With such high unemployment numbers in the black community, this was inevitable -- especially given Obama's stated reluctance to target African Americans for specific help -- even though unemployment is hitting them twice as hard:

New cracks have begun to show in President Obama’s support amongst African Americans, who have been his strongest supporters. Five months ago, 83 percent of African Americans held “strongly favorable” views of Obama, but in a new Washington Post-ABC news poll that number has dropped to 58 percent. That drop is similar to slipping support for Obama among all groups.

“There is a certain amount of racial loyalty and party loyalty, but eventually that was going to have to weaken,” said Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University, who studies African Americans. “It’s understandable given the economy.”

African Americans have historically correlated approval ratings of the president to the unemployment rate, she said. The slip in the strongly favorable rating continues the decline Obama has seen among all groups, but black voters have been his staunchest supporters. Overall, they still hold a generally favorable view of the president with 86 percent saying they view him at least somewhat favorably.

Gillespie’s view that the decline is tied to the disproportionately high jobless rate faced by African Americans correlates with the drop in their view of Obama’s handling of the economy. In July, only 54 percent of blacks said they thought Obama’s policies were making the economy better compared with 77 percent the previous year.

Similarly, the White House has been sharply criticized in recent months by black political leaders, who argue that he has not done enough to help blacks. The unemployment rate for African Americans hit 16 percent this summer, the highest rate since 1984, and the members of the Congressional Black Caucus launched a jobs tour focused on the problem.

This week the caucus is holding its annual legislative caucus in Washington, and the focus of a series of morning panels Wednesday was the lack of progress on jobs. Rep. Maxine Waters, who has been pushing Obama and publicly chided an administration official during the jobs tour to say the word “black” and directly address the needs of the community, said she would “continue to push the president and the Congress to adopt targeted policies to address the need.”

Waters, who heads the CBC’s jobs initiative, said she saw the frustration that is registering in the president’s polls at the jobs fairs she attended. “I saw the kind of hopelessness that is setting in. People were not only discouraged, they came to try to get a job, but they didn’t really believe that something substantive was going to happen,” she said.

Clyde McQueen, who is African American and runs a job placement firm in Kansas City, agreed. “The masses of young people and the first-time voter and entry-level workers are being so adversely impacted through downsizing at all levels,” said McQueen, who is attending the CBC meetings this week. “They are looking at the head of the government. When you are at the top, you take the blame.”

And yet, MSNBC talking head and Nation writer Melissa Harris-Perry seems to think Obama's dropping poll numbers are based on a more insidious form of racism:

President Obama has experienced a swift and steep decline in support among white Americans—from 61 percent in 2009 to 33 percent now. I believe much of that decline can be attributed to their disappointment that choosing a black man for president did not prove to be salvific for them or the nation. His record is, at the very least, comparable to that of President Clinton, who was enthusiastically re-elected. The 2012 election is a test of whether Obama will be held to standards never before imposed on an incumbent. If he is, it may be possible to read that result as the triumph of a more subtle form of racism.

Once again, a member of the media/academic Village misses the obvious: We didn't have all these people struggling to find work during the Clinton administration. In fact, unemployment was at 4.7 percent - not like the double-digit, long-term unemployment we have now. Not this sense of hopelessness.

It's still the economy. Racism didn't magically disappear, but the economy still matters more than anything else.

I thought this was worth highlighting, because I can't even remember the last time someone I knew had an abortion. I live in a working-class neighborhood with lots of problems, and so many of the young women I've met have given birth out of wedlock. They come from homes with alcoholic parents and lack of education, and they have boyfriends with heroin habits and prison records. They tell me their problems, and I ask them: Why didn't they consider having an abortion?

"Only bad people do that," one girl told me. "Right?"

And where do they find reinforcement for that idea? Television. Whether it's a soap opera or prime time, young women invariably turn their backs on their own plans and decide to have and keep their babies, no matter how daunting the circumstances. (And being TV, of course it all works out.)

I had a relative who, many years ago, was in a home for unwed mothers and planned to give her child up for adoption. So did most of the girls with whom she lived -- until the soap opera they all followed religiously featured a young pregnant girl who changed her mind and announces she could "never give up my own flesh and blood." So they all decided to keep their babies, too.

TV does influence people, so I was happy to see this presented as an option. I just hope the next time it isn't a high-powered surgeon, but an unformed teenager who wants to make something of herself. From New York magazine:

Last night on Grey's Anatomy, Cristina Yang, the driven, ambitious surgeon who had gotten pregnant at the end of last season, went ahead and had an abortion. That's right! Someone actually had an abortion — not a miscarriage, not an ectopic pregnancy, not a last-minute change of heart — on national television. The lengths TV shows will go to avoid having characters go through with abortions have become something of a running, not that funny joke, for all the obvious political reasons. Everyone from Julia Salinger on Party of Five to Cristina Yang herself, back in Grey's second season, have talked about wanting to have one, only to have some less controversial pregnancy-ending plot twist intervene. But not last night! Grey's Anatomy may have brought us ghost sex, ill-advised musical episodes, and endless bed swapping, but it was brave enough to do what almost no other series will: show this one particular, totally legal medical procedure on TV.

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Liberals, as the tired conservative slander goes, hate America. This, of course, is nonsense. Liberals simply want to deliver on the national promise of a more perfect union, to shorten the distance, as Bruce Springsteen aptly put it, "between American ideals and American reality."

But if the past three Republican presidential debates are any indicator, it would appear that conservatives hate Americans. Or more precisely, some Americans. As audiences of the faithful booed an active duty U.S. soldier because he is gay and cheered the deaths of executed prisoners and the uninsured alike, the GOP White House hopefuls on stage remained silent. All because, it seems, they had to. Sadly, that complicity is apparently now a requirement to lead a Republican Party in which demonizing gays, minorities, immigrants and Muslims - that is, hating Americans - is increasingly a centerpiece of its politics.

For his part, Weekly Standard editor and conservative strategist Bill Kristol summed up Thursday night's GOP debate debacle in a single word - "Yikes":

Reading the reactions of thoughtful commentators after the stage emptied, talking with conservative policy types and GOP political operatives later last evening and this morning, we know we're not alone. Most won't express publicly just how horrified--or at least how demoralized--they are...

The e-mails flooding into our inbox during the evening were less guarded. Early on, we received this missive from a bright young conservative: "I'm watching my first GOP debate...and WE SOUND LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE!!!!" As the evening went on, the craziness receded, and the demoralized comments we received stressed the mediocrity of the field rather than its wackiness.

But Kristol's discomfort was with his party's messengers, not its message. And for years, that message has been unchanged. On this Republican Animal Farm, some Americans are more equal than others.

That was clear during the 2008 election. Before Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC) said - and then denied saying - "liberals hate real Americans," the sound bite was firmly established as a GOP talking point. A few days before, McCain spokeswoman Nancy Pfotenhauer explained that northern Virginia was not the "real Virginia." GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin amplified on the point during an event in North Carolina:

"We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."

To be sure, the Republicans' real Americans aren't Muslims. Long before Mitt Romney and Herman Cain first announced they would not appoint Muslim Americans to their cabinet, Republican leaders and their amen corner were calling for their profiling, internment and worse.

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“I will always err on the side of life.”
Rick Perry, signed off on 234 executions

Dearest Web Log,
This virtual space has, so far, been dedicated to my slapstick encounter with the American police state. But with the execution of Troy Davis, a few false charges and a potential year in jail seems like such a white thing to complain about. Like my socks and sandals don't match my cargo shorts or something.

Davis's murder (may read differently depending on your politics) brings to light a profoundly darker comedy called American Morality. It's funny in the way that absurd non sequiturs can be, like monkey pajamas, or Fox News.

As a nation, we don't have a real good handle on the whole morality thing.

For instance, and this is not a joke, some people profess to know with absolute certainty that our moral code was dictated by an all-powerful space ghost, who sculpted us out of magic clay, and transcribed on stone by a mountain-climbing desert-hobo who looked a great deal like Charlton Heston.

The people who believe these things are called idiots. Maybe you've seen them infesting our politics and poisoning our culture...at last week's Fox News #googledebate.

Bachmann and Perry are both – to varying degrees – Dominionists, which means they're trying to conquer the “seven mountains” of cultural power by conducting “strategic level spiritual warfare” against the “higher level demons” who currently control eastern religions, witchcraft, Freemasonry, and the heathen souls of all non Christians around the globe, like PZ Myers.

Romney and Hunstman are Mormons, which means they ostensibly believe that God lives on the planet Kolob and, if they're extra good Mormons, they'll become Gods themselves in the afterlife. And don't get me started on the Golden Tablets or the Jewish Native Americans.

Even Newt Gingrich has to pretend to be a good, God-fearing non-sack of walking excrement.

Ron Paul says he believes that life starts at conception, and that evolution is just a theory, but he only genuinely worships at the deregulated altar of Ayn Rand.

Herman Caine is a Baptist minister. And his 999 deal means that he's is definitely not the pizza-slinging Antichrist.

And Rick Santorum is so religious he's an obvious homosexual.

Troy Davis didn't come up at the debate, which, in this blogger's opinion, was a huge missed opportunity for the candidates to connect with the base by singing another patriotic rendition of “Let him die!” The crowd did boo a gay soldier, so there was that rare moment of Republican honesty – and when Mitt Romney said, “There are a lot of reasons not to vote for me.”

And that's what morality ultimately boils down to: honesty. Intellectual honesty about what makes what moral and why. (Or about global warming, vaccines, etc.) It's no longer good enough to say it's in the Bible. In Psalms, God bestows his blessing on those who smash babies against rocks. We all know it's wrong to do that, so the religious minded are forced to cherry-pick the Bible, for passages that justify their inherent ethical character – whether it's giving to the poor or dreaming of stoning homosexuals to death while they masturbate.

It's a real grab bag, across America's political-religious spectrum, but the Republican field is on record as being firmly against giving to the poor.

Our economic morality, or intense lack thereof, is a nice example of religious thinking based on intellectual dishonesty. This is Ron Paul's altar of Rand – not the Aqua Buddha guy.

All we ever hear about, and are impoverished by, is supply-side bunk. I mean, when's the last time you heard something about demand-side economics? You shouldn't have to because that phrase is redundant. The sad thing is that people don't know that...word.

(Just a side note: I bought a $5 pizza the other day using Groupon. It was so cheap because enough people signed on to the deal, and lowered the price by buying in bulk. Apply this capitalist principle to government-negotiated prescription costs or single-payer health care, however, and God will punish the U.S. for being evil, atheist socialists. Probably with a hurricane. OK?)

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Lady Gaga dedicated a performance of her hit single Hair to Jamey Rodemeyer, a gay 14-year-old Buffalo-area high school freshmen who killed himself after enduring years of bullying over his sexuality.

"We lost a Little Monster this week," Gaga told a crowd at the iHeartRadio Festival Saturday. "I wanted to dedicate this song to him tonight because he was really young."

"I wrote this record about how your identity is really all you've got when you're in school... So tonight, Jamey, I know you're up there looking at us, and you're not a victim. You're a lesson to all of us. I know it's a bit of a downer, but sometimes the right thing is more important than the music."

"I just wanna be myself / And I want you to love me for who I am," Gaga sings. "I've had enough / This is my prayer / That I'll die living just as free as my hair."

The singer announced last week that she wanted to meet with President Barack Obama and urge him to press for laws making bullying a federal hate crime.

Rodemeyer, who had been a big Lady Gaga fan, even thanked her in his final blog post. In a YouTube video posted earlier this year, the teen had said how much he loved the singer.

"Lady Gaga, she makes me so happy, and she lets me know that I was born this way," he explained.

Police are considering harassment, cyber-harassment or hate crimes charges for the students who bullied Rodemeyer.

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Current TV guest host David Shuster Sunday ripped the Fox News hosts who moderated last week's Republican presidential debate.

Shuster, who formerly worked for Fox News and MSNBC, told CNN's Howard Kurtz that Chris Wallace, Megyn Kelly and Bret Baier did ask a few tough questions, "but there were also some questions, Howard, that were, frankly, incredibly silly and stupid."

"For Megyn Kelly to suggest -- for her to ask Mitt Romney, 'Oh, are you going to call President Obama a socialist too?' or for Bret Baier to say, "Wait a second, you know, how are you going to turn this country around? Candidate, you have 30 seconds.' I mean, it is not that simple."

He added: "If you're going to have journalists as moderators, at least pick people who have experience covering politics. Brit Hume, Carl Cameron, there are folks at Fox News who bring a certain level of sophistication to their understanding of politics. And I think when Fox News goes to the Megyn Kellys, the Bret Baiers, people who don't have much experience, who haven't covered campaigns, the result is sometimes you have inane questions that come out and, frankly, waste everybody's time."

Now that the videos have gone viral, the NYPD has come up with a rationale for why they used pepper spray on a group of young protesters for no apparent reason:

As the police arrested a protester in the street, an officer wearing a white shirt — indicating a rank of lieutenant or above — walked toward a group of demonstrators nearby and sent a blast of pepper spray that hit four women, the videos show.

Numerous videos and photos captured the aftermath: two women crumpled on the sidewalk in pain, one of them screaming. They were temporarily blinded, one of the women, Chelsea Elliott, said.

Ms. Elliott, 25, who was not arrested, acknowledged that “there were some rough people out there” at the protests. She and the other women were penned in behind police netting meant for crowd control. But, she said, neither she nor the women around her did anything to warrant having pepper spray used on them.

“Out of all the people they chose to spray, it was just me and three other girls,” she said Sunday in a telephone interview. “I’m not pushing against anybody, or trying to escape.”

The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said the police had used the pepper spray “appropriately.”

“Pepper spray was used once,” he added, “after individuals confronted officers and tried to prevent them from deploying a mesh barrier — something that was edited out or otherwise not captured in the video.”

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We Are Respectable Negroes: The death cult that is the tea party GOP.

Happy Valley News Hour: Where oh where is all this bigotry coming from?

Mario Piperni: Bush – Perry metamorphosis from hell.

Rortybomb: A topological mapping of explanations and policy solutions to our weak economy.

Plus, don't forget that it's Banned Books Week.

Guest post by Batocchio. Email tips to mbru AT crooksandliars DOT com.

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Credit: Bob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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