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Hmm, so let's take a look at this, shall we?

When Chicagoans who know Sen. Obama read the columns about him turned out by the national punditocracy, we tend to gasp and shake our heads in bemusement.

Do you REALLY know him, sir? Or have you just been smooth-talked like the rest?

He has become an ink blot for sick minds, very clever sick minds. Call up realclearpolitics.com and see what I mean. My favorite recent outbursts of hate come from Thomas Sowell, an African-American conservative economist,

Uh huh. Thomas Sowell, whom you made a point of labeling as an African-American conservative economist and not just an American conservative economist, is a person with a sick mind and is a messenger of hate. Riiiiight. You are simply using the old tactic of turning the same accusation back on the accusers. Well, it doesn't work. There is NO parallel to be drawn between the likes of Rev. Wright and Thomas Sowell. And it is very typical for a person with a clever, sick mind to perceive that all of his enemies are the ones with sick minds. Witness Fidel Castro or Ahmanutjob.

Neither expert, I daresay, ever drove by the church on 95th Street on Sunday morning. The people, including the young ones, are the best dressed and best groomed congregants I have ever seen, and they emerge from the most elegant collection of cars displayed in Sunday morning Chicago.

And what does this have to do with anything? As I recall, Hitler was also a pretty well-dressed fellow. And if you want to see a really elegant collection of cars, check out those owned by the leaders of Saudi Arabia. You'll be floored.

Also, Thomas Sowell is very well-dressed and I'm sure he drives a nice car. Yet you accuse him of being a sick mind who spews hate. Which shoots your argument all to hell. Make up your mind.

nor do the congregants look like radical white-haters.

Looks can be deceiving, sir.

Recently they put the entire sermon from which Rev. Wright's incendiary remarks were excerpted online to show that they were drawn out of context, as were most of the other clips. Someone assembled the YouTube show to do the maximum possible damage.

There is no possible context that would ever make statements like those look normal and justifiable. None. In what possible context could you place a statement such as "AIDS was a plan created by white CIA operatives for the purpose of killing black people" that would ever, ever make that statement look anything other than completely nuts?

It would appear, however, from the most recent Wall Street Journal poll, the senator has recovered from the scandal, but he still lags badly in Pennsylvania.

You rely on a single poll for your information? From what I can tell, Obama was mortally wounded.

Anyone who knows anything about Obama's activity as a community organizer in Chicago, even before he joined Trinity knows his style was always one of bringing people together in consensus. For someone with legitimate claims to scholarship, Sowell is curiously innocent of regard for facts.

Uh huh. And what does this have to do with his 20+ years of attending Trinity church? The fact remains that he attended that church for 20 years, sir. His community work in the '80s might have been laudable, but is largely irrelevant.

Apparently the healing of conflict is not a religious theme.

Huh?? Exactly how is Rev. Wright healing conflict? For crying out loud, he is FOMENTING conflict!

Sowell is unaware of the facts of the senator's coming to political maturity, which is bad enough.

No, Sowell is aware of the facts of the senator's coming to political maturity, and realizes that these facts are largely irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Riley claims the gift of scrutatio cordium, reading human motivation and smelling out hypocrisy. She is both more clever and nastier than Sowell. If you are a taste editor at the Journal, you don't have to explain how you know that another human person is guilty of hypocrisy.

So in effect you are making a sweeping statement that he Wall Street Journal is tasteless, eh? That, in itself, disqualifies you as a serious commentator.

Note that both are political conservatives, but their criticism is aimed not any specific position but at Sen. Obama personally. They simply can't stand him.

Note that you are a stupid liberal who can't grasp the fact that your criticism is not aimed at any specific position but at Sowell and Riley personally, and that style your criticism is a LOT nastier and more emotion-based than either Sowell's or Riley's criticisms.

Neither columnist is capable of delivering a precinct, no matter how skillful their fiction. However, their venom indicates that both are offended by this attractive, charismatic and intelligent young man. The last American politician who was the subject of such animus was JFK.

Oh, please. There have been plenty of Republicans who fit your description who've been smeared, slandered and defamed by the likes of you over the last 30 years.

You fail.