She received 18 million votes in the primary. It's amazing how that distinction is tossed aside. Primary voters are not genies in a bottle, waiting to do Hillary's bidding. In the very least, more people chose Obama over Clinton. In other words, he won. Why shouldn't he be free to pick who he wants? The truth is, most of the Clinton supporters will vote Obama, and those that don't? So be it. Here's a thought: maybe if Hillary didn't spend the entirety of her campaign attacking Obama, planning a coup at the convention, and then obviously planning another run in 2012, she would be picked as VP. Joan needs to stop coasting over the reasons not to pick her, like they are not significant.

I'm amazed at how many letters are from people for whom, when you look back at their posts, were never supporting Obama, but now claim that his FISA vote "was the last straw" or some other such statement. Take Joan for instance; she has never had anything good to say about Obama, but now she's suddenly betrayed. If anything, Obama voting the he did gives her more ammo, and she can keep on with this resentment indefinitely.

I think blame for FISA needs to be shared. This was not the Obama FISA bill, and it's not a bill that passed with Obama's vote as tie breaker. His yes would not have prevented it's passage. Still, it's a knock he deserves, but it doesn't change my vote one bit. McCain is not an alternative, and neither is Nader, who is a completely ineffectual candidate. I'll take my chances with Obama any day or McCain.

Not too long ago, when Rev. Wright was on every news channel, I had to contemplate an end to Obama, and a need to support Hillary, if Obama’s campaign was indeed over. I was disappointed and disgusted. Take out white and replace it with gay and you have John Hagee, but because Wright discussed race instead of sexuality, suddenly Obama was a closet racist. I watched the campaign before and after, and saw Hillary’s expectation bright and shining. This was her gig, she was to be president, and who was Obama to stand in her way?

She talked about hard working white people and shooting guns, while her husband equated Obama with Jesse Jackson, dismissing the far more apropos John Edwards (but not for racial reasons! Screamed the Clintonistas) and claimed Obama was elitist; the far less wealthy mixed race boy who was raised on food stamps. I grew to loathe Hillary and hoped she would lose the race.

But, faced with the choice, I knew in the end that I would vote for her over McCain any day. I contemplated McCain, but then my temporary insanity wore off, and I realized cutting off my nose to spite my face would only leave me disfigured, and if McCain somehow was elected president, in part by my own bitterness, the worse off I and the country would be.

So what about the hopes and dreams of millions of African Americans who never thought they would see the day when a black person could be elected president? I remember being proud of Whoopi Goldberg, Denzel Washington, and Halle Berry when they won Oscars, figuring that was as good as it gets. But it was not, and now I though maybe, just maybe, this black man could be president. Except that if it did not happen, and if part of that reason was race, I was still a democrat, and still willing to vote for Clinton, even while holding my nose. That is what all blacks are expected to do, is it not? We will always support the Democratic Party, and they don’t expect anything else of us. The women now complaining about Obama, and threatening to vote McCain would have never understood if the roles were reversed, how anyone could vote Republican just because their candidate lost. But they are different, and their anger is more deserving, their disappointment more worth retribution.

Hillary is not the law firm associate being denied partner because of her gender. She is not the army private raped by her superior. She is not the 15 year old who has to sneak across multiple state lines to have an abortion. She is not every woman. She is Hillary Clinton only, and should be judged in that way. That some women have elected her as spokesperson of all women is incredibly short sighted and dismissive of all other female politicians, policy makers, and movers and shakers out there. There is now, and in the future there will be more, choice than just HRC or bust.

Somehow, the same loyalty expected from black people never crossed the line to white, middle and upper middle class women, only African Americans, once more at the beck and call of the Democratic Party.

Bend over and cough, it will only hurt a little.

The real problem here is that Hillary Clinton was never overwhelmingly popular in the democratic party. She's always had a very loyal group of supporters and much support, but there has also always been a large group of people, both in and out of the party, that don't like her.

Hillary's connection have always positioned her as the first viable female candidate, but that doesn't mean everyone was to fall in line and vote for her. What's truly unfair is to position every woman in the country, if not the world, as somehow harmed by Hillary's failure to win the nomination, when in the end, it only harms Hillary's chances of being president. If some Dems could open there eyes a little more, they will see there are plenty of other potential female candidates, and there will be more in the future.