But Galadriel refused the ring and passed into the West. Does that mean we should all vote for Kucinich?

In a perfect world..

Joe Biden is a politician I have long admired, and still admire. That said, your post is for me an important reality check; this post in particular is one that I will have to read and re-read and weigh as I become more and more active in my efforts to ensure Senator Obama's election this November.

It is a great coincidence that as I was reading your blog, with the updates, I was also re-watching the Col. Bacevich interview with Bill Moyers.

Because you have hit me "in the gut" politically with this, I will have to spend some time contemplating what Biden's selection means to this election, and hopefully respond to the issues you have brought up in a manner that is worthy of the level of discourse you provide here on Salon.com.

"Reasons to celebrate and reasons to worry in Denver"

Really?

Certainly he didn't need to tell the Salon audience the media was unfair to Hillary Clinton, since we reported that story. I think his pitch to Salon was bringing the party together, which I appreciated.

You are half right. The media was unfair to Senator Clinton, that is not up for debate.

The media has been unfair to every Democratic candidate or president since at least 1979; this is, for me, an arbitrary line -- the 1980 election was the first one I remember at the golden age of five.

That said, there are many things that a fair minded person can rightly criticize both Senators Clinton and Obama for. I've never been shy about which side I fall on, but the reasons I had to harbor distrust for Clinton are for me quite valid. The reasons I now have to distrust Senator Obama have little to do with Salon's coverage, or the main-stream media depiction of him; like Senator Clinton, I disagree with Senator Obama on policy issues and campaign tactics.

I am not sure how you justify the notion that Salon.com's coverage is uniting the party. Your coverage, in fact the general editorial direction of Salon.com has not given me confidence that Senator Obama has received your support. You may think differently, but that is how I perceive it.

I am not asking for you to sponsor a ticker tape parade for the presumptive nominee, but I do wish you would dull the edge of your constantly wielded concern sword.

It is easy to brush off the satire (salonparody.blogspot.com for one), but when you have this constant and vociferous criticism by your own subscribers, surely you must at some point conclude that there is a schism between your editorial fiats and the zeitgeist of your target audience?

To reiterate, I very much respect your opinions and intellect..

I'm awake at this ungodly hour, having just put to bed a good friend who is despondent and thinks she isn't a good person. How do you argue with someone who is convinced she is no good to anyone?

Let me drop some Good Celery on you all. Go to sleep (as I will soon). Hug you Mom if you can, or your kids, or your dog or cat.

I'm listening to Built To Spill's excellent cover of Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer". He's a true American patriot, even if he's a Canadian. A North American patriot?

I don't want to live in an empire. I happen to live in the United States, which has rejected the warnings of its fore-fathers and taken up the mantle of being the empire on which the sun never sets.

It would be easy for me to move to Amsterdam, or Melbourne, or Firenze, or Helsinki. What is hard work is for me to continue to live in the country of my birth, saddened by what it has become; saddened by how far it has strayed from the civics lessons I learned in school.

It frequently hurts me, deep inside, but I love this country and I want it to change direction.

"And I know she's living there

And she loves me to this day

I still can't remember when

Or how I lost my way."

Reading some of these letters, I want to through my fucking laptop out of the window. I want to throw up on my shoes.

Joan, stop working these trolls and deluded Clintonistas into such a lather!

My god, people, get a grip on yourselves. Clinton LOST. Do you want McCain elected?

If so, then fuck you. That's all I really have to say about it.

And hug your mother, father, kids, dog or cat. Let the healing begin.

As Rachel Maddow astutely pointed out today on MSNBC, someone who backs a candidate who themselves has backed Barack Obama, as Hillary Clinton has done, is irrational. Anyone who will allow John McCain to be elected and overturn Roe V Wade, which he has pledged to do, is not a feminist.

Not a feminist, not rational. Not news and not something that should be taking the front page on Salon.com on the night of Michelle Obama's moving, terrific speech.

Shame on you Salon.com. Your coverage is inane in the extreme, your editorial direction is simply incompetent.

Let us call PUMA what they are: an organization whose sole goal is to ensure the election of John McCain.

Please can we stop validating this non-Democratic, non-feminist pseudo PAC with the constant coverage within Salon.com?

Please! I want a Democratic president this time, and it is not going to be Hillary Clinton, sorry.