My Republican neighbor Art has really been ragging me since I put the Obama bumper sticker on my car. I just hope he isn't as unhappy with our young president for the next eight years like I've been with Bush. The latest revelation to be played non-stop on Faux News is Obama's remark about the bitterness that exists in some segments of our population. Did they bother to play the whole statement? Of course not... just the part they could make hay with. For those who may have heard only what was played on Faux, here's the whole statement in context:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them, and they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not.
And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Being the progressive Democrat that I am, I can't find fault with what Obama said. I agree with what he said, and it doesn't apply to just the frustrated people in the Midwest. It applies especially to lots of Southerners. Obama's response to this dust-up via You-Tube is here.

If any of my Republican friends are ready to get on board Obama's train, here's the link to Republicans for Obama. Mississippi still needs a chapter. Several southern states have chapters - Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, even Texas, but not Mississippi. I know some of you aren't completely sold on McCain. I also know that some of you are tired of the polarization that exists among Americans. "We the People" has divided into "Us versus Them." What ever happened to "we're all in this boat together"?

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.