Holy shit!  Talk about spreading the wealth around.  Taking campaign donations from everyday Americans and giving $23K to a make-up artist over a two-week period!  That's more than the annual salary of your average social worker, who, by the way, probably isn't giving McCain many donations!  I didn't think Palin was so ugly as to need that much work, unless the make-up artist can work on her insides too.

As the (WMD) pretext for the U.S. illegal invasion of Iraq faded into oblivion, the Bush Administration resorted to the common refrain of invoking the desire to promote democracy in this troubled region.  The Iraqi elections held in 2005 were trumpeted by W. and his legions has irrefutable evidence that American aims toward democracy in Iraq were genuine and for all intents and purposes working.  They warned us, of course, that this fledgling republic would take some time to develop and that democracy is not always easy.  Nonetheless, democracy was indeed taking root and the American people should be proud of this primary result of the supreme American crime of aggression.

Of course, if American history is any guide, democracy promotion only goes as far as the new regime's willingness to cooperate with and adhere to U.S. demands.  Disobedience has long been the greatest sin among U.S. clients.  In other words, let the people decide so long as they decide the correct way.  This has been America's preffered style of democracy throughout the world.  Iraq is no exception.

But that democracy in Iraq is failing and perhaps real self-determination is sprouting, much to the dismay of the Bush Administration.  The latest news concerning the US-Iraqi Status of Forces agreement seems to indicate that the Bush Administration's initial plans for a permanent military presence in Iraq are being undermined by the will of the Iraqi government and by extension the Iraqi people.  Bush has long insisted that a fair reward for our 'rescuing' the Iraqi people from tyranny is a permanent U.S. military and economic presence in Iraq.  But the latest agreement to come out of negotiations, even with watered-down U.S. demands and concessions, doesn't seem like it will go too far due to Shiite opposition. 

The Iraqi people have long wanted the United States out of Iraq.  Reliable polls taken since the fall of Hussein have clearly indicated as much.  And the Iraqi government's overall positions seems to reflect that opposition to the American presence.  That's not what the Bush Administration was hoping for.  The U.S. is used to getting what it wants when it intervenes in the affairs of another state.  As time goes on and a new administration enters the White House, it will be interesting to see if total withdrawal, military and economic, is what truly happens if the Iraqi people wish it to be.  Or, will a new (real or imagines) pretext for continued American intervention in the affairs of that soveriegn state surface? 

If we actually listen to the Iraqi government and people, giving up all rights of intervention and presence in Iraq while the country goes on its own self-chosen course, it would be a first for the United States.  And the preferred style of "democracy" will have been overthrown by a legitimate attempt at self-government.  Will we let that happen?  One can only wait and see.  But I hope so.  It's their country, and has been since before the invasion. 

Read this article, tell people, and be vigilant.  This isn't ACORN.  It's real and dangerous.  A repeat of 2004. 

With two weeks to go in this election, things are looking pretty good for Barack Obama.  He's up in the states that matter and is on the verge of winning some states that haven't voted Democrat in a presidential election in decades.  He has done well to warn his operatives and supporters not to coast to the finish line.  The last thing he wants anyone to do is become complacent.  That can hand the election to John McCain.  But all things remaining the same from here on, all signs point to an Obama win.  Thank your god.

But as a Pennsylvanian, as an American, I worry about racism.  The Bradley effect, as it is called, is still a very real possibility in states that have a long history of clandestine racism, that is, the kind of racial antipathy that looms beneath the surface and manifests itself in more hidden, more seemingly innocuous ways.  When many think of racism the first thought often turns to slavery in the South, Jim Crow in the South.  After all, those were the most obvious examples of this great scourge because they were always so apparent and in-your-face.  But historically many regions outside the American South have been no less racist in mind and in deed.  And because that racism has to the casual observer seemed more subtle, it has often been more dangerous.

I come from one of those "secretly" racist states.  Yes, Pennsylvania has a long history of anti-racism, from the birth of the movement for abolition among Quakers after the American Revolution to the fiery Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens, who, in the 1860s, fought hard to help redefine the meaning of American freedom and to accord African Americans full citizenship and civil rights.  That history, however, is overshadowed by the fact that southcentral PA has the largest concentration of hate groups in the nation.  Pennsylvania, according to sociologist James Loewen, has the largest number of suspected "sundown towns" in the nation, more than the over 400 confirmed such towns in Illinois. 

(Sundown towns are communities outside the traditional South that between the years 1880 and 1920 used numerous pretexts to justify the expulsion of their African American citizens.  Black Americans were not permitted in these towns after sundown.  Many of these communities still have few if any African Americans living within their town limits.)

Many of you watched the video clip of Palin supporters in Johnstown, PA posted here at TPM.  That's just the tip of the iceberg here in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and elsewhere.  I currently reside in southcentral PA where the communities west of Harrisburg, on the West Shore of the Susquehanna, are commonly referred to as being located on the "white shore."  My father, who has done some consulting work for a local union in western PA, relates that even though the union itself has endorsed Obama every person - and these are decent people too - he has talked to in that union has said openly that they simply cannot bring themselves to vote for a black man.  His neighbors have expressed the same sentiment.  Governor Rendell attested to the same phenomonon during the primary season, as did Congressman Jack Murtha just last week.  Many of these people would get upset if they were called racist, but nonetheless harbor racist attitudes even if they're ashamed of the label.

When voters go into the voting booth, will the Bradley Effect come into play?  This is the unknown of this election.  Take race out of the equation and I am convinced Obama wins and wins big.  Add racism and I'm a little less sure but just as hopeful.  And if Obama loses, we can certainly look at voter registration purges and other real voter fraud going on throughout the country.  But it would be naive and a big mistake to assume race had nothing to do with it.  I pray that Obama is able to jump this last hurdle and land safely on the other side.  If he does, it will be one more small but significant step towards marginalizing the racists of this country.