Anybody read Bob Somerby and the Daily Howler? Okay, that has obsessively detailed the two years of lies that brought Gore down. The same actors -- you can't call them journalists -- now have Hillary in their sights. And Axelrod and Plouffe, tough Chicago pols, have been rabbit-punching Hillary from the right, not from the left, for six weeks now. And "progressives," generally, are easy dupes. They work by icons and Big Words. They love calling Hillary every name the right wing invented, plus they throw in "corporate," as though David Geffen and Oprah are a group of penniless truth-seekers. So this month, it's Obama. If he actually goes forth and wins, you know what will happen? All kinds of questions by Matthews, for instance, who has been busy promoting the meme of "Hillary, ineffectual, controlling bitch, etc.," and "Obama is RFK and this is 1968." As if. The progressives are mad for Obama, even though his main policies are to the right of Hillary's and certainly of Edwards. But these are the same fanatics who, in 2000, kept shouting, "Bush = Gore," only now, it's "Bush = Clinton." And voting for Nader. How well has that worked out, jerks? Right now, even Rove is giving the Obama campaign advice. (Anybody notice, he's following it?) Rove step one: get the front runner. Next: does anybody doubt there will be rumors of white babies and drug sales and all the rest? Oh, sorry, can't say the obvious.

Now the Clinton campaign, which hasn't told a single word that isn't true, can't mention the word drugs? Mathews, the insane man, and Newsweek and the Russert orbit, are Obama central.

Since when is it a smear to bring up the fact that this past admitted drug use will not be the subject of a smear in the general? It's been perfectly all right for every "progressive" supposedly to the left of Hillary -- and Obama's to her right on most things -- to refer, darkly, to the attacks that will (shudder) inevitably come if the people are crazy enough to nominated the "unelectable" Hillary. Of course, poll numbers had to be cherry-picked and lied about to say that she was "unelectable," but that's fair game. Of course the opposition candidate is going to say you -- but not they -- are "unelectable." Well, here we have what might be the first African-American nominee. He will be the subject of whisper campaigns in all kinds of states, and his admitted past drug use will be part of it, you can bet. And nobody can talk about it, because the truth is a "smear"? Oh, be still my beating heart! I'm with Erik Alterman. I don't see it as a smear, and people would be wise to ask Obama to respond to that, and not accuse the person still way ahead of him in national polls to apologize. The Swift Boaters were very much in public in the spring of that year. Wouldn't it have been a good thing to ask how Kerry would respond to this, instead of just dismissing those creeps and trying to ignore them? (It didn't work, by the way.)

This whole subject has been a missed opportunity for Obama. He could have closed that gap by showing us his mettle. Instead, he's just manipulated a good man and a good democrat out of his position, for a cheap political point. Hope he'll do better than that if he does get the nomination. If Hillary doesn't get it, I'm voting for Edwards. I don't vote for candidates who lie and manipulate.

You guys never cite any information for anything you see. Kindly STFU.

It's a great commercial. It will win the whole thing.

Tell me, do Obamaites have a single answer to anything that doesn't hinge around "B-But Hillary voted for the war?" (Which involves a lot of shorthand, by the way -- she voted to authorize force if Saddam didn't open up for inspectors. She wasn't, however, properly suspicious of Bush as short-circuiting the promises he had made to her and Blair -- and she should have been.)

Yesterday, it was as if Carville had stood up in 1992 and blamed the invasion of Kuwait on Bush, and the spread of AIDS as well. Come off it. Does your candidate have such a slender resume that all he can do is blame everything on Hillary?

Does not fit into any sane person's calculations. Happy?

The hatred of the Clintons among the Obama fans is remarkable, but not surprising. It seems to be infecting the way they look at everything. Joe Conason has written an article here that simply questions Obama's judgment in not holding any hearings in this important committee. It's a valid question, particularly since the next president will be up to his or her neck in European affairs. Why has he made that choice? Isn't it strange? What could explain it?

Hillary's speech before she voted, not for the war, but for force to be used if Saddam didn't allow the inspectors in, is eloquent, frankly, and they show nothing else than that it wasn't a vote "for war." Such an authorization, in the hands of any president before W, would have been praised, because it would have led to the realization that Iraq had no WMDs left, and therefore sanctions could have come off by the summer of 2003. However, I could guess that Bush was not to be trusted, and that he would use this vote as a declaration of war.

If it's the signature of Obama supporters that if somebody raises the possibility that their guy is not perfect they are heaped with abuse, like "shilling" for Hillary, or Shrillary, and that suddenly the years of great work by Joe Conason or Paul Krugman must be worthless, they must be in the pay of the evil Hillary, then I want nothing to do with you or your candidate. Hillary-Edwards for me.