2008-05-15T14:18:24Z A blog about comments, journalism and stuff on washingtonpost.com by Doug Feaver. tag:blog.washingtonpost.com,2008:/dot.comments/305 Copyright (c) 2008, WashingtonPost.Newsweek Interactive 2008-05-15T14:18:24Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-15:/dot.comments2008/05/obama_and_racism.html

Kevin Merida wrote a front-page story earlier this week reporting that Sen. Barack Obama's "phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T13:13:07Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-14:/dot.comments2008/05/dead_parrot.html

Every once in a while a little piece of satire finds its way into the newspaper and becomes a runaway hit with our readers who comment. That is the situation this morning with Dana Milbank's Washington Sketch, in which he suggests that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential prospects are as dead as that Norwegian blue parrot in the famous Monty Python bit. The occasion, of course, was Clinton's victory last night in West Virginia's Democratic...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-12T16:03:09Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-12:/dot.comments2008/05/immigrant_detention.html

On Sunday the Post launched a four-part investigative series that effectively if not intentionally combines two hot-button political issues: immigration and the state of health care. Either subject always generates strong views in the comments from our readers. Combined, they raise the usual immigration-related arguments pitting nativist sentiment about illegality against those looking for solutions and join that debate with questions on why we should be worried about detained immigrants not getting decent health care...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-08T14:01:50Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-08:/dot.comments2008/05/limbaugh.html

The MSM this morning are all over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's insistence on continuing her pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination despite Sen. Barack Obama's victory in North Carolina and stronger showing than (some) expected in Indiana. Our Readers Who Comment have also expressed special interest (or disgust) with a story that asked if conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh's "Operation Chaos" -- in which he urged Republicans to vote for Clinton in the Democratic primary...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-07T13:24:15Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-07:/dot.comments2008/05/clinton_1.html

We all know this morning that Sen. Barack Obama won North Carolina big and came awfully close to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana. Our Readers Who Comment are talking about an article by Perry Bacon Jr. and Anne E. Kornblut which says that Clinton's aides concede "it would be difficult for her to catch Sen. Barack Obama in either delegates or overall votes" in the seemingly never-to-end struggle for the Democratic presidential nomination. There...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-05T13:48:38Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-05:/dot.comments2008/05/clintonobama.html

With Democratic primaries coming up tomorrow in North Carolina and Indiana, candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are on different pages in response to Republican John McCain's original proposal to halt the federal gasoline tax for a little while. Clinton is arguing that short-term relief will help the little guy; Obama is arguing the more complicated position of most economists that if gasoline taxes go away, people will drive more and prices will rise...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-01T13:23:02Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-05-01:/dot.comments2008/05/women_in_arms.html

This morning we have something unusual. Most of our Readers Who Comment are in general agreement on a topic. The occasion for this near unity is a wonderful story by Ann Scott Tyson about Pfc. Monica Brown, an Army medic who was awarded a Silver Star for doing her job under intense fire in Afghanistan but who was then pulled from her unit because an Army policy says she shouldn't have been in that situation...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-04-30T13:55:27Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-30:/dot.comments2008/04/obama.html

Peter Slevin and Darryl Fears provide a thoughtful summary of the Sen. Barack Obama - Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. controversy today. As they wrote, Obama attempted to distance himself further from his former longtime pastor, calling Wright's comments about the United States "outrageous" and "destructive." Our Readers Who Comment are all over the map in their reaction to a situation that has become an important factor (at least this week) in the contest for the...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-28:/dot.comments2008/04/immigration.html

The one topic that has consistently drawn more heated debate than the war in Iraq is illegal immigration, and our Readers Who Comment are at it again today. The discussion is about a report that hundreds of foreign-born families have pulled their children from Prince William County public schools and enrolled them in nearby Fairfax County, Arlington County and Alexandria. Amy Gardner tells us that this comes after Prince William began implementing rules to deny...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-24:/dot.comments2008/04/arlington_cemetery.html

Dana Milbank, whose Washington Sketch column often sparks debate among our Readers Who Comment, touched off a storm this morning. He said that the family of Lt. Col. Billy Hall, recently killed in Iraq and leaving two young children fatherless, granted permission for the media to cover Hall's burial in Arlington Cemetery. "But the military had other ideas," Milbank wrote, "and they arranged the Marine's burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-23:/dot.comments2008/04/clinton.html

In case you missed it, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania last night by about 10 percentage points over Sen. Barack Obama. Dan Balz, the Post's senior political writer, says the victory threw the Clinton candidacy a lifeline, but that her path to the nomination remains "extraordinarily treacherous." Not all our Readers Who Comment agree with Dan. In fact, they're all over the map in morning-after comment writing. Some see the...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-22:/dot.comments2008/04/life_expectancy.html

Health care is an important issue in this year's political battles, and today David Brown cites a study showing that, for the first time since 1918, life expectancy is falling for a significant number of American women, especially in rural and low-income areas. Diabetes, lung cancer, emphysema and kidney failure are the primary causes of death. A number of our Readers Who Comment blame the absence of a functioning national health care system; others blame...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-17:/dot.comments2008/04/dna.html

The Pope's in town, Senators Clinton and Obama had another debate, Nats closer Chad Cordero's fastball has slowed to 76 mph, and Virginia has no money to fix its wretchedly underfinanced highways. Those stories and many others have attracted reader comments this morning, but the outrage level seems to be quite high on a story reporting that the feds propose to collect and retain DNA samples from all citizens arrested in connection with any federal...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-16:/dot.comments2008/04/obama_leads_clinton.html

There's nothing like a poll to bring out the intensity of feelings that Readers Who Comment have about politicians and journalists. A new Washington Post - ABC News poll today says that Sen. Barack Obama holds a 10-point lead over Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton when Democrats are asked whom they would prefer to see as the party's presidential nominee. In hypothetical general-election matchups, Obama holds a narrow five-point lead over McCain, while McCain is three...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver 2008-05-14T00:25:48Z tag:washingtonpost.com,2008-04-15:/dot.comments2008/04/bitter.html

The observation inelegantly raised by Sen. Barack Obama about economically distressed small-town Americans becoming "bitter" and finding solace in hunting and religion has been with us for several days. That has not stopped our Readers Who Comment and America's news media from continuing the discussion. Shailagh Murray and Perry Bacon Jr. report that Obama's Democratic opponent, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, seem to have joined the same church...Please click on the title to continue reading this entry.

Doug Feaver