THE AUDACITY OF HATE  —  ABC News reports that Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, says blacks should not sing “God Bless America” but “God damn America.”  Wright thinks God should damn America for “treating our citizens as less than human” and “for [acting] like she is God and she is supreme.”

Wright on film  —  Sure does feel like we're plunging into the abyss tonight.  —  Fox just posted a big Jeremiah Wright story, and the video is pretty gripping, and deeply racially confrontational.  He begins by describing the Romans, who crucified Jesus, as Italians, and thus white, and more or less goes from there.

Study: Public unaware of Iraq toll  —  Only 28 percent know that nearly 4,000 U.S. troops have been killed  —  A member of the U.S. Army's Eagle Company searches a home while on patrol in Baghdad on Wednesday.  A recent Pew study found that coverage of the war totalled about 1 percent of the news hole in U.S. media.

McCain, GOP May Have Cause for Hope  —  Latest Poll Helps Detail Reasons the Democrats Remain Deadlocked  —  Rarely have the stars aligned so squarely against the party in power in elections for the White House as it has for Republicans, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll bears out.