Lie down With Dogs... Get Up With Fleas

It is absolutely astonishing, though not exactly unpredictable to watch the meltdown of Hillary Clinton's campaign while at the same time watching the kind of racist, ugly diatribe being spewed out of the mouth of someone like Geraldine Ferraro, who SHOULD know better, but obviously does not.

I am not a member of the "Obama campaign" that Ferraro accuses of attacking her, and I am not a member of the African American community that she so capriciously and stupidly attacked with her ugly racist commentary on Barack Obama. I am however, and unfortunately, used to seeing this kind of thing played out over and over and I am used to hearing people make remarks like, "I am not a racist, but..."

The problem is, there is always only one response to this sort of comment and that is simply, "YES...YOU ARE."

I have been trying for the last two days to come up with some kind of reasonably thoughtful, carefully worded response to Ms. Ferraro's idiotic remark (coupled with her even more greatly benighted response), but I am unable to find words that are better than those expressed last night by Keith Olberman.

This country suffers under an unbelievable legacy of racist horror and pain and I have lived with it and watched (from close up and from afar) for all of my life; from southern Florida, to border towns in Arizona, to liberal Northern California, to storm tossed New Orleans. Every time I think we are better... I find we are the still the same.

For me... at this time... I have had it.

There is only one choice in this election... there is only one HOPE in this time of despair.

After living through 53 years of the same old reality, I know that it is time for a CHANGE and Barack Obama is the ONLY CANDIDATE who offers that change. Beyond that we only have ugliness, power, and greed.