Lies, misinformation, misstatements, name-calling, insults, provocative acclamations, racism, sexism, embarrassing public behavior — actions and attitudes that would not be tolerated on an elementary school playground have become the norm in the current campaign for the Democratic nomination for president.

It being a free country and all, no one has to have a “conversation” he doesn’t want to have, a fact that explains our long-standing non-conversation on race: the one we’re going to continue not having, never mind the pundits and Barack Obama.

[Editor’s note: Re. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City) emailed the following statement Wednesday afternoon:]

It is painful to watch defenders of Barack Obama tying themselves into knots trying to evade the obvious.

Some are saying that Senator Obama cannot be held responsible for what his pastor, Jeremiah Wright, said. In their version of events, Barack Obama just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time — and a bunch of mean-spirited people are trying to make something out of it.

BOSTON - Following Sept. 11, 2001, a day of infamy on which nearly 3,000 died at the hands of terrorists, The New York Times began publishing the names and pictures of the dead. I made a deliberate effort to look at those pictures and to read the names and hometowns of each victim. I wanted to identify with them as much as possible.

Some pundits ask whether America is ready for Obama. The much more important question is whether Obama is ready for America, and even more important is whether black people can afford Obama. Let’s look at it in the context of a historical tidbit.

Last week's column on Richard Cole brought a response all the way from California. Bob Johnston, who has contributed many interesting tidbits of information to the column over the years, did not have anything on Richard's parents but did have information on his children.

There once was a time when a lie was a lie. That time is no longer. When I was a boy, somehow the line between truth and outright lies has been blurred. Seemingly, nowhere is that line less defined than in the political arena of today. Caution: you have entered the world of misspeak.

I forgot how small babies are when they are first born.

Our son, Colin, will be three years old at the end of April and he looks like a giant compared to his baby sister, Nora. When he holds her and tries to pat her head I am reminded of the giant in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, expecting him to start hugging and squeezing and calling his sister George at any minute.

This will blow away any surprise factor for shower and wedding gifts from me for the next couple of years, but it’s worth it to snare the perfect gift without spending a fortune.

Senate Bill 276 will result in increased automobile insurance premiums for Georgians and should be promptly vetoed by Governor Sonny Perdue.

I am a typical white person, as Barack Obama might say, and did say, about his white grandmother. Like the Rev. Jesse Jackson, I, too, have crossed the street to avoid a group of young black men who have a certain thug-in-the-hood look about them. Am I a racist? Only if Jesse Jackson is a racist. In fact, we are prudent.

The other day I was digging through a box for one thing or the other when I ran across a picture of my best pal, Karen, and me when we were in junior high and on the student council together.

With spring finally here, tax cuts continue to be a topic of discussion in the Capitol halls. This [past] week, the House and the Senate finally reached an agreement on the Fiscal Year 2008 Amended Budget and the House passed our version of the Fiscal Year 2009 Budget.

As the Senate moves closer to the final gavel of the 2008 session, the news at the Capitol this [past] week was the final passage of the Fiscal Year ‘08 amended budget.

Dear Father Paul: Last week Christians all over the world celebrated Easter ...Christ’s resurrection from the dead. As a Christian, I accept Jesus’ resurrection by faith, but a number of my friends do not. Is there any real “proof” that Jesus was indeed raised from the dead?

Billed as an “important speech about race,” presidential candidate Barack Obama condemned some of the remarks of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. But Obama refused to denounce the man himself, considering him family. Commentators gushed over this “groundbreaking,” “stirring” speech about the “state of race relations in America.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Federal Reserve’s unprecedented bailout of Bear Stearns was crafted not at the White House or Treasury, but in secret by a New York central banker whose name is unknown to Washington power brokers and was a Clinton administration presidential appointee.

As a pollster, I truly don’t care who wins the presidency. I can’t allow myself to do that. This makes my former Republican colleagues angry and Democrats suspicious.

This column is going to have both questions and miscellaneous facts since I'm curious, myself, about this Richard Cole. He appears in Coweta very early (1829) and I am trying to find out whether he is connected to the other Coles who were here … descendants of Robert Cole and Elizabeth Fambrough, or perhaps related to that Robert Cole somehow. Frankly, I have no idea at this point and I'm hoping someone out there can fill in the blanks. From Coweta court records, I know he was married to Susan Vance but I don't know where the marriage took place.

What happens when we choose to forgive someone, even if they have not asked our forgiveness nor admitted their fault?

Barack Obama — the self-anointed soul-fixing, nation-healing political Messiah — has lost his glow. That is the takeaway from the beleaguered Democratic presidential candidate’s “major” speech in Philadelphia this past Tuesday.

There is perhaps one advantage worth noting in having a long, looong presidential campaign: You get to see the candidates react to a variety of circumstances. Though, from Barack Obama’s angle, that’s not precisely an advantage.

Did Senator Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia convince people that he is still a viable candidate to be President of the United States, despite the adverse reactions to statements by his pastor, Jeremiah Wright?

All of us should give some serious thought to some of the ideas contained in an article circulating the blogsphere titled “Why a Peaceful Majority is Irrelevant.”

I’ll admit for starters I did not attend the gathering last week in Silver Springs, Md., titled “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan — Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations.”

In his several explanations and denunciations of his longtime pastor, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama asks us to believe that he never heard any of the sermons in which the Rev. Jeremiah Wright denounced and asked God to damn America.

Two rather disturbing things happened during our family Easter last year, both of which I hope can be corrected this year.

Last week, the House crossed the 30th day of our 40-day legislative session. This is the day that a bill must have passed at least one body in order to have a chance of becoming law. With some changes to the legislation that fell short last week, the House of Representatives had a second opportunity to vote for the largest tax cut in Georgia’s history.

By SHELDON RICHMAN

When a private company screws up, there is no shortage of people demanding more government intrusion in the marketplace. But when the government screws up, they don’t call for less government. They call for more.