I think, in reference to katetex post, that perhaps because both Huckabee and Romney bowed out early and that if they hadn't that there wouldn't be this pressure on Clinton to bow out. If one of them were still running, there would be precedent in the present now for it.

And, @lateagain, oddly enough when I only read about Huckabee I couldn't stand him. When I saw him talk and when I saw him on SNL, I thought he was really rather funny and charming, amazingly enough.

I personally think that the pressure from the MSM for Clinton to drop out is due to journalists who and have been transformed into pundits and are in competition with bloggers who don't have ethical standards (i.e., Journalists are now sold as "personalities"). Many bloggers are intimidating and use intimidating tactics and that has "spilled over" to the MSM. That intimidation is now okay even within the MSM.

Another piece of that is because Clinton is a woman and Obama is black, there is the cultural question as to what weighs more, race or gender politics. All of these combined have created this unprecedented campaign and the way that it's being played out.

Every time I hear Clinton fanatics going on about how "she's a fighter" I wonder how in the world they could overlook the truly frantic pandering to the right she's been engaged in, so visibly in this primary, even more than usual.

I don't see a fighter, I see someone caving in to right wing operatives and adopting their talking points every time she thinks it might get her a few votes. That's not fighting, that's the opposite.

This entire campaign on her side has been about running far to the right and adopting every gun-totin shot-drinkin anti-progressive pose she can find to pose in, if it happens to be one that she and her advisors have decided would take advantage of the latest smear against Obama.

That's not being "ballsy", that's being opportunistic and weak-willed.

It's just odd. Say what you will, maybe you want a woman above all else, maybe you don't mind the right wing talking points, but this myth that she's the "fighter" is as absurd as the "straight talkin" myths about McCain. The only fighting I see lately is against her own party, and against what I thought were her own principles in the past.

It occurs to me, in trying to articulate what I want out of a politician, my gold standard is Mario Cuomo. I grew up under his governorship and I can't tell you how vital his voice was during the dark days of the Reagan years.

He was a formative figure in my political awareness and he set the bar very high indeed, as far as being a true champion of liberalism.

(I know he's been criticized, much like Obama, come to think of it, for being all talk no action, but that's another question and one I'm not qualified to assess.)

I guess what I'm saying is that, in a very real and concrete way, he was a font of deep political values for me and I believe such values are important.

Clintonism, to me, is exhibit A for what happens when you begin to abandon your values; you cede ground voluntarily ground your opponent might never have been able to wrest from you by force.

But I've already expressed my fundamental rejection of Clintonism, so that's enough.

I'm beginning to feel uncomfortable with your analogy. Fox is not a nation. We are not (despite rhetorical flourishes to the contrary) nor ever will be in any kind of war with Fox (well I can imagine a Phillip K. Dick scenario where we might, but in THIS life not.)

I'm not sure a candidate shilling themselves on ANY network could be convincingly compared to Carter at Camp David. The more I think about it, actually, the more it seems a sort of random association of thoughts.

And isn't this what the Clinton campaign has boiled down to (just as it reaches the point of almost complete evaporation)? Reaching out for any wild stretch of the imagination that might possibly construe what they call a "path to the nomination?"

I think the problem with your analogy is somewhere in the difference between the general idea of being kind to people we disagree with and engaging in genuine conversation and debate (a la weeping, who EXCELLS at it), and managing foreign policy.

I'm not sure the purpose, say, of meeting with Iran would be to share views or demonstrate open-mindedness. It might be more along the lines of "I hate you and I spit in your eye and your mother rots, but since war is the great scourge of history, can we establish this or that protocol to hopefully diminish the chances of more mutual blood letting?"

I mean, "we" don't really need to understand and get along with any particular "other." It's fine to hate. You can hate and trade, hate and find areas of mutual benefit, hate and yet not kill, right? That's not a nice place to be at, and it doesn't open a path to better understanding and fulfillment of human potential, and between folks who disagree about domestic politics it would seem pretty crazy, but hasn't it worked okay to staunch pitched violence between Egypt and Israel?

In fact, it's been argued that Cuomo lost his bid for a fourth term to Pataki because, why?

He refused to promise to sign capital punishment into law.

Why?

Principle.

He lost.

I admire that.

Perhaps Hillary decided to show up on Fox because (drum roll as hell freezes over) it's the ONLY television network which has given her an even halfway fair shake in recent months.

This post from a die-hard Clinton supporter should make anyone here sit up and take notice.

When you're a Democrat and you start thinking "Hey, gosh maybe Fox really is the only fair and balanced network out there!" then you really should listen to yourself and wonder if your sense of things has become distorted by pure candidate-worship to the point where you not even seeing anymore.