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DAR
An astounding story really. Let's start with the debunk:

Response to Fox News "story"
By Sam Graham-Felsen - Mar 19th, 2008 at 9:30 pm EDT
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Apparently, today was a slow news day.

So Fox News evidently decided to pore through our millions of user-created pages on My.BarackObama.com and put a screenshot of inflammatory content on the front page of FoxNews.com.

You see, more than 700,000 people have created accounts on the system. You can create one right now if you choose, in about a minute -- anyone can.

Now, from time to time people get up to no good -- creating fake profiles (like one for Sean Hannity created today), or posting profane or inappropriate content. When they do, the community reports the offending content and if it violates our terms of service it is removed (as the Sean Hannity profile was).

My.BarackObama.com has been at the core of our bottom-up organizing strategy. The tools available have been put to work by a community of supporters that is bigger and more powerful than anything presidential politics has ever seen.

Evidently, Fox News didn't think it was a big deal that hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans are participating in the democratic process creating groups and local events in communities all across the country.

But they did think it was a big deal that one random person on the Internet, without the knowledge of the Obama campaign, posted a profile in the system with the image of the New Black Panther Party on it.

When we were alerted of the existence of this page, we pulled it down. Yet even after we pulled the page, Fox News continues to disingenuously and prominently feature this "story" on their homepage.

LINK

DAR
Then the echo machine starts up and spreads the crap. The rightwingers (FOX and Worldnetdaily) are just blatantly smearing Barack with this absolute junk. Extensive quotes of the nastiest bits from the "New Black Panther Party" website and all a pathetic attempt to tie it all to Obama.

Here are some headlines of the articles righties are passing around to each other:

Racists endorse Obama on candidate's website
New Black Panther Party condemns 'white men,' Jews, praises candidate

Obama website yanks 'Black Panthers' plug
'It's part of the game,' says anti-white, anti-Jew leader

Obama Camp Rejects New Black Panther Party Endorsement After Removing Web Posting

We Hillary supporters have been warning the Obama people for what seems like forever about the Rs. Everytime one of the Obama people rants about Hillary throwing "the kitchen sink" at Obama, I've wondered what they think they're going to do (or call it, for that matter) when the Rs get going.

Obama's speech rebutting the "Wright" thing was very good, but mostly what I've been seeing is the Obama people going "wah! that's not fair" in response to stuff like the my.barack.obama thing. I've watched the Rs do it to Bill, to Hillary, to Al, and to John Kerry. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the Fox people didn't create that black panther user page in the first place. But going, "wah" ain't gonna do it guys.

I have been predicting for a very long time that race was going to do Obama in. As he kept winning, my cynicism gave way to what I hoped was evidence that I was wrong. Turns out, my cynicism was right.

Obama is done! It's over. Barb, Darrel, It's all Hillary's now. I don't know if there is enough time left for her to beat him in democratically won delegates or the popular vote (even that looks possible after last week), but he cannot win. America just realized Barack Obama is a black man. And friends with 'crazy' blacks who say 'bad' things like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King....

Sigh! Republicans suck. They are masters of smear. But Hillary's campaign did a pretty good job trying to bring race into this thing all on their own. Hillary's campaign was just GOP light in the smear department. It's all moot now. Obama's done.

Tony wrote:I have been predicting for a very long time that race was going to do Obama in. As he kept winning, my cynicism gave way to what I hoped was evidence that I was wrong. Turns out, my cynicism was right.

Obama is done! It's over. Barb, Darrel, It's all Hillary's now. I don't know if there is enough time left for her to beat him in democratically won delegates or the popular vote (even that looks possible after last week), but he cannot win. America just realized Barack Obama is a black man. And friends with 'crazy' blacks who say 'bad' things like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King....

DOUG
No, it's not over. Obama will do anything to win. He's going to keep trying even if he brings the party down with him...

Tony wrote: Sigh! Republicans suck. They are masters of smear.

The Republicans had nothing to do with this. Obama did himself in by associating with a hatemonger for 20 years and then being stupid enough to think no one would find out when he ran for president.

Tony wrote:But Hillary's campaign did a pretty good job trying to bring race into this thing all on their own. Hillary's campaign was just GOP light in the smear department. It's all moot now. Obama's done.

More bullshit. The Clinton campaign didn't bring race into the picture. Mrs. Obama did it first. Remember her statement that blacks in America will "wake up" and vote for her husband? Remember her absurd statement that "for the first time in her adult life" she was proud of her country? The Obama campaign brought race into the campaign first. The Obama campaign made his patriotism an issue.

Doug

No, it's not over. Obama will do anything to win. He's going to keep trying even if he brings the party down with him...

This thing has been ugly, and will probably get uglier. All that aside, Democrats are their own worst enemy. The factions between all of us, ostensibly on the same side, shows that. If only a white male, ANY white male were running for the Dems, they would win this in a walk. Rotten racist/sexist fading Republic!

The Republicans had nothing to do with this. Obama did himself in by associating with a hatemonger for 20 years and then being stupid enough to think no one would find out when he ran for president.

Hatemonger? Shit! Aside from a few crazy comments i.e. AIDS was invented to kill blacks, I agree with most of Wright's comments. After all, this is a man who lived through an era when he had to worry about the possibility of extra-judicial lynchings for something as innocuous as not stepping off the sidewalk and tipping his hat to white couple. You know what, that deserves a few hundred thousand "Goddamn America's". And if white folks feel antsy over that, then how about a few "Goddamn America's" for overthorwing Iranian democracy, funding death squads in Nicuragua, Columbia, El Salvador.....Supporting brutal Fascist dictatorships in Chile, Guatemala, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic.....I'd be up all night listing things....you folks know most of em.

But come on, don't you see the double standard here? Bush can go to Bob Jones University when interracial dating was forbidden, where blacks only recently had been admitted in 2000 and that sealed his victory. He can suck dick with Falwell, Dobson, Roberts....people who say Katrina and AIDS is God's righteous vengance and he doesn't get hosed for association. Obama denounced Wright's comments, refused to throw his friend under the bus like any good decent politician would do (and what the rotten ignorant fucking American public would want and expect) and instead gave perhaps the most challenging, honest, provocative, and exciting speech I have ever heard from a mainstream politician or RACE of all things....and he gets buried. What a fucking country we live in.

Yeah, Michelle Obama said some pretty stupid things...but the fact that it took so long for race to kill Obama, and the fact that he was winning (STILL IS...so far) despite the fact that this was gift wrapped for Hillary to start with....made me as proud as anything else I've seen to be an American. That's all gone now of course. Now I'm more pissed off and bitter than ever...

More bullshit. The Clinton campaign didn't bring race into the picture. Mrs. Obama did it first. Remember her statement that blacks in America will "wake up" and vote for her husband? Remember her absurd statement that "for the first time in her adult life" she was proud of her country? The Obama campaign brought race into the campaign first. The Obama campaign made his patriotism an issue.

Clinton campaign didn't bring race into the picture??? Come on Doug! Bill suggesting that any old black man can win in South Carolina? Hillary campaigners fired after sending out dubious info alledging that Obama was Muslim? Geraldine Ferraro implying that he was some sort of Affirmative Action candidate?? She said he was lucky to be a black man running for President. Seriously, How lucky do you thing Obama feels now?

Rotten fucking country I tell you!

PS....I am NOT suggesting that the Clintonistas are to blame for the Wright mess...this was a disaster waiting to happen, true enough. I'm sick of the whole damn thing!

Tony wrote:If only a white male, ANY white male were running for the Dems, they would win this in a walk.

DAR
John Edwards? Kucinich? Dodd? Biden? The white males have already gotten whupped by the affirmative action candidates.

Now I'm more pissed off and bitter than ever...

DAR
Tony I told you. That was inevitable. You just aren't cut out for the whole compromise democracy thing. Especially a democracy crawling with right-wing nut-bars.

D.

Tony wrote: Aside from a few crazy comments i.e. AIDS was invented to kill blacks, I agree with most of Wright's comments.

I've only heard a few soundbites, but Wright is not off target much of the time. I wonder if he believes (as do many Blacks) that KFC puts ingredients in their chicken that are intended to sterilize Black men.

Tony wrote: And if white folks feel antsy over that, then how about a few "Goddamn America's" for overthorwing Iranian democracy, funding death squads in Nicuragua, Columbia, El Salvador.....Supporting brutal Fascist dictatorships in Chile, Guatemala, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic.....I'd be up all night listing things....you folks know most of em.

DOUG
Yes, I have the "Friendly Dictator" trading cards, "featuring 36 of the U.S.'s most embarrassing allies." I lived in Chile and saw first-hand how the U.S. supported a dictator.

But that was not was caused 9-11. Those are not "the chickens that came home to roost." Wright is just plain stupid about that. Bombing Hiroshima did not cause 9-11 either. It was specifically our mid-east policies and our treatment of bin Laden (a former ally) that turned him against us.

Tony wrote: But come on, don't you see the double standard here? Bush can go to Bob Jones University when interracial dating was forbidden, where blacks only recently had been admitted in 2000 and that sealed his victory.

Yes, there is a double standard. Part of it is this: people know the GOP is racist, so it is not news when they go to Bob Jones and use code words for racism.

Tony wrote:Clinton campaign didn't bring race into the picture??? Come on Doug! Bill suggesting that any old black man can win in South Carolina?

Bill didn't say that or suggest it. He said that Jesse Jackson won SC, which was true. But Jackson did not go on to do well in states without a large African-American population. Clinton WAS trying to say that it is expected that Obama would do well in states with a large African-American population (which is true), but that this does not mean that he has that same level of support in other states. True or not, that is what I took Bill to be saying.

Tony wrote: Hillary campaigners fired after sending out dubious info alledging that Obama was Muslim?

I haven't heard of any such info. Hillary has stated in no uncertain terms that she does not for a moment think that Obama is a Muslim.

Tony wrote: Geraldine Ferraro implying that he was some sort of Affirmative Action candidate?? She said he was lucky to be a black man running for President. Seriously, How lucky do you thing Obama feels now?

I don't know. Ask Dennis Kucinich. He has roughly the same platform as Obama and has never supported the war. So why didn't he do as well as Obama? In fact, once in the Senate, Obama has voted consistently pretty much along the same lines as Hillary? So why is he doing so well if they are basically the same candidate?

I'm not saying it's just race, since being tall, male, and being able to deliver good speeches is also a part of it, but since it is well known that those factors really do affect voters, why would we want to pretend that race does not?

Kucinich was too short to be an imposing figure, and Americans want to vote for imposing figues, at least among male candidates. Check the stats. Taller candidates usually beat shorter ones. Is it discrimination to point that out? If not, why is it closet racism to point out that race matters too?

Dar wrote:

John Edwards? Kucinich? Dodd? Biden? The white males have already gotten whupped by the affirmative action candidates.

Yep that is where all my undue hope came in. The left is most definately not America.

Tony I told you. That was inevitable. You just aren't cut out for the whole compromise democracy thing. Especially a democracy crawling with right-wing nut-bars.

No argument there. American Democracy gives me ulcers!

Doug wrote:

I've only heard a few soundbites, but Wright is not off target much of the time. I wonder if he believes (as do many Blacks) that KFC puts ingredients in their chicken that are intended to sterilize Black men.

Who knows about the KFC conspiracy. It bothers me that folks who have so many completely legitimate grievances so often add crackpot ones to the mix.

Yes, I have the "Friendly Dictator" trading cards, "featuring 36 of the U.S.'s most embarrassing allies." I lived in Chile and saw first-hand how the U.S. supported a dictator.

But that was not was caused 9-11. Those are not "the chickens that came home to roost." Wright is just plain stupid about that. Bombing Hiroshima did not cause 9-11 either. It was specifically our mid-east policies and our treatment of bin Laden (a former ally) that turned him against us.

Yeah, you have told me about your experieince in Pinochet's Chile. I know you know how much we suck.

Question: If, as you, and I maintain, 9-11 was at least a part (a huge part me thinks) of U.S. foreign policy, especially unlimited Israeli support for its continued illegal occupation of the West Bank, then why exactly can it not accurately be described as "payback" or "Chicken's coming home to roost?"

I'm not saying it's just race, since being tall, male, and being able to deliver good speeches is also a part of it, but since it is well known that those factors really do affect voters, why would we want to pretend that race does not?

Kucinich was too short to be an imposing figure, and Americans want to vote for imposing figues, at least among male candidates. Check the stats. Taller candidates usually beat shorter ones. Is it discrimination to point that out? If not, why is it closet racism to point out that race matters too?

Can you show me sources on the taller candidate claim? If true, this just makes me even more cynical. There's another ulcer! Imagine FDR trying to run as Pres. in a wheelchair in this rotten culture. Terrible.

Tony wrote:Question: If, as you, and I maintain, 9-11 was at least a part (a huge part me thinks) of U.S. foreign policy, especially unlimited Israeli support for its continued illegal occupation of the West Bank, then why exactly can it not accurately be described as "payback" or "Chicken's coming home to roost?"

DOUG
It can. But it is more than just a stretch for Wright to throw in Hiroshima, Vietnam, etc.

Doug wrote:I'm not saying it's just race, since being tall, male, and being able to deliver good speeches is also a part of it, but since it is well known that those factors really do affect voters, why would we want to pretend that race does not?

Kucinich was too short to be an imposing figure, and Americans want to vote for imposing figues, at least among male candidates. Check the stats. Taller candidates usually beat shorter ones. Is it discrimination to point that out? If not, why is it closet racism to point out that race matters too?

Tony wrote:Can you show me sources on the taller candidate claim? If true, this just makes me even more cynical. There's another ulcer! Imagine FDR trying to run as Pres. in a wheelchair in this rotten culture. Terrible.

============
From the Wikipedia
"Heights of United States Presidents and presidential candidates"
For the 46 elections in which the height of both candidates is known, the taller candidate won 27 times (approximately 59 percent of the time), the shorter candidate won 17 times (approximately 37 percent of the time) and the candidates were the same height two times (about 4 percent of the time).

It should be noted however that in three of the cases where the shorter candidate won, the taller candidate actually received more popular votes but lost in the Electoral College; this happened in 1824, 1888, and 2000 (the other time that the electoral vote winner was not the popular vote winner was in 1876, for which we do not know the height of the loser).

So, of the 46 cases we have data, the taller candidate has won the popular vote 30 times (65 percent), and the shorter candidate only about 14 times (30 percent of them). This does constitute a statistically significant (p < .05) difference from chance by chi-square test, although this is not the case when electoral victors are considered.

===============
Of 43 American presidents, only five have been more than a smidgeon below average height, and the last of those was Benjamin Harrison, elected in 1888. (Another three, most recently Jimmy Carter, were just a hair below average.) Most presidents have been several inches above the norm for their times, with the five tallest being Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson, Bill Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, and Franklin Roosevelt—suggesting, incidentally, that height predicts not just electoral success but a propensity to subvert the Constitution. (This statistical anomaly works in the other direction as well; the shortest of American presidents was James Madison, who largely wrote the Constitution.)
See here.
========================
"Lives and Loves of Tall, Charismatic Presidents"
"Social scientists," Leslie Hawke states (letter, Feb. 2), "should not ask whether or not Gov. Bill Clinton has had an affair, but whether or not there is a correlation between poor political leadership and infidelity. My guess is that they would find no correlation -- but what if they uncovered the opposite?"

We have been studying Presidential leadership from George Washington through Ronald Reagan. Our findings on this question are that there is no direct correlation between Presidents who have mistresses and objective measures of effectiveness in handling international, social-domestic or economic issues.

However, there is an indirect relationship. Presidents who are tall and have a reputation for being highly charismatic tend to have mistresses. Presidents who are tall and charismatic also tend to be better performers and to be rated as great or near great in surveys of political scientists.

See here.
=============

Tony wrote:Question: If, as you, and I maintain, 9-11 was at least a part (a huge part me thinks) of U.S. foreign policy, especially unlimited Israeli support for its continued illegal occupation of the West Bank, then why exactly can it not accurately be described as "payback" or "Chicken's coming home to roost?"

DAR
It's considered insensitive to those who died on 9/11, and profoundly unpatriotic, to admit that the US might have participated in any action that might have in any way instigated the attack of that day. We are supposed to believe that we are completely innocent victims of Osama throwing a dart at a map and it happening to land on the US.

Osama has a long laundry list of reasons for striking at the US and not all of them are completely insane. Those who say true things are routinely punished in this society (and others I am sure). I think it's been that way for a long time.

As you know, one of the specific reason Osama gave for the attack was the US military presence on holy Saudi land. Bush since removed the soldiers. Osama also wrote that his intentions are to bankrupt the US in a long drawn out war as we taught him to do quite successfully, against Russia in Afghanistan. Bush is doing very well in that regard as well.

D.

Hillary has better plans and a slightly more progressive voting record than Obama (a fact totally ignored by people who seem to think the only thing she's done in the Senate is vote for the Authorization to Use Military Force). The better plans are the number one reason I voted for her and hope she wins (even though I'm not sure how she could at this point, the fact the Obama people keep calling for her to quit tells me she could). Obama is a better/more charismatic speaker.

The Hillary campaign has not "attacked" Obama, for all that Obama people keep talking about the "kitchen sink" she's supposedly thrown at him. Everything she's brought up has either been silly (plagerism) or been issues he's got to address or the Rs will eat him alive (with ketchup) - like race or C-in-C cred. Most of the Obama campaign responses have been in the "evil Clintons" vein - not exactly a way to convince independents and unhappy moderate Rs to vote for him over McCain.

Unfortunately, the reverse isn't true. Obama's folks have been playing the race card big time against the Clintons - two people who have worked for civil rights since college. They've also been taking snippets of polite political stuff ("honor Sen. McCain for his service" etc) out of context (not including the "but... that follows) and accusing the Clintons of endorsing McCain. The "Bush-lite" and McCain-lite" didn't come from the Rs, those came from the Obama people. On balance, nothing Hillary (or Bill) has said, when taken in context, is even negative and is definitely not damaging to Obama's image (for example, they used the silly "plagerism" meme, instead of congratulating him for hiring David Vitter's speech writer and commenting that Obama delivers those speeches much better than Vitter did - THAT would have damaged his image). Everything Obama's campaign has done or said about Hillary has been damaging to her image - and since nobody seems to go and verify things like their respective voting records, exceedingly damaging to her campaign - losing her the respect, as well as the vote, of Dems who otherwise were OK with her, even if not "fans".

So basically, I like Hillary's plans better, I like her voting record better, I like the fact that she's trying to help Obama understand what he's going to be hit with in the general, should he win the nomination. I don't like Obama's frequent wanderings into R memes and methods (Social Security in trouble, Hillary "serial exaggerator", etc) or his campaign methods. However, he handled the Wright thing very well (and most of the Wright comments were, if not exactly taken out of context, most definitely were isolated from not only the rest of that particular sermon, but the rest of the man's 20-years' worth of sermons as well - Marines, even when they become preachers, aren't known for being mealy-mouthed - and have been known for saying things about "Uncle Sugar" that conflict with their actions, ie service to country).

What people who talk about "destroying the party" don't understand is that until the general starts, this is all mud wrestling. It's not serious and not even particularly important, except it keeps the MSM from dropping us into a media black hole and going back to their normal McCain lovefest. Once the convention is over, the Dem leadership will close ranks again. The Hillary people will vote for Obama, if he's the nominee. Most of the Obama people will vote for Hillary, if she's the nominee. I've seen/heard people hopping up and down and swearing they won't - but most of them will, because they are Dems and they know McCain is worse than a "Bush 3rd term". Whether that will be enough to overcome the MSM McCain lovefest (which is even stronger than their Bush lovefest in the 2000 and 2004 elections), we'll have to see.

Barbara Fitzpatrick wrote: Obama's folks have been playing the race card big time against the Clintons - two people who have worked for civil rights since college.

DOUG
Right. See the op-ed piece "Obama was the first to play the race card" here.