These are not the same. I make no claims that Obama is pure as the driven snow, although this is because of his industry ties and some of his corporate votes more than that he, as a politician, knew a dodgy rich guy -- hardly newsworthy. In fact, Clinton is married to and worked for a guy who destroyed welfare, pushed Bush I's NAFTA, cut appeals for death row inmates, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through sanctions and has been making unseemly corporate deals around the world that lead to donations for his various interests here at home -- and enrich him directly through consultancy payments.

And that brings us to the tax returns. If loans to her campaign came from activity appalling to the Democratic base (and which might be ethically challenged), that's much more direct and newsworthy than Obama knowing a guy who's scum.

This is not to say there aren't skeletons that matter in Obama's closet -- I make no claims about a politician's closet. But there is an emerging pattern of news coverage that I see Democratic voters picking up on the blogs: "negative" charges are judged only by their political impact -- not their content.

For example, just today NPR compared a new ad that points out McCain's positions are the same as Bush's with the Swift Boat ads. The first ad directly invokes policy positions likely to be taken by the potential president and is absolutely accurate (McCain would admit to the positions ascribed to him). The Swift Boat ads were quite possibly false, and even if true, said very little about how someone would manage policy and bureaucracy (the chief responsibilities of a president if we are honest). But all "negative" ads are the same in today's media environment.

This is dangerous. It takes away judgment from the people. We are being taught not to prioritize or to even go any deeper in our analysis than to determine whether it advances or stalls a drive down the field. It also makes us all look like idiots as we try to ignore useful information or embrace useless information depending on how it helps "our team."

Obviously democracy is best served if we don't identify with any candidate so much that we refuse to evaluate him or her. I supported Edwards, but I didn't give him a pass for his rotten votes -- and I never gave a shit about his haircuts, despite their appalling personal implications. And I don't like Clinton, but I don't judge her for wanting to win or for her husband's policy actions in the White House.

Remember a few months back when everyone was saying what a great slate of candidates the Democrats have?

Clinton has become so appalling that if she wins, I will not vote for her -- and may even campaign for Nader. Consider her principles:

• Clinton attacks Obama for plagiarism in a televised debate, using a "xerox" line that someone else wrote.
• Her campaign issues a memo attacking Obama for going negative, and then throws in some old attacks.
• She embraces Bush's fearmongering by suggesting your kids will die in their bed if you vote for Obama.
• She casts the dead Ann Richards in one of her campaign ads -- "Do if for Ann" -- over the objections of Richards' kids.

What kind of person does this stuff?

She runs on experience, but I don't know what that means. In 93 she avoided a simple single-payer health system in favor of a complex one that left a cut for insurance companies, and it failed (the insurance companies preferred the cut they were already getting and the public couldn't make heads or tails of it). So what did she learn from that experience? She's got a new plan that is just as complex and even less helpful to the needy. Rock on, Hillary.

She has passed no bill sine coming to the Senate that would do anything very significant -- she hasn't even proposed any bills that would do much. (In fairness, she gets her state pork.)

And I don't get why she's so strong and tough either. Unless "strong and tough" is a way of saying: blank slate of ambition with no principles, a lot of money and ruthless consultants.

Obama is also much of a blank slate, though I think he would bring more of a mandate with him to the White House than Clinton. Unfortunately, he's a hypocrite too -- though not as transparent as Clinton (I guess he hasn't had enough experience). He used to stand up for Palestinians, but now that he's running for president he thinks Israel has a right to do whatever it wants. He voted to defeat an amendment to the bankruptcy bill that would have limited interest rates on credit cards at 30 percent, knowing that the bill would pass (he didn't vote for the bill, but the banks only needed his vote to defeat the amendment). He was against the war in Iraq, as he regularly reminds us, but he now advocates unprovoked military attacks on other sovereign nations with no act of Congress (Hillary calls it naive, but you can imagine that if she thought of it first she would have advocated such action -- and Obama would have called it naive -- seriously, who can't imagine this scenario?).

I'll still vote for Obama in the general if the party lets him have the nomination. His "lack of experience" means that he could surprise me. I'm not counting on it, but I'll take the gamble.

In any event, we deserve better. Maybe Clinton's decision to drag this out will, in fact, tear apart the party (can't really see how it won't). But maybe that will be a good thing; the party hasn't served us well since LBJ or earlier.

Why not vote for McCain? It doesn't really seem fair that people who support oligarchical rule and have a fetish with controlling the world militarily get two parties while the rest of us get none.