That’s pretty ugly. I think it’s meant to offend, to get in people’s faces. People from NY are like that. People from NY also maintain homes in FL, and sometimes they vote there. So that could have been what she was referring to as well.

Full disclosure, I’m a Hillary supporter, which I came to via Edwards. I’m also over 50 and white. I don’t make public displays like that, I think that woman is a very poor spokesman. Yes, I worry that Obama will get thrashed by McCain on “war” issues. I worry that in trying to be “manly” enough to compete with McCain, he will adopt misogynistic language and frames. You know, “girly-men”, “having the balls to…”, etc. I worry that he hasn’t got the animus to take whatever they throw at him, smile, and get right back in there faces twice as hard. He’s looked a bit unsteady to me in debates.

I worry less about it than I did three months ago, but I still worry about it.

I don’t question the use of “inadequate” in that phrase so much as “black”. I worry that Obama may not be up to the political job he has in front of him. “Inadequate” covers that, but it also strikes other notes that are inappropriate, so I wouldn’t use it. Blackness is irrelevant to the issue of his fitness for office.

Whether or not he’s my first choice, he’s going to be the nominee, so I’m hoping that I’m wrong about him. I’ve been wrong before.

The woman pictured reminds me a little of my stepmother, who is closing in on 80. She was in Arizona for spring training a few years back, and got on a bus that turned out to have lots of black people on it. In her unique style, she said, quite loudly, “I remember when you folks had to go to the back of the bus.”

I think everyone on that bus held their breath for a moment. Then an older black man sat down in the seat next to her and engaged her in a long conversation, which both sides seemed to enjoy. My stepmother isn’t racist so much as she’s clueless and insular. Unevolved. Frankly, I think she is probably racist in the strict sense, but it doesn’t stop there. She’s petty, vindictive and mean. To all of us. But she’s also capable of better things.