Yes, Hillary held her own against Russert but it was not a slam dunk. Tough questioning on a treacherous topic. Clinton cannot afford to have any more stories like this in the press. She cannot keep explaining the context.

Wouldn't it be fun to have this guy be the Republican standard-bearer! They'd all be putting the pole you know where.

I keep wondering whom the media would fawn over the most: McCain or Obama should those two end up being the General Election candidates. Any idea?

Obama provides the clearer contrast against McCain's big issue - the Iraq War; Clinton provides a better match against McCain's "keeping the country strong" credentials. I fear that when push comes to shove in the General Election, the general public is going to freak out, having been fear-mongered by the Rs, and the gap between McCain's experience and Obama's is too big. Therefore I think Hillary will be the stronger candidate against McCain in the final analysis.

Love your article, Rebecca! You go, girl!

I used to think Maureen Dowd was clever, if a bit nasty. However I have tired of her and her bash feminists obsessions and her thin-lipped whining and now remember with sympathy Barbara Bush's complaints about her and her comment that "Maureen Dowd was a bitter woman." Well said, Barbara.

Who still thinks that Maureen Dowd is necessary?

As always, Joan Wash has posted a very thoughtful, balanced column. I largely agree with her about Obama's comparison of the Reverend's rants against the white race to his white grandmother's prejudices against African Americans. Not a good comparison. True, both react prejudiciously. But it seems to me that Rev. Wright is really hate-mongering and rabble rousing in his speech (even thought this may not be typical of his sermons)while is grandmother is not.

I am reacting somewhat personally. I have a mixed race background and was adopted by white parents. They loved me unreservedly, and I them; yet they seemed unaware of their racial prejudices and I cringed at some of their unthinking statements as I was growing up. Yet I would never compare these statements to the kind of statements Rev. Wright made. Did Obama have a "tin ear" in making this comparison. That doesn't seem the correct analysis. I think it's more that he needed to justify his continued ties to his former pastor. I don't criticize him for maintaining his connections, but I don't think his grandmother deserved to be lumped in with the Rev.

Yea, the words were probably wrong, that is, politically incorrect. We can't say "typical" anymore because we're "lumping everyone together," we're "stereotyping," etc. etc. But there is such a thing a common behavior, common reactions, isn't there?

I remember an interview given by Denzel Washington. He told about getting on an elevator in a hotel. There was only one other person on the elevator - an elderly, white woman. According to Mr. Washington, when he stepped into the elevator, the woman immediately and instinctively clasped her purse close to her body. In his recounting of the incident, he said, "I probably could have bought everything that woman had ten times over."

I don't think the woman on the elevator was a bad person, although obviously I have no idea who or what she was. She reacted the way women, white women of her generation instinctively reacted. That doesn't mean every white woman would react that way or even that every white woman of her generation would react that way. But many would. I have heard similar stories from African American men and women many times. Obama just used an unfortunate choice of words in trying to explain what he meant. Unfortunate only in our politically correct world. In the real world, he was describing a truth.

And, hey, Joan Walsh is inviting us to conversation on the difficult subject of race relations and the way we talk about them. Obama is, too. I don't understand why this leads so many of you to rant against Hillary and against Joan's columns. We will never have these needful discussions if all you do is attack.

Calls such as Leahy's will only strengthen Clinton's resolve to stay in the race. Who wants to be pressured to quit? She will want to leave, if she makes that decision, on her own terms. She also has every right to let the voters in states not yet heard from have a vote. However I have been very disappointed in the tone her campaign has been taking in the last several weeks. The competition is okay. The charges and accusations the campaigns have been making are not.

However the harsh and unwarranted intrusion of Leahy into the campaign makes me understand why Cheney called him a "son of a b@%$.

I would also like to believe that Hillary did not just make up something out of whole cloth. But what was she remembering? If she dodged sniper bullets at some other stop, wouldn't there be some evidence of that somewhere? I don't think you would forget dodging sniper bullets or running from the plane with your head down, daughter in tow. You might mis-remember the place, but surely not the incident.

So, where did this incident happen? If no one can say, what will I be forced to conclude?

Exactly. But what can we do? Just not tuning in doesn't seem to be the answer. I have given up watching MSNBC but evidently all the self-reverential hosts still babble on.

So what's our plan for better news coverage?