Hey Salon, when will you be posting your lengthy analysis of everything Hillary's pastor has ever said? About the same time you publish your article titled "Back off, Hillary girls! How Everyone Who Supports Hillary Is A Secret Racist" ?

so let's see: we the electorate should be insulted and appalled by the grim words of obama's pastor; yet we have a president who has sanctioned torture and renditions, imprisoned those at gitmo without habeas corpus and any legal rights, lied and manipulated the american people and our allies into a pre-emptive war with iraq which has cost us blood and treasure and not made us safer taking our eye off bin laden and afghanistan and pakistan, politicized the justice dept.,and given tax breaks to the wealthy and corporate loopholes to eliminate jobs from working americans.

yes, i am shocked, shocked i say!

I agree Obama's not hitting hard enough from the left, and that's why he wasn't my first choice (predictably, I was inclined towards Kucinich and Edwards). I wasn't convinced that he was a progressive.

I'm deeply convinced of it now and I think the central premise of his candidacy is that populism/progressivism can only be a force if it carries the weight of the electorate.

He tells an anecdote of having failed to enact some progressive legislation in Illinois because he'd failed to rally the electorate behind it.

His analysis of how to get progressive change, in other words, begins with us, the people, not the politicians. They can only do what they have a mandate to do and if this Wright business demonstrates one thing, it's that there currently exists no such mandate.

In Obama's analysis, which I find convincing, as long as sensational issues about angry negro preachers trump real issues of war and peace, the economy, etc., we will never achieve the electoral consensus necessary to put pressure on those in power because those in power excel at divide and conquer.

So the first order of business, according to Obama's analysis, is to sure up the electorate to where it can't be so easily pitted against one another.

I believe that Obama's vision for this country is a deeply progressive one, which is why he invokes the tenet that we are our brothers' keepers.

This is a profoundly progressive principle, but sadly, one that's been torn to shreds my entire lifetime, starting with Reagan.

Obama's analysis is a cultural one; as long as the electorate is susceptible to Willy Horton ads and generally, to fear-mongering, nothing will change because there's always something to be afraid of, if fearful is what you're looking to be.

The onus is on us, the electorate, to demand more, to resist divide-and-conquer tactics, and to repudiate, above all, the politics of fear.

Then, maybe, we can start to flex our muscle and demand a truly progressive legislative agenda.

This is his argument, as best I can see and I find it profoundly compelling.

What do you think?

“I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country,” he said in Charlotte, N.C. “And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

I find it profoundly depressing to read that the Editor of a long-respected website for political commentary is so swayed by the former pastor of a candidate who 1) has received a record-breaking number of votes in any primary ever, 2) has outraised any candidate ever, and 3) has demonstrated that the majority of voters accept he does not hold the same views of said pastor; so swayed, in fact, she finds this candidate unable to win the Presidency.

right? Or should it sink instead?

What Joan said:

But Wright casts his critique in such an extreme way that the possibility of redemption, the evidence that America can and has and will change for the better, is never considered.

What Wright said:

God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme.

As long as. That's a conditional.

Joan stop this. It's pathetic.

Jeremiah Wright says tonight in a major speech (in Detroit NCAAP) that black kids learn differently than white kids and that the educational system is rigged against them because it is "left-brained" oriented and black kids are all "right-brained" driven. That is why they are unruly in the classroom and they aren't destined to be particularly good students ... in the European-American sense.

How in the hell is Obama going to explain all this in the morning?

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, and for your contributions in general.

I was mostly just trying to say, "Please don't not vote for Obama just because other people who are voting for him are mysognists."

But I did sneak in some digs at Senator Clinton, or at least her conduct, and perhaps this reflects my own bias, but it truly does seem to me that Senator Clinton's contribution to our ongoing race debate during the course of this election has been overwhelmingly negative.

That was perhaps the most moving and poignant story I've read in my short time here in these threads.

Thank you so much for sharing it.

Obama should now distance himself from the NAACP?

They invited Wright to speak. Did you watch it?

They'd vote for MCcain or Clinton, so clearly the conclusion is incorrect.

and Wright's is WASTED!

...What does that say about Ed Rendell? As you pointed out about about Wright embracing Farrakhan:

"And all of that is good, important work. But to me, a telling part of the interview came in the Farrakhan section -- not just Wright's insisting that Farrakhan's anti-Semitism is 20 years in the past, but in praising the Nation of Islam as one of the best institutions in America when it comes to keeping black men out of jail and crime and in jobs. I felt like he was trying to make the point that organizations that preach black separatism and focus on the real (as well as imagined) evils of white America are uniquely successful in strengthening the black community..."

So, Joan Walsh, by this time, as being an intrepid reporter and editor, you do know about the YouTube posting about Rendell praising the likes of Farrakhan and the NOI?

When can we read your latest about what's so wrong about Democratic pols like Rendell coddling up to anti-Semites like Farrakhan?

Rendell was praising the NOI and Farrakhan as a pro-family values organization and leader, respectively.

I just can't wait to read your disquisition on that.