Smith was Italian-Irish and Catholic. Whether he'd have made a good President or not isn't for me to say but the word went out that if he won the election the Pope would move into the White House. When he lost to Herbert Hoover, apparently the joke was that Al Smith (an anonymous type of surname) sent a telegram to the Pope which contained one word only:"Unpack!".

Although the character Polonius in "Hamlet" is a bit of a pompous idiot (we say eejit), the advice "To thine own self be true" makes a lot of sense. I don't really care about religion/race but the Clintons were friends of Ireland and I don't want to be a fair-weather friend. Hillary is extremely competent, has oodles of international contacts and I believe she should have been the candidate. I don't want to hear about her marriage as anybody with any experience of life knows that every marriage is different. Obama's team used the so-called Rovian tactics against her and, as the Australians say, "tough titty" if they now find those tactics directed at themselves. Uncle Fester, I've written enough now and please excuse me if I haven't got the "Hamlet" quotation exactly right. It's hard to remember everything.

Can I point out something that is lost in the Britney/Paris ad and whether its fair. Britney Spears is a troubled young woman who has been committed to a psychiatric hospital in the last year, on fears she would harm herself or others. She has substance abuse issues. She just lost her kids to her husband two weeks ago. Can't John McCain find another person to pick on who isn't quite so vulnerable. Its just plain tasteless to beat up on this young woman, who is fighting for her sobriety and her sanity particularly in light of his own family issues. Clearly, this man lacks the sensitivity gene. As for Obama. Isn't he the candidate who transcends race? The man who has moved beyond it. Yet, he never stops reminding us that he doesn't quite look like the usual politician. "Oh did I tell you that my opponent is going to hint I'm black, just in case you didn't know it, and he being a coded racist. He is being too cute by half and its time the media called him on it.

that's one of the few people who's clued into an Irishwoman, although you're one-eight Irish. This Frau/frau/fraulein understands wryness and quirkiness, schadenfreude and seriousness mingled with levity but I've discovered that Americans in general, whatever their hue might be, do not. It must be awful being grim all the time. To suggest that I wouldn't understand about Irish America is ludicrous (can I say Ludicris without being head-butted?) Look, you Americans had a very lucky escape. My paternal grandmother was all set to go to America with one of her brothers (she had one in Denver and one in San Francisco) but she changed her mind at the last moment. I was always the grandchild said to be most like her, physically and in temperament. So I might have been born in America but I'm being illogical, which can be fun, because she was an unmarried young woman when she decided not to venture to God's Own Country. I had a grandpa but she was First Fox (she had Titian-coloured hair) and she let us all know it.

We all speak the same language here (well, sort of) but it surprises me a lot how seriously Americans take themselves. "Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone" is quite a good maxim. There are very few people on earth who have no problems at all and though we must all be sympathetic to genuine plight it really is tiresome to listen to endless recrimination and self-pity. I like that poem by the American, Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"; it's full of wisdom.

Joan, please read up on subliminals and stop cutting McCain's commercial makers undeserved breaks. That commercial juxtaposes two white women, Obama, and the hugely phallic Victory Column monument in Berlin. This is no more a coincidence than was that cross floating behind Mike Huckabee's head.

Believe me, Republicans have been laying in wait for any possible excuse to air the racist commercials that they've been designing for months. I'm not paranoid, I'm an observer of history -- and it will be no different than the coded "law and order" ads run by Nixon and the Willie Horton ads run by HW Bush.

Obama is doing it too: if you don't think "Same Old Politics" contains code about McCain's age, then you do not understand advertising.

Doubters can begin with a copy of "Subliminal Seduction," which is 35 years old and still highly relevant. Knowledge is Power.

I thought I would mention that Idaho did not become a state until 1890 (according to the non-definitive wiki). I don't know if the territory grew potatoes in the 1840s or not. Once the WASPS got rolling in this country, every new immigrant group has been viewed with varying amounts of suspicion and denigration. They are protrayed as having loyality to the old country and the old culture over America and her values.

It's a rite of passage for each group to find some level of political accomodation that isn't a particularly pleasant process. Opponents of JFK went after not just his politics, but his religion and his ethnicity. The fear mongering was that he owed his allegiance not to the US constitution but to some Irish sub culture and the Pope.

The same xenophobic and isolationist tendencies are being exploited now against Obama, with his funny sounding name of arabic derivation, and his Muslim heritage on his dad's side of the family.

We can argue over JFK the president and person, but JFK the symbol trumping prejudice still holds currency today.

Just my 0.02 EUR.

JFK Speech on Religion in 1960: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2Jr03ADQmk

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