R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Huff Post continues its quest to label all non-Obama supporters as racist.

Of course, the fact that 90%+ of AAs are voting for BO indicates nothing more than their superior judgment. And the fact that working-class whites may actually be voting, this time around, "for their own interests" as they did for JFK and Bill Clinton in the nineties, doesn't mean that they actually LIKE Hillary or believe she'll fight for the issues that matter to them. Oh no! They're just acting out of their thick-skulled, inferior, racially insensitive Bubba mentalities.

I am 34, a white male in West Virginia, and currently have an Obama sign in my yard. I have logged on and read total ignorance about West Virginia for days. I love Obama and his speeches move me, but I'm now uncertain about the base I'm aligning myself with. I have read nothing but hate and ignorance spewed at my home state from Obama supporters for days.

West Virginia is 99% white. The lead Hillary Clinton has in West Virginia is on par with whites in most states. So enough with the racist, backwards West Virginia comments.

For the uneducated WV remarks, I implore you to pull out recent World Almanacs and see where WV ranks on average in SAT scores in the country, because like I said in my other comment, South Carolina and Georgia are consistently the worst in the country and Obama carried South Carolina and did very well in Georgia.

For the racist remarks, you people have no idea how much the people in this state love our African American college football QB Pat White. There is very strong support in this state to have a statue of him put up when he graduates. Just ask Randy Moss, or OJ Mayo how "bad" they have it here.

As much as I support Obama I love my home state and am just starting to get embarrassed enough after reading the comments on here to go pull the sign out of my yard.

Obama's supporters better get a grip. Their words and actions not only reflect poorly on their candidate, the rest of us are attributing their sentiments to The One, since he's not said one word to rein them in. And we're sure-as-shootin' not going to vote for anyone that arrogant, spiteful and hypocritical.

The truth is, most of America has been gradually separating from the racial divide for some time now. We still have progress to make, especially in our institutions and social networks, but it's a far cry from the conditions that existed even 20-30 years ago. To trash fully half (or more) of the country as Ku Kluxers just because we're immune to the Obama Magic is a losing strategy. And it compares badly with Hillary's campaign, which, despite the best efforts of the Obamaniacs and their media surrogates to label it as race-baiting, has consistently demonstrated respect for every demographic.

WHEN PAT BUCHANAN IS A SANEST VOICE IN THE ROOM, YOU KNOW THE REST HAVE JUMPED THE SHARK

I've been in intense all-day meetings for most of this week and working on details of my daughter's impending wedding at night. While I've tried to follow events and blogs on my Blackberry Internet browser during infrequent breaks, I realize I'm woefully behind on things. So this morning I was disgusted to tune in to Morning Joe (absent Hillary admirer Joe Scarborough) to find Mika B. and David Shuster desperately trying to get everyone to agree (they had no problem with Peggy Noonan) that Hillary and Bill have gone openly racist.

(1) Gasp! Hillary in a conference call referred to Obama's growing weakness with white, working-class voters.
(2) How dare he! Bill told an audience of Hillary supporters that it is "you people" who are going to help her win this thing.

Mika and David believe there is something "insidious" with "long-term consequences" about Hillary using the word "white." They went over and over it with each guest, and it took conservative Pat Buchanan to point out that every pundit in every newscast for the past several weeks has speculated on the demographic results of the exit polls, which indicate that Obama has the AAs by upwards of 90% and has faltered in the past several primaries in reaching white, working-class voters. So what's with calling Hillary racist for doing the same thing? Did she say that whites SHOULDN'T vote for Obama? Of course not, it's ridiculous, and it's the kind of thing the Obama campaign and the media have used to tar the Clintons (and later, by extension, their supporters) as racist ever since South Carolina.

Then David Shuster had the "audacity" to say outright that clearly Bill Clinton meant "you white people" when he was speaking to his audience. Pat broke in and emphatically declared that that was grossly unfair to Bill Clinton. There were AAs, Latinos, Asians and others in that crowd besides whites, and in any case he obviously and on the face of it meant "you Hillary backers" of whatever identity.

When Pat Buchanan is the only fair-minded pundit on the panel, it's time to change the dial. Oops! It's the same on all of them ...

SEXISM AND THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

An irony of all ironies.

If Condi Rice were on the Republican ticket, we could compare the level of respect accorded to her by Republicans with the now infamous Democratic pastime of denigrating, ridiculing and hating the only serious female presidential contender we've ever had. And why have we never had a serious female presidential contender? Oh yeah, because we live in a culture that has a long history of denigrating, ridiculing and hating women.

Republicans would never stand for the media to treat Rice or any other woman on the Republican ticket with the vile disrespect showered on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Democrats have benefited from and all but begged corporate media to insult Hillary, and thus all women, with daily barrels of misogyny. With Condi Rice on the ticket, I'm guessing sexism becomes a firing offense at MSNBC. And I'm guessing Rush Limbaugh begins to look like a sensitive and gracious gentleman next to sexist thug Bill Maher.

Why am I a Democrat? I forget.

Just saying ...

No, not "sexism," just IOKIYAR. It's okay to be black or female if you're a Republican, and while one mustn't note the number of blacks and women in the Democratic Party without conflating them to "identity politics," one's recognition of the number of blacks and females in the Bush administration is fair and balanced. It enables one to point out how noble are the Republicans to promote and advance the few minorities/women they appeal to, while Democrats are the inheritors of a legacy of pandering. That's the view of the right.

The view of the left seems to be, we honor our minorities but see no problem with belittling, demonizing and slandering our MAJORITY, which is FEMALE. Unless, of course, they belong to the Village standard for women-who-belittle-and-demonize-other-women in order to be admitted to the BoyZ Club, the fringe membership, that is, allotted to "women who know that their place is to (publicly at least) agree with and worship the Boyz."

Geez, is it really that obscure to the Democrats Who Matter, that women are increasingly angry about the wanton sexism and misogyny that have been revealed on the airwaves and in the campaigns this cycle? I mean, we've grown to expect this kind of thing from Republicans, but from the Democratic Party? It's become increasingly clear that the party of the little man really means it -- THE MAN, not the woman.

I'm getting so tired of this s**t that each day I pledge to myself that I'm going to take a break from it all, focus on family and work (which is overwhelming but satisfying) and get some little peace and sleep on a regular basis. And every day, something convinces me anew that this is a battle worth fighting, for our national security and standing in the world, and for our American culture and the well-being of our people.

Whatever the outcome, the issues of gender and race have finally risen to the level of a national conversation -- among voters, if not pundits. I'm finding it more possible than ever in my lifetime since the 70s, for mixed audiences to address race and gender in our talks without embarrassment. There's often passion, and some heat, but at least we're TALKING. That's a positive result from this presidential race that has nothing to do with the Republicans or John McCain. We're witnessing within our own party attitudes that we've covered up and denied for years, we're pointing them out to one another, and, I have to hope, that at some point we're going to deal with, and overcome them.

Otherwise, we'll just be the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

MY PROBLEMS WITH OBAMA'S SPEECH

Geraldine Ferraro doesn't appreciate being referred to repeatedly in Obama's speech on race, and I don't blame her. Immediately after listening to it, I made several points to The Sage:

(1) It was, in the main, an eloquent and meaningful attempt to offer a bridge of understanding between the races. That is, I give him the benefit of the doubt that that was his intent.

(2) If it was meant to counter the controversy about Jeremiah Wright, it failed. It's hard for me to understand the Obamas choosing to attend for 20 years a church in which the pastor regularly spewed invective against our nation and all white people (for me, church should be an opportunity to celebrate the love of Christ), but that alone does not shock me so much as disappoint me. But I cannot comprehend a man who says he wants to help heal the racial divide, exposing his two young daughters to the most bigoted, hateful kind of rhetoric. If we are to finally put an end to racial tensions, we must educate each succeeding generation in the evils of discrimination and, as MLK dreamed, that our people "will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

(3) I could not understand why, if Obama's intent was to put an end to race baiting, he would invoke Ferraro's name and comments ("Ferraro, the only woman to ever run on a major party presidential ticket, sparked a controversy when she told the Breeze that 'what America feels about a woman becoming president takes a very secondary place to Obama's campaign - to a kind of campaign that it would be hard for anyone to run against,' she said. 'For one thing, you have the press, which has been uniquely hard on her. It's been a very sexist media. Some just don't like her. The others have gotten caught up in the Obama campaign. If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position'") not once, but several times. And in fact, she was likely right:

And she appears to have company in that view. According to a new CBS News poll, voters see gender as more of a barrier in presidential politics than race. Thirty nine percent of registered voters said a woman faces more obstacles in a presidential race while 33 percent said a black candidate does. More to the point, 42 percent of voters said they felt Hillary Clinton has been treated more harshly because of her gender while just 27 percent felt Obama has been treated more harshly because of his race.

When it comes to judging perceptions of attitudes, voters say more people they know would be likely to vote for a black candidate than a woman. Fifty six percent said that “most people” they know would vote for a black candidate for president while just 46 percent said the same of a woman candidate. A full 45 percent said “most people” they know would not vote for a woman. Yet the poll also shows that racism (42 percent) is considered a “more serious” problem in the nation than sexism (10 percent).

Surely this man who champions "a new kind of politics" knows that Ferraro's words, which have been echoed almost exactly by Obama endorser John Kerry and by Obama himself:

Obama acknowledges, with no small irony, that he benefits from his race.

If he were white, he once bluntly noted, he would simply be one of nine freshmen senators, almost certainly without a multimillion-dollar book deal and a shred of celebrity. Or would he have been elected at all?"

And certainly Ferraro's statement cannot reasonably be equated with Wright's screeds, so why juxtapose or equate them? Sounds like the old kind of politics to me, the Chicago machine-type.

(4) Like Ferraro, I was disturbed by Obama's public revelations about his grandmother -- "I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe." Again, it's more than a stretch to equate his grandmother with Wright. Jesse Jackson himself once said, "There is nothing more painful to me ... than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." As I lunched this week with several fellow Democrats (all who voted for Obama in the Texas primary), they all agreed that this was the most distressing part of his speech. We all have elderly parents/relatives who have, in many years past, expressed racial sentiments that they would probably not ascribe to today. And while we may share them with others privately in the context of a conversation about race, we would NEVER expose them publicly to ridicule or disdain.

I would be very glad to have an honest discussion about race in this country -- not a politically motivated justification for some position or other, but a true attempt to share experiences and feelings. I think Obama did well in some respects. But he ruined it by injecting political self-justification into the equation.

MICHELLE OBAMA'S CONFLICTS

I don't have a problem with this. In fact, it speaks to my heart as a woman. It is perfectly understandable that Michelle Obama has wrestled with the conflicts between her affinity for her ethnic community and the desires of anyone to achieve the best standard of living possible for herself and her family.

We are all faced with choices in our lives -- and we have to decide between various competing loyalties: our families, our own futures and prospects of prosperity, which offers us even more choices. As a woman, mother and executive, I can identify with Michelle's own internal conflicts. I remember when I finally reached a six-figure salary, my youngest son asking me, "Mom, will you still be a Democrat?" Even as a pre-teen, he had enough knowledge and experience to understand that financial comfort often leads to a protectionist sort of politics. When I replied, "Of course not. Dad's and my philosophy is what it is, whether we're struggling or succeeding financially," he was demonstrably proud and relieved. His parents, in his mind, had proven they weren't hypocrites.

I don't fault Michelle Obama for wrestling with her ties to her community versus her opportunities for success in the larger world -- I just wish our society didn't make those kinds of struggles inevitable among our best minority (and other disadvantaged) youths. My only problem with this insight into what has motivated Ms. Obama is that, in her forties, she still seems not to have reconciled herself to her choices. She too, as she suggests to others, could have chosen to be a teacher, a social worker, a nurse. She did not. She opted for the corporate world and a very fat salary. There is nothing at all wrong with that. We all want the money to be able to give our children the best opportunities, the best education, adequate healthcare. But Michelle seems to be still blaming a society that has afforded her unusually privileged opportunities for the fact that others may not have shared the same. That's understandable. A John Edwards, who has made a fortune by his own talent and hard work, may want desperately for others of his birth class to have a chance to attain the same, and fight for that. That's not only understandable, it's admirable. And if that is Michelle's goal, I can only applaud her.

But I haven't seen any evidence that Michelle has spent any great effort towards that aspiration. She has enjoyed a privileged education, a superior economic status in the corporate world she now decries. I understand that she is still conflicted. And so are many of us progressives for whom "making it" isn't enough if we can't take others with us.

But where does she get off disparaging this nation, which with all its faults, has a history of gradualism, that is, the inexorable forward movement towards social equity. Yes, at times it makes me crazy to view all the social problems with which we're beset. Of COURSE, progressives want to see Martin's vision executed NOW, we want an end to war and racial divides, we want a leveling of classes and a social safety net that will eliminate hunger, poverty, and all inequities in our society. But we know who the opposition to those aspirations is -- not our fellow progressives, not a different race -- white, black, Asian, or Latino -- it is the Republicans, the conservatives who believe "I've got mine -- now you're on your own."

For the Obamas, who we now know have been sitting at the feet of Jeremiah Wright for two decades, it seems that an entire race, white Americans, is to be blamed for all their sorrows. For all my life I have been ashamed of the wrongs perpetuated against African Americans (I hate that term; to me, Americans are Americans). But the hero of our family (including our children), Martin Luther King, demonstrated an extraordinary spirit of love and reconciliation, a courage that transcended race to embrace all that is good and decent and Christian, and he dreamed of a day when character would be more important than color, and that is the vision I have carried for the past 40 years. Anything less would be a betrayal of Dr. King.