As I've said, I'm for discussion of the issues. It's the extreme anger that concerns me.

And something I should have put in the post:  where is the anger and attention on the recent Supreme Court decision upholding Indiana's voter i.d. law? This will ultimately disenfranchise millions of Americans.

But we are spending all our time attacking WVWV, who may in the end deserve condemnation, true.

What happened to perspective? Anger makes it very hard to maintain. And, by the way, there is no moral analogy with "lynching," as you say. There is an analogy with a developing group mentality in which individuals are stoking one another's anger to a point that perspective is lost, objects of the anger are dehumanized. Too many mistakes happen under such circumstances.

Well, sorry you take offense. I've been working against voter suppression for a long time, looking for the kind of passion that's stirred up in this instance, but not seeing much of it.

I still maintain that actions taken in anger are often not very smart. Didn't say we shouldn't feel angry. Anyway, I'm not a mental health care professional, and I'm no more mentally healthy in this regard than anyone else.

I just get really edgy around angry crowds. And this was looking to me like an angry crowd.

I guess it's taken a very tough, dirty and hard-fought primary to get us all this stirred up.

So, I will tone down my analogies if you will promise to fire people up (passionately, not just angrily) about voter suppression when we don't have our primary passions so tuned up.

I really have no special access to patience or anything, and don't much like my own tone on this, which is a little too above it all. Sorry for that.

I share your frustrations over the last month. I guess I'm asking for a breather. I swear if the suspicions are true no one will be louder in his condemnation.

Also, if more exchanges were like yours, even beginning by letting your anger speak first, but coming down to an articulate and persuasive expression of authentic concern, well, I'd have never pontificated in the first damn place. I hope I can hold myself to the standard I just mentioned, because I have failed to do so many times in the past.

Ask the guy who cut me off in traffic just earlier today.

Thanks.

The language of your comment kinda supports my concerns about a kind of anger I have seen in the reaction to this. I fully and obviously support the bringing of this to public attention, it's not the insistence that we get to the bottom of it and hold responsible anyone that needs to be held responsible.

It is the extreme tone of anger. Very seldom does any good come of that kind of anger. And anger certainty has a smell. I stick with the metaphor. But I'll add, if it turns out all the suspicions are confirmed about WVWV, it will be very, very difficult for me to control my own anger.

God knows this is a time for passion. With regard to this issue, though, I'm not sure it helps to keep firing away at one campaign while we're seeking to responsibly turn down the heat overall.

Just my thought. Someone very near and dear to me is in the other room right now passionately disagreeing with my take on all this, so I get it. Nonetheless, I guy can dream.....

I'm sorry I only returned here late tonight, otherwise I would have responded sooner. I just don't agree with your view of the Obama campaign. I believe it was Bill Clinton who many black leaders felt played the race card, fairly or unfairly. It was the Clinton campaign that played the fear card, that has apparently not been honest about the Canadian NAFTA deal while misrepresenting Obama's role. I've tried to avoid turning this thread into a debate over these things, because I wanted to speak to what I believe is another issue -- the issue of how we address these matters.

I do, however, understand how some of this comes about. I guess all I can ask is that we try to judge the behavior of those we oppose as, but not believe them to be somehow fundamentally evil. We shouldn't essentialize as either saintly or devilish. I am not overlooking excesses by supporters of either side.

I wrote about something along these lines today at OpenLeft.

I'm not certain how we disagree.

Your criticism amounts to little more than guilt-by-association and conjecture. I don't believe there is anything that could be said to change your mind here, not because you ourself are not thoughtful. It's because a certain Good/Evil dualism sets in in these highly emotional, polarized situations. We all tend to overlook the faults in the candidates we support, and see faults not there in those we oppose.

There are now so many charges and counter charges our two camps can hurl at one another. It's going to get worse out here before it gets better, and I just don't feel like adding to it. If I am overlooking some obvious moral lapses in Obama, I will try to look again. If I have attached some to Clinton that are not real or fair, I will look again at her as well.

Great gods, get a grip. I wrote that she won by making that strategic decision, that I would give the advice to make such a decision, that Obama won't win unless he does the same.

I wrote "for strategic reasons" to make it plain she made the tough ads not because she's a bad person, but because the campaign landscape required this particular strategic decision. It's the landscape I regret.

I just don't know how to make this any plainer.

Let me clarify:  you have a point about some anti-Clinton people being less than civil. I don't agree that Obama has been dishonorable.

I hope I'm not too late replying. Because I think you have a point. I mentioned this somewhere above in comments.

Clinton has been the subject of the most expensive and long-lasting negative attack of any public figure in modern history. I think it's taken its toll, even among otherwise reasonable Democrats. I should have put this in the post, and regret that I didn't.

I did not go into the reasons I prefer Obama, thinking it too far off the point. But they have nothing to do with my respect for Clinton, which is enormous.  I understand why Hillary partisans feel their candidate has not been given a chance, even though it's very difficult to see the former First Lady and arguably the other member of the most powerful Democratic family in my lifetime as an underdog.

I reserve the right to advocate for my candidate, but that's only what we're supposed to do. I won't countenance attacks on her supporters. I have done that with the tone I've taken a time or two, and that's why I called this post a confession, which perhaps was also too high-falutin' a word.

I wrote a whole book about the issue, and my concrete proposals. It was called "The Politics of Deceit," published in 2004.

I've tried to respect your replies, but frankly, you seem so angry and unhappy that I've begun to doubt whether your anger has anything at all to do with me or the post.

I am not convinced by your temper. I did not disguise my support, and I see know reason to have avoided using Obama to make the point. I found it compelling because so many of my colleagues were criticizing him for not throwing the staffer overboard.

I will.

In this instance I was writing about the unavoidability of negative campaigning in our contemporary climate. Clinton did the better job of that these last few days. If Obama doesn't do better at it himself, he will lose. It's the arms race that disturbs me, not the candidate who threw the first punch. It may well not have been Clinton. Obama's implicit criticism may count as negative. But I don't care who was first.

I am no virgin in this territory, and have been known to shout "make it meaner" to media types in the studeio making ads for my candidates. But I grow weary of it. It seems that anyone who utters something positive about one candidate is accused of saying something negative about the other. And that is becoming an habitual way of thinking, because we are all so accustomed to attack politics.

One other thought. Disagreement and confrontation can be productive. I wouldn't want to give it up, and that's not what I'm talking about. In fact, one of the things I admire about Clinton is her commitment to public debate, whether she's getting the better of it or the worst of it.

No, I am talking about negative attacks which are not aimed at advancing the issue, but only muddying the waters. As I've said, I'm guilty of this and will no doubt be guilty again in the future. I don't mean I'm somehow better because I've grown a little weary of it.

I complimented Obama on one specific decision, that's all. A decision all my colleagues were criticizing. That's why I chose it as an example.

Why not discuss the issue I raised, that winning in politics means not just compromise, but quite often compromise of fundamental moral views? In this instance, Obama afforded an example of one time there was no compromise.

Attacking me as a disingenuous hero-worshipper really does kind of make my point. It hides real issues behind personal attacks. My point is that such attacks do nothing to help us negotiate our way through the disagreement over who would make the best president. But, sadly, they are often hard to resist and just as often effective counters to opinions we'd rather others did not entertain.

I admitted by own failures in this regard, failures I'm sure to repeat, so I can't claim some kind of righteous indignation at your accusations. Also, I wouldn't be engaging in the conversation here if I was thin-skinned or offended easily.

But take me out of it. Take Clinton and Obama out of it.  Let's just consider whether we would be better off if we did our politics a different way. Just personally, with each other. I'm not naive enough to believe some kind of systemic reforms are around the corner. But a little civility would be a start, if only a small start.

Well, what can I say? I certainly did not mean to provoke your intolerance. It's very difficult not to appear somewhat self-righteous when juxtaposed to vitriol. My only other choice would be to join you. So I guess I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Can I ask, would it be possible to make a positive comment about Obama without being accused of hero worship?