and if you listen to the president and the residents of Obama-ville neither are they.  Senator Obama wants to transform us - and by transform us he means change us  - and by change us he means make us more like the residents of Obama-ville.  That's not brotherhood, that's The Stepford Society.

From the cradle I have been a tree hugging, tax and spend, Great Society liberal hippie Democract and damn proud of it.  I truly believe no person is inherently better than any other person and that we are all brothers and sisters under the skin.  I try - not always successfully - not to prejudge anyone and I am politically correct to what I am now discovering is a fault. 

That being written, while I love the human race, I'm not too crazy about most people - although I dislike each person for his/her individual characteristics, hopefully not for any stereotypical notions I may have about any group to which that individual may belong.  From kindergarten to this day I have never been a joiner or even a "let's go to luncher".  My close friends can be counted on both hands excluding thumbs.  When involved in a political campaign, I am the one who takes a case full of literature and goes off on my own to visit door to door.  You get the picture?  I don't do groups.

Senator Obama and his legions would have us believe that on November 5, 2008 - should he be elected - the nation will awake at six a.m. with one mind, one heart, one soul.  By nature this storyline is to me a tough sell and the longer the campaign goes on the closer it gets to "no sale"; I don't want to meet up at the Obama house and bake cookies (and, trust me, Michelle Obama doesn't want me in her kitchen) particularly not if I have to wash them down with Starbucks coffee. 

We are different you and I - and I love that about us (here again, I'm speaking of "us" in a universal sense, not "us" in the sense that anyone's invited over to my place to bake cookies).  Having our common needs met is not suddenly going to make us a family.  Everybody should have a job, but being employed doesn't mean all the gun ranges are going to close.  Everybody should have health insurance, but being insured doesn't mean everyone will join me in vegetarianism (not strict, I just don't like the texture of meat in my mouth and those horrible, horrible videos).  Having common political goals doesn't make us family - these days it doesn't even make us part of the same party.

Barack Obama doesn't love "us" - Barack Obama loves what he thinks he could make of "us".  We are an angry, bitter people but Senator Obama will heal our anger.  We lack knowledge about our own heritage but Senator Obama will instruct us.  We are not even able to speak with one another but Senator Obama will give us words, hell, he'll give us the script.  And when he has finished with us, we will lay down our arms, cast away our bowling balls, stop drinking McDonald's coffee and embrace our destiny which pretty much lies in making sure that Senator Obama reaches his destiny.

But Senator Obama - I love us. 

I love the soldiers who are fighting in Iraq and think the surge is working.  I love the old hippies and the young idealists at home who are fightng against the war.  I love the old men who stormed the beaches of Normandy and are now dying off by the thousands.  I love the old women who worked in factories and held the country together so those old men could storm Normandy.  I love the people trapped in the inner cities without jobs and the people trapped in rust belt towns without jobs. 

I love the people who were brought up by racists but had the innate intelligence and guts to move beyond their roots.  I love the old women who fought for women's rights and now support Senator Obama.  I love the old women who fought for women's rights and now support Senator Clinton. 

I love a nation born carrying the crushing burden of slavery that fought a civil war to cast that burden off.  I love the sons and daughters of slaves who now in their everyday lives fight the remnants of that abhorrent institution.  I love the people - mostly black, but also white, brown, yellow, Jewish, Catholic, evangelical and everything else you can name - who marched against segregation.    I love the memory of Dr. King, of Mrs. Parks, of Medgar Evers. 

I love sweet potato pie from Tennessee.  I love huevos rancheros from California.  I love wine from Oregon and Great Lakes Christmas Ale from Ohio. 

I love a country that I know has the strength to figure out the immigration policy.  I love a country that I know has the strength to defeat racism.  I love a country that is imperfect, diverse, sometimes wrong, often right, sometimes greedy, always generous and despite suffering defeat, never defeated.

That still doesn't mean that any of you are invited over to my house to bake cookies.