Lately I have been in the doldrums. I am trying to recover from a serious injury and know it is `no politics worth mentioning August`, but I gotta say my almost total lack of interest in the race right now is serious. I haven't felt this low about politics in quite some time.

I am bummed because my favorite blog has become almost unreadable and because my candidate isn't mopping the floor with McCain. Even though Obama was not my first choice, I desperately want him to win this November. More on the former after the fold.

As to the latter, I am stunned that Obama is not doing better in the race at this time. I really have no idea how Clinton would be doing at this point, and could easily imagine that she would be struggling if she were the candidate. I actually think that Obama will come back from this to win the GE no matter who he picks as his VP. My question is by how much does he win? I saw a poll on MSNBC today that Chris Matthews called a golden little nugget. The poll said that half of the people who are currently undecided are/were for Hillary Clinton. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032553/ As Chuck Todd said on Hardball, the rest of the people who either candidate can get are people who love the Clinton. He went on to say that fully 10% of the electorate would vote for Clinton, but will not vote for Obama. For a truly decisive win this November, Obama needs Clinton.

I just noticed this on Salon.

War erupts in the Caucasus
As Russian planes and tanks clash with Georgian forces, Washington has even more to worry about in a crucial oil region.

By Der Spiegel staff

Aug. 9, 2008

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed Friday afternoon that it has deployed reinforcement troops to South Ossetia in the Caucasus in order to beef up what it describes as its "peacekeeping troops" already present in the region. The development comes one day after heavy fighting broke out in South Ossetia as Georgian troops invaded the breakaway region on Thursday night..

During the heat of the primary, I was truly on fire. I was burning with rage at Barack Obama, as I defended and fought for my candidate, Hillary Clinton. I even argued  with my own mother, as she was as ardent a supporter of Obama as I was of Clinton. I do believe there were times during those months, I actually thought I loathed Obama. I certainly did despise some of his supporters. I was convinced that Obama and/or his supporters had played a very dirty primary campaign against Clinton. I also felt that the media was much harder on Clinton than they were on Obama. Today, I am not always proud of my extreme support of my candidate during the primary, and yet some of these concerns still remain for me.

In a strange way, I was and sometimes still am startled by some of Obama's supporters, and what I have found to be a disturbing and sometimes frightening sort of mania for their candidate. This sort of adulation and enthusiasm for an individual candidate, particularly when it turns into a sort of violent, "us against them" mentality, is very alarming to me. This is especially unnerving when criticism and dissent are not respected on either end of a seemingly widening gulf of differing opinions.

While reading various diaries over the past few days that describe a similar disturbing feeling about Obama and his supporters, I began thinking about the source of these anxieties for me. Now I realize that I am coming from a much different place than some of the other diarists, as I am currently a very enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama for President of the United States of America.

The republican talking points on Morning Joe seem to be all about Obama not visiting injured troops in Germany. They are saying that Obama decided to not meet with the troops because he couldn't bring camera's in with him. Pat Buchanan said that "Obama was shooting hoops while he should have been meeting with injured troops." JS and PB seemed to think this is a huge mistake. I think the Obama campaign needs to counter this ASAP.

My perception of this incident is that Obama wanted to visit the troops, but once he learned that he could not do this while campaigning, he decided to forgo the event entirely. This was because the European trip was as a candidate, while the Mid East tour was as a Senator. I feel that Obama did not want to try and politicize the troops in any way, while McCain is using the troops as some sort of clumsy bludgeon against Obama.

McCain has been completely despicable this week. Gaffes, hysterical attacks on BHO's motivations for trying to get us out of Iraq, poor staging, poor speaking skills, forced smiles, and continuous proclamations to his friends, I cannot believe this guy is getting 45% in the polls. Every so often, I get a bit paranoid and wonder, are these guys trying to lose and why?

Bob Novak seems to be having a bad week. I first noticed this on Hardball and dug up these interesting articles about my favorite prince of darkness.

<Syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak was cited by police after he hit a pedestrian with his black Corvette in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning. </p>

A Politico reporter saw Novak in the front of a police car with a citation in his hand; a WJLA-TV crew and reporter saw Novak as well. The pedestrian, a 66-year-old man who was not further identified by authorities, was treated at George Washington University Hospital for minor injuries, according to D.C. Fire and EMS. Novak was later released by police and drove away from the scene.

"I didn't know I hit him. I feel terrible," a shaken Novak told reporters from Politico and WJLA as he was returning to his car. "He's not dead, that's the main thing." Novak said he was a block away from 18th and K streets Northwest, where the accident occurred, when a bicyclist stopped him and said, "You hit someone." He said he was cited for failing to yield the right of way.

I am stunned by a story I just saw on CNN. They are reporting on a small rural school district in Fort Bend County in south east Texas, that is ordering a five year old boy to cut his hair. Now the boy is Native American and he has never cut his hair. His mother braids his hair every morning and he is the cutest little kid I have seen in a while.

The school district has a rule that boys cannot have long hair and they are sticking by their rules. What is amazing is that they have absolutely no understanding of Native Americans and their Spirituality and their Traditions. I won't go into all of this is depth, because it really is not my place to talk about these subjects. What I wonder is if they would forbid children to wear crosses or other religious symbols. Oh wait, they will never ban anything Christian. But anything that is not Christian would be suspect. I am wondering what they would do about a yamika and just imagine if we were talking about certain unacceptable religious beliefs. Now we are getting into the meat of what the 1St Amendment of the US Constitution actually talks about.

I CALL OUT FOR WAR AGAINST FOX NEWS.

Now I have been calling for peace and maturity and civility on this website for quite some time. Many others have written moving, thoughtful, and hard headed diaries trying to help Democrats come together and support our nominee. I have felt that some of this has helped, and the dialogue that I have been seeing lately has started to improve. I have also noticed more diaries about issues I really care about. These are good things, even though I still see that some of us are not ready, or perhaps will never be ready to endorse our candidate.

I wanted to point this out because now I want people to dig deep in themselves and bring this hatred that they were/are feeling toward Hillary or Barack or at each other, and point with deadly accuracy that contempt at an enemy that truly deserves your utter loathing and rage. That enemy is fox news. There are at least two stories that have been posted today about this joke of a news channel, please read them now.

The republican talking points on Morning Joe seem to be all about Obama not visiting injured troops in Germany. They are saying that Obama decided to not meet with the troops because he couldn't bring camera's in with him. Pat Buchanan said that "Obama was shooting hoops while he should have been meeting with injured troops." JS and PB seemed to think this is a huge mistake. I think the Obama campaign needs to counter this ASAP.

My perception of this incident is that Obama wanted to visit the troops, but once he learned that he could not do this while campaigning, he decided to forgo the event entirely. This was because the European trip was as a candidate, while the Mid East tour was as a Senator. I feel that Obama did not want to try and politicize the troops in any way, while McCain is using the troops as some sort of clumsy bludgeon against Obama.

McCain has been completely despicable this week. Gaffes, hysterical attacks on BHO's motivations for trying to get us out of Iraq, poor staging, poor speaking skills, forced smiles, and continuous proclamations to his friends, I cannot believe this guy is getting 45% in the polls. Every so often, I get a bit paranoid and wonder, are these guys trying to lose and why?