If you wanted to meet real Americans, hitchhiking cross-country -- I used to call it Charles Kuralt on $5 a day -- used to be one of the better ways. Forty years ago, I did a lot of it. I met a bunch of very odd and very inspiring people, and not a few scary ones, but I don't think I met a single stereotype during that entire period.

Now, of course, hitchhiking doesn't seem to be thinkable, but for all the reasons you and others have stated, airports are an awful substitute. Bus stations might be better, but I haven't been in one in so long, I really have no idea.

'm not accusing you of being racist - which would be stupid since apparently you are white as are millions of the people you just dumped on. I'd say a more accurate characterization would be an elist snob who thinks the good half (relatively speaking, since it's all kinda bad) of America ends at the Mason Dixon line, which would certainly account for your support of Obama. -- Petulance Warning

And, he mentioned by way of apology to quickstrategy, that he and his BLACK WIFE have been physically threatened (due to their obvious miscegenation?) in the South, by southerners. He has better reason than most to harbor a grudge. I believe its a geographically inaccurate grudge (the same thing can happen in certain small towns in northern Idaho), but it's not unfounded. and it's very far from elitist.....

Unless you simply believe that a middle aged white man married to a black woman is an over-educated commiepinko by definition? Yeah...that would be it, eh?

Sucks to be you.... in a free country, doesn't it?

Sure, the sources of offensive/derogatory stereotypes exist.

"Sources of stereotypes exist"?

No, jerk, people exist. And other, jerky, people use stereotypes, that is, a completely unrealistic shorthand for that individual, to justify treating them crappy. And if they ever see anybody acting like the stereotype, that's carte blanche to feel entirely justified in their embrace of an unreasonable and unscientific (not to mention un-Christian) worldview.

Racist white people don't hate black people because of "the bad ones who re-inforce the stereotype". That's the backwards justification for their racism, OBVIOUSLY.

And neither are the few KKK hold-outs who've still got lawn-jockeys the only reason black people might still think white people are still racist.

Look at it this way: if Americans cared enough to bother to learn the difference between Saudi Arabians and Iraqis, we'd never have gone into Iraq.

The entire Iraq war is predicated on widespread, unquestioned racist assumptions.

But as Obama learned after 'bittergate', trotting them out as ammunition in a political campaign or an argument does nobody any favors.

That's not at all what happened, as you know.

That's what guys like you are trying to make people THINK happened.

People like Peggy Noonan, Tim Russert, Pat Buchanan, Maureen Dowd, and Chris Matthews make me ashamed of being Irish American. What is it about these fantasists and Establishment-kissers? Why are there so many of them, and how come they have been so successful? Glib-tongued? In thrall to authority? Perhaps this analysis is too glib itself, but it is a remarkable phenomenon.

Thank you Glenn for articulating the brazen insanity of these people's views.

On a peripheral note: where is the leadership that will shut down NASCAR and make it the embarrassment that it should be in the age of Peak Oil? To have a network news anchor brag that he watches this little boys' "sport" is astonishing...when gas is at $4 a gallon and we're at war to make sure our tanks can stay full a while longer.

Has John McCain (or Peggy Noonan, or George Bush, or Dick Cheney) ever gotten misty-eyed over the speeches of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and what kind of country he helped us to become and how it changed everything? How about Rosa Parks, or The Tuskegee Airmen, or Harriet Tubman, or the men and women who died at the hands of vile white racists? There's gold in that history. And Barack Obama carries it in his bones.

The day thinly-veiled racist screeds like Noonan's, where longing for the days of John Ford, the wisdom of Charles Lindbergh, and (undoubtedly) voiceless blacks and minorities, are finally seen as coming from the hate-filled soul from which they derive, we will have overcome one of our worst lingering mindsets in this country. The White-Euro-Centric-is-Best philosophy espoused by people like Noonan and Pat Buchannan.

The media-approved (Williams, Noonan, et al) version of "loving America" seems to be limited to:

* The American flag

* America as a market

* America as a labor pool

* America as an imperial super-power

As for loving one's fellow Americans, caring about their well-being and working to reduce the overall level of unnecessary misery -- it's "fuck 'em, you unpatriotic socialists!"

Glenn... Perhaps someone can design a clock along the lines the one Fox News used to taunt Obama into appearing on their GOP network, or which the Heritage Foundation hilariously used during the debate over the Protect America Act to count down the time we had left before the Terrorists could use the PAA's expiration to slaughter us all, in order to keep track of the running time total that has elapsed during which the three network news anchors -- including Brian Williams -- have said absolutely nothing to their viewers about major revelations by the NYT that their networks news divisions continuously fed deceitful government war propaganda to their audience.

I'll be happy to post it prominently here. The fact that they're literally ignoring this story, refusing in unison to comment on it, answer questions about it, or tell their viewers about it, speaks volumes about what they are and what they do.

You can actually find these applets on the web in HTML or Javascript but perhaps someone can design a good looking one or tweak one of the existing ones for you.

Volunteers?

Claim it. Then no one can accuse you. It's good luck to sneeze on test-papers in high school.

Poke in the ribs the public sneezers, geezers, strip teasers, and people who refuse to wear underwear and fez hats.

Wear jeans with big holes.

Win a bad dressed award.

Someday we will be under.

We'll rest under green sod.

We all will be dead as a nail.

Folk need to pull-up a zipper.

Especially if ya's no wear panties.

Yell at all snorers. Twist and Shout.

We need to dance the hoopla hoot?

Scream. Tourette's is a good excuse.