My first considered (after the initial simply appalled) reaction to her saying this was, goodness, perhaps she really isn't positioning herself for 2012!)

But the more I've thought about it the more it simply goes to shore up the criticisms of her that have so often been made: she always goes overboard in her hit jobs when she could have been so much more effective with some subtlety.

Also, I don't know whether anyone else saw this in Indiana: she'd been doing so well with so many people for weeks portraying herself as the down to earth candidate who cared about the terrible impact of the recession on average Americans. Then she just went nuts in one rally. We saw her in her over the top, truly excruciating Sarah Bernhardt mode - having built up to a crescendo and then wailing about how Washington didn't `hear your cry`. Hard to convey in words - but if you saw it it was unmistakeable and truly bizarre - my gut reaction was `she's nuts. This woman really is mentally unstable.`

It was Bosnia all over again. I'm sure many other people saw it. She just loses it some times. She gets so carried away with her image of a narrative and doesn't have a `stop` switch.

Her campaign's in desperation mode; she's in debt up to her eyeballs; she's genuinely sleep deprived - I think she's in a condition similar to manic depressives who are high through no sleep for months.

No I'm not trying to cut her slack. I'm trying to understand what's going on with her. After we've just read that she promised Feinstein no more attacking Obama or being divisive. How could it be that she'd come out with something that would be SO offensive to African Americans and all decent people who care about them and race relations generally?

I can't stand the woman but I genuinely don't believe she is a racist. What I do think is that she's at the end of her rope, seeing something she wanted so much and had for so long believed was her manifest destiny actually slipping away, and all of this when she's been totally sleep deprived for too long.

The other thing I feel very strongly about is that I was so disappointed - and so were many other people - up until last Tuesday in that Obama didn't seem to be firing no all cylinders. That he was letting so much bullshit go on without repudiating it. I concluded then that the man was exhausted and that sort of exhaustion is so damned hard to fight when you can feel the campaign seeming to slip away.

I conclude that we can all be so proud of him that, in that state, he held on to his integrity and dignity - and he did so for the simple reason that they're innate in him.

It's the ultimate commentary on Clinton how she reacts when she's down.