and all those crying "sexism" should read Eric Alterman's piece in The Nation of June 2. In it he details the amazing deference paid by the press and pundits to the Clinton campaign's quixotic and apparently never-ending fantasy of victory. They knew they were toast in February and said so, but here it is almost June and they're still at it to the enormous detriment of the Democratic Party and its soon-to-be presidential nominee, Barack Obama. An accurate portrayal of the Clinton campaign since February would have included serious charges repeatedly stated of a cynical effort to sabotage Obama's campaign to improve her chances against a then-76-year-old President McCain in 2012. But that's been on the very fringe of public discourse.

What's also been on the fringe of public discourse is actual anti-female sexism. Yes, a handful of pundits like Chris Matthews have put their foot in it, and the odd shouter at a debate or speech, but the vast majority of the press have treated Clinton with kid gloves. As I've said before, I could find more people who believe in the Easter Bunny than who've dissed Clinton because she's a woman.

And to head off any loony notions that I'm an Obama man, I'm not. He won't get my vote this fall nor did he in the primary.

You blew it, buddy. The Lakers beat the Spurs with length; the Celtics match them in that department and then some. They'll block shots in the paint the Spurs couldn't. No one will stop Kobe, but James Posey is a very good defender who matches Kobe's size. The Celtics are a better defensive team than L.A. and if this gets to be a series in which 90 points wins, it'll be Boston in 6.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be rooting for the Lakers, but...

Broder's invocation of "proportionality." The guy who got totally bent out of shape about Clinton's lying about sex is perfectly calm and collected about Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld's lying to get us into an unnecessary war which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Maybe a dictionary would help, but somehow I doubt it.

It's always astonished me that people like Broder don't get the simple, obvious point you make. A huge part of our system of justice is supported by exactly that concept - that when you do wrong, there must be consequences.

But somehow it doesn't apply to this president in this situation, but it did apply to Clinton in his situation. And therein lies an important lesson, or maybe two. The first is that ruling elites deem sex to be bad or at least bad if you get caught. (In that regard, read Joan Didion's essay in her book Political Fictions, about the Clinton impeachment and the growing amazement and then outrage by the punditocracy that the public just wasn't as upset about Clinton's behavior as they deemed we should have been. They ultimately said outright that we were morally deficient.)

And the second is that ruling elites deem war to be good. To impeach Bush would be to limit future presidents' power to do the types of things Bush did to get us into war. The fact that bringing consequences to bear for that behavior is "off the table" tells a lot about the sacrosanct nature of war among the elites of this country. And of course please note that Dems subscribe to that article of faith as much as Reps do.

It's the warfare state. We've known this for decades.

I'm neither a Lakers nor a Celtics fan, and I normally subscribe to the theory that referees' calls tend to even out over a game (sometimes via make-up calls), but this one was frankly and obviously one-sided. A 38-10 foul disparity can make sense if one team is tired and not moving their feet on defense or if one team is not going to the rack and just launching jump shots the whole game. And to a small extent, that's what happened to the Lakers. But still, there were a large number of touch fouls called against the Lakers which put Boston in the bonus early and plenty of clear fouls on shots which resulted in misses. Gasol was fouled on at least 4 shot attempts that weren't called. It's easy to play the type of interior defense the Celtics played last night if the rules on fouling don't apply to you. I mean, when even Mark Jackson notices and remarks on the foul disparity about half a dozen times, you know there's something going on.

Boston may have won even if the game had been reffed evenly, but the score indicates otherwise. These three should not work another game this series.

I've been reading some of the letters on the foul disparity and some of them are just way off the mark. Teams that play aggressive defense, as the Celtics do, get called for more fouls than other teams. I'm a Rockets fan and the Rox play pretty good defense and get called for a high number of fouls. That's appropriate. What's not appropriate is for any team to get away with playing aggressive defense which results in the type of contact that is usually called a foul but not getting called. The Celts can't have it both ways. Play good defense and get fouls called. Simple.

And I'm no fan of Kobe Bryant. He's a phenomenal player, but usually gets the benefit of way too many calls. Against the Rockets this season he shot 30 free throws in one game. That's right, 30. As in, several more than the entire Rockets team shot. We still won, but it was just awful "star gets the call" refereeing.

So I'm not a Kobe whiner. It's just that the game has to be called evenly and last night's wasn't.