Well, the saying"Even Homer nods" applies but you probably can't stand him either because he's just an old Greek. I won't call you "ignorant" for a slip of the finger although you had no qualms about disparaging me for a similar lack of digital dexterity but I would regard you as a virago. Maybe your wig is not only askew but also has a shaggy fringe that is occluding your clear-sightedness. Of course, I'm a troll just as is everybody else who's not part of your cabal. You were worried that some of your favourites had decided to go on temporary release but you still have your "old reliables" wagging their tails in delight at your profundities. Some people are never satisfied. Grab all the affection you can because that oul' wig is a bit tatty-looking snd you can remedy the tummy-rumbling with a dash of the Angostura Bitters. A pair of Christian Laboutin shoes should, of course, be the "sune wua non" for anyone who demands "Call me Madam" and power pearls - so "in" at the moment and so reminiscent of Jackie O who, as you indubitably know, was of French lineage, which should strike a chord with you.

I meant to write "sine qua non" but the thought of that implausible wig was distracting. Orange isn't really your colour as it is too lurid for "noblesse oblige".

No nobless oblige from me ms twerp. I am here to puncture all your high falutin attitudes of superiority and entitlement. I did not know I had a legion of "old reliables," but pray do enumerate at least some of them.

White men or women, even when they are voting for Obama, generally will not side with people of color when talking about race. But we can stand on our own two feet and defend our positions. We are not looking for strength in numbers and we don't look to people to fight our battles against white supremacy.

jackie O was never my favorite. She was a modern day courtesan who did well marrying wealthy men. Not my role model. No. Maybe yours, no? She did have this air of white superiority even though she married a Greek to fill her depleting coffers.

Red and orange are my favorite colors though. Especially Asian red. What would brothels be without some primary colors, like people of all colors that people like you try to demean.

Or recline apparently ...

And you say you are not a racist. Bah!!!!!

If you actually run a brothel, you are a hell of a lot worse than any racist.

I don't mean to correct the undoutable o'conell either, but It's not "The Two Faces of Eve," but instead I do belive the count is three, as in the "Three Faces of Eve." Lee J. Cobb was in that one if memory serves me staight. It was an okay picture, but I wouldn't say graet.

If you actually run a brothel, you are a hell of a lot worse than any racist.

-- AKA Smith

Another thing for you to look down on. Looking down means you can never look up and therefore hope is beyond your reach. You are completely without humor and without irony

Madam (I'll ignore the redundant "e") but business must be very poor at the moment with all those enthusiastic novices offering a garden of heavenly delights on the internet, Madams of bordellos, more unkindly called cathouses, belong to the tales of the Old West. I bet you still wear a feather boa and your rooms were over the saloon. The sound of breaking glass, the honky-tonky piano must have lovely memories for you. White women are your "bete noir", apparently, although there are far fewer whit women in the world than women of any other colour. Oh yes, those white women are all privileged: however, I think you should look at the picture taken by the photographer, Dorothea Lange, taken during the Depression, the one called "Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California". It's a picture of a woman (white) who was living in an ice-covered pea-pickers camp, had just sold the tyres from her car to buy food and admitted that her family was living on peas from the fields and on birds killed by the children (date l936). She was one of the Okies, mentioned earlier by another writer, who fled to California in search of subsistence living. California is the most arable State of all but these Okies fleeing the Dustbowl were not greeted with open arms by their fello-Americans. Making a speech in California to the effect that people in the heartland of America are wallowing in ignorance is likely to have historical resonance.

Well, you have defined me as "ignorant" twice and referred to the colour of my skin. "People in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones" and you have revealed your true colours but I'm not referring to your complexion, whatever it is. You are obstinate in your own prejudices, you airs and graces come out of a fancy-dress shop and I'm not wasting any more time on you as it's bedtime here.

How is that you can take the grapes of wrath and make it sound like the grapes of sap? Here's a big moving Hallmark card right back at you! That great dames of the dustbowl motif moved me in such a myriad of ways. It has checked the progression of my own great depression, I thank you most sincerely for your concerned intercession.

Today's "USA Today" has two interesting and related stories about BIG O's lobbyist and oil connections - in spite of his claims that he doesn't "take money from lobbyists" and doesn't "take money from oil companies."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-15-obama_N.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/2008-04-15-obamainside_N.htm

As usual, his surrogates brush it off as just so much lint.

Finally, regarding this article specifically:

The "bitter" comments are the least of Obama's problems now.

The fact that he has three (or more) iterations of "What I meant to say..." tells me he knew what he said was toxic.

The other thing I have noticed about Obama is that whenever press coverage doesn't go his way he gets angry, defensive and pouty. Then he lashes out at Clinton (or others) to deflect it. Is this what we should expect if he is the nominee and, possibly, the president?

Second: it reminds people of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry - both of whom endorsed Obama; it reminds people that "liberals" live in the cities and blue-collar working class "people" live somewhere 'out there'; it reminds people that the young (a vast majority of whom support Obama) don't really know what life is like for the majority of blue-collar working class people (and you can see angry comments in Salon letters threads that prove just this point).

The third point, as Joan mentions, is that the comments reflect an attitude about Reagan Democrats that seems to be shared by many in the far left hemisphere of the Democratic Party -- they should just go away. I have actually read a post titled, "I'm so tired of chasing Reagan Democrats."

It is unfortunate that San Francisco seems to get the lion's share of criticism about being "liberal", because the same can certainly be said about Boston, Austin, Seattle and Los Angeles, to name a few other places.

Good article, Joan!