PRUDEN: Obama's acolytes turn it ugly

"it was Mr. Ayers who got Barack Obama on the board of a foundation that dispensed millions of dollars to liberal and left-wing causes in Chicago" "The context for the Chicago proposal to the Annenberg Foundation was the 1988 decentralization of the city’s public schools by the Republican-controlled Illinois legislature, a response to frustration over years of teachers’ strikes, low achievement, and bureaucratic failure. ... The proposal was backed by letters of support to the Annenberg Foundation from Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican, local education school deans, the superintendent of the Chicago public schools, and the heads of local foundations." - factcheck dot org Perhaps the author should research a little bit more before opening his big mouth about something that's false...

Mr. Pruden, your article is spurious. Conservative writers from George Will to Kathleen Parker have called Senator McCain's campaign "wrong." These are hardly liberal hacks. Your article is poorly written, constructing straw men and then tearing them apart. My suggestion for you is the same as I give my broadcast students, if you don't have substance, don't pitch bull. It annoys the reader and reflects poorly on you.

So you think people who go to McCain's rally shouting "kill him" are ok for average people. And that it's Obama's supporters that are the ugly ones? Btw, majority of the people do not think Obama is the messiah. This name is being used far more by conservative to mock Obama supporters.

Best thing about voting in this election is secret ballot. I get to vote for who I want for any reason. I do not have to know the issues, the candidates or even if I do I can vote anyway. Voting is private and does not come under laws regarding anything other than I do not have to tell anyone what I marked on the ballot. I can even lie to everyone. Wow freedom is wonderful. I may take this article with me to the booth to help me in my decision.

This is the kind of commentary I'd expect from this media outlet. Any way you cut it, Palin has been whipping her crowds up into hate-filled frenzies. It just so happens that the way her fans tend to vent their frustrations can sometimes venture into the realm of (very thinly) veiled racist comments. Deliberate references such as Barack "Hussein" Obama don't help the matter. And if you try to excuse that as anything other than plain old race-baiting then you're either lying or stupid. These actions happened at GOP-ticket conventions, like it or not, and Palin did nothing other than encourage it. There was no acknowledgement until examples of what was happening became public, and then there was a backlash with a drop in the polls. And NOW all of a sudden McCain says "whoa wait, he's a good family man." The ONLY reason the rhetoric is being toned down is because it's not working. Period. If you say McCain would come out in defense of Obama if those sleaze tactics were working in this election cycle... then again I say you're either lying or stupid. I used to respect the guy when he was just a senator and I bought into his public persona of the centrist who could amiably reach across party lines. That's not the same guy that's running for president now. He lost all credibility when he chose that devisive, incompetent, right-wing nut job as a running mate. Now he's just searching around in a dark room for some light switch to help him find his way out of the deep dark hole he's dug himself into. One day he tries this, the next day that, and so on. Some of the actions I've read about at Republican conventions are embarassing to me as an American. The actions are racist, and need to be labeled as such. A surly mob of white southerners screaming "Kill him!" and "Off with his head!" at a black man does not conjure up very good imagery. If you can't spot this as racism then your moral compass needs to be sent in for repairs. It makes me wonder where they're hiding the nooses, and reminds me of an era I thought our nation had matured beyond. To see things like this being condoned and encouraged on such a national stage is a national disgrace.

Wow, I just decided to read up on who you are Mr. Pruden, and I think your bio on Wikipedia tells me just about everything one needs to know about why you're more than happy to excuse away racism. From Wikipedia... Pruden's father, Wesley Pruden, Sr., was the chaplain to the Capital Citizens Council in Little Rock, Arkansas, a segregationist group that battled integration throughout the 1950s and 1960s. When President Dwight Eisenhower sent Army troops to protect nine black teenagers attempting to integrate Little Rock Central High School in 1957, Pruden Sr. reportedly told an assembled mob, "That's what we gotta fight, ni**ers, Communists and cops." [1] Pruden says that he was at the school on the occasion, as a reporter for the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and does not believe his father said this. According to Pruden: "This was not the way he spoke, there are no other occasions on which he was ever quoted as using such language. He was a careful speaker, and I know for a fact that he, like most Southern whites of his generation a segregationist, did not attribute the movement toward desegregation to Communists."[2] Everyone loves their dad.

Saxxon, A teacher or professor I would speculate. With that in mind I would guess that you probably teach your students alot of left leaning values (or should I say ant-values). There is plenty of substance in Mr. Pruden's article but, like all lefties if you don't like what your hearing just make fun of, belitte, or sneer down to the subject as we have seen the elite broadcasters do with the republican ticket. What I would like is somebody to please explain the "Change" we are going to see and then guarantee it will happen. And while you are at it, without sneering down at me; just what were the relationships with Ayers, Wright, and Reszko. Can you tell me without the Charles Gibson condescending attitude.

Your comments back and forth sicken me. I vote on records not conjecture. The most substantive information you guys could come up with would be the backgrounds of the advisors for the two candidates. The rest of this is like grade school mudslinging.

Yes flexfamily, I agree with you... My vote is indeed decided by records. This article was never about records in the first place. It's based entirely on conjecture, so it's natural that the commentary will play out in the same way. It's perfectly appropriate to attempt to figure out why an individual would have such a hard time spotting racism when it occurs. The writer's background illustrates it pretty clearly to me.

Wes I've always enjoyed commenting on your articles - until now. This was nothing more than sophmoric race-baiting trash. Perhaps stating a point and proving it with clear language and examples is too much for an "editor emeritus".

Gee. I didn't know the messiah was a communist.

Let the moveon folks or the obama camp give ubicomp his check and pay him for his work monitoring this site and pretending to be an old McCain supporter and then get this garbage off of this and other good sites. That might work on leftist sites but my sense is that nobody is falling for that sort of "I used to respect Mccain but no longer" claptrap.

I never said I was a McCain supporter, but at least I used to be able to respect him as someone on the right leaning toward the center. And I did formerly respect him. Now he's just a tool playing to the base. I tend to vote more donkey than elephant, and I'm not afraid to tell you that. If he had chosen a running mate with half a brain (Rice), and had the courage to keep militant christians where they belong (in their churches), then he'd have earned that "maverick" title he's trying so hard to sell, and he'd have had a good shot at my vote. Not any more.

Would it have been so hard for Mr. Pruden to at least give a passing thought to the notion that many of Obama's supporters genuinely worry about his safety? When these people see the other campaign make completely unsupported allegations that Obama "pals around with terrorists," isn't it concievable that this nasty rhetoric may just heighten their fears? Is that unreasonable? And the childish "Messiah" dig doesn't exactly help in this department either. How is it possible that those blathering on about "the Messiah" don't understand that repeatedly calling someone by this name is also dangerous? On the one hand he's "linked" to a terrorist and on the other hand he's the Messiah. Gee, could you agitate the crazies any better than this? Anyone familiar with campaigns know that even McCain doesn't buy his own Ayers attack. How can you tell? Well, when a politician has nothing on his opponent a popular tactic is to suggest the the other guy is hiding something. Despicable.

Anyone can get into John McCains rallies so how do we know that these are not Barack Obama's supporters that are the ones placed in that audience yelling 'kill him' and 'terrorist' to make the Conservatives look bad in the public eye. Make's sense they would stoop to that level after all, look at what ACORN is pulling to steal our election. What would keep them from going to a John McCain rally. Their probably in the neighborhood.... .