Relax. Barack's Got This.

We interrupt this disgustingly useless news cycle about Fairytale Weddings, Child Molestation Enabling Saints and Presidential Campaigns by Bankrupted Reality Television Hosts to bring you some news that actually matters: Osama bin Laden is dead. And no, he wasn't found in Iraq.

I'm not one to get wrapped up in the flag or get all wet at the sound of Toby Keith. I've also never bought into any of America's  recent boogeymen, be it Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Mullah Omar or Trans Fats. All they do is serve to cheapen the dialogue and debate. Osama bin Laden's death does not restore all that is right in the world, and if you knew on September 12th that he'd live another 9.5 years later, you'd probably be pretty damn pissed.

What the operation has proved however - and this clearly isn't the first time - is that the grown ups are in charge now.

During the Presidential campaigns - both Primary and General - Barack Obama was resolute in stating that should unmistakable intelligence arise that Bin Laden was in Pakistan, he'd go right in and take him out. First he was killed by Hillary Clinton, John Edwards (remember him?) and Chris Dodd. Then he was killed by John McCain - who also said he'd walk through the gates of hell to get him.   

Not a peep of criticism for the action from any of them today.

We suffered through 8 years of George Bush's cowboy talk. We were going to get Osama "Dead or Alive". We were going to "smoke'em out of their holes". Allegedly we had him trapped in the mountains of Afghanistan, but then we decided "Fuck it, let's go get Saddam". 

We watched President Bush  mock the inability to find those WMD during a photo slideshow at the White House Correspondents dinner. We watched President Bush tell Mike Brown he was doing "A heckuva job" as New Orleans drowned. We watched him walk hand-in-hand with Saudi Royalty as gas prices rose. We watched Dick Cheney out CIA agents who disagreed with his assertions about the WMD, then watched President Bush pardon the man found guilty of the leak.

We watched a draft dodger paint a war hero as a coward. We watched rednecks burn Dixie Chick records. We saw the Senate have an emergency session to intervene in the case of a woman suffering through a 2 decade coma. Bush's press secretary said we need to "watch what we say". We had the "Terror Threat Level" raised right after the 2004 Democratic National Convention. We had to deal with Rudy Giuliani. Oh, and despite all of this, we saw the global economy crumble. 

I have many disagreements with President Obama. Primarily because he's not anything like the monster that his detractors claim. He's not socialist enough. He tries too hard to work with his opponents. He's too pro-business.

Sometimes I think liberals like myself try to make Obama into something he's not. He never campaigned on Single Payer health care. He promised to escalate the action in Afghanistan. He made a pledge to work together in a bipartisan factor. Is it his fault for not being Che Guevara? Or our fault for falsely expecting him to be?

Most refreshingly, Obama doesn't resort lowbrow tactics to get the job done. I heard more times than I can count that I was "hurting the troops" when I criticized the President, but you don't hear that emanating from the left these days. Nobody's telling the Teabaggers to "Love it Or Leave It". 

Dan Rather lost his job for reporting on the shadiness involving Bush's records from his days in the Texas Air National Guard - a unit reserved for the sons of Texas' richest to avoid service in Vietnam. Yet every news organization under the sun openly reports on Obama's fucking birth certificate.

The goal posts are continually moved back for this guy. Some of it is from the left. But most of it is from the main stream. If George Bush saved the American Auto Industry from extinction, prevented a Recession from a Depression, enacted  Bob Dole's healthcare reform and by the way, captured the most wanted man in history, we wouldn't be asking for his Birth Certificate. We'd be trying to repeal the 22nd Amendment to make him president for life.

I told a friend earlier today that I don't want to get into the dangerous territory of using Bush as a point of comparison. That's setting a bar too low to be effective. But for all the times I bitch about what Obama isn't politically, I need to take time to appreciate something else that he's not: A petty childish pissant.

George Bush was great at talking the talk. Barack Obama's more than content to simply walk the walk. Just ask Bin Laden.

Obama Coming Home?

From the National Journal....

President Obama has decided that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and has asked his Justice Department to stop defending it in court, the administration announced today.

"The President believes that DOMA is unconstitutional. They are no longer going to be defending the cases in the 1^st and 2^nd circuits," a person briefed on the decision said.
The administration will formally notify Congress later today. The act sought to restrict single-sex unions.

 I have to admit I'm a little shocked. I fully expected Obama to eventually make moves in favor of marriage equality but I expected it to be well after his re-election, and even then, likely after the 2014 midterms. This is an interesting development. Is he picking a fight in the culture wars? Is he trying to make the GOP/Teabaggers run from the economy and to same-sex marriage - in turn exposing them for what they really are?

It's nice for a change to be pleasantly surprised by the administration's actions. While I'll temper any enthusiasm until the full story is told, this is absolutely a step in the right direction for the civil rights issue of our day. Stay tuned. 

The Teabagger Manifesto

If you listen to Speaker Boner, Paul Ryan, Batshit Crazy Michele Bachmann or any of the other Teabaggers in congress, nothing is off the table when it comes to spending and deficit reduction. Not Social Security. Not PBS. Not Medicare. Not even the Pentagon.

But NASCAR sponsorships? Woe! Are you crazy? How can you even suggest such a drastic proposal? Minnesota Representative (and alleged Slut)  Betty McCollumn dared to make that exact recommendation. This is what she got in response:

There's really no need to point out the grammar, syntax, punctuation or hell, even the blatant racism in the fax from this run of the mill NASCAR fan. Though my wife did get a major kick out of how the person we'll refer to as "Redneck X" had no issue dropping the N-Word or calling a freely elected female of Congress a "Slut", but didn't seem comfortable spelling the word "Fuck" properly. 

I don't want to play the dangerous game of painting all teabaggers, conservatives, Pentagon Groupies or Nascar junkies with a broad brush, but does this not seem emblematic of sheer hypocrisy of the teabagger movement? I tend to lean towards this being the ultimate, comprehensive symbol of the Teabagger movement: 

• Complete misuse of the term "Marxism". I would think that the Federal Government (in this case, the Pentagon) withdrawing from funding a private enterprise (NASCAR) would be quite the opposite of Marxism/Socialism/Communism and all of it's perceived manifestations. 
• Overt racism. I don't really think I need to point out the obvious do I? I mean for Christ's sake, what the phuck does the Attorney General have to do with this? Other than being black? 
• So inherently Southern/Confederate/Red State. The FBI is investigating this (OK, by proxy Holder is involved AFTER the fact) and let's just say, I'll be 100% shocked if it's found that this fax originated in Vermont. 
• 100% absence of facts. There is a news clipping, followed by a series of slurs and insults. No mention of anything practical whatsoever. 
• No solution offered. Like every Teabagger demand or ideal, there's no inkling as to how to rectify the problem at hand, be it real (like Social Security) or imagined (Marxist N-Word Thugs and Rectum Sniffing Sluts trying to ruin your ability to watch cars go round and round). 

The same troglodytes who demand that we keep the government out of Medicare are now arguing that we keep our filthy government hands in our private sports associations. 

Without Question,

Troglodytes are enemies of the US Constitution!

Education to all Troglodytes! 

Foreign and Domestic!

In a Boy's Dream: The State of the Union

As I write this, I'm sure the President is hard at work, looking into a mirror and practicing thinking about the audience in their undergarments, trying to nail down his third State of the Union. I'm sure the speech will be everything the pundits and the people expect. There will be promises to work together, gentle scoldings about political discourse, the annual pledge to keep Social Security safe and the required "brave men and women in uniform" applause lines. There might be a surprise or two, but really, I fully expect this SOTU to look much like the last 2. Or the last 10, just a lot more intelligent. 

But I can dream, right? In a perfect world, wouldn't the State of the Union 2011 sound something like this?

Thank You. Thank You. Mr. Vice President, Speaker Boner, Members of Congress both old and -uggh-new, Supreme Corporate Justices, Feel-good-Barbara-Walters-story-in-the-making guests of the First Lady...the State of Our Union is Fucked. 

I was watching television Sunday Morning and the new House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, while graciously  letting the public know that he "thinks" I'm a citizen, said it wasn't right to say those who think otherwise were "crazy". I believe Mr. Cantor said something along the lines of how it's simply not nice to call people crazy. While I'm sure that Manny Ramirez, Tom Cruise, and the folks who believe Jesus walked with dinosaurs appreciate the Majority leader's compassion, I had to ask myself, "Are you shitting me?" 

A little more than 2 years into my Presidency and you ignorant morons are still convinced I'm a Kenyan Born Muslim that spend the last 15 years of my life at the altar of a radical black separatist Christian reverend.

On top of all of that, you think I'm a Communist when my continual handouts to big business probably represent the biggest blow job in modern Presidential History. Yes Monica, even bigger than yours.

You people complain that I'm not tough enough on China when, after 8 years of your leadership, you fostered a financial environment conducive to China not only taking our jobs, but financing our mere existence, because as you know, wars don't pay for themselves. Neither do tax cuts. 

Speaking of wars, to our Brave Men and Women in Uniform (raucous applause), I'm sorry. Because I'm a Democrat, I have an uncontrollable urge to whip it out measure it. So I had to quadruple down on Afghanistan. 

Sure, I was nominated by the strongest grassroots effort in American electoral history by a bunch of educated people who believed that true national security comes in the form of energy independence and seeing to it that those in impoverished corners of the globe are fed, educated and working instead of working out sweetheart deals with their corrupt governments. 

While I agree with them in principle, the reality is too many powerful people in this country, along with an educationally-stunted-by-design majority of Americans just want to blow shit up. 

Since this is an official State of the Union Address, I'm required by the PATRIOT ACT to say the following phrase: September the Eleventh, Two Thousand One. We remember that horrible day like it was yesterday. For many of us, time has failed to heal those wounds. For those of you who answered the call that day, we care about your well-being. Just not as much as we do tax cuts for Bill Gates. 

We must never forget how we were savagely attacked by Saudi and Egyptian Nationals, and how we had no choice but to ensure that Iraq and Afghanistan got just what they deserved.

Almost a decade later, there's no end in sight to our misguided quest for revenge. Oh, and did I already mention these trillion-dollar adventures were funded by China? Even though a return to 2000's tax code would have both paid for these wars AND true health care reform?

Speaking of health care reform, much to the dismay of my party's base, I tried to listen to the opposition party and work together to find middle ground. While my proposal was not nearly as liberal as those of card-carrying Communists like Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, I thought basically copying and pasting the proposal of a moderate Socialist like Comrade Bob Dole would be a reasonable compromise. Boy was I wrong.

Never again will I underestimate the American People's desire to be a slave to an HMO. Never again will I argue against the fundamental Right To Deny Coverage Based On Pre-Existing Conditions. Upon further review of the Constitution, I now see what you're talking about: The government has absolutely no right to prevent a lunatic from owning a nuclear warhead, but how dare we say you must be insured.

While I'm in the habit of throwing in the towel, let's move to the environment. My opponent in the last election was an advocate of a cap and trade system. But that's a little too pinko radical for most of you. Especially those of you convinced that there is no climate crisis because Jesus loves the earth too much to let anything bad happen to it. So let's abandon those solar and windmill plants that not only create working class jobs, but also protect our environment AND have the added bonus of weening ourselves off of Al Qaeda's oil. Go back to buying Hummers. Class Dismissed. 

I'd like to think that this divergent opinion on how the nation should be governed was just the demented musings of an aging slice of the electorate, clinging to their outdated belief structure and unable to come to grips with the fact that their President is named Barack Hussein Obama. And maybe it is. But you know what? Those loony old white folks voted last November. The rest of you didn't.

So we turn the page to a new election cycle. Another 12 months of hearing how I'm a foreign national that worships at the altar of Marx and Lenin, while the fringe on the other side talks about Blood Libel. I could easily get the band back together, write up some pretty speeches and throw a brand new slogan about change or progress your way, but really, what's the point? Change isn't supposed to be easy, but you people want it to be. You don't have the stomach for this fight, I don't have the patience. So I will not be seeking re-election. Enjoy President Mama Grizzly. 

Thank You, Good night. And God will Bless America when America decides to stop acting like a petulant little bastard.

I've Seen This Movie Before

Politico does a fantastic job this morning pointing out that President Obama's hiring of Bill Daley as his new, permanent, Chief of Staff is the last straw for the Left. I couldn't agree more. In November 2008, we thought we were getting a once in a lifetime, transformational Presidency. A 21st Century FDR if you will. But after 2 years and an electoral thumping, it's pretty clear that we're getting Bill Clinton 2.0. 

Politically speaking, the move makes sense. Try as we might to overstate our influence and importance, liberal ideology has been browbeaten by the Redneckification of America for the last 30 years. You can go back to Nixon's Southern Strategy. You can point to Ronald Reagan's brilliant demonizing of the word "Liberal" that worked so well that liberals had to start calling themselves Progressives. Forget about the fact that liberals ended slavery, extended the right to vote to women and guaranteed civil rights. To Joe The Plumber, the "L" word is more evil than the "N" word. Probably because Joe has no problem using the "N" Word. But that's another story. Not that I'd ever confuse him with Comrade Lenin, but it helps Obama shed the fabricated image that he's a Socialist Dictator.

Furthermore, while Obama lacks the Clintonian charm, he's vastly more liked personally. Clinton had a knack for empathy and an uncanny ability to piss on your face and tell you it's raining and all, but more than 50% of the electorate really couldn't stand the man. On both sides of the political spectrum. Obama's personal likeability numbers have steadily been higher than his job approval numbers, which would lead one to believe that the people, for the most part, want to get behind him. Sure, there's the wacko slice of the populace that hates him for his pigmentation and his crazy radical Socialist Muslim Terrorist platform, but you just got to tune those assholes out. Put it like this: They all showed up to vote against him in 2008 and Barack was the recipient of the biggest landslide victory in a generation. Those birthers, racists and evangelicals don't have nearly enough sway in a Presidential year as they do in a mid-term one. 

Now, I hold firm to my belief that if he actually pushed forward and fought for a truly liberal agenda: REAL Healthcare Reform, Immediate withdrawal from Bush's two wars, visible and viable Green Collar job programs (an environmental WPA of sorts), a return to Nixon era tax rates on the affluent and so on, that he'd be not only a popular president, but a legendary one. It's abundantly clear that's not happening. Not with Speaker Boner in charge now and a flacid, spineless, barely recognizable majority in the Senate. He had his chance. He punted. 

Politico points out that the left would routinely blame Rahm Emanuel for the centrist, moderate agenda at 1600 Pennsylvania. I for one would continue to point the finger at Harry Reid. It's time that we all come to grips with the fact that it's the Commander In Chief calling the shots.

I don't want to act as if the man's did nothing. He's done plenty and has brought legitimate, viable reform to both Main Street and Wall Street. Cash for Clunkers might be the most brilliant post-New Deal government program ever, when you consider how it (a) helped save the auto industry, (b) made cars more affordable during the Great Recession and (c) got hundreds of thousands of inefficient vehicles off the road. But what the White House doesn't get sometimes is that we've waited a very, very long time to have control. Why on earth should we play ball with the chickenhawks, corporatists, and other useless assholes who ran the country into the ground? 

The Daley hiring will help Obama's re-election efforts, I have no doubts about that. Much like bringing in David Gergen aided Clinton's. I think that 2012 is going to imitate 1996 in a few ways. For starters, the Republicans are going to nominate a pitiful and undesirable candidate. I can say that with certainty because I've seen their prospective nominees and I have an IQ above 55. Secondly, he will, by hook or by crook, have a series of moderate/compromised/bipartisan "victories" to counterbalance any insane notion that the man who's done more for Wall Street than anyone is somehow a "liberal". Finally, as painfully slow as it's been, there's plenty of reason to believe that the recovery will be real and obvious. Just like Bill Clinton, Obama will be cast as the "Comeback Kid". 

Just like Bill Clinton, those of us who proudly call ourselves Liberals will be left to wonder what might have been.

Riddle Me This: Barack and Christlam

On the way to work this morning, for no reason whatsoever, I started to think about the countless questions that I have - many for some time now - that remain completely unanswered. At least in a satisfactory way. I remember as a youngling, when I found myself puzzled, I could do one of two things: ask somebody, or go to the library. 

Being raised in a Catholic home and having attended a Catholic grammar school, ask someone inevitably meant bracing for the response "Because that's the way God wants it". Looking it up usually meant referring to either my father's Encyclopedia collection (that, no lie, when listing the Presidents, had "John Fitzgerald Kennedy: 1961 -" and well, didn't refer to African-Americans in a way I'm comfortable repeating on the internet) or going to a slightly (not by much) more updated library. 

But the internet changed all that. Or, at least it was supposed to. Still, things remain that not even Google will answer. I'm not talking about the philosophical ("Why are we here?") or the conspiratorial ("Who killed Kennedy?"). Simple questions that nobody has taken the time to answer for me, despite my ranting, and what I believe to be sensible queries into the times we live in. 

So, in borrowing a phrase from my favorite villain on my favorite horrible TV show as a kid,  I ask you, The Internet.... 

Riddle Me This: How can the same people who decried Barack Obama's Christian Pastor Jeremiah Wright now say with a straight face that they believe Obama is a Mulsim? 

I'm serious. For years my wife's favorite gripe about BushCheneyCo was "their inability to hold an opposing thoughts". Well my dear, the right wing has finally taken "holding opposing thoughts" to the extreme.

They spent the better part of 2008 screaming about "Black Liberation Theology" that allegedly took place at these Christian churches in the inner city. Now, 33% of Republicans think that the President is a Muslim. 

I'm not stupid. I know these people treat Muslim as a derogatory slur that they're somehow - in ways that they're too feeble-minded to understand - allowed to say in public (as opposed to what you and I absolutely know they call him behind closed doors). It's part of the klan-sans-sheets nature of the Tea Party. But I would think that even these simpletons could think back to their outrage at Reverend Wright and realize "Hey? Didn't I kill this guy for baptizing his children in the fucking name of Christ Jesus in this man's church?" 

Obviously we're dealing with some low-dangling fruit here. The same folks don't believe he was born in the United States. And I get that there's some backlash because they may feel we disrespected their President who broke the whole world and all. But I don't ever recall anybody on the left ever saying "George Bush is a Genius" after years of saying the complete opposite. 

So "cowboy up" teabaggers. How can one man be simultaneously be a Muslim and a White-Hatin' Christian? 

At least one inquiring mind wants to know.

Pussies "R" Us

Surprised that a Republican nude model won Teddy Kennedy’s seat? A seat that hasn’t been held by a Republican since Henry Cabot Lodge? Don’t be. Nobody’s better at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory better than the Democrats, and a simple look at the scorecard just verifies it:

US v. THEM

THEM: They impeached a sitting President over a fucking blowjob. The most basic of simple human pleasures.
US: We won’t even investigate a former Vice President’s confirmed role in torture, a role that he’s pretty much broadcast over every major media outlet.


THEM: They were sitting in office for the worst terrorist attack on American soil in history and act like they’re the only ones capable of defending the country, even though they stalled the formation of a Homeland Security Department 5 years prior to 9/11.
US: One crazy radical with bombs in his underwear gets disarmed in flight and we allow ourselves to be portrayed as incapable and defenseless, by no less of a fraudulent expert than Rudy “The Crossdresser” Giuliani, he who decided an Emergency Response Center should be stationed in the WTC.


US: We have Dick Durban tearfully apologizing for comparing Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graihb to “Gulags”
THEM: They attend raucous rallies where claims are made that the Commander In Chief of the Armed Forces is a “Foreign Born Muslim Operative”.


THEM: Won’t think twice about launching a war, clearly without any absence of fact, logic or preparation.
US: Will pout as we both vote to authorize it, and worse, continue to execute it while we have the authority to end it.


THEM: They literally hold hands with the Saudi Royal Family and allow the bin Laden family to fly around the country while all flights are grounded on 9/11. Despite allegedly knowing that 16 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
US: We take it on the chin while they accuse us of attending to Haiti’s needs in time of crisis because “Haitians are brown”.


I can go on and on but what’s the point. Until Democrats stand up for core Democratic values like equal treatment for all, a fair playing ground, consumer protection, reasonable and rational defense and foreign policy and basic worker protections, they’re going to continue to lose elections.


They can’t frame an argument to save their lives and they have no friggin backbone. Health care’s a perfect example. Who gives a flying you-know-what what the insurance industry wants? Come up with your plan and muscle it through, use reconciliation if you must. But instead, they decided to give everyone a tug-job to the point where nobody: left, right or center wants this plan.


Is there hope that the tide will turn? I guess there always is. Look no further than the economic and poll numbers of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton after one year in office. Reagan, as despicable as it was, still managed to push his agenda through with little resistance from the opposition that happened to control both chambers of congress. For some reason he was a renowned speaker and his team used this to forge a mandate.


Clinton, after taking hard midterm losses, became decidedly more centrist, practiced triangulation on everything down to what type of coffee would be served at congressional leadership meetings, and while many results were positive, he still ended up in front of a camcorder during a deposition.


Did record numbers of voters go to the polls last November to elect a boring, middle of the road triangulator like Bill Clinton? Hell no. We had that choice in the primary and we kicked her to the curb. You were elected to be transformative Mr. President, and somehow you let the Republicans (who broke this fucking world) relate more to the middle class than your own party. It's time to take a page from their playbook and raise hell, fuck the facts and get shit done.

Hit The Road Harry

All the way back in 2002, before YouTube and iPhones, before Change became a proper noun, then-Senate Majority Leader (or, soon to be) Trent Lott declared that America would be a better place if Segregationist Strom (Is it hot enough for you yet?) Thurmond was elected President in 1948. From my soap-box placed in the middle of my one bedroom apartment at the time, I demanded Lott be replaced. Not long after that, he did in fact step down, though I'm not quite sure if it was in response to me, or the rest of the thinking public which included (the first and last time he'll be included in the group "thinking public") President Bush.


Here we are in 2010 and another Senate Majority Leader has, like too many people before him, put himself in the crosshairs of the perpetual debate over racial and ethnic sensitivity. In a "deep background" interview with authors of the 2008 election recap Game Change, Harry Reid referred to President Barack Obama as 'light-skinned' and as having 'no Negro dialect'.


Naturally, the Republicans are calling this a double standard and demanding that Reid resign, citing that (ever so vaguely) 7 years ago, their Senate Leader goofed in the racial minefield so what's fair is fair and now the Democrats' Senate Leader should do the same.


Let's be clear right off the bat: To say this is apples and oranges would be an insult to fruit. This is more like apples and motor oil.


For starters, Lott was from Mississippi. Yes, call me crazy, judgmental or insensitive, I don't care. That matters. Mississippi's history with race relations makes South Africa cringe. Furthermore, Lott had a spotty, if not shameful, record in the Civil Rights arena. He voted against a MLK Holiday, many affirmative action measures, and if given the chance, likely would have voted against ending slavery.

Harry Reid on the other hand has a nearly impeccable record regarding Civil Rights on the surface (The problem arises with Reid when you dig deeper into reproductive rights). In this same book in question, we learn that Reid was working behind the scenes to not only get Obama into the race, but to help him win it, though that led to the unfortunate remark. I honestly don't look at Reid and think, you know, that dude's a bigot.


Discussions over race is a combat zone, there's no disputing that. I'm one of the handful of people who consider themselves left of center that thought Don Imus deserved to keep his job after his snafu. I just didn't think his intent was as ugly as his choice of words. Often times, and excuse the horrible pun, we see things in terms of black and white while the reality is, it's one big industrial sized barrel of gray. We can only attempt to judge intent. Sometimes (John Rocker) it's pretty easy. Other times (Jimmy the Greek), not so much. More often than not, it's an excuse for everybody to advance their agenda, regardless of the facts - I don't care if it's Al Sharpton or Glenn Beck.


It's not the PC thing to say, but you can't expect a 75 year old to be as tolerant as a 25 year old. It's just not a fair expectation in the slightest. I'm not accusing all senior citizens of being bigoted, not at all. But while we love to look back and revise history, you can't ignore the fact that our environment shapes us, no matter how stupefying that environment may now seem.


All of that being said, it's time for Harry Reid to resign. Forget about the political reality (that he's likely going to lose in November anyway) or the logistical necessities (his deep involvement in health care reform), or even the fact that, by all accounts, the President has accepted his apology and moved on (thankfully no beer summit needed).


I want Reid to step down for a reason much more simple than political sausage-making: I'm a registered Democrat and I don't feel comfortable with the fact that my party's Senate leader is that out of touch with the realities of life in 2010 America. I'm sure Harry is a great guy, probably a wonderful husband, father, grandpa, etc. But his choice of words speaks volumes to not only his worldview, but his perception (or lack thereof) of reality.

I'm as disappointed as anyone at the lack of "real change" one year into the Administration, though I definitely concede the challenges were more enormous than anticipated. That doesn't change the fact that an overwhelming majority of Americans last November went to the polls to cast a vote for moving forward, for forging that More Perfect Union that the founders laid out, and for moving away from the Us v. Them mentality that nearly brought our laws, our defense and our nation to her knees.


You want to use the term "Negro Dialect" in 2010, that's you're right, but you'd be better of using it at one of those Klan Rallies disguised as a "Tea Party" then in your Senate Majority Leader office. Especially when you consider who the millions of people are that made you the Majority - people who find such a thought process to be antiquated at best and abusive at worst.

I wish Senator Reid the best of luck, and would sincerely hope that his career isn't defined by this low point. I just don't think naturally using those words can be reconciled with the agenda of so many millions of people who put him in such a position of leadership.