Due to some technical glitch, I cannot respond to individual comments.
This kept me from replying directly below the essay by Sam Guttenplan, an American philosopher long based in London (amd married to my accomplished cousin Jen.)
Sam's nuanced article suggests what I was thinking and trying to say,but he does it better.
This is Sam Guttenplan:
http://www.bbk.ac.uk/philosophy/our-staff/academics/guttenplan
I also inadvertenly cut out a nice comment by Ed Martin -- gone, into the ozone. Maybe the hurricane is messing up the site.
And I cannot resist adding this comment from my friend George Mitrovich who worked for Robert F. Kennedy (Dem) and Charles Goodell (Rep.) George forwarded this comment by Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, once the chief of staff to Colin Powell, on MSNBC the other night, responding to the vile Sununu comments:
"My party is full of racists. And the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as Commander in Chief as President, and everything to do with the color of skin, and that is despicable!"
Mitrovich added:
"That is not an uncommon view of what has happened to the party of Lincoln, but seldom had it been said with such candor and directness."
-- Sounds right to me. GV