I mean, it's far more vital to concern ourselves with whether Senator Obama, who has been a class act all week, will show sufficient deference to the candidate he's just beaten than with Senator Clinton's despicable, George Wallace-style rhetoric insisting her party's presumptive nominee can't win the votes of "hardworking whites."

Once again the double standard raises its head(s). Obama's obligation to "discourage disrespect" toward his vanquished opponent is precisely proportional to the respect she and her surrogates show him; given the way she has striven to tear him down by dividing Americans along racial and class lines, he owes her not one jot more. Any additional graciousness he displays will simply demonstrate that much further why he, and not she, deserves to be the Democratic nominee.

(And Senator Kennedy's accurate representation of her campaign as insufficiently appealing to the better angels of our natures, and of Senator Clinton as thus a poor fit as a running mate for Obama, was not disrespectful. If she doesn't like that characterization, perhaps she should have thought of that before she allowed her campaign to become a tragic betrayal of the Clinton legacy. When one scorches the earth, one has no right to complain that the charred, denuded trees now provide no shade from the hot sun.)

I love the woman's letter, and she makes great points with passion (I come from Georgia, a state that gets tarred with similar brushes, and often deservedly so).

But that doesn't change the fact that the subtext of this post from Ms. Walsh is:

"See? SEE??? I was right! I was right! My candidate may be losing, but I was right! Hillary and I are convinced she has a better chance of winning the general, and look -- here's proof! Incontrovertible! From an actual hillbil-- er, West Virginian! DON'T YOU SEE????"

Which, in a way, is just as condescending to the West Virginian woman as anything Obama has ever said or done. Maybe more.

Put another way, I'll ask Ms. Walsh just one question: Show us the plane ticket from YOUR last five trips to West Virginia. Tell us about YOUR rural family members. You're the webzine editor/San Francisco resident/card-carrying member of the liberal elite. Championing the forsaken rural voter is a bit of an odd fit for you, isn't it?

Or maybe I'm just making erroneous assumptions about you based on the facts of your current circumstances. But hey, I grew up a Georgia hayseed. I can't be expected to do any better, I guess.

<<...the Clinton-hate is in danger of damaging the Democratic Party.>>

Why read further? "Hate" toward the runner-up is in danger of damaging the party. Hate toward the presumptive nominee, of course, does not exist, can thus do no such harm and is thus unworthy of comment.

And this from a woman who goes on to deride, yet again, the "double standard" in coverage of this campaign, willfully blind to her own failings on that very score. Oh, Hypocrisy, I think I'll miss you most of all.

Ms. Walsh. Please.

Stop.

Just... stop.

Embarrassing yourself is your business. But surely you would want to draw the line at embarrassing Salon. God knows I'm embarrassed for it.

The fight. Is. Over. Come back. We want you back. We NEED you back.

(sexy)

Agreed and seconded.

That change is coming, and fast. Hillary Clinton, flawed as she is, moved the football into the Red Zone, for which I, though an Obama man, am grateful.

And I KNOW the Clintonista rejection of the "just not THAT woman" position is misguided, even if sincere. I sympathize with what they must be feeing right now -- I'd be feeling it too, on Obama's behalf, if the situation were reversed -- but I also know my own willingness, not to say unbridled enthusiasm, toward the notion of voting in a female Chief Executive. Hell, I'd vote for Ann Richards for president right now, and she's dead. Somebody wanna tell Barbara Boxer to run? I'll vote for her too.

... whether Justin Jouvenal can talk while Joan Walsh is drinking water? Just curious.

(I was going to ask that under an earlier WR post, but I figured I was pulling the trigger too quickly and would give him the benefit of the doubt. Oh, well. Somewhere, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy are rolling over in their graves and/or boxes.)