For a moment Hillary Clinton had my sympathies last night, largely because of the magnanimous praise lavished upon her and her campaign by Senator Obama in his speech last night.

Then she opened her mouth, and I remembered why I think she is so vile and hideous.

Now this.. to say that this article is poorly thought out is being generous. I can empathize with the reluctance to admit defeat, the pain of failure, but I have limited patience for continued, persistence "concern" coming from the masthead here over at Salon.com.

I think your math is at best overestimating the size of the voting bloc that will not automatically support the Democratic nominee and at worse utter fiction.

But if Barack Obama does not in your mind represent best the interests of the over-40 female voting bloc, who then does? John "I am courting the pro-life, mouth-breathing religious right bloc" McCain?

Barack Obama has already asked for your support, I don't feel I owe you the same courtesy. I don't shell out $35, $40 a year (and then some, considering the many peripheral products I buy in support of salon) to listen to an endless stream of anti-Obama concern trolling and pretzel-like justifications for Clinton and her proxies behaving poorly.

The fact is that Obama is been a class act for the entire primary: accommodating, rational, reasoned, assuring and even obsequious. It is obvious to me that as the end neared, the Clinton campaign if not the candidate herself became more and more desperate to the point where I began to have my own "concerns" as to whether she would do something to sabotage the process and the party going forward. Her ill-advised play for the out-of-bounds Michigan and Florida delegates, despite affixing her signature and thus her word to a contract in January stating she would not do so was just such a ploy. Her branding of the issue as a civil rights struggle was offensive to me, as I'm sure it was to many African Americans, Native Americans, LBGT voters, and true feminists.

Well, it didn't work. Thankfully.

If some of her voters are the kind of voter to buy that sort of cheap political tactic while ironically ignoring the inherent unfairness of it, never-mind the fact that all accounts indicate that the moved-up primaries were a Republican gambit which succeeded wildly, then maybe I don't want those voters.

Loathe as I am to admit it, however, you may be at least right that Obama has to now campaign against all the slime, mud, muck and putrid garbage Icke, McAuliffe, Carville and the rest have tried to taint Obama with over the last few months. But that doesn't mean that this voting bloc is entitled to some kind of concession or right to extort, nor does this campaign deserve the insinuation that anyone is going to "take their ball and go home." Obama needs the votes because America needs him to be elected in November. Life and death.

So can the pity party and get on the bandwagon, please. It would demonstrate to voters like me that the primary season is truly over and that Clinton and her surrogates (this includes you, Joan) are capable of being graceful and gracious.

I await Friday with literally baited breath.

Barack Obama 2008, because it is a matter of life or death.

You took the low road, just like Hillary Clinton. You could have been gracious in her place. You could have written an article congratulating them both on a good race and Obama on his win. No, you used your opportunity to attack Obama again and shelter Hillary Clinton, as usual.

For the record, I am not a Christopher1988 sock puppet or vice versa, however the above paragraph is exactly how I feel: frustrated and angry.

That will be enough "help" from you, Herr Zuckermensch.

Magnanimous? Magnanimous??

Are you fucking kidding? What does he need to do? Send her a dozen roses and a two-week fucking cruise? When does the blackmailing end? Barack Obama has bent over backwards in his praise of Clinton and her despicable RICO conspiracy she calls a campaign.. What does she want? She lost. A loser is a loser.

@david, nice. real nice.

Good point.

My older sister graduated Phi Beta Kappa from a smaller private liberal arts college in Mid-west. Although she owns a home in the North-west, her and her husband work, sometimes more than one job each. The point I am making is that if someone were to deride them for being latte-sipping elitists within ear-shot of me, that person would get a punch in their fucking mouth.

Of course, I'm the thug of the family, so I can make such menacing threats.

I didn't go to school at all, but I make a living salary working hard. I rent, I support and uplift my friends when I can and where I can. I can let it slide if someone calls me an elitist, and I would be quick to correct them that my drink is an iced Americano, large not a latte. Don't diss my sisters unless you are cruising for a bruising.

At the very least, I except nothing less than a full-throated and sincere apology at the insinuation that my and my siblings support of Barack Obama is somehow "elitist" or "out of touch" by those making that claim who should know better.

I expect mongoloid mouth-breathers like Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck to make those comparisons. Fuck 'em. Hillary Clinton, Terry McAuliffe and Joan Walsh should know better. Shame on them!

Let the healing begin, Joan. A good starting point would be a heartfelt mea culpa for the readership of Salon.com who are put off by your defense of right-wing talking point after talking point.