A calmer response to the insulting post that I responded to in kind: it’s one thing to call an argument dumb, when you call the arguer dumb all it leads to is a personality clash.
That said, I have a point to make. I think it is completely legitimate to look at a candidates background - racial, cultural, religious, gender, etc. in trying to figure out who they are and if you want them to lead the country. If you think a person who does this is a racist, than your vocabulary differs from mine - I would call them well informed. For example, look at Joe Liberman, a politician I very much like. He is Jewish. As such, I think if he were running it would be very legitimate to wonder what effect this might have on his appproach to the Middle East. If you are trying to figure out who Obama is, looking into his background is completely logical. There is a very interesting, though pretty fluffy, article on that in the current Time magazine. I would have liked a lot more detail, but at least it is something. It actually made me feel a little less negative toward the guy, but it is so lacking in detail that the effect was small. Still, it had the effect I am sure the notoriously left leaning Time wanted and made Obama look good - rags to riches and all that. To me, he is still largely a cipher, and an apparently very liberal one at that.
ps: wrt the previous post. I agree that “liberal” in American policis means, among many other things that “as a liberal I care SO MUCH about xyz that I want to take YOUR MONEY and give it to someone else, so vote for me because I CARE (enough to take what you earned to give to someone who I happen to think is more deserving).”
Nice.