Your point is spot on. Everytime someone points out the misogyny leveled at Clinton, we've been subjected to those letters that rightfully point out that Senator Clinton was not losing/did not lose solely due to this one factor.

But it was a factor, and it's worth discussing. Certainly there has been a lot of people who were against Senator Clinton because she was female just as there are people who are against Senator Obama because of his race.

People were writing those letters mostly in response to the inferred (sometimes even implied) accusation that "Obama boys" were voting for the most charismatic, idealist candidate the Dems have put up in 40 years because we all secretly or subconsciously hated women and wanted to see women fail. I know I have felt put on the defensive by the identity-politics-Clinton-supporters more than once, especially by the "Back off, Obama Boys" rant of your's. So we've all been too defensive and we've all been too aggressive. We should try to understand each other now. And that's part of the discussion.

Your vid here is a great preface to that conversation. You make a single point that should be kept in mind when we have this discussion.

Unfortunately, your point is slightly undermined by the jerky editing of the video itself. Because there's an obvious cut (I assume for length) between every single sentence clause, it seems to imply (though not inferred here) that you are incapable of speaking an entire sentence. As though someone took various sentence clauses, perhaps which made a completely separate point than you make here, and pasted them together like a ransom note cut from letters in a magazine. Maybe I'm just too old for this hip, with-it, 2 second attention span style, but I think it distracted from your overall point.

As an avid MJ fan, I also disagree with the comparison between MJ and the thoroughly unlikable Bryant.

MJ was certainly intense, and I'm not going to pretend he was some sort of saint, but I probably watched somewhere between 1,000 and 1,200 MJ games and I do not have the image of a guy belittling his teammates at every single opportunity throughout the game. I did see him get in a teammates' face during a game from time to time, but it was far from his default leadership style. Hell and gone, in fact.

I think the go to guy on this topic is Phil Jackson who actually wrote a book bemoaning how Kobe didn't have MJ's class or leadership abilities. Michael made champions out of teams comprised of role players (plus the inimitable Scottie Pippen). Kobe, on the other hand, is toxic sludge.

Too often our culture puts forth the notion that only the Maiden (in the maiden/Mother/Crone goddess) is worthy of being considered beautiful. As though once a woman has children and her body changes, that she's lost it.

Which is total horseshit.

It is the maturation of the beholder, regardless of the state of beautiful moms everywhere, to regard the mother goddess as beautiful and worthy. The breasts and waistline are forever changed by birthing and nursing children, and these acts are awe-inspiring, honorable, and yes: beautiful.

I'm a stay-at-home Dad who is part of a rather astounding network of moms. We watch each other's kids, we have three margarita playdates, and we are close friends and confidants to each other. And I can tell you unequivicably that I am surrounded by gorgeous women. Every one of them has some complaint about their post-baby bodies, but I just don't see it.

And any male who could look upon them and see them only for their minor "flaws" (that is, differences from marketers' ideal) is an unenlightened, immature boy, unworthy of the attentions of females everywhere.

(and btw, the best hot-mom anthem I've heard recently was from - surprisingly - Snoop Dogg's appearance on Weeds Season 2)

It still amazes me that someone who has

-United States Senator

-Illinois State Senator

-University of Chicago Law Professor, and

-Editor of the Harvard Law Review

on his resume still has it called "slim" as though he just finished up a stint temping in a mail room of an accounting firm in Topeka.

And at 46, he's called "young." He'll take office older than both Jack Kennedy and Bill Clinton.

This is what we did, too (slower pace/spread out). We ended up getting several of the vaccines only when the schools threatened us with lock-out.

I think the older a kid is when they get the vaccine, the better their immune system can handle it and if there are risks for a particular shot, we lessen the chance it will be problematic.

And the chicken pox vaccine - man, the pharm lobbyists paid a damn lot of cash for those laws requiring every parent buy their product. total scam. Untested vaccine vs perfectly harmless illness (except for the 1 in 10,000 case they try to scare you with.)

Joan Walsh is defending the Obamas in a commentary. A new day has dawned at Salon.

Next she'll recognize that there's actually something quite invigorating about his idealist message that we can have a government we can be proud of and that changing the process in Washington really is substantinve.

She may even realize that Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago actually has some heft on a resume (as though Illinois State senator and United States Senator didn't already have some.)

Not long from now, she'll be fainting at a rally when Obama connects with her idealist 21 year old self instead of the pragmatic, cynical person she became when she aged a bit.

People at parties talking about the housing market.

snore