Certain Obama supporters become indignant over any criticism or questioning of their candidate, although I've never understood why he deserved to be sacrosanct. 

Come on, have you not seen who we have had to support up to this point????

I don't usually say "Hey I am going to support him", I say "My God is that the best we've got" :0) hee hee

I won't put it past OTHERS to bring this up, but I'm hoping both McCain and Obama live up to their pledge to keep it clean.

***

I admire your optimism, but I don't see that maintaining for long.

I think it will last....until someone (not either of them) pulls out dirt on one of them and they start going down in the polls.  Then it will start.

Likewise, if a politician is going to present himself as a great unifier, then questions about why he was for so long associated with a person and organization with such divisive elements is also valid. 

Yes, but there's an answer for it - one he spoke of in his Philly Race Speech - that to get unified, we have to understand all sides.  It speaks more to his characters and ideals that he talks of unification, and managed to work within such a divisive community.

And, to stress a point I've made a few times on this thread - and also render the whole point moot - the man has a 10+ year public record of votes, committee work, speaches, community participation; none of which reflect the "divisive" elements of the Church Pastors.  It really is a non-issue.  Since he has little to nothing objectionable on his long public record, media types and political enemies grasped at one of the only straws they could find - a big scarry black man screaming about how white people have done wrong by blacks.  It has nothing to do with Obama, other than physical proximity, but it sure worked in scarring white people.

As to my parents...My Mother's family were southern democrats, back before everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line decided religion was the only issue, they were "little poor people" and supported democrats who were seen as more a "party of the little guy".   Still, Mom voted for Reagan. My dad voted for Mondale.  Mondale! Something to do with being very pro-Union.

I'm a staunch Independent.  I loved Reagan and Clinton!  Hated Carter and the Bushes.  Yet I would have voted for senior Bush if I'd ever have gotten my absentee ballot.  My votes for Gore and Kerry were totally in opposition to Bush!

Wish I had McCain to vote for back then, but now I'm definitely in Obama's camp.  I hope he does some of the cutting down on government waste that McCain promotes. 

I just saw an article on Media Matters where a FOX news anchor referred to Obama's fist-bump (by the way, a common greeting everywhere I've lived) as a "Terrorist fist jab". (http://mediamatters.org/items/200806060007)

I keep feeling proud of America, and then FOX news gets in the way of those pridefull feelings...

Sigh...

Mike, the way I see it is she said that more to attract people's attention to an overall boring video segment! It is not mentioned after... She had nothing to say and she grabbed the tiny bit of news that she could, made a fuzz about it and voilà!

Seriously, people are speaking about this... this is just so ... obsessed !

I hear what you're saying, Didier, but considering FOX's agenda, I suspect that it was more a matter of subliminal planting - the idea is out there already - that despite his very public life and record, that he is a muslim terrorist - so little slips like this - throwing it in matter-of-factually like this - it sticks in the back of the mind.

Exit interviews in states like West Virginia noted that a lot of voters didn't vote for Obama because he was a "terrorist"

When I consider our Constitution, our potential, when I reflect on guys like HST or Lincoln, I'm really proud of America.  Stories like this do their best to shake my faith.  Somehow I'm still hanging on, tho'!