Imagine, for a second, that Obama's primary contender for the Democratic nomination was Joe Lieberman. Now, place all the rhetoric used against Hillary and direct them towards him:

crybaby

bitch

"Neither is [he] the most articulate nor the best liked."

"[Lieberman]'s persona is simply not compatible with another strong will, male or female . . ."

"If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say [Lieberman] is reconstituting the toxic hierarchy of [his] childhood household, with [him] on top instead of [his] drill-sergeant father."

It's odd and unbalancing, huh? The way that we speak about women is different than the way that we speak about men. We are much more prone to intimacy and intimate criticizing. First of all, who ever worried that Lieberman was the best-liked among his colleagues, as if this were a junior high popularity contest? And whoever would feel comfortable giving Lieberman the deep, Freudian analysis as an argument against his legitimacy as a candidate?

Hillary Clinton is not seen as a legitimate candidate for the presidency because the very definition of being "presidential" is an inherently male one: square shouldered, square jawed and masculine.

And, by the way, like many of the readers of this column, I agree with your particular comments, that sexism has been a factor in this race, and that HRC is still not my candidate of choice. But that's for another time.

This is a technical issue. You keep putting video clips on your front page, (such as this one) but I can't finish watching them because Salon's homepage refreshes itself every 5 minutes or so. Please fix this. It's really irritating. If I press play for a video I should be able to finish it without the page I'm looking at refreshing and, in turn, stopping the video altogether.

Having formerly worked on the issue of campaign finance reform, it's not surprising to me that Clinton's consultant's fees are obscene. But the story of the money trail never gets old precisely because it never fails to inform. If you want to know what's REALLY going on in politics you just have to follow the money. This article was a classic example.

And what did the money trail reveal? Well Madden's points are well made, but I want to add two things.

1.) The REAL lesson to be learned from this piece is that politics is a crapshoot. The highest paid consultants in the land cannot necessarily predict how the voters are going to be swayed, particularly when they spend their lives in the echo chambers of DC. At certain critical points expertise can count against you.

2.) The reason why Barack Obama has been a success is that PEOPLE BELIEVE IN HIM. That means his consultants may be getting paid, but they probably have genuine faith in the work they are doing, which goes further than any paycheck. This is why Obama is the right choice for me. His groundswell is a legitimate grassroots movement, not some canned lie like the Clintons are adept at spinning.

. . . why it is that people tune in week after week to this cartoon in order to say that they hate it? You're disappointed. Cool. You don't like it. But it's tacky to do so repeatedly, week after week. If you don't like the strip, no one is forcing you to read it. Certainly I have come to loathe WayLay. I thought it would have died a boring and pretentious death years ago. And yet it keeps on being posted here, week after week, year after year. There is only so much negative campaigning a sane person can do against a comic strip. (I know that on a personal level. I mean, for all my bitching I've done about Cathy and she STILL EXISTS. That bitch will never die. After the holocaust it's gonna be her, the roaches and Ted Nugent.)

I have a lot to say about and I hardly know where to begin.

First of all, even though I do not support Hillary, I would still contend that it is IMPOSSIBLE to separate public opinion from perceptions of gender. Much of the angry commentary towards HRC prompts me to recall feminist critiques against the power structure; Men are inherently seen as more professional, more competent and therefore more "presidential." Men are, by definition, all these things because the definition of "presidential" is male.

Second, I would argue that the gender divide is as old as civilization. But the issue of racism in America has a very specific history, culminating in hot spots such as the Civil War and the struggle to end segregation in the 60's. As difficult as racism is to parse--and it IS very complex--our disagreements about gender speak to the very core of human existence. No wonder we keep looking to science to answer these debates. (Are women smarter, etcetera.)

As a student of history I believe that racism is integral to the destiny of America, or rather the confrontation of racism; To deal with it head-on would be the bravest thing we could do right now. It's a national wound that vitally needs healing. It was true 200 years ago, 100 years ago and today.

As for this nonstarter, "Which is 'more important?'" For me, I'd just say NOT ANOTHER WHITE GUY. How about that? No to patriarchy. In fact, I wish this could be the model for all future elections, at least until our representatives begin to accurately reflect the face of America.

i think that makes james carville mickey the coach. they're both balding and squinty.

And I mean that as a compliment!