Love your final 'graph. May I steal (with attribution, of course)?

I would not call myself his enemy but I would certainly call myself an ideological opponent.

Thanks for the rec, the comment, and the omission of the words "fanatic," "tired," and "narrow."

FWIW, and not that you should care, but nothing in this post was intended as a general slam against Sen. Obama's supporters past or present.

Hah! I think he's both liberal and conservative. That's why he confounds so many people.

We're so used either-or constructs, especially in politics.

Watching Obama confound people (lefties and righties) actually amuses me quite a bit!

Enjoy the show, Jason!

;-)

I recommended it for the filthy language. Obamanauts have no self respect. Laughing my ass off.

It would be more realistic to admit that "progressive" is really conservative. I think the sooner some of the truly liberal figure that out, the sooner we can start a movement for something other than conservative stay the course disguised by words like "progressive" which ideologically don't seem to mean anything other than the placeholder for how far to the right the Democratic Party has moved during the election cycle.

Some people are never satisfied...

Thank you. You are very kind.

Great reply.

At best we are at a place where the labels will end up being - Liberal Progressive and Conservative Progressive, each taking different paths to the same goals.

I think we have passed the limit of where labels can take this country, but have yet to see how far down they could drag us if we don't wake up.

You cover a lot of ground, cube3u. I'll just respond to one of your points now -- the death penalty.

It's barbarous.

You think there are crimes where the perp "just needs to be snuffed out." Maybe I think so too. But let's say I think that child rape is one of those crimes and you don't. In that case, the execution of the rapist can't be described in any other way than state-sponsored murder being done in your name. Do you really want your representatives committing murder by your fiat? I hope not.

There are many, many inarguable pragmatic reasons to abolish this benighted ritual as well, but I can't get past the moral reason: Friends don't let friends murder human beings.

I am not invested in labels, either, except possibly for pragmatic political reasons. To the extent it may be necessary, or at least desirable, to have a shorthand for the political point of view or the program one is advocating, then it's better for those advocating it to choose the label and define it not only clearly but memorably and compellingly for the public, than to have the opponents do so.

Laura Jordan in one of her posts in the thread, in writing about why Obama appeals to her, wrote: "...I'd tweak that description to say that he is a thoughtful, intelligent, tolerant, conservative who knows that this country cannot thrive if its policies cause a shrinking middle class and growing underclass. I would say that he is a realistic..."

Omit the word "conservative" from that and I agree. I don't think a belief that "this country cannot thrive if its policies cause a shrinking middle class and growing underclass" marks one as a political "conservative". One might argue that that is a "conservative" belief in the ordinary, everyday use of the word to refer to, roughly, preserving or maintaining or continuing that which is seen as having been beneficial.

One of the reasons I don't self-identify as a political "conservative" is that I believe the policies of the Republican party, typically labeled as politically "conservative", in its current incarnation are actually deeply harmful to the objective Laura stated.

Those policies are in no sense "conservative" in the everyday, ordinary meaning sense of the word but rather are quite radical in the way they rationalize government policies which dramatically and demonstrably have redistributed upward distribution of wealth, income and opportunity. They don't even make an argument for how those policies will strengthen and expand the middle class reduce poverty: they simply assert that their policies will do so, as a matter of ideology or assumption or on pure faith, notwithstanding all of the empirical evidence showing just the opposite effects.

When this is pointed out to them, they seem to just shrug their shoulders and recite tired incantations about the magic of "free" markets and the evils and dangers of "government intervention" (as if they don't make sure to put the government squarely on the side of the plutocrats and the special interests at every turn).

One of my concerns with Obama is not so much with what he is saying as with what he is not saying, or at least not emphasizing in a way that is so clear to me.

Thematically I do not hear a clear and consistent, let alone a compelling, emphasis on addressing the middle class and underclass economic security and opportunity issues that Laura refers to. Whether one refers to those concerns as an ideology or attaches one or another political label to them is not the central point as I see it. It's that these are central problems that desperately need to be addressed in order to put our country on a much better path going forward.

We know McCain's approach on these is more of the same that has gotten us to where we are now.

I think, or at least I want to think, that we know Obama wants and means to do whatever he can do to change that situation.

But it's not coming through clearly to me what he sees as the key themes (and flowing from these, issue priorities and policy goals) of his Administration other than the relatively vague call for national unity and change that so far has offended so few people that the Wall Street Journal can, evidently with a straight face although how to tell?, write an editorial saying it's Obama and not McCain who is running for Bush's 3rd term.

He could, for example, talk about the American Dream and the Beloved Community (his call for national unity could dovetail into this, with more substantive elaboration about what kind of an America he wants), two ideals with very widespread, cross-party, cross-faith traditions, cross-geographical, cross-class, cross-racial and ethnic appeal in our country--about how they are necessary to one another and how his economic and social policies will offer real help for real people who are struggling in the present and anxious about the future, in contrast to the endless helpings of failed ideology and destructive policies his opponent wants to recycle.

Maybe he's saving the best for his Convention acceptance speech or the fall debates. If so--and this citizen can only hope--that will be quite something.

I'm voting for him because of his leadership and his honesty. I trust him

I think Sen. Obama is gifted in his ability to get people to trust him. I guess it's called charisma. However, your attitude seems based more on emotion than logic. Beware -- and I really, really, don't mean to be confrontational, snide, snarky, or unpleasant -- I must point out that your comment seems to resonate wa-a-a-a-y too much with a statement like, "He's the kind of guy you'd like to have a beer with."

Look where that got us.

I don't trust him because he gives a good speech (although I love him for it!).

I trust him because I read his book and have judged that he has a level of self-reflection and self-awareness that is mind-blowing for politicians. If that's an emotional argument, so be it.