I agree with your comments about the Clintons. Don't know a whole lot about Truman (other than what my maternal grandmother MaBelle said of him: an honest, down-to-earth, plain-spoken Missouri man who governed pragmatically and honestly).

Several times before, I pointed out here and elsewhere that the Clintons not only campaigned for Barack Obama, they also raised funds for his campaign and helped him retire his U.S. Senate campaign debt.

It shouldn't be an issue about whether Bill Clinton speaks at the convention. It's ludicrous that there was ever any doubt, because of his two-term presidency, his work on behalf of Democrats, Democratic principles and values, and what he has done for AIDS and other serious world concerns. Bill Clinton is a winner, pure and simple.

I, too, have been really dismayed and angry about the way he and Hillary have been derided, mocked, and minimized by the new "post-partisan" ideologues who seem to feel entitled to the Democratic Party.

You also pointed out that history is the ultimate judge. I think this is really a good way to at least try to put things in some perspective. I tend to forget this. But looking at this from a long view does tend to give me pause and do some self-reflection.

So, thanks for your wisdom and your words.

Joan, you might want to back up and re-read Xrandadu's response to you after your dismissive "hope your well" post. XH beautifully addressed what at least this Salonista, who likes you , felt about your Whew! piece and your continuing coverage of "issues" that need to be given a rest or at minimum a perspective accompanied with appropriate references.

Posters like XH and "lateagain", neither of whom I know at all, can help keep your thinking honest if you can read them with your defenses down. You having the privilege of influencing public discourse have that obligation in my opinion.

To make sense of this phenom, it helps me to make a distinction between

1) the Clintons being racists (which I don't think they are)

and

2) the Clintons being willing to use racist appeals (and/or to capitalize on damage done to Obama by Republican smear campaigns). it's not ancient history, and it's on the record.

Clinton's not a racist "as far as I know." Lots of voters probably figure all's fair in love and politics, but others found it unacceptable for the Clintons of all people (I recall Bill playing sax on Arsenio) to roll around in the stuff.

You seem to think that I want people to rally to my defence when I'm derided but that's not the way it is. There's some very obvious "ganging up" on people who are not Obama sycophants and I noticed it from the very early days of "entering Salon" (last January). This was going to be nothing like the Salon that Madam de Stael established in Paris to facilitate the exchange of ideas and civilised ideals but was much more like The Last Chance Saloon where anyone who said Wyatt Earp was a great guy, that Billy the Kid was a wimp, was likely to end up in a brawl. As the "uppity" stranger who'smore than a little mouthy I could expect that but not the cesspit of language, the really grotesque insults hurled at Hillary and her supporters before Mark Penn and others "lost the plot" in her campaign. More often than not, a number of Obama supporters seemed to regard their only function on a page as emptying amphorae of wrath on the head of anyone who dared to question the phenomenal greatness of Obama. For instance, Klytus never makes any factual contribution to anything but relies on taking pot-shots and composing childish rhymes. The other evening, someone called 08 Yes WE CAN formed a duet with Klytus to bring me down so it was the usual taunts - I'm a "sicko", I'm this, I'm that - I don't even remember all the opprobrium because their opinions don't really matter. I fought back, of course. I'm not demure and I also noticed that words that I'd used in my posts were subsequently used by both of them - for instance, I mentioned sleeping with one eye open and 08Yes We Can came back with a garbled version of that referring to Lassie; I used the verb "demur" and, lo and behold!, klytus then used a different but similar word "demure" as a verb. It became tedious but Dolores also decided to join in the fun. She acts very vulnerable at times but she can suddenly change into an "agent provocateur" when it suits her. 08 Yes We Can took a breather yesterday but Faulkner Jnr, arrived, replete with sneers and targeting my nationality, purporting to love a country he's never visited. He thought it would be ego-boosting for him to take me on but, as someone who named the best-known Irish poet as his favourite, this man has a remarkable insensitivity to language and is quite willing to engage in "ad feminam" sniggering. Auntie Cairo joined the party too and accused me of "racially tinged" comments but slid out between the swinging doors of the Last Chance Saloon when I asked her, fairly and squarely, what she meant. You were anxious to make excuses for her - maybe she'd left the thread when I asked her to explain - but I couldn't be bothered checking that out as she's obviously the type of angry person who goes on the attack, fuelled more by her own prejudices than by any objective reality. All the above people have revealed themselves for what they are.

I've learned a lot from Salon. Glenn Greenwald's articles on FISA and the high standard of letter-writing they provoked was a form of expiation for all muddle and murkiness that sucks people down when the Clintons hove into view. As a general impression, if you want to study the Net, you might find that women writers (always in the minority in EVERY country) tend to avoid being so hurtful about imagined appearance, imagined brain-power and so on. Someone wrote in a readers' forum in "The Irish Times" that women had been intimidated out of the forum. As an admirer of Ayn Rand, she was targeted but it was a battle of ideas that came into action and not personalities. We don't have the First Amendment and comments are monitored for gross distastefulness and incitement to hatred so it's a different scene altogether.

Dolores Flowe, talking about cellulite could be regarded as sexist by the male guests at your party. Men don't get cellulite as it's hormonally-related. Wouldn'y you know! However I was at the chemist/pharmacy/drugstore yesterday and saw a leaflet promoting Lipo Contour, underwear specifically designed to micro massage those problem areas (hips, thighs, buttocks and abdomen). It's supposed to be Italy's best-kept beauty secret but, looking at a picture of the underwear, it might be an effective modern equivalent of a chastity belt. I suppose there could be a reasonable case for making something similar for men but for problems other than cellulite.

Uncle Fester, as Hamlet said to Guildenstern: "You would play upon me.....you would pluck out the heart of my mystery". Hamlet did not want to be played like a musical instrument and neither do I, especially when you find the more shrill notes unpleasant to your ears or requiring explanation from you. Enjoy yourself. It's later than any of us thinks.

I was going to leave Salon about a month ago as I'd been slapped down for what some angry writer thought was having a laugh at Americans. There was some truth in that because leaden-footed cycles of the same old thing were boring me so I thought a little quirkiness might help. No, it had infuriated the writer. So why did I return to Salon? The person who'd chastised me was an Obama supporter and I began to wonder if there was a strategy to confine the letter-writers to those who sang in unison about the Beatitudes of Barack. There's plenty of interesting readin material in the world today so I don't really feel refreshed and stimulated by dipping into a metaphorical Ganges, the sacred river where many Indians place the bodies of their dead.