I know what you mean about the practical campaigning aspect, and if you'll look back at my post called "strategy", you'll see that I embrace the reality that politicians must address tactical issues. As an example, I think anonymous is all wrong here:

I CAN'T BELIEVE CLINTON SUPPORTERS IN THIS FORUM! What Hilary Clinton is doing is FOUL. Where was Clinton's support for Michigan and Florida when this was going on last year? I support Obama, but if he did something like this, rather than trying to explain the deviousness away, I would seriously consider changing my vote. I AM UTTERLY AMAZED!

--Anonymous

Your logic (and mine from previous post) completely applies, and if people even gave it a tiny thought, they'd realize that they'd support their own candidate who did what Hilary did (and subsequently what Obama did in downplaying it).

I don't know why, but the snub thing feels different--more petty, more personal airing of dirty Dem laundry, more hypersensitive, or something. You need to remember that I don't concede at all that there was a snub. But, for the sake of argument, as I said in my last post (which answered your question of how Clinton should have responded "as a practical matter"), even if there were a snub, I think it would actually have helped Clinton, in that very practical aspect you mentioned, if she had risen above it. I know I, who have generally remained neutral on her, would have liked her more for it, on several levels.

Btw, It's a pleasure disagreeing with you. I appreciate that you earnestly address differences with serious points rather than throw nasty barbs.

Btw II: I completely agree with all who mentioned that this would have been spun differently had the roles been reversed. I think Obama has gotten a pass in the press, which makes it difficult for some of us who actually prefer him to Hilary to weed out what is relevant/truth and what is cherry-picking. All the previous "racial" remarks by the Clintons have to be seen in the light of a hounding press looking for meat. They are not (yet) on the trail of Obama and some others. Of everything I've seen in the "petty category" (non-issue-related), the only two things that stand out as really bothering me are Jesse Jackson Jr.'s comments about H not crying for Katrina (which was incoherent, logically speaking) and H's not deflecting the football on the snub. The other stuff, which others have seen, perhaps legitimately, in the context of a pattern, have simply not gotten my goat. The next closest thing was Bill Clinton's Jesse Jackson remark, which I vacillate on.

As a woman, I would like Hillary to respond very forthrightly to her attackers.

But she didn't of course. She was circumspect. Not that she had a choice in the matter. Saying directly, "He snubbed me, Chris, and it hurt my feelings," would have been ridiculous. As you mentioned, she decided somewhere along the line to play it strategically (like she'd been snubbed and it hurt her feelings but she was going to, sniff, not make a big deal out of it.) She's certainly shrewd, and as you and others have mentioned before, that is not necessarily a bad thing in the game of politics.

@anonymous:

I'm just going to take that and run, thank you very much. It's as high a compliment as anyone can get from this forum. :)

Why will nobody answer my queries about the super delegates? Nobody knows? That makes you and me and apparently the whole mainstream media. Methinks there's a conspiracy brewing. Seriously, remember "chads"? You heard it here first: "Super delegates" will be big and controversial.

I guess I'll have to go google, dammit.