Not that personal opinion amounts to much, but I will say that this was the first time that I did not utterly hate listening to HRC speak. "Not hateful" - high praise indeed, but I do feel slightly better about having to vote for her in the general.

A disturbed man took campaign workers hostage with a fake bomb. Police talked him into surrendering. Everyone is safe.

END OF THE STORY!

The only emergency for Hillary and her team was instant strategizing about how she could turn this into a "Hillary looks presidential managing a crisis" moment. Does she have one ounce of authenticity? Another Bush-style photo op moment.

Maybe John Edwards should pay a mental patient to attempt to hold him hostage, then miraculously take the gun away from the assailant. That would win him a lot of votes. He would look poised and presidential. Forget what he stands for!

Calculated? Or alternatively...thinks before she speaks.

And English comes out when she does...

There is nothing sincere about her. Every action and word, every lie and mean-spirited tactic are calculated.

mkolb,
Hear! Hear!

But don’t hold your breath. The Hillary-haters tend to be full of… well, not facts; and they usually don’t react well to normal people trying to engage in intelligent discussion.

Good luck though!

mkolb - apologies, I thought you said, you DO NOT want a President who reads polls...

You Hillary-haters are too much. I think there are Republicans trolling this site. Hillary is a brilliant, compassionate, and tough woman. John Edwards seems like he would be weak in the general election. I truly can't tell you what Obama stands for besides his own biography and obvious natural intelligence. He was in the senate for a year and half before he began running for president. His foreign policy experience is really lacking, His health care plan is weak, his Social Security rhetoric sounds like Bush. Hillary, in my opinion, is the only one who could beat the Republican candidate. She could also get our most pressing legislative goals accomplished. But you know what? If she's not the nominee, then I will vote for whoever is. Which I think is a more responsible position than name-calling and saying you could never vote for our party's nominee. Cut the hate and focus on policy.

I didn't denigrate anyone.

Thank goodness no one was harmed.

BlueDog and Lookingforhome:

Yes, yes, yes. I too am tired of the Hillary haters, I hate calling them haters, but in their comments here and other places (like Daily Kos) they're almost unhinged in their attacks on her.

I think they hurt themselves, their positions, and their candidates with their anti-Hillary rhetoric. I've realized in the last couple of months since I decided to support HRC, that I am not a far left liberal, those people are crazy.

If I thought either Obama or Edwards could win the general, by swinging enough independent/moderate votes, or dealing with the unhinged wing of the Repub. party, either one of them would be my choice for Pres. If either Obama or Edwards ends up with the nomination, I'll vote for them and do everything I can to get them elected as Pres. My first rule: Anyone but a republican.

Why do people post crap like this:

Concerned in Iowa wrote on December 1, 2007 8:48 PM: "As a life long Democrat, I have no idea yet how I will vote in 2008. I am certain however, I WILL NOT VOTE FOR HILLARY.

Who in the world cares who a "Lifelong Democrat" is threatening NOT to vote for in 2008?????

I am NOT a Democrat and I AM voting for Hillary Clinton. So, what's your friggin' point?????

What in the world makes you think that even one other person in the entire world gives a rat's ass who you are NOT voting for???

Okay, like everyone else, I'm glad no one was hurt but the idea that she gets props for "looking presidential" at a news conference is ridicuous. You don't get points for "acting presidential" at a news conference when you've had all day to prep. You lose points if you don't "act presidential" after preparing all day, but you don't gain 'em.

It always amuses me, however, how anytime anyone says anything about Hillary that's not mindlessely adulatory, they get called a "hater" and accused of "refusing to listen to facts." It's like defending her has become such a spinal reflex with you guys after the last fifteen years of deranged attacks from the right that you don't even stop to consider whether a particular charge might be true. (And yet, despite your constant self-declared "savvy" and political acumen, you never consider the possibility that the need to constantly engage in such defenses might be indicative of a fundemental political liability she has as a candidate.)

Do I think Hillary had Vince Foster killed, is a secret lesbian, or engaged in some grand conspiracy to hide the facts behind a losing real estate investment? Of course not. Do I believe her people really and truly did misplace that box of Rose Law Firm billing records? I've had too much personal experience with how that kind of thing can happen to doubt her story.

But do I think she's wanted to be president herself for a very, very long time? Yup and I don't hold that against her. Most people who run have long-held ambitions and those who decide on the spur of the moment tend to be complete disasters if they win. (Like, say, Warren Harding and Dubya.)

The ambition isn't the problem. It's letting the ambition burn away your ideals and principles that's the problem. Many a politician has fallen prey to it, and all of her actions since 1998 indicate that Hillary is no exception. Worse, it seems to utterly elude her that most of the time, doing the right thing when the bright lights are on you is the most politically advantageous thing you can do. She is far from alone in this. This politically crippling lack of moral courage is a disease that infected the Democratic Party back when Bill lost Congress in '94 and she carries the banner for the wing of the party that still believes its a winning strategy despite all evidence to the contrary.

Exhibit A: her flag burning amendment support. She's willing to tinker with the First Amendment in order to calm down the people who truely do irrationally hate her. Does anyone think she's sincere about this? The rightwing haters certainly don't think so. That makes it both bad politics and morally wrong.

Exhibit B: AUMFAI. A million dead Iraqis. 3800 dead Americans and grieving families. Tens of thousands of seriously wounded soldiers. A trillion and a half dollars. Many, many voices warning her and the country that it was a disasterous mistake in the making. None of that was more important than her desire to be on what she thought was going to turn out to be the winning side of this issue and her need to prove her testicles were as big as any Republicans. And, once again, faulty political judgment coincided with faulty moral judgment.

Exhibit C: Your "fighter" who's going to roll up her sleeves and do battle with the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy is now openly cozying up with Rupert Murdoch and Richard Sciafe.

I could go on, but this post is getting kinda long. Suffice it to say that the last time I saw her make a political judgment that turned out to be right was when she dropped that Celine Dion campaign theme song vote down the ol' memory hole.

When we call her "inauthentic and calculating," we aren't rapping her for being prepared. Prepared is good. Instead, we're saying that every word that comes out of her mouth seems to be poll-based, focus group-tested platitude written by her army of second rate Beltway consultants. In running this kind of campaign, she she is showing how her lack of moral courage evinces a deeply flawed political judgment that will make her a poor general election candidate and, worse, will undermine her ability to govern effectively if she wins.

Sure, she's better at it than John Kerry or Al Gore were, but with her typical lack of of native political instinct, she's missed the fact that the time for that kind of campaign has passed, no matter how well she executes it. People are finally fed up with presidential candidates who are mere shadow puppets and "elections" where the voter's job is to decide which campaign put on the best puppet show.

Last thought. It never fails to amaze me how much lamentation there is over how much more vicious the "attacks" against Hillary are than those against Obama and Edwards here. There seems to be some unwritten subtext along the lines of "we never attack Obama or Edwards the way their supporters do poor, poor Hillary (*cough*except-for-the-unhinged-filth-regularly-spewed-out-here-here-by-people-like-pacc-which-doesn't-count*cough*).

Just my two cents, but it seems to me like every candidate has plenty of supporters posting on the Internet who I would consider childishly insulting toward other candidates and their supporters. And I strongly suspect those people are utterly ineffective in promoting their candidate, but are just making themselves feel good, so it doesn't really concern me.

DemAC,

No, I wouldn't say every Democratic candidate receives the same overall treatment on the Internet. Most notably, some Democrats are discussed much, much, more often than others.

Rather, my point was that I don't think supporters of Candidate A saying nasty things on the Internet about Candidate B (or supporters of Candidate B) actually helps Candidate A or hurts Candidate B. So, I don't think it really matters how often this happens with respect to any given candidate, because I think most people more or less ignore the words of such nasty people.

And certainly, complaining about it doesn't help: that is precisely what the nasty people want, namely a strong reaction. So you are actually encouraging, not discouraging, this behavior by drawing attention to it and then complaining about it.

The only thing I would suggest is that people correct factual untruths when they see them. Otherwise, I do think it is better just to largely ignore these people.

By the way, I have seen such behavior with respect to everything discussed on the Internet--politics, sports, entertainment, education, finance, you name it: a few attention-seeking people will get nasty about it. So while it is nice to imagine a world in which there are no people on the Internet behaving in a nasty fashion, I doubt that is achievable.

I am NOT a Democrat and I AM voting for Hillary Clinton. So, what's your friggin' point?????

What in the world makes you think that even one other person in the entire world gives a rat's ass who you are NOT voting for???

I am making no demands for a rat's ass in return for this information. I am an Obama supporter who will vote for Hillary if she is nominated. But the cold hard facts are that there are millions of people who will not vote for Hillary under any circumstances. Mostly, it is right wingers who will not vote for any democrat.

A lot is at stake for a lot of democrats. Bill Clinton had very weak coattails. In my state, democrats used to control the legislature, now they do not, and we have a horrible governor (blunt) who is running for re-election. I have talked to several officeholders who do not like the idea of Hillary heading the ticket, because of the negatvie effect it will surely have for other democrats.

Your point is actually worth while--"I am NOT a Democrat and I AM voting for Hillary Clinton." If there are enough women who will vote for Hillary no matter what their political beliefs to counter the number of men and women who will do the opposite, (there are actually some liberal democratic women who consider, for example, her humiliation of some of Bill's victims to be reprehensible)then she might win. The statistics do not point in that direction. You certainly have your right to want to elect a woman and a bunch of republicans for her to work with if that is your desire.

my 8:01 post had the italics wrong---the content is arguable.

quote:I am NOT a Democrat and I AM voting for Hillary Clinton. So, what's your friggin' point?????

What in the world makes you think that even one other person in the entire world gives a rat's ass who you are NOT voting for???

I am making no demands for a rat's ass in return for this information. I am an Obama supporter who will vote for Hillary if she is nominated. But the cold hard facts are that there are millions of people who will not vote for Hillary under any circumstances. Mostly, it is right wingers who will not vote for any democrat. Not all of them are in that category---and a small percentage can make all the difference.

A lot is at stake for a lot of democrats. Bill Clinton had very weak coattails. In my state, democrats used to control the legislature, now they do not, and we have a horrible governor (blunt) who is running for re-election. I have talked to several officeholders who do not like the idea of Hillary heading the ticket, because of the negatvie effect it will surely have for other democrats.

Your throwaway point is actually worth considering--"I am NOT a Democrat and I AM voting for Hillary Clinton." If there are enough women who will vote for Hillary no matter what their political beliefs to counter the number of men and women who will do the opposite, (there are actually some liberal democratic women who consider, for example, her humiliation of some of Bill's victims to be reprehensible)then she might win. The statistics do not point in that direction. You certainly have your right to want to elect a woman and a bunch of republicans for her to work with if that is your desire.