so let's not talk about it anymore!

Well, that's all well and good, but I believe Joan's point is that this issue is unresolved and therefore hurting the party.

Many LW's here are acting sullen about Joan dragging up the hitjob done on the Clintons by many, many liberals and Democrats. But it is a worthy, worthy point. Because when are we going to face ourselves in the mirror and ask if this issue has anything to do with why we keep losing presidential elections???

Joan is right, republicans don't do this to their former presidents (although Dubya may become an exception, we'll see). And yet I watched the Clintons get sandbagged by many liberal friends I respect, and who know better than to buy into the narrative the republicans have publicly crafted about them for years and years in order to suit their purposes of supporting Obama.

Early in the primary, I left a political forum I started, because I couldn't stand the daily onslaught and irrational anger thrown at Hillary and Bill everyday by liberals supporting Obama. One, I couldn't keep up with the emails daily filling my inbox. Two, they were monopolizing my free time answering them and were going to tone-deaf ears anyway. What's the point?

Here on Salon.com, the derision for supporting Hillary or pointing out under-the-belt or sexist attacks was equally depressing. Many times sophomoric liberals were "fine" blurring the lines between the republican anti-Clintons and the newly surfaced liberal anti-Clintons.

South Carolina was an opportunity to take some gaffes or statements by Hillary and Bill and surrogates(Jesse Jackson comment, the Bob Johnson "veiled comment", the "rolling the dice" comment, the "shuck and jive" comment, the "lbj made civil rights law" statement) and cry racist. The media, Obama campaign and his supporters took that ball and ran with it.

In the meantime, 97% of african-americans were voting for Obama. And yet Hillary was getting roughly 50% of the women vote. So who is actually more bigoted? Are women more objective and gender-blind/color-blind because they don't vote for the woman candidate in the numbers african-americans responded to Obama. Just a question.

But Obama supporters and the campaign made their bed when they reacted with the level of hypersensitivity they did against a man and woman who have a proven record of not being racist. It was appalling and definitely from the bottom of the deck. Gutter politics. Not a "new" kind of politics at all. And unfortunately, they need to deal with the residual effects of that...don't throw it back on the Clintons and use it as an excuse to demonize them more. Your hypocrisy and "old politics" will do nothing to push the progressive ideology you claim Obama represents.

If you do agree that the coded-racist statement above referenced are indeed, racist. Then you have to acknowledge the reality that there were many coded and explicit sexist comments uttered by Obama himself as well as his surrogates (Jesse Jackson Jr. "Hillary didn't cry for Katrina", Obama "she'll say and do anything to win", Obama "she's too unprincipled to win", etc...). If you cannot acknowledge the other side of this coin, then you will continue to be very annoyed with the honest point Joan is making, as well as continue to ignore the basic schism that is haunting our party right now.

You can derisively dismiss the PUMA's, but these people have been good liberals and democrats all their lives and yet have been kicked to the curb by this ideology of liberal "change" and treated in a similar manner as they were by arrogant and passionate republicans over the last 8 years. No wonder they don't want to join hands with you.

Sore losers? Try sore winners.

At any rate, we need to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves why we feel the need to buy into republican talking points and destroy Bill through Hillary for a second round. Do we really hate him that much? He was a fuckin' good president and very capable as I recall, despite his philandering. And yet Hillary cannot be VP because of Bill, blah, blah. But she COULD BE a Senate Majority Leader or a Supreme Court Judge.

And this logic just throws me for a loop because why is it that Bill prohibits her being her own capable professional and politician one heartbeat away from the president as VP, but not as a judge or majority leader? What is the key difference in her being able to run things on her own, vs. not? The dirty secret is that they don't want Obama competing with another big ego.

That's a disingenuous concern but I believe protecting Obama's vanity and ego is not the first priority here. If he is incapable of handling Bill Clinton, then he is unqualified to be president. And the argument I see being made is that he is actually incapable of handling Bill Clinton, but is qualified to be president. All the time, this argument completely undermines and attacks the most qualified and intelligent woman of my lifetime, Hillary Clinton. Apparently, she's not "strong enough" to be her own person and voice as VP; but is as a weakened and non-competing politician away from the executive branch. It's a sexist argument and also makes Obama look weak.

Obama needs to pick Hillary as VP. I keep one hope alive: both Obama and Hillary are secretive and may be playing us, throwing red herrings to pundits who've been so wrong throughout this process. But, if I do pin my expectations on the conventional wisdom of today, which is that Hillary won't be the VP pick, then that speaks volumes of Obama's rhetoric of unifying and new kind of politics, and my cynicism will grow and my support of Obama will weaken greatly. I may vote for him (I will never vote for McCain), but with a heavy heart that we were fooled again by message and image.

Two letters right after each other summarizing your column and letters thread over the last few months.

Given that the raw material--the primary source, your actual blog--is out there, easily checked against all these claims, it's a testament to the vagaries of human perception that they differ so wildly. Like Farhad Majoo says....

(http://www.amazon.com/True-Enough-Learning-Post-Fact-Society/dp/0470050101)

PS I think you know whose version I think is "true."