I feel Jesse Jackson’s pain.

He finds himself in hot water for recent comments he made, thinking they were off the record, stating he wanted to castrate Barack Obama for "talking down to black people" in addressing his plans for expanding the Bush faith-based social services initiative.

Jackson’s words were, of course, disgusting and unacceptable, and he has – rightly – apologized. I think, though, I understand from where his fury is derived, and it goes way beyond anything Obama may have said regarding faith-based initiatives.

"Dr. Obama, I’ve been stabbed in the arm by this guy from across town who I’ve been fighting with for years. He robbed 50 bucks from my wallet this time. Look at the size of that gash! Can you help me?"

"Of course, I can. Just because I’m black doesn’t mean my medical degree is a fairy tale!"

"Huh...?"

"Let me see that. You know, it’s time for you and this guy to move past the divisions of the old. It’s time for change in your relationship."

"You know, I agree with you. But right now, I really need help with this wound..."

"It’s time to heal the wounds of the past! Here, let me just apply some gauzy bandaging to that. Now join me in expressing hope for the future! After all, there is more about your body that is healthy than is injured! Let’s celebrate what you and your attacker have in common – for example you’re both homo sapiens!"

"Is this bandage gonna heal that gash – "

"That wound has a long way to go, but it as already healed a great deal! Trust me; I can negotiate a truce between you and your attacker. I have a history of reaching out to people like him, working with people like him, and bringing people like him and like you together..."

After two decades of the GOP wreaking havoc on the political process and driving wedges between various groups in our society, America was ready for someone who could bridge divides, heal wounds, and bring disparate groups together. The image of such a president was so attractive then, that George W. Bush managed to con more than a few people who should have known better to vote for him when he packaged it as being a "uniter, not a divider." So hypnotic was this kind of talk that Bush managed to Svengali more than a few voters -- and most of the national news media -- into not noticing the more than ample evidence that the man was a doofus.

In 2000, what the country was looking for most of all was a soothing caretaker. I would have been happy with that, as long as s/he also had plans for moving the nation steadily in a progressive direction. I would have been all over Obama if he had come out in that election.

But that was then. This is now.

Don Imus, or contributors to his radio program, have done the following things on his radio show and on television over the course of many years:

*referred to Venus and Serena Williams as animals
*referred to the black wife of the former Secretary of Defense as a big-haired ho
*referred to Gloria Estefan as a chihuahua-looking ho
*reffered to a predominantly black collegiate basketball team as nappy-headed ho's
*referred to a black New York Times journalist as a quota hire
*referred to a black presidential candidate as a colored fella
*referred to residents of Harlem as moolignans
*referred to jewish executives of his employer as money-grubbing
*suggested a white presidential candidate will try to appeal to black voters by flashing street gang hand signals
suggesting that a popular national television quiz show lacks black participants because the producers failed to recruit in prisons
*admitting to hiring a producer to do nigger jokes

Many more similar examples exist.

So, the latest in a long line of racist filfth to emerge from the geniuses behind the Imus in the Morning Show was directed at the players on the Rutgers University women's basketball team. "Nappy-headed ho's" he called them.

WFAN Radio and MSNBC, Imus's radio and TV broadcast homebases, have issued the usual expressions of shock, and have promised to put Imus on a tighter leash going forward.

As an African-American who has had to put up with shit like this from Imus and others of his ilk over the years, I say, "Too. Fucking. Late."

I agree with the National Association of Black Journalists; Imus must go.

Given the re-emergence of Obamamania, I offer thoughts from a post I had on mydd earlier this year. My basic point is essentially in line with David Sirota's, if with less virulence and hopelessness attached: Obama has hardly done anything to warrant the level of excitement that his potential '08 presidential run has generated.

Further, I'd say the reason most Americans ever started going gaga over Obama is that in his highest-profile performance ever, at the '04 Democratic National Convention, he went out of his way deny the racial divide that exists in America. When a black politician does that, white Independents get moist. And as an African-American, I am particularly sensitive to, and frustrated by, such maneuvers.

Unfair? Really? Well, Bill Clinton has always been smart, articulate, charismatic, but at no time during his first campaign -- or pre-campaign -- did the country go ape-shit over him the way it is currently behaving toward Obama. Why? The racial component is the key.

As recently as two months ago, he had been considered a leading contender for the Republican nomination for the US Presidency in 2008.

Today he is in the fight of his career just to retain his Sentate seat.

Even more exciting, he is officially the leading contender for 2006 Strommy Award, recognizing the elected official displaying the most distressingly backwards attitudes and behaviors on matters of race for the year. The award is named after Strom Thurmond, the late US Senator from South Carolina who set the American record for Senate filibusters of 24 hours, 18 minutes in an effort to block passage of a 1957 civil rights bill. Previous winners have included Trent Lott, John Ashcroft, and George W. Bush.

He sent hundreds of thousands to their deaths, destroyed whole communities, wreaked havoc on a nation of 25 million...and then went out of his way to make a joke of it. If that ain't the devil, what is?

And it needed to be said. Out loud. On television. Before an audience of world-wide public officials. Because to merely point out Bush's failures as a leader is insufficient to capture the gravity of that which his leadership truly represents. Robbing from the middle class to give to the rich, ignoring undeniable evidence that the planet is becoming less hospitable to human life, launching unprovoked wars that unleash the mindboggling slaughter of innocents -- and joking about it -- this transcends poor or even wrong-headed leadership. This crosses into the territory of satanic.

And someone had to stop being polite and call this spade a spade. If no one of influence in this nation will do it, I'm glad the president of Venezuela said it.

Dear Michael:

As a life-long New Yorker, I'd like to invite you to spend your next vacation in New York City. I know it doesn't have any national monuments or icons or stuff like that, but you might find a few interesting sights to see nonetheless. I'd be honored to be your personal tour guide for a brief but pleasant stay in our little hamlet. We'll take a taxi from

Is it really in the best interest of the Democratic Party to win control of the House and Senate in November? Might the party's long-term fortunes actually be helped by falling short?

What follows are the musings of some cowardly and/or brainlocked Democrats, uncritically entertained by yet another MSM reporter following the now-classic no matter what, Democrats are wrong script. By the end, it becomes clear that the article is no joke. Or, more accurately, is a sick joke.

Only one phone company had the sense to tell the Bush lunatics to take a hike.

That company is Qwest. They offer flat rate local, long distance, and internet services all around the US. Cheap, too.

Their website is www.quest.com. Switch to them. Tomorrow.

Rock, hip-hop, even country artists are dropping lyrical bombs on the White House in numbers and with a ferocity not seen since at least the Reagan era.

This admittedly incomplete list was generated just from songs I recall hearing about over the last couple of years. Undoubtedly many of you can add more. In the meantime, check out the excerpts...

As one of the African-American members of the kos community, I was rather perplexed to observe that the extensive and impressive list of Yearly Kos panelists appeared to feature no confirmed and only one invited African-American.

As I was not familiar with everyone on the list, I asked in a comment whether my perception was correct. As far as anyone seems to know, the answer is yes.

And now just today I am reading that the nation's most famous blowhard, Rush Limbaugh, just referred to the black alleged rape victims at Duke University as "ho's" on his nationally syndicated radio program.

As a black man -- and as a progressive American -- I've had just about enough of this shit.

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

Oops.

{SNIP}

The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other.

And using powers of x-ray vision or, one day, telepathy, I could steal secret data from CIA records.

As the nation paused yesterday to reflect on what Mrs. King meant to each one of us, it is important remember [sic] we cannot divorce the way she lived her life from the way we celebrate her after her passing. Funerals should not be ceremonies to fabricate a life's works. Instead, they are a time to celebrate with honesty and dignity a woman's life, and to consider the legacy that she has left behind.

In the comments section, readers demanded Ford explain just what he thought might have been "fabricate"d about her life in the funeral. It sounded like Ford was dipping a toe into the those-Negroes-don't-know-how-to-behave waters as part of his ongoing effort to become U.S. senator from a Southern state.

In the first case, we remember government spying on MLK and Malcolm X; any spying on Americans leaves a foul taste in our mouths as a result.

In the second case, we rely in the greatest proportions on the types of programs which are not being fully funded so that billions of dollars can go to Iraq. Also, we are extraordinarly underrepresented among the entities that are benefitting and will benefit from the war.

So a "compromise" was brokered, whereby the constitution could be revisited and possibly amended to give more power to a centralized government once the newly-elected National Assembly was seated this year. All the Sunnis had to do was drop their opposition to the constitution, which a handful of them naively did.

Well, that plan, predictably, is on its way out the window. The leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has just unilaterally declared that no amendments to the constitution will be allowed.