But clearly the racial issue is a big deal for a lot of people. I’ve heard, in a number of places, concerns that Obama is going to enact policies that favor black people. Over the weekend, I happened across a couple of interesting articles in which people talk about these concerns–one set in Michigan and the other in rural Virginia.

The article re Virginia mentions that labor unions are taking on the race issue directly in their campaigning. I guess when your constituency is plain-spoken people, you can speak plainly about what concerns them. There’s a video of Richard Trumka, the AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer, going around in which he hits the racism issue hard.

Matt Yglesias thinks that if Obama is elected we can expect to see more appeals to racial animosity in our politics. I hope he’s not right.

“Dramesi says he has no desire to dishonor McCain’s service, but he believes that celebrating the downed pilot’s behavior as heroic — “he wasn’t exceptional one way or the other” — has a corrosive effect on military discipline. “This business of my country before my life?” Dramesi says. “Well, he had that opportunity and failed miserably. If it really were country first, John McCain would probably be walking around without one or two arms or legs — or he’d be dead.”
In the official McCain narrative, this was the ultimate test of mettle. He could have come home, but keeping faith with his fellow POWs, he chose to remain imprisoned in Hanoi.
What McCain glosses over is that accepting early release would have required him to make disloyal statements that would have violated the military’s Code of Conduct. If he had done so, he could have risked court-martial and an ignominious end to his military career. “Many of us were given this offer,” according to (Phil) Butler, McCain’s classmate who was also taken prisoner. “It meant speaking out against your country and lying about your treatment to the press. You had to ‘admit’ that the U.S. was criminal and that our treatment was ‘lenient and humane.’ So I, like numerous others, refused the offer.”
“He makes it sound like it was a great thing to have accomplished,” says Dramesi. “A great act of discipline or strength. That simply was not the case.” “

Who is John Dramesi? The Rolling Stone article continues:
“Dramesi… attempted two daring escapes. For the second he was brutalized for a month with daily torture sessions that nearly killed him. His partner in the escape, Lt. Col. Ed Atterberry, didn’t survive the mistreatment. But Dramesi never said a disloyal word, and for his heroism was awarded two Air Force Crosses, one of the service’s highest distinctions.”
Dramesi, who went on to serve as chief war planner for U.S. Air Forces in Europe and commander of a wing of the Strategic Air Command, was not surprised. “McCain says his life changed while he was in Vietnam, and he is now a different man,” Dramesi says today. “But he’s still the undisciplined, spoiled brat that he was when he went in.” “
In speaking of Dramesi, John McCain said that he was “one of the toughest guys I’ve ever met.”
These are his former comrades in arms, the men who spent time in the same prisons as McCain, and in the case of Dramesi, did not break under torture. They are speaking out, in public, on the record. So, Joe, save us your genuflecting sycophancy for this “hero” that so willingly inflates his own service ahead of his fellow prisoners for his own professional and political gain.

I’m pretty sure that you cannot be bothered to actually confront an article that does not conform to your attitude about McCain, but to be fair to you, the Rolling Stone article is linked here:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/make_believe_maverick_the_real_john_mccain

As to your charge that you needn’t put up facts because us Liberals won’t give you a fair chance is a sub-intellectual copout and it is petty. You won’t put up facts because you can’t. If you can’t hurl epithets or ad hominem attacks, you can’t seem to participate in discussions involving actual issues or facts. Don’t give me that crap that we Liberals don’t play fair. You have offered nothing but unsubstantiated rumors, gossip, and outright lies, then when you get called on them, you whine. Spare me your martyr act. “If you can’t stand the heat…”, as Harry used to say.

Hey, Joe and whoever’s left here supporting McCain: I’ll bet you cannot come up with a story comparable to that.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27022487/

And that her “heels are on and her gloves are off”.

Well – the bulldog with lipstick (and heels, but no gloves) is married to a secessionist who doesn’t subscribe to “Country First” but instead “Alaska First, and always”, and dog-goned if she’ll answer any pesky questions, at least when those media types are around; all they wanna do is clobber her anyway, right?

And, not for nothing, we see what regard Governor Palin has for the rule of law, right? The legislature of the great state of Alaska issued a lawful subpoena to her and to her husband, and she simply flouted it. If that is her reaction to the duly elected state legislators, what will she do if she becomes the Vice President of the United States?

One would call her an ‘empty suit’, but that gives her the benefit of the doubt. What she really looks like is a Cheney with charisma – a very bad mix!

edit: Moe – that is a GREAT story!

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081004/NEWS07/81004035/1009/NEWS07

A person in our family, who I would like to expect better from (but who, it turns out, is capable of worse) clued me in on this “joke” a week ago….but indeed – how the hell is this not enough to immediately terminate – TERMINATE! – the teacher who shared it with all his classes?

from the article:

Howard will be reassigned to teach in the district’s Adult Education Program. “We feel like the punishment is sufficient,” Moore said. “We did not feel he had to be fired.”

Suspension? Reassignment to “Adult education”??? for this teacher of ignorance?

Overt, unambiguous, hateful racism seems to me to be cause enough to summarily whack the small-minded, anti-intellectual little man