ofcourse the obama kool aid drinkers are still trying to smear the clintons because with their foolish self rightousness they will never be able to admit they were wrong about anything. this is simply the best piece of writing about the primary's that i have read. joan is fantastic, thank you so much for putting your finger right on exactly what happened in the primary. this is something most mainstream media either does not have the talent or the guts to do. to the obama people that still wish to smear bill clinton as a racist, there is only one word to discribe you, its FOOL.

Hillary should decide, once and for all, to tell her supporters to get on side, ask for no special vote and concentrate on unifying the party.

Hillary has already done every single one of those things. She has endorsed Obama. She has campaigned for Obama. She has agreed to speak and the convention. She has not requested a roll call vote.

As to Bill's presser, he really does have to have them because he promotes certain causes. He can't just put his foundation and good works on hold until November. In any case, he was pressed upon the race question and he merely responded that he is not a racist.

And he isn't. Obama was asked about Bill's presser yesterday and he responded that Bill Clinton had handled things just fine given the circumstances.

Maybe Obama supporters just want to keep second-guessing their own candidate. If Obama isn't worried about what Bill said, why are others?

Like I said earlier, the Clintons are doing the right things within their circumstances. They are both public people and they are not likely to become recluses.

What Obama supporters don't seem to understand is that Hillary Clinton cannot force her supporters to support Obama. If people would read what various present and former Clinton supporters say, they would realized that there is no common Clinton supporters, despite that PUMA label. Some people simple never thought of Obama as a second choice and don't see him as experienced. Some people are just far more moderate than they see Obama as being -- although for the life of me, I can't see it. If he moves any further to the right, he will be in their laps. Some people, liberals like me, are utterly cold to his moves to the center. Some see him as wavering on abortion. Or are more libertarian and can't forgive his FISA vote.

This is divided support we are talking about. It is fractured support and -- to a large extent -- Obama fractured it. Not Clinton.

Some present/former Hillary supporters proudly claim the label of PUMA. I think it is absurd. I have voted third party many times.

What the media -- and especially MRA-type male supporters of Obama keep doing is stereotyping these holdouts. It's silly. Many of them are not even women.

It is not up to Clinton to fix this. Obama is the candidate. He needs to figure out how to appeal to these voters. Maybe he could try some sort of pretzel yoga pose. He's good at posing.

Could somebody send a link where Bill explains exactly what he meant by using Jesse instead of some other past candidate, such as say, John Edwards?

I've got this theory that since 1972, as soon as White people find out that a candidate, particularly a Black one, is garnering 90% and up of Black voters, they won't vote for him. During the primaries this spring, when I heard Pat Buchanan (and all of Fox News) hammering the percentage of Black's voting for Barack, I turned to my wife and said "thats the kiss of death. Watch how fast things change. He's now become just another Black candidate - like Jesse."

By the way, it may seem tough to explain the ex-Presidents thinking and motives, but remember: he had a lot of making up to do to HRC, privately and publicly.

It was in question because it's Obama's campaign, not the Clintons. The most telling thing in yet another Clinton-centric article about Barack Obama's presidential bid is that when the Clintons were allegedly called racists, YOU took it personally. And that's the problem. There's this generation of people who will not let Bill & Hillary go because they're too wrapped up in identifying with them. I honestly think it's a baby-boomer thing. For some reason Hillary's been seen not simply as the female candidate, but as the last chance (especially by her female contemporaries) for ONE OF YOU to be the first female president. It wasn't her stance on issues or her unique qualifications so much as it was that you considered her yours in some imagined way. She seemed inevitable for a while and you no doubt thought, "it'll finally be OUR time." Never mind that Obama's black and therefore also represents great progressive strides this country has taken, the problem is he's really the first post-baby-boom candidate. It's not going to be someone who came of age in the 1960's who comes along and changes everything (not that I assume Obama is destined to be an agent of radical, or even necessarily any, change).

I don't think this is just you, Joan, I really think it's a whole age-bracket that wants to see too much of themselves in the Clintons. And the reason they're always on television and we viewers are constantly asked (again look who's perspective this is from) "what do the Clintons want?" is no doubt because the talking heads and producers in TV news are just like you in this respect. I'd rather know what John Edwards "wants" as long as we're talking about the dreams of people who we would have liked to be president but clearly aren't going to be.

By the way, this wasn't supposed to be "baby-boomers suck, yay younger people" or anything. Just an observation about Clinton die-hards.

No matter how many good intentioned gums may flap, the discomfort out there of some is still summed up by that old word black.