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• Friday, May 2, 2008 08:27 PM

  Now I understand the complaints, Joan.

  I had thought the Obama supporters who'd been giving you such a hard time for your Clinton slant were off-base. But after your series of worrying posts re Rev. Wright, to turn to this?

  Hillary Clinton is a woman of considerable accomplishment, and she's demonstrating true grit in her relentless (and at this point Quixotic) pursuit of the nomination. As I've written before here, at the beginning of this process, when her candidacy was an exploratory committee, I looked forward to voting (and cheering) for her. I didn't pay a lot of attention to the early part of the primaries, but planned to vote for her, And then one night on the radio, I heard Wolfeson (sp.?) on the radio, crossly arguing that the votes in Florida and Michigan should be counted. I felt a physical revulsion and great disappointment because in his attitude and "truthiness" I heard that same angry sense of wronged entitlement I've learned to loathe in the Rove era. From that moment, I began to pay closer attention. Finally, I gave up my excitement about a Clinton renaissance and came -- disappointment after disappointment in one campaign choice after another -- to fear that a Clinton presidency would perpetuate the anguish of Orwellean cognitive dissonance that has been the hallmark of the Bush era. I just can't stand it any more.

  Now, HRC supporters will argue that it's Obama that's the big phony. Okay, if that's the way you really see it, then we just disagree. I can't imagine how you could identify in Obama or his campaign anything like the deliberate and often ugly truth twisting that has come out of Clinton's operation anymore -- honestly -- than I could understand how anyone could believe the Bush administration's argument for the war in Iraq. But, hey, maybe I'm wrong. If he does get the nomination, we'll certainly have plenty of chances to find out.

  So, okay, Joan. To tweak the wacko Obama supporter's who've been flaming you post after post, maybe this post was a fun idea.

  My complaint is that it's uninteresting. Once an editorialist becomes too predictable, once they become too nakedly partisan (without discernible EVIDENCE or REASON), they just get boring. What's interesting is an editorial slant informed by inquisitive, risible, intelligent exploration.

  You could make an argument for splitting hairs on the Obama/Wright thing as a form of exhaustive examination.

  But this?

  I love your voluble commentors (on all sides)!

  But I'm afraid you're losing me.

  I'd love to see some convincing arguments to keep me paying attention. And I'll be following the thread with interest. But absent something convincing, I don't think it's likely I'll be returning to this discussion with much curiosity.

  I'll be looking for all you crazies elsewhere.

  —dog-walker Read dog-walker's other letters
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