Reading this unintelligible and unfunny screed from conservative talk show host Glenn Beck gave me renewed hope for Barack Obama. Glenn seems to think that it’s not racist to vote against Barack Obama and, further, that all of these right wingers who keep taking jabs at his character (through allusive catch phrases, making fun of Senator Obama’s middle name) aren’t demonstrating any racial bias either.

Here’s my favorite piece of Glenn Beck’s half-cocked argument.

I didn’t know about the secret white person code language, but I’m hoping there’s a secret handshake too.

I’d like to suggest to Glenn Beck that he actually do some reading about this thing called “semantics” and understand that yes, in fact, there is a tendency to use secret codes in order to avoid stating the obvious. You’re so scared someone is going to figure out that you have a deep ceded hatred of people for the color of their skin, you won’t say what is really on your mind.

Glenn, it would be nice to hear you simply call Senator Obama “the ‘n’ word” and get it over with. Anyone reading this column from you already knows you want to. Just do it and end your career for us all, nice and clean.

Commentary: Voting against Obama doesn’t make you a racist – CNN.com.

Since Sarah Palin wants to engage in “Swift Boat” politics, can we so quickly forget her connection to the Alaska Independence Party? Perhaps in light of her husband’s membership in said party, she and Senator McCain should probably reconsider highlighting this talking point. Unlike Obama, the Governor’s husband was actually a member of the party. More thanks to Talking Points Memo’s Election Central.

If Palin is going to say this, it is now perfectly legitimate to point out that she repeatedly courted a secessionist group founded by someone who openly professed hatred of the American government, cursed our flag, and wanted to secede from the Union. Sarah’s husband, Todd Palin, was a member of this group, which continues to venerate that founder to this day, for years.

As you already know, the group is the Alaska Independence Party, which sees as its ultimate goal seceding from the union. Todd was a member, with a brief exception, from 1995 until 2002, according to the Division of Elections in Alaska.

And though Sarah Palin herself was apparently not a member of this group, there’s no doubt that she repeatedly courted this secessionist organization over the years. In 1994, Palin attended the group’s annual convention, according to witnesses who spoke to ABC News’ Jake Tapper. The McCain campaign has confirmed she visited the group’s 2000 convention, and she addressed its convention this year, as an incumbent governor whose oath of office includes upholding the Constitution of the United States.

(Palin’s Attack On Obama’s Patriotism Legitimizes Questions About The Palins’ Association With Group Founded By America-Hating Secessionist)

In a city like Washington D.C., filled with a mixture of people seeking to help their constituents and those involved in their own selfish ends, it seems fairly obvious that those who are running out of time and ideas are digging for dirt that isn’t there. I read this story and I was shocked, not only at the accusations of impropriety (where simple fact-checking has proven none exists) but the presumptive nature that merely crossing paths with a person who has done something wrong makes you guilty by association.

I would ask that before the McCain-Palin campaign begin pointing fingers at an individual who casually supported Barack Obama on his political rise, they should go ahead and embrace their connections to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Here are two people whom it could be argued have mishandled the powers vested in them by the people who elected them, using those powers to commit acts of white-collar terrorism against their own people for the purposes of shuffling monetary controls and power to themselves (and to their cronies and allies) — individuals and corporations whose actions have crippled our country’s economic infrastructure and cost people their life savings more than once — remember Enron?

You can’t put Obama in bed with a bad guy and at the same time pretend you’re not in bed with the two baddest guys of them all.

Let’s talk about the issues. People who have nothing to add to the discussion about issues talk badly about other people to distract the American people from what matters to us. “Swift Boating” must end now.

Obama accuses McCain of looking for distractions – CNN.com.

Memphians have been speciously fearful after seeing a flurry of McCain/Palin stickers around East Memphis recently. It’s likely because people in Memphis see themselves as having made some kind of benefit from the last 8 years of failed policies by the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled congress. Memphians who support the Obama/Biden ticket shouldn’t be afraid; they should be enthused by what is going on.

The candidates themselves are making the case for an Obama/Biden win through their own actions.

I’m wondering if it could be that the generation of my parents see McCain as a celebratory representative of what people are capable of doing even at age 72. While I respect the desire to identify with a candidate based on a superficial notion, using this reasoning to support a candidate is pretty frightening; age, or lack of age, is not a reason to select someone to be a leader of a country.

Of course, it could be that people cling to the soundbites that speak to supporting their notions. So-called “media bias” has become a talking point of the McCain campaign, used to support the idea that favorable coverage is being doled out to Obama and Biden. I agree that the media is culpable in this situation; and, by the same token, so-called “right-wing” media frequently, as Big Brother is want to, distort the facts and only focus on the pieces of soundbites that make their candidate look good.

Why wouldn’t they? There is a tendency by the media to focus positively on the Obama/Biden ticket, and with good reason: they have made themselves available. Palin’s two horrific interviews and McCain’s continued need to quote half-truths and lambast us with his record as a war hero are really just the kind of fuel that highlights what make Obama and Biden the clear winners in the upcoming election.
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I am going to be liveblogging this debate, so stay with me to see how I score it. Please also tune into my friend Jen’s blog at http://jen-sized.net for complete liveblogging coverage from two Memphis bloggers very interested in the outcome.

8:02 that was a terse handshake

8:03 Obama talks about the economy. “The worst economic situation since the Great Depression”. He seems a bit stiff. God is he ever nervous.

— oversight
— taxpayers should be able to get money back
— none of that money should pad CEO bank accounts
— helping homeowners
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Doesn’t John McCain get it? When a woman says “no” she means “no”. She doesn’t mean “yes”. Ann & Nancy Wilson are STILL flipping angry over the McCain/Palin camp’s repeated use of the song “Barracuda”. In their defense, the campaign explained that they purchased a license to use the song before any controversy stirred. But don’t they get it? Maybe they’ll hear this “Dear John McCain” letter from the sisters Wilson. I don’t know what column this appears in, but props again to Jen for hipping me to this. (Note: It appears in this weeks issue of Seattle free weekly, The Stranger)

Here’s what I want to know: how long ago did they purchase the license to the song? How long did they know Sarah Palin was going to be the candidate? Surely Heart wouldn’t have agreed to license the song if they knew who was buying the license, would they? Might not be up to them but, regardless, they still use it to refer to “Sarah Barracuda”. I have another name for her that I won’t repeat.

Anyways, enjoy this column entitled “Cease and Desist, You Old Fart” by Ann & Nancy Wilson.

A couple of days ago, word came around that Governor Sarah Palin’s personal email at Yahoo! had been infiltrated by hackers who post on the internet website 4chan. Through some methodology, they had been able to compromise her email, take screenshots, and then post them before a conscientious objector to the activity changed the password back.

The invasion of the Governor’s privacy has raised a number of questions about the privacy & security of public email providers, furthering concern and speculation that such use by government officials to conduct official government business would fall outside the realms of disclosure.

Months ago, Governor Palin admitted openly to routinely having used public email, even prided herself on the choice. Now that the email has been compromised, people on all sides were given a clear, if momentary, glimpse into what amounts to, essentially, very little: nothing untoward was revealed whatsoever. Quite the contrary: it bolstered confidences of people who supported Governor Palin, both sympathetically and contextually, for using public email in her practice as governor of Alaska.

Meanwhile, the CIA and the FBI appear to have become directly involved in tracking down the people (or persons) who infiltrated the governor’s privacy, a completely appropriate action in light of who, and what, was being tampered with. Blame has been placed on someone who, in the eyes of some, must clearly be an Obama supporter — someone who wanted to blow the whistle on some form of corruption. It has stimulated response from both Republicans and Democrats, denouncing the fiendish motivations behind such actions, creating increased finger-pointing by people who were already looking for reasons to chastise one side or the other.

The media has wondered, publicly, how such an attack could have occurred. But in the media’s coverage of this debacle, a series of critical reasoning flaws and motives have been overlooked.

Chief among these logic problems, to this writer, seems simple: what if it was merely an “inside job” by the McCain camp meant to discredit Obama supporters and create a firestorm of controversy?

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photo credit: Barack Obama

The 2008 Presidential election was never going to be simple. For a time, it seemed that the tide was moving in one specific direction; today, it is turning into a hotly-contested political contest fueled by innuendo and distortions the likes of which the American people have not seen in many years.

On the left, Barack Obama, the presumptive favorite of the American people (based on their feeling about the issues affecting them) has been solid and steady about his promise to bring change and reform to Washington since proclaiming his run for the presidency in February of 2007. There is Senator Joe Biden, one of the lowest-level income earners in both public service and Congress, whose very direct grassroots style and deep connection to the common people of America have earned him immense respect and the Democratic vice-presidential nod.

On the right, the self-proclaimed “mavericks” whose messages represent the policies which we have lived with for the past eight years. The right’s two personalities, John McCain and his running mate Governor Sarah Palin, have proven effective in their quest to transform the campaign messages of the left and make them their own, repackaging the notions of “change” and “progress” by distancing themselves from the current White House and introducing Sarah Palin, a virtual ringer, into the contest for the White House. The process has been effective: the Republicans were able to stop the bleeding using Palin’s limitless charm as a security blanket for a race which seemed lost to them just weeks ago.

Obama has, for his part, handled matters with kid gloves up to this point. It’s not because of his unwillingness to fight but out of a genuine fear of being caught in the “catch-22″ of being mislabeled by undecided voters in the short run to election day. Obama has run a positive campaign and one which has been based on the issues. He has proven himself a remarkable public speaker, a man whose genuine concern for the welfare of our country comes across as honest rather than pious. He is a man of great intelligence and forethought, one who speaks with a no-nonsense ease about what he believes in and never shies away from answering tough questions.

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