Well not as much a defense as a little bit of human compassion for a man who is being hurled overboard like Jonah. And it seems that the people most anxious to hurl him into the sea are the members of his own party. Now that the great ship of the US economy is caught in a tsunami, the crew has decided that instead of drowning they are going toss the pariah. It's amazing what happens when a ship is going down.

I was only 3 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the "I Have A Dream Speech" on the Washington Mall so, obviously, I wasn't there. Yet it seems that every day of my life has been shaped by the words spoken that day. I've seen the video footage so many times that it seems that those events are a part of my personal experience. However those are images captured through a lens and someone else's point of view.

-- the rallying cry of Senator Dennis Kucinich during his speech at the Democratic National Convention