Thanks. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.

As a woman, I have to say that I have, very definitely seen women discriminated against due to gender, in being chosen for jobs, and in terms of pay in the workplace. I have seen other women subjected to this, and I have personally been on the receiving end as well. I've been sexually harassed in the workplace. So while I appreciate that you haven't seen overt sexism personally, it's worth keeping an open mind to the fact that it does exist.

As you mention, gender sometimes works in a women's favor of course. Almost everyone knows someone who has "slept her way to the top" or flirted with men to get ahead. But many people also know a woman who has been passed over in favor of a man for a job she is equally or more qualified for. Because sometimes it's just about the boss picking a frat brother or golf buddy or someone who isn't of childbearing age and not likely to take a maternity leave...well, you get the drift.

But while gender discrimination against women exists, is it the all-purpose, handy, one-size-fits-all excuse for anything or everything that goes wrong for women? No way.

Is it the all-purpose, handy, one-size-fits-all excuse for anything or everything that went wrong with Hillary Clinton's campaign? Absolutely not.

And I find the use of it as an excuse to be ridiculous, demeaning to women, and totally sexist. What is more demeaning than to say, "hey, don't even bother to critically judge that woman candidate based on her actions, decisions, judgments, etc.,-- just assume she didn't win because she's a woman, and blame it on sexism.

Does that mean every woman who makes a colossally bad decision (like Hillary's war authorization and Kyl-Lieberman votes) should get a pass on criticism, just because they're women? Are cries of sexism and claims of victimization now some sort of retroactive affirmative action program designed to explain away a woman's legitimate failure in an endeavor she undertakes?

Like you, I am disappointed in some of Obama's decisions. I have been a supporter of Obama for a long time. I have been a serious contributor financially as well. To that end, I have sent my communications to the campaign, and made my thoughts known to anyone I can get to listen.

But right now, given what America faces, I don't believe in publicly dissecting his every decision, because that is counter-productive. We don't need to do the Republican's job for them. The do it well enough themselves.

Like you, I am convinced that Obama is the best choice for America, compared to McCain. He's far from perfect -- but if Hillary were in his shoes right now, she wouldn't be perfect either.

You wrote: "What annoys me the most about Walsh is that when she criticizes Obama it seems she does it just for the sake of criticizing. To me the words are iniquitous."

Agreed. To me, she lost her authority to impartially criticize Obama long ago. It seems like the criticism has always been about bolstering Hillary, taking down Obama for the sake of taking him down, or post-primary "Hillary lost" bitterness, and probably always will be.

I think Thadeus Crumb responded eloquently to the question. (Thank you, Thadeus!)

While she will continue to do so, it's too late for Joan to believably or sincerely offer criticism of Obama, as warranted as it might be. Because she lost her credibility campaigning for Hillary and concern trolling regarding Obama.

I'm not the only Salon readers who recognizes that, given her track record, Joan's criticism of Obama is rarely meant to be "constructive."

I think the issue is bitterness. Does sexism exist -- yes. But are all women walking around bitter about it -- hardly. I don't know many who are, actually, and I'm a woman.

The women who make it into a cause celebre and who blame their failures on sexism and discrmination are, frankly, an embarrassment to those of us women who get along well, thank you very much, and who view sexism as only one of many impediments that both women and men face in the job market.

I've seen workplaces that discriminate against Muslims, against men, against the old, against the young, against people who don't dress a certain way, against people who didn't have Ivy educations, against people who weren't conservative Republicans (I did a short temp stint at Ross Perot's EDS -- ARGH!) and so on. Sexism, or any discriminatory "isms" in a workplace are a clear sign to me that it's time to move on to a more enlightened workplace. Sexism has been an occasional inconvenience, but it never held me back.

I too would love to vote for a woman president. But she has to be qualified (on her OWN merit, not by marriage). And, like you, I believe Clinton's war authorization vote, and then repeating the mistake again with Kyl-Liemberman, was evidence that all her years "in politics" (or married to a politician) did not give her the judgement to do the most important thing of all: what was right.