Alrighty, McCain's flip flopping.  I hate the term flip flopping just as much as you Locus.  The only reason I called you on it was because you brought it up .

Gay Marriage-This sounds an awful lot like a shift in possition more than a flip flop.  He didn't sound too commital in the first one.  Hey, I'll grant you that one.

Tax Cuts- He wasn't against the tax cuts, he was against the part where we don't cut spending.  They are already in place and so he'd keep them in place.  Why is this a flip flop?  Once again, more of a shift.

Offshore Drilling- Yeah, he changed his mind.  At least, he changed it when circumstances changed.  Isn't that what we want?  When gas is affordable, we have the luxury of not drilling.  When it's this high, we don't.  And btw, he hasn't shifted his position on ANWR, even though that would be politically expedient right now... and I actually hope he does to be honest...

Negative Campaigning- I don't actually see it as being negative.  He's pointing out why Obama is not as good a candidate as he.  Negative campaigning would be to jump on the "muslim" bandwaggon or the "Tony Rezko" bandwaggon but the Obama "superstar" ad negative?  It's true!  He's got to make ads that stand out if he wants to stand out.  That doesn't mean they're negative.  Aggressive, sure. 

What's more, he supported the surge when it was not politically expedient to do so.  He used up a lot of political capital there and he was right.  On some of the minor issues, he either shifted his opinion or changed it when it would be appropriate to do so.  On the big issues, he's held his ground and supported what he thought was right no matter what the consequences.  Can any issue that Obama has supported be held up to the same standard?  He's never supported any issue that was hard to support as a senator, at least that I can think of. 

Polling.  The point about the polling is that despite the infatuation with Obama in the media, he's not soaring above McCain.  You posted an article which basically said McCain doesn't have a chance.  Maybe McCain will screw it up royally between now and November but those advantages Obama has don't seem to be helping him as much as they should. 

McCain's not my first choice by any means so you'll get no argument on "perfect candidate" from me, but I'm stuck with him because he's better than the alternative.  He could use a lot more ispiration, though how do you compete with Obama in that field?  If you want leftist ideals brought about, you should vote for him.  If you don't, you should vote for McCain. 

And yet, when it comes time to discuss the relative justice of suicide-bombers vs. U.S. "Imperialism" we are frequently reminded of "all the wrongs which the U.S. has committed historically" even though the United States of the 1800s is not the same United States of TODAY!!!

Indeed, wasn't it Obama's favorite pastor who actually claimed "we deserved it" on 9/11?

Fact is, a member of the Republican party can be proud of their ENTIRE history, not just some of it.

A member of the Democratic party cannot say the same thing, unless of course they want to be proud of their southern slave-owning, racist, roots.

Question LC: you seem to feel that there is some magical threshold at some point in U.S. history and that the "Two Democratic Parties" of the U.S. politcal system lie on either side of that divide. The Old South Democratic Party lying on the earlier side, the NEW and IMPROVED! POWER TO THE PEOPLE YA'LL version lying on the newer side.

Where exactly is this "divide" in U.S. history? Do you even have any clue? Can you pick out a particular speech, or program put forward at any time after the American Civil War was over by the Democratic Party basically saying: "We are SO SORRY, to have caused that war. Sorry for the 600,000+ American dead. Sorry for the tradition of enslavement of other human beings that we perpetuated for decades past the period when most civilized nations abolished it, and sorry for breaching the Union. What can we do to make amends? Perhaps we could just abolish the Democratic Party, and found a new one (much as the Republican Party formed out of the failed Whig Party) to show clearly and without question that we are starting fresh, and breaking with our disgusting history?

Why would such a serious breach have not taken place in the 1870s? Could it be because the power base of the "Democratic Party" in the U.S. for decades after the war ended continued to be the various racist white social segments of the American south and the disgruntled working class segments of the north?

There is an old Roman saying: "Know thyself." Sometimes I doubt that even the talking heads have even a glimmering of knowledge about who they really are. People like to imagine that whatever happened a generation or two ago is just irrelevant, and such an ignorant, simple-minded and self-important view deserves to repeat all the mistakes of history I guess.

It would have been nice for the Democratic Party to have made such a gesture of reconciliation and repentance, but have they ever done it?

If not, then how can you be so wholeheartedly committed to a party that superficially claims to be one thing, while neglecting its duty to explicitly break with its historically unjust, and indeed, vicious, cruel, inhumane, and avaricious origins?

Nazis and the holocaust they caused were absolutely awful. Few cataclysms in world history can compare with that provoked by Fascism in the form of WWII (~62 million dead, probably twice that wounded/maimed, and entire continent turned to rubble . . .). The Nazi Final Solution is one of the most evil, inhumane, and insidious episodes in human history. The idea of a dominant group systematically ridding itself of a subordinate social group through a highly planned, mass-scale system of genocide is a horror that only a human society could ever dream up.

But slavery was one step worse. Equally as mass-scale, equally as cruel, inhumane, insidious, equally if not more avaricious, and equally if not more highly-planned and intentional. Moreover, highly normalized, patronizing, and nonchalant. The vision of the slave-owning class was not that this was just a brief period of their phoenix rising from the ashes to attain dominance, their vision was that slavery would persiste FOREVER, and indeed become so economically powerful in the places where it spread, that it came to dominant global commerce.

To plan conscientiously to murder an entire ethnic/racial segment is certainly evil. To plan to conscientiously enslave an entire ethnic/racial segment perpetually--for the rest of time--stealing human lives not by ending them, but by transforming them into dehumanized, agonized caricatures of "life" spent toiling, powerless, and miserable.

Apart from the Apartheid Regime of RSA, the Democratic Party of the United States was the last major political entity that argued and fought for this nonsense . . . And still, have we ever heard an apology from them?

Okay, well perhaps the problem is that he doesn't think it's negative.  I don't think that's what he meant by making it negative (though I could be wrong).  There's no way around not commenting on your opponent.  It's a given.  Mind you I think we probably agree on this, I just don't agree that it's a flip flop per se. 

I'm all for inspirational leaders but you don't lead based on inspiration alone.  You do realize that what the conservatives want to remove government controls right?  Remove restrictions on Offshore Drilling, remove restrictions on Nuclear Power Plants, remove restrictions on ANWR.  Making it easier to produce power.

Uhhhhhhh, there is nothing magical about it but there was the whole Civil Rights movement of the 1960s wouldn't you think???? It's kind of like the whole Catholic Church thing in my opinion. I think it is silly when people scoff at the Catholic Church of today "because of their cruel, oppressive and corrupt history". What on earth does the Catholic Church of today have to do with that?? Same thing with America, as you say, but the difference is we are not talking about THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE USA, but only the recent history that pertains to our presence and exploitation in the Middle East.

What does that have to do with anything?

So what. And I think you are wrong. I do believe they will come to regret their alliance with the Religious Right of the late 20th to early 21st century.

Bullshit. And who cares. What exactly do you get off on the entire history of a political party, what exactly is the relavance? Are you as an AMERICAN, something which TRANSCENDS political parties, able to say you are proud of the ENTIRE history of your NATION?????

Have you lost your mind, Scipio??? The civil war was not fought the Democrats versus the Republicans, it's not that simple, it was the North versus the South, the Confederate States versus the Union States and even then, it was not that simple. Brother against Brother, Cousin against Cousin, Slaves fought alongside their masters, and so on and so forth. To boil it down to a political party that existed then, and still goes by the same name today is absurd. That the Democratic party survived such treachery and has transformed itself ideologically speak volumes. Don't be so obsessed with names, what they call themselves. Actions speak louder than words, as they say.  

I really do not know. Have they??? And again, this is not, IS NOT, an issue of the democratic party, it is the ENTIRE NATION. The north was complicit, until it reached the breaking point.

What do you suggest, that they just stop calling themselves the Democrats? Will that change anything? And besides, where do you get off suggesting that I am wholeheartedly committed to a party. I am not committed to any party, let alone WHOLEHEARTEDLY committed. I am not even a registered card carrying member of any political party, for what it's worth. I just tire of the insanity of calling equivalent the Democratic Party of today and the Democratic Party of the 1800's. They're not the same thing. They just happen to have the same name. It's that simple.

Uhhhhhh, Scip.... Slavery has been around since the beginning of time, it was not invented by the Southern Democrats and actually, it is still going on today in certain parts of the world.

Jerm, I'll get to you later.