Year after year, politicians, almost always Republicans, have had their careers ruined by the slightest connection with extremism, racism, or other issues. Often, with justification.

Nobody ever came out on Daily Kos and asked people to walk in their shoes.

The essay was well written, but little things like "wacky little political Mengele" and "John McCain, Karl Rove, Ken Mehlmann, and the media are the enemy" (from another haremore entry) pretty much cinch that "tolerance and understanding" for the Left is still distinctly a one-way street.

The black political culture on the Democratic side is deeply sick, and the Democratic Party has pointedly overlooked it because it served their purposes. Obama needed to "fit in" to start his political career on Chicago's South Side, and immersed himself in it. It's something he's not going to be able to explain away with stories about his grandma.