The fact is we will never know.

The fact also is that the Democratic Primary process isn't completely to blame either. Does anyone -- including the Good Princeton Professor with a Wayback Machine -- believe that if Barack Obama was running against John Kerry, or John Edwards, or even Al Gore, or anyone not named Clinton this primary process would still be going on?

I doubt it. Anyone else would've had the good sense and political decency to drop out, or would've been pressured out by the Party Establishment well before Texas and Ohio.

The fact is this Primary "mess" is largely manufactured by Hillary Clinton and her entourage of advisers who simply cannot believe anyone else "deserves" the Presidency more than her.

Unfortunately there is no one in the Democratic Party that can stand up to the Clinton Machine and yell, Stop the Madness!

Even when people do say, STOP! the Clintons refuse to listen. Even when the math shows that winning the nomination is virtually impossible the Clintons refuse to listen. Even when basic logic says that super-delegates overturning the will of some of the most loyal Democratic voters will never happen the Clintons refuse to listen.

I would submit that the problem isn't the primary system. The problem is a well-funded candidate who refuses to listen to former supporters, basic math, or logic and is essentially operating beyond the control of the Party system for her own gain.

And if Hillary Clinton manages to seize the nomination, blow up the party, and loses to McCain by a wider margin than Obama (according to current polls) that would prove?

The reason why McCain is leading, marginally against Barack Obama and not so marginally against Hillary Clinton, is because the Democratic Party has no nominee. A problem exacerbated by Hillary Clinton herself. Again, it has nothing to do with the primary process and everything to do with one of the Candidates

Clinton supporters are a wee bit delusional in think that if Barack Obama loses against John McCain the Democratic Party will see the error of its ways and parade "Hill-Dog" on its shoulders to victory in 2012.

If Barack Obama loses in the general Hillary Clinton will be blamed and the name Clinton will be poison for 100 years. The Russians will have to come in and build a lead tomb around Hillary Clinton's Senate career. A good Presidency and a decent Junior Senator from New York will sit next to Hubert Humphrey in the Democratic Party Hall of Shame.

Seriously, a freak does something weird and a little uncomfortable, and it becomes news worthy? Really? Thank god cable news wasn't around during the traveling circus era.

We've got a war in Iraq, a messed up election, an economy headed towards outright depression, a banking system that is teetering near collapse , and cable news is wasting our time with a freak acting like a freak?

To me that -- the complete and meaningless distraction of it all -- is what Salon and every one should be outraged about. Not about how tenderly or not tenderly this Dude with Child is handled.

Yeah, those young people with their Rock N' Roll and their Hippity Hop, and their MySpace pages, and their Progressive Idealism. Damn them! Young people! What good are they!?

Except -- you know -- paying for your debts, and your wars, and your social security, and your heath care, and eventually your nursing care. How dare they express an opinion and have a voice? Don't they know they should shut up and let you reach into their wallets and take.

So Obama Supporters are supposed to shut up and go to the back of the bus because we might be making some women "uncomfortable"?

In the meantime, Hillary Clinton and her supporters are allowed to spew bile, sling mud, lie to varying degrees, distort reality, run essentially as a Moderate Republican, and destroy the Democratic Party without consequence. In the words of that Great America poet, Lil Jon, WHAT!?

Hey, newsflash! As much as Obama Supporters might be turning off some over-privileged White Women. Hillary Clinton and her supporters are doing an equally good job of turning off Black Voters, Young Voters, and the Progressive core of the Democratic Party.

But I guess that's okay.

The Pope is kind of hard to love given the whole Nazi thing, his rigid adherence to doctrine, and the fact he looks like Nosferatu in drag.