race

A nation built with African slaves inaugurates an African-American President.

A nation driven by culture wars born out of the Vietnam era moves into hope for more pragmatic, if still partisan, politics.

A nation fallen into the darkness of torture, of "collateral damage" of hundreds of thousands of lives, of ends justifying any means returns to an age of striving for the highest of American ideals.

A nation seduced by the fantasies popularized by Ronald Reagan, that markets are God, that government is evil, that global warming is a myth, that liberalism is out to destroy America, a nation almost paralyzed with the shock of the revealed lie of those fantasies -- a long nightmare, really -- returns to a reality-based vision of the world.

A nation coming off of one of the more ugly racist federal elections puts a black man into office.

Barack Obama is a pragmatic progressive whose intellect brings us hope that his leadership can guide the cumbersome bureaucracy and conflicting interests and influences into actions that make sense, based on reason.

It was truly audacious two years ago to believe this could happen. It took a lot of hope and the hard work of millions, and the faith of many more. But here it has happened.

Barack Obama is about to become President.

How unlikely.

How amazing.

The world is astonished. Today America returns to the light.

Raw Story:

"I came here for the vote of every American, and our Democratic Party threw us down the tubes," New Yorker Harriet Christian said after yesterday's meeting of the Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Senator Clinton is the "best nominee possible" for President, said Ms. Christian, "and the Democrats are throwing the election away. For what? An inadequate black male who would not have been running had it not been a white woman that was running for President! And I'm not going to shut my mouth anymore!"

No, there's no racism here. Noooooo. (Why not simply "an inadequate candiate"?)

No, there's no delusion here. (Take all the Michigan delegates -- Hillary Clinton still loses!) Nooooo.

Why is Hillary entitled to the nomination? How is counting a one-candidate poll "democratic"?

Maybe there really is some intolerance here for the uppity candidate -- the uppity "inadequate black male." (You fill in the epithet.)

"And they think we won't turn and vote for McCain," Christian added. She closed: "Well, I've got news for all of you: McCain will be the next President of the United States!"

Just lovely. Real class. You're leaving the party? Have fun with the Republicans. They share your values.

Maybe it's just how the NewsHour is selling the news, but here's what we see:

First we get John McCain, opponent of the King holiday, proponent of the Confederate flag over South Carolina, pretending to be a McCain admirer.

Then we get Hillary Clinton, talking about steps backwards and how it is just as hard for her as it was for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

And we want to just vomit. What dreck. (What's worse is that we know that somehow, in some way, Clinton really has a progressive racial conciousness, but she simply has a serious problem with expressing any sort of authenticity.)

And then we get a snippet of Barack Obama, who's talking not about how Dr. King was such a remarkable America (which he was), but about Dr. King's message -- and how we are or are not living up to it.

Two panderers eager to kiss a dead man's ass, and one leader who takes up the dead man's message and challenges us.

So which candidate is the most presidential here?

[No transcript or audio here, save for the discussion after.]

Barack Obama spoke today. This simply is one of the most profound and brave speeches in politics I've seen in a long long time.

Maybe I'm just not enough of a Super Bowl watcher, but here I hear all this about the first time an African American head coach leads an NFL team into the Super Bowl -- not once, but two times over -- and yet as I watch this game, I wonder where the camera shots of the coaches are.

You'd think these players were just going on their own.

I can remember games of yore, seeing Landry and Ditka and Parcells and all those other coaches running teams at Super Bowls.

So where are Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith?

Is CBS afraid of showing America the coaches of this game? What's up, CBS?

2nd Quarter Update: Okay, so they finally mentioned Dungy and Smith. They even gave them each about a second of screen time. No talk about game plans, though. Or game strategy.

I haven't watched the Super Bowl in a few years, except for occasional check-ins on the commercials. But has the game changed so much that coaches just don't matter any more?

Still watching....

4th Quarter update: The coaches have arrived. Or at least Tony Dungy has arrived.

Wow, even a little bio close-up!