Hat tip to tahoebasha2 and Code Breaker, whose under-read diaries here and here inspired me to run their information through the dKos wringer one more time.

I have come to rely on dailyKos for almost all of my news.  In fact, I'm downright smug about it.  When someone offers up an item from the news, I usually say something along the lines of "I know.  What really happened is . . ."  When someone dismisses something I've read here as propaganda or wild speculation, I just sigh at their ignorance.  I have learned that if I read something here which has gone unchallenged or uncorrected, then it is virtually always accurate.  And I usually learn it somewhere between a day and six months before any non-Kossack.  But yesterday the great orange glow was dimmer than it should have been.

Update:  I changed the title for Media Successfully Created Racial Polarity, as was suggested in the comments.  The diary went in a slightly different direction when I started writing, but I didn't think to change the title.

I don't know how Barack Obama should have reacted to his media-created dilemma concerning Rev. Wright.  And I'm not going to speculate on the affects his speech may have.  FWIW, my impression is that he continues to be presidential, decisive, and compassionate.  Today's events have had no effect on my fervent support of his candidacy.

What I want to point out is that the events of yesterday and today highlight the racial divide in our country.  And the ways in which media coverage has sharpened the divide and created conditions likely to foster bitterness on one side and defensiveness on the other.

Enough with the pointing toward the bleachers and the powerful swing.  The simple fact is that 714 was an insufficient number of home runs for Babe Ruth to maintain the record for all time.  And if you leave out the ones that came in smaller ballparks, and the ones that were assisted by the wind blowing out, the actual number is more like 530, which puts him way down at fifteenth all-time, four behind Jimmie Foxx.  Clearly, Jimmie Foxx is the winner here.

And speaking of The Babe, why didn't the 1927 Yankees win more than one World Series?  Did they think because the were "the best team of all time" and had a "murderers row" that the heavens would magically open up and give them a second World Series?  [Full disclosure:  I'm a Red Sox fan, but credit where credit is due.]  My point?  The 2004 Red Sox are the better team.

Okay, at first I was for Gore, then I was for Edwards.  Then I thought I had a good choice between Clinton and Obama.  Wrong!  It turns out Hillary is awful and Obama rocks.  So, now I'm for Obama.  No, I mean I'm really, really for Obama a lot.

I LOVE BARACK OBAMA!!!

In a unrelated matter, my wife and I have definitely decided to plant a mission fig bush.  At first we thought it wasn't hot enough here, then we found out it is.

Come on, Obama lovers, give me that famous free trip to the rec list.

Yesterday General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  The questioning which really got my blood flowing and my fist pumping was that of Senator Menendez.  Of the portions I heard, Senator Boxer and Senator Obama stood out, with a nod of the head to Senator Voinovich, a Republican who acknowledged that Senator Obama may well be the next President of the United States.  But Menendez went farthest toward exposing the heart of the manipulations and misplaced focus which would make our illegal and unwise intervention in Iraq seem sensible.  As a tribute to his performance, I took the trouble of transcribing his entire questioning.  For anyone who is interested, the whole transcription is posted at the end of this diary.  You can watch Senator Menendez' questioning on c-span  starting at around 3:23.

This diary is to highlight the pointed questioning of a Senator representing the kind of sanity we hunger for here on dailyKos.  

Yeah, I was nominated by popular demand in 2008, yeah that's the ticket, popular demand from older white Democratic women, yeah who demanded that the caucus states be thrown out and the small states be discounted and the states we couldn't win were made into a new country called uh...Repub...uh...Republic...annnnnia, yeah that's right, Republicania, that's the ticket, yeah, and the Florida and Michigan delegates held a new primary with only my name on the ballot, yeah only my name, that's the ticket and then everyone realized the superdelegates are automatic, so they all had to vote for the inevitable candidate, me, Hillary Clinton, yeah that's right me, who was sworn in as the first ever woman President of the United States.  Yeah, I was President, that's the ticket.

MSNBC has this posted from Janny Scott and the Times:  Obama Chooses Reconciliation over Rancor.  The Times version is here.  This could have been written by a Kool Aid drinker on this site.  I'll admit, I didn't expect to see such full acknowledgment in the media.  

In a speech whose frankness about race many historians said could be likened only to speeches by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, Senator Barack Obama, speaking across the street from where the Constitution was written, traced the country’s race problem back to not simply the country’s "original sin of slavery" but the protections for it embedded in the Constitution.

A central theme of Barack Obama's Presidential bid has been unity.  This is not a recent fad with him, as we learned yesterday in dawnt's diary.  In 2004, Obama stated that the most important thing to him was

Uniting a polarized America. There are those who are preparing to divide us. I say to them, there is not a liberal America, and a conservative America, there is the United States of America.

 March 11, on the occasion of his endorsement by admirals and generals, Obama said

After years of a divisive politics that uses national security as a wedge to drive us apart, how much longer do we have to wait to bring this country together to confront our common enemies?

[Title edited in desperate attempt to attract 1 reader]

Comics all across the country are confessing to growing apprehension as they anticipate the end of the Presidency of George W. Bush.  "I walked into my Joke Manufacturing Caucus yesterday," say jester Sam Goodall, "and I swear it could have been a meeting of the GOP election committee.  Pessimism so thick you could cut it with a ... damn, I can't think of a funny ending."

"We're all out of practice," consoled Jill Gilverson. "Many of us are wondering if we still have the chops.  I mean, I'm not proud of this, but some days I just sent articles in straight out of the paper.  The parody has been writing itself."

"Yeah, and the country has been so desperate that we could throw out almost anything and people would laugh.  I mean when you're being mocked by your own government, and all your most treasured traditions are being trampled, a good laugh, even if it's a trifle hysterical, is about all you can turn to."

A fascinating and factual diary went by last night without the readership it deserved.  I've got nothing to add to it, I'm just hoping to get more Obama supporters to read it.  ScaredHuman reaches his arm out to us progressives and shows the wrist.  If Obama has the sense to take that pulse, he can make hay with the rural dairy farmers of PA.

The diary is long and full of well-supported detail  ScaredHuman was advised by several enthusiastic commenters to cut the diary down into smaller chunks and publish it as a series.  I hope that will happen, but meanwhile, it's time to get to work on PA so I'm hoping to speed things up a bit. I give you a very short summary below the fold and invite you to link-i-port on over there.

I hope this idea is kosher.  If not, please just let me know in the comments and the diary will come down forthwith.  So here goes.

Problem:  Many valued Kossians are frustrated with the ratio of candidate diaries to issue diaries on the rec list.

Solution:  A time is established either every day or some days for those disaffected to agree to be logged on and to rec only diaries with the issues which interest them.

I come not to dis Hillary, but to shift the loci of your rage.  A lot of energy has been expended in attempting to define and prove Hillary's betrayal of our Democratic Party.  Her use of Rove-like innuendo--e.g., is Obama muslim, Canada says Obama is two-faced on NAFTA, and Obama's literature is like the worst of Rove and the GOP--has left us sputtering in rage.  Her imperialistic attempts to manipulate the democratic process--e.g., seating the MI and FL delegates, suing the Texas Democratic Party, changing super delegates to automatic delegates--has left us stunned at her disregard for her own party.  Now she has praised the very man, John McCain, who stands between us and our determination to restore the traditional values of liberalism to government.

We have cursed her for her sense of entitlement, marveled at her incompetence, and scorned her for her selfishness.  Something is starting to seem amiss in these reactions (and it's not that we've gone too far).  It's that a slight shift in perspective can free our energies of outrage from Hillary and focus them back where they belong--on the dishonest, disrespectful, and discredited politics she thoroughly represents.

Fast on the hills of his candidate's threats to sue the Texas Democratic Committee, apparently on the grounds that democracy is getting out of hand in the Lone Star State, James "Stealth Advisor" Carville sent me, or at least signed, this appeal for funds.

Vitally important fashion update:  Party members will all wear American flag pins (which will be too much trouble to remove), and we will have our hands permanently attached above our hearts.  The ball's in your court now, Hillary and John.

Today, Hillary Rodham Clinton and the pundits who share her revenue stream have inspired, well more like encouraged, well more like unconsciously demonstrated to me that now could possibly be the time for me to grab, or at least loosely hold, the torch of history.  We stand now at a crossroads, or at least squat at a small intersection of little consequence.  In short, I am running for office.

So long as you are largely disinterested and expect little, you are welcome to hear more of my fateless story below the fold.

I have now encountered several examples of Democrats claiming that they will not vote for Hillary Clinton if she gets the nomination.  Some have even said they would vote for John McCain while most have said they would vote for a third party or refrain from voting on the presidential ticket.  Every time I have encountered this I have felt an apprehensive tightening in my gut.  I can't even bear to imagine the suffering which will result if a Democrat, any Democrat, is not elected over John McCain this November.  

This diary is an invitation to re-consider this stance.  It is a glance at some of the psychological and spiritual currents which may profoundly affect the moral shape of our world for the next four years.

Since this is the time of more show and less substance, I am hereby allowing my excitement to bubble over into an indulgent diary with little substance but a lot of emotion.  At a time when it looked as though missing emails and flaunted subpoenas would matter, I was obsessively reading dKos.  Then Ms. Pelosi's celebrated subpoena power fizzled and the petty backbiting of primary season began.  This drove me away for several months.  But today I am back, excited and hopeful for the first time in months.  Thank you Barack Obama and thank you to the thousands of volunteers who were savvy enough or naive enough to keep the faith and dedicate yourselves to the machinery of our terribly sullied American election process.

Today, I can bear to participate in our political dialog for the first time in over half a year.  Today I realize just how deep my despair had run.  Today I am willing to be excited by an easy slogan--Yes I am--and a candidate who is unproven but charismatic.

Thank you Senator Feingold.  With outrage, clarity, and sharp rebuke, you reminded the American people that more young Americans have died every month this year than in the same month the year before.  You did not take time to call every name, but you asked for our attention long enough to name the months:  January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, and according to your sources, 32 so far in September.  How many have died since that hearing?  What of the two brave soldiers who spoke out from the pages of the Times.  Did they die before or after the hearing?  And why did they sacrifice their lives in Iraq while we are losing the "GWOT" in the countries where something like it may actually be demanding attention?  

Despite numerous cogent diaries on the subject, impeachment discussions here seem to suffer from misconceptions as to what constitutes proper grounds for impeachment. Specifically,

1. the Constitution places a positive burden on the President "to take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."  By extension, this burden is placed on civil officers.  Criminal behavior does not necessarily constitute grounds for impeachment. Failing "to take care" does.

2. Unlike criminal proceedings, which function to punish miscreants and to protect individuals, impeachment proceedings serve the sole function of protecting the integrity of government or the Constitution itself.

3.  The House is not required, nor should it be expected, to prove anything before impeaching.

4.  Just as OJ Simpson is now "not guilty" of murder, a conviction by the Senate would mean that Alberto Gonzales could no longer serve as Attorney General.  There is no appeal process and no independent basis for judging whether the decision is proper.  No need to invoke the jury in the sky.