I think this analysis is broadly correct. This is the reason they go beyond seeing markets and capitalism as sometimes useful tools, but rather worship might-makes-right outcomes - it's because they have basically fascist inner cores (I refer to a congenital personality type, not even to the surface politics).

This is the core kiss up-kick down, cowardly bully type. Conformist, boot-licking success worship, success always defined purely in gutter material terms - whatever is biggest, richest, temporally most powerful, physically strongest.

This is the path of those born without the capacity for independent thought. Being too lazy, stupid, and cowardly to ever think for themselves, they joyously adhere as slaves to whatever idiocy - religious, political, cultural - they were brainwashed into as children.

However:

Obama spent his time in Chicago talking, just like he's been talking ever since. If he had any balls, he would have been in charge, right?

As a strategic matter, it seems the Dems go way too far in the opposite direction, do too much talking. (Indeed, I thought that was a truism by now among those trying to diagnose the Dems' fecklessness.)

At some point, you have to make up your mind who you are and what you want to accomplish, and at that point the time for talking really should be over. It is the time for doing.

So, as a tactical matter, I hope once elected Obama really will be "in charge", will have a Plan and will relentlessly, where necessary ruthlessly, seek to carry it out.

That's where I have so many doubts about him - not regarding his good faith, but regarding whether or not he really knows what to do, and whether he has the fortitude to seek the goal.

calls Sarah Palin "the Lorena Bobbitt of the Republican Party." Yes, she has accomplished pretty close to what Jesse Jackson whispered that he wanted to do. The Community Organizer is a joke. He is lucky he won't have to debate the Barracuda. She would clean his clock.

...and she's comparing a job Obama took in 1985 when he was just out of school to a job Palin began in 1996.  In 1985, Palin was just a year removed from the Miss Alaska pageant and transferring from college to college for reasons that still haven't come out yet.

I know that republicans want a debate about who has more experience in order to shift attention from McCain's hypocrisy on the subject, but I don't really care.  But they need to be called out on their distortions of fact.

Thank you for bringing this up. It has been bugging me ever since I heard Palin make the remark. Republicans want government out of our lives and a high degree of self-reliance. but Palin then mocks people who actually take matters into there own hands to solve a problem!!!

of his community organizing organization, he built it up from 1 staffer to 13.  Maybe I can find some links.

Not surprising to me.

We live in a corporate-cultiure-complex that teaches us to despise community organizers and praise Economic Hit Men/ Women, while worshipping a table-turner on Sundays.

Who would't be confused?

Jeremy Terhune San Joaquin Valley Rep.

Sounds like "executive experience" to me.

Its not about organizing or anything but winning an election. They are just interested in planting ideas in people's minds that they believe will accomplish that goal. It really doesn't matter what is true or not. Better to attach this strategy rather than just defend what they are attacking. This is what the Obama campaign does.

That should stop all this nonsense...

Jesus was a community organizer.

Pontius Pilate and George Bush were Governors.

McCain is a good man. Republicans are not the enemies of the people. I am voting for Obama because I believe him to be the right man at the right time. But that doesn't mean that McCain is evil personified. What's the matter with you people? Your lives must really suck.

Victory in Pattani

Did you watch any of the RNC?  I never used to watch these things but my wife insists on being educated.  McCain's speech was fine, but you have to assume that he is responsible, at least in part, for what people like Giuliani, and absolutely for what people like Palin, say.  And what they said was incredibly negative.  I'm sure you can appreciate the idea that you have to fight back sometimes.

Sarah Palin and her daughter have been viciously smeared by the idiots in the press over the past week. Not to mention the bile emanating from this site and the dailykooks. None of the charges are in any way substantive, and it is all backfiring in a big way. You are taking on the wrong woman. Hear her roar! GO BARRACUDA!

Whatever. It's the end of Republican domination.

I'm not aware of anyone calling McCain a "bad" man.

I used to like John.  In the past it seemed to me that he was willing to bypass the party line and look at issues with a more open mind.

That no longer seems to be the case.  He's now turned from what he was 8 or so years ago to be a "Me too" version of Bush.  And he seems to have done so simply as a ploy to get elected.

As I get to know him more I find him unacceptable for the highest office in the country.

Not only has he shown a lack of principal, but he's demonstrated that he's not intellectually prepared to do the job.

After decades in Congress, making decisions that directly effect the nation's economy he seems to know little about economics.

After decades of making decisions concerning America's role in the world he seems not to know who the major players are in parts of the world such as Iraq.  He doesn't even seem to know the geography of the area.

After decades of making decisions on energy and the environment he doesn't seem to know even the basics.  

(I'm not going to call him a liar over his stance that we can drill our way out of the current situation.  I'm going to make the assumption that he's an honest, but ill-informed man.)

Over the last few years I've taken a better look at McCain and found him, while a decent person, to very much less than what we need to lead our country.

We need smarter and better informed.  

We've got years of very bad decisions to overcome.

I'm positive, totally positive, that Obama is the person who is better qualified to be the next president.

Just this SOBs opinion....

Do you mean the same press that bashed Hillary Clinton and said that she needs to get used to it if shes going to place herself in the spotlight like that?

Did Jesus Christ run for political office?

I know I'm supposed to get beyond pity and actually feel some compassion -- according to my newly adopted philosophy -- but I can't help it... I really feel pity toward McCain.

He was once respectable, but he's allowed himself to be beaten into submission by the Bush administration, his fellow Republicans, and the Christian right. I really feel sorry for the guy. I certainly don't hate him.

What makes me most nervous about a McCain Presidency is that I don't know who the real McCain is. Will he return to "normal" after this? Will he throw off his shackles? I suspect not. Choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate pretty much shows that McCain is a shadow of his former independent self. He's made a pact with the devil and there's no turning back.

Sad. Very sad.

is best summed up thus:

McCain is a shadow of his former … self.

period. i think this has been a very long campaign and he's one tired old man.

But what I continue to see here is a boatload of HOSTILITY towards the man and the party. So many members of Grist simply don't seem to accept basic principles of the democratic process.

I never watch any conventions. They are cheer leading shows. Real policy, real issues, don't avail themselves until a candidate is in office and has to apply them. That's when reality takes over.

We can understand the general leanings of each man, don't bother going into specifics. You are wasting your time.

I used to like John.  In the past it seemed to me that he was willing to bypass the party line and look at issues with a more open mind.

"That no longer seems to be the case.  He's now turned from what he was 8 or so years ago to be a "Me too" version of Bush.  And he seems to have done so simply as a ploy to get elected."

Of course. What choice did he have? He had to win the party's nomination. The "Maverick" McCain could not do that in 2000. He learned from that. He's not stupid. Had he run the same campaign in 2008 that he ran in 2000, Mitt Romney would be the candidate now. What he says and what he does won't be nearly the same thing.

But whether Obama wins or McCain does, recognize this, there are a LOT of vested interests in Washington. Outside of the employment of military force, the President can't do a thing. He needs a willing Congress. Given that Congress remains a house divided, and probably will be so for the next term, no president is going to be able to do whatever he wishes domestically. There is going to be plenty of compromise.

Victory in Pattani

He did it again in his speech.  Maybe Rudy and Sarah didn't realize that?  Or maybe it was their speech writer who didn't realize it?

But the same guy who wrote Sarah's speech, also wrote McCain's speech.  Is he perhaps bi-polar?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin