It sounds like you are being emotionally blackmailed by her. Break free, friend. Break Free. There is someone out there you can call your own. Break free.

It sounds like you're stoned and trying to make a muse out of a long-term booty call.

I'm not sure what it is that separates us, but I think I can tell you something about why, no matter what she does, I will always come back to Hillary.

(Emphasis added.)

If you really feel that way - that you will support her no matter what she does - then you have a relationship based on faith. Not thinking.

If that's the case for you, that's fine, I guess. But don't try to wrap your faith up in reason and rhetoric. And don't expect others to use the same lack of reason in picking their candidate.

People having faith without reason gave us George Bush.

No politician is worthy of blind faith - there lie monsters.

My $0.02.

Your revolution is a struggle that will leave you severely disappointed and void of any satisfaction!

Sometimes a clean break hurts less than several paper cuts?

How many cuts are you willing to endure, before the pain becomes intolerable?

It takes a Clinton to clean up after a Bush.

One of my main objections up front years ago to the mere idea of her candidacy was Bill. Not that I didn't love him when he was president (except for the part where he was too damn stupid to keep his pants zipped when he knew they were watching). But I hate the whole idea of political dynasties. They are anathema to participatory democracy, IMO. The thought of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton, makes me want to reconsider guillotines and knitting needles.

No more political aristocracy, thank you. She wouldn't be where she is right now if her name wasn't Clinton. God, why does that sound so familiar?

sorry - I honestly didn't mean to be so critical of her personally - I just really do believe with my whole being that this whole repeating presidency by families that my least favorite founder, John Adams, started, is terrible. I hate it.

Billy, that was very well said. I can relate to a lot of that, although my wife (whom I met shortly after the 2000 election) imbued me with a different perspective on the Clinton years. I think it's the best defense of Clinton supporters that I've read.

Although I was afraid that the sappy movie quote you were going to use was "You complete me" from Jerry Maguire. But maybe that's a better quote for some of my more emotional Obama cohorts.

Billy, I have another question, one which I think articulates the subtext of the comments about dysfunctional relationships.

Why?

Not why do you go back to her. Rather, why should you? Why should we? What you describe is a visceral association between Clinton and the revolution. It does not explain, in rational terms, why she is the right person to advance the revolution. In other words, you return to her because you must, not because you should.

For those of us without that visceral association, it's of course a mystery. You can tell us about your experience, but you can't share it with us. I don't claim that my connection with Obama is entirely rational either, that I don't viscerally associate him with my own version of the revolution. But I try, to the best of my ability, so separate that out, to acknowledge that he's just an smart, eloquent guy who may or may not be able to accomplish something, and to base my support on why I think that he's more likely to accomplish something than the next guy (or girl).

You sound like a crazy person.

Get a grip. Seriously.

Well, at least now I understand where you're coming from. Not that it's sane or rational, but at least it's explanatory.

Some of us never fell in love with either of the Clintons. Bill was, in my estimation, not an awful President, but neither was he great or exceptional. He's been bookended by a father-son tag-team of exceptional crooks which makes him look better, but his shit, I must inform you, stinks just like everyone else's does and the same can be said of his wife.

His economic policies were primarily conservative in nature: Alan Greenspan, NAFTA, Glass-Steagall. Monetary and trade policies to be sure, but let's be realistic and admit that nobody really enacts conservative fiscal policies (welfare reform could be cast in this light, but this is arguable). Any professor of economics can tell you that the G component of GDP never decreases.

His foreign adventures weren't much better. I think it's fair to give him points for Bosnia and perhaps Ireland (though I'm a bit loathe to give a guy who comes of the bench in the fourth credit for winning the game), but there was also the complacency on Rwanda, the bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory and the half-million Iraqi children who died under sanctions.

It's been funny to see all of the accusations flying this cycle about the adoration surrounding Obama in light of the very real cult of personality among Democrats with respect for the Clintons. It's quite odd after World War II and the Cold War that we see this same psychological short-coming in our own nation. Maybe it's just human nature, but I don't go in for idolatry. I prefer to look to people who seek to tell the truth rather than people who seek power and, all said and done, simply don't screw the pooch too badly when they get it.

Fortunately, you can still have your underdog love-affair with Hillary even though she likely won't be President this go around. And the rest of us can move on.

I hear you, Billy Glad. Only I never associated her with a revolution, albeit she loomed large over my teen years. Nevertheless, I get you; I feel your emotion.

Just so you know, I did start out this election year in her camp. But then I met my revolutionary in Barack Obama when he spoke after he won Iowa. I bought his first book on tape and knew that the speaker after Iowa was no mirage. I’m not sure I’m capable of the same level of loyalty that you evince. Life seems so long and yet so short and can we really be so true hearted for prolonged periods of time? Only time will tell. I respect the fact that you have kept your inner revolutionary intact. Join us, Billy. It’s time for another revolution.

I'm here, Genghis. I'm still thinking.

I'm not sure kensdad reads the Recent Reader Posts. I don't think I've seen him comment in the diaries.

It is interesting that people can develop such intense and one-sided emotional bonds with people they don't even know personally. But sadly, this post has little to do with the the policies Hillary Clinton has and will defend, the actions she has and will take, the political forces and allies she has and will represent, or the world she would bequeath to the next generation. You write as though you and "Hillary" are the only two people in the world.

People are dying man. They are counting on you, and all of us, to make a mature and responsible decision about the leadership of this country and the direction it is going to take beginning in 2009. So grow up, and stop sobbing about your tragic "love affair" with Clinton. Do you think the life of some soldier in Iraq should depend on the warm fuzzies you feel when you look at Hillary Clinton through your TV screen, and remember all those personal emotions you experienced in the 90's? Snap out of it! This is no time to be guided by your personal Hillary "relationship", or some Clinton-infused psychodrama. And I have news for you: unless you are in actual non-telepathic communication with Hillary Clinton, you have no relationship with her. Sheesh. You sound like an infatuated teenager pouring out your puppy love for the latest pop idol, and fantasizing that you have some sort of real relationship with her.

I find it most strange that you would regard the Clintons as the heirs of any kind of 30's-era revolution. Clinton was the very embodiment of the triumph of the DLC, the "Third Way" and the "New Democrats", which had as its goal turning the Democratic Party away from the labor-driven New Deal coalition that had dominated it since the 30's, and into a more pro-business party. Perhaps Clinton's most famous line was "the era of big government is over." Most saw him as ringing down the end of the New Deal era, not giving it a rebirth.

If you honestly believe that the world will be a better place under Hillary Clinton's leadership than under Barack Obama's leadership, then by all means vote for Hillary Clinton. But don't vote for her because you liked the role she played on TV in "That Clinton Show."

You say, "As time goes by, I hope everyone committed to Barack Obama will continue to feel that way about him, too."

I should hope not! The reason to support Obama, in my view, is that he is an intelligent and capable leader, with sound perception of the world as it actually exists in 2008, with a certain amount of imagination and creative thinking about how to deal with that world, with an experienced understanding of how to unite people to achieve collective ends, rather than divide them to achieve nothing but the prolongation of the unsatisfactory present, and with fewer debilitating ties than Clinton to the lobbying groups and powerful interests who are part of the problem - and who have marched us into a three trillion dollar quagmire in the Middle East. I don't want anyone to fall in love with Barack Obama. I just want them to elect him, and then hold him responsible for the sober and intelligent conduct of the country's business, with a skeptical ear and a wary eye.

You are an adult citizen in a self-governing republic. The president is a public servant who works for you. A president is not supposed to be the object of your "love affair". That's a slavish, doltish attitude that better characterizes the groveling and ignorant masses in the non-democratic kingdoms of yore, who were superstitiously dazzled by their resplendent kings and pharaohs.

This post has a shockingly low ratio of recommends to comments. Isn't it rude to keep commenting below it without recommending it (ok, I did that, but still)? Isn't that kind of like when you watch a movie on cable, and keep saying you don't like it, but you don't turn it off? Maybe that's how we Obama supporters look at the Clinton campaign.