I have a nicely aged six foot cedar fence that runs across the back of my house. The backyard extends around 25 feet from the back of the house to the fence; the fence’s length along the back of the lot is close to 100 feet. The back fence, it keeps things out and keeps my dogs in. The north side connector fence is a cyclone fence, see-through and lacking in privacy.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That wants it down.

Cross-posted at www.opinionazi.com

I must admit, I’m fascinated with bumper stickers.  I make it a point to try and read every one I see.  You got your stupid ones, like "I’m not drunk, ocifer", your witty ones, like the infamous Darwin fish, and your hilarious ones, like Bush/Cheney 04.  How someone leaves that sticker on their fucking car is beyond me, but I make it a point to wave "Thank You!" to them as I drive by.  And what do they see as I pass?

I was stunned yesterday less by the speech by Obama - which was great as expected – than by the reaction to the reception of Obama. I have seen several comments here and on on Kos to the effect "that is just great to see people waving the Stars and Stripes rather than burning it".

I know I know, what is a 29 year old doing with a myspace profile... Well I have one so lets move beyond that.  Users of Myspace with anti Obama feelings must be trying out a new tactic.

Many times we use words and phrases without any idea of where they may have originated from. Take the word "We" for example if you wanted to find out about its origins and usage you could go to wikipedia.org/wiki/We  and find how it is used in other countries and languages.

Most of us are not only familiar with it as a pronoun in the English language, we use it in everyday conversation without a thought. We, the word is sometimes over worked.

There are only 16 houses on the street on which I live.  All of them are modest houses, built in the early 1960s.  The houses on the right side of the road (on which I live) back onto a park -- or what used to be a park, back when there was money to maintain it, which the county in which I live can no longer afford to do.  The park now is a tangle of aged, unmaintained trees -- lovely, dense, enlivened by owls and foxes and an occasional deer.  All of which is charming unless, as a result of too much rain and too much warming, one of them falls on your house.

There was a sudden and violent storm in Fairfax County, Virginia last night.  We lost power at about 8:30 pm.  My Mom and I are lucky ~ we could go to Old Town and get dinner and just grouse about the power outage.  Our neighbors -- just on the other side of our next-door-neighbor -- were not so lucky.

The impact of an event like the Obama trip doesn't come quickly.  Since most people don't follow news closely, its impact comes over time, as people less interested in politics pick up bits of reaction from more informed friends and family and by seeing what columnists say, what the covers of newsmagazines look like.

So although I think it's too early to see the true impact, I present two examples of why it's been a success.

I haven't seen or heard Obama's Berlin speech yet. For reasons I won't bore you with, I won't be able to see it until Sunday or Monday. But I did see clips of his interview with Brian Williams on Countdown and Hardball today.

From the diaries I've read here this evening, I gather that watching the video of the speech will probably make me feel pride in being an American -- both because of the quality of our next leader, and because of the way the folks in Berlin were showering the US with love.

But I doubt the emotions generated by the video will exceed the ones generated by hearing Obama speak the sentence I quoted in the title of this diary.

Chris Bowers at OpenLeft wonders, What Is Your Favorite Contradictory McCain Attack?:

1. Seventeen days after taking a trip abroad to Columbia [sic] and Mexico, five weeks after giving a paid campaign speech in Canada, and two months after criticizing Obama for not going to Iraq, the McCain campaign criticizes Obama for taking a trip abroad that includes a stop in Iraq

2. Eleven days after holding a press conference to claim that Obama  is a serial flip-flopper, McCain argues that Obama is the most extremist member of the Senate.

3. Five days after releasing a documentary criticizing Obama for flip-flopping on Iraq, the McCain campaign argues that Obama is too inflexible on Iraq.

Whether it's Roe v. Wade or off-shore drilling or a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, McCain has taken opposite sides. Is it flip-floppery? Or is it flim-flammery?

He was anti-Grover Norquist before he was pro-Grover Norquist. He opposed torture before he yielded to White House demands. He was for campaign-finance reform before he was against a reform provision he sponsored two years earlier. He opposed presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he favored it. He was anti-ethanol, then for it. He supported flying the Confederate flag on government property before he rejected the practice. He was for talking with Hamas until he was against it. He favored privatizing Social Security before he said he never was in favor of privatizing Social Security. He opposed the Bush tax cuts for the rich until he voted for them, twice.

Just before he steps off the Double-Talk Express, McCain must spin around three times and click his deals to decide which side of his mouth he is going to speak from.

At the risk of exhausting our pixel supply, here's your chance to name your favorite McCain contradiction.

(If you think you remember one, but not quite, you might try out nica24's extensive collection of links: h/t to peraspera.)

The Overnight News Digest is posted.

For all the talk, the reality is that there is still a lot of work to do at home.  

I know this isn't much of a diary, but this is what we're dealing with and it needs to be called out and put in peoples faces as much as possible.  Read the entire thing and spread it around.

Excerpt & link below:

Who is not hurting from the high gas prices? Forgive me for wondering if our President and Vice President are bothered at all. Well, they may be bothered just a tad by the anger directed toward them because they have looked after the interests of Big Oil for the past seven years with narry a nod to consumers.

Yesterday, in a White House press briefing, Dana Perino announced

"in an effort to address the root causes of high energy prices, House Republicans are introducing their American Energy Act. Their proposal includes many of the provisions the President called on Congress to act upon, including opening up access to our energy resources in the Outer Continental Shelf, up in ANWR, allowing development of oil shale resources, and streamlining permitting processes for refineries."

Reading Michael Crowley's Mark Salter profile in TNR, you wonder how real McCainiacs can really keep a straight face while arguing that the Obama campaign is the one driven by a cult of personality built around a narcissist who feels he's owed the presidency.  Salter is apparently livid that Obama has stolen McCain's themes of having matured out of a colorful childhood and been bettered by patriotism and commitment to public service.  Did Mark Salter make it through his top perch in John McCain's 2000 campaign without ever listening to a George W. Bush speech?  Salter even jokes

"I often regret that we didn't copyright 'serving a cause greater than your self-interest,'" he cracks.

I haven't been reading diaries about The Speech today, so I don't know if I'm being redundant, or just sawing off my own personal limb, but I am filled with such an all consuming anger as to be more than a bit irrational.

I heard a masterful presentation address a renewal of American foreign policy by one of the most sophisticated minds on the international stage.

I also heard the run up.  Mincing, prissy words by small minds, herded together to throw stones at the "other" who refuses to conform to their limited, and limiting, world view.

Then I watched interviews with "regular guys", who clearly had no idea what they had seen or heard at the Tiergarten, yet felt no hesitation in parading their fear and ignorance across the stage with inartful comment.  

After Obama got off the stage, he had a little walk and talk with Brian Williams.  I had three thoughts about that.  In no particular order:

I like Chuck Todd, but he said something idiotic today in the post-speech coverage.  He said (I'm paraphrasing) "This is just like a speech McCain could have given."  He apparently meant that McCain would agree with the content and project the same vision.   Nice delivery, he seemed to say, but nothing special underneath.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  This is a speech only Obama could give.  Listen carefully to the speech again and you hear the three signature elements of Obama's political storytelling:  The Story of Self, the Story of Us, the Story of Now.  Obama uses his speeches to move people to action.  And that is what he will do as President.

Today Obama told us about himself, but also about Us - who we are and what we share around the globe.  We're all in this together.  And about Us as Americans, what our challenges are and why we are called to live up to the ideals that founded the nation.  And he told us about Now - this moment in history.  It shows us what our relationship with the world would look like under an Obama presidency.  McCain?  There is no comparison.  

Barack Obama began his speech saying he's an American citizen and a citizen of the world (his first applause line)  The McCain camp highlighted that phrase in its dismissal of Obama. Too, the dismissal spreads through the Meme-o-sphere.

But John McCain himself has used the phrase "Citizen of the World" in a speech on May 27th of this year at the University of Denver. [source]

There is such a thing as good international citizenship, and America must be a good citizen of the world—leading the way to address the danger of global warming and preserve our environment, strengthening existing international institutions and helping to build new ones, and engaging the world in a broad dialogue on the threat of violent extremists, who would, if they could, use weapons of mass destruction to attack us and our allies.

Many past Presidents (and the current one, too!) used  "citizen of the world" in their remarks. Here's a collection of them....

I'm channeling John McEnroe today. I've been taking some heat for my attitude that progressives should seek out progressive congressional candidates and put their support behind them instead of tossing their money into the Obama war chest (though of course, anyone who can support both should do so.) I am accused of almost Utopian confidence that Obama will be elected with at least 300 electoral votes.

Frankly, I stand by my view. Of course some disaster could change things, in which case I will certainly rethink the situation. But right now, if Obama can't win this without my active support, we deserve what we get.

more and poll below ...