So Steph, what's the foreign read on the election, then?

Mrs. Obama said, You can't see that she's talking about a political process that excluded African-Americans until recently????

But you continue to divorce her words from her context. It's shrill and it's dishonest.

I know I voted for Clinton (with no regrets). I know that I will support Obama should he get the nomination. But if he's the candidate, here's the kind of thing that will make me worried...

clip from Chris Matthews' Hardball.

Putting words in her mouth such as she's talking about Jim Crow laws - which most certainly were not in existance during her adult life - is completely in context and completely honest, then?

I know exactly what she said. This is the first time in the last 26 years she's been proud of her country. I am taking nothing out of context whatsoever, while you are linking her words in some sort of odd spin to laws that have not existed during the time frame she references.

Put yourself in her shoes. She is talking about her own frame of reference. My advice is to attack Obama on more substantive grounds, if you disagree with him.

Well, according to the quote you gave she said this is the first time she is really proud of her country. Maybe she was just mildly proud the rest of the time. Or just passively proud.

I have pointed out disagreements. I do not regard them as attacks.

I didn't bring this up, and in fact, I didn't jump on it at all.

No need to go more into it. I simply commented on something being discussed but apparently struck a nerve.

How so?

Her entire life African-Americans have had the vote. They have limited themselves to one party who takes that for granted....whose fault is that?

Hispanics, by voting in both directions, have made themselves more powerfull......maybe there's a lesson there somewhere.

Only in this century*... remember that in the 1800s the Republicans were the more friendly party to them and the "solid south" was made up of people still flying the stars and bars.

(By "this century", I mean since 1900 or so)

You can extend that all the way up until the 1920's. The parties didn't start switching rolls in any meaningful way until the depression and The New Deal.

Theodore Rooseveldt was Republican, and many of his progressive causes and ideals would get him labled a liberal if he were alive today. (Just one example out of many.)