I think we are seeing another example of how Joan's unsupported conviction that Obama has a magical connection to his most irresponsible supporters will color her columns.

Clearly she respects how Obama has treated Hillary. Clearly she has not spent much time at all holding Hillary responsible for awful or stupid comments made by her gross supporters and I don't think Joan has yet held McCain very responsible for the awful things you can find his worst supporters say about him.

Joan respects Obama but maybe she is actually half-way entranced by her. The half of her that is under his spell does indeed believe that Obama can control everybody. The other half of Joan is kind of grossed out by the part of her that is entranced and reacts harshly by projecting onto and blaming Obama.

I obviously agree with Joan that Obama would do well to try his best to get the word out that he doesn't want his supporters to be assholes or idiots. But if we see some be assholes is that evidence that Obama is failing?

I just know it's going to be a rough general election if Joan keeps tying everything to Obama even as she hopes for him to win.

All this said: I am 100% open to the theory that Obama is responsible for negative things his worst type supporters say and do IF IF IF we can at least hint at some type of evidence. I simply don't see that type of evidence of Hillary, Obama or McCaine.

Notice that I am not saying Joan wrote a stupid article. I'm just a little over reactive because we are now stepping out of a primary in which she wrote each article pointing to Obama weaknesses and in her first Obama VS. McCain post she sets up another example of how Obama might be failing us and how McCain might actually come off more gracious.

But hey, this would have been a very strong blog if Joan had said something like,

"Look, I am pushing for Obama and I think he's done a great job this last week showing his respect for Clinton and doing his part to unify the party. But I am concerned that he simply doesn't do enough to keep his supporters in line. The following are 5 examples of Obama's inability to really do a responsible job with his supporters and I don't think you can find 5 similiar examples in Hillary or McCain. This points to something that I think will actually harm Obama in the general. I'm not sure what it's about, but I'm very sure that it is a pattern."

Then we could read examples of her premise and see if they really are exlusive to Obama. But without this sort of evidence-based dialog, we just end up reading flat concerns and possible worries.

I don't see any reason why one could not write every general electon blog in such a way that we always must consider how Obama's possible weaknesses might come back to haunt him. If I'm going to read that kind of article, I'd like it to be open to dialog which, to me, means that it points to evidence as much as possible- evidence that connects the dots. Otherwise, what can people really say in response? They can either ask questions like, "Why are you making this assumption about the relationship between Obama's graciousness and his supporters awful comments?" or, rather than ask questions to Joan about her thinking, they can get mad at her for not thinking like themselves...

I'm going to regret sending this because I know that 76% of it is based in my fear that the general election is going to be treated just like the primary in regards to the fact that Barack is not the perfect politican that some people think/wish that he is....

and I'm also not asking that we spend the general election wondering how McCain's failings might make him lose. I realize my last post could be read to imply that I simply want Joan to reverse her strategy and apply it to McCain. Nope.

Is it true that he is still saying all that stuff about,

"they don't want you to vote. They don't want you to count..."

Also, my friend told me he just read an article that points out that Bill broke his promise to not endorse or campaign for democrats while in office.....he broke it in order to go against Obama. Any truth there?

you said:

"Medical update: McCain 'vigorous' for his age, but Obama still male."

that's really funny to me. I think it does actually capture the way the media will tend to talk about these two.

We don't agree on what Joan is doing, but we agree on a lot of other things!

I personally have not experienced any type of dip in Salon's coverage of the world (culture, politics, entertainment). In fact, I have been continually impressed by Salon's development and I've gotta give props to Joan for that.

Joan blogs and does tons of other things. And I think she would be justified to feel satisfied that there are a nice gob of great writers doing their thing on a daily basis here at Salon. So she blogs on a fairly regular basis. She thinks out loud about what she's seeing and reading.

As you know, I have disagreed with her approach to the primary. Big time. My disagreement isn't connected to my support for Obama (realistically, it is a little bit, but...). I don't need Joan to get giddy about any of these candidates. I just like her, how she writes and that she is open to dialog. She isn't mean.

I don't know how to measure the effect her blog is having on Salon, but it attracts plenty of intelligent people on both sides of the fence and that is not just random, you think?