It's not plagiarism to use your friend's words, though I tell my students to attribute quotes to avoid problems; it's not insulting to say what Michele said about pride in country--no sane person has had much to be proud of the last 7 years. But it would have been wiser to put the time frame in, or add the grace notes about the first African-American and the first woman to make it so far in the process. The real problems are:

He criticizes her health care plan, using the infamous Harry and Louise ads of the insurance industry and the GOP. So, it very important to compare health care plans--hers covers everyone and thus can lower costs, while his doesn't and thus will raise costs. Blue-collar workers need affordable, reasonable health insurance.

He criticizes unions and offers GOP and investment bankers claims that Social Security is in big trouble, though it isn't--Medicare is. But he takes money from Goldman Sachs--a big investment group and a major champion of privatizing Social Security. Blue-collar workers need unions to protect their wages and need Social Security because retirement plans based on the stock market are not always dependable--as we have seen only too recently seen.

So it is very important that she connects with the forgotten base of the Democratic party while he connects with yuppie baby boomers and their children.

I too am yuppie scum, as Garrison Keillor used to call himself and us, though, as a professor at a Community College, a poorer member of the yuppie-boomer cohort. Still, I own my home thanks to my parents; I have good health care insurance thanks to my job; I have a good retirement plan also thanks to my parents and my job. I don't need too much I don't have. I am an army brat. I am on paper a perfect Republican (and like Hillary I was until college), or Obama supporter.

But my students are the blue-collar Democratic base and their children, and they have much to worry about. They need unions to push for higher wages and good benefits. They need a universal health care plan that by virtue of being universal will push costs down instead of up.

They need someone who will fight for them rather than talking to the industries and the GOP and then caving--as Obama did with Exelon. He took their money, rewrote his bill (the original of which Clinton co-sponsored) until the Republicans and the corporation were happy. The bill went from a requirement for notification about nuclear leaks to a suggestion.

Obama is a decent man, a gifted orator, and, he is better than any Republican, but he is not good enough--not now at any rate. He takes money from corporations and then accuses others of being in the tank for the big money groups. He needs to see those blue-collar workers and their children up close and personal and forget about his-our-fellow boomers and their comfortable children.

Linda

The problem with Shapiro's report lite is that it is awfully light on facts. With just subsidies the costs will go up, so Obama,s plan will cost more than he says. For affordable health care you need everyone covered so costs aren't shifted, as they now are, to people with insurance. That means Clinton's plan stands the best chance of providing affordable insurance to everyone.

What will happen under the Obama plan is that subsidies without universality will cause prices to rise, increasing the cost to the government. So either the government bancrupts itself or it limits subsidies. This will not stop costs from rising either, forcing more and more people off their insurance plans because they or their companies will no longer be able to afford them. The result is ever higher costs and even fewer people covered.

The Clinton plan by mandating coverage means that all will be part of the pool, putting both private money and government money into the pot. This universality will cover all people and start, but not finish, the effort to control costs.

Linda

The interesting point will come when the media is forced to choose between wife number 1, John McCain, and the new mistress in line to become wife number 2, Barack Obama. Will they be faithful to the wife, though she is getting a bit lone in the tooth or will they follow their bliss, divorce her, and go to the younger, prettier trophy wife. Hillary can't play in this league, of course, because she is too much like an actual wife. John and Barack give them the thrill of romance and the jolt of being buddies with the coolest guy in the class. As the nerds in high school, they want the pretty girl, guy, now that they have power. Hillary is the girl they married, the one who knows them too well, the one who doesn't, as Chris Matthews said about Obama, make a spark run up his leg, who doesn't, as Matthews also said, smell like a manly man, like Thompson. She isn't the war hero who confers bravery by transfer. So who will they pick? Obama, I think. They are fickle our media. Unless of course their masters in the boardroom think Obama is too exciting. Then they'll have to stick with wife number 1. But they will be torn these loverboys.

Linda