I have no wish to pollute Lance's place with partisan-within-partisan politics, so I'll do it here.  A commenter over there says:

From the tears to the whining to the employment of the bludgeon of fear as if Rove himself were creating [Clinton's] campaign ads, she's made me queasy. The queasiness began, actually, about 2 years ago, when her presidential ambitions were first being whispered about, and she suddenly appeared at a Congressional hearing without her traditional neck scarf but with a honking great gold cross around her neck. Can anyone say "pander"?

And from that moment onward I think that she has been about as naked a political animal as it's possible to be. Even more naked than Bill (whom I loved), because she lacks his compensatory charisma. And when, recently, she pulled out that "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" line on Obama, as if none of us remembered that a scant month or so ago she was kvetching about unfair coverage in the middle of a freakin' debate--to the point that SNL parodied it--that was pretty much it for me. That's when I decided that I couldn't in good conscience support her. Because she disgusts me.

Oh, if she ends up being the candidate against McCain, of course I'll vote for her. But it will be with me holding my nose. If Obama becomes the candidate, I'll vote with bated breath, too, but it will be from anticipation, expectation, and a touch of anxiety.

1) As if Obama's anti-war speech weren't somehow politically motivated?  Please.

2) As I recall, Clinton wasn't kvetching about the debates, nor the fact that she received most of the pertinent questions first, until after SNL offered the junior Senator from Illinois a pillow, at which point she did, admittedly call attention to that fact.

3)  Both the president and his current SecDef Robert Gates have shed actual tears in recent days.  Unless one is prepared to castigate them for womanish emotionalism, one should probably refrain from beating up Hillary Clinton because her voice broke while on the campaign trail.

One would think women would be done with calling other women to account for tears of frustration, but apparently such is not always the case.

4) As far as the bludgeon of fear, I assume we are directed to the ad depicting national and international crises faced by our current Raggedy Andy during his administration.  I may have mistakenly believed his bumbles fair game for our party to question; I may mistaken have believed that a woman could claim equal ground with men in terms of being prepared for such disasters; I was not aware, however, that calling the man's experience into question was automatic grounds for dismissal. 

If Obama wins, so be it, but one has to wonder at his doing so through typical dog-whistle politics.  Can't he beat her without the crap?  And if not, doesn't that put the lie to the idea that she *only* wins when stoopid, old, dried-up white girls vote for her?  I mean, I'll admit I'm not alone, but there just aren't that many idiot racist old white crones out there.

Oh, and by the same token, if Obama wins, I'll hold my nose and vote, but I won't like it.  Not like I once hoped, anyway.

Senator Obama is, without doubt or reasonable debate, an inspiring speaker.  Most politicians could only dream of his facility with words, or the firebreak it seems to buy him.