She wanted off of work, so she told her boss that her aunt passed away. She got a week off of work with pay and got travel down to Florida to see her favorite rapper perform during Spring Break. That wasn’t all she got, because 2 weeks later, after returning to work with a fake face of mourning she found out her aunt really did die from cancer.

She should have been more cautious of her words, because as John Addison once said “Words, have so great a force in them, that a description often gives us more lively ideas than the sight of things themselves.”

Maybe someone should have told that to John McCain. In the past 2 weeks as our economy has fallen faster than Kimbo Slice in his last fight, McSame has been trying to pin Barack Obama to former domestic terrorist and current college professor Bill Ayers. With claims that Obama has been ‘pallin around with terrorists,’ rural white residents have literally been calling for Obama’s head, shouting terrorist, treason and kill him at McCain/Palin rallies.

Mr. McCain: Do you know know the history of the country you claim to love? Do you not understand that a man you have great respect for, Rep John Lewis, had his skull cracked open in a non-violent protest because of same rhetoric that your campaign is now spewing in a pathetic attempt to get yourself elected?

On Saturday, John Lewis reminded the world of the dangers of this type of rhetoric by saying. “George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights,” said Lewis, in his statement. “Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama.”

Even Republicans are coming out to reject and denounce this new campaign strategy of Mr. McCain. Republicans like Frank Schaeffer who tried to get McCain elected instead of Bush in 2000 have come out to get McCain to change his tone by writing: “If your campaign does not stop equating Sen. Barack Obama with terrorism, questioning his patriotism and portraying Mr. Obama as “not one of us,” I accuse you of deliberately feeding the most unhinged elements of our society the red meat of hate, and therefore of potentially instigating violence.”

He hit a grand slam with his piece in the Baltimore Sun adding “John McCain and Sarah Palin, you are playing with fire, and you know it. You are unleashing the monster of American hatred and prejudice, to the peril of all of us… You are doing this in a country with a history of assassinations.”

McCain: “You just got served” by your own party.

To McCain’s credit he is now trying to back away from the nasty politics of the last 2 weeks and for that I applaud him. Hopefully the rest of this election will be played on the higher ground of the politics of change, because America has an ugly history of violence that I never want to see again.

Pay Attention, and please go out to vote like you’re going to the club… with a car full of friends.

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This year I picked the improbable Giants in the Super Bowl, the Celtics in the NBA Finals and I’ll go with Venus Williams and Rafael Nadal in the U.S. Open. But when it comes to politics, I’ve not been so lucky. Mostly, it’s because I tend to go with my heart instead of my gut.

On Monday night when Michelle Obama strolled onto the Pepsi Center stage at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, I realized that this time my heart and gut were working in tandem. I’m booking my ticket to D.C. for the inauguration of President Obama. Michelle’s speech should not only have an impact on the polls in the coming days—which currently have Barack Obama and John McCain running neck-and-neck—but her words were so profoundly personal and inclusive that I imagine some of my European friends will want to cast absentee votes in our November election. They’re already wearing Obama T-shirts.

I loved the way she began her speech, acknowledging her family—particularly her father who died in 1991. That proves she knows what really matters at the end of the day. That’s something Michelle didn’t learn at Princeton or Harvard. That’s a byproduct of good home training.

I loved that she’s a daddy’s girl—just like me—and understands that in the still of the night when the boogieman is in the closet, there’s no greater feeling than a strong, fatherly embrace. I’m sure he gave her a big hug before and after her speech last night.

I was humbled by her journey, going from Chicago’s South Side to center stage at the DNC on a night that included a heartfelt tribute to a true American icon and Obama supporter, Sen. Ted Kennedy. The contrast between those two journeys is worth pondering—if only for a minute.

I admired her grace as she acknowledged the achievements of Hillary Clinton, saying Sen. Clinton put those “18 million cracks in that glass ceiling so that our daughters and sons can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher.” She didn’t have to do that.

I applauded her honesty as she talked about her “handsome” husband in such a loving way. I’ve never seen any other potential First Lady go there at a globally televised political convention. I guess she couldn’t help it though. The man is fine.

And as a black woman sitting around her flat in sweat pants and a T-shirt, I just dug the way she looked. The form-fitting green dress was tight and the hair was bouncing and behaving. Somebody, somewhere hooked her up. It was inspiring on many levels.

Warmly introduced by her older brother Craig, Michelle remained poised throughout her 20-plus minute speech. Some folks think that the Harvard-trained attorney, who gave up the big bucks to work as an unpaid volunteer in a community program, is a better orator than her old man. This could be true. But the one thing that ties them together is that they know they are both standing on the shoulders of the folks who came before them and took all the hits.

They have Ivy League degrees because Barack’s single mother and Michelle’s working-class parents paved a path so smooth that their kids would never have to know the true meaning of a dream deferred. Michelle cleverly used the experiences of her past to bridge the gaps between her and the rich white families in Beverly Hills, the poor white single mother with six kids in Appalachia, the wealthy self-made black woman in Atlanta, the forgotten Native American living on a reservation in Arizona, the middle class Asian immigrant now enjoying life in the home of the brave and land of the free and the proud Latina grandmother who has seen several generations of her family succeed against the odds.

On Monday night Michelle sang a tune whose lyrics are known by many Americans, but it rang even more true and sounded even more familiar when performed by woman hitting all the right notes.

The one thing that really hit home was when she talked about the hopes and dreams for her own kids—Malia and Sasha. Michelle said when she tucks them into bed at night she thinks about the stories they’ll tell their kids about this very special time in American history. “They’ll tell them how this time we listened to our hopes instead of our fears,” she said. And at the end of this day, that’s really what this election is all about. It’s about all of us realizing that fear really isn’t an inherent emotion, but rather a learned behavior perpetuated by years of inequity in America.

Some folks are afraid to vote for a black man because of what their friends might think. Some folks, like my 82-year-old mother who has lived through the assassinations of other men who tried to affect change, are afraid that Barack will suffer the same fate. We are a nation of scaredy cats. But Michelle believes that her husband can help alleviate our fears. She’s convinced that he will unite us, that he can re-ignite the flame that was doused decades ago when bullets cut short the lives of Kennedy, King, Kennedy; Malcolm and Medgar, too.

Time will tell if Barack is that man. But right now we need to tap into our collective guts and go with what we know.

Michelle is our woman.

Miki Turner is a poor little colored girl from the suburbs who has the courage of her convictions. Her writings have been featured in Essence, Ebony, Upscale and MSNBC.com. She can be reached at devodiva1@aol com. Her periodic dispatches from the world of entertainment, politics and society can be read here at www.urbanthoughtcollective.com.

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On Saturday afternoon, I was among the millions of people worldwide watching the all-news network when Obama, who had announced his vice-presidential pick the night before, mistakenly introduced Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware as “the next president of the United States.”

Gaffe aside, I’m still not sure Biden is the right choice to fill either slot. Politically, yes, it makes sense to cast a “scrappy kid from Scranton (Penn.) who beat the odds” in the No. 2 spot. Biden will appeal to all the Irish-Catholic blue-collar workers whose grandparents proudly cast their votes for John F. Kennedy in 1960. And, with a little luck he might be able to reclaim some of the Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters that are still on the fence because the prospect of having a black man living in the White House is scary and unimaginable.

But most importantly—and this is an observation and not a proclamation—the media pundits purport that Biden gives Obama some credibility because of his seniority and experience in foreign affairs.

That’s all cool, but I’m not convinced I trust this dude even after Obama’s glowing remarks regarding his character and senate service record. Biden, who dropped out of the race after his dismal numbers in the Iowa primary, was the same dude going around saying that Obama was uniquely unqualified. Sure, that might have just been political rhetoric at the time, but using words like “clean,” “good-looking” and “articulate” to describe an African American peer in 2008, are really rather off-putting to people like me who were alive and kicking during the post-Jim Crow Camelot era.

But who knows. Biden, who grew up in humble and predominantly white surroundings could have just put his foot in his mouth or the senior citizen from the great state of Delaware could have really meant what he inferred—that he’s not the most enlightened Caucasian on the planet.

Although the media referred to Biden’s statement on Obama as a gaffe, some children of the ‘60s, like me, are not so easily convinced that it was an innocent misstep. It’s been my experience that those kinds of slips come from a place that is learnedly inherent. Throughout history there have been plenty of high-profile white politicians who have made similar blunders and apologized profusely afterward. I didn’t exactly trust them either.

I trusted dudes like George Wallace because he had the courage of his convictions back in the day. You knew exactly where he was coming from. He didn’t see the light and apologize until he was halfway through that tunnel that takes you to the other side. With guys like him you learn to forgive, but never forget.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying Biden is a racist or a little dim like George H.W. Bush’s sidekick Dan Quayle. I’m just not sure his intentions are coming from a warm and fuzzy place. After all, this is a 65-year-old man who was running against Obama when the race to White House began 19 months ago.

He might have another agenda. Is he going to be OK riding shotgun to one of the biggest celebrities in the world? Does anyone that age really want to be the No. 2 guy? And if he’s looking ahead, visualizing himself in the Oval Office, he’d be 69 if Obama does only one term and 73—a year older than John McCain is now—if Obama is re-elected.

Just a thought.

I’m also a little concerned about the way he turned on his boy McCain during his speech on Saturday. I understand that all is fair in love, politics and war, but it’s a little unsettling to me to see Biden or anyone else spit on a hand that he once shook. I don’t trust people like that. Kind of reminds me of a scene in “Trading Places” with Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd.

Remember how Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche turned on Akroyd? White-on-white crime can be pretty ugly.

But, according to the CNN pundits, Biden’s attacks on McCain are yet another reason why he’s the perfect choice for the veep spot. While Obama likes to rise above controversy and mud slinging and keep stepping, Biden doesn’t mind mixing it up in the dirt.

So when he dogs McCain no one will make much of it. If Obama went there, he’d likely be labeled a liberal racist or an unpatriotic flag pin-wearing elitist. Translation: uppity Negro.

As I listened to Biden’s speech on Saturday—one that was a little too politically scripted with highlighted “talking points” for my liking—I heard him say that he has learned a lot about Obama over the past year. He never did acknowledge his previous “gaffe,” but he praised him as a man of strong character with a good heart.

“Barack has the vision and the courage to make this a better place,” Biden said. Those words, I believe. But does he?

I also appreciated Biden acknowledging that Washington is a broken place. That’s the truth and nothing but the truth so help us God. It’s a simple statement but one that might give us a truer indication of who this man is.

Obama described Biden as a man with “fundamental decency.” He also said that the senior senator had brought change to Washington, but that “Washington had not changed him.”

Hopefully, that’s a good thing.

But in a campaign that’s supposed to be all about change, I’m just wondering if an old dog from Scranton can really learn new tricks in an ever-evolving America. And if he can’t hopefully he’ll just keep his mouth shut.

Miki Turner is a poor little colored girl from the suburbs who has the courage of her convictions. Her writings have been featured in Essence, Ebony, Upscale and MSNBC.com. She can be reached at devodiva1@aol com. Her periodic dispatches from the world of entertainment, politics and society can be read here at www.urbanthoughtcollective.com.

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