I may be jumping the gun when I say this, but as an African-American, I can't help but interpret the last part of the above blockquote into what O'Reilly really thinks is going on in Powell's head: "Well, them white folks don't like me because I'm critical of their policies, so let me support my brother and we take the man down together".  Bill, I know your job is to downplay every bad thing that happens to McCain, but this is nuts.  I've even heard Limbaugh and others say that he should be "grateful" for what the Republican party has done for him. Right, so Powell's service to the Reagan and Bush 41administrations is now meaningless to him?  We all know Powell's not a total ideologue; he's actually kinda liberal on some issues.  I guess I should be grateful for Bush's cutting of my Pell Grant too (at least he realized this mistake and increased it the year after cutting it, but I digress...again

Alfred Liggins wrote a column over at CNN, and he does make a few good points.  The fact is that blacks on the whole have lower median incomes and care more about Democratic issues: the economy, getting a middle-class tax cut, affordable health care, etc.  Oh, and for those who think it's all about race...it's because he's a Democrat.  Here's how blacks voted in recent elections:

2004: Kerry 88%, Bush 11%

2000: Gore 90%, Bush 9%

1996: Clinton 84%, Dole 12%

1992: Clinton 83%, Bush 10%, Perot 7%

1988: Dukakis 89%, Bush 11%

1984: Mondale 91%, Reagan 9%

Yeah, you get the idea.  Compare this to the 2006 Maryland Senate race, where conservative Michael Steele managed only 25% of the black vote.  Damn those racist black people for voting against the black candidate!

It'd also be hard for some blacks to vote for someone who opposed making Martin Luther King's birthday a federal holiday.  But while that is an egregious blunder on McCain, that's the least of the black electorate's worries this year.  The black guy holding the umbrella over McCain's head isn't exactly the best imagery, though...

In the end, the right-wing that wants to bring down Obama has decided to leave their history textbook at home and pretend that everything is 50-50.  Granted, Obama did have one minor slip-up, even though what he said is not very far from the truth.  In fact, he clearly saw the attacks we've seen this month well ahead of time.

I feel like I'm preaching to the choir here at TPM, but stuff like this aggravates me and doesn't do much to improve race relations in our country.  Instead of trying to understand African-Americans in our country, conservative whites believe that history has nothing to do with our nation's current state of affairs.  Blacks may be a bit bitter also, but their "racism" (which isn't 100% evident in polling) is justifiable.  But words cannot describe how amazing to see my mother care about politics for the first time in years; to go into my barber shop and see the TV on CNN rather than BET; to see black America feel that they are truly a part of the political process again.  There's a reason why involvement in activism and politics among blacks has been down since April 4, 1968--the rest of the country decided to move on and expected blacks to do the same.  Having another MLK-like figure to pick up the pieces then would've be nice, but figures like him only come around once in a generation. 

Still today, even as Obama's rise to stardom may hit a peak in 7 days, some blacks feel let down.  This is why Hillary had the black vote for so long--blacks didn't really want to get their hopes up only to be let down again.  I wasn't sold on Obama myself until a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses.  Of course, I am disappointed that it took a black guy to run for African-Americans to get involved.  However, whites should keep in mind that he's only half-black:

I have to admit, if we want to play stereotypes here, President Bush has been the gangsta of the world over the past 8 years--complete with drive-by shootings of soverign nations, taking care of his crew with tax cuts for the rich, and making sure we stay uneducated so we don't figure out what's really going on.

If Obama does somehow lose, I hope black America maintains its sanity (I intend to write a post later about how race relations will be after an Obama victory and/or McCain victory).  If he does win, it will truly be a huge step in overcoming our nation's original sin.  We have seen a lot in the past few weeks, but I'm glad everyone truly got to see the true state of our nation.  It is also shameful that some on the right wing has used arguments about the black vote, claimed double-standards as an excuse for their failed Atwater-like tactics, and have totally undermined what Barack Obama has accomplished.

I guess when you want to move forward two steps, you sometimes have to take a step back.