Thank you for this, Rebecca. I am not a Hillary supporter "per se," but unlike many, I am not unwilling to see the good in all three Democratic top runners. I have not villainized any of them in framing my support for Obama. There are many things I admire and like about Hillary, and there was something about this last week's media coverage that brought those points to the fore.

For those of us who are too dumb or just don't have time to read your book:

Why?

I'm asking in all sincerity. Please try to answer in just a sentence or two.

Her conduct? Whatever do you mean by this? The crying? Being a bitch? What do you mean? As far as I can tell, she has conducted herself over the last year like anyone else running for high political office. She's worked damn hard, she's smart, she's pandered a bit, she's getting tired. What stereotypes are you referring to?

I don't disagree with you about Gore. I don't think I will ever get over my anger and despair at that fundamentally decent man's treatment at the hands of the mainstream media. My feeling that Rebecca was dead-on here doesn't even come close to the emotion beneath the surface on the Gore thing. But perhaps we've come far enough along--as a direct result of Gore?--that it reaches our radar and we become intolerant sooner.

What you say makes sense, and I honestly never thought about it before. I'm referring to Gloria Steinham's comment and how it oozes outrage that blacks, the nerve of them, should get the vote before women.

But can we please not make this nomination about blacks versus women? Because I am pretty sure that Hillary is not a racist and Obama is not a sexist, no matter what small, nuanced remarks they've made in the last fatiguing weeks.

And because these issues are bound to rear their ugly heads when we get to the general election, and they just don't apply now. I heard some jerk on right-wing radio yesterday crow about how Obama's victory in Iowa (this was early, before Hillarymania took over the media) demonstrates that there is NO RACISM in America and that liberals and "Al Sharpton types" have been hyping that lie for the last few decades to the black/liberal chumps who've bought it. And I wanted to scream into the radio that the racists were too busy voting for their Republican nominee in the primary season but that they would be out in full force for the general. I mean, are these pundits stupid? All the self-congratulatory pats on the back for being so tolerant--a WOMAN? a BLACK?--aren't we great!!! It's not the COUNTRY who voted for a woman and a black; it's not even the STATES of Iowa and New Hampshire who voted for a woman and a black. It was DEMOCRATS who voted for a woman and a black.

So, please, please, keep the divisive rhetoric out of the equation here on salon in the primary season. It will come soon enough.

I hear you, but how is this different from all candidates? You're naive to think that any single one (perhaps with the exclusion of Kucinich) of the candidates don't make these kinds of political adjustments.

Did you not hear Obama's speech last night? He clearly brought up civil rights and "talked black" where he didn't in Iowa, and it's because......Next Stop: South Carolina!

That's how politicians work.

How the hell does anybody know if Hillary cried about Katrina? Some of us did, quietly, unobtrusively, out of frustration, in our own homes in front of our television sets. How does JJJ know that Hillary didn't? Just because she didn't do it publicly? If she did it privately and then thought "Hey, this would be good for my image" and then brought it to the public arena...Is that better?

I actually think you're mistaken. Mostly I've heard things like "I'll plug my nose and vote for her" or something along that line.

Is that Akron, Ohio?

Perhaps my beef was with Traister, then, for bringing up the GS quote, or for GS herself for saying it. As I implied, it's an egregious assumption that somehow white women have it worse than black men, and whoever pointed out that her quote completely left out black women altogether (Was that you?) was dead on.

But here was my real point: Hillary herself hasn't said or done anything to indicate she's racist (nor has Obama said or done anything to indicate he's sexist--Please don't anyone bring up little crap like his saying "You're likable enough."), so, really, is it too much to ask not to turn this into a mudfest b/t blacks and women? I am thoroughly demoralized in advance at the extent to which this will certainly all come up later with Republicans in the general election. I've delved a bit into right-wing world in the last few days and have been struck by how obssessed they are about Dems. It occurred to me that left-wing sites talk and argue about Obama v. Hillary (v. the left-out Edwards), and right-wing sites talk about how left-wing sites argue about Dems! (No one's talking about Repubs). They are already basting their audiences in the arguments Dems provide against their own (What salonistas say against Obama, against Clinton).

So, yes, GS was wrongheaded, and RT shouldn't have quoted her, but none of that indicts Clinton or Obama.'

Did that make sense?