I love CNN's Campbell Brown. I think she is smart, agressive, not afraid to ask probing questions and I have followed her career for years. But I became even more enthralled with her when last night she basically tore a new one in the American public butt about racism.

Usually CNN anchors are not given the time for a diatribe - well, except Lou Dobbs, who seems to give at least two every night. But I was pleasantly surprised when Brown, who is usually quite politically neutral, started off her hour with a rather scathing analysis on racism and the American political election. You go, girl!

You know, we should be holding these candidates accountable for what they say during the campaign, and hope that in these final days, they do try to maintain a little dignity. But we have also got to check ourselves. We have a responsibility, too, to not get overheated. What we say matters, too.

Whoever wins this election, we are all going to have to rally around that person. Given what is happening to our economy, all that is going on in this country right now, none of us wants the next president to be a failure, whoever he may be, do we?  

As fellow Blogher CE Erin mentioned in her post about McCains stupid, ignorant comment, since the second Presidential debate on Tuesday - and even a week before that, things have been getting ugly. McCain supporters have been using his middle name to imply that he is a terrorist - c'mon, how stupid do they think people are? Hold on....maybe I shouldn't really ask that question- and some supporters even went as far as to hang a life sized effigy of Obama in sympathy for McCain.

While I'm Canadian and perhaps should be paying more attention to Canada's Federal election which is happening on October 14th, what has sparked my attention is that the media is actually acknowledging - in quite frank terms, I might add - that America (and Canada, for that matter) has a problem. A problem so viscous that many Democratic Yanks might just vote for McCain for spite.

F$%k the war, the fact that the Republicans have now got the whole world into a financial shitstorm, some folks can't see past 'the black boy's' skin color. Some  female voters are confused, torn between clutching their crotches and their purses; some male voters are furious that a black man actually might hold a position of power that is not only equal but far surpasses theirs in society. They call it uppity; I call it penis envy. Oh the anger! the shame!

The fine folks at Racialicious posted quite an incredible quote from a guy who commented on an article I feel that everyone should read from the New York Times.

It would be nice to think of racism as a dragon we could simply slay with the sword of good intentions. But it’s not; it’s more of a weed that grows in the gardens of our souls.

So rather than view it in simple binary terms, I would suggest we take a more gardener-like approach to the matter. We didn’t plant the weeds. We needn’t berate ourselves over the existence of the weeds. We just need to get out in our respective gardens and get to work.

To me, Mark - the commenter's - and the recent New York Time's article summed up the frustration I have been having with both the American and the Canadian Federal election. People no longer have to be wearing white hoods and burning a cross to be branded as racists - hell, racists evolve just as many other people do as generations pass - they just have to use 'catchphrases' in order to get their message across. Obama is not a N#$%er; he's a terrorist because he has a funny name. Obama is not racist...well, he sat in a church where the minister was a black dude who said things in public that many people thought secretly, therefore he must hate white people, 'cause you know we are all alike, hating whitey. People twist and turn words in order to make them socially palatable, but one thing that has been evidently clear to me, at least, it that if it walks like a duck, it talks like a duck. Right McCain?

Look, excuse my one-sidedness. Blogher is bipartisan, well, at least the site is, as a whole.The CE's? Naw. We all are different people, have different reasons in believing what we do, just like the outside world does. And we can't help it if our personal politics seep into our posts. It has caused some friction and for me, I am looking at some of my comrades with the side eye these days. The election has caused the ugliness in all of us to come out. So sue me.

But back to the matter at hand. Many other people caught on to the voracity of Brown's comments last night. From the Huffington Post:

Brown also cautioned Obama supporters not to accuse McCain of racism over his "that one" remark from Tuesday's Presidential debate, as she reported some have done. "Give me a break," she said. "I can hear my grandfather talking about one of his kids or grandkids as 'that one.' He used it a lot. Maybe it's a generational thing. Maybe it wasn't a term of endearment the way it was when my grandfather used it. Maybe McCain did mean to be disrespectful, but racist? I don't think so."

From Ebony Mom Politics:

When people of color point out the racist implications of some of the rhetoric they are criticized for being “too sensitive.’ This morning on Morning Joe he was saying you can’t say anything bad about Obama because his supporters are overly sensitive.  Last night on CNN Brown said “Look, everybody, we all know that we are in uncharted territory here. Never before has there been an African-American presidential nominee. So without question, race is going to be part of the conversation. Race baiting doesn’t have to be.

From Andrew Golis:

She’s describing reality, without biasing any ideology, as she clearly as she can. Not standing back from it to avoid controversy.

The result? She’s doing her journalistic duty and creating political problems for people who lie and smear and going viral in the process.

Nothing she’s done has actually been liberal or conservative. In this case McCain/Palin have just been in more need of truth-squaring. But traditionally, she’d be backed down by CNN execs cowed by political pressure from the Right and the prospect of losing the appearance of objectivity. But so far, probably because it’s been good for business, she’s pushing ahead.

I just hope that after the wounds have healed and the migraines disappear, that people might actually take the voracity of what has happened in the last year to heart.

Again ....totally partisan....You go girl!!!