Annoyance has rendered me inarticulate

Okay, people. Here's the "don't be a dipshit" lesson for the day.

If you should be tempted, while speaking of Barack Obama*, to use the word "articulate," do the following:

1. Stop.
2. Scrape brain of the residual, unconscious racism that applies such a low standard to -- knock me over with a feather -- the only presidential candidate in this race with brown skin.
3. Continue.

I realize, given our current President's tendency to mangle even the simplest sentence, that facility with the English language is no longer a given in those who would aspire to our nation's highest office. (Which makes this all the more absurd.) But people, no one looks at Joe Biden** or, say, John Edwards and says, "wow, he's articulate."

What friggin' year is it again?




*Incidentally, I don't support Obama. He seems a little too conciliatory for my tastes. I want someone who will go toe-to-toe with the Republican bullshit machine. (Like, ahem, Jim Webb.) I like that he went after Fox News aggressively for their manufactured madrassa story, but I'd like to see him apply some of that aggression to the Republicans destroying our country.

** Senator Biden has now opened his presidential campaign with a major gaffe. And it's not the first time he's made a, shall we say, racially unfortunate comment. I like him in the Senate; he passes the "thwack the Republicans" test on occasion. But there is absolutely no way I will support him in the primary.