"Ignoring for a second corporate buzz words, how exactly does John Edwards differ from what you described?"

Well, as much as I can take seriously the shot about corporate buzz words while using, y'know, a buzz word (what makes them corporate, exactly?), I will try to take this question about what I don't see in Edwards at face value.

Here's what I said I was looking for in a candidate:

- Clear opposition to the Iraq War - Edwards voted for it, didn't he? Only later did he claim he was wrong, and tricked by Bush or what have you. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was wrong for voting for the war, and not for simply making the wrong political calculation (that a Democrat who voted against the war would be an untenable candidate). But accountability for your bad decisions, even assuming good intentions, is a bitch, and on an issue as important as this I simply don't feel comfortable with a candidate who was that wrong, for such a long time.

- Re-affirmation of civil liberties - It's not about a policy per se - obviously, since everyone says they're opposed to torture and believe in habeas corpus, including the Bush administration. On some level this is a leap of faith...do you believe what they're saying? That they will make this the kind of priority for this country that it should be? And here's where what they are saying really does matter. I think Edwards does well on this point; I believe what he says. That's as well as I can judge here.

- Positive vision for the future - this, I'm assuming, is what you identified as the amorphous "corporate buzzword" (I certainly hope you don't dismiss the first two as buzz words)...which is definitely ironic, ironocrat, because it's exactly the idea Edwards hung his hat on four years ago, with a lot of success. Positive means being about more than just a good critic. We know GWB should be fired. How are you going to move us beyond that, how do you see this country, not now but in the future? Again, in 2004 Edwards very much understood that. But in 2004 he fell short and has come back with a very different, very shrumian class warfare message. I agree with a lot of the points of that message, but it's not the only message I want to hear. I wonder where his 2004 talking points went? And again I have to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't disappear out of political calculation. That's starting to be a lot of benefit of the doubt.

Obviously, a lot of the arguments for candidates aren't and shouldn't be based solely on quantative judgments like a voting record or a resume, as much as people would like to believe otherwise. That's just not how we make decisions about people - not how we hire employees (and the President is an employee), not how we choose to accept students for colleges, not how we decide how well a first or a fiftieth date went, and certainly not how we get a sense of people we don't know. All we can do is rely on our intuitive sense - based on some evidence, some calculated presentation on the other person's part, and our personal judgment - of how this person will perform. Everyone's judgment is different. Some people think theirs is better than others, and aren't afraid to say so. And so the flame wars go on.

"Or maybe he's not screwing around at all. But it's very disrespectful to call you crazy, and complain that things make you nut. He does not take you or your concerns seriously. That's as big an issue as the trust, and whether you trust him may actually be in direct proportion to whether you feel respected."

I feel bad because I can't remember whose letter I copied this from, but my point was they were smart, is all.

Well, not all - my point is a reassertion of what a lot of people said here, which I think Cary, even while writing a lovely column, missed a bit. This is not just about trust. It is, but before trust comes feeling comfortable with communicating about what you think or feel, and that more than anything seems to be the problem here.

How can you trust someone who repeatedly dismisses legitimate emotions as crazy? As she pointed out, anyone in the same situation would want some reassurance, not pretty demeaning dismissals.

Maybe he thinks saying "it's crazy" reassures her, when naturally she hears it as "you're crazy", although clearly she's not. Sitting down with him sometime when it's not about some late night text and saying "I need to be able to talk about this with you in a more constructive way. Tell me abut your relationship with x and I'll either be reassured or we'll deal with it." might help. Just a thought.

I know sometimes Obama supporters can get shrill. Believe me when I tell you Hillary supporters can do the same. People on either side have hardened a bit, it's bound to happen.

But why does support for Obama, in Joan's mind, automatically translate to hate for the Clintons? Why is that assumption made, and isn't it possible that this assumption is part of what's so polarizing? I am excited to see Obama do well; does that mean I'm dancing on Hillary's grave? Hard to imagine, given she's far from the grave yet!

Yes, there's hype about Obama; yes, sometimes staffers and the media get overzealous in their predictions; does all this read just as being unfair to the Clintons? Maybe it's not about them at all! Maybe that's why the media likes talking about it so much. I mean, people will start to think they're self-involved or something.