Joan, while this was going on did you catch the gang rape that was on at MSNBC? I've been a daily viewer of that network since I came back from England in 2000 but can't watch any more. Yhe word has clearly gone out that the whole network is to trash Hillary. and from Matthews and Russert right through, they never miss a chance for a sneer or an unfounded conclusion. Even the women join in. Sad because I so admired Olbermann's attacks on Bush.

On an unrelated topic, I thought of a way to resolve the Democratic rivalry. The winning candidate could announce that her or his rival would be the first appointment to the Supreme Court. Both would do a terrific job and we'd all be more content than we look likely to be.

The best peacemaking device I can imagine is for the victorious candidate to promise the loser will be her or his first appointment to the Supreme Court. Either candidate would make an outstanding justice and we'd have the benefit of them both.

Of course Obama should criticize the misogyny directed against Hillary. He's going to need her supporters come November. The best move to unite the Democrats is for Clilnton and Obama to agree that the winning candidate will nominate her or his opponent for the first vacancy on the Supreme Court.

That was attractive when Obama said Clinton's example would be an inspiration for his daughters. I wonder how he'll explain to them why daddy decided to screw things up for this wonderful woman instead of waiting to be her successor.

Also I see that my suggestion that Obama make Clinton his first Supreme Court appointment made it to cable news. It came up on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" after having appeared in one of the Washington papers. I continue to think it would be the best way to unite the party and Justice Clinton could provide decades of invaluable service to the country.

If you're right that Hillary will lose, not an overwhelmingly convincing, hypothesis, Obama should pledge to make her his first nominee for the Supreme Court. This would unite the party and, more importantly, Justice Clinton could serve the country with distinction for decades. She is sorely needed.

I wonder what the effect MSNBC's vendetta against Hillary has had on their viewing figures.

I now think of them as the Misogynist Swine network. Russert, Matthews, Olbermann (my favorite until recently for his attacks on Bush) and Shuster sneered at her gratuitously on every program. What may be even worse, the women joined in. And the bookers. They booked antiHillary guests by an overwhelming margin.

On the rare occasions, I still watch the network you and Rachel Maddow are the only people worth watching.

I hope you or someone on Salon will do a story on how many viewers have deserted the network.

As a fervent supporter of Hillary Clinton, I admire and respect Joe Biden. I think Obama's choice of Biden as vice presidential candidate is good, providing Obama can win.

If he fails to win, his decision to ignore Clinton's 18 million voters will look like the most moronic political decision ever. It will be even worse than John Kerry's decision not to contest the Ohio result.

I hope Obama/Biden can win for all our sakes. But if they lose, Obama's poor judgement is likely to hang around his neck for the rest of his career. If there is a rest of his political career

Remember what H. L. Mencken wrote? "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

What if this terrible catastrophe is the mother of all hobgoblins designed to reward Bush's friends one last time while he still can? We hope he doesn't have enough time left to start another war but he can certainly kick a sizable amount of loot toward those he fondly calls "the base."

It's seldom enough I disgree with the marvelous Garrison Keillor, but I would like to second guess his advice to Michelle Obama to emulate Laura Bush.

I think Mrs. Bush has totally wasted the incomparable chance she had to make a difference to whatever causes she chose to promote. Besides she was a terrible role model for women and girls, being content to be a rich wee wifey.

I'm sure Michelle Obama won't settle for that. After all she has two daughters for whom she must set a good example in the footsteps of Eleanor Roosevelt and Hillary Rodham Clinton.

As the President elect shapes his stimulus package, I hope he keeps in mind one crucial way in which it should differ from the 1930s version: we need jobs for women as well as men.

I recently reviewed a book about the 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps which provided hundreds of thousands of conservation jobs, but only to single men.

Now Obama is talking about repairing the infrastructure. That takes place in industries where only 9 per cent of the workers are women.

Please let's remember this time that women need to work and eat too.

THIS IS WHAT JOURNALISM IS FOR MR. GREENWALD. KEEP ON TRUCKIN'

Elctronic bouquets to you, Carl Levin, Rachel Maddow et al. Even to Hitchins though I never thought I'd write such a thing.

We need to keep the torture prosecutions of Bush, Cheney and their cohorts alive and moving. It may take time. Took 16 years to name the Rwandan villain who planned the massacre, but it is doable.

We don't want to forget, either, that the new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar voted to authorize torture of helpless prisoners and denying them habeus corpus under the Military Commissions Act. So did his sleazy brother Congressman John Salazar.

Why would the new president want to promote such a callous, unfeeling reprobate. I thought Obama opposed torture but maybe not.