Retying my tie for the twelfth time, taking care to smooth it down my chest until it hung just centimeters above my belt line, I told myself I wasn't going to have red wine until the sun had set. Turns out I wouldn't remember this promise until I had drunk two glasses of the stuff and was feeling lighter with each step.

The sun set beyond the canyon abutting the LA house turned fund-raiser location, and I no longer had to squint to see the growing number of people bouncing about the greenery in the backyard, each one as effervescent as the champagne they quaffed. Nobody said it, but everyone knew: Michelle Obama was near.

CONTINUED »

Oprah got a lot of backlash from her loyal female fans for turning her back on Hillary Clinton — not just by endorsing Barack Obama, but by refusing to have Clinton on her show. But if she wouldn't invite Hillary to sit down on her plush couches and chat, she certainly is not going to invite Sarah Palin.

"At the beginning of this presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates," Winfrey, who was an early backer of Barack Obama, says in a statement to TMZ.com.

"I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over," she adds. "There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show."

[Us]

"A man of his word," Barack Obama appeared on the O'Reilly Factor last night to be talked over and rudely interrupted in the "No Spin Zone." The two discussed the war on terror, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan, and there is really nothing stranger than watching a bullying, impatient blowhard and a cerebral, wordy politician try to have an intelligent conversation. Never fear, though. We have all next week to get used to it. Fox is milking this one sit-down for all it's worth, and will stretch it over several episodes. O'Reilly promises that it will be "fairly extensive and provocative."

CONTINUED »

Voters around the country haven't forgotten about the time, in February of 2007, when Joe Biden complemented his future running mate, Barack Obama, by using the racially charged word "articulate." I don't have to explain the significance of the term in its backhanded, racist context; my question is, under what circumstances is it OK to call a black person "articulate"? Was Biden's usage really offensive? It's not as if every politician is well-spoken, and it's well known that Obama is a particularly talented orator, so why shouldn't people be allowed to acknowledge that?

Meet Lynn Westmoreland. He's a Republican Congressman from Georgia who once co-sponsored a bill to place the ten commandments in the House and Senate, even though he was unable to name more than three of those commandments during a visit to the Colbert Report. But that's not why I'm bringing up Westmoreland here today. This is why:

"Just from what little I’ve seen of [Mrs.] and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

In other words, these are a couple of black folks who don't know their place, which is, presumably, polishing Westmoreland's ten commandment plague to a spit shine, not occupying the White House. Eventually, maybe even later today, the 58-year-old Southerner will release a statement saying that he is "sorry if anyone is offended," that his impromptu comments had nothing to do with race, and he might even try to make the argument that he had no idea that "uppity" had negative racial connotations. He, like so many others before him, will be lying through his teeth. [The Hill]

This from a column by Fatimah Ali in the Philadelphia Daily News:

If McCain wins, look for a full-fledged race and class war, fueled by a deflated and depressed country, soaring crime, homelessness - and hopelessness!

I hadn't really considered this, but now that I have, it worries me a bit. I think "full-fledged race war" is exaggerated, but if Barack Obama should lose the presidency, do you think the nation should brace itself for riots? Protests?

Yesterday, I was in search of some evidence of black Republicans at the Republican National Convention. Today, Arianna Huffington found it. In a nutshell: they think Barack Obama's ascent to the top of the Democratic party is more or less worthy of praise (they don't seem to all be in accord on this), but they will never, ever vote for him. [HP]

In a profile of Rupert Murdoch in its October issue, Vanity Fair describes an early-summer meeting between Murdoch, Fox News head Roger Ailes and Barack Obama. During the meeting, Obama "lit into" Ailes over the slanted coverage of him and Michelle. Ailes countered that the situation could have been avoided if Obama, who had already appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, had made himself more available to the network. According the the magazine, they struck a "tentative truce." The results of that alleged truce have not been readily apparent, but maybe it has something to do with why Obama agreed to appear on The O'Reilly Factor tomorrow evening. Hillary Clinton braved the shark tank — they ended up having a pleasant discussion about Rev. Wright — so why not Obama? Maybe, just maybe, he'll say something before the show's conservative audience that will help him hold onto his 50-percent standing in the polls. One thing he definitely won't say, much to the confusion of O'Reilly, is "M-fer, pass the iced tea."

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

The Republicans and some Democrats are calling foul on the media's obsession with the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of Bristol Palin, the 17-year-old daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. They say that we should leave poor Bristol out of the discussion — she's not running for VP, her mom is. And instead of judging either Palin or her daughter, many are applauding them for the way they've handled an unexpected situation. It's a problem that many Americans face, they say. But this question has been raised in Stereohyped's comments and elsewhere: What if this was one of Barack Obama's daughters (if they were old enough)? How would the media and the GOP handle it?

Barack Obama's making history, guys! And in an idealistic fashion, Spike Lee is predicting that our history-making candidate will change African Americans' artistic output for the better… starting with music.

He says, "We gotta step it up… This is too important. We should use an event like Barack's presidency, which I feel is probably one of the most important moments in the history of this country, to galvanize us, to inspire us, and, yo, let's go!

"I believe artists have to lead the way. The same way as in the turbulent 60s… that music reflected both the difficult times we were going through and the enthusiasm and optimism we had, too. And I think Obama is going to have the same effect on African-American artists - and it's needed."

Spike could really be onto something here. Take the Jeezy song, "My President," for instance: "Mr. Black President/Yeah, Obama for real/They gotta put your face on the $5,000 bill…" Hmmm. On second thought, we're going to need to get some new artists into the spotlight to test this theory. [SP]

Wherein you, the readers, talk amongst yourselves.

So far, on this site and elsewhere, people have a lot more to say about John McCain's VP pick than they do about Barack Obama's historical speech last night. So… point for the Repubs? Was this a brilliant tactical move or is Sarah Palin going to come back to bite John McCain very soon?

Oh, and take a break from stressing about politics for a minute to enjoy the three-day weekend, will you? Happy Labor Day, my dears!

Not since June, when that crazy primary race came to an end, has my facebook friends been so alive with Barack Obama love. This screen grab was taken earlier today, right now things are all pretty Palin-centric. Gotta love social networking in these politically-charged times.

CONTINUED »