currently at memeorandum, this story is nested underneath a story from The Politico:

http://memeorandum.com/080319/h1025
10:25 AM ET, March 19, 2008

Jonathan Martin / The Politico:
GOP sees Rev. Wright as pathway to victory

–Discussion:
Glenn Thrush / Newsday: Obama tackles race, but GOP see potential weapon
David Weigel / Reason Magazine: Ah Said, the Sheriff is a Ni-[DING!]
Blake Dvorak / Real Clear Politics: The Daily 2008 — On this day in 2003 the United States began Operation Iraqi Freedom.
SusanUnPC / NO QUARTER: Wright Speech “Ammo” for GOP
Patterico's Pontifications: Jeremiah Wright Is Not the GOP Pathway to Victory
Eric Kleefeld / TPM Election Central: GOP Strategists Still See Opportunity To Hit Obama On Wright

RELATED: Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Obama's faith in the reasoning abilities of the American public
+Discussion: Weekly Standard Blog, The Fix, Personal Democracy Forum, Newsweek, The New Republic, Harry's Place, The Moderate Voice, Done With Mirrors, The Reaction, Pam's House Blend, Discourse.net, The Mahablog, TPMCafe and 2008Central.net

"The other, though, was the "only in America" could someone like me exist.

That's absurd.

America is not the only place in the world where multi-racialism exists."

Yeah, I caught that one too and it made me wince. If anything, it may be more common, proportionately in some European countries where a presidential candidate wouldn't have to defend himself because his preacher pointed out that slavery and its aftermaths were f&^^%^! up. It struck me as a very Romnian comment.

Then tell me..

When *would* be a good and productive time to speak of the injustices of our "justice" system?

I'm not angry at all.. Disgust is more like it.

Deep inside, the American people want to be enabled. They want to be respected and they want to be better than they perceive they are. They want others to be better than they are too, and they want to applaud that success.

I put that belief to work years ago when I was a middle school teacher and saw student after student slowly realize that they could "do it." They worked through an attitude adjustment that made them better equipped to believe in themselves and they become more confident in what they thought they could achieve.

That, in my view, is what Senator Obama is doing for America and what this speech is basically about. His followers, especially among the young, see the possibility that distrust and divisiveness can be overcome and that there can be a new country that is more successful as a melting pot nation than our history has experienced.

Hopefully, others will see this "build up, not down" philosophy at work and buy in.

The politics of negation, blame, and name-calling will still be spewed from both of the other campaigns, but I am very proud that Senator Obama has not permitted them to puncture his resolve to stay on the high ground.

Sometimes it's better not to read

To GoodCelery!, Mr. James:

Bucky1 blames you because you went. Judged on the basis of his comments here, he lacks the moral authority to blame you or anyone else.

You went. Like Bucky1, I didn't go, but unlike him, I don't blame you; not then, not now, not ever.

I think that needs to be said, and I'm happy to be the one to say it.

-- William Timberman

Timberman, I think warriors who volunteer to support the empire are guilty of murder. Many in the Vietnam era had no choice as they were drafted. I do not know what the vegetable did as his gibberish is not worth reading most of the time.

If he did volunteer, then he is guilty of murder. If so, he needs to square that with the divine unity. I am not in the absolution business.

None of them are as guilty as LBJ who is now in the deepest level of hell.

Guilt by association does not apply. A politician should be able to sit down with a Mafia don as well as the Pope. "Keep one's friends close and one's enemies closer." If a politician cannot do this, he can only know part of the story.

And yet the very core rationale for the drug war is so easily refuted that more people do not do so is clear evidence that they either fear some retribution or are comfortable with the results.

I agree that the drug war is stupid, vindictive, and counterproductive. All these things and more. It's even more a failure than the "War of Terra".

I think many people here agree with you as well. But you don't need to tell us, you need to expand your range and seek other venues, where thes facts aren't already known and accepted.

Telling us forty two times does little to stoke our enthusiasm for your points, though. Some even consider it irritating.

Cheers,

Deep inside, the American people want to be enabled. They want to be respected and they want to be better than they perceive they are.

I disagree, Americans already think of their nation as the pinnacle of perfection and anyone who calls that perception into question is roundly vilified.

See: Wright, Pastor.

I abhor what David Duke says and stands for but I think he's a nice guy who's done great work for Southern Racists...Wow, I guess this doesn't sound the same from a White person...

Yet many people of the Republican persuasion voted for him; enough to make him an elected Republican state legislator and the Republican nominee for guv'nuh of Louisiana. Obviously, going to a Republican campaign event is an endorsement of Duke's overt racism.

Cheers,

You may be wrong about this. As you know, I live in rural Arizona. One of the consequences of the drug war is the increasing militarization of the police, and also, in states like mine, a huge increase in their numbers relative to the general population.

Also, as the population in largely rural, right-to-work states like this gradually gets poorer in the shadow of our wars on this and that, wars which drag on and on, sucking more and more money out of the economy, meth becomes the pathway of choice to increased income for the poor, much as opium does in Afghanistan, or cocaine in Colombia.

In Arizona, these poor folk are largely white, and largely Goldwater Second Amendment Republicans. I think you might be surprised at how much the treatment of these people by the police is resented, and how many of the children of the God-fearing are now in the system.

Even though I'm a retiree from California, of all places, I hear a lot of talk. Some of it is despair at having to raise grandchildren, and some of it a kind of mourning for their stupid kids, but more and more it's turning to the oppressive circumstances those kids face, and the brutal police who serve to enforce them.

Maybe it won't happen, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if these people started connecting the dots, and sooner than we might expect.