And like maybe even taking an honest, nonaccusatory stab at race relations, now that the door has been so nonthreateningly opened wide.

But, no. Substance will have to wait another day.

Instead, we've wasted all weekend wallowing in word politics.

Forget about daily foreclosures and the IRS's auditing fewer big companies and more small companies. Forget about 4,000-plus Americans dead in Iraq and counting. Forget about the megatrillions in debt.

No, the latest obsession on the 24-hour news cycle is about the word bitter.

Not as in the bitter taste in your mouth. I mean, bitter, as in Barack Obama being bitterly flogged (pummeled with a left and a right) for explaining at a private San Francisco fund-raiser that one reason he was having a hard time winning over working-class voters here had to do with their economic frustration and lack of faith in government.

"It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them. . . . " he said.

Insulting, out of touch with small-town America, elite, said John McCain, whose campaign found the send button and shot out missives like missiles missing Iran.

Insulting, out of touch with small-town, elite, said Annie Oakley, I mean Hillary Clinton, who suddenly turned pistol-packing advocate for Second Amendment rights, exchanging her story of dodging sniper fire in Bosnia with memories of duck-hunting as a child in Scranton.

Just goes to show the bizarre spin cycle of politics. Two multimillionaire career politicians can describe a guy who paid off his student loans not so long ago as "elitist" and people actually believe it.

For his part, Obama told the Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News editorial boards yesterday that his statement was true but "my syntax was poor. As a wise older woman who was talking to me the other day said, 'You misspoke, but you didn't lie.' "

Truth is, voters are bitter. And they have every right to cling to that anger. In fact, we should show more of it.

The issue is about disenfranchisement.

And there is plenty to go around.

Disenfranchised

Nobody's come through for them, either.

Joblessness is joblessness. Poverty is poverty. Crime is crime. People are struggling, black, white and other.

The pundits and candidates have talked about nearly every voting bloc: white men, white women, black women, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans. But black men have been cast off as invisible, even as the nation sees the possibility of its first black president.

Despite the fact that Philadelphia has dozens of black elected officials, "it hasn't resulted in any benefit for black men," says Will Mega, one of the rally's organizers.

"Barack represents hope and an example of what a black man can become if he takes advantage of his education, steers clear of crime, and understands the system."

Sadly, you probably won't see Obama's aligning himself with black men, especially in a church. Such is the nature of racial politics.

Not that they expected him to.

"Brothers coming to a church to support another brother running for office?" Mega muses. "That's Jeremiah Wright all over again."

Unlike the other candidates, Obama is faced with the challenge of having to tiptoe over the racial fault lines. He could never align himself with black men, though he is one himself.

"We live in a world where whiteness is normal," says Temple American Studies professor Marc Lamont Hill, one of the rally's speakers. "So when you have [white] Women for Hillary, it's OK. But when you have Brothers for Barack, there's a sense that it's a black issue, not an American issue."

Sounds divisive until you ponder the true beauty of Obama's campaign: In order to unify, he's aligned himself with everyone.

All toward a more perfect union. That's something everybody can cling to - without bitterness.

To read her recent work: http://go.philly.com/annette.