Barack Obama will accept the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States on August 28, 2008--forty-five years to the night of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.  He will accept the nomination at Invesco Field, a stadium in Denver capable of seating 75,000 people...

Obama - Invesco

I am a big movie buff, and also I’m beyond tired of our real-life political melodrama, I figured what the hell, let’s pick the top fictional presidents of all time.  Below are my particular picks.

The last several weeks, as I've watched this 21st century public lynching that we laughingly call an "election" play out, I've realized that I was dead wrong in February of 2007.  

Foolishly, at that time, when Senator Obama launched his "improbable quest," I'd thought that America really was a place where all things were possible.  I really did think that we were ready to move past the cesspool of garish bigotry that has defined this country since the first slave ship landed on these shores.  

Scranton, PA.

Today, during a townhall-style meeting, Senator John McCain, responding to a question from an audience member's question regarding some voters possible bitterness concerning the war and the mortgage crisis, responded...

I believe you Hillary.

I believe you because of the following harrowing experience:

It happened last week at a grocery here in my, normally, sleepy Houston suburb.

Yesterday, there were stories on this website and others about Hillary
Clinton's and Barack Obama's positions on allowing driver's licenses to
illegal aliens.  I am not writing to argue about who said what when,
how, or why.  These are the postions, as they stand now:  Obama, yes.
 Hillary, no.

I have to say here that I agree with Obama, and I will tell you why.
 First of all, let me do my best to offer and then refute the main point
I've heard from several people on this website, and others,
particularly, on Huffington Post.  

We live now in the age of the Pretenders.  There are Pretenders in
government, Pretenders in religion, but the biggest Pretenders of all are
in the press.  I am so tired, night after night, day after day, of
watching or reading the dimwitted fools in the press make their conventional
assumptions; too blind, too stupid, or just too invested to see that
the conventions they've lived by are at the very heart of the problem.
 When one can only come to conclusions backed by
irrelevant precedent, one ceases to use the mind for what it is best able
to do--- to form original thought.  At this point of intellectual
laziness, one ceases to bring new information, or especially, new insight.
 And if one fails to bring new insight, then what purpose does one serve,
save that of a pathetic, inconsequential scribe?

The talking heads on television have become so enamored of themselves,
so impressed by their imagined brilliance, that they no longer serve
any legitimate purpose.  Why would I need 1000 channels that all run the
same thing?  

I was bored at work today, so I spent the whole day taking a look into the future (in my own mind).  The following is the speech I would love to hear from Barack Obama (whom I wish would be the Nominee) on August 28, 2008.  Now, I'm not delusional enough to think Obama is about to win.  I still think he'd make a better president than any of the other candidates on both sides, but campaigning is a completely different matter. And his campaign has made many mistakes, mainly that he refuses to hit Clinton hard.  Anyway, the speech is not meant to be comprehensive or very specific, just supposed to be what I generally want to hear the Nominee say (save, possibly, the minority references), whoever they may be.  I also wanted to buck up some of the Obama supporters out there.  I have been critical of Sen. Obama, but what a lot of people obviously don't understand is that we are critical of those we love.  So, without further delay:

The whole Jena Six situation is finally making some real national news.  This whole situation, in what must obviously be a backward little Louisiana town, has pointed to a larger issue in American life.  Racism is alive and well.

We must come to realize the real significance of this situation:  For most of American history racism was en vogue.  Since the 1980s racism has been out of style.  Does that mean it doesn’t exist?  Hell no!  Put simply, up through the 1970s most racism in this country was overt, today it is mostly covert.  But it still lives—not just survives—but lives.

Are all white people racist?  Most certainly not.  Do some black people play the race card whenever it suits them?  Most certainly yes.  But what’s really frightened me here is not the fact that this happened.  No, what frightens me most is the willingness of some people on the LEFT to write this off as black whining.  You see the real race problem in America isn’t that racism exists, for it exists in a much less potent and much less wide-spread form than it once did.  The real problem is white America’s tendency to dismiss all racism as an invention of black people or the media.

I keep reading about Senator Obama saying nukes are off the table to strike terror targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The press and all these idiot Democrats who responded are showing their stupidity, especially Hillary Clinton. You don't threaten terrorist with nukes, that's giving them exactly what they want. Nothing would be a better recruiting poster for al Qaida than an American President threatening to nuke Mecca in response to terrorism. Also, to respond to terrorism with a nuke...is ludicrous, bordering on a crime against humanity, it's a monumental over-reaction. Using a nuke against terrorists would be like using a .357 to kill a mosquito.

Now, saying you would use a nuclear weapon to retaliate against a state, that you can prove KNOWINGLY had something to do with a nuclear attack ON THE UNITED STATES, is one thing.  Quite frankly, I have no problem with that threat.  It's that threat that maintained an unstable, and albeit horrible, status quo during the Cold War, and it is a threat that reflects the world in which we unfortunately live.  

But to say that the threat of using nuclear weapons against just terrorists?  That is beyond the pale.  

*DISCLOSURE:  I. AM. BLACK.

It’s been an issue from the very beginning.  From the second Senator Barack Obama stepped on the national scene, and I’m sure since well before, the questions of Obama’s race have come.  Today, they abound and thrive.

I am bringing up this much ballyhooed subject now for several reasons.  First, the "is he black enough" question is foolish as well as small.  Second, Robert Novak, the pontificating prick of the right wing, on Sunday’s white-boy-a-thon, also known as Meet the Press, commented that the GOP has little to be giddy over, that is, except for the possibility that the Democratic Party might nominate a Black man or a White woman for the highest office in the land.   The implication is obvious; America is too narrow-minded and bigoted to make a woman, or an African American its leader.  I do not believe that is true today.  Of course, it has been true for most of American history.

In the paragraphs to follow, I will attempt to lay out my understanding of Obama’s race, as well as race in general, and particularly race in America, from an historic and contemporary prospective.