A Politician Talks to America About Race (and class) Like We Were Grown Ups...

Ok... I'm stealing that from Jon Stewart (apologies Jon), but it really did nail it. Sorry, but anyone who is voting based on race or gender instead of class is, with all due respect, an idiot. Working class whites who will refuse to vote for Obama deserve their long slide into increasing financial insecurity. Obama subtly reminds us of this.

I can't even bring myself to listen to any commentary on this speech from the pundit class. I read the speech in its entirety, without the filter of those jaded, agenda driven, soulless nitpickers telling me what I heard, and it was exactly (or almost exactly) what I had hoped he would say. If only Americans would actually listen. These are serious times calling for serious people (ok, now I'm stealing from President Andrew Shepard, sorry Mr. Sorkin), and this speech made the idiots on talk radio and Faux News sound like babbling, inconsequential children.



Edited to add: Winston Churchill once said that the best argument against democracy was five minutes with the average voter. I think it is what we populists secretly fear. We want so badly to believe in "the people", yet we are terrified that, based on the popularity of Fox and talk radio et al, they really aren't worthy of that faith. How can you be a populist and an elitist at the same time? And yet, Obama has now risked his entire candidacy on that faith. It's gut check time. Can we rise above it? A few people better at articulating this than I have commented on this. Check out Michelle Goldberg at informationclearinghouse and Derrick Ashong, who writes, "For days pundits have pondered whether Sen. Obama could weather the controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's racially polarizing comments. The question at this juncture is not whether the candidate will rise to the occasion, but rather, whether America will.". And on the ultimate double standard of the whole issue, anyway, check out Cenk Uygur and Blue Texan at Firedoglake.

Random Strange Old Propaganda Film... Ghengis Kahn meets the Nuclear Age...