Xrandadu Hutman, even though I feel like I've answered you before, I'll answer again, because you're such an enthusiastic participant in letters threads all over Salon. But really, it's Groundhog Day for me. The question about whether I'd work for her also seemed sincere, so let me answer it first: I worked for the California State Legislature, briefly, early in my career, and I learned a lot, but I was miserable. I have a big mouth! Politicians really don't want to employ me. Plus, I have no intention of working in a place that's swampier and more humid than Sacramento and so much farther from San Francisco. Finally, I have the world's best job. Hillary applied, and when she didn't get it, she ran for president. (Kidding!)

I stopped answering letters claiming I'm in the tank for Hillary a while ago. But I'm going to finish this answer, and then reprint it in every letters thread when it comes up again. Unless, Xrandadu, you want to do that for me?

I'm not supporting Hillary Clinton, much to the chagrin of friends and family who are. (Don't worry, I have plenty of friends and family who aren't!) I truly haven't made up my mind. I will say, though, that when MSM folks who were so wrong on impeachment, including my friend Chris Matthews and now, the next generation of Beltway smirkers, like my friend Ana Marie Cox, go after Hillary Clinton, well, I can imagine myself going into the voting booth and thinking about the way the media gangs up on her, and, yes, voting for her. Right now, that's not my plan. But I don't know.

Almost as bad are people without any class consciousness who talk about the Clintons as a "dynasty" like the Bushes. Fellas, please. I love this country, desperately, but one of its worst traits is its ignorance about class. Does it take a working class Irish Catholic girl to tell you all: Hillary Clinton ain't George Bush in any way. (The Bush-Pierce dynasty just loves you folks who don't know the difference!) You can dislike Clinton, you can think she's arrogant, you can criticize her foreign policy mistakes on the Iraq AUMF vote and Kyl-Lieberman. Certainly I have, over and over. But claiming she hasn't worked to get what she has is just dumb about class, and in my opinion, sexist. I don't know where she'd be if she hadn't followed Bill Clinton to Arkansas, but she was a Yale law school grad who worked on the House Judiciary Committee's Watergate inquiry. She had her own law career and she was a respected children's advocate, an activist with the Children's Defense Fund when I first heard of her. We can't know if she'd have wound up in the Senate without Bill Clinton, but it's ignorant to act like she didn't have her own career and credentials. Unlike legacy president George W. Bush.

I like Obama. I might vote for him. Read Rebecca Traister's piece on Michelle tonight, it's terrific. Read Walter Shapiro's great blog post on John Edwards today. Read mine from a while back, along with my Elizabeth Edwards interview. Then, go out and work for the candidate of your choice. But don't worry about me, I'm making up my own mind, like a lot of you. If you've given up on me, by all means, read Glenn. Or read Joe Klein and Ana Marie Cox! Kidding: Read Digby!

Thanks again, Xrandadu, I hope I answered your question.

Terry Filgate, I'm not backtracking on my criticism of Clinton's jab at Obama. I'm saying that my friends might have been right about its purpose and impact. I still think it was wrong and made her sound small, degrading the experiences of the 10 year old Obama.

People can blame me for my "slugfest" approach to these issues, but this is how it's playing out there. And no one will ever convince me it was a smart political move for Obama to draw out Madeleine Albright, and give her a platform to talk about Hillary's foreign-policy experience that every media outlet in the country is going to print verbatim.

I couldn't go to bed until I came clean. My actual high school, Shorewood High in Shorewood, Wisconsin, puts me in better company than Maria Regina, I believe: (In)famous alums include former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, "Airplane" brothers Jerry and David Zucker and former Defense Secretary Les Aspin. Also listed in Wikipedia is my old friend, tennis star Leif Shiras, which irks me a little, because I promised him all the notes I wrote on his binder in Latin class would some day be worth a lot because I would be the famous one. But I guess that means his notes on my Latin binder (oh yeah, I kept it) might be worth something, just in time to pay for my daughter's college tuition. Thanks, Leif, and thanks Wikipedia!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorewood_High_School_%28Wisconsin%29

However: A fabulous Shorewood alum who didn't make Wikipedia (along with me) is Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads. Let's hope the good citizens of Wikipedia update their notable Shorewood grads soon. And don't get me started on Madison, or Daily Cardinal alums...

Hi Anonymous, that's a really good point. I think. Except, as I said, I didn't go there. Honestly, from what I remember, 30-plus years ago, it wasn't a plutocrat school at all, but a working-middle class Catholic high school in the middle of Long Island. But, as I say, I didn't go there, so maybe someone who did will write in and enlighten us. But meanwhile, thanks for writing! No one's ever linked me to the Carlyle Group before, so that's kinda fun.