I've crossed some lines in regards to my communication to and about Joan. I don't think I've crossed any lines in regards to being fowl or inappropriate, but I've crossed those personal kinds of lines that we all know we've crossed by the way we stop thinking about it almost immediately after the crossing.

It seems to me we are entering a new phase in this primary and in the general election. I'll probably be hanging out in Joan's blog up till around election day (to some degree). I'll probably still go through phases of sarcasm in which I take the republican talking points to absurd extremes, trying to expose the warped logic they will be using to make us be afraid of Obama or to at least make us scratch our heads and be concerned about him as a person.

I expect that I will have less "clashes" (they were really anything but) with Joan once she is writing about the general election, but I don't doubt that our differing tendencies will cause me to wish she would lean towards various subjects more than others. Also, now that I'm learning what "trolls" are, I have no doubt that this comment section will have plenty of opportunity to keep dramatizing the list of who's naughty and nice.

But right now I'd like to just say to Joan that I'm impressed by how she does things on the whole. I probably wouldn't be saying that if for some odd reason the Wright story (as the media utilized it) had blown up and Obama had been buried by it; if that had happened I would have needed to do some major processing continuing to look at the underlying logic of why Joan wanted us to care deeply about that particular fact about that particular candidate. But even in that case, I don't think I could lose sight of why I respect Joan.

The volume of her communication with Salon readers surprises me. And here is a scientific fact: she does so with a massive degree of respect most of the time. In fact; almost all of the time. And even when she slides towards disrespect it seems to be only disrespectful in the way that I can actually really respect; like telling somebody they are a pain in her ass. It is not every major editor that lets their readers know exactly where they are feeling pain.

I'm not sorry for obsessively pointing out that I see no rational or evidence Joan's approach toward Obama and Clinton was all that fair or helpful. I wish she had written more about her guesses and hunches about what kind of leaders they would be in the white house, or why the media seems to go to such great lengths to ensure we don't read engaging articles that investigate how these two people make decisions and express their values in their actual work. And Joan argued back, saying that she does have a hunch that there is something about the worst Obama supporters that is...worse...than the worst Clinton supporters. She was even willing to acknowledge that she wasn't ready to say exactly why she had that hunch. That is not the kind of discourse you get from pure idiots. That's the kind of thing you hear from people with what I consider high integrity and courage.

But there will still be a lot of Joan hate written here: people will watch her concede things to McCain and question Obama in the general and they will "know" that it proves Joan isn't a good liberal or whatever. They will hear her make comments on Hardball that "prove" she is stupid or mean or arrogant. And some of us will have the tendency to defend her and so there will probably be no lack of personality arguements in the days to come.

My suggestion is that we keep doing our best to remember that we are all basically ignorant and nice and well intentioned. I want to take this little moment in our little primary pause to thank you folks on here who disagree with me but yet don't call me slut and who find me annoying yet don't use me as an example of why Hitler took power. And I want to thank Joan for having the ovarian veracity to come here day after day and learn how awful she is and yet be basically really nice to all of us. But, hey, please contact me immediately if Joan starts calling you bad names or making wild assumptions about what an awful person you are!

imeanitcommatotally at yahoo

seriously!

No, a friend of mine who is very frustrated by Hillary's recent comments wrote that. Hillary is making clear the role race will play in the general (in her opinion) but she isn't being all that racist about it.