Presidential debates on ABC right now-both parties

Benita...I admire you for your post with the exception of the "guilty conscience" thing. And this is just my opinion...I think people use that phrase rather haphazardly. Just because someone is strong in their belief of something does not mean they feel that way because they have a "guilty conscience". People from all walks of life are passionate about things, all kinds of things and maybe the person to whom you are referring is just as passionate in her beliefs as everyone else in this thread is, including you. (I could see passion in your writing).

Some of you wondered what had happened to me and why I had changed my sign-in to "none."  I did that, because six hours after I posted a URL under my profile that discusses my novels under my actual name, someone posted a review on Amazon about one of my novels that was wildly and factually incorrect and was also somewhat racist in tone.  I hope it wasn't someone from the BC site, and I doubt very much that it was someone from this thread, but it was coincidental and so made me nervous.  (Amazon finally removed it because of the tone.)

However, I have been lurking and reading and wanted to say that, although I still passionately support Hillary, I loved Obama's speech today (read it, but didn't hear it) on the racial divide in this country.  It's beautifully written and it gives me the comfort that if Hillary doesn't get the nomination that I won't have to hold my nose when voting for Obama.  It's about time that someone spoke about the frustrations of African Americans and who also makes the point that the residue of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimmination doesn't disappear, certainly not in fifty years or less.  My parents, immigrants of the Irish diaspora, went thorugh a great deal of pain in leaving their homes and culture for America, but what they endured compares in no way to what black Americans have endured in this country for centuries and to pretend otherwise is, I think, its own form of bias.  Barack Obama is right in one respect, we must all come together and recognize what we have in common as Americans, and if we want to get beyond our past we must reach out to each other to achieve perfection, no matter how difficult or how long it takes.  It's difficult for anyone who came of age, as his minister Pastor Wright did, in the 60's to let it go completely.  That would take a saint and none of us are saints--not yet anyway.  

And, finally, I would like to point out, as I did a while ago, that if you allow or participate in gender bashing, it's difficult to keep the discussion from  getting into other even more sensitive issues.  This thread initially evolved into hating Hillary Clinton and is now drifting towards hating Barack Obama. Everyone here is a little bit guilty, myself included.  Perhaps, because we all share something in common, breast cancer and the realization that we're mortal and must make the best of every moment in our lives, something that most people never have to confront, we can come together as a very special group of people and stop the bashing of the candidates (and supporters on this thread) based on their personal characteristics or on who does or does not endorse the candidates (whether Wright, Ferraro, or Hagee) and focus our attention on their platforms (health care, education, employment opportunities, immigration, taxes, the war in Iraq).  I hope I don't sound too preachy, but I came to this site thinking I would meet women who are special, women who are mostly concerned with finding and giving support, and not with putting each other down.  This thread is getting too personal and has deviated from its original purpose, which was to discuss the issues of this election year, not personalities and sound bites.  We should leave that to the Cable TV networks and the radio talk show hosts who make globs of money exploiting the hatreds of some Americans for other Americans.   Without the support we get here where would we be?  We have far more in common than not, and I think we should remember that.   

Here goes Amy AGAIN!: 

Shirley, sometimes you amaze me with your lack of understanding about the big picture. So how long after autrocities do you allow for people to recover from their generational experiences of oppression-- a day, a week, a year, five, ten? How long do you deem appropriate for pulling oneself up by the bootstraps? I find comments like yours even scarier than those of overt racists like skinheads because at least they realize they believe in their superiority. I do have hope because current and future generations are more open to understanding and acceptance of the past and how that shapes the present. Students are exposed to more culturally open education and experiences so that they can effect change in ways that some in your generation aren't willing to. Maybe the effects of being oppressors take generations for some to give up as well.

I've been gone most of the day.  I did hear Obama's speech while getting ready to go to the LE therapist who happens to come from Mexico!  And it's late and I have to go to Duke tomorrow to see my onc (6 month checkup).

Amy, I find it amazing that you think that I do not grasp or understand the true meaning of what African Americans have been through.  I can say that I have NEVER walked in their shoes.  I have however, had my own shoes to walk in.  Perhaps many others wouldn't understand my walk.

You have insulted me by saying that I'm more scary that a skinhead.

How dare you!

I do not have the opportunity to socialize with African Americans.  I have been a stay at home mom..did not work outside the home once my children were born.  I do believe that you will find that my children are very respectful to all races.  Do you not believe that learning to be respectful begins in the home?  ALL THREE OF MY GIRLS, NOT JUST ONE, are respectful.  How dare you insult me again and again.  I wish you could ask my children about their mother. 

We did have an African American neighbor for a few short months.  Her children would come down here to play.  We took her little boy to an air show with us.  No, it's no biggy.  But, again how fricking dare you!  And, this African American woman was a hell'uva lot smarter than me.  Both she and her husband.  And by the way, this was years and years ago before it was "okay" for African Americans to live in white neighborhoods.

I would appreciate that you do not insult my intelligence, nor my empathy for others, nor my sensitivity towards people of all races.  We can not move forward and have "ministers" like Wright preaching hate and intolerance and lies about our government.   

I would imagine if everyone who heard something from their church or preacher s/he didn't like, there wouldn't be very many people left in church. 

Shirley I didn't mean that you are worse than skin heads, but that covert racial bias can be more insidious because it's under the surface and sometimes not even recognized by those who think that way. I do believe that you have shown a lack of empathy and grasp of understanding in other issues, like when you gave the example of your friend's adult child who you see as too lazy to get a job with health care and seemed to generalize that to all people who don't have health care. Understanding the issues doesn't mean agreeing with them-- but recognizing that one bad example doesn't mean that a whole group of people fit under that umbrella. When people generalize from the specific, whether it be taking one sound bite as representative of life time of work or that a group of people are one way because of an one example that's not a grasp of understanding the group. Some people do that with muslims, taking those who are terrorists and act outside the guise of the koran and their religion to assume that all muslims are "radical terrorists".

Anneshirley and Beesie, you've proven to me that the pundits were right when they said that the people who would understand the speech are the bright and/or educated ones because even when we disagree, I do respect your grasp of the issues. AnneShirley,I'm sorry someone disrespected you like that and glad amazon removed whatever was written. I didn't get to see the link so if you trust me I would like to see your books and hope you'll PM me the link.

AS, I was appalled by the bear stern bailout-- what about the homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes because of predatory lending practices? I would have rather seen the funds go toward helping out every day Joes who got scammed and/or people with health insurance premium problems.

PRamy,

You are a youth counselor, aren't you? I have a question for you that came to mind as I was reading this thread. It's about teaching our children to not be racist. We live in an area where racism and prejudice is alive and well. I have always stressed to my children that we are all the same inside, no matter how we look on the outside. They have made me proud; lately, though, my youngest (6th grade) has been making comments that are offensive. I do always call him on it and we usually end up talking about why it is NOT ok to say such things. I have challenged them to find other ways of describing people. (like instead of saying,  "the black woman" or "the handicapped boy" I ask them to please try to find a way to identify who they are speaking about without relying on their appearance so much). I realize that my 6th grader is probably going through a phase and is also being influenced somewhat by his friends.  Do you have any advice for me?

I know that this isn't about the election at all, but racism and race has been part of your discussion. I welcome suggestions from everyone!

((((HUGS)))
Diane

I just got sent this link of another take on Obama from  black church and community.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=khuu-RhOBDU 

It's really a different take on affrimative action and the state of African American  Community today. I would lovve to hear people comments on ths. 

Anneshirley...perhaps I did take it personally and for that I apologize. Where Hillary is concerned my brother (also a McCain supporter) and I were talking a few days ago and both agreed we did like some of what she had to say and if it weren't for some other things where she is concerned (and I won't go into them) we both might consider voting for her.

I remember when Clinton first ran for president I was interested in a lot of Hillary's political views but then was turned off by her husband. I also am probably one of the few that admired the way she handled her husband's indescretions and her views on why she stay married to him. She is a strong woman and I admire that about her.  

Now, having said all of that on my previous post, I feel compelled to post the article here, written by a White Southern man whose family owned a slave plantation in the early 1800s. He addresses the words of Reverend Wright in terms of white people's reactions, reactions that have been similar in nature to some of the women on this thread. I hope you will read what he has to say, and I look forward to your replies. I also hope that you will keep an open mind, and see that in order to do as Obama suggests in his speech that we need to come to a more perfect union, and without talkng about the elephant in the room (RACISM) we cannot accomplish what he suggests. Thank you for your patience. Respectfully, grace

Of National Lies and Racial Amnesia:

Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama, and the Audacity of Truth





By Tim Wise





March 18, 2008





For most white folks, indignation just doesn't wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot.



Indignation doesn't work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country--the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples--we are just a bit late to get into the game of moral rectitude. And once we enter it, our efforts at righteousness tend to fail the test of sincerity.



But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.



But our collective indignation, no matter how loudly we announce it, cannot drown out the truth. And as much as white America may not be able to hear it (and as much as politics may require Obama to condemn it) let us be clear, Jeremiah Wright fundamentally told the truth.



Oh I know that for some such a comment will seem shocking. After all, didn't he say that America "got what it deserved" on 9/11? And didn't he say that black people should be singing "God Damn America" because of its treatment of the African American community throughout the years?



Well actually, no he didn't.



Wright said not that the attacks of September 11th were justified, but that they were, in effect, predictable. Deploying the imagery of chickens coming home to roost is not to give thanks for the return of the poultry or to endorse such feathered homecoming as a positive good; rather, it is merely to note two things: first, that what goes around, indeed, comes around--a notion with longstanding theological grounding--and secondly, that the U.S. has indeed engaged in more than enough violence against innocent people to make it just a tad bit hypocritical for us to then evince shock and outrage about an attack on ourselves, as if the latter were unprecedented.



He noted that we killed far more people, far more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were killed on 9/11 and "never batted an eye." That this statement is true is inarguable, at least amongst sane people. He is correct on the math, he is correct on the innocence of the dead (neither city was a military target), and he is most definitely correct on the lack of remorse or even self-doubt about the act: sixty-plus years later most Americans still believe those attacks were justified, that they were needed to end the war and "save American lives."



But not only does such a calculus suggest that American lives are inherently worth more than the lives of Japanese civilians (or, one supposes, Vietnamese, Iraqi or Afghan civilians too), but it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman's own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons. The conclusion to which these truths then attest is simple, both in its basic veracity and it monstrousness: namely, that in those places we committed premeditated and deliberate mass murder, with no justification whatsoever; and yet for saying that I will receive more hate mail, more hostility, more dismissive and contemptuous responses than will those who suggest that no body count is too high when we're the ones doing the killing. Jeremiah Wright becomes a pariah, because, you see, we much prefer the logic of George Bush the First, who once said that as President he would "never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."



And Wright didn't say blacks should be singing "God Damn America." He was suggesting that blacks owe little moral allegiance to a nation that has treated so many of them for so long as animals, as persons undeserving of dignity and respect, and which even now locks up hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders (especially for drug possession), even while whites who do the same crimes (and according to the data, when it comes to drugs, more often in fact), are walking around free. His reference to God in that sermon was more about what God will do to such a nation, than it was about what should or shouldn't happen. It was a comment derived from, and fully in keeping with, the black prophetic tradition, and although one can surely disagree with the theology (I do, actually, and don't believe that any God either blesses or condemns nation states for their actions), the statement itself was no call for blacks to turn on America. If anything, it was a demand that America earn the respect of black people, something the evidence and history suggests it has yet to do.



Finally, although one can certainly disagree with Wright about his suggestion that the government created AIDS to get rid of black folks--and I do, for instance--it is worth pointing out that Wright isn't the only one who has said this. In fact, none other than Bill Cosby (oh yes, that Bill Cosby, the one white folks love because of his recent moral crusade against the black poor) proffered his belief in the very same thing back in the early '90s in an interview on CNN, when he said that AIDS may well have been created to get rid of people whom the government deemed "undesirable" including gays and racial minorities.



So that's the truth of the matter: Wright made one comment that is highly arguable, but which has also been voiced by white America's favorite black man, another that was horribly misinterpreted and stripped of all context, and then another that was demonstrably accurate. And for this, he is pilloried and made into a virtual enemy of the state; for this, Barack Obama may lose the support of just enough white folks to cost him the Democratic nomination, and/or the Presidency; all of it, because Jeremiah Wright, unlike most preachers opted for truth. If he had been one of those "prosperity ministers" who says Jesus wants nothing so much as for you to be rich, like Joel Osteen, that would have been fine. Had he been a retread bigot like Falwell was, or Pat Robertson is, he might have been criticized, but he would have remained in good standing and surely not have damaged a Presidential candidate in this way. But unlike Osteen, and Falwell, and Robertson, Jeremiah Wright refused to feed his parishioners lies.



What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock--though make no mistake, they already knew it--is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that "everything changed." To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.



But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.



This is what James Baldwin was talking about in his classic 1972 work, No Name in the Street, wherein he noted:



White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded--about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac.





And so we were shocked in 1987, when Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall declined to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution, because, as he noted, most of that history had been one of overt racism and injustice, and to his way of thinking, the only history worth celebrating had been that of the past three or four decades.



We were shocked to learn that black people actually believed that a white cop who was a documented racist might frame a black man; and we're shocked to learn that lots of black folks still perceive the U.S. as a racist nation--we're literally stunned that people who say they experience discrimination regularly (and who have the social science research to back them up) actually think that those experiences and that data might actually say something about the nation in which they reside. Imagine.



Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church, because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do--and this is true even for millions of black veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like "God Bless America," for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.



Whites refuse to remember (or perhaps have never learned) that which black folks cannot afford to forget. I've seen white people stunned to the point of paralysis when they learn the truth about lynchings in this country--when they discover that such events were not just a couple of good old boys with a truck and a rope hauling some black guy out to the tree, hanging him, and letting him swing there. They were never told the truth: that lynchings were often community events, advertised in papers as "Negro Barbecues," involving hundreds or even thousands of whites, who would join in the fun, eat chicken salad and drink sweet tea, all while the black victims of their depravity were being hung, then shot, then burned, and then having their body parts cut off, to be handed out to onlookers. They are stunned to learn that postcards of the events were traded as souvenirs, and that very few whites, including members of their own families did or said anything to stop it.



Rather than knowing about and confronting the ugliness of our past, whites take steps to excise the less flattering aspects of our history so that we need not be bothered with them. So, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, site of an orgy of violence against the black community in 1921, city officials literally went into the town library and removed all reference to the mass killings in the Greenwood district from the papers with a razor blade--an excising of truth and an assault on memory that would remain unchanged for over seventy years.



Most white people desire, or perhaps even require the propagation of lies when it comes to our history. Surely we prefer the lies to anything resembling, even remotely, the truth. Our version of history, of our national past, simply cannot allow for the intrusion of fact into a worldview so thoroughly identified with fiction. But that white version of America is not only extraordinarily incomplete, in that it so favors the white experience to the exclusion of others; it is more than that; it is actually a slap in the face to people of color, a re-injury, a reminder that they are essentially irrelevant, their concerns trivial, their lives unworthy of being taken seriously. In that sense, and what few if any white Americans appear capable of grasping at present, is that "Leave it to Beaver" and "Father Knows Best," portray an America so divorced from the reality of the times in which they were produced, as to raise serious questions about the sanity of those who found them so moving, so accurate, so real. These iconographic representations of life in the U.S. are worse than selective, worse than false, they are assaults to the humanity and memory of black people, who were being savagely oppressed even as June Cleaver did housework in heels and laughed about the hilarious hijinks of Beaver and Larry Mondello.



These portraits of America are certifiable evidence of how disconnected white folks were--and to the extent we still love them and view them as representations of the "good old days" to which we wish we could return, still are--from those men and women of color with whom we have long shared a nation. Just two months before "Leave it to Beaver" debuted, proposed civil rights legislation was killed thanks to Strom Thurmond's 24-hour filibuster speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. One month prior, Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus called out the National Guard to block black students from entering Little Rock Central High; and nine days before America was introduced to the Cleavers, and the comforting image of national life they represented, those black students were finally allowed to enter, amid the screams of enraged, unhinged, viciously bigoted white people, who saw nothing wrong with calling children niggers in front of cameras. That was America of the 1950s: not the sanitized version into which so many escape thanks to the miracle of syndication, which merely allows white people to relive a lie, year after year after year.



No, it is not the pastor who distorts history; Nick at Nite and your teenager's textbooks do that. It is not he who casts aspersions upon "this great country" as Barack Obama put it in his public denunciations of him; it is the historic leadership of the nation that has cast aspersions upon it; it is they who have cheapened it, who have made gaudy and vile the promise of American democracy by defiling it with lies. They engage in a patriotism that is pathological in its implications, that asks of those who adhere to it not merely a love of country but the turning of one's nation into an idol to be worshipped, if not literally, then at least in terms of consequence.



It is they--the flag-lapel-pin wearing leaders of this land--who bring shame to the country with their nonsensical suggestions that we are always noble in warfare, always well-intended, and although we occasionally make mistakes, we are never the ones to blame for anything. Nothing that happens to us has anything to do with us at all. It is always about them. They are evil, crazy, fanatical, hate our freedoms, and are jealous of our prosperity. When individuals prattle on in this manner we diagnose them as narcissistic, as deluded. When nations do it--when our nation does--we celebrate it as though it were the very model of rational and informed citizenship.



So what can we say about a nation that values lies more than it loves truth? A place where adherence to sincerely believed and internalized fictions allows one to rise to the highest offices in the land, and to earn the respect of millions, while a willingness to challenge those fictions and offer a more accurate counter-narrative earns one nothing but contempt, derision, indeed outright hatred? What we can say is that such a place is signing its own death warrant. What we can say is that such a place is missing the only and last opportunity it may ever have to make things right, to live up to its professed ideals. What we can say is that such a place can never move forward, because we have yet to fully address and come to terms with that which lay behind.



What can we say about a nation where white preachers can lie every week from their pulpits without so much as having to worry that their lies might be noticed by the shiny white faces in their pews, while black preachers who tell one after another essential truth are demonized, not only for the stridency of their tone--which needless to say scares white folks, who have long preferred a style of praise and worship resembling nothing so much as a coma--but for merely calling bullshit on those whose lies are swallowed whole?



And oh yes, I said it: white preachers lie. In fact, they lie with a skill, fluidity, and precision unparalleled in the history of either preaching or lying, both of which histories stretch back a ways and have often overlapped. They lie every Sunday, as they talk about a Savior they have chosen to represent dishonestly as a white man, in every picture to be found of him in their tabernacles, every children's story book in their Sunday Schools, every Christmas card they'll send to relatives and friends this December. But to lie about Jesus, about the one they consider God--to bear false witness as to who this man was and what he looked like--is no cause for concern.



Nor is it a problem for these preachers to teach and preach that those who don't believe as they believe are going to hell. Despite the fact that such a belief casts aspersions upon God that are so profound as to defy belief--after all, they imply that God is so fundamentally evil that he would burn non-believers in a lake of eternal fire--many of the white folks who now condemn Jeremiah Wright welcome that theology of hate. Indeed, back when President Bush was the Governor of Texas, he endorsed this kind of thinking, responding to a question about whether Jews were going to go to hell, by saying that unless one accepted Jesus as one's personal savior, the Bible made it pretty clear that indeed, hell was where you'd be heading.



So you can curse God in this way--and to imply such hate on God's part is surely to curse him--and in effect, curse those who aren't Christians, and no one says anything. That isn't considered bigoted. That isn't considered beyond the pale of polite society. One is not disqualified from becoming President in the minds of millions because they go to a church that says that shit every single week, or because they believe it themselves. And millions do believe it, and see nothing wrong with it whatsoever.



So white folks are mad at Jeremiah Wright because he challenges their views about their country. Meanwhile, those same white folks, and their ministers and priests, every week put forth a false image of the God Jeremiah Wright serves, and yet it is whites who feel we have the right to be offended.



Pardon me, but something is wrong here, and whatever it is, is not to be found at Trinity United Church of Christ.

True Beesie. And it will depend on how the media decides to keep all this Wright and race stuff in motion. I'm sure there will be commentary from both sides of the coin. Lots of us will be watching the various polls, to see how the country is taking in what has been said.

Susie--But I still hold to my view, it was a gaffe, and one he really didn't understand.  You can see it in his words and in his expression.  Much like the expression he had at the last Republican debate when Ron Paul asked him a banking question and he had no clue what Paul was talking about.  If he actually believed he was correct, he wouldn't have changed what he said because Lieberman whispered it in his ear. If he really believed that it was Al-Qaeda  in Iran, why correct himself?  And Al-Qaeda is the operative word here, it's the word used by every politician who supports the war to scare the pants off Americans.  The problem is that most of the politicians who use these scare tactics don't understand the Middle East beyond their own goals and can't even bother to read up about it. Al-Qaeda, for example, was not in Iraq before we invaded and any expert on Iraq and Saddam know this to be true, absolutely.  They hated each other.  Unfortunately, I believe that McCain, whatever his sincerity--which I also find questionable, is not very knowledgable about non-Western cultures and to elect a POTUS without this understanding is probably the most dangerous thing we can do at this time.

I will also point out that McCain can be quite insincere at times.  I remember very clearly his visit to the Bagdad market to show that the surge was working when he was surrounded by troops and tanks and the market had been cleared of most Iraqis.  I could never trust a man who would do such a thing to make a point?  I know that if Hillary did that or Obama, I would never trust either of them again--maybe I'd vote for them but trust them, never.    

Back in 2000 I liked McCain very much, and although I certainly preferred a Democrat as president, I was not sick to my stomach at the thought that he might be president, as I was with Bush. But after what Bush did to him in the Carolina primary--starting a rumor that his adopted daughter (from Bangledesh, I think) was his black illegitimate child--he went and hugged Bush and, even worse, followed behind him in almost all his policies, particularly the war.  I lost most of the respect that I had had for McCain over that hug, and I've watched him gradually over the last four years tack to the right to get the conservative vote, even though in the past he said some of the things they did disgusted him.  How come they disgusted him previously and don't disgust him now? I believe it's because he found out that he couldn't win the Republican primary unless he changed some of his views.  Perhaps he changed because he came to believe, but I honestly don't think that's why.  It's just straight ambition.  He wants to be president and he'll do the necessaries to get there.  Do I believe that many Democrats are the same.  Yes, I do, and I don't respect them either. 

Which is probably why I'm somewhat in Obamamania today (but still supporting Hillary).  He didn't throw Wright under the bus yesterday; if he had I'd have the same feeling about him that I have about McCain (and Hillary to an extent).  Nonetheless, Hillary has a much stronger platform than Obama, and just to satisfy her pride, I believe she'll deliver what she's promised.  But discussing any politician's character seems to me to be an oxymoron.  It would be wonderful to think it might not be true of Obama.  Only time will tell.  

Grace--thanks for the welcome, and please keep me in line as well.  As everyone who subscribes to this thread has already figured out, I'm a flaming liberal and tend towards the self-righteous. Hit me in the head when that happens, please!   

Inna, since Clinton hired dozens of minorities, cabinet and senior staff positions, more than any president before him, I hope you're not suggesting that they were "unqualified," and it's just that you don't remember. I'd be glad to provide the names of the minorities he hired, or you can check it out yourself using Google.

Also, executives who are sure of themselves don't need to hire cheerleaders.  They are confident enough of themselves to listen to other points of view before making earth shattering decisions.  I believe this is what Grace was saying, not that a president should hire people who disagree with him just because they disagree.  Of course, no one will do that, but Bush only hired yes men and women.  And he fired anyone who had a different opinion--remember his first Secretary of the Treasury! It's obvious from what's happened in the last eight years that only listening to what you want to hear is a disaster waiting in the wings.  And I might add, not in the wings any longer. 

Yea Amy its also too bad that Clinton didn't do something about Usama Bin Laden when he had the opportunity in the 90's so that 3,000 American Citizens wouldn't be dead......Shokk