I think this will only help Obama. Most, if not all, people will consider this the right thing to do and will feel sympathy for him. It reminds us that he's human, and like all of us in a basic way. Also, I think it will force the McCain/Palin camp to cut back on the attacks while he's dealing with this difficult, painful time so as not to look like heartless jerks.

I agree. And there's no better example of this than my own in this thread. I apologize.

I don't think I'm insulting you. I think I'm defending my own comments and in one instance about the source of the link, joking with you.

Will you show me where I tried to insult you?

It'd be great if you'd just put me on ignore. We'd both be happier, I think.

You know...you really could have kept that part to yourself...

I mean think....going to HAWAII when a loved one is dying?

How much 'fun' is that??

oh...and let's not forget he lived part of his life there BTW....

Hell I wanna go to Hawaii too but not at the expense of possibly having to bury a loved one.

Seriously?

Just to be clear, he didn't call off or suspend his campaign. He just will not be participating in the campaign for 2 days.

And UGAalum94, I really do think you're making more of the comment than it calls for. Saying what he said about his grandmother =/= calling her a racist. The point was that even people who typically are not racist can still have the occasional racist impulses. It's called human nature, and what matters is so not much that people have those impulses but how they deal with/react to them.

I don't see how there would be "consequences" for someone spending time with an ailing relative; I can't imagine that people wouldn't be able to understand how difficult that is, especially with everything else going on in his life.

I remember how hard it was losing a grandmother who I was very clsoe to, and I wasn't nearly as close to her as Obama appears to be to his grandmother.

Tutu has a broken hip

My grandma lived until she was 92. She was active and regularly went to the market on her own until her 91st year, when she broke her hip. It was so tough to see her in so much pain. A few months later, she passed. :(

Sounds a LOT like my grandmother; she used to walk to the center of town and back every day for coffee with her friends, well into her late 80's. She had a couple of falls, was eventually unable to even live in her own apartment, and passed away soon after.

On top of that, she had been a widow for over 30 years at the time of her death (my grandfather died in his early 50s). She never ceased to amaze me.

Well, sort of seriously, yes. I think the handling of the issue in the article was more generous that McCain could expect for a comparably controversial statement.

I did get pretty entrenched last night and overstated my limited case, I admit.


Your point about human nature is certainly a good one, but if you look back and note who and how she was compared, I'm not sure the comment from the speech works as well or is nearly as generous to his grandmother as you do. The "typical white person" I think was probably intended as you suggest here.

I just want to note that I wasn't all fired up about Obama's comments at the time and didn’t even want to attempt to make a whole lot of anti-Obama hay out of it now. I just found the mention of the speech without mentioning the nature of the comments noteworthy. And when I was called on to defend my observation, I did and admittedly went overboard.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Polit...6080508&page=1

Here the article mentions the whole comment. It's pretty glowing overall, but it does do what I faulted them for not doing last night.

LOL. Awwww. ;) :p

Just being a little dramatic! lol... i got the headline from CNN last night! :D:D

Perhaps two full days of being off the campaign will allow McCain to get all the media attention! The McCain camp should look at this as an opportunity! Maybe we will see a press conference on friday?!?

That sounds a lot like my great aunt (my grandfather's sister). She was healthy as a horse for almost 99 years--shoot she still had some of her baby teeth--but then she got sick, took a couple falls in the bathtub and stayed in bed and about 4 months later passed away (just a month shy of her 99th birthday).

I hope Obama's grandmother gets better!

Did he decide not to do it or did I misunderstand the days? He was campaigning in Virginia today.

ETA: nevermind, I can see it's Thursday and Friday in the article. Was that there before?

All the news I've seen on TV have said Thursday and Friday, returning on Saturday.

When I read the articles when originally posted, I thought it was going to be the next couple of days and I didn't remember the days being mentioned. When I looked it up after seeing the reference to campaigning in Virginia this afternoon, I didn't see dates in the story. I guess I overlooked them.

I was hoping that it meant his grandmother might be doing much better. On some level, it must if they know they can wait until Thursday.

I sure hope she lives to see him get elected.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/health...47/detail.html


In an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America," broadcast Friday, Obama said the family is praying she makes it to Election Day, but they're not sure she will.

Obama left Indianapolis Thursday to fly to Honolulu, and his plane landed Thursday night at Honolulu International Airport.

Obama has said he missed a chance to visit his mother just before she died of ovarian cancer in 1995 at age 53, and he didn't want to repeat that mistake.

I was :( when I saw this picture of him taking a walk in his old neighborhood this morning.

http://cmsimg.honoluluadvertiser.com...0&Q=90&title=0