Yes, Michael, there are a lot of foolish people at TNR Online.

And the Obama campaign was supposed to be the Cult of Personality 'round here...

I remember back in olden times - say, six months ago - when it was perfectly acceptable to say, when someone acted in a shrill, childish, irrational manner, that they were "shrill," "childish," and "irrational."

My, how times have changed.

It's not about the 4 delegates. It's that the Michigan compromise is not predicated on halving the Michigan Primary and thus those votes don't get counted toward the popular vote meme that is the Clinton's last straw.

It's pretty sad to watch.

Also, you shouldn't admonish Obama supporters about calling her supporters "hicks" at the same time you are calling them "fanatics".  Makes you look hypocritical.

And why would four delegates even matter?  This race has been over for months save for inside a few people's minds.  They don't care what the Michigan committee or anyone from there came up with unless it gave all to Clinton.  There isn't any compromise in that camp, and certainly no rational thought processes either.

why do we have to be careful? Her supporters certainly aren't. I'm so sick of the idea that we have to be better behaved than they do.

Why do we have to be afraid of them? I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- we're all treating these people like they need to be managed carefully:the media, Obama, the DNC, many Obama supporters. These are adults, for crying out loud.

I personally don't believe in insulting people based on their presumed ethnic or socioeconomic background, but I resent being insulted for my imagined ethnic and socioeconomic background (elite, argulula eating, white upper class liberal or young naive idiot, or black muslim racist).

But I reserve the right to call it as I see it, and when I see evidence of what I consider emotional, unthinking, ridiculous, rude, outrageous and irrational behavior, I'm going say so.

The behavior of most Hillary supporters is not irrational, but the behavior of many of those protesting outside the RBC meeting yesterday certainly was. They were a bad advertisement for her.

Although Ickes talked about hyjacking 4 delegates, taht isn't what this was really about. What they are really upset about is that the uncommitted delegates were actually awarded to Obama. The best chance Hillary had of keeping this going was if those delegates were left uncommitted all the way up to the convention. That way the number of delegates needed to clinch would go up but Obama wouldn't get a corresponding bump in pledged delegates, and Hillary would have the rationale to continue this fantasy of hers.

"if the country at large sees her loyalists as embittered to the point of unhinged and perhaps even rooting against Obama."

Perhaps? There are many Democrats who don't want Obama to win. They don't have to be fanatical Clinton supporters. They just have to dislike Koolaid. Obama's a nothing. He's too far left, when he's anything at all.

So why should any Democrat be quiet about their preference for McCain?

dontbeagooddemocrat.com

Let them vote for McCain, jmkerr.  It's America.  Everyone gets to vote their preference.  But I sure as hell am not going to let anything I say be held hostage to the Hillaristas and their threats to vote Republican.  If it takes two more election cycles, so be it, but we WILL be rid of the execrable Hillary Clinton and her crypto-Republicanism.  I'm going to keep on bashing her and trashing her and pointing out at every opportunity what a self-aggrandizing, unaccomplished, incompetent narcissist she is and I don't really give a damn who among them might be offended.  With any luck, it could be you

I actually had never bothered to look at the Taylormarsh site before.  I just did.  Dylanposer is right.  The notion that Obama's supporters are a bunch of cultists is the usual inversion of reality.  If you want to see cultlike behavior by a group just waiting (and praying of course) for Hillary to take them up to the Mother Ship, go to Taylormarsh.com.

I'm sort hoping that Hillary cannot control herself and does "go to Denver" so that the remaining grownups in the party who have not yet figured out that she really is just as batshit crazy as blackton says finally have their come to Jesus moment.

scire- people who try to behave morally always have more constraints on them than people who don't. It's just a fact of life.

Taylor Marsh and her ilk aren't in that set of people and hence don't play by the same rules. They are best ignored.

I thing it highly likely that the core of the die-hard, bitter-end Hillary support is coming from people who may be registered to the Democratic party but vote Republican.  That's where HIllary belongs.

I don't know, Mike.  I think Democrats (ie, people who will support the nominee whether it is Hillary or not) are dismayed and irritated by the "fanatics" who have done their best to hurt the party and its chances in November.  These fanatics are indeed unsophistcated and unwise - and though "hicks" is an unkind term, it seems restrained in light of the extremity and noisome quality of their fanaticism, and the possible electoral consequences.

Neil

The dispute was not over 4 delegates, as Ickes and Company are now conveniently spewing.  

The dispute was over 59 delegates.  The Clinton/Ickes proposal was to give 73 to Hillary and 55 to "Uncommitted" with zero to Obama.  The Michigan proposal, presented by Sen. Levin and Michigan Democratic Party operative Brewer, was to give 69 to Hillary and 59 to Obama.  

For the life of me, I cannot understand why the Obama message machine and surrogates are unable to respond to the Hillary propaganda, on this issue as well as on the popular vote issue.

If Obama's people had half a brain, they would be out in force saying that Ickes and Clinton supported a resolution to Michigan's violation that would have been based on the idea that not a single voter in Michigan went to the polls and attempted to express a preference for Obama.  They wanted to give Obama zero votes.  It's no wonder that the Michigan party did not even work off Clinton's plan.   If Clinton's plan had been more reasonabe -- namely, assign all the uncommiteds to Obama -- then I doubt the Obama people would have gone to the mat to get Hillary's total reduced from 73 to 69.  But they were opposing an organization that wanted to turn a nonbinding election into one that would  have netted HRC a whopping 59 delegates.  That's unthinkable, and I am amazed and embarrassed that Obama's people have not explained that to the press at all today and have allowed Ickes' position to dominate the air waves.

Miceelf: Nice counter to the juvenalia that so often obtains at TNR Online.  I have a little thought experiment that I would like to run by reasonable people out here (sadly, a minority). For the sake of argument, imagine that it was Hillary and not Obama that had sat mute in a hate-filled church for over twenty years and that the story of this emerged as she was running a campaign to transcend the cultural and racial divides. It is beyond contestation that many posters here would have laid into her with a fury that they already lay into her with. These people, almost to a man and woman, would have repeatedly said that she was the epitome of cynicism, biding her time and building a political base for herself, as well as recieving spiritual direction and solace from Rev. Fruitball. It would also be said by them that she made an utterly cynical calculation in running for the most open and diverse party of the two majors, to run a high-toned, Kumbaya campaign that would seize people's imaginations and hearts. These selfsame people would not be shucking and jiving as they were earlier this year, saying the Rev. Wright affair was inconsequentional or a diversion. Oh no, folks, they would have been in full attack mode. Anyone who doubts otherewise, I have some prime real estate I would like to sell you either in Mare Imbrium (on the moon, that is) or in the marshiest part of the Everglades. The Manicheanism of many is astounding; they are willing to locate all bad in one entity, appearing to be knowing and realistic, and then, simultaneously, deposit all good in another entity, now, suddenly, resembling the doe-eyed, the naive  and the gullibile.

Taylor Marsh's ominous rantings aside, isn't the final result of this essentially the same as the what the Republicans did?  If voters in Florida have that much "fury" about having their delegates reduced by half, they're going to have to turn to Nader or Barr.

As for Michigan, it's amazing how little of all this righteous indignation is actually coming from Michigan Democrats.  Notably, when polled, 56% of Democratic voters in Michigan said that the primary should not be used to seat the delegates.  www.savethevoters.org/.../MichiganTopLines.pdf

LiberalReformer, your thought experiment does not work, because it leaves out an important fact about Obama's biography, which is that you can go back to his first public campaign for state senate and trace his public comments from that point forward (indeed, earlier as I will explain in a minute), and you will never once find Obama himself coming even close to race-baiting or stirring up even the most indirect resentment against whites.  Even when he was running in the South Side, he never showed a trace of Sharptonism, not a trace.  Indeed, why would any "race man," as you and Hannity want to portray him, have chosen to enter national politics by running against Bobby Rush in the blackest Congressional district in the United States?  It makes no sense.  Obama's entire professional career has been consistent with the theme of his Presidential campaign.  So please look at the facts before you introduce a ridiculous hypothetical.

Now, as to earlier.  At Harvard Law School, he got elected President of that law review because the conservatives on the Review trusted him to be fair and not to turn the review into lefty agitprop.  Their trust was vindicated, as the only people he pissed off at Harvard were the extreme lefties and crits, because the articles he chose to publish were almost all mainstream, whether mainstream liberal or mainstream conservative.

Lastly, his "associations" with Ayers and Pflegler are relatively minor, and equally important are his associations with the Chicago law faculty, which is overwhelmingly white and politically conservative.  

The truth is he's ecumenical in every sense of the word and always has been.

LiberalReformer, your thought experiment does not work, because it leaves out an important fact about Obama's biography, which is that you can go back to his first public campaign for state senate and trace his public comments from that point forward (indeed, earlier as I will explain in a minute), and you will never once find Obama himself coming even close to race-baiting or stirring up even the most indirect resentment against whites.  Even when he was running in the South Side, he never showed a trace of Sharptonism, not a trace.  Indeed, why would any "race man," as you and Hannity want to portray him, have chosen to enter national politics by running against Bobby Rush in the blackest Congressional district in the United States?  It makes no sense.  Obama's entire professional career has been consistent with the theme of his Presidential campaign.  So please look at the facts before you introduce a ridiculous hypothetical.

Now, as to earlier.  At Harvard Law School, he got elected President of that law review because the conservatives on the Review trusted him to be fair and not to turn the review into lefty agitprop.  Their trust was vindicated, as the only people he pissed off at Harvard were the extreme lefties and crits, because the articles he chose to publish were almost all mainstream, whether mainstream liberal or mainstream conservative.

Lastly, his "associations" with Ayers and Pflegler are relatively minor, and equally important are his associations with the Chicago law faculty, which is overwhelmingly white and politically conservative.  

The truth is he's ecumenical in every sense of the word and always has been.

LR, I am calling bullshit on that. For one I believe in a separation in church and state, in China the priest of the Patriotic Catholic Association are forced to toe the party line. I, for one, believe that Churches (and Synagogues, Mosques, etc.) are sanctuaries where people can worship as they see fit, and speak as they see fit, provided they are not breaking the law or advocating sedition, that is it. Keep cameras out of churches. Keep church and state separate.

I decry anti.Mormon bigotry, if Harry Reid ran for President I would not care one whit that he is a Mormon, even though I find the beliefs ridiculous I would not hesitate to give him the benefit of the doubt, because i am also aware my own beliefs might look ridiculous to them. For the record, I don't give a rats ass what they teach in a Mormon religious ceremony (nor do I even know, unbelievers are forbidden to attend, or shall we demand cameras there as well?) But if Harry Reid came out for tolerance and respect, damn right I would support him, regardless of what was said in his church.

For the record, I also don't give a rats ass what Rev. Hagee said nor do I hold it against McCain. Pat Robertson endorsed Bush, both of them, did that alone make them unfit to be President? For you, yes. For me absolutely no.

Now tell me, am I wrong for advocating tolerance and separation of church and state. Is my rock hard principle loathsome?

Don't you dare ascribe motivations I don't have. For the record, Hillary herself belongs to some whacked out Protestant group, where political leaders align themselves to further their own agenda. I can't remember the name of it, nor do I care. It has not gotten much play because it is very secretive and very select. Do you decry her activities there? I frankly don't. I think it is actually good that she finds some fellowship even though I disagree with the principles underlying it.

blackton, it's not your fault but I wish you had never mentioned taylormarsh.com. Curiosity got the better of me today and, well, you can guess my reaction.

(Mike, you too for linking to hillaryis44.org. *bleagh*)

What is wrong with this campaign???  I'd almost prefer a psych ward - it's usually calmer, and you can have a real conversation from time to time.

I've been watching, in small doses, HBO's "Recount."  After Eve Fairbank's piece, and then seeing the above, I am reminded of the Republican tactics in Florida.  

Or, to paraphrase the Tom Wilkinson version of James Baker, "This is a street fight for the Democratic nomination."

Blackton: I am suprised that you bristle so. I have written that you are one of the best posters out here. I hugely enjoy your dispatches. I was definitely not thinking of you when I wrote what I did. Your response illustrates another of my favorite dictums: that people will take offense as quickly as possible.

LDuncan: Your preposterous attempt at rebuttal ignores the fact that I never said that Obama shared the Rev. Coconut's fury and hate. That is what cynical means, L, you don't believe it, you just nod your head and bide your time.

And the demonstrators who disrupted the Democratic Party Rules and Bylaws Committee were the early recruits in the Brownshirted divisions of the Clintonist Restoration.

What's your point then LibRef?  Either Obama shared some of the Black Liberationist theology at the church, or he didn't.  If he did share it to some degree, then he seems to have separated himself from it before entering politics.  If he didn't share it -- which I think is likelier for him than for Michelle -- then his relationship with Wright and the larger church was presumably giving him other things, e.g. a certain base and credibility for his work in the neighborhood, a sense of stability and belonging, perhaps even a kind of paternal relationship that he hadn't had.  I don't know, but it doesn't seem unlikely.

In any case, a minimal knowledge of the case would indicate that "hate-filled" is not the appropriate way to describe the church's normal way of business over the relatively long years of Obama's membership, whatever about Wright's recent performances.  And to suggest that it is brings you uncomfortably close to the kind of unhinged polemic that you normally condemn in others -- something I'm sure you'd want to correct.

Ironyroad: You caught my point. I was saying that if this scandal had involved Hillary, quite a number of Obama supporters out here would not be passing it off as just building her base. It would have been immediately low-balled as cynically motivated. How ever could my pointing out hypocrisy and a double standard possibly be unhinged?

Several theories, possibly related:

(1) In any large gathering, (e,g,, political rally, anti-war march, church service) many of those so gathered would benefit greatly by getting laid. I know I would.

(2) Only the most giddy among us will not be disappointed, by whomever is elected President, starting in about April 2009 or so. The Presidency is mostly denouement.

(3) That Barack Obama only now leaves his church and John McCain still deigns to call his bus the Straight Talk Express and Hillary Clinton's husband is still her husband comprise further data confirming that my future is, for better or worse, primarily in my hands and that the federal government will remain a necessary evil, like a vicious dog you keep chained up during the day but unleash at night to roam your shop so junkies don't break in and steal your power tools.

(4) Women, like African-Americans, are just as capable of being ignorant fools as white men, which is both sad and reassuring if you think about it.

(5) Upwards of one billion people worldwide face hunger and possibly starvation because of rising food prices; meanwhile I'm pissed I fell asleep last night before seeing the end of "Snow Falling On Cedars" but am grateful I can finish it tonight, thanks to Netflix.

(6) Nothing amuses me more than hearing a politician attest to his or her belief in a particular myth-based system of supernatural supreme being worship, a system I personally find ludicrous, then realizing I'm going to vote for this person. This is like meeting your daughter's date, a Hell's Angel with fresh scar tissue, and volunteering to loan them your car and a fifth of Jose Cuervo for their evening.

LR - I will also pile on.  I have not seen anyone on this board or in the Obama camp criticise the Clintons for persons who they have associated with.  God knows, there is enough ammunition here to sink the 7th fleet.  Marc Rich?  Web Hubbell?  Glenn Braswell?  Convicted felons all.

The attacks on Obama for his "associates" are nothing more than political manuevers.  These attacks tell us nothing about the candidate's policies or fitness for office as I am sure HRC would have explained to you had she been attacked in a similar fashion.

williamyard, great post!

Williamyard: Bravo, as ever but even more so. Particularly no. 6.

LR, I did not say that your pointing out a potential hypocrisy via a counterfactual could be seen as unhinged, but rather your description of Obama's church (as opposed to merely, say, particular sermons of Wright's) as "hate-filled."

thanks sleepy & libref!

LiberalReformer, if you go back and read your post, you will see that you made it seem as if the part of Obama's career you deem "cynical" is running on a platform of cross-cultural and cross-racial understanding.  That suggests he now does not believe what he says.  It does not suggest that he did not believe what Reverend Wright and others were saying back in the 1990's -- assuming for the sake of argument that what they were saying back then was as vitriolic and divisive as  what we've heard more recently.

Now you have clarified and your point now is that he sat in a church for twenty years disbelieving everything coming from the pulpit to give him street cred in the South Side of Chicago.  But even that claim does not quite hold up, in part for the reasons I gave in my post above.  He challenged a guy who wears the label "race politician" openly and proudly -- Bobby Rush.  And Obama got crushed running as a different and less divisive kind of politician.  

So it's not as simple as you would like us to believe.  And maybe I am the wrong person to respond to your thought experiment anyways, because I do not think that Hillary Clinton is pure evil and that she lacks any good motivations for being in politics.  I think that she does believe in universal health care and a generally progressive economic policy, but I also think that somewhere along the way she went off track and started making decisions and running her political career in her own interest rather than the larger interest, and -- here's the key point -- she did so in a way that actually made bad public policy on important matters, most particularly the Iraq war.  More recently, I fear she is damaging the prospects of a Dem win in November by failing to exercise the most important and hardest kind of leadership:  telling your own supporters to call off the dogs.

In contrast, if we assume (for argument's sake; I don't actually assume this) that Obama was sitting in Trinity Church for years disbelieving the message of the Church but staying anyways because it made him seem more assimilated into South Side life and less of a Harvard egghead, what concrete harm did that brand of "cynicism" do to a single living soul?  Answer.  It did no harm whatsoever.  

As between (a) a politician whose sell out point is belonging to an excessively radical church that is not truly in synch with his real ideology and (b) a politician whose sell out point is voting for a war she doesn't believe in to make her look tough in anticipation of a bid for commander in chief, I will take (a) any day of the week.

Just in the scope of the Democratic party's presidential nomination, the DNC showed less wisdom than the RNC by originally stripping MI and FL of all their delegates. They should have stripped half the pledged delegates. I still think they should strip MI and FL of all their superdelegates in order to give the politicians an incentive not to flout party rules in future. Besides, it'd be fun to watch security prevent Carl Levin from entering the convention floor.

As for Obama vs Clinton, while Bill may have been a good president, he wasn't exactly good for congressional Democrats. Hillary would probably be about as bad. Hillary as the party's nominee rather than Obama would probably produce fewer Democratic wins in the House and Senate. Even if Obama loses, a 60-40 Democrat-Republican split in the Senate would render a President McCain little more than a figurehead.

Of course that depends on the Hillaristas voting - McCain for president but Democratic for the other races on the ballot. If they decide to sit out this election, then we're likely to get a President McCain and enough Republican senators to continue fillibustering at will.

Neither seems all that bad to me. From my perspective, the US seems to work best when president and congress are controlled by different parties. Hell on Democratic nonpoliticians who had hoped for a job in the next administration.

Anyway, if Hillary supporters are seen to have undercut Obama in 2008, what are her chances really going to be in 2012? And one other question: if she were to run for president in 2012, would she have to give up her senate seat? IOW, would she be unable also to run for re-election to the Senate?

Gennitydo: By all means, pile on. It is a favorite activity of the followers of the Great One. I have repeatedly criticized Hillary Clinton on this website when I was a supporter of hers. I am no longer such.

Ironyroad: I read your post in great haste but upon rereading it, I  realized I had conflated the two paragraphs. Imagine a white racist church where the type of paranoia and hatred that was purveyed at Trinity was merely inverted but they also did good work there. Would you be praising them for their big hearts? Am I the Pope? Next challenger.

I think LR is just saying if H had done what O did - even though we all know O doesn't believe that crazy stuff - then we'd all be calling for her head on a pike for it. Not me. I know H sits through church when she has to for one reason alone. If her preacher said something controversial she'd drop that church like a hot potato at the first opportunity. I have every confidence of it.

I do not want to get into the kind of snarky interaction that seems to characterize exchanges between  Hillary and Obama supporters around here. But I think that many Obama supporters enormously underestimate the depth and the seriousness of the anger and the antagonism toward Obama, his campaign, and his supporters.

I think this is based in the three factors: the perception that the race has not been fair because of the media, the blogosphere, and racial politics; the degree of personal hostility directed toward Hillary, which makes reconcilation difficult; and a difference in cultural and intellectual sensibility between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters.

My wife and I, lifelong liberal democrats, affluent and well-educated, don't feel like Obama is a candidate we can support. Without Clinton, we do not feel that we have a candidate in this presidential cycle. And we are not crazies. Trash us at your own risk.

hrlngrv - If HRC is not the Democrtic nominee for President or Vice-President, she will surely run for NY governor in 2010.  Assuming she is successful, she will be running for nominee in 2012 as a sitting governor so she does not need to worry about giving up her Senate seat.

LDuncan: I never said that all Obama supporters are the same on this website. You are clearly more reasonable than a lot of others. You are the kind of poster that inclines me to give Obama a second and third look-in. The others make me want to flee. And there are way more than them than there are of you. It highlights a sad datum about humanity. Many people would much rather vent their silly little spleens than build coalitions. Hey, that sounds a lot like the narcissism that they accuse Hillary of. Takes one to know one, I suppose.

Eos: You speak for me too, sir.

And furthermore, LR, there's no way to concoct an equivalent situation for HRC. To do that one would have also to concoct an entire alternative biography for her, one in which she like Obama had moved to Chicago in hopes of becoming a community organizer, in which she like Obama had spent three years trying with limited success to improve the affordable housing and public schooling available to the poorer and darker denizens of Chicago's South Side, in which she like Obama had been born into a racial limbo, and so on, and so forth.

I recommend at least giving a fair hearing to Obama's own explanation of his choice of church (which appears in the "Chicago" section of Dreams from My Father)--the same sort of fair hearing that I and most Obama supporters I know gave Hillary. She is my senator, and I voted for her in 2000 and 2004, and like you, I initially intended to vote for her in this primary. Obama and Hillary together changed my mind.

Eos - Maybe not crazy, but at least a tad illogical.  Does it really make sense to decide whether or not to support a candidate based on a perceived media bias or comments made in the blogosphere?  Should you not take a look at the issues and listen to the candidate himself?

I have seen so often comments from HRC supporters that they cannot vote for Obama because of the "MSM bias" or because Obamabots are so hostile.

To a thinking person, this really make no sense.  Is Keith Olbermann going to be appointed Secretary of Defense in an Obama administration? Do you think the Obama campaign reviews and approves all the posts made by Obama supporters in the blogosphere?

Speaking for myself, if a lifelong Democrat votes for McCain because of the reasons you have cited, the clear inference is that you are not really supportive of Democratic policies (i.e., a Republican, a Libertarian, etc.) or there is some other reason you do not wish to vote for Obama which you are not willing to share with us.

Presidential elections are never about voting for the best possible candidate.  Such candidates do not exist.  Certainly Obama is not perfect.  Elections are always about picking the least bad alternative.  In a hypothetical match-up between McCain and Obama, lifelong Democrats should have an easy time picking the least bad choice.

Eos, you a truly brave soul and in anticipation of what is about to be hurled at you by the intoxicated, just know you are not alone. I've not made up my mind about the fall vote but in my case it's irrelevant because I live in a solid colored, uncontested state.  But I share your sentiments totally.

I'm confident many believe as you and I do and for the reasons you state. And I think Father Pfleger, personally unhinged as he might be, will only add fuel to this fire because truth be told, isn't he just speaking out loud what many Obama supporters seemingly believe about Senator Clinton? For me it was like having a seat an Obama campaign late night poker game..."hey, guys, think Hillary's crying now? It's mine, it's mine....hey, iron my shirts!"

Good luck in the fall, fellas, you're going to need it.

Eos,

I appreciate the content and tenor of your post, and will only take exception with one thing--this notion of "a difference in cultural and intellectual sensibility between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters."

I would be very hard pressed to define that difference. I too come from a family of mostly lifelong democrats, and this primary has created unpredictable divisions and alliances among us.

One more thing,  Eos. Had Hillary been the Democratic nominee, I would have voted for her and done my best to persuade others to vote for. I second gennitydo: whatever one feels about this primary, voting for the Republican candidate is illogical if you support Democratic policies.

Nippers: I was not trying to concoct an equivalent scenario. It's called a "thought experiment", Nip.

Now I have posted while under the influence in the past (bad idea), but tonight I'm sober.

I can't speak for all Obama supporters, of course, but at our late night poker games, I and my friends say things like:

"So what do you think of merit pay for teachers? A good idea, right?"

and

"Yes, that whole gas tax rebate thing was a craven pander, but what *can* an environmentally responsible Democratic president do to provide some relief to those Americans without access to public transportation whose livelihoods may be seriously impacted or even imperiled by rising gas prices?"

and

"I know Obama's health insurance plan doesn't provide universal coverage, but Hillary's isn't really analogous to Social Security, is it? Since it retains the for-profit insurance industry?"

and

"Does Hillary's middle east security umbrella make her more hawkish than McCain?"

(You do know that they were in no way associated with the Obama campaign, right, those guys who yelled "Iron my shirts!"? Me, I like my shirts rumpled.)

Yes, LR, a flawed one.

gennitydo,

I'll ignore the "argument" that I am simply not a thinking person. Let's not go to that level. And the imputation of racism is exactly the kind of insult that so many of us find enraging.

I am describing a real and widespread situation among Clinton supporters. Perhaps it has to do with a sense that one's rightful influence has been unfairly diminished and that it is therefore a kind of self-abnegation to support an organization or candidate who has unfairly disenfranchised and then repeatedly insulted you (as you still unfairly insult me, in even your relatively moderately-toned post). To not be taken seriously, treated respectfullly, or competed with fairly are things that are difficult to forgive. At a certain point, it is no longer possible to give support to an organization or candidate that does these things. This is especially true when one has profound doubts about that candidate to begin with, no matter what the platform of the party he is running within.

Enough.  Enough on three particular points.

One, if Senator Clinton were the nominee, I would vote for her.  I wouldn't like it.  I would grumble about dynasties, and a lack of leadership qualities, but I would vote for her.  Why, because the alternative is simply not acceptable.  Maybe McCain circa 2000, but not version 2008.  Not a chance.  I think Senator Clinton has run a flawed campaign, and it has nothing to do with race, gender, or any of the other bugbears often tossed around on this site and others.  Her campaign has been flawed strategically.  She did not realize the kind of campaign she needed to run, and therefore lost to someone that she never should have lost to.  It is incompetence that bothers me, which makes me question her ability to lead, to govern.  I have never her doubted her intellect or her tenaciousness, but she does not seem to know how to govern, how to lead.  Her team has been a disaster.  

Two, if we are going to assign Obama blame for certain aspects of his campaign, fine.  But could we provide actual evidence?  Yes, he has made mistakes.  Yes, he is a poltician (with all that that implies).  But he is hardly the monster that many of the Clinton supporters on this list make him out to be.  I have yet to read the specifics of his perfidy.  I am quite serious, somewhat lay out the case in painstaking detail, with plenty of evidence, as to why you would not, could not vote for a fellow Democrat in the general election.

Third, well, this is a bit difficult, mostly due to the fact that I do respect everyone on this list, even if I disagree with them.  Mr. Yard, your sixth point was disappointing.  Disappointing because it was a needless insertion of a tone that is not conducive to dialog.  In one paragraph you relegated all believers to a kind of exile from your conception of logical and right-thinking people.  Yes, I understand that you were pointing out the seeming irony of you voting for such a ludicrous person, but I wonder if it was necessary to so show your disdain for people who do believe.  I find it troubling, although I would love to continue to talk about it (because that is the only way we actually learn), that the assumption for those who do not believe is to think that people who have a religious faith have suspended critical thinking.  Oh, enough.  I am yammering and probably not helping my cause in the slightest.  

Eos said: "My wife and I, lifelong liberal democrats, affluent and well-educated, don't feel like Obama is a candidate we can support. Without Clinton, we do not feel that we have a candidate in this presidential cycle."

Can you explain why you've reached this conclusion?  I can certainly understand supporting Clinton over Obama in the primary contest, and even feeling that the candidate selected by that process was not the  best choice for the party to make, but I'm hard pressed to see what issues a lifelong liberal Democrat would depart company with Obama on so strenuously as to feel they "do not have a candidate in this race."

I started this race back when there were 6 or so candidates camping on our doorsteps here in Iowa, preferring Biden, Dodd, and Edwards over Obama or Clinton.  I ended up going with Obama on caucus night, after hearing Edwards speak just before the caucus night, BIden and Dodd not being "viable" choices in my caucus.

So, I'm on third best now, at best.  But I'd be out supporting any one of the five, or RIchardson, had he made it to the general, because, second, third, fourth or sixth best, they are all head and shoulders above the alternative.  I'd certainly be out supporting Clinton - my last choice - were she the nominee.  

Someone is going to become the new President of the United States on January 20, 2009, and most likely at this point, it's either Barrack Obama or John McCain.  That someone will determine how we engage the rest of the world after the debacle of the last eight years, and how we address the mess we've created in Iraq and Iran; he or she will probably steer us towards a new health care payer system, may well appoint several Supreme Court Justices, and will certainly appoint many Federal judges.  I'll take any of the Democratic candidates in those roles and count my blessings, thank you.

So, I'm genuinely curious, when I here someone who sounds like me in other respects, conclude otherwise.  I'd love to hear what I'm missing.

Eos - Please accept my apologies if I have insulted you.  This was definitely not my intention.  I did not mean to imply that you unthinking nor that you are racist.  I am merely pointing out that I find your rationale for voting to be illogical.

Given the additional information in your second post, I would be interested to see examples of how the Democratic Party or Obama and his campaign staff have treated you unfairly.  I would also like to understand why there is a sense that your influence was "rightful" and, I suppose, thus that the influence of others was not rightful?

Who has not taken you seriously?  Who has not treated you with respect?  I have seen no evidence that Obama has disrespected HRC (no, I don't count hand gestures) or has failed to take her seriously.  Far from it.

I am with sdemuth.  I would like to hear why eos and his wife cannot support Obama, and whether that means you as lifelong liberal Democrats will vote for McCain, or whether you will sit it out.  I am not engaging in snark.  I really want to know why you think Obama would not merely be worse than Hillary (an argument I could understand), but would be an affirmatively bad choice?

I am with sdemuth.  I would like to hear why eos and his wife cannot support Obama, and whether that means you as lifelong liberal Democrats will vote for McCain, or whether you will sit it out.  I am not engaging in snark.  I really want to know why you think Obama would not merely be worse than Hillary (an argument I could understand), but would be an affirmatively bad choice?

I'm not really surprised by any loony behavior by HRC's most diehard supporters at this point.  The irony of course, is that *I'm* the kool-aid drinker as an Obama supporter.

I spent a lot of time calling for toned down rhetoric in March and April, but personally, my patience with these histrionics is wearing thin, and they only seem to get more outrageous the closer Obama gets to the nomination.  Does anyone have a sense of what's really driving these feelings? (I find it difficult to take the claim that it really is about the '1 person, 1 vote' principle to heart.)

Re:

"(6) Nothing amuses me more than hearing a politician attest to his or her belief in a particular myth-based system of supernatural supreme being worship, a system I personally find ludicrous, then realizing I'm going to vote for this person. This is like meeting your daughter's date, a Hell's Angel with fresh scar tissue, and volunteering to loan them your car and a fifth of Jose Cuervo for their evening."

. . . and the various other postings regarding Obama's former church:

As someone who regularly spends a significant amount of time worshiping a supernatural supreme being (we can discuss the question of a "myth-based system" some other time, preferably over that fifth of Jose Cuervo if you're buying), I continue to find it strange that anyone would *care* all that much about the particulars of any candidate's religious experience.  I suppose I find it pleasing that Obama can cite Niebuhr and apparently know what he's talking about, but beyond that  . . .

I considered Bill Clinton's occasional bouts of public piety as little more than rank hypocrisy, and I voted for him twice.  I thought that the religiosity of Ronald Reagan, who rarely darkened a church door, nevertheless not at all cynical, just shallow, but I didn't think it said nearly as much about his political education as his decision not to make more movies when he was told that the graduated income tax made that unprofitable. I can think of a hundred reasons why Obama might have joined Trinity, and another hundred of why he might have stayed, some of them good, some of them not so good.  So far as I can see, none of them would really tell us all that much about what sort of public policy Obama would pursue as President, or whether he would be a competent executive.  His work as a community organizer, legislator, and law school instructor are infinitely more relevant, as well as what he has actually said and written on government.  

I have no problem with religious people in politics--I am one.  I have a lot of trouble with judging politicians by their religion.  And no, it's not like letting your daughter date a Hell's Angel.  If that Hell's Angel is also a respectable corporate lawyer or a social worker or plumber by day who can support a family, he can certainly date my daughter.  Otherwise, forget it.

"Ironyroad: I read your post in great haste but upon rereading it, I  realized I had conflated the two paragraphs. Imagine a white racist church where the type of paranoia and hatred that was purveyed at Trinity was merely inverted but they also did good work there. Would you be praising them for their big hearts? Am I the Pope? Next challenger."

LR, I appreciate you going back to read what I actually wrote, but you don't seem to have understood it.  My point was that if you say, as you do above, that "paranoia and hatred" were purveyed at the Trinity church, it's a kind of absolute statement for which little evidence exists (especially as your implication is that this was SOP, not just odd sermons).  Therefore my criticism is not that you are trying to expose the potential for hypocrisy and double standards among Obama supporters -- a legitimate goal, if you are on the other side -- but that the counterfactual you deploy to that end is simultaneously so aggressive and so weak.

White Americans may have been shocked, shocked and dismayed, to find that black churches often purvey a Black Liberation theology with all its post-Civil Rights aggressiveness and its strands of racial paranoia and conspiracy theory quite as distinctive as the racial paranoia and conspiracy theory that seem to occupy the minds of so many Americans who aren't black.  I find such shock and dismay a little naive, give the circumstances.  You know, slavery, Jim Crow, casual social racism, and the like.

But the general evidence suggests that Obama's church was relatively tolerant and certainly didn't permit too many of the kind of homophobic, hyper-nationalist, and anti-intellectual diatribes that are unfortunately very common in American "Christianity," whether black or white.  This was why Obama was attracted to it, and not to other churches (although, again, Wright may have had a kind of paternal draw for Obama that was distinctive to him).

So to sum up, your counterfactual is based on a very weak assumption, and thus your goal of showing up the comparative hypocrisy of Obama supporters unachieved.

I don't understand your last phrase (the "challenger" one).

I mean no offense to anyone in this thread, but honestly - Jose Cuervo is piss. Can we talk religion over Patron or Don Julio?

odanuki1  said:

"I spent a lot of time calling for toned down rhetoric in March and April, but personally, my patience with these histrionics is wearing thin, and they only seem to get more outrageous the closer Obama gets to the nomination.  Does anyone have a sense of what's really driving these feelings? (I find it difficult to take the claim that it really is about the '1 person, 1 vote' principle to heart.)"

Amen, brother, and amen again.

Odanukil: Not that you have noticed but any number of diehard Obama supporters out here are off-putting to me, a former Clinton supporter. As I wrote earlier today, many seem to be far more interested in venting their silly little spleens than in building coalitions. This is redolent of the very narcissism that these same people accuse Hillary of.

Ironyroad: I wasn't shocked at all. I am a long-time student of paranoia in the black community. Lest you jump on this statement, I am about to add, I am steeped in white paranoia, as well. I find the 'truthers" about as ridiculuous as they come and I have only encountered white ones so far who think that 9/11 was either (1) an inside job or (2) the insiders knew about it in advance and did nothing. Au contraire, mon frere, I think that is naive and patronizing not to hold African-Americans to the same standard as whites. Racism comes in many guises, you know.

Once again LR you squirm out from under the main argument.  I agree with you about the non-racial nature of conspiracy theory.  In fact I've duked it out with (I presume) white 9-11 nutters myself.  My point, however, is that the universal "paranoia and hatred" you ascribe, lieber Genosse, to the general run of events in Obama's church are not borne out by the evidence -- hence your counterfactual is weak.

"Au contraire, mon frere, I think that is naive and patronizing not to hold African-Americans to the same standard as whites."

I think that really depends on exactly what standards you embrace. I think it is more naive and patronizing to think that one can simply choose any standard they want and hold everyone up to it: think Hitler, then just vary the criteria. As for the paranoia, I agree on the white paranoia, I do not agree as much with the black paranoia, but mostly because I know that it is not paranoia if they actually are out to get you.

I have a (female) friend who lives a long distance away and with whom I speak only periodically. She is an ardent Hillary Clinton supporter and it was from her, several months ago, that I first heard any deeply negative appraisal of Obama (from a Democrat). I asked her to clarify what she disliked about him, and she said he hadn't "done anything", a description of Obama I would see repeated on message boards across the internet - it was the obverse of Clinton's "experience." I had thought him one of the most appealing candidates to come along in years - and yes, that includes his charisma and eloquence (before they became handicaps), so I was taken aback by her distaste - but that was nothing compared to the anger that  

has escalated to revulsion in places like the Taylor Marsh website. All along, though, like LDuncan and others have pointed out: why the hatred? What is it about OBAMA that could drive them to McCain? A candidate in diametric opposition to everything the Democratic candidates stand for? Clinton supporters say "misogyny" and make other vague statements but offer NO SPECIFICS. It's very frustrating. Can someone out there, who holds this opinion of Obama, give some specifics (not, please,

about his supporters, but about the candidate himself)? I'm waiting.

Imagine the "fury" that the compromise "unleashed." How dare the Democrats refuse to go along 100% with Hillary's campaign to change the rules of the game after the game has been played and she has lost by the previous rules that she had agreed to? How dare they not reward her by simply handing her a nomination that she has not earned? What happened to female victimhood? What happened to white privilege? Fury, fury indeed. It is the fury of the child who throws a temper tantrum when he or she doesn't get her way.

Hillary's campaign has become a sad commentary on 60s style "feminism." The scab is off the wound and the sight is not pretty. "Inadequate black male;" 60s style feminists in their self-righteousness see no irony whatsoever in channeling racism in order to promote their "cause." We now know them for what they are. They are "progressive" on "racial matters" so long as blacks are scrubbing the floors of their kitchens. The goal for 60s style feminists was never social justice or greater social equality for all marginalized populations, but merely the venting of their personal grievances so self-promotion and personal gain. As Hillary said, in effect, to the Washington superdelegates after losing in North Carolina: "Vote for me because I'm white." The old feminists who support Hillary are not opposed to white male patriarchy, they are just upset that they don't benefit from a larger share of white privilege. Apparently you don't have to scratch too deeply before the inner Klan comes to the surface.

This ugly spectacle that the Clintonistas have put on is the sad exclamation point at the end of what was once the Clinton legacy. Clintonism will not go down in the history books as the politics of inclusion, but rather the politics of narcissism, racism, and narrow self-interest.

What amazes me is that Hillary's die hards are angry at everyone and eveything except Hillary and her campain staff.  If I was one of these people (especially a woman) who was so desparate for her to be president I'd be pretty pissed that she ran such a crappy campaign and let her self get beat by Obama.  

I wouldn't be angry about the FL and MI deal, I'd be angry that Hillary didn't have a strategy to win without these states.

I would be angry that she didn't understand how caucuses worked.

I would be angry that she didn't have a plan to win after super tuesday.

I would be angry that she pissed away $250,000,000, some of which would have been my contribution.

Here's a final thought for Hillary supporters.  I was prepared to vote for whoever was the democratic nominee, until the OH/TX campaign started.  At that point it was clear that Obama would be the nominee unless there was a major league problem (and even then, he has weathered the storm), and I still would have voted for Hillary.  Then she became angry when it was clear she would not win, and she started the fuzzy math about popular vote and superdelegates.  It was clear to me that she would do anything she could/had to to win.  

That's when I knew I could not vote for her.  Not because I thought Obama was entitled to the nomination, but soley because of her behavior.

After the Kerry debacle, I swore I would never vote for a candidate I couldn't support, and I can't vote for a candidate who will say anything or do anything to win.

gennitydo, sdemuth, others--

Thank you for your clarifications. I do not want to argue the details--I am simply reporting on the feelings and perceptions. There is a sense that Obama is way underqualified (almost everyone in the Clinton camp thinks he should have run in eight years) and that Hillary has been repeatedly villified in unusually antagonistic terms. There is a strong perception that the contest has not been fair because of the media (including blogs like The New Republic) and because of the difficulties of racial politics.

In terms of logic: There are many experiments that demonstrate that people will refuse to participate in an exchange  in which they perceive that they are being treated unfairly. This refusal to participate occurs even when the refuser will lose something they value. This refusal  even occurs among other social species. (see news.nationalgeographic.com/.../0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html). Thus, it goes pretty deep and may have the functional value of enforcing future equity.

Fairness is a major requirement for consensual exchanges. When it is perceived not to be present, all other bets are off.

In addition to the fairness issue, there is the level of personal insult and hatred against Clinton by many Obama supporters, and then there are the actual differences in values and sensibilities to contend with.

At this point, my wife and I simply don't feel there is any candidate we wish to support.

Thank you Eos.  My husband and friends are well educated affluent liberals as well (I am not sure why that was stated, but since you shared your class affiliation, I will too).   Maybe because of thepress stereotypes shoved down our throats of who supports who?  I know I am sick of that as well.  The demographics thing has become just dehumanizing.

I think the experience argument is a fair one.  It didn't quite convince me, but it is a valid argument.  It makes Obama a flawed candidate, as well as his "inability to attract working class white"" (which I find to be a pretty obvious euphemism).  

Despite these weaknesses, I trust Obama, a rarity in polticians.  I don't expect any politician to be pure or honest at all times, and he is not, but he simply inspires he trust of my family for several reason - his votes and his ability to not pander especially.  I also live in NY and was very disappointed in Hillary's votes on the Bankrpucy Bill and her introduction of a flag burning ammendment as my Senator.  Because her views seemed to be more conservative than mine, I started to look elsewhere for my Presidential selection before she even announced.

I know that you feel abused by Obama supporters, and I know we feel the same way.  As an athiest, I have never been called a cultist so many times in my life, and as far as looking for a messiah, ditto the atheism thing.  I am not alone in experiencing many of Hillary's comments in the last several months to be simply shocking - insenstive at minimum.  This is her, not her supporters. What were your impressions of the hard working white people comments, the Zimbabwe, the assasination stuff?  Are there any comments or actions by Obama himself that actually shocked you?

I know you mentioned that you do not want to get in to specifics and that you are speaking about feeling and perseptions.  I asked the above not to start a fight or attack you, your arguments seem fair and reasonably stated.  I ask because I am trying to share why there has been rage towards Hillary and to ask you to reconsider and share the actual substance of yours towards Obama himself, rather than feelings.

Oh sorry, one more question - do you and your wife thrink Obama is sexist?

Eos,

My sense is the Hillary Clinton is way underqqualified.  She didn't even have the rudimentary qualification of knowing how to run a competitive campaign for elective office, never having had to do it before.  Only the hauteur of a Clinton would persuade someone that the place to start learning how to campaign, how to talk to people, how to present oneself, how to behave in the face of losses and setbacks was in a presidential campaign.

While there has been an enormous amount of animosity toward Hillary Clinton by Obama supporters (myself included, although my antipathy toward Clinton long ante-dates the appearance of Obama), what I find most striking about this campaign is that animosity and insult directed by Hillary's supporters toward Obama's supporters.  That has been a fixture of the campaign for months, gradually met by a rising reciprocal tide that Hillary's supporters now find difficult to bear.  I simply do not recall Obama's supporters ridiculing Hillary's supporters even while they were ridiculing Hillary.  

Until Obama came along, I was in despair at the prospect of having to vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election.   By the time she started her Republican, race-baiting campaign, I had decided that I would never under any circumstance vote for Hillary Clinton, that I would actually rather have McCain in the White House with a Democratic Congress than Clinton in the White House destroying the Democratic party with her crypto-Republicanism.  But this I can tell you without qualification:  Nothing done or said by any Hillary supporter not affiliated with her campaign has influenced my views about her in the slightest degree, one way or another.  I cannot even imagine how that could occur.

You and your wife have two votes.  You get to use them however you want.  

ist, ism, atic, All ripe for spoiling. I'll leave it to another day. Fascinating this electoral contention. I had an inkling but didn't suspect this degree of explosion and breach. I say it's all good. Time to chase some demons out.

Incidentally, the issue of Florida and Michigan inclusion wouldn't even be an issue within the Republican party. Rules are rules. This brouhaha is providing the kind of spectacle even the dirty tricks boys couldn't have hoped to produce. The pubs are hoping that Hill et al take this all the way to downtown Denver.

Yo Boxy - come on my friend, rules are rules for our stolid friends across the aisle?  Tell that to Al Gore.

LR, I am not taking offense at you. I am taking offense at YOU. (the you that is which seems to be everybody who thinks the religious life of candidates is open book). I take offense when Obama supporters talk about Rev. Hagee. I have knocked Obama for his crack about 100 years in Iraq, totally out of context.

Now, if you disagree with my ideas, fine. Everyone is entitled to my opinion. Hah. How is that line? Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, but not everyone need be one?

To be honest, I never take real offense at anything here. I argue far worse with a friend of mine, we say the worst things and if anyone heard us would think we were mental patients ready to kill each other. If my friendship survives that, then why would I really care what complete strangers say about crap I write? (at least to take offense)

I do this for fun and so my kids can watch cartoons on one TV my wife to watch TMC on the other and I have something to do myself.

Wandrey. Balls and strikes are one thing. Gotta live with the ump. Baselines and bases are another. Good to hear from the seductive rebel.

Blackton: I am of the firm belief that civil discourse is possible. This website sorely tries my conviction. I guess that we have not evolved enough out of the slime for that to happen very often. It has been fascinating to see how little of the spirit of Barack Obama obtains out here among his supporters. Perhaps they think just as I do: that his "highmindedness" is just a good career move and they don't take it - or wish to emulate it - at face value, any more than I do. With each passing year, my esteem for Martin Luther King Jr. rises even higher. The kind of nobility that he embodied I thought could be more widely practiced than has proven to be the case. The querelous little nobodies out here wouldn't have been fit to tie his shoes.

Well, an old bag like me getting the word "seductive" into any post to her for any reason works for me Box.  

You are probably right, but if the ump is Scalia and Thompson not even bothering to try and make sense, it goes down hard.

I will say that only Democrats caught up in identity politics madness would have the sort of weeping, irrational hysteria we had yesterday in DC.  Sigh.  Embarrassing.  I'm thinking of having a sex change operation.

As if some grotesquely mangled remembrance for the basis of a grudge given vent. Though generalizations are valid within context save yourself the hassle and remain as you are. Even, perhaps especially, when we disagree. I recently saw Spielberg's A.I. for the second time. Got to have that which only She can give. Bless our little hearts.

I, quite frankly, am ready to hear all of the great things that Obama and Johnny Mac are going to do for us. Apparently Hill has another thing in mind.

(You do know that they were in no way associated with the Obama campaign, right, those guys who yelled "Iron my shirts!"?)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just to close the loop on this, yes, I of course read that the demonstrators were not apparently associated with the Obama campaign. I just don't remember a big color photo of them gracing The New Republic with any attendant tut-tutting about "unhinged" or "embittered" supporters. And if I'm wrong about that and missed the positng feel free to provide a link.

"I am of the firm belief that civil discourse is possible. This website sorely tries my conviction."

LibRef, I hold the firm belief that your conviction needs to chill out.  Comparisons with almost any other board I've seen tells me that the TNR site generates a quite remarkable number of intelligent, witty, relevant, and focused contributions.  There are some odd dysfunctional phenomena (e.g. jacksondyer vs. ndmckenzie) and some posters who seem to have only one tone in their register, but by and large even the toughest-fought discussions remain within humane boundaries.

And there's a lot of creativity, good writing, and moments such as yesterday, when I put in a line from "The Waste Land" as a joke, and soon -- despite the fact that the thread was on Hillary Clinton -- two or three others had posted favorite pieces of theirs from T.S. Eliot poems.  That don't happen everywhere!

Woody: no offense taken, and good point.

As to my attack on theism in governance, I stand by it. We have suffered through almost eight years with a President who, with "God" as his co-pilot, has artfully guided the plane into the sea. We are at war with a movement of assholes who believe that "God" is on their side against us, the "infidels." History continues to be kidnapped by religious groups trying to exterminate each other over the assertion of the supremacy of their myths. Iraq is the punchline to multiple jokes: Muslim vs. Christian, Muslim vs. Jew, Shia vs. Sunni. Meanwhile two men for whom I have great respect, Barack Obama and John McCain, find their campaigns plagued by the likes of Wright and Hagee. For these candidates, their theistic chickens have indeed come home to roost.

And yet we expect our Presidential candidates to genuflect in front of theism as if these pretty little ideas, rather than the scourges they are, somehow would help governance. (John McCain, to my mind, bows he least, and for that I reserve the least of my disrespect for him.)

I know my mind well enough to know that it is incapable of grasping a concept like "God" sufficiently to inform my public actions with the degree of veracity that my fellow humans deserve. Others, however, unlke me possess the temerity act upon said beliefs. When these others also happen to possess money, power, and/or military might, it scares the living daylights out of me.

But you know what, I'm not a nihilist: I do believe in some things, democracy among them. So if my daughter wants to date a Hell's Angel or my country wants to elect a theist, well, have at it. I don't have to like it, though, and it sure as hell won't surprise me when she comes home with a weird tattoo or when America gets dragged into another war to protect our "values."

Ironyroad: Oh, I know what you say is true. It is just that there is a lot of acrimony here at TNR Online and the website does not quite mirror the print edition in its civility. I like your posts a lot. You are a reasoned voice in these parts. I suppose I look from the top down; you, from the bottom up. As for chilling, what about Thomas Stearns? If he would have done so, we would have had no Waste Land.

                                          April is the cruellest month, breeding

                                          Bloggers out of the dead land, mixing

                                          Hillary and desire, stirring

                                          Dull roots with Obama rain.

                                          Winter kept us warm, covering

                                          CNN in forgetful snow, feeding

                                          A little life with dried posts.

"Meanwhile two men for whom I have great respect, Barack Obama and John McCain, find their campaigns plagued by the likes of Wright and Hagee. For these candidates, their theistic chickens have indeed come home to roost."

Brilliant...

"there is the level of personal insult and hatred against Clinton by many Obama supporters"

Eos, you keep mentioning this as if it's a one-way street. In reality it's a six-lane superhighway, and traffic is backed up for miles on BOTH sides.

Liberal, you write *alot* about the incivility of others and how you lament the acrimony.  

I will own up to getting too angry during this primary season and I do really regret that. Once the preditable cycles of  dead end identity politics started - something I lived through in the 90's and cannot believe I took the bait so whole about yet again - I lost my objectivity and humor, again, as identity poltics (and the manipulation of them) always makes people do. Lesson learned. (One of the reasons I admired Obama was that I knew that having been President of the Law Review at Harvard Law School in the early 90's meant that no matter how hateful this campaign got, it would pale in comparison to HLS circa 1991 - a high plague year of kamikazee, pointless fight to the death identity politics hell there).  

I should have just stopped even paying attention around Texas.  It was obvious what was going to happen from that day on.  

Maybe my mantra should be WWWYD - What Would William Yard Do?  

Perhaps, despite all these years of being involved and interested in poltics, of majoring in college at least a 1000 years ago in college, of having an entire family who lives for this sort of madness - I am not cut out for it.  I'm starting to think not.  I quite often should have not hit the enter button.  I think the last 10 years or so has to have taken a prize for grotesque politics, my ganglia are too hyped up.  That and being 20 blocks from the WTC on 9/11 and viola - you have me.  

I could be misreading your posts on this topic and if so, I apologize, but what I don't hear in these many lamentations on the incivlity you have experienced since you joined up a month or so ago, is any acknowledgment from you that you were quite often uncivil yourself, contributing every bit as much to the acrimonious atmosphere as anyone.

Perhaps I am misreading your intent in these posts, which feel judgmental to others minus the judgement of yourselt. Again - if I am misreading them, and you are lamenting your part as part of your meaning, I sincerely apologize.  If I am not,  this incivility did not happen *to* you, this is something you were a *part* of wholeheartedly, as was I.  

This is the only thing that kept triggering my frustration - are you above it all?  I didn't see that.  

I just want you to know that I htink you're a very smart guy, who always has something particularly interesting and unique to say. I have really admired your ability to change your mind on things and openly admit it, Hillary in particular.  Not that I think that's required in any way to be an honest person, it certainly is not.  Hillary or no Hillary, it could have been on any topic, it was just the way you were able to simply see something differently that you'd felt very strongly about, to get it entirely and to move on.  It's been quite admirable.  I hope I can do that at some point too.

Sorry for the long post, I should have edited it, but I never have the time - just the time to yammer!

Cheers,

Jill

W: I am uncivil only when jumped. I still do not know what our junkyard tangle was about. We both support gay marriage, we only differ on the ends to arrive there. I had a very civil exchange with a gentleman who disagreed with me but praised my civility on the same thread where we tangled. If you approached me that way, it makes me wonder how you'd react to an actual opponent. Your "discourse" seemed to me to be more appropriate to Tehran than to New York City or Seattle.  I am entirely willing to forget about that; I only refer to it here because you cited my "incivility". I reach out to others all the time, even -gasp!- conservatives, on occasion. but I will respond if attacked. Only a wallflower will not. I am not impressed by by the tone of many posters on here, far more the Obama people, simply because there are many more of them. There are some terribly uncivil Clinton bloggers, as well, the worst being one sleepyavl. I thank you for your civil dialogue here and hope for less acrimonius exchanges in the future. All the best.

Eos,

Regarding your antipathy toward the current Presidential trio of Moe, Larry, and Curly, I assure you you speak for a voice whispering in many of our heads at the moment. Anyone who is paying close attention to this election is bound to end up with brain cells resembling an infinite number of monkeys fighting over a finite number of bananas.

An idea for you (which you've already possibly thought of): forget the race for President. I mean, just put it out of your mind. Instead, look down-ticket. Wherever you live there are bound to be one or more candidates deserving of your vote, your vocal support, maybe even your financial contribution or volunteer efforts. Somebody deserving of your subtle politicking: you're having lunch with a friend, maybe, and you mention, as if by chance, "Say, there's this gal running for school board who seems really sharp..."

You can outwit those monkeys, but you gotta be sneaky.

Willaimyard is the subtle, humorous, wise superego of TNR blogging in its collectivity. Sleepavl is its raging id. I aim for the ego-ideal but I know that I fall short.

You're welcome.   I am willing to forget about your responses as well.  I''ve been on Talkback for a long time and have enduring relationships with almost everyone, especially our Republican posters. Box, Channy et all are my favorites (even if Chan once said Democrats have arms growing out of their heads - after this primary season, he may have been proved right.  He was totally right about Hillary too - you win Channy, I cry Uncle).

Most people are uncivil when they feel jumped.  I honestly don't want to put you on the defense, but I guess I wasn't clear: you jump too LR, quite the jumper, you are.  Most people respond when they feel attacked - that response is not just yours.  It's the reponse of most people.

Honestly, the single only problem is the daily lamentations of the lack of civility of others, just minus you. As if you're above that.  When you are not. No one is above it except me, of course (ha).  

(I always read sleepy's stuff, I'm not sure why - he always calls me every name in the book for not thinking Obama is the devil, and I don't mind.  He's such a loon, it's OK. But in there is a guy who loves Israel to madness level and I understand that, he just has Tourettes about it. I have gay marriage Tourettes. Sleepy wrote last week that he had to sign off because a grant came through for him - he's a scientist!  He yelled at me when I wished him luck, I laughed).

By the way, nice poem.

All the best back, Jill

LR:  True enough!  One can overdo chilling.

As one person, my vote won't mean anything in terms of who wins or loses the election in November, But it does matter in terms of how I choose to conduct myself as an ethical and moral person. A vote is a moral act that requires a moral decision -- I can'tt cast my vote for someone who has campaigned in what I judge to be an immoral, cynical and unethical way. Period. Obama exploited racial divisions, intentionally worked to increase racial distrust, encouraged the worst type of class prejudice, and tolerated if not openly encouraged ugly forms of misogyny, just for personal benefit. Disapproval of those things does not equal approval of Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is beside the point.

But, to vote for for a politician who has used such tactics is to behave in a manner as equally unprincipled as his own and to give one's approval to those tactics -- encouraging even worse in the future.

I won't vote for either McCain or Obama. But I certainly believe there are worse things than McCain winning in November. One of those things would be for Obama to win on the basis of such degraded and divisive politics, and for those politics to grow, fester and further undermine both our fragile sense of national unity and our democracy.

Ever since Obama began elbowing aside the white male pretenders to the nomination, various pundits predicted that there would be nasty clashes between the gender-aggrieved and the racially aggrieved.  Obama tried to avoid racial politics as best he could until the pastors got dragged out of the closet.  Then he and his handlers dealt with the situation ineptly.  If he had said at the time that Rev. Wright's rants had no more effect on him than the babble of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had on the Republican leadership, and that what we have seen from him is what we will get from his presidency, the controversy would have quickly faded.  As for the feminists, as I had posted before, they have believed in their entitlement to rule ever since it was enshrined in the Beijing Women's Conference's Platfom of Action, which is all about seizing power.  Hillary, to be fair, has tried to keep a certain distance from them since she first ran for senator eight years ago.

Meanwhile, we will have to wait until tomorrow to see if Brunnhilde has been flexing her diaphragm.

esmense said: "Obama exploited racial divisions, intentionally worked to increase racial distrust, encouraged the worst type of class prejudice, and tolerated if not openly encouraged ugly forms of misogyny, just for personal benefit."

This sentence makes me sad. I myself think that if Clinton's name were substituted for Obama's, the sentence would be a fairly accurate description of this election, minus the tolerating-misogyny part. (After taking away the misogyny part, though, I would have to add that she has self-servingly inflamed gender-based grievances in order to whip up misplaced outrage at Obama.) What makes me sad are the implications of this sentence for future reconciliation in the Democratic party. How can two sets of people have such diametrically opposed yet earnest perceptions of the same reality? And how is rational debate and conversation about political disagreements ever going to be possible when the starting-point observations are so at odds?

It's as if some Clinton supporters and some Obama supporters were living in different universes

I revise my expectation of whom McCain will pick for his VP. Given the rage of the Dem Women Scorned, McCain would be stupid not to put a moderate, accomplished, experienced woman on the ticket now. Christie Whitman seems the likely choice. He could pick up NJ, sweep PA and OH, give Obama a good run for his $ in MI and probably take CO as well.

No no no teplukhin. This would be worse than Jindal. The right cannot stand that "squish". He cannot alienate the center but he also cannot hack off the right.

tep, methinks you have highlighted a brilliant and infallible strategy; I officially consider my hopes for November doomed.

libref, you misunderestimate the ability of the Republican party to unify itself once the "leader" has spoken; one word, and every Neo-Con in the world will talk as if they'd been looking forward to a female VP for 20 years.

If the GOP goes back to its moderate, suburban, northeastern and midwestern roots-- and this is what McCain-Whitman would represent, basically-- they'll be formidable in the general in the fall.

Really, they have no other hope.

GSpinks: Do you get your political knowledge from comic books? Every neocon in the world? Neoconservatism is a very thin stratum of the Republican world, an intellectual wedge, with support from the policy apparatuses, albeit a highly influential tendency, all out of proportion to its numbers . But that was yesterday. Neoconservatism is increasingly being shown up as a failed ideology and we are getting major defections such as Frank Fukuyama and Mark Lilla. The diehards we will always have with us, like Norman Podhoretz. The vast majority of the right are not and were not neoconservatives. It is of them that I speak.

Teplukhin2you: This would make sense if this were the days when the GOP swept New England. It would even make some sense today if not for the foaming-at-mouth right which any Republican candidate will need in November, both in voting strength and in the elbow-grease involved sense.

I've been hoping that McCain goes with someone like Condi Rice or Christie Whitman. They've both been spectacularly bad at their very important jobs, that it would be a completely obvious "play to the ladies" gambit.

WoodyBombay: Excuse me? Christie Whitman at EPA was neutered (oops, I should have written "spayed") before she ever got started. The Bush White House was not about to tolerate someone at an important cabinet-level agency who was civil and a servant of anything other than corporate interests.

whitman+epa+air+quality+ground+zero

Bush + Whitman - Whitman + flak = Desired outcome.

OK, I have no idea what your random collection of words and symbols is supposed to mean.

I was urging you to use the Internet search engine of your choice to refresh your memory about what Whitman said and did regarding air quality at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11. You'll also find that she didn't change her mind or position on the matter even after she left the Bush admin. Her actions were despicable and unforgivable.

A skilled political ad man could put together some pretty devastating ads juxtaposing the woman who would be "one breath" from the Oval office with the woman who didn't give a goddamn if New Yorkers lost their ability to breathe. As Jerry Nadler said, "She was telling people it was safe when she knew damn well it wasn't."

WoodyBombay: Christine Whitman is not precisely my cup of tea. It is just that she was a relative moderate in the Bush administration. She and her husband loathe the religious right, another plus in my book.

Translation: Bush nominates Whitman, he undercuts Whitman, she is replaced and it is BAU.

"Neoconservatism is increasingly being shown up as a failed ideology"

which won't stop them from spear-heading the bandwagon once the parade starts.

I don't disagree with you. My point still stands, once the "leader" has spoken, the republican party will march in lock-step and the neo-cons will hoist the colors high. If they centralize and siphon the "disenfranchised" and "embittered" democrats, Obama is fucked. Its already not looking good in terms of the number of people intending to stay home, this strategy would spell almost certain doom.

Of course, not all republicans will fall in line, there is a politically moderate America who will, despite party affiliation, vote their conscience in November.