Have you read the ad? It was perfectly reasonable. The coming of Petraeus was being sold up the ying-yang by the White House, by the brainless cable news, by everyone: now the Great General will tell us why we were right to be against a timeline for withdrawal. He will show us graphs! Graphs! We will look at the drawings by the hero and gladly send him more gold and human sacrifice. Oh, did you see that bar graph? The purple bar was a full 6% lower than the previous one. Let's vote for another $200 billion for the meat grinder.

All the MoveOn ad did was pop the balloon. They cited all the other sources of stats, and questioned why the general was coming up with stats so different from the other sources, and bringing attention to the fact, AHEAD OF TIME, when it could affect the political climate, not afterwards in some conservative rag that isn't paid any attention to by the current GOP, and all hell broke loose. So what? I'd say that was proof of how on target the thing was. The only quibble they could possibly have was with ONE WORD. Grow a spine, please, if you're a liberal, or a heart, if you're conservative.

The longer he does, the better the chance of chaos in the Republican caucus. A Democratic Senator from Idaho? Do we have anybody there? Notice to the Idaho Democratic Party: you exist. But even if that long shot doesn't happen, the Craig problem will hover in the air like something else you encounter in a bathroom.

But it doesn't matter so much. Remember, a record percentage of the vote in 2004 was evangelical. Even if there are "hands across the water" at the GOP convention -- where the bridge fell down, remember? -- it's going to be very hard for them to GOTV.

Finally, Paglia shows her real stripes as a fan of the most useless Bush Dem of them all, Diane Feinstein. Very instructive.

The Edwards who voted with Hillary? Surely he couldn't be a whitened sepulchre. He's one of the good guys. Who cast just as bad a vote as Hillary on that one, listening to the same consultants.

Meanwhile, Obama was like me: able to make up his mind quickly that the Iraq adventure was going to be horrible. But really, he wasn't under anything like the same pressure, though, was he?

Bill has been raising money for tsunami relief, AIDS in Africa, and a whole bunch of charities. And? Oh, and some Democratic donors also give to candidates. And? A vague smear is a vague smear. Please, get a life.

On the other hand, Hillary has said she's for publicly-financed elections. So am I, if only because I'm tired of reading blather like this, that isn't anything but speculative guilt by association.

The enemy, Salon, is called the Republican Party, and the war hawks and extremists who run it. If you find out something substantive against Hillary -- or Edwards, or Obama or any of the other candidates or their positions, you'll tell us, right? Won't you? Or are you just a bunch of crunchy-granola lefties who won't ever elect a president of your own?

That's what they're raising money for. The beasts!

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/index.htm?gclid=CM-UnqHlhY8CFSAZIwodcjFuwQ

Hunt around. You might want to give to some of the causes yourselves.

What the hell is wrong with you people? You have some perfectly good candidates. Write stuff about Obama or Edwards or Kucinich. Write stuff about how crazy the GOP candidates are, and hunt around for the scandals there, and there are lots of them. Write stuff about how Hillary is too centrist, or how this vote or that speech is the wrong approach. What the hell is the compulsion to start acting like the wingnuts of the '90s, unable to stop the Clintons so you hunt and peck for scandal after scandal? You're very sad people.

I see the character assassins are out tonight. Amazing how many people 20% of the population can simulate.

Hillary is a very smooth campaigner. This is bad?

And by the way, if you want to call the question from the woman "staged," what are you going on? Did you ask her if the campaign had asked her to be there? Or is it just your "feeling," which seems to be a journalistic contagion when it comes to talking about Clinton? As long as the woman's dilemma is real, which I have no doubt about, putting her in the crowd and getting her to ask the question is fine -- if it happened. Remember the fellow at the Democratic debate for the unions? He got up and spoke about his wife not having health insurance? Very moving, very true, and very staged. Think it was an accident that he spoke? What are you, a rube? Oh, but it's only Hillary who is "contrived".

On the campaign trail, everything is a little processed. The candidates say the same things over and over again. They have to. That's the nature of modern campaigns. Modern, lazy journalists have an easy explanation: Hillary's not "authentic," so it's her fault.