It appears to me that the overwhelming majority of the comment threads attached to the veritable tsunami of Russert diaries of the past 48 hours are dedicated not to the death of a prominent journalist and his legacy, but to the policing of the reactions to - and the reactions to the policing of - said comments.

It would seem that we, an anthropologically unprecedented type of human community, are in the process of wrestling with the compatibility of old rules and new social constructs to determine exactly how and when and what one is allowed to say about the dead - in this case, about dead celebrities.

IMHO, it's not going too well.  

If Obama's primary victory didn't lift your spirits enough already, check out Guy Saperstein's heartening take on the dynamics of the general election in November.

Published yesterday over at Alternet, the essay is a follow-up of Saperstein's prescient post from December '07 (back when Obama was polling at -20% nationally), wherein he argued that Hillary was a fundamentally weak candidate and predicted that Obama would get the nomination.

Here, he turns his astute eye on McCain and concludes

The November presidential election is not going to be close. Barack Obama is going to beat John McCain by 8 to 10 points in the national popular vote and win 300 to 350 electoral votes. Obama is going to wipe out McCain. (...)
I am far more confident making this prediction than I was in predicting Hillary's demise. There are many reasons why.

Let's consider those reasons, the most intriguing of which is the author's diagnosis of long-term PTSD, below the fold.

Many of you will already be familiar with Robert F. Kennedy Jr's weekly blog for HuffPost, titled Unearthed: News of the Week the Mainstream Media Forgot to Report. You'll probably agree that it's pretty excellent.

For those who don't know it, RFK II and colleague Brendan DeMelle dig up important stories overlooked not only by the MSM but by most alternative news sources as well. It's basically a media-wide version of dKos's own indispensable Diary Rescue feature.

If you wanna go check it out directly and spare yourselves having to listen to me sing the blog's praises, here's the link to this week's entry:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

Otherwise, join me after the jump!

One of history's cruelest paradoxes is that the progressive movements of the past 50 years, specifically those aimed at achieving equality for historically marginalized groups (women, blacks, homosexuals, etc.), have been backfiring loudly in a wholly unforeseen way for some time now, leaving Americans in the absurd position of having to pretend that every individual's personal opinion is as valid as any other.

Relativism is killing us. Racists, creationists, free marketeers, assault weapon manufacturers, evangelicals, home schoolers, oil companies, Republicans and folks who put crystals in their refrigerators to make them run more efficiently are exploiting the "equal rights" ethos to stake out preposterous claims on what they personally believe to be the truth by cleverly couching said claims in the guise of "opinion", which, by progressives' own admission, are intrinsically admissible and, by extension, of equal value.

In a word, they're rubbing our noses in it.

But this shouldn't be so, for the very simple reason that some opinions are right and others are wrong - and that's not an opinion!

While Democrats may applaud the media for finally focusing on McCain's creepily cozy relationship with the delusional rantings of Hagee, Ron Parsley, Falwell, Robertson and even Sun Myung Moon, who between them would condemn Catholics, gays, Jews, blacks, Muslims, pro-choicers and other such riff-raff to eternal hellfire, there's not really much cause for said applause.

Here's why.    

Damning Obama by association with the words of Rev. Wright (and, get ready, Rev. Meeks as well) is fundamentally wrong - but not for the reasons thus far cited by his defenders.

The indictment as it currently stands maintains that Obama knew Wright, participated actively in the TUCC community and therefore necessarily shared Wright's views, to whatever extent the accuser wishes to push or twist it. He also allegedly demonstrated a lack of moral and political judgment by failing to dissociate himself from Wright.

The defense, such as it is, would absolve him of contamination by virtue of the rather hollow claim that the sentiments of an acquaintance, even a close friend and mentor, cannot be construed as Obama's own.

Both positions miss the point.

Come June, once Hillary is out of the game, she'll pass her baseball bat to the Republicans, who will continue her campaign to kneecap Obama.

So far, he's had to deal with 2 of the 3 principle weak spots that the Republicans will ruthlessly target - inexperience, and the grab bag of issues surrounding the Rev. Wright controversy.

What Obama hasn't had to address yet in any depth is a third major weakness, and that is his 'official' branding as the most liberal member of the Senate, along with the details of the voting record upon which that branding is founded. This is because he and his supporters have limited the campaign to combating Hillary, where this obviously isn't an issue.
Now that Hillary clearly cannot win and Obama supporters seem to be warming up to the notion of reconciliation with her disappointed supporters so we can all fight McSame together, we need to start thinking about how to make the 'L' word less scary for the independent voters who will decide the general election outcome.

With the Scaife interview, Hillary has crossed yet another line that separates basic human decency and concern for the common good from conniving treachery and unapologetic self-interest.

Is this her ugliest trick yet? Let's poll it and see.

N.B. Since the poll interface allows only 15 entries, the list of reprehensible actions is necessarily partial at best.  

Obama seems to have weathered the first round of Pastorgate - his numbers are going back up, Hillary is floundering spectacularly in a series of compound lies, InTrade has Obama at 78.7% and Hillary at 20.1%, and BO seems more willing than before to fight, if not nastily, then at least without gloves.

But... thanks to the Wright fiasco, race has now become the single most defining issue of Obama's candidacy, for better or for worse. I think it's safe to assume the Republicans will capitalize on that.

So, please take a moment to do the attached poll so we can get a handle on where we stand as a group.
Thanks.

Get a load of this stuff from an ExxonMobil presentation to industry analysts, held earlier this month in NYC:

I'm as staunch an Obama supporter as anyone, so please refrain from throwing eggs when I say that I'm afraid I don't share the DKos community's optimism as reflected in the 800 comments on pontificator's recent post "It's over".

A video mash-up entitled 'Is Obama Wright', while in itself inept and still waiting for significant viewership (just 38,000 views after 3 days), is the demon seed of what's to come, the prototype for what will soon be an avalanche of similar, even more powerful "proofs" of Obama's anti-Americanism.

Gerry Ferraro directed her inane comment at the wrong man. It's Reverend Wright, not Obama, who wouldn't be in his current position if he were a white man.