If we're not going to hold our party's candidates to a higher standard, if we're gonna start thinking it's okay to coopt the blatantly dishonest smear tactics of the Republicans -- as Clinton is -- then we have fundamentally lost our way, and I want no part of it.

Put another way, you don't wear the ring. You destroy the ring. Both Obama and Edwards have refrained from indulging in the scorched-earth Rovian playbook, and power to them. Clinton has not. And, much as we need change in this country, we don't need another four years of Democrats acting like Republicans when it's electorally convenient for them.

Or, on her game, I should say, since that seems to be what her campaign completely relies upon these days.

Put simply, the Clintons can't find the level below which they will not sink. They've embarrassed themselves, and all of us who once backed them, and who once believed they were more devoted to the liberal/progressive cause than their own fortunes.

The best case scenario for Bill and Hillary Clinton now is 1976. They manage to thwart a popular movement in the party for four more years. But, win or lose, the tide is coming, and the Boomers aren't getting any younger.

Posters keep acting like we Obama folk think he's some sort of angel. He's not. Obama supporters aren't blind to the compromises he's had to make along the way -- as The Wire puts it, that's all in the game. But he's been much more above board than the Clintons have proved themselves, for reasons already discussed, and if this is not his cycle -- which is still very much an open question -- the next one will be.

Time is on our side. And, to conflate musical metaphors, the old road is rapidly agin'. So get out of the new one, if you can't lend a hand, 'cause the times, they are a-changin'.

You're already wrong in your first paragraph.

By the time Obama supporters were taking issue with Clinton's use of "fairy tale," the first shots had already been fired. For one, by then President Clinton was already deliberately misconstruing Obama's record on Iraq (hence, the whole dismaying "fairy tale" monologue in the first place.)

By then, Senator Clinton was already indulging in the Giuliani-esque politics of fear (Gordon Brown getting tested on his first day, yadda yadda yadda), had sent out mailers blatantly falsifying Obama's record on abortion and social security reform, and -- most depressing -- had denigrated Obama's appeal as little more than "false hopes."

So, don't try to pretend that Senator Clinton was the aggrieved party here, because that dog won't hunt.

If you were the generation of RFK, as you claim to be, then perhaps you should think twice about supporting the candidate of "false hopes" forty years later. I'm sorry about what happened in 1968 -- it was tragic and changed this country irrevocably for the worse -- but that's no reason to give up hope now.

I've logged some experience in DC too, including several years working directly for the Clinton machine. She and her husband have betrayed their legacy. If you can't see that, maybe you need to examine your own motives.

You've been indulging in straw man arguments about Obama supporters across several different columns now. Please, grow up.

I don't see Obama as the coming of a new political messiah, nor do any of the many Obama supporters I know. As I've said many times now, he's just a man and a politician, who, like everyone else, has had to make the compromises necessary to stay viable in the game.

That being said, I believe him to be a far better candidate than Senator Clinton, and the type of unifying, hope-stirring candidate we don't see all that often. And I think he has run a more above-board campaign to this point. The Clintons, on the other hand, are indulging in cheap Rovian tactics all the live-long day now, as I've articulated several times before to you.

As for Conason's lack of bias, or Grieve's, or Walsh's, these sorts of problems could be sidelined if every columnist would just admit who they're leaning toward upfront. That being said, I do think Conason has been pretty fair about attacking candidates across the board -- his most recent column at the Observer could hardly be called pro-Clinton. (As his last line testifies, I thought he seemed a lot more predisposed to Gore and against Bradley two cycles ago.)

Yeah, if it's all right with you, I'm just going to ignore you.

I know what I've written here, and none of it could honestly be construed as having a "messianic" view of Obama.

I do think he's a wonderful opportunity for the Democratic party, tho. No question. And one the party dismisses at its peril.

It saves me the time of having to rewrite them.

And you call that messianic? Might be time to stop spamming Salon and start perusing dictionary.com.

By the way, I stand by everything I said in that repeated post.

Also, as I've said before, this "Obamabot" worked for the Clinton rapid response team for several years. So, I guess I was just "deep undercover" back then, right? Please.