The title of this post is deliberately provocative. The time has come to ask a hard and discomforting question.

The Confluence has referenced (without linking to) a Kos Diary by an African American woman named TexasMango, titled "White People, can we talk?"...

I've found throughout my short life that few white people fully understand the extent to which all black people even, brilliant, successful and beautiful black people like the Obamas, are still subject to racism. This used to frustrate me, but then I thought about how separate black and white people often live....

In other words, if Obama loses, then we can blame racism, pure and simple.

Nonsense. David Plouffe himself has said that the only people who would vote against a black person based purely on race are already die-hard Republicans (if they have not been disaffected from the mainstream parties altogether).

As I keep saying, Colin Powell could have waltzed right into the White House in 2000, had he been in a waltzing mood.

Obama is neither "brilliant" nor "beautiful" -- he is a crook and a liar. If he loses, don't blame racism. Blame his campaign's nonstop accusations of racism, leveled against anyone who dared to support another candidate. That vile tactic created the PUMA movement.

(By all means, keep on insulting the PUMAs, my Kos-krazed friends. It's not as though you need our votes or anything...)

Has race held Obama back? To the contrary. Being a black male has helped Barack Obama immeasurably.

Consider: When Joe Biden quoted Neil Kinnock without attribution in 1988, Biden's presidential ambitions ended in scandal. When Barack Obama plagiarized Deval Patrick in a far more outrageous fashion, no-one treated the matter as important.

Consider: Tony Rezko. Could any white presidential candidate have survived such a toxic association? Governor Blagojevich had to forego his own presidential quest when his links to Illinois corruption became a matter of discussion in newspapers and courtrooms. Obama's ties to that dirt are just as strong, yet the fixers decided that they could run him in Blago's stead. (That's the real reason why Obama broke his pledge not run in 2008.)

Consider: During his time as a State Senator, Obama committed the same sins that put Duke Cunningham in jail, albeit on a less grand scale. In both cases, a crooked pol directed public monies to crooked businessmen who stuffed the pol's campaign coffers. Taxpayers ended up funding a partisan race. Same shit, different pol. Why is Duke in jail while Obama runs for the highest office in the land?

Consider: No other candidate in recent Democratic history has dared to run a smear campaign in a primary. Obama got away with it because his opponents did not want to be called racists.

Consider: Obama spent twenty years attending a racist church led by a conspiracy-crazed crackpot. Any white politician who did likewise would never be allowed to get near the nomination.

Consider: Any white candidate would have been crucified for the kind of lying and position-reversals that Obama has gotten away with. NAFTA, FISA, campaign finance, gay marriage, taxes, gun control -- the list goes on. He has claimed that he endangered his career by taking an early stance against the Iraq war, even though his constituents would not have tolerated any other position. He has claimed that he was a vocal opponent of the invasion during his 2004 senate run, even though he was, at that time, quite reticent to address the subject. He claims to have been a consistent opponent of the war, even though he would not vote for Russ Feingold's pullout measure. I doubt that anyone in the Democratic party would grant credibility to a white candidate who lied so persistently.

Consider: When Obama changed position on the surge, he scrubbed his site. Would John Edwards have been forgiven such an Orwellian move? Would Hillary?

Sorry, TexasMango. Stop pretending that Obama has known struggle. In fact, he has lived a charmed life. He has known privileges that others only dream about.

He was raised in comfort by his grandmother. He was allowed to attend a college out of state. Do you think my Mom (a waitress) could have afforded Hawaii-to-California plane fare and relocation money? Even though his grades, by all reports, were not spectacular, he was given scholarship opportunities denied to most others. He became the student head of the Harvard Law Review -- and did not publish a damned thing. As a young, unpublished author, he was given a ton of money to write Dreams From My Father, yet he dawdled long past his deadline. He immediately received a cozy sinecure in a law firm devoted to helping Tony Rezko bilk the taxpayers. He did not enlist in the miltiary. He has never worked a real job.

Struggle? Is that your idea of struggle?

If Barack Obama had a paler complexion, everyone would understand that he has lived an easy life. The guy practically has attendants unzipping his fly before he pees. And yet TexasMango wants you to believe that Barack Obama has known worse adversity than did Helen Keller or Frederick Douglass.

Obama's heritage has benefited him enormously. Lefties and college kids would not consider any white male to be Coolness Incarnate. Riverdaughter makes reference to his fanbase "proselytizing like zombie Jehovah’s Witnesses on crystal meth, annoying and frightening every voter they meet." Could any palefaced politician ever hope to have that kind of mesmerizing effect on the young and the progressive?

I have no problem voting for a black person. I'd give ten years of my life (if I have ten years left) in exchange for the privilege of voting for Carol Moseley Braun right now. Hell, I voted for Obama in the primary -- before I opened my eyes to what really went down in Chicago. But the moment his followers told me "Vote as we tell you to vote, or you're a racist," they saw a middle digit.

Emotional blackmail always elicits a reaction opposite to that which was desired.