Decency And A Generation

A reader writes:

You wrote:

"The Republicans will have a very hard time attacking Obama on racial grounds without seeming to be overtly racist. So they will smear him as treasonous and use the religion card, however fallaciously. This meme is out there - disgracefully abetted by those now in power. The only way past it is through it. And the only mistake is fearing it. Don't under-estimate it, but don't fear it. And defeat it. Clinton simply cannot do that. But Obama has a chance."

Hammer. Nail. Head.

This country has been torn apart by fear, sectarianism, and prejudice for a long time. It started before the 2000 election, but it got kicked into overdrive after September 11th. It has been abetted by a feckless media and a frightened and ignorant public who has seen so much change in the last generation that they need scapegoats, any scapegoats, to blame these uncomfortable changes on.

It's been promoted by those who want to turn back the clock to some mythical  'way when things used to be' that never existed. Huckabee's ignorant dismissal of science is indicative that there are powerful forces in this country that are still upset with these changes and unhappy with what modernity has wrought. We may disagree on policy and certain points of policy - I am liberal and you are conservative. But the difference between you and I are nothing compared to us and what has taken over the Republican Party.

At the height of McCarthyism the great thug from Wisconsin was brought low when, on television for all the nation to see, a man stood up to him and said, "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" Andrew, there is a vast, silent majority out here yearning for someone to say exactly that to the forces that have given us the Bush administration. No retreat. No surrender. No appeasement. We want someone to stand up and shout 'Have you no decency?!'

Hillary can't do this because she's been part of it. She part of it because she was cowed and made fearful by the forces that attempted to destroy her and her husband in the 1990s. This is why Obama is so appealing. His generation is simply not compromised by the accumulated cultural baggage that allowed those despicable attacks to wound her and democrats of that era. Let these smears continue - my generation, in their millions and millions, will only be incensed more and more by them. We're pissed. All someone has to do is show up and lead, because we're damn ready to follow.