The saddest part of this primary season is watching the progressive fundamentalists coming out to pick their candidate. This group does not tolerate any reasonable exmination of their candidate. The Democrats have two very strong candidates this season, only one of which has been through the fundamentalist right's media wringer. Watching the fanatical reaction to any commentary that isn't effusive about Senator Obama reminds me of the Republican's worship of President Bush.

America has to get away from it's allowing of the fanatics, the fringe of either party, to decide on what is considered allowable discourse.

Every candidate has issues, we should not expect the people who we choose to administer our government to have less blemishes than other people.

Our problems arise when we project our hopes and ideals on a candidate, disregarding their record.

Don't kill the messenger for showing you an aspect of your chosen candidate that doesn't fit the image you have of them.

"Now, it's worth noting, before anyone jumps to conclusions here, that a nondenial isn't the same as a confirmation, which she didn't give either."

"...and though she didn't confirm Nagourney's report, Clinton's own remarks seem to indicate that it's true."

Your analysis of the situtation seems a bit strange. Are you really that desperate to post your stories that you are willing to put words into Senator Clinton's mouth?

If you feel that their is such a strong message in Senator Clinton's, "own remarks" about this issue, you should look for a alternate career as a soothsayer.

Try some analysis based on fact as it is getting really difficult to see the difference between the way you report on things and the way that groups like "Fox News" does.

If I appear to be too harsh, it is only because you are representative of the same news source as Glenn Greenwald, and he seems objective and fact-based in everything he writes.

If you don't know what a decent journalistic standard should be, just follow his lead.

Shocking that the link doesn't work huh?

For the past few years there have been several things we could consider common knowledge about the war and it prosecutors.

We know the war in Iraq was based on lies. We know that the Bush administration lied over and over again about the reasons to go to war. We know they manipulated information to support their case for war. We know that, at best, the Bush administration is incompetent. We also know that we have made Iraq a place that is demonstratably a much worse place to live than it was under the sadistic dictator Saddam Hussein.

In the past few years these bits of common knowledge have been at the forefront of any serious consideration of the war and the Bush administration.

If someone signed up to join the military in the past few years, they had to be aware that they will be sent to Iraq to help prosecute this war.

Even if we ignore the concept of responsibility for your actions even if you are, "just following orders" how do you abdicate someone's responsibility for joining up to be part of the Bush administration's immoral and probably illegal war in Iraq?

If the question is, "Which is worse for their respective campaigns?" we just need to see if either was acting in their official campaign roles.

Goolsbee was acting on behalf of Obama.

Penn was acting on behalf of Burson-Marsteller.

Goolsbee, as part of his official capacity in Obama's campaign told foriegn officials to disregard what Obama was saying, implying that Obama was lying in order to gain support in the primaries.

Penn was in a situation where two of his clients had conflicting agendas. He is not Clinton's chief economic adviser, Penn is her campaign strategist.

The idea that we should compare these two situations seems misguided.

Obama is the left's new Lamont. While the far left of the party is madly in love with their new Lamont, they should take another look at the Lamont/Lieberman race in CT. The progressive far left could not stand the Democratic (in name only) senator Lieberman, so they decided to back Ned Lamont, and they were actually succesful in the primary. Unfortunately, pro-war Lieberman, ironically with the support of senator Obama, was able to trounce the far-left candidate Lamont in the general election.

Senator Obama looks so good to many people just because he is new and different. Obama's lies and misrepresentations gain traction slowly, if at all. Obama's record is not examined at all. The attack's against him by senator Clinton are Democratic primary attacks, basically toothless compared to attacks that are made in a general election.

Obama has been given too much too fast because he is good-looking, an excellent speaker, and relatively good (if you don't look at his record) on the issues.

Caveat Emptor.