I'm a fervent Obama supporter, but I worry about this line of reasoning, specifically the branch of this line that runs our guy on "hey, it's totally ok to hate Hillary, so you should support our guy!"

Most of my handwringing comes from the fact that it's just the wrong thing to do. Democrats shouldn't hate Democrats...that's why they created Republicans (kidding!) (sort of!).

But also, the pro-Hillary camp seems to thrive on these perceived slights, so it may be bad tactics as well.

I completely agree that she and her surrogates have behaved terribly these last several weeks, and I wouldn't pull the lever for her in a primary vs. most Democrats out there. But by allowing Hillary-hating to exist as a naturally-occuring phenomenon, well...isn't that the kind of tactic that we're fed up with from the GOP? And, lately, from the Clinton campaign itself?

That having been said, if you make the positive assertion that Obama brings a lot of new voters into the process and keeps some of the McCain Agnostics at home, well...that gets the message across, doesn't it?

Again, SuperDs, please end this thing soon. All the arguments point to Obama as a more legitimate, and now better-for-the-downticket races nominee.

that is all.

These debates have been the only decent thing on TV.

Plus, it'll give Alex 7 or 8 more hours of MSNBC to break down like the Zapruder film to see if Chris Matthews arches his eyebrows higher at the mention of Clinton's name.

Ok, sorry, Alex, I'll let that one go now.

I haven't gotten through all 20 pages yet, but I'll go back and finish them as soon as I type this, so sorryif someone else has suggested this...

Look, if Joan Walsh has gotten to you and is forcing you to ignore these legitimate stories that are unflattering to Clinton, or if you're being held as some kind of ideological hostage, then we can help...

The next time you make one of those little videos for Current, blink out a code for us with your location, and we'll come bust you out.

We won't leave you behind Alex! We won't!

...and wish to expand. The tactic seems to be to take away Obama's biggest strength(s) by any means they can.

He gives a good speech? Then turn that into a negative by saying words don't matter

He has organization and a ground game? Well, caucuses and red states don't really matter anyway.

He leads McCain by a greater margin in actual swing states? Well, how can he win a general election if a majority of registered Democrats in a state where he's very competitive against McCain prefer a different candidate head to head?

He's a war hero? Get a couple of guys from his old unit to say he didn't deserve the medals, then when they start asking about my draft dodging, it'll look like a wash...oh, sorry, that was last time. I think I accidentally cut and pasted that one.

Sure, people still vote for her and send her money, but that's in part because she hasn't yet conceded that the math is against her big time.

By presenting herself as still a viable option, and more importantly presenting any calls for her concession as attacks that she must fight off, she has a lot of people thinking she still can win the nomination, based partially on the hope that Obama will make some sort of critical mistake or that his popularity will wear off, or that her initial lead in the polls will somehow come back to rescue her via the superdelegates.

Those things are possible, but none of them are likely. And now that the fight has turned ugly (possibly until today, but I'll believe this truce when I see it), the media can't get enough of it. It's not partisanship or Hillary-hate, it's just plain old rubbernecking. They were pretty happy when McCain went for Romney's jugular (and frankly, took him down pretty clinically and efficiently), and they were happy when Huckabee cane from nowhere because that caused chaos (at least until everyone remembered the name Paul Tsongas).

So in essence, both things are true. People still go see baseball teams in September that have been eliminated from playoff contention. They still root for those teams passionately. But that doesn't mean they're going to the World Series.

Joan, I thought this commentary was one of the worst pieces of tripe ever to appear on Salon.

This is classic concern trolling, straight from Mark Penn's talking points.

Tough questions unanswered? Are you kidding me? Jon Stewart put it best...Obama spoke to America like grown-ups about race.

Your "tough questions" are a flimsy straw man that give you the barest of reasons to still promote your candidate over a clearly superior option.

This is sad.

Yes, Kennedy was the last sitting Senator. The reasons for this are many, mainly the appearance of "executive experience" that that have elevated small state governors.

The other main reason is that the peculiar voting rules of the Senate open Senators up to attacks like "he voted to raise taxes 200 times!" (when 10 of those votes were for one bill that closed a tax loophole) or "I voted for it before I voted against it" which I know, I'm sorry, that still stings.