Nations had enemies long before George Bush ascended to the Presidency and declared that talking with them is a bad thing (even though his father and a President named Reagan did an awful lot of it). So here's what some others (and other cultures) have had to say about how best to deal with one's enemies:

Are you going to let a terrorist tell you how to vote?

John McCain thinks you should.

Here's a letter-to-the-editor that will be printed in my local paper here in North Carolina. Permission is hereby granted to plagiarize any part or all of it in your letters to your hometown papers.

Reverend Jeremiah Wright said some horrible things about America. He is evil. Forget about the good he has done in his life. He is evil. I saw it on tv.

There are some groups that lean more toward Hillary but whose minds can still be changed. Why are they resistant to Barack’s message of hope and change? Continued pounding on the "change" message won’t generate a different result with blue collar workers, the over-65 crowd, high school educated, Catholics, or those earning under $50,000. Is there some way to tweak the message to draw them in? I think so.

Obama has attracted and inspired those of us who yearn for change. But who are we? And who are the Democrats that support Hillary? And why do they resist his clear clarion call for change?

Have you seen any of Al Gore’s global warming tv ads with wecansolveit.org? The first time I saw one, I thought it was an Obama ad. Here’s the opening line:

"We didn’t wait for someone else to storm the beaches of Normandy. We didn’t wait for someone else to guarantee civil rights...or put a man on the moon. And we can’t wait for someone else to solve the global climate crisis. We need to act. And we need to act now."

Here’s the full ad:

How many words has Barack Obama spoken during this campaign? Hundreds of thousands? Yet we obsess over 25 words that he recently uttered about Americans’ bitterness with the way their government has let them down. And we act as if his entire essence is determined by these 25 words alone.

Do you believe it?

He put on the flag pin!

How long before the McHillary team smears him for being a flip-flopper???

Here's the link:

http://www.cnn.com/...

Everybody's shouting so loud about the San Francisco "bitter" sound-bite, I can't hear what anyone is saying! CONDESCENDING! ELITE! OUT-OF-TOUCH! I'M NOT BITTER!

So let's step back, take a deep breath, and talk quietly for a moment. Which is exactly what Charlie Rose did with Obama in 2004...when they discussed this exact issue.

Thanks to John Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo ( http://talkingpointsmemo.com/... ), we have the video.

I can almost hear Howard Cosell (may he rest in peace) right now:

"A hard right to the jaw from McCain! A powerful blow to the body from Clinton. Tag-team boxing! I've never seen anything like it! It will take a miracle for the golden-voiced challenger from Chicago to finish the round!"

And then Obama lands a round-house right that decks the two of 'em for an eight-count!

So let's take a breath in-between rounds and enjoy this summary of the campaign so far. It's a wonderful takeoff of Rocky called "Baracky: The Movie.)

The Acton Institute is a conservative think tank with the goal of "Integrating Judeo-Christian Truths with Free Market Principles (see  http://www.acton.org/... )

Professor Anthony Bradley (Assistant Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology, Covenant Theological Seminary) is a research fellow at the Institute and is a favorite of Glenn Beck and other Fox flunkies (HNN video with Beck here: http://youtube.com/... )
Bradley is the one most likely to be quoted when someone tells you that Wright’s religion is anti-white and anti-American.

So that makes it especially powerful for us to cite back to them Bradley’s statement below that Obama does not believe in what Reverend Wright preaches. It will also help with that "he sat there for 20 years so he must believe it" argument.

Here's a Fox News interview with a (white) Catholic priest who supports Rev. Wright by comparing him to Jesus.

What if we took 30-second film clips of Jesus overturning tables in the temple? Or saying you must hate your parents in order to love me? We would have thought him a crazy man.

Well worth watching and spreading:

http://www.foxnews.com/...

Yesterday, I wrote about the threat of Obama being swift-boated in November by Republicans and 527s using the Reverend Wright videos. I saw this as the greatest potential threat to an Obama victory (see http://www.dailykos.com/... )

But, as many readers commented, there are other threats out there, too, like...

Incredibly...and sadly...the Republicans will make this Issue #1 in November.

The Wright controversy is the only thing out there I can see that could cost Barack the Presidency. It's important for all of us to maintain a constant effort from now through the election to educate people and counter the raw racial impact of the Wright sound bites. Waiting until after the convention to mount a counter-attack just won’t cut it with the hordes of voters who haven’t really tuned in yet.

As Tripp Jones put it in the Boston Globe:

Let's face it: there's way too much flaming that goes on here, on other internet forums like MySpace, and in local newspapers over Reverend Wright's sermons. Generates a lot of heat but no light.

So how about if we back up a little and try to do what Barack has asked us to do: sit down and have a quiet conversation and try to understand one another?

Below the fold is a letter that I sent to my local paper (in a very Red North Carolina district). I'm adjusting it slightly for blogs and forums, but the message is the same: let's educate ourselves first and then have the conversation.

Permission hereby granted to plagiarize (and or recommend!) if you think this might be useful.

The purpose of holding primaries and caucuses is for candidates to introduce themselves to the voters, explain their positions and policies, and let people see them in action so that people can form an opinion and cast a knowledgeable vote. The fundamental idea is for each candidate to attract as many supporters as possible.

Sometimes, though, this effort goes awry, and a candidate winds up alienating voters. It seems that one campaign (I won't mention which one because I'm trying to be fair here) has tried a number of tactics that have had this kind blowback. Here's a chance for you to vote for the Most Alienating Tactic of this campaign.

It pains me to see just how polarized we have become as a nation. Comments by both Geraldine Ferraro and Pastor Wright immediately ignited a visceral response from millions of Americans. Clearly, race continues, at the very least, to be an ugly undercurrent in our lives.

And what do we do when these long-simmering and often suppressed hatreds are triggered? We immediately jump to an all-or-nothing reply: He's no good. She's no good. This disqualifies Obama/Clinton/McCain from consideration.

Basically, we fall victim to the divisive politics that Bush/Rove have practiced for 7 years. It's a simple strategy: (1) tap into rage/anger/fear with a hot-button issue, (2) let the media fan the flames and work the public up into a frenzy, (3) manipulate the emotion-driven mob to achieve your political goal.

And we are falling for it again.