Speech Writing. Racism. Exeter.
If I wrote Barack Obama's stump speeches:

"I have to wonder if John McCain and Sarah Palin think you're stupid, when they say these things. I mean, they say things like 'If we don't shift the conversation away from the economy, we're gonna lose'... and then they start talkin' about a man I don't know every well. A man whose activities and tactics I have Publicly renounced! [Pause]

"Well, even if they think you're stupid, I know better! I know the American people can spot a load of BS, when it's being thrown at them! And You know, like I know, that when someone spends all their time trying to tear someone down, but not building Themselves up... it's because they got nothing to build!"

From there he would go on to talk about the economy, and how now is not the time to "shift the conversation away from it."

From plantyhamchuk: Palin Supporters shout racial epithets to reporters, death threats to Obama; McCain Campain does nothing to renounce this behaviour. In fact they seem to have simply ignored it.

This is the world this morning.

I've gotten an e-mail response back from Exeter, which I need to read. I need coffee and breakfast, firsts, I think... I'm a little nervous about anything havinng to do with PhD stuff, these days.

Some days I think I should move back to DC, get a job in a think-tank, or start a consulting firm, or something. But that seems too much like trying to recapture some mythical "lost" thing, in my life.