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Really, the end of Obama? He sold out the memorial colessium here in Portland in about 5 minutes yesterday morning. He has the delegate lead by a lot, and Michigan and Florida will not be in play.

Meanwhile, McCain is relying on Joe Leiberman to remind him--during public appearances, mind you--that there is a difference between "insurgents" and "al qaeda" and that he cannot refer to them without differentiating them.

One candidate makes perhaps the most thorough, candid speech on race since "I have a Dream" the other conflates insurgents and al qaeda, and yet the discussion is about whether nor not giving that speech and not backing down from his pastor was politically savvy?

It sounds to me like a lot of people are looking for reasons to dislike Obama, and are blind to reasons why McCain would not be a good choice for President. That's fine, but to paint it as some huge loss of momentum or a "blood letting" is a little extreme.

Honestly, though, I have a very hard time reading Mr. Crunchy's posts simply because of the sonnet style of formatting he chooses to use. What I do read I really like, but it sounds like some sort of private conversation with someone else and I have a hard time following it.

Anyway, alarmists claimed a few months ago that rumors about his being muslim would be his downfall, but that clearly wasn't the case, as now people are arguing about his PASTOR, not his Islamic influences.

Instead of talking about his validity as a president being based on how well he can parry these baseless attacks, why not discuss why he is actually talking about? It was his PASTOR folks, his PASTOR.

Why is it okay for everyone's PASTOR to say that evolution is wrong and that those who believe in it are going against the word of God, but its not okay for Obama's pastor to proffer the idea that perhaps 9/11 was due to our foreign policy influence? It doesn't make any sense and is merely fishing-bait meant to attract the various idiots that make up a good portion of this country--NOT the intelligent posters here. I understand not politicizing from the pulpet, and frankly I would be happy if there was no such thing as churches at all, but they exist and many people draw a whole lot of solace from them.

In answer to your question ORS (or statement, I forget which it was), my guess is that Obama would prefer to not have to be affiliated with a church at all, and that he chose that church BECAUSE of its social activism. My guess is that Obama is either agnostic or atheist, based on his book, his experience and his self-sufficiency. He loves the IDEA of the community church that does a lot of good, but my guess is he preferrs the idea of people just doing that without the need for all this Genesis, Mark, Luke and Paul hogwash. Just like Thomas Jefferson embraced the bible, insofar as he cut out all of the mystical stuff and kept what was, in theory, factual and at least based on emperical thoughts, not those of people 2000+ years ago who believed that crop cycles lived or died based on the moral strength of those who benefited from their growth.

We're far beyond all of that.