I see the local news is picking up on this supposed controversy over the War Room video. I admit to being sucked in by it. I was on my way home and heard Ed Schultz discussing this. As a native Hoosier I got myself worked up before I even heard the tapes. It took me nearly 30 listens and multiple readings of other posters with different opinions for me to flip the perceptual switch and overcome my native instincts of self-preservation. You see, like Kirk Vonnegut once pointed out so eloquently, my Hoosierness is, as he called it, a false-Karass or granfalloon. It is as divisive in the world as any other identity that defines a group (he extended this to nationality as an example); it in fact, hid the true connections I have with people on this board- on the more solid footing of intellectual curiosity and progressive morality. I argued with them, and to my own embarrassment, merely to protect my identity as a native Hoosier. I was wrong. They were right.

Furthermore, I am sorry that Clinton supporters will have to endure the same nonsense that us Obama supporters have had to endure. The surreal bashing of an acquaintance based on half truths, video editing, and (in this case) a garbled whisper will feel very disconcerting. I am embarrassed that I acted like all those others that I criticized for unashamedly running with the Wright story; all those others who could not flip the gestalt switch and see the entire picture. I do hope that one day you too can admit that you were protecting a false Karass, one you have had the privilege to deny even exists, and instead embrace our much stronger unity based on our progressive morality.

I hope you share in my shame too. If not now then soon. Our strength is in numbers.

Like the late great man from Indiana-no-place, I hope you and I can learn to look beyond the granfalloon and never again act as a reactionary.