And refuse to specify if I'll vote for Edwards or Obama if they're nominated. I'm not sure I can, as long as Obama keeps up his lying about Social Security and sucking up to Russert, and sucking up to anti-gay theocrats, and Edwards keeps on trading on the sickness of his wife.

There, suck on that, Salontards.

The only answer for a Democrat is, yes, of course I will support the nominee.

I do think there is a great irrationality that stalks Democratic activists: Hillary hatred. Read the comments on Huffington Post if you don't believe me. Look at the Huffington Post. Hillary-hatred is part of the DNA there. Understand, I'm not saying that there aren't lots of rational reasons to oppose Hill, excessive centrism, cautiousness, whatever. But if you look at one of her policies and point out that it's too kind, from your point of view, to the health insurance industry, that's one thing. But the number of rabid folks who call her a "corporatist," which means fascist, folks, or falsify her record and start reading a list of talking points that sound like they were prepared by Karl Rove for Mike Gravel -- this makes me uneasy. Or the fact that Obama's recent questions for Hillary on Social Security are straight untruths out of the Republican playbook.

I'd throw in the 9/11 "Truthies", and the kind of people who maintain, on faith, apparently, that the '08 elections will be postponed -- on no specific evidence, just panic and hate.

Take the Bush Crime Family name-calling. They have been a wealthy Republican family, no doubt, and their politics has followed Republican fashions. Grandpa did trade with the Thyssen interests. But Standard Oil and Texaco traded with the fascists in Spain, and much of Wall Street was hoping for the victory of the isolationist Republicans, which would have given them a free hand to make money with Herr Hitler, or anyone else. Was Prescott Bush a Nazi? Pretty unlikely. It was, after all, firmly in the American tradition to stay out of foreign entanglements, and trade freely with the world. All the polls in the mid-'30s showed a large majority for Neutrality. As time went on in the '30s, many people started falling away from that position as the true face of Hitler became clearer. My point is, politics isn't often black-and-white, us against the Evil Ones. That Manicheanism is what got us in Iraq, isn't it?

And there is a part of my rational hatred of Bush which verges into the irrational. For instance, I haven't bought a single can of Bush's Baked Beans in the last seven years. Now, THAT'S not rational.

While 99% of Bush hatred is well-deserved, some of it is not. When people talk about the "Bush Crime Family," or how they're obviously going to void the 2008 elections, you have to be a little irrational.

But I'll tell you what kind of irrational hatred is popular in leftie circles right now: Hillary-hating. Sure, there's lots to be disagreed with. You can look at her votes and take them apart, and of course, you can prefer Candidate B based on this or that policy. But the hatred you see on the HuffPost, for instance, is to the point of being unbalanced, and that's the warning sign for any political movement.

The ridiculous Chris Matthews has been Clinton-phobic for a long time. Now she laughs funny, then she's you know, a woman. A controlling bitch, you know, like all women. And a fair number of progressives take this crap and accept it as true because it's useful to them. They think. I think the worst part of the MSNBC debate was how much the Russert-Matthews team jumped in bed with Obama, and how much he welcomed their support. And went after Hillary on a completely phony comedy routine about Social Security.

Surely, an important part of being a progressive is a "fact-based" world, not the theocratically partisan W-world we've had to live through.

To take an example: Kucinich's lone stand for single-payer health insurance is very appealing to me. But people who support him, and think Hillary's position is fascist, are nuts, and they're not helping the party or their candidate.

Only Camille could cite MSNBC conventional Russert-wisdom and say she's an avant-garde truthteller.

What is this horrible person doing in Salon?

Will picking on Hillary help her? Or will it not? Who knows? What do you think I am, a mind-reader? (Joking there. Nobody is.)

I tend to see it as the same sadistic game that went on with Gore. Of course, the far lefties, the Third Party/Third Eye zealots loved to join in last time when the MSNBC/NYT Irish Mafia, and the usual suspects from a lot of LIBERAL rags added in the rip-snortin' insights into how phony he was, how he would do anything and say anything because he was corrupt, ambitious, crazy, and half a man. Has everybody forgotten?

I guess the lefties think they can just be quiet, or cooperate, as the rat pack takes her down. Good luck with that one.

Understand, I'm perfectly all right if someone says, "My health plan is better than hers." I know also that the networks, and even the newspapers, don't pay any attention whatsoever to issues. But ganging up with the Press Monsters is not productive. It will bite us in the ass.

And why should he change?

Hillary didn't lie about Social Security, like the new Obama does.