that if Obama is the candidate in the GE he will be damaged by this Rev Wright business. A lot of the Reagan Democrats, Moderate Republicans and Independents that Obama is counting on to to vote for him, will hold their noses and vote for McCain.

Especially if the believe that the Democrats will have a majority in the House and Senate to keep him in check.

9/11 made us go to war wit a country that had nothing to do with it. Most of the country went along with it.

9/11 made us give up a lot of our treasured civil liberties and most of the country went along with it.

9/11 and Rev Wright will bring down Obama and most of the country will go along with it.