My meme for the night, with your help.  In the abortion conversation, what was the sneering comment that McCain made about "women's health" being a ruse?  It was a classic McCain angry moment, and it just jumped off the page at me as being dismissive and "out of touch."  Thoughts?


I only wish that Obama had mentioned that Palin rejects abortion even in the case of rape. 

My meme for the night, with your help.  In the abortion conversation, what was the sneering comment that McCain made about "women's health" being a ruse?  It was a classic McCain angry moment, and it just jumped off the page at me as being dismissive and "out of touch."  Thoughts?


I only wish that Obama had mentioned that Palin rejects abortion even in the case of rape. 

Yes, John Lewis is black, George Wallace was a racist, and Obama is half Kenyan.  But I think there's a serious misreading of Lewis's point.  Lewis isn't playing any "race card" at all, despite how we tend to see Lewis and Wallace.  He's simply responding, at a gut level, as one who's been there while the flames have been fanned high and terrible violence and assassinations have taken place.  There's a lot of hate, anger, and basic misinformation that's permeating the Palin/McCain rallies right now (it was certainly present at the GOP convention, in my opinion as well), and Lewis is making pretty much the same observation that David Gergen (another Southerner) and others have been making:  anger is being stoked and something terrible might come of it.

While race plays some part in some people's fear, their sense that Obama's a terrorist, a Muslim, or, as that one very angry man said the other day at the rally, a "socialist." (God Forbid).  These guys have all sorts of wierd reasons why they're bent out of shape. 

So, I don't think anyone's playing the race card; compared to previous elections (1968, 1988) I think that race is pretty muted, and that's why McCain is laying off (to some extent) of the Wright controversy.   Lewis is flagging the vitriolic mood of the events as dangerous, and something that McCain/Palin should take some responsibility for.  Period.