...that Palin's shopping spree was "more extensive than previously reported."

...While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family-clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

Is that 56 million folks voted it. Thats 56 million folks who need to look at themseles in the mirror, and get help

that the majority of that 56 million find no fault in themselves? According to reports from some of my friends, most of their colleagues at work were extremely grumpy, some outright howling mad, and most were also incredulous that McCain lost the election. The accusations are that Obama "bought" the election with all his ill-gotton money; others blame Bush and, somehow, Clinton, for the mess the country is in, and the perception promoted by the media that the mess was due to Bush and not the guilty Democrats; they cry that the "truth" about Obama was suppressed by the liberal press. The truth as they see it is that Obama is a secret communist, a closet Muslim sympathizer, and he got money from terrorists to allow him to flood the airways with lies about McCain. They say that Obama, as inexperienced as he is, never would have been elected if he'd been white. And so on...

These unreconstructed Neandertal bigots will never give up. If they set the tone for the Republican Party in its extremis, then look for more obstructionism, attacks on Obama and the "liberals," and a howling match out of Fox News at every little thing attempted by the Democrats. Obama's grand notion of bipartisanship and working together to solve problems is in peril; it takes two to compromise, and they probably won't do it.

Maybe, if that is to be the modus operandi of the GOP, we can actually get the last remaining moderate Republicans  like Olympia Snow to turn their coats and become Democrats, or at least Independents like Bernie Sanders.  

Knowing more mccain supporters than Obama supporters, I decided to use discretion and maintain a low profile (I should add for once in my life).  I have definitely gotten some grumpy looks and sneers coming my way.  One of our friends was angry and definitely started giving me crap, no problem I ride through storms.  My wife was a mccain supporter. Reverend Wright was a big problem with her and she is absolutely convinced that Obama will raise taxes on everyone.  My daughter said her boss was foaming at the mouth over the loss as he is a big mccain supporter.  I am NOT too worried about many of these folks.  If is sort of like the big game (football, baseball, etc.)  The disappointment will go down over time and life will go on.

I am extremely worried about the brainwashed nut cases.  These folks have 100% bought into fox news, limbaugh, coulter, etc. They believe that the far right is 100% right and all the rest of us are persecuting them.  It is like that nut case in Tennessee.  He shot up the Unitarian Church.  He said the problems of America were caused by liberals, Democrats, and the media. He said he couldn't get to the leaders of the liberal movement so he decided to attack a liberal church.  

Fortunately or unfortunately, Michelle, you are probably just a little too young to remember 1968 very well. Why the Republican candidates for President and Vice President would want to drag us back there, or think that it would help their campaign, is incomprehensible. But all those shouts of "Communist" and "Socialist," all those race-baiting descriptions of mainstream health and tax policies as "giveaways" or "welfare," all those twisted religious references, all those descriptions of Barack Obama and his wife as terrorists, coming many times directly from the candidates themselves, were an ugly attempt to stir up the most reprehensible passions of some very unhinged people, and a clear call to action.

Barack told us to move on, and we will. In the meantime, however, his safety is of the utmost importance, and should not be sacrificed to any other consideration. I love seeing him at those big rallies, but I cringe every time worrying that we could replay some very heart-wrenching history.

I was a kid at that time, but the events of that year are scalded into my memory forever.  God help us if the Republicans goad somebody into a repetition of the worst year I have ever lived through.

As I heard about the stuff that Palin was doing on the campaign trail and the reactions her comments elicited from the crowds, like you, this brought back memories from 1968 and the hatefullness and ugliness that the campaign rallies conducted by George Wallace brought out.  I may have only been in high school but I remember ... vividly ... looking at otherwise normal people being transformed into simply ugly people -- their faces contorted with hate -- as George Wallace's words stoked up every hateful feeling he could from them, all to advance his political ambitions.  It took a bullet that left him paralyzed to make him truly see where words like his lead, if he hadn't already seen it before with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.  

Dear God, no -- we don't need another year like that.  I pray that John McCain, who I believe IS a decent and honorable man but who made the dreadful conscious decision to sacrifice so much of himself at the altar of his own ambitions, will have enough clout to ensure that what he asked for during his graceful concession speech -- to get behind our new President -- actually happens.  That the hatefulness and spitefulness we saw in the final days of his campaign are truly over.