Newspaper website comments bring out the worst in people. Your faith in humanity and decency is really tried reading such bigoted racist drivel from anonymous commenters on virtually any and all news stories. This why I was pretty surprised to read some thoughtful comments on NYT’s Opinionator’s latest RNC wrap-up article. Here are some of my favorites:

Other than McCain, I can’t get over the feeling that the Republicans really don’t like people like me. People who are mixed race, who don’t live in Heartland America, and who work in information / media industries. – Link

He’s a Republican who’s tried to disassociate himself with the failures of the past eight years, and as a prominent Republican Senator during those years, I would say that’s a failed effort at recycling the past. What was most successful for him was establishing, again, again, and again that he’s a war hero. The only problem I can see with this is that he seems to feel we should make him president because he earned it by being a prisoner of war in Vietnam. – Link

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments which say that the speech was (at best) worth a C+, but I’ve been watching the conventions on c-span.org and I stayed with last night’s broadcast through a lot of the comments phoned in from different parts of the country, and although I would not claim that they give anything but anecdotal evidence, the most effective, in one or two cases moving, calls came from people who had found the whole evening (and McCain’s speech in particular) uplifting and inspiring. The most effective and moving of all, for me, came from an elderly woman in Florida whose call ended up with her obviously weeping as she spoke, and the burden of her comment was that she had waited all her life for this kind of leader, someone who would surely return the USA to a country which found favor with God. I do not believe in her God, and I do not want McCain to come even close to winning, but I WAS moved by such simple faith and such powerful eloquence. We have no way of knowing how many more people like this woman are out there and believing that the nation has been redeemed. – Link

- “Not sure what the protesters’ goal is”

Well, the first protester’s signs said something like “you can’t win an occupation”, and “McCain votes against vets.” Really the most interesting part of the night.

Maybe the protester’s intention was to get people to actually look at McCain’s voting record on veterans’ issues instead of blindly accepting the mantra of Veteran = Veteran’s supporter.

Not a line of inquiry the Obama campaign will ever openly pursue for fear of the “why do you hate America?” card. – Link

and so on…

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