First: Ms. Traister,

Your musings about Hillary being--to paraphrase--just another one of the women coming down the pike, is exactly the point!

I get the pull that traditional feminists feel to vote for Hillary. Really I do. And, for the time being I can even consider your feelings without getting all uppity about the horrific ways academic feminism has trivialized and dumbed down what should be a noble cause. But, there are many current elected officials of the female persuasion who could and will be viable candidates for high office now or in the near future. I find it impossible to think that this country will not soon have a woman president.

BUT, of all of the black leaders currently holding elected office (or defacto positions of leadership within the black community) I can't think of a single one who could appeal to such a broad swath of Americans as can Barack Obama! (and certainly Hillary does not appeal to as broad a spectrum as does Obama--poll after poll indicates that)

That said, I feel strongly that one must put Ms. Clinton's campaign into context. That means understanding that "real change" cannot possibly come from the woman who coined the term "vast Right Wing conspiracy". Forget that she was totally right (she was!); she embodies what the Right loathes; she stands for everything the Right wished it had accomplished under Gingrich and didn't. Hillary Clinton will be President Deadlock number 3 of 3!!! Mark my words!

Of the remaining candidates (and I believe strongly that the truly best candidates are all out of the race at this point) Obama really is the only one who has the potential to change the tone in Washington.

You'll have plenty of chances to vote for a woman in the near future--they're around 50% of the population, don't you know?; not so many chances to vote for an electable black man in the coming 10 to 15 years if I had to guess.

As for T.D. (I love typing that just now knowing you're from Texas--Tony Dorsett was my childhood idol!!!), your statement about your anger justifying a flawed vote demonstrates exactly why we shouldn't vote for Clinton. Isn't the whole point of being an elected official to reasonably evaluate all of the evidence and make decisions based solely on the facts? I get that YOU were pissed, and therefore prone to voting to support a president you wouldn't otherwise get in bed with--I should hope that's why you're not holding public office. Hillary is. She should have done some more legwork. She (and everyone else in Congress) should have refused to pass judgement until they had all of the information. She didn't. That seals the deal in my book: I won't vote for her. Period. (honestly, if she's the nominee, I'm not sure I could vote for her in November. That would be the first time since I was old enough to vote (Dukakis) that I skipped out on a presidential election.

I'm not the only one, I'm quite sure. Democrats take heed!

While I agree with Ms. Wilson's take on the musical numbers this year (excepting the performance from Once), it's obvious she hasn't seen Enchanted and had no business trying to put "The Working Song" in a meta-context without understanding its role in the film.

Certainly the three (THREE?!?) Enchanted numbers sucked as they were presented, but in the context of the film they were fine; and I believe "The Working Song" was freakin' brilliant! The reference to vermin wasn't some sort of social commentary, Cintra--she was actually cleaning the apartment with rats, pigeons and cockroaches. The whole thrust of the piece works because of Adams' completely non-ironic turn as an animated princess thrust into real-world New York. Lacking blue-birds and raccoons and bunnies to help her a la Snow White, she makes do with city creatures.

That said, I don't understand at all what Salon sees in Cintra Wilson's annual Oscar piece. If she's not astute enough to be featured on a regular basis why bring her in for her once a year hack-job. It's all venom and snark with no reasoned insight whatsoever. Can we get over it? Rebecca Traister or Stephanie Zacharek are both fabulous writers who can take the bad AND the good as a basis for a piece, know the industry and are often funny to boot.

As a premium member I say, "so long, Cintra Wilson."

His comparing Wright to his grandmother was not tin-eared at all. If you recall he shortly thereafter referred to the children of America as "our children". By pointing to his pastor and his grandmother as equals, and by pointing to the collective responsibility we have to raise the children of our nation in an ever more perfect union, he was saying that we are all, regardless of race, creed, color or gender part of "a family".

This was a home-run. The portion dealing with his grandmother was a universal story about family members and close friends like those each of us have in our lives. We passionately disagree with much of what they say, but we love them all the same because that is our duty. We don't deny them our love, or their rights, or their security just because they may be loopy or politically incorrect; we love them and support them as members of a shared community. The fact is that we all, by nature of our humanity, reside in a shared community. No good will come until we begin to make decisions from this awareness.