Your letter noted that both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama enjoy the dubious honor of nasty, abusive and slightly hysterical (my words) supporters and suggest that the percentages are probably the same.

While I know of no way to measure the veracity of this I can suggest an experiment.

Go to Huffington Post and choose several random threads on a variety of election topics over the last six months. Read the comments. As you read count out how many are from Clinton supporters and how many from Obama supporters.

Taking note of who is saying what count how many of the posts are venomously anti Clinton aand how many anti Obama.

Note the nature and the intensity and the obsessive of the ugly and the hate.

Here is what I found. Going back to when Edwards had just left the amount of hatred toward Hillary Clinton was pretty intense. I was a staunch Obama supporter (and I blush to admit it but my support was based on his 2004 Convention speech and the initial impression I had. and in some ways he is so fine! LOL btw, I'm almost 60.)and while I was inclined both by my choice of candidates and the voices of people I know who just didn't like Hillary Clinton the hatefulness and venom was disturbing to me.

The media at that time were seeming to build her up. Let me note right here that when I say the Media right now I essentially mean MSNBC. Chris Mathews was extolling her flawless campaign, calling her the presumptive nominee and frankly pissing me off! well, all of a sudden, it was literally one day to the next the coverage changed from laudatory to almost vindictive. The overnight change in tone and content w3as shocking in how fast and how nasty it had become. Then there was all that time when Obama was essentially getting off scot free. Yes he was, denying it doesn't change it. I was HIS supporter and thought it was terribly unfair. In fact I thought it was also unfair to Obama because he wasn't getting toughened up.

The point I'm making is that I was far more inclined to believe negative stories about Clinton but the spinning and slanting and distortion by the media was becoming so glaringly obvious and biased against her it was appalling. I've never seen anything like it. I was emailing Matthews and the rest saying they weren't doing Obama any favors and they were only going to have a backlash.

All of this was reflected in the comments on HuffPo threads. The malice was so thick it was breathtaking and frankly shameful (and lacking in logic to a stunning degree)that people who were supporting Obama and his platform were behaving in such opposition to what the rhetoric was putting forth. I took special note of how few and far between the nasty comments were from Clinton supporters. I also took note of how malevolent attacks were on anyone who had a kind word to say about clinton or raised a question about the Obama campaign or a position of his. It mattered not if the person asking or commenting was an Obama supporter, a Clinton supporter or a mercat. The howls of disapproval and rage were deafening. I figured that was why there were so few Clinton supporters speaking up.

Now granted as things have become more heated Clinton supporters have been getting more vocal and nastier but the numbers and the level of rancor just isn't comparable. With this new "controversy" it has gone over the top. There is a mass hysteria, mob mentality that rivals the 1968 Democratic convention. LOL

The Mahyill Fowler post has close to, or over? 7000 comments and what comments they are. Laced with invective, suspicion, accusation and outrage that someone would dare accuse the man of being human there are shades of McCarthyism and Totalitarianism throughout. Over the top? Read them, conspiracy theories and all. Then there was Jane Smiley's column, a wonderful writer but whose rage and flat out hysteria, I don't know of another word to describe it, are so over the top that one would have to question what demons within does Hillary Clinton represent. Almost 2000 comment on that one. There are at least a half dozen more blogs and columns all with huge numbers of hits and comments exceeding almost any others I have seen there.

The virulence of Obama supporters of this ilk are in numbers that seem to surpass Clinton numbers and as I said the content of the comments also exceeds in just plain hate.

I find it a thorough shame that this story has generated this much outrage among Americans while the news that the idiot king has now admitted to knowing and approving the meetings of high ranking figures in his administration discussing and even planning the use of torture has been largely ignored. What does it say about Progressives that we would rather scream bloody murder that someone had the temerity to critize our hero than take note and take action that we have been harboring criminals and allowing them to take over our government?

It is very sad to me.

I may have rambled and lost the thread of what my point is and iof so I apologize but I find this whole hateful episode both ludicrous and tragic. This particular subject has shown me the absurd levels to which Obama's supporters will go to keep him pure. Frankly it is more than a little disconcerting.

I've moved on for many reasons. This last just made the wisdom of my decision clear to me.

Jeez. I've been trying to read all the articles from both Obama and Clinton supporters. I got as far as the line above and with ridiculous hyperbole like that, I think I can safely stop reading Walsh until there is only one candidate. And maybe afterwards.

Joan, I do want you to know that I am not sexist. I am anti-pundit, and you have become as bad as "your buddy" Pat Buchanan. It is a Pundit's job to try and inflate everything into a story, to get puffed up with false umbrage and speak in exaggerated terms.

I do not know you personally, only by your writing, and your writing stinks. Here is a tell:

"I'd like to say I'm politically savvy enough to have predicted the continuing firestorm over Obama's remarks when it broke last week."

You then go on to say that it blew up bigger than you thought it would, but it didn't. Your own website noted that no polls moved, and that this was a kerfufle of the chattering class.

As many people have noted, Glenn Greenwald is the last draw for your website. If Mr. Greenwald was to analyze your writing of the last week, (and if you wouldn't fire him for doing so), he would find your writing is full of the deceit, conceit, and illogic that he constantly attacks from other pundits.

Consider yourself warned.