A norwegian newspaper columnist (and yes, I know the following may seem offensive) posited that the the reason Obama was so laid back, cordial and so willing to concede the points where he agreed with McCain in the debate was that he had to go easy on McCain to avoid scaring white voters.

The columnist further observed that had Obama been as aggressive in the debate as McCain, he might have "won" the debate in strict terms, but he would have been portrayed as an "angry black man" and would have lost a lot of voters that way. He named an example of a debate some time ago where Obama debated another black politician and where he was freer to be forceful and firm.

Is that a real concern? If the colours were reversed (i.e. McCain had been black and Obama white) how would the perceptions of them differ? Would McCain be too aggressive, would Obama still be "too inexperienced"?

Thomas Wood  please don't tell me, that you are blaming Barack and the Congressional Black Caucus for the financial mess we are in, are you? Pretty racist video ya got there, to be honest it looks like klan propaganda

Here are some comments that were from people that also enjoyed the video.:

"The only ones voting for Obama are blacks, white people with white guilt (which is about 98% of all liberals), and finally young people that were not wise enough to overcome the white guilt pc brainwashing that's been going on in ever public school in America the past 20 to 30 years"

There's a nice example of one of your twists.  Please provide a link to where Palin said you can pray the gay away.  Give me a direct quote and link. 

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No, Scott, that's her preacher talking.  You know, her Jeremiah Wright?

Bingo. 

I was waiting for William to say that so I could throw Wright back in his face.  Based on what William said, Obama is Rev. Wright if Palin is her preacher.

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That's it. That is your example of how I duck, twist or avoid questions. you STILL haven't answered any of the questions I asked you and you pick out that. Provide another example. Come on. You can do it. If you're going to insult me I expect you to provide proof. Not just one post that I wrote AFTER you accused me.

For the record I never defended what Wright said. I thought some of it was over the line but I can certainly understand where he was coming from. No, I take that back. Never having been a black man in this country, I can't. But to me it was a non issue. There was no proof that Obama ever heard any of those sermons and he has since distanced himself from Wright due to some of his more controversial statements.

Now to be fair to Palin, I don't know if she believes "you can pray away the gay". My response to your posting was a joke, which unfortunately doesn't come across very well on the written page. But that does bring me back to my point that no one knows where she stands.

You still haven't answered why it doesn't bother you that you don't know her real stance on the majority of issues. You're willing to put someone second in command that you know almost nothing about. All she did was trumpet McCain's ideas in her debate. I want her's. I want to know where she stands. What would she do different if she became president. Those have the potential to have a great impact. We deserve to know.

You've defended her time and time again, but can't answer these questions or you just don't want to. And I've asked them of you repeatedly. And yet you accuse me of ducking, twisting and avoiding. Get real.

Edited to add: It took me so long to respond because I was enjoying an evening with my family and sleeping. I wasn't avoiding the question.

It's pointless to debate which preacher is worse, I think.  But to dismiss Pastor Kroon of Palin's church as "harmless" is naive.  The views his church espouses help to perpetuate ongoing bigotry, and contribute to a climate that leads to hate crimes like the Shepard tragedy.

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Just go to Google and type in Palin's preacher. This guy is way worse than Wright in my opinion.

Equating the black experience in the United States to someone being handed lemons has got to be the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.

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Well put Wayde.

Has this been posted?



The Family

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Actually it's the Congressional Black Caucus. And I have to agree with Jodi. Some of the comments on this video are absoulutely vile. The simple fact is both parties are to blame. Trying to blame one or the other is asinine. But trying to blame the Congressional Black Caucus? That's just delusional. Do they have the power to make laws that I am unaware of?

Yeah - that's an ugly aspect that's raising it's head - clearly the economy is on shakey ground - and that will, no doubt, effect the outcome of the election - knowing this, the right wing media has been desperate to find a way to blame it on the Democrats - some are focusing on certain aspects of the crisis, but some are coming out and saying - Freddy and Fannie benefit low-income, [code for black] and it's their fault - why, if only we hadn't let the darkies try to buy a home! - etc.  And that's a silly ass arguement - there are all sorts of people defaulting on home loans - white, black, asian - it's happening across the board. 

But on the point of who to blame?

Well, here's the thing - we could go tit for tat on this one, but since it's in the lap of the Dems, let me toss it back to the Repubs with these interesting facts -

• McCain voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 which overturned Glass-Stegall Act of 1933, effectively deregulating things.  Laizez-faire, right?  Granted - it did well in congress, on both sides of the aisle - as Joe noted earlier, everyone was drinking the Fla-Vor-Aid at the time.  One who voted against it, however?  Joe Biden.
• The right wing media is making a lot of noise about how McCain tried to save the economy with S. 190  - Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, and how Obama somehow stopped it, but... facts tell a different story.  Here's the bill: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s109-190  Study the page and you'll note a few interesting things:
• Bill was created 1/26/2005. John McCain added his name as a co-sponsor 5/25/2006, long after the bill was considered dead.
• There's much talk about how the bill was killed, yet... it was "Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute favorably" - ie - it was reintroduced in the next session as s.1100.  Where it's still sitting around.  If the Repubs are really serious about getting it going, they can get it going. 
• Keep in mind - studying the minutia of the bill?  It's mainly about privitizing the agencies.  So... you know, not regulation, but the opposite.
• Barack Obama himself introduced a bill: S.1222 : A bill to stop mortgage transactions which operate to promote fraud, risk, abuse, and under-development, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Obama, Barack [IL] (introduced 4/25/2007)

Which leads to an interesting observation - Biden scolded Palin on this during the debates - you can pretty much use Congressional records to make any sort of point you want to make - I used to work with someone who sent out an e-mail last year, horrified because she heard on the radio that Hillary and Obama voted against English being the official language.  That sounded odd to me so I looked it up on the Senate webpage, and sure enough, there was a bill about english being the official language, and, party line vote - Rs for, Ds against - but!  There was a second bill right near it that said the same thing basically, but this time, another party line vote - Ds for, Rs against it - and then you read the details of the bills and see that there were various things introduced to each bill that made it sweet for one party and not the other, and the bills were given the shittily deceptive descriptor so that, basically, it can be used as a propaganda tool.  You can legitimately say that, in fact, Obama voted against English!  But then... you can also say the same about McCain... because of the two separate bills.  Likewise you can say, correctly, that Obama DID vote for English, and, in fact, so did McCain.

Tricky thing playing with congressional records to try to make a point...

McCain voted for Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999

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So did 90% of the Senate including Joe Biden. It was the signed by BIll Clinton.